Texas Outlaws: Billy by Kimberly Raye Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes and a similar build, that’s where the likeness ended. Billy had sun-kissed blond hair, an easy smile and a shitload of Southern charm.
    Jesse, not so much.
    He’d always been the serious one, sick of his past and eager to leave it behind for something bigger and better. Which was why it had surprised everyone when Jesse had announced last week that he was not only staying in Lost Gun permanently but rebuilding on the old property that had once housed the one-room shack where they’d grown up.
    The reason for his sudden change of heart?
    The petite blonde standing on the opposite side of the corral, snapping pictures of the various bulls and riders as they exited the chute.
    Jesse and Gracie Stone had had a thing for each other back in high school. A fire that had burned so fierce and bright that neither time nor a blanket of stubbornness had managed to smother. They’d kept their distance up until a few weeks ago when Gracie had warned Jesse about the renewed interest in Silas and the “Where Are They Now?” episode that had been about to air. One face-to-face and bam, the flames had reignited and blazed that much hotter. They were inseparable now. They’d moved into Gracie’s house over on Main Street while they built their very own place on the ruins of Silas Chisholm’s old house.
    The news couldn’t have come a moment too soon for Billy. While Jesse had been eager to forget the past, Billy had always been more inclined to remember.
    To keep in mind the unreliable man his father had once been, and even more, to keep a tight hold on the man he knew lurked deep inside himself.
    “You’re my blood,” he’d heard Silas say too many times to count. “Just ’cause you think you’re so high and mighty, don’t make it true. You’ll see. I ain’t cut out for the nine-to-five life, and neither are you. There are too many options out there. Too many ways to make it really big to waste your time with some penny-ass job.”
    The words had been spoken to Jesse, who’d been thirteen at the time and the caretaker to his two younger brothers, but Billy had been the one to take the statement to heart.
    Silas Chisholm had never been able to settle down and straighten up his life. There’d been no finding a steady job and building a home for his boys and meeting a nice woman to share his life with. He’d been a lowlife who’d floated from one two-bit crime to the next, always looking for the next big thing. A better opportunity. A bigger payoff.
    Ditto for Billy.
    Not the crime, part. Hell, no. He was one hundred percent legit and damn proud of it.
    It was his inability to commit in his personal life that made him a chip off the old block. It had started back in kindergarten when he hadn’t been able to choose between the monkey bars and the slide, and continued through middle school—baseball or football?—and high school, where he’d accepted not one, but four invitations to his senior prom.
    Even now, he couldn’t seem to pick a shade of blue for the tile in his new bathroom, or figure out whether to add an extra bedroom to the cabin or a man cave. He could see the value in both, the payoff, and that was the problem. Billy hated to narrow his options. To miss out on something better. To commit .
    Now, bulls were different.
    They were the only thing he managed to focus on, to follow through with, to go balls to the wall without a second thought. A championship was the one thing he wanted with a dead certainty that he’d never felt for anyone or anything.
    Until last night.
    He nixed the crazy thought and ignored Eli’s voice echoing in his ear. “Rinse and repeat.”
    Like hell.
    He’d made it out of the motel room this morning without a confrontation or the dreaded “Call me, okay?”
    Uh, no.
    Last night had been just that— last night. One night. End of story.
    “If you ride like that in the semifinals,” Jesse went on, drawing his full attention, “you just might land yourself a spot in the