Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance by Layla Wolfe Read Free Book Online Page B

April? That douchemonkey is your stepbrother ?”
    I was so mortified, I just rolled up the window.

CHAPTER SIX
    DYNO
    I didn’t go to school the next day. My ribs were so bruised it blinded me with pain just to get up and pee. I could take a couple days off and still graduate. It was kind of a given that I wasn’t going to Yale anyway.
    I was bored at the Searchlight Motel with no computer and only basic cable. I was the type who got easily bored. I needed action, even if it meant something outside my comfort zone. I was always looking for danger.
    So I managed to ride out to Sequoia’s place to check on him. As my only friend and sort of disciple, I needed him. I had lots of hot chicks on the line—including April’s friend Olivia, and I think that irked April—but I’d never hung out with another guy. It was part of maturing, I guess. There was no law etched in acid that I had to be a lone wolf forever.
    Damn, his house was pathetic. Twenty-year-old waffle irons with frayed cords still plugged into the wall, that sort of thing. His father had an old-timey bar with a lit beer sign, the kind where the waterfall moves. He actually had swizzle sticks , whatever those are, and old cocktail glasses with recipes for things like a Tom Collins and a Manhattan.
    And there were cobwebs everywhere . I went to his medicine cabinet to get an Ace bandage to wrap up my ribs, and there were cobwebs inside the cabinet. Of course there were no drugs worth taking, just a nearly-empty bottle of Old Spice and a used bar of hotel soap. Man, that place was pathetic. I wondered why Mr. Cliff Pleasure didn’t provide his employees with better living quarters. Then again, what exactly did Mr. Crooks do ? I’d never seen him around the ranch portion of Hardscrabble. Maybe he worked in the big house, where I’d never been.
    “What’s your dad do?” I stood near the bar while wrapping my bare torso with the bandage. “He must work for Cliff Pleasure.”
    Sequoia lay stretched on the couch, as though he were the injured one. “Used to. Got kicked by a horse so now he can’t work at all.” Mr. Crooks was usually lying silent as the grave in one of the filthy bedrooms. It was pretty unpleasant in that house, reeking of dust, popcorn, and cat shit.
    “So he gets disability?”
    “Well, he was never an official employee of the ranch, just worked under the table. So Pleasure lets us live here. It’s a sweet deal.”
    Some deal . “Then how you get food?”
    “Food stamps. Indian Health Services. Hey, is there any gin left in that big bottle?”
    I didn’t bother glancing at it. Did food stamps pay for the booze? “Get up and get it yourself. Look, you know that bruiser Lawson Willard is going to come after you.”
    “You too, from the sounds of it. Especially now he knows you’re April’s new stepbrother.” Sequoia ambled over to the bar as I clipped the bandage snug around my ribs.
    I muttered, “Guess that was bound to happen sooner or later.”
    Sequoia poured himself some gin into a grimy glass that looked like it had contained a Bloody Mary, from the color of it. “Want some?”
    “No thanks. Little too early in the day.” Truth was, I suddenly didn’t feel like drinking. Ever. Again. I’d seen my mother fall prey to the chains of alcoholism. I don’t think she’d gone a day without a drink in years. She said it was part of her social agenda, but what agenda required you to have an “eye opener” martini for breakfast? I could drink like the best of ’em, but suddenly, it just didn’t seem attractive. Watching Sequoia fritter away his very good chances at the rodeo had left a bad taste in my mouth.
    Sequoia tasted his concoction and smacked his lips. “Now April will make sure you never live in the big house. Now that you’ve protected me and caused a giant rift between April and Lawson—not to mention pushed up on that peroxide Olivia babe—she’s never going to let her dad invite you to live in the lap of