Meant For You: Rocktown Ink, Book 3 Read online

  Meant For You

  Rocktown Ink, Book 3

  Sherilee Gray

  Copyright © 2019 by Sherilee Gray

  Cover Design: Cover Couture

  Editor: Andrea McKay

  Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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

  Meant For You - Sherilee Gray - 1st ed

  ISBN

  Kindle: 978-0-473-48503-0

  Epub: 978-0-473-48502-3

  Contents

  Also by Sherilee Gray

  About Meant For You

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Sherilee Gray

  Also by Sherilee Gray

  Rocktown Ink:

  Beg For You

  Sin For You

  Meant For you

  Knights of Hell:

  Knight’s Redemption

  Knight’s Salvation

  Demon’s Temptation

  Lawless Kings:

  Shattered King

  Broken Rebel

  Beautiful Killer

  Ruthless Protector

  Glorious Sinner

  Merciless King

  The Smith Brothers:

  Mountain Man

  Wild Man

  Boosted Hearts:

  Swerve

  Spin

  Slide

  Spark

  Axle Alley Vipers:

  Crashed

  Revved

  Wrecked

  Black Hills Pack:

  Lone Wolf’s Captive

  A Wolf’s Deception

  Stand Alone Novels:

  Breaking Him

  About Meant For You

  At twelve years old, I was torn from my family.

  At fourteen I met her: my reason to draw breath.

  One look into Everly Williams's big brown eyes and I knew I’d do anything to protect her. And for eight years I did. She was my world. My best friend.

  But afraid I'd lose her, I held on too tight. Became a dark cloud blocking her sun. So I did what I needed to, and walked away. I hurt us both.

  Now I’m home, and need Everly back in my life. Only everything is different. We’re different. My body burns for her when she’s near. And after one explosive kiss, I know she feels it too. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn her trust again.

  Because I don’t want what we had before. I want it all...for a lifetime.

  For RVL, the best grandad in the world.

  Miss you forever x

  Chapter One

  Dane

  I lifted my hand to the window frame and looked down at the street below.

  Everly.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she headed toward The Thirsty Mule, my cousin Bull’s bar, with the sun lighting up her auburn hair like wildfire. Her posse was with her—they were always with her—and no one was letting me get close. Not even my sister-in-law, Cassy.

  Nothing had changed. After eighteen months of not seeing or talking to her, one look at Everly and everything in my world felt right again.

  Well, almost right.

  She was smiling, but that was because up here in my apartment above Rocktown Ink—the tattoo shop owned by my brother, Cal, and my place of work again as of tomorrow—she couldn’t see me.

  Or run away from me.

  Grifter moved in, following my line of sight. “Wondered what had you sucking face with the window. Which one is she?”

  Grifter—also known as Riff, and in a previous life, Jessie Williams—was a member of the Ramblers MC, and in a short time he’d become family.

  When I started working at Bunker’s Tattoo and Piercing, the parlor owned by one of his club brothers in Black Stone, we’d discovered we had a lot in common. Grifter was twenty-four, the same age as me, had a fucked childhood—though his was a whole hell of a lot worse than mine—and we’d both been close to finishing our apprenticeships.

  Maybe we were just the same brand of fucked up. Whatever it was, we became tight.

  “The redhead,” I said, still watching her. Grifter and I had spent more than one messy night confessing our ugly truths after a bottle of whiskey or two, and he knew all about my girl.

  Leaving Rocktown had been hard, but Black Stone had been the right move for me after the shit I’d gotten into, almost getting sent to prison for assault, leaving Cal and Bull no choice but to bail me out of another fuckup.

  Yeah, walking away had been the right thing to do for all of us.

  But disappearing from Everly’s life had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. I’d stayed away from her because all I seemed to do was cause her pain, and in doing that, I’d lost her.

  I’d lost my best friend.

  Now she lived here, in my hometown, after striking up a friendship with Cassy and finally accepting a job on Cassy and Cal’s ranch.

  “Any of her friends single?” Riff asked.

  I shrugged. “The classy blond is Cal’s woman, Cassy. The woman beside her, dark hair, that’s Quinn. She’s Bull’s. And since Eves won’t look at me, let alone talk to me, I have no fucking clue who the brunette with the glasses is. And you know Trix.” The new tattooist Cal had hired six months ago.

  “The brunette it is,” Riff said, leaning closer to the glass. “Yeah, she looks all clean and shiny and new. Bet she smells good, too.”

  “Christ, the shit that comes out of your mouth.”

  Riff shrugged, eyes still locked on Everly’s friend—well, I assumed that’s who she was. Going by the way they were all laughing, it looked like they were close. I liked that. I wanted her to make new friends. I also wanted her to stop ignoring me before I lost my damn mind.

  “I’ve been through all the tail at the club, repeatedly,” Riff said. “I’m bored. I could do with shiny and new.”

  I knew this already. Grifter looked like he could be a Calvin Klein underwear model. The guy had the face of an angel. And yeah, I’d literally heard women say that shit to his face. But he was also ruthless, would do anything for his club, and was covered in ink from the neck down.

  “I don’t even have to talk to her to know that girl’s not the kind you fuck around with. She’s the kind you date exclusively, then put a ring on it.”

  Riff jerked back from the window and clutched his junk. “Dude, my balls just climbed up inside my body. No fucking ring talk around me and the boys.”

  Fucking nut. “I think it’s best you keep your boys away from that girl.”

  Riff shrugged. “So we going for a ride or what?”

  “Yeah.” I pulled myself away from the window, which wasn’t easy, and headed for the door. Riff had tried to convince me to prospect for the Ramblers, join his club, but it wa
sn’t something I was ever interested in. But the bikes? Yeah, I liked them a lot. My summer transportation was now a Harley Softail. That bike gave me a feeling of freedom like nothing else. Helped clear my head when shit got too much.

  And if all else failed, I got in the ring to work off some steam. The Ramblers had a gym, organized fights fairly regularly, and I’d discovered it was something I was good at and a way to work out my anger without ending up behind bars. Win-win for everyone.

  We walked through the shop, which was closed since Cal took Sundays off, and out onto the street. Eves was still outside the bar, and it took everything in me not to stride over there and try to get her to talk to me again.

  We needed to clear the air, move past this. She was working on Cal and Cassy’s ranch, for fuck’s sake, spending time with my nephew, Jack. Despite the fact that not talking to her felt like someone had sawn my arms off and was beating me round the head with them repeatedly, it was also making shit difficult.

  Riff swung his leg over his bike, and I did the same. The roar of both engines firing to life echoed off the storefronts. Everly’s head turned my way, and I noted instantly there was a Band-Aid just below her hairline. What the hell? Was she hurt? I scanned her face for bruises, but then her beautiful soft brown eyes finally hit mine and that was all I could see.

  I didn’t move, just stared back, fucking willing her to run to me, to throw her arms around my neck like she used to when we were living in the same foster home together, after I hadn’t seen her a whole day.

  Just one day would get me that kind of welcome.

  She’d told me once, while we lay in the dark of my bedroom, that she was always scared I wouldn’t come back. That I’d forget about her.

  My gut clenched uncomfortably.

  Knowing that, then disappearing on her anyway, had been the worst kind of betrayal to her. She didn’t give a fuck that my intentions had been good ones. I’d done the one thing I said I never would. And I was afraid she’d never forgive me for it.

  She quickly looked away again, shoving open the door of The Mule and disappearing inside.

  That sick feeling that hadn’t left me since shit went south between us eighteen months ago intensified. Yeah, I’d hurt her so much that after all this time, instead of a hug, I was getting the cold shoulder. Not surprising really. The last time she’d seen me I’d been on top of her date, trying to beat the life right out of him.

  I shook off that thought, fought down the rage that still tried to overtake me even after all this time when I thought of what could have happened to her that night, and pulled out onto the street.

  I had no destination in mind. I just wanted to chase that feeling of freedom, the desperate need to run from the look I’d seen on Everly’s face that night.

  A look that had haunted me ever since.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Riff, who was crashing at my place for a few days after helping me move home, had gone to The Mule for a drink and I was on my way to the ranch. Cal wanted me to “check in” before I started work tomorrow. My brother still had trouble trusting me. He looked at me like I was the same loose cannon who left town bruised and angry, a wake of destruction behind me.

  I didn’t blame him after the shit I’d caused my family.

  But being separated from them when I was just a kid, it messed me up. Yes, I’d talked to Bull and Cal regularly, and we’d eventually managed to see each other occasionally, but when I came back we’d struggled to find a new normal. I’d felt like a third wheel, and I’d acted like a fucking idiot. I’d been too afraid to let them in, that being home wouldn’t last—it wasn’t real. Afraid I’d lose them all over again.

  That wasn’t me anymore, though. I hoped not anyway. I didn’t want it to be, and I’d worked hard to try and put the past behind me, to be the man I needed to be.

  The only way Cal and Bull would believe it was by me walking the walk. Words didn’t mean jack shit at this point.

  I rode through Springhaven, the neighboring town thirty minutes out of Rocktown, with its cutesy, brightly colored storefronts and hanging flower baskets, and out the other side toward the ranch. It came into view a short time later with the sun setting behind it, streaks of orange and gold lighting up the sky, the mountains a breathtaking backdrop.

  I’d missed this place. I’d missed all of it.

  I took the winding driveway slowly, watching as the huge but still somehow rustic ranch house came into view. There was an impressive guesthouse behind it and a large barn in the field to the side. I assumed Everly was staying in the guesthouse, and the urge to bypass the main house and go looking for her was hard to squash, but I did, because that was what she wanted and I had to respect that, right?

  The old me would have said “fuck that shit,” gone to her, and wouldn’t have left until she talked to me.

  The new me…shit, who was I kidding? I still wanted to do that, but I wasn’t the same fuckwit with rocks in my damn head. That would only push her farther away. I’d wised up enough to know that much.

  I rolled to a stop, kicked down the stand, and swung my leg over my bike. The door opened before I’d taken a step, and Cassy was standing there with a huge welcoming smile on her face and Jack, my nephew, in her arms.

  “Come on in,” she said. “I’ve made your favorite.”

  She handed Jack to me as soon as I reached her. I took him kind of awkwardly, but the kid was insanely cute, and I wanted to get to know him. He was only six months old but a weighty little guy.

  “Feels like you’ve been feeding my nephew lasagna as well.”

  She laughed and I followed her inside. “He’s like his daddy—if it’s on his plate, he’ll eat it.”

  When we came through the entranceway, Cal was walking across the massive living room, carrying a couple of beers. Cassy took Jack back and Cal handed me one. “How does it feel to be home?”

  “Good. Like I never left…but yeah, completely different as well.”

  He kissed Cassy then Jack and clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said and headed out the back.

  I followed him through the kitchen.

  “We’ll sit on the porch.”

  They’d changed a lot of stuff in the house, the furniture for one. Thankfully gone was Cassy’s father’s uncomfortable, small, overpriced designer outdoor furniture. It’d been replaced by comfortable wicker with big-ass cushions.

  We sat and I took a sip of my beer. The view out the back was just as good as the one riding in: green fields, horses grazing, those mountains in the distance. The guesthouse was to the right, and I found myself looking over there, wondering if Everly was inside.

  “She’s staying in the ranch hands’ old quarters off the barn,” Cal said, reading my mind. “Didn’t like rattling around in the guesthouse on her own. Cassy offered her a room in with us, but she prefers it out there.” He took a sip of his beer. “You talked to her yet?”

  I shook my head and took another pull of my beer as well. “Still avoiding me.”

  Cal nodded like he expected it. “She’ll need time.”

  I sat back in my seat. “Yeah? Well, I’ve been gone eighteen fucking months. How much more time does she need?”

  My brother looked at me, as serious as I’d ever seen him, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.

  “It’s taken her that long to get over you cutting her out of your life…Now you expect her to just…welcome you back with open arms?”

  Fuck. The pauses in Cal’s speech told me just how strongly he felt about this. The TBI—traumatic brain injury—he sustained in a car wreck nearly twelve years ago still caused him trouble when he was worked up about something. “No, but it’s…Jesus, Cal, this is Everly.”

  I didn’t need to say more than that. He knew how important she’d been to me, how important she still was to me. How she and I had been everything to each other since the day we met. I’d been in the system, in that fucking house, on my own for two y
ears when Everly was delivered there like a lamb to the slaughter.

  She’d been a scared twelve-year-old kid. I’d been fourteen and determined to do everything in my limited power to protect her from the realities of our harsh existence.

  We’d been together three years before her aunt, an aunt no one knew about, came and took her away from me. I’d saved money, sent her a phone since her strict aunt wouldn’t get her one, and we’d called and texted each other every day until I fucked everything up.

  Cal took another pull of his beer and sat back as well. “Whatever you do…don’t go fucking shit up and scaring her away. Cassy loves the girl. Jack, too. And she’s amazing with the horses. Cassy couldn’t do without her now.”

  I had no answer to that. It was what Cal expected, me fucking shit up. We hadn’t spent a lot of time together since I left, and he still saw me as that same angry, impulsive idiot with constant black eyes and a chip on his shoulder.

  I took another sip of my drink. “What’d you want to talk about?”

  Cal shrugged. “Wanted a beer with my brother.” He rested his drink on his knee. “Bunker says you’re one of his best tattooists; was pissed off I wanted you back.”

  I chuckled. Bunker owned the club’s parlor and was one of the best tattooists I knew alongside Cal and Bull. “Did he? Surly old bastard never said that to me. Called me few other choice words, though.”

  Cal laughed. “Yeah, the review wasn’t all glowing.”