Second Chance Love (Heaven Hill Book 6) Read online

  “I’m almost positive that you will.” Meredith waved at them. “The two of you better get going. It’s getting dark.”

  Rooster and Layne made their way back to his truck. He started it, put it in drive, and took off towards the clubhouse. The faster he dropped off Layne the quicker he could be at the one place he wanted to be more than anything—Roni’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Roni was worried. Not thirty minutes ago she’d gotten a call from Rooster, and he’d not sounded like himself. It had been a long time since she’d heard his voice take the tone it’d taken while she was on the phone with him. He’d specifically asked to meet her out at their swimming hole. He’d asked her to bring a case of beer and a change of clothes.

  She parked her car next to the pool of water and wondered whether she should get out and wait for him or stay there. It was late August, but in south central Kentucky they had just hit their stride. What had started out as a cool summer for the most part had turned hot and humid. It was hard to breathe, and she’d heard more than one person at the shop refer to it as feeling like the armpit of Satan.

  Oh hell, she was going to be swimming anyway, what did it matter if she got a little sweaty before that happened? She got out, thinking of the last time they had been here. It seemed like so much had happened in such a short amount of time. That was always how it seemed to go with them. They were balls to the wall in everything they did. She leaned against her car and listened closely, she thought she heard someone approaching. When she turned, she saw Rooster’s truck making its way towards her. He stopped beside her car and cut the ignition.

  “Hey,” she called to him as he got out and walked over to her. Her breath caught as she got a good look. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans, a tight white T-shirt covered his body, and he had flip flops on his feet. It looked like he’d either been really hot or just gotten out of the shower because his hair was a little wet around the collar.

  “Hey,” he said back as he made his way over to her and picked her up in his arms, twirling her around. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. He needed the grounding she gave him after what he had just witnessed. “I missed the hell out of you.”

  “It’s only been hours,” she told him.

  His reply was to tilt the side of his mouth up. “A full twenty-four. Far too fucking long, especially after what I saw today. I need to be with you,” he told her. There was nothing he wanted more; he had to bury himself in her, whether that be her core, her mouth, didn’t matter. He needed to forget the things he’d seen, the things he’d done. He wanted to just be, and the only place he could do that was with Roni.

  “I got you.” She smiled up at him. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but she’d had some strange text messages, and she’d been able to talk to Meredith for a few moments. She knew some, but not all. Grasping his hand, she pulled him around her car and back to his truck.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his eyebrows coming together. He was a little on edge, just because of everything that had happened. It made him the least bit nervous.

  She winked and reached over, letting his tailgate down. Without speaking, her fingers went to the button of his jeans and unhooked it, pushing them down to his knees. He wore no underwear. “Commando?” She quirked a brow at him.

  “I knew we were going swimming,” he whispered, stunned when she pushed him back onto the tailgate.

  He was hard, his erection already there waiting on her. The tailgate gave her some room so that she wouldn’t have to drop to her knees. She was short enough that all she had to do was bend at the waist.

  When she did, the air whooshed out of his body. He anticipated the warm heat of her mouth, and when it did encompass him, he threaded his fingers through her hair, pushing down hard on her. “I’m sorry,” he apologized when he felt her gag reflex kick in.

  She put a hand on his thigh and inhaled deeply through her nose before she slowly inched down his length, taking him further and deeper into her throat.

  “Damn, Roni,” he moaned, as he untangled his fingers from her hair and reached down to pull the ends of her shirt up. “Move your mouth,” he commanded, and when she did, he got rid of the shirt, leaving her there in a lacy pink bra. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he told her, reaching out to palm one of her breasts, squeezing and pressing it up against her chest.

  She took her hand and tightened it around his erection, moving it up and down on the hard length, using the palm of her hand to brush across the head. “You like that?” she asked as he hissed a breath, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back.

  “I need your mouth back.” He pushed the words out through clenched teeth.

  Not waiting, she moved back down around him so that she did just as he asked. With the flat of her tongue, she licked him up and down, getting him nice and wet, which allowed her to push him further back into her throat. She moaned against him, feeling her nipples harden as she did it. Giving blow jobs had never been one of her favorite things, but with him it was turning her on like it had never turned her on before.

  His hands went to her sides and moved up, pushing the cups of her bra down. Using his thumbs, he brushed her nipples, making them even harder. He bit back a curse when she moaned even deeper against him this time. “Son of a bitch, Roni.” He breathed out when she brought her hand back into play. She stroked against him hard and fast. “Do you want me to come?” he questioned.

  She nodded, her hair moving in his way so that he couldn’t see her. With his hands, he picked up the strands and held them in a ponytail on top of her head. He wanted to be able to see everything she did to him, for him. When he wasn’t sure he could handle it any longer, she hollowed out her cheeks and sucked against his length hard. A tingling started at his back, and every part of his body tensed. “Move back, baby,” he warned her, but she didn’t. She took every bit that he had to give her.

  Before he could even say her name, she’d pushed him back against the bed of the truck, gotten herself out of her jeans and was straddling his waist, using him the same way he’d needed to use her. Crazy to some people, but perfect for the two of them.

  “Thanks for agreeing to meet me out here tonight,” Rooster told her as the two of them tread water in their swimming hole. They’d most definitely required a beer and a nice wash off once they were done.

  “Thanks for asking me. I heard through the grapevine that it was a hard day.”

  He nodded. “It was. I don’t know how a mother could do that in front of her child. I’m not sure who she was or if she knew that she’d taken enough to kill herself—hell, it may have been Coach Thistle that shot her up before he left. Either way, to be that gone over a drug, to do that in front of your child—it disgusted me. I saw things with law enforcement, things I will never forget. We saw suicides and domestics that got completely out of hand, car accidents where people were missing body parts, but it never fails—anytime it involves a child, it sticks with you. That’s why I needed this tonight. If I was still with the department, I’d go hit the shooting range and shoot until my anger had faded. I can’t do that anymore.”

  She swam over and put her arms around his neck, leveling her gaze with his so that he looked her in the face. “Anytime you need me, for whatever reason, I’m here. You have to know that. We’re in this together, whatever this ends up being. I don’t want you to ever think that you have to hide a piece of yourself from me. We’ve come too far for that to be an issue. If it’s good or bad, I want to be a part of it.”

  He pulled her to him, burying his face in her hair. “I love you, Roni. I never stopped, not even when it looked like we would never have a future. There was always a part of me that wanted you, that waited for you. I think that’s why I always kept up with Liam, why I stalked him for the most part. I couldn’t stalk you, but if I could keep up with him, then I felt closer to you. I never wanna be without you again.” He crushed her to him, holding her tightly against his body.
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  “I don’t ever wanna be without you again either. I will be glad to wear your property patch when the time comes.”

  Those words gave him pause. Would that time ever come? Would he ever be worthy enough that they would want him to be a part of Heaven Hill, or would he always be on the outside looking in? That worried him more than anything.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Monday morning dawned bright and early. Roni wasn’t sure if she was ready for it, but she also knew that there was a ton of work to do at the shop. She also had a question to ask her brother. In the past, she never would have gotten herself involved in club business, but this was a different matter altogether. This was her business, whether they knew it or not. She had to know if there was a shot. Since she’d spoken the words a few days ago at their swimming hole, she hadn’t been able to forget about wearing Rooster’s property patch. It was important to her, as someone who had grown up the way she had. Pulling into the shop, she was excited to see that Liam was already there. Parking, she got out and walked straight over to the bay.

  “What are you doing here so early?” she asked, trying not to startle him.

  “Drew’s gotta be at school early today. The guidance counselor wants to talk to him about what happened, so after his workout with Tyler, we went ahead and came this way.”

  Bowling Green’s rumor mill had been going at ninety miles an hour for the past week. Word broke of the coach being arrested, of the dead woman found in his house, and the amount of drugs he had.

  “He’s out back moving tires as we speak.” He looked at his watch. “Why are you here this early?”

  “I’m always here early, but I wanted to talk to you about something today,” she started, worried that he would see right through her and cut her off at the pass.

  “Good, because I wanted to talk to you about something, too,” Liam told her, running a hand over his face. “Meredith found out that the woman who was in the house didn’t have family. They ran her DNA against the national database for missing persons and nobody has reported her missing. Everything points to the fact that this girl had probably been with the coach for a long time. I don’t know if that means they were related or what. He’s not talkin’…he’s invoked his right to silence on anything and everything. I talked to Denise about it last night, and we want to move ahead, claim the body, and pay for the funeral. Can you do that on behalf of the club? I’m sure Rooster can help with what needs to be done regarding the county.”

  She nodded, making some notes on her cell phone in case she got busy later. When she finished, she sighed, running a hand through her hair.

  The sigh didn’t escape Liam, and he cut his eyes over to her. “You okay?” He wiped his hands on a rag and stood to give her his full attention. “Everything good with Rooster?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears. “Everything’s great with Rooster. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  He was confused, but he would listen to anything his sister had to say. “Okay, shoot. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m stepping on your toes. In fact, if you get that vibe from me, I want you tell me to mind my own. I love you and I respect my place in your life, so I seriously don’t want to piss you off,” she started.

  “I’m intrigued, and worried.”

  “When are you going to stop making Rooster do all your shit work and bring him in as a member? There’s one thing I’ve wanted to do my whole life, and that’s wear his property patch,” she blurted out, watching closely for signs of pissing him off.

  “You’re right, it’s not your place to ask me that, and if it were anybody besides you, I would tell them to mind their own business and leave me the fuck alone, but since it’s you and you’ve taken care of me my whole life—I’ll cut you some slack. I want to bring it up at the meeting tomorrow. Whatever bullshit he and Layne had going on seems to have cleared up and everybody else likes him. Hell, he and Tyler have gotten to be somewhat friends. I don’t have to tell you how hard that’s been. I appreciate everything he’s done for us, and he would only make us stronger. We’re starting runs next week, so we definitely need another person that could ride. I think Rooster would be an amazing asset and I think everyone else does too.” He told her all the things that he’d been thinking. This had already been at the back of his mind, but with everything that had been going on, it was one more thing that had been pushed to the backburner.

  Drew had come up behind them while they had been talking. “I like Rooster a lot,” Drew piped up. “He could have been a real dick to me, but he wasn’t, he told me straight, and I know it was him that kept my name out of everything when Coach Thistle was arrested. I wasn’t one of the ones dragged in, and I know he had a hand in that. I think if it’s what Aunt Roni wants, she should get it.”

  Liam grinned over at Drew, putting his arm around his son and bringing him close to his side. “You think so, huh? You think you have a say-so in this?”

  Drew grinned back. “In most things, no, but where Rooster is concerned—maybe. You have to admit, had he not figured out what I was doing, I’d be a million times worse off by now. I can already feel a huge difference in my life, in the way my body feels and the way I carry myself. I’m thankful to him.”

  “We are too,” Roni agreed. “It wasn’t easy to hear, and none of us wanted to believe it because none of us ever thought you’d do something like that, but I’m glad that we got it taken care of.”

  “It’s not easy and it won’t be for a while,” Liam cautioned the two of them. “But we’ll be here for you, no matter what. Speaking of which,” he glanced at his watch again, “I gotta be getting him to school. The counselor wanted to meet with him and Charity. They asked for either me or Denise to be there and Jasmine. I got the short straw.”

  Drew’s cheeks blushed a furious red color. “I don’t know if I wanna see her, Dad. I was awful to her; I said and did some things that I’m downright ashamed of.”

  “You weren’t yourself,” Roni told him. “If you’re honest with her and explain what was going on and if you still want her to be in your life, then I think she’d be more than willing to be with you. You can’t float by on your charm, good looks, and apologies forever though. You’ve got to mean what you say and follow through with it.”

  “I know, but I feel like I keep making the wrong decisions where she’s concerned.”

  “You’re in high school,” she reminded him. “Either it’ll work out or it won’t. Twelve years from now, we’ll see where you are.”

  As they left, Roni walked towards the office, excited about the changes that would be coming into her life. For once, she was finally getting everything that she’d wanted and she wasn’t having to sacrifice her whole life for it either. For once she was getting to have her cake and eat it too.

  Unbeknownst to Rooster, she’d had her own session with Doc Jones the day before, and she was also excited to talk to him about that.

  “I think I want to try and have another baby,” Roni whispered to the doctor as she squirmed on the couch.

  “Is this something you’ve thought of before or something that’s come to you since Rooster’s been back in your life?”

  “Since Rooster’s been back in my life. There were one or two men after Rooster that I could have seen myself with, but none of them ever made me feel the way he did. I never got that catch in my breath, that skip of my heart, when they touched me I never got goose bumps. You know what I mean?”

  “I do know what you mean.” Doc Jones smiled and it was a little sad.

  “I couldn’t give myself to those men because I knew that there was someone out there that could give me those things. I’m concerned that I’m trying to fix the wrongs though, and I don’t want to fuck this up.” She pushed her hair back from her face.

  “Do you and Rooster have a good relationship?”

  “I think so. I mean, we’ve been together for a short a
mount of time, but it’s like we didn’t even have that break. I feel comfortable with him, as much as I did back then and even in newer ways. He knows everything now, and he’s willing to accept me no matter what. That gives me such confidence in the two of us and it makes me want to be with him. I just don’t want to feel like I’m replacing one life with another, you know?”

  “There are lots of women who have miscarriages that get pregnant right afterwards and they have that same fear, Roni. You’ve waited seventeen years to have the life you’ve dreamed of. Will there be issues that pop up? I’m sure. There are always issues no matter how steady the relationship is. Will you and Rooster need to come see me again? Probably, but that doesn’t mean that you’re fucked up or that you’ve made a mistake. It’s life sometimes. I say you should do what you want to do. Talk it over with Rooster, don’t just have unprotected sex with him, get pregnant, and then tell him that was the plan all along. Be honest. Be open. Plan and want this together.”

  She hoped and prayed that once she carried his patch, he would be as open to the idea of having a child as she was. A little baby that looked like the both of them. Someone to love that she could offer a good childhood to. Roni couldn’t wait, she just hoped that he wouldn’t break her heart and say no. She had to bide her time and wait for the right moment to ask him.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rooster was nervous. He’d been called to the clubhouse by not only Liam but Tyler. He’d been involved in meetings before, but that was usually when he knew what the meeting was going to entail. These calls had come out of nowhere. He’d been at the gym and neither one of them would take no for an answer. Putting his backpack on his back, he hopped on his bike and did his best to obey all the traffic laws as he made his way out to the clubhouse.

  Usually he enjoyed the drive down Porter Pike, but this time he couldn’t appreciate it. There were too many thoughts in his head, too many scenarios playing out. Before he realized it, he was pulling up at the clubhouse. He shut off his bike and sat on it for a few moments, trying to compose himself.