Logan Clay
Forbidden Rockers
Sarah Robinson
Contents
Logan Clay
Read Other Books By Sarah
About the Author
Book One: Logan’s Story
Book Two: Her Forbidden Rockstar
Book Three: Rocker Christmas
Author’s Note
Coming Soon
Excerpt from Tainted Bodies
Excerpt from Not A Hero
Excerpt from Breaking a Legend
Subscribe
Logan Clay
A Forbidden Rockers Boxset
Logan’s Story © 2014 Sarah Robinson
Her Forbidden Rockstar © 2014 Sarah Robinson
Rocker Christmas © 2014 Sarah Robinson
Forbidden Rockers Boxset © 2017 Sarah Robinson
Excerpts from Tainted Bodies © 2014, Breaking a Legend © 2015, and Not a Hero © 2016. Breaking a Legend is published by Penguin Random House’s Loveswept.
Editing & Formatting by Michael R. Burhans
Balaat Professional Services
Cover Design by Violet Duke
All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional and any unintentional likeness to real people or real situations is completely coincidental. Any mention of trademarked brands are not meant as copyright infringement.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete and support the author by purchasing the book from one of its many distributors. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedicated to all the readers who first found me in 2014 and gave Logan Clay, and me, a chance.
Read Other Books By Sarah
The Photographer Trilogy
Tainted Bodies
Tainted Pictures
Untainted
Forbidden Rockers Series
Logan’s Story: A Prequel Novella
Her Forbidden Rockstar
Rockstar Christmas: A Holiday Novella
Her Dangerous Drummer (tentatively coming 2017)
Kavanagh Legends Series (MMA Fighters)
Breaking a Legend
Saving a Legend
Becoming a Legend
Chasing a Legend (coming Aug 22, 2017)
Romance Standalones
Not a Hero: A Bad Boy Marine Romance
Nudes: A Hollywood Romance (coming Summer 2017)
Women’s Fiction Standalones
Every Last Drop (tentative title, coming 2018)
More books and series by Sarah Robinson are coming soon, check her website for the latest news and releases! Signed paperbacks are also available on the Author’s Website.
About the Author
Aside from being a Top 10 Barnes & Noble and Amazon Bestseller, Sarah Robinson is a native of the Washington, DC area and has both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in criminal psychology. She is newly married to a wonderful man who is just as much of an animal rescue enthusiasts as she is. Together, they own a zoo of rescues including everything from mammals to reptiles to marsupials, as well as volunteering and fostering for multiple animal shelters.
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Book One: Logan’s Story
Logan’s Story
A Forbidden Rockers Prequel Novella
Prologue
1994
There was absolutely nothing that could have made him feel more helpless than sitting in the hospital waiting room next to his father, swinging his little legs that didn’t quite reach the floor and counting the tiles on the floor. Logan wanted to run home and grab his Superman cape that he kept hidden underneath his pillow. He wanted to fix everything like they did in the cartoons he was allowed to watch every Saturday morning before his parents woke up.
A tall man in scrubs walked into the room and pulled the surgical mask off his face, unveiling a grimace as he looked toward Logan and his father. Logan was startled at the sudden movement as his dad jumped up out of his seat and rushed over to the doctor, leaving him alone on the plastic chairs wondering what was going on.
“Mickey Clay?” the doctor asked looking first at Logan’s father, then past him to see Logan watching them intently with a look that begged the doctor for good news.
“Yes, that’s me. How is my wife? Is she okay?” His speech was hurried and hoarse, betraying his tough exterior with the depth of his emotional turmoil.
“Laura is doing fine, she came out of surgery pretty well and is still sedated. We are going to keep her under for a while longer to give her body and her brain time to heal. The trauma was severe,” the doctor explained to him.
“When can I see her? When will she wake up?”
“You can see her now if you want but I have to warn you that she is hooked up to a lot of tubes and wires, it might be frightening.” The doctor nodded toward Logan indicating that a five year old child might not be equipped for the sight.
Mickey nodded then brushed it aside. They were proud Irish men. Irish men could handle tough, they could handle pain, and his son would learn to handle pain.
“When will she be awake?” Mickey asked again.
“Let’s see how she does overnight first and then maybe her vitals tomorrow will indicate that she is ready to be awoken,” the doctor told Mickey, as he looked back down at the papers in his hands as if to visually confirm what he was saying was accurate.
“I want to go see her,” Mickey said firmly, crossing his arms and daring the doctor to try to stop him.
The doctor was no fool and knew that this giant, six and a half foot man with the broadest shoulders he had ever seen was not someone who could be told what to do.
“Of course, I will have one of the nurses take you to her immediately. Uh, Mr. Clay, there is one more thing I need to talk to you about,” the doctor cleared his throat and Mickey stared at him, his entire body tensed waiting to hear what else could go wrong.
“When your wife’s car hit the pole, the car stopped, but her body kept going. Good news is she was wearing her seatbelt, which is the only reason she is alive. However, the bad news is the seatbelt held her bottom half still and the forward jolt of her top half broke several vertebrae at the very bottom of her spine.” He avoided direct eye contact with Mickey, always hating to give news like this to patient’s families.
“What are you saying? Doc, are you saying my Laura is paralyzed?” Mickey’s stomach dropped and fell to the floor along with his jaw as his eyes widened and the image of his wife in a wheelchair flooded his brain.
The woman he loved more than anything, who he took dancing every Friday night when they could find a babysitter, the woman who waltzed around the living room while she vacuumed just because, confined to a wheelchair just didn’t seem possible.
“Nothing is confirmed until she wakes up and we do some tests, but you need to prepare yourself now that this is a real possibility. I am really very sorry this happened, we did the best we could do, but the car accident was extreme. She is lucky to be
alive.” He smiled at Mickey with one of those practiced doctor smiles where his eyes are frowning with pity, but his mouth is in a tight upward turn in an attempt to comfort. It wasn’t working.
Mickey stood frozen as he watched the doctor walk away and contemplated everything that had just happened. Less than two hours ago, he had been talking to his wife on the phone as she told him she was getting in her car to come home from work. She was a nurse working the late shift so it was almost midnight but she always called Mickey anyway to let him know she was on her way. They did everything together and were always in constant communication. She was the love of his life. Laura Clay was the most beautiful woman he had ever met and now she might not ever walk into his arms again.
Clearing his throat and blinking back tears that stung with embarrassment, Mickey turned around to look at his son. Logan was still in the plastic hospital chair with his head leaning against the wall and his legs crunched up against the arm rest. He was fast asleep and had no idea the life sentence his mother had just received. Mickey fought harder to push the tears back.
Men don’t cry.
He kept reminding himself over and over again, but it was becoming harder to believe. He scooped up his son with ease and walked to the nurses station to find where his wife was.
He didn’t care that she was sedated, he was going to be there for every moment. He would be there when she woke up and he would stick by her side through anything that came from today. He decided it all right then and there. He was a man, an Irish man, who had made a vow and no matter what happened, he was not going to break that vow.
He clenched his jaw and breathed in deep as he held his five-year old son closer and reminded himself of those promises that they made standing in front of everyone they loved.
Mickey Clay would love Laura for the rest of his life. Period.
Chapter One
2010
“Dude, you’re bleeding.” Dylan nodded his head, looking at Logan’s hand currently dripping blood onto the strings of the guitar he was playing.
“Oh, shit.” Logan glanced down at his fingers and then placed the guitar down, propping it on the nearby stand. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t get any blood on the stage, asshole,” Dylan said, rolling his eyes at the lead singer as he headed out to the tiny bathroom backstage.
Logan didn’t bother to answer, he was used to the razzing from his band mates. There was no way to explain to someone who didn’t live and breathe art, how much he loved the pain that came with plucking the chords of the perfect song.
Logan opened the bathroom door and immediately let go of the door handle since something sticky had been left on it and had transferred to his hand. He grimaced as he looked at some gloppy, green substance on his hand mixing with the blood from his blistered fingers. He quickly turned on the faucet in front of him, looking at himself in the mirror as he shoved his hands under the not-so-clear water churning out of the pipes.
One day.
Logan thought about the future as he examined the bags under his eyes from being up all night playing at this bar. One day he wasn’t going to need crappy gigs like this where the only people left listening to them play was a few drunk girls hoping to go home with them and a few career alcoholics who couldn’t find their way out the door. Haven, their band, was going to be big one day, Logan was sure of it. They’d named the band after the town they grew up in, but their eyes were set on New York City.
Dylan was putting their instruments into cases when Logan walked back onto the stage and other band members were loading amps onto a cart to take them out to their van. Logan picked up the tip jar at the edge of the stage and looked inside to see three crumpled dollar bills and some coins. He tightened his jaw, his mind flooding with stress as he thought of the bills he needed to pay.
“How did we make out?” Dylan called out to him.
“We might be able to all split a beer,” Logan called back, emptying the contents of the jar into a bank envelope to be distributed later along with the fifty dollars that the bar owner paid them for the night.
A few of the band members sighed, and Dylan looked frustrated but no one said anything. They were artists, it wasn’t supposed to be about the money. And the truth was that it wasn’t about that at all, but they all still had bills to pay and Logan was more familiar with that than any of them knew. He handed the envelope to Dylan and grabbed his guitar case that had already been packed securely with his red electric guitar inside.
“I’m going to head out, guys. See you Friday at McGinny’s?” He pulled on his jacket and swung the guitar case strap over his head. “We go on at nine, right?”
“Yup, but try to get there early for sound check, Logan. We need to be on our game Friday,” Dylan reminded him. “That scout from New York New Music is going to be there.”
Logan turned and looked quizzically at him. “I thought he wasn’t coming?”
“Apparently his daughter is a fan of our band and changed his mind.” Dylan grinned at Logan, clearly excited.
Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Alright, you caught me, she is mainly a fan of yours. But hell, we are part of Haven too.” Dylan tossed up his arms and looked at the two other band mates in Haven, Rock and Charlie, who joined in laughing at Logan.
They were all used to young women fanning over the lead singer. Logan grinned at them, waving them away and ignoring their jokes. Dylan grabbed his drum sticks and smacked his drums, doing a rim shot to highlight his joke.
Charlie threw an empty water bottle at Dylan and everyone rolled their eyes at the band comedian. The men continued to laugh and joke with one another as they packed away the remainder of the instruments and loaded them into Rock’s van, which was pretty much the band’s van at this point.
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Logan’s car took quite a few turns of the key before it finally churned over and started with a deafening roar. He quickly looked around at the houses whose windows were all completely black, hoping that he hadn’t awoken any of his neighbors in the dead of night. Tossing the gears into reverse, Logan looked behind him as he slid out of the driveway onto the street and took off toward his second job.
Keeping his eyes on the road, he leaned over and opened the glove box and pulled out a CD. Glancing at it, he deemed it acceptable. Pushing it into the stereo, he really needed something to pump up his energy as he headed to work. He had only just gotten home from the bar gig with his band, where he only had time to change into some more comfortable clothes and shovel a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches down his throat.
He smacked the power button and waited for the music to start playing as he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, only to be met with a screeching and scratching sound from his dashboard. The music was suddenly just radio static.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Logan smacked the dashboard as if that would make the ruined CD suddenly repair itself.
Irritation built up in his stomach and rose through his chest as he smacked his hand against the steering wheel several times in anger. He hit the gas and floored it, not planning on wasting another minute in his piece of shit car.
Logan’s mind was clouded with anger and self-pity. He wanted to just turn around and go home, fall into bed, and not get back out, but that wasn’t an option anymore. The bills were closing in, like a boa constrictor wrapping its way around his body and slowly squeezing the life out of him. They weren’t even his, yet somehow he felt the responsibility rested all on his shoulders.
He was still feeling sorry for himself when he pulled into the employee parking spot behind a large warehouse and grabbed his back brace off the passenger seat, wrapping it around his waist and pulling the straps over his shoulders for support. The sky was dark, but the warehouse was bustling as his co-workers were loading boxes onto eighteen wheelers for deliveries that day. Everyone was wearing a brace similar to his, along with hats and gloves, and orange vests w
ith reflector tape.
“You’re late, mick,” Joey growled from behind the warehouse counter where he was marking packing slips as he glanced up at Logan.
“Sorry, boss. Gig ran late.” Logan ignored the ethnic slur and grabbed his time card, punching it through the slot, and then replacing it on the rack.
“Like I haven’t heard that from your sorry ass before,” Joey grumbled, not directly calling him out but making it clear he was irritated with Logan’s multitasking lifestyle. Logan just put his head down and walked out of the office and into the larger part of the warehouse, nodding to some of the guys on his way over to the last loading dock. He hopped into a forklift and shifted the gears, picking up a pallet and taking it toward the truck.
The job was tedious and Logan hated it, but the paycheck was good since very few people eagerly worked twelve hour shifts beginning at three in the morning. He was used to starting his days this early now and then taking an afternoon nap before he headed out for a gig or band practice. On his rare day off, he would sleep longer and then practice on his guitar. It was the only thing that soothed the exhaustion in his body and soul.
Music was everything in his life and even as he hauled pallets onto a giant truck, he hummed songs in his head to remind himself of who he was.... or who he was going to be.