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    Keeping Her Forever
    Keeping Her Forever
    Keeping Her Forever
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    Keeping Her Forever

    By Winter Sloane

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    About this ebook

    The first time Jax saw Lia, barefoot and bloody, he knew she would be his to keep and protect.

    Most of the world doesn't consider Jax a good man. An ex-con who’s spent ten years behind bars, Jax has trouble adapting to normal society. He chose to drive big trucks for a living to avoid human interaction. When an injured and curvy beauty runs in the middle of the road, begging for his help, Jax knows he doesn’t need Lia's kind of trouble but he lets her in his truck anyway.

    Eager to leave her small town to see the world, Lia’s made the mistake of trusting one dangerous man who turned out to be a monster. Now she has no choice but to trust a muscled, scarred and inked stranger—but Jax isn’t what she expected. Encased beneath a rock-hard body is an unexpectedly protective and fierce heart. If Lia isn’t careful, she might just wind up begging him to keep her.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEvernight Publishing
    Release dateJan 30, 2018
    ISBN9781773395623
    Keeping Her Forever

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      Book preview

      Keeping Her Forever - Winter Sloane

      Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

      www.evernightpublishing.com

      Copyright© 2018 Winter Sloane

      ISBN: 978-1-77339-562-3

      Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

      Editor: Audrey Bobak

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

      WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

      This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      DEDICATION

      To my readers, I hope you like Jax and Lia’s story as much as I loved writing it.

      KEEPING HER FOREVER

      Winter Sloane

      Copyright © 2018

      Chapter One

      Here’s your check, the redheaded waitress said with a wink.

      Jax Ryder ignored her and finished the rest of his coffee. She pouted, eyed the cellphone next to him, and began to reach out for it. She gasped when he gripped her wrist and bared her a feral smile.

      Hands off, sweetheart, he told her in a low voice.

      His temper danced on a knife’s edge. Nancy should have called him by now. She couldn’t ignore his calls forever. Fuck. That bitch would use every leverage she had on him, wouldn’t even give him an inch even if he begged. He scoffed. Hell had to burn before that happened. Jax wasn’t the kind of bastard who bowed to anyone else. He played by his own rules.

      Nancy had one major advantage though—their son, a five-year-old boy who inherited Jax’s eyes. She baited him with Matt’s baby pictures even as he served his sentence. To a man behind bars, receiving those letters had been both salvation and a torment.

      I just wanted to give you my number, the redhead muttered, prying her hand away. It’s not like I want to steal that old phone. God. It even has a keypad on it. Which century are you living in, anyway?

      He didn’t give her a response. She probably made the same offer to any decent-looking customer who came by the diner, spread her legs for a little extra cash on the side. Jax didn’t judge, might have taken her up on her offer if his nerves weren’t so fucking frayed. The waitress wasn’t bad-looking either.

      Finally seeming to get the message, she scooted away from him—the smartest decision she ever made tonight. Most women only wanted him for one reason. Thought they wanted a piece of him, but in the end? One way or another they discovered something didn’t sit quite right with him. Too tough. Too prone to violence and more.

      He slipped a twenty out of his wallet, took his phone with him, and left the truck stop diner. Jax passed a few familiar faces, nodded to those he considered friends. Some gave him acknowledging nods but returned to their early dinners, eyes glued on the old TV behind the counter. None came here to socialize.

      Like him, all of them had their own personal reasons for choosing to be long-haul truck drivers. The cool night air kissed his face. He looked at his phone and growled as he saw nothing. Jax dialed her home number, not caring if it was against the rules.

      One ring. Two. Then a man picked up. Her new husband Luke. Jealousy had left him long ago. No use getting worked up over a poisonous bitch who seemed to have forgotten they shared a history back in high school. Nancy had moved on. Good fucking riddance. Jax only cared about Matt, about getting the bitch to let him see his son.

      Give the phone to Nancy, he said through gritted teeth.

      Jax, you shouldn’t be calling here anymore, Luke said in a firm voice.

      The fucker worked a desk job selling insurance. If they stood face-to-face, Jax could leave him a bloody, bruised mess in a few minutes.

      I know she’s there, Jax said, blowing a breath out when the fucker ended the call.

      He swore, smashing the little device on the dirty parking lot. It shattered to a few pieces, joining discarded condom wrappers, old cigarette butts, and beer cans. They had shared custody, for Christ’s sake, except the bitch wouldn’t let him see Matt unless Jax got a proper address and a job that didn’t involve moving so much.

      Nancy never understood him back in high school, didn’t give a shit about understanding him now. She only chose to see him as one thing—the bastard who got her pregnant at eighteen and a monster who took a life.

      Jax choose this occupation for a reason. Driving across cross-country roads in silence, for hours, soothed his temper, made him feel less like an outsider, a freak. Rotting in prison for a decade altered a man on the most severe levels, broke him and turned him into something else. Maybe he was the monster Nancy claimed he was, but he’d never hurt her or Matt. Fuck.

      Getting back to his truck, he regretted wrecking his damn phone. It would be a while until he got a new one. The less time he spent on the road affected his paycheck. He started the engine, slightly soothed by the comforting and familiar rumbling sound. Jax left the truck stop, thoughts on his son, on Nancy. Maybe he should have taken up that redhead’s offer after all.

      Losing himself between her thighs would have helped him forget about his miserable, shitty problems for a change. Too late for that now. Maybe the next stop.

      ****

      Lia’s little flashlight winked out once, then turned on again.

      God, be merciful. Don’t take away my light, not now.

      The sun had set a couple of minutes ago, or was it hours? It certainly felt a lot longer.

      Wind and brambles tore at her face and her clothes, but Lia Reed refused to stop. Stopping meant losing precious seconds to Dwayne and his pals. Just thinking about Dwayne—one hand gripping a beer can, the other fisting her hair, pulling it until the roots protested and making her scream—had turned her stomach. Fear kept her going, bare feet slapping on rock and uneven ground.

      If Dwayne or his pals caught up to her—she shuddered, thinking about what he’d do to her.

      Lia struggled to

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