The Virgin's Revenge (15 page)

“I promised him I’d set him up with my new POS system for the shop.” And honestly, the idea of giving it a trial run had the programmer in him chomping at the bit.

“POS?”

“Point of sale. I have a nice, simple touch-screen program he’s been after for a while now.”

Amanda did some quick calculations. He could see them putting a crease between her brows, likely coming to the knowledge that his systems often went for thousands.

“Don’t worry about the trade. It’s a new system of mine, and I’d rather test it out with Burke before I release it on the market. If it fails, it’ll be easy for me to rework. This works out great for me too. Trust me, no one loses on this deal.”

She took his hand, pulling him to a stop, worry tightening her features. She wouldn’t take this opportunity if it was going to cost him. He could see it all over her face. “You’re sure?”

A warm feeling bloomed in his chest at that. She had no idea how rare it was to be asked. To know she would actually put his needs first. Or maybe she did. Which made her asking all the more meaningful. Even as he tried to sort out the emotion tightening his throat, an altogether different sinking sensation pulled at his feet too, along with a strange lightening in his shoulders.

He smiled and nodded. “You’d better get over there before he starts without you. I’ll be there in a minute. I want to work a few things out in my head first.”

She glanced at Burke for a second before smiling wide and kissing Cole’s cheek. “Just so you know, this doesn’t count as a date.” Before he could argue, she ran over to the front of her car, bouncing in place and giggling as she waited for the mechanic to begin.

Burke actually turned around once Amanda was looking at the engine to roll his eyes at her absolute perkiness.

Cole couldn’t even blame him. That kind of glee at learning to read dipsticks could make anyone want to run for the hills, especially an experienced brooder like Burke. But Cole just found it adorable.

You’re in trouble big this time, Engstrom. Big.

His usual panic alerts didn’t go off at the thought, which at this point didn’t even surprise him. He’d always known she did odd things to his senses, but now he was in a complete and utter tailspin. That expression of concern for him, of worry about his feelings, was no different than the thousands of looks or questions she’d asked whenever her brothers had forgotten he wasn’t as big or indestructible as they were.

But he wasn’t responding the same anymore.

Now, when she smiled at him, he felt about ten feet tall.

When she frowned, he knew he’d do anything to make her happy again.

And when she looked sad or lost or heartbroken, he had the uncontrollable need to do whatever it took to fix it—be it a kiss, a reassurance or maybe a few lessons on how to do something as simple as checking her coolant levels.

In that instant, clarity dawned.

Son of a bitch.

How had it happened without his figuring it out earlier?

He was a smart guy. A really smart guy. And yet he’d had no idea until the second she left his side and stood next to Burke with an excited flush on her face, questions already forming on her lips, that he was in love with his best friends’ sister.

That very possibly, he always had been.

Reeling where he stood, it hit him that this revelation wasn’t the worst fact to consider.

That title was claimed by the final truth he needed to face: thanks to Locke, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Chapter Eight

Cole leaned against the open garage wall, watching Locke shape the wood into the precise shape for one of his custom rowing shells. Cole had always thought Locke seemed his most comfortable in this space, affectionately referred to by the family as The Boathouse. Locke’s refuge, where everything had a place, made no unexpected noise and never disobeyed. The same couldn’t be said of the siblings in the main house. Here, that separation of family and work was always strictly enforced. Always.

Even knowing that, Cole had to come here after leaving Amanda in her house, hoping to talk the older man out of this insane plan of his. “Locke?”

Schrrruh… Schrrruh… Schrrruh…

The steady brushing of the sander over the wood used to be a nice sound. One he’d equated with peacefulness. Hard work. Right now, though, it was a sound that plowed right through Cole’s ears and into his subconscious, making him wonder if maybe the sander might erode his backbone instead of the shell Locke was building.

But no, he couldn’t pretend any of this was going away. The normal rules just didn’t apply anymore. Locke had seriously overstepped himself. About that, Amanda was right. It was time Cole did some serious overstepping of his own.

“Locke!”

Schrrruh… Schrrruh… Schrrruh…

Just like on any other visits, the older man was essentially ignoring him until he went away.

“Dammit, I know you can hear me!”

The sanding didn’t stop.

“If you’re here to ask me to let you out of the deal, you might as well turn around.” Locke’s deep voice boomed through the garage. “Answer’s no.”

“This isn’t going to make her happy,” Cole called out, but he might as well have stayed silent for all that it altered. Locke didn’t even look up from his measured strokes. “She wants
love
, Locke.”

That didn’t even get Locke to turn his head. He just nodded. “And she’ll get it, won’t she?”

Did he have to sound so damn sure of that? “You can’t just demand someone fall in love with your sister.”

“True, but I can find someone who can take care of her. Someone who I know will give her respect, affection and kindness. Someone who will do his absolute best to make her happy. I found you. I don’t see where the problem lies.”

“The problem is that I’m lying to her.”

The sanding finally stopped. “Are you?”

Cole wasn’t about to fall into that trap. “It lies in the point that you’re orchestrating everything to a timetable you invented for a relationship you’re not a part of,” he said, his temper sparking. “It lies in you hovering like a shadow over every choice we make in this relationship. How am I supposed to be open with her when all I can think about is that if she ever finds out the truth, it’ll wreck not only her relationship with me, but with you? If you want to ruin things between you and your sister, leave me out of it. I don’t want to be responsible for what happens. I didn’t ask for it and I won’t do it.”

Locke straightened, his hands still on the shell but his gaze cold enough to feel like a threat.

“And for the record, if I do ever marry Amanda, I guarantee you, I’m not going to be checking with you for every decision the two of us make. I don’t like the idea of you thinking you’d have a say in our marriage.”

Dammit, now Cole was sounding like this was a done deal. He forced himself back to the point.

“The biggest part of the problem is that if anything goes wrong, you’re actually hard-headed enough to go through with looking for someone else to marry her. You won’t even care how humiliated it makes her.”

The silence stretched long before Locke finally answered. “What is it you’re asking me for, Cole? To step out of your relationship with her or to not offer her any others?”

“I’m asking you to give up on this idea you have of arranging a marriage for her at all. Let Amanda decide what she wants to do and who she wants to be with. It’s not for you to decide, especially not without asking her first.”

Cole held his breath, waiting while Locke seemed to be thinking. Slowly weighing the words. But when Locke shook his head, it was all Cole could do not to swear.

“Nothing has changed since you first agreed to marry her,” Locke replied softly. Almost regretfully. But not enough.

“I never actually agreed.”

That got a response. Locke’s cheek twitched, and his jaw clenched so hard it was a wonder he was able to still speak. “You’re backing out?”

Just the thought of backing away from Amanda felt like a blow to his gut. “That’s not what I said.”

“Then what are you saying? I’ve already entrusted you with my sister’s care. I’m doing what you asked, against my better judgment. I’m letting you have the privacy I wouldn’t give a saint. Are you telling me I shouldn’t have trusted your word?”

Cole pulled in a deep sigh. “I’m saying you shouldn’t be choosing for Amanda at all. If she wants me—or anyone else—it should be up to her. From now on, it will be. I’m not playing this game anymore.” Brave words, maybe, but once the whole truth was out to Amanda, she was going to cut him out of her life. No matter how badly he wanted to be there.

Locke lifted his sander, settling it very carefully on top of the shell. He ran his hands over the fine wood dust, brushing it to the floor and all over his boots. “I think it’s time I enlighten you on something, Cole. You see, I know how my family sees me. They think I’m the overbearing, fun-killing overseer who keeps them from having a good time. From doing everything they can or anything they want. And they’re not completely wrong.

“I’m the one who had to keep them together, keep them safe, after our parents died. I will never fully tell them what that took or how much we actually lost. How much my mistakes cost us. Because I had to learn as I went. I was the one who had to know where the future was and how to get them to it. I had to be the bad guy, for their best interests. I’m fine with that. I made my peace with it a long time ago.

“But what none of them seem to realize is that I see more than they think I do. I love them enough to try and give them what they need. What they want. Because I genuinely want them to be happy.”

“I understand that.” It was part of why Cole respected Locke so much. “But I don’t understand why you think you have to choose a husband for your sister. She’s doing just fine on her own.”

“If you understood, you’d know why what you just said is exactly the reason I couldn’t let Amanda keep going the way she’s been.”

He tried, he really did, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what the hell Locke could be talking about. Amanda wasn’t running naked in the streets. She wasn’t drinking like a fish or investigating deviant life options. She worked in a lingerie store, not a street corner. “Because she was being headstrong? Wanting to decide the next steps for her own life, even if those steps included a few mistakes?”

“Because Amanda was
settling
, Cole,” Locke finally snapped, his hand thumping carelessly on the body of wood in front of him. “She was settling for not being seen. For years of a meandering education going to waste. For a job that’s beneath her abilities. For an empty house and an empty heart when she wants and deserves so much more. She’s had all these years to make a choice, take a chance and try for her own happiness. Instead she let herself hide in the shadows, waiting for someone to see what an incredible, brilliant woman she’s become. Until she didn’t see it anymore, either.

“Well, no one came. No one worthy of her. No one willing to stand up to me and tell me she meant more to him than his own skin. She deserves more than to let her life pass her by. If she wasn’t going to reach for what she wanted, then it was my job to make what she wanted reach for her.”

Cole started, unable to even blink.
Son of a bitch.
“You knew all along how she felt about me.”

Locke’s mouth flattened into a hard line. “Of course I did. And now
you’ve
finally figured it out.”

Yes, yes he had. The knowledge was tearing him up. “But you’re still insisting we keep this arrangement going? You’ve got what you wanted. She has my attention. I have hers. Now the farce can end.”

“What farce?” Locke asked, crossing his arms and staring at Cole harshly. “If it’s real between you, what does it matter how it started? All she knows is that the man she wanted finally wants her back.”

She knew a hell of a lot more than that, but it would embarrass her more if he explained that to her brother for her. “You know it doesn’t work that way. Secrets have a way of coming out. Don’t you know what it’ll do to her if she finds out you arranged a
husband
for her? She’ll never believe anything between us was real. All the trust we’ve had will be destroyed. And she’ll never trust you again either. She’ll hate us both.”

“Then it’s a good thing she’ll never know, isn’t it?”

Cole’s gut tightened. Not because he knew the answer to that last question, but because Locke didn’t bother to ask the question he should have. Because of what Locke had tried to intimate earlier. “You’ve never asked how I felt about her.”

Cold blue eyes stared into his own, revealing nothing. Not friendship, not trust. Not even anger. “I didn’t have to.”

Cole couldn’t move, his mouth falling open as speechlessness took over.

“Tell me you don’t love her, Cole, and I’ll pretend none of this ever happened, just like you’ve asked. Convince me Amanda hasn’t had a piece of your heart all these years, and I’ll let it all go.”

“You never intended to find anyone else for her, did you? This was just you forcing my hand.”

Locke’s nod was so slight, Cole wasn’t sure he didn’t just imagine the movement. “You’re not the kind of guy who gets his head out of his ass very easy, Cole. I could tell you how in love you were with her ’til I was blue in the face. I could probably have pummeled you for a while, trying to force you into admitting how you felt about her, but that kind of thing just doesn’t work with you. You’re smart enough that you think you have everything figured out already.” Locke put his hands on his hips. “You’d have dug in and missed out on her. But if I put it in a way that had you thinking you were protecting her…well, hell. How were you going to turn down something like that?”

“Of course I could have. I’m the most selfish, annoying bastard I know.”

Locke shook his head. “No, you couldn’t. Not for Mandy. For her, you’d do anything. You’ve always done anything for her. Now you know why.”

Son of a bitch had played him from the beginning. Like a damn fiddle. “This is wrong.”

“The whole world is wrong.” Locke picked up his sander, the topic apparently finished in his mind. “But you’re going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than that if you want me to feel bad for securing my sister’s happiness. Tell her the truth or don’t. It’s up to you. But if she gets hurt because of it, there
will
be hell to pay.”