DISCOVER OTHER TITLES BY KELLY ELLIOTT
*Title or series available on audiobook
Meet Me in Montana Series
Never Enough
Cowboys and Angels Series*
Lost Love
Love Profound
Tempting Love
Love Again
Blind Love
This Love
Reckless Love
Wanted Series
Wanted*
Saved*
Faithful*
Believe
Cherished*
A Forever Love*
The Wanted Short Stories
All They Wanted
Love Wanted in Texas Series*
(Spin-off of the Wanted series)
Without You
Saving You
Holding You
Finding You
Chasing You
Loving You
(Please note: Loving You combines the last books
of both the Broken and Love Wanted in Texas series.)
Broken Series
Broken*
Broken Dreams*
Broken Promises*
Broken Love
The Journey of Love Series*
Unconditional Love
Undeniable Love
Unforgettable Love
With Me Series*
Stay with Me
Only with Me
Speed Series
Ignite
Adrenaline
Boston Love Series*
Searching for Harmony
Fighting for Love
Austin Singles Series*
Seduce Me
Entice Me
Adore Me
Southern Bride Series
Love at First Sight
Delicate Promises
Divided Interests (available early 2020)
YA Novels Written as Ella Bordeaux
Beautiful
Forever Beautiful
Stand-Alone Novels
The Journey Home
Who We Were*
The Playbook*
Made for You*
Cowritten with Kristin Mayer
Predestined Hearts
Play Me*
Dangerous Temptations
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 by Kelly Elliott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542018579
ISBN-10: 1542018579
Cover design by Hang Le
Cover photography by Regina Wamba of MaeIDesign.com
Dedicated to those who have found themselves lost: your strength comes from defeating the things you once believed you couldn’t
CONTENTS
Start Reading
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CONNECT WITH KELLY ONLINE
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
—Mark Twain
Prologue
TY
My dream was taken from me in less than a second. Everyone said it would be the eight seconds that I chased week after week that would end up landing me in the hospital with an injury I wouldn’t be able to recover from.
They were wrong.
I’d mastered the eight seconds over years of bull riding. That night had been no different. I’d stood in the middle of the arena and held up the trophy. The winner yet again, on the road to another world championship. My life had been perfect. Everything in my world was exactly how I’d wanted it.
All it took was one second to change it all. One wrong decision made by someone to climb into their car and drive drunk.
“When can I get back up on a bull?” I asked the doctor. My mother held on to my hand tightly as my father stood on the other side of the hospital bed. I was ignoring the throbbing pain in my leg that seemed to grow more intense as the doctor stood there and looked around the room before settling his gaze on me. A feeling of cold tingles rushed through my body, and I already knew the answer before he said it.
My two younger brothers, Brock and Tanner, stood off to the side. Both were in the same business as me. Brock was a professional bull rider and just below me in ranking, and Tanner was ranked in the top five in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association standings as a team roper. I took a quick look their way. They both looked exactly like how I felt.
Defeated.
“A bull?” the doctor asked, a bit of shock in his voice.
“Ty,” my mother whispered, squeezing my hand. I ignored the sadness in her tone.
“Son, did you even hear a word I just said?” the doctor asked.
I nodded. “Yes, you said my leg was partially crushed in the car accident. I’ll need another surgery once I heal from this one, then possibly another after that one, and I’m lucky the leg wasn’t severed. I heard you. Now, I’m asking you, when will I be able to get back up on a bull? How long will this injury take to heal?”
The doctor’s gaze drifted over to my mother and father, then back to me. He cleared his throat and slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ty. You’ll never be able to bull ride again. For one, your leg is so badly injured you’ll be lucky if there isn’t permanent nerve damage. Putting full weight on it and walking normally will take a great deal of physical therapy. Painful physical therapy, and that’s if you’re able to regain full use of it. Second, no professional bull-riding association will clear you to ride, not with an injury like this. Ever.”
The walls in the room felt like they had begun to close in on me. The doctor’s words sounded as if he were talking into a can as each syllable grew more hollow and tinny. The whole room felt like it was disappearing as the only world I’d ever known seemed to be collapsing before me. I closed my eyes and took in a few deep breaths while I let his words sink in. Allowed the reality of my fate to settle around me.
Never bull ride again.
The thought made me sick to my stomach. Bull riding was my life. My dream. The only thing I knew how to do well.
Now it was gone. Taken from me in one alcohol-infused second.
Everyone kept saying I was so damn lucky and that I must have had a guardian angel on my side, because this could’ve been much, much worse. What the hell di
d they know? This was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
When I was finally able to breathe without every inhalation burning my chest, I opened my eyes, looked directly at the doctor, and said, “I will regain full use of my leg again—that I can promise you. That drunk driver won’t get to take that away from me too.”
My mother leaned down and kissed my forehead.
Despite my declaration, it was in that moment that I felt myself start to slip into a pit of darkness. One so deep there was no way I would be able to see the pain and ultimate addiction that awaited me. With wide-open arms. The feeling of loneliness that would wrap itself around my soul and sink its claws in was smirking at me from a distance.
The knowledge that I’d never be good enough. For anyone. Ever again.
Chapter One
TY
“Junior, are you going to stand there staring off into space, or are you going to pull the damn fence tight?”
I glanced over to my father, who wore a concerned look. I hated that he felt like he still had to worry about me.
I’d been named after him, since I was lucky enough to be born first. My brothers—Brock, Beck, and Tanner—followed after me. Beck died while serving in the marines, something I knew still weighed heavy on my folks’ hearts, but my mama never talked about him. I wished she would. I really felt like in some way it would help us all heal from his loss. Mama’s knack for avoiding bad or unpleasant situations was one of the reasons I held my own worries and fears inside. Who was I to add any more to their already-full plate of sadness?
Now there was something familiar in my father’s eyes as he looked at me. Worry. Fear.
Stella and Ty Shaw Sr. were amazing parents, but when my dad looked at me like he was looking at me right now, the guilt almost crushed me. Heaven knew I’d given them both enough to worry about: both after my accident four years ago and then when I got lost to an addiction to pain pills . . . it had nearly torn my father and mother in two, especially when they’d found out how long I’d been keeping it from everyone.
I knew he worried enough about Brock and Tanner as well. Being the oldest, I also knew I should be the one setting the good example for my siblings, and I’d failed miserably at that so far.
So I looked at him, wanting to quell his unspoken worry. “It’s all good, Dad. I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
He nodded. “Want to talk about it?”
I forced a smile. “Nah, it’s nothing, Dad.”
His brows pulled in tight, but he nodded again and went back to working on the fence.
“How is the counseling going?” he asked after a minute or two.
“Fine. We’ve cut it back to meeting every other week,” I replied.
“That’s good, son.”
“Yeah.”
I had gone back into therapy last summer, after I was tempted to take a few pain pills that Brock was given after a bull-riding incident left him pretty banged up. He’d left them on the counter in his kitchen, and the temptation to pop them into my mouth scared the living shit out of me. I wasn’t sure if it was my own willpower that stopped me or if it was Kaylee Holden walking in and seeing me with that bottle.
Kaylee was the best friend of Lincoln, Brock’s wife.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t take the pills—but I was left with even more of an unsettled and confused feeling, because Kaylee walked up and kissed me as she took the pills from my hand.
It was the second time she’d kissed me. The first time was only a few weeks after she and Lincoln had moved to Hamilton, Montana, from Atlanta, Georgia. And that first kiss sent me into a tailspin of confusion and fear. It was a fear I’d never experienced before, one that rivaled any anxiety I had felt about a relapse into addiction. One I still couldn’t completely understand, or at least refused to understand.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to Kaylee from the moment she crawled out of Lincoln’s car. She was beautiful. Blonde with the bluest of blue eyes. A smile that made my knees feel a little weak and a laugh that went straight to my dick. She was supposed to be a one-night stand, or maybe a few nights if things really clicked between us. Then she was going to leave and go back to Atlanta, and I would move on to the next woman.
But that kiss, in the back hallway of the Blue Moose bar, fucking shook me to my core.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t want a woman purely for sex. And I saw something worth working for when I looked at her. My chest felt tight, my stomach felt like I had stepped onto a roller coaster, and my body longed for something more. Something I never allowed myself to think about.
That night scared the living piss out of me. So I did what I was good at doing. Hid my true feelings and pushed Kaylee Holden directly into the friend zone. She was still a pain in my ass, though. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was constantly fighting an erection when I was around her or if she really did just get on my last nerve.
Both were probably true.
I sighed and got to work on the fence. “Brock going to be joining us today?” I asked, looking at the storm clouds that were moving over the valley.
“Ty, he just had a baby. Can we not let him spend time with Morgan and Lincoln?” my father asked, a slight frown creasing his forehead.
Brock had retired from the Professional Bull Riders last November after he’d won the PBR World Championship and was now enjoying life here on the ranch with Lincoln and their two-week-old daughter, Morgan Elizabeth. “I s’pose you’re right. I just know that this would go quicker with an extra pair of hands.”
Something caught my eye right then, and I stopped working. “What is that over there? Is that smoke?” I asked.
My father turned and gazed in the direction I was looking and laughed. “Yes. Kaylee mentioned she was doing some burning today. She cut down a tree.”
I grunted at the mention of her name, then turned to look at my father. “She cut down a tree? By herself?”
“Does that surprise you, son? The woman is spit and fire.”
I scoffed. “No. Nothing Kaylee does surprises me.”
We went back to working on the fence, but if he didn’t think I caught the slight smile on his face, he was wrong. I glanced up again to see the smoke. It was turning darker.
Kaylee. Damn woman.
I slowly shook my head. “Do you think she can handle that?” I asked, wiping my brow. It was hotter than normal for this time of year. March in Hamilton was usually in the thirties, but today it was fifty-eight degrees, and I was working up a sweat.
“Ty, did you really just ask that?” my father asked with a chuckle.
I rolled my eyes. If you looked up the words independent woman in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of Kaylee Holden. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with that. I admired her for making the move from Georgia to Montana and taking on the old farmhouse that Lincoln had originally bought from Brock. My brother’s first wife, Kaci, passed away while giving birth to their son, Blayze, and Brock decided to sell the house last year, since he hadn’t stepped back inside since Kaci died. Lincoln, being an interior designer with a love of old houses, bought it without even looking at it in person.
Brock built another house on the family ranch not long after Kaci died. It was a much bigger, grander house. So when Lincoln found out she was pregnant with Morgan, she ended up moving in with Brock and Blayze.
Once Kaylee decided to make Hamilton her permanent home, she moved into the old house and took over the remodeling of it. The girl had no idea what the difference was between a screwdriver and a hammer. I swore, every time I turned around she was changing or trying to build something.
“Dad, it was just last week that she nearly cut off her hand while trying to cut that sheet metal for the raised beds in her garden. Remember? Not that that made her change her mind. Lord knows what the woman is capable of with a chain saw.”
He rubbed his chin as he thought about it. “Maybe you should go see if she needs he
lp.”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to risk the raging hard-on I’d suffer being in her presence. “Or Tanner could go.”
My baby brother Tanner was home for a few days. He was a world-champion team roper with his friend and team partner, Chance Miller. They had been ranked number two at the time of Tanner’s latest injury. Chance decided not to team up with anyone else and was giving his body a rest while Tanner was recovering from a broken ankle. He got hurt while jumping off his horse. It was a stupid injury, and one that shouldn’t have happened, but he landed wrong, and the damn thing snapped in two places like a dried-up twig. The only good thing that came out of it was our mama was damn happy to finally have all her boys home.
“Tanner can hardly walk on his ankle, and you want him to go help Kaylee cut down a tree?”
With a half shrug, I replied, “I rode a bull with a broken rib countless times. He just has a broken ankle. It’s sort of a sissified injury, if you think about it.”
My father wore a tight smile, not wanting to chuckle, but then he allowed the sadness to seep back into his eyes.
My chest ached for a moment, and I fought to push my own pain away. Pain and sadness over a life I no longer had. One I still missed but normally refused to think about.
Bull riding was once my entire life. The only dream I’d chased after. I didn’t want to settle down and have kids, didn’t want to work on the family ranch, at least not until I was in my midthirties. I loved my life. Bull riding, alcohol, and women. Not necessarily in that order, but more like those three things tied for first place in my own rankings. Those were the three things I lived for. I loved the ranch as well, but I thought I’d have a bit more time to follow my dreams before I helped run the ranch.
I didn’t get a say in any of that, though. Four long years ago, my dream was taken from me. Crushed in the blink of an eye. Doctors told me I most likely wouldn’t regain full use of my leg. I proved them wrong, but it came at a cost. The pain I endured while in physical therapy was what had me popping the pain pills left and right. Before I knew it, I was getting my hands on stronger pills and taking more than I should. I hid it from my family for a while until eventually I started changing. I got moody and mean, drank a lot.
My mother noticed first, and of course I lied for as long as I could. Told everyone I was fine. Until I wasn’t fine. My addiction and depression nearly cost me my life—not that I told anyone how bad it was. After my parents stepped in and intervened, I admitted myself to a rehab clinic and got my shit together.
Always Enough Page 1
