she retorted, not about to get drawn into any sort of flirtation with him, no matter how desirable she found him. “If I ask something of someone, I give something in return. That way, I don’t have to worry about owing anyone anything.”
Lewis let her go. “I see.”
“You disapprove.” The question was, why did it matter to her what he thought?
His lips took on a reassuring curve. “I think you need to relax, take it down a notch.”
So did she. “Which is why I asked you to climb up here, Lewis,” Lexie explained with a grimace. “I’ve only been here a few hours and I’m already going stir-crazy in this house. I have to get out. I’ve got to have some fresh air and moonlight…and the feel of freedom I get when I ride, or I’m never going to be able to sleep.”
Lewis gave her a seductive smile that was enough to make her stomach drop. “Makes sense.”
Finally, they were on the same page!
Lexie surveyed his vintage ’80s clothing that were not exactly ranch ready. She bit her lower lip. “You do ride, don’t you?”
Lewis nodded.
“Well enough to keep up with me?” she asked.
“Only one way to find that out,” he drawled.
Her curiosity about him intensified. The Lewis she recalled had been awkward with the ladies. The Lewis in front of her seemed to know his way around. “Good. So meet me at midnight,” she urged hurriedly, trying not to think what his newfound confidence was doing to her. “I’ll be waiting at the end of the drive, down by the road.”
Lewis resisted her efforts to push him back toward the open window. Instead, he linked fingers with her. “Why can’t we just tell your parents what you want to do and go now—via the front door?”
She unlinked their palms, not sure how much she could trust him to do what she wanted if he knew everything there was to know about her current situation. “Uh…long story.”
His expression guarded, he studied her. “I have all the time in the world.”
She scoffed, aware far too much time had already passed. “That’s what you think.”
Lewis quirked an eyebrow.
“Do you really want to face my father when he realizes you’re still here?”
Recognition dawned. “I gather he wouldn’t appreciate me spending time in your bedroom,” Lewis remarked, a look of distinctly male satisfaction on his face.
Refusing to consider what it would be like if Lewis really were there for amorous reasons, Lexie stepped away from him. “You gather right.”
He lifted both hands in surrender. “Say no more. I’m out of here.”
Relief flowed through her. Much more of this two-stepping around her bedroom and she’d be thinking about kissing him. She let out a slow breath. “I’ll see you later.”
“Lexie.” Lewis paused, one leg thrown over the windowsill. He looked deep into her eyes. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
Lexie shrugged, unable to admit just how wrong her life had gone as of late. “I’m fine,” she lied. “Now scoot before someone catches you with me and we really have a lot of explaining to do.”
“WELL, LOOK WHO DECIDED to join us after all,” Riley McCabe teased, twenty minutes later.
All eyes were on Lewis as he strolled into the kitchen of the “fixer-upper” his youngest brother, Kevin, had just purchased.
Brad continued removing the sink and its fittings after looking at Lewis with obvious sympathy. “Struck out, huh?”
Unfortunately, they all knew where he had been and why. Lewis’d had to tell them why he was opting out of the kitchen demolition party at the last minute, after promising to help the financially tapped-out Kevin and the rest of his brothers with the task.
Lewis picked up a hammer. “What makes you think I didn’t get a date?”
“Did you?” Kevin asked, unable to stop being a detective even when he wasn’t working for the Laramie County sheriff’s department.
“Yes.” Lewis lent a hand, prying off the ancient laminate countertop. “And no.”
Will McCabe narrowed his eyes, looking every bit the former fighter pilot he was. “You either did or you didn’t. Which is it?”
Lewis unscrewed the plywood cover from the base cabinet. “Lexie agreed to spend time with me. Starting later tonight, as a matter of fact.”
Brad knelt to remove the doors and drawers from the lower units. “I hear a catch in there.”
Together, the guys carried the trash from the growing junk pile to the pickup parked just outside the back door. “She got the mistaken impression that I wanted to hire her to transform my image.”
Guffaws, all around.
Riley scrutinized Lewis as they all tromped back inside to continue gutting the spacious country kitchen. “So you’re going to be paying her to pay attention to you?”
Not in money. “That’s the good part,” Lewis said, fully aware of just how bad this arrangement he had struck with Lexie sounded.
Kevin scoffed as they worked to remove the base units from the wall. “For whom?”
“We’re bartering services. She wants me to take her riding tonight. At midnight.”
“And then what?” Brad, still the most cynical of them all, asked.
“If all goes well, I intend to keep seeing her,” Lewis said.
Will helped them remove the rest of the unit without tearing out the drywall behind it. “Then I presume you’re going to set Lexie Remington straight when you see her tonight, tell her all you intended was to ask her out.”
Lewis shrugged. “She seems to think I need an image makeover.”
More groans, all the way around. “That may be true,” Kevin said as the guys finished extracting the bottom units. “But once you let a woman start telling you how to dress and what to do, it’s all over. Unless…you want to be with a woman who runs the show in the relationship?”
“Besides, I thought you already did that,” Riley continued helpfully. “You know, hitched your wagon to a woman who couldn’t seem to stop ‘improving’ you and cutting you down.” He paused, as compassionate a brother as he was a physician. “Didn’t do much for the union, as I recall.”
“And yet here you are—enthusiastically signing up for that all over again,” the now happily married Brad said. “Don’t you know that’s the kiss of death for any relationship, trying to make each other into what you want them to be instead of accepting them for who they already are?”
“We’re
