Page 119 of Filthy Fae

“Come on, Waylon,” I said. “We’ll open it together.”

With a vicious glare at Cody, Waylon rose from his armchair and joined us, perching on the edge of the sofa. His tanned hand landed on my knee, and my body shivered with anticipation. Even after a year, he still made the butterflies swarm in my belly.

“Open it,” he said.

I ripped open the envelope, my heart pounding. Even if Cody could wrangle some more out of what we made selling cattle, it wouldn’t hurt to have a bit right now. But when I pulled the check out, my heart nearly stopped beating.

Holden sucked in a breath, Sawyer swore quietly, and I just blinked, sure I was adding an extra zero to the number. Even Waylon’s hand gave an involuntary twitch on my knee as we sat there staring at it.

“Forty thousand dollars?” I asked. “Is this check real? How do you have that much money laying around?”

Cody shifted and gave me a small smile. “I’m a hard-working man,” he said. “There’s more where that came from. I figured ten grand a year was a fair price for taking care of things while I had my head too far up my ass to help out around here.”

More where this came from. My head was spinning. I’d expected five hundred dollars, maybe a thousand. When I’d seen the four, I’d thought four grand would help out so much. But forty thousand? Compared to the way we’d been living, Cody was rich.

“Oh, this is so nice,” Lidia said, tears pooling in her eyes as she held her hands clasped like a prayer in front of her. “Having my boys all together on Christmas day…” A tear spilled down her cheek, and she laughed, brushing it away.

Cody shrugged. “I live simply, and since the divorce, I haven’t had a reason to spend much money.”

Not since that bitch Maria took off and stopped spending it for him. I realized then that I had one more jaded cowboy on my hands. He hadn’t just run off with her—he’d been left by her, the same as the others. He’d married her and been with her even longer than Waylon. Shit. He might hate women even more than Waylon. What was I getting myself into?

But just when I started to panic, Sawyer shot to his feet, grabbed Cody’s hand, and yanked him up. He threw his arms around his brother in a tight hug. That’s what I was getting myself into. A family full of big hearts with big hurts resting heavy on them. A family full of fighting and forgiveness, togetherness and trust that needed to be mended. I was going to be something that bound them together even further. That wouldn’t happen if I left one person out, treating him as less than the others. And I refused to come between any of them. Except in the way I had the night before. There would be lots more coming involved with an extra cowboy in the bedroom.

Holden embraced Cody for a long minute, too, giving him a few extra claps on the back. “Thank you,” he said.

“It’s just a little bit that might help the ranch go a long way,” Cody said.

“Yeah, it will,” I said, jumping up to throw my arms around his neck. Without thinking, I pressed my lips to his. A sharp intake of breath met my kiss. His hands fluttered against my waist, as if he were afraid to touch me. I stepped closer, pressing my body to his. A tremor rocked through him so hard I could feel it, and he pulled away with a look of such hunger and anguish on his face that I thought he might cry.

His eyes searched mine, but instead of speaking, he pinched his lips together and shook his head as if to clear it. Waylon stood up, his hand landing on my hip. He reached past me to shake Cody’s hand. Neither of them said a word, but I knew this was a huge step in patching up what was still broken between them. The front of Waylon’s jeans brushed across my butt, and my thighs clenched with the memory of last night. As if sensing my need, Waylon’s hand tightened on my hip like a dangerous promise. He drew me back against him even as his other hand remained clasped in Cody’s.

Cody’s eyes flickered to my hip for just a fleeting moment, and he licked his lips and stepped back, replacing his hat on his head. “Well,” he said, his voice gruff. “I reckon that’ll do.”

“Amber, want to walk outside with me?” Waylon said quietly. “I got something to talk to you about.”

“Um…okay.”

We bundled up in silence, but the wheels in my head kept spinning. Forty grand…we could do so much with that. It would keep us afloat you’re a few years, giving us just the bit of extra we needed to get on top of things. Waylon hadn’t refused it, but now he was being too weird.

I followed him out, my heart beating hard. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, or if he was mad that I’d kissed Cody.

“I got something for you,” he said, wading through the snow. Drifts had blown up as high as my waist, the wind blowing it into soft peaks like whipped cream around us. The whole ranch was buried in the fine white powder. It lined every twig on every tree branch and coated the roof of the lodge, the cabins, and the barn. Everything was as pure white and untouched as a fresh start.

“Is this a Christmas present?” I asked, my breath coming in little huffs of fog as we walked.

“Yeah,” Waylon said, stopping and turning to me. “I guess you could say that.” He took off his hat and rubbed his dark hair just the exact same way that Cody did. I’d bet anything he didn’t know they shared that habit.

“My curiosity is piqued,” I said. “Don’t hold out on me now.”

“All right,” he said. “I hope you know I… I care about you. I didn’t just say that the other day because we were fucking.”

I gulped as my heart did a belly flop in my chest. “I love you, too.”

I knew he loved me, even if he never said it when the others did. It was still nice to hear it aloud, though.

“I’m not a smooth talker like Cody,” Waylon said. “I can’t say the right things when you need to hear them. And whatever happened the other day… well, I’ve never been the first one a woman wanted around when she was crying.”

“You did fine,” I said, slipping my hand into his. I peeked up at him through my lashes, afraid he’d pull away and be all gruff. But he let me hold his hand as we walked past the barn. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was actually insecure about something and that I was reassuring him right now.