Chapter 1

Chapter One

Polly

"What do you mean you can't go? Jared, we've been planning this trip for two years!"

My brother ran his hand through his sandy-brown locks and sighed. "I know, Poll, I'm sorry. But there's a merger and downsizing at work and I'm lucky I still have a job. Hundreds were laid off, Poll. Hundreds. I can't leave right now. They need me."

He wasn't lucky, he was fucking brilliant, but now wasn't the time for that particular argument. Besides, I was too mad at him to worry about fluffing his ego right now. I glared at him sullenly, crossing my arms over my chest like a petulant child. "Two years."

"I know. And I promise we'll go. Just as soon as everything settles down at work. I'll make it up to you."

"As soon as everything settles down at work?" I repeated incredulously. "Jared, no! This isn't just some random trip that can be rescheduled. It's my twenty-first birthday trip!"

"I know. I'm really sorry. And I'll still take you out for drinks on your birthday."

I blinked at him. "Where? Here? This town is practically dry. I am not spending my birthday here."

Jared grimaced. "Maybe some of your college friends can come with us. Make it into a party."

"Everyone's gone home for the summer, and no one tried to make plans with me for my birthday because I wasn't supposed to be here." I crossed my arms over my chest. "I should have known this would happen. Work always comes first with you. Next time, fuck your stupid overprotective ways. I'll plan to go with Savi and Krystal. They won't cancel on me at the last second."

Jared looked wounded. Not that I was surprised. I'd dealt a low blow, several of them, in fact. Work did always come first, but it was because he'd been solely responsible for raising me after our parents died when I was fourteen. He'd been a kid himself still, creeping up on his twenty-first birthday, suddenly crippled with grief and just as suddenly solely responsible for a sullen, grief-devastated teenage girl.

Most people would have dropped out of college to get a job. Not Jared. He used the little life insurance our parents left behind to pay off the house so he wouldn't have the burden of mortgage payments, and did his degree in record time while working enough hours to keep the lights on and put food on the table.

When he graduated college a year early, he got hired on with the same company he works for now. Competitive salary, good benefits, life-work balance… they'd wanted him badly, and he'd used that to set us up for the next several years. They'd given him everything he wanted and been an incredible place to work while also raising his teenage sister. The fact that the company was now changing hands was killing him, I knew.

But he was protective, overly so. I'd always put up with it because of everything we'd been through and how much he'd given up for me, but I was about to be twenty-one, and I could have gone on this road trip with friends. Jared had insisted we do it together, and had kept adding stops to sweeten the pot until I agreed, and now he was canceling.

Jared stared at me for a long beat then huffed out a sigh. "I'll make it up to you," he offered weakly. "We can still go on the trip."

"When? A year from now? Two?" My tone was sharp, and I sounded like a petulant child, but I was upset and I had every right to be.

"No." Jared's answer lacked conviction and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Before the end of the summer, I promise."

"Not good enough." I wasn't appeased. "My birthday is now. I didn't enroll in any summer classes. I declined a bunch of invitations from friends. I got three weeks off from work, which meant working a ton of extra shifts the past few weeks to make up for it. I'm fucking going on this trip, Jared. If I have to go alone, so be it."

He nodded slowly, his expression resigned. "I knew you were going to say that. That's why I had a plan B in place."

Hope bubbled in my chest. I really didn't want to go alone. For one thing, I hated driving, and for another, who wanted to go on a road trip by themselves? "Plan B? What's that?"

"I believe that would be me." The French doors to the kitchen swung open and there he stood, the bane of my existence. Cas Duncan. He must have just gotten out of the shower because his hair was still wet and he had a fluffy towel wrapped around his hips, showing off his adonis muscles. Staring at him, I forgot for a moment that I was angry and what I'd been talking about.

God, he was gorgeous. Dark hair that he kept just long enough to fall in his eyes, stunning green eyes, and a body like a Greek god. And when he wasn't talking, I could easily forget how annoying he was.

The truth was, Cas Duncan was a good man. Flighty, not so smart, crude at times, and a lot overbearing, my brother's college roommate was his polar opposite, but when shit hit the fan, nobody could hold a candle to the way Cas had stepped up. Even though he was by all accounts, a total bro-dude, he'd held my brother at the hospital, helped him plan the funeral and when Jared had been out of the dorms and in the house with me for a week, Cas showed up with two suitcases full of all his worldly belongings and a rolled-up mattress and announced that he was ready to "full house this shit".

And he had. Cas had driven me to volleyball practice, picked me up after debate club, helped me with my history homework, and basically stepped up whenever and wherever Jason couldn't.

At fourteen, I'd had a giant crush on him. But I was twenty-one now—basically—and Cas annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me on a daily basis. He still lived here, still helped wherever he could. Still made sure the household ran smoothly because my brother, genius that he was, could forget about basic things like grocery shopping and paying the water bill.

Once when I was seventeen, I'd gotten mad at him and accused Cas of mooching off us for free room and board, since I barely ever saw him do anything that looked even remotely like work. Jared's jaw had dropped and Cas had scoffed, picked up his phone, then showed me his bank account with its balance in the low millions. Turns out Cas was very adept at playing the stock market and had increased a minor trust fund his grandma had left him by like 200× the original amount. I'd had no idea. I respected him a little more after that, but his arrogant take-charge attitude still annoyed the shit out of me.

"So…" Cas took a step toward me and shook out his still wet hair. "What's our itinerary for this road trip?"

Right. The road trip. That's what we were talking about.

Shooting him my deadliest glare, I crossed my arms over my chest. "You are not coming with me."

He glanced at Jared, giving him a look I'd seen them exchange thousands of times over the years.

Usually right before they won an argument with me.

"Hard no," I insisted.

There was that look again.

Jared sighed, took a step toward me and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. "See, here's the thing, Polly. I think he is, because you are not going alone, your friends are not available and I have to work. So… your options are Cas or cancel."

"Aww, Polly. C'mon, it'll be fun." Cas gave me puppy-dog eyes. And then he actually puffed out his lower lip. And damn him he had me going for a hot minute until his insufferable ‘my way or the highway' smirk returned, and he turned to Jared with a shrug. "Guess her choice is cancel."

Jared stared at me for a long minute as if daring me to change my mind, then shrugged and said "Fine. I'll go cancel all the reservations."

I squinted at him. Was I calling his bluff? I was perfectly capable of making my own reservations and paying for my own trip, but Jared had been footing the bill and calling it my birthday present. It was a ridiculous two-week trip that started here in Utah, went all through Arizona and New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, and Minnesota before ending up in the black hills of South Dakota. The only thing about the trip that would be exciting to most people was stopping at the Mall of America to shop till I dropped. The rest of the trip was full of silly photo ops and roadside attractions that most people would call a waste of time, but that I loved.

I'd spent the better part of a year reading travel blogs and planning all my stops. I wanted to do it all… so badly I could taste it. So badly I hadn't talked about much else for months and Jared and Cas, damn them, knew that better than anybody.

They knew I'd give in. I could see it on their faces, and I was tempted to hold out just to prove them wrong, but dammit, I wanted to go. I wanted it bad enough to make the trip with the devil himself or in reality, the man bad enough to be him. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit .

I was still standing there with my arms crossed, bouncing from one foot to the other, trying to figure out a way to gracefully give in, while still deciding if I really wanted to, when Cas raised his eyebrow at me.

"Watch your mouth."

And there it was. That overbearing bossy side he couldn't help but aim in my direction every chance he got.

And there it also was. My traitorous pussy's reaction, because as much as I wanted to, I didn't hate it not at all. Now that he'd scolded me for barely cussing, like I was a freaking child, younger than I'd been when he met me, there was no possible way I could give in right now. I couldn't give him the satisfaction. And I couldn't do it to myself either. My dumb pride wouldn't allow it.

So instead, I glared at them both, stomped down the hallway and when I was just about to reach my room, turned and yelled, "I'll think about it," over my shoulder before slamming the door.

Juvenile? Sure. But if they were going to treat me like a child, why shouldn't I act like one?

Cas

I didn't even wait for Polly to make it down the hall before I turned to my best friend, shaking my head. "I told you she wasn't going to go for it."

"Did you hear her tell me to go ahead and cancel? Because I didn't."

The door to Polly's room slamming punctuated his retort and I chuckled. "Now there's a sound I haven't heard in a while."

Jared nodded his agreement. "I think the last time that door slammed was when we wouldn't let her drive across state lines for a midnight concert at sixteen. The door actually rattled on its hinges that time and your face got so red you looked like a pomegranate had replaced your head. You stomped down the hall and told her if she ever slammed the door like that again, you'd throw her across your knee and spank the attitude out of her."

"Yeah. I lost my cool that night and said things I had no right to say." It was true. Polly had accused me of acting like her Dad, but in reality, I'd acted more like a Daddy. And that was not acceptable. Not only had she been underage at the time I'd said it, Polly was my best friend's little sister for god's sake, and though I often thought she needed a Daddy, and a good hard spanking, in that order, that Daddy would never be me and that spanking would probably never happen. Oh, to be a fly on the wall if it did, though.

I still wondered all the time how Jared hadn't kicked me out that night, knowing as he did, what type of lifestyle I leaned toward. But he'd just shrugged and laughed, and Polly had never slammed the door again.

Until now.

And Jared was looking at me with a curious expression like he actually thought I'd make good on a four-year-old threat.

"Well?" he asked with a laugh. "I don't recall that threat having an expiration date on it. You gonna do something about that temper tantrum or what?"

"Oh, get fucked," I said, and stomped down the hall before my towel could give away the fact that my dick was hard at just the thought of putting Polly over my knee for a good hard spanking.

And though I really did think she was going to tell Jared to cancel the trip, I went ahead and packed a bag anyway. And added a thick leather belt as an afterthought, telling myself it didn't mean anything.