Tempted (Grizzly River Ranch #1)

Chapter 1

ONE

AUbrEE

They say you can’t go home again. But some of us don’t have a choice. Not when our entire lives come crashing down at our feet.

Dust. All over the fucking place.

It’s the first thing that hits me as I make my way out of the airport in Grizzly River, South Dakota. Coughing, I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the bright sun, checking the trucks parked in front of the entrance for one person.

My older brother.

“Aubree, get the fuck over here. We gotta go.”

There. He. Is. Always in a hurry, and never one to care too much about what his little sister has going on. “Thanks, I got my suitcase and everything.”

He raises an eyebrow as he looks over at me. It’s affectionate, but it also says let’s fucking go. “There’s a lot going on at the ranch today, Aubs. We gotta get back.”

Hurrying over to where he left his truck idling, I hop in the passenger seat while he puts my suitcase in the back. Within minutes, he’s behind the wheel, and we take off with another cloud of dust behind us.

The weather in North Dakota is a crapshoot. Judging by the amount of dust that’s hanging around, it hasn’t been much of a wet spring. Glancing at the median as we pass by, I see we need some rain.

“Was your flight okay?” Truett asks, seeming to slow down for a moment, allowing himself to stop going a million miles a minute.

I don’t actually believe he cares to know. He’s always thinking about what else he has to do for the day. It’s how he’s been since he took custody of me. “It was decent,” I shrug. “Wish you would’ve let me get first class.” I shoot him a glare. “It’s not like we can’t afford it.”

“It was two hours, you brat. You didn’t need first class for two hours. I have to clean up the shit you left behind anyway,” he reminds me.

Right, the entire reason I had to leave Chicago with my tail tucked between my legs. Running home was my first and only option, but it wasn’t my favorite. I hate having Truett fix what I broke. “The rest of my stuff will be here next week.”

“Yeah.” He comes to a stop at the end of Main Street, looks both ways, and then accelerates out into the county, toward our childhood home. “I got a notification when they sent me the bill.”

Of course he’s going to throw that back in my face. “I’m sorry.” I swallow roughly. “About all of this. I know it isn’t easy, and I’m the reason…”

He grips the steering wheel tighter. “Look, we can’t change it. We just have to deal with it. When Mom and Dad died, I took custody of you, Aubree. I take that shit seriously.”

“I know you do.” He always had. From the moment we got the knock on the door, and then I had to go and fuck it up.

We may not see eye-to-eye, and he leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to showing me unconditional love, but he’s always been there for me.

He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to count on.

“Thank you. Thank you for letting me come home.”

His gaze doesn’t waver from where he’s staring out at the road in front of us.

“You can always come home. Your room will always be your room, even if I have a wife and kids. You’re my kid sister.

I gave up a lot to keep a roof over our heads, and I’ll always do that.

I just know you didn’t want to come back. ”

That’s the understatement of the year. My life, actually.

“What are your plans? Do you have any?” he asks. His plans have plans. If there’s one thing Truett does, it’s prepare for what may happen. Every contingency has a contingency.

Other than lick my wounds? “I haven’t given it much thought yet. I figured I’d help you around the ranch. Even though I haven’t lived on it for seven years, I still do know my way around.”

“We can always use the help, but don’t feel like you have to do something you don’t want to do. You know as well as I do, it’s hard work.”

“Maybe that’s what I need,” I sigh, my gaze traveling over the rolling hills. I’d learned to ride a horse on terrain just like this. I think I need that again. “To get my hands dirty, for my muscles to be sore. Do you know I don’t have calluses on my fingers anymore?” I hold them up so he can see.

“That’s okay, Aubs. I sent you to college so that you wouldn’t have to.”

But what about him, I want to ask. He had dreams before our parents died, and I know it was difficult, so difficult to keep it together.

He never let on, though, just how hard it was.

There are so many things I want to say to him, especially after crashing out in Chicago, but the words just won’t come.

He comes to a stop on the main road and takes a left, his tires hitting the gravel that leads to the Grizzly River Ranch.

It’s been seven years since I came home.

Seven years since I spent time at the big house.

When I left, I never thought I’d come back.

I’d told Truett I would see him again, but I hadn’t planned on it.

I’d seriously let the door hit me on the way out and flipped a middle finger to the ranch.

It was where I’d grown up, where I’d become an adult, but it was also the scene of the worst moments of my life.

Clearing my throat, I gaze over at him. “Every time we come over that hill, I think back to getting driven out here the day we found out about Mom and Dad. They brought me from the hospital, and once I saw the caution tape around the holding pen, I knew it wasn’t a bad dream.”

“Yeah,” he inhales roughly, his nostrils flaring. “I see it every once in a while when I come over that hill too, but it’s been better since we got rid of the pen.”

I’m not sure it’ll ever go away for me, but instead of admitting it, I give him a soft smile.

“It is better since you did that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to look at it every day.

” Because he had. It’d still been up when I’d gone to college, and at least I’d been able to escape.

Truett has never been able to do that. Within the blink of an eye, he became the owner of this ranch and my guardian.

He’d gone from being a teenager, about to be twenty years old, to the person in charge of all of this.

We hit a rut in the gravel, and I reach up to brace myself against the roof. “What’s that over there?” I point to a new building behind the big house.

He grins widely. “That’s Jesse’s pride and joy. I’ll have to let him explain it to you.”

Jesse Nelson. God, I’d embarrassed myself with him the last time we saw one another. The thought of his name still brings heat to my face. “He’s still working here?” I ask, my voice an octave higher.

A chuckle works its way out of his chest. “Yeah, you didn’t think he was gonna go away just because you threw yourself at him, and he declined, did you?”

Teenage me had thought exactly that because she hadn’t been able to imagine a reality in which I’d have to face him again. “Of course not. I’m just glad he’s stayed loyal to you.” I cover up my true thoughts.

“I mean, where else is he gonna go? He and I were pushed into the same situation, and he has a family of five to feed.” Truett’s expression softens slightly.

“Jesse’s been good to us, Aubs. Real good.

When everything went to shit, he could’ve left for greener pastures, but he stayed.

Helped me figure out how to run this place when I barely knew my ass from my elbow. ”

The guilt hits me like a punch to the gut. While I was off in Chicago, playing dress-up in my corporate world, Jesse was here helping my brother keep our family legacy alive. His parents and ours died together, best friends to the bitter end. “I’m glad he stayed,” I say quietly, meaning it.

“He’s got his own place now, just past the ridge. Built it himself last year. But he’s here most days, dawn to dusk.” Truett glances at me sideways. “You two gonna be okay working together?”

Heat creeps up my neck. “Of course. We’re adults now.”

“Right.” The skepticism in his voice is thick as molasses.

The truck bounces over another rut, and suddenly we’re rounding the final bend.

The big house comes into view, and my breath catches in my throat.

It looks the same, but better—the wraparound porch has been painted a bright white, the red metal roof gleams, the sprawling oak tree out front, where I used to read for hours.

But it’s not the same. Not really. Because the last time I saw this house, I was eighteen and broken, clutching an acceptance letter to Northwestern like it was my lifeline.

I’d stood on that porch and sworn I’d never come back.

Sworn I’d make something of myself in the big city and prove that I was more than just some ranch girl from South Dakota.

Look how that turned out.

Truett pulls up to the front of the house and kills the engine. For a moment, we just sit there in the sudden silence, dust settling around us like a shroud.

“You remember the night we got the call?” I ask quietly, my eyes fixed on the front door.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Every damn day.”

I was fifteen. Truett was nineteen, home from his first semester at State, full of plans and dreams about expanding the ranch, maybe even starting his own breeding program.

We’d been watching some stupid movie in the living room when the phone rang.

I can still hear the sound of Truett’s voice changing, going from lazy and relaxed to sharp and focused in the span of a heartbeat.

“There’s been an accident,” he’d said after hanging up. “We need to get to the hospital.”

But by the time we got there, it was too late. A drunk driver had hit their truck head-on coming home from their date night in Rapid City. Mom died on impact. Dad held on for two hours, but his injuries were too severe.

I’d spent that night in the hospital, numb and disbelieving, while Truett handled everything. The paperwork, the phone calls, the decisions that suddenly became his to make. When we finally came home the next morning, the house felt different. Empty. Like all the warmth had been sucked out of it.

“I used to hate this place,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper.

“I know.” Truett’s voice is rough. “Hell, I hated it too for a while. But it’s home, Aubree. It’s all we got left of them.”

Before I can respond, the front door opens and someone steps onto the porch. My heart nearly stops.

Jesse Nelson.

He’s not the lanky eighteen-year-old I remember.

Seven years have filled him out in all the right places—broader shoulders, thicker arms, the kind of presence that commands attention without trying.

His dark hair is longer now, curling slightly at the edges where it meets his collar, and there’s a beard covering his jaw that definitely wasn’t there when I left.

But his eyes are the same. That deep brown that always made me feel like he could see right through me.

“About time you got back,” he calls out, his voice carrying that familiar hint of amusement. “I was starting to think you’d gotten lost.”

Truett snorts. “Jesse, you remember my sister, Aubree.”

As if he could forget. As if any of us could forget the night of my graduation party, when I’d cornered him by the barn and kissed him like my life depended on it. When I’d whispered against his lips that I was eighteen now, that I’d always had feelings for him, that maybe we could…

“Welcome home, Aubree,” Jesse says, and there’s something in his tone that makes me wonder if he’s thinking about that night too.

I force myself to get out of the truck, my legs feeling unsteady on gravel I haven’t felt in years. “Hey, Jesse.” I aim for casual, but my voice comes out breathy and uncertain.

He’s walking toward us now, and I can see the changes of time up close.

There are lines around his eyes from squinting in the sun, and his hands are rougher, probably more calloused than I remember.

He’s wearing a simple white T-shirt and faded jeans, but somehow he makes it look like he stepped off the cover of a romance novel.

“You look good,” he says, his eyes looking me up and down. I hate the way my pulse quickens at the compliment.

“Thanks.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, suddenly self-conscious about my wrinkled clothes. “You look…different.”

“Seven years’ll do that to a person.” His smile is easy, but there’s something guarded in his eyes. “Heard you were doing big things in Chicago.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrug, trying to play it off, like it doesn’t mean as much as it does. “Big things have a way of falling apart.”

Truett clears his throat, breaking the moment. “Jesse, can you help me get her stuff?”

“Sure thing.” Jesse moves to the back of the truck, and I catch a whiff of his scent, something woody and masculine that makes my stomach flip.

God, I’m pathetic. Seven years away, and I’m still reacting to him like a teenager with a crush.

But I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman who just had her entire life implode spectacularly. I came home to lick my wounds and figure out my next move, not to moon over my brother’s best friend.

Even if he does look like he stepped out of my most vivid fantasies.

“I’ll show you to your new room,” Truett says, shouldering my larger suitcase. “Then we can talk about what you want to do tomorrow.”

I nod, following him toward the house. But as we climb the porch steps, I can feel Jesse’s eyes on me, and I can’t help but wonder if coming home was the best idea after all.

Because some feelings, it seems, are harder to outrun than others.

And some mistakes have a way of following you home.