Page 13 of Javier

“No!” Her face heated. “I’m not asking for sex, you ass. You-you-you’re my uncle! Well, not really, right?”

His thick dark brows shot up, but he didn’t say anything. He just smirked.

“Mama was pregnant with me when she and Pops met. My biological father was killed in a threshing machine accident months earlier, so the wedding never happened.”

“Ransom adopted you?” Surprise laced his words.

“Yes.”

Javier narrowed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “Hm. Never thought he’d do something like that.”

“What?”

“You have no idea what your father was capable of.”

“The hell I don’t. Pops was the kindest, most hardworking man. A wonderful father and a man of great integrity.” She argued stridently.

He looked like he was about to speak but snapped his mouth shut when Daphne rejoined them.

“I’m ready. I made a picnic for us, Javi. We can grab it on our way out. I also brought you the washed shirt and jacket hanging in the laundry.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Javier stood, pulled off the tee, and slipped into the fresh one, the corded muscles gliding during his efforts. His head reappeared. He addressed Memphis. “Sounds like a different Ransom Creed than the man I knew.”

“I’m not done talking with you. Tonight works for me.”

“Maybe I have a date.”

Daphne slapped the table. Her laughter was musical. “A date? You don’t date. You?—”

“Mom …” He warned.

Daphne dismissed it with a wave of her hand and winked at Memphis. “He’ll be at the Wake tonight.”

“See yourself out,” he said before placing his hand on his mom’s shoulder and ushering her indoors. He followed, closing the doors shut and locking them.

After the rumble of the motorcycle receded, Memphis got up and left. Convincing Javier Cabrera to come to the ranch and help her would be more difficult than she realized. She’d think on it all day and come up with some plan. If all failed, she could seduce him. There was definitely an attraction there. He cleared up any issue of being his niece, so that path was open.

CHAPTERSIX

“What do you know about Memphis, Javi? I don’tseeRansom in her, but shefeelslike him,” Daphne said, sitting across from him at the table on her back porch.

“She claims to be Ransom’s daughter, adopted by him at birth. Seems her mother was pregnant with another man’s child when they met.”

“Even though he knew, Ransom married Memphis’s mother. How far along was she?”

“Memphis’s biological father died in a farm accident. I don’t have details, Mom.”

“Ransom sounds like a good man.”

He shrugged, took a larger bite of the ham and cheese sandwich, and slid the sunglasses down over his eyes.

“You think I can’t read you with those on?” Daphne chuckled. “Oh, honey. Let me tell you a few things I did pick up. “There’s romance afoot, and lusty intentions. With you, there always has been, but this time it’s different. You’re different.”

“You’re way off the mark.”

“I’m not.

“I’m wary.”

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