Once Upon a Rose(26)

Still, maybe it explained why his cousins had pretended they couldn’t give directions earlier. At first it had been so weird, like they were…matchmaking or something. Crushing their own competitive instincts to let him look good.

Instead maybe they’d been dumping the responsibility of helping her or hindering her onto his shoulders. Nobody wanted to play the bad guy.

Matt always got to have that role.

“Fine.” Tristan gave a much put-upon sigh. “We’ll just have to figure out some other way.”

Oh, bordel.

“I know!” Tristan said, in dramatic delight. “We’ll sabotage her house! Cut wires, break a pipe…make her miserable, you know.”

“I just spent five months getting that house into shape!” Matt roared, shoving himself out from under the conveyor belt. “Tristan, if you touch one damn thing—”

He stopped. Tristan was grinning. Damien was doing that controlled, elegant smirk thing of his. Raoul, up on the platform above, was laughing so hard that Damien took advantage of the moment of weakness to throw a sack of roses up there extra hard, aiming for Raoul’s head.

Raoul managed to save himself at the last second, caught the sack as he ducked away, and then turned and poured its roses into the vat behind him.

“Although it sounds as if you already started on the sabotage,” Tristan said. “Didn’t she say her electricity went out? What were you up to last night, Matt?”

“Sleeping,” Matt snapped. Well, tossing and turning and beating his head against his pillow. Getting up to pace his terrace and stare out at his valley or at the house where Bouclettes slept. “It was probably a damn fuse. The wiring in most of that house is decades old. I’m going to fix it as soon as I get this damn conveyor belt working again.”

Tristan grinned. “That will help scare her off, all right. You fixing her house up for her. You’ve got to think of the market value, Matt. It’s already going to cost us a fortune to buy it back from her, even in the state it’s in.”

Well, what was he supposed to do? Leave the place in a mess? Leaking sink, poor wiring…damn it, his aunt could have warned him that he was fixing the house up for someone else and that he had a deadline to get everything done. Also, it wouldn’t have hurt to mention that the someone else was really cute.

Just give a man a little forewarning so he didn’t make a complete idiot of himself in front of her, for example.

And if Tristan looked any more amused, Matt might throw this wrench at him. “Fuck off, Tristan.” He went back under the conveyor belt.

“Or I know!” Tristan exclaimed. “I’ve got a much better plan. Instead of scaring her off, one of us could seduce her into our clutches. Convince her to sell the land back to us through pure sex appeal. I’ll have to take care of that one, Matt, sorry. No woman is going to be seduced by one of you guys.”

Matt shoved himself back out from under the conveyor belt, sitting up so fast he nearly bonked his head. He glared at his youngest cousin dangerously.

“What?” Tristan asked innocently. “Flirting is my forte.”

Yeah, and it really was. If Tristan started flirting with Bouclettes, she…he…damn it. Matt tightened his hold on his wrench against the wave of images. “Stay the hell away from her, Tristan.”

Tristan looked exaggeratedly crestfallen. “But she’s just my type.”

Every woman was Tristan’s type. And he was every woman’s type, too. Matt thrust to his feet and took a step toward him, menacingly.

Tristan couldn’t contain himself anymore and started laughing.

Damn it. Matt’s cousins were so annoying.

“You forget,” Damien drawled. “She thinks Matt is the hot one.”

Matt’s face flamed.

“Allegra swears she wasn’t making that up,” Raoul said from above. “As hard as it is to believe.”

Tristan shook his head in wonder. “You’d better grab this one, Matt. It’s not every woman who finds it hot to be hauled around by a drunk caveman and then yelled at when she’s lost and asking for help. It must be your way with a T-shirt.”

If Matt’s face burned much more, it would catch fire. “I’ll tell you what,” he growled. “Either you guys can let me fix this conveyor belt in peace, or I can hit you with something. Which is it going to be?”

A flood of roses engulfed his head, drowning him temporarily in pink petals and scent. He shook himself out of it, looking up.

Raoul grinned and dropped the empty burlap sack so that it floated down over Matt’s face. “Oops,” Raoul said. “I must have confused the vat with the vast empty space that passes for your brain.”