Breaking Away [Smoky Mountain Motorcycles] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Smoky Mountain Motorcycles

  Breaking Away

  DEA Agent Jake Lawson nearly died in the line of duty. His body healed, but his spirit struggles over the loss of his partner. How can he go on, knowing he failed?

  Widow Willa Montgomery is the black sheep of her wealthy, overbearing family. She’s always been too tall, too curvy, too sensitive. When she inherits a small bed-and-breakfast nestled in the picturesque Smoky Mountains, she finally finds her place. But the inn is more work than any one person can handle. When Jake agrees to help the struggling widow, he never imagines how much he himself will be helped.

  Can a man who’s seen so much darkness find peace in the arms of a woman who’s never fit in, when so many people are trying to keep them apart?

  Genre: Contemporary

  Length: 43,451 words

  BREAKING AWAY

  Smoky Mountain Motorcycles

  Grae McTavish

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  BREAKING AWAY

  Copyright © 2012 by Grae McTavish

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-903-3

  First E-book Publication: August 2012

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Breaking Away by Grae McTavish from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Grae McTavish’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. McTavish’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  This is for my girls, who put up with hours of me rambling about plots and characters, who help me with research and grammar, who always encourage me to follow my dreams.

  To all the teachers who inspired me.

  And of course for my wonderful hubby, who lets me be me and sacrifices his body for hours of “research.”

  BREAKING AWAY

  Smoky Mountain Motorcycles

  GRAE MCTAVISH

  Copyright © 2012

  Prologue

  Jake Lawson was tired, mentally and physically exhausted. He’d been working undercover for the DEA at the Rusty Screw for over a year, and it seemed that for every one asshole he helped put away, two more showed up. He rolled into the rutted parking lot in front of the notorious biker bar and pulled up next to his partner.

  Maggie was a senior agent, and she’d been his mentor since he’d transferred to the Special Gang Unit. She was one tough old broad, that’s for sure. He respected the hell out of her, though he wondered how she did this year after year. Right now he was posing as the bartender who was open for any type of side deal, and she was his waitress, scouting out those deals. They were a good team and had managed to get some rotten dudes off the streets.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, and he envied her calm. She swung her leg over the seat of her low cruiser, setting aside her battered helmet with its trademark sticker stating, “This Bitch Doesn’t Fall Off.” Joking aside, her dedication was legendary, though few people knew much about the real her.

  “Same shit, different day,” he grumbled, lingering on his bike. His mind went to the wedding invitation he’d received this morning. His old buddy, Gabe, was getting married, lucky bastard, and his bride was smoking hot and nice. It was the nice that got him. He wanted that warm, safe place to go home to every night. He’d seen too much darkness lately.

  Maggie gave him an odd look before shrugging and pulling the keys to the bar out of her jean pocket. She slid the keys into the dented lock and swung the door open, and then everything slowed down.

  Jake saw the flash of light in the darkened doorway. He watched his partner freeze, noted the look of shock on her face. The thunder of the gunshot made his ears ring. He was off his bike and running toward her, but she seemed miles away. Her knees gave first as she crumpled to the ground. Gravel scattered as he skidded beside her.

  “Maggie!” he cried, drawing his gun even as he covered her shaking body with his own. The red stain blossomed across her chest. He pressed his other hand to it and scanned the area for the source of the shot just as another rang out.

  Pain ripped through his leg, but his training kicked in. He followed the trajectory of the bullet to just inside the bar. Taking aim, he fired, even as he felt himself start to grow cold. Another shot split the late afternoon air, whizzing past his head. He fired again and was gratified to hear a pained grunt.

  Another shot and fire lanced through his head. Stars burst in front of his eyes, and the world dimmed.

  Chapter One

  Willa Montgomery inhaled deeply as she pulled her famous French toast casserole from the oven. It had turned out perfectly. The smell of cinnamon filled the air. The pecans sizzled on the stove in a butter-pecan glaze. When they were done, she would drizzle them over the casserole. It was a special request from her best guests. The couple gave her hope. They were so completely in love it made her heart ache. They were also completely in lust, which made her body ache in places she’d never ached before. Certainly the relations she’d had with her late husband had never set the walls on fire the way the Cavanaughs always threatened to do. It was a wonder the couple didn’t set off the new smoke alarms she’d just installed.
>
  Setting the dish onto its cooling rack, she looked around the kitchen of the Mountain Escape Inn. It was a small bed-and-breakfast located in a lush valley in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. She was filled with a mixture of pride and apprehension. She loved the beautiful old home she’d inherited. She loved running the bed-and-breakfast, but sometimes it felt like shoveling snow in a blizzard. It seemed like every time she got something fixed something else broke. Still, she wouldn’t ever trade the independence it had brought her for the financial security she’d lost.

  The kitchen door swung open, and she turned to greet Danny Cavanaugh. She was petite, dark, and curvy. The exact opposite of Willa, but they’d become instant friends when the couple had showed up at her B and B during a sudden late-afternoon thunderstorm. It still was hard to wrap her brain around the fact that cute little Danny rode her own motorcycle. Willa had never known a female that would even consider such a thing, but then she’d never known any male who’d ridden either. Her uptight, conservative parents would never associate with someone like that. They would have been horrified with the ripped jeans Danny wore or the leather her darkly handsome husband Gabe wore. In the circles where Willa had been raised, they would be considered persona non grata, the dregs of society. Willa knew better.

  “Yummm! That smells so good!” Danny cried, inhaling deeply.

  Willa laughed, enjoying her friend’s enthusiasm. “Danny, you’re a guest. You’re supposed to wait in the dining room for me to serve you.”

  Danny just waved this aside. “Guest smest, you don’t have to treat me like anything but your friend.” And that just summed Danny up. She was a loving, open person who enjoyed life, so very different from the people in Willa’s past.

  When she’d moved into the B and B, Willa had sworn to surround herself with only good, loving people. She’d never found that love and acceptance in the snotty upper crust circles she used to live in, but then she’d never really fit in anyway. Here, in her own place, she surrounded herself with quality people. Sure she had a cantankerous customer or two, like the professor. Dr. Snodgrass came over at least once a month to work on the book or article he was writing. He always found at least one thing to complain about. If the scones were light and fluffy, then the blackberry jam was a little too tart. If the pot roast in au jus sauce was tender, then the garlic mashed potatoes were just a bit too lumpy. Yet, despite his complaints, he always came back. Last month she’d even caught him whistling. She’d realized the professor just liked to debate. It wasn’t that he was being disagreeable. He enjoyed the banter.

  Danny was her favorite customer though. They could spend hours talking about the books they’d read or the newest music they’d downloaded. Willa loved to listen to Danny talk about riding the most. A part of her wanted to give it a try but doubted she’d ever have the nerve. Gabe had offered to take her for a ride to let her see how it felt, but she hadn’t had the nerve. Besides, it seemed so intimate, the way you wrapped yourself around the driver like that.

  Shaking off her wandering thoughts, Willa removed the caramelized sauce from the burner to cool. Scooping the casserole onto the antique Depression glass plates she’d recently added to her collection, she then began to drizzle the caramelized sauce over the steaming dish.

  Leaning in, Danny inhaled deeply. “Oh my God!” She moaned. “If I lived any closer to you, I’d be as big as a house. That smells incredible.”

  Willa laughed, watching her friend’s eyes drift close as she let her other senses absorb the scent coming off the dish. “The trick is to not deprive yourself. I find that if I let myself have a little treat every once in a while, I don’t go nuts.”

  “Easier said than done,” Danny groused.

  “I know, right? But then who do I have around that will care if I get fat?” Willa asked the last, and then laughed, trying to cover the longing in her voice.

  “If you’d come out of the valley every once in a while and visit civilization, you might find someone, you know,” Danny’s teased, but there was a note of kindness in her voice. Willa knew her friend wasn’t fooled.

  * * * *

  Shouldering the door between the kitchen and dining room open, Willa turned with the tray of sandwiches on thick homemade bread and steaming bowls of butternut squash soup. She kept lunches simple, saving her fanciest meals for dinner. Taking in the scene in front of her, she came to an abrupt stop. Danny was holding a small leather bag filled with tools while her husband and the professor examined the wire and guts that used to be the large ceiling fan in her dining room.

  “Wh–what the heck are you doing?” she stammered, not sure if she was mad or embarrassed. The fan had been giving her problems, swinging and making a soft thump-swish sound as it oscillated.

  Danny smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I tried to stop them.”

  Gabe merely shrugged. “It needed fixing.”

  “Yes, but not by you, you’re my guest.” She’d worked hard to stand on her own two feet, and it was hard admitting she needed help.

  “Well, you need a handyman around here,” Gabe pointed out in his deep no-nonsense voice.

  Willa grimaced, knowing he was right, but until the inn started to make more of a profit, it was out of the question. Rather than admit that, she simply shrugged. “I’m working on it.”

  “I was actually going to talk to you about that tonight,” Gabe said, though it was slightly garbled since he clasped the end of a screwdriver between his teeth. Transferring it back to his hand, he slid the last screw in place and lifted the fan assembly over his head. As he turned the last screw tight, he continued. “I have a friend who needs a place to crash for a few weeks. He was hurt working, and physically, he’s doing pretty good, but I don’t know…” He paused as if trying to figure out how to explain. “I think, if he could feel useful again, it would help his recovery. He’s a good guy. I can vouch for him, but you really don’t need me to. Jake’s an agent with the DEA, so he’s one of the good guys. He’s also a wiz at fixing just about anything.”

  Stepping down, Gabe gave the fan’s chain a gentle tug, and it spun in smooth blessed silence.

  Willa’s shoulders sagged. “I just can’t afford it right now,” she reluctantly admitted.

  “See, that’s why this is such a win-win deal,” Danny chimed in. “You’d be doing us a favor. Like Gabe said, we’re kind of worried about Jake. He’s still on leave from the department, even though he’s been cleared physically. He just doesn’t seem to want to return to work.”

  Dr. Snodgrass pushed his thick glasses up on his nose before adding his opinion. “Often, when a person’s been injured on the job, returning is very hard to do.”

  “What exactly are we talking about?” This could work, Willa decided, almost afraid to hope. She just needed help for a few weeks to get the last of the repairs and upgrades done.

  “He would work in exchange for room and board,” Gabe explained.

  “You said he was hurt. Would he be physically up to the job? I wouldn’t want him hurt again.” She would never want anyone hurt, but the truth of the matter was she also couldn’t afford the additional medical bills. She had been forced to live practically since striking out on her own.

  Danny shook her head. “No, he’s cleared by the doctors. He’ll always have a limp, but otherwise he’s perfectly healthy. We don’t want to say too much—it’s not our place—but he needs this. You’d be doing us a favor.”

  Well, when they put it that way, how could she refuse? Willa smiled, daring to hope. This could be the answer to her prayers. “Then I would love to help your friend, and Lord knows I need someone around here.”

  “Great.” Gabe grinned, and Willa shivered despite herself. Danny had told her the man could talk a person into anything, and she could see it. A sliver of envy coursed through her, immediately followed by guilt. He was her best friend’s husband. Still, what would it be like to have someone as darkly handsome as Gabe talking her into all the naughty things she’d only re
ad about?

  * * * *

  Gabe slid his arm around his wife’s tiny waist, pulling her flush to him.

  “Do you think it will work?” Danny asked, still worrying about Jake.

  “If anyone can get Jake out of his depression, it’s Willa. He needs to feel needed and useful after what happened to his partner. And God knows Willa needs some help around here. I can’t keep fixing things on the sly. After catching me today, she’s going to be suspicious.”

  Danny laughed. “You should have seen the expression on your face. You looked like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”

  “Laugh it up, woman. Don’t forget, you were supposed to keep her distracted. And I still owe you for speeding through those dangerous mountain curves, again!”

  Danny shivered as his voice grew deeper. She loved this dark, sensual side of him. Of course, she couldn’t let on. “Shit!” She tried to step away, her hands automatically moving to cover her bottom.

  “And now we’re adding a potty mouth?” he questioned, raising a dark brow.

  Biting her lip, she stifled a groan. When he got that look, her panties flooded. She couldn’t help it. If she wasn’t careful, they’d wake the entire inn up. “Gabe, remember where we are.” She retreated another step, only to have him follow, like a tiger stalking its prey.

  “I guess you’ll have to be quiet then, hmm.” She couldn’t help but notice that he’d skillfully maneuvered her toward the large chaise lounge that filled one corner of the Romance Suite. It was one of their favorite pieces of furniture in the entire room. “Come here, baby. I’m going to turn that gorgeous ass nice and pink for speeding, then I’ll show you what that naughty mouth is good for.”