Maggie’s laugh came up from deep in her chest. When she recognized that I wasn’t amused, she paused and composed herself. “Oh, bless your heart. We don’t have anything like that here. Besides, it’s only a half mile down to the Willow,” she assured me.
I thanked her with a nod and saved the eye roll for when I was alone in the parking lot and gathering my belongings from my car. No Starbucks, no Uber, and not a mechanic in sight.
What kind of hell did I stumble into?
? ? ?
“Their names are Luke and Duke,” I told Valentina over the phone. After I’d checked in and gotten settled in my room, I’d wandered downstairs and found a comfy chair in a secluded spot of the living room. The sun was starting to set on this day, and tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.
“Seriously?” she said with a chuckle. It was the same thought I’d had when I’d pieced it all together on my walk home. “Twins named Luke and Duke. That’s so country.”
“Isn’t it?” I laughed.
The finish line was in my sights, and the thought of being in this town for any longer than I had to was nauseating. Besides that, I had a new life to start living. When I’d packed up and started off on this adventure, I told myself it was a new beginning. But at the moment, it felt like I was in a purgatory of open cornfields and hot, arrogant assholes with muscles to the moon and back.
“Just breathe for me. You’ll be here in a couple of days, tops.”
“I know,” I said, feigning enthusiasm.
It’s not that I wasn’t excited about getting to Valentina’s—she was the only person who’d ever really understood exactly who I was. No, it was the fifteen hundred miles that stood between here and there that had me down.
I checked my reflection in the antique mirror hanging on the wall. The demands and expectations I’d endured had left a serious mark on me, and had apparently started me down the path of early aging. Twenty-eight was far too young to feel so beat down.
Nothing a little West Coast sunshine won’t clear up.
With my fresh start so close, I hated the idea of any more delays.
“It’s too bad one of them was such a jerk,” I added. “They’re not too bad to look at.”
I hadn’t been able to shake the image of Luke staring at me. As annoying as he was, he’d ignited a spark of attraction that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. It had to be a result of my last relationship, the one where I was underappreciated and often ignored. My libido had apparently taken Luke’s aggression as attention and decided to fire back up.
“You would find the only hot twins in the middle of nowhere.” She chuckled. “I can’t wait for you to get here. It’s been too long.”
“I saw you a week ago,” I said. “You know, right before I walked out on . . .” I searched for the right word, but there were so many that would finish the sentence. Everything. My parents. An entire guest list full of people. My guaranteed future of privilege.
“Don’t even say it,” Valentina said. “You’re moving on, remember? Moving forward.”
“Well, I’m not moving forward at the moment,” I reminded her. “Currently, I’m stuck.”
“Yeah, but you’re stuck in a town with hot twins, so quit complaining.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes at the smirk I was sure she had on her face. “Fingers crossed my car is fixed tomorrow, and I can get back to moving on.”
“Fingers crossed,” she repeated before we said our good-byes.
I hung up my phone and placed it on the arm of the chair before picking up the magazine I’d started reading before Valentina called.
“Did I hear that you met the Wilders?”
Opal, the front desk clerk who’d checked me in, interrupted me right before I found out exactly what happened between the latest celebrity-couple split. I looked up from the pages and found her standing in the archway that separated the lobby from the living room.
“I did,” I said. “Wasn’t impressed.”
“They’re good people. You must have caught them on a bad day.”
“Maybe. I did like Molly. And Duke wasn’t terrible.”
“It’s a shame what they’ve been through.”
She turned to walk away, but I was intrigued.
“Wait . . . What have they been through?”
Opal stopped and turned back to face me, her eyes full of sadness. “Their momma ran out on them when they were just babies. And their daddy may as well have. He really tried, but the man just couldn’t put down the bottle.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Those boys had to grow up real fast. Taking care of Molly, running the family business. It was a lot to handle, but they’ve done the best they could.”
My heart clenched as I thought about younger versions of Luke and Duke trying to take care of Molly.
Opal gave me a smile. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to bring down your evening. Just thought you might want to give them a fair shake before you wrote them off. And their full names are Lucas and Daniel,” she added. “Luke and Duke are just nicknames they picked up along the way.”
Chapter Three
Luke
“Morning, Wayne,” I said as I stepped inside the repair shop bright and early Monday morning, greeting the old bastard with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. I knew he was about to screw me on the price of a new hose for the Chevy. Damn truck had been in my family for two generations now, and was showing her age.
“Where ya been?” he asked, pulling his head out from under the hood of a fancy foreign car. “I’ve had your part waiting since Friday.”
Sleek lines, perfect curves . . . the car had to be Charlotte’s. The brazen little minx had been on my mind since my run-in with her yesterday. Wanting to avoid a repeat performance, I came to the garage early to pick up my part. Didn’t peg her as an early riser.
“I got tied up with a leak in one of the drums,” I told him. “The entire place was a mess before we found it. Took me and Duke all weekend to get it cleaned up.”
“That’s a damn shame,” Wayne said. “I hate it when good liquor gets spilled.”
“You and me both.”
It was more about the dollars that were spilled than anything. Duke and I were so close to being in the black that we could practically taste the profits. It would be a nice change since our father had done his best to run Wilder Whiskey into the ground.
“Whatcha got here?” I asked, walking over to take a peek under the hood. I thought I knew the answer, but damn it if I didn’t ask.
What was it about this girl that had me so curious? I knew enough about her to know that I didn’t particularly enjoy her company, but I hadn’t been able to shake those blue eyes from my head. Or the sweet curve of her ass as she walked down the sidewalks I’d practically worn out over the years.
It’s because she’s shiny and new, dumbass.
Charlotte was the first fresh blood we’d had in this town in a long time. My ex-girlfriend was the last, and I always hoped she would stay that way. The last thing I needed was a repeat performance of that shit show. I knew for damn sure I couldn’t handle it.