Forgiven (Forgiven Series) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Rebecca Brooke

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design

  Editing by Ryn Hughes of Delphi Rose

  Interior Design by Angela McLaurin of Fictional Formats

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  All rights reserved.

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Eric for encouraging me to follow my dream.

  “We find the defendant…not guilty.”

  I heard a commotion all around me as the verdict was read. My mother grabbed a hold of me and pulled me into a hug. I looked to the other side of the aisle and saw the tears running down her face.

  “You’ll get what you deserve Jacobs, mark my words,” he yelled.

  As I began my long walk out of the courtroom I realized two things. One, I had to get out of this town or the memories would crush me. Two, I would never forgive myself for what happened that night…

  BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

  I woke up to the sound of my alarm going off in my ear, and I wondered how long it had been buzzing. The drunker I’d been the night before, the longer it took to wake me. That’s why I set it for an hour before I actually had to get up. I looked up and the clock said 08:46. I must not have had that bad of a night, but alcohol was the only thing that kept the nightmares away. I got up slowly, deciding I could work on some homework before I had to get to my first class. Luckily we were almost to midterms and before I knew it, it would be spring break.

  As I looked through the syllabus for my history class I realized we had a project coming up. Shit, I hated projects. Usually it meant that I had to work with someone, but I preferred to keep to myself. Maybe Professor Rutledge would allow me to do the project alone. People always try to get to know you when you work in groups. I didn’t want people to know me, or anything about my past. My roommate seemed to be the only one that completely understood. I could tell he had a past of his own that he wanted to keep a secret. Thankfully the guys on the football team stopped asking me about it. I could hang out with them without having to answer a million questions—only took them two years to figure it out.

  I went to the kitchen to get breakfast, to find Josh was already up. Come to think of it, he probably hadn’t gone to bed yet.

  “Morning. How was your date with Amanda last night?” I asked.

  “Fuck me, that girl has an amazing body, but nothing going on upstairs.” He rolled his eyes. “She makes for a great screw, but there is no way in hell that I can spend hours alone with her again when it isn’t in bed,” he answered.

  “Wow, that good, huh? At least you’re not looking for anything permanent.” Josh usually only met girls at a party or a bar and went back to their house for a quick fuck. I had never seen him go on a date before. But the guys dared him to. Unfortunately for Josh, he had never ignored a dare in his life.

  “Shit, I will never do that again! I’m going to bed. I went back to the bar after I left her apartment to try and drink away the memories.” He got up and started moving towards the hallway.

  “Night. I’ll be out of here soon, because I have class in an hour. By the way, don’t fucking sleep through our work out today. Coach will kill you if you miss again.”

  “I won’t, douche bag. I have class before workout anyway,” he said, flipping me off.

  Yeah, like that was actually going to make a difference. Whatever Josh was hiding from had gotten worse over the last month or two. Going to class had become optional for him, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to lose his scholarship. My scholarship was the only thing getting me out of bed in the morning. I couldn’t afford to drop out of school. That would mean I would have to go home, and I just couldn’t face the memories.

  “Do you want me to come back and pick you up?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  He surprised me when he answered, “Thanks for the offer man, but Andrew’s going to come get me.” He turned and walked down the hall.

  I did some of the reading for chemistry before I jumped in the shower and got ready. I got to the class about fifteen minutes early hoping to catch the professor before she began her lecture. Luckily she was already there.

  “Professor Rutledge, I know this is outside of your office hours, but I was wondering if I could talk to you about the project you are assigning today.”

  “Of course, Mr. Jacobs, how can I help?” she asked without looking up.

  “Well I noticed that the project requires us to work in pairs, but I was wondering if I could work alone?”

  “I wish I could accommodate you Mr. Jacobs, however the class has an even number of students. You working alone would mean that another student would be without a partner. Besides, I have already assigned the pairs for the assignment.”

  To be honest I didn’t give a shit if someone else had to work on the project alone—I just knew I couldn’t work with someone who would constantly try and invade my privacy. I understood they were just trying to be friendly, but it was still uncomfortable when they would tell me about themselves but I wouldn’t—actually couldn’t—reciprocate. Besides Josh, I mostly kept to myself. It even took me more than a year to hang out with my teammates. “Dr. Rutledge, I would just feel more comfortable working individually.”

  Dr. Rutledge looked up from the desk. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jacobs, but there is nothing I can do. We all need to learn to work with others and this will be the perfect opportunity for you. Now if you will excuse me I have to start class.” She picked up a paper from the desk and started to move to the center of the room. “If you have any further questions you can see me during office hours.”

  I walked back to my seat. Great, just fucking great. Now I would likely get a bad grade on this assignment. My partner would probably get pissed when I refused to socialize, decide that we should split the assignment up and then there would be ‘no continuity’ between the pieces. The professors always took a ton of points off for that, with the comment that, “If you had worked together this would not have been a problem”.

  I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I almost didn’t realize that Dr. Rutledge had called my name out to assign my new partner.

  “Caleb Jacobs will be working with Angelina Powers.”
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  I looked over to the girl she had pointed out on the other side of the room. I’d never spoken to Angelina before. Come to think of it, I’d never even noticed that she was in the class. She looked up and our eyes met.

  I stopped breathing.

  I had only seen eyes like hers once before and the memory almost sent me to my knees.

  “Class at this time, I am going to let you out early so that you may have some time to set up the project with your partners. Please use your time wisely and I will see you on Tuesday. Please be ready to discuss the burial rites of the Ancient Egyptians.”

  As I got up and slowly collected my things I realized that Angelina was walking toward me. She held out her hand for me to shake. “You must be Caleb. You can call me Angie.” I held out my hand to take hers and when they touched it was like an electric current ran through me. I looked up at her. She had beautiful auburn hair, and eyes that reminded me of dark chocolate. They were so expressive and I knew, just knew, that this was an assignment that I could not complete—even if I had to take an ‘F.’

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” I said as I pulled my hand out of her grip and walked out of the room.

  “Caleb Jacobs will be working with Angelina Powers,” Professor Rutledge said.

  “That is so not fair, why do you always get the hotties for partners?” Emily whined.

  “Really Emily, he doesn’t talk to anyone.”

  “Who cares, you get to work one on one with him for the next two weeks. How can you not see how yummy he is?’

  “Okay, okay. He is definitely hot, but he has no personality.” At that moment he looked over at me and I was trapped by the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen, yet they seemed so sad as they looked at me. He quickly looked away, but I couldn’t move.

  I mean he really was the hottest guy on campus. I had seen him around, but never with anyone except Josh Walker, and maybe some of the football team. Last year I heard that he was a total asshole, but most of those rumors died down at the beginning of the year. I had been to a few of the football players’ parties, and usually their only goal was to sleep with as many girls as possible. I just hoped that Caleb didn’t think anything was going to happen because we were partners for the next two weeks.

  I realized the Professor Rutledge was still talking “… so that you may have some time to set up the project with your partners. Please use your time wisely and I will see you on Monday. Please be ready to discuss the burial rites of the Ancient Egyptians.”

  I decided to get up and introduce myself to my new partner, and walked up to Caleb. He was packing up his things instead of looking at me, so I held out my hand to him.

  “You must be Caleb. You can call me Angie.” My mom starting calling me Angie when I was a little girl. When she left it felt like one of the only things I had of her to hold onto. As I spoke he looked up and took my hand, it was as if he shocked me, and the heat spread all the way to my toes. There was something about him, and I was drawn to the sadness in his eyes. I wanted to heal whatever pain caused it. Wait…where did that come from?

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he said as he walked out of the classroom.

  What the fuck was that? I looked over at Emily and she mouthed to me, “What the hell?” I shrugged my shoulders. At this point I wasn’t even sure what happened. I grabbed my stuff and followed him out the door. I saw him walk out the door into the courtyard as I ran to catch up.

  “Caleb! Caleb, wait up!” He continued walking, but I caught up. “What the hell was that?”

  “Get away from me. I am not going to work with you on this assignment. I’ll talk to Professor Rutledge and take the ‘F’.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Oh wow, should I say thanks for leaving me to do the whole project?”

  “I don’t care what you think. NOW GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME,” he shouted. At that point I stopped following and just stared at him. I guess what I’d heard about him was true…he really was an asshole.

  Shit, what was I going to do? I was going to have to talk to the Professor. This project was too much for one person to complete, and it was worth such a big portion of the grade that I couldn’t afford the ‘F.’

  As I walked to Professor Rutledge’s office I still couldn’t shake the feeling I’d had when he shook my hand. I’d never had that kind of reaction to a guy before. With all the shit my father put me through, it was never worth paying the guys in high school much attention. I’d been on a few dates since starting college, but none of those guys piqued my interest enough to last longer than a couple of dates. I wondered what it was about this guy. Why did he intrigue me, when in reality he’d just told me—in no uncertain terms—to fuck off.

  I walked up to the professor’s office, and luckily she was there. I knocked on the door as she looked up and told me to, “Come in.”

  “Dr. Rutledge, can I talk to you about the project?”

  “Sure, what can I help you with?” she asked.

  “Well I was wondering if I could be assigned a new partner.” I replied.

  “Is there a reason you’re asking?” I thought about the way Caleb acted today in class, and in the courtyard. Then I remembered the sadness I’d seen in his eyes as he looked at me. In that moment I realized I couldn’t sell him out. Instead, I needed to find a way to make this work for both of us.

  “Not really, I just wanted to work with my friend Emily,” I lied.

  “Unfortunately, all of the class members have been assigned new partners. Look, Angie, I understand that Caleb may be difficult to work with but, as I told him before class, working with others is a skill that we all need to learn.”

  “I understand, and I’ll do my best. Thank you Dr. Rutledge,” I said as I walked out of her office.

  Shit, now I needed to find Caleb and try and talk some sense into him. I wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to work with me, but I knew I couldn’t afford to lose my scholarship. But how was I going to find him?

  Josh.

  Josh was in my afternoon class, but there was no guarantee he would be there. The closer we got to spring break, the less Josh had showed up.

  I decided that there was nothing I could do until I saw if Josh was in class this afternoon, so I headed to the cafeteria to meet Emily for lunch. As I walked up to her table she started.

  “What the fuck happened?” she shouted at me.

  “Seriously, can I get five seconds before you jump down my throat?” I snapped back.

  “You’re right, I’m sorry. But really, what happened in class? You got paired up with Mr. Hottie, but when I looked up again he had left you alone in the classroom,” she pouted.

  “To be honest, I’m not even sure what happened. I went up and introduced myself, but when I shook his hand it felt like an electric shock ran through my body. I was so distracted by it, the next thing I knew he was saying he couldn’t work with me, and then he ran out of the room,” I said with a frown.

  “How could you not be distracted by him? Tell me more about this shock when you touched him.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Would you focus on the problem?”

  “It is a little hard when we are talking about Caleb Jacobs. Yummy!” I gave her a look that said knock it off or I’m going to knock you out.

  “Fine, what are you going do?”

  “I tried talking to Dr. Rutledge, but she basically told me to get over it and figure out a way to work together.” I was still pissed off about this whole situation. “Either way, with my scholarship I can’t afford an ‘F’ and there’s no way I’ll be able to finish this assignment on my own by the due date. So I’m going to have to talk to him.”

  “How the hell are you going to do that?”

  “The only thing I can think of at this point is to talk to Josh when I see him in class later. I’m hoping he’ll put in a good word for me.”

  She shook her head at me. “Good luck with that, let me know how it goes.”

  After that w
e went and grabbed some lunch. Emily tried bringing up Caleb again, but I just changed the subject and eventually she got the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it. By the time lunch was over I needed to head to my next class. I kept my fingers crossed that Josh would be there, but I knew I only had a 50/50 chance.

  I walked into class and saw him sitting in the back row. He looked like hell, but at least he was there. I really hoped he would be willing to help me, so I decided to sit next to him . “Hey Josh, what’s up?”

  “Hey Ang, haven’t seen you lately.” I fucking hated being called Ang but right now I would deal with it if he helped me get through to Caleb.

  “Well when you only show up to class once a week, it’s hard to keep in touch.” I laughed.

  “You got me there. If I don’t start showing up Coach and Caleb are going to kick my ass,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Speaking of Caleb, I have a question—” He raised his hand to cut me off.

  “No, I am not setting you up. Is that the only reason you came over here?” he asked, disgust written all over his face.

  “Fuck you asshole, that isn’t what I want. He was assigned as my partner for a project in class this morning, but he stormed out and then when I tried to talk to him, he told me to fuck off.” I scowled. “The project counts as our midterm grade and I really can’t afford to fail, so could you talk to him for me?” I begged.

  “Did you talk to the Professor?”

  “Yeah, but she told me to figure it out, helpful huh?” I said sarcastically.

  “Who’s the Professor?” he asked cautiously.

  “Rutledge.”

  He flinched, “Shit, she doesn’t like people to question her methods.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Look,” Josh said running his fingers through his hair. “Caleb and I made a deal when we met not to jump too far into each other’s business- “The dismay must have shown on my face because he held out his palm immediately. “But I will help you find him so that you can talk to him yourself. There has to be a pretty good reason for his actions today.”