Page 118 of Burn the Wild

Fallon wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, god, delete that image from my brain.”

Dakota’s thoughtful expression returns to me. “The ranch is for secrets, but they always come out.”

Ruby breathes through her shot. “I lied to Charlie about my heart condition.”

“And what happened?” I ask.

Pink stains her cheeks. “He loved me anyway.”

My chest is heavy. Even if I told Ford about Muirwood, there’s no love between us.

“We all have painful pasts but that’s why you find your people,” Dakota says. Her dark eyes linger on me. “The right people can handle it—hold it—but you have to tell them when you’re ready.”

“I don’t feel like I have any people,” I admit, cradling my bangles to my chest. “Sometimes I feel like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.”

“That’s the best way to feel.” Fallon grins at me. “Then you show ’em how the fuck it’s done.”

I smile at her.

“You’re not a square peg,” Ruby croons. Her voice is strong, firm. “You’re our circle. And you have us.”

Happiness washes gently over me.

Turns out, this is exactly what I needed.

In the music industry, true friends are a rarity. Other singers, songwriters acted like they were your best friends, when really all they were waiting to do was screw you over.

Here, in this dirty dive bar, with these women, I feel like I belong. Like it’s one more inch toward New Reese. Toward a life of normality.

A cowboy in a bolo tie approaches. A Sharpie in his hand, gaze lasered on me. Hard glares on their face, Ruby and Dakota swivel on their barstools, blocking me in.

But it’s Fallon who stands.

“You don’t know her,” she growls with a mean smile. “And if you think you do, no you fucking do not, understand me?”

I smother a grin, touched by her protection. It’s clear Fallon lives and breathes to bully men at the bar.

The man looks at me. “I just wanted a—”

“Out.” Fallon snaps her fingers. “Beef.”

Floorboards rattle, and with a sigh, Beef appears. He flexes a fist. “Let’s go, man. You bother the women, you bother me.”

“Do you miss that?” Dakota asks, wagging a finger at the man who’s being escorted out of the bar by Beef.

“No way. I miss nothing about that life.” I prop my chin in my palm, my stomach warm from the whiskey. “I don’t want to be a superstar—”

“I do,” Fallon interjects with a grin.

“I just want to be Reese. It probably sounds weird giving it all up, but…”

“Not weird at all,” Dakota muses with a smile. “I thought I wanted a big fancy bakery in Paris or New York, but this life I made beats everything.”

I glance at her—listening as she explains her past with Aiden King.

“Whoa.” I sit back in my bar stool, awed by her story. “You survived, Koty.”

Her eyes glisten. “I did.”

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