Unbroken (Fighter Erotic Romance #4) Read Free

in.”
    “I’m a boxer,” I smiled as I raised my right hand from the cup and pressed my knuckles into my left palm.
    She shook her head slightly and grinned, “Boxer’s wear gloves. Boxer’s protect their hands. You may be a boxer, but your hands didn’t get that way from boxing.”
    Beatrice the insightful waitress.
    “That’s a fact. And your attention to detail didn’t come from being a waitress,” I grinned.
    “No,” she sighed.
    “Criminal Justice, I wanted to be a cop,” she smiled.
    “What’s keeping you from it,” I asked as I unraveled my napkin and removed my fork.
    “Three little ones. I have three little ones at home. One, two, and four. Wouldn’t trade ‘em for the world. Maybe one day I’ll go back to school. For now I’ll work here and raise them the best I can,” she grinned proudly.
    I nodded my head and shifted my gaze toward the plate.
    Walk away, lady. I don’t want to talk. Not now, and not about this.
    “You have any? Any kids?” she asked.
    As I reached for my knife and began to cut my steak, I shook my head from side to side and stared down at my plate.
    “No ma’am, I sure don’t.”
    “Well, when you do someday, you’ll never regret it. They’re a true gift. Enjoy your breakfast,” she smiled, nodded her head toward my plate, and walked toward the jukebox.
    Often it seems we’re forced to hear exactly what it is we aren’t willing to listen to when we want to hear it the least but need to hear it the most.
    Johnny Cash’s I Hung My Head began to play as Bea stepped away from the jukebox. Although I had heard the song countless times in bars and taverns over the years, it sounded much different this time. As I ate my steak, the words from the song made sense in a different manner than they had previously. I had always thought the song was about killing. This time it wasn’t.
    Acceptance.
    The song was about acceptance.
    My inability to accept circumstances in my life is what brought me here. I took another bite of steak and stared out the window as I chewed, as if I were looking for some form of answer to a question I was too afraid to ask.
    As Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around began to play, I closed my eyes and listened intently.
    And I heard as it were the noise of thunder…
    One of the four beasts saying come and see and I saw…
    And behold a white horse.
    The sound of the music was quickly overshadowed by the noise of a loud motorcycle exhaust rumbling from the small parking lot which adjoined the diner’s glass front. Aggravated, I opened my eyes and stared into the lot.
    And behold a white horse.

SHANE. I have always lived a simple life and kept to myself, not needing or desiring the opinions of a stranger to assist me in understanding life or the complications associated with it. Oddly enough, a simple statement or expressed opinion from an outsider is often the one thing which causes us to veer from the peaceful road we were previously traveling along. One person’s transparent opinion has the ability to lift us from our feet with pride, or crush us into the depths of some God forsaken hell we can’t seem to find a way out of.
    From deep inside the fiery pit from in which I was currently living, I looked through the window into the parking lot and shook my head in disbelief as my hand fumbled along the table for my cup of coffee.
    Sitting on his motorcycle with one hand resting on the handlebars and the other searching for a cigarette, he stared blankly toward the front of the diner. His hand shaking as he held it to his mouth, he puffed eagerly on the cigarette as he lit it. After a few long drags, slowly his head pivoted 180 degrees, inventoried the empty parking lot, and he exhaled a cloud of smoke. Methodically, he stood from his motorcycle, bent over, and stepped on his cigarette. As he placed the butt into his shirt pocket and began walking toward the door, I turned toward the counter where the old man was seated.
    “Bring me another