Finding Solace: A Small Town Second Chance Romance Read online

  Finding Solace

  S.L. Scott

  S.L. Scott

  Contents

  Also By S.L. SCOTT

  In the know

  Prologue

  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

  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

  Chapter 34

  Jason Koster

  SAVAGE

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  We Were Once

  We Were Once - Prologue

  We Were Once - Chapter 1

  EVEREST

  FOLLOW ME

  Also By S.L. SCOTT

  About the Author

  Nothing heals a broken soul like the love of a true heart.

  Copyright © 2020 by S. L. Scott

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-940071-96-1

  Cover Designer: RBA Designs

  Photographer: Amanda Rose

  Advanced Review Copy

  Editing:

  Jenny Sims, Copy Editing at Editing4Indies

  Kristen Johnson, Proofreader

  Original Team:

  Marion Archer, Editor at Making Manuscripts

  Karen Lawson, The Proof Is in the Reading

  Marla Esposito, Proofing Style

  Also By S.L. SCOTT

  To keep up to date with her writing and more, visit her website: www.slscottauthor.com

  To receive the Scott Scoop about all of her publishing adventures, free books, giveaways, steals and more:

  CLICK HERE

  Join S.L.’s Facebook group here: S.L. Scott Books

  Audiobooks on Audible - CLICK HERE

  Read the Bestselling Book that’s been called “The Most Romantic Book Ever” by readers and have them raving. We Were Once is now available and FREE in Kindle Unlimited.

  CLICK HERE

  The Kingwood Series

  SAVAGE

  SAVIOR

  SACRED

  FINDING SOLACE - Stand-Alone

  The Kingwood Series Box Set

  Complementary Emotional Stand-alones

  We Were Once

  Missing Grace

  Finding Solace

  Until I Met You

  The Everest Brothers (Stand-Alones)

  Everest - Ethan Everest

  Bad Reputation - Hutton Everest

  Force of Nature - Bennett Everest

  The Everest Brothers Box Set

  The Crow Brothers (Stand-Alones)

  Spark

  Tulsa

  Rivers

  Ridge

  The Crow Brothers Box Set

  Hard to Resist Series (Stand-Alones)

  The Resistance - New York Times Bestseller

  The Reckoning

  The Redemption

  The Revolution

  The Rebellion

  DARE - A Rock Star Hero (Stand-Alone)

  Playboy in Paradise Series

  Falling for the Playboy

  Redeeming the Playboy

  Loving the Playboy

  Playboy in Paradise Box Set

  Talk to Me Duet (Stand-Alones)

  Sweet Talk

  Dirty Talk

  Stand-Alone Books

  We Were Once

  Missing Grace

  Until I Met You

  Drunk on Love

  Naturally, Charlie

  A Prior Engagement

  Lost in Translation

  Sleeping with Mr. Sexy

  Morning Glory

  From the Inside Out

  In the know

  To keep up to date with her writing and more, visit S.L. Scott’s website: CLICK HERE

  To receive the newsletter about all of her publishing adventures, free books, giveaways, steals and more:

  CLICK HERE

  Prologue

  Jason Koster

  It’s pouring rain, but that doesn’t matter. I can’t look away from my past. Or her.

  Delilah Noelle.

  Damn.

  We shared many shameless kisses with our bodies covered in the slick love we’d made. Carefree hair blowing in the wind. A sunset captured on the back of a rowboat. We were all the good things that first love brings.

  Yeah, we were wild in love back then with no cares in the world. Whether by choice or circumstance, all good things must come to an end. Nothing good can last. It’s been a hard lesson to learn, but one that finally sank in.

  A love so pure, so innocent like ours could never survive.

  And didn’t.

  The motorcycle’s too loud to be considered stealth, so I’m sure she hears me coming. A bike like this, even custom and almost costing as much as a small house, will never impress her.

  How do I know? Because I never impressed her.

  Guess that’s why she left me.

  Or did I leave her?

  I know the truth, but sometimes, I pretend the facts are fuzzy. Hazy facts or not, four years is a lot of time to pass without living with your other half . . . your better half.

  She’d called us soul mates at one time. Maybe she was right, and I’ve been living without half my soul all this time. That’d make sense, though it can’t cleanse the soul I have left, if any.

  Now I’m back in the same town I once hated, sitting in front of the same house I once visited daily. And I’m not thinking clearly, much like a night I’d like to forget.

  I don’t know what I was thinking coming back here. I don’t know what to think at all.

  Maybe . . .

  No. She’s not an option. She’s married.

  She’s off-limits.

  It didn’t stop him back then, but it should stop me now. Crazy memories fill my brain—holding her in my arms and making her promises I intended to keep. Too young to make those kinds of promises. Naïve for thinking I would be her guy forever or she’d be my forever.

  Rumor has it he hits her.

  If I’m not careful, he’ll never take another breath if we cross paths again. The thought of anyone laying a hand on her kills me inside, but do I have a right to those emotions when it comes to her?

  Gossip has gotten back that she visits my mom on occasion to reminisce. That she misses me.

  Fuck.

  Rumors. Fucking rumors.

  Delilah is still so damn beautiful. I see that same look in her eyes I remember from back then. The one that brought me to my knees the first time I ever
laid eyes on her.

  As I look at her standing on that front porch now, I can’t deny that she makes me feel the same. Her smile, her small wave . . . two things I’ve craved. Missed. I scrub my hands through my hair and question everything I’m about to do.

  Why am I here?

  Unfinished business or feeling sentimental about a past I can’t reclaim?

  What am I doing?

  I have no fucking clue, but I do it anyway.

  I swing my leg off the bike to find out and then cut the engine to the black Harley. Shoving my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket, I start walking across a lawn I’ve walked a million times in another life.

  The railing wobbles under my hand, and chipped paint pops off. I prop one foot up on the bottom step and stare at her.

  Many things in life catch us, distract us, keep hold of us. I’m not one easily caught, though. But the one thing I never seemed to be able to get uncaught in is Delilah.

  It’s been too long since I’ve laid eyes on the beauty standing before me or felt a heart I thought had been lost on some dark highway. Here it is, beating to life just from being near her again. I take a deep breath, and say, “Hi.”

  Her shoulders drop, the tension falling away as if she’s been waiting for this day and found relief in its arrival. “What took you so long?”

  1

  Jason

  New York is always an option. I hate Manhattan, but I could live in a borough. I could blend into the city life and disappear among all the other ghosts that inhabit the area. I pass the exit, the city no longer a choice, and keep driving south.

  I never felt as if I belonged there anyway.

  I’ve traveled this country from Maine to Los Angeles, Alaska to Key West. I’ve stayed a few days in a motel outside Atlanta and swum in the Gulf along the Mississippi coast. I’ve drunk whiskey in the open air of Joshua Tree and slept under a blanket of stars in Texas.

  I lived.

  I survived.

  But all roads seem to lead me back to Solace Pointe.

  My jersey number still graces the beat-up old sign along the highway. The billboard is just before the exit that leads you to a one-stoplight town with a pharmacy still serving ice cream at the counter and Wilbur Macy rocking in a chair at the corner of Main and First.

  It’s the kind of place where you’ll find the entire town at the stadium on Friday night and then in church on Sunday morning, leaving just enough time to sin on Saturday.

  I laugh when I spot the sign I used to shoot my BB gun at while driving by: This is God’s country. Don’t drive through it like hell.

  The devil himself has returned to town.

  This time, I actually slow down. It might be the first time. I don’t want the attention or Whaley, the local deputy, pulling me over. I’ve managed to avoid the law for some time now, so there’s no need to cause trouble in my hometown, especially when I’ve earned a few new scars and inked my skin. He’ll have a problem with my tattoo, and he’ll judge me from that alone, but I also have a backpack of stuff I don’t want to explain, much less travel down memory lane or tell him where I’ve been.

  Unfortunately, I have to cruise down Main to get home.

  Home.

  My home was never a place but a person. It’s funny how time changes things. I don’t think about Delilah as much anymore. I’m really good at pocketing those disconcerting feelings away, but damn if being here doesn’t drag them all back to the surface.

  As familiar as this place feels, it doesn’t feel like home.

  Glancing down First when I pass under the green light, I’m tempted to cruise by her house. I wave to Wilbur instead—glad to see he’s alive and still rocking on that corner—and keep driving. I should really say hi to my mom, but my throat is dry, so I pull into a parking spot a few down from Red River, the main bar here. I don’t want to see anybody I know, but I will, so I might as well get it over with and put some rumors to rest.

  Pulling open the door, I walk inside. It’s dark, and my eyes aren’t adjusted, but I know this place by heart, so I keep walking until everything comes into view.

  Front door. Top half glass.

  Back door through the small kitchen in the left corner. One large window.

  One window in the men’s and two smaller windows in the women’s restroom.

  Five booths.

  Six people.

  Ten barstools.

  Five taken.

  Nodding to the bartender standing at the far end near the three beer taps, I take the one vacant stool at the end of an occupied row. “Daryl and Billy. Should have guessed you’d be taking up space here.” Looking down, four guys stare back at me.

  The bartender, McGilley, swings his towel over his shoulder and rests two hands on the bar top in front of me. “Look what the cat dragged in. If it’s not Mr. Eight himself, Jason Koster. To what do we owe the pleasure, your high and mighty-ness?”

  “I haven’t been that guy in a long time, much less that number. How about a Heineken?” That entertains the guys, and they start laughing, mocking me. If I didn’t stand out already, my beer choice just did it. “Never mind. How about a Budweiser?”

  “You sure about that?” McGilley asks. “That’s a working man’s beer. Might be hard on your stomach.”

  “Serve the fu—” I catch myself. I can’t talk like that around here. I’ll end up in a fight and spend the night in jail. “I think I can handle it.” I put a ten on the counter. “Keep the change.”

  “Big spender.” Daryl asks, “Where’ve you been that you decided to come home and spend money like it doesn’t matter?”

  Daryl Satters grew up down the dirt road from me. He was one year ahead of me in school and got a job at the plant right out of high school. All-around asshole. I’m not surprised to see him here. I figure his ass is parked on a barstool at Red River by five each night, drinking his sorrows away just like his dad. He once dreamed of being a pro-baseball player, but that took a dedication he never had for the game. Ironic how he’s worked at the same industrial plant for eight years. That takes dedication.

  My beer is set down, and the money swiped from the bar. I take a long pull before answering. “All over.”

  Billy lines up and fires his question next. “What have you been doing for work?”

  I always liked Billy Langston. A tick older than me but we were in the same grade. At one time, I called him one of my best friends because he always had my back. Curious to see if that loyalty still stands.

  “It’s good to see you, Billy.”

  “You too, Koster. Rumors have been flying for years about what happened to you. Did you return to put ’em to rest?”

  I’m suddenly feeling the need to clamp my mouth shut. I don’t owe anyone anything, much less access to parts of me I’d rather keep buried. “Nah. Let them gossip.” I down my beer and set the empty on the bar when I stand. Not looking to entertain an interrogation, I’m ready to go. This might be a record. Ten minutes and I’ve already had my fill of this town.

  The darkness I carry hangs heavy over my head. My carefree football days are long gone, so I don’t need to be here any longer. “I’m heading out.”

  “Going to see your ma?” McGilley asks.

  “Heading there now.” I tap the bar top and head for the door. “See you around, gentlemen.”

  The sun is setting when I head down Main Street and take the curve out to the small two-bedroom house with faded blue wood siding. It’s dark when I pull up the dirt drive but can tell it’s not changed. I cut the engine, surprised the sound of the Harley didn’t drag my mom to the window. The lights are on inside, and a few of the shades are still open. The TV is muffled but heard through the thin walls of the old house. It needs some care. If I stay more than a day or two, I can help her out, make sure things are in good working order before I leave again.

  I think about walking in the back door like I always have but then decide against it. She hasn’t heard from me in a few months and ha
sn’t seen me for years, so I head to the front and knock like a stranger.

  The dented metal door opens, and she pushes the screen door with her hand before leaning against the frame. A mischievous smile appears, tipping up one side. I’ve been told I smile the same way. Guess I learned from the best. Her hair is pinned back, but some strands from a long day of work have fallen. She’s dressed like she has someplace to go, but I know better. She’s a homebody by choice. Meredith Koster just likes to look good. Crossing her arms, she says, “Well, if it isn’t my long-lost son. What brings you to town, kid?”

  The kid reference makes me smile. It also makes me miss the innocence that the name suggests. “Just thought it was time for a visit.”

  She drops the hard-ass act and opens her arms. “Come here.” Hugging me tight, she adds, “I’ve missed you so much. I don’t know why you like to worry me like you do.”

  One front door. Two deadbolts. One chain. A screen door.

  Back door. Three small windows. Two locks. Fourteen windows in total.