His Dirty Hands (The Montgomery Boys Book 2) Read online

  His Dirty Hands

  The Montgomery Boys 2

  Jessica Mills

  BrixBaxter Publishing

  Contents

  Find Jessica Mills

  Description

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Want More?

  Insider Group

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Find Jessica Mills

  https://jessicamillsauthor.com/

  Description

  This pretty girl is running from something.

  I’m not usually one to get involved, but she captivates me from the start.

  A single mom on the road, looking for a place to hide.

  From an abusive ex, it would seem.

  He better not bring his sorry self around here. I’m happy to put him in his place.

  And I’ve got plenty of experience.

  With eight brothers, you figure out a thing or two about moving a man’s feet.

  My family and our ranch land are everything to me.

  Until she shows up and takes my full attention.

  And even in the midst of the chaos, all she wants is my dirty hands to hold her, save her, and take her deep into the night.

  I’ve never been one to deny a lady…

  Dedication

  To my fantastical readers that are still enjoying a good country romance, I could give a long girly sigh about a man in a cowboy hat, boots, and wranglers. I’m guessing you could too. I sure hope you love this next book. It’s got all of the feels in it. Not that a woman needs a man to rescue her, but it sure feels good with he does.

  Jessica

  Introduction

  Well howdy! Thank you so much for grabbing one of my books. I sure hope you love it.

  I’d hate to part ways once you’re done though. How about we stay in touch? We have a great family of readers on my Insiders Newsletter Group that you just can’t miss out on.

  And as a HUGE thank you for joining,

  you’ll receive a free book on me!

  Join Here

  Chapter 1

  Clayton

  “No, seriously,” Boone crowed. “You should have seen Sawyer’s face when he saw her. He was trying so hard not to laugh at her.”

  “I wasn’t trying not to laugh at her,” Sawyer, my youngest brother, said. “I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on.”

  I was laughing so hard my eyes were squeezed shut and tears streamed down my face. There were a couple of seconds there when it was touch and go whether I was going to manage to stay in my chair or end up toppling onto the kitchen floor.

  “You can’t be serious,” Cassidy said.

  “As a heart attack on Easter,” Boone said. “She rolled up in a limo, and when she got out, she was wearing a pink leather vest with fringe and matching boots. They were so stiff she walked like she was carrying her spurs in her panties.”

  “She actually thought that was what people wore on a ranch?” Wade asked.

  None of the laughter from the rest of us crossed my older brother’s face. But that was to be expected. Wade was the stoic one of the bunch. With eight of us Montgomery boys, there was bound to be a range of personalities across the brothers. We had a lot of similarities and just as many differences, but it was Wade’s moody, even-toned personality that really stood out from the rest of us.

  Some in Green Valley liked to joke that my parents kept on having baby boys because they couldn’t land on one with all the characteristics they wanted. They ended up with eight, and if you took bits and pieces out of all of us and rolled them up into one, they would create the ideal guy.

  There were plenty of times when I figured they were onto something. We definitely represented all the different ways our parents’ genetics could come together, all the different versions of children they could produce. And that night, six of them had made it to the Sunday night supper table.

  “Apparently, she had it under good authority that particular outfit was all the rage on all the ranches,” Sawyer said.

  “Maybe somebody should have slipped in the little tidbit that if anything is called an ‘outfit,’ it ain’t showing up on a ranch,” I said.

  “Not that she would have listened,” Sawyer said. “She was full of herself from the second she got there, and nobody could tell her anything. As soon as she got here, it was like she was going to start instructing the entire group. I could have just stepped aside, and she would have guided them right out into the fields and started teaching them all about the cattle.”

  “What about them?” Jesse asked. “How to bedazzle them?”

  I turned a raised eyebrow toward Jesse. That most certainly wasn’t a word I ever heard come out of his mouth.

  “Damn, I know you went through some stuff in the desert, but I didn’t realize they got a whole new disturbing vocabulary in you,” I said.

  Jesse looked over at Shannon sitting on the stool beside him, her arms wrapped around one of his. She pressed a kiss to his cheek or the side of his neck every few seconds. It would be disgusting if I wasn’t still so happy the two of them had found their way back to each other again.

  ‘‘That one’s on her,” he said.

  “I personally think the fringe sounds lovely and I’ve seen those cattle of yours,” Shannon said. “You have three hundred and fifty head out there and they are looking pretty boring if you ask me. I think a bit of bedazzling would do some of them well.”

  I stared at her even harder than I had stared at my brother. A good percentage of those were words I never thought would come out of her mouth either.

  “You would,” Sawyer said sarcastically. Then his face twisted like he realized what just happened. “Wait, no you wouldn’t.”

  I shook my head. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “What is that supposed to mean, Clayton Montgomery? There is a lot about me you obviously don’t know.”

  She stared at me like she was offended, and I felt bad for the few seconds between that and her collapsing into laughter. She shook her head, tipping back in her stool so much Jesse reached over to grab onto her.

  “I had you there,” she managed to get out. “Sara bedazzles shit all the time. I have no idea why.”

  We all laughed. If I didn’t know better, I might have even thought I saw Wade let out a chuckle or two. Jesse shook his head and nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck before giving her a loud kiss.

  “You are ridiculous.” He leaned closer. “And I love every bit of it.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy when I watched
my brother and Shannon and saw what they had. It wasn’t something I’d admit to any of my brothers, and I didn’t admit it to myself much either, but that was something I wanted. Seeing them together reminded me that I didn’t have someone like that to brighten up my days and warm up my nights.

  Up until recently, Jesse didn’t think it was something he would ever have again, either. When he left Shannon behind years ago, he thought that was it for his chances of having the love of his life by his side. The journey for them to come back together was rough and he was still battling the demons he brought back with him from the war, but every time he looked into her eyes, it was obvious it was all worth it.

  One day, I wanted to know what that felt like. What it was like to look into a woman’s eyes and see my entire life there. They looked so happy together, so wrapped up in each other the rest of the world barely existed to them. And when it did, it was only because they let the rest of us in. That kind of love was something I never experienced. To be honest, I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about it in the past. I had a ranch to look after and work to be done. Especially after some of the brothers left the ranch, and the work, to find their own lives. But recently, the thoughts had been making their way into my mind and only got stronger when I saw Jesse and Shannon.

  Shannon wasn’t new to our family or to the ranch, but one good thing that came of her renewed relationship with Jesse was making Sunday suppers an important thing again. Those meals were always an anchor point to our weeks growing up. No matter what was going on or how much work we had to do, come Sunday evening, the whole family gathered in the house for a big meal together.

  It was the one time of the week we were guaranteed to all be at the table at the same time. On the other days, we made it inside for food whenever our work let us. Sometimes, that meant a few of us got to overlap for a meal, but Sunday brought us all together for a couple of hours of food and relaxation.

  We did our best to cling to that tradition after our mother died. Dad stepped right into the role of raising the eight of us while running the ranch. We did everything we could to keep our family together and the ranch afloat.

  After the brothers started splintering off and Dad got sick, things weren’t the same. We kept trying, but the tradition started to fade a bit. After he died, it disappeared even more, popping up occasionally but never feeling like it used to.

  But with Shannon back in our lives, so were the Sunday suppers. She reminded us of the tradition and how important it was for all of us. According to her, just because a couple of the brothers might not be there from week to week didn’t mean those who were didn’t deserve that time together. We still needed to appreciate what we had, especially after we came so close to losing it. And with that, Shannon brought a bit of light and hope back onto the Montgomery Ranch.

  What she didn’t bring was food. Shannon was a wonderful woman in a lot of ways, but none of those involved a stove. Not that any of us blamed her. She was born far more like her father than her mama and continued to prove that every day up at his mechanic shop.

  People came from towns over to bring their vehicles to her because she was so good. They relied on her to figure out what was wrong or to tinker with their cars until she could get them going again.

  Her adult setup wasn’t doing her a lot of favors, either. She moved out of her parents’ house and into a studio apartment in town. It had a glorious stained-glass window on one wall but no kitchen to speak of. Her hot plate and microwave were the extent of her culinary options, so cooking wasn’t something she had much experience doing.

  She was a hell of a storyteller, though, and nobody ordered up a pie from the shop down the road, slid it onto a platter, and brazenly took credit for it quite like Shannon.

  We finished up dinner and Cassidy took a pitcher of sun tea out of the refrigerator. I tore up mint leaves to toss in on top of ice cubes and we carried tall glasses out onto the porch. Heat was still rising up from the ground, baked into it by the August sun, but an evening breeze had set in. Even with the temperature threatening to burst the mercury right out of every thermometer in Green Valley, Montgomery boys would always rather be outside than in.

  There was nothing like looking out over the ranch and seeing how beautiful it was in the dark purple of night. The stars above were endless and the soft sound of crickets and cicadas were enough to lull me to sleep right there on the porch.

  Fortunately, my brothers acting up and joking around kept me conscious long enough to drink my tea and keep up with the conversation. It was getting late by the time Shannon announced she’d be heading home.

  “You going with her tonight?” Cassidy asked as if it were really a question.

  Jesse didn’t have to say anything as we all knew he spent most nights in town at Shannon’s apartment, enjoying the time alone with her rather than piling her into the ranch house with all us boys. The two of them left and I shook my head.

  “He sure has got it bad,” I said.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen two people so lovey-dovey with each other since Mama and Dad when we were just kids,” Cassidy said.

  Sawyer frowned. “I wonder how long they’re actually going to stick around Green Valley before they go out and start a life of their own.”

  “I’m wagering it will be sooner rather than later,” Cassidy said. “Shannon’s got that look in her eye. She held out on life for a long time waiting for Jesse to come back, and now that he has, I can’t see her waiting too much longer for them to start making up for all that lost time.”

  “Well, good for them,” Wade said.

  “You’re right,” I concurred. “Good for them.”

  Boone held up a bottle of whiskey he’d been keeping back out of respect for Jesse and the dry life he was living these days. We held our glasses over to him and he tipped some into each of them. When he was done, he set the bottle aside and held up his glass in a toast.

  “To Jesse, for finding something so good after seeing so much bad.”

  The rest of us agreed and took back sips, happy Jesse’s military days were behind him and looking forward to better days ahead for all of us.

  Chapter 2

  Gia

  The apartment wasn’t very big, but it was overwhelming trying to pack up what was mine. I wasn’t just taking apart the handful of rooms I’d occupied for the last couple of years. I was dismantling my entire life. But it had to be done. There was no other choice.

  At the front of the apartment, several boxes stacked up on the floor held what I was bringing with me from the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. It wasn’t everything. I wouldn’t be able to take everything, and I didn’t want to.

  It didn’t all belong to me and there were plenty of things in there that might technically be mine but I never wanted to see again. They reminded me of something I didn’t want to think about, a part of my life I wanted to put behind me.

  That was why I was in the bedroom with my suitcase open on the bed as I filled it with as many clothes as I could shove inside. I rolled things up and shoved smaller items into corners. I needed to maximize what I could carry so I could get it out and manage it on my own.

  The effort made my muscles tired and my neck and shoulders ache. My eyes stung with exhaustion, and all I wanted to do was stretch out for some sleep, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the luxury of time on my side. It wasn’t like I could decide I was overwhelmed or tired and just stop for the day. That wasn’t an option now.

  I glanced toward the head of the bed where Gabby slept, curled up in a nest of pillows and blankets. Just looking at my little girl reminded me of why I was doing this and gave me a new burst of energy. Thinking about her would get me through.

  I didn’t want to wake her up, though. She was so peaceful, so comfortable. She had no idea what was going on and I wanted to keep it that way. Packing up and getting ready to leave was going to be much easier with her resting, so I stayed as quiet as I could while still trying to go as fast
as possible.

  Another bag sat on the bed beside my suitcase. Gabby’s diaper bag sagged a little where it sat empty, still waiting for me to start filling it up. I knew my daughter didn’t really need a diaper bag anymore. At three years old, she was beyond diapers and pacifiers.

  She never used the bottles the little mesh pouches on the side of the bag were designed to hold. The changing pad in the small zippered slot on the back had only been used a couple of times. I much preferred the receiving blankets if I needed to change her away from home. They were easier to throw into the wash and I always knew they were clean and soft for Gabby.

  But I still clung to the bag. It was a gift from my best friend Darcy, one of the very few I received when I was expecting Gabby. There was little recognition, little excitement surrounding my impending baby.

  Pregnancy was supposed to be a time of joy. I always imagined my family would be thrilled the day I found out I was pregnant. When I was young and envisioned the days of waiting to give birth, I always thought of my parents and grandparents doting on me. I imagined them showering the baby with gifts before it even came and eagerly anticipating when they would be able to cradle the new family member.