Wall Street Journal & USA Today Bestselling Author
Winter Travers
Copyright © 2020 Winter Travers
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Also by Winter Travers
Devil’s Knights Series
Loving Lo
Finding Cyn
Gravel’s Road
Battling Troy
Gambler’s Longshot
Keeping Meg
Fighting Demon
Unraveling Fayth
Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen
Passing the Torch
Riding the Line
Skid Row Kings Series
DownShift
PowerShift
BangShift
Fallen Lords MC Series
Nickel
Pipe
Maniac
Wrecker
Boink
Clash
Freak
Slayer
Brinks
Kings of Vengeance MC
Drop a Gear and Disappear
Lean Into It
Knees in the Breeze
Midnight Wreckage
Powerhouse MA Series
Dropkick My Heart
Love on the Mat
Black Belt in Love
Black Belt Knockout
Nitro Crew Series
Burndown
Holeshot
Redlight
Shutdown
Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA
Playboy
Sweet Love Novellas
Sweet Burn
Five Alarm Donuts
Stand Alone Novellas
Kissing the Bad Boy
Daddin’ Ain’t Easy
Silas: A Scrooged Christmas
Wanting More
Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool
Table of Contents
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
Coming Soon
About the Author
Meet the Fallen Lords MC
Chapter One
Whoa…
Deedra
“I’ll get the rest of this, Pat. I’ll meet you in the van.”
“If you’re sure.” Pat grabbed the large bag filled with camera equipment and headed out the front door.
I was riding on a high from the awesome announcement Queenie just made, and then, to watch firsthand when she found her happy ending, was downright euphoric.
“You need some help?”
“Uh, Kimber, right?” I asked.
Kimber nodded. “That would be me. I can’t really help you since I’m holding Gun-Gun while his parents get it on over there, but I can get one of the guys to help.” She nodded to where Queenie and Sledge were pretty much getting it on with their clothes on. MC’s man, they didn’t really have much shame.
“Oh, uh, no. It’s really okay.” All I needed to do was finish packing up and head out. It would just take me a little bit.
“Nonsense,” she scoffed. “All of these beefcakes wandering around need a little something to do.”
I grimaced and shrugged. I could have used some help, but I didn’t absolutely need it. I crouched down to load the extra camera lenses into the bag.
“Yo, Point!” she shouted. “Come help.”
I froze at the familiar but not common name she yelled.
Nope. It couldn’t be him.
No way. No how.
It was not my Point.
I kept my head down and tried to quickly cram everything into the bag. Scuffed motorcycle boots stopped in front of me, and then, I was face to face with my past.
“Deedra?”
“Uh, Point,” I gasped. How? What in the hell?
“Uh, do you two know each other?” Kimber asked.
Point’s eyes connected with mine, and I was transported to another place and time. A place where the next words out of his mouth didn’t cut a hole straight through me.
“Deedra is my…wife.”
Kimber gasped. “What the fuck?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked Point. I shoved the remaining equipment in the bag and stood. The last time I had seen Point, he had been in Indiana. Over three hundred miles away from here.
Kimber waved her hand. “Did you not hear my fuck? Maybe ‘what the fuckity-fuck’ is more fitting.”
“Don’t swear with the kid in your arms, Kimber,” Point scolded.
Kimber rolled her eyes. “Well, if you wouldn’t drop a nuclear bomb on me, I wouldn’t need to pull out the fuckity-fucks.”
I grabbed the strap of the duffel bag and hoisted it on my shoulder. I couldn’t do this right now. Hell, I could barely talk to Point about this three years ago. “I better get going. Pat is waiting for me.”
“Who’s Pat?” Kimber and Point asked in unison.
“Uh, my guy.” I cringed. “I mean, my guy who helps me.” That still didn’t sound any better.
“She’s your wife, Point, but she’s got a guy.” Kimber looked at my bag. “A guy who isn’t you.”
“We just work together.” I didn’t know why I was trying to defend myself. It shouldn’t matter if Point thought I was with a guy, right? We were long over. “Keep an eye on the news tomorrow. The story should be live then.”
If I distracted them with the news story about Queenie and Gunner, then I could get the hell out of here.
“Where do you live?” Kimber blurted. “Ya know, I feel we could be, uh, friends, and well, we have this Book Club thing. It’s more like Petra reads while the rest of us drink, but it’s fun. You could join us. Please.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Lots of drinks.”
“Kimber,” Point rumbled.
He was pissed. It had been three years since I heard his voice, but I remember that low rumble he emanated when he was annoyed or angry.
“What?” Kimber hissed. “You guys have your little club. There isn’t one reason why I can’t recruit girls for Book Club. It’s not like you’re invited to it or anything.” She huffed and rolled her eyes. “And it’s not like we’re killing anyone either. It’s books and drinks, Point.”
Point folded his arms over his chest. “Pretty sure your little Book Club is nothing like the Kings of Vengeance. If that were the case we’d all be
in jail.”
I took a step back. This was possibly my chance to escape. I wasn’t much of a runner, but I wasn’t opposed to sprinting out the door if it meant I didn’t have to torture myself by being this close to Point. I had been the one to leave, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt when I closed the door on us.
Point’s focus was on Kimber, but he raised his finger at me. “You stay there.”
I froze. “Uh, why?” I whispered. Staying didn’t seem like the right choice to me. Leaving looked pretty damn good. Pretty sure it was better for everyone if I just skedaddled away.
“Because I want to know what the hell you’re doing here,” he growled.
I tipped my head to the side. “Uh, you mean the clubhouse or just in general?” I mean, he knew why I was in the clubhouse, right?
“Deedra,” he grunted. His eyes connected with mine. “I see your sass is still present.”
Well, hell, if that didn’t transport me back to lying in bed with Point when my sassiness tiptoed over the line of cute into me getting my ass spanked. “I have to get back to work. I can’t stand around here all day.”
I needed to work on getting the story in order and then look for my next lead. And see about running far, far away.
“Damn,” Kimber gasped. She fanned her face with her hand and sighed. “Y’all are like a sexy soap opera right now. I can feel the sexy, smoldering tension in the air.”
“No,” Point and I replied in unison.
“There is no smoldering between us,” I insisted. There couldn’t be. My heart couldn’t handle Point taking up residency again. “It’s been three years.” Three years of me trying to erase any memory of Point. I thought it had worked, but having him standing here I knew I was far from forgetting about him.
“Right,” Kimber drawled.
“I really need to go,” I muttered. My brain couldn’t process everything going on. Kimber’s running commentary on it also wasn’t helpful.
“We need to talk,” Point insisted.
I shook my head. “No, we don’t. Not right now. If you really want to talk to me, Queenie has my number.” I bolted from the clubhouse like hellhounds were on my heels and beelined for the news van.
I didn’t know what to say to Point. I was resigned to the fact that I would never see or talk to him again. Suddenly, he was right in front of me, and I did the only thing I could.
I fled.
“Whoa,” Pat called. “Where’s the fire?”
I threw open the sliding door for to the van, tossed in the camera bag, and slammed it shut. “No fire. Just eager to get back to the studio to work on the piece.” Liar.
Pat closed the back hatch and leisurely walked to the driver’s door.
I ducked into the passenger seat and impatiently waited for Pat to get his ass in the van. He was moving like molasses in January.
“Let’s go, Pat,” I urged. “If we hurry, we can get this done before the end of the day.”
Pat slid onto the seat and stuck the key in the ignition. “If we get it done today, what are we going to do tomorrow?”
I shrugged and glanced at the entrance to the clubhouse. I had about fifteen seconds before Point flew out the front door and dragged me out of the van. “There’s always another story waiting for us, Pat. You know that. The news waits for no one.”
Pat scoffed and shifted into the drive. “Only because you’re always looking for the next story. A year ago, before you blew into the studio, it was a miracle if Tim and I covered more than three stories a week.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my seatbelt over me. “And that is why Tim no longer works at KDJT. You aren’t really doing your job if you’re not delivering the news every day.” From what I had heard Pat was close to being out the door along with Tim, but he thankfully kicked it into gear when I was hired. He fed off of who he was working with. Tim was less than motivated while I ran circles around the station looking for my next lead.
Pat rolled to a stop at the edge of the driveway.
I turned in my seat and caught a glimpse of Point storming out of the clubhouse.
Oh, shit.
“You want to grab lunch?” he asked.
I nodded vigorously. “Yes, totally. Let’s go. Now.” I would have agreed to jump into the pits of hell if it meant we got the hell out of there.
Pat chuckled and turned right.
Point stopped in the middle of the driveway and folded his arms over his chest. My eyes connected with his, and a shiver ran through my body.
That might have been the first time I had seen Point in three years, but something told me it wouldn’t be the last.
I sighed and relaxed into my seat.
Point was my past.
Though it looked like my past wasn’t in my rearview like I thought.
Point was back in my face, and I knew I couldn’t run from him forever.
*
Chapter Two
Fool…
Point
“Stop staring at me.”
Kimber snapped her gum. “Not staring.”
“Babe,” Quinn growled.
“Don’t babe me, Quinn. I want answers, and Pointy is going to give them to me,” she insisted. “I haven’t told Fancy, Petra, or Queenie anything yet because I want to be able to give them the whole rundown, and I can’t do that if Pointy doesn’t give me the details.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge. “There’s nothing to tell. No details.” Not one damn thing to say.
“Right,” Kimber drawled. “Nothing to tell about you being married to the pretty news anchor and the fireworks that went off between you two.”
I popped the top on the beer and slammed the fridge. “There are no fireworks between Deedra and me.” Three years ago, there had been, but Deedra squashed the hell out of them when she walked out the door. “All of that is in the past.”
“But you’re still married?” Kimber asked.
I shrugged. “Legally, yeah. She never got around to filing the paperwork yet.”
When Deedra left, I had told her if she wanted a divorce, she was going to be the one to initiate it. I didn’t want it, so I wasn’t going to be the one to do all the work. Petty, but I was pissed off. Deedra hadn’t even offered me a chance to fix things or to give her a reason to stay. She was just gone.
“So, you’re married, but you’re here.” Kimber cleared her throat. “Living the biker life.”
“Kimber,” Quinn growled. “This isn’t any of your business,” he warned.
“Quinn,” she whined. “I don’t know Deedra, but there is a girl code I need to abide by.”
“I gave that woman the world, and she threw it in my face, Kimber. The girl code you speak of went out the window when she left her ring on the kitchen table with a note telling me she couldn’t stand to live with me anymore.” I chugged my beer and crushed the empty can in my hand. “Go tell your girls that and leave me alone.” I didn’t want to hang around to hear Kimber try to talk up Deedra. She didn’t know her like I did.
I pushed off the counter and stalked through the common room.
“Where you going?” Quinn called.
“Fucking out,” I growled. I walked out, tossed the crushed can in the dirt by the front door, and climbed on my bike.
For the second time in three years, I had watched my wife drive away from me. I didn’t need Kimber grilling me and insinuating that I was the reason why my marriage didn’t work, that I was the one who walked out.
Bull-fucking-shit.
Deedra was all I had three years ago. And then I had nothing but a bottle of whiskey. She left me, and I thankfully found the Kings of Vengeance when I was at my lowest.
The second I realized it was her; all of the feelings I thought had disappeared came roaring back. It was easy to convince yourself that you didn’t love someone anymore when you never saw them. But just a half a second of staring into Deedra’s hazy gray eyes was all it too
k for my heart to drop to my stomach…and I knew I still loved her. The woman who had stomped on my heart still owned me.
Fucking hell.
I cranked up my bike, knocked up the kickstand, and roared out of the parking lot.
My mind hated Deedra, but my heart still loved her.
I was a fucking fool.
*
Deedra
I grabbed the sweatshirt from the back of my closet and pulled shut the door.
The dark, faded brown, soft fabric felt like home in my hands.
Every night for two years, I slept like a baby in this sweatshirt. Point always gave me hell about stealing it from him, but he never took it away from me.
It had been petty of me to take it with me when I left, but I couldn’t part with it. Forcing myself to leave Point had been bad enough, but I couldn’t lose every part of him.
Those first few months after I left, I wore this thing all of the time. After a while, I weened myself from it, but I didn’t get rid of it. I couldn’t bear to. It was worn out and not even the same dark shade of brown it had been when I stole it from Point, and it had been over a year since I had actually held it in my hands. But I hadn’t been able to throw it away.
I pulled it over my head and let the soft fabric surround me.
Seeing Point today had completely and utterly thrown me for a loop.
If you would have asked me yesterday if I was over Point, I would have looked you dead in the eye and said abso-fucking-lutley.
Now?
I didn’t have a damn clue. My heart told me one thing while my head said something completely different.
I piled my hair on top of my head, twisted a hair tie around it, and flopped onto my bed.
“Oh, my gawd,” I moaned. “What in the hell are you thinking, Deedra?” I wondered out loud.
I was a smart, strong, independent woman who had her head firmly on her shoulders and knew exactly what she wanted out of life.
Then I unknowingly wandered into a motorcycle club to cover a story, and I’m smack dab in front of my past.
Thrill Seeker (Kings of Vengeance MC Book 5) Page 1