Blaze

by Gwendolyn Grace

  Blaze

  (Drive Me Wild book three)

  By Gwendolyn Grace

  Blaze

  Copyright © 2017 Gwendolyn Grace Books

  All rights reserved.

  Blaze is © copyrighted by Gwendolyn Grace and is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws, with ALL rights reserved. No part of this may be copied, or changed in any format, sold, or used in any way other than what is outlined under any circumstances without express permission from Gwendolyn Grace.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Grace Street Designs

  Editor: Edee M. Fallon, Mad Spark Editing

  Dedication

  For those who aren’t afraid to go after what they want. Even when failure is likely.

  Follow your heart and live out your dreams. Surprise yourself.

  You won’t know for sure unless you try.

  Prologue

  Past 8 years ago

  “I’m going to marry you one day, Blakey.”

  I turned my face toward Tayia in disgust as she sat next to me on the couch, clinging to my arm and batting her eyelashes.

  “Quit calling me Blakey and get off me. Ugh,” I grumbled as I shook my arm to loosen her grip, though she only tightened her hold.

  “Well, I am.” She cheesed proudly, flashing her silver braces.

  “I told you, Tayia, I’m never getting married, and if one day I do have to get a wife, it ain’t gonna be you." She looked sad immediately and I felt a pain in my gut.”

  W-why not?” she stuttered, her voice sounding small.

  “Because”—I shoved her in the forehead with the palm of my free hand. When her neck tipped back, she let go of my arm—“you’re annoying,” I said, quickly moving away.

  Annoying, that was an understatement.

  Tayia and her dad had moved across the street a year ago, and I would see her outside by herself almost every day and sometimes wandering the neighborhood. Her dad’s car was always gone, which meant she was often left home alone. My mom went over to speak to Tayia’s dad and found out that he drove the ferry between the island and Key City, which meant he worked a lot. Since his daughter was twelve, he thought she could stay home alone. Mom did not agree and insisted Mr. Jones let Tayia come to our house when he worked. But, then again, Mom was a hard person to disagree with—a real ball buster, as my Uncle Ronnie would say.

  It had always just been Mom and me. I didn’t see my dad much, maybe a couple of times a year. He was a nice guy who brought me presents, but he never stayed around for long. One night when they thought I was sleeping, I overheard Grandma and Mom talking about him. It was then I found out my dad had a different wife who didn’t know about me. This had been shocking news because I thought he was married to my mother. I also didn’t understand why I had to be a secret. Grandma said he needed to do a better job helping to buy the things I needed, and the next day, Mom had been on the phone crying and telling Dad to send more money or she would talk to his wife.

  Not long after that, we moved into this house, which I liked much better than the apartment, although, the space started to feel cramped with Tayia always hanging around. She latched on to me right away. We walked to and from the bus stop, and if her dad wasn’t home after school, she had to come to our house, which ended up being pretty much every day. Even when Mr. Jones wasn’t working, they still ate dinner at our house because Tayia’s dad wasn’t a very good cook.

  If I was doing my homework at the kitchen table, she was sitting across from me. If I moved into the living room to watch TV, she followed. I often caught her in my room messing with my stuff, and I would have to push her into the hallway and lock the door so she didn’t come back in. The only place I was safe was the bathroom, until she started screaming and hollering about needing to go, too.

  I knew she had a crush on me, but Tayia was twelve and I was fourteen. She was just a kid, and I’d be going to high school soon.

  “When will my mom and your dad be home?” I asked, feeling irritated as I glared out of the window to check the driveway. Our parents had gone to dinner together, which felt kind of weird. It was fine that they were friends, but I wasn’t sure I liked that they’d been spending so much time together. “Shouldn’t they be back already?” When Tayia didn’t say anything, I turned around to find her sitting on the couch, staring down at her hands. “Tayia?”

  She lifted her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. Instantly, my feet were scrambling in her direction.

  “Tay?” I dropped down on my knees in front of her. “What’s the matter?” When she turned her face up to look at me, my heartbeat quickened. Man, her eyes were pretty.

  “You called me annoying.” She pouted and used the backs of her hands to wipe away the tears. I felt bad hearing her repeat what I had said.

  "I’m sorry.” The words flew out of my mouth before I even knew I would say them.

  The sadness instantly left those green eyes I couldn’t look away from, and suddenly, I could breathe again. “It’s okay. I can’t stay mad at you.” She sniffled and sat up straight. “Can I have a hug?” She grinned hopefully, and I knew I’d been duped.

  “Sure.” Slowly, I wrapped my arms around her as she crushed her tiny body against me, pressing her wet and snotty face to my neck. Yep, like I said, annoying.

  I waited a few more seconds before gently pushing her away.

  “Will you make me a promise?” Tayia asked as she rested back against the couch.

  “What kind of promise?”

  “Never say never.”

  “What?”

  “Promise me you will never say that you will never marry me.”

  “Tayia, I—”

  “Promise me, Blakey.”

  I blinked at her for a few seconds because I didn’t know what to say. Like I told her, I had no plans to ever get married. My Uncle Ronnie was not married. He raced cars and had tons of girlfriends. I wanted to be like him when I grew up, but the look on Tayia’s face made it hard to tell her no. I really did care about her, even if she was irritating.

  “Fine, and you have to promise if you ever get a husband, you’ll make sure he’s nice to you.” I tugged lightly on the long braid resting over her shoulder.

  “Well, that’s a silly thing to promise since I’m going to marry you.” She giggled and I rolled my eyes before standing up. “Oh, it will be so easy! We already have the same last name. Blake Jones and Tayia Jones. It’s a sign, I tell you.”

  “Signs? Do you even know what you’re talking about?” I grumbled while walking into the kitchen, knowing full well that she would follow. I fixed us both a sandwich and we ate at the table while she chattered away about a new book she’d been reading, Wuthering Heights. Even though I’d already read it for my advanced literature class, I pretended to not know where the story was headed because I liked hearing her retell it. Mom thought it might be above her reading level, but Tayia didn’t have a problem getting through the book.

  We heard the key slip into the front door lock and turned our heads to see our parents walking into the kitchen, hand in hand and smiling.

  “We have news! Wonderful news!” Mom announced excitedly but my eyes never left their joined hands. “Chris and I are getting married.” She lifted her left arm and wiggled her fingers to show us her diamond ring while bouncing on her toes in excitement. Dumbfounded, Tayia and I exchanged glances.

  “Getting married? How?” I asked after finally finding my voice.

  “Blake, I know this
all seems like a big surprise, but Chris and I have been seeing each other for a while. We just didn’t want to get you kids involved until we knew where things were going between us long term.” My mother wound her fingers together nervously and walked over to stand next to me. “I know this is the right thing for us, sweetheart.” She smiled down at me and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Kids, Maggie and I love each other very much,” Tayia’s dad said. “This is happy news, guys! Why the long faces?” He threw a confused glance at his daughter. “Tayia?”

  “Congratulations, Daddy,” she stammered then hugged him. “You, too, Miss Maggie.” She reached an arm around my mom.

  “Tayia, I know I can never replace your mother, and I’m so sorry she passed away when you were so young.” She touched Tayia’s cheek. “I want you to know I love you, and I hope one day you can call me Mom.” Tayia nodded stiffly then shifted her eyes to me.

  “Blake?” Mom squeezed my shoulder. “How are you doing with all this?”

  “I’m okay,” I managed to say, though my mind felt frozen in confusion.

  “This will all work out just fine.” Mr. Jones smiled down at us. “Would you look at that, Tayia doll? You have a brother now.”

  Why did something inside me want to reject the idea of Tayia being my sister? I didn’t understand it then, but the uneasiness I felt that night would turn into a full rebellion inside over the next eight years.

  Chapter One

  Present

  I felt ill—physically sick and emotionally dead.

  I sat and stared at the pregnancy test in utter disbelief for what felt like hours. The sun outside the tiny bathroom window faded as I stayed motionless on the cold tile floor. Everything felt numb. A beeping noise from my cell alerted me in short intervals that the battery was dying, but I still couldn’t move. The gravity of it all sank in the minute I verbalized the words.

  “Pregnant? How could I be pregnant?”

  Well, I knew exactly how I had gotten pregnant.

  Jonna had been frantic after our phone call and insisted on coming over. I managed to convince her that I would talk to her tomorrow. I couldn’t face all the questions, especially: “What are you going to do?”

  I had no clue.

  I was pregnant with Blake’s baby, and I had no idea what I was going to do.

  The slamming of the front door snapped me out of my thoughts. Blake was home.

  “Tay?” he hollered up the staircase. I tried to summon a voice loud enough to answer but nothing would come out. When the thumping of his footsteps grew closer, I knew he was coming for me, so I got to my feet, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water on my face.

  “Tay?” Blake called out again from the other side of the door. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked.

  “You sure?”

  “Uh huh.” I looked at my reflection in the mirror; my eyes were red and my face pale. There was no way he could see me like this. He would know something was wrong for sure. Nobody knew me as well as he did.

  “Uh . . . okay. Are you . . . um . . .” His voice trailed off. “You goin’ out tonight?” He was talking about me dating Brando. Blake hated it, but I’d made it clear it wasn’t his business. He had his chance to make me his, and he blew it.

  “Not sure,” I mumbled around the toothbrush I’d shoved into my mouth to get rid of my vomit breath. “Maybe.” I aimed for indifference and hoped it sounded convincing.

  Jonna and King were having a party at the big house they had finally fixed up in Key City. When Jonna moved in, the place was empty besides the giant gear-head garage that was fully equipped with everything a performance mechanic could ever possibly need. With things finally going right for them, they were ready to show off the place to a few friends. Brando was King’s brother and living there, too, so I had plans to be his date.

  Over the past few months, Brando and I had developed a friendship. He was a great listener, though to look at him you wouldn’t think it. With messy, ink-black hair and tattooed arms, the last thing you would suspect was that he was a nice guy, but he was. I could confide a lot of things to him I couldn’t to anyone else, not even Jonna.

  Brando knew Blake and I were stepsiblings and that I was in love with him. He didn’t grow up around here so the news wasn’t shocking to him at all. It also made it easier to confess my feelings once I knew he didn’t have a thing for me.

  No, I suspected that Brando was very into Carina, the new redheaded waitress at Annette’s Catch, except she wouldn’t give him the time of day. However, for the time being, I liked that Blake thought we were together and was jealous as hell about it.

  It served him right.

  After taking a shower, I put on a loose-fitting, floral-print sundress I’d chosen for self-conscious reasons. Physically, I wasn’t showing. Mentally, I felt the news was written on my forehead in bright red ink. I needed to be able to hide a bit longer until I figured out how I felt about it all.

  When I got downstairs, the house was dark, except for the faint light shining from the kitchen door, which led to the garage. The distant sounds of clinking metal meant Blake was out there working. I couldn’t resist going in and peeking through the closed blinds. He was under the hood of a car, his white T-shirt riding up and exposing his lower abdomen. My gaze immediately went to the happy trail of light brown hair that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. I’d spent hours standing there quietly observing him and was convinced he knew it, though he never said anything to me. Maybe his lack of acknowledgment fed my obsession a little. Admiring him from afar had become a habit I couldn’t shake.

  I’d sent Brando a text to meet me at the ferry dock later that night. I wasn’t in the mood for the party, and Jonna had been calling me relentlessly. My best friend meant well, but I needed someone to talk to, not to be talked at. By nine that night, Brando pulled King’s sleek Cabin Cruiser into the harbor and waved me over. After helping me climb aboard, he pulled away. We both stayed silent for a while as I enjoyed the night breeze on my face and inhaled the salty air.

  “So, what’s up?” Brando asked as he steered the boat away from the lights of the island. I shrugged and sighed. The melancholy was settling in. He glanced my way before slowing down the boat and dropping the anchor. We were far enough away from everything, but the coastline was still visible. When he sat down beside me, I looked up and greeted him with a small smile. The cleft in his chin made him look adorable, which was a contradiction to the bad boy persona he had going on.

  “Hey, B.” I sighed, the weight of all my worries resting heavy on my chest.

  “Hey, T.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him. I shivered at the slight chill of the wind, so his warmth was welcomed as I cozied up next to him. “What’s wrong?”

  “So many things, Brando.” I sighed again and let my gaze follow the dark ripples of the water. “Where do I even start?”

  “How about the beginning?” He grinned. “Best place, don’t you think?”

  “I guess so.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder as I thought back to how it all began. The moment I knew I would never love another man the way I loved the boy who was supposed to be my brother.

  Chapter Two

  Past- 6 Years ago

  “So, who’s this Hunter guy?” Blake grumbled while I continued to twirl the curling iron through my hair, making sure every dark strand was properly styled. Through the mirror, I could see him behind me, resting across my bed, his head propped against his hand while he picked at the ruffle trim of one of my pillows. He was home from the automotive technology school he’d been attending in Charleston, and it was his first visit since school began earlier that fall. The first thing he did as soon as he walked in the door the night before was find me and give me a great big hug. I must have smiled for an hour straight.

  “Hunter is just a guy in my pre-calculus class. I’m sure you would recognize him if you saw him,” I responded nonc
halantly, but inside I was freaking out because I had never been on a date. I may have hung out with boys during group outings to the movies or trips to the beach, but none that I could call my boyfriend.

  When I was fourteen, Marco Ellis kissed me once behind a bookshelf in the library, but we were caught by a group of his friends. The jerks teased us relentlessly for the rest of the day, and after that, Marco pretty much ignored me—the very reason I decided to stay away from boys. They had all proven to be rude and immature. I was shy and some people perceived it as me being distant and cold. Besides, I preferred spending time with the characters in my books than real people, anyway.

  Hunter Knight seemed different. He was a year older than me and we shared the same advanced math class. I thought he was charming and funny. Every day he would pass notes to me that always made me laugh. One day, I’d caught him with his arms folded on my desktop, chin resting on his hands as he stared at me in admiration. Feeling uncomfortable, I tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear and gave him an awkward smile.

  “What are you doing Friday night, Tayia?” he asked. My gaze immediately went to the tiny mole above his eyebrow. It was the first thing on his face that always grabbed my attention, and I had to constantly resist the urge to wipe it away.

  “Nothing.” I feigned a yawn then started flipping through my binder for yesterday’s notes.

  “You know, there’s a football game on Friday if you want to go.”

  “No way,” I scoffed. “I hate football.” Hunter’s face fell with disappointment, and suddenly, I was confused. Without saying anything more, he sat up and turned in his seat as the teacher started the lesson.

  Later at lunch, I told Jonna about my conversation with Hunter, and she nearly strangled me.

  “You idiot! He was asking you out and you totally blew it!”

  “What? No way. He was just telling me there was a football game.”