Read The Rider's Dangerous Embrace (An Interracial Bad Boy Romance Story) for Free Online Page A

It had been that kind of morning, no coffee, no breakfast, just an up and out kind of morning.
    Especially after the night she had, she was left reeling.
    “Yes, please.” Jayda picked up the phone and waited. Talking to her mother was not the most pleasant of experiences, but it needed to be done, or else her mother was going to think she was avoiding her.
    And the last thing she wanted to do was set her off.
    “Darling, is that you?” Her mother’s voice wavered. She was probably on the second drink of the morning.
    “Mom, how are you doing?” Jayda knew the answer to that question before she even asked it. It was silly game they played. Her mother tried to act as though she was fine, but the sobs always started before she got off the phone. Why . She would say. Not a question, but a wail. Why .
    “I’m doing okay. How is the business going? I hear you are taking it by storm.” Pride was thick in her mother’s voice. To be honest, she was a little jealous that Jayda got the business while she got very little. A small month endowment from her father was all that he had for her in his will. Enough to supplement her living, and more than more ex-husband's give, but they were also lovers. Her mother had been angry at him ever since he died.
    A smile started to form at the edge of her lips. “Thomas been talking to you again?”
    “How did you know? That is the only person who can bring me any comfort these days. Wish you would phone as often as he does.” Guilt dripped off her words.
    She knew that was going to come. Her father had been the brunt of her mother’s unreasonable expectations for so long that she expected nothing less than to be the one who got all that blame after he was gone.
    “Mother…” She started, but was quickly interrupted.
    “It is fine. I am used to being treated like this, Lord knows. When your father was alive we were left alone for so long, I almost forgot what he looked like. At the end of the season, he would come riding up, a big smile on his face as he got out of his truck, babbling about how he ‘won the west,’ or some garbage. That man… I still don’t know how to live without him.”
    It always shifted, in that manner, first he was a devil and then a saint. But the truth was, he was neither. Just a man, trying to make a living, a legacy.
    Even if that meant leaving his family for a few months and earning on the rodeo. Then setting up shop in a little town among the plains of Indiana while his wife opted to stay in her lake house on the Erie.
    One that he bought her with his winnings.
    “Mom, the business is doing well. How is the lake?” Jayda hated the lake. The homes were beautiful and so affordable she was able to rent one when she lived there after college, but it wasn’t where she wanted to be. She took every opportunity she could to get back to the lodge, with her father.
    He wanted her to earn her own way, those were his words, and she did that. Right up until the day he died, and left her with so much responsibility.
    “Oh, the same as ever, you know nothing changes around here. Except for the faces. Roger Kinny passed away last week. Stomach cancer…” The woman droned on and on about the various comings and goings of people in the area. Weddings, funerals, diagnoses of various ailments. She was a wealth of information about the community, people Jayda didn’t even know very well. So she just nodded into the phone, making various noises that sounded like she was listening. Because she was a good daughter, after all.
    Finally, after she had listened long enough, she was able to escape, saying her good byes and putting the phone down. This time was different. It was the first time her mother didn’t actually guilt her on the phone.
    Jayda exhaled a long breath and leaned against her chair. She had taken in too much, and she didn’t even know where to begin. Most days were just whirlwinds until she could go home, signing papers, and sitting in on meetings.