by Sabrina York
He needed to know if he’d missed out on something wonderful.
Slowly, he made his way to her room and knocked on the door. She was just finishing her packing and glanced up in surprise to see him standing there. “Um, yes?”
He tugged at his collar and cleared his throat, unsure how to begin. “Can we talk?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He stepped inside and closed the door—no need for anyone to witness this—then he raked his hair. “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he said.
Her brow rippled. “Um, okay?”
“But I overheard some of that conversation you just had with Claire.”
Her lips parted. “Which part?”
“The bit about you being in love with me your whole life.” Heat scoured him. He scrubbed his face. “Is that true?”
“It was.” She wrinkled her nose. “But it was only a crush. Don’t worry, Cody. I’m over you.” Her tone was nothing if not patronizing.
“You said you never even considered another man because of me.”
She forced a smile. “What can I say? I was an idiot.”
He flinched. “You said I never looked your way. Never noticed you.”
“I did.”
“That’s not true.”
Her mouth fell open and she gaped at him.
“You’re beautiful, Porsche. But I always kept away because of Ford. He’s my friend.”
“I know that.”
“He made it clear I was to keep my distance. It doesn’t mean I was never attracted to you. I, ah, just wanted you to know that.”
“Well, thank you. I appreciate that.” She picked up her suitcase, but he took it from her and set it on the floor. He wasn’t done yet.
“I’ve always wondered . . .”
“What?”
“What it would be like to kiss you.”
She sniffed. “I imagine it would be much like kissing all the other girls you kiss.”
He flinched again. “I’m not a philanderer. Not like Ford says. I’m just trying to find the real thing, just like everybody else. And now . . . I really need to know if I blew my one chance at happiness.”
“Cody, don’t be silly—”
He ignored her. He stepped closer and pulled her into his arms. She didn’t fight it. When his lips touched hers, she remained quiescent, letting him explore. It was a nice kiss. Nice and sweet but . . . Yeah.
As with every other woman he’d held, every other kiss he’d tasted . . . it left him unsatisfied and bereft. Because she wasn’t Sidney.
It was the confirmation he needed, and he could see from Porsche’s expression, their kiss had validated something for her as well.
He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “Anything?” he asked.
She gave a slight shake of her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one who should be sorry.” He stepped away and moved toward the door.
She stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. “I do hope you find what you’re looking for, Cody,” she said softly. “And I do love you . . . just not in that way.”
He nodded in response; his throat had closed in. “I . . . understand,” he finally croaked. “And, thanks.” He did understand. More than she could ever imagine.
He loved her too.
Just not in that way.
And it was clear to him now, he would only ever love one woman in that way.
And she was gone.
***
The next day, Sidney called and spoke to Claire and gave her notice, citing the need to spend more time with her father.
It was bullshit and Cody knew it.
He tried calling her—she didn’t pick up. He went over to her house—her father insisted she didn’t want to see him. He sent flowers—she let them die and burned them in the front yard for him to find the next time he came by. The letters he sent her were returned to him in a large manila envelope, ripped to shreds.
After a month of trying, he had to accept the fact that she was too stubborn for him to reach. And after he got over his initial grief at losing her, anger settled in.
He had done nothing wrong, but she’d jumped at the first opportunity to break it off with him.
He could come to only one conclusion. Her feelings for him were not, and never had been, as strong as his had been for her. It sucked, but there it was.
If she’d really cared, really felt something, she would have at least given him a chance to explain himself.
“You gotta get back on the horse,” Cade said to him one afternoon, several months later as he and his brother walked from the barn back to the house. Both Cade and Claire had been complaining for weeks that he was impossible to work with, so this bull crap was nothing new.
He glowered at his brother. “Butt out.”
“I can’t. I care about you, and you’re in a bad way.”
“I’ll get over her.” Eventually.
“Will you?”
“Yeah.” Probably.
“But who wants to live with you in the meantime?”
Cody snorted. “I could always go sleep in the bunkhouse.”
“That’s not what I meant. Why don’t you just try dating someone else? Maybe you’ll be surprised.”
What a stupid idea. “Would you date someone other than Lisa?”
“That’s not the same thing. Lisa and I are engaged.”
“It’s exactly the same. If Lisa walked away from you, you’d be just as ornery as I am.”
“No one does ornery like you.”
Cody showed Cade his teeth. “Thanks for the compliment. And the last thing you’d want was another woman. Just some random chick. You and I both know how it feels to love someone. You can’t just bury it or pretend it doesn’t exist.”
They rounded the corner to the back porch, and Cade shot him a curious glance. “Have you tried reaching out to her again?”
“No point.” She’d made her position clear. And part of him had accepted that it was probably for the best. If she was that quick to judge—and with her knowing every check in his checkered past—they wouldn’t have lasted all that long anyway.
Sad but true.
He opened the screen door and they stepped into the kitchen where Claire, Lisa, and Porsche were seated at the table surrounded by froth. The women spotted them, so it was too late to escape.
“Perfect timing,” Lisa said. “We need a man’s perspective. Com’ere.”
Cade shot Cody a defeated look and plodded over.
Lisa held up swatches in two nearly identical shades of pink. “Which one do you like best?”
Cade frowned. “Neither.”
Lisa smacked his shoulder. “You have to like one of them.”
“But I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“They’re pink.”
“Pink is my signature color,” Porsche recited, as though she’d heard the phrase one time in a movie and liked it.
“Well, you can’t ask a grown man what shade of pink he prefers. It’s not . . .”
“What?”
Cade shot Cody a panicked glance. “It’s not manly.”
“All right, fine.” Lisa sniffed. “Then come over here and help us pick the flowers.”
“And why are we picking flowers?”
“For the wedding, silly.”
It was amusing watching his brother pale. Watching his Adam’s apple make the long journey down his throat and back again. “W-wedding? I-I-I thought we were going to wait until your mom could make it,” he said in a scratchy voice. “Did I miss a memo?”
“Not our wedding, silly.”
Cade’s gaze flicked to Claire. “You and Charlie? But . . . I . . . No one said anything.”
Claire blew out a breath
. “Honestly.”
“It’s my wedding,” Porsche said.
Cade’s relief was comical. “Oh! Congratulations, Porsche.”
Claire threw out her arms. “It’s going to be so grand.”
“And pink,” Cody felt the need to mention, considering the mélange on the table.
“And pink.” Porsche beamed at him. “I’m so happy.”
“Brandon is a great guy,” Cody said. And he was. In the last few months, he’d opened up a restaurant in town to rave reviews from the residents who were damned sick and tired of Bubba Burgers, and he’d started catering some of the dinners for the Stud Ranch as well. This took tremendous pressure off of Lisa. Which alleviated a ton of worry from Cade. Which made him stop griping to Cody. Which made everyone’s life easier.
More to the point, Ford had actually accepted Brandon into the McCoy Clan. It was practically a miracle.
For Porsche.
And Cody was happy for her.
He was.
“Cody?” He glanced up to find her gaze on him, solemn and steady.
“Yes, Porsche?”
“Can you come help me with something?”
He forced a grin. “Is it pink?”
She chuckled. “No.” She stood and hooked her arm in his and led him to the porch. He expected she needed him to carry something in from her car, but she tugged on his elbow and led him to the porch swing. “Sit.”
A man never refused an order issued in that tone.
“What is it?”
She perched on the edge of the swing so she could face him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Shoot.”
“I’m not sure how to begin . . .”
“Porsche, we’ve been friends our whole lives. I think you can just say whatever it is.”
She grimaced. “It’s about Sidney.”
All of a sudden, his casual demeanor faded. He sat bolt upright and stared at her. “What about her? Is she okay? Have you seen her? How is she doing? Is her father all right?”
Porsche leaned back a little and laughed. “Well, that answers one of my questions.”
He frowned. “Which was?”
“Are you still interested in her?”
Interested? Hardly the word. “What’s your point?”
“She’s not happy.”
His mood dimmed. “She’s not?”
“She hasn’t been for a long time. Oh, she pretends she is, but I can see it in her eyes.”
“It was her decision to break up with me,” he said, linking his fingers and staring at them.
“I know. But she’s . . .”
“What?”
“Difficult.”
He huffed a laugh. “Tell me about it.”
“She’s always been more complicated than most people.”
Complicated, she was.
“I always suspected she harbors some deep dark sense of being unworthy, unlovable. And that was why she was always so snarky. To cover it up.”
He lifted a brow. “Or maybe—just spitballin’ here—she’s just snarky?”
Porsche laughed. “It could be that too. But considering her sense of vulnerability, her stubbornness and her certainty that things will always go sour for her, I can see why she jumped to the conclusion she did . . . when she found two women naked in your bed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Did she tell everyone about that?”
“Pretty much.”
“It wasn’t my fault. They just showed up there. Christ.” Would he be tormented by that one night forever?
“And your shirt was unbuttoned?”
“I’d just taken a shower. I was heading to my room—”
“With champagne?”
“For her. I was going to set up this romantic scene. We were going to finally have some alone time together. But they were there. I was as shocked as she was.” Maybe more.
“See, I thought it was something like that. I told her it was.”
“But she didn’t believe you.”
“Of course she didn’t.”
“Why ‘of course’?” he growled.
Porsche laughed, some lighthearted trill. Why not? Her love life wasn’t in the shitter. She could afford to be all happy and gay. “Because I would have jumped to the same conclusion, I’m sorry to say.”
“Really? If you saw Brandon coming down the hall, toward a room of frolicking vixens, with a flagon of champagne, you would assume he was sleeping with them?”
She stared at him in shock. “Oh no. Of course not.”
“But—”
“If I saw you coming down the hall, toward a room of frolicking vixens, with a flagon of champagne, I would indeed assume you were sleeping with them. You.”
“Why?”
She laughed again. This time it was less pleasant. “Because it’s you, Cody. You do have a reputation, you know.”
“Hardly deserved.”
She snorted. “Very deserved.”
“I haven’t been with another woman since Sidney came back into my life.”
Oh crap. Had he really admitted that? Out loud? To Porsche? A woman who—next to Claire—was the honorary town crier? “You can’t repeat that.”
Her lips curled into a sly smile. “I won’t repeat it. It’s just what I wanted to know. Which leads me to my next question.”
Oh lord love a duck. How long was this torture going to last?
“If I could help you get back with Sidney, would you want to?”
His pulse jerked. His nape prickled. He stared at her, unable to speak.
“Well? Would you?”
Fuck yeah.
He sat up a little straighter. “What . . . ah . . . what are you thinking?”
Her gleeful expression was beyond wicked. It shocked him. He’d never seen this side of her before. “Well, my wedding is coming up, and you’ll both be there.” She pinned him with a sharp stare. “You will be there, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” If for nothing else, to watch Ford have to give his sister away. That alone would be worth the price of admission. But if Sidney would be there . . . damn.
Porsche smiled again, this time mysteriously, and patted his hand. “Excellent. Just leave everything to me.”
“Wait. Aren’t you going to tell me what you have planned?”
“No.”
“B-but . . .”
“Stop sputtering. I can’t tell you the details.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a man,” she said as though that explained everything.
“And?”
“You’ll screw it up.”
“I will not screw it up.”
Porsche rolled her eyes. “Trust me.”
Trust her? Porsche was a flibbertigibbet. It was insanity to trust her with anything, especially something this important.
“It will be fine, Cody. I promise. Lisa, Claire, and I will take care of everything.”
Oh hell.
That hardly soothed his roiling nerves.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Porsche,” Hanna breathed. “You look lovely.”
Porsche turned on the dais to check out the bustle on her wedding dress. She shot them all a grin and waggled it.
The bridal party—Sidney, Hanna, Claire, Lisa, and Ford’s wife, Crystal, and Brandon’s sister-in-law, Penny—were all sitting on the divan in the dress shop, sipping champagne and cheering Porsche on. She did look lovely. More than lovely. She glowed. While Sidney was happy for her, there was a slight roil of bitterness writhing around inside her, but she tried hard to keep it to herself.
Everyone had found their true love.
Hanna had Logan—the two had married in a quiet ceremony a month ago and had
just returned from a fabulous honeymoon in Paris.
Claire had Charlie. Lisa had Cade. Penny had Mark. Crystal had Ford. And now Porsche had Brandon.
She was the only one without a partner.
It was her own fault.
She’d given up on men months ago.
Which was for the best.
But it did make weddings awkward.
“I can’t believe it’s almost here,” Porsche said as she stepped down from the platform and sat gingerly on the sofa next to Sidney. Hanna handed her a glass of champagne, but Porsche shook her head. “I shouldn’t.”
Everyone gaped at her.
Porsche hadn’t turned down a drink since she turned twenty-one. And probably not even before that.
“Are you all right?” Claire asked, her eyes wide with concern.
“I’m fine. It’s just not a good idea to get drunk while I’m choosing the bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“Oooh.” Penny’s eyes widened. “Good point.”
The others laughed, and they all started chattering about hideous bridesmaids dresses they’d had to wear at one point or another. All but Sidney. Oh, she made all the right noises and smiled and pretended she was amused and all that crap, but it was hard keep from weeping.
She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though Porsche was stealing anything from her in her happiness. And she most certainly wished her friend nothing but the best. But it was hard to witness such a fairy tale blossom in her friend’s life when hers was so barren.
Oh, she had Dad and Mom. And she spent a lot of time with Hanna, Logan and the Wilders. She’d even started a business restoring and selling antiques on eBay that was doing brilliantly.
Still, her life was an empty husk.
She knew why.
She wasn’t a fool.
She missed him.
She missed him terribly.
She’d spent hours upon hours thinking about him, and her, and her past grievances against him and his against her. She’d run every scenario in her head six ways to Sunday. What if they got back together? What if she were able to put it all behind them and dredge up the courage to try again?