by Liz Crowe
She smiled and patted his arm. He tugged her close again, so she let him hold her, pressing her ear to his chest, listening to his heartbeat for a few more minutes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Me, too.” He kissed her hair. “What’s wrong?”
“Kent is...he has a....”
“Is he cheating on you? Tell me now so I can go beat some sense into him.”
“No. I mean, not anymore.” She kept her voice calm but her thoughts sloshed around inside her exhausted brain. Those tattoos—the one of the devil under his shoulder—how could that be anyone else?
“I can’t do this,” he ground out, his face a mask of frustration.
“I’m not making you do anything.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’ll see you at the wedding.” She brushed past him. “Sorry to make such a scene on your big night.”
She opened the door, hoping he would stop her. He didn’t. So she pushed through the throng of half-naked strippers out to the bar, waiting until she made it out the door to grab her phone to call a cab.
But when she stomped out, she spotted Kent slouched beside his car. He straightened when the light cast from the obnoxious neon sign illuminated her. Pondering him and all her options at that split second, she had no words.
“Helen called me,” he said. She took in the broad expanse of his shoulders in the slightly rumpled polo shirt, his jaw rough with stubble. “You all right?”
She nodded but kept her distance.
“So, let’s talk.”
“All right. Tell me what’s going on with you and...him.”
He took a deep breath then leveled his deep-blue gaze at her. “I loved him. But I...I choose you, not him.”
“But you, I mean we, um, we you know, hooked up and you guys were together still. I saw the messages. I know you were—” she inhaled. “With him a few weeks ago, in Atlanta.” She struggled not to scream and run inside. “I’m not your responsibility. You don’t have to take care of me or build me a house or keep me home, barefoot, pregnant, and tearing my hair out because I’m not working. You shouldn’t, not if I’m not the person you really love.”
He flinched and took a step away from her. Her pulse raced but she had to say this, all of it, before it poisoned her and as a result, their nascent marriage.
“I think you still love your old boyfriend,” he said with a flat voice, shocking her. “But you keep pretending with me, like you think I’m doing with you.” He gripped her arms. “But I choose you. I love you, goddamn it. I choose us, our life, our family. You…you should work. We’ll live in Lucasville or wherever you want.” She sensed herself collapsing in the face of his abject agony, acknowledging her own distress about her feelings for him, versus her feelings for Kieran. She bit her lip and he kept talking. “I need this. I need you. Please...please don’t leave me.” He kissed her then, in that way he had that had seduced her the first day they met. Melting into him, she let relief roll through her, but knowing the moment as a stopgap. They were damaged goods, both of them.
She broke away and touched his rough jaw. “Take me home, Kent. Make love to me.”
Tucking her under his arm, he guided her to the passenger’s side of the car. She crooked her finger at him once she took her seat, so he crouched down to be on her level, his warm, familiar palm on her leg. “I need you to convince me that it is me you want.”
“Then tell me you don’t love him anymore,” he insisted, pressing down hard on her leg. “It’s only fair. We confess now, let them both go.”
Ready to let it fly that the two men in question were closer than he realized, she chewed her lip, trying to find words for such an impossible coincidence. The expression on his face betrayed him. He already knew that Paul must be Dominic, and had realized it that night at the fish fry.
She focused on his hand, memorizing its contours, pictured it wearing the platinum band they’d picked out and now sat nestled in a jeweler’s box on her dresser. She threaded her fingers in his, pulled them to her lips, kissing each of his knuckles.
“I love you, Kent. Only you. I want this. I want us.”
He nodded curtly, and drove them home in silence. Later, she lay in his arms, her body sated, her heart calm accepting her choice.
Chapter Twenty
Kieran pocketed the impressive wad of cash with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose, taking in the sights and sounds of the strip club after hours. Girls counted out singles on the bar, the cleaning crew mopped the floor. The house lights threw an unflattering glow onto pretty much everything. He waved to the room in general, noting that Dom was still tucked into a corner with Jackie before shouldering his way out into the humid night.
His car sat in the middle of a bunch of empty parking spots. The lights flickered as he shuffled across the cracked asphalt. His mind blank, his chest full of something he couldn’t identify, he blew out a breath and stopped short when he spotted Melinda leaning against his driver’s side door.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.” He reached behind her. But she moved sideways, blocking his way, filling his senses with her overpowering presence. “I’m not in the mood, Melinda.”
“You are something very...special.” She pressed her lips to his.
After a few seconds, she broke the contact then walked around to the passenger’s side and climbed in. He stood a minute, tingling from head to toe, Cara’s face imprinted on his retinas, the memory sensation of her skin burning his palms.
They rode a few miles to an all-night diner in silence. After ordering coffee and a slice of apple pie to share, they sat in total silence. When it arrived, Melinda sipped as he ate. The quiet unnerved him but he figured she’d get around to talking soon enough. She always did.
“I’m moving,” she said, finally putting her half-empty cup on the cracked Formica. “I’d like you to come with me. But I have a feeling you won’t.”
“You gonna eat any of this,” he asked, indicating the decimated pie between them. She shook her head, her eyes swimming with tears. Not for the first time, Kieran thanked his early training not to be cowed or much affected by them. He scraped the last of the apples off the plate, put them in his mouth, chewed and swallowed while pondering his answer. A large part of him experienced a skin-crawling panic over the concept that she’d actually leave. Another part heaved a huge sigh of relief.
“Where?” he asked for lack of anything better to say.
“Nashville. The firm wants me to establish their new office there. Everything from locating the real estate to hiring secretaries.” She dabbed at her face and held his gaze. The skin-crawling-scared part of him was losing the mental arm-wrestling match.
“Congratulations, Melinda. That’s really great.”
“You won’t leave here will you?”
Forcing his inner relieved-she’d-decided-to-move-on guy to pin the scared loser-guy’s arm to the imaginary table, he set his jaw. “No, I won’t. I don’t love you, Melinda. It’s probably a good thing we figured that now instead of wasting everyone’s time with a wedding.”
She continued studying him in that clinical way she had. “Yes, you’re probably right about that.” She smiled. He smiled then jumped when her toes teased his thigh under the table. “You are so amazing, Kieran. Really. I...I think I do love you.”
Briefly considering the advisability of a farewell roll in the sack, he decided against it and pushed her foot off his lap.
“No, you don’t. I was some kind of a project for you.” He waved to the waitress, wanting nothing more than to celebrate a final break from this crazy woman with a solid eight hours of sleep.
She reached across the small table and ran a fingertip down his cheek. His body reacted to her but he forced his brain to rule. When he kissed her fingers then placed her hand down on the table something in him surged, filling his chest and his head with a loud noise—one that demanded that he go find Cara now. He shook his head
to clear it.
“The redheaded girl,” Melinda said, making him blink. “She’s still something to you, isn’t she?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t matter. She’s getting married in a few days, and not to me.” Resisting the urge to run out of here and drive straight to Cara’s apartment took every ounce of self-control he possessed at that moment.
“You know, you’re probably right.” Melinda patted her lips with a napkin and reached for her purse. He threw a crumpled ten-dollar bill onto the table. “About you being a project I mean.” The little nose wrinkle she gave at the sight of the money made the relieved guy inside him do a victory dance in his head.
He put his arm around her as they walked out. When he opened the passenger’s side door for her, she glanced into the interior of his crappy car before grabbing him and pressing her mouth to his, making him have to think hard about the potential of a farewell screw before peeling her off. “You’re something special, too, Melinda. But I don’t think we’re meant to blend our specials together, you know what I mean?”
He wiped the tear off her cheek.
“I’m gonna get a cab.” She squared her shoulders. “Bye, Kieran. I’ll never forget you.”
“Best of luck,” he said, as she walked away, swallowing the terror that clawed at his throat. “Bye,” he croaked out. Curious why his fingers hurt so bad, he glanced down and noted he was white-knuckling the top of the passenger’s side door.
He let go, flexing his fingers until a taxi collected her. It took him almost fifteen minutes to calm down enough to point his car in the direction of Cara’s apartment building.
Once there, he sat in his car, noting her dark windows and wondering what in the hell made him think she’d dump Mr. Rich Really Nice Lawyer Man. With a curse, he put the car in reverse and headed toward his own building, making plans, thinking ahead, and coming up with excuses not to attend her wedding.
He stumbled onto his couch, tugging his phone out before he passed out from exhaustion and sent Cara a text:
I’ve spent years being mad at you, a few weeks being in lust with you, and am not sure I can watch you get married to some guy who’s not me. So if I don’t see you again, good luck. Have a great life. I will never stop loving you. I wish our timing could have been better.
After staring at the message a while, he tossed the phone against the wall and pulled a blanket over his head, letting sleep take him.
Four Days Later
“Knock, knock,” a familiar voice interrupted Cara’s latest bout of crying.
“Come on in.”
Her mother had finally left her alone, after hovering and fussing and being a pain for the last hour. Cara kept her gaze on her image in the large mirror. The bride’s room in her small church had been outfitted nicely, especially since more suburbanites had discovered its charms for weddings.
Lindsay Love poked her head around the door. Cara smiled at her. “Hey there.” Grabbing a blush brush for something to do with her nervous energy, she set it down when she shook too much to do anything but screw up her carefully applied makeup.
“Oh, honey, you are so gorgeous,” Lindsay said. “You kids all grown up makes me feel old.”
She leveled her face with Cara’s in the mirror.
“Thanks,” Cara said, for lack of anything better. “You’re not old. You look great. Your hip giving you trouble?”
“Not hardly at all anymore.” Cara could sense her unease.
“Is Kieran here?”
“Not yet. He’s coming though.”
“Oh. Okay.” They fell silent. “Thank you for being here.”
“Of course, Miss Cara. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
She looked down at the floor and counted to ten when the room got a little fuzzy, acknowledging that skipping breakfast had been a bad idea. But her throat had been so tight the thought of food made her ill. “I wish....”
Lindsay made a tsking sound and patted her shoulder. “Don’t wish on your weddin’ day, honey. It’s all kinds of bad luck.” She squeezed Cara’s arm. “I’m happy for you. For you both.” The woman’s green eyes—identical to Kieran’s—filled with tears before she ducked out into the hall.
Choking on the words she wished she could say, Cara let memories of the past few days crash in on her, relentlessly beating her down like waves. Kent had apologized, had gone far out of his way to convince her he loved her and only her. But the night he’d picked her up from the strip-club party had been what she wanted to consider a new beginning for them. He’d told her everything about the other man coming just shy of using his real name at first. That word lay shimmering and unspoken between them. He explained that he, Kent, had been bisexual for years. But that Paul had been his first actual emotional relationship with a man—and his last.
Cara had opened her mouth to say “you know it’s Dominic Love, right?” when he’d declared, “I didn’t know it for a long time, but it’s Dominic, the brewery guy, your old boyfriend’s brother. I was….” He’d had to stop and shove his hands down in his pockets then. “I was his first. He, um…he was just messing around, so he said. Trying something new or whatever. But then he, well, he’s…. I don’t know. Shit. Never mind.”
Cara had nodded, holding her breath and cursing in her head at how fate had messed with them both. She understood the depth of Kent’s feelings for Dom at that second and would’ve given anything to actually have a conversation about the man right then, to understand Kieran’s mysterious, scary, younger brother a little better. But that wouldn’t do either of them any good at this juncture.
She’d burst into irrational tears instead, and he’d held her for a long time after that.
To her dismay, Vivian Lowery’s tall imposing form now filled the doorway. After fussing with Cara’s veil, she sat across from her, making her flinch when she grabbed both her hands.
“I’m so happy you’re joining our family, my dear.”
Cara opened her mouth to protest, exhausted from all the lies.
“No, no, listen to me a minute. I know about Kent. I get what you must be going through, but wanted you to know that he will do everything in his power to be the best husband and father possible.”
Deciding that feigning ignorance would be the best course of action she managed to squeak out, “You know about...what?”
Vivian tightened her grip. “I know he is gay, or bi, or whatever it is. I caught him in high school, if you must know, in his room...with some boy.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I love my son so much. I only want him to be happy. So I hid it from his father. When he brought you home I was so relieved.” She heaved a huge sigh. “But I know. So we have to work hard to make sure he remembers his responsibility to you and to your marriage.”
“I would assume that my husband would be faithful to our marriage regardless of who he loved before me.” Cara gnawed her lip, tasting expensive makeup. Defensiveness rose in her, along with that familiar blip of jealousy.
“I know, I know. It’s that...he’s weak, you know. Men are weak and Kent is...he had a hard time.”
The ridiculous discussion made her want to scream. But she focused on the fact that Kent’s mother had merely tried to shield him, and continued to do so now, making them comrades in the let’s-make-Kent-not-gay-together scheme.
“I met his...friend once. Kent brought him to dinner at the club when Senior had gone out of town. He seemed like a nice young man, handsome in a sort of rough way, blond and...I don’t know, I probably blocked it all. But I told my son that very night to get over it, to stop right then because he would never ever, ever be happy living here, trying to be...that person. You know, with another man?”
Wishing the woman would go away and leave her in peace, Cara nodded. She didn’t require or want this level of detail. Kent had gone to his computer the morning after he’d confessed everything to her and deleted all their photos and conversations, doing the same on his phone.
She’d not asked him to, but he’d i
nsisted on it. They were both putting the Love brothers behind them—the irony of that made her head spin.
Vivian kept talking so Cara attempted to focus on her words. “That next week he went to some event downtown and he met you. And I have to believe that all the praying I did brought you into his life, in our lives.” She gave Cara’s fingers another squeeze. “You are a real blessing to us, to my boy. You know, I honestly believe that you’re sent from heaven to show him the right way to live.” She rose, dragging Cara with her. “I know he says you all might live in Lucasville because you don’t want to quit working, but I would ask you to reconsider that, if you would. He’s having a beautiful home built for you out in Oldham County. You want to work and I accept that. But I think you should move into the new house. Start fresh, both of you, away from this town.” Pressing a quick kiss to Cara’s forehead she whispered. “Bless your heart.” Which made Cara suck in a breath. “Now, don’t cry. It’s bad luck.” Vivian gave her a crisp linen handkerchief with the initials CLE stitched into the corner. “I had these made for you.”
Cara Elizabeth Lowery. That would be her name, her life, the one where she saved Kent Lowery Junior from being that kind of man, from being the man who loved women, but also loved men. She’d hold that life in the palm of her hands in just a few minutes as a matter of fact. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the room was blessedly quiet and empty.
She pulled her phone out of her purse so she could read Kieran’s text one more time before deleting it.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Let’s go. You told me you’d go with me to this damn thing.” Kieran banged on Dominic’s door, tugging at the tie currently choking him, sweat dripping down his back under the shirt and suit coat.
Finally, the door opened revealing Dom in his underwear, a half-empty bourbon bottle dangling from his fingers, eyes glassy, face red. He pondered Kieran for a few seconds then stumbled into the living room.