Hold On

Kristen Ashley

Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:

Rock Chick Series:

Rock Chick

Rock Chick Rescue

Rock Chick Redemption

Rock Chick Renegade

Rock Chick Revenge

Rock Chick Reckoning

Rock Chick Regret

Rock Chick Revolution

The ‘Burg Series:

For You

At Peace

Golden Trail

Games of the Heart

The Promise

Hold On

The Chaos Series:

Own the Wind

Fire Inside

Ride Steady

The Colorado Mountain Series:

The Gamble

Sweet Dreams

Lady Luck

Breathe

Jagged

Kaleidoscope

Dream Man Series:

Mystery Man

Wild Man

Law Man

Motorcycle Man

The Fantasyland Series:

Wildest Dreams

The Golden Dynasty

Fantastical

Broken Dove

The Magdalene Series:

The Will

Soaring

The Three Series:

Until the Sun Falls from the Sky

With Everything I Am

Wild and Free

The Unfinished Hero Series:

Knight

Creed

Raid

Deacon

Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:

Fairytale Come Alive

Heaven and Hell

Lacybourne Manor

Lucky Stars

Mathilda, SuperWitch

Penmort Castle

Play It Safe

Sommersgate House

Three Wishes

www.kristenashley.net

*****

Kindle Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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

Copyright © 2015 by Kristen Ashley

First ebook edition:  September 1, 2015

First print edition: September 1, 2015

Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Epilogue

About the Author

Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:

Dedication

At the end of this series—

a series precious to me because it’s based where I learned how to be me—

it’s apropos to dedicate this book to my readers.

Thanks for going home with me.

Thanks for liking being there.

I tip my Hilligoss powdered sugar, chocolate buttercream-filled donut to you.

We might be done with this version of The ‘Burg…

But here’s to many adventures to come.

Chapter One

Worth Every Penny

Cher

“I’m stayin’.”

“I got this.”

“I’m stayin’.”

“Go.”

“I’m stayin’.”

“Go.”

Darryl looked at me standing in front of him, his back to the back door, then beyond me into J&J’s Saloon.

I knew what he saw and that meant I knew why he wanted to stay.

What I didn’t know was how this was going to go. Darryl didn’t have a lot going on between his ears, but he was loyal, worked like a horse, was strong as an ox, and, since getting hacked with an ax by a serial killer in order to protect his boss, was insanely protective.

But he knew me. He knew I could take care of myself. Saying that, I didn’t know if he knew what I’d be putting myself through, taking on what was right then sitting alone at the bar.

He looked back to me and jerked up his chin, ordering, “Get his ass in a taxi.”

“You got it, hoss,” I muttered.

He opened the door and kept bossing my ass. “Lock this behind me. Code the security for doors and windows.”

I rolled my eyes but moved forward so I could do what he said, even though I would’ve done that anyway.

I’d learned to be smart, to go out of my way to stay safe and not to take any chances.

I locked up, moved to the security panel, coded it, then took a deep breath and moved down the back hall into the bar.

It was after three thirty in the morning. We were closed. The glasses washed and put away. The trash taken out. The fridges restocked. The cash register cleaned out, money in the safe in the office. The bar top and tables wiped down. Chairs up on the tables all ready for Fritzi to come in in the morning and mop the floors as well as clean the bathrooms and stock them with toilet paper, so when Feb got in tomorrow, she could just unlock the doors and start the day.

He was at the side curve to the bar, had his back to me, ass to a barstool, feet up on the rungs. He had his elbows to the bar, and since I’d poured it for him, I knew he was nursing a glass of top-shelf whisky sitting in front of him. Whisky that set him back a whack, more so seeing as he’d had five shots of it along with the seven beers he’d sucked back the last five hours.

When I’d followed Darryl to the back, I’d left the hinged section of the bar open. I rounded it and took the two steps to stand in front of him.

The minute I stopped, Garrett “Merry” Merrick, lieutenant on the ’burg’s PD, tall, dark, gorgeous, and the last bastion of good guys available in the ’burg—that meaning he was single—grabbed his glass. He put it to his lips and threw it back.

I watched him do it, my palms itching, my eyes to the muscular cords working around his throat.

He slammed the glass down and lifted his beautiful blue eyes to me.

“I’ll call a taxi, Cher.”

I didn’t say anything even as his hand went to the jacket he’d thrown on the stool beside him.

Instead, I moved to the back of the bar, reached high, and grabbed the bottle of whisky that had stayed at its level for months, seeing as it was fifty bucks a shot, until Merry had brought that level down that night.

I grabbed another glass, put it in front of him, and I knew his eyes were on my hands as I filled both glasses, his and mine.

“On me,” I muttered, setting the bottle aside and looking at him.

He tossed the phone he’d gotten out of his jacket to the bar and caught my eyes.

“You know,” he stated. His words weren’t slurred. Merry could hold his drink. He’d had more than his normal that night, for sure. But he wasn’t sloppy drunk. Just, I hoped, feeling no pain.

Or less pain. The kind of pain he was drinking away didn’t really ever go away.

“I know,” I told him.

And I did. Everyone in the ’burg knew.

The finale to a fairy tale that didn’t have a happy ending.

He looked at me a second, then grabbed his glass and lifted it toward me. He didn’t wait for me to grab mine. He took a healthy swallow of his. He didn’t shoot the whole thing, but he wasn’t fucking around.