The Cougar's Trade Read Free Page A

There’s no rule book. I’m sorry if you feel jerked around.”
    “It’s really hard for me to be upset knowing you did what you did to survive. I’m not happy about it, but I forgive you.”
    “Yep. Figured you would. That’s why we assumed you’d be mine.”
    What does that mean?
    He grabbed her arm and hurried her back toward Glenda’s. They all met in the middle between Sean’s house and his mother’s. Sean gave her a little nudge toward Hank. Hannah stood firm, arms crossed, grinding her teeth.
    “Gonna be like
that,
huh?” Sean asked her, smirking.
    “You’ll get exactly what you deserve.”
    “I sure hope so.”
    Miles started when Hank pressed his hand between her shoulder blades.
    “Sorry,” he said. “We need to put a little distance between us and them so I can see if it feels different.”
    She didn’t know what he meant, but she didn’t ask him to explain, either. She knew it’d just be more preternatural mumbo jumbo that’d fly right over her head.
    He walked her about twenty yards away from smirking Sean and sniping Hannah, and muttered, “Yeah, that’s her pick. Odd.”
    “Whose pick? Your goddess’s?”
    No response beyond a grunt. He waved to his mother on the porch, who nodded and turned her attention to the arguing couple near her dry birdbath.
    “Come with me?” Hank crooked his thumb toward Woodworks, where he and his brothers spent their days cranking out high-end custom furniture and cabinetry. “I need to make a call, and then I need to do a couple of Cougar things. Gonna bore you to tears, but I can’t let you out of my sight. Sorry. It’s got to be better than being locked up at Mom’s, though.”
    Gonna be like that, huh?
Just like Sean had said. Miles didn’t see a point in wasting her energy on soothing her ego, but there was a bitter aftertaste to having been the one he wouldn’t have picked if it weren’t for his goddess. He hadn’t wanted her, and apparent masochist that she was, she’d entertained more than a few thoughts about having
him
. She wanted to know what it was about him that made his mother sigh so wistfully whenever she said his name. And how he managed to make people on the ranch laugh so hard while keeping such a straight face.
    She hadn’t really expected to be swept off her feet, but at the very least, she’d hoped for a little spark. Ellery and Mason had insulted each other at every turn for days, but
they’d
had a spark. Ellery admitted it. Maybe Miles shouldn’t have expected a single occurrence to be the start of a pattern. Hank still hadn’t really looked at her.
    He headed toward Woodworks, and she followed at his side, just a step behind him.
    The picture of the ideal man she’d carried in her brain from the time she was twelve didn’t resemble the Cougar ahead of her in the slightest bit. She’d always assumed she’d end up with some man who thought creased khakis and boat shoes were the height of fashion. Some man with newscaster hair and a closet full of seersucker. Not a man with coppery hair that hung halfway down his back and whose uniform of choice consisted of jeans, steel-toed boots, and flannel shirts in every color of the rainbow—including puce.
    Just inside the woodshop, he paused at the bulletin board hung near the side door, studied it, reached into his shirt pocket, quickly rearranged some components on the board, and strode toward the reception area.
    Miles started to follow, but stared at what he’d done, a laugh caught in her throat. The board was full of candid pictures of the Foye brothers; their sister, Belle; Mason’s infant son, Nick; and a few other people close to the family. Along with them were pinnable accessories someone had crafted out of construction paper. Someone had put a leprechaun hat on Hank. Apparently in retribution, he’d put a comical red handlebar mustache on every single Foye, excluding himself. He’d been carrying paper moustaches around in his shirt pocket for exactly that