Tough Luck Hero

“But your family is there. Are you close to your parents?”

She gritted her teeth. “Not especially.”

“I seem to be close to mine. Even though it isn’t easy. My mom is...well, she’s a project. And the whole bastard child thing kind of put a damper on my relationship with my dad.”

Lydia’s heart twisted. For whatever reason, they seemed to be having a cease-fire right now, and she was going to go ahead and honor it. “I bet. Were you close before?”

“I’m the only son he has around. So yeah, I guess we were.” He shook his head. “I’m not the only son he has around. He has Jack Monaghan. He just spent thirty-five years ignoring him.”

“Family is terrible.”

“You think so?”

“I just told you I don’t see my parents who live one state over. Family is a terrible, complicated thing.”

“On that we can agree.” He lifted a hand. “But, we’re never going to agree about peaches.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“I’ll grab your things, and then you can start settling in.”

Colton headed outside, leaving Lydia alone with her thoughts. She turned a circle in the room, examining the fine details of the space. The rich fabrics on the couch and chair, the rustic coffee table that appeared to be made out of the same logs that had been used to form the bulk of the house, and a piece of sheet metal. Again, something that looked old, but probably cost more than her last paycheck.

She was going to have to live here with Colton, live here and not spend the next few months tripping over him. Not spend the next month clashing with him. She felt like she was being crushed down into a little ball, and that made it difficult to breathe.

She was imagining spending the next few months tiptoeing through this space, doing her best to make sure her footsteps didn’t sound on the hardwood floor.

It reminded her too much of other things. Too much of her childhood home.

Of being the least important person in a space. She swallowed hard, shaking her head, brushing her hair out of her eyes. No, she wasn’t going to do that. Because she didn’t do that anymore. She had driven into Copper Ridge at the age of twenty-two and started carving out niches for herself all over the place. Had made sure that she had effected change in the place, that she didn’t tiptoe, that she wasn’t quiet.

She wasn’t about to behave any other way. Not for anyone. And certainly not for Colton West.

CHAPTER SIX

SHE WAS IN his house. He could feel her moving around. Metaphorically. He blamed the fact that Lydia Carpenter was terminally uptight. And he could feel that tightness following her around wherever she went.

He could feel it in the air the moment he had walked in the place after tending to his horses. He kicked his boots off, pushing them up against the wall by the door before walking into the living area. She had started a fire in the fireplace, which was actually considerate, but he was going to go ahead and take it as an invasion instead.

He had a feeling that the key to sanity when it came to enduring Lydia’s presence was to keep focusing on how irritating she was. Not that it was difficult to do.

The issue was that her ass also looked nice in the tight pencil skirt she was wearing today. He had the passing thought that maybe looking at it could be an excuse to make a word association game. She was a tight ass, with a tight ass. And if he looked at it, he could remember that...

Okay, not even he was buying that.

This entire situation was a ridiculous mess. She didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted her here, but there wasn’t much of anything they could do about it.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, grimacing when he saw it was his mother. He couldn’t ignore her. Not given the circumstances.

“Hello?”

“You haven’t called me since you got back into town.”

He took a deep breath. “No. Sorry. But I had to get back to work, and I have the small matter of moving Natalie’s things out of my place.”

“I’m so sorry about what happened,” his mother said, clearly not so much sorry because of his feelings, but terribly sorry about the wedding being ruined.

“Me too. But, for whatever reason, Natalie felt like she couldn’t go through with it. And all in all it’s better that she decide that before the marriage, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” she said.

He could tell that she wasn’t at all convinced divorce would have been worse than a very public event like what had just happened. Fifty percent of marriages ended in divorce. The statistic of grooms left at the altar was likely much lower.

He heard light footsteps on the wooden floor, and looked up. Lydia was standing in the doorway, looking at him like she was a deer caught in the high beams. For a second, he had forgotten she was here.

He’d lived with Natalie for eight months. Any other time he’d heard footsteps in the house at this hour he would have expected to see Natalie appear. But Natalie wasn’t here. Lydia was.

It was jarring.

In two days, his life had changed completely. He had been planning on being a husband. He had lived with one woman, and now he suddenly lived with another. He supposed he was a husband still. But not really the kind he had planned on being.

“Colton?” For a moment, he had forgotten he was on the phone with his mother.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I just spaced out for a second.”

There was the small matter of Lydia, whom he had not told his mother about. But Sierra and Madison knew. Of course, he had made them promise not to tell, but his sisters never did what he told them to.

“Your father has been in a rage ever since it happened. He’s dropping all of his support from Richard Bailey’s campaign.”

Colton looked back up at Lydia. “That’s interesting.”

“It’s caused waves at the country club, or so my friends tell me.”

Colton had no doubt it had. Probably bigger waves than when whispers had started moving through that Nathan West had an illegitimate child. Political contributions were a much bigger deal. Anyway, he imagined that particular group had several bastard children to their names.

“I’m sure it did.”

“Your father is humiliated by all of this.”

Colton closed his eyes, sucking a deep breath in through his teeth. Of course his failed wedding was a source of embarrassment to his father.

“I’m sorry for his humiliation.”

“He’s never had any trouble with you before, Colton.”

There really wasn’t a response to that. “Why don’t we meet for lunch tomorrow?”

There was no good way to break the news of his other wedding to his mother. Certainly not over the phone. So, in person it would be.

She sighed. “That would be nice.”

“Let’s meet at Beaches around noon. I’ll see you at your usual table.” He ended the phone call quickly after that, then looked up at Lydia again. “We’re meeting my mother for lunch tomorrow.”

“What if I have plans?”

“Cancel them. It’s very important to the health of your marriage that you do this for me.”

“I’m not really all that invested in the health of my marriage. In fact, if it were a horse I would probably take it out back behind the barn and shoot it.”

“You would not shoot a horse, wounded or otherwise.”

“Fine,” she said, exasperated. “I’m much more likely to feed it sugar cubes and pat it until the vet arrives. But that’s a literal horse. This was a metaphorical horse, wherein the horse represented our marriage. And that horse I would shoot.”

He threw his phone down onto the couch, then followed its trajectory, plopping down in front of the fireplace. “Did you start a fire?”

She arched a brow. “No. The elves did it.”

“I didn’t know you came with elves.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

He appraised her slowly, watching the color rise in her cheeks. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had responded to him in this way. Sure, women found him attractive, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to engage in flirtations. He did long-term relationships.

He had a high school sweetheart he’d parted ways with the first year of college, then a girl he had dated until graduation had sent them their different ways. After that, he had been in relationships off and on with women who were practical. Suitable. Potential wife material.

He didn’t do one-night stands. He didn’t do...whatever this was.

But he couldn’t deny there was something a little bit fascinating about it.

“Actually,” he said, giving in to the completely reckless desire to heighten the color in her cheeks even further, “you don’t have all that many secrets from me.”

She stiffened, her dark eyes going wide. “You don’t remember.”

“Maybe I do,” he said, smiling at her for effect.

“No,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “you don’t. I know you don’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I can tell. I can...read it. If you had seen me naked I would be able to see it in your eyes.”

He lifted his hand, rubbing it slowly over his chin. “But I have seen you naked, Lydia. We both know that.”

“No, we don’t. For all you know I got undressed underneath the covers. Actually, maybe nothing happened. We don’t know.”

Heat began to gather in his chest, a ball of fire that spread downward, a streak of flame that combusted in his gut. “I know. Trust me, I know.”

He did, dammit. As much as he wanted to forget. Last night had been a study in torture. He’d been at the mercy of vague impressions of memory he couldn’t quite gain a hold on.

Soft fingertips on his skin, faint, floral perfume mingling with the smell of whiskey and chocolate. Because they had eaten chocolate. He couldn’t remember eating it, but he could remember tasting it on her tongue, mingling with the rich alcohol.

So no, he didn’t remember what happened. Not totally. Only enough to wake up this morning with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.

He was suffering. She might as well suffer, too.

She was just so damn prickly all the time, and those prickles never failed to embed themselves beneath his skin. The one exception was the night of the wedding that wasn’t.

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