by Jane Porter
“It’s the seventy-fifth anniversary this year,” Sage explained, “and who better to represent the Copper Mountain Rodeo than Marietta’s—” she stopped and glanced at Chelsea, then Jenny, uncertain. Her worried expression turned to a frown. “Um… Jenny… Charles has just walked in…” Her frown deepened. “And he’s, uh, not walking so good.”
Stomach falling, Jenny turned in the booth to look. Her stomach fell even further, taking her heart with it. It was Charles. He was still in his tuxedo, too, but now missing the bowtie and with the collar unbuttoned, revealing his throat and pale chest.
In all the years she’d worked for him, she’d never seen Charles publicly disheveled. “What is he doing here?” she whispered, glancing at her watch. Shouldn’t he have left Marietta hours ago?
Charles spotted them in the back corner. He staggered towards them.
Oh, God. He was drunk. But Charles never drank too much. It was one of his top three cardinal rules.
“Apparently he’s looking for you” Sage said.
Icy cold replaced the dizzying warmth Jenny felt when Colton entered the bar and she slouched low in the booth, wishing the ground would open up. She did not want to talk to Charles. Not now. Not ever. “I can’t do this,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “Can’t listen to any more from him.”
“If that’s what you want, we’ll get rid of him,” Chelsea said, sitting tall and straightening her shoulders, looking every inch the authoritative history teacher she was.
Sage tucked a long red curl behind her ear. “But what if he’s come to apologize?” she asked. “What if he changed his mind?”
Before Jenny could respond, Charles’s footsteps rang out on the hardwood floor, and then he was there, swaying next to their table.
“Jenny,” he said, slurring her name.
Jenny wrinkled her nose. He reeked. Sweat and alcohol and way too much cologne.
“Jenny,” he repeated louder. “I need to speak to you.”
Stomach churning, Jenny jerked her chin up to look into his pale blue eyes which were more pink than blue. He didn’t just stink, he looked like hell, too. “You’re drunk,” she said.
“Oh, yeah. I am,” he agreed. “Most definitely I am.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. “How did you get here?”
“Walked.” He swayed on his feet. “Got lost. It’s a bigger town than I thought.”
It wasn’t a big town. The Graff Hotel was just two measly blocks away from Grey’s Saloon. “You must have gone the wrong direction. If you’d left the hotel entrance and walked down First, you would have been here in less than five minutes.”
“Well, I didn’t. I went past the depot and then a lumberyard and to some strip mall with a bar called Wolf Den. Definitely not my crowd.” He swayed and had to grab the table for support. “Bikers and truckers everywhere. Maybe even a hooker. Hard to say.”
Jenny suppressed a laugh. Wolf Den was not a bar for the faint of heart. She couldn’t even imagine Charles Monmouth walking in there. In his tux no less. “How much did you drink?”
“Jack Daniels.”
“Not what. How much?”
“A whole bottle. I think.” He reached up to push lank brown hair back from his forehead. The gesture required tremendous concentration. “Jen, I think I made a mistake. I don’t want to lose you—”
“This is just the alcohol talking,” she interrupted him, the urge to laugh disappearing. “And I don’t like drunks and men who get sloppy on alcohol. But you know that.”
“’Cause your dad’s a drunk.”
Jenny would have smacked Charles if he wasn’t already such a mess. Instead she got to her feet and faced him. “Go back to the hotel. Get your stuff. And go home—”
“Not without you, Jen,” he protested, reaching for her.
She sidestepped his grab. “No. I’m not going with you. We’re finished. You made that perfectly clear earlier—”
“I was wrong.”
“No.”
“I was. And I’m sorry. Okay? I’m groveling. Want me to kneel?” He looked at her, eyes completely unfocused. “Fine, I’ll kneel.”
She yanked on his arm to keep him from going to his knees. “This isn’t funny, Charles. I’m not amused. Please go. Now.”
“I can’t. I can’t go without you. Come back to Chicago with me. Come home with me, and we’ll just put this behind us. Pretend it didn’t happen—”
“But it did happen!” She took a quick step back as he reached for her again. “And I don’t want to do this. It’s humiliating. For both of us.”
“No one’s looking.” The words ran together, a sloppy slur. “And if they are, who cares? I don’t care. This is just a pisspot of a town—”
“Hey!” Chelsea protested, interrupting Charles. “That’s rude.”
He glanced at her, held his hands up. “Sorry. But it’s true.” He turned back to Jenny. “So come with me, sweetie, and we’ll just put this behind us and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“But it did happen,” Jenny said fiercely. “And Marietta isn’t a pisspot. It’s my home. It’s where all the people I love live, and you shamed me here. You shamed my entire family—”
“They’ll get over it.”
“Maybe. And maybe not. But you don’t have a say in it. You have no say in my life—”
“Sweetie, you’re being dramatic.”
Jenny laughed, incredulous, her gaze briefly meeting Sage and Chelsea’s. “Dramatic? Charles, today was the most painful, embarrassing day of my life. Today was supposed to be our wedding… the wedding we planned for months… and now what do you propose we do? Plan another wedding? Run off to Vegas?”
“We don’t need to get married. There’s no reason to marry.”
“There’s not?”
“No. We’re a good team without being married. We work good together. We work damn great together.” He was slurring the words but he smacked his hand on his other for emphasis. “Why marry? Why ruin a great thing?”
“Because we wanted a family,” she whispered.
He swiped the air with his hand. “Don’t need a family. Don’t need kids. I don’t even like kids. Snotty nosed little bastards always whining and crying for something.”
She couldn’t believe any of this. “You are out of your mind.”
“I’m not. I actually know exactly what I’m saying.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I know you’re mad, and hurt, but you’ll get over it. We’ll go back to Chicago and things will be okay.”
“They won’t.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted a family, Charles. I wanted to be a mom.”
“Kids will ruin your figure.” He grinned at her. “You’ve a great figure, too.”
Jenny felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in her chest, making her throat ache and her eyes burn. “You are so drunk you’re not even making sense. You need to go back to the hotel and sleep this off—”
“I will, if you come back with me,” he said grabbing at her, his fingers wrapping around her arm. “I need you.”
“Too late.”
“Come on. Don’t be mean. We’re a team. You and me.”
She peeled his fingers off, disgusted. “We were never a team.”
He looked injured. “Of course we were. We were the best team. You and me working together, making money, making Charles Monmouth III the best wealth advisor in all of Chicago.”
“And let me guess…you don’t want to marry me, but you’d still like me to keep working for you?”
“Yes!” His bloodshot eyes lit up. “There’s no assistant better than you.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“You can still live with me. That was good.”
“You don’t love me. You never loved me,” she added softly, wonderingly, realizing all over again how empty and cold their relationship had been.
“I love everything about you.” He reache
d for her again. “Just don’t want to marry you. But that’s okay. Not everybody needs to settle down and all that.”
She slapped his hand as he made another grab for her. “Don’t!”
“Sweetie.”
“You need to go back to the Graff Hotel. You need to sober up. I’ll call you a cab.”
“I don’t want a cab. I want you. Come home with me.”
“No.” She blinked hard, her eyes gritty, stinging, her heart on fire, too. Because this was her fault. All of this was her fault. She’d lost herself in Chicago, lost her values and her dreams and had settled for a relationship that had nothing to do with love. “We’re finished. It’s over. We’re through. You need to go back to Chicago, Charles—”
“No.”
“Yes.” Her voice broke, pain and exhaustion wearing her down, bringing her to an all new low. “Please, go, Charles. Just go.” The tears were starting to fall and she couldn’t stop them, all dignity and self-respect gone.
“Jenny,” Charles protested, making another grab for her and suddenly Colton was there, stepping between them, shifting Jenny behind him.
“The lady said no,” Colton’s deep voice was hard. His big frame blocked Charles’s path, preventing him from having access to her. “Now why don’t you do as she said, and take yourself back to the hotel and sober up before you say or do something you just might regret.”
Charles squinted up at Colton. “I don’t think your name is Jenny, and I don’t remember talking to you.”
“It’s not Jenny. It’s Colt Thorpe, and this is Marietta, not Chicago and we don’t treat our women this way in Marietta. Understand me?”
Charles drew himself tall, but even then he barely came to Colton’s shoulder. “I don’t think you know who you’re talking to, cowboy.”
The corner of Colton’s mouth curved, his dark blue eyes sparking. “Oh, I know exactly who I’m talking to.” Expression hard, jaw tight, he turned to look at Jenny. “You okay?”
She nodded, and wiped away tears.
“Want me to throw him out?” Colton asked brusquely.
Her eyes met his, and she shook her head. “No.”
“I’d be happy to.”
Her lips trembled. She wanted so badly to smile. Instead she gulped a breath as her eyes met his. There was heat in his eyes. So much heat. And it wasn’t a friendly fire. It was protective as well as intimidating, and it struck her that Colton Thorpe, if provoked, could be a dangerous man.
He’d certainly had made a name for himself as a teenager with his love of fighting. She couldn’t imagine that he’d lost any of his speed or strength since then. If anything, he was probably even better with his fists.
“Thank you, but no, that’s not necessary,” she said. “He might break something,” she added. “And his family is lawsuit happy. It’s not worth it.” She shot Charles a furious, scathing glance. “He’s not worth it.”
She looked from Charles to her friends who were watching wide-eyed, and then back to Colton’s whose brilliant blue gaze burned against the bronze of his skin.
The intensity of Colton’s gaze made her legs turn to jelly and her belly flip and her throat seal closed.
There wasn’t enough air in the bar.
Wasn’t enough air anywhere.
She grabbed her purse from the table and stumbled outside. She paced outside the bar, back and forth on the pavement, her silhouette shadowed from the cascading moonlight, footsteps loud on the quiet night. Marietta could turn into a ghost town at night if there wasn’t something special happening downtown.
She shoved hair back from her face as she marched back and forth, trying to work through her chaotic emotions. Today had been such a rollercoaster, and the drops and dips just kept coming, the free-fall feeling getting worse as the night went on.
Charles would keep her as an assistant but wouldn’t marry her.
He loved her body but didn’t love her.
He hated kids. Had he ever even wanted a family?
What was true? And real? And how could she get it all so wrong?
She rubbed at her temple, head throbbing, eyes stinging, heartsick.
For a smart girl, she’d been so damn stupid…
The bar door opened, yellow light spilled out. Slow, measured footsteps sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting her friends. Instead it was Colton.
Another hot electric jolt shot through her as he stepped behind her. She felt him all the way through her. Madness.
“I told the girls I’d check on you,” Colton said quietly. “They’re worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
Colton stood with his boots planted, arms crossed over his chest, shoulders a mile wide. “Sorry, darlin’. Nobody is going to believe that one.”
She shot him a hard look. “You don’t need to be nice to me. I’m not going to break.”
“Never said you were.”
She shook her head and resumed pacing, fingers balling into fists as she marched back and forth. “I am so mad I can’t stand it. So mad I want to scream.”
Colton’s head tipped sideways as he watched her frenetic pacing. “He’s drunk, darlin’. He’ll sober up. Tomorrow morning things will be fine—”
“No, they won’t,” she said, cutting him short. “And I’m glad.” She shot him another swift glance, nerves taut, screaming. She felt as if she was about to fall apart and it had nothing to do with Charles showing up at Grey’s Saloon drunk. It had nothing to do with Charles at all. “I was stupid. I’ve been stupid. It’s rather horrifying, actually.”
“Stupid how?”
“It wasn’t enough, and I tried to pretend it was.” She clapped a hand to her forehead and pressed hard as if the pressure could silence the wild whir of thoughts and the frantic tangled emotion. “I should have been the one to stop this. I should have been the one to see it for what it was. To name it. Label it. I should have at the very least been honest.” She pressed harder at her head, holding all the brutal recriminations in. “I wasn’t, though. And that’s the part I can’t forgive. It’s not him. It’s me.”
“People make mistakes.”
“Yeah,” she choked, looking away, and biting into her lip, unable to say more. As it was she’d said too much.
The door to the bar opened. Chelsea and Sage stepped out, the door closing behind them.
“Hey,” Sage said, coming up to give Jenny a hug. “It’s going to be okay.”
Jenny nodded, and blinked back tears, grateful for the hug, and her friends. She didn’t have this in Chicago. She had no one in Chicago. Just her job. And her professional reputation. “Thanks,” she murmured against Sage’s shoulder.
“It’s certainly been an interesting day,” Chelsea said, smiling at Jenny and keeping her tone light. “You are going to have stories, girl.”
Jenny wiped away the tears before they could fall. “I could use a few less stories right now.” She drew a deep ragged breath. “Speaking of stories, what’s Charles doing?”
“Sleeping,” Chelsea answered.
“He passed out,” Sage added.
“Passed out?” Jenny repeated.
Sage nodded. “He’s out cold.”
Chelsea fished in her purse for her car keys. “Reese said he’d let him sleep it off for awhile and then get a cab for him.”
Jenny exhaled with relief. She was glad she wouldn’t have to deal with Charles. She’d had more than enough of Charles Monmouth III. “Good.”
Chelsea dangled the keys from her finger. “You must be pretty tired, too.”
“I am,” Jenny agreed, but she wasn’t ready to go home. She didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to be trapped in her little house with her family worrying about her, fussing over her.
“I’ll drive you back,” Chelsea offered.
Jenny hesitated. She wanted to go to Chelsea’s house. Wanted to go to Sage’s. Wanted to go anywhere but to her house. It would be awful. It’d be suffocating. “Sure,” she said,
unconvincingly.
Sage and Chelsea exchanged glances. “You can come back to my apartment,” Sage offered. “I can make a bed up for you on my couch.”
Jenny was seriously tempted, but she also knew that Sage had to work in the morning, which meant Sage would need to wake up early to start melting the ingredients and pouring all the gourmet chocolates she made by hand. Her business really was a labor of love.
“Or you can go grab something to eat with me,” Colton said.
For a moment there was just silence.
He shrugged, unconcerned. “I’m starving. I need to eat.”
“I am hungry,” Jenny said, her stomach suddenly growling.
“That settled that,” he answered. “We’ll go eat.”
Chapter Six
‡
Colton drove her to Rocco’s for dinner. Normally there was a wait at the popular Italian restaurant but the pretty hostess remembered Colton, and fell all over herself trying to get him a table right away, seating them in one of the big dark red leather booths against the wall.
Colton waited for Jenny to sit, and then slid into the booth seat opposite hers.
“I’ve never been here,” she confessed, gazing around the restaurant. “It’s quite charming.”
Faux grapes dangled in red and purple clusters from the arbor trellis-covered ceiling. Murals of the golden and green Tuscan countryside adorned the walls. Red candles burned and dripped in straw-wrapped Chianti bottles on every red checked table cloth. A wall fountain tinkled with water and sound.
“It was quite the date place when I was in school,” he answered. “I’m surprised no one ever brought you here.”
She held her menu tight to her chest, as if it were a shield and she needed protection. And maybe she did because Colton was far too rugged and handsome in the candlelight. “I didn’t date a lot in high school.”
“Why not?”
“I was shy. And painfully introverted. As well as a very late bloomer.”
“I bet all those guys are kicking themselves now.”
She flushed. “I doubt that.” She opened her menu to hide her pink cheeks. “So what’s good here? What would you recommend?”
“All the pasta dishes are homemade. I recommend them all, unless you’re one of those women who won’t eat carbs.”