"Scrape the Barrel" by Karley Brenna
Hurt people know hurt people.
Years ago, Sage McKinley thought settling down in small town Bell Buckle was the only way to protect her daughter. It didn't hurt that she managed to get a job at the local cafe, doing what she loved most: baking. The perfect life she'd built for them was all that mattered—until everything was turned upside down.
All his life, Callan Bronson has upheld the expectation of being the caring brother in his large family of seven. If anyone needed a shoulder, he’d lend it. If they needed an ear, he’d listen. When a past ultimatum wrecked his confidence, he accepted that was all he’d ever be—the caretaker. But after his first, and hopefully last, visit to the local coffee shop ends with spilled coffee and broken glass, life proves to him that keeping people an arm's length away doesn’t always work.
The two are pulled together when Sage’s daughter finds an unlikely horseback riding mentor in Callan. Can the two of them accept they might be right for each other, or will their pasts lead to them parting ways—or worse?
