Page 1 of Bray
1
KATIE
I wasdead on my feet. Working all day in the stable, mucking stalls and feeding the animals. Buckets of water. Hay. Pushing wheelbarrows full of manure. Then I went inside long enough to shower off the horse scent, change clothes, and grab a granola bar before I had to work a shift at The Roadside, the less-than-savory bar on the edge of Devil’s Ditch, the small town where I’ve lived my whole life.
The county fair was running for ten days, so the place was packed with locals and fairgoers alike. I was six hours into my shift full of rowdy patrons who’d clearly started drinking at the fair and the constanttwang of country music. I smelled like stale beer. My arches were screaming. My makeup wilted hours ago and my deodorant… I wasn’t too sure if it was still working.
I hated it, but I needed this job. The money. Desperately.
That was why I wasn’t thrilled when I got a table of men who acted like cranky toddlers in my section. Who didn’t understand the word no. I’d been fending them off since I took their first order and they were getting increasingly more aggressive and annoying.
“You come home with me later and I’ll show you a real good time.”
The guy was half drunk, which was worse than full drunk because he meant what he said. I’d served his table–a booth tucked in the back corner–for the past three hours, his friends going along with the guy’saccidentaltouching and innuendo. When he got no response from me–because I’d learned it was best to ignore instead of engage–he started to get angry. His ego didn’t like to be turned down. Now he wasn’t just touchy, he was grabby.
I winced when his grip clamped down on my wrist.
“I told you before. No,” I said clearly, trying to wrestle my arm free. There would be bruises in the morning. “Let go. You’re hurting me.”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
I glanced around. The bouncers were by the front door. The bartenders were busy slinging drinks across the room. I could scream, but that’d probably get me fired and it would be ahe said, she saidbattle and I never knew a time whenshe saidwon. I needed this job. Hell, why would I deal with this place and these assholes if I didn’t need the cash to pay the mortgage–and second–on Gran’s house? Or the legal bills. I was barely hanging on even after having let Taylor go from helping me in the stable. She lived with her father down the road and had been helping me part time for the past two years. My truck’s AC had died months ago. The dryer was broken and I was hanging my clothes outside on a line to dry like I was a homesteader. It was fine for now since it was summer, but I’d have to string something across the living room when there was three feet of snow on the ground.
That didn’t take into account my meagerly stocked pantry. Ineededthis job.
His buddies were no help to me, only smiling and cheering him on. The assholes.
“We don’t even have to go to my house,” he added. “Just get on your knees here. No one will see you back here.”
I looked around as I tried to break his hold. Triedto figure out how to get out of this. Some way to escape without making a scene and getting fired.
My gaze snagged. There, cutting through a thick Friday night crowd, was Bray Wilder. He waved to someone across the room, grinned at one woman, then winked at another.
My heart galloped like a bolting horse at the sight of him.
He settled at a high top in the middle of the bar. Since I was best friends with his sister, Lainey, I knew all of her brothers and the two guys sitting with him weren’t them.
Bray Wilder.
The crush. My BFF’s older brother. The guy who saw me as nothing more than a pest when we were kids. He was three years older. What high schooler wanted his sister and a late-blooming middle school girl hanging around?
He was the first boy that gave me butterflies. I’d been eleven and him, fourteen. He’d only gotten more handsome, more rugged and… God, virile, in the almost fifteen years since. At thirty, he should have a warning label for women’s panties. Especially in his usual dark cowboy hat and snap shirt.
Light brown hair beneath his cowboy hat, quick smile, dimple that made women fling those panties at him. Plus, he was so flipping buff that you couldprobably bounce a quarter off his abs. And perfect ass.
The painful tug on my hand brought me back to my problem.
“I’ve got a boyfriend and he’s not going to be happy seeing you grab me like this,” I said, lying through my teeth.
The asshole’s pale gaze raked over me, probably wondering how I could have a man in my life. “You?” he sputtered, then laughed. “Yeah, right. You don’t need to be pretty to suck dick.”
That was downright mean. I knew I wasn’t pretty, but to be told that outright? That all I was good for was to suck him off hidden beneath a table?
“He’s right over there.” I pointed in Bray’s general direction but there were too many people to pick him specifically.
He laughed. “You, Miss Mouse?”
He released his hold, but stood, bumped his chest into me. I stumbled back. Felt weak. Small. Ugly.
