Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC #7)
by Lani Lynn Vale
Sometimes the heart wants what it can’t have.
That’s the motto Silas Mackenzie, the president of The Dixie Wardens MC, has lived by since he was a young man.
Now he’s well on the way to middle age, has three grown children and he’s lusting after a woman he should definitely stay away from.
Especially not one that his ex-girlfriend had given birth to, and happens to be only twenty-nine years old.
Sawyer isn’t a young girl at heart, though.
She’s seen the inside of a jail cell for eight long years, and every one of them was spent paying for a crime she didn’t commit.
Silas Mackenzie knows as soon as he sees her that the she has sacrificed enough.
And maybe…just maybe…so has he.
It’s time for Silas Mackenzie to get what he deserves, and, in the process, put a little bit of happy back into Sawyer’s world, one rough, bearded kiss at a time.
Prologue
Rules are meant to be broken…just not quite like that.
-Coffee Cup
Sawyer
“Bristol, please let’s not do this!” I pleaded with my best friend.
Bristol looked over at me with a raised brow. “Finals are over. You don’t have volleyball practice for two months. It’s time to stop being such a hermit and just be a college student like the rest of us.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m freaking out, and I’m not even there yet. I really don’t want to go.”
Bristol looked unimpressed.
“I’m going whether you want to or not. The decision is up to you,” she left that hanging in the air as she walked out of our shared dorm, closing the door quietly behind her.
“Shit,” I sighed.
I really, really didn’t want to go.
But it was more than apparent that Bristol did.
I wasn’t one for parties. I was more comfortable curled up with a good book rather than going to a party or hanging out with friends.
I loved Bristol with all my heart, and I knew she loved me right back.
We had been friends for as long as I could remember, and I knew that she’d always be there for me. Even if I wanted to be left the hell alone.
Bristol had done her best to ‘get me out of my head,’ as she liked to call it, but it would help if I actually wanted to be out of it.
Which I most certainly did not.
I was a very shy person.
Between her and Isaac, my boyfriend, I was doomed.
Something he proved in the next minute when a text showed up on my phone.
Issac: Going 2 the party w/Bristol. You better be there.
Fuck!
I looked longingly at the new book I’d picked up at the grocery store earlier before I sighed and walked to my dresser, pulling out a pair of pants as well as a black spaghetti strap shirt.
It wasn’t the greatest, but it’d do.
I wasn’t going there to impress. I was going there because I was being forced.
***
“No, Isaac. I don’t want any,” I growled four hours later.
I’d already had a beer, and it was one more than I’d wanted to have.
I was a lightweight. Any more than four drinks, and I wouldn’t wake up for a very, very long time.
Which was why I always stayed with one and one only.
Isaac, though, didn’t seem to care.
“Seriously, I don’t want one!” I said, shoving it away.
After this night was over, so were Isaac and me.
He’d tried to publicly grope me and have sex with me, which was something we hadn’t done before, and now it was something we wouldn’t ever be doing.
He’d tried to get me to play beer pong, and when I wouldn’t, he played with a couple of other college coeds.
When I drank that first beer, he thought he’d hit the lottery and kept trying to force-feed me more.
“You’re such a fuckin’ downer, Sawyer. Get the fuck away from me,” Isaac slurred.
I wanted to nut punch him.
Repeatedly.
“Well, I think I’ll go home, then,” I hesitated. “Do you want me to give you a ride?”
His eyes narrowed, and he took a look around.
The party had been a ‘bust,’ or so he’d said. I didn’t know if it had or not.
Seemed there’d been a lot of people there, but they’d slowly drifted out of the main room until there were only about fifteen of us left in it.
“Yeah, I’ll go home. Let me go get one more drink.”
I wanted to tell him no, but I knew that that was probably the only way I was going to get out of here.
We were in his truck, after all.
“I’ll go get Bristol,” I said, wandering away from him.
I found Bristol in the kitchen doing things that I didn’t think were possible.
Mainly those ‘things’ were drinking upside down with a tube shoved down her throat while a few of the football players yelled, ‘chug, chug, chug’ over and over. She even managed to look good doing it, too.
“Um, Bristol?” I called to her worriedly. “It’s time to get going, are you ready?”