Page 50 of A False Start
But now, taking Nadia in, I realize I’ve been going through the motions. Cowboy’s back leg is bandaged, and I roll my lips together to keep myself from asking her if he’s okay, if he had his surgery. I want to talk to her so fucking bad. Just being in her presence makes my chest ache in a completely unfamiliar way.
After mauling her, I told myself I was going to call up one of my regular booty-calls, but I sit at home every night jerking myself into a towel on the couch, while I imagine her standing at that back door.
Except she doesn’t just stand there in my fantasy.
She joins me. She crawls onto my lap and kisses me. Straddles me and slams herself down on top of me.
I snap my head away, not wanting Stefan to see me standing here staring at her like a horny teenager. Or, in Nadia’s case, like she’s annoyed with me.
My cheeks burn as I climb up onto the flatbed, feeling like a bigger piece of shit than I have in years.
“Ready?” My friend claps his hands with a wide grin.
I nod, then throw myself into tossing bales of hay off the truck. Hoping upon hope that losing myself in physical labor will numb the sting of the expression on Nadia’s face.
But I’m not that lucky.
We’re only a few minutes in when Stefan shouts, “Hey, any chance you want to come help?”
“No, thanks. I just had my nails done.” Nadia’s cool voice floats up from behind me. I don’t need to look at her to know that she doesn’t want me here—let alone work with me.
Stefan laughs, clearly not picking up on her brushing him off. “Grab some gloves from the barn. Just for a bit. We’re supposed to head up to Griffin’s place for the night. Mira’s got Hank and Trixie lined up to stay with Silas. I just wanna get this done.”
I hear her sigh. It sounds loud even though it’s not. That’s the thing about not talking very much—you hear more. Every little noise is more pronounced.
“Okay, fine.” I hear her stomp off, clearly not happy about being talked into this, but doing it anyway.
“You’re the best sister a guy could ask for,” Stefan shouts, chuckling and shaking his head. Then he turns to me, laughter lining his tone. “Man, she’s grown up so much. But she’s still got an attitude the size of Texas.”
I just grunt. I like her attitude.
“I hope she finds someone who can appreciate her. I’d hate to see anyone drum that wild streak out of her.”
I snort. “She’d eat ‘em alive first. Women like her aren’t meant to be tamed,” I blurt out before I even have time to obsess over thet.And I immediately worry I’ve said too much.
“See?” Stefan pants, running a forearm over his sweaty brow. “You get it.”
I turn back to the bales. Talking about this with Stefan is precarious territory.
“Okay. Where do you want me?”
On your fucking knees.
I clamp my eyes shut. I can’t see her, but even her goddamn voice sets me off. I’m fucking losing it. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol, and yet I feel downright intoxicated around her. Like I’m completely out of control, and after spending years working on regaining it, Ihatethat feeling.
“Just swap spots with Griffin. Hand the bales down and he can get them set under the cover-all. That work for you, Griff?”
Nope.“Yup. Sure.” Stefan’s brow rises at the bite in my tone, so I force a wolfish smile.
He rolls his eyes and gets back to grabbing bales from the top of the stack like he’s grown accustomed to me being a grumpy bitch and isn’t all that ruffled by it.
When I turn around, Nadia has one booted foot on the bumper of the trailer and is pulling herself up. I offer her a hand to help, but she waves me off and moves right past me, leaving me in a dazed cloud of her signature rose-petal scent. The one that gets me every time I walk past the flower section at the grocery story. The girl is driving me nuts.
The breeze of a bale flying past me cools my skin, the scent of dried grass mingling with that floral smell. “Get to work, Sinclaire,” she says before turning to grab the next one while her brother laughs at me from the other end of the trailer.
I don’t know how long we work like that. An assembly line of sorts. Stefan handing a bale down to Nadia from the top of the pile, and then Nadia handing me the bale down to where I stand on the ground.
She avoids looking at me, and to be fair, I do a pretty good job of hiding my gaze beneath the brim of my baseball cap. Now and then, our gloved hands make contact. Her leather-bound fingers wrapped around the twine, brush against mine. It feels forbidden. It feelsright.
