I circled my finger around the rim of the wine glass. “Well, I suppose he’ll be able make me laugh. He’ll push me past the comfort I will undoubtedly find in a routine and he’ll make every day exciting. He’ll be sweet and honest and loyal. I will be everything he needs and he will be everything I need. He’ll make my heart beat fast.” I whispered the last word. “I’ll love him before I even know I love him. It’ll just be instant.” I smiled. “And he’ll sweep me off my feet like the prince charming I’ve dreamt about since I was little.” I felt my eyes settle on the floor. “My Dad will respect him and my mom will adore him. But most importantly, he’ll be someone I know my brother would have loved.”
Reese and Kami were quiet and it wasn’t long before I knew why.
A deep voice spoke into the silence. “You ready to go, Had?”
My spine stiffened and I turned to stare up at Collin leaning in the open doorway of the room. I knew, I just knew, that he had heard every word.
When I looked back at Kami and Reese, they were grinning like the little minions they were. They’d known he was standing there and they had allowed me to go on and on about my perfect man.
Chapter 12
“Are you sure you can hold on if we take the quad, Hadley?”
I nodded, feeling slightly wobbly as I stood before the danger-mobile. “Uh huh.”
Collin frowned. “Are you sure?”
“The danger-mobile likes me.” I announced matter of fact. “I’ll be just fine.”
For the first time since we’d left the room upstairs, I saw the formations of a smile on his face. “The danger-mobile?”
“Yeah.” I pointed to the quad. “That’s what it is.”
“It likes you, does it?”
I frowned. “I’m still alive.” I thought about doing a little twirl to prove my point - but the thought alone made my head spin and my stomach riot. I couldn’t imagine the hell the actual action would reap.
Collin shook his head before gesturing to the quad. “Get on, beautiful.”
I frowned, confused. “You get on first, though.”
“Not this time.”
“I’m not driving!” I felt my voice rise. Was he a lunatic? I was drunk off my rocker!
“Damn right.” He took a step toward the quad. “But I don’t trust you to hold on to me in your current state. So, we’ll drive slow and I’ll steer from behind you.”
“Oh.” I nodded before stumbling toward the quad. And then I struggled to settle myself on the leather of the seat. When I was finally settled, Collin climbed on behind me.
As soon as his arms reached around me to find the steering bar, I realized how cool it was outside and how warm he was. And boy, did he ever smell delicious. Without thinking, I snuggled back into him. Leaning my head into the crook of his shoulder, I mumbled. “You’re so warm.”
His voice was deep and gravelly. I liked it. “You’re cold?”
“Mmhmm.” I nodded. “And you smell really good.”
I felt his quick inhale before I heard his grin. “You’re drunk.”
“I think so.”
“How much did you drink?”
“Only one bottle.” I felt my eyes drifting closed.
“You don’t drink much, do you?” He asked into my ear as he started the engine.
“No.” I mumbled, placing my hands on his knees that were settled around me for something to hold onto. And as he drove, I felt myself drifting into sleep in the safety of his strong arms.
***
My body connected with the softness of my bed and I moaned as I shifted onto my side, trying to catch the arm that was fading into the darkness. “Where?”
A deep voice spoke. “It’s okay, Had. You’re in your bed.”
Sorrow filled my chest as I cried out. “I miss you so much.” The fading figure stopped moving away from me and I continued. I would do anything - say anything, to keep him from leaving me again. “Every day hurts.” My words were a slurred whisper. “Please don’t go.”
“Beautiful...” the deep voice was filled with confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Why did you do it, Michael?” I felt tears slipping from my lids as my mind struggled through the haze of sleep, pain, and reality. “You were supposed to be here always. You were supposed to be protecting me. You weren’t supposed to go. I love you.”
“Hadley...” the figure moved closer to me, dropping to his knees at the side of my bed. “Beautiful, wake up.” I felt his hand on my shoulder shaking me. “You’re dreaming. Wake up.”
Finally, the haze of sleep drifted away and the blue eyes I’d sworn I was looking into were green. I cried, unable to stop myself. “Collin?”
“Shhh.” He wiped away my tears with the pad of his thumb. “It’s okay, beautiful.”
“I’m sorry.” I sobbed, unable to control the sorrow screaming for release in my chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He shook his head. I could see he was uncomfortable, and slightly unsure, but he continued regardless. “You’re okay, Had.”
“It hurts when you call me that.”
“What?” His voice sounded breathlessly into the pulsing darkness holding us prisoner.
“Had.” I whispered the nickname Michael had called me my entire life. “My brother - he used to call me that.”
“Fuck!” I heard him hiss harshly. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“Me too.” I felt my eyes drift closed and after a few minutes, Collin shifted.
Suddenly, a fear unlike anything I had ever known tore through my body and I cried out his name. “Collin!”
He paused, clearly startled. “What’s wrong?”
“Please don’t leave.” I begged. “Please. Please stay.”
“Hadley.”
“Just stay. You don’t have to hold me, or anything, if you don’t want. But please don’t leave me alone. Not tonight.”
I watched him kick off his boots, and then he was lying down on the edge of my bed. I fumbled to move onto my own side of the bed, but before I got far, I felt his hands pull me close into his hard chest. “I want to hold you, Hadley.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’ve told you before that you feel good in my arms.”
“But I...”
“I know.” He sounded pained and harshly bitter all at the same time. “You’d never be with a man like me.”
I gripped the front of his shirt into my fists. “If I did let myself be with you, I’d get...”
He cut me off. “You’d get hurt. You’ve told me before.”
“Only because I know I’d love you more than anyone else.” I felt my body drifting again. His entire body tensed against mine and then I felt his lips move to press against my forehead. “You’d burn me, but sometimes I think it would be worth it.”
He sighed shakily and I knew I’d said too much. “Go to sleep, beautiful.”
“Don’t leave.”
“I promise, I’ll be right here all night.”
I snuggled in closer to his warmth, drowning in his intoxicating aroma of man and pine. And then I fell into a dreamless sleep.
***
Light poured into my bedroom from the window and I shifted. And then my heart thumped once. Heavily. I shot upright. My gaze darted to the empty space in the bed beside me and I tried to recall the events of the night before. I remembered making a fool of myself over and over again in Collin’s presence. But I wasn’t certain if the memories I held from late into the night in my room were reality or heavily desired make believe.
Then I decided that I didn’t want them to be real. Because if they were, Collin hadn’t kept his promise to remain with me all night long. A broken promise from the man I now knew, I was without a doubt falling for, would be a million times worse than the humiliation of living with the words I had vague remembrance of uttering in the darkness.
As I pulled myself from between the sheets, I groaned at the slight knocking in my head and the dr
yness coating my tongue. Never in my life had I drunk so much wine. I wasn’t a big drinker. I typically didn’t like the taste of alcohol - but damn. I’d found my nemesis in alcohol. German white wine could turn me inside out and upside down in only a matter of hours. I vowed, right then and there, as I struggled to walk from my bedroom to the bathroom, that I would never again drink the sweet delicious hell in a bottle.
Staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, I decided that it was a blessing I hadn’t woken up with Collin, because if by some miracle he had stayed with me the entire night - the woman I was looking at in the mirror would have made him run screaming from my little cabin. I mean, I looked like a ruin. My mascara was smudged from my tears and the skin around my eyes was puffy and red. And my breath - good Lord, my breath had to smell like a witches cauldron.
Shaking my head in disgust at the girl looking back at me in the mirror, I piled toothpaste onto my brush before scrubbing violently at my teeth. When my gums felt raw and there was no residual taste of alcohol on my tongue, I stripped from my clothing and stepped into the warm spray of water.
After I’d groomed myself to a point of squeaky-clean my mother would be proud of, I turned off the water and dried myself. After running a comb through my hair, which made me contemplate taking scissors to the knotty tresses, I was finally ready to wander back into my bedroom for clothes.
I was walking across the hall when I heard the front door of my cabin creak. I stilled. My heart started to beat loud and unruly in my ears as I contemplated hiding in the mini closet in my bedroom, or fighting the intruder in only a fluffy pink towel. I did neither. Instead, I stood in the middle of the hall with knocking knees as I waited for my assailant to attack.
Suddenly, Collin rounded the corner with two coffees in his hands, as well as a brown paper bag. My breath released as his caught.
“What are you doing, Hadley?”
“You scared me.” I breathed, my pulse still pounding in my ears. “What are you doing here?”
Collin held up the coffee and bag as an answer to my question before asking one of his own. “Why are you standing, like that, in a towel?”
“I thought...” alright, I felt silly saying this out loud. Of course there would be no attacker here at the Donnelley Ranch. It was obvious I wasn’t in Toronto. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, I reminded myself none too kind. “I was um, I thought maybe you...”
Collin took a slow step toward me. “You thought I was what?”
“An intruder.” I looked down to my toes before wiggling them. Maybe, just maybe I still had a little of that wine left in my system?
“And you thought you’d just wait, like a sitting duck, for an intruder to catch you standing in the hallway in a towel?” Collin asked dumbly. “Are you serious, right now?”
I feigned thought. “Uh, no.” My tone was sarcastic. “I figured I’d just blurt out the most ridiculous thing I could think of.”
“You succeeded.”
I pulled in a deep breath of irritation before mumbling. “I’m going to get dressed.”
“You do that, beautiful.” He barked back, before his tone turned sarcastic as well. Or maybe it wasn’t sarcasm I heard, but the taunting I’d first come to know in association to this very infuriating man. “Or maybe you’d like to walk that sweet ass out here and join me just the way you are?”
I felt my spine stiffen as I glared at his smirking face. Yes, it was that flipping lady-killer grin. Jeez, the man was going to off someone with that grin one day. I took that moment to steel myself against his seductive ways. There was no chance I’d be the woman he offed. Nope - no to the freaking way!
“I think I’ll pass.” I snapped. “I wouldn’t want to catch something.”
His face tensed and the grin fell. Damn right, I thought to myself smugly. And then he spoke.
“You weren’t so worried about catching something last night.”
The blood in my veins turned hot. My eyes dropped from his for a moment - only a moment - but that was all I needed to see that he was still wearing the same dark jeans and button down black shirt with the cowboy boots he’d worn just last night. He hadn’t changed. And his hair, although it was usually a styled mess - today it was just untidy. Still hot as all hell, but untidy.
Collin had stayed the night.
Collin Donnelley had stayed the night in my bed. The entire night. With me. Holding me.
He’d kept his promise.
I swallowed, trying to moisten my suddenly dry throat as the air between us pulsed with charged emotions that made not even an ounce of sense to me, and my very frayed mind. Every compartment that made up my brain had been shaken. Thoughts were rattled and emotions were loose. And the worst part of it all was that the man who was responsible for my entire crazed state was standing only a few meters away from me - and I was in a towel.
My entire body begged, literally throbbed, to run toward him. Thankfully, I’d somehow held onto some scrap of dignity in spite of the loose cannon that was my entire entity, because I turned on my heel and ran into my bedroom.
***
It took serious calming before I was able to even get myself up off my bed to dress myself in a light sundress. I chose a respectful, yet cheery yellow dress before I placed my hand on the door handle of my bedroom, took in a deep breath for courage, and opened the door.
In no way had I been expecting Collin to be standing directly on the other side of the hallway, leaning against the wall, with his arms crossed over his wide chest.
“Have you been standing there the whole time?” My demand was low.
“Nice dress.” He said gravelly. “You done spitting fire or should I armor up again?”
“I wasn’t...”
“You were, Hadley.” He said stiffly, peeling himself from the wall. “I know what defense looks like, and baby, it was written all over your pretty little face.”
I ignored him, getting right down to business. “You stayed the night.”
He stiffened, but didn’t grace my statement with a reply. Instead, he said. “Brought coffee. Thought you might need it after the night you had - or should I say bottle?”
“Are you done being an ass?”
“Just brought you coffee, beautiful.” He smirked. “That was one of the conditions of our friendship, wasn’t it?”
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Coffee.” He shrugged. “You had to have your coffee every morning or we couldn’t be friends.”
“That wasn’t the condition.” I huffed, following him into my small kitchen to the table where he’d placed the coffee and brown bag. “I said you couldn’t ruin my coffee time. I never once said you had to bring me coffee.”
“No, you said you had to have it every morning.” He handed me the cup. “I like being your friend, beautiful. You’ve got fire and attitude, but you’re sweet as hell. So, if all I gotta do to keep you is ensure you get your shot in the morning, then I’ll be here, every morning, bringing you your shot.”
“You’re unbelievable.” I whispered, but even as I spoke, I felt my smile curling the corners of my lips. Sure as the sun rising every day, this man made me smile even in times of anger. “But I think I’ll just have to keep you around.”
Collin grinned. “Sit your ass down, baby.” I watched as he dropped himself into a seat. “I brought bagels.”
I raised a brow as I slowly lowered myself into a seat. It took a lot of strength to ignore the tone of his command, but I did it. He had brought coffee - and breakfast. However, I couldn’t ignore the fact that this was unusual for him. He’d told me he didn’t do breakfast after spending the night with a woman. For some reason, he’d exposed a vulnerable side to me - and me being me - I had to poke.
“So, breakfast after you’ve spent the night. Is the world ending?”
He stiffened with his hand in the bag, mid bagel retrieving. “This isn’t the norm, Had-ley.”
I braced as thoughts of last night surfaced in the wake
of his mistake. He’d been about to call me Had - but I’d told him it hurt. He didn’t want to hurt me. Even after I’d poked at his vulnerable spot, he still didn’t want to poke at mine.
Reaching over the table, I snatched the brown bag from his grip before diving my hand in to pull out a blueberry bagel. “Mmm.” I moaned, as I smelled the bagel. “Thanks.”
Collin watched me for a long moment - understanding the dropped subject for what it was. A peace offering - between friends.
***
I woke the next morning to my phone bleeping on the nightstand beside me. I groaned groggily as rolled to my side, before smacking my hand at my pillow in frustration at the continuous sound emanating into the steady silence of my bedroom.
I’d had the worst sleep any girl could possibly have. After spending the night in Collin’s arms, sleeping without him there next to me was horrible. I woke hourly, feeling an odd kind of hollowness growing in my chest as I thought about him - alone - or hopefully alone - in his bed. I’d never spent the night in a man’s arms before Collin, and I never once thought it could be so amazing. I was addicted - and I had no right to be addicted.
Rubbing my forehead, I tried to encourage myself to get up, but after a few minutes of listening to the irritating alarm, I decided to spend the morning in bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in, but I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d had such an off and on night of sleep. Since Mike had died, my sleeping patterns had definitely changed. But to wake hourly - that was just torture on the mind and body.
As I reached out to silence my alarm, I couldn’t help but think about zombies, and I suddenly pitied them their constant state of drowsy clumsiness. Right now, I felt like a living zombie.
After silencing my alarm, a slow smile crept onto my face as I settled peacefully against the soft mattress of my bed. Sighing a deep yoga breath, I let my eyes flutter closed. Sleep was on the brink, dreams were starting and then...bleep, my eyes snapped open at the sound of my text message alert and I felt a fury unlike any other burn in my chest.
I just wanted to sleep, for goodness sakes!
I decided to ignore it.
Bleep. Bleep.
Taking Chances: A Donnelley Brother's Novel Page 11