Chapter 13
SHEP
“What the hell’s made you crankier than usual?” Colt asked.
He’d texted me right after closing that night to meet him for dinner at the Sip N’ Serv, the diner down the street from the sheriff’s department from one direction and also from my shop from the other.
We sat side by side at the counter. Mabel had already brought our drinks–iced tea for me and coffee for Colt–and taken our orders.
He’d just come off shift and had a few hours before Molly, his wife, got done with hers at the hospital as ER Chief.
She was six or seven months pregnant. I couldn’t keep up with all the babies, but she looked like she’d swallowed a basketball the last time I saw her. Not that I was going to tell her that.
I grunted. “Got a new employee.”
He reached for a sugar packet and huffed. “Worse than the last guy?”
I thought of what Frankie accomplished today. Every task, she’d done right. And well. And at a pace that wouldn’t blow my estimates. She was also neat, cleaned up after herself, and as far as I could tell, hadn’t stolen anything.
“Definitely better,” I said.
“Then why isn’t he working out?”
“Because he is a she. Frankie is short for Francesca.”
There was no way news of a woman mechanic wasn’t going to work its way around Devil’s Ditch. I was surprised that Mabel hadn’t said anything when she took our order. Or Ma calling to ask after her. News spread that fast around here.
He swiveled on his stool and cocked his head. Then grinned. “No shit?”
“No shit,” I muttered.
He tipped his voice low even though there was no one sitting along the counter near us. “What is it? You want to fuck her?”
It was a reasonable question. I had seven brothers and the answer was almost always yes. One example of a no was the crazy bitch, Shayna Margensky. She’d been in Hayes’ class at school and the one who’d been obsessed with Bray and hit Ma in the head with a can of beans over the summer.
I was used to sharing shit like this with them. Except I’d done something most likely illegal. Even if both me and Francesca… Frankie consented, exchanging money for sex made her a prostitute and I was a john.
I took a sip of my tea because every time I thought of that, I felt like I wanted to hurl. But then I thought of Frankie, and wanted to have sex with her again. I wanted to give her more than money. I wanted to give her everything.
It figured the brother I was sharing with was a fucking sheriff, so I’d maybe leave some of the details to myself. I doubted Jackson or Cyrus were going to blab. Not if it shut down their access to premium pussy, as Jackson had called it.
“I already did.” There, I admitted it.
His eyes widened and he grinned. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Okay, so you had sex.” The Wilder boys might share with each other who they had sex with, but we didn’t kiss and tell, which was to my advantage right now in light of where and how we’d done it.
Besides me not wanting him to know about the whole money exchange thing, I wasn’t thrilled to share that I’d been to the Trout ranch and stooped to their… shenanigans.
Hell, it was possible Rocky might even have me by the balls.
“What’s the big deal?” Colt asked.
“I want to do it again,” I admitted. “But I’m her boss.”
Mabel came by and slid my burger and fries in front of me, the meatloaf special in front of Colt, then continued down the counter to help someone else.
“She the One?” he asked, using the side of his fork to break off a piece of the meatloaf and shoved it in his mouth.
“Hell, yeah.”
He swallowed, then grinned outright. Then slapped me on the shoulder. “Doing it backward, just like the rest of us.”
His comment surprised me. While no one, not once, mentioned that because I was adopted I was any less a Wilder, I was the one who thought it.
Kept it in the back of my mind that I somehow didn’t completely belong.
Especially lately. That made his words even more powerful because maybe I was much more like them than I imagined.
I knew Frankie was the one. We had sex. I took her virginity and made her mine when I didn’t even know who she was.
While I had no idea if Ellie was a virgin when she got together with Trig, nor did I want to know, he’d claimed her without knowing her real name.
Was I like my oldest brother after all?
Hell, Cam, too. He’d done something with Taylor at The Roadside before he knew her name.
“Make her yours,” Colt advised. “Bring her to dinner.”
“She’s my employee,” I reminded, which made a big difference. “Dad’s friend recommended her.”
He laughed. “Even better. He’ll take the credit for bringing you two together.”
Actually, it had been Jackson and Rocky Trout who put me and Frankie together, which I wasn’t sharing with Colt.
“It can’t happen,” I told him.
He took another bite, then washed it down with his coffee.
“I can see why sex can’t happen in this situation,” he clarified. “Especially if it’s casual. Fine. But that isn’t the only part of a relationship.”
I gave him a look that screamed he was a dirty liar and he held up a hand. “Fine, a big part. But if sex is off the table–”
My head whipped up at his wording since that was exactly where we’d done it.
“–then get to know her. Talk to her. You may have already fallen for her, but get her to fall for you. She’s not an employee if she’s your wife.”
I held up a hand. “Whoa, wait–”
Wife?
“I give you three days.”
I frowned, grabbing a fry and munching on it. “Three days?”
He nodded. “I’m guessing you’ll make it three days before you make her yours. Hell, we might even have one more baby to add to the family before too long.”
The fry tasted suddenly like sawdust at his joke.
Shit. That wasn’t happening. Sure, I’d imagined her dripping with my cum so she knew who she belonged to.
I knew she was the first and only woman I was gonna take raw, but I couldn’t do that at the Trout ranch.
I’d made her scream my name so everyone knew she was mine, but also Frankie herself after she left.
But I hadn’t expected to see her again. Now that she was Frankie a girl, not Frankie a guy, I had another shot.
No way in hell was I letting her go. My caveman needed to claim had taken over.
Fuck, was I in big fucking trouble thinking like this.
I imagined fucking my no-longer-virgin-because-of-me employee without a condom.
How much lower could I fucking go?