Heartless Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Heartless

  The Chasing Hearts Series

  Book One

  Vanessa Marie

  http://vanessamarienovels.com/

  Cover by

  http://sprinklesontopstudios.com/

  Copyright © 2014 Vanessa Marie

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  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.

  To my Mom and Dad,

  For teaching me what real strength is.

  I love you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charlie Evans hated moving. She swore her dad would wait until she'd finally unpacked the last few boxes and settled into some semblance of a rhythm, before he dropped the bomb on her.

  She was settled on the couch as he walked across the room and sat down on the coffee table in front of her. His blue eyes looked apologetic, as he rubbed his hand across his square jaw. She felt sick to her stomach when she saw his face and knew by the look he wore, their world was about to change. Again.

  "Hey, kid, how was your day?"

  "No, no. Uh-uh, don't you dare. Only bad news follows when you ask me how my day was."

  "That's not always true."

  She scowled. "The hell it's not. You're never that formal. You usually ask me who I made cry today."

  "Well, we do need to talk."

  With a rapid heart beat, she anticipated the rest of their conversation. "I don't want to talk about it. Talking is overrated."

  "Do you think I enjoy telling you I've been transferred again?"

  She looked up at him with her brow furrowed. "Seriously? How many times are we going to do this?"

  "You don't even like it here."

  "That's not the point. Ugh." She smacked the cushions and got up. The tension in the air was thick and she was going to suffocate on it if she didn't get out of there.

  He didn't try to stop her as she stormed past him out front door, and slammed it closed behind her.

  A few moments later Joe came out and quietly sat next to her on the front stoop. With a bump from his shoulder, he leaned in and tried to break the ice.

  "This is the last time, I swear."

  "Do you even know how many moves this makes anyway?" She glared at him.

  "Eighteen?"

  "No, moving here makes eighteen moves in eleven years."

  "Kid, I'm sorry." He bent his head toward the ground and held the back of his neck in his hands.

  She knew his job was to blame for the moves but she couldn't stop the words that poured from her mouth.

  "Hey, I know, why don't we make a fucking pit stop somewhere in Podunk, Kentucky and go for an even twenty?" She pushed off the stoop and disappeared inside without waiting for him to respond.

  Charlie kicked her door shut to her room and found solace in her music. "Drumming Song" by Florence And The Machine blared through her headphones as she looked out her window and saw her dad right where she'd left him. Guilt gnawed at her, it wasn't his fault, but the way he delivered the news always sucked. He could have at least buttered her up with a double cheeseburger or something first.

  She sat down to make a to-do list while she thought about the timing. Joe almost always got transferred mid-semester but school was almost out for the holiday's. She'd get yanked from one school and thrust into another. They'd only been at Fort Sill six months, but at least she got to finish the fall semester. It wasn't like she was attached. She was just tired of having to pack and unpack her shit. When she'd envisioned her winter break, it hadn't included moving.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  As Charlie looked around her room, and it's state of total disarray, she grimaced at the thought of having to repack it all once again. In a huff, she slammed a pile of books onto the floor, grabbed another stack and dropped them with an unceremonious thud.

  It was like she'd just finished packing, so to have to do it again so soon pissed her off, and her books were paying the price. She ground her teeth and tossed everything left on the shelf, over her shoulder into a heap on the floor.

  Once the bookshelves were empty, she assessed the mountain of paperbacks in the middle of her room. All she wanted to do was, strike a match and throw it on the pile for a bonfire. She trudged through the minefield to the bundle of boxes by her door and tripped, stumbling forward. Kicking as hard as she could at the TV stand, she tried to release her tangled sock and jabbed the arch of her foot on a sharp corner.

  "Son of a bitch." She dropped to the floor to assess the damage.

  There was a gaping hole in her sock and her foot throbbed like hell. Her dad peeked his head into her room and his large frame filled her doorway.

  "You okay, kid? I heard you yell." His blue eyes scanned her floor. "What the hell?"

  "I'm fine," she mumbled, and kicked the stand with her good foot.

  "Well, that's smart. Break your foot." He smirked, and shook his head. "It looks like something exploded in here."

  "Does it? Huh. I hadn't noticed." She pulled a stack of books into her lap and started sorting them by genre to be boxed up.

  "Do you always have to be such a smart-ass?" He stepped around the piles on her floor and sat on the edge of her desk.

  She gave him a condescending smile and tilted her head to the side. "It is my very best quality, and I don't want you to feel like you've been short changed."

  He cocked an eyebrow at her and dropped his chin. "Listen here, mouth. Don't make me hog tie you, stick an apple in your mouth, and toss you in the back of the truck. We only have a few days to get everything situated before we leave."

  "Well, I'm not in the mood to pack again for the hundredth time, yet here we are." Charlie gestured to the mess around her room.

  "I know you've got this whole brooding teenager thing going on, but I could really use my sidekick right now."

  "You want a sidekick? Go buy a minion."

  "Are ya' done?" Joe shifted his weight on her desk and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

  "Not even close. Hand me a box." Charlie held out her hand.

  Joe pulled a box out to put together for her and tossed it to her to fill. He bent down to put another box together and scanned her floor.

  "How many damn books do you own?"

  "Not enough."

  "Just make sure you don't try to fill them so full. Lived and learned from your shenanigans last time and it took me a week for my back to feel normal." He gave her his best attempt at a death glare before he left the room.

  "It's like you read my mind," she called after him, and rolled
her eyes.

  "Cold pizza and root beer in the kitchen when you're done," he yelled back.

  Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten all day, and that was very unlike her, but she needed to get all the piles boxed up before she took a break.

  Once she taped the tenth box shut, she decided to call it a night and padded down the hall in her bare feet to the kitchen. She grabbed a slice of cold pizza out of the box and hopped up onto the counter next to her dad. He sipped on a beer, and handed her an bottle of root beer. She tipped the bottle to her lips and the cold foam poured down her throat.

  "Did you get much done?" He looked over at her with a Cheshire grin.

  Not ready to let him off the hook yet, she looked at the floor to avoid eye contact.

  "Yup." Charlie took a bite of her pizza and washed it down with her drink.

  "Well since you asked. The living room and my room are done. Should be able to wrap the rest up tomorrow." He tipped his beer up to his lips and kept going. "Look, we should have this down to a science by now but you aren't really helping when you drag your feet."

  "I wouldn't have to drag my feet if you'd let us stay in one place. It's just getting old having to move all the time. I want to put down roots somewhere and stay there long enough to try to have a life."

  "I was going to wait and surprise you, but since you're being such an impossible pain in my ass... I bought a house." Joe smiled as her head shot up and she stared at him in shock.

  "Wait, what?"

  "We're putting roots down this time. It's not rented or leased. It's ours."

  "Where?" She blinked repeatedly and tried to brace herself for his response.

  "Beaufort." He smiled at her and the corners of her mouth pulled up into a grin.

  "We're moving home?"

  "Yep. You get Callie and Jules back."

  Charlie's smiled so big, her face hurt. A million questions swirled in her head. How long was he going to wait before he told her? Did Jules know that she was moving back? Did his mom? She was elated but annoyed at the same time that he'd kept that very important detail from her.

  "Truce?" He picked up his bottle for a toast. She held hers out to him and before she could stop him. He hit the top of it with the bottom of his, and her root beer erupted foam everywhere.

  "Oh, come on." She tried to suck up the foam to keep it from spilling on her pants.

  "See what happens when you give me crap? Paybacks, kid. Paybacks." He shot her an evil smirk and handed her a roll of paper towels.

  "How's your foot?"

  "Still hurts."

  "Are you going to live?"

  "Hell if I know. That's a pretty loaded question, if you ask me." She looked down at her wrist and ran her forefinger over her tattoo that said lifeless. She wanted it as a constant reminder of how short and unpredictable life could truly be.

  "Charles, I didn't mean to..." Joe shifted his weight on the counter.

  "It's not a big deal. I'm worn out and I think I'm going to call it a night." She covered her mouth and yawned.

  "I think I'm going to turn in too, night, kid."

  "Night."

  Hopping off the counter, she wandered back to her room. She climbed in bed and thought about all the bedroom windows she'd looked out over the last eleven years. She'd almost gotten used to being somewhere new. Deep down, she always longed to move back to Beaufort. Now that it was a reality, she didn't know how to feel. She watched her ceiling fan spin in slow circles and tried to sort through her feelings.

  Part of her felt guilty for being a jerk to her dad. The military was to blame for their frequent moves, not him. She'd never known a normal life and was nervous about what it would be like. She talked to Jules every day, and they'd seen each other sporadically through the years, but she wondered if it would be the same once they were living in the same town.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  After a long day of final exams, the fall semester was over. Charlie was on her way home in her all black Ford F150. The only thing she was going to miss about that school was her English teacher Mrs. Baker. She always made Charlie feel excited about writing. She smiled to herself when she thought about her and wished every teacher she'd ever had was like her.

  A giant yellow moving truck sat in front of her house as she pulled into her driveway. Her dad was on the curb helping one of the movers load the truck. Her black buckled combat boots hit the pavement when she hopped out of her truck and slung her messenger bag over her head, onto her shoulder.

  "Hey, need any help?" she asked, as she ran toward her dad. He looked like he was ready to drop the top box off the three he carried as it wobbled off the stack. She caught it before it hit the ground.

  "Good save, kid." They walked up the ramp of the truck and set the boxes down against the wall.

  "Next time don't try to carry so much at once, Rambo."

  "Oh, shut up. Go do a quick once over and see if we left anything behind."

  "Okay." She hopped down off the truck and headed inside. She tossed her bag on the floor in the living room next to their makeshift beds for the night, and walked through the bare house. She thought about how much time she'd spent alone there but there was no trace they'd been there at all.

  She didn't see anything left behind and headed out the front door in search of her dad. Joe set the motorcycle ramps on the tailgate of her truck and stood back to stare at them with pursed lips.

  "Which should we load first? Mine takes up more room." He walked toward the bed of the truck with a measuring tape.

  "Dad, we've done this a thousand times. It's really not rocket science. Yours always goes first."

  "I was just trying to figure out if there was a better way to do it."

  "If it aint broke, don't fix it." She rolled her eyes at him and walked toward the two bikes parked side by side in the garage.

  "You ridin', or are we pushin'?" asked a behemoth of a man with the name Phil embroidered on his shirt as he walked toward Charlie and the bikes.

  "She can ride it up. Hey, Charles, just ride her up and hold her steady while we strap her down." Joe walked to the side of the truck and waited to guide her up.

  "I don't have any guys named Charles." He wrinkled his brow at Joe.

  "I was talking to my daughter." Joe moved his jaw and gave Phil a annoyed look. She didn't know why he even named her Charlotte because he called her Charles, and everyone else called her Charlie.

  "Uh, boss, are you sure she can handle that thing, that bike is huge?" He looked at her like he was sizing her up.

  She stared him down and swung her leg over the seat. "Don't worry, Phil. My dick is bigger than yours. Let me show you ladies how this is done."

  The engine started with a low rumble, and she and Joe exchanged a smile at the familiar sound. She rode his bike out of the garage and zipped past Phil into the street. She must have caught him by surprise, because he stumbled backward, and she couldn't help but laugh. After making a big turn, she rode it straight up the ramps, stopping about a foot from the cab of her truck.

  "Ease her forward just a bit ... little more ... there. Kill it," Joe yelled.

  Charlie killed the engine and held the monster steady so Joe and Phil could tie the bike down with straps. She couldn't wait to get on her bike. It'd been a few days since she'd had time to ride it.

  "All right, kid, now let's do yours," Joe said, and ran his hands through his crew cut.

  As she sat on her bike and ran her fingers over the red paint on the gas tank, she sighed. Her Ducati 848 was her pride and joy. Riding motorcycles was the one constant thing she and Joe always did together, no matter where they lived and she never let anyone touch it, let alone ride it, not even Joe.

  "Yours? That's hers? No way a girl owns that bike. That's like the holy grail of sports bikes, if you ask me," Phil said, with envy.

  "Well thankfully, no one asked you." She rolled her eyes and turned her key.

  "Phil you shouldn't underestimate my daughte
r. She can out-ride, out-shoot, and out-eat any guy I know."

  Her Ducati came to life with a zing and she decided to show him just what she could do. She braced herself and popped the front wheel up as she rode the wheelie down the street with a wicked grin on her face. She turned around in the cul-de-sac and raced back to her house. Phil just stood there with his mouth hung open.

  "Are you done showing off? We need to get it loaded." Joe shook his head.

  She rode up the ramp and pulled into the bed of the truck next to his Harley Davidson. Charlie jumped off the back of the truck and landed next to Phil.

  "Okay, I'm sorry I misjudged you." Phil offered her his hand and she took it as a truce.

  "Old pros," Joe said, and held his hand up for a high five. She crinkled her nose at him and shook her head no. Joe stood there and waited until she humored him and smacked his hand back.

  "You really need to keep up with the times, old man. A cool handshake is better than a high five."

  "Oh, shut up and go inside. I'm going to help them load the last few things and I'll be in."

  "Whatever you say." She turned on her heel and walked up to the front door closing it behind her. Charlie kicked her boots off next to her air mattress and plopped down on it. She pulled her current book from the bag and cracked it open to where she'd left off. By the time she came back to reality, she'd lost all track of time and Joe was standing over her.

  "You want your pizza cold or hot?" He popped open a beer and took a swig.

  "'I'll go buck wild tonight. Warm it up."

  "You got it." He put a few slices right on the oven racks. Normally she would have objected but she didn't care if it made a mess because she wouldn't be there to clean it later. After their food was ready, they ate and talked on their air mattresses until she couldn't keep her eyes open. She hadn't realized she even dozed off until her dad was shaking her.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  "Time to get up, grumpy-ass. We gotta get movin'."

  "Uhh, what time is it?" she croaked, and opened one eye to squint at him.

  "0500."

  She pulled the covers back over her head. "Uhhh... Wake me up later."