by Mia Ashlinn
Katie-Anne wished that she could say that she didn’t understand, but she did. They’d had more than one fight that day, and he probably had reached the end of his patience with her. Just a couple of hours prior to their argument outside her car, she, Shane, and Landon had quarreled as they sat in the hospital and waited for Shannon to wake up. They’d jumped on her because she and Jaycee had gone to save Shannon, instead of sitting with their thumbs up their ass while the men went after her. Damn cavemen.
Katie-Anne muttered, “God knows you weren’t worried about me,” under her breath. But, apparently, she hadn’t spoken softly enough because Shane grabbed her elbow and pulled her away from Jaycee and Shannon. Her treacherous friends waved bye then walked down the hallway. Bitches.
“You don’t know what I was or wasn’t feeling,” Shane said testily.
“Oh, but I do,” Katie-Anne retorted. “You were probably relieved that I wasn’t here. That way you didn’t have to deal with the woman who tricked you after betraying you and stealing your best friend. Wasn’t that what you said?”
“I know what I said, Goddamn it,” he snapped, rubbing his tanned hand across his face wearily. “You don’t have to keep reminding me. I just want to fucking forget about that weekend and move on.”
“I’m sure you do,” she replied, her anger dissipating and hurt flaring to life. She reached into her oversized purse then pulled out an envelope and slapped it against his chest. “Maybe this will help you forget.”
She didn’t wait for him to reply before she turned sharply on her heel and stalked away, fighting back tears with her every step.
Chapter 2
Shane watched Katie-Anne storm down the long hallway to Gray’s den. He allowed his eyes to openly worship the beautiful body of the one woman he wanted above all others.
She was tall for a woman, standing only two or three inches shorter than him and another inch or so shorter than Landon. But, even with her above average height, she had a dainty air about her that only enhanced her ethereal beauty.
Her long, midnight hair billowed behind her as she moved further and further away from him, taunting him with the reminder of waking up next to her only a few weeks ago. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see how her hair had looked fanned out on the pillow between his and Landon’s or the way her turquoise eyes had opened languorously after a night in their bed.
If only they hadn’t betrayed him. If only he hadn’t driven them to it. If only he hadn’t fucked everything up by not giving them a chance to explain. If only, if only. Those words are going to fucking kill me.
As she disappeared, he recalled what she’d said and what she’d thrust at him. He glanced down at the manila envelope in his hands. Somehow he didn’t believe any papers could make him forget her or Landon or their betrayal.
And he was horribly right. When he pulled out the sheaf of papers, he knew that he would never forget because he was the betrayer, not the betrayed.
He was the one who’d married Katie-Anne, not Landon, when they’d been in Tennessee last month. Every cruel accusation he’d made the morning after their wedding night had been bogus because his alcohol-induced amnesia had distorted the truth and the chain of events.
Before now, his memory had no problem recalling him walking in the chapel and catching Katie-Anne with Landon in the middle of their wedding. And prior to this very second, his brain hadn’t allowed him to forget how he’d felt or the words he’d thrown. But everything after that had been blank—until just a few moments ago when he opened the envelope and saw the annulment papers inside.
* * * *
Six weeks ago, early November…
Sitting at a table in the nearly full bar at his foster brother’s east Tennessee resort, Shane attempted to drown his sorrows in yet another glass of Jack Daniels. But it didn’t dull his excruciating pain, nor did it blot out the memories tormenting him, just as the last glass hadn’t helped him or the one before that.
He stared straight through the glass in his hand, peering at one of the happy couples sitting at the table across from him. His eyes struggled to focus, but he still saw the two people—their whispered words, their stolen kisses, and their sensuous caresses. Everything about them screamed love and devotion.
God, that could have been me with Landon and Katie-Anne. If I hadn’t fucked the hell up.
Unable to watch the couple any longer, Shane turned way. He searched the room for something else to observe, but he came up empty-handed. The rustic room did nothing for him or his attention span.
With a sigh, Shane thought about something he’d always heard. He couldn’t count the number of times someone had told him that life could change in the blink of an eye. Well, they had been only partially right. It had taken him a bit longer than that. Maybe I’m just fucking special.
Glancing down at his watch, he mentally tabulated how long it had taken his world to be rocked then turned on its fucking side. For him, it was more like a blink of an eye plus twenty-nine minutes. Exactly one thousand, seven hundred, and forty seconds ago, he’d walked in on Landon and Katie-Anne in the middle of their godforsaken wedding. Wedding!
He’d seen the man he’d been in love with for twenty-four years at the front of a chapel, standing at the altar—without him. Every day of those past twenty-four years, he’d loved Landon. And every night, he’d dreamed of him. Only he’d never allowed himself to entertain the notion of being with him forever. Sure, he’d planned to be his best friend for life. And, sure, he’d planned to share a wife with him. But, when it came down to more than that, he couldn’t and wouldn’t do it.
Then there was Katie-Anne by Landon’s side, waiting to slip a wedding band on her ring finger. She’d been a thorn in his side since he’d moved to Serenity at the age of twelve. Not many people could say that they had a love/hate relationship with a two-year-old. Even at that young age, the precocious girl had driven him up the wall. But, as she’d grown, so had he. He’d grown to like her—even when she drove him mad. Then he’d grown to want her—even though she was everything he didn’t want in a woman. And finally he’d grown to love her—despite their drastic differences.
Regardless of the odds stacked against them, Shane had found himself deeply entrenched in her exotic eyes, her silky black hair, and her exquisite face. And he didn’t even want to think of that angelic body of hers. It had nearly been his undoing—on more than one occasion.
But Landon and Katie-Anne together was what he wanted. It was what he’d always wanted. It was what he would continue to want until he took his very last breath. Yet he’d been scared and ran from what they made him feel, what they’d made him crave.
Now that he’d realized what he wanted, what he had passed up time and again, Landon and Katie-Anne had each other. And Shane was left standing alone.
I deserve to be alone. I was a goddamn fool. At any point in time, he could have had them in his arms. He could have had his ring on Katie-Anne’s finger and his name attached to Landon’s. If only I’d asked. In spite of his knowledge of their feelings, he’d held them at an emotional distance, keeping them as far away as possible.
He threw back another shot of whiskey, luxuriating in the discomfort that came with the drink he’d taken. A rush of blistering hot fire flared to life before burning a path down his esophagus then settling in his empty stomach, leaving a searing heat in its wake.
“Another,” Shane shouted at the bartender who was filling the drink of another patron. The burly, long-haired man shot him a warning look, but he didn’t listen because he didn’t give a fuck about anything. All he cared about was something to numb his shredded heart. “Get me another goddamn drink.”
“No.”
Without turning around, Shane knew that voice—his backstabbing foster brother, Deke Andrews.
“You need to slow down.”
Yet again, Shane didn’t have to look at the person behind the voice. It was his almost brother-in-law, Adam Stanton, the double-crossing bas
tard.
Hanging his head, Shane refused to acknowledge either of them. Instead, he stared at his snazzy black dress shoes. Before long, he grew bored and had to search for something else to stare at. Since he was looking down, the only other thing to see was the oak hardwood flooring or the legs of the stool he sat on. That isn’t going to work.
Closing his eyes, Shane tried to forget what he’d seen. He attempted to will away the memories of Katie-Anne wrapped in Landon’s arms as he kissed her in a surprisingly tender display.
“You do know that you’re a jealous jackass,” Adam informed him, “and that you don’t deserve them after all of the shit you said in the chapel.”
God, he knew. Oh, boy, did he know. The things he’d said, the accusations he’d made, they were all inexcusable. Every vile word, every dirty look, they were wrong. Even though he’d been livid, he shouldn’t have responded the way he had. And the pain that seared his soul didn’t give him the right to launch an all-out attack against either of them. But he had. And now he was suffering the consequences—in a bottle of Jack.
Recalling that he’d run out of his whiskey, he hollered, “Where’s my drink?”
“You aren’t getting one,” Deke said coldly as he sat down to Shane’s left. “You don’t need it and, in the morning, you’ll regret it if we allow David to give it to you. So I’m just going to save all of us the trouble.”
On Shane’s other side, Adam took a seat. “Before you go fucking crazy, you need to listen to us.”
Shane snorted. “Why the hell should I? You were the fucking witnesses to the wedding of my best friend and my woman.”
“Yes we were,” Deke concurred, “but they didn’t get married, Shane. We knew that they wouldn’t. Otherwise, we would not have helped them. You know that.”
“What?” Shane asked.
“They couldn’t marry each other,” Adam explained, “because they couldn’t marry you, too.”
“You have to be lying.” God please let them be lying to me because if they aren’t, I’m quite possibly the biggest douchebag in existence.
“You know we aren’t,” Deke countered as he snatched up the empty glasses on the table and handed them off to the waitress without saying a word to her. “You just don’t want to admit it because you have too damn much pride.”
Shane raised his head. Glaring at his brother, he growled. “Takes one to fucking know one, asshole.”
Deke crossed his arms. “Don’t be childish, Shane. It’s unbecoming. You need to get your ass back down to the chapel and fix this. For some crazy reason, they still want you—even after all you said and did. They want you, and they love you.”
“I don’t get it at all,” Adam muttered. “I would have told you to take a flying leap into the Ninth Circle of Hell. After that little show of yours, you deserve it.”
Rotating his head to the side, Shane ignored the teeter-tottering room, and stared at Adam. “I know I do.”
And he did. The accusation he’d spewed ranged from lies to betrayals to cheating. The infidelity allegations had been outrageous, considering the fact that they weren’t in a committed relationship. Shit, they’d been laughable in a twisted, fucked up kind of way. And Landon had told him so.
Deke scoffed. “Stop being stupid and prideful, Shane. Leave this bar and your fucking pity party behind. Go after them before it’s too late.”
Shane wanted to. He really did. However, he couldn’t. His fears held him paralyzed. And the liquor wasn’t helping him at all. With his dulled senses and swimming head, he didn’t think he could make it there if he tried.
“I can’t,” Shane muttered, feeling his embarrassment seeping into his nearly numb cheeks. “I’d probably break my neck or kill myself if I tried to get down that steep hill right now. I think I had too much to drink.”
“Of course you can. We’ll help you,” Adam declared.
Shane smiled. Or he felt as though he were smiling. With the warm, tingling sensation in his face, he couldn’t be sure. Standing up, he stumbled slightly but, as his brother and Adam said, they were there to help him.
Ushering him out of the bar then out of the building, they helped him down to the chapel at the bottom of the hill. When they got there, the two men left him at the door, murmuring their goodbyes and well wishes.
Inhaling through his clenched teeth, Shane opened the door and made his way inside, tripping more than once as he did. His impaired eyesight made it hard to see where he was going, but he muddled along. And his heavy limbs slowed him down, but he still got to where he wanted—inside the chapel.
Scanning the sanctuary, Shane searched for Katie-Anne and Landon. Much to his shock and dismay, they were apart—far, far apart. On the left side of the flower petal covered aisle, Katie-Anne sat, hunched over with her shoulders shaking. Her hiccupping sobs were appallingly loud in the otherwise silent room. Continuing his search, Shane found Landon on the steps in front of the altar with his head in his hands.
I’m a real bastard. Clearing his throat, Shane attempted to garner their attention. When neither of them seemed to notice his presence, he mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
Immediately, they both reacted. Landon’s head came up at the same time as Katie-Anne’s swung to the side. Their shocked faces were eerily similar, and their gasps were oddly identical.
Recovering first, Landon surged to his feet and stormed straight for Shane. “You bastard,” he spat as he grabbed Shane by the collar of his dress shirt and shook him gently. “You have a lot of nerve to come back in here and apologize to us.” His face seemed to unexpectedly fall, a hurt expression drifting across his face then disappearing as fast as it came. “How could you believe those things of us? We are not the type of people who would hurt someone we care about. We would never lie or cheat. Yes, we went about this the wrong way, but we never once lied to you about it. If you’d asked me, I would have told you.”
Shane nodded. “I know, Landon. I overreacted.”
Katie-Anne got to her feet unsteadily and wiped away the evidence of her tears. She seemed to erase every ounce of emotion from her face as quickly as she had the moisture. With a stoic, impenetrable mask firmly in place, she strode over to them and swatted Landon’s arm. “Let him go. He isn’t worth it,” she declared.
Without questioning her or commenting, Landon released his death grip on Shane’s shirt and let him fall to the floor. In his intoxicated state, Shane wobbled a bit before catching himself. “I’m not worth it,” he agreed.
“Damn it,” she cursed, rounding on him. She moved into his personal space, going face-to-face and toe-to-toe with him. “Why do you have to be this way?”
Huh? What way? Cocking his head to the side, Shane frowned. “What way?” he asked, at a complete lost as to what she meant. “What are you talking about?”
She put her hands on her slender hips, unintentionally drawing his attention to the graceful curve which led his gaze down her long, lush legs. Returning his eyes to her hips, he found himself drifting upward and ogling her pert breasts before moving to her gently curved neck and ending at her lovely face. “I’m talking about you being nice and apologetic,” she said. “You’re supposed to be an asshole so I can hate you.”
By the time she stopped speaking, fresh tears were leaking from her eyes and trickling down her colorless face. Wiping at them harshly with her hands, she whirled around and gave him her back. “I have to hate you so I can walk away.”
Glaring at Landon with one of his ‘Dom’ stares, Shane silently demanded that he back the fuck off—which he inevitably did. As soon as Landon moved aside, Shane grabbed Katie-Anne. Swinging her around, he pulled her flush against his body. “Please don’t leave,” he pleaded without shame. “Please don’t walk away. Stay with me.” He peered over at Landon uneasily, meeting his pained blue eyes. “Stay with us.”
Katie-Anne froze, her tears abating in the face of his request. Scrutinizing him with eagle-eyes, she asked, “Why should I?”
Slidin
g his eyes closed, Shane sighed and gave her the God’s honest truth. “Because I love you, and I want to marry you. Because I want to make babies with you and grow old with you,” he admitted. There I said it. And it felt pretty damn good.
His chest loosened, a feeling of unanticipated freedom swooping over him and curling around him. Divulging that bit of honesty led him to push the envelope one step further. Snapping his eyes open, Shane peered at his best friend. “And because I love Landon—as much as you do. I want to do those things with him, too.”
Landon sucked in a noisy breath of air then let it go. “You do?”
Unwilling to release Katie-Anne, he nodded. “Yes I do. I’ve always loved you. I just couldn’t stand the thought of losing you if it didn’t work out.”
Landon held Shane’s gaze as he stepped around Katie-Anne’s body, trapping her between the two of them. “What makes you think it will work out now?”
“I don’t know,” Shane answered with a shrug. “I just have a feeling that we can do this. I have no doubt that getting married will be a hard road because we still have things to work out. And I know that I can be a hardass who will piss you both off as often as I make you happy, but I have faith in all of us.”
“I do, too,” Katie-Anne whispered, snuggling into both of their embraces. “We can do this. I know we can.”
Landon obviously hesitated. Averting his eyes, he stood there without speaking. Finally, he nodded his head. “Let’s do this. Let’s get married.”
Chapter 3
Present day, mid-December…
Landon reclined lazily on the couch in the Blakemore’s den with everyone in their inner circle of friends, excluding the two that mattered the most to him—Shane and Katie-Anne. Or, at least, he feigned repose.
Right now, he was too on edge to relax. Being so close to Shane was bad enough, but worrying about the missing-in-action Katie-Anne made his evening into a night of fucking perfection. It was quite possibly the best night he’d had in years. Not. And, to top it off, he was starving.