by Cari Quinn
Finding Forever
Found in Oblivion book 7
Cari Quinn
Taryn Elliott
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Finding Forever
© 2018 Cari Quinn & Taryn Elliott
Rainbow Rage Publishing
Cover by: LateNite Designs
Photograph by: Sara Eirew
All Rights Are Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First ebook edition: September 2018
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About This Book
You’re invited to the comeback arena tour of the century…and just maybe a wedding too.
Who: Malachi Shawcross and Richelle Crandall (you can call her Ricki or Elle, she answers to both.)
When: After they make it through the biggest shows of their career…with or without some of their members (hopefully with!)
Where: Happy Acres Orchard, Turnbull, NY—or possibly a judge’s chamber in the next city they have a show in, if Ricki won't stop changing her bridesmaids' dresses.
Who’s attending: Everyone…at least everyone in the Warning Sign and Oblivion families, along with some of the members of Brooklyn Dawn, the headliner on Warning Sign’s big tour.
Who’s also attending: Jules’s, Randy’s and Tristan’s brand new baby. And there may be some more surprises in store for Jules and Tristan as well.
Can't have the roses without the guns—err, thorns. But a whole lot of healing, hijinks, and happiness is ahead…and oh yeah, plenty of steamy moments and screaming rock and roll too.
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Oblivion World Character Chart
Oblivion Series
The Boss
Taryn Quinn
Cari Quinn
Taryn Elliott
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
We couldn’t have done any of this without our amazing team of people. Thank you so much to Erin, Kim, and Suzanne for taking time out of your busy lives to make sure this book was the best it could be.
A special thank you to Doctor Jess for your help with Elle’s injury details. Any mistakes were ours.
And as always, thank you to the fans for wanting Mal and Elle’s story.
Sometimes we make up fictional places that end up having the same names as actual places. These are our fictional interpretations only. Please grant us leeway if our creative vision isn't true to reality.
One
You can do this.
The darkness of the club was nearly absolute. Along the side, bottles glowed against the rainbow hues of lights behind them. Bartenders filled drink orders and waitstaff moved through the crowd. Fans surrounded tables and clustered near the stage. The per capita of bodies in the place was definitely straining the boundaries of the fire regulations.
Not thinking like that tonight, got it?
Elle Crandall stepped back from the heavy velvet blue curtain she’d been peeking through and let out a squeal as she bumped into something solid.
Someone who swiftly covered her mouth with his stupidly big paw and tipped her head back until she was looking up at Malachi Shawcross’s stubborn chin.
Stubborn everything. Even his penis had a mind of its own, usually snarly.
She was rather fond of it—and the man himself—so although she bit his palm, she didn’t bite hard.
What a jerk, sneaking up on her like that.
He leaned down and nipped the top of her ear in retribution. “Getting cold feet?” He dropped his hand from her mouth and rubbed the tops of her arms. He wasn’t one for sweetness and platitudes, but he offered comfort in his own way.
Rather than answer, she turned into his arms and burrowed her face into his broad chest. It was pretty much her favorite spot in the world.
Especially right now.
He wrapped his arms around her and walked them deeper into the shadows, as far away as they could get from their bandmates and the crew getting ready for the show. Nerves were a palpable thing backstage, along with a whole host of other emotions she couldn’t begin to untangle.
Pain. Fear. Joy. Anticipation. Regret. Sorrow.
Even when they were sequestered away, neither spoke. Holding each other was enough.
This would be the first time they would be back onstage with the rest of their band since that show. The night that had decimated them.
Time to test if the broken could be reborn.
Elle lifted her head and kissed Mal’s jaw, unaware that her face was wet until his blunt fingertips smoothed the tears away. Still, he didn’t speak.
They’d been onstage together since that horrible night. But it had been far away from here, where the dynamics were all different. They’d been different too, at least on the surface. Mal had picked up gigs sitting in with other bands and he’d asked Elle to join him when the band’s vocalist had gotten sick. She’d ended up singing for them despite her large reservations, and she’d done okay. But she hadn’t been holding a guitar. Hadn’t been surrounded by the people she loved so much while being acutely aware one of their number was gone.
She’d never quite shake her gut-deep pain that she’d been given a chance at his expense.
Survivor’s guilt was real. She understood it happened quite often after events like they’d endured. But hers was a little different, because the man currently holding her had saved her life and not saved Randy. Because he wasn’t Superman. He’d had to make a choice.
She was his choice.
She’d never been anyone’s choice before, not even for the small things. When it came to a life or death decision, in that instant, he’d yanked her to safety. Pulled her clear of the beam that would’ve likely killed her and had killed Randy.
Not her fault.
Not Mal’s fault.
They hadn’t set up that awful, tragic catastrophe. That had been deliberately done, and she hadn’t had a thing to do with—
Except it was to get at you. You and Nicky. Forgot that, did you, little Ricki?
“You’re shivering.” The rumble of Mal’s voice through his chest made her cling that much harder.
She hated the show of weakness. But she also knew that here and now, with him, she could be weak.
Not because he expected it of her, but because he was her safe place. Her home.
Her heart.
He
eased her back and finger-combed her hair away from her face, as carefully as if he had all night. His eyes searched hers, and she read the question there he wouldn’t ask.
“I can do it.” She exhaled and fisted her hand in his T-shirt, pulling the material for the selfish pleasure of watching it tighten over his muscles. And he had a damn lot of them. “I will do it.”
“Damn straight you will.” He brushed a kiss over the top of her head and slid his hand down the forearm of what she still thought of as her bad arm.
The injured one.
She’d been doing physical therapy for months and endless repetitions. For fuck’s sake, she, Mal, and her brother had staged countless rehearsals in Nicky’s home studio, going through the motions. Just so she could bring back what it was like to step on a stage and pick up her instrument, to feel her life blood coursing through it and out into the audience.
To remember the sweat and the thrill and the aching muscles from exertion, not damage.
Mal linked his fingers with hers, squeezed them, and brought their joint hands to his mouth. He kissed her knuckles and she smiled, not nearly satisfied by such brief contact. Instead, she rose on her toes and gripped his neck, bringing his mouth down to hers.
His lips moved against hers, his tongue driving deep. Seeking hers with a rawness that made her press her nails into his flesh. Rough, hard, hungry. All need with no outlet, but the promise there would be.
Later, they would pour themselves into each other. No beginning. No end.
“Hey, hey, now, keep it PG-13 rated back here.” Michael Shawcross’s amused voice hit Elle’s hazed brain and she drew back, blinking fuzzily as Mal’s brother’s face swam into view.
Mal sucked in a breath and dropped back his head. He always recovered quicker.
Bastard.
Though she had ways of inflicting her own brand of torment, which she would implement once they got offstage.
Offstage was the word she was holding on to right now. Just get through this show, and they would all get easier.
The first was always the hardest.
“Tell that to those three.” Mal glanced over his shoulder toward where Warning Sign’s lead singers, Molly McIntire and Luc Moreau, were locked in their own clinch with the third spoke of their committed trio, Professor Ethan Haywood, holding on just as tightly.
“You’re all a bunch of dirty birds, and I’m thoroughly jealous.” Michael grinned, but the strain lines around his eyes and mouth were more pronounced than the last time Elle had seen him.
Tonight was hard for all of them.
Michael’s wife Chloe had once been engaged to—and had a son with—Snake, the man who’d orchestrated the collapse during that fateful November show. She and Michael were now happily married and had their own adorable little girl, but Chloe had been working through her own issues due to what had happened.
It was hard to believe someone you’d once loved could turn into a monster. Especially when he’d fathered your son.
Since Elle and Mal had gotten engaged, they’d been spending more time with Michael and Chloe, doing couples’ type things and activities with the kids. Family stuff. In between, Chloe had talked a little to Elle, since they’d grown up together though they hadn’t been all that close. Chloe had been friends with Elle’s twin brother, Nicky, not her, and Snake had been one of Nicky’s best friends. But that shared history gave them a common bond, even if Chloe wasn’t one to talk too much about her feelings.
Elle got that. She didn’t talk too much about what had gone down either.
The nightmares that had started a few months ago were doing the talking for her. And probably weren’t a small part of the reason Mal locked his arm around her waist as they turned toward his brother. Mal might not be effusive when it came to emotional stuff, but he excelled at physical protection. He was ready to fight to the death for her—even if the demons now resided in her mind.
Mal scraped a hand over his bald head. “Chloe home with the rugrats?”
“No, we got a sitter. She’s out there.” Michael gestured beyond the curtain. “I invited her back here, but she wanted me to have my space, I guess. Or didn’t want to be here. Hell if I know.” He tucked his fists under his arms. “Hell of a thing this is for all of us.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Elle bit her lower lip. “Anyone heard anything from Jules?” Even saying their bassist’s name made her skin prickle with nerves.
Since the night they’d lost Randy, things had been understandably different with Jules. Jules and Tristan had been forced to come to terms with what life would be like as a duo versus a committed threesome as they’d been before, and of course there was the baby to consider. Jules was due in just a few weeks, and the timing of this show wasn’t ideal for her to perform. Hard to rock out on the bass with the big baby belly she had to be sporting. But she’d been invited to join them at the very least and maybe to be onstage for the encore. Their jack-of-all-trades guy, Ryan, was handling bassist duties for tonight’s show, but Jules should be there.
She belonged with them. Always.
Michael jerked a shoulder. “West said they’ve texted a little. He let her know about tonight and the encore and she said Li had already apprised her of the night’s events.” His smile thinned. “That’s Li. Never skips a beat.”
“She didn’t have much choice here.”
Elle glanced at Mal in surprise. It was a rare day that Mal defended their manager with the record label, Lila Crandall. Lila was also Mal’s and Michael’s former stepmother and Elle’s current sister-in-law, since she was married to Nicky.
Complicated family tree? Nah. It was easy to keep it all straight. Just make sure to only write down the details in pencil because they just might change.
Still, Mal was far from Lila’s biggest cheerleader. It was only since the night that would live in infamy that he and Li had seemed to find any common ground at all. But they were trying.
They were all fucking trying.
“No,” Michael agreed. “Lord Lewis will only allow so much time for bereavement leave. Probably wouldn’t allow much bereavement time after his own funeral, for fuck’s sake.”
“That’s assuming the dude is human. I’m thinking vampire.”
Elle snorted and ducked out from under Mal’s arm as Ryan and his wife, Denver, came backstage. “You two be good. Be right back.”
She jogged over to Denver and caught her friend in a hard hug. It hadn’t been more than a few days since they’d seen each other, but Elle had taken her natural affectionate nature up a half dozen notches since…
Just since.
“Hey there. How are you?” Denver hugged her back just as hard, then tugged her back to give her a quick once-over.
Everyone was looking for cracks in her armor, and tonight, they’d probably find them.
“Okay. How are you? And you,” Elle added, slinging an arm around Ryan’s waist.
Of all the bandmates, she probably knew Ryan the least, but they’d hung out a lot more since Denver and Ryan had gotten married. Their time together had been less since she’d been with Mal. Mal saved his social visits for family most of the time and barely even that. But she made time for her friends regardless.
When she wasn’t fighting off a depressive spiral at least.
“We’re good.” Ryan exhaled and squeezed Denver’s hand. “Well, as good as we can be considering. You’re doing all right? Really?”
Elle nodded, smiling wider because that was what she was supposed to do. “Sure. I’m alive, right? No complaints.”
Something flickered through Denver’s expression as she reached for Elle’s hand. “Why don’t we go grab a drink, talk some girl talk—”
A sharp whistle broke through the commotion backstage.
“In five, people. Look sharp.” The guy filling in for their usual road manager, Frank, waved his arms as if he was directing traffic. “Non-band personnel, clear this area, please.”
Denver cocked a brow.
“First day? He’ll learn he’s not directing a school play.”
“First week for sure.” Ryan smoothed a kiss over his wife’s forehead. “I’ll catch up with you after.”
“You bet your ass.” She patted Ryan’s backside and gave Elle’s hand a hard squeeze. “After the show, we’re having the band over to the new place. Maybe you and Mister Sunshine can make an appearance?”
Elle grinned. She’d heard Mal called far worse things. Hell, for the first few years they’d been in the band together, she’d said a lot of those far worse things herself. “Yeah, we’ll see. Maybe we’ll stop by.”
It was important they spend time with their band, tonight of all nights. But it was also important she and Mal get lost in each other, far away from everyone else.
Somehow when she wasn’t looking, he’d become her best friend. Bonds forged through difficult times were often the strongest of all. And she and Mal had lived through a goddamn near-death experience. They weren’t the only ones, but she would never forget that when she was at her most frightened, he was there for her.
He was always there.
Then and now.
“There she is.” Their keyboardist, West, spread his arms wide as his upright piano was rolled into the area backstage on its way out front. That Lauren was sitting on top of it as it was wheeled out just made him grin.
