Love, Exes, and Ohs (Cactus Creek #4)(6)

More gentle hands turned her around and nudged her over to the dining room.

‘Shove’ was probably a bit more appropriate.

Elle took the hairclip holding up Xoey’s waist-length hair and gave the tumbling waterfall of haphazard waves a little primping fluff as her partner in crime, Terri, pulled Xoey’s shoulders back even more—or rather, thrust her boobs out even more—and then sent her toward a table of three hot guys with a go-get-um-tigress ass slap, with what was either a waitressing tray or someone’s dinner check.

She imagined this was how brothel madams did it back in the day, too.

Not one to get embarrassed really, Xoey just shrugged and made her way over to the three amused faces welcoming her approach.

One of which, she recognized. “You.”

“Well, well,” rumbled the deep, smiling voice she’d never heard indoors until now, “if it isn’t my favorite construction site troublemaker.”

He was one to talk—this one had heartbreaker written all over him. If Matthew McConaughey had a half-brother with Latin roots, this guy would definitely be him.

She sidestepped over to the seat across from him.

Though he’d made it clear his lap was also a viable seating option.

“Nice to see the face of ‘Rivera Constructions’ finally doing something other than disrupting the peace at my dog park sanctuary,” she said with a smile when he scooted his chair closer.

He sighed in mock offense. “If you’d bothered to learn my name all those times you came by to terrorize my men, you’d know I’m more than just the face—”

“He’s also the ass of the company, too,” broke in the All-American sexy smarty sitting beside him.

Man, that guy made glasses look good.

“I was going to say a different body part altogether,” commented Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dominant sitting beside her.

If she were able to see auras emanating from people, she was positive his would be the color alpha.

Shifting her gaze back and forth between the three men, she shook her head. “It’s not absolutely necessary for you three to be this good-looking at the same time is it? Can’t you maybe take turns being the pretty one for the night so my customers don’t rubberneck and trip over their tongues as they walk past here?”

Se?or McConaughey quirked an impressed brow at her. “You’re one of the new co-owners here? I’ve chatted with your business partner Dani a handful of times over the past six months.”

“And you’re still single?” Xoey did a double take. “Seems like my meddlesome little friend has been severely slacking in the matchmaking department.”

“Not for lack of trying,” replied the other two, almost in unison.

That had Xoey laughing. Figured Dani would’ve tried to set these guys up about two seconds after, ‘hello.’

“She means well.”

“Didn’t say we were complaining,” returned Dr. McSizzling with a quiet wink.

Two more familiar faces joined the mix then, grabbing the open seats across from Xoey with mirrored looks of amusement.

Xoey looked from the three guys to her two girlfriends, who they all clearly knew.

“Told you they’d find a way to meet her before we introduced them,” chuckled Sienna as she reached over to greet each of them with that just-one-of-the-guys hand slap in greeting that she did with every guy in town.

Lia studied everyone at the table as she did her equally tomboyish head-nod-hello in each of the guys’ directions. “I don’t know. I actually think the exact opposite happened here. It is Xoey, after all. And these are three of the biggest players to ever move to Cactus Creek.”

Xoey ignored her friends’ ribbing and looked at this decade’s three best candidates for singlehandedly ending female chastity in the tristate area. “You guys live here?”

Whoa. She must’ve been more out of it lately than she thought to have missed this development. Usually she knew all the best town gossip first.

“They moved in this past week,” answered Sienna. “Bennett here just finished building the guys a swanky apartment building over by that dog park you go to all time.”

Bennett! That was his name. Xoey actually had learned his name when she’d first gone over to yell at them for scaring the dogs at the park with all their early morning construction ruckus. Weird how she hadn’t made an effort to get to know him more. The man was gorgeous, and clearly a good guy to have passed muster with Lia and Sienna.

“Bennett coaches with me over at the high school,” continued Sienna. “He, Jackson and Donovan here have been friends since…high school, right?”

The guys nodded.

Lia turned to Bennett. “My fiancé and I were looking for our own place recently and we heard a rumor that there are only like four apartments in the whole building. Is that true?”

“We like our space, and we didn’t want to deal with a bunch of tenants,” confirmed Donovan. “So when Jackson inherited the old building from a relative, we completely shelled it out and made four huge apartments, spanning eight floors.”

“Meaning there’s a fourth musketeer in that last apartment?” inquired Xoey, growing more fascinated with the guys by the minute.

“Actually, Jackson’s old buddy from college bought that one—in cash—back when we were first starting to design the building. The guy is one of those software geniuses who made a ton of money in college and just kept on making more of it. So we gave him the penthouse floor.” Bennett shook his head. “Not that he’s even been back in the states to come visit it once.”