Free Wild Child (Rock Royalty #6) by Christie Ridgway

was supposed to be her lucky night she remembered, sending his perfect profile an aggrieved sidelong glance.
    Apparently she’d been wrong.
     
    Brody started off in the direction of the trailer, Ash following behind. Her reluctance was tangible, but he continued onward, resolute.
    “Brody, what’s this all about?” she asked, coming to a halt in the middle of the lot.
    Cold rain wet his hair and was rolling down his neck beneath the collar of his squall jacket. He turned to look at her, her face a small pale oval within the confines of her hood. Even now she tugged at him, her petite size, the sound of her voice, the obstacles that she confronted as the new owner of the roadhouse.
    “Why did you send Ronnie away?” he asked, his breath fogging in the air.
    The day before, after learning of her loss, he’d directed one of the construction company’s estimators to look over her job. Rather than making an appointment, he’d instructed the man to drop by that afternoon and ask for Ash, anticipating surprise was the best way to ensure her cooperation.
    Brody had needed to do something for her, without examining the why of that too closely. Okay, he knew reason. The combination of those tears, her recent losses, his guilty conscience…
    “Look,” Ash said on an audible sigh, “we don’t mean anything to each other.”
    Fuck. There’s where she was wrong. “You need work done. I—our company—can help, and I guarantee we’ll give you a fair price.”
    Instead of replying, she began to walk, passing him up so that he was trailing her now. The soles of their shoes clipped against the asphalt and then on the cement stepping stones as they moved onto path that would take them through the trees to the single-wide.
    “So I’ll ask again, why did you tell Ronnie—he said you were nice about it, but firm—to take off?”
    Instead of answering right away, she stopped and turned to face him once more, as if unaware of the rain running in rivulets down her cheeks like those damn fucking tears.
    “Why did you show up at nearly midnight to ask that question?”
    Brody cleared his throat. “I didn’t check my voice mail any earlier. After I listened to it I drove up here.”
    As explanations, it had logic holes he realized he couldn’t fill. Why not wait until the next day? Another day? Use the phone and call the roadhouse’s number? Fuck.
    “I was out,” he added. “Busy.” His right boot splashed in a puddle as he stepped closer to her.
    “Busy with your Rachel?”
    The truth kept him a foot away. Yeah, he’d been on a date. After dinner they’d gone for drinks, and when she’d visited the ladies room he’d checked his phone.
    “She had to make it an early night.”
    That was true. It’s not as if he’d dumped her to rush up to Satan’s.
    He cleared his throat. “The teachers at her school are running a 5K in the morning to benefit autism research.”
    “That’s a good cause. She seems like a good woman.”
    Perfect for him, he’d thought. Stable—emotionally and otherwise. After lovemaking, her tears wouldn’t bust open his sternum and leak like acid over his exposed heart.
    “You shouldn’t flirt with all those men at the bar,” he said now, apropos of nothing.
    “ What? ”
    He was a bonehead, an asshole, a jealous-sounding jerk who had no right to tell her anything.
    “They all think they’re going to get in your pants,” he muttered, even as he knew that would make it worse.
    There was an audible gasp. “You mean like you did?” she asked then, her tone snide.
    “Hey, I wasn’t the one who came on to you, sister.”
    Without another word, she spun and started marching for the trailer again.
    He squeezed shut his eyes and wondered why this one woman could ignite his temper as quickly as his lust. But two hours ago he’d watched her on the other side of the bar, dispensing booze and smiles. Every man had checked out her cleavage and her legs and her beautiful face. His mood had been