Beard Up Read online

  Text copyright ©2017 Lani Lynn Vale

  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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my mom. A lot of times, you don’t get the recognition that you deserve, so this one is for you. Love you.

  Acknowledgements

  Golden Czermak- This photo of Chase was perfect. You really have a gift.

  Chase Ketron- As always, I have no control when it comes to your photos.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Ghost [ghost] noun: the soul of a dead person, a disembodied, vague, shadowy spirit wandering among or haunting living persons; a mere shadow or semblance; a trace.

  That noun sums up Ghost and what his life has become with painful precision. He is barely living, merely existing but never thriving. There wasn’t much that could pull him from the darkness he willingly inhabits…except one thing. Her.

  She is the reason he’s done what he’s done, and his life has become what it has become.

  He haunts his former life, lurking in the background, surviving on occasional glimpses of the only thing good that is left in his miserable life. The horror he has inflicted upon her is nothing compared to the terror that waits for her when someone moves in to take her from him.

  The thing about being stuck in the past is that it is like walking through life backwards. She is always looking back, so she doesn’t see what is happening in front of her. Unfortunately for her, it turns out that the ghosts of the past aren’t nearly as terrifying as the monsters of the future.

  They say that true love is like a ghost, something that many talk about but few have seen. It’s a good thing for that, too, because he’ll need that element of surprise to protect her. Hopefully when the dust settles, he’ll be able to resurrect more than just himself.

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard (8-31-17)

  There’s No Crying in Baseball Series

  Pitch Please (9-8-17)

  The Hail Raisers Series

  Hail No (9-27-17)

  Author’s Note:

  I know everyone’s been curious as to who Ghost is. Well, here he is. I hope you love him.

  Oh, and don’t hate me too much for what you’re about to read.

  I’ve taken a few liberties here with the timeline. In reality, the couple might be a few years older than they appear in the story, but for the sake of forgiveness, I’ve shaved off a few years.

  Prologue

  Women are like bacon. They look good, smell good and taste even better. Unfortunately, each piece will slowly kill you.

  -Fact of Life

  Ghost

  Six years ago

  “Fucker’s deader than a doornail,” a man said, sounding almost disgusted.

  Someone snarled, and I tried to turn in the direction of the sound, but my limbs wouldn’t cooperate.

  “If you have nothing to add to this, you may leave,” a cool, calm voice practically purred. “Doctor?”

  “I have a pulse back, but I have had a pulse three times, and he’s coded in the back of the ambulance twice. He was pronounced clinically dead on scene, and then resuscitated himself on the way to the morgue. It’s very likely that his lungs are fried and nothing will help him. The respirator is breathing for him and keeping the blood circulating through his system via the machine. If I take him off, though, it’s highly probable that he will succumb to the injuries he’s sustained,” another voice, whom I assumed was the doctor, rushed out.

  “Keep him on it. Find him some lungs,” someone, the man who’d sounded deceptively calm earlier, ordered.

  “Sir,” the doctor interjected. “It’s not as simple as just finding him some lungs. Someone has to die before he can have his lungs.”

  “So make someone die,” the calm man replied, sounding so very practical that it was hard to listen to.

  “But sir,” the doctor objected.

  “I don’t care what you have to do, but if you want to continue breathing yourself, you’ll do it. You’ll make it happen, because I need him. I need him, or the whole operation that I’ve spent the last decade planning will be for naught. Do it or die. Simple as that,” the man ordered flatly.

  Silence followed that statement, and I realized that whomever that man had been referring to had left the room, and me.

  “This guy needs to die,” the man that had been reprimanded earlier said. “It’d be a favor to him if he did. His life will be terrible. No woman will ever want him again. Not when those scars heal.”

  “His life is already terrible, Kershaw,” the doctor said softly. “The boss guy won’t let him go, just like he won’t let the rest of us go. Plus, he’ll get reconstructive surgery, and the majority of these scars will be taken care of.”

  “No fucking shit. You should pull the plug. Give him a way out of this,” the first man identified as Kershaw said in o
bvious disgust.

  “You know I can’t. He’s got my family on his radar, just like he has yours and this guy’s,” the doctor said gruffly. “He’d have them, too, if they weren’t so protected.”

  Family? Did I have a family somewhere?

  “His brain is going to be fucked up after all of this. When I got him out of the morgue, he’d already gone fucking cold. There’s seriously no way that he’s going to come back as anything but a vegetable,” the voice of Kershaw said.

  The doctor grunted in reply.

  “At this point, he wouldn’t be able to remember how much he’s missing. Seems kinder than having to see your wife and kids every day. Watching them go on with their lives without you,” the doctor’s voice sounded choked.

  “Sorry man. Didn’t mean to bring it up,” Kershaw replied. “Fucking A, I hate this job. Fucking Hill. Fucking government project bullshit. I never signed up for this.”

  “None of us did,” the doctor explained. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  “All I know is that one day, the boss man’s going to get what’s coming to him, and when that day comes, I’m going to have a front row seat in a recliner with a bag of popcorn on my lap and a beer in my hand.”

  “When that day comes, Kershaw, we’ll all probably be dead,” the doctor countered.

  There was silence for so long that I thought they were gone, but then Kershaw said two more words, and it was those words that would haunt me for the next two years.

  “Or free.”

  ***

  Six months later

  “You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t slow down.”

  I looked over at the doctor, Dr. Monroe Ruben, and grimaced.

  “This is the only way I’m getting out of here,” I countered. “If I can’t fucking work out, I can’t fucking fight my way out of this hellhole.”

  Dr. Ruben didn’t bother to correct me.

  “I like your determination,” he informed me. “But, if you’re not careful, you’re going to end up hurting yourself worse than when you started.”

  I gave him a blank look.

  There was no way that I could look that bad. I’d seen the pictures. I saw the hideous burns on my body. I saw the way I’d looked—which, might I add, wasn’t pretty.

  One man had called me the melted man. There had been burns on my face, neck, hands and forearms. All of which, including my face, had been reconstructed.

  No longer was I the man that I was before—and I knew the man that I used to be.

  I knew that I wasn’t ever going to look the same, and if I was being honest, that was likely a good thing. The old me was dead. The old me, the one that had a wife and kid, was gone. He would never be a threat to that family again.

  Why?

  Because I made a deal with the devil.

  ***

  Another six months later

  I stared at the man through my scope.

  I couldn’t do it. I really couldn’t do it.

  There was no way in hell that I could do it. This man had been like a second father to me. He’d been my backbone for three years. He’d taken care of my wife and child for the last year while I’d been recovering.

  While I’d been dead.

  I dropped my head to the ground, uncaring that there was a large rock denting my forehead.

  “No. No, no, no, no, no,” I swallowed the bile threatening to make its way back up my throat.

  I lifted my head and stared through the scope one last time.

  One last final time, then pulled the trigger.

  The man jumped, then fell.

  But then he got back up and didn’t stop running until he was out of my range.

  “You’re dead.”

  The gun at the back of my neck felt cold, but I knew that it would be okay.

  The man I’d missed just moments before would continue to watch over my wife and child.

  I closed my eyes and made my peace with the man above.

  Then waited for the shot.

  It didn’t take long.

  In fact, it happened so fast that I’d barely finished saying ‘amen’ inside my head when the gunshot sounded.

  But no pain was forthcoming.

  I opened my eyes and stared at the dirt beneath my face. There was gravel and a small amount of glass mixed there.

  “Get up,” a man’s voice ordered, the tone hinting to me that the man at my back was more than willing to blow my head to pieces if I didn’t step very carefully.

  I stood up, being certain not to make any sudden movements, and turned to study the man at my back.

  It was only when he lifted the light to shine it in my eyes that I got a glimpse of the face, and realized who he was.

  Stone. He was the president of the Dixie Wardens MC Alabama chapter. A man I’d met multiple times throughout the years, and a man I’d once called friend.

  He didn’t look so friendly now with that gun aimed directly at my face.

  “Let me see your hands,” he ordered, his voice low and menacing.

  I showed him my hands.

  Secretly, I wished he’d kill me. I wanted him to pull that trigger. To take me out and make this constant pain I felt in my heart go away.

  But I knew he wouldn’t, not as long as I didn’t react or do anything stupid.

  And I wouldn’t. With that little piece of shit, who’d been my babysitter anytime I was out of my room for the last year, now dead, there was no one keeping me in line anymore. No one to tattle to Daddy that I wasn’t following his orders.

  That, and I wouldn’t do it to Stone. Once in the brotherhood, I was always going to be in the brotherhood, and that meant I wasn’t going to do a damn thing to hurt any one of them. Not to this man. And especially, not to him. Not to anyone.

  “Turn around and lean your hands against that tree. Don’t fuck around, or I’ll be forced to do something I don’t want to do.”

  I did as instructed, placing my hands on the tree, pushing harder than was necessary to give me a little bite of pain. A bite of pain that I needed to keep me present in the here and now.

  My eyes went down to the ground where my babysitter now lay, a puddle of every-growing blood spreading out underneath his blown apart head. And smiled.

  Stone methodically searched me, double checking that I had nothing on my person that could be used to hurt him or myself, and then ordered me to start walking in the direction of where I had aimed the shot just moments before.

  The closer I got to the man who I’d nearly killed, the more fear I started to feel.

  Would the man I’d nearly shot recognize me? Would he know who I was? What would he say if he did?

  I walked stiffly to the tiny cabin where I’d tracked him down, thinking that I should’ve paid more attention to the fact that he was meeting people out here rather than assuming he was alone.

  “Who sent you here? I know you could have made that shot and the fact that knocking him to the ground was all you accomplished is the only reason you are still breathing,” the older man hissed.

  He sounded pissed.

  I couldn’t blame him.

  “Someone is holding my family’s life over my head. Said he’d stop hunting them if I followed the rules,” I took a deep breath. “I was kidding myself. I knew that he wasn’t going to honor that. I just had to wait, had to play his game. Otherwise he would’ve sent someone else after h-h-him.”

  Fuck the letter H. Goddammit.

  My teeth were chattering. Fuck, it was cold.

  I hated when I couldn’t control it.

  It wasn’t something that happened very often. Not anymore, anyway.

  But, it always got worse when I wasn’t in control of myself.

  And with Stone’s gun to the back of my head, I definitely did not feel in control.

  “Move slower. I don’t want to run to keep up with you,” he growled from behind me. “You even
think about escaping, you’ll wind up with a bullet in one of your kidneys.”

  I automatically slowed my pace, letting Stone catch up to me.

  “Good boy.”

  I gritted my teeth, stepped over a log and came to a sudden, bone-rattling halt when I saw the man standing in front of us.

  It was him.

  Face to face with the man that’d nearly gone down from a bullet from my own gun.

  He studied me for so long that I thought for sure that he’d recognized me, but his next words proved that he didn’t.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” he growled.

  I looked the man straight in the eye and opened my mouth to speak.

  I wasn’t too worried that he would recognize my voice. Not only had my face changed over the last year, but my voice had, too.

  Plastic surgery couldn’t fix damaged vocal cords.

  “I’m…,” I hesitated. I couldn’t give him my real name. Then he’d surely recognize me. My name wasn’t a common one, and there was likely only a handful of fucking men in the entire world that shared it with me. “I’m T-im.”

  I stuttered over the words, not because of my problem, but because I nearly told him my name.

  So stupid.

  His brows furrowed. “What did I ever do to you to deserve being shot at?”

  Nothing at all. You’ve changed my life.

  “My father decided that you needed to die.” Once I made the decision to tell him why I was there, I let it all hang out. I told him everything that he would ever need to know about my father, and even some things he didn’t need to know.

  “And who exactly is your father?” he challenged me.

  Here’s where I fucked up.

  I’d never, not once, spoken about my father or the fact that the whole reason I joined the brotherhood was because of him and my shitty family. What I should’ve realized, though, was that this man was a fucking magician. If he wanted to know something, he’d do whatever it took to get it, and there wasn’t anywhere in this world a person could hide from him if he wanted something from them.

  And this was one of those times. I shouldn’t have told him the truth. Shouldn’t have told him my father’s name, because the moment that I did, his eyes zeroed in on mine.