Entice - By Ella Frank Page 0,56

and hospitals, just in case you weren’t sure.”

Josh didn’t like to be rude. When he heard Mrs. Monroe suck in a breath, he felt a slight twinge of guilt until Shelly’s father spoke.

“And that satisfies you?” he asked. “Is it really the kind of job that is stable enough these days to provide for a family?”

Josh felt a headache forming and clenched his teeth. He was about to answer when Shelly decided to pipe up.

“Father, Josh doesn’t have a wife. Otherwise, I hardly think he’d be here, trying to get to know me better.”

Josh blinked across at her, not believing she had just said that.

“Shelly, why do you find the need to be so blunt and distasteful about these things?” her father asked.

Josh sat dumbfounded as the sweet Southern girl disappeared, and the Man-Eater appeared.

“Why shouldn’t I? I took lessons from the best, Father. If I’m attracted to someone, I should just tell them or show them, and I am most definitely attracted to Josh.” She paused and took another sip of her wine as she turned her smoldering blue eyes on him.

Josh felt that hot stare all the way down to his toes, but he was still livid with her. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to nail her or strangle her.

“I mean, look at him.”

“Shelly Monroe! That’s quite enough,” her mother snapped her accent sharper, like a whip cracking.

Josh watched Shelly turn to face the small woman at the other end of the table.

“Is that right, Mother? When will what he does be enough for you?”

“Shelly!” her father boomed.

Josh watched her stand.

“What, Father?” she said, now adding an ugly twist to the word. “You’re quite happy to sit in lofty judgment and regard of everyone else in this world, but when it comes to you—shhh, we can’t talk about that.” She stood and moved to leave the room. When she reached the door, she turned back to look at her mother. “I’m sorry, Ma, but what he does, it just isn’t right. Not for me and certainly not for you.” With that, she left with her wine glass in hand.

Josh sat completely still in the aftermath of a storm he didn’t quite understand.

Then, her mother’s soft accent floated across the quiet space, “I’m sure she went down to the barn, Josh, if you’d like to go after her. It’s down the back of the property.”

Josh nodded, placing his utensils down. “Thank you for dinner,” he said as politely as he could before he left the now cold and silent room.

Chapter Thirteen

Shelly was pissed. She was walking back and forth in the barn from one side to the other. Her father was such a damn hypocrite that he drove her nuts. For years, the man had paraded his affairs around right under his mother’s nose, but her mother had stuck around.

Not to mention that when Shelly had been interning at the same hospital as him, she had seen him chase nurse after nurse or pretty much any kind of woman that walked through the hospital. The sad part was he usually succeeded.

Well, I’ll be damned if I end up like my mother. Used by different men over and over in the past, she was determined to find a man who respected her. She was not going to be stuck in a dead-end relationship with a man who took everything from her, only to watch him walk away when he was done.

She heard her name being called from the front of the barn.

“Shelly?”

She’d known Josh would follow her out here, but she didn’t want to talk to him either. Wiping her tears away, she stayed silent.

“If you don’t come out, Georgia, when I find you, it won’t be pretty,” he warned in a pissed-off voice.

Shelly took a deep breath and moved out from the shadows to see him standing at the end of the barn.

He marched forward with his hands on his hips and stopped when he was a foot away from her. “You want to explain what that was all about in there?”

Shelly shook her head and answered, “Not really.”

He took another step this time, making her retreat back. “You used me tonight.”

She nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Well, at least you’re honest about it,” he granted.

Shrugging, Shelly asked, “What do you care? This was just a detour for you, so you could get laid.”

“Excuse me? Screw you, Shel.” He paused, inching closer with each menacing step until her back was against the barn wall. “I do not like being used.”

Shelly