2018 Trixie Publishing, Inc.
Copyright © 2018 by Piper Davenport
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States
Road to Grace is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Art
Jackson Jackson
Trixie Publishing, Inc.
CONTENTS
Copyright
Praise
Acknowledgements
Back Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Sneak Peek
About Piper
Get ready to fall head over heels! Another page turner of alpha brilliance from Davenport. I fell in love with every single page and spent the last few wishing the book would never end! ~ Harper Sloan, NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Author
The Dogs of Fire series is sinfully hot, creatively captivating and each book has left me anxious for more. Piper Davenport paints the most beautiful pictures of love with her words. I'm in awe. Felicia Lynn, Contemporary Romance Author
Piper Davenport can write one hell of a sexy biker! I can’t get enough of the Dogs of Fire MC series ~ Geri Glenn, Author of the Kings of Korruption MC Series
All it took was one page and I was immediately hooked on Piper Davenport’s writing. Her books contain 100% Alpha and the perfect amount of angst to keep me reading until the wee hours of the morning. I absolutely love each and every one of her fabulous stories. ~ Anna Brooks – Contemporary Romance Author
I was swooning from the moment that badass biker stepped on the page! ~ Sybil Bartel, Author of the Uncompromising Series
This is one series I will most definitely be reading!! Great job Ms. Davenport!! I am in love!! ~ Tabitha, Amazeballs Book Addicts
Liz:
Thanks again. Your insight is always so spot on!
Harley:
Thanks for all the read-throughs! I love taking this journey with you! Can’t wait to rule the world!
Jack:
What can I say? You’re perfection on legs. I love you more than life.
Grace Lundy's life has been tainted with horror and tragedy. She’s spent the past ten years building a fortress around her heart to avoid more pain. In the process, she’s managed to push away those closest to her, but the time has come for them to push back.
Billy "Flea" Jameson lives his life as a faithful soldier in the Dogs of Fire MC, free of commitment and drama… until Grace comes home from college. The sexy as sin woman who walks into the clubhouse isn’t the young girl who left for school, and her appearance promises an end to his commitment-free life.
But trouble brews when an innocent man is sent to prison and a rival club vies for territory.
As Flea works with his brothers to protect the club, can he keep Grace from being caught in the crossfire?
For Liz
From the second you appeared in my life, you’ve been nothing but love and support.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you do!
Grace
“MAISIE?” MOM SAID, sobbing into the phone. “I’m so sorry.”
“Maisie! Mom has a gun!” I screamed, hoping my surrogate aunt would hear me.
My mother had locked us into the upstairs bathroom, and I was inside the tub, pinned against the wall, trying to shelter myself from the gun she waved between us.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Alison rasped.
I whimpered quietly, hoping not to draw her attention as she spoke with her best friend, Maisie.
“It’s all too much, Maisie, you know?” Mom rasped and aimed the gun toward me again.
“Maisie! Help! Oh, God, please!” I screamed, moving against the back wall in a futile effort to evade the gun.
“Do you remember that time we took the kids to the museum?” she asked.
Tears flooded my face as Mom talked about a memory from long ago. She’d completely broken free from reality and if I couldn’t get out of this room, I knew she was going to kill me.
“Ohmigod, yes,” she giggled manically.
“No, Mama, please don’t,” I begged.
I heard Maisie’s voice on the other line calling for her. “Alison?”
“Huh?
“Ali, love?” Maisie called again.
“Yes, I’m here.”
I relaxed just a hair as she listened to whatever Maisie said on the other end.
“I forgot about that,” Mom whispered. “Why don’t they wash those damned toys?”
I moved an inch to my right, further away from the angle of the gun.
“We had such good times, didn’t we?” Mom relaxed her hold on the gun slightly. “I’m so sorry, Maisie.”
I wasn’t sure if she was sorry for what she’d done in the past… or of what she was about to do.
“If I could take it back, I would.”
I bit my lip as she pointed the gun to her head.
“Goodbye Maisie.”
Bang!
“No! Mama! Ohmigod, why did you… you…! Mama, get up!”
* * *
I stood in my brother’s kitchen and downed a glass of wine, the memory of last night’s dream rattling around in my head. My mother had killed herself over ten years ago, but I was still dealing with nightmares, always made worse when I was stressed.
I’d graduated from college two weeks ago and had been home for almost a week. A very long week. My relationship with my brother was currently tentative, mostly because he chose my father over me, but as long as he didn’t talk about Dad, I could pretend I was still Merrick’s favorite and that he loved me best. Which was why I was staying with him until I could figure out what the hell I was going to do with my degree… and my life.
“Hey, sis,” Merrick said, shrugging on a leather vest (he called it a cut) as he walked into the room.
“Hey, Mer.”
“Finch,” he corrected.
I rolled my eyes. He was patching in to the Dogs of Fire and one of the bikers had given him the super special biker name, “Finch.” He said it was because Merrick always had his face buried in a law book. Accurate, considering this had been true since forever. Merrick was the quintessential nerd, only the football playing, poetry writing, computer programmer-type nerd.
“I’ve seen your bare butt when Dad spanked you… I’m not calling you ‘Finch.’”
“Grace,” he said, his voice low like he was all fatherly and shit. “This is important to me. You’ve been around everyone enough to feel comfortable, but I need you to at least give me the respect my patch affords.”
“Not sure I’m the
re yet, brother,” I admitted.
He smiled. It was a sad smile, but I acknowledged the effort. “Fake it.”
I nodded with a sigh. He was right, I was comfortable around the Dogs. My best friend, Poppy, was practically married to one, and her mother literally was. Hatch. The coolest man I’d ever met. He’d scooped me and Merrick up and took us back to the clubhouse the night of the incident, and the people there had helped to put me back together. Well, as together as a broken and fucked up twelve-year-old could be.
“You ready?” Merrick asked.
“Yep.”
“You sober enough to drive?”
“I’ve had one glass of wine. I’m good.”
He handed me a roll of Ritz crackers. “Eat.”
I raised an eyebrow. “When did you get so bossy?”
He ignored me, snagging my keys off the hook and handing them to me. I grabbed them and followed him outside. He climbed on his bike, while I slid into my car, opening the cracker packet before securing my seatbelt.
I followed him to the compound, excited to see Poppy, who I hadn’t seen in almost a week. Considering that up until three weeks ago, we lived together, I was going through some serious withdrawals.
* * *
Flea
Hatch handed me a beer and I gave him a nod of thanks. “Poppy comin’?” I asked, sliding the toothpick I’d been chewing into my pocket.
“Yeah. Sparky’s bringin’ her,” Hatch said. “Still not ready to wrap my fuckin’ mind around that one.”
“It’s happening, darling,” Hatch’s woman, Maisie said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Figure it out quick.”
Hatch pulled her close and shook his head.
“Figure out what quick?” Poppy asked, walking into the kitchen, Sparky following.
Hatch held his free hand out and Poppy stepped into his embrace. “Nothin’, baby girl. You good?”
She grinned up at him. “I’m good, Sid.”
Pulling away from Hatch, she walked over to me and hugged me. “Hey, babe.”
“Hi, buddy.” She gave me a quick squeeze, then leaned back against Sparky who wrapped an arm around her from behind. “You married yet?”
I choked on my beer. “Uh, fuck no.”
Poppy grinned. “I can’t wait to meet the woman who makes that happen.”
I shook my head. “You’ll be long dead, Poppy. Never happenin’.”
She giggled, then looked over my shoulder, gasping as she made a run for the door. “Gracie!” she squealed.
I followed the flurry of activity and found I couldn’t raise my bottle to my mouth. My body locked, and my dick took notice of the drop-dead gorgeous woman pulling Poppy in for a sisterly hug. There was no way in hell this was Grace Lundy. The last time I’d seen her was about four years ago when she’d headed off to Atlanta for school with Poppy. She’d barely been eighteen.
And before that, she’d been the little girl whose mother had almost killed her…but turned the gun on herself instead. The little girl who’d fallen asleep on my shoulder that night as Hatch, Maisie, and I had watched a movie with the kids in an effort to keep her distracted. I’d wanted to protect her back then. Wanted to keep the demons at bay, but she had Hatch and Maisie, so I made sure she was okay from a distance.
Grace had always been a little girl in my eyes, but this woman who was lamenting the fact her best friend was too busy to hang out with her, was nothing less than stunning.
Long raven hair, eyes a deep blue, she made her way around the group, hugging everyone, and I was transfixed at the graceful way her body moved. Made sense, considering she was a ballerina, but I still couldn’t seem to look away.
“Hey Flea,” she said, and smiled up at me.
“Hey, babe,” I said, pulling her in for a chaste hug.
Fuck, her tits felt amazing against my chest. Since I couldn’t focus on that without embarrassing myself in front of my brothers, I released her so she could rejoin Poppy. While the reunion continued, I decided to get the fuck outta Dodge and find something stronger than beer to drink.
* * *
Grace
I half-listened to Poppy and Devon (Sparky) as they argued good-naturedly about… I don’t know. Something to do with burgers, I think. I’d lost the train of their conversation, because I was too busy watching Flea walk out of the kitchen. God, the man was pretty. Shaggy, dark-blond hair and hazel eyes, he was tall and muscular (at least, I imagined he was since his arms were sinewy and delicious).
I’d known him in the sense that he was always at the clubhouse when I was. He’d been one of the first people I’d seen when my life had imploded, and he was often at Hatch and Maisie’s since he worked for Hatch and they were tight. I’d always felt safe with him and I found myself seeking him out whenever he was close. I’m sure I seemed like the annoying teenager to him, but he was like a lighthouse, keeping me on the safe route back to myself.
I bit my lip and forced myself to focus back on my friend. Lusting after a man ten-years older than me was not something I had time for. I had to find a job, a place to live, and figure out how I was going to balance my ballet career with my life. I’d had an offer from the San Francisco Ballet to be a dancer, while working for a coveted principal spot, but the thought of leaving Poppy, and taking my crazy on the road, wasn’t something I was prepared to do. So now it was wait and see if Portland Ballet Conservatory offered me something similar. PBC was the most prestigious company in the pacific northwest and it was rapidly gaining popularity.
“We ready to do this thing?” the deep voice of the club president, Crow, echoed through the room.
Since I had no idea what ‘this thing’ entailed, I wasn’t sure if I was ready, but followed the crowd as they milled out the back of the building.
* * *
Flea
The sun was disappearing over the horizon and the sky was painted with swirls of deep blue and vibrant orange as Crow led all of us to the clearing around back of the compound, his arm around Finch’s shoulder as we walked.
“Everyone, gather ’round. Dogs, you know what to do.” Crow motioned to us, and I took one last pull from my beer before setting it down and forming a large circle with the other Dogs. We were now surrounding Finch and Crow, with the rest of the party’s guests standing behind us looking in. Finch was a good kid and I liked him a lot. He was smart, and level headed, but I was a little nervous for the guy, and I didn’t know how he’d handle what was to come next. Then again, maybe I just wanted him to be okay because I was suddenly very interested in getting on his sister’s good side. She was standing behind Hatch, opposite me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“We’ve all come here tonight, to watch young Finch receive his full member’s patch,” Crow announced to hearty applause. “In order for that to happen, first, Merrick needs to die.”
I saw Grace’s jaw stiffen, and once again felt a bit nervous for the kid. I nodded to Hatch, who gave a chin lift back. He and I were all-too familiar with the ritual of being patched in. Intimately familiar, in fact.
I noticed Darien removing her dog, Barney, from Flick’s arms. He tried to resist, but she scowled and held the dog closer to her body, rushing back inside. I couldn’t help but smile. Flick was one of the oldest members of the club. He’d come up with Crow and Hatch’s uncle back in the day, and he was a gruff old coot, but he’d fallen in love with Darien’s little fluffball of a dog, not to mention Darien.
“Tonight, Merrick will die, and Finch will be born in his place!” Crow shouted to more cheers while the young pledge stood grinning. “So, candidate Finch,” Crow said, turning his attention to the guest of honor. “Who will it be?”
Grace looked as if her “sister senses” were on high alert, as if she knew her brother was in some sort of danger. She wasn’t wrong.
Our club laws dictate that every full-time member must fight for their patch. The Dogs of Fire may not be a one percent club, but we knew how to handle ourselves, and wouldn�
��t hesitate to get involved if someone needed our assistance, even if that meant getting a little blood on our hands. To prove their courage, loyalty, and toughness, each new member candidate would first have to “bare-knuckle” box a brother of their choice, for three minutes. No shirts, no shoes, in the dirt. If the candidate won… meaning, they lasted the full three minutes… they were in.
The candidate’s selection of his opponent would say much about their character and toughness. Obviously, you’d want to choose someone in your weight class, and try to avoid anyone that would seem like an easy victory, not that you’d find any here, but you also wanted to prove you were up to a challenge.
“Which Dog will have the honor of handing you your patch?” Crow asked. I could see Grace relax a little at the sound of ‘handing you your patch,’ which made me feel a little bad as she’d soon know the truth about the deceptively cordial-sounding ritual.
Finch smiled wide and began to turn in place, making eye contact with each Dog. He locked on me for what seemed like a moment or two longer than the others, but then moved on. Smart move, as I had a few inches and pounds on him, not to mention a pretty impressive club record. Finch stopped a few brothers later and stepped forward before pointing to the least likely of opponents.
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Train said with a hearty chuckle.
“Nope. I choose you. I’m calling you out, Train,” Finch said, backing up to give Train room to move into the circle, and he’d need a lot of room.
I looked at Grace and could see that she now fully understood what was happening, and she did not look happy. Instinctively, I broke away from my place in the circle and went to her. She had moved from her spot as well, moving toward me.
“You okay?” I asked through the low rumblings of the group.
“Not really,” she said, looking a little ill. “Why are they doing this? Why are they fighting?”
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