1. Amanda

Chapter 1

Amanda

The bookstore where I work is quiet. No one is shopping thanks to the sheets of rain pelting the sidewalk. It’s one of those quick summer storms with lightning crackling across the sky and thunder booming loudly.

I love looking at the sparkling rain droplets on the windows while I’m inside, warm and cozy, and surrounded by stories I can escape into. The aroma of coffee percolating fills the air, and a slice of chocolate cake is waiting for me in the back.

These moments of peace and rest fuel my soul and help me battle the insomnia that’s almost a constant companion because I’m afraid of the night now. Staying awake to keep guard gives me a sense of safety.

If I’m awake, then I’m not as vulnerable as when I’m sleeping. I won’t jerk awake to a floorboard creaking beneath the weight of a stranger’s footsteps.

Thankfully, the town of Lucky River isn’t like the dark side of Dallas. It’s not a place to run from but to and I’m grateful to this place for welcoming me.

I’m leaning on the counter, chin in my hand when he walks by.

He doesn’t pay attention to the storm he’s in, to the rain dripping from the brim of his black Stetson.

We lock eyes as he reaches the midway point of the window. One. Two. Three. Seconds that are over too fast but leave me breathless, wishing I was the type of woman who could boldly chase after the hot cowboy and ask his name.

Ask why there’s something about him that makes me feel restless. Hungry for a taste of the delectable morsel he is that I shouldn’t take a bite of.

Safely lies in keeping to myself as much as possible. Especially now that I’m being hunted.

I drop my gaze and turn away, sitting on the stool to support my shaking legs. Thinking about the night I had to flee does that to me. Injects my body with a surge of adrenaline, driving my thoughts into dark “what if” places.

What if I wouldn’t have woken up when the floorboard creaked? What if I wouldn’t have recognized the cloying scent of that cologne?

The string of bells on the door jingle and I turn, smile in place like the armor it is, ready to greet the customer and offer my help. Then I freeze.

It’s him.

The black t-shirt clings to him, the wet material plastering against his muscled chest. His face isn’t picture-perfect handsome but arresting. The kind of face that’s weathered a hard life and turned a human into steel.

He studies me through dark eyes as he sweeps his hat off. Droplets of water run from his dark brown, nearly black hair down along the sides of his jaws, disappearing into his beard.

“Can I help you find something?” I ask softly.

“No.” His voice is deep and gravelly.

I’m melting, my bones incinerating from sudden longing.

“N-No?” I twist my fingers together and lower my eyes from the intensity of his gaze. “Then what do you want?”

“To protect you.”

I jerk my head up, eyes widening.

Outside, thunder cracks and lightning flashes, a perfect imitation of what’s going on inside of me.

His eyes flick to my lips.

I swallow hard.

Take me. Oh no! Did I say that out loud?

He moves two steps toward me and I instinctively back up until my butt bumps a bookshelf.

A book topples from the stand showcasing it.

He moves as swiftly as a lightning strike to catch it.

“Th-Thank you.”

The cowboy leans forward to put it back and his wet shirtsleeve brushes me.

I shiver but it has nothing to do with the dampness of that material but the dampness between my legs.

He steps away, giving me space.

“To protect me…what makes you think I need protecting?”

“Broken recognizes broken.” He’s gruff, nearly barking out the words.

I blink at that. At the glimpse of fury twisting with grief on his face before he exhales and glances out the window. “Rain is slacking. I need to go. But come to me.”

“Come to you?”

He nods.

I want to. Devil may care. Throwing caution to the wind. But caution has kept me alive so far.

“I don’t want…I don’t need…protection.” I tuck a strand of hair behind one ear. A habit when I’m nervous.

The cowboy picks one of the bookstore’s business cards from the tray on the counter and writes something on the back of it.

He puts it in my hand, holding on briefly.

Warmth and strength cover my trembling fingers.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Then he’s gone.

I make my way to one of the reading chairs and sink into it, heart galloping. Then I read what he wrote. His name, Leo Richford, followed by an address on Pearl Street.

It’s an old building recently renovated that rents business spaces. Currently, it houses a hair salon, a print shop, and a self-defense academy.

Self-defense? Against the people after me, that won’t matter. They’ve given permanent naps to people much stronger than I am.

And though I don’t believe anything, or anyone can keep me safe, I’ll show up. Because for a reason I can’t understand, my heart and my body cry out for the rugged cowboy.

Leo

“What the hell was that about?”

My brother, Flint, looks at me, then squints through the rain dotting the windshield to stare at the bookstore.

We’re not brothers by blood but by bond. When you walk through fire, family becomes the ones who pull you from the flames.

“She reminds me of my broken angel in that place of hell.” That’s all I can say. How can I tell him I took one look, and my heart was hers? He’d think all my brain cells expired from the Texas heat if I told him how badly I need to hold her.

He starts the truck and pulls away from the sidewalk, driving in silence and I’m cursing myself for uttering the words, the reminder of where we came from, what we survived.

“Any response from The Gentle Children’s Home on where they might have gone?”

At his question, my laugh is as dark as his. There was nothing gentle about it. He’s asking about the friends we once had there. “Closed down.”

“Supposedly,” Flint says, his fingers gripping the steering wheel. Then he relaxes them. “Hopefully got out and were lucky like we were.”

I know we’re fortunate. If not for Gavin Richford adopting a slew of us kids from the home, who knows where we would have ended up.

He and his wife Frances became our parents four days after I turned fifteen. I arrived at the ranch braced, expecting more bruising, and instead encountered a love that was soft and welcoming, one like I had never known.

But I’m too far gone to drop my guard.

I guess it’s my destiny to live on the outside of love, looking in at it but knowing better than to put my hand out toward it and break someone.

Flint scowls, smacking his palm on the steering wheel. “Dad should have told us what was going on with the ranch. We would have come home before things got this bad. Everything’s a fucking mess.”

“Have you found anyone for the manager position yet?” Flint’s in charge of the ranch right now, while our folks are visiting a sick friend in Houston. He’s trying to untangle all the threads threatening to take the only true home we’ve known from us.

“I interviewed a few people but haven’t hired anyone.”

I get what’s taking so long. It’s hard to trust.

The last ranch manager we’d known for years took everything from the bank accounts and forged paperwork to get a loan on the place right under Dad’s nose. It was only all of us banding together and fighting like hell that’s managed to let us barely hang on to the place.

It’s still touch and go financially, which is why I’m teaching self-defense classes and why my brothers are taking on side jobs. It’s why we’re offering some of the cabins on the ranch as vacation stays.

Between that and still handling the ranch chores, all of us are working ourselves to the bone.

The truck bumps over a rough patch of dirt road leading to the main house. The rain helps keep the dust to a minimum. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be riding with the window lowered.

He stops the truck and as we exit, our brothers spill out of the house one after the other. There are eight of us that Dad adopted from the Home at one time and two more that he adopted later because the Home hadn’t wanted to relinquish its control.

Mom cried when my brother Jonas, who used to sleep hiding under the bed every night for months became hysterical and said, “If I promise to never ask for anything, can I stay? Please don’t send me back.”

That was the first and only time I had ever heard Dad cuss like that. He’d hugged Jonas and said no one was getting any of his boys.

“Family meeting,” Wilder says, striding toward the barn.

We all head up to the hayloft where there’s a scattering of chairs and a cooler that always has melting ice and a beer or two in it.

Flint sits on a sleeping bag on the floor.

Wilder glances at him, then at me and I can tell it’s bad.

His fists clench. “That bastard sold a bunch of the equipment. I didn’t find out until Roger Gardner came over a little while ago to claim all the tractors.”

“Fuck!” Marshall snarls. “Did he take them?”

Wilder shakes his head. “No, because River scraped together the money to pay him back for them on the spot. Roger bitched about it but he eventually left.”

They all start talking at once about what else we need to do to bring more money in.

I stretch my legs out, my body relaxed but my mind going a hundred miles a minute thinking about the times I’ve seen Amanda around town.

When she smiles, I get a hiccup in my heart. When she looks around nervously, I want to run to her and pull her into my arms.

That would shock her since she doesn’t even know me. Hell, it kind of shocks me. I can’t for the life of me explain why I feel the way I do.

But I’ll do whatever I need to for her to be mine, and I’ll morph into beast mode at full throttle to keep her safe.