Page 32 of Taming I Do
I paused, wondering how best to answer. Should I tell her the truth or try to downplay the number of Taylors she’d wake up to in the morning? “I’ve got a handful of them.”
“What, like five?” Her eyes widened.
“Yeah, plus two.” I shifted my gaze back and forth between her and the dark road ahead.
“Seven? You have seven brothers and sisters?” Her palm splayed over her heart.
“It is what it is.”
“Where do you fall in the lineup?”
“I’m second.”
“From the top or the bottom?”
“From the top. My older brother took off a couple of years ago. We don’t talk about him much.” Even saying the words out loud made my heart squeeze tight.
“I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is with that, too. Colin’s the oldest. Then I’ve got five younger brothers and one sister.”
“Your poor mother. Where does everyone live?”
“Some still live at home. Some in town. My youngest brother, Noah, is away at college.” It would take too long to run through the details. I pulled the truck around the gravel drive and eased it to a stop in front of my parents’ place. “We’re here.”
Delilah peered through the windshield at the two-story white farmhouse where generations of Taylors had been born and raised. “I can’t go in there now and wake everyone up.”
“They’re used to it. Everyone comes and goes at all hours.”
“But I don’t want their first impression of me to be like this.” She glanced down.
“I’ve got a place down the road if you want to stay there instead.”Say no.It would be safer for her to stay with my parents. Not that I worried about stepping out of line, but having her that close, that vulnerable, might threaten the fragile hold I had on my attraction.
“What would people think?” Her eyes betrayed her nerves.
“Honestly? I don’t know that anyone would find out. And even if they did, it’s not like we’d have anything to hide.”
“I really don’t want to disturb your family. It’s late, and I’m in no kind of shape for a proper introduction.”
I didn’t bother to waste breath telling her the idea of “proper” didn’t fit in with my family in any way, shape, or form. “It’s settled then. We’re going back to my place.”
“If you think that’s best.”
“I do.” But best for whom? If someone did catch sight of us, would I risk having Ido disqualified? I shook my head. It was late. Her trailer was uninhabitable. No one could argue with me over that. Being around Delilah was making me paranoid.
Ten minutes later I’d introduced her to Buster and given her the tour of my one-bedroom cabin, which sat on the edge of my family’s land. She padded behind me on bare feet since I hadn’t thought to grab her a pair of shoes.
“Why don’t you take the bedroom? You’ll have more privacy, and I wouldn’t feel right with you sleeping out here on the couch.” I moved to the linen closet and grabbed a set of clean sheets.
“I’m so sorry about all of this.” She hadn’t loosened her grip on the front of the shirt I’d given her since we’d walked in the door except to give Buster a scratch on the head. And she looked damn good with my favorite flannel button-down wrapped around her.
“It’s fine. Let me go remake the bed so you can get?—”
Her fingers wrapped around my arm and a burst of heat stunned me into silence at the contact.
“Don’t worry about the sheets. I’ve been enough of a nuisance. Thank you for your hospitality.” Those green eyes peered up at me through long, thick lashes.
I felt dangerously close to doing something I shouldn’t. I wanted to pull her against me, brush her tousled blond waves away from her face, and find out if she tasted as sweet as she looked.
