Worth The Battle (Heaven Hill Series) Read online

  Worth The Battle

  Book #4 of the Heaven Hill Series

  By Laramie Briscoe

  Copyright © 2014 Laramie Briscoe

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Edited by: Lindsay Gray Hopper

  Cover Art by: Kari Ayasha, Cover to Cover Designs

  Proofread by: Dawn Bourgeois

  Formatting: Paul Salvette, BB ebooks

  Cover Models: Rainey Wilson and Justin Hadden

  Cover Photo: Mandy Hollis of MH Photography

  Dedication

  To the readers who love the Heaven Hill boys as much as I do. To the amazing people I’ve gotten to meet so far this year and the great times this journey has taken me on—I have all of YOU to thank! Thank you!

  Summary

  Movie star running from her life.

  Secret writer of erotic romance.

  Trusts only Layne O’Connor of the Heaven Hill MC.

  When Jessica Shea fears that her privacy is in danger, she takes the drastic step to leave her life behind and escape to the only person who’s never treated her like the movie star she is. He’s the one person who’s never sold a story to the tabloids and who knows the real Jessica, the one underneath the makeup and high-gloss shine of Hollywood.

  Their friendship has stood the test of time. Now, someone has stolen private photos and writings from her home. Things that she doesn’t want the public at large to see. There’s only one place she knows she can go to be under the radar and lick her wounds.

  That place is wherever Layne O’Connor is.

  War Veteran.

  Striving to live a normal life.

  Member of the Heaven Hill MC.

  Layne left a piece of himself in the war zone. Fighting PTSD and demons that he can’t explain has left him tired and changed from the man he was before he went overseas.

  The only thing he feels like he excels at anymore is being a criminal, and he gladly does it for his brothers of the Heaven Hill MC. The only people who took him in when no one else knew what to make of his anger and frustration.

  When Jessica arrives, however, she’s a trigger for everything he’s trying to forget. She makes him remember who he was before his life went to hell; she makes him want to get himself back. While working through those issues, he and Jessica are racing against an unknown enemy.

  As they both work to trust each other and figure out just who her enemies are, they learn that love is never easy. They have to decide if the victory is worth the battle.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Summary

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Connect with Laramie

  Coming Soon: Heaven Hill #5

  The Heaven Hill Series

  Chapter One

  Nashville traffic sucked a big one—especially when it kept Layne O’Connor from getting to the one person in the world who had the power to make him drive seventy miles without questioning why. His fingers beat a rhythm against the steering wheel in time with the rock station he listened to. Today, the music that normally calmed him down set his nerves on edge.

  “Move your ass,” he shouted as the person in front of him tapped their brakes. It was times like this he wished he could always drive his motorcycle. If he had been on the back of his bike right now, he could have maneuvered through this mess in ten minutes flat. Instead, he had been sitting in almost gridlock for over an hour. He’d also been flipped off more times than he cared to count, what he wouldn’t give to show these drivers the kind of artillery he carried with him.

  A trip that should have taken an hour and a half at most was well into its second. Cursing loudly, he picked up the phone that sat in his cup holder and dialed Jessica Shea’s number. The fact that she was on his speed dial was telling. The only other people on speed dial were Liam and Jagger. He refused to look deeper into that as he waited on the ringing of his phone.

  “Hey,” he forged ahead when she answered. “I haven’t forgotten you. This traffic is a motherfucking mess. I’m tryin’ to get there, but there’s a shit ton of Sunday drivers,” he yelled for good measure.

  “I know.” Her voice was soft and understanding on the other end. “I figured you were on your way.”

  “You’re okay, right?” He had to ask her because something didn’t sit right with him. They were friends, great friends, and at one time—lovers, but never in the way that you just show up at each other’s home. In the past when they had gone to see each other, it was planned well in advance. His intuition and instincts were on high alert.

  The silence was deafening. “I’ve been better, but I’ll be fine until you get here. I’ll just find a place to sit. Let me know when you’re close.”

  A harsh laugh escaped from his mouth. “I’ve been close for over an hour, but this damn traffic won’t move.” He honked his horn and disconnected, throwing the phone back into the cup holder.

  Traffic made him twitchy. In his time in the Army, he had seen more than one roadside bomb on a highway as congested as this. Another reason he loved his bike, he wouldn’t be on this congested road if he was on the back of that thing. He would have easily taken the emergency lane and gotten to his destination. Finally inching up so that he could see the exit he needed to take, he noticed there in fact was an emergency lane. Using his training from the military to his advantage, he looked behind him, noting there was just enough room for him to back up. Throwing it in reverse, he jerked the wheel hard, ignoring the horns honking at him, and then maneuvered the front end of the car so that he had enough room to jockey it out of line. Clear of the car in front of him and the car behind hi
m, he checked his rearview to make sure no cops were around. Once he saw he was in the clear, he used the Dodge Charger (thank you Uncle Sam for your disability compensation when medically discharged honorably) to its full capability, blowing past the line of vehicles.

  Now on a clear stretch of road, he could breathe easier. The hair on the nape of his neck didn’t stand on end; his palms weren’t sweaty, his stomach not rolling with awareness. He took a deep breath as he eased his foot off the accelerator. He didn’t need to get a ticket—not after everything he’d already gone through to get to the airport. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he saw his destination and picked up the phone, once again calling Jessica.

  “I’m almost there. Where are you?”

  She rattled off a coffee shop inside the airport, one he wouldn’t have to pass through security to get to while he went to find a parking spot.

  “I can come out to you,” she offered.

  “I’ll be damned. You aren’t carrying your luggage through that place. I’m parking right now. See you soon.”

  He got out of his car, leaving his cut inside for the time being. Airport security tended to get nervous when they noticed the leather and patches that showed his membership into the Heaven Hill Motorcycle Club, Bowling Green Chapter. Going through the automatic doors, he took his sunglasses off and let his eyes adjust to the muted light inside the building. Quickly reading the signs, he made his way towards where Jessica had indicated she would be.

  Jessica sat in the corner of the coffee shop, her head down, bent over her phone. A couple of people had recognized her, even with the changes she had tried to make to her appearance. A hat covered her tell-tale red hair, and plain jeans and t-shirt didn’t do the trick on this day. What she wanted was to be out of this place and soon. Glancing up, she caught sight of Layne making his way towards her. Tamping down the urge to run to him and throw her arms around his waist, she quickly got up from the table and slowly walked towards him.

  “Layne,” she called out to him once she was close enough.

  The smile that spread across his face told her more than words that she had taken the right chance. She had come to the only person that could help her, that could make her feel like she was home.

  “You wanna get outta here?” he asked, as he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her tightly to him.

  The kiss he dropped on her forehead caused her to close her eyes. She breathed deeply and willed the tension to leave her body. “I do,” she nodded.

  “How much luggage do you have?”

  “It’s over there.” She pointed to the table she had been sitting out.

  There he saw a duffle bag and three suitcases. “You plannin’ on stayin’ a while?”

  She nodded but didn’t comment. She planned on staying forever, but he didn’t have to know that yet.

  If there was one thing Layne didn’t like, it was flying blind. “You know that when we get back on the road, you’re going to have some explaining to do.”

  “I know,” she nodded, swallowing hard against the lump that had risen in her throat. “I didn’t mean to put you out at all.”

  “Now, I didn’t say you put me out. I just want you to understand, there’s a lot of shit going on right now in Bowling Green and with the club. You sure you want to be involved with that?”

  The double meaning didn’t escape her. She knew the things he was involved in were sometimes illegal. He’d let her in on that much of his life since he had joined the Heaven Hill Motorcycle Club. “I just need to get away, and you were the first person that I thought of. I need to disappear for a while.” A while was a relative term for what she really wanted to do, but it sounded good for the moment.

  “You sure nothing is wrong?” His tone indicated that he didn’t believe a word that had come out of her mouth.

  “Can you just respect that I really don’t want to talk about it right now?”

  That he could respect. There were a lot of things he didn’t want to talk about. Didn’t mean that he didn’t want to talk about what was bothering her, but even he could tell that she was distressed.

  “Okay.”

  And like that, he didn’t ask her another word. As they walked to his car, she looked around at the landscape and did her best to keep up with his long legs.

  “Is it always this hot?” she asked, pulling her shirt away from her sticky body when they made it to the car and he popped the trunk.

  “If you’re plannin’ on stayin’—you might as well get used to it. Hot and muggy ain’t even started yet.”

  She nodded as she watched him lift her luggage into his trunk and then slam it shut. Walking over to the passenger side of the car, she opened the door and slid into the seat, breathing easily for the first time since she had left Calabasas. He watched her closely as she removed her sunglasses and the hat that had obscured her red hair.

  “I haven’t been able to say it, but thank you for coming to get me.”

  Layne took her hand in his and rubbed the back of it. “It’s not a problem at all. I’m glad that you came to me—even if you haven’t been forthcoming in what the fuck is going on. I’m glad that we still have that kind of relationship.”

  “There’s nowhere else I knew to go, nowhere else I felt safer.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “So you’re feeling unsafe?”

  “Please don’t try to read into this.” Jessica shook her head, looking out the window as he directed them back onto the interstate.

  “I’m not; I’m just trying to figure out what you want from me here.”

  She knew that was a fair way to feel, but she just didn’t want to get into it. “All I want is for you to be non-judgmental.”

  “Then that I can do,” he smiled across to her.

  Jessica sighed deeply and leaned her head back against the seat. Within minutes, she was fast asleep, leaving Layne to wonder just what he had gotten himself into. As he drove north towards Bowling Green, he glanced over at her a few times. There were dark circles under her eyes and stress lines around her mouth. The last few times they had spoken with one another, she had vaguely eluded to the fact that she was unhappy with her current life—unhappy with the Hollywood scene. Did the duffel bag and three suitcases mean she was done with it forever?

  Chapter Two

  The drive back to Bowling Green didn’t take as long as the drive to Nashville and for that Layne was thankful. His ankle and leg hurt if he was cramped in a car for very long, not to mention it just flat out irritated him.

  “Jess.” He shook her arm, trying his best to be gentle, even though he could barely remember how.

  “Yeah.” She turned her head towards him, breathing deeply as she realized where she was. “Did I fall asleep on you? I’m so sorry.”

  “You were tired, it’s fine. I like driving in peace and quiet, with just the radio on anyway, unless I’m on my bike.”

  Glancing out the window, she looked to the left and right. “Where are we?” There was a large building that looked like a hospital on her right.

  “Liam’s old lady had just gone into labor when you called. I got a text on the way back that she delivered. All the brothers are there; it’s customary that I make an appearance.”

  “I’m not going to pretend like I understand a damn word you just said.” She popped a piece of gum into her mouth to get rid of the taste of sleep and rubbed a hand over her face. “But I’m interested in learning about your life here.”

  “I hope you’re a quick study, because you’re about to be dropped straight into the belly of the beast.”

  Those words did not make her feel any better as they got out of the car and walked towards the hospital. It was important that she not lie to herself, and she realized just how awkward she felt. The only person she knew here was the man who walked beside her, and she wasn’t even sure about him anymore.

  “Are you going to see Liam?” The words caught her off guard; she’d had her head down with her hand in Layne�
�s as they made their way to the building. Glancing up, she saw that a member of law enforcement stood in front of them.

  “Why else would I be here?” Layne asked, his tone was as smart as she’d ever heard it.

  The officer ignored the tone and took a glance at her, recognition and appreciation sparking in his eyes. “Ma’am, welcome to Bowling Green.”

  Layne pulled her behind him. “Nobody knows that she’s here, Rooster. You got that?”

  “She’s an actress. How is she going to hide that? And anyway, what’s she doing with you?”

  Jessica opened her mouth to answer, but Layne beat her to it. “None of your damn business.”

  “Did he kidnap you?” Rooster grabbed his radio and keyed the mike.

  She gasped when Layne knocked it out of his hand, shoving him backwards from it. “Why she’s here is our business, none of yours. You just make sure nobody asks any questions, and if they do, tell them that she’s under Heaven Hill’s protection. Is that easy enough for you?”

  “I’ve never had a problem with you, Layne. Don’t start one now,” Rooster warned.

  “I’m not.”

  He grabbed her hand, dragging her into the building. When she glanced back, she saw the officer shaking his head. To say she was nervous was a gross understatement. Her hands actually shook as they made their way up to the maternity floor.

  “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here,” she whispered as the elevator stopped and the door opened. If she talked louder, she was afraid she would startle him after the encounter they’d had downstairs.

  “You’re with me, just be sure and stay close.”

  She did as she was told when they exited the elevator. Neither one of them spoke as they turned the corner. Jessica gasped as she saw the people standing in front of the glass window that housed the babies. All of the men wore what she knew to be cuts, and they all wore the patches that she also knew proclaimed them being members of the Heaven Hill MC. It was breathtaking really, to see the group of them standing together. They formed what looked to be a unified front—some women stood interspersed among them, and Jessica couldn’t help but wonder what they had to do with the group.