served as a coffee table.
“Before...?”
“You make some kind of a move?”
Jess changed the channel. A couple of times. “Until I feel ready. Okay?”
Tyler put up a hand. “Just checking.” Again.
Jess changed channels Again. Ty figured it would be another night of watching five minutes of a show then moving on as his brother became restless, but instead he muted the television and put the remote on his lap. “Skye came to see me today.”
Ty had years of practice not reacting to Skye’s name when it came up. He’d had a raging crush on her for as long as he could remember. She’d hated him for as long as he could remember. No matter what he did to impress her, it didn’t work, and eventually he’d given up and decided he really didn’t like her all that much anyway.
But he did. When they’d gone to high school, he’d even asked her out once. She’d thought he was poking fun at her and never gave him a chance to explain. Off to college she went, and when she came back, she was engaged to Mason. Ty’s friend. A guy he liked just fine, but sometimes had a hard time respecting. Being around the newly engaged couple had been Ty’s own private hell.
He knew for a fact that Mason never would have asked Skye out in the first place if he hadn’t known that Tyler had a thing for her. Mason and Tyler had competed in all venues of life, and in this case, Mason had won. Skye had refused to give Tyler a chance, and that had always stung a little.
Tyler put his feet up on the trunk in front of him. “Why did Skye come to see you?”
“She needed a loan. She’s behind on some payments and can’t nail down a cow loan.”
“How much behind?”
“I didn’t get a dollar amount. She needs the cow loan.” Jess raised his eyes to meet his brother’s.
“I can lend her the money.” He spoke flatly, as if he had no emotional stake in the matter.
“Yeah,” Jess said. “I mentioned the possibility and...” He gave his head a small shake. “She wasn’t in favor.”
“But you’re telling me anyway.” He knew his brother wasn’t twisting the knife, so...
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“Why?”
Jess lifted an eyebrow, and Tyler let out a breath as he dropped his gaze to study the toes of his dusty boots. The thing about being a twin was that it was pretty hard to keep the guy who looked like you from reading you. He’d denied having any kind of lingering feelings for Skye after she’d married Mason—had said that he’d moved on from that hopeless affair—but Jess wasn’t fooled. Ty knew because he could read his twin as easily as his twin read him.
“Right,” he muttered. The situation between him and Skye was complicated—or at least it was on his end, where feelings of guilt, frustration and resentment were coupled with an attraction that refused to die. On her end, it was simple—he was the bad guy who’d encouraged her husband onto the path of self-destruction, and she’d made no secret of her beliefs.
He was guilty to a degree. Despite Skye asking him to stay far away from Mason while on tour, he hadn’t seen where a few wild nights would hurt anyone—but he also hadn’t known how far Mason would take the whole partying thing. By the time Tyler realized what was happening, it was too late to do anything about it. The most unfortunate part was that there wasn’t a good way for Tyler to defend himself. How did you tell a woman that she didn’t know everything about her husband and his code of ethics?
You didn’t. Not after that guy was dead.
Jess cleared his throat. “Skye won’t be happy about me telling you, but I thought...you know.”
Tyler shot his brother a quick look, read the concern on his face and wondered if it was for him or Skye. He couldn’t help but smirk as he said, “That she might be desperate enough to accept help from the bad twin?”
“Something like that.” Jess picked up the remote and changed the channel again. “It might give you a chance to smooth things with her.”
Tyler gave a yeah, right snort as the pitcher on the screen threw a perfect strike. “She doesn’t want them smoothed.”
“She doesn’t know the facts.”
Nor would she...although he had to admit that this might be an opportunity to show Skye that he wasn’t the jerk she thought he was. He might have had difficulties controlling his wilder impulses back in the day, but beneath it all, he was a decent guy. Just like his twin.
And as far as Mason was concerned—Mason was always his own boss and Skye needed to accept that.
* * *
WHEN SKYE GOT off shift at one thirty, Jess Hayward was waiting for her by her car.
Only it wasn’t Jess.
The warm smile on her face cooled as she realized that the guy loitering at the edge of the parking lot was Tyler Hayward. With the exception of the small scar on Tyler’s chin, the brothers were nearly identical, right down to their haircuts—but there was something different about the way they stood. And moved. Skye had learned long ago to tell them apart at a distance. If Jess was walking toward her, she went to meet him. If it had been Tyler...she’d changed direction to avoid whatever irritating thing he was about to do to her. When they were younger, he’d threatened her with various amphibians. As they’d grown older, frogs and salamanders had changed into smart-ass comments.
“Good morning,” he said as she stopped several feet away from him.
“Good morning,” she echoed coolly, knowing instantly that Jess had ratted her out. With the best of intentions, no doubt, but now she had to deal with Tyler.
“You’re looking good, Skye.”
A compliment. That was different.
“You, too.” She spoke with polite indifference, but, infuriatingly, the fact of the matter was that he really did look good.
He shifted his weight and folded his arms over his chest, as if debating how to launch into what he’d come to say. “We haven’t talked in a while, Skye.”
That was true. With the exception of him offering stiff condolences at Mason’s funeral, they hadn’t spoken since they’d faced off in the parking lot behind the Shamrock Bar almost two years ago, shortly after she’d discovered that Mason had been gambling again. She’d asked Tyler to stop encouraging her husband to go out. He’d told her he would. He’d lied.
Skye got her keys out of her pocket. No longer smiling, she tilted her head. Waited.
Tyler took the plunge. “Jess told me that you are in need of a loan.”
She shook her head. “Not any longer.”
“Ah.” He looked as if he wanted to ask why, but her stony expression must have made him think twice.
“Thank
