Better (Stark Ink Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

him.
    “Ava!” Zoey pleaded.
    “You need to come,” Ava insisted.
    “I’ll be there,” Dalton said firmly. “I’m three blocks away.”
    He disconnected the call as his entire body started to vibrate like a live wire. Zoey was here. She was in town. She was so close. Whatever was going on, he’d get to see her again one more time. So far he’d avoided her, even as he’d made his list. He’d put her name on it then scratched it out at least a dozen times, but here she was in Rapid City. As he bolted for the truck he looked back at the glowing white cross set against the cold, black sky.
    One night after a meeting he’d stood in this parking lot and prayed for another chance with her. He’d considered it a moment of weakness at the time. He’d sent Zoey away, in the most brutal way possible. It had been what she deserved, not the pain, but a better life for herself, one he could no longer provide. He’d made the decision in a whiskey–fueled haze, but now that he was sober it still seemed like the right thing to do.
    He threw open the cab door and jumped into the truck. He gunned the engine and was grateful there was no ice on the roads as he floored it to the light on the corner. Zoey was here and, whether he liked it or not, he had so many things to say to her.

Chapter Five
     
    The drugstore wasn’t too far, just a few blocks down off Taylor and Washington. As he made his way there, he realized it was technically the bridge between their two planes of existence. Dalton on his lower-income part of town and Zoey in her parents’ neatly trimmed neighborhood with German imports in the driveways instead of American steel. They hadn’t even gone to the same high schools. Zoey had gone to a private parochial school on the North side of town, while Dalton had attended public high school. They’d met at a party after graduation.
    Zoey was in college, earning an Accounting degree. Dalton was learning how to wire buildings to code during the week and telling old football stories on the weekends. Zoey had approached him, two beers in hand, and had sat down directly on his lap while he relived the State Championship game for a group of younger ballplayers.
    “I’m concerned for you, Dalton,” she’d said with a smile.
    He’d grinned back at her. “Oh, yeah. Why’s that?” he’d asked her. “And what’s your name?”
    “You were a linebacker, right?”
    “Yes…” he prompted.
    “Zoey.”
    “Zoey. I like that. Yes. Yes, I was.”
    “So, my concern is whether or not you actually know where the end zone is. Since you’ve never scored.”
    From the minute they’d met, Zoey hadn’t been anything like he’d expected. Instead of a shy, sheltered private school girl, she was brash and sexy and knew what she wanted when she saw it. They’d dated off and on the first few years, keeping it casual since she was in school. When she’d graduated, though, they rarely spent time apart.
    Her parents had never liked him, but that was nothing new to Dalton. He was a tough-talking, blue-collar, big-ass man who said and did whatever he wanted. It was a given that he fit in only so many places. But he fit with Zoey and for a long time that was all that had mattered.
    He gunned it to the store, only narrowly making a few of the lights. Even as he tore ass to see her, he told himself to stay calm. Reading too much into it would do no one any good. It was just a coincidence that he’d read Mom’s letter about Zoey just minutes before he’d gotten the call. In fact, he read that letter to himself all the time. Tonight was just the first night he’d read it to anyone else. It was an opportunity, though, to leave things better than he had with her and he was going to take it. She was a good woman who’d been in a terrible situation and she deserved anything he could give her, no matter how small.
    He turned off the road into the parking lot and killed the engine. His heavy boots barely hit the blacktop as he