The Girl who was Meant to be Mine: Uncontrolled Heroes Book 2 Read online

  The Girl who was Meant to be Mine

  Uncontrolled Heroes Book 2

  KL Donn

  Copyright © 2021 by KL Donn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing by KA Matthews

  Cover Design & Formatting by Alluring Write Productions

  Photography by Regina Wamba @ The Stock Alchemist

  Model: E

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Synopsis

  Prologue

  1. Calla

  2. Calla

  3. Jace

  4. Jace

  5. Calla

  6. Jace

  7. Calla

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by KL Donn

  Synopsis

  From USA Today bestselling author KL Donn comes the all-new Uncontrolled Heroes series where the heroes took over and decided they all get a little lovin’.

  * * *

  Jace Cooper spent his life waiting. Waiting to grow up, waiting to run his own business with his best friend Cade, waiting for the right girl.

  Growing up took time, owning a successful motorbike shop was easy, and the right girl came when he least expected it.

  From the minute his eyes laid upon Calla Davies, he knew she was the girl who was meant to be his. She would be the girl to own every piece of his soul.

  If only he could show her that his size wasn’t nearly as intimidating as she thought.

  * * *

  Calla Davies spent a lifetime apart from her father and sister. When her mother took her in the middle of the night, she was confused and heartbroken. For years she wondered why as she watched her mother’s mind deteriorate.

  After finally finding her family, Calla never expected to fall in love with a man more than twice her size and be afraid of him at the same time.

  * * *

  All either of them wanted was to be loved. Will Calla move past her fears and accept Jace’s devotion for what it is, or will she wind up like her mother: broken and afraid?

  * * *

  Falling in love isn’t always planned, and when you least expect it, your heart decides for you. Come on over to Long Beach, California, to find out who falls in love, who gets naughty on the beach, and if family truly is everything.

  Dedication

  To my readers,

  Thank you for having the patience to wait for Jace & Calla’s story.

  Prologue

  Calla

  Five Years Old.

  * * *

  “I miss Daddy and Petal, Mama,” I whisper. Mama has been strange lately. She’s jumpy and barely looks or talks to me.

  I miss her hugs and the way she would tell me stories at bedtime. I don’t understand why we left my big sister and Daddy behind, but we’ve been driving and sleeping in motels ever since.

  “They don’t matter anymore, Calla. Forget about them.” Her eyes are angry as she yells at me, and I can feel my tears spill over onto my cheeks.

  They do matter. Petal loves me; she said so. Daddy does too. He used to laugh and spin me in circles. He kissed my cheek and whispered his love to me all the time.

  I don’t understand what’s happening or why we left.

  I just want to go back.

  Ten Years Old.

  “I hate you!” Slamming my hands over my ears so I don’t hear her hateful words, I burrow deeper into the closet as my mother loses her mind. “I wish you were never born!”

  I used to tell myself she didn’t mean that. They were just words she spat when she was sick. Now, I'm unsure.

  I don’t know anything anymore. All I feel is this slicing pain in my heart. My memories of Petal and Daddy fade more and more each day, and soon, I know they’ll be nothing but fragmented figments of my imagination.

  “Do you hear me, Callalily Davies! Do you hear my hatred?” The closet door flies open, and there’s drool on the sides of her mouth. Her eyes are scary too.

  “Yes, Mama,” I whisper because she won’t stop until she hears me concede to her terrible words.

  Sixteen Years Old.

  “Miss? Are you going to be alright?” I stare up at the coroner as he stands nearby, waiting for me to leave. But I can’t.

  Two days ago, I nearly died. Beaten until my face was a horrifying mask of black and blue. A broken nose, two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder. My body is now a walking, talking bruise from top to bottom. All because my mother stopped taking her meds again. Her mania became worse than I’d ever seen it, and after she ran me down in front of my school, nobody could find her.

  Now we know why.

  Mamma killed herself.

  Found overnight hanging from the bottom of a bridge, a suicide note in her pocket.

  When I read the words an hour ago, I had a hard time processing them. Even in death, she hated me.

  Calla,

  This is your fault. I should have left you when I had the chance. I failed in killing you, and I can no longer be on this earth while you breathe.

  You are to blame for everything, and I hope your father and sister hate you as much as I do.

  That’s it: nothing but contempt for me.

  I don’t know why, and now, I never will. From the day we left our family back in Long Beach, she’s despised me. Blamed me. It wasn’t until I turned seven that she was diagnosed as manic.

  “Miss?” the coroner asks again.

  “I’m fine.” I can’t bring myself to cry for my mother. I don’t hate her, but I can’t remember a time when I loved her either. For years, I wished she would have left me behind too. That way, I could have recollected her when she used to love us. I would have preferred it.

  Seventeen Years Old.

  “She’s been searching for you for a very long time, Calla,” Derek, the investigator, explains. “It’s almost Christmas; if ever there were a time for miracles, I’d say it’s now.”

  I have mixed feelings. Since Mamma died, I’ve been on my own. I dropped out of school, started working so I didn’t become homeless, and now I live in a shitty apartment on the east side of Portland.

  Derek found me a few months ago, explaining that my big sister, Petal, and father have been looking for me. That they want to reunite with me after so many failed attempts when I was younger.

  “What have you really got to lose?”

  I stare at him and wonder if he knows. Does he realize I’m the one who caused my mother's death? Does he know I’m the reason our family fell apart? Why would they want me?

  Chapter 1

  Calla

  Present Day.

  It’s been six months since I returned to Long Beach. Six months of feeling like an outsider with the people who love me most in the world. It’s not their fault; it’s mine. I don’t know how to accept love, how to love in return.

  A lifetime spent running from one bad situation to another has corrupted me. Mom could never hold down a job long enough for us to find an apartment or create a life anywhere. It was a dozen years of living in limbo with no end in sight.

  When she killed herself, I felt relief because the abuse was over. Her suffering was over. The uncertainty of where our next meal would come from, over. Everything…was over. And yet, the guilt has eaten me alive every day since. It doesn't matter how many times she spewed her hatred for me or how often she threatened to kill me, she was my mother, and I only ever wanted her to love me.

  Petal doesn’t say it, neither does our dad, but I can see it in their eyes when they ask about her. When I lie to them about the woman she was.

  They want sunshine and flowers.

  She was skulls and daggers.

  Darkness and anger.

  But I lie—every single time. I tell a fancy tale of what I wish she had been like because that’s a mother I could have loved.

  They don’t hear about the time she locked me in the closet one summer when I was thirteen for the entire break because I lied about the last day of school being two days later than it was. She remembered to feed me once or twice a week, but I didn’t see the sun for two months. I had a bucket for the washroom and was allowed to clean it out once a week, but I was never allowed to shower. To this day, I can’t go more than 24 hours without showering.

  I’ve never told them about the time when I was nine and she forced me to play Russian Roulette. I peed my pants after every pull of the trigger. I puked every day for a month from sheer terror. The only reason one of us wasn’t dead that day was that the gun malfunctioned.

  I ache for Petal and Dad to hate her as much as I do, but they never will. They never could because they weren’t there. For years, I begrudged them as well. Not because they’d done anything wrong but because I felt abandoned. Which is illogical. They didn’t leave me; we left them. It doesn’t lessen the feelings, though. I was desperate to be rescued for so long, and when it never happened, my blame shifted to them because they were free of Mamma's manipulations.

  Staring around my room of the one-bedroom apartment I share with a girl I met in a hostel a few weeks ago, I have to wonder if I’m even free of her. I’m still moving from place to place, job to job. Only I have fam
ily now. I could ask for help.

  The trouble is, I don’t know how to.

  “You’re thinking too hard,” Cali, my roommate, comments from her bed.

  We share the only bedroom. Neither of us saw a reason not to. We have separate beds. She uses the closet; I use the single dresser. Plus, it’s the only room with a window large enough to let in a breeze.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Cali is…chatty. She enjoys talking. I enjoy listening to her because her voice is lyrical, and more often than not, it’s her words chasing away the nightmares that wake me up every night.

  Rolling to my side, I see her staring at me. “Not really.” She has no idea what happened either. Nobody does. Nobody ever can.

  “Do you need a ride to work?” We both serve at the cute diner near Petal’s husband's bike shop. Petal and the kids come over often. So do the guys who work with her husband.

  “No, I need to clear my head.” Working the morning shift after a night shift is a relief because exhaustion helps keep the nightmares at bay. Last night was the first in over a week, I haven’t woken up screaming.

  “If you change your mind…” She yawns and falls back asleep. Cali is running too. I can see it in her eyes. But her past isn’t as tragic as mine. She’s got two men in love with her, but they keep secrets from her, and she can’t live like that. I don’t blame her one bit.

  Getting up quietly, I grab my clothes from the dresser and head to the shower. After washing up quickly, I braid my damp hair before getting dressed and applying a light layer of makeup. Slipping on my Chucks, I quietly pad to the kitchen where I take my purse off the counter, grab a banana, and get a Starbuck's dark caramel cold brew can from the fridge.

  Coffee is one thing Cali and I agree on needing to keep stocked. She likes the unsweetened dark brew while I could drink the dark caramel all day long. On the days we work at the diner, we get two free meals. Which helps more than either of us will admit. Waitressing isn’t a lucrative gig, but it helps pay the bills, and between the two of us, we get by.

  As I exit our building, the sky is grey with clouds. Rain is in the air. The forty-five-minute bus ride to work is cut in half and filled with silence because of the morning's early hour. As I get off at my stop, I walk past my sister’s husband, Cade’s, shop and see it’s dark inside as I stare at the building. It’s plain but stands out on the street. Cade, Jace–his best friend–and his little brother Beckett have really built a business to be proud of.

  I envy Petal that. The life she has. The love and kids. I thought I wanted that once. Maybe on some level, I still do. But after the life I've experienced, I’m not sure I can risk it. Nor if I want to.

  Shaking my head, I carry on towards work, needing to get the day over with and maybe think about constructing a life plan. Something. I don’t know if I can stay here, and no matter what, I definitely can’t continue working dead-end jobs just to pay the bills.

  Jace

  * * *

  For six months now, I’ve been frequenting the diner across the street from Controlled Bikes after bribing the owner to give me Calla’s schedule. I don’t believe she suspects anything. I’ve been coming here long before she showed up, just not nearly as often.

  From the minute I opened that door on Christmas morning, I’ve damn near been in love with her. Something inside me shifted when her nervous gaze met mine. I intimidate her, though. Every time we’re in the same room together, she damn near hides behind Petal.

  I think we’ve said maybe two dozen sentences to each other because she’s alarmed by my size. If I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, I’d be insulted. But given the fact, she’s a good foot shorter than me and weighs probably a hundred pounds soaking wet, I’m not surprised. People who don’t know me get a little freaked out. The muscles and tattoos don’t help.

  I’ve never given a shit about any of it before either. But with Calla, I try to remain low-key and unobtrusive because I want her trust. I want her to look at me with something else other than fear. I get the feeling that’s the only emotion she’s truly familiar with, unfortunately.

  Petal tries so hard to get Calla over to the house quite a bit, but the younger woman declines as politely and often as she can. Petal won’t say anything because she doesn’t want to push her sister away, but Cade and I are about fed up.

  Cade, his brother Beckett, and I grew up together. We’ve run around our entire lives. Own a business together. I’ve never felt like anything other than the third brother in our trio. We’re close. When one of us hurts, we all do. And Petal is hurting. Lily and Mac are dying to know their aunt better, but the baby doesn’t care too much beyond the kids, Petal, and Cade.

  Lily turns five this weekend, though, and I’m here to guilt Calla into coming to the party. Petal has been stressing about asking her because she doesn’t want to be let down again, and I intend to make sure that doesn’t happen.

  “Refill?” the owner asks as he places my order down, and I nod just as I hear the bell over the door jingle. Without turning around, I know it’s Calla.

  I wait until she heads to the back and returns to the front to announce my presence. If she realizes I’m here before she goes to put her stuff in her locker, she takes longer to come out.

  Cutting into my omelet, I watch for her out of the corner of my eye. I’m halfway through my breakfast before she makes an appearance. My coffee is empty again, so I lift the cup and meet her startled gaze. Quickly spinning towards the coffee machine, she takes a few breaths before grabbing a pot and striding towards me. Spine straight, shoulders back, head held high. She puts on a damn good show.

  I wait until she’s finished pouring the hot liquid before I grasp her wrist. I see her chin wobble, and when she bites her lip, I want to be the one doing that.

  “Was there something else you needed?” I detect a slight tremble in her tone.

  “Can you sit for a second?” I glance at the empty bench across from me.

  She shakes her head first. “I’m working.”

  “Please sit, Calla.” I’m the only one here right now, and Jo gets the place going for the staff before they start arriving. I know she hasn’t got anything pressing to do at the moment.

  Biting her lip again, she glances at Jo behind the counter before reluctantly sitting across from me.

  Calla stares down at her lap. Twisting her hands together, I imagine. Breaking the silence, I say, “Lily turns five this weekend.” She does look at me then. “Petal, Cade, and the kids would love it if you would come to her party on Saturday.” She opens her mouth to speak, and I already know she’s about to make an excuse not to. “I know you don’t have to work; I talked to Jo. It would mean a lot to everyone if you came.”

  Her jaw shuts, and her eyes wander around the room for a solid minute before she sighs and asks, “What do you think she’d like for her birthday?”

  I can’t hide my grin. “She adores all things princesses and tutus. Find a Disney store, and you can’t go wrong.”

  While clearing her throat, Calla’s cheeks turn a light shade of red before she asks quietly, “Are there any around here?”

  Frowning, I do a quick search on my phone. “Looks like the closest ones are in Lakewood or Torrance.” I glance up as she bites that damn lip again. “I’ll give you a ride. I have to go shopping for her still. This way, I’ll know where you live so I can pick you up on Saturday.” I see the reluctance on her face. “Come by the shop after your shift, and we’ll go. We can grab dinner too.”