The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch

by Maisey Yates

  “To West and Pansy,” he said.

  “Thank you,” West said, grinning.

  “If you hurt my sister, I’ll rearrange that pretty face of yours into something no one would ever recognize as human. Count on it.” He said it with a smile.

  “I believe you,” West said.

  “Good,” Ryder responded. “You ought to.”

  Ryder was teasing. Well, kind of.

  Ryder was protective. He always had been.

  It was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place.

  And seeing it now, seeing it play out with Pansy made her feel... He was so sure and solid. Everything here was sure and solid. For the longest time her only goal had been to have a family.

  She had made something of a family with the Daniels. More than something. They were better than the one she had been born into, that was for sure. But... Pansy had broken off and now she was making a life for herself, and it reminded Sammy that she was no closer to doing that.

  And you want something to change.

  She did.

  She was doing really well with her handmade jewelry business. Online marketplaces and an interest in craft fairs had done very well for Sammy. She had something of her own.

  She wasn’t dependent. Not anymore. But... Well, but.

  It was her mother. The sameness of her mother combined with the accusations her mother had spit out.

  Sammy’s mother was the same as she always had been. Brittle and angry, her skin pulled too tightly over her bones. Committed to misery and bad decisions, when before the death of her father Sammy had been convinced she’d been committed to him.

  But her father had died five years ago. A heart attack. Which felt right. A heart ill-used, turned hard and scarred. A heart that allowed the abuse of a child. That didn’t burn at all when he’d turned his rage and fists on the little girl she’d been.

  It seemed right a heart like that would give out early. Poisoned by the spite that surrounded it.

  Though she knew death found many good people that same way, so it was probably just a random occurrence.

  It comforted her to think otherwise.

  When he’d died she’d believed that maybe she and her mom could...that maybe with the enemy gone they could find a way to having a relationship. But no.

  Paula Marshall had proven that while she hadn’t made the particular kind of misery she’d found with her husband, she hadn’t wanted to find anything else in life, either.

  And she was angry at Sammy for leaving. For walking out on the abuse.

  I wouldn’t do that to my child.

  She hadn’t said it to her mother earlier, but she thought it now in defiance.

  She would be a better mother. She knew she would be.

  And she could change at any time. She wasn’t frozen the way her mom was. Her mom was still in that house. Like she was tied to it.

  Sammy wasn’t like her. She could...she could do whatever she wanted.

  And that feeling in her chest, that insistence, expanded.

  Without thinking, she turned to Ryder. “Can I talk to you?”

  Ryder looked at her, one brow arched. “Sure.” He stayed rooted to his seat, as if he didn’t understand that she was clearly asking to speak to him alone.

  “Outside,” she said.

  He was going to tell her she was crazy. She totally knew that. But she really wanted to talk to him about this. About her idea. About what she wanted to do to move her life to where she wanted it to be.

  She was thirty-three years old. At some point there had to be more than just sponging off her best friend’s family, using his kitchen and parking on his land. At some point she had to make something for herself. Something of herself.

  She didn’t want to be her mother.

  Never changing.

  Tied to something that had no real power to hold her anywhere anymore.

  What if she wasn’t destined to be like her mother at all?

  That had been itching at her brain now for a while, a restlessness in her soul she hadn’t been able to define.

  Until today.

  And even though she knew that Ryder would tell her she was crazy, she wanted him to know what she was thinking.

  Because his opinion mattered, even if she didn’t ultimately do what he suggested. It just mattered. He mattered. He always had.

  “If you’re asking me my opinion on any of the guys out on the dance floor, it’s grim.”

  She laughed, reaching out and placing her hand on his shoulder, the connection instantly soothing her. “No. I already told you none of them were in the running for my particular brand of friendship.”

  “Good thing.” She laughed at his stern mouth. Honestly, he could be such a...brick wall.

  “I’m not asking you to help me pick out my date for the evening. I am not asking for your opinion on my choice of bra.”

  He shook his head. “Thank God.”

  She’d only done that once. She’d been seventeen. And she wasn’t sure what had possessed her to do it. A need for attention, most likely. She had narrowed down quite a lot of her behavior to that one root cause. When she had been young, she had been almost entirely driven by that need. She had settled into something a lot more comfortable over the past years. More comfortable with herself, which had translated into her being more comfortable with everyone around her, and a whole lot less...random and volatile.

  “I’ve been thinking about something for a while,” she said as they walked out the front door of the saloon and onto the main street.

  The streets were crowded, and it was dark. The air was warm, the sky clear, the golden glow from the streetlamps doing nothing to dim the light from the stars, which were like crushed silver against black velvet.

  She loved a country sky.

  As long as she could see those stars wherever she was, it could feel like home. And she had done a bit of roaming over the past few years in her camper van, selling her jewelry. But she always came back here.

  Always came back to her touchstone.

  And she was starting to wonder if that was keeping her stagnant, rather than simply holding her steady.

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m so proud of Pansy. Of how she’s grown up. And that makes me sound about a thousand years old but...”

  “Hell, you practically raised them,” he said.

  “No, you raised them. Iris did. But I was there. And watching her and Rose particularly become the women that they are is really inspiring. But Pansy... She’s in love. She’s making her own family. An offshoot of what you have. And that’s an amazing thing. It’s so brave.”

  “Sounds exhausting to me,” Ryder said.

  “Yes, I know your opinions on marriage and the institution thereof. Also your stance on children. And I don’t blame you. I really don’t. You know why I first started giving you sugar cubes?”

  “Yes. And I told you a thousand times. The sugar was not required.”

  She smiled. It had started with sugar cubes. There had been a spot where she’d gone, in the mountains, and she’d looked down on the ranch imagining she was part of them. Until she had ached with it. Been full with her longing for it. She had begun sneaking into the barn, and she had given the horses at the ranch sugar cubes. And then she had started leaving them behind. Leaving them for Ryder. It was how he had first known someone was sneaking into the barn at all. She had begun doing it to get away from her father’s rages. Had gone hiding out at Hope Springs, because the name had appealed.

  She’d needed some hope.

  Ryder had suspected someone was in the barn, but he never found her. Until one day she left an intentional trail of sugar cubes that led right to her.

  She could remember it like it
was yesterday. Looking up into those stern, brown eyes.

  Who are you?

  Would you believe I’m the sugar fairy?

  And she held up a sugar cube. Reflexively, he held out his hand, and she had dropped it into his palm. You took my treat, she said. Now you can’t be mad at me.

  And somehow after that, she had found a way to make sure she was never away from there—away from him—for very long.

  At first he had been grumpy about it. And very unfriendly. But he had let her follow him around while he was doing ranch chores. And after a while, she just couldn’t remember what it was like to go a day without walking around Hope Springs Ranch in Ryder Daniels’s boot steps.

  The idea of changing that, of ending it... It made her whole chest ache.

  But Sammy wanted more for herself.

  And she only had two real thoughts on how to do that.

  “I think I’m going to leave,” she said, determinedly looking down the street.

  There was a truck stopped at the four-way that headed out of town, two girls hanging out the windows, catcalling the cowboys walking down the street. One of them stopped to do spontaneous push-ups and the girls started howling.

  “Okay,” Ryder said, his tone neutral.

  “No, not like I do sometimes. Like...really leave.”

  “What?” The question was sharp. She could feel him looking at her, but she didn’t look back.

  “Not like...forever. But...for longer than I do sometimes. I think I need to strike out on my own a little bit more.”

  “What brought this on?” She could hear the frown in his voice. Laced through with stern disapproval.

  She shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal and not something that had been nagging at her for ages now. “Pansy. Pansy making her own way. Her own place. Her own family.”

  Ryder looked like he wanted to say about ten different things at once, which was strange, considering he never looked like he had more than one thing to say at a time, if that. He said nothing.

  “I think it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “Because... I’m happy. But I’m not whole. I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I need to do to have the kind of life I want. I’m not a kid anymore. And it’s all hitting me really suddenly. I’ve always thought of Hope Springs as Neverland, Ryder, but I have to grow up.”

  “Is anyone stopping you from growing up?”

  “I’m stagnant.”

  “You’re not,” he said, his eyes far too sharp and focused. Far too insightful.

  “It’s my mom,” she said finally. “She came to the workshop today and...she’s just...stuck, Ryder. She’s committed to her bad choices. I thought my dad held her back but it was her. So what if I’m the only thing holding me back, too?”

  “Holding you back from what? Sammy, you’re building a successful jewelry business. You’re a one-woman manufacturing machine.”

  “But I’m... I don’t know how to explain it. I’m the same. I’m...alone.”

  “You have us.”

  Yes. She did. The family she’d crashed.

  “I know. I don’t mean that but I... I look at my mom and I see someone so bitter about everything. So stuck in these choices she made, and I don’t want to become that. I don’t want to realize someday that I missed out on something I really wanted.”

  You’d be a terrible mother.

  Rage kicked in her chest. Rage and a desire to prove her mother wrong.

  “I want to be more than I am. More than she thinks I can be. Just... Ryder...” She turned to face him finally, and the look in his brown eyes nearly took her breath away. But she continued on anyway because her mind was made up, and it was too late to turn back now. “I think I want to have a baby.”

  Copyright © 2020 by Maisey Yates

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Insatiable Hunger by Yahrah St. John.

  Insatiable Hunger

  by Yahrah St. John

  Chapter One

  Falling Brook’s country club had been given a face-lift, Jessie Acosta thought as she walked around the elegantly appointed ballroom. The Black & Silver Soirée theme was in full effect. Silver and black balloons hung from the ceiling and the tables were decked with black tablecloths and silver lamé runners.

  Black and silver confetti had been sprinkled over the tables, giving them a festive touch, and on top of each sat either a glass vase filled with black tulips and silver-gray roses or a bowl topped with silver and black ornaments. Black plates sat atop silver chargers and held silver napkins and flatware. Reunion guests’ names were in tiny silver frames next to each setting. The reunion committee had outdone itself.

  Jessie herself had come prepared to dazzle in an eye-catching, sequined spaghetti-strapped gown with a plunging V-neckline and an open back with crisscross detail. Or at least, that had been her intention, but her long-distance boyfriend, Hugh O’Malley, was nowhere to be found. When she’d asked him if he was coming home from London for the event, he’d informed her he was too busy at work. So she’d spent most of her evening in the company of Ryan Hathaway, at one time one of her oldest friends.

  That changed fifteen years ago when her parents had lost their entire fortune because of Black Crescent Investments. CEO Vernon Lowell had embezzled millions from his clients—her parents included—disappearing before authorities could catch him. That loss had led Jessie to always wanting to make her parents happy and to do what was expected. Instead of hanging out with Ryan all the time, she’d started dating Hugh O’Malley, who was from one of the richest families in town, just to please them, and she knew they expected them to marry. But lately she’d become increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of her life and their long-distance relationship. And then tonight happened and suddenly she was seeing the world through a different lens.

  Ryan stood a few feet away, talking to several of their classmates, but he was head and shoulders above them. Ryan wasn’t the sweet, shy boy next door who wore glasses and was slightly overweight she’d grown up with. The Ryan Hathaway she’d met tonight was confident, lean and trim, and wore contacts. There wasn’t anything shy about him. He was sexy and carried it well in a black custom-fit tuxedo.

  Jessie hadn’t be able to stop herself from ogling. It had been several years since she’d last seen him. Ryan’s once-curly black hair had been cut into a close-cropped fade along the sides with curly tendrils at the top. And since when did he have facial hair? It was just a smattering—a mustache and fuzz on the chin—but it gave him a hint of mystery and danger. His charcoal eyes had been trained on her for most of the night and, to Jessie’s surprise, she kind of liked it.

  When they’d talked, it was like the years faded away and they were just Ryan and Jessie sitting in his tree house and talking about their dreams for the future. Ryan had done quite well for himself. He worked for a high-profile investment company in Manhattan while Jessie toiled away as an associate at a midsize firm in corporate law.

  It amazed her that they’d been in the same city yet hardly seen each other. But how would they, when she worked sixty-hour weeks? Sometimes more. She wanted to make partner and the only way to do that was to get those billable hours.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Ryan asked, suddenly by her side. She’d been so engrossed in thought, she hadn’t seen him wander over.

  “Just thinking about how so much has changed,” Jessie said, glancing up at him from underneath her lashes. “You, especially.”

  A large grin spread across his incredibly full lips. Why hadn’t she noticed how divine they were before? “Me? I’m the same Ryan you’ve always known.”

  Jessie shook her head. “I beg to differ. You’re different.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  She smiled. “No, it’s a great thing.”

  He regarded her silently for a moment, as if weighing his options. “
Care to dance?”

  “I would love to.”

  Any thoughts she had evaporated the moment Ryan pulled her against him. Jessie felt...well, sort of strange because they’d never danced together. Maybe when they were little and had been playing around. In his arms now, Jessie felt acutely aware of her body and the way her breasts crushed against Ryan’s chest.

  Raw masculine heat radiated from his close proximity, causing her heart to flutter uncontrollably. And when Ryan pressed his body against hers and slid his thigh between the softness of hers, Jessie nearly lost it. This was Ryan. It wasn’t right she should be feeling these things...but she did.

  He smelled so good. Felt so good. When he wound his arms around her waist, Jessie wanted to reach up on her tiptoes and sweep her lips across his. What was wrong with her? Ryan was her friend, but he didn’t feel like a friend. She glanced up and peered into his eyes. He didn’t look at her like one, either.

  His ebony gaze raked over her face, his eyes trained on her mouth. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to. Desperately. She wanted to feel his lips crushed against her own, only then might it slake the hunger growing deep in her belly. She licked her lips in anticipation and watched Ryan’s eyes grow dark with desire.

  He wound his fingers through her shoulder-length bob, bringing her face to his.

  “Ryan!”

  “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you,” he taunted.

  Jessie opened her mouth to say no, but she couldn’t get the word out. And it would be a lie because she did want Ryan’s kiss. She closed her eyes, preparing herself for an unforgettable kiss, when suddenly there was commotion behind them.

  Startled, Jessie glanced over Ryan’s shoulder to see Hugh saunter into the ballroom amid much fanfare.

  Hugh was her dream guy—all six feet of him. With his classic good looks, she’d been in love with him since she was a teenager. Wavy jet-black hair cut just above the neck, piercing blue eyes, a sculpted face and a square jaw encompassed by day-old stubble made Hugh O’Malley Falling Brook’s hottest catch. He was the man she was supposed to marry.