by CC Monroe
Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Aurora Rose Reynolds. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Happily Ever Alpha remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Aurora Rose Reynolds, or their affiliates or licensors.
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Until Kayla
Loving Series and Until Series Crossover
CC Monroe
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Note To Reader
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Author Note
Acknowledgements
UNTIL KAYLA
Copyright © 2018 by CC Monroe.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover Design by Juliana Cabrera at Jersey Girl Design
Edited by Kayla Robichaux
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Chapter One
Kayla
“I miss you,” I whisper to the home I grew up in. It’s here that I learned to ride a bike and other childhood milestones. It holds all the beautiful moments that taught me who I was and how to love. But now, it’s a symbol of what I lost.
I peer over the two-story home, with green shutters that my parents let me help paint when I was just six, my eyes traveling over the years of wear and tear that made my house a home. I feel the tears stinging my eyes, burning to find an escape, and they nearly do when I look down at the cement of our walkway to the front porch. There I see my tiny handprints between my mother and father’s, with Mackey Family, Best Friends Forever written permanently below it.
“Mama. Papa.” I bring my hand to my heart, and a montage of memories flood my brain, ending with the day they both passed on. That accident tragically took them away, and now I stand alone on the cusp of a new beginning, wishing so badly they were atop those stairs, waving me off with air-blown kisses and beaming smiles.
“They’re here and they are so proud,” my cousin Kate interrupts my nostalgic memories that aid my broken heart.
Her blonde hair and blue eyes are a contrast from my long brown hair, ending just above my butt, and green eyes with flecks of brown and gold. I give her a meek smile and peer back up. Today, just shy of two years after I lost my parents, I’m leaving the home, where I took time to mourn and lose myself in missing them, to go off to college in Tennessee.
“You think?” I gnaw at the inside of my cheek and do my damnedest to hold off the tears that are really trying to make their pesky way out. I don’t like seeming weak, when it’s a time I should be happy and strong to most people, over the loss of my parents. But that will never happen. I died inside the night they did. I lost me when I lost them.
College is me following through on my promise to them, but it’s now more of an escape, in hopes that I find something to just make me feel again. God, I want to feel again.
“You better believe it, Kayla bug,” she assures, giving me a tight squeeze into her side.
“Hey, y’all ready? We gotta hit the road if we are gonna make it there by tomorrow!” Sadie, Kate’s best friend, hollers from the giant SUV we rented with a small U-Haul attached. We have a long way from my home in Portland to my new apartment in Tennessee. But to say I’m ready to leave behind my home for just a little while—because I didn’t sell it—would be a lie. I need a fresh start and new perspective, but it still stings like a bee.
“Come on, bug. It’s time for a new start, right?” Kate prompts.
I nod, looking at her just as she brings her forehead to mine, and we share a genuine understanding smile. “Right.” And just like that, she leaves me and I look up one more time.
“I’ll see you soon. Bye, Mama and Papa.”
I make it to the car, and with a heavy heart, I watch my old life in the rearview mirror as I say a silent prayer that my new life will reawaken the old me. The one who used to laugh hard and love even louder. The one who could stay up all night laughing and baking with her mama, and hang with my papa and all the boys. The one who wasn’t always lost and looking.
Before they passed, I was always the life of the party, and that came with being an only child. My parents and I spent all our time together, and we all had vivacious personalities that others would cling to. Now, with the exception of Kate and Sadie, my friends started calling less and less, and my life became emptier and emptier.
We all stay silent for a bit, and I know the two of them are letting me simply feel. Sadie—she is the most religious out of all of us, and I know she is probably saying a million prayers a minute in her mind as I sit in the back seat, trying to pick which side of the tug-of-war my heart and brain are playing that I should be on.
Kate and Sadie left behind their rock star lovers to help me move this weekend, and for that, I’m thankful. Because even if inside I’m good at hiding I’m a wreck of emotions, I still couldn’t have made this trip alone. Sadie’s dominating, obsessive, and strikingly handsome husband is a saint for letting her come, when he usually can’t spend a moment away from her. And Kate’s boyfriend is probably too high on drugs to even know she is gone. Guess we all have something we are struggling with, and maybe we can find an escape on this trip.
Here’s to wishful thinking.
“Y’all, I think we need to have some road trippin’ car karaoke!” Sadie breaks up the heavy, and I actually laugh at her sweet southern voice matched with enthusiasm.
“You’re on, but if I win, then you get to let me prank call Ben and tease him by telling him you keep getting hit on by random drivers passing by. I always like making that alpha moody!” I chuckle and it feels good. Kate hears it and shoots me a wink, while Sadie just rolls her eyes and turns up the volume.
“Fine! Game on.” Then the loud sounds of a Maroon 5 song fill the car, and they start belting it out, lightening the mood and distracting me like I need.
Chapter Two
Jase
I check myself over in the mirror of my bathroom and hear the light tapping sounds of my little’s feet coming down the hall. “Daddy?” she calls, and like a little beacon of the only light left in my life, she makes me smile as her face appears next to me at the bottom right of the bathroom mirror.<
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“Yes, princess?” She fell asleep on my chest last night as we watched her favorite Despicable Me movie. Avery, my five-year-old pride and joy, is still wearing her princess dress. I swear she would never take it off if I didn’t make her. She looks just like her mama as her dimples deepen with my nickname. She has Lainey’s eyes, brown with touches of honey running through them.
Every morning, when she wakes up and smiles at me like that, I swear I feel a tight grip in my chest as I remember her mother. My wife died three years ago of ovarian cancer, and it still tears through me like a riptide when I see our daughter look up at me with a smile so big I would do anything to shield her from the pain.
“You know you’re going to have to change before I take you to Nana’s, right?” I lift her up in my arms, and her eyes meet mine.
Avery looks deep in my soul when she grasps my jaw, covered in a light five o’clock shadow, in her hands. “No, Daddy. Nana Mae says I can wear this everyday when I see her.”
I smile, my dimples now matching hers as her little voice innocently convinces me that my mother is right and I’m wrong. I swear my ma is always pitting her against me. She studies my face, intrigued by my nose, like she has been since she was a baby, pulling and squeezing it. “I think Nana Mae spoils you rotten.”
Avery pinches my cheeks and giggles, and that sound makes me puff out my chest. This little ball of light and laughter is my world, and I’m blessed to have her here with me. She makes the hard fucking days bearable.
“No, Daddy, she doesn’t. She says you are just a caveman.” She chuckles then makes a funny noise, mimicking the sound of a Neanderthal. I make note to tell my mom to stop teaching her how to be my demise. I’m surely fucked. Because when Avery grows up, I will have to buy a shotgun for every room, so I have easy access to one when any fucker tries to get in to date my daughter. Just that thought has me angry inside and out, my body going hot.
“‘No, Daddy. No, Daddy.’ What am I going to do with you, little bug?” I start tickling her, and she struggles to break free while thrashing in a fit of laughter.
“You will just have to give me to Nana! She’ll protect me!” she yells around a hard laugh from deep in her gut.
“Not possible, little one. I’m your protector.” I stop tickling, and her laughs settle as she catches her breath. “And my protector you will always be,” she whispers back to me what I taught her to always respond with when I say that. That was the first daddy/daughter lesson I taught her when she really started to talk. It’s the words of my soul, and I hope she never loses sight of that, even when she finds someone and no longer puts me first. I even have the words tattooed on my chest, so I take her everywhere with me.
I immediately shove that thought to the back of my mind so I don’t lose my shit in the bathroom before work. Setting her on her feet, I tell her, “Go get your bag ready. We’re gonna be late, and Nana said she’s making you pancakes.”
“Pancakes!” she hollers, running back to her room down the hall, our moment long forgotten by a child’s attention span.
Turning back, I take another look at myself and decide it will do. My hair is in desperate need of a cut, and today I did my best to style it. That will have to fucking do, I think to myself as I leave the bathroom. Today I have a busy day ahead, meeting with contractors for the new housing development going up on the outskirts of town. I do home design blueprints, and I’m meeting with the investors to show them the four different home designs we plan to build on the land.
I run my own business from home most the time, but every once in a while, especially in the start of construction, I’m the busiest. I make great money, and I get to spend time with Avery more than most parents do.
“All right, little one. Let’s go,” I holler from the front door, and seconds later, she comes bounding down the hall and into the front room. Still in her princess dress, she went with tennis shoes, and her hair is a mess.
I can’t send her to my mom’s this way; she will throw a fit. These are the moments I realize my lack of dating life is killing me. I can’t do her hair in ways a mother can, or nurture her in a way a woman can. I’m afraid she is going to grow up resentful if one day I don’t give her a mother to help her grow into the young woman I know she will one day want to be.
But no one has ever been able to spark a need in me. I haven’t touched another woman since Lainey passed, and the one date I went on ended in disaster when my best man, Harlen, thought dating a hooker would help.
That smug fucker is always doing shit to pull my chain. That reminds me; I’m supposed to meet him and his girl tonight.
“Come here, crazy girl.” I scoop her up and walk back toward the bathroom, setting her on the counter as she smiles up at me, unfazed. She was too young when her mom died, and that is the only thing I can find comfort in. Because if Avery ever had the chance to know how incredible Lainey was, her mourning would’ve been unbearable.
I find her brush and start untangling the knots as gently as my six-foot, bulky frame can. My hands alone are bigger than her face. I always fear I’m going to hurt her, but she’s tough. The makings of a girl raised by her father.
“What are you smiling and giggling about, chuckles?” I smile down at her when I take note of her light laughter.
“You should see your face, Daddy. You look so scared.” Her tiny hands come to her lips, and she laughs when I furrow my brow.
“I’m not scared. This is my normal face.”
“That’s not a good one.” She shakes her head, still smiling.
“Are you saying I’m not good-looking?” I act affronted, teasing her. Nodding her head, her smile deepens. “Oh that’s it, little bug. Come here!” I finish her hair, and then pick her up over my shoulder, wrapping my arms extra tight around her legs so she doesn’t slip.
“Daddy! Put me down!” She wiggles and squirms, but her laughter tells me she loves every second. I know I am. My only light—she is my only light.
“Nope, we are dropping you off at Nana’s just like this!” I bring my hand to her sides, just next to my head, and I tickle her.
She fights some more until I swoop up her bag and get us out the door. Once in the car, she sits in the back seat, singing and talking nonstop about her plans with Nana for the day.
This is my life, just the two of us.
Chapter Three
Kayla
“My ass is like a rock. I think I need a good massage. Sadie, you feel like squeezing up on this,” Kate teases, as we all climb out of the SUV we have spent the past two days in. We all laugh, and Sadie rolls her eyes, used to Kate’s harassing.
“I’m good. We shared a bed last night, and I think you grabbed my boob three times in your sleep,” Sadie responds as I move to the back of the U-Haul to open it up and retrieve my things. We pulled up outside the tiny house I’m renting just a few blocks away from the university, and it’s just as small and quaint as the pictures made it seem.
All white with yellow shutters. There isn’t a ton of people surrounding me, just one neighbor a mile down the road, and then another about five hundred yards from me. The two-bedroom one-bathroom 1920s home is just right for little ole me.
“You liked it, Sister Christian. Don’t lie,” Kate retorts, as they both approach me.
“Shut it, weirdo.”
“Both of you hush and help me. I have a mini U-Haul to unpack and you are slowing us down.” They both jump to attention and we share smiles.
“Lead the way, sir.” Kate salutes. I go to say something back, planning to get in the last word, when the roar of a motorcycle stops me.
“Hey, do y’all need help?” a beautiful woman with curly hair asks from behind the biker’s shoulder. He has dark hair and a thick beard. It’s like looking at night and day, hard and soft. Instantly, you can tell they’re a couple when he places his hand possessively on her hip after she climbs off the bike. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes stay glued to her, as if we are going to turn into k
idnappers and take her away. It’s wildly scary, but recklessly hot. What I wouldn’t give for a man to protect me fiercely like him.
“Oh no, that’s okay! We don’t want to put anyone out,” I respond with a soft smile.
“Babe, you aren’t in Portland anymore,” she points to the plates on our vehicle. “We help our neighbors out around here. Right, handsome?” She looks over her shoulder at the stoic beast behind her, and with that, he stands. I think we all gulp when he towers over her, pulling her into his side as he does.
The man is big. A real biker. Leather cut and all. And suddenly, I’m the nervous one.
“Whatever my woman wants, she gets. So where does what go, ladies?” His demeanor throws me off a bit. He looks too big to be so nice and welcoming. There is a gentle giant vibe about him, and we all notice.
She starts, “Harmony MacCabe. And this big teddy—” and he growls, my stomach filling with butterflies. Holy moly, he is gorgeous. “—is my caveman husband, Harlen, and we are here to help you.”
“Wow, that really is sweet of you. My name’s Kayla, and this is my cousin, Kate, and her babysitter, Sadie,” I tease, and Kate nudges my side.
“Hey! I’m a hoot. You are going to miss me when we leave,” she says with a pout before crossing her arms.
“Wait, you’re the only one living here? As in, alone? No husband or roommates?” Harlen asks, his brows drawing in with his scowl.
“Um, no, I-I just…” I stutter suddenly, intimidated by his dominance.
“Oh hush. Not all of us women are damsels. We can live on our own, Harlen. Remember? I did.” Harmony rolls her eyes and leaves his side.
“I know that, baby. But still, she’s new in town, and she doesn’t have many neighbors.”
“I taught her how to royally screw up someone’s balls if they come at her, so no worries.” Kate shrugs next to me, and while all the girls chuckle, Harlen stays stone-faced.
