Idiots.
She didn’t care. But when it came to Flynn, she felt that awful, hot, shameful caring settle in her gut. It was half of why he was a problem, and being in proximity to him like this made it feel like an even bigger problem.
“I don’t actually want to claw your eyes out,” she said, because it was the truth.
“You don’t?”
“Nope. You’re giving yourself a lot more credit than you ought to. I find you mildly irritating at worstandbest, Flynn. Otherwise, I mostly don’t think about you at all.”
That was a lie. She thought about him quite a lot.
For the first time, she wondered if she’d chosen him because he was the best person for the job, or because he was the first person she had thought of.
What if she had partnered up with somebody who had a better reputation?
No. That actually wouldn’t have worked. If she’d chosen someone with a better reputation, she’d be running the risk of two things:
He’d be too good to get involved in something like this, or he’d be so much shadier than she could ever be.
She wanted a known quantity.
Because, yeah, Flynn was shameless. He was a womanizer. He had a reputation for running wild around town. But he was open about all that. There were no surprises to be had with Flynn Wilder, and that suited her.
Nothing more.
“You sure do know how to flatter a man’s ego.”
“Weirdly, I actually don’t care about flattering men’s egos. They can rot in hell for all I care.”
“Bitter.”
“Realistic.”
When the road transitioned from gravel to pavement, she looked out at the view from her window. It was beautiful. All pine trees and the sparkling blue of the lake below.
“It’s a beautiful drive,” she said.
“Yeah. It’s a nice drive out to the Wild West Show too. I was glad we got to go last year. You know, before that, Austin wouldn’t let us.”
“Are you serious?”
“Not really. Mostly because if Austin ever tried to outright tell me what to do, I would tell him where to shove it. But he would never have approved, no. When you asked Carson to fix your wagon …” He paused for a moment. “You didn’t have athingwith my brother, did you?”
She nearly howled in shock. “What?”
“Well, last year when you came to him and asked him to help restore the wagon, we kind of thought maybe you were … trying to pick him up. And I know he and Perry hooked up sometime after that but—”
“Ineverhooked up with your brother,” she said. “Good God.”
The idea had never even occurred to her. Carson Wilder was a decent man but he …
He did not make her skin feel like it was too tight. He didn’t make her feel like she was overheating.
OnlyFlynnWilder did that. She hated to admit it, even to herself. But it was true.
She was unlikely to ever act on the feelings Flynn aroused inside her.
The idea of acting on some kind of sexual impulse with a man she wasn’t into was … Nope.
