Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Lynx
For the first time in a long time, I had spent an entire Friday night without getting into a brawl in the parking lot. In fact, the entire week had been relatively uneventful. Nothing more than work and sleeping in my truck out in front of Reagan’s house, anyway. Same old shit.
I figured tonight’s lack of excitement had a lot to do with the fact that Rhys was in attendance at Reagan’s.
The good ol’ sheriff was hanging out with Wolfe while they chatted it up with their woman.
No one seemed to be in a particularly snarky mood, and Billy hadn’t graced us with his presence, so I hadn’t had to fend any dumbasses off.
Kind of nice if I was being honest.
Then again, Reagan was avoiding me again. She’d made sure to do so every time I'd seen her this past week after I'd shared dinner with her on her front porch. Once at the diner, twice at the gas station. She was polite but distant and I found it cute as hell.
And now that Amy and Reagan were closing things up, I was waiting with Wolfe and Rhys near the door.
“You still sleepin’ in your truck?” Wolfe asked.
“Until you catch that asshole, I ain’t leavin’ her alone out there,” I told my cousin, my gaze swinging to Rhys to include him in that statement.
“Holy fuck, man. Why don’t you ask for her couch?” Wolfe suggested.
Rhys frowned at the man and I chuckled.
“I doubt she’d be too keen on the idea,” I said truthfully.
“It’s just a damn couch.”
Right. As though I could be under the same roof with that woman and not be tempted to crawl into her bed with her. Hell, I'd wanted her for so damn long I wasn’t sure I'd be able to handle having a single wall separating us. It was hard enough with a locked door.
“Y’all can go,” Reagan shouted as she turned toward the hallway that led to her safe. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
Amy joined us and Wolfe met my gaze. I nodded once, letting my cousin know I was good. I would wait for Reagan as I had every damn night. I had nowhere else to be anyway.
“See ya later then,” Wolfe told me, throwing his arm over Amy’s shoulder. “Be good.”
I smirked. “I’ll try.”
Rhys shot me a look, which had me laughing out loud. “Don’t worry about your sister. She can hold her own.”
That didn’t seem to settle the sheriff down any. If Amy hadn’t taken his hand and tugged him toward the door, I suspected Rhys would’ve given me some sort of warning. I figured it would be coming sooner or later and I welcomed it.
When Reagan appeared again, her eyes shot to me instantly. “You really don’t have to wait for me.”
“I don’t have to,” I said, just as I did every time. “I want to.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed her keys from beneath the bar. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”
“But you like me,” I countered, following her to the door and opening it for her.
“Not really. I tolerate you.”
Right.
I stepped out of the way while she locked the door. When she started down the steps to the gravel parking lot, I followed.
“Lynx, seriously. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
She could, I knew.
“Why’re you doin’ this?” she asked, spinning around to face me. “I’m not gonna go out with you. Not now, not ever.”
For whatever reason, she sounded as though she had to force herself to say those words. And that only amused me.
When I didn’t say anything, she spun around and headed toward her truck.
I followed again.
“You’re like a damn puppy,” she grumbled. “I’m not interested, Lynx.”
I opened her door for her.
Reagan sighed heavily. “You just don’t quit, do you?”
“Not when it comes to you, no,” I admitted, meeting and holding her stare.
“Is your divorce final yet?”
I shook my head. “Couple more days.” The fucking waiting period was almost over. For all intents and purposes, I was divorced. In fact, I didn’t even talk to Tammy anymore. Thank God for that.
As I expected, Reagan started shaking her head instantly, yanking the door shut.
I tapped on the window and waited for it to lower. When it did, Reagan sighed.
“What do you want?” she asked, her frustration evident. “I already told you—”
Before she could lecture me about the divorce, I held up a hand. “Meet me at the diner for breakfast tomorrow.”
I didn’t pose it as a question because I knew she would easily say no if I did.
She didn’t respond.
“Come on, girl. You gotta eat,” I said, almost the same words I'd said the last time I'd asked her to breakfast.
I waited, holding her stare. It was clear she wanted to refuse me again, but to my surprise, she finally agreed. “Fine. But it’s not a date.”
“Of course not.” She could call it whatever she wanted or didn’t want. It was a date. And it was the first of many to come.
Reagan frowned.
Tapping the truck, I smiled. “Cool. See you in the mornin’. How ’bout nine?”
She nodded, then rolled up the window.
I knew I'd won this one, but I wasn’t going to gloat.
That wouldn’t happen until I got the woman wrapped around my little finger. After all, it was only fair, considering I was solidly wrapped around hers.
After grabbing my phone from my pocket, I dialed Rhys’s number as Reagan’s truck kicked up dust on its way out of the parking lot.
“What’s up, Lynx?”
“Do me a favor?”
“As long as it doesn’t require bailin’ you outta jail.”
I climbed into my truck. “You have the power to keep me out. Why would I need you to bail me out?”
Rhys chuckled. “What do you want, Lynx?”
“Keep some patrols runnin’ by Amy’s tonight, would ya?”
Another gruff laugh. “Tired of sleepin’ in your truck?”
“Naw. Just thought I’d give Reagan some space. But only if I know she’ll have someone watchin’ the house.”
What I needed was a solid eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. At least then I might have a chance of bringing my A game tomorrow at breakfast.
“I’ll keep a deputy out there tonight,” Rhys said.
“Thanks. And I’ll talk to RT and Z tomorrow, see if they can get someone closer to her. If that bastard comes back to that house, I don’t want her alone in it.”
“Agreed. And understood.”
“Thanks.”
I tossed my phone in the center console and turned the engine over. I'd give Reagan a little time to herself. After all, I wasn’t going to push my luck.
But three days from now … all bets were off.
Reagan
By the time the sun came up, I had been awake for at least half an hour.
And didn’t that seriously rankle? Absolutely no reason I couldn’t sleep in this morning and my brain wouldn’t cooperate.
It was Lynx’s fault.
Rather than roll over and drift back into dreamland, I'd spent all that time, plus what it took to finally nod off last night, thinking about him. The damn man had even invaded my dreams. Again.
The bastard.
I should’ve been home free, seeing as he hadn’t parked out in front of my house. That should’ve eased some of my tension. Instead, I had wondered where he was, what he was doing. Who he was with.
Damn man.
Why did he have to make me feel so much? Think so much? Want so much?
I didn’t need a whole hell of a lot. I wanted a simple life.
One that involved working and spending time with my friends and family.
Not necessarily in that order. No, I didn’t have a lot of money, but I had enough to pay the bills.
Sure, my truck had seen better days, but it still got me from point A to point B just fine.
I had a roof over my head and food to eat. I didn’t need any more than that.
Most importantly, I didn’t want the headache of a relationship, of worrying what a man was doing or where he was all the damn time. Been there, done that. The headache wasn’t worth it.
Not that I thought Lynx would be anything like Billy.
When I really thought about it, I knew that my relationship with him had been more about convenience.
We had lived under the same roof, but we hadn’t actually been together in a really long time.
It hadn’t been ideal, but it had given me the independence I needed with him always gone.
I was just now settling into my new life, the real independence that I had now that I'd booted Billy to the curb.
And then Lynx Caine went and infiltrated my thoughts.
And boy, did he. Every freaking thought in my head seemed to be about him.
Most of them involved the sexy man naked, fucking me, claiming me in a way I seriously doubted I would walk away from.
Lynx was the dominant kind, the type of man who went after what he wanted and didn’t stop until he got it.
It certainly didn’t help that I hadn’t had sex in…
God. Did I even know how long it’d been? Valentine’s Day? No, it was before that. Hell, it might’ve been Christmas. At least nine months, probably more.
Kind of ridiculous considering I'd been in a committed relationship with a man.
Well, not entirely committed. I'd been faithful, but Billy… Yeah, right.
I couldn’t remember exactly when I'd been with him last, but I knew I'd put a halt to having sex with him once I'd suspected he was stepping out on me.
And then I had stuck around because it had been easier than leaving.
My stubborn streak had kept me rooted in that house, refusing to move back home with my mother and grandfather.
Billy had been the lesser of two evils. Again, mostly because he had been gone more often than not.
The bottom line was, I'd been an idiot.
A great big honking idiot.
Then Lynx had to go and stir up my hormones, send my libido on the fritz. Make me wish for things that were beyond my reach.
As I lay there, I thought back to that night by the lake all those years ago, the first time I'd gotten a taste of Lynx, the first time I'd realized I was so far in love with him I would never be able to be happy without him. Ten painfully long years ago.
Up until that night, we’d rarely said anything more than the required pleasantries, but I had always had a crush on Lynx Caine.
Always. He was the tough guy no one wanted to mess with, the bad boy all the girls swooned over.
Him and his cousin, both. Some of the girls considered the cousins interchangeable, but I had only had eyes for Lynx.
That night, after his mother’s funeral, I had gone looking for him. I'd borrowed my brother’s truck and driven out to the Circle C. Back then, they hadn’t had a fancy solar-powered gate to keep anyone off the property, so I had ventured past acres of dry grass, then past Lynx’s house.
I'd found him down by the water, sitting on his tailgate, staring out into the darkness.
Alone. So freaking alone, it had broken my heart to see him like that.
Rather than run the other way, I had shored up my nerves, climbed out of the truck, and joined him.
For a good ten minutes, neither of us had spoken and I had been okay with that.
But when he finally turned his attention on me, my heartbeat sped up, my body igniting from the mere sound of his voice.
“What do you wanna do after you graduate?” Lynx asked, his raspy tone making my body warm significantly.
“I’ve still got two years,” I told him.
“I know.” He peered over at me. “But when you do graduate?”
I shrugged. “Not really sure.”
“You wanna leave Embers Ridge?”
I shook my head. That was about the only thing I knew for certain. I was a small-town girl through and through. There wasn’t enough money in the world to get me to move to the big city.
Lynx grinned, but it was sad. “You gonna settle down, have lotsa babies?”
As I stared out at the water, my belly flipped. Only if they’re your babies, I thought.
“What about you?” I asked, changing the direction of the conversation. “You wanna leave Embers Ridge?”
“Nope,” he told me with certainty. “Plan to open a furniture store with Wolfe later this year.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep. We already got it all mapped out.”
For a few minutes, we stared at one another, sparks bouncing back and forth between us. I had always felt them, but I knew it wasn’t the same for Lynx. He was the type of boy who didn’t have one girlfriend. He had several, and never anything serious.
“Why’re you here, Reagan?”
I shrugged again. “I was worried about you.”
That seemed to confuse him.
At some point during that conversation, we had moved closer, until my thigh was pressed up against Lynx’s.
We sat on that tailgate, under the stars and the full moon, while country music filtered out from the cab of Lynx’s truck.
It had been the best night of my life. And then, when Lynx had kissed me…
Throwing the blankets off my legs, I bolted out of bed. I couldn’t lie there and think about him forever. I needed to get a move on. Not that it would take me long to get ready to meet him for breakfast, but I needed something to do to keep my mind occupied. A shower was a good start.
Two hours later, I was pulling into the diner. I noticed Lynx’s big blue Chevy was already there, and the flurry of butterflies erupted in my belly. I hated those damn butterflies. They irked the shit out of me. Why couldn’t they keep themselves contained around him?
Climbing out, I kept my eyes trained on the gravel, which was the very reason I didn’t notice Lynx climb out of his truck and head my way.
Before I could reach the door handle, a big hand shot out around me, opening it for me.
I was mesmerized by the ink that covered his arm, the back of his hand, his knuckles.
“Mornin’,” he crooned softly against my ear.
Goose bumps prickled my skin and I fought off the shiver that threatened to race down my spine.
This was such a bad idea. I should be at home, tucked into bed, dreaming about…
Yeah. Okay. So that didn’t help.
Lynx Caine seemed to be invading my thoughts. Asleep, awake, it didn’t matter.
“Mornin’,” I mumbled, stepping inside as he held the door. “Thanks.”
A warm hand gently pressed against my lower back, and I inadvertently sucked in a shocked breath, hoping like hell Lynx hadn’t noticed. I peered over at him, trying to keep my face shielded by my hair. It didn’t help. He noticed and he was smiling.
Jerk.
When he pulled out my chair, I tried not to even think about it. I'd spent so long in a relationship with a man who put himself first, I wasn’t used to someone opening doors or pulling out chairs. It shouldn’t surprise me. That’s the way Lynx was. He could charm the underpants right off a nun.
“Sleep well?”
I jerked my eyes up to his. “Yes. Actually,” I lied effortlessly.
When it came to Lynx Caine, a lie wasn’t a bad thing.
It was self-preservation.