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eISBN 9781623003739

Editor: Serena Stokes

Cover Artist: April Martinez

Published in the United States of America

Loose Id LLC

PO Box 806

San Francisco CA 94104-0806

www.loose-id.com

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

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Dedication

To acceptance and second chances. To those who need them and those who offer both with open hearts. I hope you enjoy David and Ben. — CD

Prologue

As the prison gate cranked open in front of David Joyner, the metal groaned like an old man worn down by an unforgiving life. While waiting to step over the threshold, David could barely take a clean breath. His heart raced, and sweat poured down his back.

Once the gate opened all the way, a guard handed David a duffel bag. “You’re a free man. Don’t waste it.” The guy’s voice dropped, and hardness in features David had come to know well over the course of his incarceration softened some too. “I don’t want to see you here again. Okay?”

“Yeah.” David accepted the handshake from the older African American man, one of the honest, fair guards in this facility. “Thanks.”

The guard jerked his head toward the long concrete drive that led away from the prison. “Go on.”

With one last nod, his legs shaking like mad, David stepped to the other side of the open gate, away from the place where he’d spent the past three and a half years of his life.

Freedom.

Never had a word—a reality—terrified a man more.

The gate behind David whirred closed, seemingly much faster than it had opened, and within moments David was alone. Guards still manned the check-in station, but David was not their problem anymore, and he might as well be invisible. Now it was up to David to try to fix whatever was left of his shit hole of an existence all by himself. He had to go back home to Coleman, back to where this spiral into a hell of his own making had begun.

Where David stood, he shuddered, and his stomach retched violently. He rushed to the edge of the drive, to the vibrant green grass, and just made it before he threw up the toast and oatmeal he’d eaten for breakfast.

Coughing and gagging, David heaved as rancid, bitter bile filled his mouth.

A familiar feminine voice suddenly cut across the morning sky. “David! David! I’m sorry we’re late.” A petite fireball of energy—one of three people who’d visited David after his arrest and conviction—skidded to a stop next to him without so much as a teeter on her high-heeled sandals. She wrapped her arm around his waist and helped straighten him upright. “We got caught in traffic on the Interstate.” Brittany, the wife of one of David’s brothers, reached up and put the back of her hand to his forehead. “Are you okay?”

David’s nerves started to melt away, and he smiled at the young redhead. “I’m fine.”

After fishing a bottle of water out of her purse and handing it to him, she said, “You promise?”

“Yes. Don’t worry.” To calm Brittany, David parted his lips to confess that he wasn’t sick, but that fear had pushed him to vomit. Before he did, another familiar face appeared behind Brittany. David’s brother Travis. A different kind of twist knotted David’s belly anew, and instead he said, “Something from breakfast didn’t sit right in my stomach.” Forcing himself, David looked up at the youngest of his four older brothers. “Travis. It’s good to see you.”

“David.” Travis gave David a curt nod, one that didn’t move a strand of military-short brown hair on his head. “We’re glad you’re out, and that you agreed to let us bring you back to Coleman.” Travis slipped his arm around his wife’s waist and drew her to his side. “It’s your home.”

Kernels of hope long dormant within David started to awaken and heat. “Thank you, Travis.” His insides sighed, and he began breathing easier. “I’m going to do my best to make things right.”

Bouncy in a way that made her look like a high school cheerleader, Brittany grabbed her husband’s hand and David’s elbow. “Come on. We rented a car.” She pulled them into a fast trot. “Let’s go.”

His stride kicking into a jog, David kept up with Brittany’s quick pace. As she reached the passenger-side door, Travis broke away and moved to the back of the car.

“Here.” Travis beckoned David to him. “Throw your bag in.” He popped the trunk. “That way you have more room to stretch out in the backseat. It’s a long drive from all the way up here back to home.”

“Thanks.” David joined his brother and grinned, almost shyly. He wasn’t used to his brother being so kind and chatty. When Travis and Brittany had made visits to see David, she had always done the bulk of the sharing, while Travis murmured no more than a handful of words.

As David pulled his ID and some paperwork out of a side pocket of his bag, he looked up at Travis and added, “I appreciate that you took the time and interest to come and get me.”

Grabbing hold of David’s upper arm, Travis morphed from the amiable guy of a moment ago to a feral animal baring its teeth. “Don’t you dare think you’re getting comfortable in my house, you pansy bastard. You have two days to figure out how to let my wife down easy. You find a way to tell her you’re better off on your own somewhere else, without hurting her feelings or mentioning this conversation. You may have done your required time by Florida law, but nobody in this family has forgiven you.” Travis released David, but his bared teeth still showed a man on the edge of violence. “You’re a psycho and a faggot, and you’ve embarrassed this family enough for one lifetime.” Travis’s stare darkened with each word uttered. “Now that you’re out of prison, as far as I’m concerned, you can go straight to hell.”

Feeling as if his brother had punched him in the gut, David reeled. He went mute, too stunned to speak.

Brittany leaned halfway out the passenger-side window and shouted, “Come on! What’s taking so long? I want to tell David about the job I lined up for him.” The young woman straightened her upper body so far out of the window she was able to look around the car and find David’s gaze. “It’s not much, David, but at least it’ll give you a paycheck until you can find something better.”

While grinning in Brittany’s direction, Travis pinched David’s arm and whispered, “You figure out a way to get out of our lives without hurting her, you hear me?” Then, as smooth as glass, Travis let go of David and strode around the car, pausing long enough to peck a kiss to his wife’s lips. He told her, “Get strapped in, babe. It’s time to get this show rolling toward home.”

What the hell just happened?
Numb in his extremities, David could barely feel his body. Somehow he managed to move around the car and climb into the backseat. Once he buckled his seat belt, he buried his hand in his hair. Right away, he grazed a ridged scar on his scalp, hidden by a lock of hair, and memories flooded him. He went completely still.

Oh, right
. Everything inside David plummeted into his feet, and the world swam in wavy lines before his eyes.
You’ve been locked away from the world in one way or another for five years, but to all of them, you’re still the exact same person you were before you left.

For one second, David had forgotten who he really was. He’d forgotten he was the fucking idiot who’d outed himself to the world by breaking into his secret ex-boyfriend’s home, tried to kill himself in front of said man—a man he’d been stalking for months. And David had done this after marrying a woman he hadn’t loved in order to keep his family off the scent of his homosexuality.

During those years locked away, David had told himself everything would be all right, but the truth was, nobody had forgotten that David wasn’t exactly a prize sibling or friend. He’d done his time, but as far as the world was concerned, people who went to prison didn’t change. Statistics backed up that belief, and while David might say he was going to try to begin a new and better life, smart money said he probably wouldn’t be successful. Anyone taking an odds-on-favorite bet would choose David slipping into his old ways and failing again.

And if I let myself get too close with someone, I’ll fail for sure.

David understood that Travis was right. He didn’t deserve a second chance.

* * * *

“I’m sorry.” Sitting behind his desk, Ben Evans spoke words he’d used a thousand times before and would likely say thousands of times again. “It’s not pretty, but I know you wanted the truth.” For the third time, Ben leaned forward and flipped through photos of a man and woman having sex. His client didn’t need him to sugarcoat the facts for her; she needed to understand what was happening in her marriage so she could make an educated decision about her next move. “This is the truth. He’s been cheating on you. And as I said before, based on some deeper questioning of various hotel and motel employees, this woman isn’t his first.”

Ben’s client—Cheryl was her name—repeatedly flitted her fingertips over the photos only to quickly jerk her hand away.

“Okay. Thank you. Um…” Her eyes were bigger than saucers and getting damper by the second. “Can I just take these, and I’ll just…” She bolted up from her seat. “I need to be alone right now.”

Fighting a natural instinct to offer comfort—it was never a good idea to have clients attach their need or dependency to him—Ben gathered the photos and pages of information, neatly slid them into two files, and handed them both to her. “Would you like me to get someone to drive you home?” Ben strode to the door, yanked it open, and beckoned to his assistant. “Or maybe take you to see a family member? You mentioned a sister. How about going to spend some time with her?”

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