The voices are back gato.., p.1
The Voices are Back (Gator Bait MC Book 5), page 1
Table of Contents
The Voices are Back
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
Blurb
Prologue
Prologue II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Aodhan & Morrigan
The Voices are Back
Text copyright © 2022 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.
To the people that deserve a second chance, but didn’t get it.
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak - Photographer
My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing - My editors
Alyssa Garcia - Cover Artist & PA
My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million three hundred and ninety-seven times.
My betas - I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
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
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help
Ask Me If I Care
May Contain Wine
Joke’s on You
Join the Club
Any Day Now
Say it Ain’t So
Officially Over It
Nobody Knows
Depends Who’s Asking
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Souls Chapel Revenants
Repeat Offender
Conjugal Visits
Jailbait
Doin’ A Dime
Kitty, Kitty
Gen Pop
Inmate of the Month
Madd CrossFit Series
No Rep
Jerk It
Chalk Dirty to Me
Battle Crows MC
Always Someone’s Monster
Make Me Your Villain
Rattle Some Cages
Blurb
Her: Just a word, yet one person came to mind.
Morrigan St. Pete.
The woman that’d been hounding my every step since the day she was born. From the moment we first comforted each other in the hospital, to the day that I left her to follow her dreams, I knew that she was my one.
Through marriage, divorce, and a prison sentence, I had low expectations when it came to her ever coming around.
But then she showed up out of the blue, and that feeling of suffocation slacked off for the first time since I let her go.
The first time I tried to come back to find Aodhan, I found him married with a kid on the way.
The second time I saw him, he was heading to jail.
The third time I saw him, he was divorced, had a kid, and was again with his ex-wife.
PROLOGUE
If you have a beard, and no valentine, remember. You still have a beard.
-Text from Morrigan to Aodhan
AODHAN
The first time I met her, I didn’t remember.
My parents remembered, though.
That day, the worst thing that could ever happen happened to two different families. My mom and dad, Stella and Abram, were visiting friends and family the week before my mom was due to give birth. Then, while on the way, a car hit them and she went into labor.
Something happened, and during the birth, my twin brother perished before he’d even taken his first breath.
Fast-forward to me in the NICU. I hadn’t calmed down one single second since I was born.
I’d gone from a happy little world with my brother right beside me, to a totally different one with no one at my side. My parents were both in rough shape, banged up from the accident.
Meanwhile, I was all alone with no one close to hold me or comfort me but some overworked nurses.
In the cradle right beside mine, there was another baby that had lost her twin sister that very day. Though her mother hadn’t been in an accident like mine. Her mother had tried to kill herself and had only accomplished killing her twin sister.
Two overworked nurses had seen the two babies crying their little hearts out and noticed that no one was able to come and comfort either baby.
So one nurse chose to see if putting them together would calm them both down.
Well, it worked.
And from that moment on, I had a soul connection to a girl that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
Her name was Morrigan St. Pete.
PROLOGUE II
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except for country girls. They’ll definitely kill you.
-Text from Aodhan to Morrigan
AODHAN
The first time I met her was in a hospital bed. The second time was eight years later in elementary school.
She’d stolen my lunch box because she thought it was hers, and had eaten half the sandwich before I’d corrected her and taken it back.
She’d shared her actual sandwich with me, since she’d eaten half of mine, and from that moment forward, we were inseparable.
For the next ten years, she was a constant for me.
She was my best friend, confidant, and ultimately the one and only person that I could count on forever.
The only problem was, she had a dream.
One that would lead her out of this small town, and into something big.
So the day we graduated college, we agreed that we would go our separate ways. And, if by the age of thirty, if we were still alone, we would make our way back to each other.
But life was funny. It never, ever worked out like we had planned.
CHAPTER 1
Without a beard, he’s your boyfriend. With a beard, he’s your man.
-Text from Morrigan to Folsom
MORRIGAN
The first time I tried to come back to find Aodhan, I found him married with a kid on the way.
The second time I saw him, he was heading to jail.
The third time I saw him, he was divorced, had a kid, and was again with his ex-wife.
Though, this time, I wasn’t sure if he was with her because he was trying to get back together with her, or because he was just meeting up to talk about their son.
Whatever the reason, they were doing it in my coffee shop, so it was okay that I was spying.
At least, that was what I’d told myself.
At first, I’d tried to sit in my office chair—where I found myself a lot on bad days—and not pay attention to the live feed on the screen of my computer.
A couple of years ago, when I’d moved home and used my inheritance money from my grandmother to open my own business, I’d been told that having cameras was a necessity for business owners.
That person was right, and from that point on, I’d always found myself monitoring the comings and goings of the front room when I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do.
That’d been what I was doing today, when he’d walked in.
He’d never been in my shop before.
In fact, I was fairly sure he didn’t even know I was back in town.
Mostly because, whenever I saw him, I went the other way. I did my damnedest to keep him in the past, where he belonged.
At least, that was what I told myself.
I watched him walk in, take a look around, then go up to the counter and order his drink.
I knew without being told that the drink he’d ordered was a hot chocolate, because Aodhan McBanks didn’t drink caffeine. Aodhan had an irregular heartbeat, and anything that exacerbated that for him wasn’t a good thing. Such as coffee.
Then, his ex-wife walked in the door, and she walked straight up to the counter and ordered.
My heart hitched at just how beautiful his ex-wife was. She had the most gorgeous hair, tanned skin, and longest legs a woman could ever have. If you could fit a supermodel into a normal person, that would be Danyetta Westfield McBanks.
Aodhan paid for both, and then they went to sit down at a table that was across the room from my early-morning employee, Theresa.
Theresa wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but she did her job, showed up on time, and ultimately didn’t complain when I left her to deal with everything on her own. Which I had to do a lot because I was infinitely broken.
But, sensing the episode had passed that had brought me to my chair in the first place, I got up.
After making sure that my body did what it was supposed to do—as in it stayed upright—I tiptoed toward the door that separated my office from the main room. My office door was about ten inches from the table that Aodhan had chosen to sit in.
Subconsciously, I hoped that he’d chosen that particular table because it was closer to me. Logically, though, it was likely because it was far away from where Theresa liked to eavesdrop so she had every bit of juicy gossip that she could.
The other problem was, she looked a lot like me.
I was on the shorter side, had long, curly, auburn hair, and was on the too-curvy side of curvy. Well, minus the boobs. I’d had those hacked off last year to a more manageable handful rather than a “there’s no way you’re gonna button that shirt” lot.
I had a feeling that was also why Aodhan hadn’t recognized me yet.
I’d gained weight, learned how to wear my hair curly and lost my boobs. Hell, not even my own father had noticed that I’d moved back. Why would I expect Aodhan to notice?
Hell, I’d come three times and stayed the third time. One would think that if I’d meant as much to Aodhan as I’d thought, maybe he would have noticed.
But nope.
He hadn’t.
Aodhan, in all his Irish glory, was the literal best thing that ever happened to me. And the worst.
“Listen, Yeti,” Aodhan’s deep, lush voice said. “If we keep doing this, we’re going to have to tell your brother. Our son. And that’s a whole ’nother can of worms that I don’t want to open.”
“There’s no way that my brother doesn’t already suspect,” Danyetta admitted quietly. “I know that you don’t want to keep this under wraps, but…it’s just for a short amount of time longer. Until…”
“Morrigan,” Theresa called. “You have a call on line one, and it’s not allowing me to transfer it! I’m sorry!”
I inwardly cursed my luck.
And I did have bad luck.
All the time.
I mean, who the hell got diagnosed with not one disease, but two? Who nearly got killed before they were even born? Whose father hated her not because of something she’d done, but something someone else had done? Whose boyfriend broke up with her because he wanted her to become a doctor, only for her to not even make it into the school?
And, when you try to come back to him, to tell him that it won’t work out, who finds out that the man that they love, and would always love, married another woman because he got her pregnant?
Me. That would be me.
Morrigan “Bad Luck” St. Pete.
Stiffening my spine and putting on my blinders—I could look past Aodhan. I’d been doing it for months since I’d been back—I headed out of my office as if I hadn’t just been spying on the two of them.
Heading directly to the office phone hanging on the wall, I said, “Heya.”
I didn’t know why I said “heya” when I answered the phone. I’d been doing it since I was a kid. It was a habit I just couldn’t break, and never would.
“Heya to you, too,” Folsom said. “Are we still on for lunch?”
I looked at my watch, the high-tech one that told me my heart rate at all times, and groaned. “I’m so sorry I’m running late. I was feeling a little off.”
I felt bad was literally the story of my life.
“If anyone is going to understand that, it’s me,” Folsom said. “I’ll just keep waiting here until you get here.”
“K, love you.” I hung up after she said, “I love you, too.”
I turned to Theresa and smiled. “I forgot I had lunch.”
Theresa nodded. “It’s Thursday. You do it every Thursday at one religiously. Don’t forget the till to drop off at the bank.”
I snapped my fingers, totally forgetting that was another thing I liked to do on Thursday. Only because I knew I wouldn’t have time on Friday.
That way, the entire weekend, I wouldn’t have a week’s worth of cash sitting in my store for someone to rob.
I’d learned that lesson the hard way, too.
The doorbell chimed, signaling the arrival, or exit of a customer.
I tried not to look to confirm, and instead asked Theresa to do something for me.
“Will you do me a solid and go get my keys and bag out of my office?” I asked.
I was a coward.
I didn’t want to get any closer to Aodhan than I had to. Because there was no way in hell he didn’t know I was there anymore.
“Sure,” she chirped. “As long as you tell me who was at lunch when you get in tomorrow.”
Today we were going to a beach front café that was up the coast a ways. But the food, though all fried and bad for you, was excellent. And, from time to time, a member or two of Gator Bait MC—the same motorcycle club that Aodhan was in—would be there.
Theresa loved going, and seeing, everyone that walked through the door.
I wasn’t sure why it was a hot spot for attractive people, but it was.
“Deal,” I said.
I was just pulling the money out of the till, packaging it up in a bank envelope, when I felt it.
The telltale signs of my body shutting down on me.
I had a few seconds at most, then I knew that I’d be passing out cold.
Customers that came here were used to me going out like a light at any given moment.
Sure, I could counteract some of the episodes by sitting down, but there were others, like this one, that I knew I wouldn’t make it.
The lights started to dim, and before I could even drop the money in my hand back into the drawer, I passed out.
Luckily, I was out before I hit the ground, because it was never fun to experience a fall.
