Roberta placed a gallon of milk in front of him. “So we don’t have to keep running back and forth.”

Mitch looked at Sissy. “You do whatever these lovely goddesses tell you to do, and you be damn happy about it!”

Sissy rubbed her eyes, if for no other reason than to block out the smug smiles of her aunts.

Bribing heifers.

“Next time, don’t agree to anything without talking to me first,” Sissy snapped early the next morning, while trudging through Travis’s backyard to one of the two enormous barns he had on his property. Since no Smith could own animals without the animals panicking every time one of them came around, there was only one reason there were so many barns around here. To hide shit.

Only a few of them made ’shine now, and most of them stuck with legal jobs…most of them. But they still kept their barns because to quote Bubba Smith, “You just never know, do ya?”

“It’s not my fault. It’s Shaw’s. They bribed him with pie!”

“They have to be the weakest siblings,” Sissy muttered. She looked at Dee. “And what’s your excuse?”

She shrugged. “Momma asked.”

Sissy let out a long-suffering sigh and pulled open the big doors of Travis’s barn. They were still there. Three racing cars that would make any NASCAR racer drool. And clearly, her brother had been maintaining and even updating them. They positively shined, and when Sissy popped the hoods on all of them, the engines looked perfect.

“Think we should amp ’em up a bit?” Ronnie asked, her hand sliding across the roof.

“Couldn’t hurt.” Sissy definitely didn’t mind tinkering with cars. She didn’t get much of a chance now that she lived in New York, and Bobby Ray wouldn’t let her anywhere near his truck. Not because he didn’t trust her to fix it, but he got real panicky when she mentioned taking it for a test drive.

Sissy glanced at her watch before putting her hair in a pony-tail. “We’ve got three days to make these babies sing. So let’s get to work.”

Mitch woke up when a weight dropped onto the bed next to him. He turned over and smiled at Sissy. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was nearly two in the morning. He hadn’t seen her all day and he’d missed her—a lot.

“Hey, ba—”

“Touch me, and I’ll rip your arms off.” It took him a moment to realize she hadn’t changed out of her clothes or showered. And before he could find out what was wrong, she was snoring.

Frowning, Mitch glanced down at the erection that had been waiting hours for her to get home. “Don’t look at me. It’s not my fault. It’s those evil women and their pies.” Then he remembered there were pies they’d left him in the refrigerator. Well, if he couldn’t fuck…

Chapter 19

Brendon looked at his brother while they waited for practice to start. Mitch was looking really good these days. Healthier. Stronger. Happier…except at this moment. He looked unusually cranky. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” Mitch cracked his neck. “But let me tell you, food is not a substitute for sex. At least not good sex.”

Ahhhh. Now Brendon got it.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Ronnie was exhausted when she got home last night. She only had energy for one round.”

Mitch slowly turned toward his brother, and Brendon took a step back. “But it was barely even once. I mean, by the time we were done, she was out cold, and…uh…I’m gonna stop talking now.”

Travis jogged up to them, a ball in his hand. “You guys ready?”

“Don’t I look ready?” Mitch grabbed the ball from Travis. “Let’s get this fuckin’ thing started.”

A shocked Travis—and Brendon had never seen the man show anything but cool indifference—watched Mitch storm away.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Everything is fine.” Brendon shrugged. “But ya know what would be a good idea? Playing in our gear. Pads, helmet…all of it. Just to be…uh…safe.”

They turned and watched Mitch pass the ball to one of his teammates. It hit him dead in the chest, and Brendon winced because he was positive he heard bones breaking.

Travis nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

Sissy waved away the tires she didn’t want. “These are good.” She tapped the chosen ones. “We’ll take these, and we want eight more sets for racing day.”

The seller nodded and walked off. Sissy grabbed one of the tires and rolled it toward her car.

Her arms hurt. She was tired. And dammit, she was horny as a rabbit on hormones. But like most canines, once Sissy made a commitment, she stuck to it.

Besides, apparently, the lions were ahead in the betting pool among the three towns. True, it had been years since Sissy had done one of these races, but she hadn’t lost her skill. Or her almost rabid desire to win.

She blamed her momma for this. All of it. This particular rivalry started back before Sissy had even been born and had been passed down from the Lewis females to their daughters. The last time Sissy raced, she’d broken her collarbone, but Ronnie had won, and the Barron Pride had yet to let it go. They could hold a grudge, and so could the Lewis sisters.

Still, Sissy knew her momma wouldn’t let her daughter race if she were around. Not after she’d had to nurse a whining and unhappy Sissy back to health. More than once, Janie Mae had told anyone who would listen, “That had to be the longest three days of my life, waiting for that damn collarbone to heal.”