by Cora Brent
FALL
A Gentry Boys Novel
© 2015 by Cora Brent
All rights reserved.
Author’s Note:
FALL is a crossover between the Gentry Boys series and the Defiant MC series. Characters from the Gentry Boys series as well as the book Promise Me figure prominently. However, FALL was written as a stand-alone and it is not necessary to have read either series.
*WARNING*
This book is intended for mature audiences over the age of 18. It contains explicit language, sexual situations, and violence that may be upsetting to some.
BOOKS BY CORA BRENT:
GENTRY BOYS
Draw
Risk
Game
Fall
DEFIANT MC Series
Know Me: A Novella
Promise Me
Remember Me
Reckless Point
I love to hear from readers! Contact me at [email protected].
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COPYRIGHT
Please respect the work of this author. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without permission. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any similarities to events or situations is also coincidental.
The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks and locations mentioned in this book. Trademarks and locations are not sponsored or endorsed by trademark owners.
© 2015 by Cora Brent
All Rights Reserved
Cover Design: © L.J. Anderson, Mayhem Cover Creations
Images:
istockphoto/Geber86
dollarphoto/Valua Vitaly
DEDICATION
For all of the readers who asked for Deck’s story, here he is.
Love you all.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE - JENNY
CHAPTER TWO - DECK
CHAPTER THREE - JENNY
CHAPTER FOUR - DECK
CHAPTER FIVE - JENNY
CHAPTER SIX - DECK
CHAPTER SEVEN - JENNY
CHAPTER EIGHT - DECK
CHAPTER NINE - JENNY
CHAPTER TEN - DECK
CHAPTER ELEVEN - JENNY
CHAPTER TWELVE - DECK
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - JENNY
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - DECK
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - JENNY
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - DECK
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - JENNY
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - DECK
CHAPTER NINETEEN - JENNY
CHAPTER TWENTY - DECK
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - JENNY
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - DECK
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE - JENNY
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR - DECK
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE - JENNY
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX - DECK
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN - JENNY
EPILOGUE - DECK
CHAPTER ONE
JENNY
“You look Common.”
It wasn’t a real voice. The hostile accusation was only inside my head. I had caught sight of myself in the dirty, mirrored glass behind the bar and I needed to blink twice before I realized whose face I was staring at. The hair was unnaturally dark and the lips were colored a deep shade that didn’t match my complexion.
Yet it was me, undoubtedly.
Adam nudged my arm as I swiped at my face with a crumpled bar napkin. He was Ally’s older brother and the way he kept clinging to me only increased my wariness.
“Lemme buy you a shot,” he slurred.
I shook my head but he ignored me and hailed the bartender. The place was crowded and strangely filled with an inexplicable woodsy scent, reminiscent of the pine woods outside Jericho Valley. That was what likely gave rise to thoughts of my childhood. Or it might have been the emotional tug of the holiday. Ordinarily I kept those memories away.
As the bartender pushed a shot glass under my nose, some raucous hooting broke out to my left as more people poured into the bar. Most were men; some roughly groomed and dressed in leather in a way that reminded me of my sister’s husband and the band of bikers he had formed a brotherhood with. Others wore the guard uniforms of the local prison, advertising that they had just emerged from their monotonous shifts. Apparently in a rural desert town like this, there was no better destination on a cold Christmas night than the nearest bar.
“Where’s Ally?” I shouted to Adam over the shrill lyrics of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’.
He leaned in more closely than he needed to and snaked an arm around my shoulders.
“Think she took off,” he said and grinned at me. Adam’s teeth were dark yellow and although Ally had said he was only twenty-two, his paunchy gut and sallow complexion made him seem older. I hadn’t touched the shot glass in front of me and I was beginning to realize how much of a mistake I’d made by tagging along with Ally Doria. Going home with her for the Christmas holidays seemed like a good idea at the time. I had my reasons for feeling restless and ill at ease lately. Attaching myself, once again, to the families of my siblings suddenly seemed like a depressing way to spend winter break. When Ally pleaded with me to join her for a week in Emblem, her hometown, it was a welcome alternative, a chance at adventure.
“Please, Jenny?” she’d wheedled and then started singing a song with my name in it. She sang badly.
“What is that?” I laughed.
“Oldie,” she winked. “From the eighties. You’ve never heard it before? My mom used to have a major thing for this Rick Springfield dude when she was in, like, eighth grade.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I’ve heard it before,” I lied. I lied a lot. I was never sure how people would react to my old life so I didn’t let them find out. My official story was that I was a sheltered, homeschooled girl (lie) living in northern Arizona until my mother died unexpectedly (another lie). After I was thrust into a California beachside high school, my classmates seemed to sense something was off about me and they kept their distance. College, I thought, would be different but so far results were mixed.
Life among The Faithful Last Disciples and Saints was all I knew until the age of sixteen. Now I could understand why the rest of the world famously considered Jericho Valley a cult, a depraved asylum that disguised itself as an ordinary American town. We had been told that the rest of the world, the Common world, was to be feared. The Faithful order was more than a primitive experiment, more than a twisted religion. We had been taught to fear, to despise, to abandon sense and morality and submit to the whims of the church elders. We had been taught a lot of lies.
How would my new peers have reacted to learning that I’d been forced into the role of teenage bride to a man with a bevy of other ‘wives’? It didn’t matter that my so-called husband was too old and sick to lay a hand on me. I was a pawn, a victim. They would have pitied me.
And goddammit, I hated pity.
“So you’ll come?” Ally had pressed as she began to perform a series of perfect high kicks. “Shit, I need something to help break up the fucking boredom of Emblem.”
“Yes,” I agreed, narrowly missing being whacked in the nose by her manicured foot.
She stopped kicking, tossed her blonde hair behind her shoulder and grinned at me.
“Good,” she said.
Ally was my roommate and the first person I had met at Arizona State. She was a wild girl who had scarcely made it to class during our first semester. Maybe that’s why I’d stuck so closely to her these past few months. Ally was impulsive and free-spirited, qualities I dearly wished for but couldn’t seem to grow into. Three years away from
the Faithful and I was still desperately trying to hide how anxious I was over my place in the world. I was terrified that everyone else saw these weaknesses too.
On the other hand, Adam Doria seemed to figure my place was in his bed. I didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up with interest when Ally introduced us yesterday. I’d seen that look before. I’d seen it in men long before they had any business looking at me that way.
“What do you say?” he shouted in my ear as his hand lingered possessively on my arm. The bar was becoming louder by the minute.
“About what?” I shouted back. I was playing dumb, trying to sort out my options now that Ally had evidently ditched me. She’d run into an old boyfriend about eight seconds after we walked in here tonight and they sucked face in a corner for a while before disappearing. I knew if I called her she probably wouldn’t bother to answer. Ally didn’t do things she didn’t feel like doing and if you found yourself left behind by her whims, then that was just tough shit.
Adam gave me a slow smile and slid off his bar stool. My stomach was beginning to hurt. I would have been far better off accepting my sister’s invitation to spend the holidays with her family in Quartzsite. She had been unhappy when I told her I wasn’t coming.
“Why, Jen?” she’d asked. Even through the phone, Promise’s exasperation was clear. Her baby daughter was fussing in the background and I pictured her holding the infant to her breast, a troubled look on her face. “I know you didn’t change your mind and decide to head to Mexico with Lupe and Daniel because they left on Tuesday.”
Daniel was our brother. I’d been living with his family in California for the past three years as I struggled to catch up with my peers and normalize, to be Common. Daniel had been cast out of the Faithful when he was only a teenager. That was the fate of most of the Faithful’s young men. They were exiled for minor infractions. The reason was insidious. The chosen elders, like my own father, wanted to eliminate competition for the community’s women. The Faithful leaders took as many wives as they pleased and declared it as their divine right. The will of the women and girls was unimportant. And the young men like my brother, little more than boys, were deemed unworthy and tossed away like stray dogs. Sometimes the elders drove them all the way to Phoenix before depositing them on the side of the road. Other times they couldn’t be bothered to do even that much and abandoned them in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town. I wondered how many of them never lived to see adulthood.
Like Reese.
Yes, and that was my fault. I had never even told my sister the full story behind why I was married off so abruptly. There was nothing to be done about any of it now.
Adam was pulling at my elbow. I yanked my arm away and headed outside, out of the smoke and the oppressive heat of so many people. He followed me.
The bite of the cold air was a little shocking. Incredibly, the weather reports had predicted snow flurries for areas south of Phoenix. As I paused and stared into the black sky, I saw they were right.
When Adam’s hands went around my waist I flinched. He pushed his oily face close to mine. “Come on babe, let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not your babe,” I tossed back, pulling away from him and walking a few paces toward the parking lot. I wanted to look at the snow.
Adam fidgeted behind me. I ignored him and kept my face tilted to the sky. The tiny flakes melted into my skin so quickly that I couldn’t even feel them.
“You gonna stand out here all night?” Adam’s words were whiny. He was probably wondering who the hell I thought I was. Adam had the same kind of conceited entitlement I’d seen in so many boys who assumed they were men. They figured if they lavished a little of their precious energy on a girl that they should be able to claim a reward.
“I might,” I answered without so much as glancing at him.
Adam decided to get aggressive. He came at me from behind, wrapping his arms around my waist and forcing my body against his so I could feel his erection. It disgusted me. “Come on, baby. Wanted this since I laid eyes on you.” He licked at my earlobe and I tried to twist away in revulsion. He wouldn’t let me go so I dug a sharp elbow into his soft gut.
“Fuck!” He wheezed, holding his belly. “What the hell is with you?”
My hands were clenched. I was ready to swing if he laid another hand on me. “I didn’t ask to be fucking touched by you, that’s all.”
Adam glared at me, his nostrils flaring. He wasn’t tall but he was thickly built. If he decided to charge at me, there was little I could do other than scream. I didn’t know if anyone would care in a place like this.
A flicker of movement caught my eye and for the first time I saw that we were being watched. The man was still sitting on his motorcycle but it didn’t appear as if he’d just ridden up a minute ago. He looked like he might have been waiting outside for a while, perhaps just staring at the snow. He stood up and I could see he was big, impressively built, covered in leather and complete with tattoos that bled over his collar and up his neck. He had an imposing presence that was more than strength; it was plain magnetism and couldn’t be faked. Adam retreated a step under the man’s dark-eyed gaze and I wondered if they knew each other.
“Fine, bitch,” Adam said, backing away farther. His voice wavered though. “You can stay here by your damn self. Let’s see how long you stay untouched.”
The man stood there mutely as Adam cursed again and retreated into the darkness. I watched the man and he watched me back. There was an uncomfortable feeling that he saw much more of me than I meant for him to see. I wrapped my arms around my body to hide the plunging neckline of the filmy shirt Ally had practically forced over my head. The faux leather jacket I had draped over my shoulders wasn’t really enough to keep me warm in this weather and I shivered.
The man waited until the engine of Adam’s crappy pickup gasped to life, tires squealing as it sped out of the parking lot. Then he gave one final long, appraising look in my direction and headed indoors. I felt the inexplicable urge to follow him but ignored it.
As the wind kicked up a notch my hair blew across my face. I was startled to see that it was now black when my whole life it had been red. It had been a rash thing to do, dyeing my hair. I wasn’t used to it yet.
Snow in this region was an extreme rarity and a few people had ventured out of the bar to stare at it. The snow wasn’t impressive and wouldn’t stick, yet it was still a storybook finish to any Christmas night. It made me even lonelier.
With a sigh that emitted a plume of frosted breath I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I should call Ally. She may be selfish but she wasn’t heartless. She might at least climb out of whatever hole she’d crawled into with her latest male entertainment and bring me back to her house. Adam lived in the Dorias’ attached garage but I hoped he would be too mortified by my rejection to bother me anymore. Mrs. Doria, purse-lipped and sour, had been rather put out when Ally and I arrived yesterday. She’d probably sunk further into the sad drunken stupor that had overtaken her before we headed out for the evening. If Ally ignored her phone I supposed I would have no choice but to call Promise. She would insist on sending Grayson out immediately.
I hadn’t been able to explain to my sister why I didn’t want to spend the holidays with her family. Something was broken in me, or perhaps it had never been right.
It had been three years since the death of Prophet Bastian, three years since the Faithful elders were exposed and imprisoned. Three years since I became a bride, a widow and then a high school student within a few months. I had been given a new life, a chance. My brother Daniel had long since changed his last name to Smith, wanting to evade the sting of the Talbots of Jericho Valley. It seemed right that I change my name too. My marriage to an old man was a farce conducted against my will and I would never accept his name. Yet my anger toward my father remained and I didn’t want his name either. So Jennetta Talbot became Jenny Smith. She was safe. She was loved. All should have ended well.<
br />
But life wasn’t a book that wrapped up every loose end neatly.
Stories didn’t always end when you assumed they did.
“Shit,” I said softly as I pressed all the buttons on my phone while the dead face of the device mocked me. My charger was back at school, in Tempe.
I wouldn’t be calling anyone.
CHAPTER TWO
DECK
I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore but that was my own goddamn fault. My cousin Cord had offered me a place on his couch for the night and I’d been tempted to take it. But as the sun went down and the temperature dropped I got edgy. It was a familiar feeling, one only fixed by being in motion. So I climbed on my bike in the frigid air and headed back to Emblem while my three cousins and their lovely ladies waved from the driveway.
It had been the first time in years I’d acknowledged Christmas and I would have happily let this one go by too. Maybe I would have found some warm company for a few hours and sucked back a few ounces of something that would have made all the bullshit go pleasantly numb for a while. But Cord’s wife, Saylor, had called me herself last week and pleaded with me to ride up to Tempe for the day.
“You can’t spend Christmas alone in that god awful trailer,” she said as if there couldn’t possibly be an argument. “Please, Deck? You need to be here. We have an announcement.”
“Announce it now,” I yawned as I scratched my balls and looked around the trailer, relieved that I was alone. Sometimes when I woke up I couldn’t remember what the fuck I’d been up to the night before.
“No,” she said stubbornly. “Cord and I are telling everyone about the sex together.”
“You and Cordero want to hand out sex instructions? Honey, I was beating cheeks while you were still on the playground.”
