Page 49 of Opposites (Never) Attract
The knockon the bedroom door came far too early.
“Alexa. What time is it?” I asked, my eyes still closed.
Silence greeted me instead of my echo device, then I heard voices just beyond the bedroom door.
“Who is Alexa?”
“Is that a girlfriend, maybe?”
“Or a maid? She’s rich enough to have a maid.”
“Shh, she can probably hear us.”
I rolled out of bed and stomped toward the door, knowing they weren’t going to stop talking until I confronted them.
My brothers. Half-brothers, but at the moment, one half was more than enough.
I opened the door to the two men, who turned to grin at me.
Carter was taller than Ethan, wider. Blonder. But they had the same smile and twinkle in their eye. We had the same color hair, and, I realized, looking at them, the same sharp nose, so different than my sisters’ little button noses.We had the same face shape, strong cheekbones and stubborn jaws.
“What?!” I snapped.
“Harmony said she’s cranky before coffee,” Ethan told Carter.
“Did you bring coffee?” Carter asked, and Ethan shook his head.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pushing my hair off my face.
I’d borrowed pajamas from my sister and slept like the dead as soon as my head hit the pillow. So, I wasn’t completely back online yet. Coffee would have been good, but three more hours of sleep would be better. What the hell time was it?
Carter was holding some folded clothes and a pair of cowboy boots.
“We’re going to put you on a horse,” Carter announced, and thrust the clothes and boots in my direction.
“Dear God, why?” I asked, lifting my hands like he was handing me a rattlesnake.
“If you’re going to commit to saving the Swinging D, you need to see it the way we see it,” Carter told me, pushing the clothes at me until I had no choice but to take them. “That means on a horse.”
“We’ve got a gentle mount for you,” Ethan assured me. “We weren’t lying yesterday. You’re a McGraw now, and it feels like we should introduce you to our land.”
“This isn’t a set up?”
“Why would we set you up?” Ethan asked, like he hadn’t driven past me and my sister in the rain and snow a million times on his way to school.
“To strand me out in the wilderness. Let me perish among the wolves. Collect early on my inheritance.”
Carter snorted. “Sunshine, depending how things work out, there might not be any inheritance. We’re offering to take you out for your first horseback ride so we can show you our home. Your home.”
“Oh, and there’s coffee downstairs,” Ethan said.
“You should have led with that. I’ll be down in ten.”
“Why does it smell like shit?”I asked, resisting the urge to pinch my nose like a toddler.
I was entirely dressed in denim. Harmony’s jeans were a little looser in the butt, the boots a bit snug at the toes, and the chambray shirt I was pretty sure was Carter’s. I tied the loose ends in a knot at my waist and rolled up the shirtsleeves as we approached the paddock.
The air smelled green and muddy and – as stated - an awful lot like shit.
