Tough and Tamed (Moon Ranch Book 1) Read online

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  Tough and Tamed

  Moon Ranch

  Book 1

  Copyright Em Petrova 2020

  Ebook Edition

  Electronic book publication 2020

  All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.

  Revenge sex and a healthy dose of a bad boy making all the wrong decisions equals one hell of a wild ride. Horse optional.

  Zayden Moon and his brothers are back home for the old man’s funeral, but too bad none of them give a damn what happens to the failing ranch they’ve inherited or all the bad memories that come with it. Now Zayden has more than his murky past and the ranch to contend with. As usual, trouble comes searching for him when he’s asked to rescue a woman lost on the mountain, stranded on Valentines’ Day of all things, and he’s the only man who knows where to look. And whoooeee, there’s a lot to look at when it comes to this curvaceous beauty.

  Esme thought she was going to the mountain getaway to receive a diamond ring, and instead she’s abandoned by her boyfriend and left to make her own way down the jagged terrain. When a sexy cowboy rides in on a white steed, she thinks she’s seeing things, but soon his warm, rough hands show her otherwise. A hot and heavy dose of revenge sex seems to be in order too, right?

  If Zayden had a heart, he’d be falling for the woman with spunk to match her wild curls, but he knows better than to attempt a relationship. And Lordy, Esme sure gravitates to the worst men… except there’s something more to Zayden than he allows anyone to see. If she ever figures out what, she might give Zayden a chance, because the man’s kisses sure can knot a woman up.

  The Moon Ranch Series:

  TOUGH AND TAMED

  SCREWED AND SATISFIED

  CHISELED AND CHERISHED

  Tough and Tamed

  by

  Em Petrova

  Chapter One

  The whoop of a siren brought Zayden's gaze to the rearview mirror, and he groaned. He hadn’t been in the county for three minutes and he was already getting nailed by the cops.

  Lights flashed in his rearview mirror, and he eased his old Chevy to the side of the road, racking his brain for any laws he may have violated. Speeding? No.

  Not a drop of alcohol passed his lips in months either, and his driving had been steady, with his sights set on the big mountain range in the distance.

  Annoyed and not minding one bit if he was being an asshole, he didn’t bother to roll down his window for the approaching deputy. When the uniformed man’s body filled the entire window, Zayden just stared back at him.

  He rapped on the glass. “Roll it down.”

  With a snort, he did, and a fresh gust of mountain air hit his face, bringing more than clear-headedness—it brought a hell of a lot of memories rushing in. The scents of pine mixed with snow made him think of his father. And damn if he’d give that son-of-a-bitch any more consideration than he deserved.

  “License, registration and proof of insurance,” the deputy said.

  Zayden leaned across the console and popped the glove compartment. He pulled out his information and passed it to the familiar-looking lawman before digging in his back pocket for his wallet and driver’s license.

  “Don’t I remember you from Stokes High?” Zayden asked.

  “That’s right, Moon.”

  Zayden squinted an eye at him. “Heard you were a deputy. Thought you’d have a better job by now, Dickies.” The old nickname rolled off his tongue.

  The high school jock who’d lived to give Zayden and his two younger brothers hell every chance he got leveled a glare at him. For a moment, he just bore the deputy-on-a-power-trip’s scrutiny.

  “You’ll never change, will ya, Moon?”

  “And you’ll never stop being a dick. Why did you pull me over? Recognize the truck and remembered you hadn’t gotten your quota of intimidation in for the day?”

  Dickies stared at his license and back to Zayden’s face as if he handed over a fake ID and was lying about his age. But both he and Dickies sported more lines of age, his maybe more from the life he’d led the past decade since high school.

  “You don’t have anything to say, do you? Because I didn’t violate any laws,” he pressed.

  “Get outta the truck, Moon.”

  Zayden made a little shooing motion for him to step away from the door so he could open it. When he stepped out and unfolded to his full height, a hefty six inches over Dickie’s penis-shaped head, he took a moment to use his size to intimidate instead of a badge.

  “Well?” Zayden asked.

  “Step to the back. There’s something that requires your attention.” Dickies took off to the rear of the truck and pointed to the mud-and-road-salt-splattered tailgate.

  “Are you gonna give me hell because the tailgate’s a different color than the rest of the truck? You got somethin’ against blue?” He’d gotten rear-ended back in Nevada some years back and replaced the tailgate, but never got around to painting it to match the rest of the white truck.

  “No, this is the problem.” He pointed. “I can’t see your license plate number. You realize it’s the driver’s obligation to keep the plate clean at all times, right?”

  The Moon temper rose up in him, and he eyed the filthy plate. Yeah, the letters and numbers couldn’t be seen through the grime, and Dickies was being a jackass. Some things never changed. All Zayden wanted to do was get home and end this hell of being back in Stokes after so many years.

  He knew just how to clean the plate.

  Stepping up to the back of the truck, he squared his hips, planted his feet… and unzipped his fly.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Dickies ground out.

  “Quiet or it’ll crawl back up.” He focused hard, and the spurt of piss left his body. He aimed the stream at the plate, splashing upward to wash away the filth.

  Dickies sent him a glare that might make other men wither, but Zayden wasn’t other men.

  He stuffed his cock back into his boxers and zipped up with a little flick of his wrist. Turning to Dickies, he said, “There. Now you can read it.”

  “Get back into your truck, Moon,” he grated between clenched teeth.

  With a tug on the brim of his Stetson, he sauntered to the truck and climbed behind the wheel, while Dickies returned to his cruiser to look up the plate or maybe jerk his meat.

  He glanced back, and as soon as Dickies got out of his car, Zayden rolled up his window again.

  This time when Dickies rapped on the glass, he put some force behind it.

  “Can I help you, Deputy Dickies?”

  “Dickinson,” he bit off. “You’ve got a string of prior arrests, Moon.”

  “That so?”

  “Bar fights. You broke a man’s nose.”

  “Who hasn’t?” he drawled.

  “You were arrested for using excessive force against a coworker at a construction company in Nevada.”

  “Yeah, that wasn’t the best idea. I shouldn’t have gotten caught for that one. Moral of the story is always hide your weapons after a fight.”

  “There are other incidents on your record.”

  “So? Am I breaking the law now?”

  Dickies handed him a piece of paper, and it flapp
ed in the wind. For a moment, Zayden considered letting the air rip it from his fingers so Dickies would be forced to write up another, but in the end, he figured he’d fucked with the man enough for one day and took it.

  Public urination. Fine of $250 plus community service.

  Deputies didn’t hand out community service citations—he was using his power of authority to screw with him.

  “Motherfucker. You always were a real dick.” He crumpled the citation in his fist and tossed it onto the floor.

  “Don’t forget to pay that or see the magistrate to be assigned that community service.”

  Zayden settled his gaze on the asshole until Dickies’ face mottled red. “You make a great welcoming committee, Dickies. Stokes, Colorado is in your debt.” His sarcasm had the old rival’s face growing redder with suppressed rage.

  “Sorry to hear about your dad, Moon.”

  Zayden grunted and reached for the button to roll up his window. “I’m not.” He started the truck and pulled away, leaving Dickies standing on the side of the road without the last word.

  It didn’t make him feel any better to have gotten it, though. Now he had a nice fine and community service he probably wouldn’t stick around long enough to do. He was only here to see his father’s casket lowered into the ground, and then he’d hit the highway once more, heading far away from this Podunk town and all its horrible memories.

  As he drove, some of them flooded back. Dear old dad passed out on the front lawn—again. Zayden closing the door and locking it for the night, telling his brothers Dane and Asher to let their dad lie there. But by morning, he’d always wake to find Chaz Moon passed out on the sagging couch in the living room, set up with a garbage can near his head in case he needed to puke, and Zayden knew it was Asher’s doing.

  His kid brother never could stand to see their dad in his drunken state. He was the son who removed Chaz’s boots and hat and put a pillow beneath his head.

  Well now nobody needed to help out their whiskey-soaked old man—he’d drank himself into an early grave, and good fucking riddance to the piece of shit.

  “Screw this,” Zayden said for the millionth time of his life.

  He could turn around, let the son of a bitch be buried without his sons at his side. When had he ever given a crap about any of them? Zayden made sure his brothers had food in their bellies and caught the school bus in the mornings. He’d dropped out of high school at sixteen to try to keep the ranch afloat.

  The ranch… He didn’t quite know how to feel about the place. It presented a bog of bad memories—of getting backhanded across the face and nursing a swollen and bleeding lip too many times to count. Of too little money. Christ, there never was enough of that.

  But there were good things about the ranch too. His brothers’ antics always kept him laughing. And the horses and the faded blue of the mountains looming in the distance. How the sky looked before a snow—an icy cold blue like it appeared right now.

  Storm’s a-comin’, and he’d be meeting it head on.

  He stopped at the turn for the driveway, just idling in the middle of the road, staring at the familiar rusted mailbox and pitted drive.

  When he’d left a decade ago, he’d sworn he’d never come back. Now here he was, dragged back by a phone call from Mimi.

  The older woman stayed on at the ranch, and Lord knew why. She’d always been a saint, but living a life in the service of Chaz Moon made her into more of a masochist in his eyes.

  She lived just at the end of this driveway, and she’d be happy to see him.

  And his father was dead.

  Zayden took the turn and bumped toward the ranch. The fields lay dormant beneath the layer of snow. They ran right up to the Ute Indian lands beyond the borders of the Moon Ranch, as peaceful as ever.

  To the opposite side was a copse of pines that bordered a creek where he and his brothers would fly fish in summers. But the older Zayden got, the less he had time to fish. He was too busy picking up the shattered pieces of their lives.

  The fencing looked dilapidated, completely missing in areas, like teeth punched out. He stuck his tongue into a space in his own mouth where he’d lost a molar in a fistfight a few years back.

  The barn needed work—the roof replaced and the gaps closed with new boards. Were there even horses here anymore? He didn’t see a single head of cattle in the fields between the barn and mountains.

  When he finally forced himself to look at the house, his chest burned. Too many emotions to process flooded in, and he braked hard. Slamming the truck into park, he got out and kicked the door shut. Then he tore off his hat and stood glaring at the place. Last thing he wanted to do was stick around here, but the old feelings of obligation, of being the glue, the fixer, the guy in charge, had him turning circles in the driveway to see all that needed done on the place.

  His father was dead. He and his brothers would inherit the land, that was if the old man didn’t owe every acre to the Jack Daniels distillery and the cowboy bar down the road.

  He shoved his hat back on his head and started toward the house. Before he reached it, the door opened and a woman stepped out. She looked much older, hair completely white, and her shoulders slumped. She wore a cardigan that swallowed up her tiny frame, but he knew the blue would be the same color as her eyes.

  As she watched him cross the yard, a smile spread over her face. “Zayden, my boy.” She opened her arms, and he mounted the porch to step up to her.

  He slipped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet.

  “Put me down! I’m old and I’ll break!” She squealed like a much younger woman.

  He gave her a gentle squeeze and set her down. Looking into her eyes, he said, “He’s really dead?”

  She nodded.

  “Thank Christ.”

  She didn’t give him a disapproving look—she knew what he and his brothers had endured at the hands of their father.

  “Come inside. I’ve got supper warming in the oven.”

  He sniffed the air, and through the open doorway detected the scents of roast chicken and buttery biscuits. His stomach growled. “Never understood how you managed to make such good meals on so little. And I imagine it only got worse after we all left.”

  She shook her head. “Time to put all that behind ya now, boy. Come in. We’re letting all the heat out.”

  February took a lot of firewood to heat the house, which he knew from personal experience. He could almost feel the weight of the ax in his hand and the strain of his muscles after hours of chopping daily just to keep them warm.

  He entered the house and shut the door behind him. He stood there, looking around at the furniture that needed dragged outside and lit with a match. The worn carpets, faded curtains. But everything remained clean—Mimi saw to that.

  “Why did you stay, Mimi?”

  She turned those pale blue eyes up to him. “You asked me to.”

  “But that was years and years ago.”

  “Yes, but in my family, you make a promise and see it out.”

  “You can go now, Mimi. I release you.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She eyed him.

  He opened his mouth to say more, but the door flew open behind them.

  Zayden turned to see his youngest brother Asher. Taller, packed with muscle from doing whatever he’d been doing, wherever he’d been doing it.

  Their gazes met, and a grin split Asher’s features. “The drunk old rotter finally keeled over, huh?”

  Zayden burst out laughing for the first time in… well, he couldn’t recall when he’d last found amusement in anything. He strode forward. “Damn, it’s good to see your face.” He hugged Asher, and his baby brother thumped him hard on the back.

  “Where’s Dane?” he asked as he pulled back.

  “Who the hell knows. Strippin’?”

  “He says he’s a male dancer.”

  “Is that any different?” Zayden and Asher locked gazes again and shared another laugh.
r />   “Hell if I know if it’s different. He’s married to a stripper too.” Asher turned to Mimi. “Honey, I smelled those biscuits from a mile down the road. Gimme a hug and then let me at ’em.”

  Zayden followed them into the kitchen and watched Mimi place things from the oven onto the table while he and Asher found things to tease each other about.

  It was like old times.

  God, don’t let it be like old times.

  * * * * *

  Zayden had no idea how the Moon Ranch was still in operation.

  No money and no ranch hands left. The place needed updates to the outbuildings, the fence and so much more, and every dime died along with their father.

  A handful of cattle seemed content enough in their winter pasture, and someone had given them a round bale and some winter feeds. The solar-powered wells kept them watered.

  But how the hell did a ranch that barely scraped by with him and his brothers working their asses off ever scrape by in such a neglected state now?

  His father had a pension from the Army, but he drank it all up. Always had, which was why the responsibility fell on Zayden’s shoulders.

  He drifted into the barn. The space looked relatively clean and the stalls contained fresh hay. The few horses left looked cared for, and whoever still came to help out was either devoted or dumb as a rock.

  Zayden was far from stupid, though. This must be Mimi’s doing. In some way, she’d managed to hire someone, probably using her own money.

  He closed the barn door and headed to the house. With the funeral scheduled for later in the week, he had a bit of time to figure things out. First, he and Mimi needed to have a good, honest chat.

  When he reached the front porch, the boards sagged beneath his weight. On the old man’s favorite chair in the corner, Asher sat staring across the land.

  As Zayden approached, his brother looked up. “Spent the last seven years of my life tryin’ to avoid this place,” he said.

  “Know the feeling.”