The Virgin's Revenge (3 page)

“If you say you’ll go with me, I’ll save you from Locke again.” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning down to the window when she slammed the door between them.

She was mad now, he could tell by the roses in her cheeks. She rolled down her window with a few jerks of her shoulder and hand. “Oh yeah, how’s that?”

“Your tire—”

“My car’s just fine, Cole. Thanks for looking.”

“Amanda—”

“Mandy?” Locke was on the other side of the car, but his frigid eyes were on Cole, promising sure death for screwing this up. “Aren’t you staying for dinner?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Locke corrected.

Amanda was glaring now.

Cole tried again. “You can’t drive it this way—”

“I told you it’s fine. It’s just loud.”

Cole’s temper tingled. If she’d just let him finish a sentence. “I’m only looking out for you.”

“I’ve got enough people looking out for me. I don’t need you doing it too. I told you, I can take care of myself.”

“So you’re determined to leave?”

“Yes,” she snapped.

“Okay,” he said calmly, took a step closer to the front tire and with a solid whack of his boot, sent the spare tire off the unnutted bolts to the ground, where the weight of the car ka-chunking to the pavement flattened the metal corner with a loud pop.

“I’ll just let you take care of that, then.” He nodded at Locke and stalked back into the house.

Dinner sounded pretty damn good all of a sudden.

Chapter Two

“Calm down, it’s not that bad.”

“Not that
bad
?” Amanda scrubbed at her forehead viciously with a rough, wet hand towel. She wasn’t cleaning off the black smudges as much as she was adding oh-so-attractive red streaks. She blew at the painfully straight hanks of her bangs falling into her face, despite her clamping most of it at the top of her head like a vise. Hanks she just noticed had new streaks of black from her hand.

Her frustrated scream accompanied her cell phone clattering to the floor of the laundry room. She’d just made herself look like a stubborn, incompetent jerk in front of a man she’d spent more than ten years mooning over, and her best friend thought it wasn’t that bad? On top of that, she’d almost gotten herself killed in her car, and Locke was this close to bursting that vein in his forehead she always worried about. The icing on the cake would be if she’d just destroyed her phone to boot.

Digging under the utility sink for the liquid detergent with one hand and grabbing her phone with the other, she forced herself to settle down enough to undo some of the damage. Any of it. If she could just do that, then maybe this dinner
might
be salvageable.

The good news, no new cracks on the phone.

Bad news…Susie was still on it. Waiting to dispense advice Amanda couldn’t possibly use. Somehow, Susie refused to believe there wasn’t a physical stick to pull out of Locke’s ass.

Suitably braced, she put the phone back to her ear, dabbed a drop of the soap on her fingers and shoved the hot water on. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to drop you.”

Susie snorted. “Right. Now as I was saying, it could have been worse.”

“Are you high? How could it be worse?”

“Did you accidentally flash him your boobs?” Susie demanded, not about to be dropped this time, on purpose or not. “Make drunken attempts to fondle his crotch? Did you get caught with a tampon string hanging out where the whole world could see it?”

“Eww, no!”

“Then it could have been worse.” Leave it to Susie to put the world back into perspective. Gross perspective, but perspective all the same.

“I mean, it’s not like you started your period on the Pope, honey. You just made a man—”

“Cole.”

“
Cole
mad enough to kick your car. Pfft. I regularly make your brother so mad he has to bang the hell out of whatever boat he’s building for hours. Men feel better when they smash inanimate objects.”

At that, Amanda couldn’t stifle a giggle. Locke’s sporting goods store did okay, but it was his handcrafted rowboats that truly supported their family. Since Susie had come to town two years ago, Locke’s output had nearly doubled.

“You shouldn’t sound so happy about driving my brother crazy.”

“Hey, he’s the one with the closed mind. He can beat his wood all he wants, but I’m the one with the full assortment of vibrating tools to take the edge off whenever he’s been a pain in
my
ass.” Amanda’s choke only made Susie’s laugh more evil. “Do me a favor and tell him that, will you?”

“Not even if your life depended on it.” She didn’t think Locke’s vein could handle the combustion. The poor man had lived like a monk without so much as a grunt of complaint for as long as she remembered. His few relationships had been brief, discreet and totally unmemorable. Then along came Susie with her over-the-top sensuality and irreverence, parking her shop directly across the street from his store. If the sight of Susie every day wasn’t going to do him in, all the lacy bustiers and panties in the window probably would.

“Just go on out there and apologize like nothing serious happened because it
didn’t
. Cole knows what life with your brothers is like. You’re entitled to go postal every now and then.”

A lot more now than then, Amanda conceded. She couldn’t help it, no matter how irrational it was. Her brothers—though she loved every single one of them—had sucked every cell of patience and understanding she could have ever expected to have. She was tired and sick to death of being helpless, of being
useless
.

She could cook for an army, round up wayward children by the dozen, speak five languages passably and collect hobbies by the pound. Thanks to Susie, she could now fold thongs by the hundred. But when a girl hit twenty-six, she kind of wanted to have a little more experience under her belt than what she picked up online, in books or in a lecture hall. Any kind of experience. Driving cross-country. Or even just upstate. Skinny dipping in a lake. Gambling unwisely in Vegas. Falling in love
with
someone instead of all by herself.

But she hadn’t done any of those things. And so many others.

She sighed.

None of which was Cole’s fault.

No, the only thing he was guilty of was inspiring ridiculous sexual fantasies with his chocolaty eyes and lean muscles. Or maybe it was his sly humor, those looks and sideways jokes he always seemed to share with only her. If he’d ever been mean or thoughtless or rude or in any way acted like her brothers, she could probably have gotten over him. Instead, she’d come to think of him as the only other rational person in the family.

She sighed now, deflating as the final reason nothing would ever happen between her and Cole fell into stark relief.

It wasn’t because Locke would kill him—even though Locke most assuredly would. It wasn’t even because she’d never get the courage to ask him—though she most assuredly wouldn’t. It was because Cole Engstrom, her brothers’ best friend, was considered
family
. It didn’t matter that she’d never seen him that way, exactly. He’d never see
her
as anyone or anything but a sister.

Amanda stopped scrubbing.

“Uh-oh, why am I hearing your hopeless sigh?”

She scrunched her face. “I don’t have a hopeless sigh.”

“Of course you do. I hear it every time you stock the body paint rack.” Which was every week. Who knew Rancho del Cielo was home to so many kinky folks? Susie’s lingerie shop had started off with simple unmentionables and a small supply of fun “marital aids” in a shrouded cage. Now, Susie’s Suite Shoppe had an entire curtained-off section just full of fun stuff Amanda would never get a chance to use.

Well, to be honest, she had used several. She was simply tired of them on her own. Thus the hopeless sigh. But that didn’t mean she had to admit it.

“I’m just giving up on getting this tire gunk off my hair.” Or hands. Or face… She gave a few more useless scrubs with the towel before tossing it into the laundry basket. Then stopped. For the first time, she looked around and realized the laundry wasn’t overflowing. The room smelled as much like detergent as ever, but the general mayhem she’d dealt with for years was missing.

They’d all handled their own laundry since they were twelve, but since she’d left, it looked like they’d finally figured out how to take care of putting it away themselves without her playing cranky mommy.

There was something kind of bittersweet about that.

She reached out and touched the edge of a folded towel still in the laundry basket. Hard to admit, but she missed this smell. The familiarity of home. Her laundry area was a small closet with a stackable washer and dryer. It wasn’t permeated with years of fabric softener, and it still stung her nose with the sourness of fresh paint. In fact, the whole house, cute little rundown cottage that it was, echoed the silence around her every night. It stayed clean because no one got home before her to mess it up. No one yelled. No one argued over food or dish night. Or laundry. No one laughed.

Sometimes she was so homesick she could cry. But she wouldn’t. Because however much she loved her family—her insane, overbearing, overwhelming family—she couldn’t keep living as if they were all she needed. She
needed
to stand on her own. Win or lose, she needed to know she could take care of herself. It was a fact Locke just couldn’t accept yet, that was all. Being a baby hiding in the laundry room wouldn’t help improve his understanding, either.

Blowing out a breath, Amanda straightened her shoulders and tugged her dignity around her like a cloak. She stepped quietly out, going a whole two steps back into the kitchen before hearing raised, angry voices. She peered around the doorway, surprised to see Cole and Locke standing nearly toe to toe.

“—she’s here now,” Peter made the mistake of saying. “Why can’t we eat?”

“Because I said no.” Locke turned to Cole, poking a finger into Cole’s chest. “I picked you for a reason.”

Picked?

“Because you like her and you treat her with respect. What the hell kind of respect was that, embarrassing her that way?”

Cole pushed Locke’s still-prodding hand away. “Nothing about this situation has anything to do with
respecting
her, Locke.”

Amanda winced at Cole’s unwise tone. Ohhh, he was pissed like she hadn’t seen in years. Even then, that was only when his father had tried to force him into the military. Not Jason Engstrom’s best move, considering the two almost never spoke anymore. She wondered what Locke could possibly have done to hit that man’s level of anger.

“Don’t try me, boy. You
deliberately
humiliated her—”

“No, I
deliberately
kept her from getting herself killed.”

Locke’s grunt didn’t sound pleased about that particular point but he couldn’t argue. Neither could Amanda, dammit.

“You could have handled it better.”

“I’m getting lessons on handling from the man who cornered me in a bar to insist I marry his sister?”

What?

“Lower your voice, she could come out any second.”

At least Locke was smart enough to realize that, though his words weren’t a denial. Amanda shrank back out of sight. Oh God, he
didn’t
.

But then she thought about who she was dealing with, the boy who’d excelled all through school with single-minded determination to get a scholarship so his parents wouldn’t have to find a way to finance his education. The barely twenty-year-old who left school and a promising rowing career behind when his parents died to take over raising his six siblings with steely-eyed determination and pure grit. The man who even now held his clan together like a general tending his troops. In Locke’s army, no one deserted.

The temper very few people beyond the walls of this house knew about began to bubble beneath her skin. Her fingers curled into fists so tight, she thought her nails were going to tear into her palms, and her brain felt as if it would throb right out of her head. She should have seen this coming. She knew Locke. Knew how the man felt about family. Finding a husband for his wayward sister was right up his old-world alley, but she would never have guessed
Cole
would be part of it.

Even hearing it from his mouth, she couldn’t imagine it. Cole…
marry
? He’d rather rip out his own spine, and she knew it. All of them should have known better than to try something like this on Cole, of all people. His family experience aside, he hadn’t turned himself into a technological whiz kid just by being frighteningly smart. He’d done it with determination and a focus few people possessed. Or could deal with.

That same determination had been used more times than she wanted to count to avoid serious relationships, with exception to the bonds he’d made with her brothers. Even those had been pushed on him until he realized there was no escape and resigned himself to having friends. But that was as far as it ever went. No woman had lasted longer than a few dates. Possibly a few conversations. Marriage? He’d end up like a wolf caught in a mantrap if she ever tried to drag him down an aisle. Why didn’t Locke see that?

“If I do this, Locke, I’m doing it my way. With no interference from you. From
anyone
.”

Amanda’s knees nearly buckled, incredulity turning her until she almost stumbled beyond the wall in shock.
If I
do
this?
From
Cole
?

It wasn’t possible.

Was it?

Her heart thudded as she allowed herself a peek into the other room. Cole stood there, just as before, but this time she couldn’t miss the way his determination etched his face. As if what he was saying actually meant something to him. Something important.

For just a second, she wondered,
me?

Was that even possible? She hugged the wall, unable to stop looking at him, her hand curling in front of her lips. Craving made her stomach cramp as she stared. She traced him with her gaze, his long legs encased in black, beat-up jeans, lean but surprisingly strong upper body almost hidden by his loose shirt. Hungrily, she let her gaze trail down his sinewy forearms to where his hands fisted at his sides.