by Sierra Brave
Bridling Lucy
Copyright © December 2018 by Sierra Brave
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Editor: Shay Style
Web Cover: copyright 2018, Winterheart Design, winterheart.com.
Print Cover: copyright 2018, Winterheart Design and Talina Perkins/Bookin’ It Design
Published in the United States of America
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* * * *
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
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Lucy sat with her arms folded across her chest and her bottom lip poking out as she stared out the passenger-side window. Despite her sour mood, Horse Mountain’s rustic scenery enchanted her—beautiful cabins, both big and small, grassy pastures, and lush evergreens abounded for as far as the eye could see. This would be a nice place for a vacation if I wasn’t practically being kidnapped. She shook her head as she tried to fathom how she’d been uprooted from her comfortable life by no fault of her own. Mama might as well be carting me off to prison. She licked her bottom lip as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
“Oh, come on now. It’s not as bad as all that?” Dory Crane continued driving.
“As all what?” She kept her attention on the greenery. If she saw her mother’s face, her anger might transform into sadness and she didn’t want to cry.
Her mom huffed. “You with the silent treatment up here and the refusal to so much as meet my gaze.”
Lucy’s nostrils flared. “You’re lucky I’m too old for an Amber Alert. How am I supposed to react when you’re sending me off to the middle of nowhere to stay with some strange old woman I’ve never even met?”
“She’s a family friend. Her daughter and I attended finishing school together.”
Lucy snorted. “I still can’t believe you went.”
“In my day, all of the girls of our clan were expected to go. It was a very big deal amongst the equine shifters.”
“And look how much it taught you. Did you even graduate?” She practically spat her words.
“Your mama knows how to behave like a lady when she needs to.”
“So this woman isn’t even kin?”
“No, but she is an equine shifter. One of her sons was good friends with your birth father.”
She gasped, finally turning to look at her mom. Her mother’s husband had raised her, and most of the time, Lucy claimed him as her daddy, but she longed to know more about her biological father. Trouble was her mama was always tight-lipped when it came to the subject. “My dad? Does he live around here? Can I meet him?”
Dory shrugged. “Can we not talk about him? Nothing you learn will make you happy.”
She locked her index fingers together while pulling her hands close to her chest. “I wonder if he looked for me.”
“He might have if he’d known about you, but I was only three months along and not showing yet. Telling him would have just complicated our separation and eventual divorce.”
Lucy’s jaw dropped and she fought not to shed the tears welling up in her eyes. She pursed her lips and stared straight ahead, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know how you could do such a horrible thing.”
Dory frowned, knitting her eyebrows. “So self-righteous! One of these days you’ll realize when it comes to our kind, the head can’t always control the heart. Getting involved before finding your one true mate is dangerous.”
Lucy opened her mouth as if she were gagging and made a retching sound while pointing her finger toward the back of her throat. “Please stop talking.”
“Excuse me? At least I’m not pushing you into an arranged marriage the way my father did to me.”
“Sorry, but I don’t want to hear your selfish reasons for running off with a gambling-addicted coyote shifter.”
“Hush your flapping lips. You know Craw didn’t start playing the slots until after we left Mississippi.”
Lucy huffed. “You mean after we got run out of Biloxi because of your low-rent fortune teller con jobs?” Her mom shot her a nasty look but didn’t deny the accusation. Lucy held her left wrist with her right hand while shaking her head. “Either way, I’m being forced to pay for someone else’s mistake. To think your husband used to actually be a pretty good dad. Now, not so much.”
Her mama’s head jerked to the side as she threw a furious look Lucy’s way, complete with narrowed eyes. “Stop testing my patience, Lucy Abigail Tate.”
I hit a nerve. Lucy tried not to smirk. Her mama couldn’t tolerate any bad-mouthing of the love of her life, regardless of how true the words rang. Crawford “Craw” Crane continually proved himself to be a turd in the punch bowl, but her mama always defended him and probably would continue to until her dying breath. “Why’d you give me his name instead of Craw’s?”
Her mother pressed her lips together. “Legally, I was still married to him when you were born so Tate was my last name, but can we please drop the subject? Your daddy, Craw, the man who looked after you like his own blood from the minute you were born—He loves you. He thinks he’s doing right by you.” She shook her finger at Lucy. “I just don’t agree. A girl needs to wait for the one.”
“The one,” Lucy mimicked while rolling her eyes. “I still think this is crazy. It’s not like I couldn’t just flat out refuse Grayson.”
“Hmm, I wonder if you’d be able to stand strong if the patriarch got involved. Would you tell him no?” Without waiting for Lucy to answer, Dory reached toward her. She flinched but relaxed as her mother fingered a strand of her hair. “I like the color.”
She gritted he
r teeth, fresh anger filling her gut as she recalled her mom forcing a bleach job on her in a crappy hotel room about midway through the trip. “I miss my red.” She jerked her head away from her mother’s touch.
“If Craw or any of the Vegas-clan tries to find you, they’ll be looking for a ginger, not a towhead.”
Vegas-clan…Lucy let the words scratch at her brain. When she was younger, she hadn’t realized a bunch of different types of weres joining a clan under a “Boss” patriarch was weird. Now she understood most clans were matriarchal, and Mr. Black’s operation was similar to organized crime groups with their Godfathers.
Her mom pulled up in the driveway of a lovely one-story cabin surrounded by tall trees before turning off the engine. “Now you mind Ms. Banks. Do whatever chores you’re assigned.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work though I guess my real job will be filled by the time I return home…that is if I don’t die out here in Hickville, USA.”
“You shouldn’t say such things, sweetie. Mama’s going to get everything fixed up.” Her mother patted her arm, but Lucy yanked away from her. “I’ll get your daddy straight and find another way to settle his debt, but you better not go talking any trash about him.” All the tenderness of her touch seemed to have faded as she wagged her finger again. “I can’t have any of my old clan, particularly my kin or some of the nosey strumpets I graduated high school with, getting any word of Craw’s misstep. Stick to the story. You hear me?”
Lucy’s blood boiled. “So it’s alright for a bunch of people you haven’t said a single word to in years to think your daughter’s some kind of out-of-control hoodlum as long as they don’t find out the truth about your shitty husband?”
Dory pointed her boney finger at her again, shaking it about an inch from Lucy’s face. “I asked if you heard me, girl.”
“I got it.” The corners of Lucy’s mouth turned down and her shoulders drooped as she huffed.
“Good.”
“With any luck, I’ll get the money from my daddy, and you’ll be home in no time.”
Lucy’s eyes widened and she nearly snapped her neck while jerking her head around to look at her mother’s face. “My granddaddy? Can I meet him?”
Her mom’s eyes rounded and she smirked. “Depends on if he’ll give me the money.”
She tightened her closed lips, squinting slightly. “So you’ll ransom a visit from me?”
Her mom smiled. “Whatever it takes.”
As Chance Locklear entered the office at the Banks Family Ranch, the bookkeeper looked up from her work and offered him a nod before returning to her ledgers. The sides of his lips turned down as he eyed her desk. Absently, he began putting some lose paperclips into their holder. He glanced across the room at Davis Banks and his cousin Abram. The two cowboys were gathered around the coffee maker to drink themselves wide awake.
Chance caught Davis’s gaze. “Class is finished. I just need you to sign off on the paperwork.”
He smiled. “Sure thing. You want a cup?” Davis held up a mug embossed with the ranch’s logo.
Chance shook his head. “Naw, I’m good.”
“How’d everything go?”
“Not bad. Sixteen of your lodgers completed my hunting safety course.”
Abram scratched his head. “I thought there were eighteen signed up.”
Chance stiffened his shoulders. “One man strolled in ten minutes late. He’d already missed too much material so I sent him away, and a teenage boy spent entirely too much time playing with his phone. I didn’t think he took the subject seriously enough.”
Abram palmed his face. “The lodgers make up a large percentage of our profits.”
“Rules are rules. I teach the class here at the ranch as a courtesy. There is no guarantee everyone will qualify for a hunting license.”
Abram squinted and glanced to Davis who simply shook his head. “You’ll never change his mind, but on this particular point, I agree with him. I don’t want some unprepared kid shooting his foot off.”
Abram nodded. “True enough.”
Chance handed Davis the clipboard he was holding before he tidied up the coffee station. He noticed but ignored the looks of amusement the two ranchers shared; he hated seeing things left undone. “Since it’s late spring, all they can go after is nutria, coyotes, groundhogs, skunks and feral swine. No bag limits but nighttime limitations apply.”
Abram swallowed a sip of java. “Ain’t no night time hunting allowed on our land.”
“No kidding. Talk about your liability nightmare,” Davis agreed. “Alright, step into my office and I’ll sign-off on your paperwork.”
“What’s wrong with right here?” Chance pointed at the clipboard still in Davis’s hand, but Davis subtly cut his eyes toward Becky working at the desk, non-verbally informing Chance it had to do with shifter business.
Once they were behind closed doors, Davis grabbed a pen and signed everywhere Chance indicated. “Gram wants to see you tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp.”
Chance groaned. “Is she aware I have a job?”
“Being a game warden comes second to your membership in the Horse Mountain equine clan. Gram calls. We come running.” Davis plopped his pen down in a cup filled with other writing instruments.
Chance massaged his temples while frowning. “She’s my great-granddaddy’s niece, not my Grandma.”
Davis’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared as he stiffened his shoulders. Until that moment, Chance didn’t think he’d ever seen the guy angry before but clearly, his grandmother was a pressure point. “Last I heard your great-granddaddy’s dead. So’s your granddaddy and both of them are men so how’s that got anything to do with who the matriarch of our clan is?”
Chance’s lips thinned into a grim line as he considered the situation. As much as he wanted to flat out refuse and jet out of the office, he had been well-schooled on the unwritten rules of the clan.
“What’s with the weird look on your face?” Davis turned his head and eyed him suspiciously.
Chance tilted his head to the side, widening his stance while putting his hands behind his back. “I was just calculating my chances of getting out of here without an ass-kicking if I told you to go screw yourself.”
Davis nearly spewed his coffee. “Odds wouldn’t be in your favor. Physically, you and I are evenly matched. On the other hand, I don’t have the energy or inclination to run you down, but Abram’s right outside the door. You’d never get past him.” He chuckled.
Chance nodded. “He’s huge.”
“Strong as hell too—a draft horse.”
“I thought you and I were jacked until I saw him. How’s his temperament?” Chance surveyed the mess on Davis’s desk and the vein in his neck throbbed.
“Pretty even. His size and physicality are a might difficult on my self-confidence, but seeing as how I no longer have to do all the heavy lifting around here, I’ve made my peace with it.”
Chance walked to the other side of Davis’s desk. “Are you all of a sudden left-handed?” He grabbed the pencil holder and moved it to the right side. “It should go here.” He ignored Davis’s eye roll as he fixed the disarrayed papers littering the surface into a neat stack and then placed a paperweight on top. Once he was satisfied, he looked over at his friend and pointed at the pencil organizer’s new position. “Why wouldn’t you put it here in the first place?”
A mischievous look danced in Davis’s eyes as a smirk spread across his face. Chance frowned as his buddy moved to the front of the desk and sat down on the corner. As he rested his right thigh on the top, allowing his leg to dang off the side while keeping his left foot firmly planted on the floor, he managed to undo a lot of Chance’s hard work. Davis’s grin widened as he slipped one hand into the side pocket of his jeans, leaving his thumb out. “Don’t I cut a masculine figure like this?”
Chance scrunched up his nose while curling his bottom lip over in disgust. “I am not tryin’ to judge your manliness.”
While touching the brim of his hat, Chance grimaced. “What the hell are you going on about?”
The sound of his friend’s laughter made Chance’s eye twitch with annoyance. Davis pointed to his office door. “Sometime this week, Becky is going to buzz me from out there to tell me Scarlett’s come by for some reason or another, and after I straighten my clothes and make sure there’s nothing in my hair or on my face, I’m going to assume this cool stance and call out for her to send my pretty lil’ filly in.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Chance shook his head.
“I’m explaining why having that cup on the other side of the desk isn’t nearly as important as me looking super cool when my woman shows up here.”
While letting out a loud sigh, Chance rolled his eyes. “You’ve really lost it.”
Davis shrugged. “Maybe…love is a powerful thing.”
Chance groaned. “Why the hell am I being called up to the damn matriarch’s?”
Anger flashed across Davis’s face. “Excuse me?”
While holding up his hands in front of him in a halting motion, Chance backed away a couple of steps. “I don’t mean any disrespect. Just tell me what she wants. You’re my buddy. Why are you trying to ambush me?”
Davis shrugged. “We’re friends, but I’ll always do my duty to the clan even if I have to do something I don’t like.” He averted his gaze and scratched his nose. “I don’t know why she’s calling for you, but I’m sure Gram has a good reason.”
Chance understood his buddy’s meaning well enough. He didn’t want to tangle, but friends or not, he would if Chance disobeyed the matriarch. He grumbled, “Being a shifter shouldn’t mean having less human rights than the average person.”
Davis smirked. “So getting back to our original hypothesis…yeah, you could flip me off and run out, and okay, let’s say Abram’s having an off day or has headed to the john when you make your escape. So what? I’d have to tell Gram you disobeyed, and she would be pissed. Then instead of telling me to send you to talk to her, she’d order me, or Abram, or worse…the Crammer twins…”
