Unafraid (Beachwood Bay) by Melody Grace Read Free Book Online

you’d think I was the one who broke her heart, instead of the other way around.
    I walk out of that storeroom still tasting her on my lips, still feeling the curves of her body, so goddamn soft and sexy against me.
    Brittany Ray.
    Goddamn.
    I stand in the parking lot, feeling like someone just knocked me out for the count. A dozen questions whirl in my mind. Why is she still here? Has she thought of me, even once, during the last three years?
    How can a single kiss do this to me?
    But most of all, I realize, I want to know who the hell put that expression in her eyes: the empty, aching bitterness that she hides behind her sarcasm and smiles. All this time, I’ve been imagining her out there, happy and free. Now I know she’s anything but.
    Whoever they are, they better watch out. Because I sure as hell have some words for them. Words that start and end with the sound of my fists.
    Brittany Ray.
    I feel my heart pound, from shock and exhilaration and something more. The softness of her touch, the memory of her kiss.
    Goddamn.
    I shake my head and start walking.
     

     
    By the time I make it back to the ranch it’s after eleven. The property sits, dark and still, the only light coming from the ranch hand’s cottage out on the edge of the field. Jake, my new hire, is probably watching ESPN reruns and drinking beer. I think about stopping by to join him, but I’m not in the mood. I’m too caught up in what just happened, with that heavy load of guilt, always sitting like iron in the back of my mind.
    I make the rounds, checking the horses in the stable, testing the new gates in the paddock as I go. The smell of fresh paint is still lingering everywhere, mixing with the scent of hay and dirt and horse and country air.
    Smells like home.
    I have to grin at that. My mom would flip if anyone dared suggest the great Camille Covington’s perfect Charleston mansion smelled like an old stable, but even though I grew up in that house, it was never home to me. No, home was Grandpa Earl’s ranch, out here in the country. Every summer we got to spend here was like a gift: a whole month when we didn’t have to take tennis lessons at the country club, or dress for dinner, or stand around politely at my parents’ stuffy cocktail parties. A whole month when my brother and I weren’t paraded for the guests, like a prize they’d bagged on safari, some trophy to show off to prove their status as society elite. Jace was happy to play along, he always did anything to make them proud, but I never could stand it. I was the one sneaking out the bathroom window at the Governor’s Christmas party, or getting caught with one of the debutantes in the cloakroom closet.
    Hell, sometimes I got caught with two.
    Growing up in that house, life was full of rules and expectations and disappointment, but out here on the ranch, none of that mattered anymore. I learned it was all just static, a world my parents and brother may have bought into, but one that I didn’t need. Let Jace be the Golden Boy, stand beside our father at board meetings, and make small talk with my mother’s DAR friends; I was happy with the land and the horses and the distant horizon—and I swore I would leave all of their bullshit behind the first chance I got.
    Except it didn’t turn out that way. Not even close.
    My cell starts ringing as I head back to the main house. I know who’s calling, but guilt makes me pick up, all the same.
    “Well, have you come to your senses yet?” Her voice rings with disapproval, clear down the line from Charleston.
    “Mom…” I sigh, letting myself in. I flip the lights on, illuminating the homey, rustic main room still filled with grandpa’s old furniture and wood beams overhead. The main ranch house is open-plan, with a huge open fireplace dominating the room, and windows that look out over the paddock and fields.
    “I can’t understand why you’d just take off like this, not even say goodbye.” Mom continues, “After we came