Braving the Storm (Crimson Ridge #2)

Chapter 19

T wenty square feet suddenly feels like it has shrunk to barely two in the wake of yesterday. This cabin is like a glass case, where every attempt I’ve tried to make, every effort to tread carefully with the aim of avoiding Briar, well, I’ve failed.

Miserably.

Not because I want to avoid her, the opposite extreme is true. It’s the fact I know her dirty little secret, and that calls to the side of me I shouldn’t even be considering letting off his chain.

The smug, all-too-pleased-with-himself asshole, who wants nothing more than to throw this girl down and show her everything she’s been missing.

To teach her all the ways her body and goddamn soul can respond under my touch.

Right now, these close confines are feeling like a hellfire punishment sent to torment me. That this girl is right under my feet everywhere I turn, and my brain is so scattered—so fucking hung up on everything that has happened between us so far—that I keep tripping over her.

Physically and metaphorically.

The harder I try, the clumsier I get.

I even managed to walk in on her getting out of the shower this morning because I was too lost in my own mind, replaying what she felt like beneath me… and, well, I didn’t mean to bust in on her, but another opportunity to see her half naked by accident has done absolutely nothing to calm this fucking situation.

Five seconds into making breakfast for us, I’d somehow managed to crush her against the benchtop. Unintentionally, of course, but the asshole inside me wanted to keep her there and reach out for her, and I had to damn well scold myself for continually being drawn into her body.

The entire shit show of a morning has basically involved me apologizing, while Briar tells me it’s nothing to worry about. However, she won’t meet my eyes, and her cheeks have been tinged pink.

It kills me that she won’t look at me.

Even though I know what we did last night was consensual, it still fucking grates that she’s embarrassed or ashamed or whatever the fuck is going through her mind.

She’s a damn gorgeous sight when she falls apart, and holy shit, I was so close to losing all control with her. The fact this girl had me grinding against her ass until I nearly blew in my pants tells me everything I need to know about how well and truly fucked in the head I am.

That girl has got nothing to feel churned up about. I’m the sick bastard who won’t, or can’t, seem to keep my hands off her or my head on straight. I’m the one who snapped after seeing that she had been watching old footage of me. I don’t know how or why, but after being so messed up thinking about her being on a date, then seeing her wearing my coat, then knowing that she’s even moderately interested in something about my life… it fucking killed off any last glimpses of commonsense that might have been floating around.

That moment smashed my already busted moral compass, and now I don’t know what the fuck to do.

I know her scent, her moans, her gasping breaths .

I also know that she’s been keeping a secret, and that spurs something feral to buck around inside my chest.

She felt so damn good in my arms, in my shirt, sleeping beside her is the best I’ve ever slept in my life. I don’t ever think I’ve made it through the night, untroubled and uninterrupted, the way I do with her softness and quiet breathing on the pillow beside mine. After so many years of trying to numb myself with booze or sex or just wiping my body out, none of that ever worked. I’d still be awake or lying with restless limbs or up and pacing around in the darkness of the devil’s hours. All while the rest of the world was deep in dreamland.

Yet, with Briar, I’m tugged into such a deep, restful sleep I don’t even notice her getting up and leaving the bed. I only seem to stir once she’s gone and feel that uncomfortable goddamn sensation inside my chest cavity like someone is trying to grip my heart inside a fist.

So, as we slide into the truck together in order to make our way up the mountain to Devil's Peak Ranch for the day, I crank the stereo and figure it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier on both of us if we don’t have to talk, at all.

The buzzer sounds, and I hurl myself off the back of the snorting, violent beast. Guys rush in, bullfighters, work to distract the animal as I get myself to safety and clear of the arena. Noise, heat, dirt, it all rushes into my senses.

Pulse racing, wrenching my glove off, I’m already certain that might just be a championship-winning ride. Might even hit the nineties club.

As the announcer calls my score, it’s a 92.5.

Electric elation rockets through my blood, igniting my veins, combined with the adrenaline of the ride, I’m left almost numb. Beau is right there, grabbing me, shaking me by the shoulders and he’s yelling in my face. Music blares and the arena lights dance off his eyes as he pulls me in for a hug and keeps on hollering.

My friend who already had one hell of a ride tonight himself, who could so easily be on top of the world right now, is celebrating right alongside me. My brain can’t process this feeling. Beau could have easily won instead, his total scores came a close second behind mine. Yet it’s my name they’re screaming. It’s my shirt clenched beneath his fist as he crashes our foreheads together, and the delight rolls off him at the sight of my winning points total lit up on the big screen.

I won.

I fucking won.

But I almost don’t hear any of the excitement or joy coming my way.

Amongst it all, woven between the chaos of announcements, media, the presentation, and accolades from the crowd, that familiar pit lurks in my stomach. What does any of it fucking matter when there was no one there? St?rmand Lane wins another title, and there are thousands of fans whistling and clamoring for my attention, yet no one is in those stands cheering me on. There’s been no sign of my own brother—and I know for a fact he’s in Las Vegas; he’s in this very same city tonight, and can’t be bothered to show up.

The classic All-American rodeo star. Living the dream, without a single family member left alive who gives a shit. What a fucking joke.

As I’m finally released from the mayhem of being crowned a winner, finally freed to head out toward the competitor’s area, I hear my name. A couple of girls hang by the security, and as they call out their congratulations, hungry eyes rake down my body appreciatively. Girls who I’ll never see again after tonight. One of them is blonde, leggy, a typical buckle bunny. Her friend looks much the same. Both flash white smiles and bat their eyelashes in my direction as I draw nearer.

I might have a championship buckle, a prizewinner’s check to cash, but they look like a fucking excellent way to forget about the emptiness inside my chest.

“Keep them there if you can, Storm. We’ll work our way through the front of the herd.” Colt calls out to me, dragging my mind back to the here and now on Devil’s Peak Ranch .

Hell, I’ve been so lost in my own head, I’ve hardly been concentrating on what I should be doing. That’s flanking the heifers we’re moving, not getting lost in my shitty past, or wishing I’d made a different goddamn choice that night.

Pinching my brow, I cast my eyes over the mass of black bodies, their rough coats, tufted ears flicking as they bellow and rumble in front of me.

The last thing I need today is Colton Wilder finding a reason to lash me with that sharp tongue when he’s in a mood. The grumpy fucker hardly trusts anyone else to do anything around here on a good day.

Seated on their horses, he and Layla are over the far side of the paddock, guiding the cattle from the front. They needed help today with bringing the herd in for vaccinations, and I’ll always turn up when he needs a hand around this place.

However, it’s the younger Wilder man who has had my teeth on edge since arriving earlier.

Kayce is being the usual blond-haired, blue-eyed prick he is. All the memories of my younger years are reflected back at me when I look at him. Everything I used to be, before the tattoos and embracing the role of being the bad boy on the pro tour. I was the guy who played perfectly into the narrative sponsors, and the PR machine all fed off.

They fucking loved St?rmand Lane , until they didn’t.

My bulletproof, charmed life right before I made the worst decision I could ever make one night on a whim while blind drunk and wasted out of my mind in Vegas.

A decision that flipped my world and my career on its head for good… leaving me chasing my own sanity while hidden away here on this mountain. Worst part in all that twisted fucking time in my life, is that she’s not even around to see the outfall of her actions.

At least today has been full, keeping me numbingly occupied and endlessly busy. The kind of daily ranching grind that doesn’t leave much time for sitting around thinking . Kayce has had Briar up in the saddle from the moment we got to the ranch, and I’ve been helping Colt out with his head of cattle so he can check them over now that we’re into spring.

Steam rises off their black coats as the low, drawn-out calls, grinding groans, and snorts fill the air. We’re only rounding up a small group. Colt doesn’t run a large herd, but he’s been keen to vaccinate and keep a closer eye on them after being away traveling.

Much like Beau, he’s about the only other person on this goddamn planet I’d drop anything to help, and I know he’d do the same for me.

Christ, the man spent a night up a ladder in the pitch black and freezing rain helping me fix a hole in my roof once when a tree came down a few years back. Damn thing nearly took out half the cabin, and yet he was there for me within the hour of putting out a call on the radio. Colton Wilder is one of the good ones, and as I watch a hint of softness spread across his features when he looks over at the woman in the saddle beside him, with her copper hair in two long braids, I couldn’t be fucking happier to see him finally find his person in Layla.

Even if their circumstances of meeting weren’t exactly conventional, or an easy road to get to where they are now.

Reaching up, I readjust my hat and lean one arm down to pat my horse's neck. His weight shifts around beneath me, and his ears twitch; he’s clever, knowing exactly why we’re here and what is required. As I murmur a few words, telling him just how good a job he’s doing, we both keep one eye on the mob in case of any breakaways.

Across the other side of the herd, Kayce flanks to one side of Briar, both of them on their own horses. They’re not exactly here to help with the round-up—even though Kayce could easily get the fuck over here and lend more of a hand if he chose to—but at least he’s alongside Briar and helping her build more confidence riding out beyond the pens up by the barn.

I hate to admit it, but Kayce Wilder is good at this whole teaching bullshit. Much better and miles more patient than I could ever be. So I’m happy Briar could learn with someone she’s comfortable around, not to mention that during our time spent up here, Layla seems to have taken her under her wing.

They spent an awful lot of time together yesterday, and the insane part of me wonders if Briar mentioned anything about me. About us. Even though there can’t be an us , so it’s already a ludicrous thought and has no right to even be a question floating around my mind.

The darkest part of me that still wants to wrestle free half expects Wes to show up any minute to whisk her away on another date. That’s the part who wants to help him lose a few teeth and maybe break a few fingers, you know, for good measure. Fortunately for my sanity, she hasn’t said anything… other than last night when she more or less admitted she didn’t want him.

Or, at least I think she did.

In all honesty, I might have been too caught up on the cocky wave I was riding, knowing she’s been watching clips of my rodeo years, and could have willfully misinterpreted those four simple words.

I don’t want him.

Leaning my weight forward in the saddle, my eyes are drawn back to Briar yet again. Like she’s the source of all the damn daylight shining down on us, and I’m scraping for just one more ray, one tiny glimmer to shine in my direction. Only this time when I glance over, that smug fucker inside my chest beats a victory drum. A floaty, intoxicating feeling swells to a crescendo.

She’s already looking at me.

Goddamn, all those details I can catalog from here—her dark hair and soulful brown eyes and pouty lips—if it all doesn’t scream that she’s mine.

Even if she can’t ever be mine.

Even if no one can ever know that I’m thinking about my niece in a way that I’ve absolutely no right to.

The herd continues to slowly move forward, with snorts and rumbling noises, until they’re finally all in the holding pen where Layla wants them secured so she can start working on their vaccinations. That brings my horse to draw level alongside Briar’s, and much to my frustration, Kayce is right there beaming at me.

My teeth grind, and I can feel the pulse in my jaw. He and I, we’ve spent a lot of time together these past few months while I based myself here at the ranch through winter to help run the place with Colt being away. I’ve also been doing what I can to help get him ready for his next stint on the road competing. This kid has got the makings of hitting it big, if only he hadn’t spent so much time in the past few years doing his best to fuck all that up by getting day drunk and losing sponsors faster than he could blink.

“Yo, Storm. You’re free this weekend?” Kayce pulls his horse into step with mine as we make our way back toward the barn.

I give him an exasperated look. “Depends.”

There’s no way I’m agreeing to anything, until I know exactly whatever the fuck this is.

“We’re all going down to Crimson Ridge since Layla’s friend is coming to town and she wants us to meet her. You’d better bring your miserable attitude so you can keep my dad company, alright?”

My fists tighten around the reins. Running my tongue over my teeth, it feels impossible not to steal a glance at Briar now that she’s so close and looks so damn good in the saddle.

The girl, who I’m fairly certain had never ever touched a horse before arriving on this mountain and turning my life on its head.

“City girl here is in. Surely even your antisocial ass can leave the Peak to put in an appearance for a few hours.”

“What friend?” I shift my weight in the saddle. If Briar has already said yes to this fuckery, and Colt is going, then against my better judgment, it looks like I’m going to have to agree to this.

“Sage… they’ve been friends forever.”

“It sounds fun.” Briar chimes in.

“Gonna bring your lil man friend?” Kayce looks over her way with a shit-eating grin on his face that I’ll gladly remove for him.

One little mention is enough to have my shoulders stiffening. It takes every ounce of self-control I’ve got to keep my eyes planted on the back of my horse's head.

“I guess I can ask Wes if he’s free.”

Wes. Jesus. Not Westin. She’s already calling him by a nickname and sounds far too much like someone seriously considering seeing him again. Not if I’ve got anything to fucking do with it, but I don’t get a say in who this girl spends her time with, so I have to bite down on my tongue hard enough to draw blood.

“Wes is a fucking good dude, you know; his family has been ranching out here a long time. Pretty sure he’s taking things over at their property so his folks can retire. He’s always offered if we need a hand with anything up here, or if I need a place to train closer to Crimson Ridge; that’s just the kind of guy he is.”

Fuck off. Fuck right off right now.

Kayce is basically selling her this guy, doing his best pitch to Briar about how goddamn perfect her ‘cowboy date’ is. The worst part of all this, is that it’s all true. He is a good guy, with all his good guy, salt of the earth bullshit.

Westin Hayes is everything I’m not. He’s got a ranch to his name, a family who all work the land together, and there certainly aren’t rumors whispered behind hands—hushed tones and wide eyes as they ask each other how a person could possibly do something so awful and get away with it—every time he walks through the door.

What the hell do I have in comparison to a guy like that? I don’t even own the property I live in.

Evidently, the girl in the saddle beside me does.

Black thoughts about perfect cowboy Wes and how I’d rather chew off my own foot than have to sit through dinner with him and Briar together take precedence right through the process of making sure the horses are away in their stalls. Right through checking in with Colt and Layla, who let me know they’re able to handle things from here with the cattle. Through the endless chatter between her and Kayce as they talked about fuck knows what, because I wasn’t even listening. No, I was too busy figuring out ways to break his jaw and make it look like an accident. Right through until the moment, I’m driving back down the mountain with the pretty young thing perched in the passenger side of my truck.

“You never answered Kayce’s question earlier, you know.” Briar looks out the window, but her voice floats my way. “Whether you’re planning on joining us for dinner this weekend.”

“Didn’t think you’d concern yourself with my being there or not.” I shrug. Molars clenched. Fists strangling the steering wheel.

“They’re your friends, too. Layla wants you to come. Besides, I assume Colt would quite appreciate having you to sit and be grumpy together with.”

She’s teasing me, attempting in her sweet way that she does to coax and prod and try to lighten the thunder cloud mood I’ve brought along with me for the drive.

However, I’m a dick, and in return, all I’ve seemingly got to offer is a snarling, jealous hellhound.

“What about Wes? Planning on inviting him along? Planning on taking things further with him this time?” The words are out of me before I can do anything about it.

Briar’s head whips in my direction, her dark eyes flash, and those enticing lips hang a little parted. A plush mouth I shouldn’t be stealing glances at every five minutes like an addict. Yet, here I am doing just that.

She wets her lips, studying me for an agonizingly long stretch of time.

“Is this my uncle asking… or the guy who shows up after dark?” Her voice is soft. As if there’s a risk of someone hearing her words that she knows neither of us are supposed to be entertaining.

I fix my eyes on the road. Fuck. This is dancing us closer to something we’ve been careful to avoid until now. “You’re one to talk. Those thorns of yours are doing a good job of keeping everyone at arm’s length.” We’ve been experts at side-stepping any real conversation after the couple of nights when I’ve watched the most intimate sight of this girl falling apart in my arms. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way your pointed barbs avoid getting close to revealing the real reason why you’re even here, or what you’re running from, Briar. My patience only goes so far.”

Briar fiddles with the cuff of her jacket—my jacket—where her palms rest in her lap.

“I’m not sure, ok.” From the corner of my eye, I see her examine a thread on the sleeve extremely closely. “I don’t know if I want to meet up with him again, like that, for a date.”

“He wasn’t good to you?” My neck prickles. “If I find out he did anything, so help me—”

“No, no… he was fine. It was nothing like that.” Briar is quick to respond, to cut me off from whatever dark place I was about to plunge into, sensing my rising tide of tension.

“Then what?”

Puffing out a breath, she lifts her gaze to stare out the window. “He talked about you… kinda a lot.”

Those words act like a warm and welcome breeze, blowing in and instantly melting away all the fraught emotion and clenched muscles. A mere handful of words have gone and got me feeling about ten feet tall inside the cab of this truck.

“Did he now?” This is news to me, and all of a sudden, just like that, Westin motherfuckin’ Hayes is off my shit list.

“Oh, you can put all of that away.” Briar swivels to face me from the other end of the bench seat, and waves a hand in the direction of my unconcealed smirk. “Don’t look so goddamn pleased with yourself.” Her disapproving glare is far too cute for her own good.

“What would you rather have happened then, darlin’? Would you have preferred he took you somewhere and didn’t talk to you at all?”

She squirms. Doesn’t say anything. Immediately flicks her gaze down to the place where her fingers curl around the jacket sleeve.

“Briar. Answer the question.” As I touch my tongue to the front of my teeth and demand more from the beautiful girl, who is becoming increasingly more flushed each time I look over her way, we turn into the gravel track winding through the tall pines leading to the cabin.

Pulling up outside, I put the truck into park and cut the engine. The silence wraps around us in the same lingering manner as the night she sat in my lap while parked in this very spot, and surely, to all that is morally correct and honorable, that should be my warning to leave.

That deafening stillness is the alert, the siren, the alarm bell going off. My signal to get the fuck out of this vehicle and not wait to hear her reply. To not corrupt this girl with my goddamn messed-up fantasies.

Yet, I wait, keeping my fingers wrapped around the steering wheel in every effort not to put those hands somewhere inappropriate.

To prevent myself from touching her .

“It’s embarrassing, alright.” Briar chews her lip, giving me a glimpse of those dark eyes as her lashes hang low over her gaze.

“You can tell me.” My heart thuds a little harder at the prospect of what I think this girl is about to put into words. What I suspect the real reason is. Something that I have no right to be curious about, considering that I’m her uncle.

But fuck. Do I want to hear it.

“I already told you the other night. I don’t have much experience , so I need to get some somewhere, don’t I? Wouldn’t you rather, if it had to be with anyone, that it was with Mr. Nice Guy Cowboy Country Manners?”

Briar’s words tumble out of her in a hasty confession, immediately followed by slamming her mouth shut, as if she’s said too much, but it’s out there now, and she can’t reel those words back in. Her painted fingernails hook the door handle, attempting to push her side open, to escape this front seat after her outburst. However, fate, or whatever you want to call this pivotal, unsanctioned moment between us, clearly has other intentions.

Her door jams.

The harder Briar tries, huffing, and making a small noise of frustration, the more resolutely it gives her the middle finger and refuses to budge.

I open my side and unfold myself from the seat, letting my boots hit the dirt as I chew over the prospect of what this sequence of unlikely, and endlessly enticing events has brought to fruition. Resting both hands on the roof of the truck, I allow my body to drape across the open doorway, filling the space with my bulk as I duck my head and affix my sights on the girl staring back at me. We stay like that, gazes locked, and I run my tongue to wet my bottom lip. Briar focuses on the motion, watching my mouth with a piercing intensity—something akin to terror and interest in her dark eyes and fuck, if that combination isn’t a potent drug—while I allow my eyes to take in every gorgeous inch of her.

Because this feeling right here, is the same as being in the bucking chute preparing to be released into the arena.

We both feel it, but only she has the power over what happens next.

This is the moment when the air crackles, the adrenaline spikes. It’s the act of voluntarily climbing into a situation you know is going to go from zero to one hundred in the stamp of a hoof, a bullwhip slicing the air with a crack, flipping unpredictably in the blink of an eye.

Readying yourself to either be bucked off and stomped all over, or hear that sweetest roar of victory when the buzzer sounds.

Or maybe, in my case, ruination.

“From the looks of it, you’re gonna have to slide out this side, darlin’.”