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“You have to do every blasted chore I put on a list.”
“Like ahoney-dolist? Come on, man. I don’t—”
“Exactly like a honey-do list. You’re going to make sure you do every single thing on that list by the end of the day, or I’m out. Thenyou’rethe one who will have to help out the Perez family, and their work is gonna be even worse because they don’t have nine other brothers to share the burden.”
Lucas frowned. “Fine. I’ll check off your dumb list and you can help Scarlett. Then, when Annabel eases up, I get to ask her out.” He watched Elijah closely as if expecting to get a reaction from him—an indication that Elijah was interested in Scarlett even a little.
Well, he was going to be disappointed. Elijah shrugged. “Good luck with that.”
“What do you mean, good luck? I don’t need luck. I’ve got skill.” Lucas beamed. “By the end of the second date, I’ll have her wrapped around my finger.”
Elijah chuckled, laying a heavy hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “Oh, I know you will. But here’s the thing. Scarlett is pretty much a female version of you. She doesn’t want to get married, despite what she told Annabel.”
“Good,” Lucas cut in.
“But she’s also going to be cunning and manipulative. By the end of the second date, you’ll be eating out of the palm of her hand and begging her to give you more. And you know what? She’s gonna kick you to the curb.”
Lucas snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”
“What? You don’t think she can wrap someone like you around her little finger?”
“Oh, I’m sure she has a certain level of skill. But the problem with your theory is that she’s going to make me want to settle down.” Lucas gestured to his body from head to toe. “This? This doesn’t have a drop of interest in settling down. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want kids. I don’t want to have the responsibility of providing for someone at all. So even if she pulls all her tricks on me, it won’t work.”
Elijah lifted a shoulder again. “You forget that she was in my grade when we were in high school. I saw what she did to the guys back then. She chewed them up and spit them out. If you go down that path, you’re not coming back whole.”
The corners of Lucas’s mouth quirked upward. “Sounds like a fun challenge. Perhaps I’m going to have to find a way to ask her out sooner rather than later.”
Elijah rolled his eyes. If Scarlett didn’t destroy him, then Annabel would. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Lucas was heading for trouble one way or the other. Luckily, it appeared that Wade and Annabel were the only ones who truly struggled with alcohol addiction in their family. If Lucas got hurt, then he only had himself to blame.
And maybe karma.
Yeah, after all the women he strung along over the years, it would be good for him to be knocked down a peg or two.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Elijah called after him as Lucas hurried away.
His brother waved a hand through the air dismissively, and Elijah turned toward the barn. He had a few more things to get done before he could call Mr. Perez and discuss what he needed help with.
Then he could head over there in the morning.
4
Scarlett
Scarlett didn’t sleep well at all. Elijah’s cutting remarks had hit her harder than she’d expected. She went over in her head her entire relationship with Annabel and couldn’t come up with a single thing that would appear as though she was the villain he had made her out to be.
It wasn’t making any sense.
When light came into her room through the sheer drapes that grazed the floor of her bedroom, she sat up in her bed, wrapping her arms around her legs. It had been so long since she’d been a teenager in Copper Creek. There was a possibility that some of what Elijah had said was true.
When she’d asked Annabel about it, her friend had laughed it off.
Had she really been that bad of a friend?
A shiver rippled down her spine and her stomach twisted. In the process of trying to figure out why Elijah was so irritated with her, there was a thought that was starting to haunt her. She recalled how back in high school she’d talked Annabel into going out to parties. And how she’d somehow manage to get her hands on some form of alcohol and encouraged Annabel to get drunk with her on the weekends. She remembered how Annabel started drinking on the weekdays after school too.
She prayed she wasn’tthatbad of an influence. And she truly felt like she’d made a change since coming home. Scarlett had turned over a new leaf. She had a fresh plan and one she was actually proud of.
Scarlett pushed aside the covers and the self-doubt. Just because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life now that she was back, didn’t mean she wasn’t going to figure it out. That was what she was here for. She had time.
