Chapter 1

1

She had made a bet with her worst enemy, and Dylan Talley was going to win it, no matter what.

All it would take would be living in the man’s house.

Cooking for him.

Cleaning up after him.

Darning his socks.

Washing his undies.

And proving to him that she could take care of herself. Without her family—specifically, her rather overbearing and domineering father—doing everything for her.

Dylan was going to do it. Six months working for him. She was going to be the best housekeeper he had ever seen.

Then she was going to sit back and watch Fletcher Tyler eat his words.

She was looking forward to it too.

Dylan stepped inside the house that had spawned her personal nemesis, Fletcher “Truckboy” Tyler, and his far-too-gorgeous brothers and took her first real look around. This was going to be her home for the next six months. Whether he liked it or not. It was a matter of Dylan-pride, after all. “So, this is your cave? I am surprised there aren’t cave worms or cowboy bats flying around the place.”

It was actually a rather welcoming house. The colors and wood paneling were way out of date, but there were hardwood floors that had been stained a really pretty cherry. Ageless. The living room was definitely a man’s living room, with a big ugly recliner and two rather large couches. There was an old rag rug in the center and a coffee table that had seen better days. She could just picture Fletcher and his two older brothers—and one younger sister—sprawled out around the room, watching football or something else “manly” like that. Fletcher, Ben, and Gil were very “manly” type creatures—especially the cranky cowboy in front of her.

But it felt like a home.

Not like she expected for him at all. “So what’s it like?”

“What?”

Dylan had moved at least twelve times—that she could remember. She’d started counting when she was four. Right before they’d had Dorie. She’d had just as many last names too. She’d been ten before she’d realized that part of moving wasn’t normal at all. “To have lived in one place your entire life? I can’t imagine it. It sounds wonderful, really. Moving really hurts, you know?”

Dylan hated moving more than anything. A girl would be feeling safe and secure, and then it just zapped right out from under her with no warning. Sometimes, in the middle of the night.

No. Dylan was going to have her own place someday, and then she was never moving ever again. The only exception was if she and her future husband found a place to make a home together.

She wanted that more than anything—a home she didn’t have to leave.

“No, I guess I don’t. It’s okay. It’s home, but I really don’t spend as much time here as I used to. Too busy. It needs work. And I’m going to do it. When I get the time.” He shot her a look from those ridiculously blue, blue eyes. Tyler men had the most beautiful blue eyes—even this rather annoying one. He was rather prototypy Tyler and everything. “That’s one reason you are here. I can’t do the things I want to get done if I’m worried about doing the damned laundry.”

“I can understand that. I can do the job, you know. But you good with me working my hours at the inn and diner too? It’s kind of required, I think. To be a real Talley and everything. Well, either you work them yourself, or you pay someone else to do it for you. And I can’t do that. I’ve been told I can barely take care of myself, you know.” And the words had hurt. Like she suspected her father had known they would. He wanted her where he wanted her. Dylan wasn’t playing by the script. He was doing everything he could to make her feel guilty for daring to have her own life. “And I’m not sure how much of a butthead my father is going to try to be once he finds out about this. Poophead Dad can be quite problematic—I have never been able to fully train the butthead out of him, though I have seriously tried. Seriously tried.”

“I am not the least bit concerned with your father. He can take a flying leap into the lake right now as far as I am concerned.”

“Yeah, you Tylers really don’t like Daddy at all, do you?” Can’t say she blamed him there. Considering what her father had done to Dusty. Dusty, Dylan’s sister, who had the whole life thing figured out. With Fletcher’s own brother. Ben and Dusty were already planning the wedding and cooing at each other all the time. Or disappearing into dark corners of the inn together.

Dylan suspected she knew why.

“So…where is my room going to be? Do you still sleep in your room from when you were a kid?”

“No. That I don’t.”

“Did you have to share with your brothers? I have almost always shared with Dorie. Which…she is four years younger than I am. She could get really annoying, and she always got scared at night. She’d sneak into my bed until she was twelve.” And Dylan still checked on her every night before she’d crash herself. Like she still checked in on Devaney and Dahlia. This was the first she’d ever been more than one hundred feet away from her younger sisters at night. She’d have to call or text them each tonight. She’d kind of sprung this on them.

She suspected Dahlia was panicking big time right now. Dylan had always been there when Dahlia or Dorie had needed her. Every single time. It really wasn’t fair that she’d left Devaney in the lurch, either. Devaney was going to have to handle them both all by herself.

Then again, Darcey, Dixie, and Daisy lived at the inn too. Her younger sisters would be just fine—they had their older sisters now. Dylan really wasn’t needed as much anymore. Everybody was figuring out their paths, their futures, that kind of thing.

And her? Well, she’d just made a bet with Fletcher Tyler two hours ago. And here she was.

“No. It’s a five-bedroom, plus a few other rooms that were used for different things years ago. We all had our own rooms, once I was old enough for school or so. I am in the last room at the end of the hall. I will clean it. You are to stay out of my room. The rest of the house is all yours, but…I like my privacy.”

“I see. That’s where you grow the good stuff, isn’t it?” Dylan shot him a grin. He just glared.

Dude totally needed to loosen up. How had Charlotte survived dating him? Talk about seriously unfun. “I am just joking. I know you grow the happy weed in the back forty or something. Don’t all you Tylers do that? Poophead Dad has implied as much, you know. Tyler guys are criminals and druggies and just too wild to be controlled. Brawlers and seducers of innocent young women, that was just the last time I heard him warning my sister about your seriously delicious brother.”

Her father was definitely not happy with having Benjamin Tyler as a future son-in-law. Her father had Tyler-itis, Dylan thought. And, well, there were a lot of hot, beautiful Tyler men running around in Masterson and everything. Dylan did have seven beautiful sisters her father was trying to protect from rogue Tyler hotties.

Well, six now. Far too late for Dusty.

Ben already had snagged Dusty. It was driving her father crazy: Tyler Hot Guys—one, Arthur Talley—zero.

“In here.” He almost stomped off. Dylan bit back a laugh. He was going to be a lot of fun to play with. Fletcher Tyler always was.

It took her a moment to follow.

She was too busy just drinking in the feel of his house. It was a home . It even kind of felt like it. With just one guy living there, how was that even possible? The way her father acted, the place should be littered with drug paraphernalia, beer cans, and girly magazines. No sign of a girly magazine anywhere. Maybe he had good internet.

“You need a dog around this place. Why don’t you have one? I thought all good cowboys had their dogs. Do you at least have a cat? A pet goat?” Dylan followed the cowboy in question down the hall. “I’ve always wanted a pet, but we never had one. Mom was afraid, I think. I’d love a puppy someday, for sure.”

There were family photos on the wall in the hallway. It was really cool that he had them up and everything. She looked closer—that was her sister Dusty in some of the photos, right next to Dusty’s bestie forever, Fletcher’s baby sister. “Don’t all bachelor pads have bare walls and cobwebs?”

Well, there were a few cobwebs, but the dude had just hired a housekeeper. That was to be expected at first. She would take care of those—as soon as she found a ladder—this week.

“Do you ever stop talking?”

“No. I have been told my questions have questions for their questions. It’s kind of just the way I am. I drive my father—and I suspect Darcey—crazy. It’s what Dylan Brown is known for. Well, Talley, I guess. It is still taking me a while to get used to the Talley part, you know.” Since her father had kept his family and her four beautiful older sisters a secret while he and her mother hid Dylan and her three younger sisters away in the witness protection family and everything. Drama—her family was just so much drama. Hard for her to keep up. “So where am I going to sleep? Do you snore? I really hope you don’t. I mean, how thick are the walls in this place? And we really need to talk about…Char. When she visits, do I need to spend the night at the inn? I really don’t want to hear anything naughty going on. That would be entirely too awkward. How often does Char stay over?”

Her cousin must seriously be a glutton for punishment. She’d heard Charlotte had dated him for at least a year. Talk about torture. Fletcher just kept glaring, standing right there in the entrance to his hallway and everything. No, Dylan just didn’t see the why…

“I am not sleeping with Charlotte. She doesn’t sleep over at all.”

Dylan wasn’t certain she believed him. She’d seen him and Charlotte together, after all. If Charlotte was in town, Fletcher was nearby. The two were almost inseparable. Everyone could see that.

“Well, I at least had to ask. Are you sleeping with anyone? I mean, not because I really care or anything. But if I am going to run into a half-naked townie in your hallway, I probably need to know. I mean, can we say awkward?”

He led the way into a large bedroom that had pink, white, and teal plaid walls and a big, four-poster double bed. It was a nice room—and she knew exactly who it had once belonged to.

“You won’t. You are here in this room. It was my sister’s. She still has a few things here, but you can box them up and put them in the room next door.” He motioned to the few personal items that remained. This had been her sister Dusty’s bestie’s room, no doubt. There were even pictures of a young Dusty on the wall. Dylan looked closer. Then-Dusty so looked like Dorie did now. Her youngest sister looked very much like their older sisters Dusty, Darcey, and Dixie. No denying that.

Dylan looked like a little kid next to them. Even Dorie, at nineteen, looked older. It was rather irritating, but she was getting used to it.

“I can just stay in there?” The room next door had been a bit sparse when she’d walked by. She could be settled in there in minutes. All she had was one bag, a cardboard box, and a backpack. Dylan had learned how to pack light years ago. That whole moving around in search of adventure thing, after all.

“It was mine as a kid. I don’t want you in there.”

“Rude much? I am on to you, you know. You are going to try to make everything as difficult as you possibly can. So I will quit, and you will win the bet, and take all my pennies.” Dylan leaned forward and looked up at him through her bangs. “It just isn’t going to happen, Fletchie-kins.”

He scowled down at her, looking very much like a pale-haired version of Ben. Dylan actually liked Ben. She didn’t like his younger brother at all. Still, the other Talleys got all the good stuff around here. Her branch was just kind of the leftovers.

Darcey had had a flaming hot affair with superhot, supergorgeous Martin Tyler years ago.

Dusty now got superhot, superawesome Ben Tyler forever .

Dylan got leftover Tyler dude, Grouchy Cowboy Fletchie.

It was just the way it was.

Good thing she wasn’t living in a romance novel. Otherwise, she’d be totally bummed right now. This was not the hero of her dreams here at all.

Not even close.

“You are stuck with me, dude. Completely stuck with me. Except when I am at the inn, the diner, or on a hot date. Don’t worry—I will call if I plan to stay out all night.”

“You won’t be staying out all night and working here.” Oh, the grouchy got even worse there. If he was a Sesame Street character, he’d be green and living in a trashcan right now.

“Why not? I mean, if the next day is my day off, can you really stop me? Does this place have a morality clause? I know you aren’t a virgin, Fletcher. I’ve so seen you perving over my cousin. And I saw you eyeballing those hot ladies from Texas last week. I mean, right there in the inn lobby, right in front of Char and everything. So not cool.”

Dylan yelped when hard hands went around her waist and she was just lifted right up like she weighed nothing at all.

Fletcher Tyler was a very strong man.

No denying that . Strong, muscled, kind of beautiful. If one liked mean, cranky-cowboy types, anyway. Which she did not. Her taste now ran to really tall, lanky children’s villain actors with kind eyes and broken hearts. Even if cranky cowboys had very toned arms that she wanted to run her fingers all over.

She had no dignity at all.

Of course, a woman wearing Wonkus McBubbles and Scraggle-Popps accessories probably didn’t have much dignity to begin with. There was that.

Quade—the actor who played Wonkus McBubbles and had asked Dylan to dinner again this weekend—was going to be just a friend, of course. She had suspected that before she’d even said yes—it was obvious he needed a friend, and she knew he wasn’t ready for real romance right now—but she wasn’t going to tell this guy that.

Fletcher already thought she was only half the woman Charlotte was. He’d said that the first time they had even met. Nothing even real woman about you! or anything.

Hard to forget that.

Dylan knew she wasn’t exactly rolling in the girl charms and everything—kind of hard to do when she was the size of a garden gnome and had weird spiky, almost-white hair and freckles and everything—but she wasn’t that bad. She didn’t think. She’d dated a few guys before. Like, really dated them.

She’d even slept with one for a while. That had been really fun.

Until her family had moved again and she’d had to say goodbye. Brody had wanted her to stay behind. Live with him. And try to make it together.

Brody had been talking babies and a house. Just the two of them, building their own family. But she’d not been ready for that. She’d only been twenty at the time—and she hadn’t been willing to leave her sisters. Or her mom.

Her family had needed her. Dylan had done what Dylan had to do. No matter how much it had hurt.

Of course, Charlotte had that whole supersexy fiery redhead thing going for her. And she’d seen the way this dude looked at her cousin sometimes.

“I am not perving over Charlotte. We decided years ago that we weren’t what the other needed. We are friends, and that’s it.”

“Sure you are, big guy. Sure you are. So…why this room? I mean, it’s like next door to yours? Shouldn’t you put me far away as possible? I am the hired help and all.”

“Nikki’s room has a full bath,” he said, almost all rumbly and everything. “I do not want to share a bathroom with you.”

“Well, I am housebroken, you know.” Dude, he so had the grumpy part of grumpy/sunshine down pat. “Sweet. So, no tripping over your dirty undies in the bathroom. Gotcha. And you’ll keep your lovers out of my room. Totally cool with that. So, if the time comes and you need privacy, you going to put the sock on the door?”

Dylan waited. He was going to chuck her right out the door into the nearest snowbank. She was sure of it. If he did, then she won. And he’d just have to deal with it. Housekeeper, six months—winner got a thousand dollars, after all.

That money was going in Dylan’s house fund. Period.

She tried to peek into his room. Just to see what he would do. Of course, she twisted her ankle and tripped. That was the way the world worked for her—she had long accepted such things.

In an instant, Dylan found herself up off her feet. Off the floor, actually.

Truckboy moved fast.

“Fletcher,” she drawled out his name. “I do appreciate the rescue. But you can’t go around sweeping the housekeeper off her feet like this. It just isn’t done. ”

She was hanging from his hands like a child right now. Not exactly what she wanted. She wiggled.

He pulled her closer.

“You are going to be nothing but trouble, aren’t you? I am going to regret this.” He lowered her to her feet slowly. Until they were almost pressed together and everything. Definitely not what she had expected.

“Completely.”

Dylan just gave him her best grin.

Were words even necessary?