And that brought her to Thea and Dimitri. The two were so new in their relationship, but like Mace and Adrienne, they had been friends first. Now, they were getting married and blending their lives. And, in the best news yet of the day, Thea was officially breaking ground on her expansion at the bakery. The loan had come through, and soon, the next phase of her life would start.
Roxie’s family had some serious talent, and she knew they were blessed. Yes, they’d hurt some over the years, had each gone through their own issues, but in the end, Roxie figured they’d all come out stronger.
She also knew that her family wasn’t the only ones who had gone through things like that. She couldn’t help but think of Liam and the issues he was dealing with, but she pushed that from her mind, knowing there was nothing she could do except be there for her cousin.
If he let her.
Roxie reached out and squeezed her husband’s hand, and he kissed her temple as he kept his conversation with Landon going. Their friend had brought Kaylee with him, the couple no longer hiding their relationship. Not that they’d actually hidden it from anyone but each other before, but that was their story to tell. One she knew Kaylee would tell her. One day.
Abby and Ryan sat next to the other couple, laughing at something Roxie’s father had said. Every once in a while, Julia would come up to Ryan and hand him something before going back to play with the other kids.
The two were growing closer, their relationship blooming before the family’s eyes, and Roxie couldn’t be happier.
Roxie leaned into her husband, looking down at her wedding rings that she’d slid back on after he kissed her in their home, knowing she was blessed. They were blessed. They’d gone through hell to get here, but they’d made it out.
The paperwork had been destroyed, thankfully, and she and Carter were living their forever. Though there was one set of paperwork they would be filing soon. Her name would no longer be hyphenated. Instead, she would just be a Marshall.
A Montgomery by birth and by blood.
But a Marshall by choice and love.
And that was exactly what she needed. Because in her heart, Roxie knew that she and Carter would always be Montgomerys.
Because in the end, you never escaped being a Montgomery.
Not even when you thought you should try.
* * *
THE END
A Note from Carrie Ann
Thank you so much for reading JAGGED INK. I do hope if you liked this story, that you would please leave a review! Reviews help authors and readers.
I’m so honored that you read this book and love the Montgomerys as much as I do. This book wasn’t easy. It was far different than anything else I’ve ever written. Roxie and Carter had issues. I know this, but their romance was REAL to me and it played out how marriages sometimes turn out. Finding love when you think you don’t deserve it isn’t easy and I’m so happy this book came out the way it did.
And in case you missed it, you can find their brother Shep’s romance in INK INSPIRED. Mace and Adrienne were in FALLEN INK, Dimitri and Thea in RESTLESS INK, and Abby and Ryan in ASHES TO INK. Up next is INK BY NUMBERS, a fun and steamy novella with Landon and Kaylee.
And then I move up to Boulder to visit with Liam Montgomery and his siblings in the Montgomery Ink: Boulder series. Liam is up first in WRAPPED IN INK. And just wait, there are some SHOCKING things coming up that Liam isn’t ready for.
And if you’re new to my books, you can start anywhere within the world and catch up! Each book is a stand alone, so jump around!
* * *
Don’t miss out on the Montgomery Ink World!
Montgomery Ink (The Denver Montgomerys)
Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs (The Colorado Springs Montgomery Cousins)
Montgomery Ink: Boulder (The Boulder Montgomery Cousins)
Gallagher Brothers (Jake’s Brothers from Ink Enduring)
Whiskey and Lies (Tabby’s Brothers from Ink Exposed)
Fractured Connections (Mace’s sisters from Fallen Ink)
Less Than (Dimitri’s siblings from Restless Ink)
* * *
If you want to make sure you know what’s coming next from me, you can sign up for my newsletter at www.CarrieAnnRyan.com; follow me on twitter at @CarrieAnnRyan, or like my Facebook page. I also have a Facebook Fan Club where we have trivia, chats, and other goodies. You guys are the reason I get to do what I do and I thank you.
Make sure you’re signed up for my MAILING LIST so you can know when the next releases are available as well as find giveaways and FREE READS.
Happy Reading!
* * *
Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs
Book 1: Fallen Ink
Book 2: Restless Ink
Book 2.5: Ashes to Ink
Book 3: Jagged Ink
Book 3.5: Ink by Numbers
* * *
Montgomery Ink: Boulder
Book 1: Wrapped in Ink
* * *
Montgomery Ink:
Book 0.5: Ink Inspired
Book 0.6: Ink Reunited
Book 1: Delicate Ink
Book 1.5: Forever Ink
Book 2: Tempting Boundaries
Book 3: Harder than Words
Book 4: Written in Ink
Book 4.5: Hidden Ink
Book 5: Ink Enduring
Book 6: Ink Exposed
Book 6.5: Adoring Ink
Book 6.6: Love, Honor, & Ink
Book 7: Inked Expressions
Book 7.3: Dropout
Book 7.5: Executive Ink
Book 8: Inked Memories
Book 8.5: Inked Nights
Book 8.7: Second Chance Ink
* * *
Want to keep up to date with the next Carrie Ann Ryan Release? Receive Text Alerts easily!
Text CARRIE to 24587
About Carrie Ann
* * *
Carrie Ann Ryan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary and paranormal romance. Her works include the Montgomery Ink, Redwood Pack, Talon Pack, and Gallagher Brothers series, which have sold over 2.0 million books worldwide. She started writing while in graduate school for her advanced degree in chemistry and hasn’t stopped since. Carrie Ann has written over fifty novels and novellas with more in the works. When she’s not writing about bearded tattooed men or alpha wolves that need to find their mates, she’s reading as much as she can and exploring the world of baking and gourmet cooking.
* * *
www.CarrieAnnRyan.com
More from Carrie Ann Ryan
Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs
Book 1: Fallen Ink
Book 2: Restless Ink
Book 2.5: Ashes to Ink
Book 3: Jagged Ink
Book 3.5: Ink by Numbers
* * *
The Fractured Connections Series:
A Montgomery Ink Spin Off Series
Book 1: Breaking Without You
Book 2: Shouldn’t Have You
Book 3: Falling With You
Book 4: Taken With You
* * *
The Montgomery Ink: Boulder Series:
Book 1: Wrapped in Ink
* * *
The Less Than Series:
A Montgomery Ink Spin Off Series
Book 1: Breathless With Her
Book 2: Reckless With You
* * *
The Elements of Five Series:
Book 1: From Breath and Ruin
* * *
Montgomery Ink:
Book 0.5: Ink Inspired
Book 0.6: Ink Reunited
Book 1: Delicate Ink
Book 1.5: Forever Ink
Book 2: Tempting Boundaries
Book 3: Harder than Words
Book 4: Written in Ink
Book 4.5: Hidden Ink
Book 5: Ink Enduring
Book 6: Ink Exposed
Book 6.5: Adoring Ink
Book 6.6: Love, Honor, & Ink
> Book 7: Inked Expressions
Book 7.3: Dropout
Book 7.5: Executive Ink
Book 8: Inked Memories
Book 8.5: Inked Nights
Book 8.7: Second Chance Ink
* * *
The Gallagher Brothers Series:
A Montgomery Ink Spin Off Series
Book 1: Love Restored
Book 2: Passion Restored
Book 3: Hope Restored
* * *
The Whiskey and Lies Series:
A Montgomery Ink Spin Off Series
Book 1: Whiskey Secrets
Book 2: Whiskey Reveals
Book 3: Whiskey Undone
* * *
The Talon Pack:
Book 1: Tattered Loyalties
Book 2: An Alpha’s Choice
Book 3: Mated in Mist
Book 4: Wolf Betrayed
Book 5: Fractured Silence
Book 6: Destiny Disgraced
Book 7: Eternal Mourning
Book 8: Strength Enduring
Book 9: Forever Broken
* * *
Redwood Pack Series:
Book 1: An Alpha’s Path
Book 2: A Taste for a Mate
Book 3: Trinity Bound
Redwood Pack Box Set (Contains Books 1-3)
Book 3.5: A Night Away
Book 4: Enforcer’s Redemption
Book 4.5: Blurred Expectations
Book 4.7: Forgiveness
Book 5: Shattered Emotions
Book 6: Hidden Destiny
Book 6.5: A Beta’s Haven
Book 7: Fighting Fate
Book 7.5: Loving the Omega
Book 7.7: The Hunted Heart
Book 8: Wicked Wolf
The Complete Redwood Pack Box Set (Contains Books 1-7.7)
* * *
The Branded Pack Series:
(Written with Alexandra Ivy)
Book 1: Stolen and Forgiven
Book 2: Abandoned and Unseen
Book 3: Buried and Shadowed
* * *
Dante’s Circle Series:
Book 1: Dust of My Wings
Book 2: Her Warriors’ Three Wishes
Book 3: An Unlucky Moon
The Dante’s Circle Box Set (Contains Books 1-3)
Book 3.5: His Choice
Book 4: Tangled Innocence
Book 5: Fierce Enchantment
Book 6: An Immortal’s Song
Book 7: Prowled Darkness
The Complete Dante’s Circle Series (Contains Books 1-7)
* * *
Holiday, Montana Series:
Book 1: Charmed Spirits
Book 2: Santa’s Executive
Book 3: Finding Abigail
The Holiday, Montana Box Set (Contains Books 1-3)
Book 4: Her Lucky Love
Book 5: Dreams of Ivory
The Complete Holiday, Montana Box Set (Contains Books 1-5)
* * *
The Happy Ever After Series:
Flame and Ink
Ink Ever After
* * *
Single Title:
Finally Found You
Excerpt: Breaking Without You
From New York Times Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan’s Fractured Connections Series
* * *
Breaking Without You
* * *
Sometimes people just don’t get it.
- Allison in a text to Violet
Violet
It didn’t seem right that the sun was shining, and that birds were chirping in the air. It didn’t seem appropriate that the sky was free of clouds, or that the world seemed to scream of beauty and peace.
I didn’t find it fitting at all.
Because I was outside this afternoon instead of working or being with my family. I was watching strangers lower my best friend into the ground.
My best friend wasn’t supposed to be dead. We weren’t even thirty yet. No, I wasn’t even thirty yet. She would never reach it.
I watched as they lowered the casket inch by inch—ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as the saying goes. I watched it all and didn’t shed a tear. I’d done my crying. I had lost so many tears, so much of myself with each crying jag and hiccupping sob.
I couldn’t cry just then.
I was surrounded by my family, my friends, Allison’s family, and everyone who had known my best friend throughout her life.
She had been such a joy, such a bright spot in this sometimes-dark world. She’d made me laugh, made me smile. And she had done so for countless others, as well. She was the happiness we all craved.
But all of it was a lie.
I knew that now. I’d discovered that the Allison I thought I knew hadn’t been the Allison she’d hidden deep inside.
That shamed me. It made me want to leave, made me want to throw myself to the ground and curl up into a ball. It made me want to switch between pitching a fit and just weeping and praying that something could be changed.
It made me angry, it made me sad, but mostly…mostly, I just felt ashamed.
Because Allison was lying in that casket, wearing a blue dress that made her pretty blue eyes stand out.
No, that wasn’t right either. Because Allison’s pretty blue eyes were closed, and they wouldn’t be looking at anything anymore. No more searching for the next best thing, no more looking for anything.
Allison’s parents had decided not to do organ donation, even though I knew that Allison had wanted to do it. She hadn’t put it on her driver’s license, though, and since we were not old enough in our minds to finish our wills, there hadn’t been instructions for burying my best friend.
I was going to make a will as soon as I could. Because I did not want my friends mourning for me while wondering what I had wanted, and then watching it slip through their fingers when they realized that my parents were the ones in control.
Allison hadn’t been married, hadn’t had a power of attorney.
When she died, her parents had been the ones to make all the decisions, and that should have been fine. But I knew Allison—at least I thought I had. And so had my sister, Sienna, and our other best friend, Harmony.
The three of us thought we knew what Allison would have wanted.
We figured she would have wanted to be cremated, her ashes scattered to the wind in the different places that we had known and loved together. That was something I wanted, as well. I vividly remembered my conversation with Allison about it one night when we all got a little too drunk and started talking about death. It was something that a lot of people talked about, at least that’s what I thought. It was part of everyone’s future—the end, the idea that you wouldn’t be around to make your own plans unless you wrote them down ahead of time.
But I didn’t think that any of us had written them down. Well…maybe Harmony. Harmony had been through her own heartbreak. She probably had a full list of what she wanted when her end came.
But now, I was going to make sure that I had my list. Because Allison had not been cremated. Her organs had not been donated. She was going into a hole in the earth, and her parents had every right to make that decision.
I wasn’t going to hold onto any bitterness when it came to that. I had enough for everything else that had happened. I didn’t want to hold onto that and only remember watching my best friend being lowered into the ground and the darkness that came with that.
Hell, I didn’t want to remember any of this at all.
But it wasn’t like I had a choice. This day would be in my memory until the day I died. Until somebody tossed my ashes to the wind.
I closed my eyes and held back a groan. No, Violet, it will be before that, won’t it? Before ashes and dust. I honestly wasn’t really thinking clearly.
I almost jumped when Sienna reached out and squeezed my hand. My little sister—not quite so little since we were both nearly thirty—leaned into me, resting her head on my shoulder.
We were almost the same he
ight, but I was wearing taller heels, and that meant she could easily place her head on my shoulder. I wanted to turn around and just pull her into my arms, tell her that everything would be okay. And knowing Sienna, she wished she could do the same for me.
I tore my gaze away from the hole in the ground where Allison lay and would forever stay until she was no more, dust to dust and all of that. When I turned, my gaze met Harmony’s where she stood stoically on the other side of Sienna.
Harmony had her dark red hair pulled back into a bun, and I didn’t really understand why she had done that. She usually wore it down. All of us generally had our hair in long waves or straightened. The four of us had decided to see who could grow their hair the longest and the fastest. Harmony had won, but for some reason, her hair was back today.
Then I remembered.
It was how she had worn her hair at her husband’s funeral.
She hadn’t wanted to look the same as she had every day when she had known and loved her husband. She’d wanted to appear different than when he had seen her, the times when he had played with her hair with his fingers.
So, she had worn it back.
It seemed we each had a special way to wear our hair, our makeup, and ourselves for funerals.
I wasn’t even thirty yet, but I had been to enough funerals for a lifetime.
I didn’t want to go to any more.
I didn’t want to be here at Allison’s. She shouldn’t be dead. She had been alive and healthy and whole just a few days ago. But now I knew that maybe she hadn’t been. Perhaps she hadn’t been healthy or whole at all.
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