Yeah, all right. He’d said that to her. He had pretty well pretended he felt nothing after that weekend when—yes—something had damn well passed between them.
But she knew his father had been a nightmare. When she knew that he had been one of the worst human beings on the face of the planet, and someone that he couldn’t stand. And so, when she came into work the next morning, slinking like a shame-filled polecat, he held the list out toward her. “You’re going to be clocking in some extra work today. And you’re not getting paid for all of it.”
“I can’t believe you’re holding me to a stupid bet.”
“I have to hold you to the bet, Elsie. If you back out of it, then you won’t have any honor.”
She scowled. “What the hell do I care about honor?”
“You should care. You should care quite a bit.”
He was determined not to revisit the scene of their tension. Elsie had seemed confused by it. It was partly why she was upset about him not acknowledging her, he was sure. But the bigger problem was he understood it. And he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to acknowledge that it was attraction that was arcing between the two of them. He didn’t want to acknowledge that. At all.
But it was impossible to ignore. Impossible to pretend that it hadn’t happened, that it wasn’t happening.
Thank God she didn’t understand. Thank God she was just angry in an indefinable sense.
Which relieved him when it came to the two of them and the tension that shouldn’t exist. But it was the kind of thing that bothered him a little bit in terms of her going after Travis. Because that guy... He was not inexperienced. Hunter could tell by the way that he interacted with women in the bar.
He knew how to play the game, and he did it unrepentantly. Elsie might think that what she wanted was to play that same game, but she didn’t know. She really didn’t. And he knew that she was going to have to have a heartbreak. Most people did. But then, maybe like him, the heartbreak had come early. Maybe it had come from her family. Her mother. The neglect of her father. God knew that his own heartbreaks had been something other than romantic. Sex for him had always been easy because he didn’t attach to people quickly. Part of him was pretty certain everyone he was ever going to care for had to be a preexisting condition. Come into his life before too much shit had happened.
He had his brothers, he had the Garretts.
And that was where things became absolutely impossible when it came to the stirring of attraction he felt for Elsie.
Because the Garretts were part of his clan. And those people... He didn’t let go of them.
He just didn’t.
So he would never get involved with Elsie, not like that. For a host of reasons. Not the least of which was that she was too young for him. Too sweet. Too innocent. Too Elsie. She drove him up the wall.
Why would he ever get involved with that little hellcat?
Involved. That wasn’t even a word that applied to his sexual encounters. So. There was that.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking at him meanly. “I think that you could let this one go.”
“No. I wouldn’t let Landry King back out of a bet. I can’t let you back out of it. And you well know that.”
She huffed away from him. And that was the closest thing he’d ever seen to Elsie Garrett having a full-fledged girlish tantrum. And she was like that all day. The girl literally never chilled out. And there was something comforting in that. Because even if she wasn’t usually quite this flouncy around him, she was often mean and snappish, so that was business as usual.
“Why is Elsie Garrett huffing around the property?” That question came from Lachlan, who was standing back on his heels, sweat rolling down his forehead from intensive hay bale moving.
“I really don’t know,” he drawled, careful to keep his face neutral.
“Nothing to do with the bet?”
“Oh yes. Everything to do with the bet. I just don’t know why she’s being such a sore loser.”
Lach laughed. “Have you never met her before?”
“Look, her bad feelings aren’t my problem. She shouldn’t have gotten in my face.”
“No,” Lachlan agreed. “She crossed the line. But she’s practically a kid, Hunter.”
That hit him wrong. Especially coming from Lachlan, who didn’t know Elsie half as well as he did and had no call to go making proclamations about what she was or wasn’t. “She’s not a kid,” he said, thinking of her as she had been back in Vancouver. Very much against his will.
Lachlan’s brow arched. “I just mean, she’s a lot younger than we are. A lot younger than you. You could cut her a break. She was gunning for you the other day, and there has to be a reason for that. I mean, the two of you went out of town...” Suddenly, he didn’t like the way that Lachlan’s gaze was resting on him.
“What?” Hunter asked, daring him to say it.
If he said it, Hunter could hit him. And he could feel justified in doing it because nothing had happened.
And it would be a bullshit thing to do because whether or not he’d touched Elsie in that way, something had changed, and he was thinking of her like that. But on a technicality, he’d be justified. And he’d take the technicality if Lachlan would give it to him.
“You didn’t...” Lachlan pulled a face. “I mean, nothing happened.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” He knew exactly what he meant.
“I’ve had any number of females be a little bit mad at me, Hunter, and usually it has something to do with...”
“First of all, jackass, women don’t get mad at me after I have sex with them. They enjoy it.”
His brother chuckled. “If they’re not a little mad they can’t have enjoyed it that much.”
“Second of all,” Hunter continued as if Lachlan hadn’t spoken. “I would never do that.”
“I didn’t think so,” Lachlan said, holding his hands up. “But she was pretty mad at you. That was personal.”
“You know how she is with me.”
“Yeah. She’s the only Garrett who doesn’t act like the sun shines out of your ass.”
“Now this is going to be about me and the Garretts?” He was happy to change the subject. Even though he knew changing it to this was a little bit contentious.
“That is a fight for you and Gus to have,” Lachlan said.
“I don’t want to have a fight with Gus.”
“Why not?”