by C. L. Roman
“You weren’t that drunk,” Blake pointed out helpfully. “And getting married was my idea, remember? Maybe I’m the one who should have run away to hide.”
“I didn’t run away to hide.” I backed up a few more steps. Distance seemed like a good idea just now. “I told you, I needed some time and space.”
“When have you ever needed space from me?” Blake advanced again. “What are you afraid of, Sierra? I thought . . . yes, maybe what we did the other night was a little, ah, impulsive, but it wasn’t as shocking as you seem to think. At least, it wasn’t that way to me.”
“I can’t imagine why not.” I skirted around the foot of the bed, putting the mattress between us, giving me a little bit of breathing room. “You don’t want to be married any more than I do, Blake. I get that you’re trying to be chivalrous and shit, that you don’t want to hurt my feelings, but I’m not stupid, you know. I’m fully aware that marrying me has never been on your life goal list. So you don’t have to put on a brave face and pretend it’s something to celebrate.” A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed hard over it, willing myself not to cry.
Blake let out a long exhale, raking his fingers through his dark hair. “I knew we should have talked about this right away. As soon as we got back to the hotel that night.” He paused. “But then I got distracted, and after the third time—”
I covered my face with my hands in sheer kill-me-now mortification.
“After the third time, I thought it was probably pretty clear where I stood on things, and I figured we could talk it out in the morning, when we were both more rested.” His voice hardened a little. “Imagine my surprise when the only person there to chat with me was the housekeeper, not the woman I’d married the night before. Not my best friend, who’d left town without a note, a message or even a quick text.”
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure how many more times I could say it. “You’re right, it wasn’t what I should’ve done. I should have stayed so we could fix everything.” I took a deep breath. “But if we’re talking should’ves, I should have read Aunt Jenny’s note right away, before I put on the stupid bracelet.”
Blake glanced at my arm, one of his eyebrows arching. “Which I see you still have on.”
I threw up my hands. “The damage has been done. What does it matter if I leave it on or take it off? Anyway, I should have just laughed off the stupid family legend about the bracelet. No one or nothing can make someone fall in love. That’s silly superstition. And then I should have stopped drinking after the second round. I knew better. And when you suggested the idea of us getting married, so I didn’t have to worry about the curse of the bracelet, I should have told you thank you but no.”
“You did.”
I stared at him, frowning. “What? No, I didn’t. I remember you asking me, and then the next thing I knew, we were at the chapel standing in front of the minister. Or whoever he was.”
Blake shook his head. “You really blanked out the whole part in between? I asked you to marry me. You said no, we couldn’t. I said we could and should. I convinced you to let chance decide, so we played a game—”
“Blackjack.” I couldn’t see it clearly in my head, but I now had a vague recollection of sitting at a table in the bar, with Blake dealing cards.
“That’s right. Blackjack. We said if you won, we wouldn’t get married. If I won, we would. Best of five hands.”
I sank down onto the mattress. “I guess I didn’t win.”
Blake smirked. “Not even one game.”
“Blackjack always was your game.” I looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “And you knew that. You had a huge advantage over me.”
“Oh, come on, Sierra.” He too perched on the bed, but far enough away from me that I still felt safe. Relatively so, anyway. “It’s chance, really. Not skill. I just happened to get lucky that night.” One of his brows quirked up. “In more ways than one.”
“Oh, God, don’t remind me.” I dropped my head again. “I can’t imagine what got into us.”
“I can,” Blake retorted. “We’d just gotten married, and we were celebrating our wedding night. Add that to years of pent-up desire—”
“Pent-up what?” I glared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I mean. We’ve been tiptoeing around this for a while, baby. Or maybe it’s just me. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
I wriggled a little further away, just in case he got any ideas. “You’re only saying this to make me feel better about us getting married. You can’t tell me that you’ve been harboring some kind of secret feelings for me.”
“Can’t I?” His eyes were steady on mine. “Can’t I tell you that I’ve been looking for a way to let you know how I felt—how I feel—for so long that it’s been driving me insane? Can’t I tell you that I chicken out when I think that you might not feel the same way? Can’t I tell you that I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to make my move, and that I planned to spill my guts to you in Vegas, no matter what? That’s why I took you to the bar after we’d played the slots for a while. I planned to have a drink and tell you everything. I had a back-up plan if that didn’t work. But you were so fixated on that damn bracelet . . .”
The bracelet. I lifted my arm and stared at it. “This isn’t really you,” I whispered. “It’s the bracelet. You were the first man I saw after I put it on, and that’s why you think you’re in—that you have, um, some kind of feelings for me. It’s this fucking cursed family heirloom.”
“Oh, good God.” Blake dropped his head back and groaned. “Are you kidding me? Just a few minutes ago, you told me that the family legend was bullshit. That you shouldn’t have believed it and let it bother you. Now you say that anything I might feel for you is because of the bullshit legend? Pick a story, Sierra. Take a stand and hold it, but don’t keep looking for excuses for the fact that I love you and that getting married the other night was absolutely not a mistake.”
Some of my misery was giving way to anger. “Don’t tell me what to do, Blake. I know what I know, and one thing I’m sure about is that you never thought about marrying me until we were both wasted out of our minds, in Las Vegas, and I was whining about the stupid bracelet. I know you’re a good guy—the best friend ever—and I appreciate it, but all this pretending that we could have a real marriage is only making everything worse.” Tears formed in my eyes, and I wiped desperately at the corners. “This is why I left yesterday. I couldn’t stand the idea of you waking up and looking at me with—with pity. Like you felt sorry for me. Like you were trying to figure out a way to tell me that it was all a mistake without hurting me.”
“That’s not what you would’ve seen if you had stayed.” He leaned a little closer, and I shrank back. “If you had bothered to hang around, you would’ve heard me tell you that I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I would’ve rolled over, taken you in my arms, and we would’ve started working up to a fourth time before you had time to say a word.”
“You say that now. It doesn’t change the fact that we made a terrible, stupid mistake.” I drew up one knee and wrapped my arms around my leg. “I don’t know how we go about fixing it, but we’ll figure it out. Or I will, I guess. It’s not really your problem.”
“The hell it isn’t. And don’t you dare do anything, Sierra, without telling me. I don’t know why you aren’t hearing what I’m trying to say to you. This—us getting married—it wasn’t a mistake. It might have been fast, but it’s not like you and I just met. I know you better than anyone else in the world, and you know me. If you’ll just, for one minute, stop trying to convince both of us that I can’t be in love with you—and if you’ll be honest with me about how you feel—then we can get back to where we should be. We can start talking about the rest of our lives—together.”
I wanted it to be true. God, how I wanted him to be right. But on the inside, I kept hearing the voice of doubt whispering that Blake was fooling himself and me, that if I gave
in now and believed him, we’d both end up hurt and miserable. I couldn’t bear that possibility. It was too much.
I opened my mouth to say just that, but Blake stopped me, reaching for my hand and holding it in both of his.
“If you don’t believe the words I’m saying . . . then believe the way I touched you on the night of your birthday. Every time I kissed your mouth. Every time I ran my hands down your naked body, and every time I made you scream as you came, and every time I worshipped you with my lips, my tongue and my fingers. Every time I sank into you, filling you—that was truth right there, Sierra, if you’ll only see it.”
A slow burning fire began to rise in me as he spoke, heat building at my core until I was sure I was about to combust. I wanted him. Holy fuck, how I wanted him. I could give him one sign now—tighten my fingers around his, raise my lips for a kiss, shoot him a smoldering look of permission—and he’d have me on my back on this bed, ready and willing to let him do whatever he wanted to me.
But that wasn’t the answer. It wasn’t going to solve our problem, because while sex was important and good and essential and wonderful, it wasn’t the only element of a successful and healthy relationship. I knew that. And I couldn’t give in and let him make me forget.
Slowly I stood up. “You need to go now, Blake,” I whispered. “Go on home. I’ll be back in a few days, and then we can . . . I don’t know, talk.”
He drew back from me, and I could almost feel the weariness and frustration coming off him in waves.
“Talk.” Blake shook his head again. “You mean, you’ll tell me again why this was all so wrong for us, and knowing you, you’ll probably already have contacted a lawyer to put things in motion to end the marriage.”
“It’s not a marriage, Blake. It’s a mistake. And it’s one that we can happily make disappear without too much time and energy—or hurt.” I straightened my back. “And I hope that in time, we can get back to where we’ve always been—friends. We can just pretend this never happened.”
“Maybe you can. But I won’t. I don’t want to go back to how things were, Sierra. So while you’re enjoying your time and space, keep that in mind. You might be able to pretend we never got married and then made love—three times—to consummate that marriage. You may be able to block it out of your mind. But for me, it was real, and it’s nothing I want to forget.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you alone now, because I’m so damned pissed off that I might say something I’d regret. Think about what I told you today. Think about what I really said, and try to open up your mind to the possibility that I’ve been in love with you for—well, forever.”
He stalked to the door and opened it, pausing with his hand still on the knob.
“And when you’re ready to talk again, you know how to find me. I’m not running away. I never will.”
The door closed behind him, and I dropped onto the bed, buried my face in the pillow and cried.
Blake was wrong. I had heard everything he said. I understood what he wanted me to know. I hadn’t missed a word.
It was just that I couldn’t let myself believe it.
Chapter Four
Blake
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this mad. This frustrated. This . . . crazy.
Sierra tended to make me feel that way on a regular basis, but this time, she was pushing all my buttons.
I drove my rental car back down the winding road that led from the Inn to the main street into Crystal Cove, and then I headed for the bed and breakfast Jude Holt had pointed out to me earlier in the day.
There was a small parking lot alongside the old house, and I found a spot easily. Climbing out of the car, I shouldered my leather duffel and slammed the door before stalking up the steps to the front porch.
The door was unlocked when I tried it, so I stepped inside, glancing cautiously around the tiny foyer.
“Hey.” The man who was sitting at a cluttered desk inside the small office off the entryway smiled at me. “May I help you?”
Normally, I was polite guy, but just now, I didn’t have it in me to be mannerly and folksy. “Yeah, do you have any vacancy tonight?”
He cocked his head, his eyes raking me up and down. “It depends. Are you the hunk of hotness whose coming was foretold to us?”
I frowned. “Huh?”
The man waved his hand and shook his head, rising to his feet. “Never mind. I just meant, Jude told me to expect a guy like you to stop in and need a room. I’ve been holding it for you. She said you’re in town unexpectedly and need a place for a few nights?”
Snorting, I shrugged. “One night. Turns out what I thought might keep me in town isn’t going to require my presence after all.” That stung.
“Huh. I guess things didn’t go so well with Sierra, huh?” He wagged his head.
“How the hell do you know Sierra?” I heard the belligerence in my tone, but I was over everything at this point. Overnight travel, confusion and lack of sleep were all conspiring to make me less than pleasant.
He chuckled. “Small town. News travels fast.” Sticking out a hand, he added, “I’m Alex Nelson, by the way. My husband and I run this place. And in the interest of full disclosure, Jude told me a little bit about why you’re here when she called. Also, Abby Donavan is one of my best friends. We were supposed to see a movie together the other night when her cousin showed up unexpectedly. I put two and two together and figured Sierra is the woman you were here to find.”
I sagged against the doorjamb, my irritation dissipating along with my energy. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to jump on you. I’m normally a pretty chill guy. It’s just been a . . .” I hesitated. “A trying couple of days. I’m tired, I’m hungry and I’m—”
“Mad as hell?” Alex supplied. “Buddy, I hear you. Nothing like love to make you do the crazy. Trust me, I speak from experience. Cal—he’s my husband now—was the most gun-shy dude you’d ever want to meet when we first hooked up. More than once, I was sure things wouldn’t work out for us.” Holding up his left hand, he proudly displayed a wide band of silver. “But here we are. Married, working together and managing to not kill each other . . . and shortly to be parents. Believe it or not, things all work out when they’re supposed to.”
“Right now, I’m not feeling the possibilities,” I admitted. “But I’ll take your word for it.”
“Let’s get you a room, and then once you settle in, come on down to the kitchen. We don’t usually provide any meal except breakfast, but for this special occasion, I’ll rustle up something. Having food in your stomach will make everything seem better. Or at least that’s what my mom always tells me.” Alex winked. “And I promise, my mama never lies.”
***
“These are the best wings I’ve had in ages.” I dropped a stripped-away bone to my plate and reached for a napkin to wipe my face. “You did your mama proud, Alex.”
“In point of fact, this is actually my dad’s recipe,” he admitted. “I can credit Mom for biscuits, fried chicken, grits and green beans. But Dad is the master of the grill and broiler.”
“Well, I salute your dad, then.” I reached for the beer Alex had set down next to my plate.
Cal, Alex’s husband, had joined us midway through the meal, and now he stretched his arm across the table to snag another wing. “The Nelsons are good people and good cooks. It’s a winning combination, for sure. I’m damned lucky that they consider me part of the family.”
“You are part of the family.” Alex cuffed him on the upper arm. “Matter of fact, lately I’ve begun to suspect Mom likes you better than me.”
“If you could see the living room at the Nelsons’ farmhouse, you’d know better than that.” Cal rolled his eyes my way. “It’s wall-to-wall Alex, from birth through present time.”
“With our wedding picture taking the place of honor now,” interposed Alex. “But don’t worry. Mom and Dad keep reminding me they’ve saved room for the grandbaby when he or she arrives.”
“Speak
ing of which, I had a text from Naomi today.” Cal gnawed on the bone of the wing. “She had to change her next OB appointment, and she sent me the updated day and time. I added it to the main calendar.”
“Okay, great. Did she seem like everything was okay?” Alex frowned. “Did she mention anything else?”
“It was a text, babe, so tone is hard to convey, but if I had to guess, she seemed serene and healthy.” Cal leaned to the side and gripped his husband’s hand. “Try not to worry, okay? This time, it’s all going to be perfect.”
Alex let out a long sigh and glanced over at me. “Sorry. Naomi is our surrogate, and she’s carrying our baby. She’s about fourteen weeks along.”
“Congratulations.” I smiled wide. “That’s so exciting. But I guess it’s a little hard, too, since you have to trust her to do everything right for the baby?”
“Trust really isn’t the issue.” Alex toyed with the paper napkin. “We had another surrogate a little while back. She was awesome, and we loved her. She’d carried babies for other couples without any problem. But when she was sixteen weeks pregnant with our baby, she lost the pregnancy. Our baby died in utero.”
“Oh, my God.” I didn’t really have any idea what to say. “Shit. I mean, I’m so sorry. That had to have been devastating.”
“It was, to all of us,” admitted Cal. “Kelly—our first surrogate—was so upset that in the aftermath, she decided not to surrogate again. We understood. It wasn’t her fault, not by any stretch of the imagination. The doctor told us that this is unusual in surrogacy, but not unheard of—sometimes it’s just the nature of the pregnancy. It wasn’t anything she did or didn’t do. But she helped us find Naomi, and we feel like she’s been a good fit, too. And I know that this time, we’re going to be parents.” His voice was firm, without any wavering of uncertainty.