Untamed

by Shey Stahl

  Of course he went there, but I don’t budge. At least for now.

  We’re just outside San Antonio when the rain picks up and Grayer hears a song that makes my heart pound. That same song he was singing in the barn. That same song playing in the kitchen the night he broke my heart. Randy Travis “Are We in Trouble Now.”

  He turns it up and pulls over—off the highway—and reaches for my hand. “Dance with me?”

  “In the rain?”

  He nods. “In the rain.”

  I let him help me into the back of his truck and take his hand. It’s a slow touch he gives, pulling me near him and I sigh. Pathetic maybe, but this boy holds me in his hands now and always will.

  I thought falling in love again would never happen to me. I thought it was impossible. And then it did. In days. And it was one hell of a ride.

  “What’s the meaning of this song?” I ask, watching his face react to my question.

  “It was one of my pops’s favorite songs.” The corners of his mouth tug but there is a vulnerability in his stare. “Do you remember the night at the party where I saw you with Joel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I never went to bed that night.” He shakes his head at the memory. “I sat in my truck in the field behind my pops’s place and drank. Drank until I couldn’t even see straight. That song was on my iPod. I had it on shuffle and it kept coming on no matter how many times I skipped it. I ended up punching my fuckin’ stereo and tossing my iPod out the window to get it to stop.”

  I laugh, knowing that’s why his knuckles were bloody that night. “But you woke up singing it anyway?”

  “Yep. Stuck in my head I guess. And then that night in the kitchen, it came on.”

  “Fate maybe?” I tease, still moving with him as he sings a few lyrics in my ear.

  His left hand reaches around his neck and takes my hand in his, holding it to his heart as we dance. “Are we in trouble now?”

  “I think we are.”

  We both laugh, and then the rain creates a silence around us. The occasional gust of wind rocks the truck lightly as I listen to a song that fits us so perfectly.

  That’s when Grayer’s eyes meet mine, our boots scraping over the metal bed of his truck. He leans in and presses his lips to my forehead. “Will you remember tonight?”

  “I will, Eight Seconds.”

  He presses his lips to my forehead again, this time I pull back and look at him.

  “I love you, Grayer Easton.”

  He nods, of course, and smiles, raindrops dripping from his hat that he removes and places on my head. “I love you, too.” He leans down to capture my lips. “Maesyn Calhoun.”

  You’ve done me proud, heart.

  For a while in 2014, I decided to write under a pen name in attempt to expand my reader base to other genres. It didn’t work because all I wanted to do was get back to Racing on the Edge and my loyal readers—my original crew who were there for me when it all fell apart in 2013, and still never gave up on me despite what everyone was saying about my writing.

  In the few months I wrote under a pen name, I wrote four books. A version of Untamed, titled Remember Tonight was one of them. I never liked Remember Tonight. I know, weird thing for an author to say about their work, but it’s the truth. Something always felt off about it. The story isn’t available anymore, and hasn’t been for four years. It wasn’t until Furious Fotog shared a picture of Andrew James in a cowboy hat that I thought about that book again. But why?

  Because I didn’t tell it right the first time. I rushed through it and my heart was never in it. Because the characters weren’t developed and I didn’t like who they were.

  So, with the help of Garth Brooks’s The Ultimate Hits, I rewrote it. Everything. Even changed the names of the characters because even that didn’t feel right to me.

  Now . . . after spending the last six months rewriting the novel, mostly in the last month, I found that I adored them. So much!

  Maesyn (thank you, Cortnee, for the spelling), she’s everything I wish I was, and who my daughter might be. She’s everything I already see in my headstrong little girl. Strong-willed, determined to make her voice heard, loving, unpredictable, and the first to stand up and last to stand down.

  Grayer, he’s a man who means what he says, and sometimes, not always, says what he means. He’s protective by fault, believes people have good in them, but maybe their decisions aren’t always pure.

  I didn’t plan to rewrite the book and release it, but something pushed me to do it. Maybe it was the need to make a pearl out of gravel. I looked closer, dug deeper, and came up with a story my soul needed to tell. One of untamed, messy, passionate love found when Maesyn and Grayer least expected it.

  I have to write. There’s no question about it. My mind . . . it’s a terrifying place at times, so dark, so muddled with thoughts I don’t understand, but writing balances it for me and I couldn’t do that without the crew behind me. Thank you to my family, friends, readers, editors, cover designers . . . everyone involved in helping me get this novel out to my readers. You make my dreams come true

  Shey is a USA Today best-selling author, a wife, mother and daughter. Writing is her passion, giving words meaning, and readers experiences they’ll never forget. She’s a lover of sunsets, dirt track racing, and the south, where her soul wants to be. Currently she’s living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and daughter and can usually be found near a dirt track with an iced (extra ice) coffee in hand.

  Visit her website for additional information and keep up to date on new releases:

  www.sheystahl.com