Bound to Burn Read online

  Bound To Burn

  Blood & Bone Series

  Book Four

  Paula Dombrowiak

  Contents

  Playlist

  Prologue

  1. I Wait

  Sasha

  2. Restocking Fee

  Cash

  3. Do People Still Buy Records?

  Cash

  4. Run's in the Family

  Sasha

  5. I am my Mothers Daughter

  Sasha

  6. Coyote Ugly

  Cash

  7. Cariño

  Sasha

  8. Collectibles

  Cash

  9. The Better Man

  Cash

  10. Love is Love

  Cash

  11. L.A. River

  Sasha

  12. When I Move, You Move

  Cash

  13. Patience and Peppermints

  Sasha

  14. Short for Jolene

  Cash

  15. Wildfire Season

  Sasha

  16. Three Men and A Baby

  Cash

  17. Forever Guy

  Sasha

  18. Can't Run from Fate

  Sasha

  19. Malibu Girls

  Cash

  20. Was I Just Fired?

  Sasha

  21. Wildfire

  Cash

  22. A Simple Man

  Sasha

  23. Piece of Art

  Sasha

  24. A Weak Man

  Cash

  25. Guilty Conscience

  Cash

  26. Immpecable Timing

  Sasha

  27. Fucking Peppermints

  Cash

  28. You're All Mine

  Cash

  29. Jealous of a Camera

  Sasha

  30. Curveballs

  Sasha

  31. Is He Worth It?

  Sasha

  32. Telenovela

  Cash

  33. Les Paul Vs. Strat

  Cash

  34. Pink

  Sasha

  35. No Underwear, No Service

  Sasha

  36. The Chain

  Cash

  37. Peter Hayes

  Cash

  38. I Want it All

  Cash

  39. Get On

  Sasha

  40. My Name is Sasha

  Sasha

  41. Gallery

  FOUR MONTHS LATER

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Paula Dombrowiak

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  BOUND TO BURN

  By: Paula Dombrowiak

  * * *

  Copyright © 2022 Paula Dombrowiak

  First Edition, 2022

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner of this book.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  * * *

  Cover Image: Michelle Lancaster www.michellelancaster.com Instagram @lanefotograf

  Cover Design: Lori Jackson www.lorijacksondesign.com

  Cover Model: @Jaxson Human

  Editor: Katy Nielsen

  * * *

  www.pauladombrowiak.com

  For Gail and Theo

  * * *

  You will be together again in the next life because when one moves, the other follows.

  Playlist

  Album

  * * *

  This book contains interactive chapters with song titles and links so you can listen while you read. The songs are listed in order of when they appear in the book.

  Burning House - Cam

  I Wanna Be Sedated - Ramones

  Going to California - Led Zeppelin

  Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier

  I Put A Spell On You - Creedence Clearwater Revival

  She’s Got The Look - Candlelight Red

  Shakin’ - Eddie Money

  What I Like About You - The Romantics

  Wrap It Up - The Fabulous Thunderbirds

  I Wanna Be Sedated - Ramones

  I Want You to Want Me - Letters To Cleo

  Movement - Hozier

  Ain’t Even Done With The Night - John Cougar Mellencamp

  Some Kind of Wonderful - Grand Funk Railroad and Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones

  Plastic Hearts - Miley Cyrus

  Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield

  Rebel Rebel - David Bowie

  Home - Sheryl Crow

  Rocket Queen - Gun’s N’ Roses

  Paper in Fire - John Cougar Mellencamp

  Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode

  Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd

  Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran

  Without Fear - Dermot Kennedy

  Rain on The Scarecrow - John Cougar Mellencamp

  Such A Simple Thing - Ray LaMontagne

  She’s A Beauty - The Tubes

  Centerfold - The J Geils Band

  Holy Water - Bad Company

  (Don’t Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult and Mystify by INXS

  You Said Something - PJ Harvey

  Enter Sandman - Metallica

  Come Undone - Duran Duran

  Dream On - blessthefall

  Since I’ve Been Loving You - Led Zeppelin

  The Chain - Fleetwood Mac

  Moments Passed - Dermot Kennedy

  Underneath the Stars - The Cure

  Till There’s Nothing Left - Cam

  Midnight Rider - The Allman Brothers

  Burnin’ For You - Blue Oyster Cult

  Epilogue: Slow Burn - Kacey Musgraves

  Bonus Material: Pictures of You & Love Song - The Cure

  * * *

  *Apple affiliate links are used and I may earn income if you purchase a song on iTunes.

  Prologue

  Cash

  The Night We Meet by Nath Brooks

  * * *

  For Cash

  * * *

  I’m not sure where to begin. Then again, when have you ever known me to be at a loss for words? Maybe it’s because you leave me speechless. You, Cash Morgan, were the light that chased away my darkness. You caught me when I was falling, and you saved me when I was hopeless. Only, I couldn’t do the same for you. It’s okay if you hate me, but maybe someday you’ll forgive me.

  * * *

  I hope you know that I loved you, that I love you still. I promised myself to you - for better, for worse - to love and to cherish - till death do us part, but I think we both knew those bonds were always meant to be broken. Maybe we should have stopped before we even started and saved ourselves the heartache, but it’s not the ending that matters, it’s everything in-between.

  * * *

  In the story of my life, if Jack was the villain, then you were the hero.

  * * *

  I know you will find love again, but what I really hope is for you to find your way back to Jack. Your friendship is the purest love of us all.

  * * *

  Love Always, Mia

  * * *

  Love has a way of burning through you like poison. One tiny vial containing the elixir that has the power to lift you up but just as easily take you under. I wish it was something forced upon me then I would have someone else to blame but myself. The choice to willingly swallow it was mine and mine alone.

  On the way down it burns like whiskey, coats your throat like a lo
ve song, and enters your belly with a force of a hurricane.

  Hurricane.

  That’s exactly what she was.

  She tore through my life from the minute I met her to the day she left this earth. I had a hand in that.

  The end of her.

  The end of me.

  The end of us.

  I fold the letter carefully and stick it back inside the faux leather bound journal. The ties hang limp like the loose ends of our life together. So many beginnings that burned out before they had a chance to grow.

  I didn’t want to read her journal and I was determined to keep it locked away but it held the answers to questions that weren’t my own.

  Mia called this her Phoenix story where she unapologetically laid out all of the messy details of her life.

  A life before me and a life after me.

  I know better than to judge a book by it’s cover and it’s not how a story ends but everything that happens in-between that matters the most.

  I was her in-between and she loved me, I know that now but it still wasn’t enough for us.

  I thought I had made peace with everything that happened but every decision I have made since I let her go was forged in the knowledge of her. I had erected a wall around my heart, and stopped living. What I didn’t know back then was that love had the power to break me and I wasn’t about to go through that again.

  But still I loved her even though I knew she was in love with Jack and for that I willingly take responsibility.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Jack asks.

  Both of us stare into the fire.

  I don’t need to look at him to see the concern on his face. I can feel it in the timber of his voice and the shifting of his weight in the chair. There are too many years of indignation, regret, affinity, and love between us to ever be able to hide anything from the other. He knows me better than any other human being ever has or ever will. Just as I can feel his concern, he can feel my trepidation at the knowledge this journal has given me.

  I granted him only one of the secrets hidden within these pages.

  I can’t help but feel that Mia had a hand in delivering this journal to me when I needed it the most. A way of shoving me in the direction I was so afraid to go because it’s a place that I can’t take her with me.

  The intimate details of my life with Mia are contained in this journal.

  A love letter to me and me alone.

  “Yes,” I answer, hearing Jack’s empathetic sigh.

  I learned a long time ago that not asking for help was just bravery wrapped up in stupidity. I needed Jack in the same way I needed to breathe. The three of us, myself, Jack, and Mia, had always been intertwined like the branches of a bramble. It may have looked ugly to those on the outside but being wrapped up with the intimate knowledge of each other from the inside, was a thing of untamed beauty.

  No one ever said beauty was without thorns. Just pick up a single rose and you’ll feel it’s cruel sting. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean you should deny yourself the knowledge of its scent because never knowing that is the real cruelty.

  It wasn’t until I met Sasha that I realized how much of Mia I carried around with me. The mural on the wall of the record store, the journal tucked away, and the shitty bass guitar that deserves to be played but instead sits in my loft next to my bed like a fucking guard dog.

  Fate has a way of fucking with me and Sasha was the greatest curveball of my life in more ways than one. I didn’t want to fall in love with her. In fact, I was determined not to, but she danced her way into my heart with her pink glittered Converse, and the taste of peppermint that I will never be able to savor again without thinking of her.

  And then I had to fuck it all up.

  Without hesitation, I toss the journal into the center of the fire. Jack flinches but we both stare, unmoving, watching as the flames wrap themselves around the faux leather and slowly consume it.

  Some secrets should be left buried but some refuse to be.

  This one in particular goes by the name of Peter Hayes.

  1

  I Wait

  Sasha

  Burning House by Cam

  The camera is a liberator of sorts, in the way it can free you of something you wouldn’t otherwise be willing to give so easily. People tend to carefully erect walls or slip on masks because they are afraid to show their true selves. But you can’t conceal yourself from the lens of a camera because its sole purpose is to find what you’re hiding underneath.

  I have thousands of pictures I’ve taken throughout the last twenty-three years of my life, but the one that holds me captive the most is one I didn’t even take.

  But I know who did.

  My father.

  Only I don’t know who he is.

  I hold in my hand the faded Polaroid taken of my mother, and I can tell just as much about the person taking the picture as I can about the person in the picture. The camera is a two way mirror, and it takes just as much as it gives.

  That is how I know who took the picture.

  It was taken by someone in love with her.

  My mother had a thing for brown eyed, tattooed musicians, and it’s what cost her everything. I can only guess that my father had brown eyes because my mother’s were blue. A piece of genetic code I inherited from someone I don’t even know. When I look in the mirror I see pieces of her, like our blonde hair the color of wheat and our high cheekbones, but not the eyes. It’s like looking back at a stranger.

  I tuck the picture back in its box, along with a few other trinkets of hers, and slip it under my bed. Just like my mother, I was pulled under by the illusion of love, blinded by those brown eyes and tattooed forearms of a man that knew how to handle a guitar - among other things. He was a musician, but not a very good one, although I loved to watch him play… that is until he spent all our rent money and fucked my best friend.

  All things happen for a reason, but what happened means I’m back home with no money and a broken heart.

  As I stare at the four walls of my bedroom that was once occupied by my mother, I find comfort in the fact that she had laid on this bed, propped her feet on the same wall, and got lost for hours listening to music. Today, I don’t have that luxury.

  Before I head out the back door, I slip on my tall black boots. When I walk towards the pasture, I know that I am walking on the same dirt path my mother once had.

  I stop halfway to the barn and prop a booted foot on the first rung of the worn wooden fence. Morning dew still clings to the grass that stretches to a line of maple and oak trees in the distance. Beyond that is Temescal Canyon Park, and one of the main advantages of living in Pacific Palisades. It’s a place where the mountains meet the ocean, quite literally. Its salty scent is carried on the breeze.

  A few horses leisurely swish their tails as they look up to acknowledge my presence. One horse in particular ignores me. He stands imposing in the distance, pawing at the ground, trying his hardest not to look my way.

  “Ivan’s upset with you,” Grandpa John comments, his voice startling me.

  He has a way of walking without making any sound, even when he wears his heavy work boots. Leaning over the fence next to me, his grey hair flares out from under his John Deere hat. His weather-worn face tells a story of long hours working outside, just like his rough, calloused hands that grip the fence beside me.

  I look at him thoughtfully, knowing he doesn’t like to take time out for himself. This ranch occupies most of his time. “Do you want me to cut your hair later?” I ask. Grandma Jo taught me a long time ago, when arthritis made it hard for her to hold the scissors.