Copyright © Chelsea Camaron and MJ Fields 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Chelsea Camaron and MJ Fields, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1st Edition Published: March 2015
Cover Design by: IndieVention Designs
Cover Model: Jared Caldwell
Photographer: Furious Fotog
Editing by: C&D Editing
Formatting by: IndieVention Designs
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events portrayed in this book either are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, establishments, events, or location is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Please do not take offense to the content, as it is FICTION.
Trademarks: This book identifies product names and services known to be trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective holders, The authors acknowledges the trademarked status in this work of fiction. The publication and use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Hendrix
This book contains mature content not suitable for those under the age of 18. Involves strong language and sexual situations. All parties portrayed in sexual situations are adults over the age of 18.
All characters are fictional. Any similarities are purely coincidental.
Caldwell Brothers
Book One
“One bourbon, one shot, one night—that’s my world. Life is finally getting on track for me and my brothers. Things are far from perfect, but after removing the thorn from our sides, they damn sure are looking up.” –Hendrix Caldwell.
Hendrix Caldwell, the oldest of the Caldwell brothers, is the ever steady voice of reason out of the three Detroit—Rock City’s—wild boys. Focused, determined, and living with a chip on his shoulder, Hendrix is married to his bar, allowing no time for anything more than a casual hook up. Work hard, play harder—that is the Caldwell brothers’ way.
For Olivia Gordon, life is nothing except the school of hard knocks. Born as the consequence of a one night stand, Olivia didn’t have the childhood found in movies and books. However, she’s all grown up now and completely on her own. Drowning in debt, she is looking for a small break in life, but the hits just keep on coming.
One night, one charity event, two masks hiding them from the world and each other… Two people let go and share the best of each other in a luxury hotel’s storage closet for one night they both can’t forget. One night they both revisit in their dreams.
What happens when two worlds collide not once, but twice? When they find out who was behind the mask, will sparks fly, or will their past demons keep them apart?
Dedication
To everyone who have ever been in the situation where the word ‘no’ could not be formed or not allowed to pass your lips.
May you find your way of becoming stronger. May you find your way of forgiving yourself. May you find the way to forgive the person who took from you.
Forgiveness is a gift to yourself.
In forgiving your abuser you are taking back the power they stole from you.
Because…
Consent is Fucking Required.
Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Letter from Livi
Resources
About the Authors
Morrison (Caldwell Brothers Book Two) Excerpt
Abe by MJ Fields Excerpt
One Ride by Chelsea Camaron Excerpt
Prologue
Hendrix
Beep. Beep. Beep. The machines surrounding my mother sound off around us as they have for the last few weeks. The days are running together, and I no longer know the date nor do I care. The world is moving at a snail’s pace as my world lies in this bed, unmoving.
Her once strong body is a frail comparison of its former self. The pounds fell off as her health deteriorated slowly, painfully, and mercilessly. The life was literally sucked from her little frame one piece at a time.
Watching the woman who truly is our rock, our foundation, and our saving grace fall apart has taken its toll on all of us. It’s terrifying to know how strong she has been our entire lives, yet she can’t beat the cancer ravaging her body.
When Mom first told us she was sick, I tried to figure out a way to deal with the diagnosis.
“The cancer is terminal,” Momma told us all when she insisted on us coming to the apartment for dinner.
My dad was as close to tears as I had ever seen him while she told her three boys that it was okay. She was trying to reassure all of us that it was better than dying without notice, that she was happy to be given the chance to say goodbye.
All of us went with her to the doctors—Dad, Jagger, Morrison, and I. The doc showed us the scans and explained that her cancer had started in her cervix, caused by HPV. Mom hadn’t had a pap smear in years, not since Jagger was five.
The cancer had spread, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do. He suggested we take the rest of her time here as a gift and make the most of it. We fucking begged her to get a second opinion. She said she had.
Our mother had known she was dying for two weeks, and she had only told my dad fifteen minutes before we had walked in.
Growing up, our dad was a mean son-of-a-bitch. He would get drunk and stumble in, wanting to beat on the three of us. Mom would hide us in the tiny room at the back of our apartment while she did whatever she could to talk him off the ledge. Now that I think about it, telling him the way she did was most likely her first and final jab at the old man.
It was her life, her way. He had done that to her by fucking around with a woman, contracting a disease, carrying it to her, and there was no way she would have known, but she was going to go out on her own damn terms.
Over the last two months, she has been miserable to him, picking fights and shit like that. He told us it was the cancer, ‘cause his girl would never treat him like that.
His girl? If I ever found a girl and decided to call her mine, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be fucking someone else. That motherfucker was lucky to be breathing.
Two days ago, she went to the hospital for what is probably the last time, but before she did, she told him to leave, and he did without argument. Jagger went and found the old man yesterday, told him he needed to come make peace with her. Mom insisted Jagger not do that, and she still doesn’t know he tried. The bastard wouldn’t come, though.
His final blow to her, the sick motherfucker.
“Boys,” she croaks out without opening her eyes.
Morrison, my middle brother, immediately jumps to her side, grabbing her skeletal fingers. Jagger, my youngest brother, stands at the end of her hospital bed and reaches out to touch her foot, causing her to wince. I stand at her other side, brushing my hand over her head that is losing the once full locks strand by strand.
“We’re right here, Momma. Your boys are all here,” Morrison informs her.
“The time is coming.” She breathes deeply while the beeping of the machines grows stronger, causing my own heart rate to pick up.
“No … the doctor … he said…” Jagger is choking out his words as he pushes off the end of the bed to pace around and get his emotions under control.
“I wanna apologize to you boys. I know it wasn’t easy growing up. Your dad wasn’t a good man, and I should’ve left.” She gasps harshly, and my heart practically stops.
“Just stop, Mom. It’s okay. There is nothing for you to apologize for.” I continue running my hand across her head, soothing her.
“Be the men I raised you to be. Don’t have a hardened heart to the love I’ve shown you. I was wrong to stay. I was wrong not to give you a good example.” Every word comes out in a struggle and a cough.
I want to tell her love doesn’t exist between a man and a woman. Want, need, passion, lust—those emotions and desires all transpire—but love? Not only no, but hell no. Love is an illusion. It is what mothers feed to their daughters in fairytales to give them hope. It is what men use to trick women into bed. It is far from real.
“Mom, you’re everything good in each of us,” Morrison whispers to her.
“You’re everything good I’ve ever done. Thank you for taking care of me,” she replies in a gargled, strained voice.
“Momma, fuck!” I run my fingers through my short, spiky hair. “You don’t have to fuckin’ thank us. You took care of us our entire lives. Just hang on, Momma. Fight a little more. We’ll get you the best care we can at home.”
“Hendrix, you gotta let me go, son. All of you, it’s time to let me go. Come here and tell me it’s okay. Make it okay, boys. Tell me you will be there for each other. Tell me you’ll find good women and make babies. Carry on my father’s name and give your children what I didn’t give you boys.”
Momma never married Dad. She made sure we all got her last name, not that of our sperm donor. Why she stayed, I will never understand. Although, maybe I’m not meant to.
Beep.
There is a pause, a hesitation.
I drop my head in defeat.
“Promise me, boys. Leave a legacy of good in a world of bad,” her raspy voice croaks out as the tears fall from her still closed eyes.
“Momma…” Morrison pleads.
Beep.
Pause.
Pause.
The next beep should be coming, and it is not.
“Boys,” she whispers.
“Yes, Momma. We’ll stand by each other, and we will be your legacy.” Jagger comes over, not holding back his tears as he squeezes in beside me to hold our mother’s hand.
Beep.
Pause.
Pause.
Pause.
“I love you, boys. I. Love. Each. Of. You.” She never gets above a whisper as we watch the jump in the lines get farther and farther apart.
“I promise you, Momma. Love you,” Morrison says as his tears fall onto her arms.
“Anything for you, Momma,” Jagger chokes out.
No longer able to be strong, I sob as I kiss her forehead that is already growing cold. The gurgling sound coming from her does nothing to silence the beating of my own heart. The pounding that once sounded in rhythm with the machines now loudly resounds through my ears. I feel like my head is going to explode as I give my mother the gift she is asking for.
“We’ll be all right, Momma. It’s okay to let go.” My last sentence is choked out on a whisper, the words barely spoken as she releases us.
Her eyes close, the sounds cease, and everything stills around the four of us.
At three-eighteen p.m. on January twenty-fourth, two thousand twelve, my world stops and tilts on its axis. Will life ever be right again?
Chapter One
Hendrix
When you think of Motor City, you think of poverty, but what Detroit lacks in class and elegance, we make up for in dive bars. You got the Two Way In on Mt. Elliott, Nancy Whiskey on Harrison, Old Miami on Cass, Greenwich Time in Cadillac Square, Kwicky on 8Mile, Marshalls on Jefferson, Jumbo’s on 3rd, The Painted Lady up in Hamtramck, My Dad’s Place on Kercheval, and Caldwell’s on Atwater.
You know the kind of places I’m talking about—windowless joints on the corner with the High Life sign blinking because you know the sign is as old as the paint chipped building it hangs off. The blinking sign beckons you. You have to go inside to see what the hell is going on ‘cause you can’t see in the windows, and it sounds like you may be missing something if you don’t.
They are boarded up tight, because they got busted out two nights ago when the place got robbed by the fucking thugs who walk up and down the streets, selling candy one minute and panhandling two hours later. The pieces of shit are inventive—I’ll give them that—but my suggestion is get a fucking job, slob.
Back in the day, when the auto factories dominated the area, things didn’t look so broken down. It was alive and kicking. The area was still peppered with bars. Bar owners were making mad cash, too.
At the end of every street, there was a joint that served ice cold High Life on tap and two-dollar shots. There was entertainment and fun to be had everywhere. You could always get a decent, quick meal on your lunch break; a live show at night; and the bartenders made you feel like you belonged, like you were family.
My pops won the title to Hooligans at a dogfight. With it being a great location in the Rivertown district near Chene Park, he truly got a prize that time. He was instantly banking money and banging women. That is when he met Mom.
She sang, played guitar, and had a decent following as a one-woman show. He was thirty, and she was twenty-two. She sang at his bar every Wednesday night and eventually tended bar three nights a week. Like many of his barmaids, she fell for his bullshit, and that ended up with her pregnant with me in less than two months from the time they met.
He moved her in to his apartment above the bar and embraced becoming a father. He wanted to do it better than his old man had. Isn’t that the truth in life, just do it better? Don’t we all strive for that?
Eventually, the novelty wore off. He started fucking around on her. When she confronted him, he beat her down emotionally. She busted her ass keeping the bar clean, and he busted his ass drinking the profit. Two more boys later, and she was busting her ass to raise their three kids on top of keeping his business afloat.
When the economy in Detroit deteriorated, he lost what was left of his mind. He started coming after us for stupid shit like spilled milk, a Lego on the floor, you name it. Hell, the wind blowing in the wrong direction had him on us.
Mom started stepping in with, “Boys, go to your room.”
Sure, we did as we were told, but we heard the shit. We heard him hitting her. It was no better than seeing it, either. We were helpless as the sounds of each blow became increasingly deafening to our tiny ears. Funny how, in the moment, adrenaline kicks in and instincts go into overdrive. Every noise becomes louder, clearer, and sticks with you for longer. I can still hear that shit in my sleep.
As I grew older and stood taller than him, I began to step in. He and I would go at it, fist to fist, until one of us wasn’t moving. At first, it was me. Then, when I was seventeen, it was finally him. Fucker knew it, too.
I begged Mom to move out, but she refused to leave her home and family. She made excuses for him, said that was how he was raised.
He stopped coming at us when I busted his nose. I hated the bastard, and when Morri
son was big enough, I moved the fuck out. Still saw Mom every day, though. I couldn’t go a day without seeing her or my brothers. I needed to make sure they were okay, but I also knew, if I stayed, I would kill him and be in the state pen within a year.
He lost Hooligans because the fucking asshole bet against the wrong underground fighter. Who was the fighter he bet against? My brother, his own son. Who did he lose it to? Me. Fucker didn’t even know it was me until a week later, either.
I let him stay in the apartment above the bar, not for him, but for Mom.
I had been working for a contractor, fixing up old warehouses and making them into apartments for years. Even made enough to buy my own place.
I fixed up the second and third floors, making them livable. Wide open space, two bedrooms, two baths on the second floor, the third is my loft. The first floor houses a bad-ass garage. It is where I spend the rest of my money—on my tools, my toys, and my rides.
I roll over to find my pit-bull Floyd is hogging the bed as usual. She—yes, Floyd is a she—is an obvious bed hog.
When I found her, she had on a pink, spiked collar that was digging into her neck. I squatted down and peeled it off the poor girl, and she let me. Then, she took off, and I followed her to an abandoned warehouse, walking into a fucking scene that makes my stomach churn to this day. Fucking dog fights.
My dad loves those godforsaken fights, while I despise them.
I called a cop friend I knew from high school while in an outside alley and then waited. When the fuckers running the circuit were taken in, along with the spectators, I watched the SPCA take the dogs. Floyd looked at me, I looked at her, and I knew she was mine.
“Floyd, seriously, bitch”—I laugh as she licks my face—“get down.”
*.*.*.*
I walk in the bar on a Friday morning after my run with Floyd along the riverside. We don’t open until noon, but I have orders to place for next week.
Hendrix (Caldwell Brothers #1) Page 1