For two months, let Piper believe that you can be content with just one woman. A good, decent woman who you already respect. You might be surprised how much happier and complete that can make you feel.
Everything inside Eden went still.
“Turn the page over,” Nico instructed.
It wasn’t necessary. The already had said it all. “Brenda wants you and me to pretend to be a couple,” Eden concluded.
“Turn the page over,” he repeated.
Even though Eden was certain of what she would see written there, she did as he said and flipped over the paper. It wasn’t her name, though, but it was one from very recent memory.
Well, crap.
The name Brenda had written as Nico’s intended mate was none other than the perky-butted Mimi Bakersfield.
CHAPTER THREE
“MIMI?” EDEN CHALLENGED.
Nico heard the surprise in her voice. That same emotion was in her expression, too, but as he expected, it quickly morphed to anger.
“Mimi?” she repeated, her tone a little harder now. “Brenda thought Mimi should be the woman of your dreams? The ideal female to prove to Piper that you’re not a bad influence?”
He’d never considered himself a genius, but Nico was smart enough to know that Eden’s venom wasn’t solely aimed at Brenda and her poor choice of candidates for his potential partner. Eden’s feelings about her ex were also playing into this.
Nico’s foster mom hadn’t known that Mimi had been seeing Damien and was now engaged to him. Also, Brenda almost certainly hadn’t been aware that beneath Mimi’s often-prim attire was the body of a woman who could ignite jealousy and hurt in Eden.
“Why the heck wouldn’t Brenda think of me for something like this?” Eden went on. “I’m a good decent woman who you already respect.” She stopped. “Did Brenda know about my blog?”
Nico quickly shook his head. No knowledge of what Brenda would have considered a dirty blog. And since Eden wrote under a pseudonym, Brenda wouldn’t have guessed if she’d just happened to come across Naughty Cowgirl when she’d been surfing the net.
“I suspect the reason Brenda didn’t suggest you is because she knows we’re friends,” Nico explained. He further suspected that Brenda was trying to do some matchmaking. “Maybe Brenda believed if I spent two months with Mimi that I would come to my senses and stop sleeping around.”
“More like you’d start sleeping around with Mimi,” she grumbled. Then she stopped again. “Did you ever have sex with Mimi?”
“No.” He couldn’t say that fast enough.
And he thanked his lucky stars that Mimi and he had never crossed paths sexually. Eden had been waylaid with news of the engagement, and it wouldn’t have helped for her to hear that her best friend had banged her ex-husband’s fiancée.
On a heavy sigh, Eden slumped lower on the sofa. “What are you going to do? What will you tell Rayelle?”
Both good questions. Nico didn’t have the answers. Well, not the answers that would please anyone anyway.
“I’d already decided to give up sex,” he reminded her. “Of course, Rayelle isn’t likely to believe I’ll be able to actually do that.”
“You can do it,” Eden piped in. “You can,” she repeated when he looked at her.
Yeah, he could. Still, ending the casual sex was only the tip of the iceberg.
“I can think of better ways to spend a summer other than under Rayelle’s watchful eye,” Nico went on, and he was being generous with “watchful.” The woman was a prude and would scrutinize his every move. Along with all the moves of everyone else in Coldwater. “Plus, folks around here know how I am, and even if I try to clean up my act, Piper would soon hear about my unclean past.”
Eden’s sound of agreement was quick. So quick that it stung a little. But then Nico was already coming face-to-face with the fact that he hadn’t led a life that would have pleased Brenda. And it sure as hell wouldn’t please the persnickety Rayelle.
It clearly wasn’t pleasing him, either.
The words in Brenda’s letter burned into him. He’d always described his lifestyle as fun and not doing anyone any harm. But it had obviously given Brenda some uncomfortable moments about her possibly not having raised him right. She’d probably felt that way not just because of his string of sexual partners, but also since she could have seen this as his inability to commit.
“Put roots on your boots,” Nico muttered. “Brenda used to tell me that’s what I needed. That by chasing women I was actually running from my past.”
Eden made another sound of agreement, causing Nico to turn his head toward her and scowl. “You’d rather I lie to you?” she asked.
Maybe. He was feeling a little raw and bruised right now. But he had to shake his head. Eden was the one person he could count on to tell him the truth. That grounded him in a way that nothing else could.
“You had nothing to do with your mother running out on you,” she continued a moment later. “You were just a kid, and she was messed up on drugs. That still doesn’t mean it won’t haunt you. She’s like those little wisps of breaths in cold weather. Nothing much to it, but you can’t stop it. Thankfully, the wisps are gone before you know it.”
He frowned because it sounded like something she’d once said in one of her blog posts. Still, it was true. His druggie mother’s leaving had forced him and his brothers into foster care. Not together at first, either. Nico had ended up with Brenda, but her place hadn’t been big enough for four boys so his brothers had been placed in other homes. That had gone on for two years until they’d finally gotten moved together. That had meant Nico leaving Brenda and being placed in a hellhole where one of the caregivers had nearly killed him.
That was another of those wisps of “breath” that haunted him.
Brenda had saved him then, too, by reporting the abuse and working to get the Laramie brothers all moved to a good home with Buck McCall in Coldwater.
Even though everything had worked out in the end, a therapist would probably conclude that Nico’s inability to form lasting relationships with women was because of abandonment issues. And the therapist would be right.
“So, you’ll talk to Rayelle and tell her not to bring Piper here for the summer?” Eden asked.
Nico nodded. That was pretty much the plan he’d come up with since Rayelle’s visit. The trick would be to convince Rayelle to ditch the deathbed promise she’d made to her only sister.
Yeah, that would be fun.
“I’ll go see Rayelle,” Nico explained.
Though part of him wanted to chicken out and call her instead. He wouldn’t. This was something better done in person. Then he could square things with Piper along with checking on her to see how she was dealing with Brenda being gone.
There was a knock on the door, and as if he’d been hit with a cattle prod, the cat sprang off the floor, running toward the sound.
“It’ll be Damien,” Eden grumbled, and she clearly wasn’t pleased about that. Unlike Miss Kitty, who started to howl and claw at the door. “The cat must be able to smell him or something because he always acts like that whenever Damien is nearby.”
Nico stayed put, but several moments later he got confirmation that it was indeed Damien when he came in carrying the tabby. Miss Kitty was purring and bumping his head against Damien’s chin, and it was obvious the cat was the only one in the house who was glad to see him.
“It’s not your week to have the cat, and I didn’t invite you in,” Eden snapped.
“I noticed that. But I thought I should check on you.” In contrast, there was no heat in Damien’s voice. Just sympathy. Which was probably genuine. That wouldn’t make Eden any happier about this visit.
“I’m fine,” Eden snarled, proving that she was as far from fine as possible. She was spitting mad, maybe at Damien’s just waltzing in. Maybe becaus
e her ex still caused her to feel, well, whatever she was feeling.
Damien shook his head, throwing in a “hello” to Nico before he turned back to Eden. “You’re upset. It’s all over town that you were crying this morning.”
Nico wondered how Damien could know so little about Eden. That comment was like tossing gasoline on a fire, and Nico got to his feet to try to put out some flames before this turned into a full blaze.
“I’m sorry it upset you when I told you about Mimi,” Damien went on before Nico could speak. Still stroking the cat, Damien strolled into the living room, glancing around as if looking for signs of any changes she’d made to the decor. “I didn’t mean to blurt it out that way, but I knew you should hear it from me.”
“Eden’s fine about Mimi and you,” Nico lied. “She was upset about Brenda’s death. That’s why she was crying.”
Damien stopped in his tracks, his gaze volleying from Nico to Eden. “No,” Damien concluded as if any deep emotion just had to be because of him.
“Yes,” Nico and Eden said in unison.
Damien dismissed that with a grunt, walked to the coffee table and glanced down at the laptop. “And now you’re having trouble answering your blog. The only time that happens is when you’re upset about me.”
“I’m not having trouble with the blog,” Eden insisted.
But that didn’t stop Damien from reading over the response she’d written to Pleasured in El Paso. “You should tell her to keep the fire alive with the two-grip hand job for her man, and then explain in detail to her how it’s done. That’ll add some spice.”
Eden gave Damien a look that could have frozen Lovey Dovey in Abilene, but that didn’t stop the man. Obviously, he was accustomed to giving Eden sex advice—even when the advice was unwanted.
“If she wants to spice up the honeymoon, she can add nipple clamps and a cock ring,” Damien added. “Of course, you haven’t had any experience with that,” he said to Eden, “but you fake a lot of the advice.”
Then with that zinger fired, Damien practically did a double take when he saw the way Nico and Eden were staring at him.
But Eden was doing more than just staring.
She was seething, and Nico didn’t have to guess that she was about to say something she would soon regret. Despite her anger, she still cared for Damien. She was hurt. And when she spoke to him, it would likely be the pain that was talking.
Nico didn’t mind Damien getting a little verbal flak, but he knew that the only person it would end up hurting was Eden. That’s why he hooked his arm around Damien’s shoulders and got the man moving toward the door.
“Come on,” Nico insisted. “We need to talk.”
“I can handle this,” Eden protested.
Nico had no doubts about that. No doubts, either, that he could handle it without having a meltdown. And he could do it in a way that would smooth all of this over and get Damien out of her face.
“Let me fix this for you,” Nico whispered to her. “Please.”
He figured the “please” would do it. That, and the fact that Nico rarely asked her to take a step back about anything. But the sight of her tears was still way too fresh, and he didn’t want her going through that again.
Despite the cat’s howl of protest, Damien plopped Miss Kitty on the sofa and headed toward the front door with Nico. Of course, Nico didn’t give Damien much of a choice about that because he kept his arm around him and practically muscled him out onto the front porch. Nico braced himself for Damien to complain about the strong-arm treatment, but the man only shook his head and sighed.
“I hate seeing Eden like this,” Damien said, and that took some of the angry wind out of Nico’s sails. “It brings out the worst in me.”
Nico hated seeing her like that, too, and it was impossible to put the blame for her broken heart solely on Damien. Yes, Damien had walked out on her, but if he’d stayed, there would have still been hurt since it was obvious Damien no longer loved her. Nico wasn’t on Damien’s side of this breakup, definitely didn’t like the way Damien had handled things, but Nico was holding on to hope that this would be better for Eden in the end. She deserved better.
From inside the house, Miss Kitty continued to howl, and Nico could hear the feline clawing at the door. That couldn’t be pleasing Eden since he was her cat. She’d had him for several years before marrying Damien.
“I don’t think Eden can get past us,” Damien continued, still shaking his head. “I don’t think she’ll ever get over me.”
Well, that sounded more than a tad arrogant, but for the moment, it was true. Eden wasn’t past them, and Nico wasn’t sure if she would be anytime soon. He also knew Eden was listening.
Or rather trying to.
She probably had her ear right at the door, and that’s why Nico did a little more strong-arming and got Damien off the porch, through Eden’s postage stamp of a yard and onto the sidewalk.
“What the hell happened between you two anyway?” Nico asked. He’d already put that question to Damien in various ways since the breakup, but he hadn’t been satisfied with any answer he’d gotten from the man.
Damien lifted his shoulder. “I just got bored with her. And don’t tell me you don’t understand that. Your attention span for a woman is like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Yeah, it was, but then Nico had never been married. If he had, he would have figured out a way to deal with the boredom.
“You loved her,” Nico pointed out.
Damien shrugged again. “Sure, but love can’t get you past sleeping with the same woman night after night.”
Nico was certain he looked at Damien as if he’d sprouted an extra nose. “Then why the hell would you get engaged or married again if you feel that way?”
“Because it’ll be different with Mimi,” Damien answered without hesitation. Without convincing Nico, too.
Oh, Nico was certain that Damien believed that “different” theory, but Nico knew that Damien hadn’t been able to stick with one woman when he’d married Eden. And Nico doubted that Damien would stick to Mimi, either. But that wasn’t his rodeo, wasn’t his ball-busting bull.
“I just need Eden to be okay,” Damien went on. “Then, I’ll stop feeling like shit. People will finally stop looking at me as if I’ve stomped all over the town’s good girl. You and I both know she’s not that good. Not with that sex blog she writes.”
The sex blog didn’t make Eden good or bad in Nico’s eyes. It just made her the author of a sex blog. But he figured most folks, including her parents, wouldn’t feel that way.
“Eden just needs time,” Nico said, remembering that his job here was to make this better for Eden. That meant making Damien understand that he shouldn’t repeat his dick-like behavior. “And maybe it’d help if she didn’t run into Mimi and you for a while. You know, until she can get used to the idea of you starting a new life with another woman.”
“I can’t stop her from running into my fiancée. Not with Mimi still living and working here. Plus, the only way Eden will get used to our marriage being over is for her to see Mimi and me together.” Damien huffed again. “Eden and I have been divorced for six months. That should be plenty enough time for her to have moved on.”
“You two dated from the time you were thirteen,” Nico pointed out just as quickly. “That means you were together for nearly seventeen years.”
Something that Nico couldn’t even fathom. But in a way it endorsed his own lifestyle. After all, if Eden and Damien couldn’t make it work after all that time, then maybe he was right to stick with his one-week stands.
Nico geared up to drive home his point about Eden needing more time, but he stopped when he saw the cruiser approaching them. His brother, Kace, was behind the wheel, and he eased to a stop next to them.
“Everything okay?” Kace asked.
“I was about to
ask you the same thing,” Nico admitted. There was a bandage just above Kace’s left eye, and the Equality for Rodeo Heifers sign was on the backseat of his cruiser.
Kace ignored his comment, and he aimed a darn effective cop’s stare at Damien. “Eden’s neighbors called,” Kace told him. “Three of them. They seemed to think there was some kind of trouble going on here.”
Damien cursed and threw his hands up in the air. “See? This is what I’ve been talking about. All this crying and moping that Eden’s doing is causing people to gossip. It’s putting folks off being around her.”
Nico hadn’t reached that same conclusion. Yeah, Eden had been crying. Maybe doing some moping, too. But it wasn’t putting people off. The calls to Kace had likely been because Nico had taken the discussion outside, which could have led the neighbors to believe that Damien had needed some cooling off. That, in turn, could have caused them to have some concern for Eden. In other words, the opposite of putting folks off.
“We’re just talking,” Nico told his brother.
Kace was darn good at that cop’s stare. So good that it always made Nico want to confess to something just to get him to look away. It seemed to have the same effect on Damien.
“Eden’s practically falling apart without me,” Damien stated like it was a fact. “She won’t get on with her life because she wants to punish me, to get back at me for leaving her.”
Well, that was bullshit. Eden was hurting, period, and her crying spell hadn’t had anything to do with getting back at Damien. Just the opposite, since Eden hadn’t wanted a soul to know about it.
Apparently, Damien felt the need to just keep on confessing. “I can’t be sucked into Eden’s drama,” he continued. “It’s not my fault that no other man is interested in her.”
And Nico felt it then. The breaking point. He rarely felt the rise and churn of temper this fierce, but he was sure as hell feeling it now. There’d been a couple of other times he’d wanted to punch Damien, but the want was turning into a fast need.
“Excuse me?” Nico snarled. “No other man is interested in Eden?”
Sweet Summer Sunset Page 4