Page 3 of Good at Being Bad (Rock Canyon, Idaho 8)

But the people who held on to all the terrible things she’d done—announced for all the town to see in the local gossip column, Small Town Scandals—didn’t seem to want her helping hand.

Another thing she’d given up? Sex. It had been over a year since she’d gotten any, and she did miss it. She wanted more than sex, though. She wanted what her older sisters had; men who loved them despite the reputations they couldn’t shake. Once upon a time, the Willis sisters weren’t the type of girls mothers wanted their sons to bring home.

Now, Val was a respectable farmer’s wife and Caroline…

Well, Caroline didn’t care what anyone thought of her.

Unlike Ellie, who always seemed to be searching for approval. Which is why asking for help from someone who obviously thought very little of her was rough, but today she was just going to have to suck it up. She needed her computer fixed and he was the man to do it.

As she pulled open the door and stepped inside the repair shop, she saw him at the back of the store, hunched over his work desk. He was wearing thick-framed Buddy Holly glasses, and she silenced the rogue thought that appreciated how adorable he looked in them. When he glanced up at her as she approached, the glasses magnified his warm brown eyes. His full lips turned down at the corners. Obviously, he was as happy to see her as she was to be here.

“Can I help you?” His voice was deep and pleasant. He straightened up, and her eyes rolled over his broad shoulders and tapered waist, thinking that if he looked this good with his shirt on…

Sure, she knew he was not her type personality-wise, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t admire how well put together his outsides were. True, he wasn’t as tall as she preferred her objects of lust to usually be, but when she’d first seen him, she’d thought maybe he would be worth a roll in the sack.

Of course, that was before he’d opened his mouth.

Stop eye-banging him and remember he is a jerk. This

is a necessary evil, nothing more.

“Yeah. My computer’s on the fritz and I need you to take a look at it.”

He let out a heavy sigh that grated on her nerves.

“Look, if you don’t want my business, I can take it elsewhere,” she said.

“Would you relax? I just remembered I forgot to make copies of our diagnostic forms.” He pulled open the first drawer of the metal filing cabinet and looked at her with a smile. “I find making copies tedious and hate doing them, so I procrastinate. Thus, the sigh.”

“I hate procrastinating. I think it’s lazy.” Okay, so that wasn’t true. She was the queen of procrastination, but she wanted to nettle him.

He glared at her briefly before he went back to looking for the form. “Found them. And I have three left, so I can be lazy for one more day.”

The sarcasm oozed across his words as he slammed the drawer and held out a form. “Leave the laptop and cord over there on the work table with this sticker on it” —he scribbled her name down on a sticky note— “and fill out this form and bring it back to me. Got it?”

She took the form and sticker with a jerk. “Um, yeah. Anyone ever mentioned that your customer service sucks?”

“Your people skills aren’t exactly stellar, so I wouldn’t be casting any stones, honey.”

Ellie’s temper flared and she tried counting down in her head as Mike turned his back on her. Man, it would be so easy to grab something off one of the shelves or the side table and hurl it at his stupid back. He was a poo-faced douche monger.

Gee, are you having a brain fart today or what? That’s the best you can do? Me thinks we need more coffee.

She realized she was crinkling the paper in her fist and relaxed her hand, thinking of puppy breath, guinea pig whistles, and functioning laptops, just a few of her favorite things. Why did she antagonize him and let him get under her skin? It was juvenile and she knew better.

When her homicidal urges subsided, she walked over to the table and bent over, arching her back. She could feel him looking her way, and she smiled slyly to herself. She knew what she looked like, had no illusions. Boys and men had been admiring her since she was twelve and her curves blossomed. The first time she’d seen the movie RENT, she’d connected with Maureen as she’d sung about everybody staring at her.

Of course, she hadn’t really minded. She liked the attention, and had dressed to garner more. Crop tops, low cut halters, and painted-on jeans. As the youngest of the Willis sisters, she’d seemed to be the child who could get away with almost anything.

Or maybe it was just that her father had given up trying to control her when he hadn’t been able to control Caroline or Val.

She knew that her dad loved them in his own way, but he was never going to be one of those warm TV dads she’d dreamed about after her mom died. He was too selfish for that.

So, she’d gone looking for love in all the wrong places. Or something like it. But she had the worst taste in men. Every time she trusted someone new, he would prove to be just like every other asshole. Brag about how great she was in the sack. Ask her to agree to a threesome The list went on and on. Everyone had blamed her for the Thompson boys fighting over her and busting up their barn, but the truth was she hadn’t been dating them both. She’d broken up with Cody months before, when he’d gotten a little too possessive. And Tommy had just offered to take her for a ride on his tractor; they weren’t even doing anything yet.

But in a small town, if two Neanderthals start a fight over a woman, it’s automatically her fault. Sexist bullshit.

The front door opened and Ellie turned to find Gracie Henderson stumbling inside with a white plastic bag and a drink cup in one hand and a baby car seat in the other. Her five-week-old son, Ian, was sleeping soundly, looking like a miniature version of his father, Eric Henderson. The petite blonde was dressed in a hot pink sweater dress, black leggings, and a pair of soft-looking back boots that laced up her calves. Her four-year-old daughter, Pip, walked beside her in a nearly identical outfit and Ellie smiled. The Hendersons had adopted Pip last year, and Ellie babysat her whenever Gracie and Eric needed a date night.

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