Table of Contents
Nobody Knows
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
Blurb
Prologue
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
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
What’s next?
Copyright © 2020 Lani Lynn Vale
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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
I’m thankful for each and every one of you readers that is currently about to devour this book. Hope your day is absolutely fabulous.
<3 Lani
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak - Photographer
My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors
Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist
My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred and seven times.
Kendra, Jen, Brandi, Laura, Lisa, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara, Penney & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help
Ask Me If I Care
May Contain Wine
Joke’s on You
Join the Club
Any Day Now
Say it Ain’t So
Officially Over It
Nobody Knows
Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Souls Chapel Revenants MC
Repeat Offender (1-12-21)
Conjugal Visits (2-23-21)
Jailbait (4-6-21)
Doin’ A Dime (5-4-21)
Inmate of the Month (6-29-21)
Kitty Kitty (8-10-21)
Gen Pop (9-21-21)
Shakedown (11-2-21)
Standalones
Somethin’ About That Boy
Blurb
All he ever wanted was to matter to someone.
What he didn’t know was that he did matter to someone.
Someone that worried about him every single day that he was gone.
• • •
Malachi Gabriel Gnocchi was missing for two years. Thanks to a mission gone wrong, not only had he been captured, but his best friend along with his fellow teammates had been taken, too.
He spent two years in hell, hoping and praying that one day he’d get to go home.
And one day he does. Only, he isn’t the same person that left. Every single thing that made him Malachi is no more.
• • •
Sierra started writing to soldiers overseas through the soldier pen pal program when she was in high school. Years later, she had no idea that the one soldier that she’d been paired up with in the very beginning would be the one man that would change her world eight years down the road.
When the letters from her soldier stopped, she knew that something bad had happened.
When they started back up again two years after the last letter, she thought that someone was playing a joke on her.
Only, that joke wasn’t a joke at all.
The man on the other end of those letters is a man that’s dying slowly from the inside out.
He’s a living, breathing mess and there’s only one thing she can do to help him.
Write him back and hope that she can bring him back from the edge.
PROLOGUE
Per my previous email.
-Email speak for, pay the fuck attention
SIERRA
Hi, Gabriel!
My name is Sierra.
We were told not to give our real names, but I honestly don’t see why. So I’m going to give you my real name—Sierra. (Duh!)
Anyway, today I’m just supposed to introduce myself.
We started a new program in English
that has us writing to pen pals—i.e., soldiers like you that are deployed overseas.
I’m a junior in high school (I’m seventeen in case you’re trying to calculate it) and I’m slowly dying inside because I hate, hate, hate English. But, I have to admit, writing you is kind of fun. English class is the bane of my existence because I’m so sucky at it. It doesn’t help that my ex-boyfriend is in here, too.
Anywho, this letter writing thing is taking my mind off of how much I want this period to end. It’s making me work on my people skills—of which I have none, according to my family and friends. Apparently wanting to read—yes, I know that’s ironic seeing as I hate English. In there, I’m forced to read shitty books. At home, I read sci-fi/fantasy so they’re definitely different, okay?—which some people think is a bad thing. Apparently wanting to read over going out and hanging with my so-called friends is also a bad thing. Who knew?
I have an older brother named Samuel who is enlisting in the military as we speak, and a younger sister named Blue.
You never know, maybe y’all will run into one another one day—then again, maybe you won’t. My brother assures me that the military is way larger than I give it credit for.
Whatever.
I’m from Texas. A little small town, actually, that’s so small that everyone knows each other.
If you’re new here, they’re going to know it, and by dinnertime, they’ll likely know your whole entire life story.
Anyway, today is supposed to be a short letter explaining about the program that we’re writing in, telling you a little bit about myself, and then giving you my PO Box. A PO Box, might I add, that isn’t anywhere near our school. It’s actually our teacher’s that lives near Harmony, Texas—where you’ll be sending return letters to.
Anyway, I hope this letter finds you well, and I hope you don’t totally hate writing back because I seriously hate English, and you’ll be doing me a huge favor by writing me back.
Also, is it really sad that my hand is literally cramping right now from writing? I don’t think I’ve written this long of a letter in my life.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Sierra
• • •
Sierra,
Hi, my name is Gabriel—in case you’re wondering, that really is my real name. Kind of. That’s my middle name, but it’s the one that I go by.
Anyway, your letter did find me well. We just got done sweeping the roadside for bombs. So, yeah, I’m lucky to still be alive with how crazy these people are over here. They’ll literally blow up their own mother if it forwards their agenda or kills a couple US troops.
I’m not really sure if I’m allowed to tell you that or not, but hey, you’re being real, I’m being real. I’ve been in the military for about two years now. So far, I really like being here. It gives me a purpose unlike being back at home where I think I went days without being noticed.
Which brings me to my next point—you should be happy that your parents notice you. I think mine only noticed when they had to do something for me that they didn’t want to do—you know, like attend a parent-teacher conference. Go to my high school graduation. Take me to get my driver’s license. Things like that.
Do you have a dog? Because I swear that looks like a paw print on the envelope you sent me. Then again, the letters get through a shit-ton of people before it gets here. There could’ve been another dog that stepped on it.
I have a dog. I left him with my mom and dad when I deployed. I hope that they’re taking care of him well. They’ve been awfully vague when I call and ask about him.
I think it pisses them off because I’m asking about the dog and not them.
By the way, Maxie is the dog’s name. He’s a long-haired German Shepherd. He’s sweet, has a black face with brown hair around his brown eyes, and loves every single woman he’s ever met. Men, on the other hand? He doesn’t like men all that much. Except for me. He loves me.
Wow, totally rambling about my dog. But I miss him.
That’s about all I miss from home.
Can’t wait to hear from you again.
Gabriel
CHAPTER 1
Do hugs, not drugs.
-Sierra to Gabriel
SIERRA
Gabriel,
I’ll have you know that I took your advice and got a dog today!
I swear to God, walking into that shelter to get a dog was by far the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my life.
The shelter where I got Axe from is a no-kill shelter, so they had tonnnnnsssssss of dogs. I’m talking, every single kennel they had was filled with a precious fur baby.
When I got there, I asked the front desk attendant who her favorite dog was. She said that it was a dog at the end of the line—he was a long-haired German Shepherd like you have!
Anyway, I walk down to the end of the kennels—which was the hardest thing, again! —and there he was. He wasn’t at the gate like the other dogs. He was at the back of his little cell, facing the wall, not even bothering to look at who the other dogs were barking at. He was curled in on himself, and he had a bowl full of food just beyond him that according to the kennel attendant, he barely ever touches. They said that he was severely underweight, barely ever moved out of his curled-up position, and never got a second look from anybody.
It was then that I knew I had to get him.
Anyway, so I go in there with him, talk to him, and the only time I hear him perk up is when I tell him softly that I’m going to get an ax and break him out of his jail. I swear to God, his head jerked up so fast that I knew that the name had to be familiar to him.
So I started calling him Axe.
Actually, if we’re going to be honest here, I call him Axie Poo now.
I think he tolerates me.
Even better, he hates men, which means that he hates my brother.
It’s so funny to see my brother walk into the room and hear Axe growl.
This letter turned into a short novel.
Wow.
Hope that you’re doing great, Gabriel.
Love,
Sierra & Axe
• • •
Six months ago
“Hey,” I heard said from the other end of the line. “This is Melissa.”
Melissa, aka my English teacher from high school.
“Umm,” I paused. “Ms. Abrams?”
“Yes, sorry. I forget that you all don’t know me by my actual name.” She chuckled.
My brows furrowed.
“What’s up?” I asked. “How are you?”
She laughed. “I’m great. I’m vacationing in Bora Bora. My husband is literally sunbathing out on the beach naked. Wow, that was a little much. I’m sorry. It’s just, I get so nervous talking to old students. I don’t know how to act.”
I laughed then. “I got you. It’s a little weird talking to old teachers, too. But luckily, we’re both adults now. It’s good that you have a beach you can sunbathe naked at, though. I kind of wish I had that right now. It’s currently hot as balls here, and it’s only spring.”
Melissa peeled with laughter. “That’s why we’re vacationing. We’ll get home and it’ll be awful. Anywho, I got something for you. Do you remember that pen pal program that we did in English?”
Did I ever.
“Yes,” I replied, wondering where she was going with this. “I do.”
My dog, Axe, jumped up on the couch beside where I was sitting. He moved until his head was resting on my lap, right against my stomach.
I ran my fingers between his raised ears and scratched while I tried not to think about those letters. The letters that I got for years and years before one day they just… stopped.
My heart still hurt.
I knew, somehow knew, that something really bad had happened to him.
He was a Navy SEAL.
He went to dangerous places.
Bad things happened to good people over there.
“Well,” she said. “The older
woman that’s checking my mail for me got a letter in the mail. It was addressed to you. She thought about throwing it away, thinking that it was for someone else, but I told her if she was to get anything like that she had questions about, to call. And anyway, you have a letter from your pen pal. I know that when you got out of my class, you continued to write him. I’m assuming that he doesn’t know where to write you anymore, so he’s trying the old PO Box.”
Her words had me sitting up and dislodging the dog from my lap.
Hell, even my box of crackers went flying.
Axe jumped down and started to gobble up the ones that’d fallen to the floor.
I stared sightlessly at the dog as my fingers started to tremble.
“Where can I go to get it?” I asked, sounding just as desperate as I felt.
She laughed, liking my enthusiasm.
“The cool thing is that Mrs. Dannerboll is in Kilgore. I’m going to send you her address via text. But, I’d love to know what happens. I swear, you were one of the only ones out of the entire program that I saw get something out of it. I’d love to know how it ends up.” She paused. “Are you excited? Or is this something else?”
I licked my lips. “We were great friends. Then one day he just… stopped. Everything. All communications. I always feared that something really bad happened to him. He wasn’t the type of person to stop writing to me like that. It’s been two-and-a-half years now since I last heard from him. And of course, it’s a good thing.”
She sighed. “Well, she’s expecting you, dear.”
With that, she hung up, and I dashed to the bedroom to put clothes on.
I wasn’t sure this Dannerboll lady would appreciate my short athletic shorts, tank top, and long socks.
It was only as I was slipping into my jeans that I realized that this could be a horrible trick.
All of my friends, as well as my family, knew all about Gabriel.
I didn’t think that they quite knew the extent of my feelings for the man on the other end of the line, but they knew that I had a thing for him. One that wasn’t altogether rational.
Which would be something my asshole brother would do just to torture me.