Epilogue #2
She pulled back and took one last look at the marina—at her father's boat, whole and beautiful in its slip. At the office that had been rebuilt better than before. At the water that had shaped her, broken her, and ultimately given her everything she'd never known she was missing.
Then she laced her fingers through Chesapeake's and walked down the dock toward the man waiting at the end of it.
Finally home.
On the water that made them both.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed CHESAPEAKE’S FIRE. If so, I’d love to hear about it, and so would everyone else! If you’d like to leave a review, here is a link to the amazon page:
www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2PYNZGV
MORE STORIES BY JOSIE DAVIDSON
CHARM CITY KILLERS MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX2ZQFQG
DELTA DESTROYERS MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2VR1WVM
OZARK RIDGERUNNERS MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSMXRBZN
SONS OF LIBERTY MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHFW86MX
SOUTHIE STEEL MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0G5C7FN95
STEEL SENTINELS MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FB3MM3X8
MOUNTAIN REAPERS
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FWZSV2ZG
THUNDER RIDGE MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FL1H5DKP
BONE VALLEY MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCS4MB82
SIN CITY MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPBK2V1B
CONCRETE KINGS MC
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FJ5452QW
GUARDIAN PROTOCOL
www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4KT9N73
Continue reading for a sneak peek for COTTONMOUTH’S BITE, Delta Destroyers MC #1, the explosive new MC Romance series from Josie Davidson
SNEAK PEEK: COTTONMOUTH’S BITE
Chapter One
The Crooked Porch smelled like it always did—fried catfish, cheap whiskey, and forty years of blues soaked into the walls.
Cottonmouth sat at the end of the bar where the shadows pooled deepest, nursing a bourbon he'd been working on for an hour.
The jukebox in the corner was playing something old and slow, slide guitar crying over a woman who'd done somebody wrong.
A handful of regulars occupied the scattered tables, locals who knew better than to look too long at the man in the leather cut drinking alone.
Friday night in the Delta. Hot as hell even after sunset, the kind of heat that sat on your chest and made you mean.
He'd been coming to this tin-roofed juke joint since before Jolene took it over from her grandmother, back when Miss Bea was still pouring whiskey and telling lies about Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads three miles south.
The place hadn't changed much. Same warped floorboards, same Christmas lights strung along the ceiling year-round, same photographs of Delta blues legends covering every inch of wall space that wasn't holding up the roof.
The woman behind the bar hadn't changed much either.
Jolene Mayes moved through her domain with the efficient authority of someone who'd been doing this work since she was old enough to reach the taps.
Dark hair pulled back, sleeves rolled up, hands that showed every year of keeping this failing business alive.
She had a mouth on her that could strip paint off a barn door, and she used it freely on anyone who gave her trouble.
Cottonmouth liked that about her. Liked it more than he should.
The front door banged open hard enough to rattle the photographs on the wall.
Two men walked in wearing the kind of clothes that screamed Memphis money—pressed shirts, clean boots, gold chains catching the dim light.
They moved like they owned the room, shoulders rolling with the particular swagger of men who'd never had to back up their attitude with anything but borrowed muscle.
The bigger one had a shaved head and a neck like a fire hydrant. The smaller one was wiry, twitchy, the kind who'd pull a knife just to watch someone flinch.
Cottonmouth's hand drifted to the bar top, fingers loose, watching.
"Jolene Mayes." The big one said her name like it tasted bad. "Mr. Ruiz sent us to have a conversation."
Jolene didn't stop wiping down the bar. "Mr. Ruiz can go to hell. I told his last messenger the same thing."
"That wasn't a request." The wiry one moved toward the wall where Miss Bea's photographs hung—forty years of blues history, signed portraits, faded Polaroids of legends who'd played this room when the Delta still meant something.
He pulled the first frame off its nail and held it up.
"Nice pictures. Be a shame if something happened to them. "
"Put that down."
"Or what?" He dropped it. Glass shattered across the floor.
The regulars were already moving, sliding out of chairs and heading for the back door with the particular haste of people who knew trouble when it walked in wearing gold chains. Cottonmouth stayed where he was.
The big one grabbed another photograph—Howlin' Wolf, if Cottonmouth remembered right—and hurled it against the far wall. The wiry one laughed and swept three more frames off with his forearm, sending them crashing to the floor in a spray of broken glass and splintered wood.
"You've got one week." The big one advanced on the bar, and Jolene reached beneath the counter for something—baseball bat, probably, she'd always kept one there. "One week to sign over the property, pack your shit, and get gone. After that, Mr. Ruiz stops being polite."
"This bar belonged to my grandmother." Jolene's voice came out steady, but Cottonmouth could see the tremor in her shoulders, the fury building behind her eyes. "It's not for sale."
"Everything's for sale." The big one reached across the bar and grabbed her by the shirt, yanking her halfway over the counter. "The only question is whether you're alive to spend the money."
He backhanded her hard enough to split her lip.
And Cottonmouth came off that barstool like a killing he'd been waiting twenty years to commit.
The wiry one turned first—saw him coming and went for something in his waistband—but Cottonmouth was already inside his reach, driving a fist into his throat with enough force to collapse his windpipe. The man dropped, gasping, hands clawing at his neck while his face went purple.
The big one released Jolene and spun, but he was too slow.
Cottonmouth caught his reaching arm, twisted it against the joint, and felt the elbow give with a wet crack that echoed off the tin roof.
The man screamed—high and shocked, the sound of someone who'd never had violence done to him by someone who meant it—and Cottonmouth drove him face-first into the bar with a crunch of cartilage.
Blood sprayed across the worn oak. The big one crumpled.
Cottonmouth stood over them both, breathing steady, feeling the old familiar calm settle into his bones. Five years in a Mississippi prison had taught him many things, but the most important was this: violence was a language, and some men only understood it when you spoke it fluently.
The wiry one was still choking on the floor, not dead but not far from it. The big one wasn't moving at all.
"You killed them." Jolene's voice came from behind the bar, rough with shock.
"Not yet." Cottonmouth crouched down and checked pulses. Both still beating, though the wiry one's was getting thready. "The little one might not make it. The big one will wish he didn't."
He looked up and found her standing behind the counter with a baseball bat in her hands and blood running down her chin from the split in her lip.
Her eyes were wide, but not with fear—with rage.
The particular defiance of a woman who'd just watched strangers destroy pieces of her grandmother's legacy and had been ready to fight them herself with nothing but a Louisville Slugger and stubbornness.
Cottonmouth felt something shift in his chest. Something he hadn't felt in a long time.
"You know who Victor Ruiz is?" he asked.
"Some Memphis asshole who thinks he can buy anything."
"He's more than that." Cottonmouth rose, stepping over the groaning bodies.
"He's a cartel middleman who went independent five years ago.
Built a distribution network running meth and pills down Highway 61 from Memphis to Greenville.
Those bars that burned last year in Leland and Hollandale?
That was him. Owners who wouldn't sell."
Jolene's knuckles went white on the bat. "And now he wants the Crooked Porch."
"He wants every crossroads location between Memphis and Vicksburg.
Your bar sits on the route he's building.
" Cottonmouth looked at the broken photographs scattered across the floor—forty years of history in shattered frames.
"These two aren't shakedown artists. They're an advance team for a pipeline operation, and they just declared war on Destroyer territory. "
"Destroyer territory." She said it flat, testing the words. "The motorcycle club."
"My club." He met her eyes, held them. "The Delta Destroyers MC has protected these crossroads since before you took over this bar. Every juke joint, every one-stoplight town, every family the state walked away from—they're under our patch."
"I didn't ask for your protection."
"You've had it anyway." He stepped closer, close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat, the adrenaline still running hot through her system.
"But what's coming isn't something you handle with a baseball bat and a bad attitude.
Ruiz has forty-plus armed men between here and Memphis.
You tell him no, he sends more than two guys with gold chains. "
"So what—I just sign over my grandmother's bar because some Memphis drug dealer says so?"
"No." Cottonmouth reached out, slow and deliberate, and lifted her chin with two fingers.
Examined the split lip, the bruise already forming on her cheekbone.
His blood went hot at the sight of it. "You let me handle Victor Ruiz.
And the Crooked Porch goes under official Outlaw protection starting tonight. "
She should have pulled away. Should have told him to go to hell the same way she'd told Ruiz's messengers. Instead, she held his gaze with those furious dark eyes and said, "I don't need a man to fight my battles."