Untamed Hearts (7 page)

I allow myself one last look, one aching thought
of his face, his beautiful eyes, and then I walk away.

I’m sure I’ll never see him again.

I’m wrong.

Brit and Hunter’s story continues in
UNAFRAID, out now! Read on for the first chapter…

Fall in love with Beachwood Bay in the latest
sexy, heartfelt romance from USA Today bestseller Melody Grace.

“
The first time I saw her, I knew this
girl was wilder than any stallion I’d ever trained. She was
headstrong, wounded, passionate and free. And I had to have
her...”

Brittany Ray doesn’t care about her bad
reputation. Growing up in a sleepy beach town with a junkie mom and
a runaway dad, Brit’s learned the hard way that the people you love
will only let you down. It’s no use hoping for love or happiness.
Some dreams aren’t meant for girls like her.

Hunter Covington is one of those dreams.

Gorgeous, charming Hunter is damn near
perfect--and it’s killing him. Son of Charleston royalty, he’s been
trapped in a gilded cage since the day he was born. Now he’s
breaking free. He’s quit law school to restore his grandpa’s old
horse ranch, trying to soothe the demons in his soul. But Beachwood
Bay is full of old ghosts, like the mysterious girl who spent an
unforgettable night with him--and then slipped away before dawn.
Brit.

Everything about her screams danger, but Hunter
doesn’t care: he’s never felt a connection so deep. And try as she
may, Brit can’t resist the desire consuming her --or the safety she
finds in Hunter’s arms.

A reckless passion. An undeniable bond. Scarred
by their pasts, Brit and Hunter fight to heal old wounds. But will
dark secrets tear apart their new beginning? And when love is the
biggest risk of all, can they find the courage to face the future
unafraid?

Unafraid is part of the bestselling
Beachwood Bay series, and can be read as a stand-alone novel.

*Recommended for 17+ Contains adult themes
and explicit content*

***

Three years later…

My grandpa trained horses his whole life. He had
a gift; people say he was the best they’d ever seen.

We used to visit his ranch out in Beachwood Bay
every summer. I’d watch in awe as the horses would be led in to
that old dirt paddock, their eyes wild, nostrils flaring. They
fought the lead, shied away from every touch, damn near killed a
couple of ranch hands trying to get away. But Grandpa never quit.
It would take him all summer long, working his magic, pacing slowly
in that ring, learning what it was that made the horses tick, until
by the end of it, even the craziest ones were eating peppermints
from the palm of his hand.

The first time I laid eyes on Brittany Ray, I
knew this girl was wilder than any stallion I’d ever seen. She was
headstrong, wounded, passionate, and free. And I had to have
her.

“Some horses will never be tamed,” Grandpa used
to tell me. “The only way you get through is to earn their respect.
You’ve got to learn what they’re so scared about, because the
wildest ones… Well, those are the ones that are the most scared of
all.”

I didn’t listen to him, not at first. I was
eighteen, I thought I had the world all figured out, and hell, I
was so desperate for her, I took any chance I could get. One night
together, one brief taste of her beauty. But when morning came, she
was gone.

That’s when I realized, one night with her would
never be enough.

The world kept spinning after that summer,
taking me far from Beachwood, and changing my life in ways too
tragic to comprehend. Grandpa’s gone now too, the old ranch is
crumbling to disrepair, and some nights, it feels like my time with
Brit was just a fever dream. But that’s the thing about dreams:
they can keep you going, even through the bleakest nights and the
darkest of days. Give you something to believe in, when everything
else in your world is guilt and sadness and pain.

She saved me, that girl. She saved me, and she
never even knew it.

I always swore to myself, I’d make her more than
just a dream. I’d go back to that town, I’d take the time to earn
her trust, the way my grandpa taught me, until I know every secret
lurking in those beautiful dark eyes, every hope she holds, deep in
her soul.

Until she trusts me enough to stay.

My truck cruises round the bend in the road, and
I see the sign loom closer, out on the edge of the windy highway as
I cross the county line.

Welcome to Beachwood Bay.

I smile, feeling like myself again for the first
time in damn too long. Yeah, I’m going to do it right this
time.

I’m going to make her mine.

***

It’s Friday night in Beachwood Bay, which
means there’s only one place to go: Jimmy’s. By eight, the bar is
already packed, full of tourists and locals all wanting a cheap
beer and some loud music to get their weekend started right.

“When are you going to change the name?” I ask
Garrett, slamming down another order. He’s behind the bar, pouring
beers as fast as he can to keep up. “I’ve had three tourists ask to
meet Jimmy, and it’s too much hassle to explain the whole
thing.”

“Hey, you don’t mess with history.” Garrett just
gives that lazy shrug. He’s dressed in his usual uniform of a plaid
shirt, jeans, and two-day stubble; he’s the boss now, so he gets to
wear what he wants, while I’m stuck in my black Jimmy’s tank and
cutoffs.

I roll my eyes. “Maybe history can move a little
quicker,” I suggest, flicking back a sweaty strand of hair, dyed a
dark brown this month. “I’m still waiting on those cocktails for
the sorority girls in the corner.”

Garrett glances over to the group of girls in
skintight cutoffs giggling in the booth. “Nah, you go ahead, I’ve
got them.”

“What about Melissa?” I remind him, loading up
my tray with waters and cutlery. I look up in time to catch a
sheepish look flit across his face.

“Yeah, Melissa said she wouldn’t be in tonight.
Or, any other night.” Garrett mumbles.

“No!” I cry, swatting him with my dish-towel.
“You can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Screwing all the waitresses.”

“Not all.” He points out, with a grin.

“Eww. That’s disgusting.” I glare. Garrett is
like a big brother to me, and with my real brother, Emerson, off in
the city, he’s the only family here I’ve got. “I’m serious,” I warn
him, “they keep quitting when you break their hearts, and then
there’s no one left to help me serve!”

I head out across the bar, cursing the fact that
Garrett can’t keep it zipped. At this rate, we’ll be blacklisted by
every waitress in the state before fall.

Not that I should care.

The truth is, I’ve been telling myself that
helping out at the bar is just a favor. A short-term, stopgap kind
of thing until I figure out what I’m going to do with my life. But
it’s been a year since I graduated high school, and I’m still here:
serving burgers to the folks who wouldn’t look twice at me in the
street, like somehow being a waitress is part of the plan, and not
just treading water as time slips on by.

“I forgot,” Garrett tells me, when I head on
back to the bar after taking another round of orders. “Mail came
for you, I left it in the office.”

“Thanks.” I go check it out when there’s a lull
in the crowd. The envelope is propped on the messy desk with my
name printed in neat black type.

Charleston postmark.

I stop, my heart suddenly clenching in my chest.
The letter is slim, weighing next to nothing, and before I can get
caught up in wondering whether that’s good news or bad, I rip it
open and pull out the single sheet of paper.

Dear Miss Ray,

Thank you for your interest in our company. We
regret to inform you…

The words blur with a sudden sting of tears. I
angrily swipe them away, crumpling the letter into a ball and
hurling it to the ground before I can read another word.

I don’t need to. They’re all the same.

I’ve been secretly applying for internships for
months now, sending out my portfolio to every designer and clothing
line I can find. I’m not crazy, I know the best I can hope for is a
basic assistant gig––fetching coffees and running fabric
samples––but that’s just fine with me. Anything to get my foot in
the door, and start working my way up to one day designing my own
line. But every single application comes back with the same,
impersonal letter. Sure, they’re polite, but after reading the
first dozen, I got the message written between the lines: you’re
not good enough. You don’t have the skills, or the qualifications,
or the fancy fashion school credentials to even get a foot in the
door.

We don’t want you.

“Bad news?” Garrett’s voice makes me jump. I
turn to find him in the doorway, watching me with a concerned look
on his face.

I swallow back the sting of disappointment.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him.

“You sure?” Garrett’s eyes are soft,
“Because—”

“I said, I’m fine!” I snap. “At least, I would
be if you could stop being such a broken man-whore and keep a damn
waitress in this place!”

I storm past him, but not so fast that I don’t
see the flicker of hurt on his face. It’s too late to take it back,
so I just add the guilt to the whole mess of emotions I’m carrying,
heavy and sharp like a steel knife blade in my gut.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I pull it
out, glad for the distraction.

hey sexy. c u later?

It’s from Trey, a guy I’ve been hooking up with
these past couple of weeks. We met in a bar a couple of towns over.
One drink led to another until we closed out the night in the
backseat of his beat-up old Chevy. It’s turned into a regular late
night thing, my one good distraction to take my mind off another
long night of nothing here at the bar.