Unyielding Defender (Harlow Springs Ranch #4)

Chapter One

KINLEY

THE COLORED strobe lights glide across the crowd of people writhing and sweating on the small dance floor, which seems to become smaller by the hour because the dancing bodies seem to multiply as the evening progresses.

My friend Allison, who insisted we go out dancing for my birthday, is grinding against some guy who looks like a douche.

My ponytail is sticking to my bare neck, shoulders, and back.

But that’s just the price I have to pay for wearing this dress.

I coveted the dress online for weeks and it finally dropped in price.

On my birthday. It was Kismet. And the back alone was worth every penny, coming to a low V right over my ass.

I’ve been told my whole life that I have great legs, so I don’t mind that the skin-tight skirt scarcely covers my ass.

I have to show off what I have since, when God was handing out boobs, I was not blessed with more than a handful for a man with average hands.

The halter cowlneck of this dress makes the girls look a little bigger behind all the material.

Waving to get Allison’s attention, I point at the bar and mouth ‘drink’ and she nods, her back is pressed against the front of a guy much taller than her, one of her arms thrown over her head to grasp the back of his neck, and his hands are roaming all over her front.

With a roll of my eyes, I turn and wobble through the dense crowd on my too-tall shoes that I regret wearing.

I kind of had to buy them because, one, they were too cute to pass up and, two, they match the coral color of my dress perfectly.

Some might call me shallow, but if I’m anything, I’m fashion conscious.

Allison has always had an uncanny ability to just follow where the night takes her. She is unashamedly open to whatever. She always says whatever is meant to be, will be, and if that means going home with a guy, or two, who she’s never met before, she goes.

I’ve tried to be as blissfully carefree as that, but I’ve learned that, unfortunately, everything I do depends on my mood. I overthink everything. If I don’t want a guy touching me while I try to dance whatever irritation is in my system out, then they don’t touch me.

Then there was the one New Year’s Eve, when I followed her lead, that sent me to the drugstore two weeks later to buy ten pregnancy tests. Just to be sure. Later, I ended up giving one to my sister-in-law, who wasn’t my sister-in-law at the time and who now has a toddler.

The bar itself is packed three people deep, and I have to wait even to get close to the wet, sticky surface.

When I finally get the bartender’s attention, I yell ‘ice water’ and he nods.

I’ve already had three drinks tonight, and I’m driving.

I don’t want to end up at the police station again, calling my oldest brother to come get me.

It only happened once, but he told me he would leave me to sit in the drunk tank next time and get me in the morning.

He would do it too. I don’t dare call my dad. Spending the night in the drunk tank would be better than the lecture I would get the entire drive home. I hate disappointing my dad, and I especially hate his lectures. So, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Now would not be the time to call anyone out in the middle of the night. In the past three years, it feels like our family has exploded with new spouses and babies. Lots of babies who cry in the middle of the night.

So, ice water it is.

The irony of the whole thing makes me chuckle to myself.

When I was turning twenty-two, I would have got shit-faced without a care in the world, but ten years later, I’ve become the old person I used to mock Gray for being.

Gray always takes care of everyone and makes sure we’re all safe and happy.

It’s just how he’s built, he was old before he even turned twenty.

Now? I’m tempering my alcohol intake on my birthday to make sure I don’t bother anyone else. If you had asked twenty-two-year-old me if this day would come, I would have told you, hell no. On some level, it kind of pisses me off that I’ve turned the maturity corner.

It’s bad enough that I have to worry about fine lines on my face, now I have to think like an adult.

A tall glass of ice water is shoved at me, and I grab it and turn to get out of the sweltering herd of people shoving each other to get to the bar.

When I do, someone shoves me, and I fall into a wall of muscle, and half of my water sloshes onto an expensive-looking silky-cotton blend button-up shirt.

Large hands grab my upper arms and hold me to make sure I don’t fall.

“Shit.” As I lift my eyes from the broad, muscular chest in front of me, it’s like slowly looking up a tall mountain as I tip my head back into a pair of dark brown eyes that do not look happy with me. “I’m so sorry.”

He’s gorgeous. Short black hair, styled back and off his face, and a beard, on a very defined jaw, just as black as his hair.

Everything is meticulously cut and styled.

His cologne smells expensive and amazing, with subtle notes of cloves and something smoky.

Not one single note of the yucky chemical smell in those spray-on colognes from Walmart.

But his eyes are hard, and I can see just how irritated he is with me right now. His eyebrows are pulled down, and there is a very defined upside-down V-shaped frown line between them.

“You should be more careful in those shoes.” His deep voice is loud and clear, and I’m not sure if he’s truly concerned for the safety of my ankles or if he’s belittling me for the shoes I wish I didn’t have on.

Well, if it’s the latter, I have to defend a pair of shoes that I’ve decided I don’t like because they are too effing tall and the balls of my feet are killing me. Damn it. I hate it when I have to get on a hill I don’t really want to defend just on principle alone.

I meant it when I told him I was sorry, but now I’m not sorry. Silently, I take it back.

Smiling up at him, I give him the most friendly fuck-you eyes I can, and say, “So sorry, it’s just water, but I have a twenty in my purse if you want me to replace the shirt.”

His eyebrow cocks up, and I think I see the corner of his mouth twitch before I step back out of his grasp, he should have let me go already anyway, and walk around him. Why are all the good-looking guys such jerks?

With a huff, I find a quiet corner, well, as quiet as you can get in a bar, and lean against the wall, my eyes searching the dance floor for Allison. I finally find her sandwiched between two guys who look strikingly alike, I think she found herself a set of twins.

It’s plain she’s forgotten about me for tonight.

I smile to myself and enjoy having some space as I sip my water and watch all the people dancing. Lifting my hair off my sweaty neck, I press the cold glass against my nape. Damn, it’s flippin’ hot in here, so I drain what’s left of the water in my glass. I need some air.

Pushing through the throng of bodies, I make my way to the front doors and get my hand stamped so I can come back in. It’s not much better outside, mid-July in Oklahoma is equivalent to being inside an oven, even at night.

Tucking my clutch under my arm, I pull my hair off my sweaty skin with one hand and fan my neck with the other.

The bar I’m at is in downtown Tulsa, right next to the part of the city that has been under revitalization the past ten years.

In one direction are more people and more lights and buildings, and less than a block in the other direction is an intersection that has empty lots on the other side.

They started bulldozing some of the older buildings in this area last year so they can build new, state-of-the-art condos, which draw in some of the yuppie business types from other states.

I’ve never been much of a fan of the ranch life my family is part of, but I’m also not drawn to the beta men I see moving in.

Maybe I’m just a hypocrite, but I was raised around oversized gentlemen who have been sorely overprotective of me my whole life. They would put their lives on the line to make sure I’m safe.

It’s almost like a superpower to have such big, burly men at my beck and call, but with that much power comes a shit-ton of responsibility. I would never intentionally do anything to put my brothers in danger.

That’s probably why I’m still single. They just don’t make men like my brothers and father anymore. Ranches and hard work are becoming a thing of the past, the kinds of men who work them are disappearing, too. I would never tell my brothers this, but I’m always comparing men to them.

I was only eight when my mom died, but I remember seeing my dad holding her close as they danced in the kitchen.

Or when he would open the truck door and pull her out into his arms and kiss her before setting her down.

She was always laughing when she was around my dad.

I guess any man I meet has big shoes to fill.

Or I’m just going to be single for the rest of my life. I won’t settle. Obviously. This birthday is my thirty-second, and I’ve never been in a serious relationship. The longest relationship I’ve had lasted maybe two months. I don’t even remember why I didn’t like him.

Slowly walking down the sidewalk, the southern cross-breeze is getting stronger the closer I get to the intersection away from the buildings, and it feels good. I let my head fall back and close my eyes as I get to the corner of one of the older buildings they salvaged and refurbished.

I hear a commotion down the sidewalk to my right and open my eyes. About ten yards away from me, two men are holding another man against the wall. Just as I realize what I’m seeing, one of the two men shoves a knife into the side of the man against the wall.

Holy fuck!

I gasp, and I hear my clutch hit the ground as I slap my hands over my mouth. The guy who was stabbed is sliding down the wall, and the other two men swing their heads in my direction.

Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!

The man with the bloody knife in his hand smiles as I take a step back. They move in my direction, and my brain is telling me to run, but my feet are frozen.

Oh, God. Did they just kill that man?

I take another shaky step back, almost around the corner, when I hear a deep voice behind me. “Damn it! Come here!”

A powerful arm snakes around my waist, and I’m being pulled back around the corner into a small alcove that leads to the door of a business.

It’s small, but dark. The same brown eyes I saw in the bar earlier are looking down at me, anger wrinkling his forehead, but he grabs my wrists and holds them over my head with one hand and pushes me into the corner with his body. His knee goes between my legs.

The shock of the whole thing has my brain moving in slow motion and just as my anger is about to push him away and ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, his large hand is hot on my hip, and his lips crash into mine.

His giant frame is shielding me from any eyes behind him, but his tongue slices between my lips, pushing into me like he owns me.

At first I buck against him, trying to push him away, my hips pushing against his, but God, he knows how to kiss. His hand slides to the small of my back to hold me still against him. If he keeps this up, I’m going to be a puddle at his feet. Everything I just saw melts from my brain.

Once, a guy asked to kiss me because his friends dared him to, so I did. For fun. I wonder if this is another one of those situations.

He’s commanding, but gentle. His hand around my wrists holds me in a soft vice, and his hand on my back is splayed across my skin, the tips of his fingers just touching the round edge of my ass.

His leg is pressing against my sex, and I feel myself get slick with each thrust and swirl of his tongue.

When I melt into him and start kissing him back, he breaks the kiss and slides his nose across my jaw, his whiskers scratch against my skin when he puts his lips next to my ear and whispers, “Be still and be quiet unless you want them to see you.”