River's End (River's End Series, #1)(99)

Kailynn lived in a double-wide mobile home in the hills above the ranch. Their small clearing of land looked out over the valley and the ranch, which was practically the only pretty thing about her home.

She peeked at the makeshift porch her father added on a decade ago. Ian. It was Ian who sat there and heard her stupid comment. Ian was probably better than having her brothers hear it, who’d have used it to tease her mercilessly. And if it had been Shane, she would have disintegrated right there into the dusty ground.

Shane was her older brother’s best friend. He was in his mid-twenties and had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. And as long as she could remember, she had been in love with Shane. He was nothing like any of the other men around there. Instead of horses, cattle, or growing freaking fruit, Shane Rydell was into mechanical things. He had his own shop on the ranch and fixed everything for everyone. And he was a biker. He wore leather, and his hair was too long and he even had tattoos. He went to far places and did things. She didn’t know exactly what he did, or where he went, she just knew he did. And she knew in her heart, that she was meant to go with him to those places and do those things. He was what she wanted to be: wild and free and living life anywhere else, but at River’s End.

Okay, he was the complete opposite of her. She went nowhere, and did nothing, but live and work in River’s End. However, he was like she wanted to be. He was like she would be in her heart if she could have been. Someday, he’d see that and when he did, she would finally be more, so much more than the little sister of his best friend, or the waitress at the café, or the housekeeper who washed his clothes.

Oh yeah, to top off her so-not-glamorous-life, she spent her weekly afternoons working on the Rydell River Ranch. There were four brothers. Jack was the oldest and the one who hired her. Then Ian, Shane and Joey. Jack had two sons. The little one, whom she supervised after school, was also her responsibility when she started dinner for the men during the weekdays. Jack had, of course, offered her the job four years ago after she graduated high school and needed one. Why wouldn’t he? They had known her all her life. She was quiet, hard-working, responsible, and they knew they could trust her. So what if she worked for Shane? One of the perks was that she could keep track of him, and see him more often than ever before. But it also meant she was his housekeeper and washed his underwear. Somehow, she guessed that was not the way to make a man like Shane Rydell notice her.

But it was Ian now on their porch. Ian didn’t come there as much. Her father was best friends with the Rydells’ father before he and his wife were killed in a car wreck. Her dad grieved long and hard over losing the Rydells. And since that day, the brothers had always looked out for them, and her as well, by extension. Her dad, as most people knew, was laid up with a bad heart and a lame leg. It was a struggle for him to walk, work and basically function. Her brothers, Jordan and Caleb, weren’t much better. Although there was nothing physically wrong with her brothers, they were incorrigibly lazy.

Ian sometimes hung out with Shane, Jordan and Caleb, but he was way older. Like thirty or something. So she usually didn’t give him much thought. He never talked. Ever. He could be in a group setting and not say a word for hours. She tilted her head. Hearing him speak to her now was quite unusual.

“What are you doing here?”

Ian shifted his foot from the railing to the plank boards and stood up. He pushed back the cowboy hat he wore. Unlike the rest of the modern world, a cowboy hat and boots were freakishly fashionable there. In fact, more men wore them than not. A fact that was as tragic as her address. Ian was a tall man, a half head taller than his brothers even. She figured he stood close to six and a half feet. He was reed-thin and sinewy. No surprise he didn’t answer her. She walked up the steps of the porch.

“You don’t need to repeat what you heard to my brothers. They’ll just torture me with it. I was just, you know, frustrated. I don’t really intend to get pregnant by him,” she said pointing her thumb towards the empty road her boyfriend took out of there. She was babbling. Ian didn’t say another word to her so she snapped her mouth shut.

Ian’s gaze flickered to where she pointed and she swallowed. “That was Drew Nichols. I went to high school with him. He’s…”

“I know who he is.” Right. Okay. Of course, Ian knew who he was. Drew was a friend of his brother, Joey. Drew also worked just down the road at the tack store. So, of course, anyone from around there knew him, as they all knew everyone. There were only a few thousand people who lived in River’s End.

She straightened her back. She was not at work and had nothing to be ashamed of. She had not broken any rules or misbehaved or anything. Ian had no right to voice any opinion of what she did or didn’t do. She licked her lips. Why was she nervous? She’d known Ian and all the other Rydells, her entire life. She was in their home nearly daily. Why would she let Ian’s prolonged, almost disapproving, silence faze her? Yet… was he disapproving? Really, she didn’t know. Or was he that dour and apathetic? He was her least favorite of the four brothers. Jack, the oldest, was who paid her and whom she considered her boss. After all, she was caring for his kids. Shane was, well… Shane was Shane. And Joey, though her same age, was too pretty for words and knew it. She couldn’t stand his ego, or that all the girls wanted him. He was their obvious first choice.

“Right. We had a fight. I didn’t want to… do the things he wanted.”