Jack & Coke (The Uncertain Saints Book 2)
Read Jack & Coke (The Uncertain Saints Book 2) Online
Authors: Lani Lynn Vale
Text copyright ©2016 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
I’ve done a lot of growing over the last three years that I’ve been self-published, and each of those three years I’ve made many new friends in my book world. So many people I only know by names and Facebook profile pictures, and each of you have made a huge impact on my life. You’ve kept me writing when all I want to do is take a break. You’ve offered encouragement, and overall had a huge impact on my life. So this book is dedicated to the ladies that have made a point to take time out of their day to tell me how much they’ve loved my books. Thank you all so much, and know that this wouldn’t be possible without y’all.
Acknowledgements
Golden Czermak AKA Furiousfotog- I don’t know if you have any idea just how awesome you are, but I’m here to tell you that you’re just that. Super awesome. Your photos are by far my favorites. Thank you for sharing your work with the world.
Nick Bennett- when I saw this photo of you, I knew you’d be perfect for Mig
. Thank you so much for allowing this photo to be taken. It’s beautiful, and so are you.
Dani- you sure do know how to make my pretties shine. You have no idea how much I adore you.
Lies
Mig’s wife is a bitch.
How else do you describe a woman that lies, cheats and steals to get what she wants?
That’s exactly what happens when she traps him into a marriage he wants nothing to do with, saddling him with a kid that he knows doesn’t deserve to be in a world like his.
He’s doing a pretty bang-up job at ignoring everything but his responsibilities as a DEA officer and a member of The Uncertain Saints MC.
Then his neighbor knocks on his door, and everything he thought he knew is blown out the window.
Deceit
Annie teaches Mig that not every woman is out to get him.
Her love for Mig stretches past what’s appropriate for two friends, and Annie soon straddles that invisible boundary between what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate.
Annie’s not an adulterer, though. And she’ll never be any man’s mistress.
When she tries to say goodbye, Mig won’t let her leave, and soon the tiny town of Uncertain blows up with the news of Annie and Mig’s innocent friendship.
Betrayal
Matters of the heart are foreign to Mig, and it takes Annie being gutted for him to see the wrong he’s done.
He waits too long, though, and Annie’s heart is broken.
She wants it all, or she wants nothing. She can’t take anymore half-hearted attempts at being just friends.
The heart wants what it wants, and it doesn’t take long for Mig to realize that.
But just when Mig finally has it all in the palm of his hand, his life is ripped to shreds by a new player in the game, and it takes all of Annie’s love and devotion, as well as help from the men of The Uncertain Saints MC, to put Mig back together again.
Table of Contents
Don’t try to tell me that hungry is not an emotion. I feel that shit in my soul.
-Annie to Mig
Mig
I stepped out of my house, clad only in a pair of jeans and nothing else, and slowly started towards my neighbor’s house.
I’d been in the kitchen, taking a sip of some orange juice straight from the jug, when I’d looked over to see two black-clad figures entering the back of my neighbor’s house.
My neighbor that was a woman.
A very beautiful woman.
Instead of walking around to the back, I went to Annie’s window, the one that was directly across from mine, and slowly entered it.
Most people didn’t realize we kept our windows open since our houses were so close together.
Which was a good thing, too, since the intruders had thought it better to go through the back of the house instead of this easier to access window.
If they’d done that, I would’ve never seen them until it was too late…
if at all.
The moment my feet touched down on Annie’s hardwood floor, I moved silently over to the bed where she slept soundly.
My hand covered her mouth, and she startled awake like a scalded cat.
She tried to scream behind my hand, but I moved onto the bed until I could flatten my body on top of hers.
The air left her lungs in a rush the moment I gave her all of my body weight.
“Shhh,” I said, barely audible against her ear. “It’s Mig. You’re okay.”
Annie immediately went limp.
“Where’s your dog?” I asked, removing my hand.
“In her cage,” she answered almost tonelessly.
As I listened to her, my heart started to pound for a completely different reason at feeling her soft body underneath mine.
“I’m going to go check your house. Call 911. Don’t speak. They’ll trace your call and dispatch units. Get off the bed and go to the corner of the room beside the dresser,” I pointed in the direction I wanted her to go.
She nodded against my chest. Reluctantly, I moved up and over the bed, finally stopping at the door.
With the utmost care, I opened the door and started to move down the hall.
I could hear the scuffle of feet now, but not much more than that.
Following the sounds to the living room, I paused at the corner of the mouth of the hall and aimed my gun at the uninvited guests.
“Freeze,” I said, menace leeching out of my steely voice.
The flashlights stopped bobbing around and both men froze.
“Put your hands behind your head and link your fingers,” I ordered.
They both complied.
I moved slowly to the side of them, keeping them in my line of sight, as I stopped in front of the light switch and hit the lights.
Both men, dressed in black, with their masks up around their foreheads, blinked at the suddenness of the light switching on.
I recognized the one on the left instantly.
He was Annie’s screw up ex-husband.
I’d met him at the diner in town when he’d tried to sit down at the booth that Annie had been occupying.
In her haste to get away from him, she’d bumped into me as I made my way to a table with my wife.
I’d caught her before she’d hit the ground, and immediately turned to put Annie at my back, allowing me to place my body in between her and her ex-husband.
He hadn’t liked that much, and I’d made a friend and an enemy all in one day.
My wife already hated the fact that I was a ‘protector’ by nature and had made sure to let me know she didn’t appreciate me having my hands on another woman. Regardless of the circumstances.
Annie had instantly liked me, extremely happy that she’d finally found a man she could count on.
And Mr. Autrey, Annie’s ex-husband, had made sure to harass me every chance he got.
“What are you doing in my wife’s house?” Ross Autrey snapped at me.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I answered instead.
Ross narrowed his eyes at me, and I smirked.
“Go on,” I goaded, smiling congenially at him. “Try it. Make my day.”
Ross proved he wasn’t stupid.
The friend with him, however, proved he was.
He let his hands slowly slip from his head, and I laughed.
“Ross. How about you tell your friend how good of a shot I am,” I invited.
Ross turned his head in the direction of his friend, and shook his head, whispering frantically at him. “Don’t move, man. He’s gonna blow your head apart.”
The friend saw the error in his ways,
luckily
.
“Annie,” I called. “Tell the cops there are two intruders. One is your ex, and the other is…”
I looked at the man.
“Howard. Howard Ryan,” he replied grudgingly.
“You got that?” I called.
“Yes!” Annie called from the bedroom.
Hopefully she was still in her spot, but it sounded to me like she’d been closer than I wanted her to be right then.
And I knew she wouldn’t spend much more time hidden away.
“Go get the door for the policemen I can see outside,” I called. “And tell them you have a DEA Agent in your house so they don’t try to shoot me when they enter.”
“I already did,” I heard Annie say as she got closer.
I saw her for only a few seconds before she disappeared around the edge of the hallway into the entryway beyond it.
Then the door was unchained, unlocked and swung open.
Three cops were the next to enter, and I nodded at the one I knew.
“Hey there, Officer Kirkpatrick,” I called to my good friend.
We had drinks every week, sometimes multiple times a week.
I had to do some creative maneuvering to get away from my wife, and Officer Kirkpatrick, a.k.a. Bullseye, was one of my moves.
Well, I didn’t do him…but I hung out with him.
Often.
And Bullseye had a hell of a wife that didn’t care if I was over there as much as I was.
“What’s shakin’?” Bullseye asked.
“These two men here decided to break into Annie’s house. I’m just here making sure that they don’t get off with anything valuable,” I answered.
The other officer, Antonio Juarez, I didn’t know very well.
He was new, and hung out with the young’uns instead of us old folks.
Well, I was thirty-four, which wasn’t ‘old’ per se, but it sure as fuck wasn’t young, either.
“What’s that in his hand?” Juarez asked.
I looked down at Howard Ryan’s hand, and narrowed my eyes.
“That’s Annie’s purse,” I answered.
Annie’s ‘purse’ was more of a beach bag, and I didn’t know how the hell she found anything in it.
But I wouldn’t know what to do with her if she didn’t have it with her.
She’d been able to supply me with an ice pack, and a water on two different occasions, so I wasn’t one to complain when it was beneficial to me.
“Well, boys, let’s go for a ride downtown,” Bullseye said, walking behind Howard Ryan and handcuffing him.
Ryan shot me an evil look as he left, promising retribution, and I smiled at him.
Bring it, little boy. You can’t handle this
, my look said.
Forty-five minutes later, the cops were leaving with both men in the back of two separate cars, and I was left standing on Annie’s front porch with her next to me.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me with all sorts of promises in her eyes.
I touched my fingertips to her cheek and smiled down at her.
God, she was beautiful.
Long, wavy brown hair that went down to her mid back. Beautiful, full lips.
A smokin’ ass.
Light bronze skin that was nearly the color of mine.
She wasn’t Italian like me, though.
She was Puerto Rican, and she wouldn’t let anyone call her otherwise.
I’d give anything to be with her but my life, and name, belonged to my wife.