“Stick-up-his-ass, my-way-or-the-highway ruthless business tycoon.”
Gavin grinned. “Not far off the mark. But I am looking forward to showing you a different side of me, and seeing that different side of you.”
She was too. Way more than she wanted to admit to him and maybe to herself.
Rielle Wetzler was a dichotomy.
On one hand, given the serious financial bind she’d wound up in a few years back, Gavin assumed she had no head for business and flitted through life like a paisley butterfly.
But hearing her talk about her businesses showed him not only was she on top of her game, she wasn’t a pushover. In fact, she’d thought through the repercussions of this living situation on a much deeper level than he had.
He hadn’t lost track of their conversation until he’d put his hands on her. Then like the village idiot, all he could do was stare into her pale green eyes and imagine taking a big bite of her full bottom lip.
And it didn’t help matters when Gavin realized her pretty blush and bright eyes meant that she felt the surprising zing of attraction too.
He grabbed the bottle of Crown XR from his room and returned to the kitchen. He doubted Rielle drank whiskey on the rocks or even neat. He stirred Coca-Cola into her glass, topped his off with water and headed to the porch.
Rielle had moved to the glider.
He’d barely sat down beside her before she launched into questions. “What prompted the sudden move to Crook County, Wyoming?”
“How much do you know from the McKays?”
“Nothing beyond Sierra had some issues and you pulled up stakes, hoping to straighten her out.”
Gavin gave her the rundown of Sierra’s troubles. “Did you ever deal with anything like that with Rory?”
She shook her head. “It strikes me as odd that the kids who have the most are usually the ones with sticky fingers. Rory kept a low profile throughout school and stayed out of trouble. It was hard enough for her being the granddaughter of hippies who were rumored to grow pot and live in a commune.”
Rielle had mentioned those things before, as had the McKays. “Any truth to the rumors?”
“About the commune? Yeah.” She turned sideways and set her feet on the seat, near his thigh. “My folks let anyone down on their luck crash here. One time, I counted thirty people living in that run-down shack they called a house. Used to be a thick grove of scrub cedar trees blocking the shack from the road, thank God.” She took a drink—almost angrily. “It was cathartic to watch West Construction level that damn building with a bulldozer.”
“I’ll bet. Does this house sit where that one did?”
“Close. Rory and I lived there with my parents until she turned three. I’d busted my ass making a cabin at the back of the property inhabitable, so we’d both be somewhat free of their influence. I let Rory have it after I built the B&B. She still stays there when she comes home. She’s an adult and she deserves her own space.”
Gavin knew she’d only touched on her struggle to raise a kid on her own, when she was just a kid herself. “How’d you support yourself as a young mother?”
“When Rory started school I worked cleaning motel rooms so I was done by the time school let out. We’d always grown our own food, so I just continued doing what I was taught. But I seemed to have extra so that same year I started selling the leftover produce to locals. The business grew so by the sixth year I didn’t have to work at the motel. During that time I’d gone from cleaning rooms to running the front desk to working in the sales and catering office. And I realized the perfect job for me would be running my own B&B.”
“And you made that a reality.”
“Yes, I did. The one smart thing my parents did was buy this land. They paid cash for it thirty-odd years ago and no one ever questioned how or where they’d gotten the money, so neither did I.” Her bare feet had inched over until her toes rested on the outside of his thigh. She nudged him. “Hey, how’d did I end up a topic of conversation? We’re supposed to be talking about this screwed-up living arrangement.”
Gavin curled his fingers around her ankle to stop her from kicking him. Or maybe to keep her from leaping up as she was prone to do. Or most likely, he just wanted an excuse to touch her. “We’re getting to know each other, which I believe is standard procedure before a man and woman move in together.”
“Gee, Gavin, you’re making it sound so romantic,” she said.
That brought up another point. “So we get all these living together specifics ironed out between us. Will it bother you if people in the community think we really are living together as a romantic couple?”
“I could give two shits what people think. I’ve dealt with labels my whole life living in Sundance and I’m still here, still doing my own thing. So maybe you oughta worry what people will think about you, the rich-tycoon-cum-secret-McKay-lovechild and your impressionable teenaged daughter, being shacked up with someone like me.”
Gavin laughed. Rielle was really trying to rile him and it wasn’t working—well, not in the way she’d intended. This sexy opinionated woman riled him up in ways he’d forgotten he could be riled. “Like you, I could give a shit what folks say about me.”
“Really? And what about Sierra? Do you care what kids at school might say to her?”
“Sierra might’ve made some bad judgment calls recently, but she has a lot of me in her and she calls it like she sees it.”
She toasted him. “I wish Rory had been more like that at Sierra’s age. Heck, I wish I’d been more like that.”
“You ready to hammer out specifics on divvying up shared living spaces?” he asked her.
“Hit me with your best idea, tycoon.”
Tycoon. Sassy little thing. “Here’s what I think will work. Since your bedroom is on the main floor, the great room is your space. We’ll stay out of it unless you’ve granted us permission.”
Rielle said, “That sounds fair.”
“The upper living space is ours. We’ll use the existing furniture until we buy new.”
“The movers stashed your pieces in the basement.”
“According to Sierra, that stuff can go to a good home or to Goodwill. We’ve decided to get new furnishings that fit with the house.”
“Oh.”
“We’ll have to share the kitchen in the morning. As far as food, we’ll label everything in the fridge and freezer. Assign us cupboards to store canned and dry goods. That’ll keep our food separate. Same goes for clearing out a spot for our small appliances and dishes—”