Page 2 of Wyatt

Channeling my best ladies’ man attitude, I relax my posture and shrug a shoulder. “Sure, I’ve noticed her filling out nicely, but that doesn’t mean I want to take myself off the market and deny the women of Juniper Creek access to all this,” I tell them, motioning up and down my body. I’m not totally conceited, but I work hard and my body reflects that.

Mav snorts and shakes his head. “Please,” he says, shooting me a knowing look. “That’s just talk and we all know it.”

I snort, trying to play it off, but the fact that my brother’s see through me is a little disconcerting. Do I want to be the clown forever? No, but I also don’t need these revelations while I’m already feeling mixed up about a certain birthday girl.

“If you want to think that, fine.” I smirk and grab my belt buckle. “But this man is all action and very little talk.”

My eyes meet Sawyer’s and his brown eyes are tinged with genuine disappointment. “Well, if that’s the case then let’s get moving on setting up for tonight,” he says, shaking his head as he turns and walks towards the wood stacked over by the house.

My smirk disappears and I turn to see Mav staring at me, a sad look on his face. “Always the clown,” he says, his voice low as he clasps me on the back before he joins our brother by the wood pile.

As I walk over to join them, I wonder if whether or not this whole clown persona, something that started off as a means to cheer up my siblings, isn’t actually doing more harm than good. The real question is, how do I stop?

Chapter Two

~Georgie~

The sounds of nature pour out from the speakers in the corners of the massage room where Scarlett and I are currently getting our muscles tended to by a couple of massage therapists. Mine is currently working out the knots in my upper back, and I moan almost pornographically at how good it feels.

My days are filled with a lot of manual labor, cooking, and not much else. At night, I find the time to read as I wind down for sleep, but the next day it starts all over again. My job was already tough when I first started cooking and cleaning for the Landrys, but it’s gotten crazier over the last year.

Now there are three more women living in the house as well as one baby and two on the way. Luckily, everyone cleans up after themselves for the most part, but more people still equates to more meals to prepare and more mess to manage.

The massage therapist runs her hands over a particularly sensitive part of my side and I squeak out a laugh. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I’m a little ticklish.”

Scarlett snorts from her facedown position on the table next to me. “Please. Girl you are the most ticklish person I know,” she says, turning her head to smile at me. “A stiff breeze makes you giggle.”

“Whatever,” I tell her. “Now stop talking so I can enjoy my massage.” I try to do just that as I hear Scarlett chuckle, focusing on the amazing feeling of all the tension leaving my body.

We’ve already had a mani-pedi, a facial, and after our massage we’re going into the salon to get our hair and makeup done. While I appreciate Scarlett going all out like this for my birthday, I can’t help but think all the pampering is a little wasted on me.

I don’t need all this fancy stuff to feel taken care of, just a kind word and a smile from the people I care about. Though, I must admit that today has been pretty great so far. It’s something I never imagined doing for myself, especially growing up like I did.

Jim and Jenny Lee were not great parents. Heck, they weren’t even good parents when you get right down to it. For as long as I can remember, I had to fend for myself. If I was hungry, it was up to me to find food. If I my clothes were dirty, I had to figure out how to get them clean.

My parents were either at one of the jobs they had managed to hold down despite all their best efforts to get fired so they could collect unemployment, or they were at home drunk. I’m honestly not sure how I survived infancy, and during the hardest times of my childhood, the times when my parents would fight with each other or scream at me for being worthless, I wish I hadn’t.

Luckily, I eventually found Scarlett and that helped out so much. Scarlett has been my best friend since the fourth grade, and her family was always so welcoming, her parents practically keeping me as one of their own because they knew what my home life was like. I spent so much time with the Landrys that their ranch felt more like home than mine ever had.

My parents didn’t even have a problem with me staying the night there so much because it meant I was out of their hair and didn’t annoy them with my basic needs. When I moved in with the Landrys after high school graduation, my parents hadn’t even cared. Simply saying bye on their way out of town, off to chase whatever feeling they thought would fill the holes in their souls. I haven’t talked to them since and I’m glad of it. They were never mom and dad to me. Those titles were always reserved for Al and Rebecca Landry.

Losing the eldest Landrys was way harder on me than my birth parent’s moving away. That felt like a drop in the bucket of the pain I felt when Al and Rebecca were gone. When the number of people who care about you is so small, losing two of them at once is even tougher. I grieved for them along with my best friend, holding her while she cried and her doing the same for me.

When I noticed that Scarlett and her four brothers weren’t doing much around the house, too lost in their sadness to properly take care of themselves, I took over. Instead of them eating frozen pizza for dinner, I found Rebecca’s cookbook and started making their favorites every night, eventually adding some of my own recipes. While they all worked to keep the ranch going, I cleaned the house and took care of them in the best way I knew how.

It wasn’t a hardship. I love to cook and bake, and cleaning is relaxing and gives me time to clear my head of all the noise from the meal planning, and schedule keeping I do for everyone. The Landrys are family to me, and I love taking care of them. One more than the others, but that’s about as hopeless a prospect as any I can think of.

Wyatt Landry is hands down the most handsome man I have ever met, and that’s saying something when you live in a town filled with cowboys. Even his brothers, who are admittedly handsome in their own right, can’t hold a candle to him in my eyes. Wyatt always has an easy smile for everyone and a joke ready to go when you need a pick me up, but he’s also incredibly thoughtful and caring.

I don’t think his siblings really see that side of him, but I do. I see how he keeps them all smiling even when times are tough and how he has ideas for the future of the ranch that he thinks aren’t good enough but are actually really great, but I also see how he flirts with every beautiful woman in town, how they flutter their eyelashes at him and how he smirks back as he leads them over to the dance floor.

He may dance with me from time to time, but it’s the same way he dances with his sister. Wyatt is definitely not interested in someone like me, someone with a body that’s lumpier than a bowl full of mashed potatoes but wiggles like a bowl full of jello. I like my curves, but I’m not so delusional as to think that I have the type of body most men go for, especially men that look like Wyatt.

With a sigh, I try to banish Wyatt from my mind and listen to the sounds of birds calling, crickets chirping, and the babbling brook that rings through the air, but I can’t. Anytime I think about Wyatt, my heart aches with the desire to be with him, take care of him, and let him love me the way I know he can love someone. The two of us could be really good together. I just wish he would give me and himself the chance to try.

***

The dull roar and warmth coming off the campfire is calming, but the crowd around it is anything but. I smile at all of the people I love and care about who have gathered around for my birthday, laughing as Sawyer blows raspberries on baby Albie’s cheeks, his wife looking up at him adoringly.