AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He wanted to grab the little fur ball by the scruff of the neck and toss her right out the open trailer window. But Corbin would kill him if he hurt his treasured pet. So instead, he gritted his teeth and one by one carefully detached her tiny claws from his leg.
Once he was free, he lifted the kitten and glared into her evil eyes. “I’m warning you, Tay-Tay. I don’t care how much my brother loves you. If you sink your claws into me again—or bite me with those razor-sharp teeth, or sleep in my Stetson and cover it with hair, or use my boots for scratching posts—I swear I’m going to drown you in the nearest creek.”
The kitten didn’t seem at all upset by the threat. In fact, she growled a low demon growl that sent a shiver down Jesse’s spine. The cat really was the daughter of Satan, and no matter how many cat toys he brought her or how many treats he gave her, she had it out for him.
Something he wasn’t used to. Females usually loved him.
Again, his mind brought up Hallie. She had been just as prickly as Tay-Tay and he couldn’t help worrying that maybe he was losing his touch.
Carefully, he held the kitten away from him as he got out of bed. Not that anyone would call the saggy double mattress on the floor a bed. But Jesse had slept on worse. Or not slept. Sleep had never come easily to him. His mind didn’t have a shut-off valve. He was constantly thinking about the next moneymaking deal. So it didn’t much matter where he laid his head at night—his fancy high-rise apartment in Houston, his family’s huge mission-style ranch house in Bramble, or this beat-up trailer here in Wilder.
And the trailer was beat up. The roof leaked, the windows had cracks, and the exterior was covered in rust.
Jesse felt right at home.
Some of his happiest childhood memories were living in a trailer similar to this one. Except that trailer had a yard filled with junk. Junk that had kept four runaway foster kids from going hungry. It was where Jesse had developed his bargaining skills. At nine years old, he had sold the townsfolk of Bramble everything from washing machines to rare Harley motorcycles. He was proud of the fact that he had helped feed his sisters and brother. Not that Mia, Addie, and Brody had been his actual sisters and brother at the time. It was only later, once Shirlene and Billy had adopted them, that they became a family.
The best family a man could ask for.
But that hadn’t stopped Jesse from trying to find his blood family—his beautiful mama with her volatile temper and his degenerate daddy who had shown up on only rare occasions and didn’t seem to care that his son was being physically abused. But Jesse’s second-grade teacher had. She’d called social services and Jesse had suddenly found himself in foster care.
He hadn’t been happy about it. Even though his mama was abusive, he’d loved the hell out of her. Once he was an adult, he’d gone in search of her. He’d hoped she would have gained some kind of remorse and as soon as she saw him start crying and begging his forgiveness. Instead, she’d just stared at him with disgust and said, “You always were the spitting image of your no-good daddy.”
His no-good daddy had been just as happy to see him when he’d showed up at his door—no doubt because he had a wife. But one good thing had come out of his visit with his daddy. He’d found out he had a half brother and sister.
Because Corbin and Sunny had been pawned off on different family members all their life, it had taken Jesse a while to find them. While he hadn’t met Sunny, who was studying art in Paris, he had spent the last few years getting to know Corbin. He discovered that blood was thicker than water. He and Corbin were two peas in a pod. They both loved to make money and were good at it. And they both were dealing with the pain of abusive childhoods. But unlike Jesse, Corbin hadn’t found the perfect family to ease that pain. He was still trying to run from the neglect he’d suffered from his mama and daddy.
When he and Corbin first met, Jesse couldn’t blame him for not trusting him. Jesse had had to work hard to earn his trust. He’d started out giving Corbin sound business advice that made him millions and then helped him get started in his own business: Oleander Investments. Corbin had slowly started to trust Jesse. First, with business decisions, and then, with personal ones. Which was how Jesse had ended up watching Corbin’s new adopted kitten while he went to Paris to visit Sunny. And why Jesse was meeting with Hank Holiday this morning.
Being born and raised in Texas, Jesse knew talking with a tough Texas rancher about foreclosing on his ranch was going to be as much fun as cat-sitting Tay-Tay. But business was business and the conditions of the loans had been spelled out in detail. Hank Holiday knew the consequences of missing payments when he’d signed the contract and used his ranch for collateral.
After making sure Tay-Tay was fed and safely closed off in the spare room, Jesse showered—or tried to in the low water pressure—got dressed, and headed into town.
Wilder, Texas, reminded him a lot of his hometown of Bramble. The main street was a block long and only contained the most essential businesses: a gas station, hardware store, feedstore, bank, general store that sold everything from horse liniment to frozen pizza, barber shop and hair salon, bar that served damn good barbecue and had a dance floor half the size of a football field, and a café that he’d heard sold the best damn muffins in Texas.
He was about to find out.
But on the way to the café, he passed a large For Sale sign on the side of the road. Jesse had never been able to ignore a sale. He turned around and followed the arrow off the main road and along a tree-lined drive. At the end of the drive was an old antebellum mansion with huge columns and a balcony on the second floor. The house looked like it had been vacant for a long time. Most of the windows were broken and vines and foliage had taken over the lower level and grand entryway.
Still, it was a cool house.
He tried the doors, but they were locked so he walked around the property as his mind conjured up a picture of what the house had once been . . . and could be again with a lot of work and money. But even if he were willing to spend the time and money to restore the old mansion and carriage house that sat behind it, what would he do with an antebellum house in Wilder, Texas?
He shook his head and went back to his truck.
He could more than afford a brand-new truck with all the bells and whistles. But while money meant a lot to him, material things didn’t . . . unless they had sentimental value. The old, jacked-up monster truck he drove had that in spades.
It had been Billy’s—or Bubba’s, as the townsfolk of Bramble called him—ever since Jesse had known him. When Jesse got back from the marines, Billy had given it to him. He hadn’t owned another truck since and he never would. The truck meant too much to him. And people seemed to get a real kick out of seeing the lifted truck coming down the street with its big mud tires eating up the asphalt and the American and Texas flags waving from the poles attached to either side of the cab.
It made him a little famous wherever he went.
Including Wilder.
“That’s one badass truck,” a big-bellied guy said as soon as Jesse stepped in the door of Nothin’ But Muffins. “I bet you could roll over fifty Kias with them tires.”
Jesse grinned. “More like a hun-nerd.”
“Shiiit,” the man said. “I’d like to see that.”
