Rebel Wolf (Wilde Brothers Ranch #5) - Scarlett Grove Page 0,1

before climbing back on the bus.

“Are you headed to Fate Rock?” the elderly woman beside her asked.

“I am. I was born and raised there. It's been a long time since I've been home.”

“I'm sure your family will be glad to have you home.”

“I'm sure they will be.” Cassidy took a bite of her candy bar.

Her family had been hounding her to return to Fate Rock since she'd first left. She didn't understand why they couldn't be proud of her and support her decisions.

If her father had supported her, she easily could have paid for her continued education or her rent while she found a paying job in her field. But he wasn't willing to do either. He just wanted her to come home.

“You can do fashion design in Colorado,” he'd told her. He simply didn't understand the difference between the fashion scene in a small town in the mountains of Colorado and the fashion scene in New York City. He thought she could do her work from anywhere.

“They have the Internet nowadays. Everything is virtual.”

She didn't know what he expected her to do with no funding and no studio and no real experience, but no matter how often she explained it to him, he just couldn't hear it.

And now, she was moving further from her dream with every passing mile, and she imagined she would be stuck in Fate Rock, married off to some small-town boy and having a bunch of babies to carry on with the family ranch. She would lose her dream like it had never existed.

A tear slid from her eye as the overhead lights of the bus switched off, and they pulled out of the gas station. She didn't want anyone to see her cry. She had been toughened by four years in New York. She was no longer the small-town girl who'd left Colorado all those years ago, but she couldn't help getting emotional at the thought of never achieving what she had set out to do in the first place. If she'd just had a little bit more money or experience, she could've made it work. Now it all felt impossible.

She wrapped her arms around herself as the dark miles passed outside her window. Familiar landscapes were obscured by the deep summer night, and she drifted into a troubled sleep in which she dreamed of flying through the endless darkness.

She awoke to the bright lights of the bus. They were parked, and the passengers were disembarking.

“It's the end of the line. Time to get out.”

Cassidy startled awake and grabbed her backpack before following the rest of the passengers off the bus. She stood in the dim streetlights of the bus stop, surrounded by her baggage and clutching her backpack.

Her brother knew when she was supposed to arrive. She checked her phone. She was right on time, but she saw no sign of her brother.

She groaned and rolled her eyes, grabbing her bags and wheeling them inside the bus station. She took a seat on the bench and stared blankly at the television screen playing the news on low volume.

She sat there for at least half an hour before a familiar figure walked through the glass door and approached her.

“Finally,” she growled as she stood and faced her brother.

Charlie McCoy was tall, broad, muscular, and tan from years of working on the McCoy ranch. He gave her a smile, showing straight white teeth, and winked one crystal-blue eye. His blond hair was tousled under the ball cap he lifted to run his hand through his hair.

“Bobby and I were out at Squad Goals, and the Wilde twins were there with their new mate. We didn't say anything wrong, but they took offense to our existence nonetheless.”

Cassidy didn't believe that for a second. The Wildes might have been troublemakers, but so were her brothers, and if the twins had found their mate, they more than likely had grown out of the constant fistfights that Charlie and Bobby seemed to enjoy.

Her brothers were in their late twenties and should have matured enough to quit the fighting, but apparently old habits died hard.

“Is this everything?” he asked, grabbing her bags.

“That's it.” She couldn't believe that after four years in New York, her entire life could fit into two large suitcases and a backpack.

As she followed her brother out of the bus station, she tried to remind herself that she'd had four years of education from the finest fashion institute in the world. No one could take that away