You can run but you can’t hide. Problems have a habit of following you, even if it’s only inside your head.
Ross decides to start a new life away from the grim belly of London, England, unable to stomach being a cop any longer. He tells himself he’s moving miles away to find himself a bed partner, but he’s lying. He has to. Facing up to the real reason he’s leaving isn’t something he can handle. His last undercover job proved too much—his life was at risk—and if he stays in London he’ll likely end up dead. Nightmares plague him, his subconscious unable to switch the past off. So he moves to a ranch in America, thinking the new surroundings and different lifestyle will help him to heal—and to forget. What he soon realizes is he’s jumping from the frying pan into the fire…
Joe’s passion—that of caring for the horses—is the only thing that keeps him sane. He’s a surly man, and for good reason—a reason he hasn’t told a soul. Folks think he’s mean and unapproachable and suspect him of committing murder. More than once. Locals assume that Joe got let off the hook. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Joe lets people think what they will. He’s done with their speculation and sly looks.
When Ross and Joe meet, tension is rife. The air between them prickles with animosity as well as sexual tension. Both have a past they can’t get over. Both have skeletons in their closets they wish would turn to dust. And both have to make a decision. Can they cast their fears aside and trust each other, or have the terrors they’ve experienced ruined them for love?
Reader Advisory: This book contains a scene of remembered non-consensual sex in a character’s past.
General Release Date: 18th August 2015
I’ve come all this way just to get a fuck?
Ross stood at a weathered, waist-height wooden fence that surrounded a place he’d only ever seen the likes of in pictures. A ranch in the middle of nowhere—or so it seemed now that he’d got off the bus and his choice to go somewhere else had driven away. What was he playing at? What had possessed him to leave London, England, and travel across the so-called pond to what was, essentially, the American wilderness?
You know why, you just don’t want to face it.
He tried to convince himself regularly that he’d come so far to indulge in his passion—a long ago dream as a kid to ride and care for horses. But his real passion had been his job back home, something he’d almost died for.
Home. I can’t call it that now.
He dropped his black holdall onto the dusty track that pretended to be a road and sighed. His suitcase, propped against the fence, held the rest of his worldly goods, and he’d realized, when he’d packed, that he didn’t own much of anything at all. A few clothes, some books and a diary from when he’d been about ten.
As for the isolation, reality had kicked in the second the bus had left the nearest city, trundling him farther from humanity to an area where few people appeared to live. He’d loved London, the hustle and bustle, the streets filled with people, so many of them at once it could make anyone’s head spin. Here, lone houses sat as though abandoned, and there was an eeriness to the countryside that spoke of desolation. It kind of matched his mood—the mood he’d been in for the past year—so he should have felt at home. But he didn’t.
No, he fucking didn’t.
The ranch was set far back from the road. Huge fields flanked it, a flat expanse that bled into the gauzy, heat-infused horizon. Clusters of trees huddled together here and there, like him, outcasts from all that surrounded them. Present but probably ignored, left to grow by themselves without tender loving care. Horses grazed, their chestnut colors catching the midday sun. There had to be fifty of those animals at least, and so much livestock in one place had Ross nervous as to whether he could be among so many. He knew sod all about horses—won’t they jump over the fence?—and sod all about ranches and American life if he were honest.
Not for the first time he questioned his motives.
He knew the real reasons why he was here, he just wasn’t ready to acknowledge all of them yet. He told himself he’d traveled such a long way just for a fuck because it meant he didn’t have to think—to hurt, to admit that he wasn’t strong enough to cope with the life he’d had in England.
London wasn’t for him anymore. Things had gone…wrong, and he’d needed to get out. Right away from everything. Sometimes running was the only option when all others had been exhausted. There was only so much he could have done, so much he could have put up with before he crumbled and ended up in the nuthouse. Besides, no one he’d worked with gave much of a shit about him there, and being alone among people he knew had to be worse than being alone among people he didn’t. The latter was preferable. The former, well, it meant people were deliberately ignoring him, casting him out of the inner circle. And they had. That still stung—and all because of a lifestyle choice.
People are living in the fucking dark ages. Bastards.
He shrugged. Nothing he could do about them now. Nothing he wanted to do. They were gone, even if only in person. That their ghosts and their words still lingered in his mind was another matter.
You think you can leave them all behind but you take them with you just the same.
He picked up his holdall. Slung the handle over his shoulder. Stared at the ranch a bit more. The building looked small from where he was, a smudge standing behind the haze of intense heat. It had a farmhouse feel except, from what he could work out, it was made of wood and not stone. He’d been promised a single room in a bunkhouse, but there was no evidence of one. Just the house, forlorn in the middle of those fields, and a few trucks parked out the front.
Nerves jangled, setting his belly churning. Had the boss of this place lied to him? Brought him out here on false pretenses? Would he have to sleep in the main building? Did it bloody matter if he did? It wasn’t like he hadn’t slept among strangers before.
It was too late now to do anything but walk up that long drive and see what was what. He gripped the handle of his suitcase and dragged it behind him, the wheels bumping on the uneven ground. At the gate, he unlatched it then pushed it wide enough so he could slip through the gap. He took a deep breath, closed the gate, told himself what would be would be, then set off up the drive.
It seemed bloody miles long, and his legs were aching by the time he reached halfway. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he cursed himself for still wearing the thin coat he’d left London in. The sun was relentless in a clear blue sky, a massive difference to back home where gray dominated everything, even tingeing the edges of clouds and sometimes, he’d fancied, the planes of people’s faces. He was used to rain slaughtering the streets and everyone on them, not this weather, which had him wanting to strip naked and sunbathe.
An engine rumbled behind him. Ross stopped then turned, shading his eyes to see better. A truck, light green and with an open bed at the back, barreled up the drive. Dust spewed from beneath the tires, and the faint sounds of small stones being kicked up then falling to the drive reminded him of hail on windows.
A sudden wave of homesickness took hold of him along with trepidation that he was about to meet someone new. This was it, this was really happening. What had he been doing, then? Kidding himself that he wasn’t really here? That he hadn’t ditched everything he knew for everything he didn’t?
Fuck.
The truck slowed, the puffs of dust less billowy, then it drew up alongside him. The engine still idled, a clack-clack-clack giving rise to thoughts that it might be about to give up the ghost. The scent of fuel, strong as if recently spilt, settled in Ross’ nostrils. The driver—a silhouette of shoulders, head and cowboy hat all Ross could see—lifted one hand. Ross did the same, feeling like a right prick, nervous and reluctant to speak.
“You Ross?” the man asked through the open passenger window.
“Um, yeah.”
“Then jump in. I’m Grenadier.”
Ah, Grenadier, the one I applied to for the job. Such a weird fucking name.
Stuffing apprehension down into his feet and hoping it wouldn’t make them too leaden, Ross swung his suitcase into the back of the truck. He climbed in beside the man, dropping his holdall into the footwell. He glanced across. Grenadier was one hell of a size. Not an ounce of fat on him, he filled the space, his arms straining against the rolled-up sleeves of his burgundy checked shirt. His skin was as well-worn as the fence back there, creases around his eyes and either side of his mouth, but he looked about forty, those wrinkles not matching the age. Maybe the sun did that, dried out the skin and matured a person. Curly black hair peeked from beneath his hat, and dark brows arched over eyes so blue they matched the sky.
Ross cleared his throat and stared through the windscreen.
You can do this. You’ve played many roles before. This one’s no different.
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