by Kelli Walker
Claiming Her Innocence
Alpha Ever After Series - Book 1
Kelli Walker
Kelli Walker
Copyright © 2020 by Kelli Walker.
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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Her voice opens my eyes, but her body catches my stare.
Joanna is innocent. Kind. With eyes that beg for adventure and a body that succumbs to command.
She’s everything I want, and everything I don’t need.
I have to stay away.
To enjoy the night with my friend.
To rid my life of its darkness.
But all I can think about is her body underneath those clothes.
Her high notes fill my ears, but her body cushions my fall.
And now, she’s carrying my child.
My shadows lash out at her.
My lustful indulgence now makes her a target.
I’ll do anything to keep her safe.
Beat down anyone who tries to touch her.
I’m savage. Fierce. With a past so dark, it blinds.
I’m nowhere near a Daddy, but I’ll stop at nothing to keep her safe.
Even if it kills me.
Even if it swallows me whole.
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Blurb: Claiming Her Innocence
The moment my best friend’s little sister walked into my bar,
I should have thrown her out.
The moment she convinced me to take her innocence,
I knew I was a dead man.
* * *
The way her perfect body tempted me,
It was only a matter of time before I claimed her.
* * *
Then her brother shows up back in town needing a job,
My only option?
Fire her and tell her exactly what this was.
A mistake.
* * *
The last thing I expected,
To find her beaten in a hospital bed...
Carrying my unborn baby.
* * *
I don’t care what it takes,
She’s mine.
Our unborn baby is mine.
Forever.
Contents
1. Vanessa
2. Lux
3. Vanessa
4. Lux
5. Vanessa
6. Lux
7. Vanessa
8. Lux
9. Vanessa
10. Lux
11. Vanessa
12. Lux
13. Vanessa
14. Lux
15. Vanessa
16. Lux
17. Vanessa
18. Lux
19. Vanessa
20. Lux
21. Vanessa
22. Lux
23. Vanessa
24. Lux
25. Vanessa
26. Lux
27. Vanessa
28. Lux
29. Vanessa
30. Lux
31. Vanessa
32. Lux
Epilogue
Read The Rest Of Alpha Ever After Series Here
Vanessa
I stand in front of the store that used to be my second home. I watch as the last board is nailed over the entrance.
It is over. It is really, truly over. I feel a stab in my guts, a panic in my head, and try my best to soothe it. But it’s too late—the store has shut down for good, and I am going to be out on the streets unless I can find something to replace my job in, say, the next ten minutes.
Okay, so maybe it’s not quite that serious yet. I have a couple of weeks of leeway before things start getting out of hand. But I just...I’ve worked here my whole adult life, ever since I graduated six years ago. And now, it’s closed down, and I have no idea what the hell else I am qualified to do.
“Are you alright, honey?” Maggie, the woman who runs–well, used to run–the store asks me. I don’t know why I came down here to watch it close, but I felt as though I owed it a real send-off for some reason. But standing here, in front of the store, watching as it was boarded up forever, made me feel like I needed a drink. Or preferably ten.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie to her quickly. “What about you? Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” she replies, but she doesn’t sound sure. I’m positive that she is lying to me, too. She puts an arm around me and squeezes my shoulder gently.
“If you need anything, you just let me know, alright?” she tells me. I snort with something like amusement.
“You got any other jobs lying around?” I ask, and she shakes her head and sighs.
“You know if I did, you’d be the first person I’d hire,” she promises me. “And if I ever open up another place again, you’ll be the first one I call to help me out.”
“Thanks, Maggie,” I murmur, but honestly, I know I just need to get home and try to forget that any of this ever happened. I have no job, no future, no nothing. I hope that I can find some way to survive all of this and keep my mother and me above water—even though it feels like I’m being pulled under by a riptide.
I walk the rest of the way home; it’s not like I can afford to be spending money on buses or taxis these days, anyway. Every penny that came from my last paycheck is going to have to go towards rent. Even then, it’s only going to keep us covered for another couple of weeks, at most. I have to find another job, and I have to find it soon.
But, as I walk through Palo Dulce, I’m reminded of just how little there is here for me, anyway. It’s not like this place is exactly bustling with opportunities—hell, I knew that I had been lucky to get my job at the store and hang on to it for so long. Plenty of people would have bent over backward for something as steady as that. The best we can manage most of the time is seasonal work based around the tourists who come for the hot Texas summers, but those jobs don’t last long or pay well. Or start for another few months, either, so they’re not even much good to me now, anyway.
I know why so many people leave this place. I’m one of the only members of my high school class who stuck around after everyone else had moved away. They all headed out to college, or to jobs in the city, or just fell in love
and moved a few towns over so that they could start their families and begin the cycle somewhere new. But me? No, I have to stay with my momma and make sure that she’s taken care of. I don’t know what I’d do without her, but, more importantly, I don’t know what she’d do without me.
Sometimes, I wonder what might have been if I hadn’t had to stick around to take care of her. What kind of life could I have lived if I had really pushed for something more than what I got? It could have been incredible, no doubt about it; my grades had been good enough that I could have headed out to college if I wanted to. I could hardly imagine the kind of people I would have met out there. Palo Dulce is tiny, but the world is huge, and I wish, sometimes, that I’d had the chance to see it.
But then again, my brother had decided to break away from Dulce when he was a teenager, and look where that landed him. I know that he’s happy in the Marines, but if that’s what it takes to get out of here, then he can keep it. It suits him down to the ground, but I don’t have that in me. I’m better slinging coffee grounds and bagels at the local coffee shop than I am going overseas to do...well, whatever it is that he gets up to. Not to mention the fact that my mother would probably lose her mind with worry if she had two of us to get all concerned about. I know that she lies awake at night with fear as it is, and I could never add to that, not if I can help it.
By the time that I turn the corner on to the street where I have lived my whole life, I am ready to get some dinner out of the freezer and then crawl into bed so that I can try and piece together my life tomorrow morning. The store might be shut now, but I can find something else. Maybe I’ll have to commute to some call center in the city. Maybe that would keep me busy. I wouldn’t mind that. Hell, it could even be fun to go out there, get away from this place for a while, meet some new people...
But then I see my mother standing outside of the house. Her soaps are on right now, and there’s no way she would have broken away from her chair unless something serious had happened. She is planted on the front step, her head resting in her hand, looking as though she wants nothing more than to hide under the covers and wait for this day to be over.
I hurry to close the gap between us.
“Momma?” I call to her, and she looks up when she hears me getting closer; when she sees me standing there, she manages a small smile, though I’m not sure that I believe it.
“What’s wrong?” I demand, and I peer past her and into the house through the open front door. But then, I hear it—and, with a sinking heart, I figure out exactly what is bothering her.
“Is it the water again?” I ask, and I step through and feel the carpet squish under my feet. Oh, shit. We have been able to keep the broken pipe from doing too much damage the last few weeks, but I had promised her that I was going to get it fixed as soon as I could. But it looks as though it is a little too late for that.
“It’s not just the water,” she tells me, getting to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself as though she doesn’t want to let go. “It’s the roof, too. Look, here...”
She picks her way around the wet spots on the carpet and then points to a beam of sunlight that is pouring in from outside. A hole. A hole in our damn roof.
“When did this happen?” I ask.
“Just before you got back, sweetie,” she replies, with a long sigh. “I heard this big crack, and, well, I think the water pipe must have busted a hole in it or somethin’. And now I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
There is a hopeless edge to her voice, and I put my arm around her and pull her in close. I know that I’m not going to be able to make it all right for her right then and there, but I don’t care. I just want her to understand that I have her back. That I’m always going to. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost to fix up a problem as big as this one, but we’ll find a way.
“We have the money that Gavin sent back, right?” I remind her. “Maybe we can use that to pay for it...”
“It’s something,” she agrees, and she looks over at me. I expect to see her all tearful, but she just looks exhausted, as though she wants nothing more than to crawl into her bed and forget that this day ever happened.
“You want to get takeout tonight?” I suggest to her, and she shakes her head.
“We can’t afford it, honey, you know that...”
“I do,” I agree. “But I say we put all of that worry off until tomorrow, huh? I can’t stand the thought of cooking anything tonight. I just want to sit outside with some burgers and fries and forget that any of this ever happened.”
She manages a small smile. It's a blessing to see. My momma worked her ass off, trying to make sure that Gavin and I had the best life that we could possibly manage.
“Yeah. That sounds good to me,” she agrees, and I lean my head against her shoulder and stare at the beam of sunlight coming in through the crack in the roof. And I can’t help but laugh.
Not because I’m happy. No, I’m about the stone-cold opposite of that right now. But because this is just so ridiculous that I can’t imagine anything else happening to make this day any worse. I have lost my job, my house is flooded, and now there is a crack in the ceiling that we’re going to have to find some way to block up before the rain starts to come, unless we want to get swept away in our beds.
“Okay, let’s get something ordered,” I tell her, and I make my way into the kitchen to find the takeout menus and grab something that looks cheap. I don’t care what it takes to fix everything. I just want to find something that matches my appetite right now. And I will deal with everything else that’s happening when I wake up tomorrow.
Lux
“Hey, Lux!”
I hear a voice cut through the mess of music and conversation in the bar, and I glance over my shoulder to see Jennifer waving over to me. I grab my beer off the top of the bar and go over to talk to her. She knows not to interrupt a good night unless she’s got a good reason to, so I know that it has to be serious.
I weave my way in and out of the patrons at The Last Call. A few of them try to stop me for a chat, but I brush them off as politely as I can. I know that I might make it look as though I just sit around here having fun, but this is a business, and Jennifer’s a big part of the reason that I’m able to keep it running.
Situated just outside of Palo Dulce, I know that this is the last place that a lot of people will end up in for a night of heavy drinking. That’s why I changed the name. It used to be called Harold’s, named after my father, but I thought that it needed a new name, something a little more risky. Besides, seeing his name on the header every time I came in to work was something that I just couldn’t handle for the rest of my life. Especially knowing that he was gone for good.
He would have hated the name that I gave it, but the thought of his ire is always enough to make me grin. He hated a lot of things about the way that I live my life, but I know that he loved me, nonetheless. He might have had something to say about the choices I’ve made, but when it came down to it, we were the only family that we had, and we made sure never to forget it, either.
I can still remember the way that he looked at me when I told him that I was going to join the Marines. I am still certain that he thought I wasn’t going to get a look-in at that place, but he had told me off for it, nonetheless.
“You really think that I’m going to let you go and get yourself into trouble somewhere I can’t help you?” he had demanded, and I had cocked an eyebrow at him and nodded.
“I think that’s what adulthood is meant to be, Dad,” I pointed out to him, and he grimaced and shook his head. He probably picked up that cheap beer that he liked so much, the one that I always picture him with when I think back on growing up.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to like it,” he had muttered in response. And he had known, I’m sure, that telling me not to do something was only going to make double-certain that I did it.
Especially when it came to Gavin. Gavin and I had grown up together, the two of us joine
d the football team, dated cheerleaders, the whole nine yards. And when he had told me that he wanted to go out and do his national duty, I had been right there beside him. My father hadn’t liked it at first, but when he saw me off on my first tour, he had been proud of me. I know that much.
And maybe I would have kept fighting out there in the real world if it hadn’t been for the call that had changed my life a few years before; the one that told me that my father had dropped dead from a heart attack and that I needed to come back to Dulce to sort out what remained of his life. I can still remember that dazed trip home, stepping over the threshold of the house, knowing that he wasn’t there but not able to connect that to the reality of his death.
What followed is still a blur in my head. I could have sorted out his life and headed back out to the field but, when it came down to it, I just couldn’t bring myself to move on like that. I didn’t want to get rid of the bar that he had poured his whole life into. It was basically falling apart at the seams by the time I got there, but I didn’t mind; it gave me somewhere to put my energy. Putting that place back together kept my brain from wandering too far in directions that it shouldn’t have. Much like my dad, I didn’t do well with emotion, and it was better for me to have a place to put it than to think about spilling my guts to someone who wouldn’t even have cared in the first place.
