by Lexi Ryan
“Is that what he did to you?”
She shrugs. “He’d call my mom after Heath and I had a silly spat and ask if I was around because he was worried about me. She’d have to pry it out of him, but he’d admit that Heath and I had been fighting or that I’d been upset or that Heath hadn’t done something I asked. He had a way of turning nothing into something awful, and a way of making my mom hold on to the idea that he and I might get back together.”
“But was it bad? You and Heath? Do you think you could have been happy with him if . . .” If he hadn’t died. I swallow, wishing I could take it back and feeling like a jackass for asking at all.
“No,” she says tightly. “We couldn’t have. And that was my fault.”
The guilt in her voice sets off warning bells in my head. “How so?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.” I force myself to give her a reassuring smile. “I didn’t mean to push.”
She lifts her gaze to meet mine. “What about you? Serious relationships, I mean.”
I groan. I guess I’m the one who brought it up. “I had a girlfriend for a couple of years in high school. Her name was Marjorie and we were pretty happy, but we kind of grew apart.” I haven’t thought about her in a long time, but the memories are mostly good ones. Marjorie was my first love . . . my first all-around. “Then lots of dating, lots of searching for that elusive the one.”
“Did you ever think you found her?”
My gut knots when I think of Renee. We weren’t together long in the scheme of things, but I’d thought she was it for me. “I dated a woman named Renee when I first started at the fire department. My dad was sick, and she was the one who was there for me. We dated for six months.”
Teagan cocks her head, frowning. “Renee French? The one who runs the yoga studio by the bar?”
I grimace. For better and worse, Jackson Harbor is a small world. “That’s her.”
“What happened? Why’d you break up?”
“She didn’t want what I did, and she found lying about it easier than honesty.” I shrug. As if it’s nothing. As if losing her wasn’t like having the earth yanked from beneath my feet while my world was falling apart around me. I hate being lied to. “But really, I’ve never had a long-term, serious relationship. Ethan says I’m too damn picky and I should stop looking for Miss Perfect.”
“You want Miss Perfect, and yet you tried to start something with me?” Her cheeks flush, and she averts her gaze. She opens a dresser drawer, and I try not to stare as she fills it with her undergarments. “Or maybe I misread that day at the lake.”
“When we were in the water?” I drop my toiletry bag back into my suitcase and step toward Teagan, threading a hand into her hair. “And I did this?”
Her throat bobs. “Yeah. That day.”
“You didn’t misread anything.” I scan her face, her dark eyes, that perfect mouth, remembering how easy it felt to pull her into my arms and how natural it was to lower my mouth to hers. I told myself I didn’t care that she pushed me away, that it was better we stay friends, but in truth, I always wished she’d let me have that kiss. “I wish you would have told me about Heath then. About my job being a problem for you. I would have understood.”
Her flinch is there and gone so fast that I’d have missed it if I hadn’t been trying to memorize every inch of her face. “You’re a good friend, Carter.”
Friend. There’s that word again. “I try.”
“You don’t have to sleep on the couch. It’s a big bed. I think we can manage.”
Right. “We’ll see.” I might be a good friend, but if she’s serious about the rules she laid out for us, the couch is the right place for me tonight.
Carter
Rich Nasser is an ass. Granted, my introduction to the man skewed my opinion, but after thirty minutes in the same room as him, I can’t imagine what Teagan ever saw in him, and I’m at a complete loss for as to why her mom and dad still adore him.
Teagan needed to meet with her mom and sister for a while, so I came down to the game room to kill time and shoot pool. Rich, Liam, and Travis, one of Liam’s groomsmen, were already in here. I thought about turning around and going back to our room, but I decided to use the time to feel out the ex who’s managed to keep a foothold in Teagan’s life.
Had I not felt the way Teagan shook when she first saw him, and were he not obviously struggling to hide his irritation with my presence this weekend, I might have even fallen for his “everyone’s best friend” act.
It’s not just that he’s hung up on Teagan. He tries too hard to be what everyone wants. And sure, during a celebratory weekend, everyone should play nice, but it’s more than that. An agreeableness that almost ventures into creepy. I’ve learned very little except that the guy puts off a bad vibe and likes to talk about all the favors he’s done for Teagan’s parents and brag about how much they love him.
My phone buzzes with a text alert. Once. Twice. Three times. I pull it from my pocket to see messages from Myla.
Myla: Sorry if I was a bitch about everything.
Myla: You don’t owe me any explanations. You said this was casual from the start.
Myla: I guess I caught feelings somewhere along the way.
“You and Teagan seem happy,” Rich says, and I quickly darken the screen so he can’t read over my shoulder.
“We are.”
He smirks, as if he knows our secret. I don’t care if he has me and Teagan figured out. Even if everyone involved in this wedding weekend knew the truth, I’d still want to spend it with Teagan. I won’t leave her to fend for herself with this guy.
“Interesting,” he murmurs, studying the pool table before leaning over to line up a shot. “Three ball, corner pocket.” He points to the opposite side of the table then pulls his stick back to take the shot. The cue ball smacks into the red three, sending it spinning into the hole.
I scan the table. I’m decent at pool, though it’s never been my favorite pastime. But Rich? He’s running the table and threatening to sink the eight ball before I have a chance to make my move. Normally, I wouldn’t care. I can be competitive, but I’m also completely comfortable with turning off that instinct in situations where it doesn’t matter. But this guy? With his swagger and a BOSS tattoo on his bicep? I can’t help but want to crush him at everything.
“You two need to get your story straight.” He lines up his next shot. “When I was here last year, you said you’d been together two months. Funny to hear you say the same thing now, a year later.”
“Can’t both be true?” Liam asks. He hands me a beer.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the bottle. I like Liam. Mostly because he seems like a genuine guy who’s truly in love with his bride, but in my short time in here with them, his disdain for Rich has become apparent. If I’m honest, that makes me like him even more.
Rich shrugs. “I wonder how happy you can really be together if you keep breaking up.” He hits his next shot, and the yellow solid rolls into the side pocket. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
Liam and I exchange a glance. Rich is trying so hard to bait me, but I’m not biting.
“Quit making trouble, Rich,” Liam says. “They’re obviously happy, and Teagan doesn’t need you playing guard dog.” Rich scowls at him, but Liam only laughs. “Dude, let it go. Sometimes your obsession with her is creepy as hell.”
At least someone else sees it. Hell, I was starting to think everyone connected to Teagan’s life back home was blind.
“Fuck you. I’m not obsessed. I’m concerned. I watched her grieve for my best fucking friend, okay?”
Liam ducks his head at that, shamed. “I’m sorry about that. But this isn’t the same.”
Rich hands his stick to Travis. “I’m tired of this game. I’m heading out.”
Liam watches him go without a word and only turns to me when the game room doors swing closed behind Rich. “I’m sorry about him.�
� He shakes his head. “I don’t like him, but he’s done a lot for Saanvi’s parents. They think of him as family. He means a lot to them, but if it had been up to me, he’d never have gotten an invitation.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I can handle a little pouting.”
Liam grins. “I like you, Carter. I’m glad Teagan has you by her side. She deserves a good guy.”
The continued buzzing in my pocket suggests that Myla has more to say. Maybe sometime in the last six months, I stopped being the good guy I always thought I was.
Teagan warned me that her parents don’t do anything halfway. If the welcome dinner is any indication, I can see what she means. It’s extravagant. The party bus picked us up at the mansion and brought us to the Luckette Winery, where we were served a six-course meal with accompanying wines and surrounded by the happy chatter of a family reunited.
We finished the meal twenty minutes ago, but everyone’s lingering to talk and finish off the remaining wine.
“Thank you for changing your schedule at the last minute so you could come.” Saanvi sighs. “Even my own cousin wouldn’t take today and tomorrow off work to be here, and she’s a bridesmaid.”
I grimace, uninterested in stepping in that kind of drama. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She waves a hand. “Whatever. She’s a journalist chasing the next hot story. I should have assumed something would come up, but regardless, it means a lot to my family to have you here for the whole thing—Teagan included, whether she admits it or not.”
“I’m glad she invited me.” And, hell, I mean it. Across the room, Teagan is grinning at one of Liam’s groomsmen as he tells her a story. I can’t hear the whole thing, but I think he must be a medical professional too, because I keep hearing hospital jargon. She looks beautiful tonight in a red dress that straps behind her neck and clings to her curves all the way down to her knees. And then there are the shoes . . . I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman who looks as good in heels as Teagan. I’ve certainly never cared before her—maybe because they’re as much a part of her personality as the way she takes no shit from my brothers and loves my nieces and nephews as if they were her own. Tonight’s heels are red and wrap around her ankles with ribbons. If shoes could talk, these would scream SEX.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look at her like a teenage boy with a crush?” Saanvi asks.
Reluctantly, I tear my gaze off Teagan to look at her sister. “No, but I’m not surprised. That’s pretty much how she makes me feel.”
Saanvi beams. “I love that! And to think she was planning to hide you from us.” She lowers her voice. “Not that I can blame her. My parents are all over the ‘What are your intentions?’ talks. Dad asked Liam that when we’d been on three dates. I’m lucky Liam didn’t run screaming.”
I laugh. “I bet he already knew.”
Saanvi bites her bottom lip. “I like to think so.” She waves a hand. “Enough about us. Tell me how you two got together.”
I swallow hard and let my gaze drift back to the woman in question. “She’s been part of my life for most of her time in Jackson Harbor. She knows my brother Ethan from the hospital and is friends with my sister and my sisters-in-law, so she’s always around, but she was reluctant to get involved with me.”
“Because of your job?”
I nod. “I didn’t know that was the reason at first.” Four years, and she never breathed a word about my profession being an issue for her. Has she told Shay or Nic about Heath, or is he a secret she’s kept from everyone?
“It was hard when she lost Heath. She was . . .” Saanvi shakes her head. “She wasn’t herself afterward. And Heath might not have been my favorite person, but I hate that she had to lose him like that. His death made her lose a piece of herself that she’s never managed to reclaim.”
I have so many questions I want to ask, but I don’t—not just because I should probably already know all of the answers, but because I owe it to Teagan to get information about Heath from her and no one else. “Do you think he knew how lucky he was?”
Saanvi seems to consider this for a beat. “I think most people don’t know the value of what they have, but Heath seemed to at first. Then things changed, and . . .” She shrugs. “Maybe that’s normal. But we were talking about you. About what you love about my sister.”
I drag a hand through my hair and grin. “Everything, Saanvi. There’s honestly nothing about her I don’t value.” My stomach knots, because I know it’s true. “She makes me laugh when I don’t think I can anymore. And she cares about everyone around her. That’s why she’s such a good nurse and friend, and why she fits so well with my family.”
“She loves your family. She talks about them all the time. Especially the little girl—what’s her name?”
“Lilly.”
“Yes, Lilly! Teagan loves her, and I think she’s ready to trade our mom in for yours.”
I smile, thinking of the way my mom feels about Teagan and her none-too-subtle request that I turn pretend into something real this weekend. “Mom loves Teagan, which is the true test of character. I mean, my mom likes everyone, but she’s selective about who she’d want for her boys, and she’s been wishing Teagan and I would end up together for a long time.”
“It looks like her wish came true.” Saanvi’s so damn sincere, and I understand why Teagan hates lying to her. I wish she’d let Saanvi in on the ruse. “I’m glad she has that here—even if it means she might never come back home.”
“She misses you,” I say, and Saanvi nods, the feeling clearly mutual. “Did you two always get along?”
“Oh, heavens no! I made her crazy when she was a teenager. I’d steal her clothes and tell Mom if she snuck out of the house. I was awful, honestly, but we had each other’s backs when it mattered.”
“Well, if you and Liam ever decide to relocate, I know she’d love to have you in Jackson Harbor.”
Saanvi pats my shoulder. “Thanks, Carter. That’s good to hear.” She takes a few steps away then hesitates for a beat before turning back to me. “I’m sorry Rich is here this weekend.”
I shrug, as if it never even crossed my mind. As if Rich’s presence isn’t the very reason I’m standing here, pretending to be a loving boyfriend when I’ve dodged commitment for the last six months. Rich isn’t at this dinner, for whatever reason. The moment the bus started pulling away tonight, Teagan’s posture shifted as the weight lifted from her shoulders. It took me a minute to realize why—Rich wasn’t with us. My mind keeps spinning with theories about their relationship. Was he abusive? Controlling beyond what she described? Possessive?
“He’s still in love with her,” Saanvi says softly. “And if he thinks he has a chance, he’ll fight for her.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll fight harder.”
“I’m rooting for you.” She winks and wanders across the room to talk to another guest.
“Me too,” I murmur to myself. Then I draw in a deep breath, because I realize I mean it.
Teagan crosses the room to me. “Was Saanvi telling you all my secrets?”
“Surely you don’t keep any secrets from me, amygdala.”
She laughs. “Whipping out the big words doesn’t make your awful nicknames any funnier, Carter.”
“But I made you laugh, didn’t I?” My phone rings. When I pull it from my pocket to silence it, I see the call is from Marta. “I’m sorry. I’m going to take this.”
Teagan nods. “Of course. No worries.”
Stepping away, I swipe to accept the call and put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Oh, Carter, I’m so sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you could come over tonight. It’s Isaiah.”
Terror grips my lungs in a vise. “What happened?”
“No, no, nothing bad. I’m so sorry. He’s not eating and won’t take his pills. He doesn’t want to talk to me, and I wondered . . .”
“Sure. Of course.” I look at my watch, then at Teagan. I know she’ll u
nderstand, but I still feel bad for leaving. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”
Carter
“You didn’t have to come,” I tell Teagan as we climb out of the cab. I didn’t want to wait for the party bus to take me back to my car at the bed and breakfast, but when I told Teagan what I was ordering a cab for, she insisted on coming.
“I wanted to.” Her heels click on the sidewalk beside me, and she slides her hand into mine. “I have a soft spot for this kid, and if he won’t listen to his grandmother about the meds, maybe he’ll listen to his nurse.”
I want to kiss her for that, but instead I squeeze her hand before knocking on Marta’s front door.
Marta must have been waiting for me, because she opens the door quickly. “Thank you for coming.” She nods at Teagan. “And you brought the pretty nurse. Well done.”
I laugh. “She wanted to come. Our little charmer won her heart.”
Marta grunts softly and pulls the door wide. “Of course he did.”
As we step into Marta’s house, I’m instantly hit by the familiar scent of chicken soup and pine-scented cleaner. I’ve visited regularly since Max died, so Marta’s home is as comforting to me as my own. I wish Isaiah felt the same.
“It’s my fault he’s in this mood,” she says, leading the way into her kitchen, where there is indeed a pot of soup bubbling on the stove. “He overheard me on the phone with my brother talking about medical bills, and it upset him. He doesn’t need to worry about money. That’s my concern.”
“I can help. With the bills, I mean.” My throat goes tight. If only Max were still here . . .
She waves me off. “You coming over here is help enough. He’s in his bedroom. Go see if you can talk him into eating something. He’s stubborn as a mule.”