Lucas - A Preston Brothers Novel (Book 1) Read online

  Lucas - A Preston Brothers Novel

  A More Than Series Spin-Off

  Jay McLean

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

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  Also by Jay McLean

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Jay McLean

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing: Tricia Harden

  Cover Design: Jay McLean

  Formatting: Jay McLean

  For my boys.

  Prologue

  LUCAS

  The blood on my clothes is still damp, but the blood on my hands is not.

  At some point between the hospital and this waiting cell at the police station, it managed to become nothing more than red flakes on my palms and fingers. I can feel it on my face, too, mixing with the tears now soaked into my skin. I wonder how the others in the cell see me—barely a man, huddled in the corner of the room, bloodstained tux, and a missing shoe—and I imagine, for a moment, the thoughts and stories that run through their minds.

  Maybe I was in a wreck, drunk.

  Maybe I was in a fight, drunk.

  Maybe I tried to kill someone.

  I try not to think about it for too long, the repercussions of my actions beyond my mental capacity. So I stare down at the floor in front of me, the sole of my single bloody shoe print leading to where I sit, like a road map to my demise, and I think about the only thing that makes sense.

  I think about her.

  And I wonder if I’ll ever get the image, the feel, of her limp body in my arms out of my system.

  Sixteen clicks.

  Eight seconds.

  That’s how long it took me to realize I’d been in love with her for four years.

  Eight, life-changing seconds.

  It’s also the exact length of time it took to lose her.

  PAST | LOIS

  “It’s nice that your boss wanted to have us over,” I murmured to my dad who was sitting next to me, hands on the steering wheel as we drove through a new town we were supposed to call home.

  After the divorce, he’d wanted a fresh start, and that meant getting as far away from my mom as possible. If he was disappointed he only managed to get a job a mere four hours away, he never mentioned it. But he assured me it was a good job, one that paid well for a site foreman. And though the town was a lot smaller than where I’d spent my early years, he said it was a good place to live out the rest of my childhood until I eventually left him for greener pastures—college and such. Those were his words, not mine. Besides, I was only eleven at the time. Old enough to have an opinion, but still too young to care either way. “So what’s your boss like? It’s Tom, right?”

  Dad nodded as he checked his side mirror before changing lanes. “He seems nice enough. He’s tall. And his wife’s tiny. Her name’s Kathy.”

  My dad’s one of those men who seemed like they never aged. Only he wasn’t ever young looking. He’d always had a beard that was scattered with grays, always had dark circles around his eyes as if he was tired all the time. But what stood out the most is the way he always looked worried—as if the world was going to end and he was the only one in on the secret. When things got worse with Mom, the worry turned to stress, turned to fear, and slowly turned to acceptance. I think for him the acceptance was the worst part of all—knowing and believing that it was just him and me against the world. Then he got offered this job. I don’t think I’d seen him smile since before The Breaking Point: when my mom threw a chair at his head.

  He nudged my side with his elbow and smiled down at me. “Guess how many kids they have?” he asked.

  I shrugged, pushing aside my thoughts. “How many?”

  “Guess, Lo,” he said, his voice filled with anticipation.

  “I don’t know. Four?”

  “More.”

  “Five?”

  He shook his head.

  I sat higher in my seat, my eyes wide, and asked, “Six?”

  He nodded, thank God. Any more and my eyes would’ve fallen out of my head. “Yep. Five boys and one girl. The girl’s the oldest. And all their names start with L. See, Lois? You’ll fit right in.”

  I looked down at my flip-flops, denim shorts and t-shirt that had a picture of a cat and the words Look at meow. I’m getting pay purr. “Maybe I should’ve worn a pretty dress or something. Tried to impress them, you know?”

  It took a while for him to answer, and when he did, the words resonated so loudly that even now, six years later, I still hear them loud and clear. “You impress people with your mind. With your kind heart and humble attitude. And while you’re a beautiful girl, your looks or the way you dress shouldn’t be the reason people are impressed by you. And when you’re older and boys start to notice you, I want you to remember that. Because if it’s only your looks they’re attracted to, then they’re not the one for you, Lo. You can do better. You will do better.”

  That speech alone is reason enough as to why I’d chosen to move away with him instead of staying with my mother.

  “Unless it’s Justin Timberlake,” I joked, trying to hide my true reaction to his words. “Then he can like me for my looks, right?”

  Dad chuckled under his breath. “You can totally do better than Justin Timberlake.”

  “I think not!” I said seriously. JT was no joke.

  He laughed, a sound so pure that at that moment I almost hated my mother for trying so hard to take that away from him. Yeah, I was young, but I wasn’t blind. Or deaf. And though I’m sure I didn’t know everything that went on with them, I knew enough.

  I went back to thinking about Tom and Kathy and their army of children. “Dad…”—I looked at him sideways—“are you sure you want this job? These people might be in some weird sister-wife cult. You never know… one day you’re working construction for him and the next you’re asking people to drink the Kool-Aid.”

  He playfully rolled his eyes. “I should monitor your TV watching more. Enough true crime shows for you.” He slowed the car to a stop. “I think we’re here.” Then he leaned over the steering wheel to look at the number on the mailbox. It was basically all you could see from the street. That, and a long gravel driveway surrounded by endless trees. “Yeah. This is it,” he said to himself, turning the car to creep slowly between the open gates on either side of the driveway. “
Wow…” he whispered, and wow it was.

  It was as if time slowed when the Preston house came into view. Beautiful, white two-story house, dark shutters on the windows and a wraparound porch. There was also a detached garage with an apartment above, and the yard was kept, neat and trimmed to perfection. It was the kind of house you’d see in magazines. I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised considering Tom Preston owned the largest construction company on this side of North Carolina, but still… I’d never seen anything so grand before. At least not in real life.

  A smaller picket fence surrounded the house, probably to keep all their children within viewing distance on their hundred plus acres of property. Lake not included.

  As we got closer, people started to appear from what seemed like everywhere. One. Two. Three… I stopped counting at four. Four had my breath catching and my fingers fidgeting with my top and the only thing that went through my mind was that I should’ve worn a pretty dress.

  Dad wasn’t kidding when he said that his boss was tall. He was also wide. Not overweight, just large… and extremely intimidating, though I doubt he meant to be. He just had this deep voice that seemed to echo around him. Tom introduced my dad as Brian—his new foreman—and myself to his family while we stood in their front yard. There were a lot of names and a lot of head nods mumbled between those names. Honestly, though, the only names I caught were Kathy, his wife; Lucy, their daughter; and Lucas, aka Four.

  He was the last to be introduced.

  “Luke’s the same age as you, Lois,” his mother said. The sun beamed down on her, making her white dress pop and her dark hair glow. Kathy looked like an angel, and my chest tightened as I tried not to miss my mother. She added, “You’ll be going to the same school and you’ll be in the same class together once the summer’s over.”

  “Isn’t that great?” Dad said, nodding in my direction.

  “Great,” I repeated, pushing my glasses higher on my nose.

  Lucas did the same thing with his black, thick-rimmed glasses. They suited his dark hair and bright blue eyes, and then he smiled, revealing the gap between his two front teeth, and crap, he was cute.

  I was eleven and he was cute.

  He was cute and he was looking at me.

  “I’ll introduce you to my friends so you have people to chill with,” he said, shaking his baseball mitt from his hand. I watched it fall to the perfectly green grass beneath our feet, then looked up at him. He was still smiling. Still cute.

  “Thank you.” Swear, I’d never felt lamer in my entire life.

  “I brought cookies,” Dad said, lifting the store-bought plastic container in his hand. A sudden commotion occurred at his words. Lucy said, “I’m going to read,” then flew up the porch steps, one of her brothers following after her. The twins, identical, went off in the other direction and started throwing a ball. Another of the brothers mumbled something under his breath and disappeared, and the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Kathy said, excusing herself.

  Tom motioned to his house. “I’ll get started on the grill out back.”

  “Sounds great.” Dad squeezed my shoulder and followed after him.

  I started to go with him, but a hand landed on my arm, and I turned to Lucas who was smiling wider, looking cuter. “You want to see something cool?” he asked.

  He took me to his secret hideout; somewhere far away from the picket fence, but not far enough that we couldn’t see the house. Why he showed it to me when it was supposed to be a secret, I had no idea. But I didn’t care. It was a space between two trees and an old blanket hung between the trunks, hidden beneath a bunch of leafy branches. “This is cool,” I said.

  “Just wait.” He cleared the branches and pointed to a tin box in the corner of the space.

  “What is it?”

  “A secret stash,” he whispered, looking around him. I did the same. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. Did I mention he was cute?

  He got down on his knees, dirt flying up from the impact. “Come on,” he said, waving a hand at me while picking up the box with the other.

  I got down on my knees next to him, our arms touching while he lifted the lid. “Dammit!” he spat.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Logan,” he said simply.

  “Who?”

  He sighed. “My brother.”

  I blinked.

  “Okay. So it’s Lucy, then me,”—he pointed to himself—“Lucas. And then there’s Leo, Logan, and the twins, Lincoln and Liam.”

  “Oh.” I nodded, trying to remember not just their names, but the order. “What about Logan?”

  He shook his head as he pulled out a single Snickers bar. “He must’ve stolen the others. There’s only one here.” He held it out to me. “You have it.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s yours.”

  “But you’re my guest. My friend.”

  Hiding my smile, I grabbed the chocolate from him, unwrapped it, broke it in half and pulled it apart. Then I handed him his half. “Friends share,” I told him.

  We ate in silence.

  “My brother’s so dumb,” Lucas said after a while. “The only things in here were Snickers, and he’s allergic to nuts.”

  A giggle burst out of me. “Then why would he take them?”

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “Because he’s Logan.”

  Later, I’d learn that the simple word “Logan,” said in the tone he’d used then, would be explanation enough in the Preston household.

  His mother called for us a minute later, and Lucas stood quickly, wiping his chocolate-and-dirt-covered hands across his Superman logo t-shirt. Then he held his hand out for me. “Ready?”

  I took Lucas’s hand; the first boy I’d ever been nervous to hold hands with. He released it as soon as I was on my feet. “Race to the fence?” he asked.

  After looking down at my clothes, I shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Ready?” He had the sprinter pose down, even back then.

  I copied his stance and ignored the fact that he was in sneakers and I was in flip-flops. “Ready.”

  “Go!”

  I won.

  Lucas puffed out a breath as he took the paper plate from his mom. “She left you in the dust, son,” Kathy teased.

  I giggled.

  Lucas said, “That’ll be the last time.” And it was.

  His mom laughed and ruffled his hair before handing me my plate. Then she looked between Lucas and me a long moment before she called out, “Tom! Brian! Come look at this!”

  Lucas and I stayed side by side, catching our breaths as we waited for our dads to join us. They all stared at the two of us, Kathy’s smile growing wider with every second. She pointed to Lucas’s shirt. “Clark Kent,” she said, then shifted her gaze to me. “And Lois Lane.”

  Chapter One

  LUCAS

  “Laney!” Knock knock. “Laney, answer the door!” It’s 1 am, pitch black. “Yo, Laney!” I knock again, a little harder.

  Light shines from beneath the door, and I shove my hands in my pockets and wait. Finally, the door opens and Laney appears, dressed in flannel pajamas, her black hair a mess. She squints as if trying to work out who’s at her door… as if there’d be anyone else.

  “Are you going to let me in? I’ve been waiting forever.”

  Turning slowly, she mumbles something under her breath, her feet sliding across the tiles of her basement bedroom.

  I shrug off my jacket and throw it across the room to her couch. By the time I look back at her, she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing her eyes. She moans in frustration before getting under her covers and saying, “How was the end-of-summer party?”

  I strip out of my jeans and stand in my t-shirt and boxers. “Same old,” I tell her, taking the spare blanket and pillow from the trunk by the foot of her bed. I create my usual spot on the couch while she waits for me to settle. She doesn’t watch me, though sometimes I wish she would. Ego and all.

  “Was Grace there?”

>   “Yep.”

  “And you couldn’t go back to her place, or better yet, back to that amazing garage apartment at your own house that you have all to yourself?”

  “You’re grumpy.” I wait for a response and when nothing comes, I add, “And you know I can’t have girls over at the house.”

  “I’m sure you could sneak a girl in considering it’s not even attached to the house.” She motions with her hand for me to hurry up, so I smack the pillow a few times, get under the blanket and point to the lamp.

  Once the room’s filled with darkness, I say, “I don’t bring girls home because it’s Dad’s rules and I respect that.” I look over at her, but the only thing I can make out is the outline of her body. “Maybe I just miss hanging out with you.” I shift to my side and try to get more comfortable, but it’s cold in the room, and this couch isn’t what it used to be. “Laney?”

  “What?” she snaps. She’s angry. She’s so cute when she’s angry.

  “I’m cold.”

  “Suck it up, Princess Asshole.”

  “You’re mean.”

  She sighs loudly as she shuffles around in her bed, and before she even offers, I’m on my feet, pillow in hand, walking toward her. “I’m the absolute opposite of mean, especially when it comes to you.”

  I allow myself to smile because I know she can’t see me. Then I throw my pillow on her bed and climb under the covers with her. It’s a game we play, over and over. A game I always win. I turn to my side and face her back. “Laney?”

  “What?”

  “I’m still cold. Can I cuggles?” Only with Laney would I ever use Lachlan’s toddler talk. Not just because it’s lame, but because she’s the only one who understands it.

  She huffs, annoyed, but still, she scoots back until her body’s pressed against mine. I put one arm under her pillow and the other over her waist.

  “You’re freezing,” she says, her tone clipped.

  “Well, yeah, your room’s an ice chest.”