Love Her Better (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 4) Read online

  LOVE HER BETTER

  (KAID RANCH SHIFTERS, BOOK 4)

  By T. S. JOYCE

  Other Books in the Kaid Ranch Shifters Series

  Steal Her Heart (Book 1)

  Make Her New (Book 2)

  Lift Her Up (Book 3)

  Love Her Better

  Copyright © 2020 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2020, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: July 2020

  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

  Model: Andrew Biernat

  Photographer: 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

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Up Next from this Author

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  More Series from this Author

  For More From this Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The coyote weighed nothing.

  Sam Kaid was used to hunting predators much bigger than himself, and this hunt had been unsatisfying.

  He gripped his rifle a little tighter. His brother, Wes, had said he needed a bigger job on this ranch to keep his mind busy, but he didn’t understand that. The only job Sam understood was killing.

  And here he was trying to transition back into society. He had been thrust back into a normal life, so he mimicked.

  Mimicked the men around him.

  Mimicked Wes and Hunter and Bryson.

  He pretended to be normal so no one looked at him too hard. That’s what he was supposed to do, right? Be normal again? Like before? Like the life he didn’t remember except in flashes of memories and dreams.

  The coyote’s head bounced against his thigh with every step. It was getting blood on his wranglers, but that was okay. Blood and mud and grit, that was life here at the Kaid Ranch.

  They’d done well for themselves, his brothers. They’d mistaken him for dead the night they were all Turned into werewolves, and they’d mourned him, but then they’d gone and built a ranching empire. They had four hundred head of cattle and a herd of horses in different stages of being broke. A big house, nice cattlemen’s cabins, and tractors and four wheelers and stables and wives. Even the grizzly shifter they’d adopted had a wife.

  But that wouldn’t be Sam’s story, no matter how normal he pretended to be.

  With a sigh, he climbed the porch stairs to his cattleman’s cabin. It was basically a fancy storage shed. Wes had decided Sam needed a small log cabin when he moved here a few months ago so, between Sam, Wes, Bryson, and Hunter, they’d built this little home in one day. It even had a front porch and a little kitchen inside.

  It was a home though, not a wolf den, and Sam didn’t know what to do with it. And he would shoot himself in the leg before he asked one of the men for advice on…well…existing like a normal man. He preferred the woods to sleep in. Not a high-fallutin’ doghouse.

  Life had been simple before. Wake up, wash in the river, eat breakfast that his pack made… Sam frowned. He meant his old pack. The Wichita pack. Then the morning meeting with Leif, his maker, his alpha. And then he carried out whatever orders Leif had. Usually it was hunting down a werewolf. Usually it was killing. Repeat for three years.

  He didn’t feel much anymore. Confusion mostly.

  What was Diesel doing now?

  Sam shook his head hard. He hated thinking about Leif’s old enforcer. The one he’d replaced. The one he’d been charged to kill, but let go instead. Diesel was probably the only living creature who could understand him. The only one who could understand how hard it was to go back to normal civilian life after being brainwashed for years.

  Thinking of Diesel made his insides churn, and he couldn’t identify this creeping, empty feeling. Regret? Guilt? Sadness?

  “Stop it,” he growled at himself. He pulled out his buck knife from the sheath behind his back and prepared to dress out the coyote.

  “You shouldn’t do that so close to where you sleep,” Wes murmured.

  Sam had heard him coming from far away; he’d just ignored him. He shrugged. “Don’t bother me none.”

  Wes’s bright eyes darted to the pile of blankets on the porch. “Why are you still sleeping outside, Sam?”

  “Want the truth, or want me to make things easier on you?”

  “Truth.”

  “It’s what I’m used to,” he answered without looking up from his work. “My wolf wasn’t raised easy like yours.”

  “Easy,” Wes murmured.

  Sam looked him dead in the eyes. “Easy.”

  “Do you have any trouble defying me?” Wes asked, removing his cowboy hat and sitting on the plastic general store bucket next to Sam.

  “Easy,” Sam repeated, making a long cut down the coyote’s chest.

  “We don’t eat those,” Wes murmured.

  Sam shrugged. He’d lived outside for the last few years so he’d learned to put away food for when Bones, his wolf, took over his body. He had better control if he wasn’t hungry.

  “I don’t think I’m your alpha,” Wes said softly.

  “My alpha died. I killed him. Maybe you should be grateful that you aren’t my alpha.”

  Wes pulled a pair of beers from the pockets of his jean jacket, handed one to Sam.

  His hand was all bloody when he took it, but that was okay. His hands were bloody more often than clean.

  That’s the life of monsters.

  “Are you happy here?” Wes asked.

  Sam took a long swig of beer and set the bottle next to him with a clunk. Wes was staring at the blood puddle he was making on his porch.

  “What’s happy mean?” Sam asked.

  “Well…” Wes frowned and ran his hands through his chin-length hair. “I guess it means an easy feeling. You know what easy is. It’s waking up and feeling content. It’s wanting to smile, sometimes laugh. It’s that steady feeling in your chest.”

  “No, I don’t feel that.” He hated the sadness in Wes’s eyes. He always disappointed everyone. “I upset everyone when I talk,” Sam growled. “Rather not talk.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I’m here, ain’t I?” The growl was
getting grittier.

  “I mean I miss my brother.”

  “He died, Wes,” Sam said, slamming his knife into the arm of the fancy fuckin’ rocking chair Wes had given him. “This chair don’t make no damn sense. It moves. I can’t make steady cuts when it moves. That’s the steady I understand. I understand a chair stayin’ still so I can cut up a fuckin’ coyote clean.”

  “Okay, okay, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to come here and start shit.”

  “I miss Leif.” The admission poured out of him before he could stop the words.

  “What?” Wes asked.

  Damn the shock in his eyes. Sam always disappointed everyone. Always.

  “I miss understanding. He taught me to sleep outside, and you try to undo it. I was strong. I mean, I am strong. He made me strong, and it’s getting undone. He told me ‘good job’ when I was strong. You…” Sam swallowed down a feeling he didn’t understand.

  “I what?”

  “You don’t understand me. No one in the world can understand me, and I don’t have anybody to blame but myself. I killed Leif, and don’t misunderstand me, I would do it again. And again and again if it saved you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I remember you, Wes. I remembered.” He took a deep breath and continued, “But I fit in my old life, and I don’t know how to fit here.”

  “You need to focus on your job here. That’s all. Just throw yourself into work, and everything will just fall into place.”

  Wes was good at delusion-land.

  His brother cracked his knuckles. “I have a present for you.”

  Sam frowned and kept skinning the coyote. “Don’t want no more presents. And I already focus on my job. You said to kill the predators before calving season, and that’s what I’m doin’. That’s what I’m good at.”

  “Weeeell, lets maybe find you something to do other than killing.”

  “Boring.” Sam wiped his wrist over his forehead to move his hair out of the way. It was tickling his eyebrows, and everything was annoying him right now. “What do you want, Wes?”

  “I want you to see something.”

  “Now?”

  “Yep, right now.” He stood and chugged his beer, then set the empty inside the recycling cannister that was laying on its side in the yard, on account of Sam punting it there the day Hunter had brought it to him and given him a speech on the importance of recycling.

  He’d lived in the woods. He wasn’t used to this civilized shit.

  Pissed off, Sam stood, tossing the coyote down, and stomped down the stairs.

  “Are you gonna leave that there?” Wes asked.

  “Are you gonna stop making seven fucking rules a second, Wes? I was doing good. I wasn’t hurting anyone. I was just staying to myself, but you came here and judged everything I’ve done. Fuck. Off!”

  Wes pursed his lips and walked quietly beside him for a few yards before he muttered, “I was just saying you could’ve at least put it in the yard and—”

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!” Sam roared at the side of Wes’s stupid face. “You walk like you have a stick up your ass, you trimmed your beard into the stupidest looking mustache I’ve ever seen—”

  “Summer said it looks good—”

  “Summer lied to you. You ask too many damn questions. I watched when you took a sip of Summer’s wine the other day and talked about the different fuckin’ fruits you tasted in it, you look stupid in a cowboy hat and your horse don’t like you.”

  “That’s a lie! My horse loves me!”

  “Now you know how it feels getting picked apart for every little thing. Sissy.”

  Wes shoved him in the shoulder hard. “Take it back.”

  Sam shook his head and refused as they made their way toward the stables.

  “Take. It. Back!” Wes demanded.

  “I ain’t in your pack, Wesley.” Yeah, he used the name Wes hated to be called. He hoped he had nightmares about it tonight. “You can’t throw down your little alpha orders with me.”

  Wes swung and popped Sam right in the side of the jaw, at the same time Sam slammed his fist across Wes’s face. They both got blasted backward.

  “What in the devil are you two doing?” Summer yelled from beside the corral.

  Wes flipped him off and stomped toward his mate.

  “Your boots look stupid, too! Round toes.” Sam scoffed. “Square toes are for real men.”

  “Toe shape is a preference! So fuck you, Samuel!”

  “My name’s Bones now!”

  “Fuck you, Boner!”

  God, he prayed, looking up at the sky. If you’re up there, let my good-for-nothin’ brother get attacked by angry killer bees right this second!

  “What’s that on your face?” Summer asked, her dark eyes wide as Wes made it to her.

  He wiped his knuckles across his cheek and spun on Sam. “You got coyote on my face!”

  “What in the hell is happening?” Summer demanded.

  There was a mustang bucking around like he was auditioning for a rodeo bronco.

  “See!” Sam yelled. “I told you your horse hates you.”

  “That ain’t my horse!” Wes yelled loud enough to echo through the whole ranch. “He’s yours!”

  Sam skidded to a stop, his boots kicking up the dust from the gravel path he was on. “W-what?”

  “His name’s Asshole. He reminded me of you, so I bought him for you at the auction this morning. Here’s your new job, Boner! Teach Asshole some manners so you have a horse to ride when we work the cattle next month!”

  Wes swooped down to pick up some gravel and then chucked it at Sam. Then he stormed off, saying, “My mustache looks fuckin’ awesome!”

  Summer smirked at Sam. “Good luck with the horse,” she sang as she followed her mate toward the house.

  When a fly flew into Sam’s open mouth, he spat it out and clacked his trap shut. The animal was still bucking, and the clang of hooves on metal sounded when he kicked the fence. He was bucking around in a cloud of dust, and white sweat caked his neck and ass crack. He was gray and white, but all speckled up with little black spots. He had black socks and a big white blaze down his face. That’s about all Sam could tell under all the caked-on mud.

  Asshole looked like shit and acted worse.

  Sam approached slow. He didn’t know much about horses. His brothers had always been into ranching, and he’d worked at a couple when he was younger, but he’d always rode the four-wheelers while they rode horses. It wasn’t really his thing.

  So how in the actual fuck was he supposed to teach this thing manners? He didn’t even have manners himself.

  But there was something about the horse. Something familiar to Sam as he leaned against the corral gate and watched. There was wildness in his eyes when they rolled back as he kicked again, but that wasn’t all. There was fear there, too. What a damaged bronc, expressing his terror with violence.

  Sam scratched his scruff and narrowed his eyes at where Wes had disappeared into the house. Maybe his brother knew him better than he’d thought.

  “You feel trapped, don’t you boy?” he murmured.

  The bronc screamed and tossed his head. Stopped long enough to paw the earth and charge the gate. At the last second, he pulled up, spun, and kicked backward fast. Sam got out the way easy before Asshole’s hoof connected with the gate where Sam had been leaning.

  He stood back and grinned.

  Here were four words he thought he would never say.

  “I like an Asshole.”

  Chapter Two

  “Comiiiing,” Cassidy Joiner sang as she ran for the phone in the office. She wiped her hands quick on her jeans before she picked up the call. “Hello?”

  “Hi, my name is Anita, and I’m calling about riding lessons. Do you still do those?”

  “Of course!”

  “Great, I had a few questions if you have a few minutes?”

  Cassidy sank into the worn office chair and said, “Ask away.”

  Just then, the light dim
med, and she looked up to find a giant man taking up the entire doorframe.

  She startled hard.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” the man said fast, holding out his hands. “Just need help with a horse.” He gestured to the barn just outside her office door. “I knocked, but I don’t really know how this all works.”

  He had a long scar down his cheek, all the way through his dark, short beard. His eyes were dark and earnest, and under his baseball cap, his eyebrows were drawn down. “I scare people a lot. Not intentional…this time.”

  “Hello? Did you hear me?” Anita asked on the other line.

  “Oh! Yes! Hang on just a second, Anita. Someone just came into my office. I’m going to put you on a brief hold if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. Sure, that’s fine.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re so welcome,” Anita said in a friendly tone.

  The man straightened up his spine a little and canted his head like a curious animal.

  “Take a seat right there,” she said, gesturing to the lone chair in the corner, “I’ll be right with you.”

  The man looked at the chair and back at her. “I like that you tell me exactly what to do. I’m Sam.”

  Cassidy smiled. He was a little odd. “I’m Cassidy, but my friends call me Cas.”

  “Then I’ll call you Cassidy. I ain’t a good friend.” He sauntered over to the chair, and sat down, and in that chair, he went still as a statue. No blinking, and she wasn’t entirely sure if he was even breathing. Okaaay.

  She clicked the button to take Anita off hold. “I’m so sorry about that. Can you repeat your question?”

  “How much do you charge per hour?”

  “Is it just you, or is it a group lesson?”

  “Just me. I used to ride when I was younger, but I’m out of the habit. I miss it, though.”

  “I totally understand. I took a break from horses for a few years in college, and it made a little hole in me that didn’t get filled until I started riding again. My rates are forty dollars an hour, cash, check or card. We can do them one or two hours each lesson, and I can do lessons anywhere from one time per week to four times per week, whatever you’re comfortable with.”