by Emma James
Table of Contents
BY EMMA JAMES
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
FIFTY-NINE
SIXTY
SIXTY-ONE
SIXTY-TWO
SIXTY-THREE
SIXTY-FOUR
SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX
SIXTY-SEVEN
SIXTY-EIGHT
SIXTY-NINE
SEVENTY
SEVENTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
BONUS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HITCHED
Copyright © 2020 by Emma James
Published by Emma James.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing. Except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For permission requests, email the author at [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places are incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This 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 of each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was no purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Cover Design: NajlaQamber Design
Editing: M Ramage
Formatting: Max Henry at Max Effect
Men of Ocean Beach Series
A Little Faith
Hope Is Lost
Joy is Found
Will to Protect (Coming 2020)
Standalones
Bearing the Rock Star (Paranormal novella)
Cocky Caveman (Tucker Royal& Ophelia from Men of Ocean Beach)
A Cocky Hero Club World – Vi Keeland & Penelope Ward (Coming 2020)
Hell’s Bastard Series
Wrenched
Warped
Contorted
Entwined
The Enforcer’s Revenge
Venerated
Hell’s Bastard Spin-off Duet
Hitched (The Wedding)
Destined
In the dimly lit back room of a smoky pool hall in Vegas, a small group of well-dressed men sit, quietly playing poker.
Destiny’s five poker opponents aren’t able to see her for who she really is: a twenty-something beauty of Amazonian height with long, mahogany wavy hair, curves like a back road, and big green eyes.
It would be too much of a distraction for the men to witness her true self—especially for a poker game she wants to win fair and square. Not that she wants for money or materialistic things.
All the players’ eyes can see sitting before them is a suited-up, middle-aged black man of medium height and medium weight with a black, wool felt, pork pie hat, sitting slightly askew on his bald head. Between his pearly teeth clenches a lit cigar as he decides which cards he wants to discard, while he mother’s a quarter-filled glass of aged bourbon—the bottle of Kentucky his tasty companion for the night. The alcohol is all for show, a prop because Destiny is immune to the potency of the liquor, but it sure does slide down nice.
Destiny is here purely for her amusement; to kill a little time.
It is a lot more fun being one of the poker guys—even if it is only for a few hours—because life as a Destiny gets lonely. Human friendships are something she is unable to commit to because it is against the rules. Living the life of a Destiny for over two centuries, well, it is the random little things she chooses to do that count toward keeping herself happy and sane while serving in the human world.
Four hours later with a pocket of cash and a 1969 midnight-black Mustang (the keys had been thrown into the pot), won from too many practiced years at the game (about as fair and square as possible considering her real age), she drives away into the night.
Playtime is almost over. She’s got a mark to find and a job to do, but first, she will take a quick detour in her newly acquired sports car.
The popular twenty-four-hour authentic Turkish ice cream parlor on Las Vegas Boulevard is her destination. She decided long ago that there is nothing better than ice cream, something the humans got right. They continue to invent more daring flavors for her taste buds to savor. But then they got McDonald’s right too... and ice-cold Coke. Addicted. Much?
Sliding the Mustang into a parking space she drops her glamour, legging it to the ice cream parlor where she orders a green-mint chocolate; pomegranate; Belgium chocolate, three-tiered delight in a waffle cone.
No human bats an eyelash at the supermodel-tall, supernatural beauty dressed like an urban fantasy heroine in an all-in-one (as though spray-painted on), sexy Black Widow leather ensemble as she sits on the hood of the Mustang, people-watching while enjoying her three scoops of heaven—after all, this is Vegas; anything goes.
So many humans and their destinies pass her by ripe for the picking, but none of them are on her list, therefore not of any interest to her tonight because her target unknowingly awaits her in Texas.
Destiny raises her waffle cone, posing with the sports car in the background for a selfie to add to her collection—if only because it amuses her to keep a tangible memory of her earthly escapades—and the fact she’s wearing a kickass outfit which is totally on point.
She finishes up the last bite of her waffle cone, before getting back into the Mustang and roaring out into the desert on the midnight-black steed.
She eventually arrives at her destination, a small Texas town where a dive bar is owned by the Lion’s Den MC.
Destiny parks the Mustang a block away behind an abandoned wa
rehouse and glamours it to look like one of the other Cedar Elm trees standing tall and uninteresting.
She will organize for the car to be returned to the owner shortly. There will be no further use for it once she releases her mark’s destiny.
Next, she glamours herself to appear to be a white homeless man in his early forties to all who gaze upon her form, his once brown hair peppered with gray, his blue suit old and ratty.
She walks to her destination and finds a spot along the front wall of the dive bar where she can be easily seen by the people coming and going and sits down on the filthy ground.
Destiny slips straight into her role, cupping large, dirty man hands in her grubby, homeless-man-lap with three coins nestled in the curve of the joined palms.
She doesn’t need to beg for money, but that is all part of the fun of role-playing to get the job done. She likes to thoroughly set the scene as though she is in a Steven Spielberg movie. He left no stone unturned and neither does she.
Destiny gets comfortable, leaning up against the wall as she settles in for the wait, biding her time for the unsuspecting mark to show, the late afternoon sun getting ready to tip over into night.
Her male target will get three days and three nights to prove to be a man of worth to the vagrant before his destiny is activated and ticked off her list.
Only those chosen by the powers above make it onto the lists. They are the humans of any age who need a little kick-start because the powers above know what the future holds and the world needs to keep a balance.
Some humans do know their destiny because they are the strong ones. The determined ones. They know who they are going to be from a young age and they stop at nothing to succeed.
But then you add Evil into the mix. Evil works in many ways to bring down humanity—to take lives and cause immeasurable pain and grief.
Life can be unfair from the get-go for a smaller portion of humanity. Sickness will steal from the healthy.
Evil is always trying to ruin humanity, playing with humans’ minds and attempting to derail their destiny. They prey on the weak using their insecurities, low self-esteem and many other factors. Evil will try to mess with the system and can overrule Destiny and Fate.
Good eggs will turn bad.
It’s the ancient game of Good VS Evil with no winner, just an ongoing score count.
Several hours later, growing bored with waiting, Destiny tilts her male head back, resting it against the grimy wall as though content in sleep, because it is a human thing to do and not because she needs the sleep.
In the end, she will only wait one day and one night for her mark to arrive because (pun intended) it is their destiny to meet.
The first night he acknowledges the homeless man’s presence with a nod before going into the dive bar.
Let the countdown begin.
He reappears many hours later with liquor coating his breath, only interested in the female he takes around the corner into the alleyway.
Classy.
Destiny waves the homeless man’s hand in the air (for drama’s sake) and poof she is out of there. She doesn’t need to hear that going on in the alleyway.
Invisible, she walks far enough away before reappearing and completing the distance to the Cedar Elm tree, and with another dramatic flick of her wrist, the Mustang reappears, and she drives herself to McDonald’s.
No spare change got earned from sitting on the hard ground, but she can still afford herself dinner from her poker winnings.
The second evening two bikes roar up the street, parking close to where she/the homeless man feigns sleep.
Without opening her eyes, she knew it was the twenty-year-old warrior and another younger male.
Many bikers and other bar patrons have come and gone all day, with some dropping spare change into Destiny’s hands, but the contract was only with the warrior.
The young warrior, however, does crouch down before the homeless man and talks humanely to him. The warrior holds a plastic bag in his hand, which he hands over to the vagrant. It contains fresh apples, carrots, bread, and bottled water—sadly, no ice cream.
He doesn’t ask anything too intrusive as he works to gain trust from the vagrant, but again, he fails to impress Destiny.
The mark’s destiny will not be released until the homeless man is suitably compensated.
On the third evening, the roars of many bikes are heard rumbling toward the dive bar before they splutter out after they park snug, lined up in formation out the front of the bar.
The merry, deep voices of the young bikers sound in good spirits as they approach the bar entrance with a night of drinking and sex on their minds.
Some walk through the door, but a few men hold back and stand before the homeless man, including her mark.
The young warrior lifts his foot and gives the homeless man’s shoe a lazy knock with his boot to rouse the man from his feigned sleep.
When he has the homeless man’s attention, the warrior crouches down and finally asks for the vagrant’s name.
Destiny has thought long and hard in the time she’s been sitting on the hard ground on what her vagrant’s name will be. ‘Lucky’ has a certain ironic charm about it, so ‘Lucky’ it would be, which brings a smile to the warrior’s eyes.
He continues to gently coax information out of the vagrant, enquiring on his homeless situation while two other men wait either side of the warrior, listening in. Destiny/Lucky made up a down-on-your-luck story, pulling at the conscience of the young warrior.
The warrior satisfied by the conversation he is having with Lucky, pulls a business card out of his wallet, and one of the men produces a pen so he can write some information down on the back of the small card. He then places it in the bowl made by Lucky’s dirty hands.
The warrior holds his hand out, and the vagrant clasps it knowing a deal on the warrior’s terms has now officially been struck.
For one month—on probation—Lucky will no longer be homeless, he will train to work at the dive bar and should he prove himself competent, then permanent employment will be offered. Lucky is to go to the address on the card. A clean room in a hotel close by awaits the vagrant where pre-paid accommodation has been set up.
The gift is given freely by the mark, and unbeknown to him, his destiny releases and the path is set.
The young warrior proves himself to be a male of worth, and the other men are true of heart, their spare bills lining Lucky’s cupped hands.
McDonald’s would be a feast this evening with ice cream for dessert—the humans call it a sundae—and funnily enough, today is indeed a Sunday.
Lucky/Destiny is now free to be on her way when the warrior and the men go back into the bar, never to be seen again.
She watches the men walk toward the dive bar’s large wooden door, and what do you know? Fate has decided to gate crash Destiny’s shindig and there’s only one reason she is doing that.
The thing about destiny, the road paved can be knocked off its axis by Fate, should she choose to intervene because her orders are above Destiny’s pay grade and come through different powers-that-be.
The vagrant glares at Fate from the corner of his eye.
Fate’s only response is to shrug from afar, blow a big, sugary, pink bubble with her bubblegum and then wiggle her fingers in mischievous amusement when it pops all over her face. Not that anybody can see the blonde pigtailed goddess dressed like a cheerleader in pink and white other than the homeless man.
Destiny well knew, the thing with Fate is she could wind up being a good or a bad path for the young warrior. So what gives? Fates tend to walk fine lines. It’s not necessarily a good sign when a Fate crosses paths with a Destiny.
But what Destiny doesn’t see is Cupid, hiding around the corner, her little crossbow loaded with a blue arrow. But Fate did and she isn’t going to miss this moment for the world.
Cupid is in her tiny-winged form, looking more gothic biker babe in her black: little leather shorts, calf-hi
gh boots, tight T-shirt and bright orange hair, than the goddess of love—the archer of matchmaking.
Due to modern times and modern thinking, a new free-will ruling is imposed on all the Cupids out trying to do what was once a pretty straight forward job: Aim an arrow, set it free, pure love they will forever see.
Now, the protocol is to stick the humans with an arrow, but Cupid isn’t allowed to ensure that whole soul-mate thing.
There were so many stresses in life working against humans these days that divorce was extremely high, and a lot of couples choose not to get married. It looks bad on the Cupids’ records, so matchmaking it is. After all, getting two people to meet is the hardest part.
True love will have to find its path.
Cupid intervention is not for every human, only the ones whose names come on her list.
There was always a list!
Fate blows a stiff breeze into Cupid just as she releases the arrow sending her tumbling head over wings through the air like a drunken gymnastics choreography routine, knocking her aim off.
Whoops!
Cupid should know never to mess with Fate; there isn’t a hierarchy for no reason.
And do you know what?
Destiny doesn’t feel a thing.
Because her fate is already sealed.
A Note From The Narrator
Well, isn’t this all a little mysterious.
As the narrator of the prologue—you can call me KARMA—I can assure you as the pages keep turning you will indeed discover what Destiny and Fate got up to.
I can’t just spill the beans straight away, it’s far too much fun letting the cards fall, where they may.
But for now, let’s fast-forward to Miss Catherine and then onto two years after Edge and Whisper’s engagement and see how all that plays out.
For better, or for worse, love will prevail.
But always remember, karma can be a bitch!
Signed: K
Don’t ask me why most of my life I be gettin’ feelin’s in dem bones of mine.
It be takin’ me years to understand they be steerin’ me in life.
When I finally be cluein’ myself in and started payin’ closer attention, I realized if I listened, they be aidin’ me to choose the right path.
Sometimes it be easier than other times to be knowin’ what to be makin’ of it all.