Chapter 5
chapter
five
Jude
“What do you mean she said no?” Sofia asks, tapping her foot on the kitchen floor. “We’ve been in here all cooking together. You know what that means?”
Aria crosses her arms over her chest and eyes me up and down.
“Yes, I know what it means. It’s a goddamn miracle y’all haven’t burned the house down,” I say.
“They only got in one little fight involving knives,” Juliette says as she walks into the room. She leans up and kisses my cheek.
This one is the sweetest of all. The older two are like a pair of old ladies fighting over the last remaining widower.
“I invited her when you texted me. I even showed her the text. She wasn’t interested,” I say.
“So she’s just over there alone?” Juliette asks.
“Technically she has Rosie.”
“And Lola,” Aria says.
“Lola is a van, not a person.”
“She has a personality,” Sofia argues.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Y’all are gonna put me in an early grave.”
Aria snorts. “You’ve been threatening that for years.” She smacks my arm. “Yet here you still are.”
“Ouch.” I press a hand to my heart and feign woundedness.
“Just go over there and make sure she knows we want her here,” Aria says.
“Why can’t you go if you’re so keen on having her over? She already told me no,” I say.
“You were probably an ass. So go back and don’t be an ass this time,” Sofia says.
I roll my eyes. “So helpful.” But I still find myself going out the back. The screen door slams behind me. “Bossy damn women,” I mutter.
My acreage is divided in half so that the house is on one end and the barn and cabin are on the other back end. I’ve cleared a walking path between the two, but you can’t see one building from the other. The stand of trees blocks that view.
My brain is consumed with thoughts of Emory as I approach the barn. I can’t deny how much I want her. I can’t even really think about her name without sighing like a lovesick teen. I’m not sure what it is about her, but all it took was one damn look and I knew she belonged to me. Well, that one look, her sassy mouth, and the electricity that came from our hands touching.
There’s something powerful between us. I’m not foolish enough to ignore that. My buddy, JD wasted four years not being with the love of his life because he was an idiot. I won’t be that dumb.
My friends are always telling me that I look like a mean son-of-a-bitch. I think it’s just the angles of my eyebrows, to be honest. Or maybe I do frown too much. The truth is I’m one hundred percent a pushover. Much of it likely stems from the fact that I’ve been my sisters’ legal guardian since I was twenty years old. Our parents died in an accident together, which is how they would have wanted to go.
So I know everything I need to know about love, commitment, and Emory, now I just need to make sure she knows it too.
I walk through the wooded area that’s between my house and my barn. Initially I built the barn to be a home garage where I could work on classic car restoration. I’m a regular mechanic when it comes to Wrench Wizards, but restoration is my passion. I still intend to use it for that purpose, but so far I haven’t been able to make the time for it.
At least I only have the remaining sister to get out of high school. Then legally I’m not responsible for them. Of course, you can’t turn off that kind of thing. My sisters mean everything to me and are a big reason why I’m still single. All those years of taking care of them—they were my priority. I didn’t have time for a social life or a romantic life. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to bring women home to a house I shared with my sisters.
But now, I could have that life. Juliette will be eighteen in three short months. While Aria and Sofia still live here with me, they’re both legal adults. Aria is home from college and Sofia graduated from cosmetology school and now works at the most popular salon in town, which happens to be directly across from my garage.
I hear her voice because I can see her. Emory. How has she already become so familiar to me?
Likely because I stayed up far too late last night watching nearly everything of hers I could find on her social media. My sisters have been right to idolize her. She’s done amazing things in her short life. She’s twenty-one, as best I can figure. So right in between Aria and Sofia in age. And already she’s a very popular influencer. She’s clearly done very well for herself, but every video I watched just made me want more.
More of her. I want to know everything there is to know about Emory Travis.
I find myself smiling as I near the barn and where her van, Lola, is plugged.
Emory’s voice gets louder and clearer. That soft lilt of her Georgia accent rings through the chilly evening air. You never know what kind of weather you’ll get during a Texas winter. Some days we go through all four seasons. But right now, it’s nice and in the mid-sixties. I stop to listen because I don’t want to interrupt if she’s talking to someone.
I aim and shoot before I lose my nerve and he gets too close. He makes a terrible noise of pain, which hits me right in the heart, then crumples to the ground.
Only when he hits the concrete, he’s not actually a bear, but a really big man.
“What is happening? Son of a fish, I just shot a man.” I race towards him, kneeling down to assess the damage. Thankfully, I hit him in the leg, but not the femoral artery because he’s still alive and glaring at me.
Wait, is she reading?
“I am so sorry. I don’t even understand what happened. I guess my eyes were playing tricks on me and I thought you were a bear. Of course that doesn’t explain why you’re naked. Is that why I’m not supposed to be here after dark? You and the other security team members have a special dark nudist thing going on?”
I hold up my hands. “No judgment here. I just. Carp, I need to call an ambulance.”
“No. No ambulance. Help me up and inside the lab.”
She reads the last bit in a masculine tone. She’s clearly reading to her dog and fuck me if that’s not adorable.
Yep, I’m a fucking goner for this girl.
Because the first thing I do when I reach out toward him is drop my eyes and check out his junk.
First of all, he’s huge. I mean massive. Secondly, he’s hard.
Why is he hard? I force my gaze away.
What the hell is she reading? That’s my first thought, but then my second is, I wonder if my sisters have read it. They’re all romance-reading fanatics. It started with them reading all of Nana’s old historical romance paperbacks. Then they moved on to e-readers and all three of them carry theirs around like a security blanket.
“Is that like a reaction to adrenaline? I’ve heard that can happen. I mean I’m not trying to be a pervert or anything by staring at your rather sizable erection. Obviously, I’ve noticed it—it’s hard to miss—but I’m curious. For scientific purposes?”
Then the most surprising thing ever happens. Yeah, even more than shooting him…
He laughs.
His booming, rich laughter seems to bounce off the nearby canyon walls and echoes around me.
It is the best sound I’ve ever heard and nearly makes me forget that I just went on a diatribe about his penis.
What is wrong with me?
“End of chapter. What do you think, Rosie?”
Rosie barks.
“I couldn’t agree more. This is going to be a very fun and hot book.”
Listening to Emory and her sweet as peaches accent talk about giant erections has started one of my own in my pants. After adjusting my dick, I decide now is as good a time as any to let her know I’m here.
I step around the metal side of the barn to the opened part and accidentally hit the aluminum with my hip.
She jumps at my intrusion and nearly falls out of her lawn chair. She stands and clutches her device to her chest.
“Where did you come from?” she asks.
Her blue eyes are wide and her labored breathing is making her ample chest swell with every inhale.
Fuck she’s sexy.
“I walked over from the house.” I scratch at the back of my neck. “So I know you said no to coming to dinner at the house, but I need you to reconsider.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
I take a few steps closer, and I can see she changed clothes from the jeans and shirt she was wearing when we went into town. She’s got on black yoga pants that mold to her thick thighs, accenting every one of her curves. Up top, she’s got on a pale pink t-shirt that has a deep scoop neck revealing so much of the creamy skin of her neck and cleavage. A black, unzipped hoodie covers her arms.
She shifts positions, cocking a fist on one of her hips. “What are you looking for?”
I flash her a grin. “Peaches, I’m just enjoying the view.”
She rolls her eyes. “You were saying?” she asks.
“Right. So my sisters are giving me hell and they will legit never leave me alone if you don’t come to dinner. Come on, what’s the harm?”