No Fear (Bomar Boys Book 3) Read online

  No Fear

  Bomar Boys

  By

  Jess Bryant

  Every small town has that one family that’s more savage than civilized. The ones that are more myth and legend than man. In Old Settlers, Oklahoma that’s the Bomar boys. Wild, reckless and vicious, they skirt the line of criminal and trip over it more often than not. They are their own punchline: white trash but proud beyond compare. Dirty and dangerously sexy, it’s best to steer clear of them or else risk your life… and your heart. These are their stories.

  Rachel Grant lives every day in fear. Scared that she’ll always be the kind of girl that nobody notices. Scared that her brother will figure out quiet doesn’t mean deaf or stupid. Scared he’ll put together that she knows far more than she should. And what she knows has her fearing for her life because in a small town like Old Settlers everybody knows that you don’t cross the Bomar boys.

  She needs help. Somebody she can trust. Somebody strong. Somebody that can protect her… and she knows just the guy.

  Remy Bomar ran away from what being a Bomar meant when he was eighteen. Ten years later, he’s finally come home and he’ll do anything to take back his place within the family. He didn’t protect the people he loved when he was young and he won’t make the same mistake again.

  When the cute, shy, girl next door looks up at him with fear in her eyes, what he feels is far from simply protective. He wants her safe but he also wants her to be his. Being a Bomar, those two things have a tendency to be mutually exclusive, particularly since his family has a traitor hell bent on hitting them where it hurts.

  What happens when the truth comes out? When Remy finds out she knows far more about the threat to his family than she’s been letting on? When Rachel has to choose between her family, or his? Will they find the strength they need to overcome their fears once and for all?

  *No Fear is the third book in the Bomar Boys series but can be read as a stand-alone. Each book features one couple and a HEA but will build on each other so they are best read in order.

  **Warning** - This book contains explicit language, sexual scenes and violence. Though not depicted, mentions of abuse are key to the story and can be a trigger for some.

  NO FEAR – BOMAR BOYS 3

  Copyright ©2017 by Jess Bryant.

  Cover Art: Image Design by Romanced By The Cover

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  Remington Bomar was not a good man. Good men didn’t run away when the going got tough. They didn’t abandon the people that meant the most to them, people that relied on them for protection and safety. They didn’t drink themselves into oblivion so they wouldn’t have to face their mistakes. Good men weren’t selfish, violent forces of nature so no, Remy wasn’t a good man… but he wanted to be.

  All his life, he’d told himself that being born a Bomar meant that he’d never had a chance. Good men didn’t exist in his family. It wasn’t his fault. But then he’d come back, come home after ten long years away, and he’d seen the truth.

  It wasn’t about his DNA. It wasn’t about his last name. It was about him and the choices he had made. The choices he would have to make to change. He wanted to be better than what his blood said he was and he knew that would be an ongoing daily battle, particularly since he’d decided to stay here.

  In Old Settlers, Oklahoma being a Bomar came with a long list of expectations and all of them were bad. It was well-known and widely understood that the Bomars ruled the darker underside of their small hometown. Between the boozing, brawling and whoring they’d built up a legend as dangerous, out of control bastards that was more truth than myth. The vast majority of them was either a criminal a liar or a thief and for the most part they all checked more than one of those boxes on their best day.

  They were simply born bad.

  Some people said they were hellions, others called them devils and either way they weren’t wrong. There was something inside of them, inside all of them, that made them violent and mean. It made them lash out when other people, normal people, would have simply walked away. It made them choose the hard way every single time the high road was presented.

  Remy couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that craved violence. Even his younger brothers, who were the most well-liked and law-abiding of the bunch, were prone to fits of rage and anger that left a path of destruction in their wake. But the twins had overcome their demons and he had to believe that meant there was hope for him too.

  His little brothers had made better choices because they were better men than their father and uncles and cousins. They’d distanced themselves from the family while Remy had been gone and he was more proud of them for that than he could say. They’d decided to live their lives within the confines of the law instead of outside it and they were clean. They were good men and they’d built good lives for themselves.

  But the line Cash and Colt had drawn in the sand divided them from the rest of the family. It set them apart and though they would always have the Bomars to protect them from the rest of the world, they’d been too young, too naïve, to know that drawing that line also meant they’d need protection from the family.

  Remy felt his fists clench at his sides at the thought. They’d taken advantage of his brothers. All of them. And maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him knowing what he knew about his family but it had. Because it had been Lincoln that masterminded the entire thing. Lincoln, his eldest cousin, his oldest friend, and the one person Remy had trusted with the truth, with his real reason for leaving when he’d been a scared, eighteen year old kid.

  Even when they’d been young, Lincoln had been the self-appointed leader of their group so when Remy had left town, he’d trusted his cousin to do right by his brothers. He’d asked Lincoln to look out for them, take care of them when he couldn’t. Instead, the bastard had conned Colt into working for him. Lincoln had given Colt dirty money in exchange for brawling in an illegal underground fight club as the family’s champion. He’d let Colt lie to Cash about it for years and he’d almost gotten him killed.

  Not even a month ago, Colt had been attacked for no other reason than the fact that he was a Bomar. He’d won a fight for Lincoln and someone else had lost money on it. They’d lashed out first by hitting the businesses and then, when that hadn’t gotten their message across, they’d assaulted Colt and left him fighting for his life.

  That was when Remy had found out what was going on and he’d damn near lost his mind he’d been so furious. Lincoln was everything about the Bomar family that he despised. Selfish, manipulative, violent. He was not a good man either but the fact that Lincoln had agreed to let Colt out of his deal and have Remy take his place in the cage, was the only thing that had saved him a beating of his own.

  Remy gripped the counter in his kitchen and tried desperately to get a grip on his anger. Just thinking about Lincoln could put him into a full on rage these days and it was a good thing his cousin was nowhere nearby or he might have strangled him. Instead of focusing on just how good it would feel to wrap his hands around Lincoln’s throat and squeeze, Remy focused on his family.

  They were here. All of them. At least all the ones that mattered. His brothers and their women. Women he’d begun to think of as his sisters. Women that were showing his brothers, and him, what it meant to truly be a family. That’s what the four of them, soon to be five of them, were, his family and he intended to protect each and every one of them.

  His younger brothers
had both arrived for this impromptu family meeting with their significant others in tow. Neither of them ever went anywhere alone which wasn’t that strange really. They’d never done anything alone, ever. Cash and Colt had always been a team, from the very start, but now they weren’t two halves. They were whole, each of them, and the reasons for that were obvious.

  Remy watched as Cash whispered something in his fiancé’s ear that made her blush the same color as her hair. His little brother easily lifted the feisty redhead out of her seat, dropping into it and then depositing her onto his lap. One of his hands instantly went to the swell of her belly, stroking it protectively as they whispered to each other.

  Remy tore his gaze off the happy couple when they started kissing but that meant seeing Colt wearing the same soft look his twin was sporting as he spoke to his new girlfriend. The willowy blonde shot Remy a small smile but his brother caught her chin, turning her gaze back to him and said something that made her giggle. A moment later Colt too was kissing his woman and Remy was again forced to look elsewhere.

  Because watching Cash and Jemma, watching Colt and Skylar, it made something dark and ugly twist at his guts.

  Jealousy.

  He didn’t want Jemma or Skylar. God no! He didn’t want them but he wanted what his brothers had found with them.

  Peace. Acceptance. Love.

  He hadn’t needed to spend much time with the couples to realize that the women in his brothers’ lives had done a lot towards making them into better men and he wanted that for himself. Someone that could give him the same serenity that Cash had found with Jemma. The same understanding that Colt had recently found with Skylar. And, as had become common in the past few weeks, thinking about his brothers and their significant others meant thinking about her.

  An image of a woman, a girl really, rose up to taught him just that fast and easily. Dark hair, big blue gray eyes, pale skin and rosy red lips that reminded him of strange things like princesses and knights in shining armor. Only she wasn’t a princess and he was about as far from being a knight as a man could get.

  But damn if he didn’t think they might be able to save each other.

  Remy smiled softly to himself as he thought about her, about her sweet smile and the way her eyes lit up when she looked at him. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking of her right now. Not here and not now, but just thinking about her managed to soothe the worst of his anger. And telling himself not to think about her was useless, pointless, because she was all he thought about, all the time, from the moment he met her.

  Something had happened to him that day. He couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t put it into words. But the moment he’d seen her, the second their eyes connected, an electric current shot through him and as swift as a bolt of lightning he’d felt something in his chest split open, realign, as if his heart knew to make room for her.

  He’d been around the world. He’d seen the dark, dirty sides of life and the equally dark and dirty parts of people. He’d seen the evil that people tried to hide. He’d experienced it firsthand. He knew enough about bad to know a good thing when he saw it and she was a good thing.

  Good. Sweet. Kind. Innocent. Too innocent for a man like him that was for sure. Too damn young too. But none of the reasons he should stay away from her mattered because he couldn’t. He’d tried. Not hard but he had tried, at first. He couldn’t any more stay away from her than he could stop blinking.

  He wanted her like he’d never wanted anything. Needed her like he needed air to breathe and live and maybe that was the thing that struck him hardest. She reminded him that he hadn’t been living, not for ten years, maybe longer.

  “What are you smiling at over here all by yourself?”

  Remy glanced up at the sound of a sweet, knowing voice and realized Skylar had snuck up on him while he wasn’t paying attention. She was good at that. She always seemed to be hanging out on the edges of his life, looking for a moment to barge her way in. The pretty blonde had decided they were going to be friends sometime during the mess with Colt. So far, no amount of scowling had convinced her otherwise and honestly, he liked that about her. He figured that was how Colt had ended up wrapped around Skylar’s little finger in the first place. The woman was damn hard to deny when she wanted something.

  He had to forcefully tell his lips not to curl when he looked at her, “You.”

  She scoffed, “Not a chance. I mean I’m cute and sweet to boot but I think I might be a little old for your tastes.”

  Her playful teasing earned her a chuckle and her grin was contagious. He’d never had a sister but he thought sometimes that Skylar would have been his first choice for the role. She was cute and sweet, just like she said, but she had hard edges that kept her from getting run over too. She was bold as she pleased and hard-headed as a mule. She was going to make a damn fine Bomar someday and that thought widened his smile.

  Skylar and Jemma were the future of the Bomars and for the first time, possibly ever, the future looked bright from where Remy was standing.

  Instead of taking the bait and having a discussion that would no doubt lead to his intentions towards Skylar’s young friend, he deflected with a grin, “Sweet my ass. You’re straight up gangster to hear the family tell it.”

  “I’m never gonna live down slapping Lincoln am I?”

  “Nope.”

  She grinned like the cat that ate the canary, “Good. Gives me street cred.”

  His smile faltered at the mention of his cousin and some of his good mood waned. For just a second there, he’d forgotten the reason Skylar was standing in his shitty trailer. He’d forgotten why his brothers were huddled together talking amongst themselves while Jemma nodded and stroked Cash’s back reassuringly. The tension radiating off the three of them seemed to swell in a wave and crashed back over Remy where he was standing in the kitchen.

  Right. Lincoln. Bomar family meetings. The same old bullshit that always dragged them down. It was time to get to the point, the reason he’d called his brothers and asked to see them despite the fact that he’d been doing his damndest to keep the darkness of their family’s business away from them for the past few weeks.

  He’d gotten them out. He intended to keep them out. And that meant convincing them that they shouldn’t be present for his first fight in the cage tonight.

  “Okay, hey guys, let’s do this.” Remy cleared his throat and ignored the way Skylar’s lips pursed unhappily before she moved back towards her boyfriend, “I think you all know why I asked to talk to you so let’s get it over with. We’ll deal with the Bomar family bullshit and then you four can get back to your lives.”

  A hush fell over the place and Remy shot each of his brothers a glance in time to see their jaws tighten apprehensively. He reminded himself that no matter how much they disliked what he was about to say that he was doing it for them. Part of trying to be a better man was taking care of his brothers this time around. He’d left them behind to deal with their abusive parents when they were just kids. He wouldn’t leave them alone to deal with their destructive family this time.

  It didn’t take back what he’d done, couldn’t wipe out the years of their lives that he’d missed, but it was a start.

  “What’s the latest?” Colt spoke up expectantly. “Did Lincoln get the fucker that attacked me?”

  “Not yet.” He sighed and when Colt cursed he held up his hand, “But he says he’s narrowed it down to a handful of guys and we should know more after the fight tonight.”

  “We’re coming.” Cash spoke up then and Remy automatically shook his head.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Colt argued.

  “No.” He reiterated more sternly, having expected the immediate argument, “You two should stay home tonight.”

  He’d gone over this in his head a hundred thousand times and always came to the same conclusion. There was no way the twins could be present at the fight tonight. It was the first time Remy would be stepping into the cage to fight for the fam
ily and he didn’t want his brothers there to witness it. Maybe it was selfish that he needed them somewhere safe but far away from him tonight but it was what it was. He couldn’t have them there. Worrying about them, about the girls, would only distract him.

  “Bullshit.” Colt scoffed. “We’re coming.”

  “No you’re not.”

  Colt glared at him, “This is personal for me.”

  “It’s personal for all of us. You don’t think I want him caught just as much as you do?” He asked seriously. “Some bastard attacked my little brother and left him for dead. I take that personally. I take it real fuckin’ personally that the bastard is probably a member of Link’s crew. You don’t think he takes it personally one of his own guys turned traitor and hurt one of us? Link might be an arrogant prick but he cares about the family and he’s not gonna let this go without getting blood in return. None of us are.”

  They all knew that Lincoln believed the man responsible for attacking Colt was one of their own. Not a family member, of course not, but someone they’d let into the crews that boosted cars and did other dirty work for Lincoln and the boys. Remy didn’t know how anyone could be dumb enough to know Lincoln that well and turn traitor on him but it didn’t really matter who it was to him. He just wanted the guy found and he wanted him handled.

  “He attacked me.” Colt continued to argue, “He could have attacked Skylar.”

  “Or Jemma.” Cash stroked the soft swell of his fiancé’s pregnant belly and frowned.

  “We won’t give him that chance.”

  “We want to help.” Colt raised his voice.

  “That’s exactly why you can’t go tonight.” Remy glanced between the two women, using his ace in the hole, knowing his brothers would insist on protecting them above all else.

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “The entire family is going to be at the barn tonight.” He explained when the twins exchanged a glance, “All Link’s guys, all Abel’s guys, everyone is going to be at the barn for the fight. They’re gonna be scouring the crowd, listening and watching. If the guy is there and he’s working against us, we’ll find him. But if he isn’t…” Remy shook his head, “Then he could target us where he thinks Bomars are weak tonight. The businesses. The shops or the garage or…”