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  Copyright © Terri Anne Browning/Anna Henson 2020

  All rights reserved. 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 prior written permission of Terri Anne Browning, except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976.

  Loving Violet

  Rockers’ Legacy Book 4

  Written by Terri Anne Browning

  All Rights Reserved ©Terri Anne Browning 2020

  Cover Design Sara Eirew Photography

  Edited by Lisa Hollett of Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Formatting by M.L. Pahl of IndieVention Designs

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  Loving Violet is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means, including storage or retrieval systems, without the express permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  “No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life as love’s young dream.”

  ~Thomas Moore

  Chapter 1

  Violet

  The sound of a horn honking in the driveway had me dropping my spoon into my bowl of cereal and grabbing my purse along with my AP English Lit book.

  “Not so fast!” Dad called before I could take more than two steps away from the kitchen island where we were having a quick breakfast together.

  I paused, picked up my glass of orange juice he’d only just poured and gulped half of it down. Mom had left ten minutes before with my younger brother, Mason, so she could drop him off at his private middle school on her way to work, leaving just Dad and me to finish up like every other weekday morning.

  Wiping my mouth with a napkin, I bounced onto my tiptoes and smacked a kiss to his cheek. “Love you. I’ll be late getting home. Shaw and I are going to Luca’s football game tonight with Cannon.”

  “Then I’ll see you there,” he said, his jaw popping as he clenched and unclenched it.

  I gave him a stern glare, trying to channel Mom, but I hadn’t perfected it yet so he didn’t even flinch. I really needed to work on it some more. “Be good, or I’m going to tell Mom,” I threatened instead.

  “Your mom and I are both going,” he clarified, and I nearly released a relieved sigh before catching myself. “Jesse said there are going to be recruiters watching the boy tonight, and we’re all going to be there to support him.”

  I tried not to smile at the pride I saw in my dad’s eyes, while at the time holding back the sudden sting of tears. He was a hard-ass when it came to Luca, but he loved him like an honorary nephew. Dad wanted the best for all us kids, and he was always standing on the sidelines, cheering us all on whenever we needed him the most.

  The horn honked again, this time impatiently. “I have to go.” I kissed his cheek again.

  In the driveway, Shaw was sitting in the front passenger seat of her brother’s car. She slapped him upside the head when he pressed down on the horn again, and I flipped him off as I walked toward them. To look at them, people would have thought they were twins. Both of them were a perfect combination of their parents, although Shaw favored their mother a little more than Cannon did. They both had that sun-kissed blond hair everyone wanted their stylist to give them. Their dimples popped every time they smiled. Their blue eyes more often than not full of mischief. Cannon and Shaw Cage had the looks that went with their large bank accounts, but they each had their own careers and they weren’t even out of high school yet.

  Getting in the back, I moved to the middle and pulled on my seat belt because I knew Dad was looking out a window watching us.

  Once I was secured, Cannon carefully backed out of the driveway and drove the speed limit until we were out of our neighborhood. Shaw and Cannon lived next door, but our houses were pretty spread out like every other house on this stretch of beach in Santa Monica.

  Once we were through the gates and out of sight of the guards that were ever-watchful, Cannon hit the gas, and we were at school in a matter of minutes. As always, the music was playing so loud no one could really talk, and Shaw didn’t bother to attempt to turn it down. She looked pensive as she watched the world go by out the side window, and I was all too happy not to have to contribute to any conversation.

  If either of our fathers knew he drove like he did—especially with Shaw and me in the car with him—Cannon would be a dead man. But that was only after Luca got finished with him.

  Cannon was like a brother to me, though, so I wasn’t going to narc on him to either of our dads—and definitely not to Luca. With Lyric already hating Cannon, I didn’t think having both Thornton twins wanting to beat his face in would be good for his health.

  Shaw shot me a look as her brother climbed from the car, no trace of her earlier mood in those blue eyes of hers. “You okay?”

  I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Dad’s coming to the game tonight.”

  “Yeah, Daddy said he was too. I bet half the stands will be full of rock gods.” Her lips twisted for a moment before her blue eyes narrowed on me. “But your dad going to a Malibu game doesn’t normally get you all quiet like this. What’s up, Vi?”

  My phone alerted me to a text, but I didn’t reach for it in my purse immediately. I knew who it was, but if I saw his name right then, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold on to my emotions like I’d been so desperately trying to all morning. “Scouts are going to be in the stands tonight,” I told her in a voice that was hoarse with the tears I was trying to keep at bay.

  “Ah, Vi.” Shaw reached back and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay. No matter where he ends up going to college, you two have a plan.”

  “Yeah,” I murmured, giving her a small smile. But my chin still trembled, and I attempted to swallow down the lump in my throat.

  Luca and I did have a plan. He was already being offered scholarships to play defense at some of the best colleges in the nation. He would take the one that would get him the most exposure and the best chance at a top draft pick. The year he entered the draft would be my final year of high school. Once we knew which team he would be playing for, I would find a college close to him so we could move in together.

  But I knew which college he was going to pick. Even though Alabama hadn’t made him an offer yet, I knew it was only a matter of “when” and not “if” they finally would. Which meant that Luca would be in Alabama, and I would be in California for most of the three years until he entered the draft.

  I missed him already.

  Another text alert hit my phone, and when I didn’t answer it immediately, three more followed in rapid succession. Two seconds later, my phone rang, and I knew I needed to answer it or he would skip his morning classes and drive to Santa Monica to check on me. It wouldn’t have been the first—or even the third—time Luca had done that. But he’d been warned that if he got caught skipping another class, he would be benched for at least one game.

  Climbing out of the back of Cannon’s car, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey,” I greeted, making sure to put a smile on my face so he could hear it in my voice. If he knew how emotional I was, he wouldn’t hesitate to skip to come see me.

  “You got my jersey?” were the first words out of his mouth.

  I laughed as I walked with Shaw into school. Just the sound of his voice was enough to make my heart squeeze with love for him. I couldn’t remember a time when Luca’s voice didn’t make everything insid
e me sing with happiness. That boy was a part of my soul. I needed him to feel alive. Which made the coming three years all that much more painful. But it would be worth it in the long run. Luca would have the football career he’d always dreamed of, and I would be right there beside him.

  Which was the only place I really ever wanted to be.

  As we passed a group of guys, a few of them whistled, and my best friend flipped them off as we walked by. I didn’t think for a second it was me they were catcalling, not when Shaw was beside me. Plus, all those guys had faced Luca on the football field, and he’d made it very clear that if he ever saw one of them so much as talking to me, their mothers would need dental records to identify their bodies.

  But that didn’t stop Luca from growling.

  “Hey, hey,” I said to pull him out of his jealous haze and bring his attention back to me. “Your jersey is on my bed at home. No,” I said, answering the next question I knew he was going to ask. “It hasn’t been washed. It still smells like you and sweat.”

  He had two jerseys, and the one he wore the previous week, I was to wear at that week’s game. He said it was his good luck charm, but I was sure it was more to do with everyone in the stands knowing I was his.

  As if the entire world didn’t already know.

  Having his name on my back and his scent all over me was Luca Thornton’s way of marking his territory. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

  I heard him blow out a frustrated breath and paused, waiting for him to tell me what was wrong. “Coach just said one of the scouts that is going to be at the game tonight is from Bama,” he confessed. “I’m stressed, babe. I have to play my best game tonight.”

  For all of two seconds, I contemplated sabotaging him. Then guilt hit me so hard, I felt tears sting my eyes. I wasn’t that girl. Luca was part of my soul, and I couldn’t breathe when he was unhappy. Going to Alabama was his dream, and I wasn’t going to do anything to stop him from living that dream. I had to stop being so damn selfish.

  “You play your best game every Friday night,” I reminded him. “This one isn’t going to be any different. You are Luca Fucking Thornton. The offense pisses themselves when they know they have to face you on the field.”

  Shaw gave me a smirk, nodding her head in agreement with every word I spoke.

  “Yeah. Okay.” Then he groaned. “Fuck.”

  “Tell me what you need,” I murmured. “Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”

  I heard his sharp inhale and knew his mind was moving exactly where I wanted it to. To me. Us. Alone.

  “Goddamn, Vi,” he growled. “Now I’m nervous and hard. You’re evil.” But I heard the grin in his voice and began to relax a little. A bell rang in the background where he was, and he muttered a curse. “I love you. See you tonight. Okay, babe?”

  “I love you too.”

  Putting my phone back in my purse, I started walking with Shaw again. Our small delay in the hall had caused others to stop what they were doing and watch us. As if we were some freak-show side act to entertain them or something. It wasn’t like we were the most famous students at Santa Monica Prep, but we tended to be the ones most often in the stupid trash magazines.

  Shaw’s dad was Axton Cage, lead singer of OtherWorld. His band was legendary in rock, just like my dad’s was. Her mom was an ex-model covered head to toe in ink. She’d been a nurse for most of our childhood, but mostly she was a stay-at-home mother these days. Shaw had followed in Aunt Dallas’s footsteps and was already one of the top-paid models in the world. She had contracts with some of the biggest names in makeup and fashion. While Cannon was following in Axton’s footsteps and spent most of his summers touring with Jagger Armstrong and their band.

  The other students’ attention wasn’t on me just because I was Shaw’s best friend. My dad was the bassist for Demon’s Wings. He’d been some kind of manwhore back in the day until Mom came along and tamed him. Ever since, she’d needed her own bodyguard to keep the idiots in their place because there were women out there still pissed she’d landed the one guy everyone thought was unobtainable. She was also the editor at one of the two magazines she owned.

  And I was their princess. The daughter the world thought they would never have. I’d been their miracle, and everyone stopped to stare, no matter where I went. There were some nutjobs out there who even wanted to touch me because they thought I was magical and that holding my hand for a few minutes could help them conceive.

  I wasn’t a gift from God or whatever else some people assumed. My mom went through hell and had the help of the world’s leading fertility specialist to help her and Dad get pregnant with me. I’d stopped asking to hear the stories years ago because she always got a haunted look in her eyes when she talked about it, making me wonder if she suffered from PTSD because of everything that had happened before I was born.

  My brother was the true miracle. They weren’t even trying to get pregnant with him. She always said they didn’t want to be greedy. They got me, and that was enough for them. But Mason surprised the hell out of everyone three years later. There was no fertility specialist, no daily shots, no stressing over if the pregnancy test was going to be negative that month. Even her pregnancy with him was fairly uneventful, whereas hers with me had caused my parents to have nightmares for years.

  Shaw glared at the group of girls standing closest that were gawking at us. “Take a picture, bitches. You can finger yourselves to it later.” She flipped them off and then linked her arm through mine as we walked to our shared locker.

  It was technically mine, but there was no use in us having two separate lockers when we only needed one and mine was closer to our first class of the day.

  “How pissed do you think Cannon would be if we steal his car and drive over to Malibu at lunch?” I asked her as I opened the locker and exchanged my AP English Lit book for my trig.

  She snorted. “I don’t think there is a word in the English language for how mad he will be. But that never stopped us before.” She took out the chemistry book notebook. “This is why I always carry my set of keys to his car.” She winked as she backed away. “Meet me outside after second period.”

  Grinning, I waved and started down the hall to my class. Pulling out my phone, I texted Luca a kiss.

  Chapter 2

  Violet

  As soon as the bell rang at the end of second period, I grabbed my things and headed for the nearest exit. I got to the student parking lot without anyone stopping me, and I might have gotten into Cannon’s car with no one even noticing if it weren’t for my spotting a familiar dark ponytail about to disappear into a black car.

  Arella turned, and our gazes locked. My cousin grinned. “You saw nothing.”

  “Same to you, cuz,” I said with a wink.

  “You going to Malibu?”

  “No comment.”

  She laughed and walked over to hug me. She was in the same grade as Shaw, so they were a year ahead of me, but I didn’t see Arella often in the halls. She didn’t take AP classes, and most of her friends were in the drama club with her.

  “How is Uncle Drake?” I asked when we parted from our hug.

  “Same,” she said with a sad twist of her lips. “And he and Mom are still forbidding us from telling Nevaeh. I feel so bad for keeping his illness from her.”

  “I know. But it’s for the best,” I tried to soothe, but I felt just as guilty. I didn’t even talk to Nevaeh often, but I still felt bad for keeping the secret about her dad’s liver disease. My dad was his brother, and he’d gotten tested to see if he was a match as soon as Uncle Drake told him he needed a liver transplant. The results were good—better than good, actually—but I still hadn’t fully grasped what that would mean for Dad.

  I hadn’t let myself think of what could go wrong. The “what-ifs” of complications. I couldn’t, or I would beg him not to go through with it. And I couldn’t do that to him or Uncle Drake. So, I tried not to think
about it at all. I would let myself worry when the surgery actually happened. Until then, I would pretend nothing was wrong.

  But I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for Arella and her three younger siblings. Seeing how sick their dad was every day, scared they could lose him before he could get the transplant that would save his life.

  “Yo, Arella!” Her best friend, Palmer, yelled. “Let’s go.”

  Arella rolled her blue-gray eyes, making me grin. “I’ll see you tonight?” she asked as she backed toward the car.

  “You know it. I’ll be the one in the ‘Thornton’ jersey that smells like sweat and sexy beast.”

  “Gross,” she laughed. “He’s my cousin. I don’t want to think about his scent being sexy, Vi.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s not my cousin, and I think he smells divine.” I winked, and she snorted out another laugh. “I hope your mom doesn’t find out you skipped.”

  “Girl, same to you with Uncle Shane.”

  “Oh, please. I can handle my dad. Not so sure you can bat your lashes and pout, and Aunt Lana will go weak at the knees.”

  “True.” She opened her friend’s passenger side door. “Pray for me, cuz.”

  Palmer’s car was just leaving the parking lot when Shaw came skipping toward me. I heard the doors of Cannon’s car unlock, and I jumped in the front passenger seat while she slid behind the wheel.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said as she started the car. “But I got us a way on to the Malibu campus, hopefully without any issues.”

  “Jags?”

  “Jags,” she confirmed with a wicked grin.

  Seeing the sparkle in her eyes, I lifted a brow. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Shaw?”

  Her grin disappeared, and her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “There’s nothing to tell. He and my brother have this stupid pact, so even if Jagger wanted to, it’s unlikely he’d ever do anything.” She shifted the car into reverse. “The pussy.”