Right To My Wrong (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 8) Read online

  Text copyright ©2016 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

  These are always so hard for me to write. Everyone I love knows this wouldn’t be possible without them. My husband. My kids. My mom. My sister. My mother in law. Everyone that is always there for me…you mean the world to me. <3 y’all!

  Acknowledgements

  FuriousFotog- AKA Golden. You keep taking these beautiful photos, and I’ll keep buying them.

  Chase Ketron- The same goes for you. Before long I’m going to have a library with you on the majority of the covers.

  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 (3-3-16)

  Jack & Coke (5-6-16)

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised (4-6-16)

  Prologue

  It’s said that birthmarks are where you were killed in your previous life. Apparently I was killed by someone stabbing me in my boob. What a bitch way to die!

  -Ruthie’s secret thoughts

  Ruthie

  “So, what’s your story?” The man at my side asked me.

  I looked up from peeling the label off my beer and stared at him.

  He was so beautiful, but everything I would never go for again.

  Muscular.

  Military.

  An Alpha.

  Those three things combined made for a man who always felt he knew the right way.

  “What do you mean, what’s my story?” I muttered, looking back towards my label.

  “Where’d you grow up?” He was a persistent bastard.

  “Typical shit upbringing. My dad left my mom. My mom felt the benefits of having me were outweighed by the negatives of having me, so she gave me up for adoption. I never found anyone to take me in, so I spent twelve years in the foster system. When I turned eighteen, I was kicked out on the street, and I did the only thing I could, found a man that could support me. But he also liked to beat me. After a year of that, I killed him,” I said softly.

  If knowing that fact was going to scare him off, I wanted to get it over with before I made a friend out of him. I wasn’t a fan of false niceties. I was a rip the band aid off kind of girl.

  “Sawyer said you just got out,” the man continued.

  I sighed and finally looked at him.

  He was handsome.

  So handsome that it was making me tongue tied. I wasn’t hot like most of the other women in the room. I was decent looking, but I wasn’t in his league.

  Which was why I was looking at the label of my beer the majority of the time instead of at his face.

  He’d been sitting beside me ever since I’d sat down, and I couldn’t figure out why.

  In fact, he was downright gorgeous. Everything that made him wrong.

  And the beard just made it even worse.

  I couldn’t resist a beard.

  Never could…and never would.

  Tall with muscular arms. Wide shoulders. Deep green eyes and a messy mop of dirty blonde hair tumbling over his eyes, he was every woman’s dream.

  His beard was one of those that was grown out of necessity instead of style, the kind where you were out in the desert and not near a razor kind of beard.

  Which was conducive with the party we were having in honor of him coming home from his deployment in Afghanistan.

  “Do you want me to leave you alone, because I’m sensing that from you,” the man said.

  I sighed and looked at him, caught by those beautiful green eyes.

  “Sterling, I’m one fucked up mess,” I finally said.

  He grinned. “Well that makes two of us. I’m a fucked up mess molded into a ball of denial. Trust me. My fucked up mess could easily compete with your fucked up mess.”

  I laughed.

  If only that were true.

  Chapter 1

  Sometimes people are too chatty in the morning. And according to the Coffee Gods, it’s okay to kill those people. Slowly.

  -Ruthie’s secret thoughts

  Ruthie

  “Shit, fuck, shit fucking hell,” I growled as I ran from my car to the convenience store where I worked.

  The convenience store was one of three in the city of Benton, Louisiana, and I happened to work at the one in the harsher side of town.

  But I liked it.

  My boss gave me the hours I wanted.

  I could go to school, and I could still work at my other job at Halligans and Handcuffs, seeing as it was the job that made me the most money.

  Sterling and his two brothers, foster care brothers not club member brothers, came in every three days before they worked out.

  Each would grab an energy drink. A Monster for Sterling, and Nos for his two brothers, and two Gatorade’s a piece. Only ever in the red. No blue, orange, or yellow for those guys.

  Then they’d take turns paying.

  I’d gathered over the last half a year that the middle brother was a baseball player, and the other two supported him during workouts and practice.

  Or, at least, when Sterling was here, he did.

  He’d been deployed about five months ago, and had just returned two weeks ago.

  And I’d missed my time to see him if I didn’t hurry!

  Shit!

  I stepped in a puddle of water, saturating my pants leg all the way up to my knee.

  “Dammit,” I growled, hitching my bag over my shoulder once more and walking quickly.

  I didn’t run, though.

  Not once I hit the slick black top near the pumps.

  It always seemed to gather oil and the likes, and when it rained, it became like a slip and slide.

  I’d seen no less than fifteen people bust their asses over the last six months that I’d worked there.

  I’d told my boss that it was a hazard and that one day someone would sue, but all he could say to that was, ‘Let them. Then they can have this place and I wouldn’t have to deal with my mother in law anymore.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief when my feet hit the sidewalk that would lead me inside the store, and shivered violently when a bolt of lightning came down out of the sky and seemed to practically touch the tip of a six foot pole that was just to the left of whe
re I’d parked my car.

  “Holy hell,” I said in awe.

  I’d always been interested in meteorology. I was just not smart enough to go that route when I had the chance.

  At thirty two, I was well on the way to middle aged, and there just wasn’t time to go anywhere in life anymore.

  “You’re late!” My boss, Dane, growled at my side.

  I gasped and jumped, covering my face in reflex.

  Not because I thought he’d hit me, but because it was simply just a reaction.

  Something that’d been ingrained in me since I was a young kid living in a foster home full of kids that liked to beat you up for the hell of it.

  Dane didn’t take offense to my maneuverings, only nodded at me, staying where he was so he wouldn’t scare me anymore than he already had.

  “Hey,” I said. “My car’s a bitch in the rain.”

  Dane smiled. “You should get a new one. You can afford it now.”

  I could. But I didn’t want to waste my hard earned money that I was saving to buy a house on a car. That wouldn’t be practical.

  I mean, I already had a car that worked. What was the point in getting something new?

  “I know, I know. You’ve been telling me that every day for a month. I just don’t want to get a new car,” I said. “I’m saving up for a house.”

  In reality, I was saving up for a house that I could pay outright, seeing as everyone in this stupid town thought that I wasn’t good enough to be here.

  Apparently, they looked upon a convicted killer with vehemence.

  My husband, Bender, had been a real asshole.

  He liked to beat me when he drank.

  Beat me when he didn’t drink.

  Beat me when he was mad.

  Beat me when I looked at him funny.

  Beat me when I forgot to wash his uniform.

  If you could think it up, Bender beat me for it.

  He literally hated everything about me.

  But he’d knocked me up when I was eighteen, and his parents had made him ‘do the right thing.’

  And he’d hated that.

  He wanted to marry another woman. Had had his sights on Lily Brianne, my best friend since I was twelve.

  I hadn’t known that, though.

  Lily and I had gone through a lot together.

  We’d been in the same foster home until we were eighteen and kicked out since our foster mother was no longer under any obligations to allow us to stay there. Plus, she wasn’t getting any more money for us, so what was the point?

  I stowed my things in the locker, and headed to the front counter and thought about Lily and me.

  Lily and I had moved into a women’s shelter in Monroe, Louisiana the same night we landed in Monroe.

  We’d started working shortly after that, and then we shared a one bedroom apartment.

  Then we started going to school, where we met Bender.

  Well, we’d met Bender before, of course. We’d all gone to the same high school. Bender had qualified for a full scholarship at the same college we had randomly picked to attend.

  Yet, we were in such different social circles that we never got a second look from Bender and his peers

  Or so we thought.

  Lily obviously got a lot more attention from Bender than I did.

  Bender got a lot more attention from me rather than Lily, who had her sights set on another man at our college. Bender’s best friend.

  And Bender hated that. Absolutely hated it.

  So he moved to little old me in hopes that he’d catch the attention of Lily.

  I, of course, didn’t know that at the time.

  I was too busy being on top of the world that the man that I was half in love with was giving me the time of day.

  Too young and eager to please, I slept with him on the first date.

  He left once he realized that the tactic wasn’t going to work with Lily.

  He never spoke to me again until six weeks later when I told him that I was pregnant.

  I still wasn’t sure how his parents had found out.

  Whatever the reason, I’d been done with him because I wasn’t into trapping men.

  But I had had a difficult pregnancy at the beginning.

  Medical bills started piling up.

  And then Bender’s parents got involved, forcing us to marry.

  The bell above the door rang, and I looked up, smiling at the man that came through the door.

  “If it isn’t Mr. Baseball!” I crowed.

  Sterling flipped me off.

  “You’ve got the wrong guy; that dumbass is behind me,” he said. “I’m just helping him look the part.”

  “I take offense to that, you big dick muncher,” a voice said from just behind Sterling.

  I stood on my tip toes to see his two brothers following close behind him.

  Cormac was the ‘baseball’ player.

  He was about a month away from starting his final season of baseball at ULM.

  The University of Louisiana of Monroe was lucky to have him, from what I’d heard.

  He was older than all the other players, at twenty five, having not started attending college until he was twenty one.

  Cormac was six foot of lean muscle and sinew with black hair and a quick smile.

  Their other brother, Garrison, was the same age as Cormac.

  Although that’s about where the similarities ended.

  Garrison wasn’t what I would call ‘cute.’

  He was too mean looking to be called cute.

  He had a perpetual scowl on his face that rarely could be seen through his bushy beard.

  He was in shape, though.

  Very good shape.

  He’d have to be to keep up with the other two.

  He was currently a high school science teacher and baseball coach for Shreveport High School, and probably the most feared man in the school.

  I would’ve shit myself had I been sent to the office to have to deal with him.

  But he really was loved.

  He was a sweet man, from what little I’d spoken to him at Halligans and Handcuffs and here.

  But my heart belonged to the man that came up to the counter to talk to me instead of grabbing his drinks.

  “How ya been?” He asked.

  I smiled at what I now counted as one of my best friends in the world.

  “My car doesn’t like the rain. I think I need new tires or something. They wouldn’t grip the pavement for nothing,” I said, shaking my head and reaching behind the counter for a package of sunflower seeds I kept back there especially for him.

  Dane didn’t like selling sunflower seeds.

  I didn’t know why, and I didn’t ask.

  But I bought them at the Sam’s store and brought them up here every day for him.

  He smiled and shoved the package into his front pocket.

  My eyes followed the movement, mouthwatering as I watched the front of his elastic shorts dip down, exposing the taut side of his stomach before disappearing once again as his hand came out of his pocket.

  “Wanna play a game of baseball with us this evening?” He asked.

  He asked me every time.

  And every time I told him no.

  Not because I wasn’t good at baseball, but because I was. Well, softball, anyway.

  It brought back memories that hurt.

  Memories of Lily and me when we were happy.

  Before anything Bender related ever happened to us.

  “What will you give me if I play?” I asked, surprising not just myself, but him as well.

  “A ride?” He answered helpfully.

  I laughed. “Why do you do all these baseball games, anyway?”

  “Because it’s easier to see where Cormac is and keep him ready for anything,” he explained.

  I wanted to roll my eyes.

  “What you guys do isn’t w
hat I would call a game. It’s a bunch of guys drinking beer, while the women watch from the sidelines cheering their men on,” I challenged.

  He grinned, and his eyes glowed with happiness.

  If times were different…if life was different…Sterling and I might have been able to pursue what I could feel between us.

  But times weren’t different, and my life wasn’t all shits and giggles like Sterling needed.

  I had demons.

  I had so many demons that it was a wonder I functioned at all.

  And Sterling deserved a woman that would stand by his side, make him proud to have his arm around her.

  And I wasn’t that woman.

  So I made a promise to myself, while staring at that smile. A promise that I wouldn’t drag Sterling down with me.

  He wouldn’t get caught up in me and everything that floated around me like a hurricane ready to destroy anyone that entered my proximity.

  “Regardless of what it is, I want you to come. I know you used to play. And we could use some new blood,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

  I blinked as I watched him throw a twenty on the counter as all three men walked out only moments later, bickering about someone having the ‘hots’ for a woman that was way too straight laced to ever date him.

  I had a feeling they were speaking about me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Sterling didn’t deserve to have to deal with my crap.

  Not even a little bit.

  “Now that you’ve had your fun, how about you get your shit together and go clean the bathroom,” Dane ordered.

  I smiled at Dane.

  He was a great boss.

  He knew I had a secret crush on Sterling.

  Knew it and loved to tease me about it.

  “What’s wrong with Allison doing it like she usually does?” I asked, walking around the counter to grab the mop bucket out of the storage closet.

  “Allison called in sick because she thinks she has the flu,” he said. “So it’s just you and me this week, chicka.”

  Yay!

  Not.

  That would suck.

  If it was just me and him, that’d mean that I would be needed for more hours, which would hack in to my nap time.

  “Just don’t expect me to work tonight or tomorrow night. Or Friday night. I have plans tonight, and the bar the other two nights,” I told him.