Fearless Enough (Love in Montana Book 1) Read online

  Other Books by Kelly Elliott

  COMING SOON

  Love in Montana (Meet Me in Montana Spin Off)

  Fearless Enough

  Cherished Enough

  Brave Enough – August 29, 2023

  Daring Enough - November 21, 2023

  Loved Enough - February 6, 2024

  Forever Enough - April 30, 2024

  Enchanted Enough - July 23, 2024

  Perfect Enough - October 15, 2024

  Devoted Enough - January 7, 2025

  Holidaze in Salem

  A Bit of Hocus Pocus

  A Bit of Holly Jolly

  A Bit of Wee Luck - March 2023

  A Bit of Razzle Dazzle – June 2023

  The Seaside Chronicles

  Returning Home

  Part of Me

  Lost to You

  Someone to Love

  *Series available on audiobook

  Stand Alones

  The Journey Home*

  Who We Were*

  The Playbook*

  Made for You*

  *Available on audiobook

  Boggy Creek Valley Series

  The Butterfly Effect*

  Playing with Words*

  She’s the One*

  Surrender to Me*

  Hearts in Motion*

  Looking for You*

  Surprise Novella TBD

  *Available on audiobook

  Meet Me in Montana Series

  Never Enough*

  Always Enough*

  Good Enough*

  Strong Enough*

  *Available on audiobook

  Southern Bride Series

  Love at First Sight*

  Delicate Promises*

  Divided Interests*

  Lucky in Love*

  Feels Like Home *

  Take Me Away*

  Fool for You*

  Fated Hearts*

  *Available on audiobook

  Cowboys and Angels Series

  Lost Love

  Love Profound

  Tempting Love

  Love Again

  Blind Love

  This Love

  Reckless Love

  *Series available on audiobook

  Boston Love Series

  Searching for Harmony

  Fighting for Love

  *Series available on audiobook

  Austin Singles Series

  Seduce Me

  Entice Me

  Adore Me

  *Series available on audiobook

  Wanted Series

  Wanted*

  Saved*

  Faithful*

  Believe

  Cherished*

  A Forever Love*

  The Wanted Short Stories

  All They Wanted

  *Available on audiobook

  Love Wanted in Texas Series

  Spin-off series to the WANTED Series

  Without You

  Saving You

  Holding You

  Finding You

  Chasing You

  Loving You

  Entire series available on audiobook

  *Please note Loving You combines the last book of the Broken and Love Wanted in Texas series.

  Broken Series

  Broken*

  Broken Dreams*

  Broken Promises*

  Broken Love

  *Available on audiobook

  The Journey of Love Series

  Unconditional Love

  Undeniable Love

  Unforgettable Love

  *Entire series available on audiobook

  With Me Series

  Stay With Me

  Only With Me

  *Series available on audiobook

  Speed Series

  Ignite

  Adrenaline

  *Series available on audiobook

  COLLABORATIONS

  Predestined Hearts (co-written with Kristin Mayer)*

  Play Me (co-written with Kristin Mayer)*

  Dangerous Temptations (co-written with Kristin Mayer*

  *Available on audiobook

  Fearless Enough

  Book 1 Love in Montana Copyright © 2023 by Kelly Elliott

  Cover Design by: Hang Le

  Interior Design & Formatting by: Elaine York, Allusion Publishing

  Developmental Editor: Kelli Collins

  Content Editor: Rachel Carter, Yellow Bird Editing

  Proofing Editor: Erin Quinn-Kong, Yellow Bird Editing

  Proofing Editor: Elaine York, Allusion Publishing

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information on Kelly and her books, please visit her website www.kellyelliottauthor. com.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CONNECT WITH KELLY ONLINE

  Prologue

  BLAYZE BROCK SHAW

  Senior Year, College – Bozeman, Montana

  We clinked our glasses together before I took a drink of the beer my best friend, Ryan, had just brought to the table.

  “Dude, I don’t know how you do it,” Ryan stated after he tasted his beer and stared at it with a frown.

  “You don’t know how I do what? And why in the hell are you frowning at your beer?”

  He shook his head and looked at me. “This tastes like shit. I can probably make better beer than this.”

  I shrugged. “Then make it.”

  A wide grin moved over his face. “I might just do that once we graduate.”

  “Because you’re going to have so much spare time to brew beer.” I laughed.

  He ignored me. “To answer the other part of your question: I don’t know how women just gravitate toward you. Don’t say it’s your good looks. We already know that brings them over to you, but what makes them actually leave with you?”

  I let another laugh slip free. It was true. With my dark brown, almost-black hair and blue eyes, I had definitely inherited my father’s good looks. It also helped that I had a fit body—and not one that came from working out in a gym, but from working my ass off on my family’s cattle ranch and helping my uncles break in horses and train bulls for the Professional Bull Riders circuit. Plus, I had been following in my father’s footsteps as a bull rider, until it became clear to me that my true love was our family ranch in Hamilton, Montana.

  “It’s called flirting,” a voice said from behind us. Ryan rolled his eyes when he looked past me to see Mindy Reynolds standing there. She walked around and slid onto the barstool next to me.

  “Come on, Mindy. Don’t sit there,” he said.

  Mindy raised one perfectly arched brow as she glared at Ryan. “And why not?”

  He replied, “Because if you sit there, then no women will come over to talk to us.”

  She let out a fake laugh. “Trust me,” she said as she hit the tip of Ryan’s cowboy hat, “they won’t pay any attention to little ol’ me sitting here with the two of you. You both ooze handsome cowboy.”

  “That’s not true, Mindy.” I took a sip of my beer and set it back down. “You’re a very attractive woman, and either of us would be lucky to be with you.”

  Ryan gagged while Mindy dropped her head back and let out a true laugh. She looked at me and pointed.

  “That is why you have no problem getting woman, Blayze Shaw. Since the first day I met you in kindergarten, you’ve known how to flirt and make a woman feel wanted. Not the stupid, low, degrading flirting like some do.” Mindy shot a look in Ryan’s direction. He snarled his lip and gave her the middle finger. “But genuine, make-a-woman-feel-special flirting. My guess would be you’ve never had a woman tell you no before.”

  An image of a beautiful young girl with golden brown hair and eyes the color of a spring meadow flashed through my mind.

  Georgiana. The one girl I had let myself fall for, and the only woman who’d broken my heart and had made me vow to never give it to anyone again. Okay, I was sixteen, almost seventeen, when I made that vow, but I’d yet to meet a woman who made me want to break it.

  Chuckling, I answered Mindy before I got lost in thoughts of Georgie. “Oh, I’ve had plenty of women tell me no.”

  “But only after you nearly charmed the panties off of them, am I correct?” Mindy winked. br />
  Lifting my beer up to my mouth, I smiled.

  At that very moment, two women walked up to the table. A blonde and a redhead. The redhead looked at me and smiled. “I’m sorry to bug you, but I think you’re in one of my classes.”

  Mindy made some sort of snort-laugh sound next to me. I ignored her and smiled at the redhead. Her eyes locked on the dimple on the right side of my cheek. What was it about a dimple that got a woman turned on?

  With a wink in her direction, I replied, “I’m pretty sure I’d remember a stunning woman such as yourself in one of my classes.”

  Her cheeks flushed and she glanced at her friend, who was staring at Ryan. He wasn’t bad on the eyes either. Light brown hair with eyes nearly the same color. He was built like me, though a bit taller and with a smile that had melted his own fair share of panties, from what I’d been told. Including Mindy’s, our junior year of high school. That was something they both vowed to never talk about again.

  The redhead cleared her throat. “You’re not in Professor McNullen’s finance class, are you?”

  Smiling, I shook my head. “Sadly, I am not. I’m an agricultural business major, though, so maybe we’ve passed each other once or twice.”

  She nodded. “Maybe. I was hoping you were; I missed class and need the notes for the quiz, but I’ll send a message to our group chat. I’m not doing very well in that class, and if I don’t pass my mother will kill me.”

  I turned on the barstool to face both women. “I got an A in Professor McNullen’s class last year. If you need any tutoring, I’d be more than happy to help you,” I said with another brilliant smile.

  The redhead’s eyes lit up. “Oh my gosh, really? That would be so amazing.”

  I pulled out my cell phone and handed it to her. “Put your number in, and we’ll work out a time.”

  She quickly added her name and number and handed me back my phone.

  “Shelby?”

  Nodding, she replied, “That’s me!”

  I sent her a text. “Blayze Shaw. I look forward to helping you out.”

  Shelby’s tongue swept quickly across her lips as she let out a nervous giggle. “Sounds good, Blayze. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  With a nod, I replied, “Talk soon.” Little did Shelby know, tutoring was all she was going to get out of me. Oh, I wasn’t an innocent, but I didn’t make it a habit to sleep around with women. Something my father and uncles had pounded in my head, along with my brother, Hunter, and my cousin, Bradly. Josh and Nathan, my cousins, were still too young to understand.

  After Shelby and her friend had turned and walked away, I looked back at Ryan and Mindy.

  Laughing, Mindy lifted her beer to me. I clinked it as she said, “And I just proved my point. You could charm the panties off a damn nun.”

  Ryan shook his head. “The sad part is that you’ll probably only teach her about finance.”

  I laughed because Ryan knew me so well.

  I glanced to my left and asked Mindy, “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  She narrowed one eye and tilted her head. “Are you still hung up on her?”

  I laughed again. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, Blayze. I’ve known you far too long. You may be able to charm any woman into going back to your place, but I know you don’t sleep with all of them.”

  “And your point is?”

  “My point is, are you still stuck on the one who got away?”

  Her question caused Ryan’s head to pop up. “You think because he doesn’t fuck around he’s stuck on some girl?”

  Mindy gave him a one-shoulder shrug. “Georgiana wasn’t just some girl. And since that summer, she hasn’t ever come back to Hamilton.”

  My heart dropped to my stomach. How in the hell could Mindy read my mind like that?

  “Georgiana?” Ryan and I both said at the same time.

  With a look that said she wasn’t buying my bullshit, Mindy sighed. “Blayze, I’m like a sister to you. I was there, remember?”

  I looked down at my beer. Georgiana Crenshaw had been coming to our ranch for as long as I could remember. Every summer. June to early August. She was part of our group. It was always me, Ryan, Mindy, and Georgie. But the older we got, the more I started to see her as something more than my friend. The summer she turned sixteen, she had changed in both her looks and worldliness, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Dreaming about her. She was the only girl I had ever told that I liked her. Just before she left to head back to Texas, I kissed her behind my father’s barn. The kiss turned into something more with me lifting her leg and touching her, and it was then that I asked Georgie if I could make her mine.

  I closed my eyes, remembering her big green eyes as she’d stared at me in shock. They’d softened and she’d said yes, and that was the moment I’d given her my whole heart.

  I snapped out of the memory and forced myself to chuckle. “I was lucky enough to give Georgie her first proper kiss,” I stated with a smirk.

  Mindy shook her head. “I think a little more than that happened.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, that’s putting it lightly.”

  “I liked Georgie. She was funny,” Ryan said as he stared at the beer he was holding up to the light.

  Mindy smiled and bumped her shoulder against mine. “Don’t worry, Blayze. We all remember our first kiss. Some more fondly than others.”

  Ryan met her glare across the table. “It wasn’t pleasant for me either, Mindy.”

  Mindy and Ryan had somehow ended up hooking up after a pasture party one night. Both of them pretended to regret it, but I knew from talking to them separately that they were glad their first time had been with someone they cared about and trusted. There had been zero feelings beyond friendship.

  I hadn’t been so lucky. I’d wanted Georgie to be my first, but she’d told me that she had almost made the biggest mistake of her life with me. That I wasn’t the type of guy she wanted to give her virginity to. Those words had nearly brought me to my knees. Instead, I’d gone straight to a party where I’d drank too much and ended up sleeping with another girl named Lindsay. Biggest mistake of my life.

  Clearing my throat, I raised my beer. “To best friends and being there for each other.”

  Ryan and Mindy both grinned as they lifted their drinks and repeated, “To best friends.”

  Chapter One

  BLAYZE

  Four years later; Present day – Shaw Ranch, Hamilton, Montana

  Ryan set two glasses down on the kitchen island and grinned. “Okay, taste it. I made a special brew to celebrate you turning another year older.”

  I held my glass up and looked at the deep amber-colored beer. After years of listening to him bitch about how bad every beer was, I had finally talked him into brewing his own.

  “My birthday was last month.”

  With a smirk, he replied, “Taste it will you?”

  I put the glass to my lips and drank.

  My sister Morgan, who had recently turned twenty-one, took the other glass and drank it.

  The cold brew hit the back of my throat and glided down smoothly. I could taste a hint of citrus, and I liked it. A lot.

  I looked over at Ryan and grinned. “Damn, that’s good, Ryan.”

  “I’ve had better,” Morgan said as she pushed the glass away and folded her arms over her chest. It wasn’t lost on me how Ryan let his eyes lower to her breasts before he snapped them back up to look at her. The fact that he was six years older than her and my best friend should have made me want to grab him and punch his lights out for looking at her the way he was, but I felt the opposite. Since Morgan’s senior year of high school, I had noticed Ryan looking at her differently. And when Morgan didn’t think anyone was paying attention, she would watch Ryan with similar eyes. I wouldn’t be the least bit upset if they became a couple. I’d rather my baby sister be with my best friend over some douchebag she met at college. If only she could look past the fact that she couldn’t stand him for reasons that were still unknown to me. And to Ryan.

  “You’ve had better?” he asked. “You just turned twenty-one, Morgan. How have you had better?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and leaned forward. “Just because I can now drink legally doesn’t mean I haven’t ever had alcohol before. I’ve done my fair share of drinking.”

  “Let’s also not forget how you and Hunter have been sneaking beer out to the barn for how many years now?” I asked as I took another drink.