Believing Bailey

  Copyright © 2017 by Linda Kage

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S.

  Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Omnific Publishing

  2355 Westwood Blvd., Suite 506

  Los Angeles, CA 90064

  www.omnificpublishing.com

  First Omnific ebook edition, November 2017

  First Omnific trade paperback edition, November 2017

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Kage, Linda.

  Believing Bailey / Linda Kage – 1st ed. isbn: 978-1-623422-51-6

  1. New Adult Romance — Fiction. 2. Falsely Accused— Fiction.

  3. Redemption— Fiction. 4. College — Fiction. I. Title

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Book Cover Design by Linda Kage and Amy Brokaw

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Holly

  (Or as Sadie calls you: Cat Kitty!)

  Chapter 1

  BAILEY

  This party sucked so bad. Even the beer was stale.

  I seemed to be the only person bothered by the taste, though. Everyone else in the crammed fraternity house was chugging it as if it were, well, good beer.

  Wrinkling my nose, I lifted the red SOLO cup higher so there’d be a longer stream to watch as I poured the contents into the sink.

  Behind me, some frat boy called, “Hey! What’re you doing? That’s good beer.”

  “Debatable,” I murmured as I finished emptying my cup and then tossed the wasted shell into a nearby trashcan. Dusting my hands dry on my denim-covered hips, I glanced around, searching for some kind of entertainment. Any kind of entertainment.

  A keg stand was taking place in the other half of a kitchen with cheers of, “Drink, drink, drink,” chorusing throughout the room. But meh. Boring.

  I’d just left the half-dressed drunk girls dancing in the living room, and didn’t want to witness that atrocity again.

  Out the window, I saw a group of guys playing bean bag toss on the back lawn. I could’ve headed that way and joined their game, but the wussies I’d defeated last week had been nothing but sore losers; they’d called me some really nasty, lame names just because someone with ovaries had kicked their asses. So I had no desire to play against those no-aim idiots again.

  A couple made out in the corner, the guy skimming his hand up the girl’s thigh until his fingers disappeared under the hem of her short skirt.

  I rolled my eyes. There was absolutely no guy I’d met on campus this year that I could even remotely consider hooking up with. I had a bad feeling the cowboy I’d been chasing last year must’ve graduated because I hadn’t spotted him once this semester, and it was November. So that crossed all possible plans of hanky panky off my list.

  There was no reason for me to hang around here at all, except I didn’t want to go home.

  They were home. All disgustingly happy four of them.

  My roommates.

  I couldn’t even express how excited I was that my two best friends—along with their perfect, superhot boyfriends—and I were now living together under one roof so I could continually watch Paige and Tess snuggle with their men non-stop morning, noon and night for seven days a week with no rest for the weary.

  The joy. Really. It was too much to even contain.

  It didn’t matter that it’d been my idea for the three of us to rent an apartment together, or to sweeten the pot, I’d said, “Sure, invite your guys to live with us too.” How the devil was I to know I’d find myself existing in a hell filled with a perpetual Valentine’s Day? I mean, seriously, those two couples were so freaking in love it was maddening.

  They might as well just tack a neon flashing sign to my bedroom door that said, “The Loser Loner Sleeps Here.”

  It was supposed to be awesome that I’d snagged the master bedroom, which had its own private bath and walk-in closet plus a sweet view of the park across the street. But really it just felt extra huge and lonely in there all by myself while I would lie awake at night staring up at my ceiling and listening to murmured voices seep through the walls on either side of me as my coupled up best friends snuggled in for the night with their soulmates.

  Plus, it also felt kind of selfish to hog the biggest room to myself since I obviously needed the least amount of space. Tess and Paige insisted I keep it, though, so each night it just stretched bigger and emptier and lonelier.

  Not that I actually wanted my own boyfriend. Ick. The one time I’d tried that in high school, it’d been a disaster of epic proportions. So, yeah, no permanent man for me, thank you.

  But still.

  There was just something about being left out of the couple club that made me cantankerous. That made me feel lacking. This evening had been particularly unpleasant. They’d wanted to rent a movie together. Paige and Logan had curled up on the couch, Jonah and Tess had snuggled together on the love seat, and I’d been left with the lazy boy and a bowl full of popcorn to keep myself company, which I’d polished off within the first ten minutes.

  Watching the two couples tangled together, kissing every few seconds, constantly touching their other half, and so obviously in love, had made me puke a little in my mouth (and made me so jealous I’d wanted to ax someone), so I’d abandoned them about five minutes after that and found my way here to this dreadfully dull frat party.

  Okay, dull might be a bit of an understatement. I mean, no one else around me appeared bored, so it was probably just me, and it only seemed lifeless to me because Tess and Paige weren’t around.

  I wandered into a new room as if I was searching for something or someone, though I wasn’t. I’d never felt so restless and solitary in my whole damn life. I missed hanging with my two besties.

  But I was happy they were happy so I’d stop whining about that. Really. I just needed, I don’t know, something. Not a man. But something to give me a reason to wake up each morning, something to make all this living business worthwhile. A goal maybe.

  Yeah, a goal sounded good, like something to work toward and keep my mind busy, aside from school and my part-time job. Something that actually interested me.

  Yes, perfect. I was totally going to come up with a cool, stimulating goal. Like…some goal. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of goal exactly, but—

  When I spotted a cowboy hat from the corner of my eye, I paused everything.

  Because cowboy hat? Cowboy hat!

  I did a double take and my mouth fell open.

  There was my goal. My cowboy.

  Holy hedgehog on a Friday at church, he was here! The cowboy I’d first seen a year ago and had been hunting ever since just so I could introduce myself to him and see if the rest of him turned out to be as good as my first impression had been was standing twenty-freaking-feet away. Right in front of me.

  Decked out in a cowboy hat, long-sleeved checkered top, big-ass shiny belt buckle, snug Wranglers, and perfect leather boots, he was it, everything I’d ever dreamed I wanted in a guy. His hair was dark and just long enough for the ends to curl out the edges of his hat and make him even more deadly gorgeous. And he was smart enough to be drinking from a longneck bottle, not that stale keg swill they were serving.

  Had I just said I didn’t want a boyfriend? Well, forget all that, because this guy, yeah, this guy was my soulmate. I just knew it.

  I know, I know. No one likes all that love at first sight BS. But just work wi
th me here. In my fantasies, it could be so. In reality…well, let’s not go there, because I was operating purely in fantasyland at the moment.

  As I blinked repeatedly, simply gaping at him, my legs decided they no longer worked, because they weren’t moving, weren’t hurdling drunken idiots or karate kicking dancing girls out of my path to get to him. They were locked and frozen in place, unable to do much more than knock my knees together unsteadily.

  Okay, so maybe goals were scary things, because I could not approach my cowboy. My soulmate. What if he turned out to be an asshat? Or worse. What if he was perfect? Then he’d certainly never want anything to do with a mess like me.

  Intimidated beyond speech and petrified motionless, I watched him take a drink and then grin at something the blurry person next to him had just said, and oh, angels tumbled from heaven. That smile. It hitched up a little higher on the right side, making it crookedly adorable and sexy at the same time, with a slight laugh line crinkling the corner, telling me he probably smiled a lot.

  I whimpered. My ovaries might’ve melted. My panties grew suddenly uncomfortable. My body was ready for him.

  Then he turned, and holy cheese on crackers, his butt. His butt in Wranglers was epic. It was every cowboy groupie’s dream come true. And I was the ultimate cowboy groupie.

  My mouth watered and fingers itched to grasp until what? His butt started moving away.

  Why was his butt leaving me?

  “No. Wait!” Frantic and a little hoarse, my voice cracked as I finally lurched forward and lifted my hand, waving him to stop, as if that would actually waylay the guy twenty feet away with his back to me. “Shit.”

  Screw my apprehensions; the scrapper in me kicked to life. He was not getting away this time.

  I’d spotted him only a handful of times in the past year since I’d been feverishly hunting him, and he’d escaped me—unknowingly, since he’d never been aware I was pursuing him—every single time. He was like a ninja cowboy or something. But not tonight. Tonight he was getting roped and hogtied until I at least got to speak to him and introduce myself.

  Just as he disappeared into a back hall, someone—someone who I swear had a death wish—stepped into my path.

  This time, my legs were working just fine and my brakes were non-existent. I plowed right into the girl, making her jostle her drink and slosh foamy beer over her hand and down her arm until it dripped from her elbow.

  “Hey,” she complained, while I yelled, “Dammit.”

  The girl sent me a startled glance, and I calmed enough to say, “I mean, sorry. Excuse me.” Darting around her, I let out a growl when I found two guys in my way. Scrambling around them, I weaved my way through the maze of irritating humans, trying to pop up onto my tiptoes and peek over them so I could see the hall my cowboy had slipped into. But I couldn’t see anything past shoulders and chins and chests, which only made me clench my teeth harder.

  This was so not the time to be short. Curse my parents for passing me short genes.

  Okay, maybe not really. I loved my father to bits. And speaking ill of my mother just felt wrong, may she rest in peace.

  Finally, I had a clear shot into the hallway, but, no.

  It was empty. Totally and completely empty, just like my room at night when I listened to Tess and Paige through the walls as they whispered sweet nothings to their boyfriends.

  My heart stalled in my chest.

  He had escaped again, the slippery cowboy. I kind of wanted to curse him too—why couldn’t he have just stayed still five seconds longer, damn him? —but he was way too sexy to be damning and I already felt guilty enough for cursing my parents seconds ago, so I bit my tongue.

  After a second of panting and resting my hands on my knees to collect my breath, I straightened and fisted them at my hips, once again renewed with determination.

  He was not getting away again. That was my new life motto.

  There were a total of seven escape hatches—fine, they were just boring old doors—down this hall. I’d just check them all. But as I neared the first one, the door opened and a very non-cowboy-looking guy exited.

  His eyes widened and he jerked to a stop when he saw me hurl myself toward him before I realized, fudge, he wasn’t who I wanted.

  “Shit.”

  We both stopped in time to prevent a collision, but the cup in his hand had some powerful forward momentum going on, and his grip on it was obviously not so stellar, so it kept tumbling forward.

  It slipped right out of his hand, tipped toward me, and splashed its entire contents down the front of my shirt with cold, wet, stinky stale keg beer.

  My gasp was legendary. “Oh my God, that’s cold!”

  “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I didn’t pay the apologizing klutz much mind; I was too busy gaping down at my soaked shirt in horror.

  “Here. I’m sorry.”

  The guy ducked back through the doorway, disappearing momentarily, before he returned with a hand towel and started dabbing it against my wet chest to soak up the beer.

  It’d been a good two and a half years since anyone had gotten that close to my breasts, and the shock of familiarity made me jerk backward and give him a censorious glare. “Really?”

  “What?” he slurred, lifting his face and blinking cluelessly. Thick, stubby lashes fanned over the most electric blue pair of eyes I’d ever seen, and for a moment I was once again struck dumb, staring at them, because wow, those were some really blue eyes.

  A second later, I scowled even harder at him for distracting me, and I arched my eyebrows tellingly before motioning to my chest where his hand still was, before he seemed to realize he’d been groping me.

  With a chagrined wince-slash-grin, he jerked the towel from my chest and extended to my hand so I could snag it from him and pat myself dry.

  “Sorry,” he offered again while I muttered curses under my breath, and beer dripped down my stomach into the waistband of my jeans. “I’ll buy you a new top. I swear. Just look me up tomorrow when I’m sober, and I’ll get all your details or take you shopping or whatever. Whatever you want, I’ll fix this. The name’s Beckett. Beckett Hilliard, and I live here. Just call the house and ask for me, and I’ll take care of everything. I’m not just saying that, either. I won’t flake out on you or—”

  Lifting my hand to stop him because his drunken rambling was making me dizzy, I said, “Look…Bucket.”

  “Beckett,” he corrected.

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  “My name is Beckett. Not Bucket.”

  “Well, it sounded like you said Bucket.” I clenched my fingers around the damp hand towel I was still holding. Each second I stood here arguing with a bucket of Beckett, my cowboy was getting farther and farther away

  He wrinkled his nose. “What the fuck kind of name is Bucket?”

  I growled and threw up my hands. “Well, what the fuck kind of name is Beckett?”

  His prickled offence was immediate. Drawing back his shoulders, he said, “It’s a family name.”

  I rolled my eyes. Oh geez. He really was a filthy rich little frat boy, wasn’t he? I took an extra second to scan him over, and yep. Ick. Tall, slim and perfectly fit, he wore a collared polo shirt with one of those mini alligator patches over his heart, khaki pants and loafers. The only thing to complete the package would have been if his hair had been all gelled and slicked back into neat perfection, but the light brown mess was spiked out in a couple oddball places as if he’d drunkenly mussed it. Other than that, he resembled the epitome cliché of every rich son being funded through med or law school by his corporate CEO daddy.

  Gag me.

  “It means bee cottage,” he told me. “Or maybe dweller near the brook.” Frowning as if confused, he shook his head. “I’m not sure exactly. I found so many different meanings—”

  “Oh my God!” I clutched my head, trying to block out the rambling. “I don’t have time for this. He’s getting away.”

  Beckett�
��not Bucket—stopped blathering. “Who’s getting away?”

  “The cowboy.” I scowled at all the closed doorways in the hall. Which one had he taken?

  “You mean Chance?”

  “What?” I jerked my attention to Beckett so fast he reared backward. “You know him? The cowboy?”

  After a couple blinks, he snickered. “Uh…yeah. Everyone knows Chance. He’s in the fraternity.”

  Chance. That sounded about right. My cowboy could totally rock a name like Chance. Rugged yet loyal. Faithful and trustworthy, but also full of hard muscles and a look in his eyes that said he was a handful.

  A sexy handful.

  Sexy Chance was the perfect name for him.

  But, wait. Had Bucket just said fraternity? Yeah, no. No way. Not my cowboy.

  I snorted. “I don’t think so.”

  Bucket frowned as if confused. “Cowboy hat, boots, plaid shirts with the snaps, Wranglers, big belt buckle. The whole shebang.” He cupped his hands around an imaginary buckle at his waist to demonstrate.

  I frowned at him, in clear denial. But no. My soulmate in a gross fraternity? I think not. My cowboy could not be a frat boy. Life wouldn’t be that cruel.

  Stupid Bucket was just drunk and confused. That was all.

  “Did you see him?” I demanded, ready to grab his shirt and start shaking. I glanced past him toward the doorway he’d just exited. As soon as I found Chance, I’d get all this fraternity misunderstanding sorted out. “Did he go in there?”

  “In here?” He laughed. “Yeah, no. We didn’t take a piss together, sorry.”

  Dammit. That was just a bathroom.

  Okay, so six exits left to check.

  “Thanks.” I tossed the damp hand towel at Bucket’s chest and turned away to try the door directly across from this one.

  Locked. Grr.

  When I started toward the next, Bucket called after me. “Hey. What about your shirt?”

  I rolled my eyes and tried the next door down. “It’ll wash.” The latch turned in my hand, making my heartrate jack with excitement.

  Pushing my way into the dark room, I saw another door across the floor that led into a lightened area, so I hurried toward it only to find yet one more bathroom. Dammit! How many freaking bathrooms were in this place?