Helen Brenna - Her Sure Thing

He was starting to wonder if he was going to have to call Garrett Taylor when he caught some movement near the road. A shadowy form took shape. It was Austin, and he seemed to be taking his sweet time making it up to the house.

“Hey,” Austin said sourly, as he came close.

Questions swirled around in Sean’s mind, one after another. What have you been doing all this time? Who have been with? Have you eaten supper? He settled for, “Where you been?”

“Around.”

That tipped the scale, and Sean’s badly worn patience snapped. “You couldn’t take the time to answer your cell phone?” He’d called Austin’s number no less than four times and had left two messages. “I need to know where you are, so you need to answer your phone when I call. And you’re past curfew. I expect you to follow the law on this island.”

The kid rolled his eyes. “Or what? You gonna send me back to Mom’s?”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that. Maybe that’s what you want, huh?”

Austin didn’t say anything.

“Stay. Don’t stay,” Sean said. “I don’t really care one way or another, but if you decide to stay, then you’d damned well better not make any trouble on this island. It’s my home and the people here are important to me.” He took a breath. “Get this through your head right here and now. Tow the line or leave.”

Austin glared at Sean. “You’re not my dad, okay? Not really. So you can’t tell me what to do.”

“That’s the way it’s going to be?” Anger, frustration, and concern all battled inside Sean for dominance. “Well, then, fine. Go,” he said. “You think I really care what you do, or when you do it?” he said, anger pushing through.

“Figures.” Austin glared at Sean. “You’re just like Glen. I don’t know why I thought you might be different.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I can’t go home, okay? If I do I’ll have to go to juvie. The judge agreed to waive detention only if I came here.”

Denise had definitely not said anything about a judge, court or juvenile detention. She’d said he’d gotten into some trouble, but Sean had been too blindsided by the whole deal to ask for specifics. “What did you do?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I want to know.”

Austin hesitated. “Broke a teacher’s car window.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a dick.” He looked away. “He told our class that we could skip the final if everyone was getting Bs by the last week of school. We did it, but then he made us take the test anyway.”

“So a teacher’s a jerk and you’re in trouble. Was it worth it?”

“Hell, no. I’m stuck here for the summer, aren’t I?” Austin pushed past him on the porch and went into the house.

“Wait a minute.” Sean followed him inside. “We need to get something straight.”

He stopped, but didn’t turn.

“This is working ranch, not a playground. I don’t care if you stay out until curfew every damned night of the week, but you’ve had enough time to get settled. No more sleeping in until noon. You stay here, you work here just like everyone else.”

“Whatever.”

“No, not whatever. I don’t want to hear the word whatever the rest of the summer. Understood?”

Silence again.

“Understood?”

“Yes!” the kid hissed through clenched teeth.

“Good. If you’re going to live in this house, you’re going to have to live by my—” Sean clamped his mouth shut.

Had he really just said that? Had he really just said all of that…that crap? He sounded like his own father. All the words, fighting words, had spilled out of his mouth as if he and Austin had been sparring for years.

The kid stood quiet and sullen, as if he’d heard it all before, as if nothing Sean said could cut him any deeper than he’d already been cut.

See? You were right, asshole. This was why you had no business being a father.

Sean took a deep breath. “Tomorrow you start work for real around here. Seven a.m. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Austin walked away, slammed his bedroom door and a few seconds later the lights went out.

Sean shouldn’t have been so hard on him. He could’ve at least given the kid more time to adjust. Too late. If he went and apologized right now the kid would laugh in his face. Better to let the dust settle.

He went around the house, shutting off lights, inside and out. He flicked off the yard floodlights and noticed a dim light on in the livery barn. Now what?

Stalking outside, he crossed the yard and opened the barn door. One light was on in a storage room and a rear window had been propped open with a stick. How had that happened? Those windows didn’t even open. On his way through the barn, he glanced into the stalls. All the horses were quiet except for the Friesian. He was wide-awake and alert and sticking his muzzle toward Sean inquisitively.

“Still on West Coast time, boy, or what?” Sean stopped and glanced at the horse. Since Sean had seen him earlier in the day, someone had brushed and braided his mane. His coat looked even softer and shinier than it had that afternoon, if that was possible.

Hay rustled in the stall though the horse hadn’t moved.

Sean went still. “Who’s in there?”

More rustling sounded before a head popped up over the gate. “It’s me.”

Grace. A curry brush in one hand, she leaned her head against her horse’s neck.

The first thing he noticed was that she’d traded in her tight jeans for baggy sweats. Hot on the heels of that observation was that all of the tenseness she’d seemed to be carrying in her body since the first day he’d met her was nearly gone. She looked as relaxed as a person could get, and while a part of him hated to destroy the moment, the last thing he wanted was for people to come and go on his property as they pleased.

“You know,” he said, softly. “Some people might call this trespassing.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” She looked away. “Brushing Louie…calms me.”

“So that gives you the right to sneak into my barn.”

“Sorry.” She didn’t sound, let alone look, very apologetic.

At a loss, he glanced toward the back. “Those windows stick. According to Arlo, they haven’t been opened for years.”

“There’s a trick to it,” she said. “Tap the upper right hand corner and they slide like a dream.”

“You know this because…”

She took the brush and ran it down the horse’s shoulder. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak in here at night.”

“Troublemaker, huh?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “You could call it that.”

She’d likely been all kinds of trouble when she’d been younger. Probably still was. Why that turned him on, he hadn’t a clue.

“Look,” he said, switching gears, “I don’t know what kind of deal you worked out with Arlo, but I meant what I said the other day about you taking care of your horse on your own. Arlo doesn’t complain much, but he’s not as young as he used to be.”

“Don’t worry about it. Arlo won’t have to lift a finger to help me, and I plan on helping him out as much as I can.” Grace’s horse rubbed his forehead against her and then settled his head on her shoulder. “Besides, I enjoy caring for Louie.” She wrapped her arms around her horse’s neck and smiled.

Suddenly Sean understood why people paid top dollar for pictures of this woman. Her blue eyes sparkled to life, her cheeks rounded with delightful fullness and her lips glistened with pure, sensual joy. Despite her face being devoid of makeup, she was without a doubt the prettiest thing he’d ever seen on two feet.

Their gazes caught, and as if she sensed his gut-level, very male reaction, her smiled slowly faded. Still, he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from her mouth.