“Let’s talk about it,” she insists. “You’ll feel better once you get it off your chest.”
I try to play innocent. "Let’s talk about what?"
"Don't play coy with me, Soapy…About that guy. Archie."
A flash of shock hits my chest. “What do you know about Archie?” I cock a brow at her.
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes. “This is Copper Heights. This town thrives on gossip. You thought you could be all sneaky and not tell me about him?”
It looks like Angie’s also been spending time at Reese’s cupcake shop, I’m guessing.
“What’s there to tell?” My shoulders slump.
“Well, I heard you two were making googly eyes at each other all day at Leo’s birthday party.”
“Oh, that’s what you heard?” I say snarkily.
She nods. “Uh-huh. My sources tell me that you were also spotted together at the park this morning. And you were staring at him like you wanted to climb him like a jungle gym.”
I snort with laughter and pin her with a stare. "Who the hell are you?" She giggles when I say that. I vaguely remember a time not so long ago when my sister wasn’t so happy. She was uptight and sexually repressed. The times have changed. "Looks like Ben pulled that stick out of your ass,” I mumble.
“And replaced it with a foot-long dildo." She grins brightly.
I frisson all over and groan with repulsion. "Angie...ugh! I'm glad you have an incredibly orgasmic sex life but let's keep the X-rated visuals to a minimum, shall we? The last thing I want is to imagine is my big sister being impaled by a slab of silicone."
“Personally, I prefer natural rubber,” she informs me matter-of-factly.
Make it stop!!!
She's wearing me down just like she used to when we were kids. And she won't stop until she's won. I might as well cut to the chase.
"Look—there are things about Archie you don't know,” I say simply.
My sister is nosy as hell. “Things like what?"
I lick my lips as I try to figure out how to put all this into words. "He and I have met before."
Her brows dart skyward. "What?! When?"
After holding onto this secret for so long, the words burst free with startling ease. "Vegas. The night I was supposed to get married.”
She looks puzzled. “Okay…”
And since there’s no right way to say this, I spit out the words as casually as possible. "Oh, and by the way...he's actually River's father."
Silence.
Angie’s response is stunned silence.
Long, sweeping silence.
“Say something,” I beg. I need her to tell me this isn’t as crazy as I think it is.
Eventually, she recovers. "What. The. Fuck? Soapy, what are you saying?"
I shrug and wince at the same time. “I went to a bar after Josh’s friends came to the chapel to tell me he’d changed his mind about marrying me.” I squint my eyes and pull in a breath. “We talked for a bit and I went back to his hotel room with him and…”
The look on Angie’s face can’t be put into words. It’s shock and fascination and disbelief all rolled up into one.
“I know it sounds bad,” I tell her, “Me, jumping into bed with a stranger right after my wedding was called off but I needed it. I needed him to make me feel better. It was supposed to be one night but right from the beginning, I could feel that I’d want him in my life for longer than that. But that wasn’t going to happen. It was complicated. And I was ashamed.”
“Ashamed of what?” my sister questions.
"I felt like I should have been crying over Josh. I should have been mourning our relationship. But instead, I was having the night of my life with a man I’d just met…I was falling in love…"
This is the first time I’ve admitted this out loud. I see my sister shiver. "Falling in love?" she asks in a small voice, her expression mirroring my own skepticism and confusion.
The truth is, with Josh, I was settling but I didn’t realize that until I met Archie.
Archie showed my heart what it means to soar. In one night, he helped me open up parts of myself I never even realized were there, he freed parts of me I never realized were captive.
I nod. “I know I must seem like the world’s most naïve fool when I say this, but that night was magic, Angie. It was intense. I’d just had my heart broken. My emotions were running high. And his were, too. He was about to be deployed. And he wouldn’t admit it, but I could see that he was scared, somewhere beneath his big, tough exterior. So, we threw caution to the wind. Embraced the moment. It was intense."
"It was Vegas," my sister says wisely. “The most intense city on the planet.”
"I know. That’s what I kept telling myself for the past two years. Crazy stuff happens in Vegas. The bright lights and the adrenaline and the martinis. I’ve spent the last two years trying to convince myself that I didn’t really fall in love with Archie that night...Except that….I did. And I had his baby. And two years later, I still feel the same way about him.” Tears burn my eyes. “I want so badly to let him into my life, Angie.”
“So why don’t you?”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You know what his friends call him? Sergeant Good Times. He’s not trying to settle down. He’s just wandering around, looking for fun. And I have a child to think about. What if I let him near River and then he just walks away?” I drop my head as my tears spill over. “Josh showed me what it’s like to be abandoned by someone you’re counting on and I would never forgive myself if I let Archie do that to River.”
Angie’s eyes are full of compassion. “Oh sweetie. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
“Tell me that I’m crazy. Tell me that night in Vegas was nothing but pheromones running wild and that none of it is real because I’m going insane trying to fight the way I feel about him.”
A little smile slips across Angie’s lips. “But maybe it was real.”
“Oh my god. Don’t encourage this insanity.” I laugh coarsely. “People don’t just fall in love overnight, do they? I mean, you and Ben were high school sweethearts who broke up but never got over each other. That’s real love. That’s love that was simmering and brewing and strengthening for years. You don’t just meet a man at a bar and then twelve hours later, he’s the love of your life.”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, come on, Angie.” I angle my head to the side and glare at her.
“Hear me out,” she says insistently. “It may be crazy. Or it may be fate. You have a child with this man. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding your hookup, you owe it to yourself—and to River—to explore the possibility that it’s real.”
“But what will people say?” I whisper as I think about my mom and the way she’d freaked out after the wedding got blown to shit. She was so concerned that her friends would look down on me. And then, when she found out that I was pregnant, that put a rift in her relationship with Clara. I don’t want to start any more drama by revealing what really went down that night in Vegas.
My sister rolls her eyes. “What people say is irrelevant. Because you’re the one who has to live with the empty bed you climb into every night. You’re the one who’s raising a child without her father.” She leans closer to me, her eyes seeking contact with mine. “Sophia, you have to try and make it work with him.”
My tears clog my heart and I choke on my words. "It’s too late…”
Her brow is heavy with worry. “What do you mean?”
“He left town. When I saw him earlier, he told me he was leaving. He had no reason to stay.”
My sister’s chocolate-covered hand flies across to me and she grabs me by the shoulder. “Sophia! You can’t let him leave. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” Chocolate drips from her fingers onto my pristine white robe.
“Eww…” I laugh through my tears and slink away from her chocolatey grip. Then my heart goes somber. “I fucked up, Angie.”
She swi
ngs her feet out of the basin and waddles over to me.
“What are you doing?” I straighten up in my seat.
She pulls me to standing position. “You have to figure this out,” she tells me. “You have to fix this. You can’t just let things end like this. You owe it to River and Archie and to yourself.”
Shit—my sister is right. I’ve been pining away after this man for two years. I can’t just let him leave. He came back into my life by an act of fate. If I let him walk away, I may not be so lucky again, I may lose him forever.
Our spa attendants walk through the doorway. “Okay, ladies. Where were we?”
The two women freeze and their eyes canvass the mess. Chocolate on the floor, on our chairs, on our robes. Everywhere.
They don’t look too happy.
I wince at their expressions as I shuffle toward the door on sticky feet. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry,” I clasp my hands over my chest as I slip and slide hurriedly across the floor. “But I have to go.”
Chapter Sixteen
Archie
My cheek falls to the faded sheet and I focus my attention just past the window. Slices of the waning sunlight strike between the slats of the blinds. Purple, pink and orange blend into the perfect sunset right behind the coppery hills in the distance.
I grind my teeth and crawl my palm up and down my aching thigh. Fuck. Fuuucckkk.
I should be used to the pain by now. It shouldn’t have the power to knock me flat on my back. The doctors keep insisting that it’s not real. That it’s phantom pain. But it feels like the wheels of a two-ton tank rolling across my leg, grinding my bones to splinters. Why does it still feel the way it did in the hours and days after the explosion? Add that to the back pain and the damaged nerves and I just want to shrivel up and die.
My gaze moves to the half-packed duffle bags on the floor. I should be on the road by now. Driving down some quiet back road, heading into the unknown. Drifting. It’s what I’ve always done.
But all of a sudden, I’m frozen in place.
My body’s trying to fool me, trying to convince me that the pain in my leg is the reason I haven’t gotten out of Copper Heights yet. Yes, the pain is searing, agonizing. But I’ve fought my way through worse. If I really wanted to leave, I would have.
The truth is, I don’t want to go. For the first time in a long time, I’ve found a place I want to stay.
Even if I don’t actually belong here.
“Get up, man. Get up.”
I’m not doing her any favors by sticking around. Sophia doesn’t need me. I’m only getting in the way, complicating the life that she’s managed to map out in spite of the obstacles that were thrown in her way. I can’t allow myself to hold her back. I have to leave.
Using my arms, I push myself upright. I limp across the room and start throwing the remainder of my belongings into my duffel bags. Then, I shake out the bed sheets and smooth them over the mattress.
You never leave a bed unmade. In a world where there’s so much that’s out of my control, making the bed is one task I know for certain I can accomplish to perfection.
As I’m lining up the pillow with the headboard, there’s a knock at the door.
Fuck. I’m sure it’s Charlie.
I shot him a text earlier, telling him I was leaving town. I should have just left quietly.
I stomp to the door, fully ready to tell him off. But when I open the door, my heart launches into my throat. “Sophia?”
She’s standing there looking so pretty. My eyes drink in the shape of her body in her pink tank top with a knee-length skirt and sandals. Her hair is straight and pulled back from her face with clips. She looks pristine but sexy as hell at the same time.
Finally, her lips part. “Hey…”
“Hey.”
We stare at each other and the power of the emotions in my chest threatens to break me. Want her so much. I try to wade my way through the thicket of pain.
I shift my body out of the doorway and make room for her to walk through. “You wanna come in?”
Her eyelashes flutter up at me and she has no fucking clue how sexy that is. “Yeah. Sure.” She knots her fingers in front of her as she steps into the motel room. “I asked Charlie where you were staying. I hope you don’t mind.”
I smile. “I’m sure you didn’t have to work that hard to get it out of him.”
“Nope.” She laughs. “You should probably find yourself some more trustworthy friends. Friends who don’t hand out your address all willy nilly.”
Sliding my fingers through my hair, I grunt out a laugh. Our friends are so invested in getting us to hook up. They’d spill top secret classified information to make that happen.
Maybe I’m just imagining it but Sophia doesn’t seem opposed to that idea, either. Her gaze bounces to the bed. I see the way her pupils dilate as if she’s simply waiting for an invitation to get horizontal. But then her attention fixes on the bed sheet itself. “Wow—that’s the ugliest comforter I’ve ever seen.”
I glance over at the thing. It’s a fucking floral monstrosity. “It is pretty ugly, isn’t it?” We chuckle together. But when I bring my focus back to her, I can tell she didn’t come here to chitchat about the décor.
“You really are leaving...” Her eyes fall to the bags on the floor. Her expression sinks.
I swallow and scrub my face with my hands. “I was planning to leave but…”
…But I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from you.
She sits carefully, right on the edge of the bed, her shoulders tense. Forehead pleated with uncertainty.
“What is it?” I ask, the expression on her face stirring anxiety to life under my skin.
She’s quiet for a while as she considers her words. Then, her lips part and she speaks quickly. “I have an offer for you.”
I cock a brow as I sit next to her. “An offer?”
“Yes.” She nods slightly.
I have no idea where this could possibly be going. So, I just listen.
She looks at me with wide, anxious eyes. “I want you to work for me. At the daycare.”
I rock back on my ass. “Me?” I jab a thumb into my chest. “You want me to work at your daycare?”
Her shoulders slump. “I get it. It’s an unusual request but you were right. I do need help dealing with the kids and running the daycare. Finding someone responsible is impossible around here especially since I’m not paying top dollar.” She sucks in a breath. “And you? You just quit your job so I figured you might be open to it. Instead of leaving town. As I said, I can’t pay much but…I don’t know. It was just an idea I had and…”
The idea sounds nuts. Me, working with children all day. Don’t get me wrong. I like kids, I guess. It’s just that I, like most men, never pictured myself as a daycare worker.
She shakes her head as she moves to stand. She looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have suggested it.”
When I see her heading for the door, when I know that she’s about to walk away from me, desperation kicks to life in my blood. I catch her by the hips and spin her around, my fingers clenching tight to hold her there. I blurt out the words. “I’ll do it.”
“Huh?” Her eyes are round and pretty.
I rise from the bed, smiling as I stand in front of her. “I said, I’ll do it. I accept your job offer,” I say in an overly-formal tone just to hear her giggle.
“You do?” Her cheeks are a rosy hue of pink.
I squeeze her hips tighter. “I do.”
“Oh, thank you!” She leaps onto her tiptoes and throws her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” The scent of wildflowers—and chocolate?—swirls in my head.
A laugh breaks free of my chest. “And you know I’m not taking any money from you, right?”
She pulls back and stares at me. “Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Archie—”
I press a finger to her l
ips to silence her. “We can argue about this some other time. Right now, I just wanna sniff you.”
Her pretty laugh spills free as I bury my face in her neck. “I’m your boss now. You can’t sniff me.”
“Says who?” Slipping my arms around her back, I hold her to me and breathe her in. She smells so amazing and her body feels so good molded to mine.
My cock stirs to life against her and I think she can feel it, too. She rises onto her toes. Her face is buried in my collar. Her chest rises sharply on a huge inhale. The feel of her breath on my neck causes goosebumps to rise along my skin.
Suddenly, the air is heavy. Loaded with wanting. Our bodies pulse against each other, throbbing in sync.
I tilt her face up with my fingers and look into her eyes. “Why did you really come here, Sophia? Why are you offering me this job?”
My skin is buzzing. Everything is tight and alive, craving her.
Her eyes fall to my mouth when she speaks. Her unblinking attention lingers there. “I don’t want you to leave. Not yet.” She presses her body even closer to mine. “We’re not done yet, Archie. You and me—we’re not done.”
My heart soars like a freaking baby dolphin. “Damn fucking right we’re not done, Daisy.”
I palm the back of her head and my fingers get caught up in her silky strands. With a light tug of my hand, her head falls back and I lean down to claim her mouth. My lips cover hers, possessively, unapologetically. I slide my tongue against the seam of her lips, eager to get inside.
My fingers travel down her spine and over the curve of her ass to the back of her leg. I hook my hands under her thighs and wrap her legs around me. Now, my fingers are under her skirt, smoothing along her bare skin.
She’s so eager, kissing me so greedily. She pulls on my hair. She angles my face and probes deep into my mouth with her tongue. Sophia may be a classy woman in the streets but as we’re about to hit these ugly floral sheets, that woman becomes a savage.
When my fingers sneak beneath the silky fabric of her panties, she groans and jerks her hips against me. “Archie, please. Yes. Touch me.” She’s breathless from wanting this so much.
The Blue Collar Bachelors Box Set: The Complete Blue Collar Bachelors Series Page 116