The Virgin's Revenge (7 page)

“Buying a car is a lot like buying smaller things. Just takes longer, and you’ll have to listen to a sales guy give you a pitch. As long as you know what you need, how much you can afford and you’re not the kind to let people tell you what you’re thinking—I don’t see any problems for you in that department—you should be fine. Got any money put away?”

She nodded. Of course she did. Locke probably wouldn’t have taken a dime from her while she was living in the family house.

“That’ll help. A bigger down payment means smaller monthly payments. How’s your credit?”

For a second, he wondered if he’d smacked her in the head with a two-by-four. Okay, he no longer felt bad for lying to Locke or Amanda. The truth was just going to have to wait a little longer. She needed a car, and if he spilled what was going on now, she’d go right back into rampage mode. That wouldn’t do either of them any good. Not when she had no sense of how to get started with this independence thing, and clearly no one else was going to show her.

Tonight, when she’d safely acquired her car and wouldn’t shoot herself in the foot just to spite Locke. She’d have the experience of having tackled something important on her own, which was something he hadn’t realized she was lacking. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of what had happened the day before when he’d asked her to hang out with him. He still hadn’t gotten that hurt look on her face out of his mind. That memory alone settled the matter. Success first. Then truth.

“How about this?” he prefaced, ignoring the knot in his gut at putting off the revelation. “You get dressed and I’ll go with you to a few dealerships. See if there’s anything out there you like. If you do, I’ll be on hand if you have any questions.”

She looked torn for all of two seconds. “You’re not going to tell me what I should get and why?”

“Will I be driving it?”

“No.”

He really liked how viciously she replied to that question. “Then I don’t see why I’d get a say. I can point out a few cars you’ll want to avoid, though.”

“Like which ones?” Oh, definitely intrigued. Better yet, they could go out like friends. With their clothes on. And no chance for him to accidentally peel her out of that robe.

“How about anything older than either of us?”

She grinned, and he knew he had her.

Chapter Four

Seven hours to buy a car. A
used
car. Not terribly used, but that didn’t stop the time from passing. Seven. Whole. Hours.

Amanda was ready to beg one of the salesmen on the lot to just run her over already. How long could it possibly take to say yes or no?

And the hours, they had not been kind. Nerves ate at her. If they said no, she would have to take the car Locke had sent over. Just the thought had her stomach churning. Even in a town as small as Rancho del Cielo, you had to have a car. Or maybe that should be
especially
in town as small as RDC.

It was growing, most definitely. It had more than blown up in the last five years, going from a hole-in-the-wall of a town with only about a thousand people to one with nigh on five thousand. For the first time in her life, there were people in the grocery store she’d never met. Businesses were popping up left and right, and if her cousin Spencer the brainiac science teacher could be believed, the school district was beyond max capacity. But for the most part, people still had to go into the larger towns for their supplies and preferences. Or privacy. Particularly privacy. That was a commodity in rare supply in RDC.

Which made seven hours a long time to watch the doors and wait for her brothers to stomp in and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing in a Poway dealership buying a car when there was a perfectly good one sitting outside her house, untouched.

So far, not a single Jackman male had made an appearance. All thanks to the Engstrom one sitting next to her in his ancient-looking black concert T-shirt and jeans. Cole looked as comfy in the barely-padded plastic chair as he did on a couch playing X-Box with her brothers. One booted foot up on his knee, playing with his phone like it held state secrets instead of a pile of colorful fruit getting slashed by the stroke of his fingertip.

He was a consummate gadget freak. One of the benefits of being a programmer, he often told her, was that he could make really good money doing something he’d do anyway for free. What time he spent not plugged into a computer, he usually spent playing games or with the latest electronic wonder before getting bored a few months later and dumping it off on her ridiculously grateful brothers. She was more of a tactile person, loving fabrics and textures and making things she could touch. But she envied him so much in that moment. He was happily distracted.

She was not.

No gadgets. No paper, even, not that she had any idea what she might have scribbled if she did. All she could do was think. Even that didn’t go well because, aside from the inanity of her own thoughts, sales people of all kinds plied her with lemonades and sodas, cookies and vending machine-sized bags of chips, none of which she actually wanted. Add in the fact that this lot’s showroom was over air-conditioned, which turned her nipples into frightening little knots no one could miss, and misery had been hers.

Once he’d heard her chattering teeth, Cole actually took off his leather jacket—which smelled oh-my-God-so-good—and draped it over her shoulders, but it took him at least another twenty minutes to look her in the eye again. So much for wearing a tank top to keep him thinking about how much he liked her skin.

Note to self: Car hunting does not make for a hot date.

It made for anxiety-induced eye twitches, though.

At least every time she was about to jump out of her skin, Cole would nudge her with his elbow and point out something to distract her. The sideways-slipping toupee on an oblivious salesman. A kid surreptitiously stuffing a plastic promotional ball into the gleaming tailpipe of a showcase car. This time, he pointed out a teenager getting her first car—used, like the blue Mini that Amanda was currently waiting to sign over the bulk of her savings to make her own. The girl had just been presented an aged sedan, gleaming until it almost looked new, but you’d think it was a Ferrari given how the girl was jumping and screaming after her blushing father handed her the keys.

Amanda smiled before turning from the spectacle, but her bittersweet emotions must have shown through.

“Ah, crap, I’m sorry.” Cole straightened in his chair. “I should have thought first.”

“About what?” She willed the strained edge to her lips to fade.

Cole just raised a dark brow at her, his brown eyes knowing too much, as usual. Too much and somehow, not the most obvious things. She sighed. So what if it was the hopeless one? The man made her crazy in all the ways a man could. If only he could figure that out…without her brother’s help.

“I didn’t mean to make you think about your father.”

She shook her head. “First, you never have to apologize for making me think about my father.” Missing him never went away, and in a strange way, she hoped it never did. He’d been a huge man, just like Locke, but her father had been a completely different person. Where Locke was stern and quiet, their father had been boisterous, gregarious and had never met anyone who wasn’t his best friend. He told stories and gave piggyback rides and for her, he’d done his best to sit at tea parties and braid doll hair. He’d been the only one who could make Locke laugh, no matter what…

“Second,” she continued, pushing those memories away with a harsh mental swipe. She didn’t want to be sympathetic to her brother right now. “I wasn’t thinking about Dad. I was remembering when Locke was teaching me to drive.”

His obvious relief gave way to a sly chuckle.

It was her turn to raise her brow. “Oh, you know how that went?”

“Only because I remember when he taught the elder twins.” He laughed outright at that. “That was the only time I’ve ever seen Locke sick.”

She had to join him. Daniel and Dean could work a gym like a finely tuned Stradivarius. Machinery, on the other hand…not so much. Even now, she barely trusted either one of them with a can opener. “I don’t think Locke kept his lunch the entire time they were learning.”

“You couldn’t have been worse than that.”

“I didn’t make him throw up, no.” But she could still hear his barked,
SonofabitchMandy!
every time she thought about it. “A big part of the car payment came from his swear jar dues, though. And you do know how the passenger armrests in the van were broken, right?”

Cole’s stunned blink had her giggling.

She put her hands on the armrests of her own plastic chair, lifted her body while stomping her right foot and in a voice she hoped wouldn’t carry, mimicked, “Brake, Mandy! Brake, brake, brake, goddammit,
braaaake
!”

They were both still cracking up when the finance agent came back to his desk with a wide grin and a folder of papers. “I see you two are having a great time.”

“Oh, you know, the usual new-car mania,” Cole answered, winking at her.

He always winked whenever they had a private joke. Like when he made some obscure
Star Trek
reference or said something ridiculous in Elvish just to drive her brothers insane. He’d winked at her at least a million times in the course of the twelve years they’d known each other. This moment shouldn’t have been any different, but she had the feeling this was the first time he ever noticed that her breath caught as a direct result.

For a split second, his grin faded and his eyes narrowed, gaze going to her mouth. His brows drew together, consternation clouding his expression and giving her hope…until realization had those brows lifting.

Don’t panic. He won’t ask you about it here. He’ll forget in twenty seconds, he always does. Do. Not. Panic!

“I have great news for you, Miss Jackman!” the agent announced, opening the folder and pulling out a set of keys, holding it up by a little black alarm bob. “You’re now the proud owner of your first car!”

She yanked her gaze from Cole’s face, hoping hers wasn’t turning that oh-so-attractive shade of red again. “Really?”

“Really. She’s all yours. We’ll have to sign a few more papers, but the numbers we were hoping for are going to pan out. You’ll have a monthly payment of two hundred and twenty-six dollars, and that’ll include the extended warranty…”

She tried to concentrate on the agent’s words, but they kept fading out on her. This whole seduction plan was not going well. First Cole saw her half naked before he was supposed to. Then she yelled at him until he yelled back. Now he was starting to notice her feelings when she was supposed to make this whole thing about casual sex. Dirty, sweaty, in-the-daytime sex.

No wonder no one left the seducing to the virgins.

This is not about your feelings, Amanda Jackman. This is about getting that man naked and doing everything you ever fantasized about with him. Getting him out of your system, not drinking more of the Cole-flavored Kool-Aid. Twelve years of pining is enough. Hit it and quit it, girl. You’re never going to quit anything if you bring feelings into it. And you’ll have to quit him, because if there’s anything you know about Cole Engstrom, it’s if you get attached, he’ll walk away from
you
.

Like she was on fire.

Away from the Jackmans, Cole’s relationship capability rated somewhere in the zero-point range. He liked women. He sure seemed to like going out with them, and since she considered it highly unlikely they were playing patty-cake when they were alone together, she could safely guess he liked sex. But the walls he put up with other people were almost ridiculous. Nothing but surface with whoever he considered an outsider. A nod, a faint smile of recognition. That was all people he’d grown up with all his life ever got. Common courtesy, yes. But no one saw the Cole who laughed and played, who argued and sniped, or even the one who ground his teeth in silent rage. No one but her family.

If she pushed this, she’d become an outsider too. Cut off like chaff.

An ache filled her heart, but she knew it wouldn’t change her mind. Something had to happen. She couldn’t keep living in this pathetic limbo of hoping he’d suddenly fall madly in love with her. It was never going to happen. She didn’t have what it took to change that quality about Cole, and she knew it. He felt safe in his shell—he wasn’t about to give it up for her. But if she tried really hard, if she pushed, she’d at least have memories. She’d have closure.

She’d be free of everything.

At that, she finally snapped back to attention. Squaring her shoulders, she forced her focus onto the agent and all the papers he was spreading out in front of her. Each one had some important purpose or expense to it. It helped, knowing that screwing this up might prove Locke right about her needing someone to take care of her. She even managed to ignore the man on her left. Not noticing at all how close his warmth was to her side. She didn’t scratch the spot on her cheek where his speculative gaze was trying to burn a hole through her skin, either.

Let him stare, she decided after taking a fortifying breath, putting the pen to paper. Let him wonder what the hell was going on with the woman he’d put into the neat mental cubby labeled, “Best Friends’ Sister, Do Not Touch”. She had never asked to be put there, and she was tired of being what everyone seemed to think she was.

Helpless little sister.

Useless little store clerk.

Pointless little virgin.

She signed the next paper harder. She was done doing what she was told. Being what everyone else needed.

She scrawled her name tall and wide on the last page, adding a flair underneath before turning to Cole with her back straight, her chin high in challenge and as defiant a smile as she could offer.

It took him a second, but he straightened, the stunned expression on his face giving way after a long moment to a crooked lift to one corner of his mouth.

You see me now, don’t you, Cole?

An answering glint at her challenge showed in his eyes. He’d never been able to turn down one of those, and now she understood why, what with the way her heart felt like it was going to pound right through her chest or maybe her ears or possibly both. She felt giddy and terrified and excited and determined all at the same time.