Page 28 of Whiskey Proposal

“I know,” he says quietly. “He told me.”

A tear slips down my cheek.

“Ah, hell, Scrappy. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

He goes to brush the drop away, but stops, his perplexed gaze on his fingers. He looks at himself and grimaces. Yanking the zipper down on his coveralls, he shrugs out of the torso and ties off the arms around his waist. His white T-shirt is pressed against his skin, giving me a show of all the power Lane carries around so casually.

“Give me a minute,” he mutters and ditches me for the sink along the wall.

I don’t move, my gaze stuck on the play of his muscles as he scoops some goo out of a container and scrubs his hands and forearms with it. He rinses, dries himself off, and returns.

“The cowboy boots are a little out of place,” I say drily, because what the hell is going on? I left a dying ranch and the torment of Huckleberry Springs, only to return to another realm I don’t understand, with a Lane who doesn’t look at all the same as when I saw him in Colorado.

He takes off his hat, pushes a hand through his hair, setting the cap back the right way. Now his eyes are shadowed. I miss the openness.

I swipe my hand through the air, indicating his whole appearance, head to toe. “New look?”

He unties the arms and steps out of the coveralls altogether. “An old one, actually.”

“Yeah? You were a mechanic?” I tease.

“I like to think I still am.”

I cock my head, absorbing the new information. He said he had a job when Myles came into his life. A mechanic. A young Lane was taken in by the Baileys and turned into a country boy? When he got into distilling, he became a little white-collar? I can see the progression, and it’s fascinating. Everything about him is, and isn’t that unfortunate for me?

He crosses his arms, humor playing over his lips. “I worked my ass off to afford classes.” He rolled his shoulders. “Maybe some gentle B and E.”

My scandalized gasp fills the shop. “You did not. Gentle?”

“My mom’s ex-boyfriends were all losers, and maybe my dad gave me the idea that they didn’t use or need all their tools.”

“Your dad led you to a life of crime?”

“Probably why he’s in a Colorado prison for a couple of decades yet.”

My heart twists for young Lane. I can picture it. A lankier version of him, wanting his dad’s approval. Wanting better. “Did you get caught?”

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t have the guts to do it more than twice. If I got locked up, then Cruz would’ve been left alone.”

“For your dad to corrupt him too?”

His lips thin. “Dad wasn’t in the picture that much. Just when it was convenient for him.”

The stories I read and interviews I listened to run through my head, leaving one gaping question. “You’ve mentioned your dad in prison, but when I was reading up on Foster House, I thought your dad had died.”

He nods like both are right. “Myles’s dad passed away, and our mom went downhill after that. When Myles was almost eighteen, she gave up trying to control him and latched on to my and Cruz’s dad. She never married him, so we have the Foster name. To forever piss our dad off.”

“Was it effective?”

“At first. Kept him dogging her heels until he got bored.”

Wow. The relaxed man I met at Foster House had it all. The dapper look. The trendy business. The big family. The man in front of me came from a home more broken than mine. “If we’re playing the who had it worse game, I guess you win.”

He laughs, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. I could scale him and lick up the column of his throat. Lust fills me so fast, my vision becomes a haze and only Lane’s in focus. My pulse climbs higher and my breathing speeds up. My nipples poke hard into my shirt.

Overwhelmed, I spin around, but the truck fills my view. He’s fixing it up. He’s a mechanic, but it doesn’t make sense. A whole lot isn’t making sense, like why I can’t seem to quit finding myself in my husband’s orbit. We’re nothing but roommates.

“Why the pickup?” I ask again, spoiling for a fight. Tell me it’s because you want to keep it. Tell me you tricked a sick old man into handing it over. Tell me you’re going to sell it. Surely it’s worth something other than bittersweet memories.