by Stacey Lynn
Point of Freedom, The Nordic Lords
Copyright © 2014 Stacey Lynn
All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permissions from the author, except for using small quotes for book review quotations. All characters and storylines are the property of the author. The characters, events and places portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Trademarks: This book identifies product names and services known to be trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective holders. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of all products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication and use of these trademarks in not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Editing provided by: Amy Jackson Editing
Cover design provided by: QDesign, Amy Queau
Internal formatting provided by: Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats
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EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I should have followed the old adage “Keep your thoughts to yourself.”
Had I not, fifteen minutes ago spoken the words “Could this day get any worse?” out loud—if only to myself—I might not have found myself standing in front of the one person who hated me more than he hated anyone else in the entire world.
I spoke those words to the blue sky above me when I found out Jasper Bay High School wasn’t going to hire me for their open English teacher position, and I swear God took the challenge, quirked His lips into a smirk, and whispered, “You bet, baby. Buckle up and hold on.”
I had thrown that challenge out into the universe and now fate was coming back to kick me right in the butt.
Worse, I had no one else to help me get out of this freaking mess except for Jaden. If he had his choice between helping me and leaving me stranded, Jaden would laugh his ass off while I suffered a slow and painful death.
He had pulled up to the side of the road minutes ago, climbed off his bike, and leaned back against it, his arms crossed over his chest and his feet crossed at the ankles. He hadn’t yet removed his sunglasses. The only move he’d made in the last few minutes was to run his hand over his short, cropped blond hair and stare at me with a smirk—daring me to ask him for help.
“Car broke?” he drawled, a sarcastic tilt to his lips.
I glanced at the hood of my car, still smoking, and then to the backseat and Sophie’s empty car seat. At least she wasn’t around to see us hate each other again.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.
Jaden brought out a sarcastic side to me more than anyone else. He made my blood boil. I left most encounters with him with my jaw and teeth hurting from clamping my mouth shut so I didn’t scream at him.
“I called the garage for help.”
Unwrapping his arms from his chest, he pushed off the bike. “Lucky for you I was working at the garage today, then, huh?”
If by ‘lucky’ he meant ‘unluckiest person in the world,’ he was correct.
Fate hadn’t been on my side for freaking years. Not since my ex-boyfriend, Scratch, died in a motorcycle accident. Not since the life I’d been building in Phoenix ended tits up, and I came back home to avoid the fallout from one more dumbass decision I’d made.
Fate certainly wasn’t willing to lend me a hand, since the high school I’d attended at one time wouldn’t hire me, even though I knew they had no applicants and I was completely qualified for their teaching position. I suspected this was because when I was twenty-one, I got knocked up by one of the town’s bad-ass biker boys.
No one seemed to remember that I loved Scratch more than anything else in the world—except for Sophie now.
No one seemed to care that every time I thought his name, my heart squeezed painfully tight as if being pressed through a paper shredder.
And Jaden, Scratch’s brother and the man who blamed me for his brother’s death, didn’t seem to notice that every single time he stared at me, my heart ached with longing for Scratch. Jaden was almost a mirror image of the man I had loved for as long as I could remember.
His presence made my pulse race—in the best of ways and worst of ways.
Jaden walked around me and popped the hood of my not so old Toyota Camry. Another bloom of smoke wafted out around him.
“When was the last time you changed your oil?”
Um. I shrugged as he glared at me. He’d taken off his sunglasses, folded them, and shoved them into the front of his white T-shirt. “Your transmission fluid?”
My what? “Um.”
“Your tires rotated? Your brake fluid?”
“Brakes use fluid?” Seriously? They were brakes… rubber on metal.
I jumped as the loud crashing sound of my hood being slammed shut echoed in the open air. Jaden’s boots crunched against the gravel on the side of the road before he stood in front of me.
Glaring at me.
Looking exactly like Scratch on the last night I saw him, when we had argued.
The pressure—the force of Jaden’s presence in front of me, with his flared nostrils and narrowed brown eyes—left me gasping for a breath that didn’t want to come.
I stumbled back into the side of the car. I inhaled, but my lungs were broken. It stung and burned in my throat and my chest, but all I could do was wheeze in for a breath.
Jaden loomed in closer. He leaned down and glared directly into my wide eyes while I struggled to gain control.
“Are you stupid?”
“No, I’m not stupid,” I hissed at him, leaning in. My frustration with Jaden didn’t run as deep as his hatred for me. But I wasn’t stupid. And I was never again going to let someone talk to me that way.
“I’m a girl. I don’t know shit about cars, and no one told me my brakes ran on fluid. I thought they were rubber.”
I could have sworn he grinned. But it vanished before the furious glare, which he usually kept on his face in my presence, replaced it.
“Can you fix my car?”
His nose twitched before he finally leaned back. Once he did, I was able to actually breathe again. Damn it. He looked so much like Scratch it was unbelievable.
Some days, when I could catch Jaden at the Nordic Lords clubhouse where he was a member, and he wasn’t pissed off I was hanging around… sometimes, I got a profile shot of him and my breath would catch in my throat in the best way possible.
Because those times… it was as if Scratch was still alive. And I could pretend, if only for a moment—until Jaden caught me watching him and vehemence replaced his relaxed look—that Scratch was still alive.
That I hadn’t lost the man I loved.
That my daughter hadn’t lost her dad before she ever existed.
But then Jaden’s brown eyes would darken as black as raging storm waters, dashin
g my dreams and memories as reality replaced them.
“Jaden?” I asked, because the man was still staring at me. I felt the burn in my sinuses when the sun hit his eyes and his square chin and strong features. “Can you fix my car?”
He looked over my shoulder toward the hood and nodded. “Yeah, in about a week.”
My jaw dropped as I sputtered. “A week?”
“Yup. It’ll take a while. Can’t fix it from here, but by the way the engine’s shredded, the oil’s probably never been changed and you’ve done shit to actually care for the thing, I’m guessing it needs a lot of work.”
Darn it. How in the hell was I supposed to move and find a job without a car?
“Fine,” I muttered, and reached for my phone, digging it out of my purse. As I started sliding through my contacts, a warm hand reached out and covered mine.
I gasped. Not because I was scared of Jaden. But because for six months, no man had touched me and the last time one did, it was done in a way that had made me not want to be touched by anyone.
Also because something strange—and not entirely unwelcome—slithered up the skin on my arm as Jaden’s hand clamped down on mine. All the hairs on my arm stood straight up.
“What are you doing?” He growled and I forced my eyes to meet his.
I flinched out of his grasp. Blood drained from my face as he cocked his head and furrowed his brow. He looked back at his hand, which still hovered above mine, before shoving it into his jeans.
I held up my phone. “Calling for a ride.”
In one fluid movement he stepped back, reached for his sunglasses, and flicked them back over his eyes. Without seeing the hatred in his eyes, he looked even more like his little brother. My knees went weak. They weren’t twins. But they could have been. At only ten months apart in age, they had essentially grown up being treated the exact same. The fact that they looked the exact same, minus their differing eye color, didn’t help.
Or they used to.
With Jaden so close to me—and it being so long since any member of the Dillon family had stood so close to me—I could catalogue the slight differences.
A small scar on Jaden’s left cheekbone, a slightly crooked nose that said it’d been broken one too many times and not properly reset. Shoulders that were slightly wider than I remembered, and if I did remember correctly, I also had to tilt my neck back a little bit further in order to look directly at him.
Still, I pushed it out of my mind when Jaden cocked his head toward his bike, his teeth clamped together. “Get on the bike.”
My head snapped in the direction of the bike and whipped back toward Jaden. He looked more upset about me being on the bike than I did about wanting to be on it.
“I’ll call Olivia.”
“You think I want you on the back of my bike?” He leaned down and snarled at me. And swear to God, there was something else I saw in his eyes that I couldn’t place… wasn’t sure I wanted to place… but it wasn’t hate. I just didn’t know what it was. “You think I want you—any part of you—touching me or anything that belongs to me? Everything you touch dies.”
I gasped, my face paled more than it already had, and my nose began to burn again. Damn it. Screw him! It wasn’t my fault, and he would never give me a chance to explain.
“I don’t,” he finally hissed. “But I’m not the biggest asshole in the world to leave you out here, five miles outside town, stranded. Liv would kick my ass if I left you here. So get your shit and get on my bike.”
He reached out and grabbed my phone from me. Shocked at the quickness of his move and lethal expression, I let it slide easily out of my hand.
I opened my mouth to speak and then sighed gratefully as my phone began vibrating in Jaden’s large grip. It surprised him enough that he opened his fingers and I snatched it back.
Saved by the buzzer.
I was so thankful for whoever was calling—whoever could come get me—I answered without looking.
That was when I decided Fate was a spiteful bitch.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t find you again, did you?”
My skin clammed up instantly, and my knees shook so hard that I leaned against the side of my car before I collapsed.
No way in hell was this happening. Least of all in front of Jaden.
“How’d you get my number?” I asked, watching Jaden. His jaw had gone tight again and I turned away, facing the car.
Based on the mountain of heat coming from behind me, I knew he was watching. I knew Jaden had seen my reaction, and I knew that on some level it had pissed him off.
Not that he’d ever admit it. Especially to me.
“I want my girls back,” Rob said. Rob. The man who had smacked me across the face the last time I’d seen him because I was too tired for sex.
Too tired because Sophie had the flu, a temperature of one hundred and three, and I was tired, un-showered, and most of all… not in the mood.
“I told you to leave me alone,” I whisper-hissed into the phone.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my phone was once again ripped out of my hand and inside Jaden’s palm.
His tightened jaw relaxed enough to growl, “Who the fuck is this?”
He did this while keeping his eyes locked on mine. I gaped at my cell phone, which had become a tennis ball being lobbed back and forth between us, and I almost missed it when his eyes narrowed and his knuckles tightened their grip on the phone.
“Stay the fuck away or you’ll regret it.” He snapped the phone shut and handed it to me. “Who was that asshole?”
My breath was shaky, and my words were most likely completely unbelievable when I said, “No one important.”
Jaden leaned in. I caught the faint whiff of stale smoke on his breath. “I thought you weren’t a liar.”
“I’m not,” I snapped right back. “But I’m pretty certain you’ve made it obvious that my life—and whoever is in my life—is none of your damn concern.”
He winced slightly as I implied that his niece, Sophie, whom he had yet to bother even saying hello to, wasn’t any of his concern. He had made it completely obvious to me and our friends that he wanted nothing to do with me or her. Hell, just weeks ago he had declared his doubt about Sophie being Scratch’s.
Although that was stupid. One look at baby photos of Jaden and Scratch would prove Sophie looked exactly like the two of them.
Jaden was in denial. And I was tired of caring about it.
“Get on my bike.”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against my car. Between the loss of another job opportunity, the sun beating down on me, and Jaden’s mood swings, I felt the beginning twinges of a migraine coming on.
“It’s five miles to town, Jules.”
I looked around and exhaled. Five miles to town. Seven miles to my home. Sophie would be eating dinner. Then she’d be wondering where I was because I was supposed to be home at least an hour ago, and Sophie always worried about me.
But even with all that, getting on the back of Jaden’s bike, putting my arms around him, was bound to be a bad idea. He reminded me enough of Scratch that I’d probably do something like lean in, hold tight, and heaven forbid—enjoy myself.
He also hated me enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if he put me on his bike and took a corner too fast on purpose just to fling me off the back.
Besides all that, it was a motorcycle. And it looked exactly like the bike Scratch rode the night he died. And I’d sworn that night—and the next few days afterward when I buried the man I loved, but had to do it at a distance because no one from the club allowed me to get too close—that I would never… never… sit on the back of a bike again.
I was a parent and I had to be responsible.
And joyriding on the back of a Harley was not responsible.
“I’ll walk.”
As if he sensed the reason for my indecision, Jaden made the choice for me. He grabbed my hand, pulled me toward the bi
ke, and plopped a helmet on my head before I could argue.
Then I found myself sitting on it, him in front of me, with his back muscles coiled tightly under the familiar Nordic Lords MC leather vest.
Blood pulsed in every pore of my body as I fought the memories of the night the accident happened, the argument Scratch and I’d had, the screams we’d shouted between us, and then the forgiveness… the making up part… the celebrating.
Jaden had to go and open his big mouth and ruin all of it.
“I fucking hate you, Jules, but that doesn’t mean I want you dead. Hold the fuck on so we can go.”
He revved the engine and started pulling the bike out onto the highway so quickly that I had no other choice except to hang on.
My hands went to his stomach, I closed my eyes, and as we whipped down the highway, going way faster than we needed to, I also felt myself relax and lean into Jade—probably more than I should have.
A smile graced my lips in the wind and open air.
The ride reminded me of how nice it was back when I was really, truly happy.
It reminded me how easy and fun life used to be.
With the wind whipping through my hair, I craved it—the fun and the freedom—because it had been way too long since I’d had either.
I let out a large, shaky exhale as soon as Jaden parked his bike in my parents’ driveway. The monstrosity loomed in front of me like a castle. I had loved being the mayor’s daughter as a child. Our town was small, but because of that, being the mayor made someone a celebrity. And because of that, I had always been treated like one.
Or a princess, as my dad called me.
Our house even had turrets. They were beautiful, and I had always envied my parents’ bedroom, with the rounded sitting area and lofted ceiling.
As a child it was the perfect home to grow up in.
As a teenager, when I’d rebelled by always being by Scratch’s side and the rest of the Nordic Lords, I’d embarrassed my family greatly.
Fortunately, they had forgiven me as soon as they laid their eyes on Sophie. She was impossible to not fall in love with, and over the years—even after I moved to Arizona to finish college and start a career—I was grateful for their support.
