Read Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III Online
Authors: A.J. Downey
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Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III
A novel of The Kraken MC
CHARITY FOR NOTHING
The Virtues Book III
AJ Downey
Second Circle Press
Table of Contents
Charity is home free: her degree under her belt and making a beeline straight for sunny Ft. Royal, and her sisters, Hope and Faith. Excited to see them, yet having been warned by Hope to watch herself when it came to the disarmingly charming ways of The Kraken, Charity never expected to walk right into the one man to flip all of her switches to the ‘on’ position before she’d even taken a dozen steps into town.
Nothing was everything she liked. Tall, handsome, with a pair of eyes that any woman should swoon over. Just the right mix of tortured bad boy to pique all of her healer’s instincts. Charity knew that the men of The Kraken played for keeps; all except, it seemed, for this one. Too bad no one told The Kraken that she played for keeps, too.
Author’s Note
Being a spin-off, the events of this trilogy take place
after
the events of Damaged & Dangerous, The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI. If you have not read the SHMC series, references and events that are talked about in this book may not make sense to you. I highly suggest reading the SHMC series first, followed by Cutter’s Hope, the first book in this trilogy.
Dedication
To all the paramedics who put in long hours to soothe our pain while empathizing and feeling it right along with us. You guys are over worked, under paid, and just frickin’ amazing.
The Virtues Books In Order
1. Cutter’s Hope
2. Marlin’s Faith
3. Charity for Nothing
Chapter 1
Charity
It was hot, the sun beating down, and a wonderful change from the snowmageddon I’d just survived through up north. We were passing spring and heading into summer back up north where my university was located, but when I’d left, there were still patches of snow on the ground up under trees, combined with piles of dirty, melting snow in other places. Mother Earth was one pissed
off
mother and she was letting us know all about it, but according to most politicians, global warming wasn’t a thing; go figure.
I was driving my white Jeep Wrangler, rag top rolled and strapped down, little trailer with all my worldly possessions bouncing along behind me, looking for this marina Hope had told me to find. She said I could park there and that they’d be right next to it on the beach.
Somehow, I expected this town to be bigger. I mean it was sunny Florida, and the rest of the state, from what I’d seen driving through, was as over developed as hell. Somehow, though, they’d missed this town. That or the people here still managed to hold their own somehow. I don’t think there was a single building over three stories tall; it was great.
The main drag was a two way boulevard that ran along the water. It had decorative median strips down the center of it with old fashioned looking iron lamp posts. Strong, which I would guess you would need with hurricanes and the like. Speaking of which, there was supposed to be one building way off the coast, but a lot of these people were moving around unconcerned. I guess that was how things rolled around here.
Like so many things, once you got used to it, you just rolled with it… became complacent… like I had with the thought of never seeing Faith again. I felt a stab of some serious guilt over the fact that on the inside, I’d given up on my sister. Guilt that was seriously compounded by the fact that I hadn’t skipped out on finishing up my degree and gotten my ass down here much sooner. Hope would have killed me, but I think what hurt more was Faith hadn’t
wanted
me to come see her… at least not right away.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know what she was going through. As a part of my schooling, I’d been in an advanced work study program. I’d gotten my advanced nursing degree with a specialization in emergency medicine. That’d meant spending some time in the university hospital’s emergency department over the last year. Technically it was post graduate work, but I’d still needed it to earn my degree, which sat in a glass frame, carefully bubble wrapped and just behind the locked doors of the trailer. It was going to be one of the first things to be unloaded so that I could celebrate my accomplishments with my sisters. I was so fucking excited to see them, I was going to die.
“
Your destination is on your left,”
blared out of my speakers, over the music; some Ashes & Embers. Faith had said they were her new favorite, so I’d downloaded everything and listened to them on the way down. It didn’t hurt that they were all long haired, tattooed, and seriously built hot guys that were like
hello!
Instant lust. The lead singer sang oh-so-pretty, too.
“
Your destination is on your left. Arrived, 3221, Beachfront Boulevard, Fort Royal, Florida. Arrived
!”
“Thank you! I get it, you can totally shut up now.” I cried at the GPS and rolled to a stop to let some girls in bikinis and boys in their board shorts cross the street in front of me. I hit my signal and waited with some serious impatience, bouncing in my seat, ready to scream at them to get their ass across already. I wanted to see my sisters damn it! I’d been good, I’d gotten through school, did everything I needed to do to set myself up for success and have prospects at a real fuckin’ job when I got down here and now I just wanted to see my sisters, be a family, and set up shop.
It was time to have a life, a
real one
, again. A life that involved my family, helping people, and maybe meeting a guy or two. I was pretty sure I had a fling or two left in me, and according to Hope these bikers she and Faith were hooked up with were
hooooooot.
I’d told them to save one for me and Hope had laughed and had given me the 4-1-1 that if I were going to do the whole fling thing, that I’d want to stick with some of the beach body tourist boys. The men of The Kraken supposedly liked to play for keeps.
I whipped the Jeep into a left turn across the lane coming in my direction once it was clear of both pedestrians and traffic, and felt excitement bubble up in my chest. Hope had told me to park in one of the spots reserved for trucks and their boat trailers and to come down to the beach on the other side of the boat ramp. I pulled forward into one of the double long spots next to a big Ford pickup and killed the engine. A couple of decent looking, rugged guys were strapping a speed boat onto a trailer and they obviously checked me out as I refreshed my lip gloss in my rearview mirror.
I grabbed my purse and other items I didn’t want stolen and locked them in the back of the trailer, leaving my Jeep empty. Not like I had anything to stop anyone with the hard top upside down in the back of the trailer with all my boxes of shit piled in it. Taking the time to roll the rag top back up wasn’t going to really be any kind of deterrent against a box knife or anyone smart enough to operate some snaps and a zipper. I’d been equal parts prepared with weather reports and graced with good luck for the drive down. I’d had to keep the rag top on to cut the wind when I’d first started out, but I didn’t regret my decision to leave the top off at the first chance I got for the rest of the trip. It was gorgeous down here, and I was a west coast California sun worshiping girl at the end of any day that ends in ‘Y’. With the palm trees and sun, this almost felt like home… the difference? Holy god, the humidity!
I locked up the trailer, slung my beach bag over my shoulder, checked my hair one last time in my passenger side mirror before turning it and the driver’s one in to keep them from getting busted off, and with nothing possibly left to do to stall from my sudden case of nerves, I headed for the beach. I walked across the blacktop, flip flops flapping, my heart in my throat, scared of what I might find in Faith. She was different, distant, and I was scared the sister that I remembered wasn’t ever going to be the same again.
My steps slowed and I stood in the parking lot for a minute, the slight breeze ghosting over my skin, hot still, and I almost cried. It’d hurt so much that they’d wanted me to stay up north through all of it. That I wasn’t wanted to come down and help, that it’d taken this long for me to get here, but at the same time I knew it was because they loved me and wanted me to finish school, which I’d done with full and the highest honors, because I was an overachiever and that’s just how I rolled.
Once I set my mind to something, I did it and damn the consequences for the most part. It had gotten me in very little trouble, surprisingly enough, but then again, I was pretty good about making all the right choices. I’d learned from my mother’s mistakes, and from my sister Hope’s achievements. I’d never quite understood why my sister Faith felt the need to test Hope on everything, but then I realized, when it came to my closest sister, her heart beat wild and free, that she’d been at an honest loss as to what to do with herself and instead of helping… we just made it worse; me included by enabling her inertia.
I stopped to take one last minute to myself to get my shit together, and I made up my mind then and there, that I couldn’t change the past, none of us could, so I might as well make a future that all three of us could be happy in. If that meant burying my butt-hurt over being left out of the gnarly shit, then that’s what I would do. Resentment couldn’t live here. I liked my heart light, wild, and as free as the ribcage it resided in would allow.