Text copyright ©2015 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
Readers, this book is for you! You asked for Silas, and you got Silas! Enjoy him!
Acknowledgements
FuriousFotog — You’re a genius. That’s all.
Alfie – I can’t believe how you’ve made this character come to life. Thank you.
Asli – Once again, thank you.
Dani- Thank you for all your help, I couldn’t have made this beauty shine without you.
Leah- my enforcer and pep talker, thank you!
Mom- once again you read this book over and over again to make sure that I made sense, and for that I’ll forever be grateful. Love you!
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong (Sterling’s story coming 2-3-16)
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saint’s MC
Whiskey Neat (3-3-16)
Sometimes the heart wants what it can’t have.
That’s the motto Silas Mackenzie, the president of The Dixie Wardens MC, has lived by since he was a young man.
Now he’s well on the way to middle age, has three grown children and he’s lusting after a woman he should definitely stay away from.
Especially not one that his ex-girlfriend had given birth to, and happens to be only twenty-nine years old.
Sawyer isn’t a young girl at heart, though.
She’s seen the inside of a jail cell for eight long years, and every one of them was spent paying for a crime she didn’t commit.
Silas Mackenzie knows as soon as he sees her that the she has sacrificed enough.
And maybe…just maybe…so has he.
It’s time for Silas Mackenzie to get what he deserves, and, in the process, put a little bit of happy back into Sawyer’s world, one rough, bearded kiss at a time.
Prologue
Rules are meant to be broken…just not quite like that.
-Coffee Cup
Sawyer
“Bristol, please let’s not do this!” I pleaded with my best friend.
Bristol looked over at me with a raised brow. “Finals are over. You don’t have volleyball practice for two months. It’s time to stop being such a hermit and just be a college student like the rest of us.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m freaking out, and I’m not even there yet. I really don’t want to go.”
Bristol looked unimpressed.
“I’m going whether you want to or not. The decision is up to you,” she left that hanging in the air as she walked out of our shared dorm, closing the door quietly behind her.
“Shit,” I sighed.
I really, really didn’t want to go.
But it was more than apparent that Bristol did.
I wasn’t one for parties. I was more comfortable curled up with a good book rather than going to a party or hanging out with friends.
I loved Bristol with all my heart, and I knew she loved me right back.
We had been friends for as long as I could remember, and I knew that she’d always be there for me. Even if I wanted to be left the hell alone.
Bristol had done her best to ‘get me out of my head,’ as she liked to call it, but it would help if I actually wanted to be out of it.
Which I most certainly did not.
I was a very shy person.
Between her and Isaac, my boyfriend, I was doomed.
Something he proved in the next minute when a text showed up on my phone.
Issac: Going 2 the party w/Bristol. You better be there.
Fuck!
I looked longingly at the new book I’d picked up at the grocery store earlier before I sighed and walked to my dresser, pulling out a pair of pants as well as a black spaghetti strap shirt.
It wasn’t the greatest, but it’d do.
I wasn’t going there to impress. I was going there because I was being forced.
***
“No, Isaac. I don’t want any,” I growled four hours later.
I’d already had a beer, and it was one more than I’d wanted to have.
I was a lightweight. Any more than four drinks, and I wouldn’t wake up for a very, very long time.
Which was why I always stayed with one and one only.
Isaac, though, didn’t seem to care.
“Seriously, I don’t want one!” I said, shoving it away.
After this night was over, so were Isaac and me.
He’d tried to publicly grope me and have sex with me, which was something we hadn’t done before, and now it was something we wouldn’t ever be doing.
He’d tried to get me to play beer pong, and when I wouldn’t, he played with a couple of other college coeds.
When I drank that first beer, he thought he’d hit the lottery and kept trying to force-feed me more.
“You’re such a fuckin’ downer, Sawyer. Get the fuck away from me,” Isaac slurred.
I wanted to nut punch him.
Repeatedly.
“Well, I think I’ll go home, then,” I hesitated. “Do you want me to give you a ride?”
His eyes narrowed, and he took a look around.
The party had been a ‘bust,’ or so he’d said. I didn’t know if it had or not.
Seemed there’d been a lot of people there, but they’d slowly drifted out of the main room until there were only about fifteen of us left in it.
“Yeah, I’ll go home. Let me go get one more drink.”
I wanted to tell him no, but I knew that that was probably the only way I was going to get out of here.
We were in his truck, after all.
“I’ll go get Bristol,” I said, wandering away from him.
I found Bristol in the kitchen doing things that I didn’t think were possible.
Mainly those ‘things’ were drinking upside down with a tube shoved down her throat while a few of the football players yelled, ‘chug, chug, chug’ over and over. She even managed to look good doing it, too.
“Um, Bristol?” I called to her worriedly. “It’s time to get going, are you ready?”
The football players looked up at me with open curiosity in their eyes.
They’d been doing that all night, and I had no clue why
.
I wasn’t anything special, but they were staring at me like I was the biggest, juiciest steak they’d ever seen.
“Bristol?” I called again.
The closest football player finally lowered Bristol’s legs, and she hit the floor while spewing beer out of her mouth through her laughter.
Beer covered her from head to toe.
“I think it’s time to go,” I said softly.
Bristol nodded, so glassy eyed that I thought for sure she was going to fall over any second.
With the help of the football players, I loaded a very boisterous Bristol, and a very touchy Isaac into his big three-quarter-ton truck.
Isaac’s truck wasn’t my favorite thing to drive on the best of days, but it being night and slightly rainy, I knew it wouldn’t be fun at all.
Regardless of my apprehension, I got into the driver’s seat, pulled the seat up so I could reach the pedals and the steering wheel, and started it up.
“Remember, it pulls to the left,” Isaac slurred, leaning over the console to run his mouth along my neck.
I cringed and pushed him slightly to fall back into his own seat.
“Let me drive, please,” I said pleadingly.
Isaac laughed as he turned to Bristol who was sitting in the middle of the backseat, staring at us giddily.
“I knew y’all would make such a great couple!” She cheered, clapping her hands like she was a seal at Sea World.
I wanted to flip her off, but it took both of my hands to maneuver Isaac’s huge truck.
Did I mention I hated driving it?
He had huge tires on it.
They were so big that the top of the tire came up to my waistline.
His truck was the size of a tank on steroids.
His daddy bought it for him the day he turned eighteen.
Now, two years later, it still looked brand new because he took such good care of his ‘precious baby.’
When I got my first car, it’d been because I’d saved up the money for it since I started working at fifteen.
Although my parents were great, they weren’t the richest folks.
In fact, they weren’t even middle class.
We were the ‘barely making it’ class.
Even now, with me out of the house, they were still struggling to make ends meet.
They did have more kids besides me, so it was understandable.
But it was also probably why I’d be in debt until I was fifty.
Paying for my bachelor’s degree in nursing wasn’t very easy. Thank God for student loans.
Although they wouldn’t be my friends once I graduated.
“Why are you going so slow, Sawyer? I feel like we’re crawling!” Bristol yelled, leaning forward on the console.
“Put your seatbelt on or I’ll pull this truck over,” I said with as much venom as I could.
Neither one of them ever wore seatbelts, and it drove me absolutely nuts.
I heard two clicks, and I turned accusing eyes onto Isaac.
He knew my rule!
“Why is it so hard for y’all to follow that rule? I mean, seriously, it could save your life if we were in an accident!” I growled, turning back when I saw lights flash in front of me.
I couldn’t stop.
A Ford Bronco pulled out in front of me and did it at the exact wrong time.
Under normal circumstances, had he done that, I would’ve missed him.
But I was in Isaac’s huge truck, which was hard to slow because it was so big.
I was also driving at night. In the rain.
So, instead of stopping or even slowing when I slammed on the brakes, it slid.
Then the brakes locked.
The tires squealed.
Isaac, Bristol and I screamed.
And we hit the Bronco with a deafening, blood-curdling crash.
It was terrible.
I saw the whites of the man’s eyes before the truck T-boned him.
Saw the woman in the front seat turn to someone in the back.
Then nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I couldn’t get my brain to make any sense of what had just happened, and wouldn’t know until days later that I had killed every single person in the vehicle.
And it was all my fault.
***
Six months later
“After considering all of the evidence and hearing the defendant’s testimony, we find the defendant guilty of four counts of manslaughter,” the spokesman for the jury said.
My world came screeching to a stop.
All of my time.
All of my dreams.
Gone.
Every single one of them.
Four counts of manslaughter.
I looked at my mother with tear filled eyes.
She looked back at me with the same sad expression.
I closed my eyes, a single tear slipping down my cheek.
“Sawyer Ann Berry, you are hereby sentenced to eight years in Huntsville. Dismissed,” Judge Abbott declared, finalizing this entire nightmare with the slam of his gavel.
My heart hurt.
I couldn’t breathe.
Eight years.
I’d be nearly thirty when I got out!
“Don’t worry, Sawyer. I’ll get you out. We’ll appeal it. I promise you,” my father’s good friend and my attorney, Donald Barber, promised.
I looked at him and shook my head. “Just…just take care of my parents. They’re going to need you.”
He smiled at me sadly. “I will, pumpkin.”
My only hope, once the appeal was denied, was that I’d make parole.
I looked over at my best friend, who understandably felt horrible, and my boyfriend…whom I hadn’t broken up with because he’d become my rock.
Maybe not so much of a boyfriend anymore, more like a huge part of my support system.
The two of them had become my sole source of strength through this nightmare. I couldn’t have made it through without them.
They’d stayed with me, despite what I’d done.
And I couldn’t thank them enough.
***
Four years later
“Parole denied.”
My eyes closed, and my heart ripped in half.
The last thread holding it in one piece was gone.
Most likely forever.
Chapter 1
If she chooses a day on the back of your bike to a day of shopping, then she’s a keeper.
-T-shirt
Silas
“I’m sorry, Silas. It just happened. I never thought we would get back together. But with Sawyer getting out next week, we started talking a lot again, and we’ve come to the decision that splitting up wasn’t something that either one of us wanted to do,” Reba said softly.
My brows rose.
“Reba, honey. We’ve never really had anything exclusive. I understand that you’d want to get back with your old man. Hell, that’s probably why I never did anything past kiss you and spend time with you. I knew your heart belonged to another man.” I shook my head, but raised my hand to rest softly on the side of her face. “It’s okay, darlin’. It’s time to put you first and not that girl of yours. She’s a grown woman now.”
Reba smiled at me sadly.
“You don’t know Sawyer, though. These past eight years have changed her. She’s not the same bright, happy book nerd anymore. My baby is gone, and she needs me now. She needs her family even more now than she ever did. Plus…when she finds out about Isaac, she’s going to be heartbroken,” she whispered.
“What?” I asked.
I didn’t really want to know, but the fucking brothers had turned me into a fuckin’ gossip whore.
Not to mention that this had been huge for our little community.
Everyone knew what had happened.
Knew Reba, her husband, and their four kids.<
br />
Had prayed right along with the rest of the city that what had happened wouldn’t get any worse for the poor woman.
Then Reba had to go on and prove that the loser Sawyer had thought was hers was a big piece of shit.
“Isaac got some woman pregnant,” Reba said, slicking her hair back. “I’ve been telling Sawyer for years that she shouldn’t have expected Isaac to wait.” She shook her hair. “Isaac is getting married to that woman next weekend. The fucking week after Sawyer is set to get out, no less.”
What a fuckin’ chicken shit.
“Well, let me know if you need anything, okay?” I told her softly.
Reba smiled.
“Thank you, Silas. You’re very sweet,” she said, giving me a hug.
I hugged her back and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Gotta go, sweetheart. Let me know if you need me.”
Reba nodded and waved as I straddled my bike.
Starting it up with a deafening roar, I rode out of the parking lot and headed straight to the clubhouse.
My mind wandered to that night eight and a half years ago.
I’d been on the volunteer fire department, and had been there in time to see the three kids in the big truck get taken to the hospital by three separate ambulances.
I’d noted almost immediately that the occupants of the other vehicle weren’t going to make it.
They were all dead.
The two in the back hadn’t been wearing seatbelts.
They’d been ejected from the Bronco and laid under sheets to protect their privacy.
The two in the front seat were also dead. The Bronco had caved in like an aluminum coke can crunched under a boot.
The driver’s seat was in the passenger’s space, and blood could be seen everywhere.
Sometimes, being a first responder wasn’t a fun job.
I passed the truck that’d hit them and instantly smelled all the beer.
It was obvious that the Bronco had pulled out in front of the truck.
But the truck, had the occupants not been drunk, might have been able to stop had they been sober.
What a fuckin’ mess.
My phone rang, breaking me out of my thoughts and that horrific night.
Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7) Page 1
