Chapter Seven

“I thought only high school kids did this shit.”

Adam unhooked the last black tube and tossed it into the back of his truck. “They do. But I get the feeling Grant is trying to recapture his glory days.” And maybe Jules, too.

Quinn snorted. “The more I hear about this guy, the more he sounds like a winner.” He looked around. “Where’s Daniel?”

“He’s busy.” Or, more likely, he didn’t want to see his cousin and Adam putting on a show for a guy he hated. Adam was sorry he felt that way, but he’d seen the look on Jules’s face when he walked into her shop today. Grant got under her skin in a bad way, and watching the light in her eyes dim had grated on Adam something fierce. There was enough bad shit in this world without that asshat making her feel like she was lacking.

Adam wasn’t exactly a white knight, though. He was taking advantage of her with these “lessons.”

Which made him no better than Grant, in the end.

Adam looked at his hands. He had calluses across his palms from rope burns, and there was the scar on his right ring finger where he’d broken it in a truly impressive way after being thrown from a bull with the name of Satan’s Revenge. He’d only managed four seconds that ride, but it had been more than worth it.

What he wouldn’t give to take it back and know he’d been by his mama’s side when she found out about the cancer instead.

“You okay?”

He blinked. “What?”

Quinn looked distinctly uncomfortable to be shucking aside the joking demeanor he preferred. “I don’t know, man. You just seem kind of lost since you got back into town. Is it your mom? I know she’s sick—”

“She’s fine.” He wasn’t ready to admit that she wouldn’t even talk about the cancer with him. Not now, not like this. There would come a time when he’d have to sit her down and force it out of her, but he sure as fuck wasn’t ready for it yet. Really, he should thank Jules. When they were together, he was able to forget his fear that one day he’d wake up and his mama would be gone for good.

He realized he’d spoken too sharply and sighed. “Look, it’s complicated and I’m not handling it well.”

“No shit.” Quinn hesitated. “If you need anything—anything at all—I’m here. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And Daniel is, too, even if he’s got his own shit he’s dealing with.” He held up a hand before Adam could ask. “It’s the same old, same old. He was never the same after John died and Hope left. The man has one foot in the grave, and it’s by choice.”

The car crash affected them all. Everything changed after that night, and little of it for the better. Adam wished there was something he could do for Daniel, but the truth was that he had more than enough shit to deal with on his own. Fuck. He swiped a beer from the cooler in the back of the truck and opened it. “What a trio we make.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m the normal one.”

Quinn was as normal as he could be after having walked away from his oil tycoon of a father—and his family’s fortune—to be a cattle rancher. Adam shook his head. “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.”

“Like a baby.” Quinn closed the tailgate. “So is that mean little redhead coming?”

“Don’t know. She doesn’t seem like the type to be into this sort of thing.”

“You mean she’s like a vampire who’ll burn up in the sun and probably feasts on the blood of innocents? I totally agree.”

Adam snorted. “You enjoy pushing her buttons.”

“More than I should.” He laughed. “I can’t help it. It’s too easy to get a rise out of her.”

“Get your ass in the truck or we’re going to be late.”

Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of Jules’s shop. He stopped the truck and froze when Jules and Aubry stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk. “Holy fucking shit.”

“You can say that again.”

“Shut up.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Jules. She wore a pair of cutoff shorts that might’ve been the same ones from the other night, but this time, there were ties peeking out the top on either side of her hips. It was like seeing the tip of a present he was dying to unwrap. Adam’s cock jumped to attention as his gaze coasted up her stomach to the tiny black triangle bikini covering her breasts. There was nothing overtly revealing about the cut of the suit, but it had him fighting not to kick Quinn out of the truck and drive her off to somewhere they wouldn’t be interrupted so he could explore those scraps of cloth at length.

“Jesus, man. If you could see the way you’re looking at her.” Quinn shook his head. “Should I get another ride?”

“What? No. It’s fine.” Though he wanted to tell his friend to do exactly that. Get a hold of yourself, idiot. He had to control himself—he was about to be up close and personal with Jules, and jumping her bones the second he saw her wasn’t acceptable.

“Sure it is.” Quinn hopped out of the truck, and Adam took several deep breaths and focused on getting his body’s reaction minimized. He didn’t have long, because Jules climbed up and scooted over until she was pressed against him from shoulder to hip, Aubry on the other side of her.

Quinn wedged his big body into the tiny space between the redhead and the door. “There’s plenty of room for you right here, sweet cheeks.” He patted his lap.

She shot him a look that would have sent a lesser man bolting from the truck. “Touch me and lose the attached body part.”

Quinn just grinned. “You’re all sugar and spice and everything nice, aren’t you?”

Hearing the redhead’s hiss of rage was almost enough to distract Adam from how good Jules smelled—like coconut and suntan lotion. He smiled at her. “You ready for this?”

“Not in the least.” Her eyes were a little too wide. “It’s bringing back all sorts of memories I could do without.”

Memories of her and Grant. The thought sent a completely irrational spike of jealousy through him. That shit had gone down years ago. There was no reason for him to want to wring the man’s neck for knowing that he’d once gotten to touch Jules whenever he wanted, or that he’d held her heart close enough to break it.

Or, hell, that he still affected her strongly enough nine years later that she was willing to get up close and personal with a near stranger to prove a point.

Adam turned back to the road, clenching his jaw to keep words inside that he had no right to. He didn’t have any rights when it came to Jules, and it’d do him good to remember that.

The rest of the trip up was done in painful silence. He was almost grateful for the fact that Aubry had taken an instant dislike to Quinn’s poking at her, because her icy one-word answers to him made conversation between Adam and Jules damn near impossible. He parked next to two other trucks. Of the two, he pegged the shiny pavement queen to be Grant’s—the red Ford must have had all of ten miles on the engine. His ten-year-old Dodge looked battered and beaten by comparison.

He’d be an idiot not to see the similarities between the trucks and their owners.

It was enough to give a lesser man a complex.

Adam got out of the cab before anyone could say something to tip him over the edge and strode around to the back to start unpacking the tubes.

“Is everything okay?”

He didn’t look over at Jules. “I could live the rest of my life happy knowing I wouldn’t hear that question again from another damn person.”

If he expected her to rabbit away from his snarled words, he was sadly mistaken. “You don’t have to do this. We can just say something came up and skip it.”

Even if he was willing to do that—and piss-poor mood or not, he couldn’t let Jules down so spectacularly—the chance to bolt disappeared when Grant came around the back of the truck and waved. “I’m glad you made it.” He did a double take when he saw Jules. “I can’t believe your mama let you out of the door dressed like that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Funny thing—I have my own place, and I’m not sixteen anymore.”

“I can see that.” And then he proceeded to rake her with his gaze in a way that had Adam seeing red. He stalked over to slip an arm around her waist, telling himself all the while that he was playing a part.

It sure as fuck didn’t feel like a part. It felt like he was half a second from beating that smug piece of shit’s face in. Adam put every ounce of that desire onto his face when he clenched his teeth in a way that only a fool would call a grin. “Didn’t your daddy ever teach you that it’s not nice to eye-fuck another man’s woman, let alone when he’s standing not two feet away?”

Grant took a step back and seemed to catch himself because he straightened, his shoulders going back. “You know as well as I do that she’s not the kind of—”

“Boy, I suggest you rethink the words that are about to come out of your idiot mouth.”

Grant’s teeth clicked together when he snapped his mouth shut. He glared. “Hurry up. The party’s already started.” Then he strode away, yanking his shirt off and pausing to shove it into his truck before he disappeared down the path leading to the swimming hole.

“Well, that was…” Jules let out a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“I offered to keep this thing going, remember? You didn’t get me into anything I didn’t want to do.” He forced the tension out of his body. He’d wanted to do this because Jules offered a one-of-a-kind distraction from the shit his mom was going through, but that didn’t do a damn thing if he didn’t let her distract him. “I’m just in a piss-poor mood, and it has nothing to do with you.”

“Okay.” She didn’t sound sure, though. But she brightened immediately. “I’ll grab the beer.”

He was quickly learning that Jules covered up nearly any uncomfortable emotion with cheer. It should have been annoying as fuck, but it was strangely endearing. Then she shimmied out of her shorts and he forgot about everything but the fact her heart-shaped ass was barely covered by her bikini bottom.

He rubbed a hand over his face, his chances of making it through the day without killing Grant Thomas—or fucking Jules senseless—disappearing before his eyes.