Wes couldn’t blame Kaylee for being gun-shy in terms of relationships. He’d failed her, and then McDouche had stepped in and really fucked things up. But this was Wes’s second chance with the woman he’d never stopped loving. He was bringing his A-game.

Wes spotted Kaylee sitting at one of the poolside tables, smiling at the children in the water. He strode across the pavement and nudged out the chair beside her with his foot. He took a seat and held out two paper-wrapped sandwiches. “Ham or turkey?”

Kaylee grabbed the kettle chips he’d tucked under his arm. “You remembered!” Smiling, she ripped open the chip bag and gestured to the turkey sandwich.

He handed her the sandwich and sent her a look of disbelief. “You thought I’d forget your favorite junk food?” He inched his chair closer to hers as he scooted in. “I nearly received a severed arm the one time I took the last chip. That’s not a lesson a man easily forgets.” He feigned a shiver. “Never steal a woman’s food when she’s holding a knife.”

Kaylee brought her hand to her mouth, covering her laugh and the food she was chewing. “Served you right! I would never steal the last red licorice. I can’t believe you took that chip.”

He shook his head. “You’ll never get over it, will you?”

“No.” But she was smiling.

Wes would make Kaylee laugh all day if he could. As far as he was concerned, when Kaylee was happy, flowers bloomed, strangers hugged, and road rage ceased to exist. He felt like he could conquer anything. But the tournament was around the corner, and Wes worried he’d fuck up what they had the same way he did in college.

Preparation for a tournament of that scale was massive, and he didn’t want to ruin their budding relationship by being preoccupied. Not that Kaylee considered it a relationship. She was adamant about it being only sex. And he was happy to oblige. But the lunch dates he’d managed to slip in these last couple of weeks made it more than casual. Not that he planned to point that out to Kaylee. Wes made sure he took advantage of every free moment with her. Unfortunately, there weren’t many.

He had been busting his ass getting things lined up for the big event, even putting aside practice sessions just so he could get his work done and still have time for Kaylee. It was a first. He’d never put anything ahead of golf.

Wes was willing to shove a few practices aside, but he couldn’t let down his brothers when it came to keeping the club going. And the tournament was integral to keeping Club Tahoe flush after a shitty employee had embezzled money from them. It had happened right after they’d taken over running the place, and unfortunately, Club Tahoe lost important relationships with big business partners. They needed the tournament.

If only he could convince Kaylee that a relationship with him was the right thing. Then he could persuade her to hang tight until after the tournament, when they would be able to spend more time together. But she was being damned stubborn about this friends-with-benefits thing, making it a point to comment on how great it was.

Leave it to Kaylee to suddenly decide she didn’t want anything more than sex.

Wes bit into his ham sandwich and studied her out of the corner of his eye. “So, I was thinking I could leave work a little early tonight. Barbecue for you. I’ve got steaks in the freezer that need to be cooked.” That he’d picked up at the store after midnight last night on his way home to lure her to his lair. But she didn’t need to know that. “What do you say?”

She nodded. “Yum. I’ll bring a salad.”

He shook his head. “Let me take care of everything.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “I love spending time with you, but…you’re not trying to woo me, are you?”

He chuckled and sat back in his chair, feigning a casual stance. “Cooking dinner for someone does not a relationship make.”

“What’s with the Yoda speak?”

God, he was nervous. And his dating skills were rusty. “I’m just saying, I got this. And don’t worry; it’s still only about sex.”

Wes grabbed a chip and held it up for her approval. She smiled and nodded. He popped the chip in his mouth and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “Ask any of my brothers. I haven’t wanted a relationship in years. Why would I start now?”

“Right. Yeah, okay.”

Wes’s mouth twisted. Her eyes had gone unfocused and she was kneading the top of her thigh.

Was she having second thoughts? Did she actually want a relationship but was too afraid to go for it?

Goddamn, taking things slow was annoying as hell.

Wes waited until Kaylee finished her sandwich. He grabbed the trash from the table and dumped it in the nearby canister.

Kaylee glanced at her phone and tucked it in her pocket. “I better get back. Hunt’s watching the kids.” She made a face. “If I leave him there for too long, I return to booby traps.”

Wes grinned. “That sounds about right. So I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“Sure.”

Score. It was a date. Even if Kaylee didn’t know it.

---

Wes picked up Kaylee from her place and drove them to his one-room cabin off Pioneer Trail. She could have driven herself, but this way he got to spend more time with her. Plus, she’d been so busy trying to figure out if dinner meant something more, she hadn’t complained when he said he’d pick her up.

Wes crossed the kitchen and grabbed another of Kaylee’s favorite foods—cheese spread and crackers. He walked to the bar-height table and handed her them, along with a bottle of beer, while the steaks marinated.

He drummed his fingers and watched Kaylee slather her cracker with cheesy goodness, little moans erupting from her throat—getting him juiced up for other activities.

The table took up a quarter of the space in his place, the bed nearly half. Which was fine, because that was where the magic happened. And if he was lucky, he’d get lucky. With the woman he—

Not loved.

Cared about. No need to go all crazy the way Adam had for Hayden, or even the way Levi was around Emily.

Jesus. Just because his older brothers were settling down, that didn’t mean he had to do the permanent thing. Wes wanted to lock things down with Kaylee, sure, but not forever.

He frowned. If he didn’t lock things down permanently with Kaylee, she’d date someone else…and that didn’t sit well. Not. At. All.

He gave himself a sharp mental shake. Not going there. Still working on convincing her to call him her boyfriend.

“There’s something that’s been bothering me,” he said, attempting to puzzle out her aversion to dating him in a serious way. He guessed their past was a strong influencer, but there had to be more. “You mentioned that McDouche—”

She rolled her eyes. “Eddy.”

“—was there for you after we broke up.”

She shook her head. “It was almost a year before I felt good enough to date, and then I met Eddy.”

Wes’s jaw clenched. He popped a cracker in his mouth, breathing deeply through his nose. Thinking of Kaylee going through all that medical stuff on her own made him want to break something. “Right. So, why did you date him and not some other guy? You never used to put up with idiots like Eddy.”

She stole the cracker he’d spent several seconds spreading cheese on, and took a bite. “He was nice at first. And Eddy isn’t hard on the eyes.”

“If you’re into that sort of thing,” Wes grumbled.

“But you’re right.”

He looked up. “I am?”

She set the cracker down, and Wes brought his beer to his mouth, waiting impatiently for her to continue. “Eddy isn’t the kind of guy I’d normally date. I think we connected because he can’t have children either.”

Wes choked on his beer. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “He suffered a lacrosse injury goofing around without proper gear. It severed his—”

Wes slammed down his bottle. “Stop. Right there. I don’t need the details. Just hearing you mention balls and injury makes me queasy.”

She shook her head, exasperated. “I never mentioned balls.”

“It was implied.”

She shrugged and popped the rest of the cracker in her mouth.

His hand formed a fist. He didn’t know why her having this bond with Eddy pissed him off, but it did. “So you could relate to each other.”

“Neither of us was going to be disappointed when the other couldn’t have kids, so yeah, we could. At least, that’s what I thought. But now… Now I’m not sure Eddy’s the type of person to have children. I don’t think his infertility meant as much to him as mine did to me. I almost wonder if he used it...”

“To get close to you?”

“Yes.”

Considering the kind of guy Eddy was, Wes would bet his left nut it did. Not that he was willing to give up one of his boys.

“Sometimes…” She screwed her lips together.

“Sometimes?”

She took a gulp of beer. “Sometimes I wonder if he dated me because I was vulnerable and easy to manipulate. I was so desperate to connect with someone who understood what I was going through that I ignored problems in our relationship.” She dropped her head in her hands. “I called a few of our mutual friends… Eddy had quite the harem going. I was such an idiot for not seeing what he was doing.”

“Kaylee.” He grabbed her hand, and she looked up. “Whatever he did, it wasn’t your fault. That’s who he is. It has nothing to do with you.”

She nodded, but pulled her hand away slowly, wrapping her arms around her waist.

Wes stood and went to the fridge to grab Kaylee another beer. He replaced the one she’d almost finished. He should have never brought this up, but it did explain a lot. “So you were never on equal footing with this guy. And now you’re afraid the same thing will happen with us.”

Her body stiffened. “You walked all over me too.”

He set his hands on the table and leaned down. “No, I didn’t. You were always the most important thing to me. I was never with another woman. I’ve told you this.”

“It didn’t feel like equal footing the last six months we were together. There were obvious physical things going on with me. I was sick. And you had no idea.”

“That was because I was an idiot. I’ve explained that.”

She unlatched her arms from around her waist and straightened her back. “I’ll never again put myself in a position where I’m not a priority.”

“And you never should.” He thought about the work he had ahead with the tournament, but pushed it aside. He could juggle Kaylee and his work schedule. He had to.

“You’re right. I won’t. Because I’ll never let us go farther than we are now. I learned from our past.” She gave him a shaky smile. “Friends with benefits, right?”

Fuck no, but he wasn’t stupid enough to disagree with her. No matter what she said, they were a hell of a lot more than friends. “For now.”

Before she could utter a response, he latched his mouth onto hers and kissed her until she was clinging to him. He lifted his mouth from her briefly. “There’s more for us, Kaylee.”