Chapter 9
Listening to forty kids shrieking on a sugar high wasn’t how I planned on spending my Sunday. But I refused to miss Luke’s birthday party, so here I was, escaping a dinosaur bouncy house after an hour of jumping with him and his friends.
Leaning against the house, I twisted open a beer, needing a moment to decompress.
I watched as Luke jumped with his friends, a lightness blooming in my chest, seeing him so happy.
It was a level of love I didn’t know existed until I met him that I wasn’t sure I was capable of feeling for anyone else.
“Is it bad that I hate kids’ parties?” I jumped, not noticing when this woman had come over. She must’ve been one of the kids’ moms.
“I’m not particularly fond of them either,” I murmured into my beer. Or small talk with strangers, for that matter.
She giggled. While she wasn’t paying attention, I glanced at her again out of the corner of my eye. She was petite like Tess, with honey blonde hair like Savannah, and green eyes like Claire. Pretty like my sisters, too, in a light pink sundress.
“They’re just so loud,” she continued. “Like screaming banshees.”
I huffed a laugh. “Why do you think I’m over here hiding?”
Her gaze flicked over me, smirking. “You’ve got that whole mysterious bad boy vibe, so hiding tracks.”
I chuckled once. Apparently, all it took was some tattoos and keeping my mouth shut, and I suddenly had a label.
“Definitely don’t look like a dad, though,” she added with a flirty glint in her eyes. Her smile shifted from playful to suggestive. It was a nice smile. Beautiful, even. Yet it did nothing for me. But I wasn’t about to be rude and tell her to leave.
“I’m not.” I pointed to Luke. “I’m Luke’s uncle.”
She gasped, her hand landing on my arm. “So you’re Emmett! Tess told me all about you.”
I peered down at where her hand was still on my arm.
“How do you know Tess?” Her touch was flat.
Foreign. The opposite of Delilah’s, which always lit me up like a live wire.
I backed away, searching for her. She was at the face-painting station, brush frozen on a girl’s cheek, her focus on me.
On this woman flirting with me. I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking; her face was vacant of emotion.
“…support group in Copper Creek,” the woman beside me finished.
“Uh-huh.” I had no clue what she said, still focused on Delilah. She’d never looked at me with nothing in her eyes before. It confused me. Actually, pretty sure I hated it.
This woman kept talking, but I didn’t catch a word. I didn’t want to be beside her. I wanted to be next to the woman I was having no-strings sex with. And as confusing as that thought was, one thing was clear to me: I wasn’t interested in Tess’s friend.
I blinked quickly, looking down at her. “Look…” God, I had no clue what her name was.
“Callie.”
“Callie. I’m not sure what Tess told you about me, but I don’t date.” Her smile wilted a little. “I’m flattered, but I don’t want you thinking I’m available when I’m not.”
“No, I totally get it. I appreciate your honesty. That’s rare in guys these days.”
“Emmett!” Colt called from across the yard, and thank fucking God for it because I didn’t know how to wrap up this painful conversation.
“Duty calls.” I gestured to my friends. “Nice meeting you, Callie.”
She nodded with a tight smile. “Yeah, you too.”
I fled to Colt, who was with Beau, Levi, and a few other guys I didn’t know by the grill. “You couldn’t have done that like five minutes ago?”
He laughed, brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Didn’t look like you needed saving to me.”
“You just might be the only single guy I know who gets pissy when he gets hit on,” Beau added, smirking into his beer.
“You know I don’t date.” They all knew it by now. But wasn’t that the whole point of sleeping with Delilah? So that I could? Could do anything with a woman without freaking out?
So why didn’t I want to? Callie was attractive and seemed nice. Before, that’s all it took. But now, I just kept thinking about the look on Delilah’s face when she saw us together. It fucked with my head, and not in a way I was used to. I wanted to go ask her what she was thinking.
“Yeah, well, maybe you should start,” Colt countered.
“Think all your brain cells got lost in that mustache,” I grumbled.
Beau and Levi snickered. Colt rolled his eyes. “Whatever, dickhead, you know I’m right.”
I didn’t respond, looking at Delilah, who’d gone back to face painting and making everyone around her fall in love.
We stood around the grill, making agonizing small talk, because that’s apparently what guys did at these kinds of parties. I was getting ready to leave when Calvin, a dad of one of Luke’s friends who happened to work with Colt, said, “Who is that?”
I knew before I even looked in the direction he was pointing at that I’d find Delilah. She was in the bouncy house, jumping with Luke on her hip. Her laughter was loud. Her smile radiant. Her hair jostled around as she jumped, the sun making it look like it was glowing. Or maybe that was just her.
Something in my chest swelled seeing her so happy with Luke. It made it hard to breathe, like my lungs couldn’t expand fully with this feeling in the way.
“That’s Delilah,” Colt said. “She’s a friend of the family.” Hearing him refer to her as just that felt wrong. She was more than just a friend. More, period.
“Think she’s lookin’ for more friends?” Calvin chuckled. My stomach twisted at his tone, like she was a sure thing. I shouldn’t care that he was eyeing her—I didn’t. Delilah was her own woman. She could do whatever and whomever she wanted.
I just found myself hoping she wouldn’t do him.
“Don’t bother, man,” I said before I could stop it.
“She’ll eat you alive.” Calvin looked like he was in his forties and enjoyed too much beer and too many days in the sun; Delilah was so far out of his league that she was on a different planet.
It’d be fun to watch her destroy him, but watching another man hit on her also sounded like torture—worse than the kind I’d been trained to withstand.
Calvin looked at me, challenge flashing in his eyes. “I like ‘em feisty.” Then, the fucker had the audacity to give me his drink so he could go shoot his shot.
“This will be interesting,” Levi murmured, all of us watching this nightmare unfold. Every muscle in my body went rigid when Calvin stepped closer to her with a sleazy smile as she slid out of the bouncy house.
“He’s got balls, that’s for sure,” Beau added. “Don’t know if I could go after a woman taller than me.”
“He’s a fucking idiot, thinking she’d ever be interested in him,” I said through clenched teeth.
When no one said anything, I glanced at them.
They were watching me with varying degrees of confusion.
Heat crawled up my neck. “What? It’s true.
She’s not gonna want anything to do with him.
” I hated that the words came out like I was trying to convince not only them, but myself.
Calvin said something, and she glanced my way.
The smile that spread on her lips as she looked at him again told me she saw that I was furious—jealous, even though I had no right.
I had no claim to her since all we had was casual sex, but it felt like I did.
So I stood here, stewing in silent rage while they talked and laughed and ruined my entire fucking day.
And when Calvin came prancing back over with a shit eating grin on his face and plans to meet at the Bull Pen later, I nearly lost it. If it weren’t for all the kids present, I probably would have.
“Here’s your drink.” I shoved the cup against his chest. “I’m leaving.” I didn’t give anyone a chance to respond and walked off, only stopping to say bye to Luke and Tess.
The drive home was unbearable. My grip on the wheel was so tight that my hands cramped.
It was the only thing that stopped me from turning around.
What the hell was wrong with me? I was overreacting, acting like a territorial caveman, as if Delilah belonged to me.
No. That was ridiculous. This was Delilah.
My unexpected jealousy aside, I knew what she was about.
She only did situations like ours—easy, casual flings.
And even if she did date, I couldn’t date her; she’s best friends with my sisters.
They’d never forgive us if they found out about this.
That didn’t stop me from spending the rest of the afternoon doing manual labor around Golden Circle, though. I worked until storm clouds rolled in and forced me into the gym, so I didn’t call her to ask her what the fuck that was about.
It was nine by the time I couldn’t move anymore.
And now, I was sitting in my bedroom after a shower, staring at my phone like an idiot.
At my texts with Delilah. The last thing she sent me was from last night: still can’t smell horse feed without getting turned on.
so thanks for that you hot jerk i’m officially crazy.
And I’d replied with: You just now figured out you’re crazy?
And when I walked through the door an hour later, she was already in my bed, naked, ready to show me just how crazy she was.
My head hung back towards the ceiling. “Don’t do it,” I murmured. Begged. I just needed to know they weren’t together. Or if they were, that she was having a god-awful time. But the image of her dancing with Calvin at the Bull Pen had me saying, “Fuck it.”
I pulled up her location—a safety measure we all implemented after what happened with the tack room last week.
And we all had special access codes to the new automated gate at the end of the driveway.
We now had logs of who was coming and going every second of every day, along with cameras hitting every angle of the ranch.