Reckless Hearts (Reckless - The Smoky Mountain Trio Book 3) Read online

  I shrugged with boredom. As if unaffected by her spirit and generosity and beautiful soul.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Her face fell, and she sniffed. “Okay, good. I’m glad. I may have mentioned that I heard from Cam.”

  Swallowing the lump in my throat and feeling it drop like a lead balloon in my stomach, I nodded.

  “How’s he doing in bootcamp?”

  She smiled stiffly, cupping her chin with her palm. God, what I would’ve given to be the one touching her like that.

  Instead, I made a fist and gripped the phone tighter in my hand. Crucifying the need in me to soothe her worried expression.

  “He doesn’t write much. Just a few details here and there. Mainly about his drill sergeant and a few guys he’s become friends with in his unit. But he graduated and is now completing his specialized training. Something about special ops. And…” She stopped abruptly, her voice growing weaker. Sadder.

  Cocking my head to the side, I squinted discerningly. “And what?”

  She worried her lip, biting down on the flesh that I’d once kissed and fucked. Loved and worshipped.

  “Cam’s met someone.”

  My body jerked and jumped as if I’d been electrocuted.

  “Who?”

  London shrugged as if it pained her to talk about it. As if she knew she would be hurting me with the details. And fuck, it hurt either way.

  I waved my hand in front of my face. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Cam’s free to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants. That part of my life is over. We need to move on. You need to move on, too.”

  The shiny strands of her blond hair cascaded over her shoulders, dangling softly as she shook her head.

  “I can’t Sage. I love him. I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

  I hissed sarcastically. “You’re so fuckin’ naïve, London. Get over yourself. Nothing will ever be the same again and you need to accept that and move the fuck on. In fact, I can’t do this anymore.”

  I gestured between us with my index finger and glanced away, avoiding her gaze knowing she’d see all the truth behind my lie.

  The truth was, I’d never be over either one of them. They could lock me away for a lifetime and throw away the key, but that love was rooted too deep to ever leave me. It’ll be there until my dying day, even if both Cam and London are no longer in my life.

  “Don’t you say that, Sage. I will never give up on you. I will keep coming here, every week. I. Won’t. Give. Up.”

  She poked the window with her finger, emphasizing each syllable and her fury lighting up her words.

  I stared at her for a minute – or maybe it was an hour – memorizing the lines in her brow, the soft curve of her cheeks, the lush fullness of her lips. Capturing every detail of her face and pocketing it in my heart before I stood up, pushed the chair back and hung up the phone.

  As I walked out the door, my back to London, I made a peculiar observation.

  Living without a heart wasn’t that hard at all.

  What was difficult was living with a lie.

  And knowing you just killed any joy and happiness you’d ever known or would ever have again.

  Chapter 5

  Present

  “Is he alive?” I pant out in a rush of exhaled breath, rushing toward London and Doreen Lucas, Cam’s momma.

  They sit like two mannequins in the plastic hospital waiting room chairs at Nashville General Trauma Center, until London hears my voice and jumps into my open arms.

  She comes willingly, her slight frame dropping into my embrace like a stone being pulled down in a raging river, the weight of the water drowning her. Over her shoulder Doreen’s head is bent in silent prayer, clutching a Kleenex in her hand.

  “Baby, I’m here. Everything will be okay. I promise.”

  These are obviously words that hold no meaning and are only meant to placate. She and I both know it, but she nods into my chest anyway, because to think otherwise right now has too many implications.

  Loosening my hold, I cup her jaw and lift her face to meet my gaze. London’s eyes are red-rimmed from all the tears, puffy bags under her lids. It still doesn’t detract one ounce from her beauty. She has naturally sun-kissed, dewy skin that is flawless even without makeup. A face I’ve kissed goodnight for years and awoken to even when I didn’t deserve to be laying beside her.

  I owe London so much for being there for me through all the difficult times. Now is my chance to be strong for her. Hold her up when she needs me most.

  “What’s the status? Do you know anything more? Should I go talk to the doctors?”

  She grabs my hand and pulls me toward Doreen, who finally lifts her head to stare at me. She blinks a few times and then her expression turns white – as if she’s seen a ghost.

  “Sage? Is that you?”

  She hasn’t seen me in over ten years. Not since I was handed down my sentence and remanded to the state pen.

  Although Doreen and her husband, Mike, tried to visit me a few times while I was locked away, I turned them away. They had been more of a parental influence growing up than my own mom or dad, which made my shame even greater. Therefore, I chose to stay away.

  They gave up after the second year of my sentence and then even the letters from Doreen stopped coming. I understood why. Her own son was overseas fighting a war and her husband had just passed away.

  Slowly dragging my heavy-guilt-laden feet toward her, I bend to hug her gently. Her bony-body trembles under my touch and I fight back tears that threaten to spill.

  “Hi, Dori. It’s been a while. I’m so sorry…” The words catch in my throat. I swallow thickly. “I’m sorry about everything.”

  London steps around us and sits on the opposite side of Cam’s mom and I sit down on her right, clasping her petite, aged hand in mine.

  “I can’t lose my only living child,” she wails in anguish, and I squeeze her hand tighter, meeting London’s concerned gaze over Doreen’s head.

  Swinging my arm around her shoulder, London lays a hand on top of mine, as together we try to comfort her the best way we know how.

  London’s voice holds an authority of conviction. “You won’t, Doreen. Cameron Lucas is the strongest man I know.”

  “Can you tell us what’s going on? What information has been given to you by the doctors and staff?”

  She sniffles and weeps. “Not much. Only that the first responding ER doctors indicated that after their initial assessment, the burns looked to be second-degree and they’ve put him into a medically induced a coma to keep him sedated for the next few days while they assess his situation. They’ve checked his lungs for soot and smoke inhalation. They have intubated him to help his breathing and will be doing some scans to see what internal damage may have occurred. A burn specialist is being called in and that’s all I know.”

  Goddammit. How the hell did this happen?

  “He’ll make it. Don’t you worry. I’ll make sure he has all the best medical care there is. He’s not going through this alone.” My voice is firm and unwavering.

  London’s lips curve up in a slight smile and she nods her head. Then her body seizes in panic.

  “Where’s Taylor? Does Lisa know?”

  Doreen begins to cry harder, an inconsolable grief that cuts me to the bone.

  “The paramedics initially called Lisa who didn’t answer, so they called me. I called her when I arrived here earlier tonight, and she said she wasn’t going to bring Taylor to see him. That it was Cam’s fault he’s in this situation because he wanted to go into this career. She’s such a horrible woman. I just can’t believe Cam ever fell for someone like her.”

  Doreen’s sobs bring me back to the day I was sentenced in the courtroom ten years earlier. Cam had already shipped off to boot camp and London was at school in Nashville and couldn’t get back for the sentencing, but Doreen, Mike, and London’s parents were there all seated in the front row. I heard Dori crying from
behind me as she wept over the injustice and unfairness of it all.

  And here we are again, and she’s still fighting the universe’s injustice but this time it’s her own son. Her only living family member, aside from her grandson.

  I was absolutely floored when Cam told me about his failed marriage to Lisa and his son, Taylor. It just seemed so strange to me that he had this whole life outside of what he’d shared between me and London. But I could tell how happy Taylor made him – and how unhappy Lisa made his life during their divorce – yet he still smiled, saying the best gift life had ever given him was Taylor’s birth.

  Then I remember something else Cam had shared with me that morning on the porch. He’d admitted to almost ending his life. He was ashamed of his weakness and felt that some guardian angel had been looking out for him that day, sending both Taylor and London out to him on that dock. Cam realized he hadn’t wanted to die. He had too much to live for.

  And now he’s in a hospital room close to death.

  The cruel irony of our fates.

  It seems the same punishing forces had a hand in my life, as well, when I was sent to prison.

  Chapter 6

  Past

  I kept having a recurring dream about them.

  Every night once I allowed my body and mind to relax and fall asleep, they’d come to me in the best, most erotic dreams. Ones where I was with London and Cam, together.

  Touching, and kissing, and fucking. It was hauntingly beautiful.

  And then somewhere in the middle of all the hot stuff, it would turn violent. All the colorful images of bodies and sex would be inked in black and red. Blood and death. I’d wake up and want to scream but would instantly remember where I was and stifle it back down, racked with tremors from the excruciating horror of the nightmare.

  I’d lay back down on the top bunk, throwing off the flimsy, scratchy sheet, and shiver in the cold sweat that drenched me from head to toe. This happened every night for months.

  It was worse when I’d picture Cam, decked out in his boot camp fatigues that I’d never see him in, sweaty from his drills, as he’d step into the empty bathroom where I’d be waiting.

  In my imagination, I’d be right there to help him. Naked and hard for him. I’d watch as he removed his combat boots, then his socks and whip off his T-shirt, sweat-stained and smelling of him. A perfect combination of perspiration and masculinity.

  “Let me help you,” I’d murmur, my hands landing at his belt buckle and slowly unclasping the metal buckle, pulling it from the loops and throwing it to the ground. “I want you in my mouth.”

  Cam would wiggle his eyebrows and smirk, flexing his muscular biceps and arms as he’d lift his arms at his sides, allowing me room to maneuver.

  Kneeling in front of him, I’d unbutton and unzip his camouflage pants, pulling at the flaps and dragging the material down and over his heavy erection. His hard cock would spring free, standing at attention like the soldier he was. My fingers let go of the material at his ankles and trail up his calves, enjoying the sensation of the coarse hair tickling at my palms, as I mapped out the terrain of his thick thighs.

  I’d tease him mercilessly, enthralled with every sigh and moan out of Cam’s mouth, as I placed kisses everywhere other than his dick. He’d growl with displeasure and frustration and I’d chuckle at his impatience. Because I knew that deep down, Cam wanted me to make him feel good. He longed for me to take him in my mouth. To cup his balls. To make him come down my throat.

  Even if in real-life he rejected me. Turned against me when all I wanted to do was to love him. I’d fallen in love with Cam when I was thirteen years old. That love had to be disguised and kept hidden in the dark recesses of my heart out of fear of losing his friendship. From the sheer panic over losing him as my best friend.

  “You’re such a faggot ass queer, boy.”

  My father’s icy-cold voice hits me across the jaw as forceful as if he’d taken a swing at me with a fist.

  His dark, imposing figure hovers over me in my childhood bed. I’m fifteen years old again and he’s in my room, stumbling drunk.

  I’d never come out to my dad, or anyone other than London. She just knew it instinctively. Understood that I found both girls and boys attractive and didn’t have any preference. But I never knew how my dad determined I was queer. I’d read up on the terminology, and found I identified more as a bisexual boy than gay, liking both girls and boys.

  One boy, in particular.

  Cam.

  Maybe my dad just thought his insults were a way to hurt me verbally rather than being bound in truth. Who knew? My dad was never someone I’d understood or figured out.

  He was just a drunken loser who failed at life, yet his voice rang out in my head as if he were still right there in front of me.

  “You call this succeeding, boy? You’re in a fucking prison cell for killing me. You’re no better than me, you little shit.”

  He’d always be there, taunting me from inside my head. Laughing sardonically at my circumstances.

  I woke with a start once again, gripping the edges of my hair in my sweaty palms, my breaths loud and staggered.

  Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, I jumped out of the bunk, careful not to wake Clem, my cellmate, a sixty-year-old lifer. I sat down at the desk chair, sifting through a stack of letters I’d never intended on opening.

  Letters from London.

  It’d been a year. A fucking wasted year since I told her to leave me. To move on with her life. The irony of it is that she took my advice and did just that. She moved on and I stayed in the same hell hole.

  London had told me about a guy she’d met at school named Clay. He was two years older, a senior about to graduate. He was attending Columbia Law School in New York in the fall and London was considering transferring to NYU to be near to him.

  And away from me.

  My heart had been sliced open, the pieces like ribbons, dangling precariously in my body. Cut to shreds from her announcement.

  She’d written about how she enjoyed his company and how he was from the East Coast, which I read between the lines to mean he was from a wealthy family. Of course, he was. And goddammit if I didn’t feel a strong hatred for him. Clay could not only offer London something that I never could, but something she deserved, to be treated like a queen.

  Cam wasn’t around to do it, and I would never be able to offer her that kind of life. Even once I’d served my time and out on parole, what the hell kind of life could an ex-con offer her? Not a home, a family. Nothing. She was right to heed my advice and write me off.

  I was a worthless, no good piece of shit, just like my dad had always reminded me.

  The funny thing about prison is that it’s supposed to give you time to come to terms with what you did and to make amends; to redeem yourself and make reparations to those you hurt when you committed your crime.

  The only ones I ever regretted hurting, the ones who deserved my apologies were Cam and London.

  Ripping a piece of paper out of my notebook, the memory of my dream lingering in the forefront of my mind, I began to write a letter. I addressed it to Cam. It was a letter that would never be sent or shared, but I knew if I didn’t get out what had to be said, it would eat me alive.

  Dear Cam,

  I know you hate me. I guess there’s a part of me that hates me a little, too.

  I don’t regret kissing you or doing what I did to you. It was one of the best things that could’ve happened to me. I only regret that it cost us our friendship.

  My life is so fucked up right now it doesn’t even feel like my own. Prison is everything you’ve heard about it and worse. It’s a stink-tank of the worst people you could imagine. Men who kill out of cold blood. Who abuse their wives and girlfriends. Who abduct and hurt children. Who buy and sell drugs and women.

  I don’t think I belong here. My heart doesn’t bleed the same dark poison that runs through most of these men. It scares me to think that m
aybe someday, maybe even soon, I could end up like them. Unapologetically savage and evil. Hating the world and everyone in it.

  I’m grateful, I guess, that my sentence is fairly short. It scares me to think what I might become if I have to be in this place for more than three years. Lucky for me, my cellmate, Clem, is a pretty decent guy. Doesn’t talk much. Just grumbles to himself a lot about “this mother fucker or that mother fucker” but otherwise he leaves me alone.

  It’s hard, man. I’m scared. I’m so alone.

  I need you.

  I can’t see London anymore. It hurts too fucking much. I told her not to come back and it broke my mother fucking heart. I didn’t want to. I swear to God, if I could take it back, I would. Take back everything about the night and everything since then.

  But life doesn’t work that way. I’m just glad I had the time I did on the outside to spend with you and London. I still dream about those nights together. Camping out in the mountains. You, me and London fucking and loving each other.

  I want that again someday. I need to have something to hold onto and to hope for in my life. Otherwise, it’s just unbearable.

  The pain of not talking to you or seeing you right now is killing me. But not as much as it would if I didn’t have the belief that someday in the future, we’ll all be together again. And all will be right in the world.

  I just know it.

  I love you, Cam. I always have, and I always will. You and London. Forever.

  All my love,

  Sage

  As for London…my letter was short and to the point.

  Dear London,

  Good luck in New York. Be happy, that’s all I want for you.

  Love,

  Sage

  Chapter 7

  Present

  It was touch-and-go for the first three days Cam was in the hospital in the intensive care unit, with round-the-clock care.

  Although the doctor’s assured us that their assessment of his burns was labeled second-degree and treatable, they were still worried about his lungs and internal organs.