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Out of her three brothers, Rudy—who was probably still passed out from the night before or nursing a hangover at three in the afternoon—was her favorite. Maybe that was because the Buck-Leroy combo had picked on him as much as they had her. But she’d always been protective of him because, truth be told, the boy was more effeminate than B.J.
Not that she had a feminine bone in her body.
“I’m done in too,” Pete Smardo announced with a tired sigh.
The sigh matched his weathered features. Pete probably wasn’t a day over sixty, but he looked more like he was approaching eighty. His sun-ripened face was full of wrinkles and age spots from sitting outside in front of his junkyard on a rocking chair three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
His son, Ralphie, ran the yard with Pete, and Ralphie’s pale skin revealed how little he sat with his old man. His colorless cheeks also indicated how antsy he was when he glanced over to watch her meet the bid and raise it.
The four men surrounding her sat up in interest as the bill she flung out settled onto the rest of the pocket change. Pausing at the sudden silence, B.J. frowned and looked as well. She almost pissed her pants when she saw Alexander Hamilton grinning back. But damn, she’d only meant to throw out a single dollar, not ten.
“She’s bluffing,” Leroy said, eyeing her intently.
She lifted her gaze and shot him a challenging look. “That why you cut out so early?”
He glowered, and she dismissed him with a snort, turning toward Ralphie to catch his next move.
Ralphie was two years her senior and, to her eternal shame, the last man she’d slept with. A few years earlier, they’d gotten tanked one night, snuck into a nearby watering hole and gone skinny-dipping. After the swim, he’d been frisky. B.J. hadn’t been with a guy in almost three years, so she’d given in to his pathetic seduction—and she was only calling it a seduction for lack of a better word.
It ended up being one of the most God-awful experiences of her life.
Luckily, Ralphie hadn’t been that impressed either, and they’d somehow remained friends. In fact, she’d pretty much roped in his current girlfriend for him. He and Nan Lundy were probably going to tie the knot one of these days, if the idiot ever got around to proposing. Ralphie continually told her how grateful he was for her matchmaking, and they remained tight.
B.
J. took a swig from a Styrofoam cup of cooled coffee and thoughtfully eyed him as he threw down the cash to meet her bid.
Her attention swiveled to Buck. He growled, “Fold,” and B.J. silently sighed in relief. That left only Ralphie to defeat.
“Okay,” she said, ready to wheel and deal as she turned fully toward the pale, sweaty man. “If I win, I get that set of ten-ply tires you snatched from Rick Hopper’s wrecked truck.”
B.J. adored her souped-up four by four, three-quarter ton Dodge diesel, and the tires from Hopper’s old truck would look sweet on it. They were exactly what she wanted, but she couldn’t cough up the cash when her current set worked perfectly fine. She was a real miser that way.
Ralphie glanced at his old man and winced as Pete scratched his gray-black beard stubble with a frown. Then Pete shrugged. “If you lose us those tires, boy, it’s coming out of your wallet.”
Ralphie didn’t look too reassured. He glanced at B.J. “And if I win?”
She lifted a brow. “Name your price.” When Ralphie fell into intense contemplation, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “Sometime today, please. I got a job to do here pretty soon.”
“Speaking of which. . .” Buck motioned toward the opened doors of the hangar.
B.J. turned and froze.
At first, all she saw was a silhouette. The lean, slim-hipped form entering carried an overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Tall and surprisingly graceful, he wore a cowboy hat, Wranglers, and some kind of tucked-in, long-sleeved shirt.
She could hear the echoing click of his boots against the concrete floor as he walked with a slightly bowl-legged stride. The whole scene screamed George Strait in that movie Pure Country. . .only ten times sexier, because this was real.
The man made a mouthwatering picture, that was for sure, and she could only gape as he strolled into the place with the confidence of an alpha used to being in charge. The female inside her took immediate notice. Good God, he was gorgeous.
Grady Rawlings had always been great-looking, though. There had to be zero percent of body fat covering him from head to toe. But while he had a lean build, he still appeared fully ripped. He was pure muscle, bone, and steel, and it looked damn fine on him. In high school, football and baseball kept him in shape. These days, he lifted heavy machinery daily, what with working in his oilfield.
When he stopped just inside the doors and turned to the side as if seeking assistance, B.J. hollered from her chair. “We’re back here.”
He turned at her call, and her girly organs leapt to attention, startling her with their enthusiasm.
Good Lord, she must need to get laid. Seeing a guy look her way should not have that kind of effect. But as he started toward her voice with his sexy male stride, she felt the impact all the way to the tips of her steel-toed boots.
Forcing her attention back to the game, she cleared her throat and told Ralphie, “Well, hurry up already. I gotta go.”
