Excerpt
The Brave and the Reckless
Chapter OneBravetownHistory meets imagination when you take the railroad roller coaster into unknown territories, swing through the saloon doors to dine with the cowboys of the Old West, and join the sheriff in his fight against a notorious bandit. Are you brave enough for the biggest adventure of your life?Esra I must have hit my head when I face-planted in the parking lot, because when I sat up, the sun was covered by a cowboy. Hat, horse and all.
“Are you all right there, ma’am?” he asked with a perfect twang to his words.
I felt around my head for a bump but couldn’t find anything. I blinked and blinked but the cowboy and his horse remained. Not a hallucination triggered by too much sugar and country radio. Very much a guy in white boots atop a white steed.
I probably would have been less shocked to see a “cowboy” in pink crotchless chaps on an inflatable horse riding the F train through Manhattan. I knew how to handle
city-weird. This guy . . . he was weird because he was too picture-perfect. He was country. He was ready to be photographed and slapped on a
Greetings from Tennessee postcard.
“Ma’am?” he asked again after I’d been staring much longer than appropriate.
“Yeah, no, all good. Carry on. Or
ride on? Yee haw?” I wasn’t making sense. We both knew that, but judging by his tight-lipped polite smile, he thought I was drunk. I was actually just grappling with the reality of this place and a serious case of road-trip legs. In my defense, when he’d seen me stumbling out of my car and kissing the dirt, that was mostly thanks to those damn bumpy roads jostling me around until my joints were simultaneously numb and jittery. Sea legs, country version. We were in the middle of f***ing nowhere, halfway between Nashville and Memphis, and I’d stopped feeling my toes an hour ago.
“Can I help you find your way?” With his white hat, sleek dark hair and round nose, he kind of looked like that old cartoon my brother had been obsessed with as a kid. Lucky Luke. He just needed a piece of straw hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“I’m good, Lucky. I’m going in there.” I pointed at the old farmhouse at the end of the parking lot and pushed to my feet. Once I’d dusted off my knees, I grabbed my fluffy candy-heart backpack that read “bite me”, and the enormous red slushy I’d picked up at a rest stop.
“It’s Lucas, actually.”
I snorted and quickly hid my laugh behind the plastic cup. Lucky
Luke, indeed. “Do you work here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Amazing. Me too. Well, not yet, but in a few minutes. Still gotta sign some papers. That
is the main office, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said again, but this time his polite smile wavered, and his eyes narrowed on my crop top. I glanced down to double-check. Big sparkling letters across my chest read “Retired Porn Star”. That’s what I got for dressing in a dark rest-stop bathroom.
“You think I should change, Lucky?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Instead of taking the cue to stop staring at me, his gaze dropped to my bare legs. Lucas was so far from my type. For one, he was too young, probably my age – around twenty-three. Young guys always wanted to talk about dreams and ambitions. Ugh. On top of that, his initial concern had seemed genuine. And I didn’t do genuine. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer, Lucky.”
“I’m so sorry, you have something on your, uh . . .”
I looked down to find a Dorito stuck to the inside of my thigh. It left a perfect triangular indent when I picked it off, laughing. “Thanks. Here, don’t eat it all at once.” I held the chip out to him, and he actually bent down and took it from me. Such a nice boy.
I also didn’t do nice.
“See you around, Lucky.”
“Uh, yes, I’ve got to get going now, but you have yourself a nice day.” He clicked his tongue and that mountain of a horse trotted away.
“Fingers crossed,” I mumbled before climbing back into my car and rummaging through the explosion of clothes on my backseat. The clean-smelling choice came down to a blue shirt with white rhinestones spelling out the word “feral” or a pink one that read “u can’t pick ur father but u can pick ur daddy”. I chose the blue one and hoped that the HR department here wouldn’t take things literally.
After turning the legroom between the driver’s seat and the backseat into my personal changing room, I typed out a quick message.
Esra: I’m here Sinan didn’t reply. Hell, he didn’t even read the message. It stayed stuck on “delivered” the whole way from my car to the farmhouse. Of course he didn’t reply within seconds. He wasn’t Mom, ready to swoop in and handle every situation for me—even something as minor as introducing myself to my new employer. Nope. My brother had told me when to be here, where to go, who to talk to . . . I’d wanted my independence, and I was getting it. I just lowkey wished he would drag me through the door. Instead, I had to will my own two feet into action.
I grimaced at the rough wooden stairs and tested one with the tip of my sneakers. It groaned, but despite its weathered state, it seemed to hold.
It’s all for show. I had to remind myself of that. The farmhouse seemed to have been here for centuries and looked ready to crumble, but that was the point. Bravetown was meant to look like it belonged in an old Western movie. Apparently, the theme reached past the amusement park’s entrance and included the adjoining admin buildings.
The inside only looked marginally more modern thanks to phones and computers. The decor was still very
Little House on the Prairie. A receptionist closed her fist over her headset’s mic just long enough to throw me a visitor’s badge and send me to an office upstairs to find Renee Barlow. I tiptoed past closed doors with little name plaques beside them, inscribed with important-sounding job titles, and my eyes roamed over the wood-paneled walls and all the framed articles on them: Bravetown’s grand opening twenty-four years ago, expansions and changes to the park as its popularity grew, and apparently a TV show based on the park that came out in the early 2000s. I’d have to look that up.
“You must be Esra!” A chipper blue-haired Bravetownee pulled me from my exploration back to the real world—or as real as it seemed to get in this place.
“Yep,” I replied and blinked past her to the office door beyond her desk. Renee Barlow. Perfect. “I’m here to see Renee. It’s my first day.”
“You’re a little early, but that’s okay. I have some papers for you to sign right here.” She beamed at me as she handed me a clipboard. “Can I get you anything while you wait?”
“I’m good. Thank you.” I scanned the papers, expecting an NDA or something, but finding a work contract instead. Huh. I knew scooping ice cream wasn’t exactly rocket science, and Sinan had probably vouched for me, but I’d expected a bit more formality. The contract said something about visible tattoos, face piercings and unnatural hair colors being forbidden for employees in the park, and I dragged my eyes back up to the young woman in front of me. She was dressed in a white blouse and a plain blue maxi skirt with buttons down the front, looking ready to be whisked away by an Old West cowboy, but the hair was definitely
unnatural. It brought out her piercing, icicleblue eyes though. “I love the hair, by the way.”
“Oh, thank you. I won’t lie, I was aiming for a light gray, but it’ll wash out.” She shrugged.
“If you have a pool at home, that’ll do the trick. I had a pink clip-in streak as a kid, and the chlorine turned it salmon beige real quick.” I wasn’t sure how much of a luxury pools were around here, but my parents had always insisted on getting the best money could buy. That included a
nice condo in a
nice apartment building, with a pool, in a
nice part of the city.
“Thank you! I’m Vivi, by the way. It’s really good to meet you. Sinan has told us so much about you.”
“He has?”
