Page 22 of Shep
“I don’t play favorites with the Wilder boys,” she replied. “What’ll you two have?”
I realized the menu was on the placemat in front of me. I glanced at it for a second.
“Club, no mayo,” Shep said, then looked at me expectantly.
“Um, just a cup of chicken soup,” I replied. It was the cheapest thing I could find at a quick glance.
He frowned, like the soup was just as offensive as the muffin.
“She’ll have a cheeseburger, medium with no mayo, and a side of onion rings,” he told Mabel.
“Wait–” I said, holding up my hand. While that sounded really good, I couldn’t have it.
Mabel nodded, ignored me, then left.
“Shep, that’s–”
“What people eat for lunch,” he finished. “Not chicken soup. You sick?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then no chicken soup for you.” He switched topics. I couldn’t keep pushing because it’d be annoying and he’d only wonder why I was soadamant. “How long have you wanted to be a mechanic?”
I remembered Saturday night and him asking me with that same voice,“You a virgin, cherry?”
I shifted on the long bench seat because I couldn’t think back to the two orgasms he’d given me. On a dining room table. In front of others. “Eleventh grade. I like fixing things.”
It sounded lame, but it was the truth.
“Your dad didn’t teach you anything? Change the oil together?”
I stared out the window to the street. The lot was filling up with a solid lunchtime crowd. The scent of greasy french fries made my mouth water, and I wondered how he knew I liked onion rings better. “He bailed on us when I was a baby.”
He sighed, ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Shit, that sucks. Brothers?”
I shrugged. “One a lot older and didn’t live with me and mom after he turned eighteen. When I was twelve, I went to live with him, but he wasn’t all that handy around the house.” Totally exaggerated, but I wasn’t telling him the whole truth. “We’re pretty much estranged now.” Estranged if that meant that he took off without even a goodbye and almost a thousand dollars of my hard earned money, doubtful I’ll eversee him again. “You?” I wanted to know more things about him, too, and a little less probing questions about me. “Sounds like you have… three brothers?” I remembered he’d mentioned Trig, Colt, and Cam to Mabel.
“Seven brothers and a sister,” he replied.
My head whipped around to stare at him. “Seven brothers? Wow.”
He grinned. “Yeah. I’m the second to youngest. Between the nine of us, we pretty much know everyone in town. Mabel, though–” when he tipped his head I knew he was referring to the waitress “–really does know everyone. But you. That means you’re not from Devil’s Ditch.”
“Barnes.”
Mabel swung by and placed two waters and wrapped straws from her tray, then scurried off when the bell from the kitchen rang indicating an order was ready.
Shep leaned in close across the table, lowered his voice. “How’d you end up at Two Rivers Ranch?”
This close, I saw flecks in his blue-green gaze. How long his eyelashes were. The shape of his mouth and then I remembered where he’d had it.
On my pussy.
I blushed hotter than if I ate a spicy pepper. We’dmade it a day and a half without talking about Saturday night. I was curious about him being there, too, but had been too afraid to ask.
So much for non-probing questions.
I pushed the straw from the wrapper, then dropped it in my cup. “Um, I… my friends Jasmine and Marie, let me join them.”
