Smoke and the Flame (Aces High MC - Cedar Falls Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  ­­Book Description

  Author’s Note

  Reading Order for my MC World

  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

  Evermore Sneak Peek

  JDRF Donations

  Christine Michelle Books

  Christine M. Butler Books

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Smoke

  and the

  Flame

  Aces High – Cedar Falls #3

  Christine Michelle

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 Christine M. Butler / Christine Michelle

  All rights reserved.

  Scanning, uploading, copying, and/or any distribution of this book, either electronically or otherwise without express written permission from the copyright holder, is illegal and punishable by law.

  Small quotes and snippets may be used for review purposes only where they do not contain information that would spoil the book for potential readers.

  Help support authors you love by only purchasing legitimate copies of their work through trusted sources. Trusted source links and updated pricing can be found on the publisher’s website at

  https://www.moonlitdreams.org/

  Any similarities to persons, organizations, or places written about within these pages is purely coincidental, as this is a work of fiction.

  Editor - Bella Hickman

  Cover Photo © Jag_cz with licensing from https://www.canstockphoto.com

  Aces High MC logo image ©rocich with full extended licensing from https://www.canstockphoto.com

  Page break image © zmiter with licensing from https://www.canstockphoto.com

  Cover and Chapter Head Font Cabbagetown ©bobistheowl with licensing from the creator for commercial use. https://www.dafont.com/search.php?q=cabbagetown

  ­­Book Description

  Smoke and the Flame

  Aces High – Cedar Falls Book 1.5

  Biker.

  Firefighter.

  Brother.

  I was all those things.

  Never did I expect to add old man, husband, or father to the mix.

  Not this soon.

  From the moment I saw her, I knew things would be different. I knew she’d change everything.

  Now, we just have to weather the storms she brought with her. Rains are supposed to put out the flame, but this time, I’m going to burn hot enough for the both of us.

  This isn’t a retelling of our story.

  This is me, explaining how she burned so brightly I became the ash at her feet before rising in her arms a new man.

  A better man.

  A Biker, firefighter, brother, uncle, father, and hers forever.

  Author’s Note

  It is not 100% necessary, but I would HIGHLY suggest reading Redemption Weather FIRST, before diving into this book.

  This book was never in my plans. I had toyed with the idea and scrapped it thinking that I simply did not have the time for it. Truth be told, I didn’t have the time, hence the delays on getting this to you. When I accidentally messed up with the preorder release of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (uploaded the wrong file, then forgot to click on something when I changed it causing a delay in getting it fixed) I promised to release this book as an apology for my mistake.

  Granted, as I stated before, I didn’t have the time to squeeze in an extra book and then my MAC died leaving me to scramble to get it completed from an earlier point in the manuscript. Then I had surgery that knocked me down for a little bit. So… this year has taught me that things do not always go to plan, and sometimes you just have to roll with punches while they’re being thrown. 😉

  Hopefully, this book has been worth your wait!

  Now, you get to enjoy Smoke’s side of things (Poppy’s was first in Redemption Weather). If you still haven’t ready Redemption Weather, that’s okay. Both can be read as standalone stories. HOWEVER,… I do recommend you read Poppy’s story first as I believe that will be the most enjoyable way to read them.

  Don’t forget to stick around for the sneak peek of Evermore (Aces High MC – Cedar Falls book 4), this is Ghost and Leanne’s story, and it’s up next in the Cedar Falls Series.

  Enjoy!

  xoxo

  Christine Michelle

  Reading Order for my MC World

  (you do not have to read any particular series in the world first)

  Aces High MC – Charleston (MC Lite – family drama)

  (this is the only series in the MC world that MUST be read in order)

  The Other Princess

  A Love So Hard

  The Princess and the Prospect

  (titles coming soon in the series)

  The Killing Ride

  A Twist of Fate

  Aces High MC – Dakotas (MC Mild)

  Dancing with Danger

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  (titles coming soon in the series)

  The Restart and the Remedy

  Cherries and Cream

  Learning to Bend

  S.H.E. (MC Mild)

  Angel Girl

  JoJo

  (titles coming soon in the series)

  Keys

  MiMi

  Tash

  Legs

  The following books take place ten years after the previously mentioned series start.

  Aces High MC – Cedar Falls (MC Lite/Mild)

  Redemption Weather

  Proven

  Smoke and the Flame (While these titles can be read in any order, it is highly suggested that you read Redemption Weather prior to reading this book.)

  (titles coming soon in the series)

  Evermore

  Wren’s Wings

  Through the Ashes

  The Witchling

  Aces High MC – Tallahassee (MC Mild/Wild)

  (series coming soon)

  Crushed

  https://www.moonlitdreams.org/mc-world-books

  Chapter 1

  Six months earlier

  I didn’t know who to be angrier with as I stared between my brother and the woman I’d spent the last five years of my life with. My eyes widened in surprise as my brother finally came clean. Then I found myself turning a wicked glare on the woman in question. I couldn’t even see her as the same woman I’d spent the past five years of my life with. He had to be kidding. The thought ran through my head on a loop as I tried to process the words my brother just spat out at me when I showed up on his doorstep with my long-time girlfriend in tow. Granted, I showed with her on a whim to get this confrontation out of the way once and for all.

  He had liked her in the beginning and then something changed. No one would explain it to me, but every time I tried to go visit my brother, he would be too busy if I were bringing Julie along. Now I knew why, and even though it was ridiculously hard to believe that was the reason, I could see from the guilt written on her face that what he spoke was the truth.

  “Let me get this straight,” I finally ma
naged to get out as I turned to Julie. “You actually asked my brother if you could upgrade to the NHL Hockey player instead of being with the firefighting biker man?”

  Her lips moved, almost as if she was a fish out of water trying to draw breath. Her cheeks flamed red, and then she began to sob. “It was a long time ago, and before I fell in love with you,” she admitted. I just stood there; my glare frozen on the woman who now seemed more a stranger to me than the doorman of my brother’s apartment.

  “You didn’t think, at any point, since you made that offer to my brother that you should come clean and tell me about it?”

  Her head snapped up, defiant eyes meeting mine as it did. “When do you suppose would have been a good time to do that?”

  “I’m guessing the best time would have been before you made the offer to my little brother, but since you obviously weren’t thinking clearly, let’s go with right after you fucked up.”

  “You would have tossed me aside then,” she admitted.

  “Yeah, and according to your own admission, you didn’t love me then so what would it have mattered?”

  “I did like you a lot then,” she tried to explain. It was a piss poor attempt as far as I was concerned.

  “You liked me so much that you thought you’d wreck my relationship with my brother? Then you had the audacity to keep up a farce like you didn’t understand what his problem was every single time he ditched out on anything involving you. You knew. Every single time I wondered what I had done wrong to piss my little brother off so much that he was basically alienating me, you knew you fucked that up for me. You remained silent though. You let me think I’d done something that I was incapable of fixing. All this time, it could have been fixed. I missed out on years with my brother that I will never get back, and you caused that. I raised that boy! He might as well have been my son instead of my brother, and you took that from me. From us,” I indicated Kent and myself as I flipped my hand back and forth between the two of us.

  The tears were falling freely down her face ruining the perfect makeup job she had done this morning. That alone made me wonder if she had changed her mind about going after my brother instead, or if she was still playing a game. She hadn’t been so particular about her makeup in months, until today, when I told her we were going to surprise Kent. I narrowed my eyes on her for an instant, and then something washed over me bringing with it a sort of peace I didn’t understand at the time. For the first time since I’d been with Julie, I realized I truly didn’t even care if I lost her. I could not wrap my head around the sort of betrayal she had perpetrated. It was one thing to have propositioned my brother when she did, but to let me live with a fractured relationship as a result and never once speak up? That was completely unforgivable.

  “Smoke,” she called out as I turned my back on her.

  “Don’t,” I told her as I picked up my bag from the floor and moved toward the door of the apartment. I turned back to glance over my shoulder. “I’m pissed at you too, man. This was avoidable. Our lives didn’t have to be so fucking far apart all this time. The lost moments, the ones we can never get back, that’s on you as much as it is her.” My brother looked stricken by my words.

  “I just wanted you to be happy, and you looked happy with her,” he managed to get out.

  “Yeah? How happy did I seem when you canceled our plans all those times? I wasn’t fucking jumping for joy because I got to spend another weekend with my girlfriend instead of my brother who I barely got to see.”

  Julie sucked in a breath that we both ignored.

  “I’m sorry man. You sacrificed so much for Soph and me over the years. I just wanted you to have something that was all yours.”

  “There is nothing in this world I want that would jeopardize the relationship I have with you or Soph. Nothing and no one. Do you understand?” Kent nodded his head and I turned to leave once more.

  “Smoke?” Julie called my name again.

  “You can find your own way home. We are done.”

  “You can’t mean that. We’ve been together five years. This is all something that happened so long ago,” she whined.

  “So long ago that it still had my brother on edge and unwilling to visit with me if you were in the picture. You fucked that shit up for me. You fucked with my family. You lied. You kept your lie. You lived your lie all these years. I hope it tastes great on those lips, because you’ll need that memory to get you by from here on out. Never again, Julie. What you did is un-fucking-forgivable.”

  With that I left. I needed time before I talked to my brother about everything because he would always be one of the most important people to me and I didn’t want to say the wrong things and cause a bigger rift than he’d allowed my girlfriend to put between us. I didn’t need any time between Julie and myself. All I needed where she was concerned was a whole lot of distance and space. I also needed to get back to Cedar Falls and pack my shit. I was in the market for a new place, because it wouldn’t be anywhere near where she was.

  Chapter 2

  Throwing myself into work was supposed to take my mind off cutting my girl loose and being angry with my brother. I suppose it had worked, though if I were being honest with myself it wasn’t entirely necessary either. Kent and I worked our shit out. Julie and I never spoke again. That was because I meant what I said and I refused to see her, listen to her bullshit, or anything else. She had effectively been frozen out of my life and was certainly persona non grata at the club these days too. The crazy thing was, none of it bothered me. I wondered how I could have just been going through the motions with her all this time. Granted, I still hadn’t formally claimed her as my old lady in all that time, even if we had been exclusive and everyone assumed it was the case. Now, I was beginning to see that maybe there was a reason for that. Julie and I had been coasting by in our relationship. With six months having gone by since I left her in my brother’s apartment that day, clarity had come to me. That quick flash of relief I had experienced in my brother’s place after finding out the truth had brought with it a lasting peace as well.

  “Saw that new chick trying to get up on you last night at the party,” Chief said as he tossed a grin my way.

  “She tried,” I admitted.

  “Still not ready to get back on the horse?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s not that. Just haven’t found the right horse to get on,” I explained on a laugh.

  “Damn, dude. When you put it like that, maybe the horses just don’t want to be ridden.”

  “Fuck! We took the wrong track with that conversation. Now, I’m suddenly seeing flashbacks to that time you bastards dragged me to that show in Tijuana.” Chief laughed his ass off then.

  “Oh hell, that shit was the stuff of nightmares.”

  “No kidding. So, what’s new with you these days. You seem to be carrying a little stress around on your shoulders.”

  “Just worried about Poppy,” Chief explained.

  “Poppy?”

  “My little sister. She’s still down in Georgia. I’m hearing all kinds of whispers from people down there that things aren’t going so great for her. She didn’t handle the anniversary of our parents’ and sister’s death well. There was some whole drama surrounding that, but no one will tell me what happened. Then there’s Walker,” he huffed out.

  “Walker,” I repeated the name trying to place it.

  “He’s a member of our Sierra High Chapter. He’s also Poppy’s husband, and the fucker’s reportedly been stepping out on my sis.”

  “Damn, dude. That puts you in a tight spot with what you can do.” It did too. Having to choose between a blood sister and a club brother was going to mean he might have to break some rules if he needed to get retribution for her. I’d do it for Soph in a heartbeat if I found out her husband, Bender, was stepping out on her. Then again, just like my little brother, Kent, Soph was more than just a sibling to me. I’d helped raise her too.

  “Why don’t you just go get her?”
/>
  “I want her to come to me about her problems first. Right now, I’m only hearing things from a couple people.”

  “What the fuck? Why the wait?”

  “If I force it, she’ll fight me on it. If I let her come to me, she’ll be living here where I can keep an eye on her – finally.”

  “What about in the meantime?” I asked as we hit a fuckin’ pothole in the road and Chief turned a glare on me. I guess this line of questioning was distracting him from his driving.

  “I have someone in place for her,” he finally admitted. I wasn’t sure I liked the sounds of that. Chief should have been going down to save his sister from prolonged misery rather than being on this run with me. Not to mention the fact that he mentioned having someone in place. What the hell did that mean, and how did he trust someone from down there to have his sister’s back against a brother in the club? For that matter, why the hell was I ever so invested in asking all these questions? I didn’t think I’d ever even met Chief’s sister before, or if I had it was in passing and I didn’t remember it.

  We managed to find the spot where we were supposed to be meeting some of our brothers from the Tallahassee Chapter, but they hadn’t arrived yet. “I’ll check to see what their ETA is.” I shot a text out to Court asking just that and got a response that it would be a few more minutes.

  “I’ll be glad when we aren’t having to help Tallahassee out on these runs anymore,” I finally said after we had been sitting there in silence a little too long. Unfortunately for us, this piece of shit vehicle didn’t have a working radio, auxiliary port, or a fucking way to charge our phones.

  “You and me both, brother. At least we get to enjoy the free pussy party when we get back,” Chief commented.

  I grunted out my disapproval.

  “Seriously, I know we discussed the lack of decent horses earlier, but are you getting back with Julie or something?”