Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Dean “Raff” O’Neal is the Vice President of the Salemburg Hellions. His life is his cut. Brothers before everything, especially broads. Single, loving to mingle, he lives life one ride to the next.
A beautiful woman with an adorable kid moves in next door, changing his playboy ways.
Josie Schneider is tired. She is barely holding on after giving up everything to move once again. As a single mom, she wants a quiet life for her and her son.
Soon enough her ex finds her again, refusing to give her peace. Raff won’t hesitate to do anything necessary to keep Josie and her son safe, even if it means claiming her as his own to protect them.
Their ride is driven by need and accelerated by want. This time it’s the Salemburg Hellions on a ride out for love
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Josie
The mid-day sunshine reflects across the lake in front of me.
“Breathe,” Jackie, my older sister reminds.
My dress fits like a glove. Full length, mermaid with lace sleeves matching the pattern of my cathedral veil. I inhale as my sister adjusts the thin material, spreading it out across the grass as the photographer snaps away.
Today is the day I commit to my high school sweetheart, Jonah. How we got here still seems like a dream. From that first dance in ninth grade to now, a month after my graduation getting married with our family around.
Jonah is a year older than me. Everyone said it wouldn’t last once he left. I wanted to laugh then and even more so now. Tell me again how it couldn’t work. Because here we are.
Immediately after his graduation, he went to BCT- Basic Combat Training, or boot camp for the Army. He went on to his advanced training before finding his first duty station in Fort Liberty, North Carolina. I’ve never left Arkansas, but here Jonah is seeing all kinds of places. All because he made a decision at seventeen. In order to join, he had to have his mom sign off on it or wait until his eighteenth birthday. Waiting has never been Jonah’s strength, so his mom signed and off he went.
He lives in his dorm or barracks, basically his crash pad. It isn’t the best place. Jonah is an only child. He hasn’t had to share a room ever, most especially one this size. Close quarters force him to get to know his roommate in ways I know he would prefer not to. He doesn’t mind his bunk mate generally speaking; however, the other gentleman is a slob.
Jonah is constantly picking up after him and doing the right things for the inspections they get. Who knew the military is so particular on how their soldiers keep their quarters? If we get married, that takes him out of bachelors’ quarters.
Honestly, I don’t understand how the military can say someone can’t live on their own unless they are married. Jonah is an adult. Why does the Army get to tell him who he lives with and the conditions he will live in? To me, he can go to war and risk his life, but he doesn’t get a say in where he lives as a single male … someone make it make sense to me. It doesn’t bother Jonah. He constantly reminds me he signed up for this. He is the property of the United States Army and he’s proud to be a soldier. In the end, as long as Jonah is happy, then I’m happy. The Army makes him his best self even if I don’t understand it all.
For example, I will be his “dependent”, which is a term my independent self struggles with. However, if we continue without me marrying him then I need to stay here to go to college. I can’t afford to go to school and pay for my own place to stay near him in North Carolina. It also means my residency status will make me have to pay out of state tuition until I’ve been a North Carolina resident long enough. As a military dependent my life in Arkansas isn’t held against me. That isn’t the only factor in our decision to get married now. We have been doing this long-distance relationship for a year, and it’s not been easy. I miss him. While I could live in my own place there near him, it makes me nervous. More than anything, I don’t like the idea of living in a strange town without him being there too. He doesn’t have a high enough rank to live out in town without a dependent. That is how he keeps explaining it to me.
I don’t exactly understand rank other than it matters to him. Somehow his rank gives him more freedoms as he works his way up. All of this is foreign to me. My dad did not serve in the military. In fact, he’s been the bread man my whole life, distributing loaves of bread and boxes of snacks to the grocery stores in our area.
We could wait. I could stay here and go to school while Jonah focuses on his career. Except, I don’t want to spend four more years apart from Jonah. It’s not like we haven’t wanted to be married one day. We have talked about it since forever it seems. This last year apart was hard enough, I don’t want to spend another year like this. When Jonah proposed on his weekend liberty after graduating boot camp, it gave us a new drive to stick it out even though the distance is hard. Immediately, I said yes, and I knew this is the life for us. Wherever he goes, I want to be by his side.