His Wicked Mouth Read online

  His Wicked Mouth

  The Montgomery Boys 3

  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

  Can anyone really go home again?

  Not when you’re the black sheep of the family.

  So I’m far from home, in Vegas, because good things always happen there.

  At least for us bad boys, they do.

  And who shows up to save my soul?

  My brother’s best friend. Pretty little Annabelle.

  Hell, her name even reminds me of back home.

  Unfortunately for me, her daddy warned her about guys like me.

  I can’t help but wonder why this pretty, sweet, southern lady is in the seedy Sin City.

  Bachelorette party. Looks like she’s trying to let her hair down a little.

  Lucky for her, I can help with that.

  This one is playing for keeps, and I find myself wanting to roll the dice.

  Somehow, I think this woman is going to change my wicked ways and take me back to the ranch where I belong.

  She’s got her work cut out for her.

  Dedication

  To all of us who know what it feels like to be far from home! I’ve been in a lot of places and seen a lot of things, but it’s always nice when a friendly face shows up and helps you get back to where you belong. That’s what this one is all about. I sure hope you love it. I did.

  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

  Garrett

  “Another drink, mister?”

  I turned to look at the walking pair of silicone enhancements that stood to my side, holding a wooden drink tray the color of the poker table in front of me. It was a ploy, and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I smiled and noticed the way the lights high above me in the domed casino swam.

  “Sure, darlin’, but I know you’re just trying to distract me from beating this chump dealer again,” I said.

  I could hear the words slurring a little, but I had long since stopped caring. Tonight, I’d get drunk if I wanted to. The last couple of days on the Strip were pretty good to me, and I was up by a large sum. Even if I dropped all of it tonight on booze, women, and bad cards, I’d have spent it on having a better time than my brothers at the ranch.

  “Here you go, babe,” the waitress said, winking. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  She put emphasis on the “anything” and I made a mental note to remember her name. Jordyn, the silver tag on her low-cut blouse said. It was easy to miss, off to the side of one of her massively inflated boobs. I nodded to her and she walked away, swinging her hips so hard I imagined she pretended she was doing a hula-hoop.

  “Hit me,” I called.

  “Player hits. Twenty-two. Player’s out.” The dealer’s voice had the monotone of a man who counted numbers and took money from willing drunks all night.

  “Ahh, shit,” I said under my breath and sat back. Maybe blackjack wasn’t my game tonight. I’d had a hell of a run across the street two days ago, but tonight, I was losing my shirt.

  Speaking of my shirt, I looked down at the rhinestones and cracked a smile. It was such a goofy thing, but I loved it. I’d grown up working hard in the sun, driving cattle, riding horses, building barns. I was a real-life cowboy in just about every way you could describe it. But passing by a shop in Vegas, I had seen this shirt and couldn’t pass it by.

  It reminded me of old black and white videos Dad used to watch of Gene Autry. Black with sewn-in designs of horses with glittery stones all over it, it was gaudy and silly, and for some reason, I loved it. Dad always said it looked like he was more likely to ask the horse on a date than to ride it.

  I grimaced and sank the drink in one pull. I hated thinking about Dad. He would hate everything about what I was doing tonight. From the shirt to the gambling. Hell, just being in Vegas at all. He’d hate every single bit of it.

  He’d hate me.

  Just as well, I guessed. The rest of the family thought I was the black sheep, and frankly, I did nothing to persuade them any differently. Cassidy, the eldest brother, always used to say I could always come home, but that was a long time ago.

  I was a grown man and I knew what I wanted. I worked hard on the ranch and deserved some time to go do what I wanted. Right then, what I wanted was to see the bright lights and have fun.

  A couple of weeks turned into a couple of months and now a year. More than a year actually. At thirty-two, it felt like there was at least twelve or thirteen years of pent-up wild oats to sow, and I had gone out there with no end date in mind. Maybe there wouldn’t be one. Maybe I’d stay in Vegas, make money playing cards, and take home a waitress or two when I got bored of being lonely.

  I stood up, gathering up my chips and barely noticing that I had kicked the chair back into another player at the table until I was already a step or so away. I turned back and waved my hand apologetically, but they were already past their annoyance and back to trying to count cards. Turning back around, I scanned the casino floor.

  I could have headed to the Craps table, but I never had luck with that. It was fun as hell, but I tended to lose far more, far faster than I did at any other game. Instead, I looked over to where the Texas Hold ‘Em table was and contemplated getting a couple of games in. They were longer, more drawn-out experiences, and relied heavily on reading the other players more so than the cards. I was good at that, at least when I was sober. I knew how to read people, to get them mad, or flustered. Get them to make mistakes.

  Right then though, I was thinking maybe I could make a mistake or two of my own. Standing near the bar was a woman in a tight black dress and heels so high she was nearly as tall as I was. Considering I was over six feet tall, that was pretty damn impressive. The heels had the effect of pushing her ass out nearly as far as the front of the dress bundled her chest up like two angry balloons. I sauntered in her direction, putting my glass down on the first available
passing tray.

  “Can I get you a drink?” I asked as I sidled up next to her.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, turning toward me. The tone in her voice was initially reproachful, but once she got a look at me, it softened into a grin, and her eyes fluttered a bit. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed like some of the skin on her artificially bronze chest flushed red for a moment. It was hard to tell.

  “I asked if I could buy you a drink,” I said. “Unless you got something you’d rather do than have a drink with me.”

  She grinned and I knew I had her. I found that being direct with women was far more effective than lines. In my experience—and I had a fair amount of it—ladies who came into the casinos or bars alone in tight dresses weren’t looking for a sleazeball who was only interested in getting his rocks off by hook or crook. They were far more interested in a guy who knew what he wanted, knew how to get it, and seemed like he might care if she got it too.

  “Sure, but you’ll have to buy one for her too,” she said, pointing next to her at a blonde-haired woman who God had not gifted with long legs but had gifted with stunning blue eyes.

  “I can do that,” I said and grabbed the attention of the bartender. “My friends here would both like a drink, and while you’re at it, bring me a whiskey, top shelf please.”

  The bartender nodded and I slipped a fifty across to him. It was meant to be a little subtle but not too subtle. The big tip was a good indication to the ladies that sticking with me for a while would be worth their time. Even if it went nowhere, we could have some fun, and that was all I was interested in at the moment anyway. The gambling bug had died off for the night.

  The girls ordered their drinks and I turned to face both of them, resting my elbow on the bar.

  “My name’s Garrett,” I said, holding out my hand.

  The first girl, one strand of her dark black hair falling out of its bun and across her eyes, took it gently and shook. “Karina,” she said. “And this is Harper.”

  “Nice to meet you, Garrett,” Harper said, and her voice struck me to the core. There was a mild accent, one I couldn’t place, and suddenly, I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to hit on more. I settled rather quickly on taking my shot with both of them. They seemed pretty chummy. It was worth a shot.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, my drink appearing as if by magic beside me. I must have missed the bartender passing by and taking the money and dropping off the whiskey, but the good ones were always like that. “How long have you ladies been in Sin City?”

  It was a generic question but one that got to the heart of the matter. If they had just arrived, I might as well shut down the shop. Wild decisions were always made near the end of a trip, not the beginning. Last nights in Vegas were the stuff of legends. I had been on my last night for going on eleven months.

  “A week, but we’re leaving tomorrow afternoon,” Karina said, sipping her cocktail. “Thought we might find some last-minute fun before we head out.”

  My stomach tightened and I grinned hard. Slamming back the whiskey was a sin all of its own, but I did it anyway. The burn on the way down helped refocus the slowly doubling vision and steeled me for the next steps of my eventual conquest.

  “Well now, fun is something I happen to be an expert in,” I said. “Matter of fact, I have a room upstairs that is just chocked full of fun opportunities.”

  It was the biggest gamble of the night. I was going for the throat, or throats, right off the bat. But Harper’s fluttering blue eyes and the ruby-red grin of Karina were enough to convince me that I had a real shot.

  “Oh really?” Harper asked. “But enough fun for the both of us?”

  “Darlin’, I promise it’ll be more fun than either one of you can handle,” I said and stood. The world went wobbly and I stumbled back a step. My momentum was stopped by the mass of a man behind me, and I turned into a face that was obviously not pleased at my physical intrusion.

  “Get off me, asshole,” he grumbled.

  Well now he was being a jerk about it.

  “Sorry, dude,” I said a bit louder than perhaps necessary. “No reason to be a dick.”

  There is a magic to the sound of a stool being pushed back in anger. It has a distinct effect on the people around it, ranging from fear to excitement to curiosity. Everyone knew what that sound was and what it meant, and when I heard it from behind me as I had turned my back, it sent a rush of blood through my chest and my fists clenched automatically.

  It wasn’t even a fight. He pushed and I pushed back, and by the time we were swinging, bouncers were between us and throwing us both out opposite doors. The girls were long gone, and I had to argue my way back into the building just so I could get back to my room. The escort of several very imposing gentlemen ensured I wouldn’t cause any more trouble, and when I got back to my room, I yanked the sparkly shirt off and tossed it aside. Whatever luck it had brought me the last couple of days seemed to have petered out. Now it just looked like a clown costume.

  I groaned as I stumbled toward the shower. I didn’t want to be cold and wet, so I detoured myself to the sink. Splashing water on my face and taking a bird bath, I wandered back into the bedroom of the tiny suite. Snatching the remote, I turned on the TV just to have the sound, and I found my bag under the bed. Yanking my pants off and changing my boxers into something clean, I then pulled out the only thing in the bag other than clothes and money. A bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey.

  I didn’t need a glass. I drank right out of the bottle until my brain shut off, and I slept like a rock well after sunrise.

  Chapter 2

  Annabelle

  The early-morning hours were always my favorite time of day. There was something magical about when the sky first started getting light and everything was still quiet. The whole world looked slightly blue and the air was clean and cool. I loved getting to experience the very first moments of the morning when it felt like there was still so much potential in the day ahead.

  That was why I always got up and got my day going well before anybody else. Even when I was just a little girl, I wanted to be up before the dawn and enjoy those moments for myself. They felt like they were just mine and I could do with them what I wanted. Of course, there was always work to be done, so that was what I did.

  It wasn‘t any different now that I was grown. Just like every day, I was up bright and early. The sky was just starting to turn pink at the edges when I walked out to the chickens.

  “Good morning, ladies,” I said as I opened the gate and stepped into the enclosure. “Is everybody ready to get up for the day?”

  We used to just let the chickens run free around the yard all the time and gave them access to their coops when they wanted it. A recent rash of wolf attacks had made us wary and I decided I didn’t want to risk losing any more of the flock. It took several days to build the large enclosure, but it made me feel more comfortable knowing they were secure inside.

  Not that they appreciated my work at all. The space was far bigger than the barnyards where they had always roamed. Yet having the wire up around them seemed completely objectionable. They stood by the edges of the enclosure and made the biggest fuss for days after we moved them inside. The enclosure stretched far higher than any of them could fly, and took up an acre of land with its various compartments, but they would hear nothing of it

  It had been a few weeks now, and finally, they were settling down. It seemed to me they had realized how much nicer it was to be able to live their lives without the worry that a wolf, coyote, or dog would come by when they least expected it and snap them up as a snack.

  They had even gotten a couple of upgrades since the initial build. I’d added two other yard areas attached by corridors that let the chickens wander around and climb various structures to their hearts’ content. It made for happier, safer chickens, and that meant more eggs, which was the main purpose of having them in the first place.

  These weren’t chickens that were to be s
ent to market or made to churn out chicks to harvest meat. My flock produced eggs we ate at our own table. The ones that didn’t end up scrambled, fried, hard-boiled, or incorporated into baked goods went to restaurants in the area or to the farm stand to be sold. People drove out from the city to buy our eggs rather than getting the ones from the store because they swore they tasted better.

  They weren’t wrong. These chickens laid the richest, most delicious eggs in the area, and that wasn’t just my biased opinion because I loved them. Well, maybe it was, but that didn’t matter. I was just glad they had their fortress and would be safe from danger.

  I went inside and released the latches on the coops where the chickens slept. They needed the comfortable close quarters and the dark to stay healthy, but by morning, they were always ready to get out. As the flock fluttered out and started pecking at the ground, I moved around the massive enclosure, filling their feed containers and giving them fresh water.

  Then it was time for my favorite task. Gathering the eggs. It was like a treasure hunt. The coop was a fairly large structure with various little rooms and cubby holes for the chickens to nest. They tended to lay in the same cube, piling up their eggs and surrounding them with hay to protect them. These, I scooped up and nestled into my basket to keep them safe to bring up to the house.