Tough Luck Hero

by Maisey Yates

  She was going to have to live here with Colton, live here and not spend the next few months tripping over him. Not spend the next month clashing with him. She felt like she was being crushed down into a little ball, and that made it difficult to breathe.

  She was imagining spending the next few months tiptoeing through this space, doing her best to make sure her footsteps didn’t sound on the hardwood floor.

  It reminded her too much of other things. Too much of her childhood home.

  Of being the least important person in a space. She swallowed hard, shaking her head, brushing her hair out of her eyes. No, she wasn’t going to do that. Because she didn’t do that anymore. She had driven into Copper Ridge at the age of twenty-two and started carving out niches for herself all over the place. Had made sure that she had effected change in the place, that she didn’t tiptoe, that she wasn’t quiet.

  She wasn’t about to behave any other way. Not for anyone. And certainly not for Colton West.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE WAS IN his house. He could feel her moving around. Metaphorically. He blamed the fact that Lydia Carpenter was terminally uptight. And he could feel that tightness following her around wherever she went.

  He could feel it in the air the moment he had walked in the place after tending to his horses. He kicked his boots off, pushing them up against the wall by the door before walking into the living area. She had started a fire in the fireplace, which was actually considerate, but he was going to go ahead and take it as an invasion instead.

  He had a feeling that the key to sanity when it came to enduring Lydia’s presence was to keep focusing on how irritating she was. Not that it was difficult to do.

  The issue was that her ass also looked nice in the tight pencil skirt she was wearing today. He had the passing thought that maybe looking at it could be an excuse to make a word association game. She was a tight ass, with a tight ass. And if he looked at it, he could remember that...

  Okay, not even he was buying that.

  This entire situation was a ridiculous mess. She didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted her here, but there wasn’t much of anything they could do about it.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, grimacing when he saw it was his mother. He couldn’t ignore her. Not given the circumstances.

  “Hello?”

  “You haven’t called me since you got back into town.”

  He took a deep breath. “No. Sorry. But I had to get back to work, and I have the small matter of moving Natalie’s things out of my place.”

  “I’m so sorry about what happened,” his mother said, clearly not so much sorry because of his feelings, but terribly sorry about the wedding being ruined.

  “Me too. But, for whatever reason, Natalie felt like she couldn’t go through with it. And all in all it’s better that she decide that before the marriage, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” she said.

  He could tell that she wasn’t at all convinced divorce would have been worse than a very public event like what had just happened. Fifty percent of marriages ended in divorce. The statistic of grooms left at the altar was likely much lower.

  He heard light footsteps on the wooden floor, and looked up. Lydia was standing in the doorway, looking at him like she was a deer caught in the high beams. For a second, he had forgotten she was here.

  He’d lived with Natalie for eight months. Any other time he’d heard footsteps in the house at this hour he would have expected to see Natalie appear. But Natalie wasn’t here. Lydia was.

  It was jarring.

  In two days, his life had changed completely. He had been planning on being a husband. He had lived with one woman, and now he suddenly lived with another. He supposed he was a husband still. But not really the kind he had planned on being.

  “Colton?” For a moment, he had forgotten he was on the phone with his mother.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I just spaced out for a second.”

  There was the small matter of Lydia, whom he had not told his mother about. But Sierra and Madison knew. Of course, he had made them promise not to tell, but his sisters never did what he told them to.

  “Your father has been in a rage ever since it happened. He’s dropping all of his support from Richard Bailey’s campaign.”

  Colton looked back up at Lydia. “That’s interesting.”

  “It’s caused waves at the country club, or so my friends tell me.”

  Colton had no doubt it had. Probably bigger waves than when whispers had started moving through that Nathan West had an illegitimate child. Political contributions were a much bigger deal. Anyway, he imagined that particular group had several bastard children to their names.

  “I’m sure it did.”

  “Your father is humiliated by all of this.”

  Colton closed his eyes, sucking a deep breath in through his teeth. Of course his failed wedding was a source of embarrassment to his father.

  “I’m sorry for his humiliation.”

  “He’s never had any trouble with you before, Colton.”

  There really wasn’t a response to that. “Why don’t we meet for lunch tomorrow?”

  There was no good way to break the news of his other wedding to his mother. Certainly not over the phone. So, in person it would be.

  She sighed. “That would be nice.”

  “Let’s meet at Beaches around noon. I’ll see you at your usual table.” He ended the phone call quickly after that, then looked up at Lydia again. “We’re meeting my mother for lunch tomorrow.”

  “What if I have plans?”

  “Cancel them. It’s very important to the health of your marriage that you do this for me.”

  “I’m not really all that invested in the health of my marriage. In fact, if it were a horse I would probably take it out back behind the barn and shoot it.”

  “You would not shoot a horse, wounded or otherwise.”

  “Fine,” she said, exasperated. “I’m much more likely to feed it sugar cubes and pat it until the vet arrives. But that’s a literal horse. This was a metaphorical horse, wherein the horse represented our marriage. And that horse I would shoot.”

  He threw his phone down onto the couch, then followed its trajectory, plopping down in front of the fireplace. “Did you start a fire?”

  She arched a brow. “No. The elves did it.”

  “I didn’t know you came with elves.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

  He appraised her slowly, watching the color rise in her cheeks. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had responded to him in this way. Sure, women found him attractive, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to engage in flirtations. He did long-term relationships.

  He had a high school sweetheart he’d parted ways with the first year of college, then a girl he had dated until graduation had sent them their different ways. After that, he had been in relationships off and on with women who were practical. Suitable. Potential wife material.

  He didn’t do one-night stands. He didn’t do...whatever this was.

  But he couldn’t deny there was something a little bit fascinating about it.

  “Actually,” he said, giving in to the completely reckless desire to heighten the color in her cheeks even further, “you don’t have all that many secrets from me.”

  She stiffened, her dark eyes going wide. “You don’t remember.”

  “Maybe I do,” he said, smiling at her for effect.

  “No,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “you don’t. I know you don’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I can tell. I can...read it. If you had seen me naked I would be able to see it in your eyes.”

  He lifted his h
and, rubbing it slowly over his chin. “But I have seen you naked, Lydia. We both know that.”

  “No, we don’t. For all you know I got undressed underneath the covers. Actually, maybe nothing happened. We don’t know.”

  Heat began to gather in his chest, a ball of fire that spread downward, a streak of flame that combusted in his gut. “I know. Trust me, I know.”

  He did, dammit. As much as he wanted to forget. Last night had been a study in torture. He’d been at the mercy of vague impressions of memory he couldn’t quite gain a hold on.

  Soft fingertips on his skin, faint, floral perfume mingling with the smell of whiskey and chocolate. Because they had eaten chocolate. He couldn’t remember eating it, but he could remember tasting it on her tongue, mingling with the rich alcohol.

  So no, he didn’t remember what happened. Not totally. Only enough to wake up this morning with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.

  He was suffering. She might as well suffer, too.

  She was just so damn prickly all the time, and those prickles never failed to embed themselves beneath his skin. The one exception was the night of the wedding that wasn’t.

  Colton was going to get blind drunk and he didn’t care. He never got drunk. But he’d never been left at the altar before either, so that seemed fair enough.

  “I’m glad we decided to come here.”

  His muscles tensed as that familiar voice rolled over him. For a moment, he’d forgotten about his unexpected companion.

  Then he turned and that already hollow feeling in his stomach turned into a yawning pit.

  Lydia was still in that ridiculous bridesmaid dress, her dark hair curling and falling loosely around her shoulders, a little bunch of flowers holding part of it back. Just the sight of her was enraging. Like she’d brought his aborted wedding in with her.

  But there was something else to that feeling, too. Something dark and hungry that he never liked to think about. Something that only ever roared to life when Lydia was around.

  It made him angry at the best of times. But it was the worst of times now, and he was halfway to wasted. That combination made it something else entirely.

  “Do you feel sorry for me?” he asked.

  “Well, kind of. But really, only a cold-hearted jerk wouldn’t.”

  “Feel guilty for anything?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Did you have any idea she was going to do this?”

  “No,” Lydia said. “She never said anything to me. And I had absolutely no idea she was going to stand you up.”

  “You sound upset.”

  “I am. No one deserves that. I know that we don’t—” She took a deep breath. “I know that we haven’t always seen eye to eye. Or ever seen eye to eye. But that doesn’t mean I thought she should leave you like that.”

  “And that’s why you told me to ditch the reception? Why you came out after me? Out of...all of the people at the wedding, you’re the one who came?”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad you must feel.” The words made his stomach bottom out. She frowned. “Do not let that go to your head. I also can’t stop thinking about those ASPCA commercials with sad dogs.”

  “So this is all because of your overdeveloped sense of pity?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear, her shoulder brushing his, sending an unwelcome bolt of lightning straight through him. “Mostly, I just think people shouldn’t be left alone when they’re sad.”

  “If you expect me to cry you’re going to be sadly disappointed. I intend to get hammered.” He picked up the shot glass in front of him and held it out toward her. “If you want to join me in that, you’re welcome to.”

  She hesitated. He expected her to get that pinched look on her face. To lecture him.

  Instead, she reached out, grabbing hold of the shot glass. Her fingers brushed his, and he felt that all the way down to his dick.

  Then she put the glass to her lips, her tongue touching the rim. He felt that, too.

  She tilted it back, taking a long swallow, gasping when she set it back down on the counter. “All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  He was supposed to be a married man tonight. Committed and firmly arrived at the place his straight-and-narrow path had been leading him.

  But his intended bride hadn’t showed up.

  Suddenly all of the tension he’d felt from the first time he’d met Lydia Carpenter exploded inside of him. He wanted her fingers on him. Wanted her tongue on him.

  Tonight was supposed to be the finish line. But it hadn’t been.

  Now he wanted to make it something else entirely.

  That was when the memory got fuzzy. His night to remember, his night of rebellion, had turned into a completely forgotten night with far-reaching consequences.

  That figured.

  “Back to the topic at hand,” she said, her tone authoritarian, arch, as though she had been reading his thoughts, “why exactly do you need me to join you for lunch with your mother?”

  “Because. I’m not going to tell her that we got married over the phone. And I need to tell her before it makes it back to her through the rumor mill. Because it will.”

  “All right. Though I’m not sure how it hasn’t already.”

  “I’m not, either. Mainly, I imagine it’s because she hasn’t left the house in a few days. It’s possible my dad knows, but even if he does, he might not have gotten around to telling her. I don’t think they talk much.”

  “Had I known that this was how the West family conducted their marriages I might have gotten on board with this sooner. It sounds exactly like the kind of marriage the two of us could have. Never speaking. Never touching.”

  Touching. That word pushed to the back of his mind. Ruffled the gauzy veil that had been drawn over the night they had spent in Las Vegas.

  He could feel it. That’s how strong it was. Could feel delicate fingertips wrapping around him. It hit him hard, left him breathless.

  “Not never,” he said, his voice sounding rough to his own ears.

  “Are you going to be a lecherous tool bag when we have lunch with your mother?”

  “If she takes enough pills before we order she won’t notice if I am.” He nearly winced at his own words. He was just being an ass now.

  Lydia frowned. “I’ve met your mother at different fund-raising luncheons. She seems...nice.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the word I would use. But I love my mother. She’s been through enough. And yeah, it’s easy for me to make dry comments about how she does and doesn’t cope, but the truth is it worries me.”

  “I’m sure finding out that your father had an illegitimate child with someone was hard on her.”

  He leaned back, closing his eyes and resting his head on the back of the couch. “That was just the latest hard thing.”

  “Oh.”

  “I have a brother.” He opened his eyes again, just so he could get a look at her expression.

  “Oh,” she said, her hands clasped in front of her, twitching nervously. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I figured you didn’t. Most people do, since they’ve lived here their whole lives. You’re that rare outsider.”

  That made her frown. “I’m not an outsider.”

  Yet again, he’d managed to divert her right when he’d cut open a vein of ancient West history. And again, he was going to go with it rather than continuing to talk about family stuff. “You aren’t really a local.”

  Color flooded her cheeks, except this time, it was angry. “This is my home. I have lived here for the past eight years. And I damn sure am a local, Colton West. I’m running for mayor. I don’t think you can be more...Copper Ridgian than that.”

  “That doesn’t make you a local. Being a loc
al makes you a local.”

  “Why are you so invested in this?”

  “Why are you?”

  She frowned. “That isn’t your business. We might be sharing space, but we don’t have to share secrets and braid each other’s hair.”

  “The only kind of slumber party we’re going to have is a repeat performance of our wedding night, Lydia, so I would be careful what you suggest.”

  The moment the words left his lips, he regretted them. He had no intention of ever touching her again. He just wanted to get a rise out of her.

  “I would be careful what you said, Colton,” she returned, her words clipped. “Unless of course you want to get punched in the face.”

  “Are you resorting to playground tactics? Are you going to steal my jacket and make me chase you to get it back next?” He pushed up from the couch, taking a step toward her. “All to get me to pay attention to you?”

  “Please,” she said, the word coming out a disbelieving laugh. “I do not want you to chase me.”

  “Fine. Lunch. Tomorrow. Don’t make me chase you.”

  Those eyes, brown, shot through with gold, glistening like whiskey in a shot glass, gazed straight into him as though they were wishing him a swift and painful death. “Fine,” she parroted him, her tone so crystal he thought it might cut him. “I’ll see you then. Beaches. Noon.”

  “You’ll probably see me before then.”

  “I’m tired. I’m probably going to go to bed.”

  “It’s eight o’clock.”

  She crossed her arms, straightening her posture. “So I may not have demonstrated this over the course of the past few days, but I am actually a very responsible person. Early to bed. Early to rise.”

  “I think I might have heard my grandmother say that once.”

  “She was a wise woman. Good night.”

  And Lydia turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving him alone with the fire, the memories and a vague feeling of dissatisfaction that he was not going to do anything to alleviate.