Hard Ridin'

Dedication

Special thanks to Christa Desir, my editor, for seeing the good in my work and believing in me enough to give me a chance at my dream of being published with Samhain Publishing. To all of my amazing readers, who love my smut. And to my family, who is always willing to eat another damn grilled cheese sandwich for dinner so I can write a little longer.

Chapter One

Jens Anderson hooked Laurel around the waist and tugged her close as the twangy two-step faded away. The low drawl of a slow song drifted from the speakers flanking the dance floor.

As Laurel came up against the wall of muscle that made up Jens’s body, a sigh escaped her. He splayed a hand over her lower back and crushed her hips to his. The action sent a dark thrill through her belly, and lower, between her thighs.

Jens skimmed the crest of her buttocks with his fingers. “I love you in this skirt, Laurel. When are you gonna let me peel it off you?”

His baritone rumbled against her ear and raised every hair on her body. Was this the night she let the rough-and-tumble country boy make it past second base? Being stretched out beneath him, gaining and delivering pleasure, seemed the best way to spend a weekend. Better than being alone, scouring seed catalogs for the best deals.

She fiddled with a strand of hair clinging to the perspiration on her temple. For two months, she’d been asking herself if he was the one—if she could let him past the barricade she’d erected around her heart.

When she didn’t answer him, Jens continued to twirl her around the dance floor, easily navigating between other swaying bodies. He was one hell of a dancer, and he was also used to her ignoring his advances. Countless times he’d asked her to spend the night with him, but even after two months of dating, she wasn’t ready.

It wasn’t because the man was lacking in any way. Oh no. At six foot tall, with shoulders made bulky from wrangling livestock and farm equipment, he was wanted by every girl in the small town of Reedy.

But that was just his body. His eyes were the true allure. Sapphire and twinkling with life, he’d hooked Laurel from the moment he’d pierced her with that gaze.

He nudged her away from him, twirled her and reeled her back in. Their hips bumped and his erection pressed against her aching flesh.

“Jens…”

He gave a huff of laughter. “You caught me. I can’t help it. I’m wild about you, darlin’.”

For a moment, she lost herself in his bright gaze. His cowboy hat was tugged low over his brow, but the depths of his baby blues glittered with desire. Laurel’s nipples hardened, and the knot in her core tightened. Why was she dragging her heels with Jens? He was everything a woman could want—sexy, a hard worker, a great dancer, and he even grilled a mean steak.

The music pitched lower and the singer crooned love words. Jens looked deep into Laurel’s eyes. Cupping her face in one big palm, he leaned in slowly. His scent dizzied her—mint and a hint of the beer he’d drank, as well as cologne. Washed cotton shirt and leather boots. One hundred percent man.

Laurel and Jens rocked back and forth, with him singing in a low voice that sent white-hot electricity through her heated limbs.

In that minute, the warm cocoon of his arms was the only place she wanted to be.

He dropped his full lips to hers and she couldn’t suppress a shudder of want. Jens squeezed her to him, drawing her onto tiptoe and somehow still undulating to the beat. He pressed on her lips with his tongue, and she opened to him.

Sensation was a punch to her system as he slipped his tongue over hers. The bodies around them disappeared, the clank of beer bottles and the hum of voices vanished.

“What the—? Laurel?”

She jerked at the sound of that familiar voice—the only other voice to ever send her spinning out of control. Jens released her, and they turned as one to face the reason she continued to hold Jens at arm’s length—the reason she wasn’t ready to take their relationship to the next level.

Holden McAlister.

Holden’s heart dropped to his stomach and kept on sinking, straight to his work boots. Pain blinded him as he set eyes on Laurel’s curvaceous body in the arms of…his best friend.

Clenching his hands into fists, he fought to keep from punching Jens in the goddamn mouth. Then again—

He cocked back his fist and slammed it right into Jens’s perfect white teeth.

Laurel broke away from Jens’s hold, stumbling back with a cry. Out of the corner of his eye, Holden saw her plaster her hands to her lips, her eyes wide with shock above her fingertips.

“Owww, you son of a bitch!” Jens roared. “You knocked my teeth loose!”

Holden shook all over, rage and hurt rippling through his body like fucking thunder chasing lightning. Grinding his teeth, he glared at Jens—the guy he’d been friends with for ten years, as well as shared part ownership of the Rope Burn Ranch. They had a damn mortgage together.

Now it appeared they also shared a girlfriend.

Spinning toward Laurel, Holden stared at her—five-foot-three inches, skin-tight skirt, a tiny T-shirt and cowgirl boots. Her curves called to him, and it took every ounce of self-control to keep from throwing her over his shoulder and taking her home with him.

Betrayal burned.

“Holden—” Jens started.

He poked a finger into Jens’s face without removing his gaze from Laurel’s. Her lashes glistened with tears, and her full lower lip trembled. “Shut your mouth unless you want me to remove those teeth permanently, Jens.”

Jens spat and Laurel gave an all-over shudder. Holden jerked around and saw Jens swiping a copious amount of blood off his lips.

Laurel pushed past Holden and cradled Jens’s face in shaking hands. A knife twisted in Holden’s gut. Fuck, they were deeper than he’d originally thought. How long had his best friend and his girl been screwing around behind his back?

“Holden, I’ll explain. Just…let me help Jens.” Laurel’s musical tone reached him as the final strains of the ballad faded away. A spattering of applause followed the end of the slow dance, but was drowned by the thud of drums as a faster tune kicked up.

Laurel met Holden’s gaze. For an eternal heartbeat, he saw all his hopes swirling down a drain like filthy water after he’d cleaned the barn.
I wanted to marry you, Laurel. I wanted to get off that fishing boat with a wad of cash in hand and a proposal on my lips.

He pushed his hat lower over his eyes. Trouble was, he still wanted those dreams. Why hadn’t she waited for him as promised?

“What the hell’s going on?” Jens asked.

The mere sound of his friend’s voice was a red flag before an irate bull. Holden lunged for him again, and Jens danced out of the way.

“Hey! You two break it up!” The owner of The Hellion shoved through the crowd and faced Jens and Holden. “Take it outside, boys.”

“Damn right, we will.” Holden’s fingers twitched to lay into Jens one more time.

Jens glared at him. “Bring it. Let’s see if a fisherman can fight as well as a farmer.”

“Goddammit, you know what I am!” Holden charged him and Jens darted to the side. Laurel wrapped her fingers around Holden’s arm and he froze. The delicate touch sent whispers of want through his entire system. Not knowing whether he was going to bawl or bellow, he shook her off.

“Come on, Laurel.” Jens caught her elbow and pulled her across the dance floor toward the exit.

Holden watched them together. The secretive way their bodies moved as if one. Jens’s proprietary hand on her spine. It was time for Holden to face the truth. Laurel and his best friend had been dating behind his back. But for how long?

Jens focused on Laurel’s chocolate brown eyes as she examined the inside of his mouth. Her dark brows slanted downward, punctuating her tension, and tears lingered in the corners of her eyes.

“Talk to me, Laurel. What the hell was that back there?”

She avoided his gaze and ignored his question. “No missing teeth. But there’s a lot of blood.”

That he knew. The iron taste trickled down his throat and made his stomach queasy. But the worst feeling was the fear of the truth.

“You had something going with Holden?”

She twisted away and her narrow shoulders shook. “Yes.”

Jens hardened his jaw in an attempt to pen up the emotion that had been running rampant for this woman since the moment she’d shown up on his doorstep, asking if he’d rent out the old Ransom homestead on the Rope Burn Ranch.

“When?” His tone was sharper than he intended, and her shoulders shook more.

“Right before he left for Alaska.”

Jens swallowed against the lump of hurt in his throat. It was entirely like Holden to keep his relationship with her secret. He didn’t like to kiss and tell, and he rarely brought women around Jens. Secretly, Jens always believed it was because Holden feared the girl would turn to Jens instead. But that was Jens’s bullshit ego doing the talking.

Wasn’t it?

Looking at Laurel’s state, he didn’t think so.

“He broke it off clean with you before he left, right?”

Laurel didn’t move. Didn’t turn to affirm this was the case.

He clamped a hand on her shoulder and prodded her to face him. “Right?” A seed of anger had taken root in his gut and was beginning to sprout. If he let it continue to grow, it would double, triple, into a monstrous vine of despair.

Slowly, she shook her head. A tendril of dark hair swung forward to kiss her cheek where a solitary tear fell.

The door of the bar opened, and a familiar form swaggered out, thumbs hooked in his front pockets and looking for a fight. Jens angled his body between Holden and Laurel.

“Let’s hash this out like civilized men, Holden—”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Holden’s fist connected with Jens’s stomach. Jens folded around the blow, breath whooshing from him. Laurel screamed.

“Stay back, Laurel,” he managed to gasp.

Holden raised his knee and dug it viciously into Jens’s inner thigh, aiming for the family stones and missing when Jens jerked to the side. Rage tingled in his fingertips. That root was climbing upward inside him, spreading through his limbs. Once it had rocketed into the sky, Jens feared it could never be chopped down.

“Stop! This isn’t Jens’s fault!” Laurel cried.

Holden braced his legs wide, but he crowded Jens. “Yeah. I leave you with the promise to return in six months, after I was finished up on the fishing boat, and come back to find you with my best friend.”

“It wasn’t six months, Holden. I haven’t heard from you for eight months! You never stopped in a port to give me a phone call? Or drop a letter into a mailbox? If you’d really been interested, you would have contacted me in some way.” Her voice trembled.

Straightening up, Jens tried to piece together this puzzle. It seemed three different pictures had been dumped into one box and now blended into one hell of a mess.

“Holden, I didn’t know you were seeing Laurel.”

His friend narrowed his eyes at Jens. “Not from my mouth, you didn’t. But she must have said something—”

She shook her head, and inky strands of her hair slithered over her heaving shoulders. “I didn’t tell him, Holden. I’m to blame.”

Jens swallowed against the pain. “Did you know from the start that we’re friends?”

“Were friends,” Holden interjected.

“I didn’t know until it was too late.”

“Jee-zus!” Holden bit off. He whirled on a heel and stalked through the parking lot, gravel crunching under his boot heels. Ten paces away he stopped, gripped his hat and crumpled forward at the waist. He remained there, as if he’d been punched in the gut and not Jens.

A sob broke from Laurel. Seeing his friend like that tore Jens up too. He pressed his lips into a line.

“Laurel.” After reaching out, Jens pulled her into his embrace. She moved into his arms, shaking like a calf on newborn legs. He pitched his voice low to soothe her, just as he would a frightened animal. “You and I can straighten this out later. Right now…” He sent a look at Holden. He hadn’t budged, still bent over. “I think he needs you more.”

Laurel touched Jens’s jaw and then leaned in and tenderly kissed him. “I’m so sorry.”