the memory of Ginger’s little breasts pushed up against her sweet yellow and white dress as Mary-Louise stepped closer to rub her naked tits against his T-shirt. “Her heart ain’t broken no more. They fixed it. Probably stronger’n yours or mine now.”
“Ain’t no shame in carin’ ’bout someone, Cain,” said Mary-Louise in a meaningful tone as she reached for his belt buckle and dispatched it with practiced finesse. “In fact, I think it’s awful sweet.”
His button and zipper came next. Hooking her thumbs into his jeans and boxers, she yanked them down as she dropped to her knees before him. And not a moment later, all thoughts of Princess Ginger were banished from his dirty mind.
Chapter 3
~ Woodman ~
Two things fought for Woodman’s attention as he watched his cousin swagger away toward the old distillery, leaving him and Ginger behind despite her pleas for him to stay.
The first? Mary-Louise Walker was only “sweeter’n cake” if that cake had been licked by every member of the Apple Valley High School football team. Multiple times.
The second? It bothered Woodman to hell and back that Ginger had chosen not to jump this year, but it bothered him even more to watch her face fall as Cain walked away.
Damn it, but it had always been like this.
Cain was like a twister, wreaking havoc everywhere he went, without a care in the world, while Woodman stayed behind to clean up the wreckage.
After fifteen years, he was getting sick of it.
Turning his glance from his dickhead cousin’s retreating form, he looked at Ginger, placing his hand on the small of her back in a lame attempt to comfort her.
“Don’t fuss over him,” he said, his anger toward his cousin mounting as Cain walked farther away. “He’s always been a jackass, Gin.”
“He isn’t!” Ginger cried, flashing angry eyes at him.
And there was this, too. Every woman in the world—or at least at Apple Valley High School—was always so danged eager to defend him, like he was some wayward foundling angel who could do no wrong, even as he carelessly broke their hearts.
He saw the way women of all ages looked at his cousin, with a mixture of enchantment and hope, wondering if Cain would give them one of his megawatt smiles before swaggering away. Ginger was no different, and he hated it fiercely that she seemed so taken with Cain lately. He wanted her flashing eyes to look at him the way she looked at his cousin. To grab his arm and beg him to stay. To moan “oh” to his retreating form, like she wished she could keep him in her pocket and never let him go.
Patience, Woodman. Be patient, he reminded himself. Slow and steady wins the race. And Cain ain’t one to be kept in a pocket anyhow.
Still, some part of him couldn’t help being annoyed. Cain had just left despite her pleas. Woodman was still standing here beside her, and she didn’t even seem to notice, didn’t seem to care.
“He’s your cousin,” she said, her voice softer, her eyes filled with tears.
Damn Cain to hell and back for putting those tears there. And on her birthday, too.
“And don’t I know it,” he said, looking away at the speck in the distance that was his troublesome cousin.
As he watched Cain’s retreat, he felt some of the anger leave his body. If he took Ginger’s feelings out of the equation, he had to ask himself: what exactly was Cain supposed to do? Linger at the barn until he or Ginger could break away with a slice of cake like they used to, when he was little? Waste his whole afternoon on the outskirts of a party he wasn’t invited to while Woodman and Ginger enjoyed the refreshments and music up at the main house?
It embarrassed Woodman that Miz Magnolia hadn’t invited his Uncle Klaus, Aunt Sarah, and Cain to Ginger’s party. Uncle Klaus and Ranger McHuid were about as chummy as two men could get, but when it came to rolling out the red carpet, the Wolframs had been left off the list for years now. It bothered Woodman’s mother, Sophie, to see her twin sister slighted, though, he thought acidly, it didn’t keep her from attending and enjoying the McHuids’ many parties either.
And it bothered Woodman, who thought of his cousin as more like a brother despite his irritating behavior, that Cain was always left out.
But if Woodman was honest, he would admit that seeing Ginger upset dwarfed all other thoughts or concerns in