Beauty and the Mustache (2 page)

I blinked at him, my
breath seizing in my chest, and I completely lost my train of
thought.

“
What?”

The Viking’s eyes looked
directly into mine. After a short pause, he glanced down at his
chest. I followed his glare to where my fingers were caressing his
man-nipple. I flinched, yanked my hands away and balled them into
fists between us.

“
Sorry,” I blurted again.
“Sorry about twisting your nipple. Also sorry about petting it
afterward. Furthermore, I’m sorry that I can’t seem to stop
talking....”

His eyes lowered to my
feet then swept up my body in an unapologetic assessment, loitered
on my bare calves and thighs for a minute, then dawdled on my
chest.

“
Who are you?” He asked my
chest, sounding annoyed.

“
Who am I?” I asked,
because honestly—and I might lose my badass card for this—part of
me had forgotten my name. Because he was the kind of ruggedly sexy
that made me forget what number I was on and what my name
was.

“
Yeah, who are you?” His
eyes finally met mine and he sounded even more annoyed. I could
tell by his accent that he wasn’t from Tennessee, though he had a
distinct southern drawl. My brain told me it was Oklahoma or
Texas.

“
I…I’m Ashley
Winston.”

He sucked in a sharp
breath, obviously surprised by my response. His frown was equal
parts severe, confused, and angry from behind his unwieldy blond
beard as he surveyed me.

Then he turned to Jethro. “You have a
sister?”

The fact that the golden
Viking had addressed my brother rather than me was a slap of
sobriety, and I responded with mildly offended displeasure. “Yes
they have a sister.”

Jethro had followed me
around the car when I charged into the quonset hut and he tipped
his head in my direction. “Yep. That’s Ash.”

“
I thought Ash was a boy.”
The handsome marauder said this like he was both shocked and upset,
like he’d been misled, lured into our cluttered garage with
trickery and deception.

“
No. She’s a girl.” Billy
bellowed from under the hood of the car.

The man’s eyes swept up
and down my body again, a flagrant scrutiny. He did not look
pleased.

“
Obviously.” The blond
stranger said, like he’d just tasted something sour.

In that moment, I finally
figured out what kind of handsome he was. He was fiction-handsome.
Romance novel handsome; but not the clean-cut (billionaire) alpha
male or even the tattooed (billionaire) bad boy
archetype.

He was the Scottish
highlander, Viking conqueror, bodice-ripper historical romance kind
of handsome; an unshaven, lion wrestling, mountain man recluse,
toss you over his shoulder and plunder your goodies kind of
handsome. He was both scary and swoony. I wanted to braid his
beard. I also wanted to run away.

But his less than
flattering expression was just the reality slap I needed to propel
me out of my stupor. I finally saw beyond my initial stunned
reaction to his rugged handsomeness, and my anger boiled over anew.
I remembered that it was six-something in the morning, and this
male specimen of fineness was the reason I was awake.

Handsome or not, it didn’t matter. I decided
he was a jackass.

I gave him my very
best
you’re not worth my time
glare even as I fought against a delayed blush of
embarrassment. I wasn’t sure if I was embarrassed because I’d just
inflicted pain to his nipple then tried to pet it, or if I was
flustered because he obviously found me repulsive.

Really, I’d ogled him. Then, amidst my
ogling, he gave me the grossed-out stink-eye.

Suppressing these
disturbing and uncomplimentary musings, I turned to Jethro. “Sorry
about maiming your friend, but will you please tell him,” I
indicated the bearded stranger with a thumb over my shoulder, “to
quit revving the engine at six fourteen in the morning, or else
I’ll remove this car’s spark plug wires and lock you all out of the
house.”

Jethro sighed, but he was
still smiling. Come to think on it, he was smiling a lot, which was
not typical for him. “Come on, Ash. We need to be at work in two
hours. Cut us a break.”

I blinked at him and briefly considered that
I might be dreaming. “You have a job?”

Jethro’s smile dimmed,
turned brittle. “Yes. I have a job, baby sister.”

I felt the stern line of
my mouth soften and the back of my neck heat with renewed
embarrassment. I had been gone a long time, and I had no desire to
insult or hurt anyone, least of all my brother. He’d never shown
any outward concern for me growing up, but he was still my
brother.

Billy poked his head
around the hood of the car and glared at me. Even though I was
younger than both of them, I’d been the only consistently
responsible child of the seven Winston brood when we were growing
up, and the only girl. My brothers had always seen me paradoxically
as an authority figure and a doormat.

I imagined it was similar to how they viewed
my mother.

I fought the jitteriness
still plaguing me from the titty-twister tempest and took a calmer
approach. “Look, my flight
just
got in at two this morning, and I’ve had less than
three hours of sleep. I’m supposed to be at the hospital in
Knoxville at eleven to find out what’s going on with Momma.” I
sighed and put my hands on my hips. “I just need some
sleep.”

“
Bethany is in the
hospital?” This question came from the stranger. My back stiffened
at his use of my mother’s first name.

Billy walked to the side
of the car and leaned against it. “When I came home two days ago,
she’d left a note.”

“
What kind of note?” The
Viking asked; I didn’t want to notice but he had a delicious growly
and authoritative quality to his voice.

Stupid growly commanding
Texan Viking voice.

“
She said she was sick and
had to go to the hospital,” Billy explained.

My throat tightened as my
eyes moved to the cement floor of the garage. I suppressed the wave
of worried panic. I reminded myself that I hadn’t been home in a
while, and maybe she was sick with the flu or just needed a
vacation from the craziness that was living with my brothers. Maybe
she was completely fine.

“
I didn’t know she was
sick,” the blond man said, coming to stand next to me, my shoulder
at his bicep. In my peripheral vision, I noticed that he’d folded
his arms across his sculpted chest, his right hand covering his
left nipple.

“
No one did,” Billy said,
looking straight at me. “Not even Ash,” he added in a slightly
sardonic tone.

“
Why didn’t you tell me?
What exactly happened?” An unmistakable air of privilege and
authority hung heavy around the stranger. “Start from the
beginning,” he demanded.

A gathering ache of
frustration set up camp at the base of my neck. This man,
this
unknown person
, sounded so entitled, as though he should be kept in the loop
regarding what happened to my mother.

Maybe it was my lack of
sleep; maybe it was the stress of not knowing what was going on
with my mother; maybe it was because this man’s sense of
entitlement reminded me of every ivy-league ignoramus medical
doctor I’d had to endure at my job in Chicago, but I had no
patience for this behemoth at my shoulder despite his colossal
handsomeness and the fact that I’d assaulted then molested his
man-nipple.

I glared at his unkempt
beard and longish blond hair, both of which annoyed me now, then
shifted my stare to his silver eyes. “Why is this any of your
business? And who the hell are you?”

Mr. Blond Beard considered
me with impatience, as if I were gum on his shoe. I returned his
malicious glower, as if he were gum in my hair.

I heard Jethro clear his
throat, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that he gestured to
the stranger with a greasy rag. “Ash, this is Drew Runous. He’s my
boss.”

“
Pleased
to make your acquaintance, Miss Winston,” he drawled, extending his
hand in a show of ironic southern politeness, like older church
ladies use when they say “bless your heart,”
and what they really mean is “you couldn’t find
your way out of a small shed with a map, lighted signs, and an
escort.”

But his face held no amount of pleasure. In
fact, he looked positively aggravated by the audacity of my
existence.

“
Likewise, I’m sure.”
Ignoring his offered hand, I returned his ironic southern
politeness with my own vitriol-laced volley.

When I’d left Tennessee
eight years ago, Jethro’s “job” was selling weed to vacationing
teenagers then stealing their cars. I guessed that this
self-important blond toolbox was likely in a similar
trade.

I continued, “Your
professional relationship with my brother notwithstanding, I’m
certain even someone like you can recognize that this a personal
family matter and is, quite frankly, none of your
business.”

Not waiting for his
reaction, I turned back to Jethro. “Rev your engine all you like.
I’m getting dressed and going to the hospital to see what I can
find out.”

I strolled out of the
garage with my head held high and did my best to ignore the fact
that I felt Drew’s eyes—sure and hot as a brand—on my backside.
This was accompanied by the unavoidable and spreading warmth in my
chest associated with the awareness that a super-hot mountain of a
man was watching me walk away.

I decided to overlook the
knowledge that my hasty, arrogant dismissal of him was likely
undermined by the fact that I was leaving in a snit while wearing
nothing but my sleep shorts and pajama top. Also undermining my
superiority was the fact that I’d just attacked his chest then
fondled it. I’d even ogled him, and he’d responded with
repulsion.

So…yeah, I didn’t have
much air in my sad little kite.

Once I was back in the
house, the door behind me, I leaned against it and released a slow
breath. My hands were fisted at my sides so I shook them out,
flexing my fingers, and sent a silent prayer upward that whatever
was going on with my momma was resolved sooner rather than
later.

I climbed the stairs two
at a time, holding the banister for balance, and crossed to the
upstairs bathroom. I had no desire for any further interactions
with Viking marauders, especially when the marauder was so good
looking that it nearly eclipsed his entitled arrogance.

These were the thoughts in
my head when I opened the bathroom door and, to my life-long
horror, saw Beauford Winston—at least I think it was Beauford,
though it could have been Duane, the other twin—standing at the
edge of the tub. He was naked except for his ginger beard, a dirty
magazine propped on the counter, and his hand wrapped around Beau
Jr.

I screamed.

He screamed.

My hands flew to my face.

He cursed.

I heard a thud and I
turned my back to him. I was now fully and mortifyingly
awake.

“
Shit, Ash. What the hell
are you doing here?”

“
Sorry, sorry, sorry—I
should have knocked.”

“
Nah…” he huffed, “I
should have locked the door. It’s just that everyone knows Tuesday
mornings are my time slot.”

“
Your slot? What do you
mean your time slot?”

“
It’s my private time in
the tub, you know, to get my rub on.”

“
Gah!” I shook my head and
pressed my palms into my eyes.

“
I can give you a copy of
the schedule.”

I heard the front door
open and footsteps thundering through the house then up the
stairs.

“
Don’t!
Do
not
give
me a schedule. I don’t want to know. Just, can’t you put a sock on
the door or something?”

“
That’s what we used to do
but then we kept losing socks. It’s good to see you,
Ash.”

“
Uh, you too…?” My hands
fell away from my face and I moved to the doorway. “I’ll just give
you some privacy.”

My escape was blocked by
the worried visages of three shirtless, sweaty men—Jethro, Billy,
and Drew Runous.

I closed my eyes and
covered my face again; I seriously considered crawling into the
cabinet under the bathroom sink, one of my favorite places to hide
from my brothers’ torture when I was a kid. I wondered if I would
still fit.

“
What the hell?” Jethro’s
winded exclamation met my ears, and I stifled a groan.

“
Are you okay?” Billy
asked. I felt a small, hesitant touch on my shoulder. “We heard
screams.”

I nodded. “Yes. Fine. I
just need to learn to knock.”

“
Who screamed?” Drew
demanded.

“
I did,” I said, inwardly
grimacing.

“
We heard two screams,”
Jethro contradicted. “Did you scream twice?”

“
I didn’t scream. I…I
hollered.” Beauford said.

“
That wasn’t a holler.
That was a scream. You screamed like a woman.” Billy said this like
he was addressing a jury.