It had been, she guessed, but Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches had made it better. They’d taken her, her sisters, and her mother under their wings and gave them a life.
Her mother was given the house that had once been taken away from Dawg by the cousin that had betrayed his country and his family and had nearly killed Dawg’s wife, Christa. The same cousin Eve had heard agents accusing Natches of having killed. After Johnny Grace’s death the property had reverted back to Dawg, and had been sitting empty for nearly three years before Eve and her family showed up.
He’d had the renovations done under her mother’s direction, agreeing to allow her to sign a promissory loan for the amount it had taken to renovate it. Mercedes Mackay had then opened the bed-and-breakfast she’d always dreamed of having.
Her sisters were in college, and Eve had graduated from the local technical college with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
As she stepped from the shower, wrapped her hair in a towel, and quickly dried off, she grimaced at the paleness of her skin.
It was June; by now she usually had a nice golden tan over her body, and instead of coming in at two in the morning from a job, she’d been sneaking in after a night of carousing herself.
When had the fun and good times started leaving a bad taste in her mouth? she wondered as she brushed her teeth.
She’d been in Somerset for five years now, and the past three years the nightlife she had once sworn by had quickly become boring, with a heavy air of immaturity.
Quickly applying a moisturizing facial cream, she then lotioned her body and spritzed a toasted-vanilla body spray over herself.
It was a lot of work to go through just to go to bed, but after eight hours at the bar where she worked, Walker’s Run, and waiting on tables in the outside smokers’ patio, she smelled of old tobacco smoke, the sweaty bodies that had brushed against her, sawdust, and the greasy food she’d served.
She couldn’t bear the thought of going to bed smelling like the bar.
Mackay’s Fine Dining, previously Mackay’s Restaurant and Cafe, the restaurant Natches’s sister Janey owned, wasn’t as bad, but it still called for a shower. Maybe she’d go work for Dawg at the lumber store for a while. Natches would readily let her work at the garage as well, but Eve wasn’t ready for the oil baths she had experienced the few times she’d worked there. His redneck mechanics thought it was funny to find ways to upend the pails of old oil in ways that left her covered in the nasty sludge. And though Natches always fired the responsible party when they could be identified, after the first firing, Eve was always careful to ensure no one was identified.
She had just been there temporarily because she liked working on cars. It wasn’t a job she needed to feed her family and she wasn’t going to be responsible for having a man with a family fired because he was offended by a “girl,” as they called her, doing their job.
Pulling on one of the summer-thin camisole-and-shorts pajamas she preferred, Eve moved to the balcony doors she’d slipped through earlier and opened one side quietly. The bed-and-breakfast had a full house for the next few weeks, though several of the rooms had been rented for more than two years now by three guests who often gave their free time to Mercedes to do odd jobs around the inn. Her mother greatly reduced the amount of their stay in return, and one to two days a week the three men took care of repairs needed in and outside the inn as well as yard work.
The one beside her was one of them.
Stepping outside, she moved to the oval wicker chair hanging from beneath the second floor wraparound balcony, with its thick, fluffy cushions and curled into it with a weary sigh.
She was exhausted, but she’d never go to sleep easily if she went to bed now.
Why couldn’t she be one of those people that dropped right off to sleep? Instead, she spent far too long staring up at the ceiling or with her eyes closed, fighting for peace. Or far too many sensations raced through her body, demanding satisfaction, as they were tonight.
As they had been since the first hour on the job that night, when Brogan Campbell had walked into the bar.
It was that arrogant swagger that made him so tempting. Or maybe it was that slightly tilted curve to his lips. As though he saw beneath the facades of those he talked to and was amused by the deceptions they practiced.
It sure couldn’t be that red-gold hair with all the sunlit and burnished brown highlights it held that framed his hard-hewn face and tempted her to touch it to see if it was as warm as it looked. And it couldn’t be the arrogance in those icy gray-blue eyes, or the subtle darkening that always affected them whenever she caught his gaze.
Whatever it was, the second he’d entered the bar that night she’d known it.
She’d known it and responded to him.
Her br**sts had swelled, her ni**les becoming hard and peaked as her skin seemed to sensitize. She became so aware of the sensitive folds between her thighs that she felt them dampening, felt the slick juices as they made their way along the tender tissue of her vagina to ease out along the lips beyond.
She had become so horny so fast she’d almost dropped the tray of drinks she’d been carrying.
That was the effect Brogan had on her. And knowing he was sleeping in the suite next to hers didn’t help matters, because she knew—knew beyond a shadow of a doubt—that he wanted her as well.
That was the reason she was working the job that would bring her home at the latest possible hour and work her the hardest. Unfortunately it wasn’t working her hard enough, evidently.
“Eve. Hey, Eve, you there?”
Eve glanced up at the bottom of the balcony at the sound of her sister Lyrica’s voice hissing from above.
“You’re supposed to be asleep, Lyrica.” She grinned, keeping her voice soft as she answered her.
“Oh, great, that was you I heard drive up.” Her sister’s loud whisper was followed by the sight of a slender foot bracing on the outside of the balcony railing.
A second later the other foot joined it; then her sister was reaching for the thick post next to her and shimmying down it like a pro. Hell, she was a pro. All three of Eve’s sisters were. They’d learned early how to slip from the house and make the most of a perfectly good summer night.
They hadn’t fooled their mother, though. It never failed that their brother, Dawg, or one of their cousins, Rowdy or Natches, or one of their friends would find them after an hour or so and escort them home. They were never out long enough to get into trouble, but always long enough to satisfy the thrill of escaping for a while.