“Yet, you’re married to Buck.”
“And you’re going to marry Hayes.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Um… what?”
She patted my hand and tugged me along. “Marry him.”
“I barely know him. I can’tmarryhim.”
“It took me and Buck a month before we got married. That’s long term dating to the Wilder boys.”
“I’m eighteen. I just graduated from high school!”
I’d met Zeb and his wife Cammie. Yeah, wife. They were twenty-one and married. He was the youngest of the Wilder kids and only a few years older than me. And married!
“He’s cute, isn’t he?” she asked.
I couldn’t keep up. “Um, yes.”
“He a good kisser?”
I felt my cheeks heat, even in the hot sun. “Yeah.”
“Good other things?” she asked, tipping her head so I could see her sly smile.
“We haven’t, I mean–”
“You will, and it’ll be good. Really good.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s a Wilder.”
That answer was said so simply that she believed it. That because he was Hayes Wilder that he’d be good at sex. She was probably right, especially if the way he kissed was any indication.
But the crux of my challenge was just that. He was a Wilder.
My family hated the Wilders. They said it often enough when I was home from school–which wasn’t all that much because I did everything to avoid it, likestay at school for spring break or go to a friend’s place for the holidays–and after graduation, I’d only been in the house a few days before I got the job. No doubt the Wilders didn’t like the Trouts in return. I couldn’t blame them if they did.Ididn’t even like them.
And Sage was saying I was going to be Hayes’ wife? That was insane. Just the idea of staying in Hayes’ house was overwhelming. Alone. With him. He’d want things, things he was clearly experienced in based on his kissandthe spanking. I had no idea what I was doing.
Boarding school was the perfect place to have sex. No parents. There was supervision, but it was easy to sneak around. So many in my dorm had. Yet, I hadn’t. I was from a family of entitled jerks sent to a prep school filled with them. None of them had held my interest, let alone got me hot for sex.
Being a virgin was surmountable, but once Hayes discovered my last name, that it wasn’t actually Cove, that I was really Cassidy Trout, he’d kick me to the curb. If there were curbs on a dirt road. No doubt Buck would help, too.
“I don’t think we’re a good fit,” I told Sage. “I don’t know anything about him.”
“You don’t have to. That’s what staying at his place is for.”
A familiar truck came down the drive toward us. Butterflies circled in my stomach and I couldn’t help but smile. And panic.
“You have all the time you need to get to know him. Plus, all of his family at the barbecue tomorrow night.”
Hayes parked and got out of the truck. Came our way. His walk wasn’t exactly a swagger, but it had an easiness that showed he was comfortable in his skin. I liked how he looked. The button-up shirt made him look a little more formal than the rest of the guys in Devil’s Ditch, but with the sleeves rolled up, it made him… hotter. The sun glinted off his hair making it look like spun gold. And that grin… panty melting.
My heart leaped into my throat, remembering just what happened to my last pair. “He’s bossy, Sage. I shouldn’t like it.”
“But, you do.”
