Read One You Never Leave Online
Authors: Lexy Timms
One You Never Leave
ONE You Never leave
Hades’ Spawn Motorcycle Club Series
Book 4
By
Lexy Timms
Copyright 2016 by Lexy Timms
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2015 by Lexy Timms
One You Can’t Forget
Book 1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B012HPAFQE
One That Got Away
Book 2
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014JT526E
One That Came Back
Book 3
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015NL3V4M
One You Never Leave
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http://lexytimms.wix.com/savingforever
From Bestselling Author, Lexy Timms, comes a motorcycle club romance that'll make you want to buy a Harley and fall in love all over again.
Emily Dougherty and Luke Wade were in love in high school, but circumstances conspired to keep them apart. Ten years later they meet again and find their connection is just as strong and more searingly hot than ever.
Events take a dangerous turn when Luke’s uncle, Mexican drug lord, Raymondo Icherra, shows up and stirs up trouble.
Emily’s pregnancy turns high risk with her fainting and having continuous high blood pressure. While Luke deals with a problem with his MC club Hades Spawn, Emily is kidnapped by persons unknown.
As Luke searches frantically for Emily he learns the truth about his past and his parent’s murder.
*This is book 4 in the Hades' Spawn Series*
One You Can't Forget
One That Got Away
One That Came Back
One You Never Leave
“
Luke
,” Emily called through the shop. She was louder than she liked, screaming because of the rock music playing in the shop. Emily sat at Luke’s desk, going through Luke’s books, trying to put some order in the chaotic accounting of her husband. Her aim was to prep for January’s tax filing because she knew that after the baby came in January, she’d have little precious time to get things like this done.
Luke didn’t answer and she squirmed in the seat. In her seventh month, getting up and down in any seat had become a major operation. She had no idea how she was going to handle the next two months, especially since they were during the holiday season. Already every movement seemed like a major exertion.
“Luke!” she called more loudly.
Luke appeared in the doorway that separated the shop from the office area of Central Valley Bike Repair
,
wiping his oily hands with a shop rag.
“Yeah, baby?” he said. “Are you okay?” His look of concern was so precious her irritation was forgotten, and she wanted to throw her arms around him right then. As always, she melted when she caught sight of him. His t-shirt accentuated his broad chest and muscled arms, and the sexy scruff he kept on his jaw and chin made her want to nuzzle his neck. Oh, the things that sandpapery scruff did to her when he kissed the back of her neck. Thinking about it, she couldn’t wait to get him home. But business first.
“I’m fine; your books are a disaster.”
He crossed into the office and to the desk, pulled out the chair, and swiftly kissed her. “That,” he said, “is why I married an accountant.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him as he leaned over her. He smelled of motor oil, aftershave, and sweat, three things she’d come to associate with him holding her tight and sweeping her into a haze of loving bliss. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Ulterior motives, I see,” she said.
“It doesn’t hurt that you’re the sexiest accountant ever,” he leaned over and breathed into her ear, and she was nearly a goner. Her traitorous body already pooled liquid heat between her legs.
She smacked both of his shoulders with her hands. “What did I say about distracting the accountant?”
“That no good would come of it,” he said and chuckled. “And I agree. It’s no good not cumming.”
“Impossible,” she muttered under her breath.
“Hey!” called Saks, sticking his head in the doorway. “Get a room, you two.”
“Go back to work,” growled Luke, staring steadily at Emily.
“Can’t. Work all done.”
Luke glanced at the clock and sighed. It was only two o’clock. Emily knew what he was thinking. Winter months were light with work. If it wasn’t for the bikes they stored for customers during the long Connecticut winters, Luke would have difficulty making payroll. When Luke was single, he didn’t care how his finances flowed. As long he paid his bills, he was good with the financially light winters. But now he had a wife and a baby on the way and, as Emily kept pointing out, every dollar counted.
Maybe she shouldn’t keep pointing that out.
“You know, Luke,” said Saks. “The offer’s still on the table. Lay me off and I can head to Florida until the spring. My dad’s got a condo down there. I could use a break from the snow.”
“The first flake hasn’t even flown yet,” mumbled Luke.
“Which makes the offer even more urgent. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of how these winters keep getting worse.”
Luke’s eyes flicked to Emily and then to Saks. Again, because she was getting to know him so well, she knew what the problem was. Luke didn’t want to leave the shop without coverage if something happened to her. Already the baby was bigger than he should be. The obstetrician gave them a list of things to watch for, and Luke kept an eagle eye on her, enough so that he refused to let her get a job of her own, at least for now.
Not that she didn’t love spending every minute she could with her gorgeous husband, but she wanted to contribute financially. The least she could do was help with straightening out Luke’s books. Already she found Luke overpaid on his federal taxes in the previous year, and she was working on the two years previous to that. At least the money she could recover would help. But she still had a bunch of work to do on those years, and it would take several months for the IRS to go over the amended returns and refund the over-payments.
“Well,” said Luke to Saks. “Go ahead and knock off for the day.”
“Lay-off?”
“I have to discuss that with the boss here,” said Luke, flashing a grin at Emily.
“Okay, I’ll give you two some
much needed
time alone.” He rolled his eyes as he took his Hades’ Spawn jacket from the pegs by the front door. When he opened it, a frigid blast of November air swept through the shop office. “Winter’s coming,” he growled, hiking the collar up around his neck, and the door shut behind him with a slam.
Luke returned his attentions to Emily. “Alone at last,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again. He was barely an inch from her lips when she spoke.
“Um, you, me and the store books. How romantic.”
He pulled back. “Ok, Em. Something’s got your attention. What is it?”
“Well, these property tax bills of yours. What is this bike here? I don’t remember seeing it.” She picked up a bill for a bike built in 1980.
Luke studied it a few moments, and Emily could see when the connection clicked.
“That was my first bike. You remember that one? The one I had in high school?”
“You still have it?”
“No. I sold it when I went into the navy.”
“Then why are you paying property taxes on it?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t know I was.”
“Luke Wade!” Emily scolded.
“Look, when I opened the shop I had an accountant who took care of these things. When she quit, I just decided to do things myself. It’s the computer age, after all, and the computer program she used was easy enough.”
Emily sighed. “And easy enough to repeat her mistakes. Luke, this isn’t just a matter of a few hundred misspent dollars. Peach Tree only gets you so far. If something happens with that bike, you’re liable.”
Luke leaned over again and gave her a kiss on the lips. “I trust you to figure it out and fix it, Em. You’ve been awesome with all this. How did I ever live without you?”
“Very poorly.” She picked at his thread-bare brown t-shirt and tsked. “I’m throwing this out.”
“Hey! No way! It’ll make a great shop rag!”
“You need some new shirts.”
He shrugged and then smiled. “Christmas is coming. You can stock me up on shirts then.”
“Oh, Luke,” she sighed. Raised in foster homes, Luke never had fabulous Christmases like she and her sister Angela did. The two Dougherty girls would whisper and giggle into the night, getting one stern warning after another from their father to go to sleep, until eventually exhausted, they would. Christmas morning they would fly down the stairs to the living room to find the Christmas tree sparkling with extra glitter strands and piles of boxes underneath. It was magical, the most perfect part of her childhood. This was truer for Emily than her younger sister. Growing up with a sense of disapproval from her parents, especially her father, every Christmas Emily felt there was one person out there, Santa, who cared about her unconditionally.
Of course Santa wasn’t real, but the spark of that magical time remained alive in her heart until she did find someone who did love her unconditionally.
She rested her head on Luke’s arm. “Let’s do this over weekend, or after,” she said. “I’m tired, and I just want to curl up in front of the TV with you tonight.”
* *
“
Wait
,” Luke said as he poked his head out the doorway and scanned the parking lot for ice that may have formed in the November cold.
“You’re being way too overprotective,” groused Emily. “I’m fine. I can walk on the blacktop.”
He pulled back, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and wound the crook of his arm around hers. Maybe he was overprotective, but there was no way he was going to let anything happen to her, or their baby. The warmth in his heart when he thought of her and his child spread through his body: Their baby; his family. For a kid who grew up without a family of his own, the idea of having a family gripped him in a way that nothing in his life did before. He hadn’t had the security of someone who loved and accepted him as he was. And now there was, or would be, two. He couldn’t put it in words how he felt, not precise ones anyway, but it was a feeling he treasured each day. When he woke up in the morning with Emily beside him, he couldn’t help but be in awe of his luck. When he fell asleep next to her, he looked forward to the next day.
It was a miracle, especially considering that it all could have gone differently. In his senior year of high school, he fell for the slim, blue-eyed blonde, the one with eyes so innocent you’d have thought she was an angel sent from heaven. And she was, at least to Luke; except, her parents hated him, his leather, his bike, and his admittedly wild ways. They forbade her to see him, but she didn’t listen. When an eighteen- wheeler forced them off the highway, sending them both sailing over the side of road, Luke suffered enough injuries that he couldn’t finish the school year. His disappointment over Emily not visiting was nothing compared to the crush to his heart when he found she went off to college without saying good-bye.
Ten years later, Luke found that Emily lived nearby and sent her a postcard. Lucky for him, she decided to find him, and they started up at the point where they’d left off. They loved each other, enough to weather her parents’ disapproval, the interference of an abusive ex-boyfriend, and the DEA taking over his life because of his club’s leadership in drug-dealing. It could have gone badly, and indeed seemed like it did, especially the last day of that mess when a rival biker gang forced a showdown at the Hades’ Spawn clubhouse at the back of the Luke’s property. Bullets flew that day, and he and Emily were lucky to have walked away with their lives.
It was a miracle, and he pulled her closer to him. He wasn’t going to lose her again.
Emily held onto his arm despite a little roll of her eyes, and came with him out of the shop. He locked the door and set the security codes as she held on, nuzzling the side of his neck. This distracted him enough that he was startled when he heard the crunch of a footstep on the sand that he had put out on slick spots.
Both he and Emily turned their heads at the same time. Luke frowned at the familiar figure that stood ten feet away from them.
The man in the beige raincoat glared at him.
“What do you want, Anglotti?” growled Luke.
“Luke,” said Emily softly.
“No,” snapped Luke. “This guy’s caused us enough trouble.” The memory of Luke’s apartment thrown into disarray by this man and his buddies flashed in Luke’s mind.
“I’m not here on official business,” said the detective.
“Emily,” said Luke, handing her the car keys, “go warm up the SUV for me.”
“Okay, Luke,” said Emily, biting her lip. She took the keys and trudged to the truck.
Luke crossed his arms. “So, what do you want?” he said stiffly.
“The last time your uncle’s men entered the country, we escorted them to the airport.”
“Yeah,” said Luke. “I know.”
“This time, they want a sit-down. My boss is taking it.”
An icy feeling spread through Luke. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It can only be about you, because we don’t want anything to do with Mexican drug dealers; just thought you should know.” Anglotti turned away, and then looked at Luke over his shoulder. “Merry Christmas,” he sneered.
Luke
glared at the asshole cop and watched him get into his car.
Like I don’t have enough on my plate!
He stomped over to his SUV and hopped in.
“That handsome face is too drawn and pinched,” Emily teased and then frowned. “Something wrong, baby?”
He put the truck in gear to back up. “Nothing,” he said flatly.
Emily put her hand on his arm. “Luke,” she said gently. “I know you better than that. What did Detective Anglotti want?”
“He wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas.”
Emily sighed. When Luke got this way, withdrawn and hard-headed, there was little she could do to change his mood. It annoyed her when he drew that mask of impenetrability up but she bit back the churlish answer she was ready to spit. It was Luke’s childhood that had drummed that protective facade into him. His foster home experience left him feeling like it was him against the world. Whatever Anglotti said to him must have stirred up those thoughts.
She understood this. The events of the past few months proved to Luke just how up against the world he was. Luke had two government agencies on his back, the president of his motorcycle club, Hades’ Spawn, and two gangs, the one-percenter motorcycle club, the Rojos, and their affiliated street gang, the Hombres. It was a miracle that they got out from under that mess with their lives.
There were still problems that came out of all of it. Because Luke’s parents had entered the country illegally, the only legal papers he had were the ones WITSEC gave him. He got those when his father entered the program to testify against his brother’s Mexican drug cartel. The DEA used the threat of deportation to push Luke into being their informant on Jack Kinney’s activities. Yet now that the operation was over, and Kinney and his cohorts sat in jail awaiting trial, the DEA seemed to have lost their motivation to help Luke. Except for the K-1 visa, which they got so Luke could stay to testify, they didn’t live up to their promise of securing proper legal papers for him. There were always delays, and more vague reassurances that everything would be all right once Luke testified. But who knew when those cases would get to court?