Page 1 of No Apologies
Chapter One
Colt Bomar was a bastard. Just ask anyone. They’d tell you that he was no good, worthless or worse. It didn’t matter that he’d pulled himself together and made a decent life for himself. It didn’t matter that he’d worked his ass off to start his own business and make it a success. He’d been born a Bomar and there was no escaping his last name or the reputation that went along with it, not in his small hometown.
Criminals, liars and thieves, his family had earned every bit of the terrible gossip that followed them like a shadow. If it was illegal and happening in a fifty mile radius of Old Settlers, Oklahoma it was a safe bet there was a Bomar boy involved. At least one of them could be found in the nearby prison on any given day of the week and on weekends the local jail swelled in number from his family members alone.
He wished he could say he’d never lived up, or down as the case may be, to that reputation, but he couldn’t. He’d carved his name in the family legend when he was just a kid. He’d fought with his fists, cut with his words and rained holy bloody hell down on the world at large for the injustice he’d had delivered to him simply for being a Bomar.
He’d been the principal’s worst nightmare in school. He’d bullied and fought on the playground. He’d stood on his desk and all but started a riot in the cafeteria. Most kids wouldn’t have risked detention, expulsion and a trip to juvie that nearly got him killed before the age of fifteen but most kids had been born with a chance at something better.
Colt hadn’t.
He’d come into the world fighting and he hadn’t stopped since. He couldn’t. Not when his father was hell bent on killing him and his twin brother simply for existing.
Decker Bomar was the goddamned devil. Dark and dangerous, he was pure evil. He seemed to have been put on earth for the express purpose of wreaking havoc and destruction on the people he should have cared for. It wasn’t enough for him to start a barroom brawl with perfect strangers. No, he preferred to get his kicks hurting his wife and children instead.
On the day Colt and Cash were born, he’d gotten drunk and beaten his wife into a coma. A month premature, the twins had barely survived and to hear the bastard tell it, he wished they hadn’t. He’d been trying to finish what he started ever since and likely wouldn’t stop until one or both of them was six feet under.
All of Colt’s childhood memories were bad ones. Decker drunk and spewing vile, hateful things at them. Gigantic fists pummeling him into unconsciousness. Cash bleeding and crying as he tried to pull Colt out of the way of another attack. Their older brother Remy leaving them behind when they were still too young to defend themselves. Their mother drugged out of her mind, trying to escape the violence the only way she could but leaving her sons to the horrors Decker wreaked all on their own. Chrissy hadn’t protected them, not once, which made her just as bad in his estimation.
He and Cash had never had anyone to protect them, to love and care for them, never had anyone but each other.
So no, he’d never had a chance to be anything but what he was. If he’d been weak, he wouldn’t have survived. If he’d been soft, he wouldn’t have been able to protect his twin. If he’d been fragile, he would have ended up with more than just his bones broken. He’d learned early on that the only way to survive in his family was to be hard and tough, to give as good as you got, and so he had.
He was a bastard Bomar boy and despite all the fighting he did in his life, he’d realized a long time ago that there was no point in fighting that. He was what he was. He was his father’s son. He was the man that Decker had made him. He was a Bomar.
He’d faced the cold hard truths about himself a long time ago. He wasn’t a good man. He was damaged goods. He was violent and he had a mean streak when he felt threatened. He shut people out and he didn’t trust easily, or at all. He was stubborn and proud and he made no apologies for any of it.
He’d accepted the worst parts of his character a long time ago and he’d never cared even a little what anyone else thought of him.
Until her.
She’d worked her way into his life, little by little, until he couldn’t imagine it without her. She’d gotten under his skin like a damn thorn that he couldn’t bring himself to dig out. Her presence in his life came with a full blown ache, an annoying pain in his chest that made him edgy and uncomfortable.
He knew how to stop it. Slice himself open and pull the thorn out once and for all. Cut her out of his life the same way he’d cut out anyone that had the power to hurt him. It’s what he should have done the moment he’d realized just how deep she’d gotten but he hadn’t and now he was fairly certain it was too late.
He was fuckingcrazyabout the girl.
She was all he thought about. Even when he knew better. Even when he knew he shouldn’t. Even when he knew it was pointless, that he couldn’t cross that line. Even now, when he should have been focusing on what his cousin was telling him, Lincoln only had half of his attention because a blonde had walked past the window outside and Colt’s eyes had drifted and disappointment set in when he realized it wasn’t her.
“Colt?”
He jerked his eyes back to his cousin and didn’t miss the unamused expression on the face that bore a striking resemblance to his own, “What? Yeah, uh… huh?”
Lincoln scowled, “You weren’t paying a damn bit of attention to what I was saying.”
“I got distracted.”
“Uh huh…” Lincoln turned to the window, clearly sensing where his eyes had gone, “Who’d you see?”
“Nobody.”
His cousin’s expression darkened, “You got something more important than me you need to deal with?”
“No, I’m listening.” He shook his head to clear his thoughts.
He might not like to admit it but Lincoln was right in this. He deserved Colt’s attention. If what he had to say wasn’t important, he wouldn’t be here, saying it. That was the kind of man Lincoln was. Direct, no-nonsense and though they disagreed on a lot, that was one thing they’d always had in common.
“You sure?” Lincoln tilted up a skeptical eyebrow.
