HUGE thanks to Lauren Blakely, Jay Crownover, Nyrae Dawn, M. Leighton & Rachel Van Dyken for their contributions to Yvette's birthday celebration and giveaway. Featured in the post below: (1) an epilogue to Playing with Her Heart by Lauren Blakely not included in the original book (2) a sneak peek at Rowdy by Jay Crownover previously released to a limited number of readers (3) a sneak peek at Nyrae Dawn's work in progress, The Weight of Destiny (4) an exclusive excerpt of M. Leighton's upcoming release, All Things Pretty and (5) a deleted scene from The Wager by Rachel Van Dyken.
Prize: A Paperback Copy of Rebirth signed by various authors at the Red Dirt Boco (Jamie McGuire, Colleen Hoover & E.K. Blair, to name a few) event & swag from the authors who contributed to the birthday post (US only).
*Rebirth includes excerpts from books from most of the authors that attended the Red Dirt event.
Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4) by Lauren Blakely
Blurb:
From the NYT & USA Today Bestselling romance author, a sizzling and addictive story of a woman with a broken past and the man who can't fight his attraction to her...
Twenty-three year old rising theater star Jill McCormick has built a life out of pretending. Pretending she's happy, pretending she's not haunted by the dark secret that shattered her world six years ago. But then she comes face to face with her new director - sexy, sophisticated, possessive, all-alpha Davis Milo. He tries to resist the actress he's cast, but the attraction between them is too powerful, and soon their private rehearsals spiral into new, forbidden territory. The passionate connection, the intense chemistry is undeniable, and it hits them anywhere, and everywhere - in the theater, on the piano, in the limo, in the restaurant...But the tragedy in Jill's past stands between them. Davis has walls too, so they can either face their fears together, or risk the deepest love and greatest passion either has ever felt...
Playing With Her Heart Ever After
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Jill
“I knew you would win.”
It’s Davis, and he’s waiting for me backstage in the wings at Lincoln Center after I’ve just accepted my award.
I’m still flying high, floating on a cloud of pure and absolute electric happiness because I’m holding a Tony statue that’s all mine. I can’t believe it. I won the Tony for best actress in a Broadway musical. In my first show. I am living in a dream, but then there’s Davis’ hand on my arm, warm and firm as he pulls me into a little offstage nook behind the curtain as the awards ceremony on stage heads into a commercial. He backs me up against the wall, knowing my weakness, that I am turned inside out with lust when he traps me with his strong arms.
“And I can’t wait to kiss my Tony winner of a wife,” he tells me, his dark blue eyes blazing with heat and pride.
“Not your wife yet. You only asked me to marry you last night,” I tease, but then my teasing is silenced with a kiss as he claims my mouth, kissing me hard, his lips capturing mine in a deep and hungry moment. A whimper escapes my throat as his hand skims my back, bare in this backless evening gown I wore tonight for the awards.
“I know, but it doesn’t matter. You feel like mine. You are mine. You’re going to be my wife soon, but for now I need to kiss you again, because I watched you accept your award and I was torn between being proud of you and wanting to strip you down to nothing and have my way with you.”
A shiver runs through me, and I know where this is going. He’s going to unravel me, like he always does with his words, his touch, his lips, his hands.
“Right here, in the wings of the theater at Lincoln Center while everyone is out there in the audience and there are camera crews around filming the awards show live for network TV?” I say, arching an eyebrow, challenging him.
The sound of technicians roaming the stage and feverishly setting up for the next shot fills my ears, and I know I should scurry off stage and be the consummate professional. But yet, we’re in this private little corner, hidden behind the curtain, and no one can see us, and I’m tempted, so tempted to give in to the moment, because this man – my almost husband – makes me hot.
“Maybe,” he says in that low and sexy voice that’s layered with innuendo, as he slips a hand down the back of my dress, his palm finding its way to my bare ass. “Would you like that?” He whispers in my ear, then nips my earlobe. “Or do you want me to take you back to our place right now and fuck you properly on the kitchen counter, or in the shower, or on the table? How is that I haven’t yet fucked you on the table?” He muses as he slides his hand lower over my ass, and then there…between my legs, finding his way to the promised land.
“It would seem to be quite an oversight,” I say, trying to tease him back, but then his agile fingers slide across me, and I grab hard onto his shoulders, and mute myself because sparks of desire are shooting through my body as heat flares between my legs. “You can’t do this right now. I have to go talk to reporters and be professional. And you might win a Tony for best director. Your category is up in five minutes.”
He pushes his hips against me, and I can feel his erection against the silky fabric of my dress. “How embarrassing that I might have to go on stage then rock hard, because of how much I want to have the woman who’s going to be my wife,” he says, grinding against me, as his lips buzz along my neck, and I nearly cry out again. Everything he does sends me into such an altered state of desire. “But you need to know what I’m planning on doing to you tonight. After you say all those nice words to the press, and they congratulate you for your award, I’m finding a coat closet or a bathroom, and I’m going to back you up against the wall, and you’ll wrap your legs around me and I’ll slide into you. I want you to grab hard on my hair and hold on tight because it’ll be fast and hard and deep.”
Reason is not going to win tonight. Passion is.
I rock into him, and he slides his fingers across me once more, hitting me where I want him most, and in an instant, I am soaring. Oh my fucking god. He’s doing it to me again. I breathe out hard, nearly panting, and then I hear the booming voice of the emcee – Neil Patrick Harris – as Davis hits me all too perfectly with his amazing fingers.
“And now ladies, and gentleman, it’s time to run through our nominees for best director,” he says, his voice echoing across the venue.
“Davis,” I whisper desperately in my breathy, stilted voice that reveals how close I am. “You need to go.”
“Don’t worry, Jill. I need to go, but I also need to make you come,” he says as he strokes me faster, and runs his tongue against my earlobe, making my legs quake. He holds me tight and then I ride his hand unabashedly as the climax I never saw coming slams into me. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, and clamp my lips shut, so no one can hear me moan.
I shudder, my whole body still awash in the aftereffects of what feels like the millionth orgasm Davis has given me. He is relentless in his pursuit of them, and he can’t resist making me come.
“And now I should go so I can stop in the men’s room to wash my hands,” he says and kisses my cheek, then heads out, leaving me here, slumped against the wall, behind the stage, lingering in the glow.
Minutes later, Neil Patrick Harris finishes listing off the nominees. “And now the winner for best director of a Broadway musical is….Davis Milo for Crash the Moon.”
I gasp loudly, and smile broadly, and then from my secret hideout backstage, I peer around the curtains as my man strides to the stage looking gorgeous and oh-so-professional in his tux, leaving me the only one wiser to what the winner of best director did to the winner of best actress minutes ago.
“Thank you so much. This is truly an honor, and I wish to thank all of those who made this possible, from the producers to the stage hands, to the ticket takers at the St. James as well as the show’s composer Frederick Stillman. I am fortunate to have had the most amazing cast to work with and they made my job easy, so I owe them the biggest thanks of all. But most of all, I wish to thank the woman who’s going to become my wife, because she changed my life, and I love her immensely. This is for you, Jill.”
Four Months Later
Davis
“And do you, Davis, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To love, honor and cherish for as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” I say, looking into Jill’s deep blue eyes. There is no more beautiful, or more wonderful, woman in the entire universe than her. We are standing on the stage of the St. James Theater, the very spot where she first auditioned for the musical she went on to star in – the play where we fell in love. This stage is our stage. Of course, we’ve done more than fall in love on it. We’ve christened it in every way possible. On the piano, late at night several times after the cast had taken their bows and the audiences cleared out. Backstage, in her dressing room, even in the front row. But I tell the dirty part of my mind to be still for a few minutes as the wedding ceremony finishes. Our guests aren’t in the seats. They are here on stage with us, as it should be. My friend and lawyer, Clay, arranged for us to use the theater on a Sunday when it is dark for shows.
“And do you, Jill, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To love, honor, and cherish for as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” she says with a beaming smile.
“By the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
But I’ve never really needed to be told to do that. Kissing Jill comes easily, naturally, countless times a day. So I gather her in my arms, and kiss her softly, the first time time I have kissed her as her husband. Her lips part, and she tastes as delicious as always, but I restrain myself from kissing her the way I want. There are too many people around for that – my sister, Jill’s brother and his wife, Jill’s best friend Kat and her husband, as well as her friend Reeve and his wife, then Clay and Julia, and the rest of our friends and family surround us.
I’ll have my way with Jill later.
“Are you finally going to tell me where you’re taking me on our honeymoon?” She asks as I break the kiss.
I’ve kept it secret for months, wanting to surprise her. “Soon,” I tell her, and then it’s time for photographs, and embraces and congratulations all around.
But when the guests head to Sardi’s next door for the reception, I take her hand, guide her up the stairs to the dressing room above the stage, and open the door. It’s her dressing room now. It has been since she took over the lead role in Crash the Moon, though her run is ending soon. She has offers to star in other shows and has been debating what role to tackle next. For now, I plan to tackle her.
“I need a minute alone with you before the reception,” I tell her.
“Whatever for?” She raises an eyebrow knowingly.
“For this,” I tell her, then cup her cheeks gently, before I kiss her slowly, agonizingly slowly, trailing my tongue across her lips that I can never get enough of. Then I break the kiss. “I needed to kiss you properly as your husband now.”
She runs her index finger across my top lip, then leans in for another quick kiss that makes me groan with lust for her.
“We should go to the reception, but you should do something else properly first,” she says.
“Whatever could you possibly have in mind?”
She kisses my jawline, leaving sweet kisses along my cheek as she travels to my ear. I yank her close, savoring the feel of her in that gorgeous white dress against me, wanting all of her, all the time. “Tell me where you’re taking me on our honeymoon,” she says playfully.
I laugh. “Ah, and all this time I was thinking you’d want to consummate our vows.”
“Well, we can do that too,” she says toying with my bowtie and unknotting it. Then she plays with the buttons on my white shirt, fingering them as she has always loved to do. “But tell me first.”
“I see you are a good negotiator.” I thread my hands into her soft, luxurious blond hair, and tell her. Her eyes widen, and she claps once happily. I love her reaction. I love her happiness. I love her madly and deeply and always.
She presses her body against me. “I’m sure our first time as husband and wife should be all proper and missionary, but I’d just really like it if you could lift me up and take me right now against the door, Mr. Milo.”
“Nothing would make me happier, Mrs. Milo,” I say as I follow her instructions to the letter.
Jill
The sun beats down, warming me as I lounge on the hammock on our deck. The water is tranquil and a pure crystal blue here on our bungalow over the ocean in Fiji. Davis is next to me, and my life is everything I have ever wanted and then some.
Rowdy (Marked Men #5) by Jay Crownover
Blurb:
After the only girl he ever loved told him he would never be enough, Rowdy St. James knocked the Texas dust off his boots and decided he was going to do everything in his power to live up to his nickname. Life was all about a good time, good friends and never taking much too seriously. Rowdy learned his lesson early on, when you care that much about anything it can destroy you, and he never wants to risk feeling like that again. Only now he has a new coworker, a ghost from the past who’s making him question every lesson he ever learned.
Salem Cruz grew up in a house with too many rules, too many regulations, and no fun allowed. That never worked for her so she left it all behind as soon as she could, but she never forgot the sweet, blue-eyed boy next door who’d been in love with her little sister. Fate and good intentions from an old friend have placed her right in Rowdy’s path and she’s determined to show him he picked the wrong sister all those years ago. A mission that is going along perfectly until the one person that ties them together shows up and could very well tear them back.
Prologue & Chapter 1
Prologue…
Salem
I don’t have a lot of great memories from my childhood.
There were too many rules. Too many regulations. Too many disapproving looks from
my father and not enough support or backbone from my mother.
We lived in Loveless, a tiny Texas town with an achingly accurate name. I was the
minister’s daughter, and if that didn’t come with enough inherent expectations, the man who was
beloved behind the pulpit but a tyrant in our home heaped them on ever higher. I was meant to be
quiet, compliant, and conventional. Problem was…that was never me.
When I was nine, I convinced my mom to let me try out for a very exclusive dance team.
I longed for something different, something that would make the day to day less agonizing. I was
so proud, so excited when I made it, only to have my father tell me dancing like that wasn’t
permitted and no daughter of his was going to make a spectacle of herself. He wouldn’t stand for
it. It was how everything in my life went, and my mom never seemed willing to take a stand and
defy him even if it meant giving her daughter something she so desperately wanted. Anything
that went against my father’s wishes or was deemed inappropriate and shameful got kicked to the
curb along with any sense of uniqueness and enjoyment. My parents wanted to squeeze me into a
too small box, painted white and tied with a bow of tradition. Me being me would never be good
enough.
It was a situation made even worse by the fact that my younger sister was the apple of my
parents’ eye. The perfect golden girl. I loved Poppy with all my heart too. She was gentle and
kind but she was also docile and obedient, ready to jump whenever my father barked an order.
I was never going to be perfect and compliant like my adorable little sister. I had no
plans to end up a happy-homemaker like my mother. And I sure as hell was never going to fit
into the conventional mold of the traditional, Mexican woman like my father so desperately
wanted me to. So at nine years old, I decided that I would make my own way. I saw a light at the
end of the tunnel, I just had to be patient.
When the time came, I broke free. I hit the road with exactly the kind of guy my father
hated. I was barely eighteen, not really grown, but I had to get out. I had to run I just didn’t see
any other way to survive. I fled Loveless, shaking the dust off my boots and never looking back.
I have very few regrets about the choices I made for myself back then. To this day I am a
woman that stands by my decisions—good or bad. I’m independent. I’m strong-willed. I’ve
made my own way in life, and had, up to this point, been extremely successful at it. There were
times when I stumbled. There’ve been times when I laid alone in the dark and wanted to cry.
There were quiet moments that snuck up on me that reminded me my parents weren’t the only
people I ran from in that tiny Texas town. But overall I tried to take full accountability for my
happiness and wellbeing and that was the way I liked it.
I still kept in touch with my sister, Poppy. We were close even though she had married a
man I wasn’t too fond of a few years ago. She still lived in Loveless. So deep was my hatred for
that place and the memories that lived there I couldn’t even bring myself to attend my sister’s
nuptials which had of course taken place under my father’s watchful eyes in his church. I liked to
move around, so Poppy would come visit and get a feel for whichever big city I was calling
home for the moment. Her visits had become much sparser over the years and now I could only
get in touch with her ever so often for a quick chat on the phone.
At first my gypsy ways had landed me in Phoenix and then Reno all before LA had called
to me, which had then been quickly followed by New York. I had tried New Orleans on for size
and had a blast in Austin for a few years. Most recently I had landed in Vegas and something
about the lights, the noise, the constant flow of people, the way it really felt like a transient town
had stuck. I stayed in the neon jungle for far longer than any of the other places on the list and
settled in to a really profitable career that hinged on all those decisions I had made that my
parents were so sure were going to doom my future.
I had a great job, a killer apartment, and I was even seeing a guy that was hovering on the
edge of something closer to serious than I normally liked when I got a call out of the blue from
Phil Donovan’s son.
Phil Donovan was legendary in my world---a veritable god in the tattoo industry. He was
the tattoo guy other tattoo guys wanted to be. He was the artist you wanted to say had worked on
you. He was groundbreaking. He was famous. The list to apprentice under him was a hundred
million miles long. Phil was a supremely talented man and according to his son, Nash, he was
sick and his odds on pulling through were slim to non-existent. Nash had inherited Phil’s shop in
the heart of downtown Denver and had also been tasked with getting a new tattoo shop up and
running in the more trendy, Lower-Downtown-LoDo part of the city. Phil had thrown my name
in the hat for Nash to consider as the shop’s manager.
I had only met the older man once. It was during a convention in Vegas, and I had just
wanted to meet the notoriously handsome artist. Well, Phil was indeed a gorgeous example of a
rock and roller aging well, but he was also charming, polite and something about his demeanor
had spoken to my very wayward soul. We ended up talking for hours and hours. He offered to
tattoo me, and there was no way I was going to say no. I spent the next day under his needle and
ended up spilling my entire life history under his watchful purple gaze. It was like being
absolved of every sin I had ever committed by a very tattooed and cool pope.
When he asked where I was from and I told him ‘all over’ he had just laughed. When I
mentioned I grew up in a very conservative town in Texas called Loveless, I could feel
something change in his demeanor. He became more intent, asked a truckload more questions,
and by the time my elegant, beautiful and very traditional Lady of Guadalupe tattoo was done on
my calf I felt like Phil knew me better than I tended to know myself.
We said goodbye and I never really thought much past that encounter other than I had a
killer tattoo from Phil Donovan, which totally gave me bragging rights. Nash’s call had taken me
off guard so I was prepared to blow him off. I was sad to hear about Phil and I didn’t really want
to leave Vegas. Colorado was cold and had mountains. I had zero use for either of those things. I
was getting ready to hang up when Nash told me to look up the shop on the internet. To check
out the artists and their work. He told me that Phil was absolutely sure I would be interested in
the job and the move once I did. I shrugged it and him off and hung-up but my curiosity was
piqued so I did indeed pull up the shop on my phone.
The Marked had a stellar reputation. The ratings were out of this world and the portfolios
of the work they were producing were breathtaking. But it wasn’t until I flipped over to the
artists’ specific pages that my entire world and my future went from Vegas to Denver in the span
of a heartbeat.
There on the tiny screen of my phone was the one solid and always good memory I did
have from my youth. The one thing that I had held in a warm fuzzy place no matter where I was
or how I was feeling. There looking back at me was the grown up version of the blue-eyed boy
who was the one person in my entire life to ever make me feel accepted. The only person who
had ever made me feel like it was okay just to be me and that being me was actually a pretty
great thing.
Rowland St. James…Rowdy. The boy next door who was so sweet so wide-eyed, so
afraid of being sent back into the system, so afraid being alone.
The first time Poppy dragged him over to the yard to play with us I remembered watching
him struggle to figure out how to have fun, how to loosen up and have a good time. He was so
little with such big, sad eyes my heart squeezed for him. Every little kid should know how to
play, should want to roll around in the dirt and cause a ruckus, every little kid except for Rowdy.
I think I felt so bad for him because I knew exactly how he felt. I was barely a teenager
and even then I didn’t want to think about how going inside with scraped knees or ripped clothes
would go over with my tyrant of a father. I would get yelled at, I would be punished, I would
have all my privileges—the few I had--revoked, and all the fun in the world wasn’t worth the
repercussions it caused so I typically resigned myself to sitting on the sidelines and watching
everyone else enjoy themselves. Only once Rowdy was part of the picture I no longer had to sit
there alone.
That was how I first found out how artistically gifted he was. Drawing on paper was
clean and tidy, it was normally boring and there was no possible way I could get in trouble or
end up grounded for playing tic-tack toe or hangman. Little had I known handing a few sheets of
plain drawing paper and a few colored pencils to Rowdy was going to unlock artistic potential
that had blown me away. Even at ten he had been able to craft images and landscapes that looked
real enough they deserved to be framed and hung on a wall somewhere. The boy was skilled, and
it was the first time I ever saw him really smile. He loved to draw, loved to sketch and mess
around with paint so whenever we ended up cast off to the side that was what we did together.
Draw and doodle. I sucked at it, but I loved that it made him so happy.
Even with our age gap and obvious differences Rowdy just understood what it was like to
want more and be more than we were currently stuck with. He was a kindred spirit, and he made
my heart smile when my day to day was so dreary and desolate. We were two kids just trying to
make do in households that didn’t really want us or understand us. We might have been on the
outside looking in at our own families and our own lives, but at least we could stand outside
together. He was quite simply the best friend I ever had—he still was. Sometimes though, I
wondered if he was content to be on the fringe with me, okay with his nose pressed against the
glass just because he was another person in my life blinded by Poppy’s perceived perfection. We
watched everything move around us, never feeling included or wanted but he never took his eyes
off of my little sister.
I had always known that Poppy was the Cruz sister for him, but somehow I forgot that in
my last moments in Loveless. Just as the Belvedere was about to peel out of my parents’
driveway, I caught sight of his brilliant sky-blue eyes in the rearview mirror. I jumped out of the
car, and in that split second something changed from kinship and our deeper bond of not
belonging. I saw him as older, saw him as so much more than a confused teenaged boy. He was
only fifteen, too young to have so much loss and despair in his heartbreaking gaze. Too young
too suddenly look so grownup and like something else. In that half of a heartbeat he became
desirable and forbidden to my suddenly thundering heart. Neither one of us were ready for the
other, at eighteen I didn’t have a clue how drastic my actions were or how long the effects would
last, but I had to kiss him goodbye, had to let him know that he mattered in so many different
ways even though I was leaving and never coming back.
Only now thanks to serendipity and Phil Donovan Rowdy was staring back at me, all
grown up and gorgeous. He was still blond, still smiling in a way that made my heart trip but he
was bigger, badder and those blue eyes had to compete with a riot of ink covering most of his
visible skin for attention now. It was like looking at everything that I suddenly wanted in the
center of a crystal ball telling me that was what my future was supposed to look like.
Without even taking a second to think I called Nash back and accepted the job. I think he
said something about interviewing, but I could hardly hear him through the blood rushing
between my ears. Sure I would have more details to figure out before I packed up and left but I
had a new destination and a clear goal in mind. I wanted to see if it was still there, the
synchronicity we had, the undeniable connection and pull that had made us work together so well
when we were too young and too lost to know what to do with it.
It took a minute to cut ties with the current shop I was working at, mostly because they
had just signed a deal to do some kind of tattoo reality show and I think having me at the front
desk was one of the big selling points. I also had to break it off with Mr. I Want More and head
to New York for a photo shoot I had booked for a tattoo magazine. As each day passed I got
more and more anxious. I wanted to be in Colorado, wanted to lay my eyes on the grown up
version of Rowdy. I was dying to see what the years had done to him besides make him
undeniably sexy. He had always had the best personality. Affable and laid back even though his
life had been anything but a bed of roses. I always admired him. I envied the way he seemed to
just roll with whatever landed in his lap. I was the exact opposite. I made everything into a battle,
a fight for survival and it was exhausting.
Fighting for everything made fighting for the things that actually mattered get lost in the
noise and lose their significance.
I threw everything I owned into my car and once again hit the road. It was the first time I
ever left one place headed towards another with a clear destination in mind. The anticipation of
not only facing the one happy thing I held onto from another life, but also the lure of helping to
build a tattoo empire, of extending Phil’s legacy out in the world with the next generation of
Tattoo-Gods was exciting and I loved a good challenge.
When I hit Denver in May I was stunned at how beautiful the place actually was. The city
was so clean and the way the Rockies loomed out in the distance really was breathtaking. It had a
life to it, a vibe that was different from any other place I had ever been and I instantly felt bad for
dismissing it out of hand. When I sucked in a breath it was like I could feel the mountain air
doing something to my insides. Or maybe I was just suffocating because of the lack of oxygen.
Denver really was a mile above sea level and to a city girl trying to breathe at that elevation was
proving to be a little tricky.
I found a tiny, furnished apartment to stay in. After all I was a master at uprooting my life
and bouncing from one place to another. I gave myself a pep talk to convince myself that I
wasn’t crazy to move to an entirely new state on a whim and a picture of a pretty boy. I got
myself gussied up, did my hair, slicked on some blood red lipstick and donned my most killer
pair of heels and went to charm my potential new employer.
My new boss was a babe. So was his business partner. Seriously they should be on a
calendar featuring the hot tattooed and pierced men of Denver. They also considered me
carefully. Checking out my ink, not in a leering, creeper way, but to see if I could tell the
difference between good and bad work. I must have passed inspection because the tiny blonde
with the baby and the attitude smiled at me and told them to hire me or else. Mr. Sexy with the
flames tattooed on his head, Nash, like I wouldn’t have known who he was from the eyes alone,
offered me the job. Of course I accepted.
The guy with the black Mohawk and all the swagger made a few sarcastic comments and
flashed me a grin that would have made my blood heat if I hadn’t noticed the very obvious
wedding ring he was sporting. Those two were trouble. The very best kind and I told them I
knew it was going to be a good time and that I was excited about the opportunity to get in on this
opportunity with them on the ground floor. We were all set to go I told them just to email me the
forms I needed when I heard his voice.
It was deeper, smoother but under the baritone was the soft Texas twang I remembered
from all those years ago. When his head cleared the top of the stairs I saw his eyes widen,
watched them fill with recognition and trepidation. I couldn’t help but smile. Even though he
looked less than thrilled to see me, everything about seeing him made me happy and I knew, just
knew I had made the right choice. I moved towards him like there was a force field pulling us
together and listened to my heels tap on the wooden floors in time with my heart beat.
I stopped right in front of him. Even with him hovering a step down below the landing
and with me in heels he was still taller than me. He was broad and strong. He was watching me
like I was some kind of apparition.
I was. I was very much a ghost from his past just like he was for me.
I ran a finger over the bridge of his nose, fought the urge to lean forward and press my
lips to his slack mouth.
I said his name, his real name so he could tell it was really me, “Hello, Rowland,” and it
made his entire body jerk in response. “You sure did grow up nice.” We stared at each other in
silence for a minute and I saw all the color bleed out of his face. He whispered my name back at
me in a strangled tone.
He had a massive anchor tattooed on the side of his neck. It looked like it was alive with
the way his pulse thundered rapidly under the ink.
I looked back over my shoulder and told the rest of our bewildered audience, “Strike that,
it’s going to be a great time. See you guys at work on Monday. E-mail me whatever forms you
need me to fill out.”
I made sure my hand brushed across Rowdy’s chest when I walked past him as I made
my way down the stairs. I could feel his heart racing, could feel the way he trembled. I’m sure it
was more from shock than any kind of appreciation of my feminine charms but I didn’t care.
For the first time in my entire life I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Chapter 1
Rowdy
The pool balls cracked together with a loud SMACK and rolled aimlessly across the table. Not a
single one, solids or stripes, found its way into a pocket. I leaned heavily on the pool cue I
planted on the floor and glared at the table.
“Man, you are off your game.”
In more ways than one. I snorted and looked across the pool table at my best friend Jet
Keller. He wasn’t in town much anymore. He was usually off making up and coming bands into
stars or busy playing rock star himself. It was a rare night when he was actually in town and not
attached to his very pretty wife. Normally I would be all over some bro-time with Jet, but like he
said, I was off.
I reached behind me and grabbed the bottle of Coors light I had left on the high-top table
it was resting on. Beer normally was the answer to all of life’s problems, but the things that were
running around in my mind, the things keeping me up at night, no amount of beer could quiet. I
shifted my weight on my feet and watched as Jet sank almost every single one of his shots. I had
no idea how he managed to lean over the table and take the shots he did without his pants ripping
in half. It was a long running joke between the two of us that I kept telling him if he ever wanted
to have kids in the future he better buy some regular Levis. I felt bad for the guy’s balls.
I had known Jet for years and was used to his hard-rock style. It fit who he was. It fit his
personality. He rocked it on stage and off. It didn’t, however, fit in at the run down dive bar well
off the beaten path I’d dragged him to.. I was avoiding the bar closest to the tattoo shop because I
had no intention of running into my newest co-worker.
It was hard enough seeing her day in and day out at the shop. It was a struggle hour by
hour to keep the nine million questions I had from flying out of my mouth. I wanted to know
everything, wanted all the answers, but knew even if she had them it wouldn’t make up for the
fact she had let me down all those years ago. So I just remained quiet. I kept my trap shut and
went out of my way not to look at her, not to talk directly to her and I sure as shit made sure not
to be where I thought she might be outside of work. My avoidance tactics meant the watering
hole by the shop was currently off limits and so was the Bar, the rundown dive owned and
operated by a close friend. Those were the only two places that I frequented with my friends and
the rest of the gang from the tattoo shop so it made sense that those would be the places Salem
might pop up. Ergo, I dragged Jet’s ass to a place that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since
Colorado experienced the gold rush and where every pair of suspicious eyes were on us.
“It’s been a strange few weeks.”
Jet arched a black eyebrow at me and motioned for me to re-rack the balls.
“That have anything to do with the babe from Vegas?”
I felt my shoulders tighten involuntarily. “Maybe.”
I took my time getting the colored balls back in the triangle and when I was done, stood
and leaned on the table with my hands braced on the edge. My tattooed knuckles almost turned
white under the pressure. That was the thing with having a tight knit group of friends that
substituted as family. No one’s business was off limits and everyone wanted to stick their fingers
in the mess and try and help.
I narrowed my eyes at him slightly as he ordered us another round of beers from the
cocktail waitress that looked like she had been doing this since the womb. Haggard didn’t even
begin to cover her worn appearance and it annoyed me. If I wasn’t being such a nutcase we
could’ve been at the Bar where Dixie was the cocktail waitress. She was a doll. A redhead with
and easy going attitude and a bright smile. She was also down for spending quality time with me
naked and not expecting anything the next morning so that made the fact I was getting snarled at
by Betty even more aggravating.
I snapped at Jet, “What have you heard?”
He grinned at me in the way he had that let me know I was being a dumbass. I didn’t get
riled up easily. I never saw the point. Things always had a way of figuring themselves out and it
was the harder people worked at trying to change the outcome that really made everything a
clusterfuck. I firmly believed whatever was meant to happen would happen and there was no
way to control the outcome.
He tipped the waitress and took the beers and handed me one.
“Just that she is something else. I heard she can give Cora as good as she gets, that she’s
awesome with the customers, that she knows her shit when it comes to managing a tattoo shop
and that she’s not just a ten, she’s a ten times ten and that you’re avoiding her like she came from
a leper colony not Sin City.”
Cora Lewis was the business manager for The Marked, the tattoo shop I worked at. She
was tiny, mouthy and the real boss of all of us and next to Jet she was my closest friend in the
world. The fact that she had immediately taken to Salem, had brought her into the fold without
even stopping to ask me how I felt about it bugged me and also made me feel like the odd man
out. Everyone seemed to love Salem, couldn’t stop singing her praises and touting about what a
lifesaver she had been with the shop expanding into a new location. If you asked anyone else I
worked with she was the saving grace of The Marked.
I wanted her to go back to where she came from and to take all the memories, the feelings
that she had tied to her with her. I had worked long and hard to bury most of my pre-Colorado
life and I didn’t need a daily reminder that I had loved and lost both Cruz sisters.
“She’s beautiful. She always was.”
Salem Cruz had everything a modern day pin-up girl needed to have in order to be a
showstopper. There were the curves she had for days. There was miles of amazing, dark hair that
seemed endless and it had a brilliant shot of bright red in the front of it. She had eyes the color of
obsidian winged in black liner and a mouth painted in a perfect blood red pout. Every day she
looked like something out of a hot rod magazine. Her style was perfectly designed to be both
sassy and sexy in a way that made her almost impossible to ignore. Every day the little ruby,
Monroe-piercing she wore above her lip winked at me and every day I tried not to notice that her
tattooed arms were masterfully done and filled with artwork that I envied as a professional and as
an artist. I also tried really hard not to remember when she wrapped them around me when I was
young and scared all the time as she tried to make me feel better.
“You know her from way back when?”
Jet had no idea how loaded that question was.
“Yeah. I grew up next to her family in Texas. I spent a lot of time at her house when I
was just a kid.”
She had looked different then, far more conservative and traditional. Her hair was darker
then, but her eyes were still midnight black and mysterious. Her smile was the same and so was
the way I could feel my blood thicken when she walked past me or accidently brushed by me.
Back then I thought it was wrong. I thought it was terrifying and dangerous to react to a girl that
I knew wasn’t for me but now I knew Salem was irresistible and it was physically impossible not
to react to her.
“So what’s with the freeze out?”
Normally I was charming, affable and engaging with the opposite sex. I just had a way of
talking to them that let me get my way and left everybody happy at the end of the day. With
Salem I couldn’t do that. With her I couldn’t find words that weren’t accusation, blame and
downright hateful. I was mad at her for leaving and madder at her for suddenly showing back up.
“She left Loveless when I was fifteen. She packed a bag and took off in the middle of the
night with the town’s biggest weed dealer. Her parents were big in the church and her little sister
worshiped her so it was hard on everyone when she disappeared.” I sucked down a heavy
swallow of beer and sighed heavily. “It was really hard on me.”
I had loved Salem’s sister Poppy with every piece of my young soul. She was my one and
only, she was the center of my entire world. At least she had been until I followed her to college
and ultimately had her tell me we were never going to be a thing. Salem however, had been my
confidante, my confessor and maybe most importantly she had offered a lonely and unwanted
boy friendship and acceptance. She was my very best fr