Fear the Beard (The Dixie Warden Rejects MC Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I’m pregnant.”

  I blinked.

  “I was at the OB/GYN when I ran into Imogen and Aaron, who were there for the same reason.”

  I kept blinking.

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  I stared.

  “I fucked up, really. I was supposed to go in for my birth control shot, but I forgot about the appointment. Three times.” She raised her hands and covered her eyes. “I’m so sorry! I should’ve been more careful…”

  I placed my hand over her babbling mouth.

  “Shut up.”

  Her eyes went wide and tears started to fill them.

  I knew what she thought.

  She thought I was upset. That I didn’t want this baby. That I was mad that she hadn’t told me.

  But she was wrong.

  I wanted this baby. I wanted as many babies as we could handle, as long as those babies came with her.

  “When?” I rasped.

  “Uhh, next year. About eight and a half more months. I’m only six weeks.”

  That’s when I smiled.

  “You’re going to have my baby?”

  She nodded, hope filling her tear-filled eyes.

  I picked her up around the waist and then carried her to the bedroom, thankful that she’d put Tallulah to bed before she’d told me the news.

  Likely we’d only have an hour, at most, before she woke up.

  She had a cold again. Then again, she always had a cold. But the pediatricians assured us she would grow out of her sickliness. In the meantime, we just had to learn to deal.

  But I’d do anything for that girl. And her mother.

  And soon, there would be another child added to our little family’s mix, who I would do anything for as well.

  “You’re happy?” she whispered as I dropped my mouth down to the bare skin of her belly the moment we hit the bed.

  I looked up at her.

  “Fucking ecstatic.”

  ***

  Sixteen years later

  “Oh, God,” I moaned. “Is she done yet?”

  My girl was on the balance beam, and she was at the most complicated part of her routine. The part where she did the backflip. The part where my breath left me each and every time she did it.

  Tally inhaled sharply, and my eyes slammed open.

  The crowd around us stood and started screaming.

  I could do nothing but stare as my daughter not only stuck that landing, but aced the whole flip.

  “Thank fucking Christ,” I groaned.

  My other daughter, Morrie, smacked me on the shoulder.

  “Dad, we’re at the Olympics. You can’t say ‘fucking’ because it’s highly likely that we’re on national TV right now.”

  She was right. We were.

  ***

  Tallulah Ophelia Tomirkanivov, better known as Tot, had a full house in the audience today. Her father. Mother. Sister. Grandparents. Uncles—who look really out of place watching these Olympics with their leather, tattoos, and scowls.

  Everyone was in attendance to watch her perfect balance beam routine. She received gold in her first-ever Olympic event, and then went on to earn three more. One in floor, one in uneven bars, and one in the vault. And hopefully this is just the start of many more to come for Tot.

  Watching her dad, however, was the highlight of the event for many fans, as he moved, jived, and practically jumped with each of Tot’s moves. And when she did her final backflip and landed perfectly, Dad had a few choice words to say.

  We’ll leave his words up to interpretation, though.

  However, as a father of three, one of whom was an Olympian as well, I personally couldn’t agree more with his words.

  Thank Christ, indeed Mr. Tomirkanivov. The USA is excited for this win, too!

  ***

  Ghost

  Present day

  I watched, my heart in my throat, as the child walked across the stage at second grade graduation.

  The child’s mother was seven rows in front of me. Watching with a large smile on her face.

  But there was sadness there, too.

  A deep-seated, never-going-to-leave-her sadness…and I’d put it there.

  What’s next?

  Oh, My Dragon

  Book 3 in the I Like Big Dragons Series

  4-6-17

  Chapter 1

  Some girls watched Beauty in the Beast and wanted the prince. I want the library.

  -Meme

  Wink

  The stairs screamed in protest as I made my way back down the ladder.

  I hated my job.

  Well and truly hated it; I had no clue why I continued to do it when I hated it so much.

  In fact, if I’d just quit already, I would be free to do my photography full time.

  But that was the thing about me. I hated quitting. Anything.

  It didn’t matter what it was.

  A sport. A novel. A job.

  They were all the same in my book.

  Not to mention that I had no guarantee that next month would be as good as this month.

  Christmas was now over, and I’d realized that if I managed to get at least six clients a month, I could make enough to carry me through until next month.

  I also sold my photography as well. Anything I was able to sell was an added bonus that gave me a tiny cushion and made everything a little bit easier.

  But my brain was still stuck in ‘poor’ mode. Meaning that I couldn’t quit. Not when my mind still had me eat eating Ramen noodles when my bank account clearly could accommodate Velveeta mac and cheese.

  My brain just couldn’t process that I was in the black on the balance sheet, not the red.

  So, until I was confident in that, it meant I had to stick it out at my day job.

  Once I had enough in my savings to hold me for a year, then I’d know it was time to stop my day job and pursue my passion, but not until then.

  Not after the last four years.

  Which was why I was currently crawling down the steps of the upstairs loft in my client’s house.

  I was a professional cleaner.

  Or maid, if you wanted to get all technical and shit.

  I worked for a man who I never saw, yet he always managed to make a huge fucking mess.

  My guess was that he only came out at night, after I was gone.

  That would certainly explain why I never saw him.

  It would also explain why his house was such a freakin’ pigsty every other morning when I came back.

  Last night, it appeared, he’d had another party, because there were dishes and cups everywhere, as well as questionable things on his sheets.

  My boss owned a large house on the outskirts of Dallas, right on the lake.

  It was a three story monstrosity that was the bane of my existence.

  But, alas, I had it clean.

  For today, at least.

  Now it was time to go home.

  Which I did not five minutes later, being sure to lock up so I didn’t get another threatening letter from my boss for forgetting.

  Which I never did.

  Ever.

  I was a freak about locks.

  I had six of them on my door at home, as well as a reinforced door, a security chain, and a half-assed security system I’d bought off of Amazon.

  So yes, I understood all too well the importance of locking doors.

  Something I’d found out the hard way.

  Meaning I didn’t screw up when it came to locking a door, especially not someone’s that I had to go into where there were so many freakin’ places to hide.

  After locking up, I made my way home, thankful that the day’s traffic was over with. Mostly.

  The interstate was always busy, but it was nothing like the five o’clock rush hour.

  Today, as I drove by Taco Bell and decided to get myself a burrito that I ate it in the car on the way
home, I was telling myself that tomorrow I would start my diet.

  Tomorrow I would lose the ten pounds I’d been promising to do for the last half a year.

  But would it even matter if I did?

  It was highly unlikely that I would find anyone.

  Not unless I could meet them in traffic, at my boss’s shitty big house, or at the houses where I painted my murals.

  Speaking of murals, my best friend and brother from another mother, Shane, chose that moment to call.

  “Hello?” I answered, pulling into my driveway.

  “Why, oh why, do I not know how to paint yet?” he asked me.

  I laughed.

  “Because you like to work with metal,” I said amusingly. “And you don’t paint well.”

  “You like to sculpt with metal, but you can paint, too,” he countered.

  “That’s true,” I said, getting out of my car, being sure to grab the trash from my devoured burrito out of the cup holder.

  I sighed and started up the front path that led to my apartment, then even further inside the building.

  “What are you doing tonight?” I asked him.

  “Working at the bar,” he said almost distractedly. “Hey, can I call you back? I think someone’s here.”

  He hung up before I could reply, and I sighed, dropping my phone into my purse and hitching the handles back over my shoulder.

  I had no life.

  Really, I didn’t.

  I’d worked my ass off all day, and what did I have to show for it?

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  No friends besides one who was a self-proclaimed workaholic and another who hated going out and doing anything, and that included spending time with me, unless she was between books.

  A cat that didn’t like me.

  And a job that I hated.

  I had nothing.

  Except a dead body lying in the middle of the hallway leading to my apartment.

  And a man leaning over that body.

  I didn’t scream, though.

  No, I did something stupid. I pulled out my phone and took a picture right when his head turned.

  He tensed, and it was then that I did the only smart thing I’d done in all day.

  I ran.

  I’d never been more thankful in my life that I only wore tennis shoes everywhere I went.

  The jeans were a hindrance since they were so tight, but they didn’t stop my legs from pumping or slowing me down.

  Not with my heart beating ninety miles an hour and all that adrenaline coursing through my veins.

  The soft curse of the male who’d been leaning over my neighbor’s dead body sounded from behind me and then his heavy footsteps ate up the distance.

  I ran faster.

  So fast, in fact, that I ran right out of my shoe.

  I didn’t dare stop for it, though.

  I kept going. Down the steps, out the door, and around the corner to the laundry room.

  I made it through the door and got it shut and locked, eyes on the handle just in case he somehow had superpowers that made him able to open the lock without a key.

  I bid him good luck. I wasn’t able to do it even with the key. Which was why the residents of the building had started leaving it open for that very reason.

  I kept staring at it as I backed up towards the stairs that lead inside the building.

  I had just made it to the steps when I felt it.

  A man’s—the man’s—steely arm circled my waist, pulling me back against his hard chest.

  I opened my mouth to scream but found that my vocal cords didn’t work.

  Mostly because the man’s hand had tightened around my throat, putting pressure there and letting me know that freaking out was not the way to go right then.

  My body, however, didn’t get that memo.

  Using my hands, feet, head and teeth, I started to thrash wildly.

  My arms dug into the flesh of the man’s hands.

  My feet started kicking at his shins.

  And my head turned to the side so I could bury my teeth in his shoulder.

  His other hand came up, though, and squeezed my jaw until I had no choice but to let go of him.

  And once I was free, he held my head in place and spoke softly in my ear.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he growled. “But the man who did is still here. He hasn’t left the building, so please shut the fuck up and be still.”

  I froze, utterly and completely.

  I also don’t know why I believed him, but I did.

  The sureness in his voice, the complete truthfulness I could hear from that raspy dark tenor, had me believing him.

  And I went limp in his arms, no longer fighting.

  “Where?” I managed to squeak out.

  My voice worked this time.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered almost soundlessly. “But I need you to go into your apartment and not come out.”

  I started to panic slightly.

  “How do you know whomever it is isn’t in my apartment?” I asked wildly.

  “Because I can see his trail,” he answered, pulling me back and confusing me all at once.

  He started walking, me supported in his hands now, until he’d stepped over the lifeless body of my neighbor.

  “Go.”

  I went.

  Straight to my apartment.

  Where I then called the police.

  Son of a Beard

  Truth and Verity’s story

  4-27-17

  Prologue

  I don’t understand your specific brand of crazy, but I do commend your devotion to it.

  -Truth to his ex

  Truth

  “Anybody home?” I called loudly as I came out of my workshop.

  Destiny didn’t answer and I frowned.

  I could’ve sworn I heard something.

  “Destiny?” I rumbled, peaking my head around the corner of the bedroom of the single bedroom shotgun house I shared with her.

  Empty. As was the bathroom that I could see due to the door being wide open, and all the lights being on.

  I could see Destiny’s makeup, clothes, and shoes strewn all over the floor of not just the bathroom, but the bedroom as well.

  She’d gotten dressed in a hurry.

  Normally, she didn’t leave the expensive dresses I’d bought her lying in a heap like that unless it was because I’d thrown it there after ripping it from her body.

  And boy did she have a sexy body.

  That was the only thing keeping us together at this point. The sex.

  It was always good, which made it hard to kick her to the curb because she was the easy way out.

  If I didn’t have her to come home to, I wouldn’t have the nightly sex I craved.

  And I wasn’t the type to spread my dick around to the women that I knew I could land. They always had expectations.

  Destiny, however, did not. She didn’t expect me to marry her. Hell, a lot of nights she didn’t even expect me to come home at all.

  Which was good seeing as I was a member of The Dixie Wardens MC, Toxey, Alabama chapter.

  Sometimes I spend the night at the clubhouse after a club party—which she most certainly did not go to—and she doesn’t complain.

  Growling when I saw the empty bracelet box that was supposed to contain the bracelet I’d bought her for Christmas, one she wasn’t supposed to wear unless it was a special occasion due to the fact that it cost several thousand dollars, laying haphazardly on the night stand, I turned off the light and headed to the front door.

  The kitchen was empty, as was the living room as I passed through it on my way.

  So what had I heard?

  Something caught my attention before I could get there, though.

  Some motion.

  Something that was moving through the sheer white curtains that Destiny insiste
d we had to have, and I stopped, eyes narrowed.

  That was where I parked my bike.

  On the side of the house, hugged right up against the window so I could see it as we passed in and out of the living room.

  That bike was my baby.

  The absolute best thing that’d ever happened to me in my entire life.

  And someone was sitting on it.

  Was it Destiny?

  I hated when she did that.

  When she’d go outside to talk on her phone, because I was the first to admit that she was obnoxiously loud and I wasn’t complaining when she did, she’d lean on it.

  I’d tell her not to, because her weight could offset the balance of the kick stand and cause it to smash into the side of the house, and then I’d have to fix a dent or a scratch, and I most assuredly didn’t want to do that, but she’d do it anyway.

  Just to piss me off, I was sure.

  So that was what I expected as I flicked open the curtains to peer outside.

  I’d been about to raise my finger to tap on the glass when what I was seeing caught my attention.

  Destiny was on my bike alright, but some man was on it, too.

  Some man with his balls laying unbound against the leather of my seat.

  The leather that I’d fucking stitched by goddamned hand.

  The leather that I’d picked from a motherfucking magazine.

  The leather that’d seen no one’s ass but mine—and not even bare.

  Anger welled up inside of me, and I finally took my eyes off the man’s balls sticking to my seat to the man’s face, and that’s about when everything exploded.

  Because it wasn’t bad enough that they were fucking on my seat.

  No, Destiny was fucking a man on my bike that was my cousin.

  My cousin that made my younger years a living hell by teasing me about my pretty looks, and my girl hands.

  Hands that I’d made sure were strong and rough over the years by doing what I loved—being a swordsmith.

  Somehow I found my Colt .45 in my hand, and somehow I pointed it at the man’s head.

  And before you get all bent out of shape, the safety was on.

  He, however, did not know that.

  Tapping on the glass with the gun, I made sure that the laser in the grips was activated, and pointed right at about eye level.