Hard to Handle (Caine Cousins #2)(59)

“Nope. She won’t.” Wolfe grinned. “Good thing she’s got you.”

Lynx couldn’t help but smirk at that.

She did have him.

Even if she wasn’t quite ready for all that he wanted from her.

She’d get there.

He had faith.



Reagan had tossed and turned all night long. She wasn’t sure if it was due to the long nap she’d taken with Lynx yesterday or simply because she hated that she’d been in her bed alone. When she finally did doze off, she’d thought she’d heard a sound outside the bedroom window, and she’d ended up pacing the floor for half an hour, shotgun in hand.

Now, as she drove to the shop to meet Lynx, her exhaustion was replaced with an anxious flutter in her belly.

Truth was, she missed seeing Lynx.

Not that she wanted to get addicted to him or anything, but she still wished she could spend more time with him. Sure, it was her own damn fault. That stubborn streak was hard to beat back, and sometimes it didn’t do her any favors. Okay, more often than not it didn’t do her any favors. Hell, her own family gave her a hard time about it.

According to her mother, stubborn was her middle name. She always said that it was probably the reason Reagan would be with Billy forever.

“I showed you, Mom,” she muttered to herself.

Stubborn and stupid were two very different things, she knew. And she’d proven her stupidity by staying with Billy for so long.

“Ugh.” She hated thinking about that asshole.

However, stubborn was a trait she had been born with, something she had a hard time overcoming.

And now, Reagan figured Lynx would eventually get tired of it, and she couldn’t very well blame him. Problem was, she had no idea how to change that part of herself. Or if she even wanted to. Yes, she could be the equivalent of a brick wall in an argument, but she was who she was. And if people didn’t like it, they could shove it. That was her thoughts on it anyway.

Then again, when she thought about Lynx, she didn’t want to be the brick wall that stalled out this thing between them. It was intense. Insanely so. But he was right. She was the one to provoke it every time she tried to put some distance between them.

Not that she intended to spend too much time thinking about long term with Lynx Caine. The guy was a sweet-talker through and through. As much as her heart yearned to be important to someone, she wasn’t sure Lynx was the steady, long-term kind, no matter how many sweet words he whispered. Sure, she wanted to believe. Reagan just wasn’t sure she could.

When she pulled into the shop shortly after nine, she was surprised to see several additional trucks in the parking lot, besides Calvin’s and Lynx’s dad’s, which Lynx was currently driving. After squeezing the big F-250 into a vacant spot, Reagan climbed out and headed toward the door.

“Damn straight,” someone bellowed, their laughter drifting out of the building. “That’s what we do ’round these parts. We help when we’re needed.”

Reagan stepped inside and all the voices cut off almost instantly, leaving a deafening silence lingering.

“There’s my girl,” Lynx noted, a strange prideful tone to his voice.

He smiled as he moved toward her.

Of course, she blushed. How could she not? The man was already staking his claim on her in public. For whatever reason, she didn’t want to contradict him, so she returned the smile and hoped he didn’t see how red her cheeks probably were.

Certainly not a good look for her.

When Lynx leaned down and kissed her quickly, another flutter of unrestrained butterflies took hold of her stomach. She found herself staring up at him, slightly in shock. His response: a sexy, crooked smirk.

Of course.

“What’s goin’ on?” she asked, her voice sounding ridiculously like a croak.

“Well, it looks to me like your bar’s gonna be goin’ up in the very near future.”

Reagan cocked an eyebrow and glanced around at all the faces. She was familiar with most of them. What got her was the fact that they were all smiling like this was something that made them happy.

“I … umm … really don’t know what to say.”

Last night she’d spent hours thinking about what Lynx had said. About how they wanted to help her because the bar meant something to them, too. She had tried to come up with a reasonable argument, but had failed each and every time she thought she was getting somewhere.

“It’s our pleasure,” Ed spoke up.

“We gotta get that bar up and runnin’, you know. It’s like not havin’ television at the house. It just ain’t right,” Doug Maxwell added with a wide grin.

“And the day the doors open,” Lynx added, his arm still comfortably around her shoulders, “the first round’s on me.”

“No,” Reagan said quickly. “The first round’s on me.”

“All right, then,” Lynx conceded. “The second round’s on me.”

The grins seemed to widen at the mention of free beer.

“Anyone heard from Jimmy Don? How’s the baby doin’?” Ed asked, his eyes swinging to all faces, then over to Lynx.

“They had a little girl,” Lynx said. “She’s healthy as a horse, he said. Momma’s doin’ fine, too.”