More Than Miles (A Lost Kings MC Novel) (67 page)

Somewhere down the road…

“W
hat’s wrong, beautiful?” Heidi’s been quiet all morning, but now she looks almost scared.

As her nervous brown eyes meet mine, her bottom lip trembles further setting off warning bells in my head.

“Nothing.”

“What’s behind your back?”

Slowly, she pulls her hand from behind her and waves a small white stick at me. “I’m pregnant,” she says softly.

“Holy shit! Really?” My heart thuds with excitement. “Oh my God, this is awesome!”

I yank her into my arms, hugging her so hard she gasps.

She ducks out of my hold. “I’m sorry. I know we weren’t—you’re happy, right?” Her fingers twist her wedding rings round and round. The worst is how she won’t meet my eyes.

I tuck my hand under her chin, lifting her face to look at me. “Heidi, I’m thrilled.”

Finally, she relaxes a bit and gives me a hint of a smile. “I still need to go to the doctor to be sure.”

“Okay. Tell me when so I can go with you.”

“You’ll do that?”

“Of course I will. I can’t wait.”

The last bit of fear or tension seems to flow out of her and she wraps her arms around my middle, resting her cheek on my chest. “I love you, Blake.”

My hand runs up and down her back and I hug her tight to me. “Love you, too.”

Alexa toddles over, wrapping her little arms around my leg. “Up,” she demands.

With one final kiss on Heidi’s forehead, I let her go. Leaning over, I pick up Alexa, lifting her high in the air until she squeals and giggles. “You ready to be a big sister, baby?” I ask.

Her eyes light up and she claps her hands.

“She’s already a good big sister to Grace,” Heidi points out.

I tuck Alexa against my side and she twists and turns. “Gracie?”

“Not yet, baby. They’ll be over later.”

“I hope it’s a boy,” I say. Heidi rolls her eyes. “Poor Chance is already outnumbered as it is.”

“Please. He’ll be thrilled when he’s older.”

I groan. Alexa needs a brother to help me beat Chance, and any other boys, off her when she’s older.
Please, let it be a boy.

“Can we keep it a secret?” Heidi asks. “Just until we know for sure?”

“Absolutely.” On second thought. “Make the appointment soon. I’m way too excited to keep my lips sealed for long.”

“Baby,” Alexa says.

“Uh-oh.” Heidi laughs and places a finger over her lips. “Shh. Secret.”

“Secret baby,” Alexa repeats in her sweet toddler lisp.

I doubt it will be a secret much longer.

Notes From the Author

Well, I hope you don’t hate me too much.
More Than Miles
was quite a journey. It wasn’t as painful or difficult an experience as I had with
Tattered on My Sleeve
, but I definitely stressed about how my readers would feel about certain things.

The story evolved over a long time. When I initially introduced Axel, in
Corrupting Cinderella
, I fully intended for Heidi to end up with him (I have two hundred #TeamAxel bracelets to back me up on this!) When I got to know her a little better in
Three Kings, One Night
, I thought she might want a life outside the club—I knew Axel would never patch in to the Lost Kings. Then through
Strength From Loyalty
and
White Heat
, I got to know her better, I realized how important the club and family was to her and knew taking her away from that would be the worst thing you could do to Heidi.

I knew Heidi wouldn’t be a virgin—I hate stories where the hero has bedded anything on two legs, but the heroine’s been saving herself for him all along. Heidi was not the type of girl to tolerate that. You might be interested to know that I fully intended for Murphy and Heidi to have sex in that opening scene. However, when it came time to write it, Heidi said,
fuck no
and the phone rang
.

Some authors claim their characters do not influence the story, that they, the author, direct every action their character makes. I am not one of those. Any time I’ve tried to force events, it comes out flat and stilted. My characters frequently decide to do whatever the fuck they want no matter what vague outline I’ve sketched out. That’s part of what makes this fun for me. It’s the same reason I stopped worrying about molding my writing to the romance “norm” of a rising conflict, black moment at the seventy-five percent mark, etc. I don’t write that way. It’s boring to me. I finally stopped trying (in fact I recently walked out of a workshop on conflict, because it was doing me no good. Life is too short to feel bad about myself.) A lot of you love my books for my characters. Some readers seem confused/disappointed by my lack of conflict. That’s okay. I have enough people at this point who have told me they’ve read the entire series over the course of a week to be comfortable with my style.

I enjoy the developing background MC story. Yes, I focus on the romance, but I also enjoy the MC culture and even though it is romanticized, I hope I do it justice. I had the opportunity to sit down with a few bikers recently and felt pretty confident that my series is more realistic than people think in
certain
respects. Highly romanticized in others.

I had fun with
More Than Miles
.
Tattered
stressed me out greatly, because it was difficult to write. I agonized over and wrote from scratch every piece that was included in
Tattered
only to be accused of “copy and pasting” from the first three books. My readers who “got”
Tattered
and loved Wrath and Trinity—thank you! I absolutely loved
White Heat
, even though I knew it probably wouldn’t sell well, because I believed in the story and felt it needed to be told. That my readers seemed to love
White Heat
as much as I did helped make up for the lack of sales.

Knowing how much pressure those two books put on me for their individual reasons, Mr. Lake asked me to slow down and take my time writing More Than Miles. He knew what a long, complicated story it was turning into. He wanted me to go back to when I started working on Slow Burn, and it was just pure fun for me. Unfortunately, because I am also a horrible procrastinator, I do have to set a firm deadline at some point. I enjoyed my time with Murphy. I even wrote an epilogue! Something I swore I’d never write (sorry, Vanessa!) because I normally don’t like reading them in other books.

At one point, I thought about scrapping Alaska all together, making it a simpler story, but I knew I’d hate myself if I took the easy way out.

The story evolved from many conversations with my crit partners. Hours of discussion with Mr. Lake (who was #TeamAxel from the beginning and not happy about Axel’s demise.)I knew Axel wasn’t patching into the club, but how or why? Some people suggested he could be a traitor working for a rival MC, but that felt too cliche. And although he wasn’t right for Heidi, deep down he wasn’t a disloyal person.

Axel and Heidi just weren’t right for each other. They made mistakes that I think many young couples make, especially when they have poor role models. I could have gone the route that Axel was abusive, and at a certain point, I realized I might be sending that signal (although that wasn’t my intention.) Two people can grow apart or just not be right for each other without either of them having to be the “bad guy.” I don’t think it was wrong for Axel to not want to be a father at twenty years old. He tried to step up, but he also wanted to follow his dreams. Both of them kept trying to do the right thing because neither wanted to admit they weren’t right for each other.

Did Axel
have
to die? Some of my followers may have noticed I backed off the #TeamMurphy/#TeamAxel thing at a certain point. It just seemed cruel once I knew he wasn’t going to survive the book. I worried about his death seeming like a cop-out and discussed alternatives at length with…just about everyone. In the end, I felt it would really suck if Heidi and Murphy went through all of that just to have Axel lingering in the background. He’d always be in their lives because of Alexa, and I didn’t think that was fair to Heidi and Murphy. Honestly, I also loved the irony of him being killed by the job he loved more than his family. It just felt “right” to have him go. Sorry, Axel. I think it was clear, Heidi and Murphy would have ended up together whether Axel lived or died. It’s why I chose not to “show” any sex between Heidi/Axel or Murphy/anyone else. I already did it in Tattered, and it didn’t feel necessary here.

I jokingly called this the “murder book” at one point. Bull died…I wasn’t planning on that. Mariella…
poor Mariella
. I swear my intention was never to fridge her. There was a point that I planned for her to end up with Teller, but like I said, when I make plans, my characters rebel.

At a certain point, I realized this was really Murphy’s book. He spoke to me the loudest. He was so conflicted, so much softer at heart than I realized. I love him dearly and boy did he make me cry at times. I cried for the lonely little boy who thought no girl would ever like him, to the teenager and young man who ended up with more girls than he knew what to do with, to the man who was convinced there was only one girl he ever wanted. I loved his surprise at not knowing who Heidi really was. He loved her. He’d been there for her since she was little. But at a certain point, he had to keep his distance, so it meant he missed knowing who she was a person. Once he figures it out he loves her even more. As it should be. His unconditional love and acceptance of her daughter was also one of my favorite pieces of his personality.

Another favorite part of mine was Heidi’s bossiness in bed. I realize that some people will take Murphy’s reaction/thoughts as “un-alpha” or something stupid like that. But his reaction made sense. I hate books where the manwhoring hero is some sex expert (Except for Wrath, because it was a point of pride for him) and the girl comes in 5.2 seconds of him getting near her. I think the more likely scenario when a guy has girls willing to service him whenever/however, is that he takes and doesn’t bother to give back (feel free to send me your differing opinions on this). Plus, Murphy’s still young and has never had a serious relationship. Of course, he rises to the occasion, and revels in figuring Heidi out (a very alpha thing to do in my opinion) otherwise he wouldn’t be a romance hero.

I loved Heidi’s growth throughout the whole series. I knew she had a bad background. She was bratty but not for the reasons people assumed. I loved seeing her go from insecure to confident. As my crit partners, Kari, and Virginia assured me “nothing makes you grow up faster than having children.” I think Heidi turned out okay. I loved how she grew to realize what mattered and what didn’t. Some people won’t agree with her mending fences with Trinity, but I thought it was the logical, mature thing to do.

Those of you who have asked for more Hope and Rock, I hope you loved seeing them in More Than Miles. I knew they’d be a big part of it because Heidi would go to them when she had nowhere else.

Next, I plan for Wrath and Trinity to have their wedding. Someone shot at his gym, after all, so you
know
Wrath has some thoughts on that. I then planned for Z’s book to be next, but during More Than Miles, Teller became such a strong character, my betas were dying for his story. I
think
I know who he ends up with. You’ve actually met this person in previous books.

If you read
Between Embers
, you realize I’m very aware of what all my secondary characters are up to. Maybe
too
aware you might think. What the heck was Z up to?
I
know what he’s been up to. Are you wondering who Grace and Chance are? Will it surprise you if I say I know? What was Rock so distracted about at the end? Now
that
I don’t know. Rock was tight-lipped through this book. My crit partner, Kari says it’s because he’s an uber-alpha and didn’t like the story not being about him. I think I agree with her assessment.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few of my long-time readers this year. I’ve enjoyed meeting new readers as well and hope to make it to more signings and events in the future. Thank you to the readers who grilled me about who Heidi would end up with, it felt surreal to meet people who care about my characters as much as I do.