I smirked to myself when Wolfe followed the sheriff out the door.
I wasn’t the most perceptive person on the planet—by choice—but even I noticed the sheriff had taken a special interest in my cousin in the past week. Whatever it was, Wolfe was taking the bait. Hook, line, and sinker. And perhaps that was what was most surprising. I couldn’t even remember the last time Wolfe had shown genuine interest in anyone.
Well, anyone other than Amy Smith. He did seem to have a hard-on for the girl, although I had to give the guy props. He was doing a damn good job of pretending otherwise.
I glanced around. Damn, I missed my dog. I understood Wolfe’s request for me to keep Copenhagen out of the shop for a bit, but that didn’t mean I liked it. My three-year-old German Shepherd was my buddy, and we spent all our time together. However, I knew Cope enjoyed hanging out at the store, and more importantly, my uncle enjoyed the hell out of having him there.
Glancing up at the second floor, I considered going up to talk to Amy but decided against it. The girl was a nervous wreck. Seemed every time I got near her, she shrank in on herself. I didn’t think she was scared of me, but she was damn sure scared of something. I figured it was best to talk to her when Wolfe was around. Put her at ease a little. I wasn’t an asshole, after all.
Plus, I didn’t want to make Wolfe think I was sweet on the girl. Sure, she was cute, but no way could that girl handle me. Not even at her absolute wildest.
But there was one girl who could. A fucking spitfire of a woman who’d held my damn interest since I was eighteen fucking years old. Unfortunately, that girl was completely off-limits. Hell, if she didn’t have a fuckup for a boyfriend, I would still keep my distance.
A woman like Reagan Trevino could break a man.
And I had absolutely no intention of being broken.
Not in this lifetime, anyway.
Chapter Five
One week later
Friday, July 28, 2017
Amy
By the following Friday afternoon, I had gotten the hang of my new job.
Well, the parts they’d told me about anyway.
It had taken a full week to get comfortable, though. I wasn’t sure if that was normal or not, but I felt good about it.
Answering the phones was simple; taking the information to pass along to Wolfe or Lynx wasn’t hard most of the time. When someone wanted to go into detail about a design, I had a little difficulty. I wasn’t artistic by any means, but I'd learned that having Lynx take those calls worked well. He could draw something up in a few strokes of the pencil, then he’d pass it along to Wolfe for more detail if needed.
The quick tutorial I received from Lynx in regard to the accounting software had been the hardest part. He promised he’d only show me the things I would need to do when the time came, so I'd get plenty of practice.
Other than that, I’d spent the past week organizing things on the second floor. I'd quickly learned that the Caines didn’t utilize an alphabetized filing system, so I'd implemented one and gotten to work.
Which was what I was still doing now when I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door.
“It’s about quittin’ time,” Wolfe informed me.
Sitting up straight, I stretched my neck. I had actually been dreading this part. I didn’t want the day to end, preferring to do the mindless task of alphabetizing paperwork instead of going home and pacing the floor. Every day this week, I had bolted out of bed before my alarm, eager and excited to spend the day at the shop. With something constructive to do, I found I spent far less time worrying.
“Okay,” I finally said, pushing to my feet. “I’ll finish this up on Monday?”
“It’ll be here waitin’ for ya,” he said, grinning.
Smiling, I moved past Wolfe, knowing he was waiting so he could close the door behind me. I'd gotten used to his gentlemanly gestures. Opening doors, walking me to my car, bringing me coffee or water during the day. One day he picked up lunch and brought me a hamburger without even asking. He made being around him comfortable. So much so, I wasn’t looking forward to going home to an empty house. Granted, I did have to work at Reagan’s tonight, but I didn’t have to be there until seven, which meant I had about four hours to kill.
“You ever shoot a gun?”
Jerking around to face him, I stared at Wolfe, shocked by his question. “I … uh … no.”
“You wanna learn?”
Swallowing, I found myself nodding. I wasn’t sure if Wolfe was offering because he could sense the terror that lurked just beneath the surface, or if that was simply something they did here in Embers Ridge during their downtime. I knew the cousins were comfortable with firearms. Namely shotguns. It seemed they had one everywhere I turned.
