Broken Fences (A TroubleMaker Novel)

By Kelly Gendron

It took her two years to land Colden "Saint" James, even if it was for only one night, but the very next day, he was gone.

Dusty Owens always had a certain kind of power over Colden. He'd been so close to falling for the girl before he'd left Odessa. Now, due to a troublemaking photo, Colden James must return to protect the one woman he could never forget. The woman he's always wanted but was too afraid to take. Trouble is, he's a changed man. And now, when Colden wants something, he's got no problem taking it.

When the "Saint" returns home, Dusty Owens and her wounded heart put up a real good fight. But deep down the strong-willed, mechanical bull riding, bar owner knows that she'll always be that girl in love with Colden "Saint" James. For when it comes to the southern drawl, tattooed, alpha male, Dusty finds herself submitting to his every command.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Gendron
• Release date: Oct 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301863853

Kelly Gendron

USA Today Bestselling Author, Kelly Gendron is best found tucked away in a quiet suburb in upstate NY writing her steamy, blush producing contemporary romances. But, when she’s not creating HEA stories, you might find her helping out her hubby in his workshop. He’s good with his hands and great with wood! If you Google Kelly, she’ll pop up there as well. And please google her. Kelly loves to hear from her readers and to meet new people!

Book preview

BROKEN FENCES

(A TroubleMaker Novel)

______________________________

Broken Fences

A TroubleMaker Novel

Published by Kelly Gendron

Copyright © 2013 Kelly Gendron

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews.

Edited by: Autumn Conley

Chapter One

The loud squeal may have jilted her heart, but it was the flying pig that stopped Dusty Owens dead in her tracks. Damn that Jesse Walker and his pigs! If the man insisted on traveling with animals in the back of his truck, he needed to learn how to build a proper cage.

With its short, tiny legs, the piggy was getting away. Dustychased and dived, sliding sideways onto the dirt road to catch the slippery squealing thing. They wrestled in the mud until she finally had a good grip on it. She carried the writhing animal over to Walker’s truck and jerked on the door handle. Ha! It was unlocked. She placed the muddy pig on the front seat and closed the door. Take that, Jesse Walker!

Next, she headed toward The Bucking Barrel, the tavern best known for its monthly mechanical bull competition. It was also known for being run by the youngest and most prosperous owner in the Odessa area, Dusty Owens herself. Besides being the proprietor of The Bucking Barrel, Dusty was also known for something else. She’d held the female mechanical bull record in Texas for the longest streak in the competition. In other parts of the country, that might not have meant much, but in Texas, it was quite an achievement.

Dusty pushed the front door open only to hear Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy blasting out of the speakers. A couple of girls were dancing together in front of the DJ, their bootin’, scootin’, and boogyin’ causing the few cowboys nearby to drool like a cow chewing its cud. After taking a quick sweep of the place, Dusty grinned. The speakers weren’t the only things booming. The place was busy for a Tuesday.

Whoa! You look a mess, Dusty! What the hell happened to ya? Jesse Walker said, sitting at the bar with that shit-eatin’ grin he seemed to wear on a permanent basis.

She smirked. Me? You oughtta see the front seat of your pickup, Walker. She pointed at him. I told you to take care of those pigs.

With his beer midway to his mouth, Jesse eyed her as she strolled on by. It took a minute for her words to sink in, but when they did, they must have hit him like a ton of bricks. Shit! Dusty! He slammed the beer down on the bar. That truck’s brand new! he shouted and shot for the door.

"Shit, Jesse, she mocked over her shoulder. So are these damn boots!"

Not giving Walker another thought, Dusty set her eyes on the real cause for her late-night visit to the bar, the reason she’d had to put her favorite TV show on pause, get dressed, jump in her own truck, and haul herself back to the place she’d mentally punched out of three hours earlier—all after putting in ten hours behind the bar. There was only one reason for that, and that reason was Jimmy James. If there was one thing Dusty couldn’t tolerate, it was seeing her cousin Sissy cry, and Jimmy wasn’t about to get away with causing it.

Dusty wandered to the back of the bar, where she found Odessa’s six-pack of trouble.

The group of little hell-raising heartthrobs were really nothing but boys trying to be men, ranging in age from twenty-two to twenty-six. The one betrothed to her cousin, Jimmy, was swaying over the pool table with a pool stick in his hand.

Hey! Dusty called out to her cousin’s fiancé.

His eyes shifted from the cue ball to Dusty. Damn those James eyes! Jimmy’s were a slightly duller shade of green, but every time she fell into them, Colden, the older James brother, popped into her head, her heart and—well, although he’d been absent for years, just the thought of him still found a way between her legs to give her a little tug there too.

She stopped in front of the table and placed her hand on her hip, it slid off in the mud left over from her pig wresting. She dug her fingers into the filthy denim to keep it in place. All she wanted was for you to taste some freaking cake, look at a few flower arrangements, and pick out a damn invitation for the wedding. That’s it!

Listen, Dusty… Jimmy flung the pool stick up from the table, and it hit the floor. I was gonna go with Sissy. Hell, I even cut out of work early. Matter fact, I was on my way to meet her, but then I got called back. He tipped his fallen cowboy hat back up and gave her a quick glance. One of our tractors stalled on Dirky Road and—

So you couldn’t call her?

Shit! he dragged out in a manly whine. You know how she can be. Sissy woulda been all upset and started bawlin’. I can’t bear to see her like that. It always breaks my damn heart.

If you’ve even got one. Dusty glared at him. So let me get this straight. In order to keep yourself from having to hear her cry, you took the easy way out and left me to deal with it. Well, while your tiny little excuse for a heart’s still intact, Sissy’s big one is broken. Your fiancée is at my house right now, cryin’ her pretty little eyes out, and here you are snot-slinging drunk and shootin’ pool!

Jimmy opened his mouth, but a distinguished voice interrupted him. Come on, girl. Give the kid a break, the sound huskily drawled from behind Dusty’s ear.

She froze.

It wasn’t the comment that sent every hair on her neck into a standing position, nor was it that someone was actually sticking up for Jimmy James. No, it was the sound of the voice. It was a little deeper and a whole lot more confident, but she still recognized it. It belonged to none other than Colden Saint James. The last time she’d seen the so-called Saint was when he was twenty-four years old, a rookie cop in Odessa, a mild mannered do-gooder, almost on the verge of being plain boring. But no matter how quiet or law-abiding he had been, Dusty had always had a thing for him.

After all these years, what the hell is Mr. Goody Two Shoes doing back in Odessa? It took only a few seconds for Dusty to answer her own question. In two weeks, his brother was going to marry her cousin. With the short one-month engagement, Dusty had been too busy with her maid of honor duties to even worry, much less care about who she’d be walking down the aisle with on the big day. Colden had been gone for an eternity, and few ever spoke of him anymore, so never in a million years would she have imagined walking down the aisle on his arm. He was, however, Jimmy’s only sibling, and Jimmy was at least loyal to family, one of the few qualities that forced her to like the kid. 

Ready to face the do-gooder who had stolen more than her virtue, Dusty recomposed herself and slid her head over her shoulder. Slump. Everything from the neck down, including her heart, dropped to the floor. Those damn James eyes! They were hooded, but no amount of shadowing could dim the golden flecks in those dangerous green pools. 

The dome lamp hanging over his head put every delicious part of the Saint in the spotlight. The younger, more slender body she remembered had been replaced with muscles and tattoos. Holy shit! Tattoos? The ink popped out from the sleeves of his snug-fitting white t-shirt, and she noticed some curling up from the collar of his shirt onto his neck. A neck tattoo? Well, if that ain’t…freaking hot. His jeans looked used and abused, the same way any naughty girl would want to be treated by the rough and tough bad boy standing before her.

He smiled the kind of smile that no doubt left pools of women in his wake, the kind that crushed hearts. Dusty, on the other hand, had stopped dissolving into a pool of liquid mess over the Saint years ago, and as for her heart, she liked to think that was no longer crushable.

Then again, she wasn’t looking at the same Colden James who’d left Odessa six years earlier. With the acknowledgment, somehow she managed to keep her smile plastered to her face. Oh, I think your little brother can handle himself just fine, St. James. She normally called Colden by his middle and last name, it had always suited the do-gooder real well.

I have no doubt he can. But to be fair, I don’t think there’s a man in Texas that can handle the likes of you, Dusty Owens. That is, his eyes lowered to her mouth, until now.

Until now? she repeated as she drew her head back, shocked that he’d said it. Cocky and bold, he certainly wasn’t the mild-mannered rookie cop she’d known before. Even her body reacted differently to him.

"Yes, if my memory serves me correctly—which I’m sure it does, as it’s rather vivid—this man knows how to handle you just fine," Colden said, but his eyes, not his voice, were what really spoke to her, and what they had to say were some pretty naughty things, real naughty—like pussy damaging naughty.

Truth be told, though, the last time Colden James had handled Dusty, she’d been pressed up against old man McAllister’s fence, and they’d broken it. That night, Colden had revealed the more dominant side of himself, the part Dusty had always assumed she’d been attracted to but had never had the privilege of experiencing. 

She shook her head, recalling when she’d last set eyes on him, the day after he’d taken her hard against that fence, the day after he’d taken her virginity. She had been on her way home from work and noticed Colden standing there in nothing more than jeans and boots, with his shirt tucked into the back pocket of his pants. The hot, dominant man was gone. The do-gooder was back, literally mending fences. She hadn’t stopped but had slowly driven by. Roadside. It was the last time she’d seen those beautiful green eyes.

After that, she’d heard that the Saint had left for Georgia, the same place he’d gone for some training after graduating from the police academy before she’d met him. When he didn’t return, she assumed he’d taken a job out there. In any case, if he planned on being there for the wedding and if she was going to have to tolerate him for the next two weeks, she needed to put Colden and all his newfound cockiness in its place.

I got this, Colden, Jimmy slurred right at the wrong moment.

Not taking his eyes off her, Colden chuckled. No, finish your game, Jimmy. Let Dusty and me hash this out ourselves. We got some catching up to do.

In agreement, Dusty turned completely around. Disappointedly aware of what she looked like in her pig-wrestling t-shirt and jeans, she aligned her shoulders and tried to work with her other assets, the two she knew firsthand the Saint’s mouth had once enjoyed tasting. She hoped he still enjoyed them, or at least enjoyed looking at them. Dusty thrust her B-cups out, stepped toward him, and lifted her head to gaze into those dangerous green eyes, just to show him he no longer affected her. "You may have handled me once, St. James, but from what I remember, you couldn’t handle yourself."

Colden bent his head, and a whiff of coffee, bark, and sex wafted into her nose. The man actually smelled like sex— hot, sweaty, long, hard sex. Every hormone inside pushed for her to lean forward, to get closer to the thigh-clenching aroma, but her brain proved to be very powerful and persuasive in ordering her back to arch and veer away from him.

The Saint smiled, obviously pleased by her resistance or perhaps amused by the challenge. For a brief second, his eyes drifted to her breasts, and that scent of sex lingering in the air only intensified. He tilted his head to the side and coasted to her left ear. Still sore about that broken fence, ain’t ya, girl? he whispered so low that no one else in the bar could hear him.

You wish. She scowled, feeling the dried mud on her face crack as she back stepped from his pure sexiness. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you and me…well, we have absolutely no catching up to do. Besides, I don’t think Jimmy needs his big brother fighting his battles for him anymore.

I know. Colden straightened to his full six-something height and looked down at her. But you can’t blame me for tryin’, right? I been sticking up for him for the past twenty-six years, since he was born.

Twenty, really, she was quick to correct. Need I remind you that you’ve been gone for the past six?

Touché. His smile had a little less curl to it this time, his jaw tight and ambiguous.

She started to turn back to Jimmy, preferring to deal with him rather than Colden, only to be interrupted by that low, enticing drawl.

But…

Her eyes slithered back to the gorgeous man that only time had improved.

How about you give me the opportunity to help my little brother out? For old time’s sake?

She snorted and was sure a piece of mud had fallen from her forehead, but she managed to hold her head high. For old time’s sake?

That’s what I said, girl. He reached out and gently picked a piece of mud off her forehead.

She pushed his hand away. "It’s Dusty, not girl!"

Disregarding her hostility, he scrubbed a strong hand over his stubbled chin. "You still trying to fight me on that one, ain’t ya, girl?"

She clenched her fists. Girl? It’s what Colden had always called her, but now it was driving her insane. He didn’t call anyone else that, and even if she hadn’t minded it before, now it was just pissing her off. .

Besides… Colden dropped his hand from his perfectly chiseled chin. "It won’t be the first time I’d