Two Hearts Born to Love Read online

  Two Hearts Born to Love

  Choices: Tarkio MC series, Book 3

  By

  Debra Kayn

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Two Hearts Born to Love

  Choices: Tarkio MC series, Book 3

  1st release: Copyright© 2020 Debra Kayn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Debra Kayn. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  www.debrakayn.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 | Wyatt | 1987

  Chapter 2 | Joey

  Chapter 3 | Wyatt

  Chapter 4 | Joey

  Chapter 5 | Wyatt

  Chapter 6 | Joey

  Chapter 7 | Wyatt

  Chapter 8 | Joey

  Chapter 9 | Joey

  Chapter 10 | Wyatt

  Chapter 11 | Joey

  Chapter 12 | Wyatt

  Chapter 13 | Joey

  Chapter 14 | Wyatt

  Chapter 15 | Joey

  Chapter 16 | Wyatt

  Chapter 17 | Joey

  Chapter 18 | Wyatt

  Chapter 19 | Joey

  Chapter 20 | Wyatt

  Chapter 21 | Joey

  Chapter 22 | Wyatt

  Chapter 23 | Joey

  Chapter 24 | Wyatt

  Chapter 25 | Joey

  Chapter 26 | Wyatt

  Chapter 27 | Joey

  Chapter 28 | Wyatt

  Chapter 29 | Joey

  Chapter 30 | Wyatt

  Chapter 31 | Joey

  Chapter 32 | Wyatt

  Chapter 33 | Joey

  Chapter 34 | Wyatt

  Chapter 35 | Joey

  Chapter 36 | Wyatt

  Chapter 37 | Joey

  Epilogue | 1988

  Author Bio

  Debra Kayn's Backlist

  Sneak Peek | All Of His Secrets | Book 4, Choices: Tarkio MC series

  Chapter 1 | 1980 | Rick

  Dedication

  To every girl who wore Puka shell necklaces, nylon shorts, and crop tops.

  Everyone has a reason why they joined a motorcycle club.

  This is Wyatt and Joey's story.

  Chapter 1

  Wyatt

  1987

  THE TINKLING OF BROKEN glass from the other room sent Wyatt's stress level soaring. He dropped the plastic laundry hamper full of clothes and stormed out of the bedroom.

  "Jess?" He stepped into the other bedroom and grabbed his daughter, pulling her away from in front of her desk, spotting the cause of the break. "Travis, get a rag."

  "Where are they?" yelled Travis from the other side of the apartment.

  "Jesus, hang on," mumbled Wyatt, leading his daughter to the bed. "Hop up and stay off the floor. You're not wearing shoes. I don't want you getting cut."

  He walked across the hallway to the bathroom, grabbed the towel off the bar on the wall, and returned to his daughter's room. Picking up the pieces, his muscles tensed. It'd been a shit day. A shit situation. A shitshow that only hurt his kids.

  Soft crying came from behind him. His frustration took a backseat, and he went to Jess.

  Sitting beside her on the bed, he gathered his fifteen-year-old daughter in his arms. "It's just a glass. No big deal."

  Jess shook her head, swiping at the brown hair clinging to her face with her hands. "It's not that."

  He hugged her tighter. His kids had watched their mom's coffin lowered into the ground today. The life his daughter knew was gone, and he had no fucking idea on how to help her.

  Jess was too young to remember when he lived with Claudia. As soon as she got pregnant with Travis, Claudia had kicked him out. Despite his best efforts to get full custody of his kids, the court only gave him a chance to see them every other weekend.

  Staying with him twice a month hadn't prepared Jess to move in with him and uproot her life on top of losing her mom.

  "I know, baby," he whispered, kissing the top of her head. "One day at a time."

  Travis walked into the room, looked at him, looked at his sister, and turned around and left with his shoulders rounded, and his hands buried deep in the front pockets of his baggy jeans. Wyatt stared at the open doorway. His son was another matter.

  While Jess came to him for comfort and reassurance that he wasn't going to die and leave her the same way her mom had left, his son shut him out. Travis had only mumbled a few words at the cemetery, and that was only to ask if they could go home.

  Maybe that was normal behavior for a thirteen-year-old boy, but as a thirty-eight-year-old dad, he was frustrated with Travis's attitude.

  "It's late. Why don't you get ready for bed? You've had a big day. Tomorrow, we need to get you signed up with your new school." He kissed her forehead and stood. "Do you need anything before you hit the sack?"

  Jess wiped her nose with her hand and fell over on the bed, rolling into a ball. "I want my old life back. My friends. My school. My room."

  He flinched. The worst part of being a parent is failing to provide what his child, his children, needed.

  Leaving Jess to settle down on her own, he walked to the bathroom, dumped the glass in the garbage. How quickly his children's lives had shattered.

  He went into the bedroom and picked up the last of his clothes. In the past, when the kids came to spend the weekend with him, he'd slept on the couch. Now that they were going to live with him full-time, the living room would be where he slept every night. Travis needed his own space, and if having a private room helped his son adapt, he'd sleep on the God damn floor if it made the situation better.

  He walked down the hallway. The small sacrifice of giving up his room twice a month was worth it to have his kids with him, and he could get by paying less rent for a two-bedroom rather than an apartment big enough for all of them.

  But he had no fucking clue how everything would work out on a day-to-day basis now.

  He stopped in the living room. Travis sat in front of the television, watching Miami Vice on the boob tube. Glancing in the kitchen, he checked to see if his son had eaten the pizza he'd set out and found an empty plate beside the sink.

  "You need to go hop in the shower, son. Then get to bed. We're all going to the high school in the morning to enroll Jess in the classes she needs, and then I'll take you over to the junior high and enroll you." He picked up the folded blanket and threw it on the couch, along with his pillow.

  "I'm not going." Travis continued to stare at the television.

  "You have no choice."

  "I'll drop out."

  "You're too young. You can't do that until you're sixteen. That gives me two years and a few months to talk you out of doing a stupid stunt like dropping out of school." He sat down beside Travis and slapped his son's thigh. "I need you in school while I work."

  "I can stay here by myself."

  "You will, after school."

  "This sucks." Travis jumped up from the couch. "You suck. Mom let me stay home from school all the time."

  His son stormed out of the room. Wyatt
let his head fall back on the couch. His son's habits would change. He'd make sure his son stayed in school, even if he needed to go with him and sit his ass in class and force him to learn.

  His shoulders ached from the changes coming at him faster than he could process. Ever since he received the phone call two nights ago that the mother of his children had driven off the road and crashed her car into the Clark Fork River, he'd been doing whatever he had to do to get through the changes for all of them.

  Travis slammed the bedroom door. Wyatt rubbed his hands over his face. His head throbbed, and he'd like nothing more than to crack open a whiskey and try to find the answers to his immediate problems at the bottom of a bottle.

  He couldn't leave and hit the bar, not with the kids with him, needing him. Grabbing his pack of cigarettes off the coffee table, he stepped outside the apartment and lit a smoke.

  If he hadn't seen Claudia's car pulled out of the river and her body in the coffin, he would've put money down that it was one of her stunts she'd enjoyed pulling. Her lies and fondness for drugs were the reason their relationship never worked. She'd married soon after he'd left her and continued her antics, even disappearing for a few days at a time, where nobody could get ahold of her or knew where she'd gone.

  For whatever reason, Dean Miller, Claudia's husband, never put a stop to her using drugs. It was the number one reason why he'd fought to get custody of his kids. The only ones who suffered were Jess and Travis.

  He exhaled harshly, watching a car pull into the apartment complex. Someone above him on the second-floor balcony whistled. He was used to people coming and going at all hours.

  A shadow moved by Wyatt's Harley Davidson. He walked out on the small strip of grass separating the building from the parking lot, peering in the dark. The few lights on the outer edge of the asphalt barely lit up the area, he couldn't be sure what he saw.

  A shape developed near the back of his motorcycle. He darted forward. The figure stood, throwing a bag over his shoulder, and turned. He lunged, catching the person by the back of the shirt.

  He dragged the slight person in front of him, recognizing his son. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

  "Let me go." Travis swung out.

  His son's fist bounced off Wyatt's arm. He shook Travis, lifting him off his feet. The damn kid must've climbed out of his bedroom window.

  "I want to go back." Travis struggled, trying to get away from him.

  Knowing his boy hurt, he stared at his son. Travis's desire to return to the house he grew up in was the opposite of what he'd heard from his son over the years. Neither of his kids liked their stepfather. They complained about him constantly while visiting him. There was not much he could do about the man his ex-girlfriend had picked to spend her life with, and he'd tried to explain to Travis, many times, that his childhood was temporary. That soon, he'd be out on his own, and he needed to focus on getting his schooling and getting his head straight, so he could make his own decisions.

  To hear that Travis wanted to go back home made no sense. His mother wasn't there.

  He set Travis on his feet and cupped the back of his son's neck. "Why do you want to go there?"

  Travis's face scrunched, fighting to keep from crying. Frustrated, Wyatt leaned down and put his forehead against his son's head.

  "You're right. Life sucks at the moment, son. But I promise that the love you have for your mom is never going away, even though she's gone. I can't tell you how that happens or that there won't be days that it feels like the loneliness is more than you can handle, but I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." He softened his hold. "Tomorrow is a new day. You need to get your butt to bed."

  He let his son go, ready to go after him again if he ran. Over the years, he'd faced problems with his ex, custody battles, and had rearranged his life to be a part-time dad. All those things were expected when he'd had kids.

  But telling his kids their mom had died when they weren't done growing up yet had never entered his mind as a possible job he'd need to do.

  Travis slinked off toward the apartment, dragging his bag. Wyatt took out another cigarette and lit the end. He needed ten minutes to think about nothing.

  He could pretend his kids were happy and well-adjusted.

  His crew at Carr Construction would come through for him and have his client's house completed by the end of the month.

  The kids' stepdad wouldn't go through with his threats to try and gain custody of Jess and Travis.

  Stubbing out his cigarette, he slowly walked back inside to his life. A life that ticked inside of him like a bomb about ready to explode.

  Chapter 2

  Joey

  ANOTHER ENVELOPE DROPPED through the slot on the front door and landed on the floor. Joey reached over and turned on the boombox, needing some Whitesnake to clear her mind and muffle the outside noises. Even the slight click of the flap on the slot distracted her from adding the columns in the ledger.

  She hated the end of the month. Every tenant waited until the thirtieth to walk by her apartment and pay their rent, which caused her to cram doing the records. Plus, the huge electricity and water bill for the complex was due tomorrow, and she'd need to finish tallying the income and drop off checks at the appropriate companies in the morning.

  Once she had the small profit from owning the apartments in her savings, she could see how close she was to hiring a contractor to restore the four apartments in Unit C that were left unusable after a kitchen fire broke out six years ago.

  But first, she would concentrate on earning enough money on her own to enter the Blackfoot Pool Tournament at the end of the year.

  The ten-thousand-dollar entry fee was too hefty for her to save from her small income from the apartments. Besides, business and gambling should never mix.

  She entered the pool games at the local bar every week in the chance she'd win the money, but that wasn't always possible. All it took was an off-night for her to lose.

  Not wanting to get her hopes up in case she had a bad night and lost money instead of making her savings account fuller, she finished writing the rent payments in the book and got up to collect the one on the floor.

  She bent over, and someone rang the doorbell. Peeking through the peephole, she spotted a young girl.

  Opening the door, she smiled. "Hello?"

  The girl held out a check. "My dad left a note telling me to bring this down to the manager. You're the manager, right?"

  "I am." She glanced at the name on the check.

  Wyatt Carr. Recognizing the name of the sexy man in B5 who rode a motorcycle and often had a toolbelt on when he came home in the evenings, she looked back at the girl. She had no idea he had a daughter. Or that he was married. Oops.

  "I'm Joey." She smiled. "Does your dad want a receipt?"

  "Um, I don't know."

  Most tenants never waited for proof they'd paid, knowing they could see if the check returned with their statements instead. Curious about Wyatt Carr's daughter, she said, "How about I give you one in case he does? If not, he can toss it in the garbage."

  "Okay."

  "It'll only take a few seconds." She walked back to the table off of her kitchen, staying in view of the door. "You can come in or wait out there."

  The girl walked inside, looking around the open room. "It looks the same as Dad's apartment."

  "Except, I have three bedrooms." Seeing the girl crane her neck to look down the hall, she said, "You can peek if you want."

  "No." The girl paused. "I'm Jess. Jessica Carr."

  "It's nice to meet you. I go by a shortened version of my name, too. I'm really Joelynn, but everyone calls me Joey." She quickly wrote out a receipt and stood. "Here you go."

  "Do you live here by yourself?" Jess's brown gaze flickered over to a picture on the wall.

  "I do now." She looked at the photo of her at age six, standing beside her hero. "My grandpa owned the apartments until six months ago."

  "What happened six months ago?"r />
  "He passed away." A chill came over her, and she rubbed her arms.

  The best times of her life were spent right here. Every summer, her mom allowed her to come to Montana and spend it helping her grandpa. It was a far cry from city life in Portland.

  "My mom died four days ago," whispered Jess. "I live with my dad now."

  Unsure if she heard her correctly, she lost her thought. Taking the time to grasp what Jess shared, Joey became aware of the sadness hanging on to the girl's expression. The brown eyes dulled by the swelling of her eyelids. The slight tremor of her chin, she tried hard to stop.

  Her heart went out to the girl. She couldn't imagine losing her mom.

  "I'm sorry," she said softly.

  Jess shrugged and sniffed, trying to cover her pain. Tears flooded Joey's vision, and she blinked to keep herself from making matters worse for the girl.

  "Jess!" A boy ran past the open door, backtracked, and barged in, yelling, "Where were you?"

  "Right here," said Jess.

  "You weren't supposed to leave me alone." The boy fisted his hands and glared. "Dad told you."

  Taken aback by the uninvited company, she gawked. Not that she minded kids coming inside the apartment but that the boy was the spitting image of his dad. From the unruly dark hair hanging in the boy's eyes to the squared shoulders that hadn't reached their full size yet.

  "Dad told me to pay the rent. That's what I was doing." Jess grabbed the boy's sleeve. "Come on."

  Joey followed them to the door, watching them argue back and forth as she imagined siblings would do as they walked back to their dad's apartment. Leaning against the doorframe, she pressed her hand to her chest. They were so young to lose a parent.

  Her heart went out to them. Losing her grandpa was her first and only experience she had to someone close to her dying. The sadness only softened by the fact her grandpa had reached eighty-three years old and had lived a full life. He'd died quickly from a heart attack. There was no suffering.

  Once the kids were out of sight, she went back inside. God, what a heartbreaking afternoon. It made her immediate problem with how she would earn enough money to enter the tournament seem selfish and insignificant in comparison.