AUDREY
“Where are we going?” I asked for the third time.
We were in Boyd’s truck, driving in the direction of his ranch.
Work had gone by impossibly slow this morning because all I could think about was our date.
I’d called Marina to catch her up on the latest although I’d left the details out about the wild time in the barn.
That was a secret for me and Boyd. And anyone else at the Wolf Ranch who’d heard me scream as I came.
Instead, I’d told her about the run-in with Jett Markle, the mechanical bull and how Boyd had followed me home.
I’d also left out the phone sex. That was why she was more eager than ever for me to get my rocks off with Boyd, even if he wasn’t future husband material.
I still had my doubts, even after everything he’d said on the phone about love at first sight, but I was willing to explore this insane and apparently mutual attraction a little further. It seemed I was a glutton for punishment. And orgasms.
He flicked his gaze my way and grinned. “I’m taking you to one of Cooper Valley’s best kept secrets. One of nature’s most beautiful features that you won’t find in any guide book.”
“And we need the butt plug for that?”
When Boyd picked me up, he’d insisted I bring the party favors.
Lube, condoms, vibrating butt plug. When I’d stared at him by the front door, he’d stormed past, into my bedroom and found my bedside drawer that had them.
I was eager and apprehensive to think about what we’d do with them.
I knew the plug would go in my butt—I didn’t think Boyd was game for the other way around—and I vividly remembered his intentions.
That made me squirm on his leather seat.
The corner of his mouth tipped up as if he’d caught me.
“Well, I brought some blankets in case we wanted to pick up where we left off last night.” He tossed one of those Boyd Wolf signature winks my way, and my panties got damp.
Blankets meant not in a bed. He was planning on plugging my ass and fucking me outside?
Yes, I did want to pick up where we left off last night. In fact, I’d struggled to think of anything else since.
That wasn’t true. I’d thought a lot about the phone sex, but I’d also thought about earlier at the bar.
How quickly Boyd went with it when I suddenly one-eightied on him and pretended he was my boyfriend.
The sweet way he got me on that mechanical bull.
How he’d been concerned about me getting enough sleep before I had to work. How he’d followed me home.
I’d underestimated Boyd. Grossly. And I may have underestimated his sexual fantasies. I wasn’t a virgin, but could I keep up with a guy like Boyd? My pussy told me it wanted to try.
A pang of guilt settled in my chest. Here I’d thought him shallow, a quick lay, when in fact, I’d been pigeon-holing him. He was the real deal. A protective, thoughtful guy in a crazy-hot cowboy package. Who wanted to play with me using a butt plug. As Marina had said, go for it.
I couldn’t freaking wait.
“Did you always want to be a doctor?” he asked, completely changing the subject. He glanced my way, then flicked on his blinker and turned down a side road. We’d cut through the canyon and were about a mile from Wolf Ranch. The turn meant we weren’t heading there, though.
“Pretty much. My mom was… well, sickly.”
“Bad heart or something?”
In a way, it was true. “That’s what they called it back then.
Sickly. In medical terms, she was clinically depressed.
She’d sleep a lot although she worked two jobs, so she was tired all the time.
She didn’t have hobbies or socialize. Sometimes she’d forget to eat, and I’d have to find food and cook for us both. ”
I saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel.
“Didn’t your dad help?”
I bit my lip, stared out the side window. “I never knew my dad. At least not when I was a kid. My mom got pregnant when she was eighteen and told me she never knew his name.”
It made no sense now. I was thirty, her age when I’d been twelve. I remember being twelve, and her answer about my father had confused me. I’d known the basics about sex at the time and could never understand how she didn’t know who my dad was.
“She killed herself when I was in college. Looking back, I think my dad screwed her over, or she thought he did. Maybe it was a quick fling or a teenaged one-night stand. Whatever it was, it didn’t have the outcome she’d expected.
People who have mental illness can often have some kind of snap, and I think that happened when she got pregnant with me.
It’s possible, or most likely, her sick mind distorted what really happened over time. ”
He slowed the truck and pulled over to the side of the road. It was a dirt backroad, and no one else was around. I turned to look at him as he shifted to face me, his forearm resting on the steering wheel. “You can’t believe it was your fault. Her death.”
I shook my head. “No, not at all. I just never knew her when she wasn’t depressed.”
“Obviously, you went to college, then medical school.”
I licked my lips and couldn’t look away from his piercing eyes. He wanted to know this, not only the good stuff, the fun stuff like butt plugs and phone sex, but the messy stuff like my family life.
“Being at home wasn’t all that great. Don’t get me wrong, I had friends and sleepovers and prom and stuff, but I pretty much hunkered down in my room.
Studying was easy. I could get lost in it.
I knew it was my way out. I got a full ride for undergrad, and I got loans for med school.
That’s why I filled in at the arena. Extra cash pays off med school faster. ”
“Why didn’t you go into mental health?”
I huffed out a laugh. “I grew up in it. Knew it wasn’t for me. Babies. That was my focus all along. If you analyzed me, you’d say I’m seeking to make a family because it was absent from my childhood.”
His gaze raked over me before he spoke. “There’s no shame in wanting a family. In wanting babies. Children. Homework. Sticky stuff on the floor you have no idea what it is. A tire swing. Children who know they’re loved.”
My chest ached with the desire for everything he said. I did want all of that, as if he’d made a checklist of things I envisioned my family being like. It sounded as if he knew what that was like.
“Is that how it was for you? Two parents you knew loved you? A tire swing?”
“Yeah, I had all that. Until I was twelve. I was lucky. I have Rob and Colton. You didn’t have any siblings to grow up with. To fight and bicker with. Annoy.”
I raised my hand, waved it in the air. “Actually, I have a half sister. Marina. She’s twenty-one. I only learned she existed two years ago. She did the DNA testing and found we were a match.”
“She’s not your mom’s.”
Shaking my head, I continued. “No, my dad. He was young, nineteen, when he had sex with my mom. He never knew about me. He married at twenty-eight and had Marina with his wife.”
“He didn’t tell you what happened?”
I pushed my glasses up my nose. “I don’t want to know. Would you want to know about how you were conceived?”
He looked horrified. “I see your point.”
“I’m not close with him. I’ve met him. I look like him. They live in southern California. I did my residency in Chicago. Our paths don’t cross.”
“But your sister?”
I couldn’t help but smile when thinking of Marina. “She’s great. Sweet. Definitely a little wilder than I am. We talk all the time. She’s in college for engineering. I’m… I’m glad I have her.”
He eyed me for a moment, then gave me a nod and put the truck in gear and back on our way.
We were quiet for a minute. “Boyd…” I bit my lip, knowing that I was asking a question that might upset him. “Um… what happened when you were twelve?”
He cleared his throat, clenched the steering wheel.
“I guess it’s best you find out now. I’ve been clear from the start how much I want you.
It’s pretty obvious I’m just a dumb jock, that you’re way outta my league.
I was hoping maybe you could look past that, but this might change your mind about me. ”
I frowned, felt apprehension and worry lodge in my belly.
“When I was twelve, I killed my parents.”