Page 61 of Her Property

“I said, wait here.” Graydon leaned over Brady, who sputtered but folded his arms and shut his mouth. Graydon knew it wouldn’t last—he’d been in enough tussles with Brady to know patience wasn’t his strong suit, but Brady knew Graydon well enough to recognize the note of warning in his voice and shut his mouth for the time being.

The sun was glaring off the glass of the driver’s side window of the SUV at just the wrong angle to see inside. Graydon made the universal roll-down-your-window gesture.

But when the glass slid away, the words Graydon was about to utter slid away with it.

Sitting behind the wheel was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional supermodel sense—and she was considerably more filled out than a supermodel, with a plumpness to her that made every part of him want to point to attention. But she looked to Graydon as if God had gone through a checklist of all the things Gray didn’t even know he was into until right at that moment: deep red hair that curled at her shoulders. Pale skin with freckles everywhere, even right down into the deep vee of her tank top. Skin flushed bright pink up her neck and onto her cheeks.

For an agonizing few seconds, Graydon found himself unable to move.

“I—” he began, and her eyes—hazel, he noted, because it was all he could do, narrowed. She reached into the purse in the passenger seat next to her.

Only when she turned away from him did he find his voice. “Are you hurt?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, then down at her body as if to check for injuries. It was the absolute worst thing she could have done. Even if he’d had a gun to his head, he couldn’t stop himself from following her gaze. The soft curve in her upper arm; the rounded softness of her breast under it. Her thighs, pushing at the edges of her fitted navy shorts…

Get ahold of yourself, Graydon.

“No, I’m not hurt.” Her voice was a little deeper than expected and just like her, curved around the edges. It had the shape and sound of a cello. “But I better give him my information.”

“Um,” Graydon said.

Um.What the hell is wrong with you? Say something!

“Where the hell’d you learn to drive, lady?” Brady shouted, saving Graydon from having to come up with something.

It was enough to snap Graydon back to his senses. He turned to Brady. “I said to wait where you were.”

Graydon had at least a foot of height over Brady, and probably fifty pounds on him too. But Brady was thick across the chest and belly, and tried to push forward. Graydon planted his hand on the shorter man’s chest and took a step forward himself, forcing Brady to stumble backwards.

“Get your hands off of me!” Brady barked.

Graydon felt the flush of an old anger in his cheeks. Brady had been an ass his whole life. They used to get into it in middle school until Graydon sprouted six inches the summer before 9thgrade, going from a skinny shrimp of a kid to the full 6’3” and 210 pounds he more or less hovered at today. That was the summer of the accident, when Graydon had sprouted a mean, braided scar along his jaw and a burning fury in his chest that Brady, not a smart kid generally, had been wise enough to back away from.

“Or what?” Graydon said. It wasn’t the best thing to say, but he was pissed. Going after this woman for the littlest tap to his truck’s oversized backside?

Thiswoman in particular?

Just thinking of her sitting there behind him distracted Graydon enough to melt the edges of his anger. He had to close his hands into fists to keep himself from forgetting Brady altogether.

Brady swallowed, then folded his beefy arms over each other once more. He leaned around Graydon. “Why don’t we ask the lady what she thinks the bumper of my truck’s worth? She dinged it up pretty—”

Graydon craned his neck to peer at Brady’s bumper. There wasn’t a scratch on it. “Looks fine to me.”

“She slammed into me! My hula girl almost got unstuck from my dash.”

Graydon had to keep himself from slapping his own forehead and was just opening his mouth when he felt the car door bump into his backside. He was so surprised he stumbled a little, into Brady.

“Watch it,” Brady said.

The woman stepped out of her car, slamming it behind her. Damn, she looked like an old-timey ginger pin-up girl; curvy as hell. Mad as hell, too.

She stalked around the two men standing in stunned silence and bent over the back of Brady’s truck.

Graydon swallowed hard at the pale length of skin curving up her shorts. Brady lifted his chin up and Graydon wondered if he might have the decency to be embarrassed about those ridiculous rubber ‘nads dangling from the back of his truck.

She turned around, her red hair swishing at her shoulders. “I apologize for running into you,” she said to Brady, the low song of her voice run through with steel. “But there doesn’t appear to be any damage, and I think we’d all like to move along.” She unsnapped the shiny black wallet clutched in her hand and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, thrusting it at Brady. “For your hula girl. And whatever else might have been a casualty.” She glanced at the rubber testicles with undisguised disdain.

Brady just stood there looking like he didn’t know whether to take the money or keep being an ass.

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