The Right to Surrender Read online

  Table of Contents

  THE RIGHT TO SURRENDER

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Epilogue

  THE RIGHT TO SURRENDER

  HM THOMAS

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  THE RIGHT TO SURRENDER

  Copyright©2019

  HM THOMAS

  Cover Design by Melody A. Pond

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-64716-022-7

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  To my mama who always believed in me.

  I wish you were here to read this

  and blush your way through it.

  I love you and miss you.

  Acknowledgments

  So many things go into creating a story and setting it out into the world. I could never name each person who impacted this process through their influence and support. Just know, whoever you are, I see you and I thank you.

  To Cheryl Yeko and Soul Mate Publishing, thank you for seeing the potential in my manuscript and taking the chance on giving it new life. This story and all my future stories are better for the experience.

  Thank you to everyone who read The Right to Surrender the first time it was published. Your kind words and enthusiasm urged me to keep working and improving. I hope you will enjoy this new and improved version as much as you did the original.

  Thank you C. Mansfield for reading and rereading versions of scenes and listening to my many what ifs. Your support and UPAs are priceless.

  Thank you to my parents who bought my first typewriter and made me believe I was special. Daddy, you’ll probably never read this book, but know that my love of reading started with you and Mama. It is the greatest gift you ever gave me.

  Thank you to my children who still haven’t figured out that Mommy’s office isn’t just another cool room to destroy. You’ve shown me that even love scenes can be written in the middle of playgrounds, if you’re determined enough.

  Thank you to my husband — the real MVP. All the best parts of my life are because of you and your belief in each crazy idea I come up with. Thank you for listening to countless hours of plot, when you would rather be doing anything else, and for keeping the fort running when I start to lose my mind.

  Finally, my readers. I know time is a precious commodity. Thank you for using a bit of yours to read my book. Words can’t express how much I appreciate you all.

  Prologue

  Ten Years Ago

  When Gretchen woke up that morning, the day seemed like any other in her parents’ too big house, but that all changed when a car came to a screeching halt on the other side of the tall privacy fence surrounding the pool.

  “Mom! Mom!”

  Gretchen’s head snapped up at the alarm in her older sister’s voice. Abigail never yelled. She was too frigid and detached to allow her emotions to drive her to yelling.

  “Mom!” Abigail burst through the gate, stopping when her green eyes landed on Gretchen. Their eyes were the only thing they shared. “What are you doing here?”

  She’d asked herself the same question every day since graduating high school two months ago. “School doesn’t start for another week. I had nowhere else to go.”

  She had tried to find anywhere else to be to avoid her family’s home. Ever since her mother shipped her off to boarding school six years ago, she rarely came home. Thankfully she didn’t have much longer until she could move out permanently and stop pretending she belonged in her mother’s cold house.

  “What brings you by?” Gretchen forced her hair into a braid, letting it swing down her back in a long blond rope.

  “Oh, where is she?” Abigail responded without an answer and burst into the house.

  Gretchen followed silently behind her. Nothing ever got Abigail this excited.

  “Have you heard?” Abigail asked.

  “Heard what?” Her mother sipped absently from her teacup.

  “Beth Reynolds,” Abigail replied. Beth Reynolds was the mother of their brother’s best friend.

  “Please don’t speak of that woman in my house.” Disgust dripped from her mother’s voice before she went back to her tea.

  Abigail ignored the request. “She was murdered in her own bedroom.”

  “Murdered.” A well-manicured hand went to her mouth. “What?”

  “Her husband. He shot her.”

  Her mother’s mouth fell opened. “Her husband?”

  Abigail nodded. “Finn saw him running out.”

  Gretchen’s thoughts flashed to Finn and the letters he’d sent her when her parents first sent her away to school, asking about her swimming and her life but never her schoolwork.

  “No.” Gretchen wasn’t aware she’d spoken until her sister turned to her.

  “Gretchen, you shouldn’t be eavesdropping,” her mother chided as if she were still a child.

  Gretchen ignored her. Stumbling out of the house, she ran down the street, through the gates of her stuffy neighborhood and to the part of her small town everyone pretended didn’t exist. As she turned the corner, she spotted the police tape circling the single-story house Finn had grown up in. A small group stood across the street, watching the police carry out evidence.

  She slowed, scanning the crowd for Finn, ignoring the looks from the neighbors standing idly by. They knew her, everyone in town knew her family. Her mother would no doubt be scandalized that Gretchen was there.

  Two men from the coroner’s office pushed out a gurney carrying a body. Gretchen fixed her gaze on the man behind them, staring at the ground with his hands shoved into the pockets of his worn jeans, and his dirty-blond hair hanging in his face, down to the collar of the army-green tee he wore. He hadn’t shaved, and the dark stubble of his beard could be seen even from a distance. Her eighteen-year-old heart wo
uld know him anywhere.

  Finnegan James.

  ~ ~ ~

  Finn stared at the ground, ignoring the crowd of gawkers standing across the street. If he looked up, if he saw the grins on their faces saying they’d seen this clusterfuck coming all along, he’d break. He followed the coroner, not knowing where he’d go or what he’d do now, relieved to be done with this house and this family.

  “Surprised he didn’t do it sooner,” someone whispered, followed by, “I always knew they were both crazy as shit.”

  Finn’s control snapped and he lunged at one of the men who’d spoken. He didn’t know what he intended to do, but the rage in him needed an escape. People screamed around him and someone, probably a cop, pulled him away.

  He shook off the hands holding him and glared at the crowd, daring them to say anything more about his family. His gaze landed on a girl standing at the edge of the crowd. She looked so out of place among his neighbors in her peach tank-top and running shorts with her long blond hair hanging over one shoulder, resting on the swell of her breast. But more than that, the wide-eyed innocence in her emerald green eyes said she didn’t belong here.

  Gretchen Christensen.

  He hadn’t seen her face-to-face in years now, but under her newly formed curves, he recognized the once pesky kid who’d always insisted on tagging along with him and his best-friend, Brock. Only, looking at her now, there was little trace of the child she’d been.

  “Gretchen.” He choked out her name and stumbled back.

  There was fear in her eyes. She’d never seen him truly angry, had likely never seen a man hit someone, or say the words he’d said as he lunged for his neighbor. Those things didn’t happen in the world she inhabited. He’d never wished he were different so much in his life.

  His gaze locked with hers and he shrugged in apology, hoping she’d remember he’d once spent an entire summer teaching her to swim, or that he, and not her brother, always let her hang out with them. Maybe then the fear in her pretty eyes would vanish.

  “Finn.” She ran toward him and leapt into his arms. Squeezing his neck, she buried her face in his shoulder. His rage subsided, replaced with Gretchen’s unquestioning love.

  Closing his eyes, he breathed in the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine—a scent he always associated with Brock’s baby sister—but now there was something else, something warm and tempting, something he could only describe as Gretchen. Oddly, as he breathed her in again the rest of his anger drained away.

  My Gretchen drifted through his mind.

  “Can you get me out of here?” He pulled back, still scanning the crowd.

  “Of course.” Her fingers lingered on his neck. “You want to go to my parents’?”

  He shook his head. “I have a room. I was staying at the motel.”

  She nodded and took the keys he handed her, then followed him to his car.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gretchen navigated the streets of their town in silence, but it wasn’t the comfortable companionship of old friends. Instead, the air was thick with Finn’s anger and confusion and her own thrumming awareness of his proximity. She didn’t take a full breath until she pulled into the gravel lot in front of the dingy motel on the outskirts.

  “Have you been paying to stay here?” She peered through the windshield, cutting the engine.

  He smirked. “I wouldn’t expect you to find it accommodating.”

  “My dad would give you a room for free at the hotel.” They always had an empty room at the luxury hotel on the river her father owned, and he had a soft spot for Finn.

  “I don’t need handouts from your family.” He opened the door and pushed himself out, slamming it behind him.

  Gretchen sat for a moment, staring after him as he entered his room. Her hands shook, and her heart pounded in her chest, two things she’d never experienced around him before. Although she’d always had a crush on Finn James, he was her brother’s friend, not hers. He and Brock had already been dating girls and raising hell when she was still in elementary school. He’d been too old and uninterested in her for her to believe her crush would ever amount to anything. But now, she could still feel the ghost of his hands at her waist and her nipples still tingled from the press of his chest against hers, when he’d hugged her. She’d never reacted that way to any of the boys she’d dated.

  Sliding from the car, she made her way around potholes and across the parking space to Finn’s room. She didn’t bother knocking before she pushed open the door and walked in, watching him as he stood in front of the mirror, his hands braced on the counter.

  He’d stripped off his shirt, revealing the hard muscles of his back. The space between her thighs grew warm and she forced herself to breathe as she took him in.

  He finally spoke, breaking the trance. “She was a whore.”

  “Your mother?” She came into the room and closed the door behind her, turning the lock slowly.

  Finn nodded, his gray eyes meeting hers in the mirror.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me I shouldn’t say that?” he challenged.

  Gretchen watched him for a moment before shrugging. “Was she? I didn’t know her well.”

  He shook his head. “You wouldn’t. You weren’t a man, and you weren’t paying for her services.”

  She’d heard stories about Beth Reynolds being a prostitute, but since most of them had come from her own mother who openly detested the other woman, she hadn’t paid much attention.

  “What happened to her today?” She held Finn’s gaze in the mirror, though her nerves raced, and she had to fight to keep from trembling.

  “Her husband killed her because she slept with other men for money.” The anger had returned to his deep voice. “She works for that bastard Raymond Carlisle.” He slammed his fist into the counter and his knuckle split.

  Gretchen didn’t flinch, instead she moved forward, wrapping her arms around his lean waist and resting her cheek against his back.

  ~ ~ ~

  At Gretchen’s touch against his bare skin, the rising fire inside Finn began to wane, only to be replaced by a sudden urge to have Gretchen Christensen beneath him. Her fingertips pressed against his abdomen, above the band of his boxers, and there was something incredibly sexy and unassuming about her blunt nails painted a bright purple.

  He pushed away from the counter and turned to face her, her hands sliding around his waist until they rested on each of his hips.

  She raised her eyes to his. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Talking about his mother’s murder wouldn’t do him any good. When he left this town, he’d be looking for action, retribution. He clenched his jaw.

  Lifting one hand from his hip, Gretchen cupped his cheek, her fingers tickling the stubble of his beard, before she brushed her thumb over his jaw, easing the aching tension there. The fabric of her tank top slid across his bare chest, causing him to suck in a breath as his balls tightened.

  One of his hands moved to her waist as the other fisted around her braid. Tugging her closer, he crushed his mouth to hers. She hesitated for a moment before her lips parted on a sigh, giving him full access. His tongue dove inside. She tasted like sugar, pure, warm sugar, her soft moan making it that much sweeter. He wasn’t used to sweet or soft, and as his hands went from her narrow waist to the lush, round swell of her backside, soft was exactly what he got. Trailing kisses down her neck to the top of her tank, he squeezed her butt, and she arched against him. The warmth of her core reached him even through their clothes.

  Finn guided her toward the bed, stopping when the mattress hit the backs of her thighs. He gazed down at her, and for the first time in his life wanted to please someone else before himself. He leaned down and took her mouth again. She tasted as warm and inviting as she smell
ed.

  “You’re beautiful.” He’d never uttered those words to anyone, but they’d never been truer.

  She ducked her head shyly, exposing her neck to his lips. His calloused hand slid beneath the hem of her shirt and she trembled, reaching for him with hands that shook.

  He froze, studying her, even as she moved against him. “Gretchen, are you . . . have you ever?”

  She met his stare then and shook her head slightly. “Is it that obvious?” She gave him a shaky smile.

  Everything inside him froze, dulling the raging need for her and replacing it with anger at himself. What the hell had he been thinking?

  “Jesus Christ, Gretchen.” He pulled away, running his hands over his face.

  “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I don’t really know what to do, but if you show me.”

  He glared back at her as she stood by his bed with her blond braid coming unraveled and her eyes heavy with desire. She was a fucking siren, and he was having a hard time blocking out the song of her voice.

  “We can’t do this,” he explained, unsure where he’d suddenly found a conscience.

  “Yes, we can. I’m not scared, Finn, not with you.”

  Ah hell.

  “You’re a kid, Gretchen.”

  Her smile vanished. “I’m eighteen. I’ll be living on my own in a week.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing, baby.” He shook his head. “You’re Brock’s little sister.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I was his sister before too,” she snapped. “It didn’t seem to bother you then. I thought guys got off on being the first.”

  He didn’t know how other guys felt about her virginity, but he found her innocence both arousing and terrifying.

  “Don’t be mad.” He reached for her, but she jerked away. “Gretchen, I can’t be the one. You don’t want to look back and remember your first time being with me.”