Vodka On The Rocks (The Uncertain Saints Book 3)
Read Vodka On The Rocks (The Uncertain Saints Book 3) Online
Authors: Lani Lynn Vale
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple (9-2-16)
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived (8-4-16)
Controlled Burn (10-5-16)
I Like Big Dragons Series
I like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (8-17-16)
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
To the makers of Dr. Pepper, I love you. To the inventor of coffee and ice cream, you are the bomb. But no really, to my readers. Thank you so much for reading the books I write, without you, my writing wouldn’t be possible.
To my husband, mom, and mother in law for watching my kids so I can write. This wouldn’t be possible without y’all, either. I love y’all to the freakin’ moon.
Acknowledgements
FuriousFotog: Thank you so much for taking these photos for me. They’re beautiful, and you have such incredible talent it’s unreal.
Dylan Horsch- I knew the moment I saw you almost a year ago that you’d be perfect for this character.
I’m so glad I could pop your cover cherry.
You’re amazing!
There are rules to life that one just obeys in her attempt to stay on the right path. For example:
- You don’t wear dirty panties out of the house. You just never know who’s going to see them.
- A lady must always have chocolate at the ready—just in case the world as she knows it comes to an end.
- You don’t egg on a drunk woman who’s pissed off at life.
Why, you ask? Because they start bar fights,
that’s
why.
Casten Red, the unofficial enforcer of the Uncertain Saints MC, wasn’t necessarily trying to urge her into doing anything illegal, and he definitely wasn’t trying to get her into a fight with a group of men who were all twice her size.
No, he only intended to give her the confidence to stand up for herself, just a little nudge in the right direction. How the hell was he supposed to know she’d go all Chuck Norris on them and put three of them in the hospital with concussions?
He should’ve followed his gut instinct and turned around that first moment he saw her in the bar, but Casten has never liked following the rules. Why the hell would he start now?
Sometimes you can’t help but be a fucker. When everyone else you deal with is a fucker, you have to outfuck the other fuckers.
-Tasha’s secret thoughts
Tasha
I walked across the stage with a smile on my face.
It totally contradicted what I was feeling on the inside.
I’d met some wonderful friends throughout the two years I’d been in school.
It’d been fun. It’d been challenging. It’d been exhausting.
What it hadn’t done, though, was make me forget.
“Congratulations,” my instructor smiled at me.
I’d done it, and they were happy for me. What they didn’t know, though, was that this was my third degree in four years.
And I didn’t use any of them but the one I’d gotten first: my degree in science.
“Thank you,” I replied graciously.
The Dean of Nursing Science smiled, offering me his hand, and I took it, pumping it twice before I moved to the next stop.
This one was my mom.
She was the one to place the pin on my lapels.
My nursing pin.
It was cool, sure.
But I wasn’t excited about it like I should’ve been.
This was all like any other day.
Another day that I couldn’t forget.
Another day that I questioned why I was still here, when it should’ve been me.
Jet shouldn’t have died.
It should’ve been me.
I got home from my graduation, walked through the front door, and tossed my diploma on the counter.
The piece of paper—rolled into a tight scroll from my fondling it as I made my way out of the stadium--rolled off the top of the table, slid past the edge, and teetered into the trash.
I contemplated picking it up, but I had to pee.
Then I forgot about it.
Mostly because my sister came up to my door, slammed the thing open like she was a beastie creature, and glared daggers at me while I was still trying to yank my pants up.
“What the fuck, Tash?” Annie yelled, waving her hands. “What the fucking fuck?”
I blinked at her outburst.
Not surprised by her ingenious use of the word ‘
fuck’
but at the men that were at her back.
Mostly because I still had my pants unbuttoned, and I was fairly sure the toilet paper was still on the floor somewhere in my haste to yank my pants up.
“Jesus,” I squeaked, stepping back and slamming the door closed to the bathroom. “Don’t you knock, bitch?”
“I knock, bitch, when my fucking sister doesn’t forget to tell her sister that she’s graduating today,” Annie yelled through the door, totally ignoring my privacy again, and flinging the door open.
This time I, at least, had my pants up and buttoned.
“You made it in time,” I told her. “And Mom knew.”
“Yeah, but I almost didn’t! I didn’t know it was today until about twenty-five minutes before we were supposed to be there!” she snapped. “And that was because Mom asked on the way there where she needed to meet me!”
I shrugged.
“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “I forgot, too.”
“How do you forget something like graduating?” Annie challenged.
I raised my brow at her.
“I had a player hurt herself, my mind was on other matters—like my team’s morale,” I told her defensively.
The team I coached at Jefferson High School; the varsity volleyball team, to be specific.
“You’re shitting me! How do you not tell me that?” Annie pushed, waving her hands even more wildly.
I ignored her, walking past her into my small living room.
I lived over the top of a bar in an apartment they’d converted from an old attic space.
It was huge and drafty and loud on the weekends.
Despite all of those things, I liked it.
Mostly because it felt like I was closer to Jet here. It was a place that we’d always wanted to live...our first place together. We’d spoken about finding a little hole in the wall place where rent was cheap and we could afford it and go to school together.
The apartment itself was horrible. But that was the way it was. And I’d keep staying here until it didn’t feel right anymore, even though my mother, father and sister hated it.
“So, why are you upset again?” I asked her, keeping my eyes on Mig.
Mig was my sister’s husband.
They’d gotten married a few months ago, and they were raising Mig’s son, Vitaly, together.
They were awesome together and I was so happy for Annie.
I wanted the world for my sister, because if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be where I was today. She’d pulled me through my darkest of times, and kept me moving forward instead of living in the past.
She deserved the moon, the stars and damn near anything she could ever dream of.
Mig held up his hands.
I’d actually spoken to him last night, telling him what time they needed to be there.
It wasn’t my fault that Mig hadn’t relayed that message.
But I also wasn’t willing to get him into trouble.
So I’d take the heat, because I didn’t care if she was mad at me one way or another.
She’d get over it.
She always did.
Because she thought I was broken.
Treated me like I was broken.
And hell, maybe I was.
I’m not bitchy. I’m just selective with my kindness.
-Tasha’s secret thoughts
Tasha
“Why the long face?” A man’s deep voice jolted me out of my contemplation of the beer bottle in my hand.
I looked up to find
him
there.
Him being Casten Red, resident bad boy, biker dude.
The one that took delight in giving me a hard time.
I kind of liked it, though.
He didn’t treat me with kid gloves.
Not like everyone else did.
“Nobody wished me a happy birthday,” I lied.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Today is not your birthday,” Casten called me on my lie.
I grinned.
“I know. I was just trying to get you to buy my beer for the rest of the night,” I shrugged.
He tossed me a semi-annoyed look over his shoulder.
“Who bought you that one?” Casten pointed.
I looked at the nearly empty bottle, then upended it to suck the last dregs down before I placed it on the bar in front of me.
I wiggled my eyebrows at George.
He held up a finger, and I nodded at him before I turned back to Casten.
“It was free, on account of me winning the first game of the season,” I told him, pointing at George.
George’s daughter was on my volleyball team, and she was quite possibly the best on the team.
Next year she’d be playing for a college team and, most likely, would be getting a full ride.
“Heard about that,” Casten said, offering George a twenty-dollar bill. “Congratulations.”
I smiled. “Thank you. Are you paying after all?” I batted my eyelashes at him.
I knew he wouldn’t.
He didn’t want me to get the wrong idea, so he never did anything for me.
Not even open a door.
Or
willingly
give me a ride on his bike.
Because that obviously signified a relationship in Casten Red’s world.
Don’t offer to hold the door for a woman, she may expect you to deposit some sperm in her so she can have your baby. Then you’ll be tied down, married, with fifteen children, living in a commune with thirteen cats!
I might have over dramatized that thought, but seriously.
The man couldn’t even bring me a to-go box the last time he’d gone out to dinner with the whole Uncertain Saint crew.
He’d been a dick.
But, then again, I wasn’t the nicest lady, either.
“No. I’m not paying for you, something that I’ve already explained to you,” he grumbled, taking a sip of his beer.
I smiled at George, then offered him a five out of my purse as he handed Mr. Storm Cloud, at my side, his change.
“Keep the change,” I told George.
George smiled at me.
“Thanks, Coach.”
“I’ve finally figured it out,” Casten murmured.
I looked over at him with a ‘
well
?’ expression on my face.
He didn’t smile.
In fact, I never saw him smile.
It was rare that I even saw anything on his face other than a blank expression.
“What’s that?” I asked him when he waited for me to acknowledge him.
He turned back to the front, then lifted his hand and pointed at the mirror across the bar.
I looked into it, studying the two reflections.
Me, I was nothing special.
Tall with long limbs, my hair was a slight mess due to the run I’d just finished.
I had stray fly-away hairs surrounding the messy bun on top of my head.
My nearly black eyes took in my face.