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Not carefully constructed like Lexi and the rest of the LA crowd I’ve gotten used to over the years.
This woman is a kind of beautiful I’ve never seen before. Quiet and steady. Strong and connected to everything around her but there’s sadness, buried so deep, it’s almost like a secret. Looking at her makes my fingers ache and my mind race to memorize the curves and angles of her face so I can remember them for later.
Shifting the truck into park, Damien kills the engine, leaving the keys dangling from the ignition. “So, when I did that, I didn’t know Kait uses Northpoint’s Wi-fi signal for school.”
“Northpoint?” I don’t look at him when I say it.
He gives me a slightly exasperated sigh. “Yeah—this is Northpoint.”
When he says it, my gaze drops to the backpack sitting on the porch steps at the young woman’s feet and it suddenly clicks—his offensive personal questions and his overshare about his boss’s daughter.
Before I can tell him no—hell no—Damien, opens the door on his side of the truck and gets out.
SEVEN
Kaitlyn
He’s going to say no.
Looking at him, at the way he’s looking at me, I can tell. I don’t even have to ask.
Damien’s brother isn’t going to let me use Northpoint for school and without school, I don’t stand a chance at getting out of the plans my father and Brock Morris have in store for me.
In other words, I’m screwed.
Don’t try to eat the elephant all at once, Kaity.
One crisis at a time.
Bending over to shoulder my backpack, I hear the heavy slam of a truck door. Straightening slowly, I clamp down on the rush of panicky frustration that threatens to sweep me away. I haven’t cried since Damien found me in Two-tone’s stall during Luke’s wake—I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry in front of this asshole.
Spine stiff, I watch Damien round the front of his beat-up Ford while his brother unfolds himself from the cab of it slowly. Watching him, I feel my eyes go a little wide because Damien’s brother is huge.
I mean huge.
And staring at me.
Well, I can’t be certain that he’s actually staring at me because he has a pair of black-out aviators on under his ballcap. He could be looking at the house behind me. According to my father, he paid a lot to stay here, so checking out his accommodations makes sense but if the strange tingling I feel in my belly is any judge, it’s not the house he’s checking out.
It's me.
Before I can say something rude that will ruin my chances of talking Damien’s brother into changing his mind, he turns away from me to reach into the bed of the truck. Tearing my gaze away from him, I watch Damien slowly mount the porch steps until he’s standing on the step directly below mine. “Take a breath, Kait,” he tells me quietly. “He hasn’t said no yet.”
Yet.
But he will.
I already know.
Instead of saying it out loud, I give Damien a flat smile while I watch his brother pull a large black duffle from the bed of his truck from the corner of my eye. Duffle slung over his shoulder, the giant reaches into the cab of the truck again to rescue a worn leather portfolio before slamming its door closed.
Hearing his brother’s heavy footfalls on the steps behind him, Damien turns to give him a forced, over-the-shoulder smile. “Kait, this is—”
“James,” the giant says before Damien can make the introduction himself.
Damien gives him an odd look before he nods. “Kait, this is James.” Lifting a hand between us, he sighs. “James, this is Kaitlyn Barrett—her father owns the ranch.”
“Nice to meet you.” I force myself to lift my hand, sticking it into the space between us while I hold my breath. He has a tattoo on his neck—two of them actually. A single line of script running vertically on either side of it, running parallel to each other. Latin maybe.