Either way, I wanted to feel Waylon out, see how he felt about it and find out if he knew. So I balanced the plate and headed out. I’d never been inside the shop, though I’d seen the guys pulling their farm equipment in and out of it. This seemed like a good time to go explore. When I stepped inside, it was a bit gloomy, despite the overhead fluorescents. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust. The huge tractor was up front, the one that Waylon had driven out to pull me from the cow trough on the night of the infamous topless massage.
Hurrying between that and the side-by-side, I spotted movement at the back of the shop. I hurried back and found Waylon halfway under the hood of an orange muscle car. He had his usual tan Carhartt coveralls on, but the top was peeled down to hang around his waist like jeans. His white t-shirt showed off his lean muscles. For a minute, I stood there watching him turn a wrench, wondering if it was possible he could be any hotter.
“I brought you a sandwich,” I said at last.
Waylon straightened up so fast his head hit the bottom of the hood, and his cowboy hat toppled off, landing in the engine. He growled a curse and plucked it up, replacing it on his head as he turned to me.
“What’d you need?” he asked.
“I…” I trailed off, stung by his short response. I should have been used to it by then. Waylon wasn’t a man of many words, and when he did use words, they weren’t especially pleasant ones. I tried to imagine what he’d been like with Maria, the ex who had run off and left him for his brother.
“Is that for me?” he asked, plucking the sandwich from the plate. He took a big bite of it and then stood chewing and looking down at it. “What’s that taste?”
“It’s avocado mayo,” I said. “Made with truffle oil.”
“Huh.” He took another bite.
“Do you like it?” I asked hopefully.
“What’s wrong with regular mayo?” he asked, depositing the half-eaten sandwich before turning back to his car.
But I could not be dissuaded that easily. I’d wear him down eventually. No matter how surly he was, I could always get a smile out of him. I sidled up to the car and leaned against it. “So you fix cars?”
“I’m rebuilding the engine,” he said, not looking up from his tools.
I tried to pose sexily against the car, but I immediately started sliding back along it. Seriously, looking sexy was a bit difficult while balancing a plate on one hand. I mean, the car was really polished!
“Don’t scuff the wax,” Waylon said from under the hood.
I propped myself against the side mirror and nibbled at his sandwich. “Did Holden tell you what happened last night?” I asked.
“What happened?” he asked, not sounding interested at all.
“We kissed.”
“Is that right,” he said flatly.
“He said you were all okay with…us being together. All four of us. So I guess I’m just wondering…how does it work?”
Finally, Waylon picked up a rag and wiped his hands roughly on it. “It doesn’t,” he said shortly. “My father’s lending us money to save the ranch if we keep you out of trouble for the next two months. That’s all.”
“He’s paying you?” I asked incredulously.
Waylon paused, guilt flickering across his face. “Lending us money,” he said after a few seconds. “Not giving it to us.”
“So you’re babysitting me?” I asked, humiliating building.
“Call it what you like,” Waylon said. “You knew we were doing our parents a favor by taking you in.”
“I didn’t know you were getting paid,” I said. “I thought we were supposed to get to know our new family a little. That I’d come out here and help out, and you’d let me stay.”
“That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t realize I was such a pain the ass that you had to get paid to get to know me.”
“You’re a royal pain in the ass, Princess,” he said, stepping around the open hood of the car. He had a grease smear on his bare, tan arm. I wanted to freaking lick it. How had I fallen so hard for someone who had to get a paycheck to spend time with me?
But hell, if they were my gigolos, shouldn’t I be getting more action?
Waylon took the sandwich from me and took a bite before handing it back. “I didn’t ask for money,” he said. “I didn’t ask for you to come stay here. Our father offered us a deal. Keep you out of trouble, and he’d lend us some money to help keep the ranch going. That’s all.”
“I just wish I’d known to begin with,” I said. “I thought you were all so keen on honesty and openness and not keeping secrets.”
“From each other,” he said.
His words stung, though I tried to hide it. I wasn’t one of them. They were a family who looked out for each other, trusted each other, cared about each other. And I was their stepmother’s daughter.
“Well, thanks for telling me,” I said.
“Amber,” he said, his voice gruff. “What happened with Holden shouldn’t have happened. He’s my brother, but I’ll be the first to admit, he’s got a weakness when it comes to good-looking women.”
“So you think I’m good looking,” I teased.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “If you weren’t my stepsister, I’d bend you over the hood of this car and fuck you until you screamed loud enough for every neighbor in the next ten miles to come see who was making such a fuss?”
“Oh,” I whispered, my thighs quaking at that image.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you are my stepsister.” He finished the sandwich and picked up the grease rag to wipe his hands again. “Keeping an eye on you means keeping you out of trouble in town, or with the law, but it also means protecting you. Out here, the rules are a little different than what you’re used to in New York.”
“So you’ve said. But they don’t seem so different to me.”
“People see something they want, they take it,” he said. “Ranchers came out here to claim land. There’s a little of that spirit left.”
“Good to know,” I said. “I guess you haven’t seen anything you wanted in three years?”
His mouth twisted into a smirk. “Sometimes we want something for a night,” he said. “But nothing we’ve wanted to keep.”
I took that as a challenge.
***
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