Beauty and the Mustache Read Free

question came from the stranger. My back stiffened
at his use of my mother’s first name.
    Billy walked to the side
of the car and leaned against it. “When I came home two days ago,
she’d left a note.”
    “ What kind of note?” The
Viking asked; I didn’t want to notice but he had a delicious growly
and authoritative quality to his voice.
    Stupid growly commanding
Texan Viking voice.
    “ She said she was sick and
had to go to the hospital,” Billy explained.
    My throat tightened as my
eyes moved to the cement floor of the garage. I suppressed the wave
of worried panic. I reminded myself that I hadn’t been home in a
while, and maybe she was sick with the flu or just needed a
vacation from the craziness that was living with my brothers. Maybe
she was completely fine.
    “ I didn’t know she was
sick,” the blond man said, coming to stand next to me, my shoulder
at his bicep. In my peripheral vision, I noticed that he’d folded
his arms across his sculpted chest, his right hand covering his
left nipple.
    “ No one did,” Billy said,
looking straight at me. “Not even Ash,” he added in a slightly
sardonic tone.
    “ Why didn’t you tell me?
What exactly happened?” An unmistakable air of privilege and
authority hung heavy around the stranger. “Start from the
beginning,” he demanded.
    A gathering ache of
frustration set up camp at the base of my neck. This man,
this unknown person , sounded so entitled, as though he should be kept in the loop
regarding what happened to my mother.
    Maybe it was my lack of
sleep; maybe it was the stress of not knowing what was going on
with my mother; maybe it was because this man’s sense of
entitlement reminded me of every ivy-league ignoramus medical
doctor I’d had to endure at my job in Chicago, but I had no
patience for this behemoth at my shoulder despite his colossal
handsomeness and the fact that I’d assaulted then molested his
man-nipple.
    I glared at his unkempt
beard and longish blond hair, both of which annoyed me now, then
shifted my stare to his silver eyes. “Why is this any of your
business? And who the hell are you?”
    Mr. Blond Beard considered
me with impatience, as if I were gum on his shoe. I returned his
malicious glower, as if he were gum in my hair.
    I heard Jethro clear his
throat, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that he gestured to
the stranger with a greasy rag. “Ash, this is Drew Runous. He’s my
boss.”
    “ Pleased
to make your acquaintance, Miss Winston,” he drawled, extending his
hand in a show of ironic southern politeness, like older church
ladies use when they say “bless your heart,” and what they really mean is “you couldn’t find
your way out of a small shed with a map, lighted signs, and an
escort.”
    But his face held no amount of pleasure. In
fact, he looked positively aggravated by the audacity of my
existence.
    “ Likewise, I’m sure.”
Ignoring his offered hand, I returned his ironic southern
politeness with my own vitriol-laced volley.
    When I’d left Tennessee
eight years ago, Jethro’s “job” was selling weed to vacationing
teenagers then stealing their cars. I guessed that this
self-important blond toolbox was likely in a similar
trade.
    I continued, “Your
professional relationship with my brother notwithstanding, I’m
certain even someone like you can recognize that this a personal
family matter and is, quite frankly, none of your
business.”
    Not waiting for his
reaction, I turned back to Jethro. “Rev your engine all you like.
I’m getting dressed and going to the hospital to see what I can
find out.”
    I strolled out of the
garage with my head held high and did my best to ignore the fact
that I felt Drew’s eyes—sure and hot as a brand—on my backside.
This was accompanied by the unavoidable and spreading warmth in my
chest associated with the awareness that a super-hot mountain of a
man was watching me walk away.
    I decided to overlook the
knowledge that my hasty, arrogant