Tempting Boundaries
A Montgomery Ink Novel
By
Carrie Ann Ryan
Tempting Boundaries
A Montgomery Ink
By: Carrie Ann Ryan
Published by Fated Desires Publishing, LLC.
© 2014 Carrie Ann Ryan
ISBN: 978-1-62322-147-8
Cover Art by Scott Carpenter
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All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
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Tempting Boundaries
Decker Kenrick knows it’s wrong to have feelings for his best friend’s little sister, but that doesn’t stop his thoughts from going down that path. No matter how hard he’s tried to stay away from Miranda, once she gets her sights on him, there’s no backing down.
Miranda Montgomery might be the youngest of the Montgomery clan, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what she wants. Namely—Decker. She’s loved him for as long as she can remember and won’t walk away until she gives it her all.
But once they give in, not all is at it seems. Decker’s father’s out of jail and someone from Miranda’s past isn’t happy with the new relationship. Even as they start to move on and overcome their pain, they’ll find that their inner obstacles are the ones they’ll have to face first.
Dedication
To Kennedy. Love you darling. Just watch out for the squirrels!
Acknowledgments
I just love a best friend’s little sister book! Thank you to my book soulmates for loving these tropes as much as I do. You know who you are.
Thank you to my writing group for pushing me through this novel. I wake up every morning, work out, then drink coffee with you so we can start sprinting. You’re the reason I wrote this book when I did. So Shayla, Lexi, Carly, Angel, Kennedy, Stacey and others, thank you!
Again, thank you to my editors Devin, Saya, and Debbie for helping me clean up my work and find the characters that might have been buried.
Charity, darling, thank you for being my brain when I needed it. Dr. Hubby, thank you for being so understanding since I wrote this book during a cross country move and while we were living in a hotel waiting to close on the house. Seriously, this couldn’t have been fun!
As always, thank you readers for loving my books. Every buy, review, link share, and casual mention over a cup of coffee means the world to me. Y’all have loved this series so far and its exceeded far beyond my expectations. Thank you for reading. You guys are amazing.
Chapter One
There was just something about the scent of a grill, the feel of a cold beer in his hand, and the company of a family that truly loved him that made Decker Kendrick want to relax after a long day’s work. If he added in the fact that he could go home and have the woman at his side under him, over him, and all around him, it would be a pretty fantastic way to end the day.
Colleen, his date to the Montgomery family barbeque and engagement party, leaned into him and batted her false eyelashes. He had no idea why she wore them. He thought she looked decent without them. But whatever—it was her body to fake up any way she wanted to. He’d been seeing Colleen off and on for a few months, more often in the past month since he’d called her up, hoping to get his mind off a certain long-legged brunette he shouldn’t be thinking about in the first place.
The woman in question hadn’t shown up to the party yet, and Decker was grateful. Hard to ignore her and keep her off his mind if she kept popping up everywhere he went. Though that wasn’t really fair considering she was part of his family.
More like he was part of hers.
He was an honorary Montgomery, and she was the little sister.
Totally not for him.
“Decker? Baby?”
He blinked and looked down at Colleen. Not the woman who haunted his dreams and kept him up late at night. Jesus, he was a bad man. A very, very bad man. Sure, he was keeping it casual with Colleen—something she’d put on the table to begin with—but he shouldn’t be thinking about a woman with long legs he couldn’t have when he was here with someone else.
That wasn’t the kind of guy he wanted to be.
“Colleen?” he answered back, keeping his voice low. He didn’t normally bring dates to the Montgomery family gatherings, and as such, he didn’t want everyone to hear everything he said. They were all nosy in the we-are-family-and-we-can-be-nosy-if-want-to sort of way, and he’d learned to deal with it. He hadn’t planned on bringing her at all, but when she’d called to ask him to dinner, he’d mentioned he had plans, and she’d sort of invited herself along. It hadn’t bothered him too much then, but now he felt kind of like an awkward ass about it. Since this was the first time he’d brought Colleen to any type of function with the Montgomerys, he’d been prepared to have the family question the two of them until they pecked them to death.
So far, that hadn’t happened, and frankly, that was more telling about what the others in his life thought of the relationship. Their politeness and lack of prodding meant they didn’t see a future. Considering Colleen hadn’t wanted a future to begin with when it came to her and Decker, that was just fine with him. He didn’t see himself marrying the woman anyway. They were friends. Sort of.
“You’re thinking too hard.” She rubbed the little spot between his eyebrows, and he frowned. She wasn’t usually so touchy-feely or attentive. Weird.
He pulled back, uncomfortable with the display of affection—or whatever it was—in front of the family that had taken him in so long ago.
“Just tired. Hauling a total of a half-ton of porcelain up and down stairs all day makes for a long workday. We also punched out our other project the day before. So I’m ready for a nap. Or another beer.”
She wrinkled her nose, probably at the mention of his work. Another reason he’d never get too serious with her. She hated the fact he was a blue-collar worker and not some suit-wearing businessman who could keep her in diamonds and silks. She worked her butt off at her job and wore the expensive clothes that came with her world. That wasn’t something he wanted in the long run. He worked for Montgomery Inc., the construction arm of the family businesses. He was the project manager right under Wes and Storm, the Montgomery twins who had taken over the family business when their parents, Harry and Marie, retired.
Wes was the OCD planner of the company and got his hands dirty daily with the bump and grind that came with being one of the top privately owned construction companies in Denver. Storm was the lead architect and a genius when it came to finding the right flow for a refurbished building or how to start from scratch with a piece of land that could be used carefully.
Decker had started out as a teenager working under Harry doing every kind of grunt work he could get his hands on. He’d gone to college only because the Montgomery twins had, as had his best friend, Griffin—another Montgomery—and because the state had helped him out. He wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise. He’d gone to the local university, busted his ass for his degree, then went right back to working for the family that had raised him wh
en his own blood family had failed.
He ground his teeth.
Best not think about the others right then. Not if he wanted to stay civil—he looked down at the beer in his hand—and sober.
“Must you talk about those matters with me?” Colleen asked, breaking through his thoughts.
He shrugged. He honestly didn’t know why he’d brought her that evening other than because he was in a rut, and he hadn’t thought to say no. They liked each other well enough, but they weren’t in love. He hadn’t slept with her in months either. Despite the fact that his balls were so blue from lack of sex—his right hand could only do so much—he hadn’t wanted to sleep with one woman when his mind was on the other. Sure, he’d been trying to date to get those thoughts out of his head, but he wasn’t about to use another woman fully like that.
“I work with everything that goes in a house or building,” Decker said, his voice low. He had a deep, growly voice according to the-woman-who-shall-not-be-named, and when he got annoyed or emotional, his voice just got deeper.
Colleen didn’t care for it.
“Yes, dear, but you don’t have to talk about it.” She raised her chin and looked out at the yard. He’d helped with the initial landscaping years ago when he was trying to find his place within the business. He’d been better at digging the holes and lifting bags of mulch, rather than doing the actual planning. Marie was the brains behind that. She’d told them what to do, and he and her boys had hopped to it.
In the end, the place looked great with tons of vegetation that looked as though it was natural, rather than lines and perfectly square things that made no sense.
“Did you hear me, Decker? What is going on with you? I said don’t talk about things like that, not to stop talking at all.”
He barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Sorry to bother you,” he mumbled, not sorry in the least. “Why don’t you go talk to, uh, the girls over there while I get another drink?” He couldn’t remember the two girls who worked with Sierra, the newly engaged woman and star of the party, but they seemed to get along with anyone. Hopefully, they’d make friends with Coleen so this evening wouldn’t be a total waste.
She raised a brow and looked pointedly at his hand. Seriously? Jesus Christ. He shouldn’t have brought her here. Or rather, he shouldn’t have let her invite herself in the first place. She didn’t belong, and he didn’t know why he was kidding himself by trying to make it work when neither of them truly wanted it.
“I’ve had one beer, and I’ll have one more since we have a couple hours left. I won’t drink more than that.” He wouldn’t have had to explain himself to the Montgomerys. They knew enough about where he’d come from that him getting behind the wheel, even slightly buzzed, wasn’t an option.
“If you say so,” she clipped then strutted off to the girls on the other side of the backyard.
His shoulders relaxed marginally, and he cursed himself for it. He liked Colleen. He really did. She wasn’t a bad person. She just didn’t understand him.
Whose fault is that?
It wasn’t like he’d told her all that much about himself, and he’d never once mentioned his past.
“Shit, bro, you look like you ate something rotten,” Wes said as he walked toward him. He had the Montgomery blue eyes and chestnut hair, only his was neatly clipped and worked with his OCD persona.
Storm, Wes’s twin, walked beside him. While Wes was a bit lanky, Storm had more of a build on him. He was also a bit more rugged with his shaggy hair, light beard, and flannel shirt over another light shirt, while Wes had his button-up shirt over nice jeans. It never made any sense to Decker that the twin who worked with his hands more often than not as the other general contractor preferred dressier clothes on his day off while the twin who sat behind his desk drawing when he wasn’t in the field wore more rugged clothes. Well, considering each of them worked side by side with Decker and sweated their asses off regularly, it didn’t matter what they wore now, as long as they worked hard during the day.
Which they did.
“Bro?” Decker asked, a smile on his face. “You working with the kids at Austin’s shop now?” Austin was the oldest Montgomery and owned half of Montgomery Ink, the tattoo shop side of the family business, with their sister, Maya. It was also Austin and Sierra’s engagement party and the reason they were all at the barbecue that evening.
Storm snorted. “We say bro sometimes. Doesn’t make us some college kids who want bad ink.”
“I don’t do bad ink, asshole,” Maya snapped as she came up to them. She wrapped her arm around Decker’s middle, and he hugged her back. Why couldn’t he be this comfortable around all the Montgomery women?
She pulled back before he could squeeze her tighter. Maya liked her space, and Decker liked her all the more for it. Her dark brown bangs were severe across her forehead, and she’d done a weird eyeliner thing that made her look like some fifties rocker pin-up. The red lipstick just made her look like she’d smile at you—then kick you in the ass.
“I meant that he wants bad ink because he doesn’t know what good ink is,” Storm said, backtracking. Wes and Storm might be the second oldest in the family, but no one messed with Maya and walked away without a limp. “Not that you give bad ink.”
Wes laughed then shut up as Maya glared.
Decker, being the smart one of the group, kept his face neutral.
Maya narrowed her eyes at the three of them then nodded. “Okay, so tell me what’s going on. Jake couldn’t make it today, and I’m bored.”
“When are you just going to admit that Jake is your boyfriend?” Wes asked.
Decker closed his eyes. It was like the twins wanted to die by her hand tonight.
“He’s not my fucking boyfriend,” Maya growled then lifted her chin, speaking softer this time. “He’s my friend. I don’t know why a guy and a girl can’t just be friends without the rest of the world wondering if they’re fucking.”
Decker raised a brow then looked at the space between them.
Maya waved him off. “You’re a brother, not a friend. So the world wouldn’t ever think you’d be fucking a Montgomery girl. That’d be all kinds of wrong.”
He swallowed hard and tried to keep the frown off his face. Shit. She was right. No one would think he’d ever be with a Montgomery girl. Maya was like his sister, as was Meghan, the eldest girl. Meghan was even married to an asshole, but married just the same.
Miranda though…Miranda was his best friend’s little sister and had welcomed him into her family to boot.
There was no way he could ever think of her as more.
Or rather, he should stop thinking about her as possibly more.
“Anyway,” Wes continued, “we came over here to ask what’s up with Decker. He looked like he stepped in shit or something.”
Decker rolled his eyes. Wes really liked making things sound worse than they were. “I’m fine. Just a long day.” He rolled his shoulders, and the twins did the same. They’d hauled right by his side, and he knew they ached just as much.
“Tell me about it,” Storm grumbled. “I never want to look at another toilet again.”
“Charming,” Maya said dryly.
“So, have you found a new receptionist yet?” Decker asked Maya, changing the subject from toilets to the running joke of the family. The shop had been through four or five receptionists this year alone. They had fantastic artists and had even just promoted their apprentice, Callie, to full time. However, they couldn’t keep a receptionist to save their lives. The college kids always left for greener pastures, and the other ones thought it was fun to come in high around pointy needles. It might be legal to smoke, but that didn’t mean they wanted their staff lit up while working.
“You can’t have Tabby,” Wes put it. “She’s ours.” Tabby was the Montgomery Inc. receptionist and a goddess with organization. She and Wes were a team in OCD heaven.
Maya cursed under her breath. “I don’t want Tabby. She’d color c
ode my ink in a weird way, and then I wouldn’t want to move anything around. And no, we haven’t found a receptionist. I don’t know what it is. This latest guy just wanted free ink. Free. I pay for my own tattoos, you know. I won’t let Austin do it for free because his work is worth my money. Wanting it free in our place just shows disrespect.”
Decker snorted. “At least you get the family discount.” Maya looked over her shoulder and discreetly flipped him off.
Decker frowned since she tried to hide it then smiled as Meghan’s kids, Cliff and Sasha, ran into the backyard, barreling toward their uncles on the other side of the yard. They’d be over here soon for sure to see the rest of them. He loved those damn kids.
“You get the discount too, brother mine,” Maya said. “But the discount isn’t all that much in the scheme of things. This idiot wanted it all for free. So he huffed away and found another shop most likely.” She shrugged. “Not as good a shop as ours, but whatever.”
“There’s no shop as good as yours.” He rubbed between his shoulder blades. “Speaking of, I need to make an appointment for the ink on my back.” Maya’s eyes brightened, and he cursed. “With Austin, hon. It’s his turn.” All of the Montgomerys took turns with the other siblings when it came to their ink. Both of them were talented, and picking one over the other was nearly impossible.
Besides, they both had nasty tempers if they didn’t get to be part of the siblings’ and parents’ art.
“Fine. I see how it is. You like him better.” She sniffed and wiped a non-existent tear at the edge of her eye. Not that she actually touched her makeup in the process, but the move worked for her.
Decker rolled his eyes then punched her softly in the shoulder. “Shut up. You just did work on my arm, and you get my leg next. It’s Austin’s turn now.”
She smiled, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good one or a you’ll be sorry one, but he rolled with it.
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