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This time when I step back, Rhenn lets me go, and I immediately feel the loss of his touch. Disappointment sweeps through me, unwanted and unchecked, as I offer my sister my biggest, brightest, and probably fakest smile ever. “Hey!”
When she reaches the top of the stairs, she glances between Rhenn and me, a smile playing on her painted red lips. It’s a knowing grin, one that tells me she’s trying to piece together or dig too deeply into something that isn’t real.
Before I can say anything to refute whatever it is she’s about to say, she speaks. “Hey, Cowboy.”
“Well, good morning, sugar,” Rhenn replies.
I glance between the two, as they smile at each other, and feel my stomach drop into my wet shoe. Of course. Why am I even considering that there’s a budding attraction left hanging between Rhenn and I? There’s nothing, not when Harper is around. She’s gorgeous and exotic in a way that I could only pretend to be. Why would a man want a hamburger when he could have prime rib?
“You two know each other?” I find myself asking, though I don’t really want to know the answer. They’re both single – or at least I think they both are. I know Harper is, just having come out of a relationship with a loser who dicked around on her. But Rhenn? He could have a girl – or a wife – at home for all I know.
“We met last night,” Rhenn says, offering my sister another smile.
I just bet they did…
My stomach takes another swan dive as I picture my sister with Rhenn, laughing and touching. Those strong fingers I’ve felt caress my own skin were probably tangled in Harper’s hair last night. Before either of them can say anything else, I leap toward the stairs and fly down them. “Well, I have to go change my shoes. Harper, Mom’s in the kitchen. I’ll talk to you later,” I holler in one big run-on sentence, my wet shoe squeaking as I practically run away.
I make it around back, past the sawing and hammering, and to my cute little house in record time. Stepping up onto the small porch, I open the door (it’s never locked) and slam it behind me. My back sags against the hard wood, my breathing labored as I close my eyes and wish the world would just open up and swallow me whole.
They already have cute nicknames for each other…
I’d never begrudge Harper happiness, nor have I ever resented the fact that she looks like a freaking supermodel. It’s not her fault she was blessed with all of the good genes. She’s tall and skinny and athletic. I’m…well, not. Boys, guys, and men have always flocked to her all of her life. Even when we were younger, she was the Homecoming Queen that everyone wanted to date. She was the cheerleader who won the Scholastic Bowl tournament for our school, while wearing the quarterback’s jersey. She was the woman all of the single men in town tried to impress with wine and roses.
And I was always in the shadows, watching it all play out over the top of my paperback.
One time – one amazingly, fantastic time – did I appear to win the guy over her. But I learned quickly that looks can be deceiving. Vincent was a few years older than me in school, even though we didn’t hang out in any of the same circles, I knew who he was. Everyone knew who he was. When he showed up at the same coffee shop in town, not two, but three days in a row, at the same time I was getting my afternoon latte, I thought my luck with guys had finally changed. He was sweet, attentive, and hot.
He also had one eye on my sister.
Harper was in a relationship at the time, but that didn’t stop Vincent from always inserting himself into my life at all the right times. It took me a while to catch on to his game, but once I saw the writing on the wall, it was clear that he wasn’t into me as much as I was him. He was into Harper.
And I was devastated.
I could never be mad at her, even though I may secretly wish she’d grow a mole on her nose. Childish, yes, but if you’ve constantly been compared and found lacking to an older sibling, you’d understand. I love Harper, really, I do. She’s an amazing woman, with a heart of gold. Unfortunately, that heart has been kicked around and walked on by more men than I care to admit. She truly is one in a million and would do anything for anyone.
But that still doesn’t mean I want to picture her with Rhenn.
The man I secretly fantasized about last night when slipping between the sheets. The man I pictured running his full lips along my cheekbone as they slowly started to trek their way down my body. The man I may have thought about while touching myself long after the crickets went to bed and the owl called it a night.
The man who spent the night getting to know my sister.
I kick off my shoes and rip off my socks, tossing them somewhere into the tiny living room. I’m frustrated with myself for thinking about Rhenn as anything other than a subcontractor. I could tell the moment our eyes met that he’d be trouble, and dammit, I was right. He’s a distraction I don’t need, or want. I can’t let his gorgeous smile and his sexy swagger pull my attention from getting this place up and running again. That’s where all of my focus needs to be, not on the way his jeans seem to mold to his ass or the way his muscles flex beneath the soft, worn cotton of his T-shirt.
If he wants to screw around with Harper while he’s here, then fine.
So be it.
I don’t care.
But if the way my stomach plummets back into my feet is any indication, I do care. I care a lot. Because for just a few minutes, for just a short moment in time, I pictured him as mine. Not Harper’s, not anyone else’s. Mine. Even if the fantasy is never acted upon, it was planted, taking root and growing into something that was mine alone.
I let out a frustrated growl and grab a clean pair of socks from my drawer. I shove my feet into them as if I were angry at the poor things and reach for a dry pair of tennis shoes. Just as I’m lacing them up, my front door opens. I already know who it is. Harper never knocks.
“Hey,” she says brightly as she enters my small space.
“Hey,” I reply, keeping my head down and my focus on tying my shoes. You’d think I had never done it before with the amount of concentration I was putting into it.
“You okay?” she asks, coming over and sitting down beside me.
