Wait for Me Read online

  Wait for Me

  Tia Louise

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Wait for Me

  Prologue

  Seven Years Ago

  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

  Aftershocks

  Present Day

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Boss of Me

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Make You Mine

  Prologue

  Books by Tia Louise

  About the Author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Wait for Me

  Copyright © TLM Productions LLC, 2019

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Cover design by Lori Jackson Design.

  Photography by Wander Aguiar.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, photocopying, mechanical, or otherwise—without prior permission of the publisher and author.

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  Gratitude. That word stands out in my mind so strongly as I sit here trying to find the words to thank all the incredible people who helped me get this completed novel in your hands.

  My family, most of all, I thank you for your patience, for believing in me, for telling me I can do it, and for being the reason I even try.

  My readers, who love my books, who tell me they love my books, who leave amazing reviews, send cards, and tell their loved ones to read my stories… I couldn’t do this without you!

  Huge thanks to Ilona Townsel for reading as I wrote and keeping me encouraged… this was a tough one, girl! Thank you for being my rock.

  Christine Estevez, who came in like a boss and got my stuff together, organized, and steered the ship while I figured it out. Dani Sanchez for the incredible marketing support—also Kylie McDermott and all the gals at Give Me Books!

  So much LOVE to my incredible beta squad… Melissa Sagastume, Tina Snider, Renee Mccleary, Jennifer Wolfel, and KC Caron, and to my awesome editor Kathy Bosman—you ladies give amazing notes.

  To my Mermaid VEEPs, Ana Perez, Clare Fuentes, Sheryl Parent, Cindy Camp, Carla Van Zandt, Jaime Long, Tammi Hart, Tina Morgan, and Jacquie Martin. You ladies have no idea how much I love you all!

  Every author who helped share and promote with me… What would I do without you? I love you.

  Special thanks to Lori Jackson for the masterful cover design, and to Wander for the gorgeous, inspirational photos. Love you two!

  To my Mermaids and to my Starfish, Thank You for giving me a place to relax and be silly, and for showing me all the love…

  THANKS to all the bloggers and bookstagrammers who have made an art of book loving. Sharing this book with the reading world would be impossible without you. I appreciate your help so much.

  To everyone who picks up this book, reads it, loves it, and tells one person about it, you’ve made my day. I’m so grateful to you all. Without readers, there would be no writers.

  So much love,

  Stay sexy,

  <3 Tia

  Wait for Me

  Dear Taron,

  I should have told you this a long time ago…

  Dear Taron,

  Is there a time-limit on forgiveness?

  If there is, I haven’t reached it…

  Dear Taron,

  I still love you…

  A letter never sent.

  Heck, I never even finished it.

  Taron Rhodes was my brother’s best friend.

  He was sexy as sin.

  But he was more than that…

  He was ponytail-pulling, ice down your shirt teasing, throw you in the lake screaming…

  Strong, tanned arms and bright green eyes over a heart-stopping, naughty grin…

  Did I mention his tight end?

  I gave him my first real kiss, my heart, my everything.

  I said I’d wait for him…

  I’m still waiting, because Taron Rhodes is still the man of my dreams,

  And I have a secret that has his bright green eyes.

  Noel LaGrange stole my heart when she was only eighteen—pushing me off a flatbed and calling me a city slicker.

  Her brother Sawyer would kick my ass if he knew how many times we made out that summer, how close we got.

  Everything changed when Sawyer and I joined the military.

  We were honorably discharged, but I didn’t go to her.

  Instead, I went back to the city… where no amount of money, no amount of pills can heal this wound.

  Only her whiskey eyes and dark hair, her slim arms and her sweet scent, give me hope.

  I broke her heart just as surely as I broke mine, but I’m going back to make it right.

  If she’s still waiting…

  (WAIT FOR ME is a STAND-ALONE small-town, second-chance romance. No cheating. No cliffhangers.)

  For lovers of sad songs and sweet surprises…

  To my husband, who wanted a story about the peach orchard where he grew up, and to Ilona, my friend.

  Prologue

  Noel

  My momma was too beautiful to die.

  At least, that’s what everybody said.

  Penelope Jean Harris was the scion of our town’s founder and prettiest girl in three parishes. She was head majorette in high school and homecoming queen and prom queen and every other queen. She was Peach Princess, Teen Dixie Peach, and Miss Dixie Gem. She would’ve gone on to be Miss Louisiana if my daddy hadn’t made her a Mrs.

  I was eleven—that strange age between too big to play in the creek in only my panties and too little to sleep without the closet light on. I loved Dolly Parton and butterflies and picking peaches straight off my daddy’s trees and eating them, jumping in the lake and running after jackrabbits with my little brother Leon.

  In the summer the trees were rich green, and the sweet scent of peach juice filled the air. In the winter they were sparse, bony hands, reaching palms up to heaven. Branches like fingers spread, grasping for hope.

  Momma’s hazel eyes crinkled at the corners whenever she looked at me or my brothers or my daddy. Her sweet smile was warm sunshine when I got cold.

  She would wrap me in her arms and sing an old sad song when I was sleepy or cranky or “out of sorts,” which is how she’d put it. I pictured “sorts” as ivory dominoes I could line up and knock down or slap off the table, across the room. I’d pull her silky brown hair around me like a cape and close my eyes and breathe…

  Then she was gone.

  She went for a walk one crisp winter evening along the narrow, dirt road that runs past our orchard out to the old house on the hill. Frost was in the air; bonfires were burning. T
he man driving the truck said she came out of nowhere.

  He never saw her.

  She never saw him.

  Six weeks later, in that same orchard with peach blossoms on the trees and dew tipping the grass, on the very spot she died, my daddy took his life with his own gun.

  I guess sometimes love makes you forget things can get better.

  I guess he didn’t see a bend in the road up ahead.

  I guess he only saw a straight line leading deeper and deeper into black.

  My daddy was the star of his high school football team… but Life threw him a pass he couldn’t catch with Momma’s death.

  Our world changed forever that winter.

  Dolly says love is like a butterfly, soft and gentle as a sigh, but from what I’ve seen of love, I think it’s more like a tornado, shocking and violent and so powerful it can rip your soul out of your mouth…

  It’s faster than you can run, and it blows one house away while leaving the next one peacefully standing.

  I didn’t know which way love would take me, quietly or with the roar of a freight train. I should’ve known. I should’ve realized the moment I saw him.

  It was both. It was quiet as the brush of peach fuzz, but it left my insides in splinters. It twisted my lungs and lifted me up so high only to throw me down with a force that rang my ears and flooded my eyes.

  It all started the summer before they left, a month before my brother was sent to fight in a war everybody said was over.

  It all started in the kitchen of my momma’s house…

  Seven Years Ago

  1

  Taron

  “Rise and shine, Slick.” Sawyer slaps my foot, knocking my legs off the couch, and I come up with my fist clenched.

  “What the hell…” Defense is an instinct to me, born out of a childhood where I had to fend for myself.

  “Be at the truck in seven minutes.”

  I scrub my eyes with my hand instead of punching. “Seven. It’s still dark.”

  “We’re on farm time now.” His voice mimics our drill sergeant’s and he closes the bathroom door without looking back.

  Farm time, military time… no wonder he adapted so easily to basic. Lifting my phone, I see it’s only five. Shit. Looking around, I try to get my bearings in the large, dark room. The hint of a dream still lingers at the edge of my brain.

  Soft skin, soft hair… A scent so familiar, but I can’t place it—sweet, but earthy. I want to close my eyes and bury my face in her neck and just breathe…

  It was only a dream.

  A dream I’d like to finish for once.

  With a low growl I stand, pushing down the wood in my shorts and searching the floor for the jeans and tee I wore on the drive in last night.

  We arrived at Sawyer’s place after midnight, and I crashed on the couch in the living room, thinking I’d sleep more than five hours. We finished boot camp last week and got our marching orders. We’re full-fledged Marines now, with only a few weeks before we head out to South America for an eighteen-month assignment.

  Eighteen months if we’re lucky.

  I find my shirt at the same time something warm and wet smears down my face.

  “What tha—!” I shout, falling back on my ass.

  My heart is in my throat as the bathroom door opens again, casting a column of light across the floor. A big, black and gray dog with one blue eye and one brown eye stands in front of me. It looks like it’s grinning. I’m pretty sure it knows it scared the shit out of me.

  “Akela, come.” Sawyer’s voice is sharp. “Bathroom’s yours.”

  He doesn’t stop as he passes, and the fluffy dog follows him to the kitchen. Shaking my head, I stagger toward the light.

  Five minutes later, we’re in the truck, and I’m no morning person but I have to say, the golden sunrise over the hills covered in short trees heavy with green leaves and ripe peaches is pretty special. A misting of dew makes it shine.

  Sawyer has his cap pulled down low as he drives, and he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s been pretty focused since we left Nashville yesterday evening. I guess coming home can be stressful, even if you own the place and your best friend volunteered to come back and help settle things.

  “That’s some dog.” My elbow is propped on the open window and the warm breeze wraps around us in the cab.

  “She’s Noel’s.” He’s driving slow down a narrow, dirt road.

  He’s told me a little about his kid sister, skinned knees and pigtails, chasing jackrabbits.

  “Where we headed?”

  “Harristown central.” He cracks a hint of a smile, and I’m glad to see he’s not brooding.

  “Where’s that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We continue at twenty miles per hour until we reach a paved, two-lane highway. He takes a right, heading into the small town, and I think he’ll speed up.

  He doesn’t.

  Looking down at my phone, I see I have zero cell service. “No Verizon out here?”

  He casts me a glance. “Who you trying to call?”

  “I was gonna let Patton and Marley know we made it.”

  “I got a landline at the house.”

  Pressing my lips together, I give him a nod. It’s like that. Great.

  Five more minutes and we’re pulling off on a service road, up to a truck stop with a Denny’s restaurant attached. Several trucks are parked near the entrance and men in jeans and caps climb out slowly, adjusting the top of their britches and stretching.

  “Denny’s?” I shoot him a skeptical look.

  He just shrugs. “It’s how they’ve always done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “Sorted out the schedule of workers for harvest.”

  “You don’t have your own workers for harvest?”

  “I’m about to.”

  He shifts the truck into park, adjusts his cap, and gets out. I follow him inside at the same slow pace as the rest of the old-timers filtering through the doors. On my mind is our conversation a few weeks back, when we were getting our assignments, talking about leaving the country.

  He’d told me all about the hundred-acre farm he inherited from his dad in north Louisiana, and I’d said I’d like to see it sometime.

  I don’t have much family left in Nashville, besides my buddies Patton Fletcher and Martin “Marley” Randall. We enlisted together hoping to get the same assignment, which luckily, we did.

  Sawyer fell right in with Patton, Marley, and me on our first day, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. When he asked me to come home with him, to help him get everything in order before we ship out, I figured why not? I’d just be wasting time, partying too hard if I spent a month in Nashville waiting.

  “Welcome the hometown hero,” a voice calls to us from across the room.

  “Not yet.” Sawyer clasps hands with a man who looks at least twenty years older than us. “How’s the team this year?”

  “About the same as last year.” The man’s voice is measured, like my friend’s. He nods toward a stout, Mexican man sitting at a booth across the way. “Jay Hidalgo has a good team lined up. We’re just discussing price.”

  Then he looks at me and nods. “How’s it going?”

  I quickly stretch out my hand. “Taron Rhodes.”

  He gives it a shake. “Dutch Hayes. I own the cotton fields east of town all the way to Delta.”

  “Nice.” I have no idea how to respond, but Sawyer interjects.

  “Taron’s a friend of mine from Nashville. We finished basic together.”

  “Another Marine? With that face?”

  My jaw tightens. Being what people consider good-looking has definite plusses and minuses. The plus is easy pussy, although I’ve never been a man-whore. It’s not my style.

  The minus, I occasionally bump into dicks who think I can’t kick their asses.

  Still, I was taught respect for my elders.

  “Another Marine,” I say through a tight smile.
r />   “Don’t let him fool you.” Sawyer grips my shoulder. “I’d trust Taron with my life.”

  Dutch nods. “Brothers in arms.”

  “Something like that.” Sawyer redirects. “Can Digger come by this afternoon? I need to get Noel and Leon squared away before I leave.”

  A greedy light flashes in the man’s eyes when Sawyer’s back is turned. He quickly hides it, and I like him even less.

  “You get on the schedule, and I’ll send him over.” They go to where Hidalgo sits waiting with his arms crossed, and I decide to wait this one out.

  Sliding into a red vinyl booth, I notice the wireless is working in this place. I quickly tap out a group text to the guys saying we made it. Marley immediately sends back a peace-sign emoji. He’s probably already high—Mr. Wake and Bake.

  Patton’s dad’s probably busting his balls. I can imagine him cursing my name for taking off like I did, but he’d be climbing the walls in this place. I’m kind of digging it in a weird, back-to-the-essentials kind of way.

  I’ve just picked up a plastic-covered menu when a woman with strawberry-blonde hair piled high on her head and a brown apron glides up to me. She looks about the same age as my mom.