Page 2 of Wrangled Up (Menage a Trouble #2)

Christian’s stomach bottomed out at the memory of Claire’s words. I thought he was the real thing.

“Shut up, Davis. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and it’s none of your goddamn business.”

None of my business that you didn’t join in last night because your heart is in a relationship, even if your hard head won’t allow it?

“Yeah,” Christian said, brushing past Tucker on the way out, “it’s never my business.”

* * * * *

Still fighting the trembles of rage, Claire sank to the stool at the kitchen counter and watched her Aunt Letty flit from stove to refrigerator to microwave like a chickadee bouncing from branch to branch.

It was impossible for Claire to see the woman who’d raised her any other way.

But the tiny frame of her aunt hid a strong spirit.

Letty assessed Claire out of the corner of her eye as she pulled a steaming bowl of buttered corn from the microwave. “Everything okay? You look a might flushed.”

Claire knotted her hands in her lap. She’d cried all the way home from The Hellion and gained calm just as she reached the big old house where she’d grown up. She should have known that Letty would spot her red eyes.

When she didn’t answer, Letty went on. “Man trouble.” Her dark, knowing gaze pinned Claire to the oak stool. She shifted, and the wood creaked, a wail that she couldn’t bring herself to make.

Letty turned to mashing a small pot of potatoes. Though there were only two of them, her aunt insisted on making a big, home-cooked meal, especially on nights when Claire had a midnight shift at the diner.

“I daresay that man went and screwed up with you,” Letty said.

“Yes,” Claire responded to her hands.

“Well, I’ve seen plenty of men practically begging to put a ring on your finger and his boots under your bed.

Your pa has been spared all these years from having to scare them off at gunpoint, as he’s rattled across the country in that semi-truck of his.

But I’ve watched more than one man fall for Jake Mickelson’s little girl. ”

Talk of her father sent a lump into Claire’s throat. Over the years, he’d hauled more loads from New York to California and Maine to Florida than Claire could count, working hard to keep his only daughter fed and clothed and given pretty much everything she ever dreamed of.

Except his presence. Letty had been left to raise Claire. Secretly, Claire believed her dad couldn’t face life without his wife, who’d died of a brain tumor a couple years after Claire was born. He found his solace in the landscape and behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler.

“Now don’t look so down, girl. Any man who could hurt you is not the right one. Believe me. I spent forty years of my life with the right one. I should know.” Letty used a spatula to scrape the potatoes into a serving bowl.

Claire climbed off the stool and gathered the plates and silverware.

“I wish I’d known Uncle Dash.” The man had died years before Claire was given into Letty’s care.

Her aunt was actually her great-aunt, and no one knew her true age, but she was definitely in her nineties.

And likely to go well into her hundreds, if her spry step and bright gaze were indications.

A small, private smile captured her aunt’s lips. “He would have loved you as I do.” She set the food on the counter. “Now, you fill your belly with my good cookin’. Don’t want you eating that diner food in the wee hours of the morning. Indigestion.”

Claire never ate the food she served at that time of night. Placing platters of greasy breakfasts in front of truck drivers and rowdy teens and lonely bachelors had turned her long ago. Too many sad stories came with those late-shift encounters.

“It worries me, you working that dead-man’s shift. You have an innocent look about you that might invite trouble.”

Claire scooped some potatoes and gravy onto her aunt’s plate. “Don’t you worry about me. People talk to me, that’s all.” In fact, she often wondered if someone had stamped “spill your guts” on her forehead, because that’s exactly what people did when they saw her.

Women in grocery stores, telling her stories about their eating disorders and how they fought to even food shop for their children.

Vacationers to the small town of Reedy, filling her in on their entire family’s criminal history.

Hell, even the mayor had come into the diner once and talked Claire’s ear off about his wife troubles.

She shook her head. It was her lot in life to listen—one she was proud of, because she’d inherited it from her Aunt Letty.

Slipping an arm around the woman’s frail shoulders, she squeezed. Gently. “Love you, Letty.”

“Because I made your favorite country steak.”

Claire laughed out loud, a belly laugh that parted the sorrow in her heart over Tucker. “You caught me out.”

After dinner, Claire did the dishes while Letty rested, and then she got ready for her work shift. Peeling off her tank top and denim shorts and donning the navy uniform dress, she couldn’t keep her thoughts off Tucker .

She’d really smashed his truck all to hell. A hint of remorse filled her, but he just made her so crazed. Wild to make him hers. From the moment she’d set eyes on his blazing blue eyes and bad-boy swagger, she’d felt a shift in her soul.

This man was meant for her. Deep down, her gut screamed it.

Except he’d stood her up last evening, and in the early hours of the morning, a woman had come into the diner, claiming to have just spent the whole night at Tucker’s place.

As the pine and coffee smell belonging to Tucker clung to the curvaceous blonde, Claire had believed it instantly.

She didn’t even have to prod for information—the girl gave it gladly.

She’d definitely spent the night in Tucker’s bed.

Claire’s shift at the diner ran from nine to nine. And the first thing she did was make two massive pots of coffee. One for her and one for the customers.

With her apron in place and the coffee brewing, she grabbed a pitcher of water and made her rounds to the tables and booths, refilling glasses. She stopped to chat with an older man who frequented the diner .

When the bell on the front door jingled, she automatically glanced up.

And saw him.

The guy who’d found her in The Hellion’s parking lot.

Christian.

His name sparked in her memory and sent shards of electricity through her veins. The way he’d looked at her this evening still heated her, dammit. Like he’d eat her for breakfast, lunch and supper. Maybe even a late-night snack.

She shivered and drifted away from the table she was serving just as he slid his bulky frame into a booth. With broad, beefy shoulder muscles coiling under his tight white T-shirt and biceps that any woman would drool over, the man was sex in jeans and work boots.

And with that hat tugged low over his eyes…

No way. Any friend of Tucker’s is no friend of mine.

Steeling her spine, she approached with the water pitcher. Leaning over him, she flipped over the glass on the laminate table top and filled it .

He glanced up from his menu. And did a double take.

A country tune blasted through the restaurant—a crooning ballad that seemed the perfect backdrop for the man seated here. Something about his brooding expression called to her.

Maybe he’ll spill his guts to me.

Wait. Did she seriously just think that would be a good thing?

Yet something dark lived behind his pale green eyes that said this guy had secrets.

“Claire.” His low voice washed over her, sounding with shock. His gaze dipped to her breasts, which practically spilled out of her dress.

Prickling with irritation, she took a step back. “What will you have?”

He gawked at her for a full minute. “Huh?”

“To eat.”

He opened his mouth and shut it with a snap, then said, “Sit down.”

She backed up another step. In all of her years working the night shift, she’d never felt so cornered, her heart threatening to drum out of her chest. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m working.”

“I can see that. Just please sit. For a moment.” The urgent note in his voice resounded in her core like a gong.

He knows something about Tucker.

The wellspring of love she felt for that man overflowed and she drowned in memories of Tucker’s lips brushing over her temple, of his smoldering stare, of sitting locked in his arms at the movie theater, popcorn between them.

Damn, she could almost smell him. Or was that masculine scent coming from Christian?

Wordlessly, she sank to the plush seat opposite him, clutching her pen so hard that it dug into her palm.

Christian’s chest heaved as he gazed at her. Seconds passed, with only the ballad and the clink of silverware on plates to break the silence.

“I’m sorry for the way Tucker treated you.”

A fist of surprise struck her gut. She curled forward around it, unable to process what he’d said. “What? ”

“He treats girls like shit, and you didn’t deserve to be one of them.”

She knitted her brows together, mirroring Christian’s look. “And you know this how?”

“Because I know Tucker. He runs when he gets scared.”

The breath whooshed from her. Scared? Of her?

Of what he felt for me? Oh God, it was too much to hope for.

“I-I don’t understand.”

Christian doffed his hat and set it on the table at his elbow. Scraping his fingers through his hair, he fixed her in his gaze. Warmth blossomed in her belly, an awareness she didn’t want to own.

“Tucker’s a good man. A great friend…” Breaking off, he struggled for a moment before plowing on. “He’s driven to make his ranch the best in the county and his horses the most sought-after. But he has holes in him—the kind that you can’t mend.”

Her throat closed off, narrowly allowing air to pass. The hot, dreaded tears gathered in her eyes and bulged at the rims, ready to spill over at a single word .

The pain in her heart that Tucker had cheated on her was bad enough, but—

“You know about his fiancée, don’t you?”