Wilde Riders
Old Town
Country Romance
Book One
Savannah
Young
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Short on Time Books
Date of
Publication: February 11, 2014
ISBN:
1495442977
ASIN:
B00IDWDWJ8
Number of
pages: 186 pages
Word
Count: 49,000
Cover
Artist: Tony Bryson
Book
Description:
FOUR WILDE
BROTHERS...ONE WILDE COUNTRY BAND
WILDE RIDERS
is the first novel in a spicy new contemporary romance series about four sexy
brothers, their small-town bar and their local country band. WILDE RIDERS can
be read as a STAND ALONE NOVEL or as part of the SERIES.
Cooper Wilde
spent his entire adolescence counting the days until he could escape rural northwest
New Jersey. Now at 26, he can't believe he's coming back. But his late father's
bar, Haymakers, is in financial trouble and his older brother, Jake, has asked
for Cooper's help.
Riley Smith,
25, is fresh out of her Ivy League MBA program and wants to make an impression
on her employer, H & C Bank. Her first solo assignment is a fraud
investigation on a business loan they made to Haymakers.
Even though
Old Town is less than 90 minutes from New York City, Riley feels like she's
stepped into another world in this remote, one-bar town. Riley can't wait to do
her business and get back to the city as quickly as her sports car will take
her...until she meets Cooper Wilde. He's not like the other guys in this rural
town and Riley feels inexplicably attracted to him.
----------
ONE
Cooper
The wind kicks up as I round the
corner and enter the town square. Old Town came by its name honestly. The town
never seems to change. The main street looks the same as it did when I was a
kid, and probably not much different than when my parents were young, or even
their parents. A few of the stores and restaurants have changed hands over the
years but for the most part, the town looks like it’s been frozen in time.
Why does it always seem so much windier in Old
Town than anywhere else in New Jersey? It even feels windier here than lower
Manhattan, which is a feat. The way the wind often howls around the financial
district, you’d think it was haunted.
I can’t believe I’m back in Old Town.
When I got a job on Wall Street, I swore I’d never come back. The last time I
set foot in Old Town was about six months ago, for my father’s funeral. Six
months before that, it was for my mother’s.
I told my brother, Jake, I’d only stay
for two weeks tops. That’s every bit of vacation time I’ve earned to date. Then
I’m going to back to Manhattan and back to my life in the city. The last thing
I want is to be a hick from the sticks
again. I’ve worked too hard to rid myself of that stigma. I’m never going to be
that guy again.
I’m an Ivy League graduate. I work on
Wall Street. I have an apartment in lower Manhattan. I drive a BMW 6-Series
convertible. And I’m well on my way to making my first million before I turn
thirty, which is four years from now.
I’m not a country kid anymore.
And no matter what my brothers say,
there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to be a Wilde Rider again. When I left
home, I packed up my guitar and sealed away any musical aspirations I may have
had right along with it. Being in a small town country band is fun when you’re
a teenager but it doesn’t pay the bills and it certainly doesn’t pay for a
Manhattan lifestyle.
Not unless you’re really good, and
really lucky…and the Wilde Riders were neither.
I park my convertible on the street
outside of Haymakers. It’s only eleven. The bar doesn’t open until noon. The
only vehicle in the bar’s dirt lot is my brother Jake’s old Dodge Ram Pick Up.
He’s been driving the thing since I left for college. I bet the vehicle has
well over a hundred thousand miles on it. The way it looks, like it’s on its
last legs, you’d think it had double that amount.
Even though it’s late August, there’s
a bit of a chill in the air. The wind feels wet, like it’s going to rain. I put
the top up on my convertible just in case. It’s the first car I’ve ever owned
that wasn’t a junker and I’m proud as hell of it.
My stomach tightens as I approach the
front door of the bar. The last time I was here was the night after we laid my
father to rest. His final wish was for all the regulars to have a drink on the
house in his honor. I made a promise to myself that was the last time I was
ever going to set foot in the place.
Yet here I am getting ready to walk
back inside again. I made it clear to Jake that coming here to help him doesn’t
mean I’m walking back into my old life. That’s a life that I’ve worked
desperately to leave behind. But when Jake phoned, he sounded scared, which
isn’t like him at all. He’s Mr. Carefree. Troubles slide off his back like
syrup glides off pancakes.
I’m here because Jake asked for my
help. He said he might lose the bar, everything our dad ever worked for, if I
didn’t give him a hand.
Being the oldest, Jake followed in our
dad’s footsteps. He was the gregarious one of the Wilde boys, so it only made
sense that he’d take over and run the town’s one and only bar. Jake has always
been Mr. Personality. He’s great with people. But from the little he told me on
the phone, he’s apparently not as great with money.
That’s where I come in. I guess having
a degree in finance from Columbia and a job on Wall Street means that I’m like
emergency services in a financial shit storm. I just hope it’s not too late to
fix whatever mess Jake has found himself in.
I inhale and let out a deep breath
before I push open the large wooden doors.
The first thing I see when I enter the
bar are pink cowboy boots. They’re apparently attached to a female who is also
wearing extremely tight black jeans. The rest of her body is hidden under a
table. It looks like she’s trying to retrieve something.
I clear my throat so she realizes
she’s not alone.
I hear a loud thump, followed by, “Oh,
shit!”
As she extricates herself from below
the table, the young woman rubs the side of her head.
It takes me a moment to realize that
it’s Harley Davis. She looks a lot different than the little blond girl she was
when I left home.
She stops dead in her tracks when she
realizes it’s me. She gulps. “Coop?”
Harley has definitely grown up. She’s
still thin but she’s not a tomboy anymore. She has curves in all the right
places and full rack, which I’m having trouble keeping my eyes off of.
“What are you doing here?” she asks,
her blue eyes are filled with concern. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “What are you doing
here?”
She laughs. “I work here now. Jake
gave me a job.”
“Aren’t you still in high school?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “I graduated
two years ago.”
How is it possible that little Harley
Davis, the girl who has had a self-proclaimed crush on me since she was twelve,
is now an adult?
“Cooper,” I hear my brother call from
the other end of the bar.
As I head over to him, I take a good
look at the place. Some things are exactly the same as when dad ran the place.
The old wooden bar that my dad liked to brag he built with his father hasn’t
changed. And neither have the matching wooden bar stools. Even some of the
liquor bottles behind the bar are dusty and don’t look like they’ve been
touched in years.
About the
Author:
Romance
novelist Savannah Young grew up in rural northwest New Jersey in a place very
similar to the fictional Old Town, which is featured in her books. When she's
not at her computer creating spicy stories, Savannah is traveling to exotic
locales or spending time with her husband and their bloodhounds.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShortonTimeBook
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1 comment:
Thank you for dropping by Savannah!
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