What if he were making a mistake? What if Holly wasn’t interested in the money? What if she actually cared for them as deeply as they had begun to care for her?
Hell and damnation. What if she loved them? Worse still, what if those feelings were reciprocated?
He paused at the door. He felt her eyes at his back, that hard gaze raking over his flesh.
It was too late. They were finished. The relationship was over. The damage was already done.
Chapter Two
Holly’s high heels clicked off a hot-temper tempo, a mad-as-hell little feisty beat as she stomped across the concrete. She passed Morgan—Kit and Kemper’s drugged-out sister—and ignored her, convinced she must’ve been the main reason Kit and Kemper pried into her past.
“Hello to you, too.” Morgan’s snide remark chapped her ass, but she didn’t acknowledge her. Bitch.
Holly wondered how much Morgan knew. Had Kit told her about the e-mails? Did she know her former boss accused her of being a sex addict? What a crock of shit that was. A sex addict? For real? Yeah right.
So she liked intimacy. What was the big deal? She tilted her head and eyed the Keesling men. With cowboys like Kit and Kemper, who wouldn’t crave round-the-clock fucking? It wasn’t like she forced them or anything.
Sure, she went to bed with sex on the brain. She awoke the same way and typically stuck her fingers in her pussy as soon as she was coherent enough to start working herself into an aroused state. She climaxed five to seven times a day, but hell, what woman in her twenties didn’t enjoy several orgasms a day?
Her theory about sex was similar to the adage about apples. An orgasm a day kept the doctors away. Sex was a wonderful release. Heck, thanks to ongoing foreplay, she was rarely under stress. At this rate, she’d probably live forever.
Halting in the middle of her stride, she stood there with her arms dropped at her waist. Maybe she should be concerned about her former boss’s accusations. When she stopped and thought about it, she didn’t know many women who actually believed orgasms were similar to other natural preventative therapies!
Besides, since when had she worked to keep a man in scrubs away from her bedside? She grinned at Kemper. She knew the answer right away—since she’d met the two cowboys who’d stormed into her world and turned her life upside down.
She shook off the warm and fuzzy feelings and deliberately ignored the Keesling sister behind her. Morgan dragged a lounge chair across the patio, and the annoying sound of metal scraping against the patio bricks was eerily similar to fingernails raking across a chalkboard. After she towed the chaise across a short distance, Holly finally shot the Keesling sibling a sideways glance.
Morgan looked as smug as a bug in a tightly wrung rug as Holly’s grandma used to say. Apparently, she planned to sit down and enjoy the unfolding drama.
Morgan was an irritating little thing and hard to figure out sometimes. What was she thinking now? Did she believe Holly had an unhealthy obsession with sex like she owned her fair share of drug problems?
Humph, hardly. It wasn’t like she was sticking a cock up her nose or anything. Morgan, from what she’d been told, would do any drug placed in front of her.
Even if Holly needed to slow down on the sex, she wasn’t promiscuous by any stretch of the imagination. She’d had opportunity. She hadn’t pursued her options. Kit and Kemper kept her well satisfied.
She stood in front of them—all five foot four of her—and waited for them to address her. When they didn’t, she released a weighted breath, placed her hands on her hips, and stomped her right foot. “I’m going shopping.”
“Kit here says you’re moving out.”
“No. I’m not,” she deadpanned. “I’m taking off to spend some money.”
Behind her, Morgan snorted. Holly wheeled around and glared at the culprit behind the outburst. Morgan shoved a magazine in front of her face and pretended to read with overwhelming interest what looked like a farmer’s periodical on crop-growing techniques.
Fabulous. The little darling was probably growing marijuana somewhere on the Keesling spread. She started to address the kid sister but decided the effort would prove pointless. Kit and Kemper wouldn’t ask her to exit the premises.
“I could’ve sworn you said she was leaving,” Kemper said.
“Don’t provoke her or me,” Kit warned. “I’ve already explained why Holly needs to reside somewhere else.”
“Oh so you mean, you want me to move out but you’d prefer it if I move, say, down the street?” Holly asked, studying her fingernails.
Kit glared straight ahead. “I won’t meet with a realtor on your behalf if that’s what you think.”
Well, it was worth a stab in the dark to see what he was thinking. There for a minute, she believed he perhaps needed some space and maybe bought her a place a few blocks away. An intrusive thought crossed her mind. Did he want her out of the house to save face? Was he suddenly ashamed of her?
She studied Morgan. The family had certainly endured more than their share of embarrassments.
“Too bad, Kit. This morning, I toured a spacious three-bedroom down by the lake. Someone said the owner is in dire straits. I believe you can pick it up for about a quarter million. It’s a great investment, a super hideaway to tuck away a mistress you don’t want anyone to know about.”