Page 45 of A Baby for the Texas Cowboy
Anders nearly choked on his frustration. Give her time. Day by day. Those words did not seem to be ones he was able to live by. Anders had always laughed at the stories of his dad and grandpa finding their loves. The stories of the Wolf men finding brides—one won in a poker game—had always been colorful.
Now Anders was beginning to see that they might be more than entertaining and amusing. They might be good advice.
She looked back over her shoulder, her gaze sultry. “If you truly have the stencil, now would be a good time to start painting.”
Anders glared as Catalina, who waved cheerily, started backing up—the sensor beeping annoying him further.
“I’d rather stencil my name on your ass,” he growled.
She stopped, and he felt a burst of satisfaction to finally get her attention.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I know I said some dumb BS about time and day by day, and you can have it. Fine. You need it. It’s yours. But I’m all in.”
“Anders?” Her beautiful brows that so expressively framed her eyes flattened in confusion.
“I’m not walking away. I’m not going to start checking out other women’s asses if you gain a few pounds. I’m not going to dance or do anything else that’s not work-related with another woman while I’m out on tour. I am not a cheater.”
“It’s not cheating. We don’t have a relationship,” she said, but her eyes didn’t meet his. “We just had sex. Is that what you want? To continue to have sex with me when you’re home?”
“Sex is just the beginning of what I want from you, Tinsley.”
*
Tinsley hurried forwardto greet August and Catalina. Her heart raced, her skin tingled, and even more embarrassing her panties were more than damp. How did he do that—piss her off, scare her and arouse her all at once. She needed better control or she would jump into bed with him again. That would be so easy. Every atom of her body was screaming for him. But she wasn’t going to be the dumb woman at home waiting for her man who was out doing whatever he wanted—like her mom, like she’d been expected to be when married to John.
She wouldn’t tolerate a cheater. Had Anders been serious about commitment?
She shook off the memories and the questions. Time to get her head in the Verflucht game. Her research last night and this morning had helped to focus her.
“Hey girl,” Catalina poked her head out of the truck window. “I see Anders has been busy.”
“Far too busy.” Tinsley forced a smile. “He bought me a truck. Fire-engine red.”
“Ruby red.” Catalina rolled her eyes as she put her own dark green truck in park and agilely hopped out. “I spied on the boys ordering it online over coffee at dawn. They were clicking and manguing over all the upgrades and the color. Anders caught a lot of brother grief over the color. That seemed to be his line in the sand.”
“Manguing?” Tinsley echoed.
“Man-arguing.” Catalina surprised her by hugging her. Anders and August did some kind of man-shake ritual that somehow made her want to laugh and roll her eyes at the same time.
“He didn’t need to buy me a truck.”
“It’s a company truck,” Catalina said innocently. And then her pixie features broke out in another engaging grin, and her gray-green eyes sparkled with amusement.
“You’re going to have battles with Wolf men. Sometimes you lose, but hey, it’s an eye-catching color so it’s a great advertisement for us.” She linked arms with Tinsley and led her to the back of the truck where quite a few wine cases were stacked and tied down. August was already in the truck bed, unstrapping the boxes.
Tinsley made to jump into the truck bed, but Anders was there, smiling while his blue eyes glinted like steel. His jaw was set like it was when he approached the chute to prepare for his eight-second ride.
Now what?
“Aug and I got this,” Anders said easily. “You ladies…”
“There is always castration if they irritate you too much,” Catalina interrupted.
“Ouch,” August deadpanned while Anders turned to look at her, a bit shocked. “You’d miss the perks of being my wife,” August reminded her.
“A perk is it? That makes it sound small.”
