WILD PROMISES

  WILD HEART MOUNTAIN: WILD RIDERS MC

  BOOK EIGHT

  SADIE KING

  WILD PROMISES

  This ex-military biker will do anything to protect the people of Wild Heart Mountain, but this runaway bride will test him in ways that will either heal him or break him in two…

  Calvin

  I find her walking barefoot on the mountain road, the runaway bride with nowhere to go.

  Grace is everything I’ve forgotten how to be: fun, spontaneous, happy . . .and reckless.

  But when she goes too far, how can I protect her?

  I’ve already lost someone to the mountain. I can’t risk losing another…

  Grace

  The Sheriff is uptight and grumpy. He’s forgotten how to live, how to have fun.

  I love pushing his buttons just to see him lose control.

  He thinks I’m reckless, but I’ll show him that life is for living, and I intend to live every sweet moment of it to the fullest, whatever the cost.

  Wild Promises is a runaway bride, age gap romance featuring an OTT ex-military man in uniform and the curvy younger woman who runs away with his heart.

  Copyright © 2023 by Sadie King.

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover designed by Cormer Covers.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, companies, locales or persons living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Please respect the author’s hard work and do the right thing.

  www.authorsadieking.com

  CONTENTS

  1. Calvin

  2. Calvin

  3. Grace

  4. Calvin

  5. Grace

  6. Grace

  7. Calvin

  8. Grace

  9. Calvin

  10. Calvin

  11. Grace

  12. Calvin

  13. Grace

  14. Grace

  15. Calvin

  16. Epilogue

  Books by Sadie King

  About the Author

  1

  CALVIN

  The gravelly strains of Johnny Cash crackle through the car speakers, singing about sorrow and redemption as I tap along on the steering wheel. The late morning sun spills through the autumn-tainted trees, bathing the road in gold dappled light.

  I’ve been patrolling these roads for the last six years, ever since I came back from the armed forces and settled on the side of Wild Heart Mountain, but the beauty of a sunny fall morning gets me every time.

  Maybe it’s the red maple trees that line this section of the road, or the cliff edge that drops dramatically to the forest below, or the harsh crags of rock that jut out in jaunty angles amongst the greenery, but the scenery here never ceases to take my breath away and calm my soul. And as sheriff of Wild, I need all the calm I can get.

  I helped my buddy Symon, who’s the Mountain Ranger, check hunting licenses this morning, starting early at the camping sites up on the ridge.

  It’s the same groups who come back every year, and most have the correct paperwork and respect the animals and the environment, but there are always a few who try to hunt without a license.

  There was one this morning, a young guy who didn’t have a license and was getting aggressive. When I checked his truck for good measure, I found a bag of pot in the glove box. That’s the kind of idiot I don’t need on my mountain. I don’t care about the tourists who have a puff around the campfire. Unless they’re being rowdy, I ignore the sweet scent of weed when I do night patrols. But getting high and handling a firearm? Not on my mountain.

  I took him in and booked him, which he wasn’t happy about. Kept going on about his rights, but it’s the rights of everyone else on the mountain I care about.

  There’s a serpentine curve in the road, and I slow down for the corners. Travelling these roads day in and day out means I could drive with my eyes closed and never miss a turn, not that I would.

  I’ve handed out three speeding tickets today already and run breathalyzers on five people before they set off from the campground. All tested within the limit, but the message is clear. I don’t tolerate drinking or speeding on my mountain.

  The locals know it, but the tourists are another matter.

  After the hairpin turn, there’s a straight stretch. I hate this part of the road. Drivers speed up, assuming the twists and turns are behind them, then get caught at the next corner. I’ve had to pull more than one car out of the bushes along the shoulder. Thankfully, no one has ever gone right over.

  I slow down in anticipation, never knowing what I’m going to find around the corner.

  However, it's not a car this time but a woman on the side of the road.

  She’s walking on the side of the cliff drop with her back to the oncoming cars and her thumb sticking out. She doesn’t even look behind her when she hears my car, just sticks her thumb out further into the road.

  Her white dress billows out behind her, caught in the wind, the fabric so floaty it might pick her up and take her right off the mountain like a parachute. Her dark hair is half pulled up in an elaborate style, with half of it hanging loose in thick curls down her back. Something dangles in her other hand, and as I get closer I make out a pair of high heels, her fingers looped around the back of them. She’s barefoot.

  “What the fuck…”

  Of all the dangerous things this woman’s doing--hitchhiking for a start, walking away from oncoming traffic, not turning when she hears a car--it’s the bare feet that make my lips press together in anger.

  I pull onto the shoulder in front of her where there’s barely enough room to get my SUV off the road. My seatbelt’s unclipped before the car has stopped moving, and I yank the door open.

  “What the hell are you…”

  She stops walking to stare at me, and the words die on my lips. She’s beautiful. Like, autumn morning on the mountain beautiful. With full berry-red lips and a round face, her dark green eyes are bolded with makeup and regard me curiously.

  The wind changes suddenly and the billowing dress presses against her body, outlining her full figure: thick thighs, wide hips, and two pillowy breasts, perfect orbs that take up her entire chest and then some.

  My mouth goes dry, and I lick my lips. It’s an effort to tear my gaze away from her luscious breasts, but somehow I manage it. I look down and get a glimpse of her bare feet. The toenails are painted bright pink, and they’re covered in road dust and grazes.

  “You can’t walk around here in bare feet.”

  My tone comes out harsh, and she looks down at her feet.

  “Is that a crime, sheriff?”

  Her voice is sweet and playful, and when I dare to look up, she’s smiling at me. The breath goes out of my lungs, and I have to look away. Damn, she’s gorgeous, but this isn’t a laughing matter.

  “We’ve got snakes around here, and there could be glass on the road. You might hurt your…ah…feet.”

  This woman has got me tongue-tied like a teenager.

  She arches an eyebrow at me, and the smile turns to a smirk. “I’m thankful for your concern for my feet.”

  Damn, this isn’t about her feet. I want to shake her for all the stupid things she’s doing.

  “You shouldn’t hitch around here. It’s dangerous.”

  “But it’s not illegal.”

  Her emerald green eyes sparkle with a challenge. I’m trying to keep her safe, and she thinks this is a game.

  “Get in the car.”

  The smirk slides off her face, and it feels satisfying.

  “But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  I open the door to the back seat for her and she stands there, not moving.

  “You’re not under arrest,” I reassure her. “I’m giving you your next ride.”

  She smiles again, that same smile as if she’s laughing at me. “You haven’t even asked where I’m going.”

  “I don’t care where you’re going. Just get in the car and I’ll take you wherever you want to go. But you’re not hitching in bare feet on my goddam mountain.”

  Her brow furrows, and she stares at me defiantly.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong, sheriff.”

  “Haven’t done anything wrong?” I run a hand through my hair, my exasperation building with every minute we stand here. “You should walk on the side of the road facing oncoming traffic so you don’t get hit. You should wear shoes outside, and most importantly you shouldn’t be hitching in the first place. Any stranger could pick you up. I’d rather give you a lift now then have to deal with a homicide investigation when they find your body on the side of the road.”

  She looks startled, and I instantly regret my last words. I run my hand through my hair.

  “Will you just get in the goddamn car? Please?”

  She folds her arms and looks at me with a frown creasing her brow.

  “But you’re a stranger.”

  I hold her gaze, unsure if she’s teasing me or if she’s always this exasperating.

  “I’m the sheriff.” I sweep my arm toward the patrol car with Sheriff written on the side and red and blue lights on top. Then I pull o ut my badge and hold it out to her.

  She regards the car and leans forward to study my badge. The scent of sweet feminine perfume accosts my nostrils, and I breathe in deeply. Goddamn, she smells as good as she looks, and that scent is waking up parts of my body that have been dormant for months. I step back before the twinge in my loins can turn into anything else.

  The woman looks up from my badge.

  “How do I know it’s not fake?”

  I press my lips together and snap my badge closed. My gaze snaps to the valley, and I search for the calm the view usually brings out in me. It’s not cool to get angry with civilians, but this woman is pushing me to the limit.

  When I turn back, she’s grinning.

  “I’m just fucking with you, sheriff.” She slaps me on the shoulder. “I’d love a lift. Thanks.”

  She slides into the back seat chuckling to herself. Her eyes sparkle, causing adorable creases to form at the edges. Yup, she’s laughing at me.

  I’m frozen in place. I’ve never encountered anyone who makes me so exasperated, yet I want to slide into the backseat next to her, to smell her perfume again, to make her laugh with me and not at me. To show her that I’m not always an uptight asshole. Only when someone is doing something stupid like hitching in bare feet.

  As she goes to pull the door closed behind her, one of the shoes drops to the ground. She reaches for it, but I crouch down and get it first.

  The shoe is a white satin heel with a tiny cluster of pearls on one side.

  There’s only one reason a woman wears white satin heels. My gaze goes to the dress that falls elegantly around her legs.

  It’s satin too, a simple V-neck design, but there’s a string of tiny pearls sewn into the neckline.

  “Is that… a wedding dress?”

  The woman bites her lip and her gaze shifts to the window, her voice barely audible.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Ah shit,” I mutter.

  She’s not just hitching in bare feet. This woman’s a runaway bride.

  2

  CALVIN

  The woman’s name is Grace and she’s twenty-four, which is all she’ll tell me about herself on the drive to the clubhouse.

  She doesn’t want to go back to her fiancé or to her family and won’t tell me where she’s hitched from, although I’ve got a pretty good idea. There’s only one wedding venue in the direction that she was walking from, The Emerald Heart Resort, but I respect her pleas to give her some time, so I’m taking her to the one place I know she’ll be safe. The clubhouse.

  “So, where were you headed before I picked you up?”

  I glance in the rearview mirror in time to see her shrug. The movement makes her breasts rise, and I divert my gaze back to the road before my mind wanders to where it shouldn’t, which is how she looks under the dress and what those magnificent breasts feel like, and what expression she’d make if I brushed my thumbs over her nipples and wiped that smirk off her face for good.

  “I don’t know.”

  I exhale slowly, clearing my head of inappropriate thoughts and suppressing my anger towards a woman who hitches down a mountain without a plan. Walking out on your own wedding is madness enough, and while I’m curious as to her reasons why, they’re none of my business. But hitching down my mountain is my business.

  “Do you have someone I can take you to? A safe place to go?”

  Since she refuses to go back to her fiancé and her family, I’ve been trying to get out of her where she was headed, but she’s tight-lipped on that too.

  “You must have had a destination in mind when you…” I stop myself from saying ‘ditched your fiancé.’ I don’t want to bring up the wedding she obviously doesn’t want to talk about. “…left.”

  “Nope.” She shakes her head. “I just left.”

  Who does that? Who just leaves without knowing where they’re going?

  “If I hadn’t picked you up, where would you have asked the next person to take you?”

  She shrugs again. “Wherever they were going.”

  I clench my jaw. Does she realize how foolish that would be? They could take her anywhere, take advantage of her. Even if they were genuine and not an asshole, she might have ended up further up the mountain with no shelter and no food and no damned shoes.

  “I didn’t really think too much about it.”

  “You think?” I mutter under my breath.

  Maybe it’s because she’s ten years younger than me, but I was never this naïve at twenty-four. Hell, I was doing my time in Iraq at her age.

  There’s movement in the back seat, and I glance in the rearview mirror to find her leaning forward, her hands clasping the bars that separate the rear of the vehicle from the front. The smile is back on her face, and it’s both exasperating and beautiful all at once.

  “Don’t you ever do anything spontaneous, sheriff?”

  I reflect on the last six years of my life. After leaving the military, I returned to the mountains. Falling into the role of sheriff kept me sane, gave me a purpose, something concrete and certain to keep my mind from the dark places it wanted to go. My days are unpredictable but never spontaneous.

  “No,” I say too harshly. “Never.”

  She sits back in her seat and looks out the window. A frown creases her forehead as we pull into the Wild Riders Motorcycle Club compound.

  There’s a line of bikes parked out in front of the restaurant, but I go around to the back, past the workshop where Colter waves, a dirty rag in one hand. Danni stands next to him with a baby on her hip, chatting to Trish while two small children sit at their feet playing a game with some spare parts from the workshop.

  We drive past the large warehouse where steam from the brewing kettles escapes from the vents.

  Grace wrinkles her nose at the stench of hops that fills the air.

  “What is this place?”

  She stares at the huge hairy man coming out of the brewery storehouse who gives me a grin and a wave. I wave back at Quentin, or Barrels as we call him, due to his size and the fact that he runs the brewery.

  “Since you won’t tell me where you came from and you have no idea where you’re going, I’ve brought you somewhere safe.”

  Barrels turns around to pick up a crate of bottles, and Grace’s mouth drops open when she sees the biker’s patch on the back of his jacket.

  “You’ve brought me to a motorcycle club?”

  She appears uncertain now for the first time since I picked her up from the roadside. I wish she was this cautious about hitching on her own.

  Ironically, the Wild Riders HQ is the safest place on this side of the mountain. We’re all veterans who love to ride. Everything we do here is legit. I see to that. It’s an MC club for ex-soldiers. A place for men who need to heal and men who just need a new place to belong.

  I don’t say anything as I park and get out of the car.

  Grace pulls at her door, and I fold my arms and let her try a few times before releasing the locking mechanism and pulling the door open for her.

  “Thanks,” she mumbles as she gets out of the car.

  “This is the Wild Riders MC headquarters. I’m a member here.”

  Her mouth drops open in surprise, and she regards me with something like respect.

  “You ride a motorcycle?”

  She must think I’m an uptight prick, but I’m also a man, a man who likes a bike between his thighs, the wind on his face, and the road beneath his wheels.

  “I’m not always an uptight asshole.”

  She barks out a laugh, and the surprised smile she gives me is genuine.

  “Just to runaway brides then?”

  “It’s my responsibility to keep everyone on this mountain safe, and if that means been an asshole sometimes, then I don’t apologize for that.”

  I gesture towards the clubhouse's back door. She steps forward and I put my hand on the small of her back, guiding her inside. My hand slips against the fabric of her wedding dress, and I wonder who the unlucky bastard is who she’s let down today.

  Not my business, I tell myself.

  I’ll leave her at the clubhouse for a few hours to cool off. I’ll ask the women to look after her, get her something to eat and some goddamn shoes. And when I’ve finished my shift later today, I’ll take her back to wherever she needs to go.

 

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