Make Her New (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 2)

  MAKE HER NEW

  (KAID RANCH SHIFTERS, BOOK 2)

  By T. S. JOYCE

  Other Books in the Kaid Ranch Shifters Series

  Steal Her Heart (Book 1)

  Lift Her Up (Book 3 – Coming February 2020)

  Make Her New

  Copyright © 2019 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2019, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: January 2019

  T. S. Joyce

  www.tsjoyce.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Editor: Corinne DeMaagd

  Photograhper: Wander Aquiar

  Contents

  Other Books in the Kaid Ranch Shifters Series

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  Up Next in this Series

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  More Series from this Author

  For More From this Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Today would definitely be the third worst day of Sadey Lawklin’s life.

  She tried to inhale a deep breath, but her lungs refused. Again. She’d been on the verge of panicking all day. Why? Because she was definitely about to meet the woman whose marriage she ruined.

  Not on purpose. She hadn’t known Maris Thurgood and Dallas Farell were still together when he’d started dating Sadey. Dallas had been a very, very good liar.

  Taps was busy because it was lunchtime, which caused another wave of panic. She hadn’t thought this through. What if Maris punched her in the face and threw her across the bar for what she’d done? The whole town would see her shame.

  Too late now. There she was, walking through the door with a confidence Sadey could only dream of having someday.

  Maris had dark hair that was curled and down today. Her striking blue eyes searched the restaurant for a few seconds before that somber gaze landed on Sadey. She looked different than Sadey remembered. She’d thought her eyes were the color of dark chocolate, or whiskey at their lightest. But nope. Maris was definitely staring at her with light blue eyes. Her hair and build were the same. It was definitely Maris. Perhaps she was wearing contacts.

  Sadey gave her a two fingered wave, but her hands were shaking, which brought on another blush to her cheeks. Good gracious, her shame was infinite.

  She stood to greet Maris and then gave her a clumsy hug. When Maris froze in place, Sadey said, “Well, leave it to me to make this even more awkward. I don’t know why I just hugged you.”

  “It’s okay,” Maris murmured, then took a seat across the table from Sadey.

  “I’m sorry,” Sadey blurted out.

  Maris’s intelligent eyes stayed steady on her, seeming to miss nothing. She then looked away, smiled at an approaching server, and muttered, “If we’re going to do this, I need a drink.”

  Sadey swallowed a laugh of relief. “Me, too.” She ordered a kiwi margarita. “It’s the drink of the day,” she explained to Maris, who’d ordered a spicy Bloody Mary. “According to the chalkboard over the bar, it is, at least. Sometimes they have good drinks listed there. I can’t decide if a kiwi margarita sounds intriguing or gross, so I want to find out. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. It’s not important. I’m nervous. I can’t stop talking. I’m sorry.” She blurted the last two words out louder, then clapped her hands over her mouth as the stupid tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she murmured again, thickly.

  “Did you know about me?” Maris asked coolly. “When you were with my ex-husband, did you know about me?”

  Sadey nodded. “Yes, but not like you think. He talked about you when we were just friends, but he explained it like you’d already separated and were going through a divorce. I knew you existed. I just thought you’d chosen to leave the marriage already. He said you left him months before he started pursuing me again. And I believed him. We’d been together so long when we were kids, I trusted his word still. He said y’all were split up, and I…being the stupid girl who didn’t ask enough questions…I believed him. Fuck.” The tears streamed down Sadey’s cheeks, and she shook her head helplessly. “I was going through a bad divorce, and Dallas knew exactly what to do and say. You know? He came in and…”

  Maris’s eyes softened, and she sighed. “Came in and tricked you.”

  “I felt tricked, yes.”

  “When did you figure out we were still together?”

  Sadey laughed darkly and leaned back in her chair, dabbed a napkin on her damp cheeks. “Two days before you and your friends confiscated your equipment from my property.” She swallowed hard. “I had all these red flags waving in my face, more and more as time went on. So I started doing some research.”

  “Internet stalking?” Maris asked, her delicate eyebrows arched high.

  “No, I started asking around town and asking Dallas the questions I should’ve been asking all along. He was lying so easy it kept me confused. He would lie about the stupidest stuff he didn’t even need to lie about. It’s like he was addicted to getting away with everything.” She sniffed and looked up from her wadded-up napkin. “I saw you at the auction.”

  Maris frowned. “What?”

  “I was there with my mom. She wanted to see if there were any of those miniature horses for sale in that auction. I saw you crying by the pens, and I was too chicken to talk to you. Girl, I don’t know you, but watching you with tears in your eyes over selling your cattle? It broke my heart and raised a whole lot of questions about what Dallas had actually done to you. I left him, you know. Two weeks ago, I left him, the day I found out he’d left you for me. I had it mostly figured out. I told him I had your number and was going to ask you all the questions I wanted to and hope you told the truth. He buckled and admitted the things he’d done.”

  “What did you do after that?” Maris’s voice was filled with sadness.

  “I ran to the bathroom and got sick. I never meant to hurt you, or anyone. I thought he was this Prince Charming who rode in right when I needed someone to keep me steady. I thought I had this special love story with him, but it wasn’t. It was a story of lies.” She huffed a dark laugh. “My ex-husband cheated on me, so I left him immediately. I felt so burned. And then what did I do? I turned around and did that to you.”

  “You didn’t know,” Maris murmur
ed. “Dallas is very good at lying. I know that firsthand.”

  “Yeah, but I still played a part in hurting you. Even if I didn’t know I was, I still played a role. And for that, I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. So I thought you should know, I did leave him as soon as I found out.”

  “Good. You shouldn’t have been with him in the first place.”

  “Fair enough. I deserve that.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Maris leaned back so the server could set their drinks on the small two-seater table between them. “I mean it’s good for you that you left. That man only knows how to poison women. Not lift them up. I know you were in his mind our entire marriage and when we were dating. He talked about you a lot. He’d loved you since high school, and he told me I was filler while he waited for you to come back to him.”

  “Oh my God, that’s disgusting of him to say. You didn’t deserve for him to talk to you like that. You’re worth more than filler, Maris. You know that, right?”

  Maris shrugged. “I didn’t know any better for that first year after he left me. It was the worst year of my life. But you know what?”

  “Hmm?” Sadey asked around a long drag of her kiwi margarita straw.

  Maris nodded her chin toward the bar top across the room. A trio of giant men were sitting there, sipping what looked like whiskey on the rocks. One had his back to them, but the dark-haired, tattooed cowboy was looking at Maris, concern swimming in his brown eyes. The other was staring at Sadey, and he was the one who held her attention.

  He wore a cream cowboy hat and a white thermal shirt that was missing the top button. The thin material hugged the curves of his ridiculously strong shoulders. Thick neck, hello. Bright blue eyes, yep, yep, yep. Blond stubble on his chin and a thin leather necklace that trailed down the perfect line between his pecs and under his shirt. She wondered what was at the end of it.

  “Did you hear me?” Maris asked.

  “Oh, crap on a cracker, I’m sorry. I missed it,” Sadey said, kicking herself for not focusing better. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Good Lord, woman, stop apologizing for everything. You did me a favor. I cut two hundred pounds of dead weight in the form of Dallas Farell, and I gained a man who takes weight from me. We’re getting married in the spring. I’m good. Yeah, I was pissed at what he did, and I blamed you, too, in my dark moments. But it’s different now that I know he was workin’ you. Dallas knows how to work a woman better than any man I’ve ever met. I’m glad it all happened.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I’m glad everything blew up, and he left me for you.” Her smile turned all soft for the dark-haired cowboy at the bar. “I found the one I was meant for.” Maris took a long drink of her Bloody Mary. “Good on you that you left him when you figured everything out, Sadey. Go find the one you’re meant for, too.”

  Sadey blinked hard in shock. “I have an admission. I thought you would scream at me. Or throw me through the front window or something.”

  “What would that solve? You didn’t know we were still together, and it took guts coming here today and meeting me face-to-face. Saying you’re sorry is hard to do, and you just apologized for being part of something you were unaware of. Respect.” Maris shrugged. “I still don’t like you, though.”

  Sadey laughed and shook her head. “I don’t blame you.” She traced a frowny face into the condensation of her drink and murmured, “I don’t like me much right now either.”

  Maris slurped down the rest of her drink and stood, threw a twenty on the table. “Get past that part quick, okay? Don’t spiral for a year like I did. Every minute you stay broken gives power to a man who didn’t earn it.”

  Maris made her way out of the restaurant, and a couple of the big cowboys followed her out. They looked familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on who they were. Cody, Wyoming had that small-town feel, but not small enough that everyone knew everyone.

  Sadey watched Maris leave with her man, arm in arm, chatting all the way through the parking lot until they reached his big jacked-up F-350. Sadey was happy for her, finding love after what Dallas had done. A silly part of her wished that was her story, too, but that wasn’t in the cards. There was too much damage, and she wouldn’t put that on another person.

  “Ma’am?” came a deep timbre. “Are you okay?”

  She looked up to find the last cowboy who had been at the bar with Maris’s man. He was standing next to her, blocking out damn near half the restaurant. The man was muscular, and his shoulders looked like boulders. Could he even fit through a door without turning sideways? A rude part of her wanted to ask him that.

  “Oh, I’m just peachy,” she said.

  The man’s dark brows drew low under that cowboy hat of his. “Then why does your smile look so stiff? Looks like you’re growlin’.”

  Sadey dropped her gaze to the table. “I don’t like people looking at me.”

  The man shoved his hands in his pockets. “You mean you don’t like people seein’ you?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  He sighed and stared out the front window. “It’s hard for me to leave this place when you feel so sad.”

  “I don’t feel sad,” she lied.

  “Mmm. Well to me? You feel real sad. It’s heavy. You filled this whole place up with it, like fog.”

  Sadey glanced around at the tables of people talking amongst themselves, ignoring her and Nosey Cowboy. “Everyone seems fine.”

  “I ain’t concerned with everyone else,” he said.

  She gritted her teeth and dared a look up, and damn the tears burning her eyes. “Then tell me, stranger, what are you concerned with?”

  His frost-blue eyes searched hers for a few moments too long before he ducked his gaze and tipped his hat. “If you need anything, I’ll be over there.” He gestured toward the bar. “Sorry for botherin’ you. I’m not as good at this as…” He let the sentence trail off and ducked his attention to the table, a frown deepening in his blond brows.

  “As who?” she asked curiously.

  He flicked his fingers toward the window where the two cowboys and Maris were climbing in the truck. “My brother, Wes.”

  Wes. Why was that name so familiar?

  The man shoved his hands deep in his pockets again, dragging the denim waist down lower on his hips, exposing a strip of muscle at the bottom of the white thermal shirt. Sadey was trying not to stare, but good Lord, he was fit as hell.

  “When Wes walks in a room, he has all the right words,” the man said. “I don’t have good words. Never did. But if you need me to beat the shit out of anyone?” He gave her a smile that nearly stopped her heart. “Well, I’m the guy you ask.”

  He turned to walk away, but she blurted out, “I’m Sadey!”

  He paused and canted his head. “I know who you are. We robbed your barn last week.”

  “Uuuh…oh. Well, it wasn’t really robbing,” she said with a laugh. “That machinery belonged to Maris. If I’d known that, I would’ve brought it back last year. I thought it was Dallas’s.”

  “Speak of him, and the devil shall appear,” the man muttered, narrowing his eyes on the front window.

  When Sadey followed his attention, Dallas was getting out of his car in the parking lot.

  “Here we go,” she whispered, wringing her hands.

  “Want me to kill him?” the man asked. The lack of teasing in his voice lifted chills on her arms.

  “No!” Remembering her manners, she corrected herself. “No thank you. I have to handle this on my own. Uuum…what did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t say.” He backed off her table a few steps, his heavy boots clunking against the floor. “I like Pantera, too.”

  “Wh-what?”

  He gestured to her shirt. Stunned, Maris looked down. Oh. Right. She had borrowed her sister’s clothes because she’d been staying there since the day she left Dallas. This wasn’t her usual style, a band T-shirt, black ripped-up jeans, black
ankle boots, and a gray beanie covering her blond shoulder-length hair. But she hadn’t been picky on what she looked like lately. She hadn’t even bothered with makeup for the last week. All she did was cry it off, so what was the point?

  “Currently, I’m at my worst,” Sadey mumbled.

  “If that’s true, your worst looks pretty good,” the man assured her.

  That drew her up short. It was a kindness on a really bad day. A moment he’d gifted her where she didn’t feel so awful. But she knew better than to trust kindness. All men lied. “That was a really good line,” she told him as he walked away.

  “I don’t know what you mean by line, but thanks.” He strode for the bar across the room, his boots echoing hollowly on the old worn, wooden floors.

  “Hey, do I know you?” she called out, still shaken by how familiar he was.

  “Probably not,” he answered without turning around. “No one does.”

  Huh.

  Dallas took the seat across from her, scraping it loudly across the floor before he sat. “What’s that asshole doing here?”

  The awful sound startled her, and Sadey jerked and nearly spilled the rest of her kiwi margarita. It wasn’t her favorite, so it wouldn’t have been the worst tragedy. “W-what?” she stammered.

  Dallas pointed rudely at the cowboy at the bar and said cowboy looked over his shoulder and right at Dallas. The fiery look on his face lifted chills up her spine.

  Sadey cleared her throat and dragged her attention away from the handsome stranger, wrung her hands under the table nervously and asked Dallas, “Who is he?”

  “One of the Kaids. The dumb one. Hunter, I think. His brother is some kind of ranching genius, but that one was born with brain damage or something.”

  Sadey threw the rest of her margarita in his face. “You’re disgusting for saying that.”

  “Dammit, Sadey! Why did you do that? Just for saying he’s brain damaged?” Dallas wiped his hand down his face. “Look, I know you’re pissed off, but get over it. If you don’t like how I talk or how I am, then why did you come crawling back to me after your divorce? I’ll tell you why. Because I made you feel safe.”