Too Wild to Tame

  TOO WILD TO TAME

  Tessa Bailey

  New York Boston

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  To Mackenzie

  Love all, trust a few,

  do wrong to none.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank the following people, because they were my lifelines while writing this book—and in some cases, every book. Authors very rarely accomplish anything alone and I’m definitely no exception. This is a team effort between me, my loved ones, my editors, coffee, the universe, luck, sleep deprivation, and Spotify. Bust mostly, these folks…

  My husband, Patrick, and daughter, Mackenzie. I love you both with all my heart.

  My editor, Madeleine Colavita, for pushing me just a little harder each time and encouraging me to write the best books possible.

  My parents, Michael and Susan, for being a supportive, loving part of my life. You wouldn’t let me watch MTV or Friends, so I read explicit romance books in my room instead. I win!

  My friends Shannon, Jillian, Siri, Caroline, Nelle, Ashley, and Bernice, your encouragement and support mean everything to me. I’m sorry for being shit at returning e-mails/text messages.

  My brother, Michael, who I recently found out has a romantic soul of his own and uses it to write beautiful music. I can’t wait to hear what comes next!

  My beta reader and pal, Eagle, who always manages to hint at things I missed without actually telling me outright and splitting me in half. That’s an admirable trait and your thoughts are beautiful and invaluable.

  My Facebook reader’s group, Bailey’s Babes, for keeping me positive, motivated, and inundated with pictures of JJ Watt, David Gandy, and #PMBs.

  THANK YOU!

  Miriam Clarkson, January 9

  Alrighty. I suppose I’ve talked enough about Rita. When you bump hips with someone in a kitchen often enough, you learn their habits. The little things they say beneath their breath when they think no one is listening. The way they handle victories, or more importantly, defeats. So my daughter slash apprentice was the nut I decided to crack first, here within the blank whiteness of my Rite-Aid-purchased notebook. Oh, and just in case anyone skipped the first twenty pages, let me catch you up to speed. My name is Miriam Clarkson, and I’m probably dead.

  Now that we’re basting in the same sauce, I’d like to talk more about my children, also known as the four complicated mazes some lucky significant others will have the pleasure of winding through someday. It’s not their fault they can’t adequately express themselves. After all, look at their mother, hiding in a dark kitchen, finally putting her soul on paper like some ass-backward Martha Washington. But let me see what I can throw together.

  In every recipe, there is an ingredient that brings the entire meal into focus. I call it the ringleader. Added via spoon or measuring cup, it filters through the scattered components, urging them to join the taste good club. It wants—it needs—those erstwhile ingredients to be successful. To be happy. And because I apply cooking logic to everything until it makes sense to me, I see my children as four groupings of haphazard ingredients. All their parts are vital and beautiful, but they each need someone or something to yank them into cohesion.

  I might be older now. My boobs might be sagging beneath my apron. But I remember my ringleader. He was there once—he helped me pull my shit together—and then he was gone. I don’t blame him for anything, mind you. I celebrate him. The words, actions, and shared experiences that became my fork in the road were necessary to change me from a girl pointing in seven directions, to a woman with one goal. To cook. To have a family.

  Cooking came before family too often, but someday they’ll find this notebook and understand, as adults, that all their parts are perfect. They just need to take their lids off and allow in a ringleader.

  Chapter One

  Welcome to hell,” Aaron muttered, maneuvering the Suburban to avoid a patch of ice on the narrow road. In the passenger seat, Old Man lifted his white, furry head—and if dogs could grimace, Aaron’s new, unexpected pet was nailing it. Their eyes met across the console, one fuzzy eyebrow twitching as if to say, This is where you bring me, human?

  Aaron sighed and went back to scanning the street for the campsite. The term man’s best friend was apparently up for interpretation. He’d hardly achieved grudging respect from Old Man between New Mexico and Iowa. Still, the bare minimum of mutual appreciation was more than he could garner from the other occupants of the Suburban, wasn’t it? When it came to his siblings, he took what he could get. Although now only that only three Clarksons remained, as opposed to the four they’d started the journey with, there was even less for Aaron to take.

  A cross-country journey with no discernible purpose.

  Unless you counted fulfilling your mother’s dying wish as a purpose. In Aaron’s opinion, they were simply indulging a whim that might have been entirely different if Miriam had eaten something else for breakfast or gotten distracted by a new cassoulet recipe.

  Rita, his oldest sister, had shaken them in New Mexico, making for greener pastures…or rumpled bed sheets, depending on if you were a realist or a romantic. Aaron still considered himself the former, even if he’d definitely felt a minor blip of something gooey over the whole inconvenient business. With Rita shacked up in the desert with her boyfriend, only Aaron, Belmont, and Peggy Clarkson remained. Sage, too, although the wedding planner wasn’t related by blood. Some people are just naturally lucky.

  Aaron caught sight of the campsite turnoff up ahead and gave a loud cough to wake up the other travelers, before easing the rust bucket that passed for transportation to a stop outside a small redwood building marked Tall Timbers Rental Office.

  Okay, it wasn’t the Ritz-Carlton, but with a series of preelection events set to begin the following morning, every fleabag motel from there to Des Moines had been booked out. Fortunately, they were only a short drive from some of the event sites, where his fellow politicians would begin holding rallies for the hometown hero and rising star senator, starting bright and early tomorrow morning.

  Or they had been his fellow politicians at one time—his equals—before he’d gone and fucked his rapidly growing career to hell. Now he’d come to Iowa to fight his way back in, by fair means or foul. Yes, for the first time in his life, Aaron was desperate. Desperate enough to share a cabin with his brother in the back woods of Iowa in a place with a half-lit Vacancy sign.

  Jesus Christ, don’t let this vacation in purgatory last forever.

  “Are we there yet?” Peggy asked on a yawn, her stretching arms visible in the rearview mirror. “I’m starving. Is there a bathroom?”

  “Yes. What’s new? And probably,” Aaron answered, pushing open the driver’s side door to climb out of the Suburban, followed closely by Old Man, who trotted off, presumably to take a leak, maybe chase a squirrel or two. This was how their arrangement worked. Aaron chauffeured the dog around, fed him, and didn’t meddle in his business. Old Man would show back up when he was good and ready.

  Aaron stopped short when he saw that Belmont had somehow already beaten him out of the vehicle, all without making a s
ound. His brother stood still as a monument, hands tucked into his jean pockets, running cool eyes over the wooded campsite.

  “Good enough for you?” Aaron asked, moving past his brother at a crisp pace, eager to drop off his luggage and hit the bricks. If he wanted to find a way into the first function tomorrow morning, his work began now. Would have started last week if Rita’s boyfriend hadn’t sabotaged their only ride out of New Mexico.

  As expected, Belmont didn’t answer him, but Aaron hardened himself against giving a shit. Ever since Belmont had knocked his tooth out and cost him four hours of dental surgery, their relationship had gone from dwindling to nonexistent. In a barely conscious gesture, Aaron prodded the sore tooth with his tongue, watching as Belmont turned and helped Sage from the Suburban, in the same fashion a reality television baker might transport a wedding cake. Even Aaron found it impossible not to watch his brother and Sage orbit each other, like two slow-moving planets. They were simultaneously a frustration and a fascination. Frustrating because they refused to just admit the attraction and bang—at least that Aaron knew about—and fascinating because Sage seemed to be the only person capable of getting reactions out of Belmont. Hell, Aaron had busted his brother’s nose and barely gotten a middle finger for his trouble.

  Moving on.

  “Right.” Aaron tugged at the starched collar of his shirt. “These cabins are shit cheap, but after the extra nights in the motel back in Hurley, not to mention the car part, I think we should limit it to two rentals. Sage and Peggy in one. Me and Bel in the other.” He traded an uneasy look with his brother. “I don’t plan to be here much, so you can brood in the dark and write sonnets—or whatever it is you do—until the cows come home. Just don’t use my good aftershave.”

  Being the plan man felt good. This was his role in the Clarksons tribe. The asshole with the directions. The one whose lack of a functioning heart gave him the ability to make hard decisions on everyone’s behalf. Aaron was more than fine with that job description. History didn’t remember the nice guys; it remembered the sons of bitches who got things done.

  “Do you need help?” Peggy asked, a little breathlessly, setting down her oversized suitcase. “You can bring me along to charm people. I’m very charming.”

  Beside Peggy, Sage nodded. “She can’t help it.”

  Aaron wondered if Sage realized she was stunner herself—albeit on a far less flashy scale—but mentioning it would result in getting another tooth knocked out, courtesy of Belmont. And he didn’t have time for another sojourn in the dentist chair while being subjected to smooth jazz. “I’ll let you know if I need help,” Aaron said, knowing he would always fly solo if given the choice. “Let’s stick to the plan. Once I’ve secured a position with the senator, you three can keep driving to New York. I’ll meet you there for New Year’s.” He picked up his leather duffel. “For now, let’s go rent some cabins and hope they’re livable. As if the last time we camped together in California wasn’t traumatic enough.”

  As he’d known she would, Peggy laughed, following his wake toward the office. His younger sister was desperate to bond them all on this trip, and while it would never happen, sometimes Aaron had a hard time turning off his greatest talent. Telling people what they wanted to hear.

  “Aaron sprained his ankle in a gopher hole, carrying me back to camp after I was stung by a jellyfish,” Peggy explained to Sage. “Mom was too busy perfecting her s’mores technique to keep track of us. Rita staged a protest of the outdoors and wouldn’t come out of the tent. Belmont, where were you?”

  Refusing to look curious, Aaron nonetheless paused with his hand on the wooden handle of the office’s front entrance. Belmont might have no qualms with ignoring everything out of Aaron’s mouth, but when it came to their sensitive baby sister, feigning deafness wasn’t an option. “I fell asleep on the beach.” His voice sounded like a creaking boat hull, lifting on the water. “When I woke up, you’d all gone to the hospital.”

  Silence passed. “I don’t remember that,” Peggy said, a wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. “How did you get hom—”

  Belmont moved past them, pushing open the office door and ducking inside. Aaron stared after his brother a moment, weighing the impulse to tackle his hulking ass from behind and maybe divesting him of a tooth this time around, but managed to hold back. Instead, he nudged Peggy with his elbow. “It’s your fault for surpassing your one question per day maximum.”

  This time, his sister’s laughter was forced. “Silly me,” she breathed, moving past him to join Belmont inside.

  Aaron turned his head to find Sage looking like a deer caught in a pair of high beams. “What about you, Ms. Alexander. Are you the outdoorsy type?”

  “I’ve planned some outdoor weddings,” she answered softly, still not giving Aaron her full attention. Pretty unusual, considering she was a woman with a pulse, but he’d had eighteen hundred miles to stop taking it personally. Aaron started to ask if she was planning on standing there motionless all day, but she hit him with a look. “He doesn’t mean it.”

  Aaron braced a hand on the doorjamb. “Who doesn’t mean what?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

  “Belmont. He doesn’t mean to cause everyone frustration. This trip…being away from his boat…he’s trying. Really, he is.” From the way her breath caught, Aaron knew she’d locked eyes with the man in question, over Aaron’s shoulder and through the glass windowpane. But Aaron zeroed in on the curious hint of the South in Sage’s accent instead, which he’s never caught before. Even after all this time in the same vehicle, the wedding planner remained a mystery to him. Maybe to all of them, even Peggy and Belmont. “While we’re alone, I just wanted to say, thank you.” She spoke in a rush now, which probably had something to do with the footsteps that grew louder, pounding toward the exit. “For complimenting my dress yesterday. It was really nice. But if you do it again—or flirt with me to make Belmont angry anymore—I’ll break your nose.”

  Sage delivered the final word of her promise just as the door swung open, Belmont’s shadow appearing on the staircase where Aaron stood with Sage, with what felt like a bemused expression on his face. It’s always the quiet ones.

  “Come inside,” Belmont rumbled. “Please.”

  With a final nod in Aaron’s direction, Sage pushed a handful of light brown hair over her shoulder and sailed past, somehow managing to keep a thin sliver of daylight between herself and Belmont as she moved through the doorway, joining him and Peggy inside the rental office.

  Aaron dropped his head back, imploring the bright blue Iowa sky for patience, consoling himself with the fact that as soon as he got away from his complex family, there would be peace. Order. Serenity now. He would be back in a situation he could decipher and handle, rather than navigating the rocky terrain of Emotion Mountain, also known as the Clarkson clan.

  A prickle at the back of his neck had Aaron pausing once again, one foot inside the door as he looked toward the woods, but he shrugged it off and continued into the office, holding up his credit card in a signal for his party to make way.

  All hail the plan man.

  * * *

  What brought Aaron to the edge of the forest in the middle of the night? Not a damn clue. His excuse for pulling on rumpled dress pants—not his usual look—and crunching through the woods was to look for Old Man, but when the dog had found him first, their pity party, table of two, had kept on going. Now the mutt walked alongside him, throwing him an occasional what the fuck glance.

  “You’re free to go back, you know. I don’t remember issuing an invitation.”

  Sniff. Sniff sniff.

  “What is that? Morse code?”

  Okay, Aaron had some idea what had sent him on Nature Quest. He just had zero notion of what he hoped to achieve by walking to the site of tomorrow morning’s “Breakfast and Politics,” a nationally televised, invite-only event to which he was most definitely not on the guest list. Oh no, he was only on one list, and the wo
rd NAUGHTY was in permanent ink at the top. Presidential hopeful and Iowa Senator Glen Pendleton however, would be in attendance, and Aaron needed to get the man’s ear.

  Before Aaron had flushed his career down the toilet back in California with one bad decision, his boss had confided that Aaron was in the narrowed-down running for an adviser position with Pendleton himself. A big-ass deal when the man already had one foot in the White House. What he’d needed was the youth vote—and that’s where Aaron would have come in, if he hadn’t neatly erased his chances, simply by behaving true to character. So little consequence went into being immoral in his world, he’d never stopped to consider he was doing something wrong. Or irredeemable. And that had been the final confirmation of something he and others had always suspected.

  Aaron didn’t have an ounce of good inside him.

  Regardless of that nifty facet of his personality, he needed face time with Pendleton tomorrow. The question was how.

  As Aaron and Old Man reached the perimeter of the forest, a series of connected buildings came into view. The local high school, which would serve as the sight of Pancakes and Politics come morning, packing the big cafeteria in the center with egos instead of students. Already, news vans were parked outside. Police vehicles. What the hell was his goal here? To get arrested for trespassing? Hey, at the very least it would save him from the awkward morning tango around the coffeepot with Belmont.

  Old Man seemed to be asking the same question with a silent look, so Aaron moved in the opposite direction of the congregated vans and prepared to head back toward the cabin and get some much-needed sleep. The kind that would allow him to bring his A-game in the morning. As if he ever brought anything else.

  Just as he turned, Old Man stopped, ears pricked, nose twitching. A noise behind them. Aaron heard it, too. The long creak of a window sliding open. Better than the sound of a gun being cocked, but definitely not what he expected to hear in the pitch-black woods at midnight. Aaron stepped back behind a tree, giving himself a good view of the school’s closest building. He watched as a leg dropped over the southernmost windowsill, dangling a moment, before a head ducked under the frame. The figure jumped to the leaf-padded ground without a single crunch, arms stretching out at the sides for balance.