***** FIRST DRAFT - PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT TO/REVIEW ON ONLINE DATABASES SUCH AS GOODREADS. THIS BOOK CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE & SEXUALITY *****

As always, Peyton Bishop looked so out of place standing at the door to our trailer that I laughed.

He was perfect, all six feet two inches of him, perfect from the tips of his golden blond hair all the way down to his loafers handcrafted in Europe by designers with names that I couldn't pronounce.

"Peyton!" It'd been three months since I'd last seen him.

He smiled, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his neatly pressed khaki shorts.

Opening the screen door between us, I stepped out into the merciless heat. "What are you doing here?" 

"Surprised?"

"Yes! You said you wouldn't be back until next weekend."

"I decided to skip the last graduation party. Three was more than enough."

Peyton attended, or rather, just graduated from Phillips Exeter, a boarding school on the east coast.

Grinning, I brushed my lips against his cheek. "Rich people problems."

Dear God, he smelled so good.

He was still smiling when I pulled back, but his eyes had changed. There it was again, that longing he was never quite able to hide. It was always there in that first long look after any period of separation, in the way his eyes would wander over my face, in the way he would exhale and visibly relax, as if he'd been waiting for months to do it.

It was kind of a mind fuck. I was about eighty to eighty five percent sure that he like liked me, but he never did anything about it. What a shame that was, because all he had to do was snap his fingers and I'd have been on my back begging him for it. I was pretty sure he knew that too.

Anyway. Whatever the hold up was, it wasn't like I was going anywhere.

"You look really good, I don't know how you keep that tan up in New Hampshire."

And I wish I could rub my face all over you, and your bad-ass tan.

To stop myself from staring further, I busied myself with getting my bag together.

"What's this? You're not going to invite me in?" he asked, feigning horror.

"I would, but I need to get to work."

"Old Man Beaudry's again?"

"He pays more than the Dairy Queen."

He opened his mouth, probably to offer me money again. I didn't want to hear it, so I turned my back on him. This was always a point of contention between us.

He sighed. "I'll drive you," he said instead.

"You don't have to. I've got my bike."

"I want to. This way, I can pick you up after work. We'll have dinner and catch up."

"Shouldn't you have dinner with your family tonight?"

"I'd rather have it with you."

I grinned. "Well, it is tradition..."

"And you know how important tradition is to people like me," he said, poking fun at his own WASPiness.

"You spoil me rotten." I let the doors swing shut behind me but didn't bother to lock it. My mom and I were one of the poorest families in Canyon, Texas and we didn't have anything in the trailer worth stealing.

We walked, side by side, our shoulders brushing up against each other. He bumped into me on purpose, throwing me off balance. I laughed and did the same to him, hoping that he'd take my hand, but he didn't.

Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't.

"How are your parents?" I asked, the supple leather of his Range Rover's interior warm against my skin. "I haven't seen them in a while."

He gunned the engine. "They weren't home. I did see your mom though."

My mom was one of the housekeepers at his parents' house. She scoured their floors and scrubbed their toilets but Peyton never held that against me, so I returned the favor.

"She's marrying Buck Reynolds." I blurted. Guess that'd been bothering me a lot more than I realized. Almost immediately, I kicked myself for mentioning it.

Peyton's lips pressed into a grim line and he remained silent for a few more minutes in that way of his, eternally patient, waiting to see if I had more to say.

I didn't.

He cleared his throat. "Layla, don't take this the wrong way, but let me take care of you. Come to Boston with me next year and finish high school there. I have to be in the dorms for the first year but I'm sure we could find something nearby--"

"Peyton-"

"Hear me out. I would never expect anything back from you. You know I would never do that. We're friends, aren't we? Let me help you."

"No."

"Then take a loan. Pay me back when you can."

I giggled. "You know I'll never be able to pay that money back. I already need to take out loans for college and after that, well, who knows what kind of job I'll be able to get. I'm not smart like you are, Peyton."

"I can help you with that too you know," he said quietly. "College, I mean."

"Peyton...No."

He ran his left hand through his hair and expelled a breath. "This is awkward for me to say, but I think you'll understand where I'm coming from better if I tell you." He paused. "I don't think you understand my financial... well, situation." He glanced at me sideways, royal blue eyes distinctly uncomfortable.

I chewed on my thumbnail.

When he spoke next, it was to the road ahead of us. Tumbleweeds spun by, just like they do in old Westerns, propelled by the wake of the single car ahead of us.

"I'll be eighteen next month. On my birthday, I inherit twenty million dollars from my mother's father. When I turn twenty one, I inherit a hundred million from my father's father. Layla, when my parents die, I'm going to inherit in the billions."

What the fuck?

My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. His were guarded and wary.

"Three billion dollars? That's obscene!"

I had eight hundred fifty seven dollars to my name. Nine hundred seven if you counted the fifty dollars my mom owed me.

"Do you get it now? You can take the money as a gift, or take the rest of your life to pay it back in installments and it won't make a single difference to me. But it would change your life. You wouldn't have to deal with any of this bullshit anymore."

I had nothing to say to that because I was still trying to wrap my mind around billions of dollars. I mean, yeah, I knew he was rich, but this was a whole new stratosphere of rich.

"But listen. That's enough talk about that. I'm here all summer. Think about it and we'll talk about it again later."

Never. But before I could decline, I saw a vulnerability that squeezed at my heart. I would never take his money, (for a truly ridiculous reason) but it made no difference whether I refused him now or later, so I swallowed the lump in my throat and told him a different truth instead.

"Thank you Peyton," I said, hating my voice for catching, "for caring about me."

Not a lot of people did.

He smiled a tight smile and switched on the radio. We drove the rest of the way in a comfortable silence, listening to songs that heralded the beginning of summer.

***

The gravel crunched beneath the tires as we pulled into Carson Beaudry's property. Officially, it was named The Lucky Star Ranch, but no one called it that. For everyone in town, it was simply Beaudry's.

Made more sense, there was nothing lucky about the place.

Carson Beaudry was the richest man in Canyon. (Or maybe not, now that I knew what the Bishops were banking.) A lifelong Rancher, he owned the largest piece of connected land in the United States and provided jobs for a quarter of the town and most of the local kids. He was strange, but always fair. I'd worked for him since I moved back to town three years ago, and had no complaints.

Peyton killed the engine. Curious, I looked up.

He shrugged. "I might as well say hello to Beaudry. He'll hear I'm back in town by sundown, and will expect a visit."

"He probably already knows." Although he himself was a recluse who rarely left the main house, Beaudry liked to keep tabs on everything that went on in "his town."

Peyton laughed. "You're probably right." He reached over to grab my backpack.

But I was quicker. I shrugged the bag over my shoulders, adjusting the straps to keep them from rubbing against my nearly bare shoulders. It was too damned hot for anything more than a white tank top and shorts.

When I turned my attention back to Peyton, he was staring beyond my head with an intense focus.

Squinting, I scanned the horizon but saw nothing but a couple of ranch hands on horseback leading the cattle back in from pasture. "What's wrong?"

He frowned, a deep furrow appearing between his flaxen brows. "Is that Jake Waites?"

I squinted. "I can't tell. They're too far away."

"The one riding bareback. Isn't that his thing?"

"What are you talking about?"

He glanced at me. "Oh, I forgot. You weren't here back then. He..." Peyton hesitated. "Er... left town before you moved here."

I shrugged. "So what if it is him?"

He studied my face, clearly trying to get a better read on me. "Nothing," he said finally. "I didn't know he was back in town, that's all."

I shrugged again. "Okay. I get off at six. I'll wait for you here." I started to walk off, but Peyton grabbed my shoulder.

"Listen Layla, stay away from Waites. He's trouble."

"You don't have to worry about that. I've had enough Redneck Man Drama to last me a lifetime, thanks to my mom."

"Waites isn't a Redneck."

"He's Earl Waites' son isn't he?"

"His old man's a Redneck. He's different. Don't let him fool you."

"It doesn't matter, I don't even know him." I smiled. "Six o'clock?"

He seemed anxious, but he nodded. "Six o'clock."

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