by Sarah Hegger
Actually, he didn’t get a lot of sleep. Three rounds of mind-blowing sex followed by Pippa the bed hog meant very little sleep. She tossed, turned, and nearly kneed him in the balls a couple of times before he got the message and retreated to a safe distance. When you had Pippa in your bed, you needed a king-size mattress to contain all that redhead. How long had it been since he’d woken up with a woman? Taking his urges outside of Ghost Falls came with a built-in excuse to get up and leave.
His phone started up again.
Pippa muttered, flung out an arm, and caught him on the bicep.
“Hey, Jo, what’s up.” He kept his voice down as he got his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up.
“Matt?” Jo ended his name on a massive sniff.
Not even eight in the morning and Jo was crying. He took the phone outside his bedroom. “Hey, Jo-Jo, you okay?”
“It’s her.” Jo’s voice rose to a wail.
She meant their mother, and his gut tightened in response. Jo and their mother together always spelled drama in great big letters across the sky. They must have been at it since dawn, or maybe since the night before. “What happened?”
“We got into a fight,” Jo said. “And then I told her I wasn’t even sure I wanted to get married. I told her I’d been talking to Pippa about it. She lost it, Matt.”
Matt thunked his head against the passage wall. This wasn’t good. He got it. Cressy felt insecure and alone and needed her family around her. But, for God’s sake, her kids were all grown up now and she needed to let go.
“Where is she now?” As if he really needed to be told. He felt tired right down to his bones and not from his active night.
“Locked in her bedroom.”
Ah, the well-known tyranny of the locked door, attention withdrawal, hunger strike, massive sulk. Matt hit his head against the wall a second time. Cressy had them all by the balls. “I’ll be right over.”
Jo gave a big sniff. “Thanks, Matt. You’re the only one she’ll talk to.”
“Put some coffee on, and leave her alone.” He hung up and gave the wall another smack with the back of his head. It was like his mother had ESP or some shit like that. She sensed something happening in his life and pulled her crap.
Pippa’s eyes were open when he went back into his room. This might be his favorite Pippa look, sleepy, tousled, and in his bed after a great night together.
“What is it?” She pushed her wild red hair out of her face.
He thought about lying, but this was Ghost Falls and Cressy’s tantrums weren’t quiet. “My mom’s having a meltdown. All over Jo.”
“Ah.” She nodded as if she got it.
It didn’t surprise him. His mother didn’t see the point in keeping her crap inside the family. He didn’t blame Eric for getting the hell away from this shit. Even Nate only went home when he couldn’t get out of it. “She found out Jo asked you for advice about getting married.”
Pippa chewed on her bottom lip, as if weighing something up. “And?”
“And she lost it.”
“Because Jo made a decision without her, or because I was involved.”
“A little bit of both. They got into a fight.”
Pippa nodded, slowly, as if her mind was still working. “Do you need to go?”
Of course he needed to go. Who else was going to get his mother out of the bedroom and talking to Jo again? In one piece. He bit his tongue to stop the hot words from escaping. Shit, that wasn’t fair. Pippa didn’t bring any of this on. He’d asked her to help Jo. “Yup. She’s locked herself in her bedroom and won’t come out.”
He grabbed his jeans from the floor and tugged them on. He’d have a shower at his mom’s house, after he talked her down from the ceiling. “I’m sorry about this. It’s not the way I wanted to wake up with you.”
“Then don’t go.” Pippa shrugged.
Matt wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. He had to go, he didn’t have any choice. It pissed him off that she didn’t see that. Pippa grew up in this town. She was here when his dad died. She knew how this went. But she didn’t know how far his mom would and did take this shit. Only he knew that, and maybe he should tell her. But he didn’t have time. “Look, help yourself to whatever you need and . . .” Fuck, she didn’t have a car. He snatched up her cell phone and keyed in his brother’s number. “What the hell is up with your phone?” Who had that many Twitter notifications? Pippa could handle it. “Call Eric and see if he can give you a ride home.”
He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on his way out the door.
* * *
“Wow, that pretty much sucked,” Pippa said to Matt’s empty bedroom. Empty because Matt was long gone. His boots had clumped on the floor and the front door had slammed behind him. His truck had started up with a diesel roar and he was gone. At least he hadn’t tossed some money on the dresser as the door had smacked his retreating ass.
Pippa ripped the covers aside and climbed out of bed. Even Ray, the betraying dickhead, had better morning-after patter than Matt Evans.
Cressy had called and Matt had jumped. How old was he exactly?
“Thirty-six,” she told her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “A little old to be tied to Mommy’s apron strings.”
Her hair stood all around her head and makeup smudged beneath her eyes. Enough to send any man running home to Mama. No way was she calling Eric to give her a ride home.
She stomped over to the shower and snapped it on. The hot water worked some magic on her, and by the time she was toweling herself off, she’d come down from boiling hot to low simmer. Still, total dick move on Matt’s part.
Maybe she could have been a bit more sanguine about it if last night hadn’t been so spectacular. More than sex spectacular. There had been a connection between them, some deep, inherent sense of right about her and Matt. This feeling right here was why she avoided those sorts of connections.
Pippa grabbed up her clothes and got dressed. She dragged Matt’s comb through her hair and dug a hair tie out of her purse to pull it back into a ponytail. More than that would have to wait until she got home.
The doorbell went as she was coming down the stairs. She opened the door to find Eric standing on the doorstep.
He didn’t look like he’d just rolled out of bed . . . at all. Hair still damp from the shower, but immaculate in a button-down and jeans. She could see the thread count on that shirt from three feet away. Eric Evans was one class act, and a smokin’ one at that.
“Hey.” He jerked his chin at her. “Got a message from Matt that you needed a ride.”
Damn, her face got so hot she must be radiating. “I could have walked.”
“Not even Matt is that dumb.” Eric held the door open for her and motioned her forward. His low, sleek Jag sat in front of the house like a pedigreed cat.
“He went to see your mother.” It sounded a bit like she was making excuses for him.
Eric must have thought so too because he snorted as he held the door open for her. “Did you even get a cup of coffee?”
“No.”
“Let me buy you one.” His carved face split in a charming grin that was so Matt, it hit her straight in the knees. “I’ll even toss in a pastry of some kind.”
“I don’t like pastries.” Eric could talk a rat out of the cheese board.
“Then why don’t I buy you Craig’s famous breakfast feed trough and we can bitch about my brother.”
How was a girl to turn down an offer like that? Craig made breakfast for truckers and hungry mountain men. The other part of the offer didn’t sound too bad either.
Eric started the Jag and it growled into life. The car fit the man perfectly. Maybe she was messing around with the wrong brother. Except, as gorgeous as Eric was—and there was no denying that—he didn’t do it for her. Not the way Matt did. Her eyes teared up and she blinked the wet away. No crying. This thing with her and Matt was just fooling around. No sense getting all emotional about it. It clearly didn�
�t mean the same thing to Matt. There went her eyes again. Damn it. She liked it this way—easy, no attachment, temporary. She stared out the window to keep her face hidden from Eric.
“What was it this time?” Eric turned on the radio.
Classical music whispered through the interior. Music to soothe the savage beast.
“Something to do with Jo and her wedding.”
Eric grunted and kept driving.
Craig’s Truck Stop made the best breakfast in town, which was a good thing because the diner shut after lunch every day. The banquettes and tables lining the walls were older than evolution. The few tables in the center looked only slightly better. Rumor had it Craig had bought the furniture when the old Roadhouse closed down forty years ago. The place was nearly full, and Eric found them a table near the back.
The cracked leather of the banquette snagged the back of her thighs as she shifted under Eric’s steady gaze. “My brother is a pushover,” he said.
That pretty much summed up what she was thinking and Pippa nodded.
The only investment Craig had made over the years to his diner was a fancy coffee machine, and whoever manned it had a way with a latte that soothed some of her shitty morning.
“But you have to understand my mother.” Eric sipped his coffee—straight up, black and strong. “She’s got him by the throat.”
Pippa knew all this. It didn’t ease the burn, however. “And he never says no?”
“Not that I’ve seen.” Eric stretched his arms over the back of the banquette. He hid some impressive muscle beneath that shirt, and the tat, which she still hadn’t seen. “Look, you’re mad and you have a right to be, but my mom . . .” He shrugged. “She knows exactly which buttons to push with all of us. Mostly with Matt because he’s the oldest. He took the most fallout, took it for all of us.”
“Okay.” Either the coffee or Eric’s calm presence worked, because she felt better.
The waitress arrived at their table and slid two platters at them. Food definitely made the world look better, and after her active night, she was hungry. Matt was a several-times-a-night kind of guy, and she hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Eric salted his eggs. “She’s got Matt in a corner. Every time he tries to make a break, she pulls the I-don’t-know-what-I’d-do-without-you thing. Matt’s a good guy, he doesn’t want to hurt her.”
Pippa took a bite of eggs. Just the way she liked them. “I get that, Eric, but sooner or later you have to cut ties. Know what I mean?”
He nodded and got down to breakfast. Eric ate with a sort of neat precision that made the food disappear. “I know exactly what you mean, and so does Matt. It may not look like it to you right now, but he does know it. He just doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“He could have tried not going over there this morning. Or at least waiting until I was out of his bed.” She couldn’t help the blush.
“You know.” Eric put his knife and fork together on his empty plate. “Not many people know this, and we certainly don’t spread it around, but she made several attempts on her life after my dad died.”
Pippa snapped her mouth shut. He was right. Nobody knew that.
Eric shrugged. “I don’t think any of them were serious attempts, more like a bid for attention. Matt didn’t want any of us kids to know. He still doesn’t know that I know.”
Shit.
“So, when she locks herself in her room . . .” Eric pushed his plate away and leaned forward on his elbows. “I’m not trying to make excuses for him. Matt does need to deal with this before it takes over the rest of his life. I just thought you should know.”
Which led to her next question. “Why?”
“He likes you. He’s always had a bit of a thing for you. It would be a shame if you kicked him to the curb without giving him a chance to make it up to you.”
Pippa hadn’t gotten that far in her thinking yet. “You’re a good brother.”
Eric’s handsome face went still and serious. “I owe my brother everything, Pippa. Everything. He’s going to make some woman very lucky to have him one of these days. I don’t want to see him blow a good thing before it’s even had a chance to grow.”
Heat burned up from her neck and over her cheeks. “I’m not that woman. This thing between Matt and me, it isn’t serious.”
A smile flitted across Eric’s face. “If you say so.”
Chapter Nineteen
Matt sat in his truck and stared at the house he’d grown up in. He’d left his bed, and the woman in it, to get over here and sort this out. So, he really should get his ass out of the truck.
Jo peered out the kitchen window and raised her hand in greeting.
“Damn.” Part of him wanted to turn his truck around and get out of here. Seventeen years he’d been sorting crap out in this house. He had some vague memory of a time when stepping into the house didn’t fasten claws around his neck. He sighed and climbed out of his truck.
Jo opened the kitchen door, and stood there with her arms crossed and her shoulders hunched.
“Hey.” He raised his chin at her.
Jo unclenched her arms and came in for the hug. He loved his sister, really he did, but shouldn’t her fiancé be here and doing this stuff for her? Which raised a good point. “What’s this about you not getting married?”
She sniffed and pulled away from him, scrubbing her hands over her eyes like a four-year-old. With her head bowed and her slumped shoulders, she didn’t look a lot older than that. His baby sister. He pulled her back for another hug.
“I was talking to Pippa at Bella’s.” The words got a bit muffled by his shirt. “She’s really easy to talk to.”
Yes, she was. And really easy on the eye and really, really nice to wake up with. “What did she say?”
Jo shrugged. “She didn’t say much. I was trying on the dresses and I didn’t feel like a bride, and then I got to thinking that was because maybe I didn’t want to be a bride.”
He thanked God for that, and took a deep breath. “And why’s that?”
“I’m not sure I love Lance.”
That made it time to say good-bye to Lance the Loser. “And now?”
“I dunno.” Jo wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I mean, I must have wanted to marry him, otherwise I wouldn’t have said yes.”
“It sounds like you should talk to Lance.” If he pushed, Jo would shove back. Still, even making the suggestion made him want to spit it out of his mouth. “Is he coming back soon?”
“He didn’t say.”
Matt did a slow ten count in his head. “But, he’ll be back before the wedding.”
“If there is a wedding.”
“Jo.” He gripped her upper arms to get her to look at him. “You gotta level with me. Either you want to get married or you don’t, and if you’re this unsure, then maybe that’s your answer right there.”
She peeped through her lashes at him. “You won’t be mad?”
Where the hell had that come from? “Why would I be mad?”
Jo shrugged and dropped her gaze to her feet.
“Jo-Jo? Talk to me.” This used to be so much easier when she was little. He bent his knees to see her face. “Do we need to go to the treehouse?”
Jo gave him a wet chuckle. “It’s still there.”
“Come on.” He tugged on her hand. “It’ll be easier to talk up there anyway.”
“She’s still in her room.” Jo jerked her head toward the house.
The grip around his throat tightened. “I’ll see her before I leave.”
Getting his six-four frame into the treehouse took some doing, but Matt managed it. Jo scampered in behind him. The old treehouse creaked and groaned under their weight, but he and Eric had built this thing strong.
“So?” He waited for Jo to get settled. “Why would I be angry with you?”
Jo picked at a splinter of wood, her face difficult to read from this angle. “Not so much angry as disappointed.”
Somet
hing Eric had said to him piped up in his head. “Why?”
“Because you always seem so sure of things.” Jo sighed. “You make decisions, never look back, and I know you worry about us all the time. I mean, with Mom the way she is and all.”
He did worry about them. It was his job. Or was it?
“Dad died,” Jo said. “And you stepped up, and it’s been that way ever since. Just once, I wanted to do something that wouldn’t need you to rescue me.”
She knocked the wind out of him. “You do lots of stuff that doesn’t need a rescue.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jo raised her eyebrow. “Name one.”
“You graduated with a four point oh GPA.”
“You sat with me and did my homework, nearly every night.”
Night after night, so tired from working all day it had been hard to keep his eyes open sometimes. “You got your job at the bar on your own.”
Jo pulled a face. “We both know I should have gone to college instead.”
He’d even tried to fill out the applications for her, but Jo didn’t want that. “You could still go to college.”
“You’re doing it again.” Jo glared at him. “Stepping in and being my fixer.”
He shut his mouth.
“Don’t you ever feel like you don’t know the answers?” Jo cocked her head as she looked at him.
Christ, most of the last seventeen years had been like he was caught in a pinball machine. “All the time, Jo.”
“Really?” She frowned and went back to working at her splinter. “Because you never seem that way.”
Jo had always been his baby sister. He got that she was growing up, but he didn’t really understand what that meant. Jo was a woman now, with her own strengths and weaknesses and she didn’t need her big brother to fix things for her anymore. “Jo.” This honesty thing was a fucker. The desire to make her world happy and keep her feeling safe was set deep inside him. “I was nineteen when Dad died, and so scared and shocked, I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“You never looked it,” Jo said.
“Yeah, well, I felt it.” It was weird admitting these things. He’d always protected Jo, from everything, including himself. “Dad’s business was in the toilet, Mom was . . .” He shrugged. “Mom wasn’t coping and you guys were so young. Jeez, Jo-Jo, you had your eleventh birthday three days before Dad had his heart attack. Somebody had to step up or we were all screwed.”