Yours to Keep (Kowalski Family, #3)



Saturday turned into an awesome day for riding. Warm enough for T-shirts, Emma thought, but not too hot under the helmet and goggles.

At the last minute Joe had bailed. Brianna had been fussy with a low-grade fever all night and he knew better than to abandon Keri, so it was Emma and Sean, along with Kevin, Evan and Terry.

She started up the ATV Kevin had borrowed from Lisa for her and backed it off the trailer, leaving it to warm up while she put on her helmet and adjusted her goggles. Sean was riding Mike’s four-wheeler and he parked beside her to do the same.

“You think you can keep up?” she asked, tightening the strap under her helmet.

He snorted. “You drive like a girl and sleep in a girly bed. I bet you ride like a girl, too.”

“You know, saying that’s going to make it so much more embarrassing when I leave you in the dust.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She started to step closer to him—to maybe press up against him and ask what kind of wager he’d like to bet on that—but she remembered the others just in time.

With this group, they were just friends. Nothing more. And definitely not friends with benefits, since Sean didn’t want them to know she wasn’t sleeping on the couch anymore.

Instead she turned her back on him and yanked on her riding gloves. It was ridiculous, trying to keep all these stories straight, and she was tired of it. She just wanted to relax and be herself, but she couldn’t really complain since she was the one who’d gotten them into the mess to begin with.

When it was time to hit the trail, she took her frustration out on the throttle. Throwing her weight backward, she hit the gas hard and wheelied out of the parking area. When the front wheels dropped, she laughed and settled back on her seat. Let Sean chew on that dust for a while.

They were all experienced riders and keeping a fast pace, so she stopped dwelling on her current situation and gave all her attention to the trail ahead. Kevin was leading, with Evan and then Terry behind him, and Sean was pulling up the rear behind Emma, so there was a lot of dust. Dust meant poorer visibility, which meant paying attention and not stewing about the fact Sean was so adamant nobody in his family guess they were sleeping together.

But she couldn’t help it. Why was it a such a big deal to him? There was the betting pool with his brothers, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t like the guys had all put a hundred grand on when they’d sleep together. It was simply that he didn’t want them to know.

He’d said he was worried about his aunt getting ideas, but so what? Didn’t mothers—and mother figures—always get ideas when a guy in his thirties started dating a new woman? Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn’t, but you didn’t hide a new girlfriend in your closet unless the maternal figure in question was a psycho. Mary Kowalski definitely wasn’t a psycho.

To Emma it could only mean one thing. Sean was only in it—it being in her bed with her—for the sex. If nobody knew they were sleeping together, there wouldn’t be any questions from his family after he walked away from her. No disappointment on his aunt’s part. He wouldn’t have to deal with Lisa’s torn loyalties. Nobody would know.

She could live with that. It was what she’d agreed to—just sex without getting any ideas it might be more. And she was okay with it, too…mostly. A couple of weeks of the best sex of her life was better than no sex at all. She just wished it didn’t feel so much like a dirty secret.

They ate up some miles before Kevin pulled off on the side of a grassy area bordering a pond and they all pulled in behind him. Sometimes, in the early dawn hours or around sunset, there were moose around the pond but in the middle of the day it was abandoned.

She killed her engine and took off her helmet and goggles, trying to wipe the worst of the trail dust from her face with the back of her arm. It was a lost cause, helmet hair and a dirty face being one of the side effects of four-wheeling, but she made the effort.

Sean walked up beside her, looking as grubby as she knew she looked but, being a guy, he didn’t have the helmet hair. “I guess the next time somebody tells me I ride like a girl, maybe I should thank them for the compliment.”

She grinned and leaned forward to set her helmet on the front rack. “At least you’re keeping up.”

“It’s obvious you’re not a rookie. How come you don’t have your own?”

“I did. Blew the engine summer before last. I’ve been so busy with work I don’t get out enough to justify buying a new one. If I go out with Mike and Lisa, they usually borrow somebody’s for me. I’d planned to buy one for work, but then word of mouth got around and I spend most of my time in neighborhoods that frown on ATVs.”

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