Chapter 13
Parker
Before I could knock on the door, it swung open as if the person had been listening for the sounds of my footsteps on the porch—or had been watching my progress through the windows.
I expected to see Ry standing there with his usual smile, so I faltered a step, nearly tripping, when instead I saw a tall, golden Adonis standing in the open doorway.
“Oh, hey,” I greeted awkwardly.
“Special Agent Parker,” he replied, his deep voice sending shivers racing down my spine and making memories of what I had done in the privacy of my bathroom flash through my mind.
All because I had imagined this man and his two friends naked.
Well, he and his partner, anyway. The other one didn’t need much imagination.
“Just Parker is fine.” I forced a smile as we stood there eyeing each other. Honestly, I was going to get a cramp in my neck soon if I kept standing there for much longer. The man was tall. Like, really tall. And broad. And so handsome it was ridiculous.
Finally, he inclined his head ever so slightly.
“Parker.” He shifted slightly, and I wondered if he was nervous.
I couldn’t imagine that much could ever make the man nervous, though he was acting like he had something to say and was having trouble finding the words.
It was kind of cute. “I wanted to apologize for last night.”
“What?” I blurted out, certain I hadn’t heard him right. No man had ever apologized to me in my entire adulthood for being a dick—a trait I had learned some men seemed to be born with.
As I stared at him with wide eyes, I watched as the tips of his ears turned pink. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings last night. When you held out your hand,” he reminded me, “I wasn’t refusing to shake, I was wondering if you were okay.”
“You were wondering if I was… okay?”
“You had been drinking, and I knew you were tired. I also was rude when you asked if you were… if Ry thought you were…”
“If you guys thought I was pretty?” I finished for him with a raised eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest, just then realizing that, yeah, my feelings were still a little bit hurt over that situation.
I knew he was gay and probably didn’t find women attractive, but did he have to snort at me as if the very thought was ridiculous?
He sighed. “Yeah, that. Look, I didn’t mean it the way it came out, okay? It was just the way you asked. It was a stupid question.”
I dropped my arms and straightened my shoulders at his words. As pain coursed through me, I did my best to ignore it. It didn’t matter. The man didn’t matter. “Right.” I nodded once and started to push past him. “Noted. Good talk.”
“Wait,” he said, and grabbed my elbow.
Using a move I learned at the academy, I knocked his hand off my arm and shifted until I held his own pinned against his back.
As soon as I realized what I’d done, I released him immediately and stepped back.
“Sorry,” I said, “reflex.” I ignored the appreciative look on his face at my sudden movement. “It’s fine, really, Gage. I get it.”
He stepped into my space, that look still on his face as he looked me up and down. “Oh, yeah? Tell me, Parker, what is it you get?”
I swallowed, stiffening my spine, and refused to back away. “You don’t find me attractive. It’s understandable.”
He tilted his head and lowered his tone so his deep voice came out silky smooth, making me need to clench my thighs together. “What’s understandable? Please, spell it out for me.”
“You-you’re gay.” I hated that my voice had suddenly become shaky, but there was something about his intensity, about the way he was crowding into my space. The way he was looking at me…
“I’m not gay, Parker.” His lips tipped up, and I about melted into a puddle on his wooden floor right there in his beautiful foyer.
It was the first time I’d seen him smile.
I was glad he’d never done it before and wished he hadn’t done it now.
I wasn’t sure how I would ever be able to get that vision out of my head now.
“But you and Ry-”
“Yes, Ry and I,” he nodded. “We are both bisexual.”
“Oh,” I replied lamely, unable to come up with anything intelligent to say.
“And you, Parker?” He lifted a finger and traced so lightly over my cheek that I could only feel a ghost of the touch. “You are a beautiful woman. The question was one of the most stupid ones I’d ever heard because I couldn’t believe you had to even ask it.”
“I-I-” I had nothing. My brain had completely fritzed out.
Gage smirked at my obvious predicament, then took my hand and began leading me through the house. “Come on, beautiful. Let’s go eat before dinner gets cold.” I numbly allowed him to lead me, my brain lost somewhere between his sexy voice and his smoldering smile. Damn.
When we got to the dining room, I froze in place. Gage had to stop, realizing I hadn’t continued in with him. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
I just shook my head as I glanced away from Dante’s scowling face. “Nothing,” I forced a smile and pulled my hand from his.
“Hey, Parker,” Ry called out from his seat. “Glad you could make it.”
I took the same chair I’d sat in the night before and folded my hands in my lap, doing my best to appear calm as I looked around the room at everything and everyone except the man glaring down at his plate across from me.
“Parker,” Ry began, “this is our good friend, Dante. We were in the same unit together in the military. Dante, This is Special Agent Parker. Her team is here to help with the serial killer investigation. She’s been a big help already.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I mumbled as I picked up the glass of water in front of me. I realized I was being rude, so I set it back down without taking a drink. “It’s nice to meet you, Dante.”
I heard a grunt as the only reply. He didn’t bother looking up as he snatched a roll from the basket in the middle of the table.
I wasn’t going to take his demeanor personally.
I knew that the man had likely had a traumatic experience and was dealing with the effects from that.
Plus, I hadn’t made a good first impression.
I hated that, but I wouldn’t be around long, so as much as I would love to make sure he knew I wasn’t a shitty person, I wasn’t going to shove myself on him.
I gave Ry and Gage an awkward smile and reached for my own roll. I picked up my butter knife and started to retrieve butter from the dish next to the rolls when another knife met mine there at the same time. I froze and glanced up to see Dante staring at me with a cold expression.
“I’m sorry,” I said, yanking my knife back, my cheeks heating. “You first.”
For some reason I didn’t understand, that just seemed to make him even angrier. He stabbed his knife into the butter with a snarl, and then, to my utter shock, he leaned over the table and jerked the knife hard once, making the butter splat onto my plate.
“Thank you.” I barely heard myself whisper the words, but he grunted in acknowledgement. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped back into his chair and got his own butter. I watched, fascinated, as he slathered it over the top of his roll like a caveman instead of cutting the bread open first.
“What?” Dante demanded when he caught me staring at him as if he were a zoo animal on display.
My cheeks heated as I, once again, made him feel uncomfortable and defensive when I hadn’t meant to.
I ducked my head, staring down at my plate.
I picked up my butter knife and carefully sliced the roll in half.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that staring is rude?”
My eyes snapped back up to his, beginning to feel a bit defensive myself after feeling his hostility being directed at me since we sat down. “I wasn’t staring at you, Mr. Arrogant. I was watching someone with clearly no table manners ruining a perfectly good dinner roll.”
The snickers from down the table reminded me that we weren’t alone. I didn’t dare glance in their direction. I internally sighed. I was never going to be able to make friends with this man. Perhaps one day we’d be able to have a normal conversation.
I looked back up to apologize, but there was a small glint in his eyes that looked suspiciously like pride. In me? For snapping back at him? It was there and gone before I could analyze it further.
The rest of dinner was a tense, awkward affair, at least for me.
Dante and I were both the quiet ones, neither one of us saying much beyond a simple response when needed.
Ry was the one who carried the majority of the discussions, with Gage pitching in every now and then.
Most of the talk was about the ranch itself.
I learned that they were moving pigs from one pen to another in the next few days.
It seemed as if they did it periodically on a rotational basis.
Although I didn’t understand the reasoning behind it, I also had no idea how ranches were run.
Once our meal was completed, I offered to help clean the table.
I hadn’t consumed a single drop of wine this time around, not wanting another repeat of the previous night’s drunken ramblings.
As I stood up to gather plates, their housekeeper, Ruby, waved me off with a smile.
My original impression of her had been completely wrong, and admittedly, had been formed through the eyes of a woman with insecurities.
I thought that she was jealous of my appearance in their house, thinking that she had some sort of claim on the guys.
Instead, she just seemed overly friendly with everyone.
I had come to understand that Ruby was a natural flirt.
The guys didn’t seem to be interested in her from what I’d observed.
Ry would give her an indulgent smile when she’d wink at him, but Gage was rather dismissive when she’d rubbed his shoulder while serving dinner.
There had been none of the heated looks that he had given me in the foyer when we had our talk.
Instead of being hurt or upset by his rejection, she just laughed it off, not at all upset.
I followed her into the kitchen, carrying empty glasses, fully prepared to assist. When she told me that I didn’t need to help, I tried to insist, but the woman was stubborn.
“Honey,” Ruby clucked her tongue. “You’re a guest here.
These guys wouldn’t want you lifting a finger to help.
It’s my job, and I get paid for it. Quite well, I might add,” she told me with a wink.
“By the way,” she suddenly spun around and set the stack of dishes she’d been holding on the counter.
“They asked me if I had an extra bathing suit.”
She eyed me with a critical eye that didn’t feel judgmental, just as if she were mentally measuring me.
“Hopefully it fits you. We’re not exactly built the same,” she giggled, “but I think it’ll work.
” She picked up a small pile of fabric that I hadn’t noticed sitting on the edge of the kitchen island and shoved it into my hands.
It was bright red with splashes of black across it.
“Here you go. There’s a bathroom down the hall and to the left,” she pointed.
“You can change in there. When you’re done, the back door is just that way.
You can’t miss it.” And she winked at me and waved her hand to shoo me off.
I took my eyes away from the minuscule fabric that I was holding and looked back up at her. “Thanks for this,” I said cautiously.
“It’s nothing,” she said with a grin. “Have fun!” She turned her back to me and started rinsing the plates off while humming a tune I couldn’t place.
I turned to follow the directions that she gave me to the bathroom, not at all looking forward to putting on the bathing suit.
It was worse than I had originally imagined.
As I stared in the mirror, I kept tugging, hoping the fabric would magically grow and cover more of me, but of course, it was a futile effort.
I would’ve thought that with a woman having such larger breasts than mine, the fabric would have been more than enough to cover my smaller ones, but it seemed I was doomed for disappointment.
I suppose I could consider myself lucky that it wasn’t a string bikini.
It definitely wasn’t a style that I typically went for, since I was more of the full-coverage type of girl.
I preferred boyshorts, as I was always needing to hide myself from the world.
The bikini had a cheeky bottom style cut that left half my ass showing.
At least I would be under the water the whole time, and it would be dark outside.
There was nothing more to do. I either pulled my bravery out from somewhere deep inside me, or took the coward’s way out and ran home to my borrowed cabin.
There was no way to magically produce more fabric, and I wasn’t a coward, so I finally gave up and turned to open the door.
I squared my shoulders back and took several deep breaths, preparing to fake confidence I didn’t feel.