by Sosie Frost
“You used me, princess,” he whispered, his voice a sensual promise. “And you loved it.”
Why was this man so preoccupied with sex? “Believe me, you aren’t the only man in the county who could have gotten me off.”
“Yeah, but I’m the only one who could do it that well.”
Hardly. “Insert object A into slot B. I’ve assembled more complicated IKEA furniture.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t like it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still obsessing over it.”
“You’re the one who won’t let me leave. All you gotta do is sign one little paper.”
“Got anything I can sign that’ll turn back time?”
“No, but I got something for you that’ll make time stand still.”
I arched an eyebrow. “An infinity with you? Now you’re threatening me.”
“Tell you what…” Julian grabbed my arm as I attempted to walk away. “Answer this question, and I’ll do whatever you ask. Tents. Bands. Fireworks. The whole lot.”
I swatted away a dive bombing bee and wished I could have slapped him too. “I know better than to agree to anything without hearing the terms.”
Julian held my stare, those hypnotizing green eyes capable of revealing everything I felt.
“Tell me I’m the best you ever had,” he said.
“Want me to lie?”
Wrong answer. It only encouraged him, drew him closer until I was nearly tucked against his chest and trapped within his arms once more.
“You can’t fake anything around me, princess. I see through the bullshit and the priss.”
“Then you have your answer.”
“But I want to hear it. Tell me. Tell me how much you wanted me. How good it was when I slammed inside you and fucked you like an animal.”
My mouth dried. Why did he have to remind me of the one image I desperately needed to get out of my head?
A second bee joined the first. I ducked as it buzzed a little too close to my face.
“For someone as cocky as you…” I let my glance drift downward. “I have to stroke your ego a lot, don’t I?”
“For someone who hates me so much, you can’t stop thinking about me.” Julian grinned. “So what Is it? My cock? My tongue? The full package?”
I wasn’t amused. “Your ego?”
He peeked at me over the sunglasses. “That’s the same as my cock.”
“One day it might deflate.”
“Not today. And I can guarantee…not tonight.”
A third and fourth bee joined the duo spinning around my head. This was not the sort of hummer Julian had expected.
A rousing buzz blitzed over the grass. I glanced down just as Julian shifted, his foot uncovering a small hole in the earth.
And from the depths of the earth emerged the latest complication to the Sawyer County Fair.
“Bees!” I screeched. “Jesus, run!”
I bolted as a plume of pissed off bees poured from the underground nest and funneled into the air. Not fast enough. A quick, sharp, insane pain struck just over my behind. I reached back, rubbing my ass.
Julian yelled. “Get going, princess!”
Hard to run when an angry yellow jacket wedged itself under my dress and gnawed on my booty. Julian was enough of a prick for me, but these two, three, four agonizing pricks were far worse.
And they weren’t stopping.
I swatted the pests tangled in my hair. “This is your fault! It’s your fault!”
“Shut up and run!”
“Get rid of them!”
Julian hauled me into his arms and tossed me over a fence at the edge of the fairground property. I landed in the dirt. He hopped the wood and yanked me to my feet with a grunt.
“Don’t stop!”
The pasture land opened before us, reserved for overflow parking near the swollen creek. The wasps swarmed behind us, a cluster of hate, vengeance, and very sharp bits. Julian seized my wrist and bolted towards the edge of the lot.
The retention pond.
“No!” I dug my heels into the ground. “Don’t you dare!”
“You said to get rid of them!”
“Cowboy, don’t—”
“Take a breath!”
Julian didn’t give me a choice. He grabbed me by the hips and held me close.
Within seconds, I was airborne over the embankment.
I landed butt first in the water.
The impressive splash surged the pond around us and frightened away the bees, but Julian held me steady, nearly drowning me for thirty seconds while I beat on his rock-hard head.
He surfaced with a grin.
I nearly threw up.
“They’re gone!” Julian laughed, rubbing the water from his eyes. “Safe and sound!”
“What…” The water was more oil and dirt than water and clean. I fought my way to the edge, slipping on sticky mud and crawling to whatever amounted for a shore. “How…you got me…”
My dress. Shoes. Phone.
Ruined.
And I was covered once more in mud, muck, and filthy water.
My hair—what had taken nearly an hour to condition and straighten—was drenched. Completely waterlogged. In five minutes, my hair wouldn’t just poof. It’d invade Main Street.
I couldn’t speak. The words collided with my anger and tussled back in the pond.
“This…second outfit…ruined!” My ass hurt. I reached behind, rubbing my booty. “I got stung.”
“You’re okay.” Julian hauled himself from the water, whipping off his t-shirt to reveal a set of muscles built on muscles. He wrung out the shirt, flexing every single part of him. “No more wasps.”
“There shouldn’t be any wasps!” I slapped the water. It wasn’t good enough. I slapped it at him. He dodged the splash. “I can’t believe you! You dunked me in the water!”
“Hey, I just saved you!”
“No! No, you didn’t! You just caused more trouble.” I struggled to haul myself out of the pond, fell, and coated my chest in more mud. “Everything you do, everywhere you go! The farm. The bar. The…the panties! You’re nothing but a pain in my ass!” I rubbed the stings again. “Literally!”
“We were about to get eaten alive.” Julian’s tone shifted. Harsh. “I got you to safety.”
“You dunked me in a retention pond!”
“And I deserve a thank you at least.”
“No!” I shouted. “Never again. This was a total mistake! I was delusional to ask for your help! I don’t want to hear your name. I don’t want to see you ever again!”
“You said you needed me.” He smirked. “In more ways than one—”
“Don’t!” I nearly threw a rock at his head. “Don’t you even finish that sentence! You are nothing but a pest. A cocky son of a bitch who must take some sort of…” I stumbled over my words as his hardened pecs actually twitched. “Some sort of joy in terrorizing me!”
“Screw you too,” he spat. “I was trying to help.”
“I don’t want your kind of help anymore!”
Julian’s expression darkened, the green in his eyes morphing into the same swirling, algae-ridden sludge that trickled from my hair.
“All right, princess. I don’t need yours either. Fuck all of this. You want to be some stuck-up priss with an ego-trip because of your job? Fine. I’m building my goddamned barn whether you want it or not.”
He wouldn’t dare.
I slapped the water. “Then I’ll have it torn down.”
“You and what army?” Julian gestured over the field. “Look around, princess. You’re right. Butterpond loves me. But who do you got in your corner?” His voice lowered to a hiss. “A swarm of goddamned wasps.”
My chest tightened, but it didn’t worry me as much as the rolling of my stomach. Too much running, too much heat, too much Julian Payne.
“Glad to be rid of you,” I said.
“No, you’re not.” Julian’s grin was cold. “But that’s fine. Fanta
size about me all you want.”
“Believe me, cowboy…” The water would boil around me. “After today? I will never think about you, speak your name, or see you again.”
He scowled. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“There isn’t a force in this world that would bring us together again, Julian Payne.” I relished the freedom with a laugh. “Goodbye forever.”
Chapter Six
Julian
After getting injured overseas, the hospital gave my brother a new prosthetic leg. I liked it better than the rest of him.
Marius greeted me with his customary charm. “What the hell are you doing here?”
My brother, second oldest of the Payne clan and the biggest asshole of us all, limped on his new leg from the bed to his chair for a towel. Physical therapy hadn’t been enough for him. The idiot was still trying to do crunches and arm work, like the SEALs would take him back minus the leg.
Both of us could hope.
“I’m checking on you,” I said.
Marius hated that. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“I said I’m fine.”
I offered him a hand as he struggled with the prosthetic. His knee—what was left of it—was probably still aching. Couldn’t imagine he’d want to be working it so hard, but that was Marius. Breaking his body because he could. My little brother didn’t know how goddamned lucky he’d been. Not only was he still alive, but the narrow vertebrae that ran in the family had skipped him. It was my back that had needed the surgeries. Until now, Marius was the healthiest of us all.
And maybe the injuries would finally bring us closer together.
“I got enough bullshit to deal with today, Jules,” Marius said. “Get lost.”
Or maybe not.
“Cassi wanted me to come talk.” I’d blame it on her. “Figured I’d…”
Marius scowled. “That’s a fun minefield.”
Probably better than the hospital room with the only CRT television left in the county. “You’re coming home soon.”
“Oh, I’m counting the fucking days.”
I didn’t expect him to make it easy. “Figure you’ll want to stay at the farm?”
“Better than a muddy ditch.” He snorted. “Maybe.”
“How attached are you to the farm?”
We both knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him.
Marius smirked. “I’m not the one humping the land, hoping something grows.”
I didn’t bother sitting down for a real chat. Better to make it quick.
It didn’t make the words any easier. “I got an offer for the farm.”
He flicked on the television. “Take it.”
I took the remote from him. Marius could lunge, but he couldn’t hop out of the bed without the leg. I kicked it away too. He could get it later. Or the nurses who avoided him like the plague could check his vitals, get grunted at, and glue it on his stump or whatever the hell they did.
“You didn’t even hear the terms,” I said.
“Doesn’t fucking matter. Take it.”
“What about the farm?”
Marius cracked open a water bottle and took a long sip. “That’s your guilt, not mine.”
“What about the family?”
“What about them?” He pointed to the flowers at his bedside. Cassi’s attempt to brighten the room. A larger bouquet sat at the nurses’ station. Her attempt to placate the frustrated staff. “We were fine without each other for the past couple years. I only worry about Cassi, but she’s fooling around with Rem Marshall again.”
“It’s worse than that. She says they’re in love.”
Marius didn’t like that. “You let it happen?”
“She’s an adult.”
“He’s no good for her.”
Or so I’d thought, but five years of secrets had exonerated him. For now.
I flipped the business card onto the bed. “R&J Developers. I got some information from a Ben Jones. Said they’d pay us a good price.”
“Why the hell are you coming to me with this shit?”
Marius rubbed his face. He looked tired. No. Worse. In pain. Knowing Marius, he was trying to tough it out. Idiot.
“What’s everyone else think?” he asked.
“Haven’t asked them yet,” I said. “Tidus is still inconsolable—binging every night and refusing to talk to anyone but Cassi. Quint can’t stay confined to one place for longer than a week before he starts flipping shit. Varius…Christ, you know what the tornado did to him. And Cassi’s just as tired of it as me. She’s wanted to get out of town for a long time. But now that Rem’s back in Butterpond, she has a reason to stay. Taking care of his nieces and sneaking off with him. So, I want to know what you think.”
Marius didn’t believe me. “Why?”
“Because Dad made it clear in his will—any decision has to be unanimous. If we sell, we sell it all as one parcel. If we work it, we start the farm together.”
“You know Dad never gave a damn what any of us thought—you were the only one who mattered.”
I exhaled. “Not true.”
“You’re came all the way to Ironfield to look your crippled brother in the eye and lie?”
“You’re not crippled.”
“Don’t know if you’ve seen the prognosis.” He pointed to the bandages on what remained of his leg. “But I ain’t hop-scotching with Cassi anymore.”
“Then you’re going to need to recover somewhere. Why not on the farm?”
“If we’re talking fantasy-land, why not a rented room with two big-tittied blondes on either side of me?” Marius shook his head. “But let’s get real. I’m not gonna score, and you’re not gonna get the farm operational.”
“Why not?”
“Why would you? What is your obsession with that land? Are you that damn guilty?”
Not this shit again. “I’m doing this for the family.”
“Fuck off. You’re doing it for yourself. Julian Payne, professional running back for the Rivets, knocked out of the league after only half a season. Is that it?”
Marius crossed his arms behind his head, enjoying how I scowled. Pissing me off was a talent only he possessed, and he wielded the gift effortlessly.
“Come on, Jules. You can talk to me. I got no where to be and no way to get there. So, let’s hear it. I’m sure you’ve got one hell of a story about how Dad’s golden child fucked up the career of a lifetime—the money, the fame, the women. Didn’t make it in the league, so now you gotta focus on the farm, right? Gotta make it up to Dad since it was all your fault?”
I loved all my brothers. Didn’t mean I had to like them.
“Glad they scraped your ass off the IED and brought you home.” I flipped him off as I left the hospital room. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Marius called after me. “Tell me where to sign when you get the contract for the sale.”
“Fuck off.”
“Already tried. Didn’t take.” His words were a curse. “See you at home.”
Just what I needed.
A wounded, angry vet stomping around the farm on one leg, picking fights with Tidus as he drank his way out of a hangover. He’d piss with Quint while the kid raged about missing college, and he’d probably supply Varius with the rope he seemed to want so much. Only one I could count on was Cassi, and she’d already put in her overtime with the family, helping Dad during his last months when the farm turned hospice.
I should have been there.
The thought plagued me anytime I had a quiet moment to myself. While driving. In the shower. Clearing the overgrown fields.
I should have been home.
I knew his heart was bad. Knew it before Mom died three years ago. Knew it the last Christmas I saw him. Knew it before the doctors called it what it was and told us to make our peace.
Back then, I didn’t know what to do. I had a wallet as empty as the whiskey bottle on my kitchen counter and a s
pine full of scars from three surgeries. I’d failed Dad. Failed the farm too.
And my brothers knew it. Blamed me. And that was fine. They could hate me. They could piss with me. They could insult me.
But unless the vote was unanimous, the farm was staying in the Payne name.
And I was going to make it work, even if it broke my back.
Again.
My brothers weren’t at the farm. Not a problem for me. Wasn’t like they’d be eager to help repair the seventeen-year-old tractor that was spilling more diesel than mowing the grass. With Cassi entertaining Rem and his live-in nieces at the lake, it was just me, the sun, a wrench and a shit ton of profanity as I worked the tractor.
What the hell did I know about machinery repair? Owning a farm? Running an agricultural business? I’d blitzed through college on a scholarship, learning more offensive playbooks than any mechanical engineering or animal husbandry. Now that I needed that knowledge, the only one I could ask was dead.
And the only other one who gave a damn about the farm strutted through the backyard, feathers ruffled and talons looking to shred.
I pitched my shirt off and checked Helena’s roost. As usual, the nest was empty.
“You’re lucky I don’t have a bucket of buttermilk and some hot oil around.” I shoo’ed the chicken away from my tractor with a wave of a wrench. “You’re better at dinner than you are at breakfast.”
Helena clucked an insult.
“So, this is how you treat all the chicks?”
The bird was bad enough. I really wasn’t expecting a dance with the devil. I turned, pitching the wrench into the rusted metal toolbox. Micah hobbled backwards, tip-toeing to safety as the chicken slowly pecked the ground around her feet.
Had she ever even seen a chicken?
“What the hell are you doing here?” I wiped the sweat from my brow. Micah watched my muscles flex. Bet she liked that. “Not in the mood to tangle with you today, princess.”
She clutched her purse to her side as the chicken encroached. Did the woman ever wear anything that wasn’t designer and professional? Someone in her shoes—four-inch red heels—would have dominated a man in a shorter skirt. A couple undone buttons couldn’t have hurt either, especially with her spectacular, and suddenly bountiful, cleavage.