His eyebrows crinkled, and he opened his mouth to argue, then cocked his head. “Is it like how sometimes when women are in a bar, and they tell a man they’re not interested, and the man won’t take no for an answer, but if the woman says she’s in a relationship, they’ll back off?”
“Sometimes even that doesn’t work.” I raised my eyebrows. “But I’m kind of surprised you know that’s a problem.”
He shrugged. “I read magazines sometimes.”
Maybe I’d misjudged him.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “If I ever come across something like that again, I won’t butt in unless the female really seems like she needs help.”
I pursed my lips and squinted at him. “Okay. Then, I forgive you. Thanks for trying.”
He chuckled and walked around me. I watched him go further into the gym before walking out to my truck. I couldn’t help being a little shocked that he’d been so willing to admit he’d done the wrong thing and tried to see things from my point of view. A rare commodity in a man. Good for him.
As soon as I closed the truck door, I called Beth and put it on speaker, turning the air up full blast. “Hey, friend!” she chirped. Ever since she’d started a relationship with her new boyfriend, Maddox, also a Kingston, she’d been in a perpetually cheery mood.
I ran down the events at the gym. Beth didn’t know Nick, as she hadn’t gone to high school here in Black Claw, but she sighed when I told her what he said. “There was one of those guys at every high school,” she said. “And they all sucked.”
“Agreed,” I said, then went into what the mysterious Kingston had done. “He looked like he could be Maddox or Axel’s brother. Dark hair, tall, strong jaw. Honestly, he was hot.”
“Did he sort of growl and glower?” she asked.
“Yes, how’d you know? His voice was totally deep and grumbly.”
“Sounds like Rico. He’s Maverick’s cousin from Arizona. He got into some trouble a while back and has been living here in Black Claw and getting his head on straight.”
I whistled through my teeth and pulled out of the parking lot toward home. “Those Kingstons have no short supply of hot men.”
“That’s the damn truth,” Beth said.
“I was a little surprised he got in the middle. Doesn’t seem like a very Kingston thing to do.”
Beth chuckled. “Rico is an odd one for a Kingston. He’s a little wilder than the rest of them, though from what I can tell he’s a good person. Just not as uptight.” She giggled. “Maddox would be so mad if he knew I called him uptight.”
We chatted on the way home, but even after we hung up, I couldn’t get Rico off my mind. He’d been kind, especially after I pointed out the error of his ways. He listened and changed his tune instead of getting mad and defensive.
But it had been my experience that people were kind right before they let me down. I didn’t trust anyone, least of all kind people. Why should Rico Kingston have been any different?
2
Rico
First the bar, now the gym. I needed to move out of Black Claw before I ran out of places to go. I hadn’t wanted to meet her. I’d avoided finding out who she was. I hadn’t even wanted to know what she looked like.
Too late now.
My bad mood had followed me around from the moment I sensed Kara at the bar. Days and days of feeling sour and out of sorts had taken its toll on me, and the blaring radio was doing shit all to help. I smacked the off button on the console. I wanted to tear someone’s head off. I wasn’t too particular about whose. Maybe that asshole at the gym? He seemed good at making himself a target, especially hers.
The thought of being anybody’s mate was laughable. Least of all a woman who clearly needed no help in life. What did she need a mate for?
I hadn’t fooled myself into thinking I wouldn’t run into her eventually. That was an inevitability. But I also hadn’t expected to see her at the gym, of all places. I’d never scented her there before, so I figured it was a good place to work off energy.
My family had a gym at the manor, of course, but going to the one in town gave me some time to breathe. Some Rico time. That worked out well.
A woman with spice is good for a relationship, idiot.
Valor didn’t think much of me. He disagreed with nearly everything I’d ever done, including the decision to stay away from Kara.
Whatever. He was welcome to think whatever he wanted about me. No way I was heading down that road. We’d already made too many bad decisions and landed ourselves in hot water one too many times. It was time to keep my nose clean and to the grindstone, or whatever the expression was. I had to keep out of damn trouble.
I parked my truck in the barn beside Maddox’s, slammed the door, and trudged across the freshly mowed front lawn and into the house. As I put my hand on the front doorknob, I knew I was in trouble. I smelled and heard my grandfather and Uncle Perry inside.
Great. If they were here, I’d done something else wrong. I had no idea what, but there was no other explanation.
After sucking in a deep breath, I opened the door and tried to act excited to see them. Normally it wasn’t that hard, but I really wasn’t in the mood for it today.
Gramps and Perry stood with Uncle James, my cousin Maverick’s father. It was his house I’d been staying in. If this massive place could’ve been called a house.
“Rico, my boy, come sit down.” Uncle James beamed at me. He’d been amazing since I came to stay with him. He’d opened his home and
