Never Could Stop Read online

  The lost are often overlooked because they're not here nor there, but in between. They exist in a world sandwiched between the realms of joy and misery, but they don't partake of either. They live in a limbo of their own making, searching for someone to find them and take them home.

  Never Could Stop

  Never Could Stop © C.M. Stunich 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.

  www.sarianroyal.com

  Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  for the lost, the lonely, the broken.

  all you need to find your way home is a little heart and a whole lot of moxie.

  you can do it; I believe in you.

  Sign up for an exclusive first look at the hottest new releases, contests, and exclusives from bestselling author C.M. Stunich and get *three free* eBooks as a thank you!

  Author's Note

  Here's a hearty welcome from me to you, readers new and old. Thank you for finding your way into this book. In your hands, you hold a new adult romance, the story of Jade Regali, a girl with copper hair, a girl who's lost. And then, she meets Foster Wallace, the silent brooding boy with the blue and black hair. But can two lost people really help find each other?

  This book can be read either as a stand-alone novel (a complete story read all by itself) or as book number seven in the Tasting Never Series. Book one, Tasting Never, is available on most major retailers or you can get the first three books in the series for FREE by signing up for my newsletter. Click the link or visit www.cmstunich.com to sign up and receive your books instantly via email.

  Love, C.M. Stunich (aka Violet Blaze)

  “Tasting Never Series” Reading Order:

  Book #1: Tasting Never

  Book #2: Finding Never

  Book #3: Keeping Never

  Book #4: Never Can Tell

  Book #5: Never Let Go (Zella's Book)

  Book #6: Never Did Say

  Book #7: Never Could Stop (Jade's Book)

  Book #8: Never Have I (Coming Soon)

  ALSO AVAILABLE: Tasting, Finding, Keeping: The Story of Never (Books 1–3 plus bonus short stories!)

  1

  The winter wind cuts right through my black leggings, teasing my skin with frigid fingers and masking the distant sound of sirens. I pause, wrapping my arms around myself and glancing back in the direction of my family's old farmhouse. I'm far enough away that it doesn't look like much more than an unbrushed tooth—yellowed and old and rotting. From here, the gray shutters and empty flower boxes look like cavities.

  “Good riddance,” I mutter, even as the wailing sirens make my stomach sour with nerves. Those can't be for me, can they? I wonder as I turn back around, hunch into the chunky knit of my sweater and keep walking. If there were any taxis in this town, I would've called one. Instead, here I am, curled over against the wind, my high-heeled boots loud against the pavement as I head towards town. I thought about taking my car, but it's in my older sister's name and I didn't want her to have any reason to be able to call the cops.

  Although it looks like she might have already, I think as I keep moving. I haven't done anything wrong; let them come. If the police really are out looking for me, they'll get a nice surprise when I flash my license and show them I'm twenty-one—three years beyond Beth's reach or anyone else's.

  I only left the note as a courtesy.

  The rumbling of an old black truck draws my attention back around and I stop, hooking out my thumb and hoping for a ride. A gust of wind blows copper colored hair across my face and I reach up a hand to drag it away, noticing as I do that the truck is slowing down substantially, making little black skid marks on the pavement.

  Fuck, he must've been doing at least ninety, I think as a grin takes over my lips and I try not to get too excited about the fact that some guy would slam his brakes on for me. Do I cut that nice off a figure? It's probably just some old pervy farmer anyway.

  I sashay my way over to the truck as the passenger side door opens and a young man leans out, peeking his head between the front seat and the door. He's sitting in the back, but he pauses long enough to kick it open with his sneaker, and then lifts the folded passenger seat into place.

  “You need a ride?” he asks, his voice low and dark, like maybe he doesn't really want to offer me one. “We're not going very far.”

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” the driver says, flashing me a smile that seems a little at odds with the drops of sweat inching their way down his forehead. “Need a lift into town?” he asks, and I nod, tossing my backpack in first and then climbing up into the passenger seat.

  My butt's just barely hit the stained gray cushions before the driver's taking off again, leaving me to struggle to get the door closed. I don't bother with a seat belt. What's the point? I'm not exactly a special snowflake.

  I refuse to admit it, but my hands are shaking a little as I pull out a cigarette and the boy behind me leans over the seat to offer me a light.

  His hands are shaking, too.

  “What are you two up to?” I ask as I notice the scars on the boy's hands. They're old and white, like whatever happened to him happened a long time ago. They make me think of those murder investigation shows that my sisters like to watch, the ones that always show pictures of defensive wounds on the victims' hands.

  “Just wondering what a pretty girl like you is doing all alone out here,” the young man says, still sounding broody and angsty and not at all happy to have me onboard. I take a drag on my cigarette and then turn around to look at him.

  Oh.

  His eyes … they look like sapphires, as deep and dark and blue as the lake on a cool winter evening. As soon as I meet them, I forget to exhale and end up coughing on cigarette smoke. Great. There goes my chance at a good first impression. But shit. Shit. This guy, he's looking at me with the weight of the world in his gaze; it's heavy but somehow, not oppressive. I feel like I'm being enveloped, scooped up, and dragged into his eyes.

  And that face? It looks like it was carved by God himself.

  “I'm not alone,” I say, my voice husky as I struggle to choke back another cough. “My family lives just down the road.”

  The guy in the back seems to perk up at this while the one in front tightens his hands around the steering wheel. I know I should be nervous, sitting in a truck with two guys I don't know, but I'm not. I just don't care enough about myself to drum up the concern.

  It was this—running away—or suicide.

  I was drowning back there.

  “Do you need us to drop you off?” the guy with the world-weary eyes asks, but I wave my hand dismissively. If you take me back there, I won't make it. I can't stand it, feeling alone in the midst of so many people. I'm just another Regali girl—same red-orange hair, hazel eyes and freckled skin as my seven sisters. There's nothing special about me; I just blend into the background.

  “Not really,” I say breezily, the carefree tone of my voice completely at odds with the darkness of my thoughts. “I'm sort of on my way out of town,” I add as I notice the speedometer inching closer and closer to a hundred. Holy shit. I roll the window down a little and dip my red painted fingernails out to catch the breeze.

  The gap steals the gray-white smoke trailing from the end of my cigarette and chucks it out the window, the rushing air maki
ng a haunted sort of sound before I reluctantly tuck my hand back in and roll it up.

  The young man behind me sighs again, like maybe he just can't wait to be rid of me. I look back at him and find his dark brows drawn low over his eyes, his hair this bright blue color that fades to black at the roots. He looks like a rockstar or something, as out of place in the middle of Mississippi as my sister's husband, Ty. He's all pierced up and tatted like the boy behind me, but he is always smiling.

  The only thing this guy seems to know how to do with his lips is frown.

  I suppose with a face that handsome, with eyes that deep, he doesn't really need to smile to make friends, does he?

  “Out of town, huh?” the driver asks, his brunette hair shaved back on the sides of his scalp, a flop of longer strands trailing across his forehead. He's smoking a cigarette and checking the rearview with frantic flicks of his matching brown eyes. I just assume he's checking for cops; he's going about twice the speed limit right now. “Where to and what for?”

  “I already answered one of your questions. It's your turn to answer one of mine.”

  I lean back against the door and put my boots on the seat, wrapping my right arm around my bent knees. My baggy sweater crawls down one shoulder and flashes the black sleeve of the midriff top I've got on underneath as well as a tantalizing slice of red bra strap.

  The driver definitely notices, but I'm more interested in his friend. He doesn't seem to care much either way which seriously pisses me off. Who is he to ruin what little high I usually get from guys giving me attention? In the last couple of years, I've discovered that even if there isn't anything particularly unique about me, I can get men to look my way by doing my hair and makeup, putting on skimpy outfits. I never take it any further than a little flirting, some kissing and petting maybe, but it makes me feel better about myself. At least then I know that somebody in this world cares enough to pay attention to me.

  “What are your names?” I ask, taking a drag on my smoke. This time, I don't cough, blowing white smoke across my red lips.

  “I'm Keenan,” the driver says, still smiling at me. “And that's Foster.”

  Keenan takes a sharp left turn that nearly throws me from my seat. My cigarette ends up on the floor to the sound of his laughter as I try desperately to find it before it burns a hole in the carpet. The stench of singed fibers reaches my nose as I pick it up and notice a whole host of other brown burned spots on the gray rug near my feet.

  “Sorry about that,” he says as we rattle along down a road that I know cuts through some farmland and over to the I-55.

  My throat gets suddenly tight and I find it hard to breathe.

  Mom died on that highway, I think as I imagine the small, shallow hole in the backyard where we buried her ashes.

  But I don't freak out, and I don't say anything. My mother is dead, so what's the point? Come hell or high water, I'm getting the fuck out of here if it kills me. Shit, not getting out of here was about to kill me. I need to find something to live for, and I'm willing to take risks—big ones. I figure if it costs me my life, I was willing to give it up anyway.

  Basically, I'm at rock bottom, living in shadows. All I want is to see the sky again, feel the sun on my face. I just want to spread my wings and fly.

  “This road goes to the highway,” I say, just to clarify that Keenan really knows where he's going.

  “Sure. That okay with you?” he asks me as I glance in the back seat and find Foster with his mouth downturned in the sharpest frown I've ever seen. When he lifts his eyes and meets mine, he sort of looks like he wants to slap me. Ouch. I tell myself his expression doesn't hurt my feelings; it does. “You said you were on your way out of town anyhow.”

  “I am,” I say, but I don't really have much of an idea where I'm going. Sometimes, you pick your own destination; other times, the destination picks you. I'm letting fate take the wheel now. “And I'm Jade, by the way.” I don't bother to give my last name since neither of them did either.

  “Well, Jade, we're headed to New Orleans,” Keenan says, ratcheting his grin up a notch as he rolls his window down a crack and tosses his still burning cigarette out into the rapidly encroaching navy fingers of night. “You want a ride?”

  “New Orleans?” I ask and Foster cringes like I've said something unforgivable. I thought he was cute at first and those eyes … they really are mesmerizing. But wow, what an asshole. “Yeah,” I say as I think about me, Jade Myla Regali, living in The Big Easy. I was kind of thinking New York City, but when opportunity comes knocking … “Yeah. Yeah. You know, New Orleans sounds like the perfect place for me to start my journey,” I say and Keenan laughs, still checking in the rearview mirror for any sign of law enforcement. “And don't worry—cops never come down this road,” I tell him and I swear, I can feel Foster's eyes burning lasers into me from the back seat.

  2

  I did it; I escaped.

  I smoke a few cigarettes and chat with Keenan, even though he's not normally someone I'd hang around with. He seems nice, but he's wearing a shirt that says Don't Mess With Texas that has holes in the armpit and mustard stains around the collar. I didn't notice those things at first, when he was flashing that smarmy grin of his around, but for the last hour I haven't had much to do except smoke, chat, and study my new travel companions.

  This is so fucking great, I think as I resist the urge to check my phone. I know there'll be messages from my family on there—mostly from my older sister, Beth, the twenty-four year old who thinks she's my surrogate mother. I don't let myself think about the goodbye note that I left her, the one explaining that it was either this or suicide. This is my vacation from life. No, no, this is my exodus.

  “So, Foster,” I start when I notice he's been quiet for a while, sitting in the back seat with his muscular arms crossed over his chest, eyes facing toward the front window but completely unfocused. When I say his name, he blinks his long lashed eyes and slowly pivots his face to look at me. Once again, my breath catches, but I'm prepared for it and distract myself by taking a long drag on my cigarette. Flippantly, I toss a mound of copper hair over one shoulder and bat my own eyelashes in Foster's direction. He might be a total weirdo, but he's also seriously dark and brooding and attractive. “What's your story? Keenan here says you two are bounty hunters, like Dog or something. How the hell did you end up chasing bad guys for a living?”

  I let my red rouged lips curl into a bright smile. It's one I've practiced over the years, made totally perfect by watching myself in the mirror. I've tried it on men, too, at the only bar in town, flashed bright lipstick against white teeth and watched them fall all over themselves to buy me drinks.

  I may as well be smiling at a statue.

  Foster pushes some strands of hair back from his face and stares at me like he thinks I'm pathetic. And damn, fuck, that look cuts straight to my already bleeding core. People have been looking at me like that since I was a kid, whispering about the sordid history of my parentage, sharing secrets that even I wouldn't find out about until much later. Please don't look at me like that, like a caterpillar that'll never turn into a butterfly. Or worse, fuck, like a moth in a swarm of monarchs.

  “Not everyone we hunt is a bad guy,” Foster says simply, his voice rough and edgy, like he's totally preoccupied with something. It sits in his eyes like a storm, this tumultuous undertaking happening in the liquid blue of his irises. If I'm a moth then he's something darker, more complex—like a bat. “Sometimes good people just get caught up in bad shit.”

  “Seriously, Foster?” Keenan asks as he jerks the wheel of the truck to the right and pulls us onto an exit for a roadside rest stop. I notice he doesn't bother to use his blinker. “What the hell is your problem, man?”

  Foster rakes the fingers of his left hand through his hair, flashing an eerie black and gray tattoo. The back of his hand is decorated with skeletal fingers, highlighting the natural anatomy underneath his pale, scarred skin.

  Whoa, totally creepy. r />
  I pretend like I don't give a shit, like I do things like this all the time, jump into random trucks with random dudes headed to random places.

  As soon as the truck pulls into a parking space, Foster is gesturing rudely in my direction.

  “Can I get out, please?” he asks. “I gotta take a piss.”

  “For the love of God,” Keenan murmurs as I open the door and climb out, my high-heeled boots loud against the pavement, the long sleeves of my sweater draped over the fingers of my right hand as I smoke a cigarette. “I thought you were supposed to be some sort of genius with women?”

  Foster ignores us both, hopping down from the truck and unfolding his long, lean body in front of me. He's so much taller, I have to glance up, causing our gazes to clash together like a car wreck. Something hot and painful sears through me, something that makes my skin ache and my heart thunder.

  He stands there for a moment, studying me as Keenan makes his way towards the restrooms.

  “Look,” he says, eyes flicking in his buddy's direction. That brief break in eye contact is enough for me to catch my breath and convince myself that there was nothing intriguing in those eyes of his. “If I give you some cash, can you stick around here and try to get another ride?”

  “Are you serious?” I ask, taking a small step back and flicking coppery strands of hair over one shoulder. “What the hell is your problem with me?”

  As I stand there, I finally get a chance to study the man in the orange glow of the streetlights overhead. He's got to be somewhere in the six two, six three range with mussy black and blue hair hanging over his brow. It starts off dark near his roots and lightens up to an electric blue at the tips. He doesn't have any piercings, but there's a small tattoo on the right side of his throat, a spiral of words that I can't read from this distance. His entire left arm is dedicated to that skeleton tattoo, bones traveling up his forearm, his bicep, across his chest and under the sleeve of his purple wifebeater. The rib bones wrap around the bright red ink of a heart tattoo.