I went back inside to finish loading all my deliveries for the day. Melissa put the last package in the bin and exhaled as I joined her at the counter.

  “So not today?” she asked.

  “Never,” I said, though my heart twisted in my chest. “Besides, if Colton doesn’t know how I feel by now, he never will.”

  “That’s not true,” Melissa said. “You have to tell him.”

  “I have told him.”

  “Not when the two of you aren’t giggling into the wee morning hours or when he’s almost in panic mode.”

  “First, we haven’t ever giggled. And we gave up staying up past midnight when we turned thirty.” And wow, that was six years ago for both of us. “Second, he hasn’t been in panic mode for a while now.”

  “Perfect timing, then,” Melissa said, cocking her eyebrows. “Seriously, Ruthie. You’ve been in love with him for so long.”

  “Also false,” I argued. “I have a crush on him. There’s a difference.”

  “An intense crush.”

  “Fine,” I conceded. “But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him. There’s still a lot about him I don’t know. Maybe I won’t like him as much as I think I would.”

  Melissa scoffed, and even I didn’t believe myself.

  “Just talk to him.”

  “I will,” I said. I mean, I had to drop off this huge engine, and since Colton was the graphic design and lead tattoo design artist for Ink & Ivy, he’d be there. And he’d probably be the least busy one, thus the best choice to help me carry in the massive engine.

  And I’d get to see those muscles in play. My heart kicked out an extra beat just thinking about that, and I turned away from Melissa as if she could see increased pulses with the naked eye.

  Melissa followed me out back, and we got in our separate cars. I queued up my playlist and started the deliveries for the day. Ink & Ivy sat on the north side of town, about a third of the way through my schedule.

  With every stop that brought me closer to the high-end tattoo shop, my stomach tightened.

  Finally, I pulled up to the shop, which sat in its own building, not a strip mall. Several cars sat out front, but I pulled around to the back, where a delivery door had been clearly marked, and which I’d used many times in the past, even when I didn’t have anything for the business.

  The two-story building was made of gray brick, and everything Ivy & Ink did seemed to speak of sophistication and taste. That kept away some of the people who just wanted a quick tattoo of a butterfly on their ankle.

  Ivy & Ink didn’t do tattoos like that. Every one was designed by an in-house artist and became a one-of-a-kind piece of body art. Colton ran that team, and for about five years after he’d finished his master’s degree in graphic design with a dual major in art, he’d been the only artist at Ivy & Ink.

  I got out and opened the back of the van but didn’t try to lift the engine myself. I picked up the other two, much smaller, packages and went inside the shop.

  Music and chatter met my ears, as did the scent of coffee, which sat over the top of something else. Concrete or maybe the hint of metal. I took a deep breath and looked into the office just inside the door.

  No one sat there, and if someone had it would’ve been Colton’s dad, Blaine Rock. Founder of Ivy & Ink, which he’d named after his wife, Ivy.

  I continued past, hoping with every step that I could make it into the design room without encountering anyone else. Otherwise, I could just ask them to help with the engine.

  Bright light spilled out of the doorway that was my goal, and I did make it there without running into one of Colton’s brothers or another employee.

  And Colton himself sat at a drawing desk, his head bent just-so as he thoughtfully studied his work in front of him. He was tall and long, with beautiful hands that created beautiful art.

  “I see you didn’t shave while in Iceland,” I said, putting a smile on my face.

  Colton looked up, and light filled his eyes. “Ruthie.” He laughed as he abandoned his art and came toward me. I stepped right into his arms as we laughed—not giggled—together. “I missed you.”

  “You did not,” I said. “You were with all the boys, and I saw your pics online.”

  “So you already knew about the beard.” He rubbed it against my face, and I recoiled from him and pushed against his chest.

  “Stop it. You’re a savage.”

  He just laughed again and fell back to his station. “We have stuff today?”

  “Two things here,” I said, handing him the two manageable packages. “And I’ve got one in the van I need help with. You’ll have to sign for it too.”

  “That’s Trey’s. He ordered a new cooling unit for his set.” He started opening one of the packages. “And this better be my graphite.”

  It was, and I was rewarded with the grin that made my pulse speed. “Yes,” he said. “Thanks, Ruthie.”

  “Hey, I’m just the delivery girl.” Though I was thirty-six-years-old and nowhere near a girl. Maybe that was how Colton saw me though. Maybe that was why he’d never considered me for a girlfriend.

  But I knew that wasn’t why, and Melissa’s words streamed through my head. Tell him.

  I swallowed against a dry throat. “I noticed Tanner went out with someone on your trip.” I watched him put his art supplies on his table. “Did you, uh, do the same?”

  Colton’s eyes met mine, and all traces of joviality had fled. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s been a long time since you and Sophia split up.”

  Colton dropped his head, studying the other package he hadn’t opened yet. He nodded, and his voice barely met my ears when he said, “Yeah, I know. I just…I’m not ready, Ruthie.”

  “All right,” I said, because I wouldn’t want anyone pushing me into a place I didn’t want to go. But Sophia and Colton had been over for five years. Five long years.

  “Come help me with the cooling unit,” I said.

  He joined me in the hall and slung his arm around me. “Thanks, Ruthie. You’re the best.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?” I leaned into his touch, enjoying it too much. I knew that, but I couldn’t make myself not be excited whenever Colton got near me.

  He paused at the delivery door, just outside the office. “Because you never lecture me. You never try to set me up. I don’t know.” He put a fast smile on his face. There, then gone.

  I swallowed, the words I wanted to say pulsing against the back of my tongue. “I love you, Colton.”

  “I know,” he said without missing a beat. “That’s why you’re the best.” He went outside, but I couldn’t move.

  “No, Colton,” I whispered. “Like, I really love you.” How could I make him understand? Frustration built inside me, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t just proclaim my true feelings for him, moments after he’d told me he wasn’t ready to move on after his last girlfriend.

  Fiancé. Whatever.

  “Ruthie,” he called from outside, his voice muffled by the metal between us. “Open the door.”

  I lunged toward the door and opened it for my best friend. He sure was using all those muscles, and I couldn’t help admiring his shoulders and the ease with which he carried the heavy package.

  He looked at me again as he stepped through the doorway. “You okay?”

  “Just fine,” I said, my voice a little bit too high. “You need to sign for that.”

  “Yep. Be right back.” He walked away, and I just watched, because I had a serious crush on my best friend and he “just wasn’t ready” for another relationship.

  But I was. Maybe I should ask someone else out, I thought. Yeah, that was a good idea. Maybe then I could move past Colton, as it seemed I’d been stuck on him for as long as he’d been hung up on Sophia.

  While his voice drifted back to me from where he talked to his brother Trey, I pulled up my contacts and started scrolling. I knew other men. I could get a date.

  Brax Black caught my eye, and I glanced up. The Blacks owned a tattoo parlor too…he was just as inked and just as rebellious as Colton.

  Perhaps Brax wouldn’t be completely unavailable the way Colton was.

  Hey, I tapped out. It’s Ruthie Kettle. Remember me from that business owner’s meeting a couple of weeks ago?

  I stared at the sentence. This was so desperate. Colton laughed, and my lungs shrank, a clear reminder that yes, I was desperate.

  I deleted the -ie on my name. Maybe it was time to just be Ruth. I wasn’t fifteen anymore. Not even close.

  I was wondering if you’d like to get coffee.

  Coffee was innocuous. Easy to say yes to. And I really needed Brax to say yes. I hadn’t had a date in a long time, as I’d wanted to remain available for a man who didn’t even see me.

  I hit send at the same time Colton walked back into the hallway. He had the delivery slip I needed, but I pretended to be engrossed in my phone.

  Sure, Brax said almost instantly. This afternoon? Say, 3?

  My heart thumped out a new rhythm, and I grinned. Yep. I sent the message at the same time Colton’s cologne filled my nose—and at the same moment Brax suggested Sacred Grounds? as the coffee shop.

  “What’s got you smiling?” he asked, plucking my phone from my fingers before I could even look at him.

  “Colton,” I said, though we’d let each other look at our phones since the day we met. I sighed like he was really putting me out and watched as he read the texts on the screen.

  A deep frown pulled his eyebrows down, and when he lifted his eyes to meet mine, pure displeasure sat there. “You’re going out with Brax Black?”

  “Yes,” I said, taking my phone back.

  His chuckle darkened the hallway. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why do you care?” I asked, my heart wailing for him to proclaim his love for me, right there in the tattoo shop. “I haven’t been out with anyone in a while. I’m ready.”

  He settled his weight on one foot, folded his arms, and glared at me. He was playing dirty, and he didn’t even know it. His dangerous tattoos spilled from the ends of his sleeves, curling down both forearms. And with his arms crossed like that, his muscles were front and center.

  I swallowed and dropped my eyes to his shoulders, but that didn’t help, as a tiny tendril of a black tattoo that I knew was the tip of the K on his family name peeked out from his collar.

  “Ruthie, let’s go to lunch.”

  The edges of my vision turned white. I blinked to get them to settle. “What?”

  “I’ll go out with you,” he said.

  It was as if the heavens had opened and angels were singing. Somehow, though, an alarm went off among all that rejoicing. “I don’t need a pity date,” I said. “Brax wants to go out with me.”

  “I do too.”

  “You’ve never asked before.”

  “Well, I can’t have you going out with him.” Colton’s voice rose, and he glanced down the hall. “They’re our biggest rivals, Ruthie.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched. “Nope. Not happening. I’ll get my wallet.”

  “I have deliveries,” I called after him as he walked back into the art studio. “I can’t just go to lunch right now.”

  I could, of course. As long as the packages got delivered by six p.m., no one cared when I ate lunch or who it was with.

  Every cell in my body vibrated, but I wasn’t sure if I was nervous to go to lunch with Colton or overjoyed he’d finally asked me out.

  He came back out of the art studio, a perfect storm wrapped in jeans and leather. “Did you tell him you can’t make it?”

  “No,” I said. “Look, this is stupid. It’s just coffee.”

  Colton got very close to me—toe-to-toe. I could see the lighter flecks of blue in his dark, slate eyes. “Ruthie,” he said, his voice a whisper that held a hint of menace in it.

  I could barely breathe. He was everything I’d wanted for so long. Another couple of inches, and I could kiss him.

  “When you’re with a Rock, you don’t go out with Blacks. You don’t text them or talk to them. You don’t go to their shop. You don’t even cross Twelve Falls Boulevard if you can help it.”

  I wasn’t sure how my brain was even working, but I managed to say, “I’m not with a Rock.”

  If a glare could growl, Colton’s would’ve. “You are too. You’ve been with us for years.”

  Annoyance and happiness danced together inside me. I searched his face, trying to see something there I didn’t know. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me,” I said. “If I go to lunch with you, I’m going to need the full details of this little feud between you and Brax Black.”

  “It’s so much bigger than just me,” he said. “But fine. As long as you don’t go out with him, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Deal,” I said, but my heart was now thumping out the question What have you just gotten yourself into?

  There’s a brand new series coming with a family rivalry, sweet-and-sexy tattoo artists, and heartwarming, irresistible bad boy sweet romance. Get it all with Colton, Ruthie, and the Rock and Black families of Secret Falls!

  Preorder HER BAD BOY BEST FRIEND now.

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  Want to get stranded with a hot hero? Try STRANDED WITH THE HIDDEN BILLIONAIRE, and go to Getaway Bay for the best beach romance around!

  About Elana

  Elana Johnson is the USA Today bestselling author of dozens of novels, from YA contemporary romance to adult beach romances. Check out her sweet romances in the Hawthorne Harbor Romance series, the Clean Beach Club Billionaire Romance series, the Beaches & Brides Romance series, the Rebels of Forbidden Lake Romance Series (bad boy sweet romance), the Stranded in Paradise Romance Series, the Carter’s Cove Beach Romance Series, (enemies to lovers romance), and the Sentinels MC Rebels Romance Series (bad boy sweet romance).

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  She also writes under the pen name Liz Isaacson, who is the USA Today bestselling author and Kindle All-Star Author of the Three Rivers Ranch Romance series, the #1 bestselling Horseshoe Home Ranch Romance series, the Brush Creek Brides series, the Steeple Ridge Romance series (Buttars Brothers novels), and the Grape Seed Falls Romance series, the Christmas in Coral Canyon Romance series, the Quinn Valley Ranch Romance series, the Last Chance Ranch Romance series, and the Seven Sons in Three Rivers Romance series (Walker Brothers novels)

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  BURN

  Book One, Sentinels MC Rebels Romance series

  by Elana Johnson

  Copyright © 2019 by AEJ Creative Works Inc, Elana Johnson

  All Rights Reserved

  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 events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover by Captiva Publishing

  Interior design by AEJ Creative Works Inc.

 

 

  Elana Johnson, Burn

 

 

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