Page 94 of Filthy Fae

“Seasonal,” I said, not really knowing why I was lying, but not wanting to tell him every little detail, either. Holden had told me that Wyomingites could be nosy, but this guy was straight-out prying. And anyway, what was a cowboy doing renting a cabin? We usually got skiers and college kids on their breaks. Maybe this guy was running from the law.

Wade nodded. “You live in one of these?” he asked, cutting his eyes toward the other cabins.

Now he was scoping out my sleeping place? I took a step back, edging toward the house. I suddenly remembered being taken down by wheezing old Mrs. Grimes. If I couldn’t fight off an old lady, I had no chance against this strapping cowboy. And I wasn’t actually sure that the guys were close, that they could hear me if I screamed.

“In the lodge,” I said, hoping that would keep him from getting any ideas about breaking into one of the cabins at night. There was nothing to steal in any of them, or the lodge, for that matter. Mr. Westling had promised the boys a fat check for letting me stay, but that offer had been withdrawn when he found out his sons were all banging me at once instead of preserving my virginity in a jar like one of those creepy pickled frogs in our high school biology lab. Still, we’d managed not to sink the ranch in the past year. The rental income from the cabins definitely helped.

“Right, of course,” Wade said with a nod. “And which of these cabins are occupied?” He was staring again, studying me like my life story was written across my face and he was trying to puzzle it out.

Suddenly, my guard went way up. What if he wasn’t a cowboy at all, but a New Yorker in disguise? What if he’d caught wind of Senator Durant’s scandalous daughter living an unconventional lifestyle, and he’d come out to see for himself? He might be doing all this digging to see if he could get the scoop. Which one of her stepbrothers is Amber Durant riding like a bronco every night?

My mother was playing nice—also known as pretending I didn’t exist in exchange for not bothering me about my relationship with the Westling boys. We didn’t want to risk that tenuous balance by hiring new ranch hands, and we sure as hell didn’t want to risk it by renting a cabin to a reporter. I didn’t want to tell him anything else, not even which of us lived in the lodge. Definitely not that. It was one thing to bone your stepbrother, it was a whole other thing to go three-deep on the nightly.

“Just make yourself comfortable,” I said, nodding to the stack of firewood Sawyer had piled up next to the door. “There’s wood to keep the fire going, and you’ll find the basic linens already there. We don’t provide food, though, so I hope you brought some.” As I talked, I backed toward the house.

“Sure thing.” Wade hadn’t brought out anything that looked like food, but he had a Jeep, so he could run into town if he needed it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right with him, though. When I got back to the house, I locked the door for the first time I could remember. Then I headed straight for my computer to do some digging.

2

Waylon

Walking in from the shop after putting out the hay that night, I noticed a shiny new Jeep in the drive. I went on full alert. No one I knew drove a fancy car like that. The Jeeps around here were covered in mud more often than not. Even after a year, my first thought was that it must be someone come to get Amber. Politicians liked those sleek black cars. Her mother had been awfully quiet, but she was bound to want to see her daughter again someday.

My brothers must have been thinking the same thing, because Sawyer took one look at me and started for the house. Inside, everything was quiet. My chest tightened, and I hurried down the hall to the office where Amber did her work. The evening was getting on, and it was almost dark out. Inside the office, I could hardly make out anything but the shape of Amber’s familiar face lit by the electronic glow of the computer.

“Everything okay in here?” I asked, stepping in.

“What? Oh, yeah,” Amber said, bolting upright. “Is it dinner time already?”

She bit at a hangnail, casting guilty looks from me to my brothers.

“Don’t worry about it,” Holden said, stepping past me into the office and putting an arm around Amber. “We’ll have sandwich and beer night. Haven’t had one of those in a while.”

We’d barely had one of those since she’d gotten there. Maybe she’d changed our bachelor ways without us even realizing it. We’d given up that lazy habit since having a woman around to impress. It made us all step it up a little.

“I’m so sorry,” Amber said. “I told you I’d cook tonight.”

Holden smiled and kissed her forehead. “I still got out of cooking,” he said with a smile. “But you can help me with the sandwiches.”

I couldn’t deny being a little jealous of the way both my brothers always knew just the right thing to say to women. If it had been me, I probably would have made her feel worse somehow, but instead, she was all smiles heading to the kitchen under Holden’s arm. I reminded myself it didn’t matter with Amber. She had all of us, so whatever shortcomings she might find in me, my brothers would pick up the slack.

“What kept you so busy there, Princess?” Sawyer asked, grabbing some sandwich fixings from the fridge when we got to the kitchen. “Were you researching something exciting?”

He gave her a wink, and she slugged his shoulder. I took a seat by the potbelly stove, watching their interaction the way I always did—with curiosity, and awe, and a touch of envy.

“I was actually looking for our renter,” she said. “In case you didn’t notice, he arrived.”

“He?” I asked. My instinct had been that something was off, and now I sat up straight, waiting for her to go on.

“Yeah,” she said, setting a plate down in front of me. “It’s just one guy.”

We all fell silent for a minute. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t like the thought of a guy hanging around the cabins where Amber was liable to be during the day while we were out working. It was one thing to have a bunch of spring breakers out back, but they kept each other company. As resistant as I had been to the idea of renting out our granddaddy’s cabins, I had to admit, it had saved the ranch.

“He’s a little… odd,” Amber said, sliding in at the table.

Holden grabbed four beers and joined us along with Sawyer. “How so?”

“I don’t really know,” Amber said. “I mean, I guess he’s okay. I just got a funny feeling about him.”