Escape

by Jay Crownover

  Another laugh, and this time I did smile back at him. Up close and without the shadow from his hat hiding his face, I could see he was more than passably attractive like I first thought. Lane was much younger, and his eyes were much more blue than gray. He had a similar jawline, and the cut of his cheekbones matched his older brother, but this guy was handsome in a more approachable, accessible way. Lane Warner also had a dimple in one cheek when he grinned, which made him downright adorable in my book. I didn’t know if real cowboys had dimples, but I decided they all should if it was going to make them look as good as this one did. Lane had the kind of easy good looks that would appeal to any and every woman under the sun, while his older brother had the kind of brooding intensity and harshly hewn good looks that appealed to women who wanted something special, something unforgettable and impossible to overlook.

  “Mr. Personality… Cy would lose his shit if he knew that’s what you were calling him. He usually avoids the guests for that very reason. He always shows up when guests arrive, and he hangs around to make sure everyone is paying attention when we go over the rules and regulations for the week, but after that, he goes back to running the ranch and all the other businesses he’s got his hands in. Sutton and I do the grunt work, but Cy is the brains behind the operation. He took over the ranch a few years ago when things got tough with my old man, health-wise. The guided tours and adventure vacations were his idea. When he was in college, all his buddies used to want to come home with him when they were on break so they could ride and camp out in the woods. Cy took something as simple as his college buddies hanging out and having a good time and turned it into a business plan. Since you paid to be here, you know how profitable the venture has been for us. He saved the ranch and gave my dad an easy last couple of years, so our old man didn’t have to worry about us his last few years.”

  It was more information than I asked for, but it was a valuable insight into the man who had both annoyed me and intrigued me from the get-go. The younger man spoke with obvious pride when he talked about his older sibling, which made me smile at him; however, my smile died when we reached the cabin and the grumpy brother—who looked less like the one I was fascinated with—shoved open the door and dropped Emrys’ bag with a loud ‘thud’ on the floor. Sutton tipped his chin at her and then swept past us until he was at the bottom of the steps. He was tall and broad like his older brother, but his eyes were green, nowhere near blue or gray. The downturn of his mouth and the furrow between his eyes made him appear sulky and moody, rather than brooding and intense like his older sibling. He was still an outrageously attractive young man, one that I noticed Emrys couldn’t seem to quit staring at. Considering I was in my own mental funk and had an unshakable cloud of piss-poor attitude hovering over my head, I had no time or interest in his sour disposition or the cause behind it. Lane put my bag down far more gently, gave me a rueful grin, then he touched the tip of his fingers to the brim of his ball cap.

  “Working with family is never boring, that’s for sure. You ladies are going to have a great trip. Just leave it to me.”

  The brothers disappeared as Emrys swung the door shut and turned on me with a swish of perfect hair and the narrowing of her captivating, dark eyes.

  “You are too much, you know that, right?” She was pissed, and I couldn’t find fault with her feeling that way.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I really didn’t think anyone but you could hear me or that me pointing out the obvious would be considered fighting words.”

  She tapped her foot, which was encased in a far more appropriate leather riding boot, and huffed out an annoyed breath.

  “I know you didn’t think anyone could hear you, but that isn’t the point. The point is, you think everyone is pretending to be something they aren’t after all that crap Chris pulled on you. You’re making everyone suffer for it.”

  Chris was the ex-boyfriend I was so sure I was going to spend forever with. He was the ex-boyfriend I had blissfully planned a future with and dreamily envisioned having children with. He was the ex-boyfriend I let in when I kept everyone else out because I thought he was perfect, and, more importantly, I thought we were absolutely perfect together. It was so easy to be together, effortless, uncomplicated. He was the ex-boyfriend who was everything I ever wanted, and he was the ex-boyfriend who had lied about everything.

  He lied about what he did for a living. He lied about his past and his future. He lied to me about who he was and who I was to him. He lied, and he lied, and he lied some more, and when I called him out on his endless untruths, he made me feel like I asked for the dishonesty. He told me I made it easy for him to lie because I never asked him for the truth. He told me that I ignored all the obvious signs that I was being duped. This galled because I had turned a blind eye when things didn’t exactly add up because it was easier for me than digging in and risking more than I already had.

  I’d broken up with Chris over three months ago. I was still licking my wounds because I couldn’t believe that I had been so stupid to fall for someone so fake, so phony. The end of the relationship was responsible for my current level of self-loathing and for my general misanthropy. His lies and my gullibility left me spinning and feeling like I could no longer trust my judgment or my decision-making skills. I was always so careful, so cautious, but Chris had broken through my defenses, and now I felt foolish and scorned. As a result, I built my walls back up and made them so high and impenetrable, not even my best friend could climb over them.

  The only person in my life who wasn’t my family, who I trusted without question, was the woman standing across from me. I hated that I had let her down repeatedly over the last few months. During my relationship, I had ignored her time and time again when she warned me that things with Chris didn’t add up. She told me over and over I should have seen where he lived, met his friends, been introduced to his family, considering we had dated for over six months. I let her down after the breakup when I retreated into myself while I licked my wounds. I pretended that the last half of a year hadn’t completely destroyed my self-esteem. I wasn’t the girl who ever went out on a limb, and the one time I did, the branch snapped underneath me. Emrys deserved a better friend because even when I’d been caught up in my own bullshit issues, she had never wavered.

  I reached out my hands and put them on her shoulders. I had to look up at her to meet her eyes, but I did so sincerely. “We are going to have a great week together. I promise, no distractions. I will put a sock in it when it comes to the guys being not quite cowboys. I’ll lighten up and enjoy all this disgustingly clean, unpolluted air and unspoiled serenity. I’ll even try and smooth things over with Mr. Personality if it will make you happy, okay?”

  She shook her head, but a reluctant grin pulled at her mouth, a mouth that didn’t need lipstick or liner to make it look like a perfectly painted on Cupid’s bow. If she wasn’t my very best friend in the entire world, and I didn’t know how big her heart was and how endlessly giving and kind she was, it would be easy to dislike her for how seemingly easy she made being flawless seem. Luckily, we met long before Chris had turned me into a suspicious asshole who questioned everyone and everything. It would have been the greatest loss in my entire life to have missed out on the friendship Emrys, and I had just because she was so intimidatingly faultless.

  “I want you to reset and recharge, Leo. I want you to remember that you are the smartest, most capable woman I know. What happened with Chris isn’t what defines you. You got taken for a ride by a charming guy with a pretty face. There are consequences to that, but it isn’t the end of the world. You aren’t the first woman that has happened to. You won’t be the last. I want you to move on, get back to being the woman who has always been my best friend.” She sounded so sad, so frustrated, that it made my belly twist into a tight knot. She shook her head a little bit and gave me a look that made my heart twist painfully in my chest. “Because this woman,” she motioned to me, and I looked down and winced when I saw that she noticed
the shirt I was wearing. I should have burned it when I told him I never wanted to see him again. “I’m not a huge fan of her.”

  I wasn’t a huge fan either but wasn’t entirely sure how to make her go away. In fact, I was starting to wonder if she was who I was destined to be from now on. That thought was so depressing, I insisted, “I am moving on.” I let my hands fall from her shoulders as I bent to pick up my bag and move it to one of the tiny twin beds that were set in a charming rustic frame. They had gone all out making the accommodations very ranch-like, and I hated to admit that it was really cute and very charming. They did a good job researching what would appeal to their clients, and since that was how I made my living, learning and analyzing what people would spend their money on, I always appreciated it when a business had taken the extra steps to understand their client and their market.

  I heard Emrys sigh from behind me. “You would never have discounted those guys as real cowboys before Chris. You would have been too distracted by how amazing their asses look in those jeans to worry about if they were cowboy enough or not.” Sadly, she had a point.

  A strangled laugh escaped my lips, and I turned to look at her over my shoulder. “Their asses did look pretty phenomenal in those jeans.” Cy’s especially when he had marched away after dressing me down with his long-legged and confident stride. He was a man who moved with purpose and determination. He moved like nothing would distract him or deter him from the path he was on, like whatever he had to do was far more important than anything else happening. I always envisioned a real cowboy would move like that, minus the slightly bow-legged stance that my overactive imagination often added for dramatic effect.

  Emrys laughed, and some of the weight I’d been carrying around in my heart lately lightened a bit.

  “Just play nice with everyone for the next week, Leo. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “I can do that.” She wasn’t asking for much, and as long as big brother Warner stayed away from me, I should be able to comply with no problem. I was here to invest some quality time in our friendship and to give my battered heart and sense of self some much-needed space. My ability to trust and my faith in my own judgment had been eviscerated. Maybe the quiet and disconnect from everything that was familiar would work at healing all the things Chris and his lies had left torn and tattered.

  I was going to do my best to trust these not quite cowboys to not only guide us through the mountains and the wilderness but hope that along the way, they somehow managed to guide me back to who I was before I was broken.

  Want to get lost in the storm with the surly middle Warner brother? Here is a peek at Sutton and Emrys’ story in Shelter:

  Purchase Shelter here: http://amzn.to/2zwQSfT

  Prologue

  Six months earlier…

  Emrys

  It was all my fault the guys with guns had caught up with us.

  I knew they wanted to hurt us.

  I knew they were faster than us on their dirt bikes and ATVs.

  I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us.

  They were dumping bodies in the river like they were garbage, and I knew if they caught up they were going to do the same to us.

  I understood they were willing to go to extreme lengths to protect acres and acres of an illegal marijuana farm hidden deep within the national forests of Wyoming. They couldn’t afford to let us leave the mountain alive. There were some secrets worth killing for…and this was one of them.

  I knew all of that, but I still forced Sutton Warner to stop.

  I wasn’t as comfortable on horseback as he was, especially at the blistering pace he’d set for us to get safely back to his family’s ranch. The rest of the group I’d been vacationing with had branched off in different directions trying to outrun the drug growers and armed men protecting the fields hidden deep within the Wyoming wilderness. Sutton and I were the smallest unit: just the two of us tearing through the forest at breakneck speed. The hope was that we would be able to get to the ranch and call for help before anyone else got hurt. We were supposed to be moving faster than any of the other groups, but there was no way to gauge if that was true. Sutton’s older brother and another guest, who had been searching for a harmless vacation like I was, had already been seriously injured when the dealers pinned down our campsite in a hail of bullets. In the blink of an eye, our circumstance deviated from the peaceful, serene week in the mountains I’d planned with my best friend. Now, it was a life or death race against some seriously bad guys packing some seriously big guns.

  Sutton wanted to keep going; I was starting to breathe heavily and was having a hard time staying upright. It had been non-stop movement since we’d split up. There was no time to stop and rest no time to eat, and no time to think about just how dangerous our situation was. The horse I was barely staying on was also starting to show signs of fatigue. The poor, overworked animal kept stumbling and was fighting every jerk of the reins and every tap of my heels against its heaving sides. I hurt from the top of my head to my toes, and I could hardly see the big, blond man sitting on his horse in front of me. He hadn’t said much when we’d started on this journey. Hell, he hadn’t said much before we started. He didn’t hide the fact that he considered my tagging along on his furious trek back to the safety of his ranch a burden and hindrance. He’d mentioned more than once that he would be twice as far along if he didn’t have me to worry about.

  He wasn’t very friendly or very nice. He hadn’t given me a single encouraging word since we started out. But he did stop anytime I told him I needed a break, and I fully believed he would do his absolute best to make sure no harm came to me. He was alert and aware of everything happening around us, hyper-focused on the task at hand. He was equally as worried about his two brothers, the men who had acted as guides on the trip and led the rest of our motley crew through the woods. A lot had happened over the course of the last week, and this scramble away from killers was just the tip of the iceberg. My best friend was somewhere out in the wilderness with Sutton’s older brother, and they were also running for their lives. Lucky for her, that particular Warner seemed to like her just fine and didn’t treat her like she was a nuisance—unlike my current companion.

  I could see Sutton was annoyed with me when I told him we had to stop again. I knew he wanted to argue with me, that he didn’t think it was a good idea, but I literally couldn’t stay in the saddle anymore. My ass had gone numb an hour ago. The horse stumbled and listed to one side. I was too tired and too stiff to react properly and slid sideways in response to the jerky motion. I hit the ground with a yelp and heard the blond man swear softly under his breath. He pulled the speckled Appaloosa he was riding around and swung out of the saddle in one fluid motion. If I hadn’t been so close to passing out, I would have swooned at the gesture. Before coming on this trip, I’d been reading a lot of romance novels featuring sexy cowboys and rugged ranchers. A hot boy in tight jeans and cowboy boots had always been a secret fantasy of mine. I liked that they were a throwback to what I imagined a real man was like. One who could kill his own dinner and change a tire. The kind of man who knew how to take care of women in and out of the bedroom. There weren’t any of those kinds of men hanging out in my social circle in San Francisco. I knew a lot of artists and poets. I attracted actors and musicians. I ended up with creative types who never seemed to have a steady income and wanted me to give them a place to stay more than they wanted me. I had been giddy when we stepped onto the Warner Ranch and were greeted with three different varieties of real-life cowboys right out of the gate.

  Cyrus Warner, the oldest of the three brothers, was what my best friend Leo called ‘not- quite-a-cowboy.’ He looked more like a biker crossed with a CEO. He was big and gruff...unquestionably badass. There was something a little bit dangerous about him. He had style and flair that was unexpected so far away from the civilized world, and it was just as easy to picture him in a boardroom as a barn. He was the executive kind of cowboy. He was the one who had turne
d the dying ranch into a profitable vacation destination.

  Lane, the youngest brother, was as stereotypical of a cowboy as one could get. He had bright blue eyes, wavy, dark hair, and deeply tanned skin. His long legs had been encased in too-tight Wranglers, and his too-handsome face was marked by a charming grin that indicated he knew exactly how to work all the goodness he had going on. He was the one you could easily find on a cowboy of the month calendar, shirtless, holding a gangly foal. The quintessential cowboy fantasy come to life. Most definitely the one who made girls from the city swoon and trip over themselves with a flash of his smile.

  Sutton was an odd mix of both his brothers. He was the most traditionally handsome of the three of them with his shaggy, blond hair, and dark green eyes. He was shorter than Cy but taller than Lane, not that any of them were hurting in the height department—something I always noticed since I was on the tall side myself. He had on the standard boots and jeans, which he was obviously comfortable in, but he didn’t seem like he enjoyed being on the ranch, at least not as much as his brothers did. He wasn’t stern and silent like his older brother, and when he spoke, it was with a sarcastic slant and biting rudeness that was sharper and more pointed than his affable younger brother’s humor. He moved sure and steady across the property, but there was anger in every step. Ever the reluctant cowboy. The one who didn’t know how to be anything else, but clearly found the role confining. Of course, he would be the one who caught my eye and sparked an interest that had been missing for quite some time.

  It was always the broken boys who called to me. All I wanted to do was fix them. I was habitually sacrificing my own happiness to help whatever wounded bird ended up in my nest.