Wreck Read online

  WRECK

  (A Gentry Story)

  Cora Brent

  Contents

  Wreck Blurb

  Also By Cora Brent:

  Contact Me

  1. Thomas

  2. Gracie

  3. Thomas

  4. Gracie

  5. Thomas

  6. Gracie

  7. Thomas

  8. Gracie

  9. Thomas

  10. Gracie

  11. Thomas

  12. Gracie

  13. Thomas

  14. Gracie

  15. Thomas

  16. Gracie

  17. Thomas

  18. Gracie

  19. Thomas

  20. Gracie

  Epilogue

  Dearest Reader:

  Contact Me

  Also By Cora Brent:

  Wreck Blurb

  WRECK

  (A Gentry Story)

  By Cora Brent

  THOMAS

  Not too long ago my future was all mapped out.

  Then two brutal swings of a steel bat wielded by a maniac wrecked my world.

  The adrenaline high I used to get from pitching a perfect game is gone.

  The major league dreams I counted on have vanished.

  And the peace of mind I took for granted is shattered.

  The thrills I seek out now are self-destructive.

  I know this and I can’t stop.

  What I didn’t expect is for my downward spiral to be interrupted by a shy beauty with a messy past.

  Gracie and I are very different. And yet we’re tragically alike.

  I can prove to her that we’re supposed to be together.

  All she has to do is give me the chance.

  And all I have to do is remember how to be the guy she thinks I am.

  GRACIE

  I’ve learned the hard way that one reckless mistake can topple your house of cards.

  And I thought I was finished taking chances.

  But Thomas Gentry made it clear he was on a mission to break my armor and guys like Thomas didn’t come along every day.

  He was as charming as he was headstrong, as sexy as he was protective.

  He put all the book heroes I’ve ever drooled over to shame.

  Falling for Thomas was inevitable.

  And I was his before I understood something important.

  We both need to find a way to heal ourselves.

  Otherwise we might ruin each other forever.

  Also By Cora Brent:

  GENTRY BOYS (Books 1-4)

  Gentry Boys Series

  DRAW (Saylor and Cord)

  RISK (Creed and Truly)

  GAME (Chase and Stephanie)

  FALL (Deck and Jenny)

  HOLD

  CROSS (A Novella)

  WALK (Stone and Evie)

  EDGE (Conway and Roslyn)

  SNOW (A Christmas Story)

  Gentry Generations

  (A Gentry family spinoff series)

  STRIKE (Cami and Dalton)

  TURN (Cassie and Curtis)

  KEEP (A Novella)

  TEST (Derek and Paige)

  CLASH (Kellan and Taylor)

  The Ruins of Emblem

  TRISTAN (Cadence and Tristan)

  JEDSON (Ryan and Leah)

  LANDON (Coming Soon)

  Worked Up

  FIRED

  NAILED

  Stand Alones

  UNRULY

  IN THIS LIFE

  HICKEY

  SYLER MCKNIGHT

  LONG LOST

  Please respect the work of this author. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without permission. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any similarity to events or situations is also coincidental.

  The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks and locations mentioned in this book. Trademarks and locations are not sponsored or endorsed by trademark owners.

  © 2020 by Cora Brent

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover: Sara Eirew

  Photo: Sara Eirew

  Created with Vellum

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  Thomas

  Everyone knows that ancient nursery rhyme. It doesn’t have anything to do with me but sometimes I hear the singsong phrases running through my head for no good reason.

  There’s a guy sitting on top of a wall and he falls off. Maybe he was clumsy or maybe someone pushed him. It doesn’t matter. The fall messed him up. And even though everyone came running to help him out, there wasn’t much they could do. Because not all broken things and shattered bones can be fixed.

  Wedged in the short lines of rhyme there’s probably some great lesson to be learned. Like don’t climb high walls. Or stay on your guard because you never know when you might lose your balance. It’s unclear if he died at the end. If so, that would be a really ghoulish conclusion to a kid’s poem.

  I didn’t fall. I didn’t die.

  And although it’s easy enough to imagine how much worse things might have turned out, I try not to do that.

  But before the attack, I never used to appreciate how easy it was to sleep. Those peaceful and dreamless breaks have been lost to me for many months. When I do sleep, my least favorite thing to do is wake up. Because there’s often a brief window of sluggish confusion where I forget what happened. I forget about steel bat hitting bone. I forget about the gun in my face and all its murderous promises. I forget about the surgeries and the months of painful physical therapy. I forget that all the well meaning efforts to glue me back together were valiant but still fell short.

  Remembering never takes long.

  I remember that my grip on the ball is loose and unsure. I remember that my curveball pitches remain sloppy despite countless hours of rehab. I remember that my knee pops and occasionally gives out when I run too hard.

  I remember the truth; that I’m young and healthy and in excellent physical condition. I have more going for me than most people.

  I’ll just never play pro ball.

  “Thomas!” A knuckle rapped hard on my closed door.

  I groaned, removed the pillow that had been covering my eyes, and tossed it somewhere. The blazing summer sun filtered through the blinds. I guessed the time to be after seven. I should have set my alarm.

  “What do you want, Kel?”

  “I’m scared.”

  My brother didn’t wait for me to respond to his bizarre statement. In traditional Kellan fashion he flicked the doorknob and barged in. He shut the door at his back and pressed his ear to the wood.

  I glared at him. “What the hell are you doing now?”

  “SHH!” he whisper screamed. “SHE’S COMING.”

  “Taylor?”

  “Yes.”

  “So?”

  “So she wants to use me as a recipe tester.”

  “Why?”

  He shuddered. “She’s been watching the Food Network. It’s given her all kinds of gourmet delusions. Her latest concoction resembles coagulated vomit. I took one look at it and began having flash
backs to the time I got food poisoning at Salad City.”

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Let me get this straight. Your beautiful girlfriend was nice enough to cook you breakfast.”

  “Yes.”

  “And instead of showing gratitude by eating the meal she has so lovingly prepared, you are hiding from her like a small child.”

  Kellan moved away from the door and helped himself to a seat in my desk chair. “Exactly.”

  “Kellan?” Taylor’s exasperated voice penetrated from the other side of the door. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, sweetheart. I have to talk to Thomas.”

  “Don’t you need to leave for work soon?”

  “Why, yes. Rats!” He snapped his fingers. “I don’t think I’ll have time for breakfast. You can feed my quiche to the cat.”

  “We don’t have a cat.”

  A nonissue to Kellan. He shrugged. “Someone has a cat.”

  “Kellan!”

  “I’ll be out in a minute, babe. Thomas needs me.”

  “I don’t need him!” I yelled. “Extract him at your earliest convenience.”

  Kel shot me a wounded look.

  Taylor must have had enough of shouting through the closed door. She flung it open and stood at the threshold, lips pursed, hands on her shapely hips. I made a mental note to put a chain lock on my door. These early morning intrusions from my roommates were not to my liking.

  Taylor tapped her manicured nails and gave out orders. “I have made breakfast. The two of you need to quit clowning around and come to the table.”

  “I wasn’t clowning around,” I pointed out with a yawn. “I was sleeping. Sort of.”

  Kellan made a face. “I can’t get used to this abnormal state of affairs when I’m awake and dressed before you.”

  He was right. For years I’d sprint out of bed in the predawn hours and run at least five miles before doing anything else. Shattered knees are tricky, though. Recovery tends to be long and uncertain. I can run again. Just not the way I used to run.

  I found another pillow and threw it at my brother. “Get out of here and show your girl some love.”

  Taylor grinned. “Young Thomas is wise.”

  Kellan’s reply involved jumping out of the chair, seizing Taylor around the waist and dipping her in a clumsy ballroom dance move before planting a kiss on her lips. I’ve seen my dad do exactly the same thing to curb my mother’s irritation. And Taylor proved to be just as susceptible to that goofball charm. She giggled and squealed while my brother slobbered all over her.

  Then they disappeared down the hall, leaving me free to barricade the door and pull the covers over my head. I couldn’t stay here for long. I needed to be on the field before the kids showed up. The thought produced yet another yawn. I wished I was still in touch with the feeling of invincibility that swept over me whenever I stepped into the baseball diamond. I’d misplaced it somewhere between getting my pitching hand crushed and the recent major league baseball draft. These last six months I’d worked harder than ever but my hold often slipped on the ball. My pitching speed wasn’t enough. And my knee was unreliable if I ran more than fifty yards. Kellan had gently prodded me to avoid live streaming the draft but I watched to the end anyway. I wasn’t expecting any exciting news and no exciting news was announced.

  “There’s always next year,” everyone assured me. I could keep trying. Keep plugging away year after year in the hopes of getting my foot in the door. Or I could admit the cold reality delivered by the best doctors in the business.

  I would never be the kind of athlete I used to be.

  No good would come out of deliberating on that right now. In one hour a pack of ten year olds would be waiting for me to coach them to summer camp greatness. Dalton would have understood if I told him I needed a break from Dream Fields, the training facility he owned and managed, but I knew it would put him in a tight spot if he had to locate another summer camp coach on short notice.

  While Kellan and Taylor were rapid fire bantering in the kitchen I escaped to the bathroom. After dawdling underneath a scalding hot spray for a few minutes I was far more alert and slightly more cheerful. I considered shaving, decided against it, and yanked on a clean blue polo with the Dream Fields logo on the chest.

  These days I often had the feeling that I’d been a topic of conversation just prior to walking into a room.

  Taylor, looking flawless as always, was smartly outfitted in a purple dress. She set down her cup of coffee, smiled at me and gestured to the table.

  “Your breakfast awaits. It’s healthy. I thought you’d like it.”

  Under no circumstances was my brother’s girlfriend required to make me breakfast. However, arguing with Taylor would result in hurt feelings so I took a seat and tried the concoction waiting on the paper plate despite the fact that Kellan’s visual description was accurate.

  “Thanks.” I picked up a fork. Kellan sat on the other side of the table and was in the process of trying to tuck in his newly wrinkled shirt. Evidently his clothing had suffered a disturbance while I was in the shower.

  He nodded at me. “Are you intentionally growing a beard or getting in touch with your mountain man side?”

  I took a sip of juice. “You’ve got lipstick on your collar, bro.”

  He glowered. “Liar.”

  “Actually, you do have lipstick on your collar,” Taylor said. “I take full responsibility.”

  Kellan sighed, gave up on buttoning, and pulled the shirt over his head while I dared to eat a mouthful of Taylor’s quiche. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t good either, but I was unlikely to die if I choked it down.

  Kel left the room to go hunt down a lipstick-free shirt and Taylor made small talk about her meeting with an academic counselor, explaining that the summer classes she’d enrolled in would put her on track to graduate next spring. I understood that I was being invited to discuss my academic future as well but I hadn’t been in the mood for that ever since deciding to withdraw from school last semester.

  Kellen promptly returned in a new shirt. This one was white and he’d rolled it to the elbows, which kind of made him look like a waiter. Taylor offered him the rest of her coffee and he kissed her lips before retaking his chair and babbling about stock portfolios. After graduating from Arizona State he’d accepted a position with a high profile financial investment firm in downtown Phoenix. These days stock portfolios concerned him greatly.

  I wasn’t really listening as I hooked my left hand under my knee and stretched the leg out for a few seconds, wincing as the knee joint popped.

  Taylor noticed. “Is it bothering you today?”

  “Nope,” I assured her and now they were both staring at me, stock portfolios abruptly forgotten. “Just some morning stiffness.”

  Under ordinary circumstances I could have expected a phallic quip from my brother. Kellan was not a man to allow remarks about mornings and stiffness pass on by. But Kel had no jokes at the moment. He drummed his fingers on the table, something he did when heavy thoughts troubled him. He used to do the same thing when fretting over Derek’s problems but our older brother wasn’t on his mind right now.

  “It seems like I don’t see you much these days,” he said.

  “We live in the same apartment.”

  “Yeah, but you’re out late all the time.”

  “Eh. Been busy. Another summer camp session starts today.” My eyes remained on my plate. My talent for lying was nonexistent.

  “I didn’t realize summer day camp counselors worked until two a.m.”

  Kellan wasn’t easy to fool. Derek once said he’d rather face a CIA interrogation than a line of questioning from Kel.

  Taylor coughed once in the background. She was signaling Kel to back off. I was twenty-one years old. I may be his little brother but I could do as I pleased until whatever hour I felt like doing it.

  A few seconds of weighted silence prevailed. The rumble of engines thrummed in my ears while the adrenaline rush of
physical speed coursed through my blood. This was nothing but the echo of a memory, a recent one, not one I could share with Kellan.

  The bite of sarcasm crept into my tone. “I wasn’t aware that you had so much experience as a summer camp counselor. Tell me what the other requirements are.”

  Kellan continued to appraise me. He could stare all he wanted. He was smart as a whip but he was no mind reader.

  Taylor cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Hey Thomas, your mom is trying to get a final head count for Saturday.”

  ‘Saturday’ referred to my parents’ twenty fifth anniversary party at their house. My memories were littered with Gentry family backyard celebrations.

  “I’ll be there,” I said and wondered why anyone would have doubts about my attendance.

  “She was curious if you’re planning on bringing someone special.” Taylor arched an eyebrow. “I told her I didn’t think you were seeing anyone.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that my mother had been fishing for gossip from Taylor. My oldest brother Derek was already engaged to the love of his life and I would stake my left nut on the fact that Kellan was going to marry Taylor. Although my folks had never pressed me to dive into a relationship, it was possible they were hoping the right girl would set my world right. This, after all, was the Gentry way. For the most part we are a long list of eternally monogamous couples that mate for life. We come in pairs. The idea of one lone Gentry was abnormal.