Hope Against Hope: The Hope Brothers Series

by Honey Palomino

I knew I had won, and I felt like shit.

  I certainly never wanted to win like that. Not with Crit getting hurt. That shit was brutal and I was seriously worried about him. Getting trampled by a bull was violent and painful, and by the grace of God, he would be okay.

  I needed him to be okay. The last thing Georgia could handle would be losing another family member. She had been through so fuckin’ much already, I couldn’t bear to see her in even more pain. She didn’t deserve it. Hell, she didn’t deserve any of this.

  She deserved to be happy, to be loved, to be treated like a queen, and I had every intention of doing that for the rest of our lives.

  If we could just get past all this damned drama that kept popping up left and right.

  My eyes searched for her in the crowd, but I couldn’t find her. I had to endure the winner’s ceremony before I could go anywhere, and I figured she had probably gone to the hospital anyway. I’d find her there after.

  I stood in front of the crowd as they awarded me the championship belt buckle and a check for ten grand. If this had gone down any other way, I would have been ecstatic. As it stood, I couldn’t even muster a smile for the photographers.

  When I finally made my way back to the locker room, I called Georgia’s phone. She didn’t answer, but I left her a message to call me right away. I would head over to the hospital as soon as I could.

  Finn walked in just as I was gathering my things.

  “Finn, have you seen Georgia?” I asked. “She go to the hospital?”

  “I got some bad news, Beau. We gotta go. Now.”

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  There’s no other sound in the world more terrifying than the sound of screaming horses. I flew out of my truck, my own screams drowned out by the sounds of the roaring flames that had engulfed the entire right side of our horse barn.

  Somehow, I had managed to beat the firetrucks here. Thankfully, the drive from Houston was a short one, and outside of the screams of our horses, everything else was still and quiet. Frantically, I looked around for help, for anyone else who might be able to help me.

  Another horse whinnied in fear, the sound shooting right through me. I ran to the barn, the heat blasting my face the closer I got.

  I paused, looking around quickly once more, before I realized that I was all alone in this. The fire had consumed the right side of the barn, and luckily all of our stalls were on the left. If I could open the runs from the outside, I could let the horses run out to safety without having to go inside the burning barn.

  Just as I began to head to the side of the barn, I saw a figure burst out of the flames, with another person in their arms. When they got closer, I recognized Lee’s large frame.

  “Lee!” I screamed.

  He turned my way, and began running towards me. It was then that I saw who he was carrying, and my heart stopped.

  “Oh, my god, is he okay?” I screamed, running up to them.

  “No, he’s not, the little arsonist bastard,” he said, laying an unconscious Jesse at my feet, and beginning CPR on him.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, my mind clouded with confusion. The sound of the screaming horses broke through my daze and I snapped.

  I turned and ran as fast as I could towards the left side of the barn. Jumping over the fenced runs, I unlocked the stall doors from the outside, one by one. Each of the frightened horses shot out of the fiery barn like bullets, running into the open pasture and as far away from the flames as they could get.

  All but one.

  When I got to the end, which was Cherokee’s stall, he didn’t come out. I peered in, seeing nothing but falling pieces of the barn, and the biggest flames I had ever seen in my life.

  “Cherokee!” I screamed, as loudly as I could, over and over. He didn’t answer and I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “Cherokee!” I called again, as I entered the barn through his open stall door. He must have gotten the door open somehow and was trapped somewhere inside the barn.

  I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop to think about anything, about my family, about Beau, about Ruby, or even about my future. All I could think about was saving my beloved friend. If the tables were turned, I knew he would have done everything in his power to get me out.

  I owed it to him.

  The flames grew higher and higher, and I put my hand over my nose and mouth as I slowly entered the barn. I spotted a folded horse blanket and grabbed it, throwing it over my head and body like a cape.

  I jumped as a falling flaming board fell onto the ground next to me, missing me by inches.

  “Cherokee!” I yelled again, and this time I was answered with a weak whimper. I turned in the direction of the sound, and screamed. He was trapped behind a wall of flames that was quickly growing and surrounding the corner he was in. And in between the two of us was nothing but even more flames.

  I looked around quickly, the fire spreading rapidly, devouring everything in its path. I ran back to Cherokee’s stall, grabbing the water hose that I used to fill the horse’s water troughs, and hoping to hell it wasn’t melted from the heat and still worked. I turned on the faucet, and in seconds, water was pouring from the end of it.

  I turned back around and began spraying the floor in front of Cherokee, trying to fight the flames back enough to give him space to run out without burning his legs. It worked, and he ran past me, his eyes wild with fear as he broke out into the safety of the pasture.

  I sighed in relief, throwing down the water hose and turning around to follow him. I took two steps and the roof of the barn began to cave in, falling in huge chunks of fiery debris all around me, until I was trapped inside a circle of flames.

  Tears began streaming down my face and fear gripped my heart.

  Of course it would end this way, I thought. My life had been over the minute my parents died. The never ending drama afterwards had only proven it. Why should the danger stop with me now?

  Smoke filled my lungs, and I began coughing uncontrollably as the flames whipped closer and closer to my feet. I looked for a way out, my eyes desperately searching beyond the flames for some kind of escape.

  “Georgia!” I heard a voice in the dark call out to me and I screamed back.

  “Here! Help!”

  “Georgia!” The voice called again, closer this time, and I realized it was Beau.

  My heart soared when I saw him break through the flames around me, a fire extinguisher in his hands as he sprayed back the flames closest to me until he was right there, picking me up in his arms, and carrying me out of the crumbling barn as fast as he could run.

  He laid me down on the ground, and I lay gasping and crying in his arms as the lights and sirens of the fire fighters finally arrived.

  “You’re okay, baby, everyone’s okay. It’s over now,” he said, his voice like a beacon of hope in the darkness.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  “You know you still have time to back out,” Ruby said, as she handed me my bouquet of red roses and daisies.

  “I’d never dream of it,” I replied.

  I had never been more sure of anything in my life.

  We stood in front of the mirror together, and I smiled gratefully at Ruby, our eyes meeting in the reflection.

  “I’m so thankful for you,” I said.

  “You should be,” she said, teasingly. “I’m a great friend.”

  “Yes, you are,” I assured her.

  “We’ve been through a lot together,” she replied, “but that’s what friends are for. I always knew everything would turn out okay.”

  “How do we look?” I asked.

  “I think we look fucking marvelous, but that’s just my opinion,” she said. She was right, though. We did. I never expected I’d be standing here in my dream wedding dress six months after the second worst night of my life, but here I was.

  And there was Ruby, all dressed up in the perfect turquoise bridesmaid dress. She wanted to wea
r her signature red, but I refused, on principal that it was my wedding and not hers.

  “It’s almost time,” she said. “Shall we?”

  I took a deep breath, my heart filled with peace and certainty.

  “Let’s do this.”

  ***

  The music sounded and I watched as Ruby hooked her arm in Seth’s and walked down the aisle slowly.

  Crit put his arm around me, pulling me in close for a hug.

  “Beau is a lucky man,” he said.

  “Thank you, Crit. I’m lucky, too. He’s a good man,” I said, smiling up at my big brother. I was so happy he was here to walk me down the aisle. After the competition, he had spent a week in the hospital, but he had recovered completely, and now he had a reputation as being one of the toughest cowboys around, as well as a few new scars to impress the ladies with.

  “I know he is. I’ll forever be in debt to him for carrying you out of that fire. And to Lee, too.”

  Lee had come out of the whole thing as the true hero. Turned out, if he hadn’t been staying out at LaCroix’s place, he wouldn’t have seen the flames through the trees. If he hadn’t seen them, he wouldn’t have gone in before anyone else got there, and seen Jesse lying unconscious in the barn.

  He had saved Jesse’s life.

  We’d all forever be indebted to him.

  Especially Jesse, who after waking up in the hospital the next day, had tearfully confessed to setting all the fires. He didn’t really know why. But the deaths of our parents had sent him on a self-destructive spiral that had quickly spun out of control. He felt ignored and neglected, disconnected and lost, and trapped in the past. We had all been forced to give up any dreams of the future to help run the farm after the accident. It was a hard thing to accept. I understood completely.

  I had felt the same way, but somehow the four of us just never found a way back to each other after the accident.

  But all of that had changed now. Our family had bonded together again, and even if it had to be over more tragedy, I was thankful for it. Seth and Crit had forgiven Lee and Beau completely, both of my brothers graciously apologizing and thanking them both for their bravery. Jesse had thanked Lee profusely for saving his life. Lee had even apologized to me, even though he had no recollection of that awful night, and after everything else that had happened, I had decided the right thing to do was to forgive him completely.

  I could even say that we were all becoming great friends now.

  And as I drank in every one of their faces as I walked down the aisle, with Beau’s handsome face waiting for me at the alter, with Jesse, Finn and Lee standing next to him as his best men, I said a silent prayer of gratitude for my family and friends.

  Sometimes, when all else fails, and there’s nothing left to do - you have to hope against hope that everything works out.

  And sometimes, with the help of a little bit of magic, it does.

  THE END

  Honey Palomino is a true romantic at heart!

  She loves reading and writing about dangerous bad boys and the women that love them!

  OTHER TITLES BY HONEY PALOMINO

  BIKER ROMANCE AND EROTICA

  Outlaws - The Novel

  Dirty Crow Motorcycle Club

  Captured

  The Snake's Den

  Saving Rebel

  Old Ghosts

  Jett

  Remember Me: Gods of Chaos MC

  Solid Ground: Gods of Chaos MC

  Broken Wings: Gods of Chaos MC

  BOYS SERIES (MMF THREESOME EROTICA)

  The Boys In The Barn

  The Boys Next Door

  The Boys In The Band

  The Boys Back Home

  The Boys From Texas

  THREESOME/MULTIPLES EROTICA

  Masquerade

  Undercover

  Playing With Fire

  The Shrink

  The Lust Boat

  WEREWOLF ROMANCE AND EROTICA

  Lust for Luna - The Trilogy

  Stranded on Werewolf Island

  Beast

  After Hours

  The Moon Howlers

  Royal Rebellion

  Sex Magic

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  REMEMBER ME: GODS OF CHAOS MC -

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  REMEMBER ME

  GODS OF CHAOS MC

  Copyright © 2015 by HONEY PALOMINO

  All Rights Reserved Worldwide

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, locations and incidences are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This book is for entertainment purposes only.

  This book contains mature content

  and is intended for adults only.

  REMEMBER ME

  GODS OF CHAOS MC

  By Honey Palomino

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ryder

  We’re not called the Gods of Chaos for nothing.

  The glare of the streetlights hit the chrome on my bike as I turned off the freeway and onto the unpaved road that led to my clubhouse. Dirt flew up on both sides of my thick tires. My headlight cast shadows of the tall, towering pine trees of the Tillamook Forest across the road; the only thing lighting my way through the heavy darkness of the woods. Five curvy miles later, I was separated from all civilization, and the familiar peacefulness washed over me.

  I was home. I was right where I belonged. I might have outgrown all the partying a little over the years, but it was all I had ever known. That life out there? Away from the clubhouse? I didn’t belong there. I never had, and I never would.

  As I roared up to the rundown cabin, the never-ending party was at its peak. Deafeningly loud music poured from the open doors and windows, and a glowing amber light spilled onto the dirty bikes parked out front. Each person that trailed in and out of the door had a drink in their hand and most had a smile on their face. The women all had a wiggle in their step, as they sashayed past leather-clad, drunken hell-raisers, flirtatiously batting their eyes and swinging their voluptuous hips.

  The sun had set, and just like it did every night, the wildness began seeping out into the darkness at the God of Chaos MC Clubhouse like a slithering, evil snake.

  In the corner of the parking lot, a circle had formed around Riot and Slade, two of the Gods. They were in their usual fighting stance, playing a game they both seemed to enjoy immensely, for whatever perverted reason. Both shirtless, their dirty jeans and boots were the only protection that stood between their flesh and the ground, or each other’s fists.

  Slade was bleeding through his grin, while Riot danced around him, trying to get another hit in before Slade knocked him out. Slade always won. I didn’t bother to keep watching, because it always played out the same way. Slade would knock him out, then pick him up and take him inside and pour whiskey down his throat till he shook it off and they laughed about it into the early morning hours. They were both more than a little crazy, but I loved them.

  Near the window to the right of the front door, I saw Zander, my VP. His old lady, Valerie, was on her knees, servicing him with a vigor that almost made me envious. I laughed when he caught my eye and winked at me as I pulled off my helmet and parked my bike. He gave me a thumbs up as I strode past him, shaking my head with a smile as he buried his hands in his old lady’s black curls and looked up at the shining stars sprinkled in the sky above us.

  The sound of breaking glass and a string of
words that would have made a sailor blush echoed out the window on the other side of the front door.

  As I approached the door, I ducked just in time to miss the flying beer bottle that escaped from the doorway, followed by Thorn, our prospect, - one hand gripping his girlfriend Tiff’s ass, and the other outstretched and reaching for a wall to steady them both on. His hand missed by two inches, and they both tumbled to the ground in front of me, their tongues still firmly tangled together.

  I stepped over them, picked up the surprisingly still intact beer bottle, and headed towards the bar to find a fresh one for myself.

  This place was hardly what any normal person would consider peaceful. But that was just it. It wasn’t normal.

  And my brothers here? The outliers? The fringe of society? The partiers? The survivors? They weren’t normal, either.

  All we knew was chaos. The only way we knew how to live was on the edge.

  We were born in it. We were raised in it.

  It defines our very existence in this world.

  Hell, every day we continue to create it, just by being alive.

  We’re the Gods of Chaos.

  And we love every fucking chaotic second of it.