F-Bomb Read online

  Text copyright ©2019 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 my real-life Slate. I love doing life with you.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak- Photographer

  Ellie McLove & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Cover Me Darling- Cover Artist

  My mom- Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred times.

  Kendra, Diane, Sarah, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—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.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  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

  Castiel and Turner

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord, Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy (6-11-19)

  It Wasn’t Me (7-2-19)

  Blurb

  You murder a man, and all of a sudden people are scared of you.

  Slate Solis went from being a guy that people went to in times of need to an ex-con that people crossed the street to avoid being too close to.

  He knows he’s done wrong, but out of all of his sins, only one really bothers him—coveting thy neighbor’s wife.

  Harleigh Belle—the cute little lady that never gives him a second glance.

  After seeing her for the first time while he was in prison, she’s stayed on his mind for three long years. Each time she comes in to visit with her friend on family day, he can’t help but stare.

  Then the day comes that he’s set free, and he’s almost disappointed that he’ll never see her again.

  Except fate has different plans.

  He hasn’t been back in his house for more than three hours when he sees her.

  Harleigh Belle in all her glory…oh, and her husband that is everything Slate isn’t.

  He tells himself that her being fifty feet away from him, all day every day, is a complete coincidence. One that he shouldn’t take advantage of. The more time that passes, the harder it gets to stay away. Until one day, and one very ill-timed thunderstorm, ruin everything.

  Who knew that baby-making-weather was a real thing?

  Prologue

  I didn’t mean to push all your buttons. Just kidding. I really did.

  -Slate to Izzy

  Slate

  Three years ago

  The first time I saw her I was shackled to a table with chains.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to keep my eyes on Izzy but having a hard time doing that since there was a blonde woman that was about five foot nothing at the table next to me, giving the man she was visiting a rundown about a Chuck Norris race that she was running in about a week.

  “I’m talking about the fact that our mother is a whore, and she tried to get the daycare that Astrid is enrolled in to allow her ‘visitation time,’” Izzy explained patiently.

  I finally pulled my eyes off the blonde and looked at my sister.

  “And this surprises you because?” I asked with a raised brow.

  She sighed loudly. “I guess that it doesn’t. I’m just annoyed that I have to deal with it at all. I thought I got rid of her and she keeps popping back like a herpes outbreak.”

  The blonde at the table next to us paused in her conversation with the man and looked at my sister with a grin on her face.

  I sighed and tried not to stare.

  It was nearly impossible, though.

  I wasn’t sure what it was that drew me to her.

  She was about five foot nothing with blonde hair that was arranged in a fighter’s braid down both sides of her head. She had bright pink strands that were woven throughout the braid, and at the very bottom, it transitioned into straight purple.

  Her eyes were an eerie shade of green. Kind of like sea foam…but brighter.

  She had the longest lashes that I’d ever seen, and that was saying something because it looked like she had zero makeup on.

  Her forearms were absolutely tiny and were about the size of two of my fingers put together in width…but those forearms had so
many goddamn bracelets that they went almost halfway up said arm.

  “Are you listening to me at all?” Izzy asked. “Are you sick?”

  I looked at my sister, once again peeling my eyes away from the blonde, and shrugged.

  “You’re talking about our mother,” I said, sounding bored. “What did you want me to do? Say ‘huh, that’s weird?’” I asked. “Because it’s not weird for her. Honestly, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to do anything before now.”

  Izzy sat back with a huff and crossed her arms over her chest, looking adorably annoyed.

  Izzy, my baby sister, had changed a lot since I’d gone to prison.

  She’d grown into her own and had become a beautiful person.

  Not that she hadn’t been one before, but there was a difference between the broken and scared doll that she used to be compared to the beautiful, confident, ‘I can do anything’ woman that she’d turned in to. Though, that had a lot to do with the fact that she was married now to a man that would kick anyone’s ass that ever hurt her—my mother included.

  Izzy’s dark hair was in a bun on top of her head, and I was fairly sure she had a spit-up stain on the black t-shirt she was wearing. Not that I’d point that out to her yet. I’d make sure we got all the way through our visit before bringing it to her attention.

  “I know,” she sighed. “I’m just…I’ve had a bad couple of nights with Astrid. She hasn’t slept much and she’s always in a terrible mood. And then Mom pulling that shit?”

  She scrubbed her hands up and down her face. “And I had to clean a house yesterday that was a complete and utter pig sty. I wish I would’ve charged them more. I’m fairly sure they did a super deep clean right before I came over to quote them a price on cleaning for them. When I got there today? It was like a tornado had gone through it. I’m going to have to charge them more because it takes me longer to clean tornado destroyed houses than the one they showed me before.”

  “Please tell me that you clean in Bear Bottom.”

  We both looked over at the blonde who was now staring at Izzy with hope on her face.

  “Uhh,” Izzy said. “I do.”

  The woman’s face showed so much utter joy that I felt something low in my belly start to heat up.

  “My name is Harleigh.” She held out her hand. “Can I get your number? Do you have a card? Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to hear this.”

  Izzy’s eyes flicked to me and then back to the blonde, Harleigh.

  Odd name, but it suited her.

  “This is my man’s baby brother, Tray.” She pointed at the inmate next to me. I hadn’t actually seen him much, but that was because he was new and didn’t quite know his place in the hierarchy just yet, so he stayed to himself. “Dre, Tray’s brother, just moved his business to Bear Bottom and I’ve been doing my best to help him, but…it’s like cleaning up in the middle of a hurricane. It’s just not doable when the men don’t clean up after themselves—at all.”

  Izzy pulled out a card that she’d had stashed in her pocket and handed it to the woman.

  “Just text me,” she said. “If you call, I probably won’t answer.”

  Harleigh’s face went bright. “I don’t answer my phone, either, so I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I’m normally pretty fast answering text messages,” she said. “So if you don’t get one back, text me again. Sometimes I just miss them.”

  Harleigh’s smile fell off her face when her eyes met mine, and I felt like the sun had suddenly been stolen.

  I looked away and hunched my shoulders a little, causing me to appear slightly smaller.

  I was a big guy.

  At six-foot-five, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t look down on most of the people around me.

  Seeing the woman that I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off of look at me like that? Well, I hadn’t realized I could be any more ashamed than I was. Turns out that I could.

  Izzy, after a few more words to Harleigh, turned back to me with a smile.

  The smile fell off her face when she got a look at mine.

  “What is it?” she asked softly.

  I shrugged and changed the subject.

  “Tell me about Rome,” I ordered.

  Izzy’s face went stoic, and she sighed before leaning back in her chair and saying, “Rome’s good. I’m supposed to relay a few things to you, but I’m not sure what they mean.”

  I gestured for her to tell me, and she did, looking at me curiously afterward.

  “Why couldn’t Bayou just tell you that?” she paused. “Or Rome, at that?”

  Rome and Bayou both worked at the prison that I found myself an inhabitant of. It was better not to tell me directly so that they didn’t get seen talking to me.

  That, and telling me that I had an inmate that was out for my blood would probably get them targeted.

  Nearly a decade ago now, while on the job, my partner had been shot and killed before my eyes. My partner who just so happened to be my fiancée. My fiancée who just so happened to be pregnant.

  When I’d found the man that had been responsible for killing them, I’d murdered him in cold blood.

  I hadn’t cared that I’d go to jail.

  Honestly, I hadn’t been thinking all that straight, but I never once regretted doing what I’d done.

  To this day, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

  “Slate?” Izzy nudged me with her foot under the table.

  “Bayou and Rome are busy,” I shrugged. “And it doesn’t look suspicious when my sister talks to me.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes and pulled a napkin out of her pocket, discreetly handing it over to me without a word.

  I looked at the rolled-up napkin and felt my mouth water.

  “Please tell me that’s what I think it is,” I begged.

  That was when I felt someone’s eyes on me.

  I flicked my eyes to the side, surprised to see the blonde staring at me with a look of concentration on her face.

  I quickly looked away before she could read any of the thoughts rolling through me and turned back to my sister before flicking my eyes around the room.

  When I didn’t see any of the usual little assholes staring at me—little assholes being the other inmates and not the guards—I opened the napkin and nearly groaned at the two cookies.

  “Abuela made these?” I asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “I tried to make some the other day and they turned out like crap.”

  I popped the first cookie into my mouth and nearly moaned at the taste that exploded on my taste buds.

  “God, these are so good,” I muttered.

  One thing I could say about being locked up like I was? My health was on point. I couldn’t eat bad because we were fed ‘balanced diets.’ I also couldn’t cheat, and I had nothing else to do all day but workout and workout some more.

  That was, of course, when I wasn’t doing other things like spying on inmates and feeding the motorcycle club, the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, that Rome had somehow talked me into joining, information.

  Not that it took too much participation on my part.

  Despite my large size, people overlooked me.

  I wasn’t sure why, and it’d been something that happened since I was young. That, and people just talked to me. They always had, and it’d been why I’d been such a good cop—you know, before I was convicted of murder and all.

  The bell above the doors started to ring, signaling that our time was up.

  Instead of standing up and throwing my arms around my sister like I would’ve liked, I remained seated and clenched my jaw.

  Izzy caught the look and grinned. “Just a few more months and you can hug me.”

  I snorted.

  Her version of a ‘few more months’ was more like forty something, but who was counting?

  “Be good, Iz,” I said softly. “And don’t let Mom get to
you. Put her on the ‘no-fly’ list and make sure everyone at the daycare knows that she’s not to be given access to her. Love you.”

  Izzy blew me a kiss, then pushed the last cookie closer to me. “Eat that before I get in trouble.”

  I did as she asked, shoving it into my mouth right as she turned to leave.

  That was when I saw the woman at Izzy’s side turn as well, but not before flicking her eyes away from mine.

  I watched them both go and sat there for another two minutes as we were all led out, one by one.

  When the guards finally came for me, I stood up and waited patiently for them to unchain me.

  It was when we were all being led back to our cells that the man that the blonde had been visiting turned to me.

  “You get cookies?”

  I shrugged. “I get what I want.”

  His eyes narrowed. “How do I get what I want?”

  “Become a cop, protect the guards’ backs, and keep your nose clean?” I shrugged. “But that’ll also get your ass kicked by the other inmates, so choose wisely.”

  With that, I walked away and tried not to think of the blonde or her beautiful looks.

  ***

  Harleigh

  “Your brother is fine,” I said to Dre, then turned to my dad. “Tray didn’t get much. He said that he hasn’t had much of a chance to get any information yet because everyone still looked at him with suspicion.”

  My father sighed and leaned back, his hands on the back of his head.

  “I need to find someone else then,” he muttered. “Thanks, baby.”

  I thought about the big man that’d been at the table next to us, then decided, fuck it.

  “There was this man that was seated beside us,” I said. “He had a clock tower tattoo on his right forearm. A cop shield on his left wrist, and a thin blue line tattooed to his other wrist. Plus he looked like he was capable of taking care of himself…I have the sister’s number if you want to look into him.”

  My dad looked at me in surprise.

  “Yeah, give it.”

  I didn’t actually need a cleaning lady.

  In fact, I didn’t actually know anybody in Bear Bottom.

  I’d just been listening to Tray who had absolutely nothing for my dad to go on, and I’d heard a stray comment about ‘Bear Bottom’ from the woman next to me as well as her cleaning business and I’d acted without thought.