No Regrets (Bomar Boys #1) by Jess Bryant Read Free Book Online

his voice to speak over her, “I know you’re stubborn as hell and you always have to have the last word. I know that you never, ever cry and I know that something horrible must have happened to send you running home or you wouldn’t be here.”
    She huffed out a breath, “I do not always have to have the last word.”
    “Jem…”
    “And you’re not exactly a genius for figuring out something horrible happened. My face looks like somebody used it for target practice.”
    His eyes narrowed, “So you admit somebody hit you now?”
    “Stairs. I fell down a flight of stairs.”
    “I’m going to kill that fucking flight of stairs.” Cash grumbled as he tapped the brakes and they eased past the welcome sign at the edge of Old Settlers.
    Jemma took a deep breath, let it out and forced herself not to prove him right by saying anything else. He didn’t know her. He couldn’t. She’d been gone five years. She wasn’t the same girl she had been when he had known her. Too much had changed, she had changed.
    She touched her lip, aware that she’d bit it again and the cut had split open. She dabbed it as they rode in silence, trying to stem the bleeding. She kept her profile turned to the side but she could feel him watching her again when his eyes should have been on the road.
    “Here.” He tapped her shoulder so that she would turn back to him, “Here. Use this.”
    “Thanks.” She took the napkin he offered and pressed it to her mouth.
    She hated that he was being so nice to her. It made it hard to hold onto her hate. And she needed her hate. It was a comforting thing that had kept her company for too long to abandon her now when she needed it most.
    He wasn’t looking at her anymore and for that much, she was grateful. She pulled her gaze off him as well. She silently hated herself for noticing the way his muscles filled out the simple gray t-shirt he was wearing. She should definitely not be noticing that right now.
    She forced herself to take in her surroundings as he turned off the highway and into town instead. Old Settlers had never been one of those pretty, Norman Rockwell type of towns. There was no picturesque main street with little shops and parks. It was a dusty old oil town that had been slowly trying to die for half a century but never quite succeeded in fading out of existence because there was nowhere else for the people that lived here to go.
    It was a tiny map dot set just off the highway that most people didn’t even notice when they passed. There were a couple of convenience stores for the travelers that did. There were two diners, both family owned, and neither serving anything that resembled a health-food option and one shady, backwoods bar. There was the school, the bank and the post office in the center of town. A handful of small salons had popped up and were only outnumbered by the selection of churches. The small grocery store they passed was new, as was the liquor store next to it.
    There was also the one auto shop on the edge of town. It was a gigantic, dusty, tin building that she had forgotten was owned by a member of the Bomar family. Not many of them were big on working, one of the numerous running jokes about the family throughout town. For the most part they were criminals or bums, but for some reason she wasn’t surprised Cash hadn’t turned out like that.
    She sighed when her gaze automatically drifted back to him. She’d known him since elementary school because that was the way things worked in a town like Old Settlers. He and Colt had been impossible to ignore even then. They’d disrupted class, caused trouble, and eventually become the bad boys that every single girl crushed on in high school.
    She’d told herself she wasn’t one of those girls because she’d been good at lying to herself even back then.
    She had crushed on them, on both of them, but it had been Cash that intrigued her even then. Colt was the one that basked in the attention, stood on his desk and