by Kadie Scott
Ashley squeezed her eyes shut. Even now, warmth pooled low at the thought, and not from embarrassment.
Gah! What’s going on with me?
More memories surfaced as to why she went to the parking lot to begin with. That skunk, Mason. She’d gone out there to hide for a bit and he’d followed her. Jennings had stood up for her, even punched the guy in the face. Then, after she oh-so-daintily vomited in the parking lot, he’d brought her to her motel.
Her gaze flew to his. “Oh, my gosh, did you actually help me brush my teeth and take my hair down last night?”
He shrugged.
Ashley squeezed her eyes shut. Oh my God. He took care of me. She cleared her throat. “Thank you for…everything.”
A chuckle pulled her eyes open and her gaze to his again. “You sound like a little girl schooled by her mother to politely thank her host.”
Her thanks had been on the stilted side. She blamed the memory of that way-too-vivid kiss and the fact that, lying here with Jennings now, she wouldn’t mind trying it again.
Seriously. Alcohol has a lot to answer for.
Still. He had been good to her, not taking advantage of the situation or leaving her to fend for herself. Under the prick to her pride was the sinfully tempting thought that she wouldn’t mind him doing that more.
She stiffly rolled to her side, waited for the room to stop spinning, and laid a hand on his arm, warm and steady under her palm. “Sorry. I really do appreciate all your help last night.”
He gazed into her eyes for a long, achingly intense moment, and she held her breath.
“Wow, Hughes. When you decide to play nice, you go all out.”
“Why don’t you ever call me Ashley anymore?”
He raised his eyebrows as if she’d asked a crazy question.
“You only call me Hughes. Ever since high school.”
He gave a funny half-shrug and levered himself off the bed. “Yeah. I thought you liked it.”
She rolled her eyes as she carefully scooted up to sitting, keeping the sheet pulled up for modesty. No, he didn’t. He just liked messing with her.
“I need to get home.” He snapped up his keys and wallet off the bedside table. “You going to be okay without me?”
She repositioned a pillow behind her back and tried to ignore the slamming going on behind her eyes. “I’ve managed to reach this ripe old age without you, so I think I can handle it.”
His lips quirked. “That’s my girl.”
“I’m not your—” A knock at the door interrupted her rejection.
Before she could stop him, Jennings strolled to the door and opened it. “Hey, Taylor.”
Ashley groaned. Would pulling the covers over her head and pretending no one was there be childish? It had always worked for the monsters in her closet when she was a kid.
“Uh…hey, Jennings.” Her sister, freshly showered and dressed—making Ashley, who felt grimy and sweaty and stinky, feel even worse by comparison—poked her head inside the room, eyes wide. “Ash? We’re going to get breakfast tacos at Mas Fajitas.” She glanced at Jennings, who leaned against the door, perfectly at ease.
Ashley’s stomach heaved at the merest hint of a thought of a whisper of food. “I can’t eat right now. I’ll shower and check out. Call me when you’re done.”
“Okay. Don’t forget we’re going to the Christmas Festival.”
Forget? I wish I had that excuse. How could she forget what her mother had signed her up for?
If the military needed ideas for new forms of torture, they should talk to Linda Hughes. A quick peek revealed Jennings watching her curiously. This holiday just kept getting better and better.
Ashley held her expression carefully neutral, refusing to glance Jennings’s way again. “I remember.”
“Can I bring you back something to eat?” Taylor offered.
“No—”
“Hash browns,” Jennings overruled her.
“Um…” Taylor glanced between them.
Ashley frowned. “What?”
“Hash browns are a guaranteed hangover antidote. The greasier the better.”
“Why? Because they’ll make me throw up?” Ashley asked.
“You already did.” He walked her way, blue eyes playful in a familiar way she hadn’t seen in a decade and did not remotely trust.
She eyed him warily, and he held up a hand. “Trust me. Hash browns, aspirin, lots of water,” His lips hitched in a half-smile, dimple in his chin sexy as all get out, and his voice lowered intimately, “And call me in the morning.”
To her utter shock, he leaned down and planted a hefty kiss directly on her lips. A kiss she felt right down to her toes, and several other places. Thank goodness he’d brushed her teeth for her last night.
“See you Sunday…Ashley.”
Ashley had to catch herself from chasing his lips as he stood up. He sauntered, great butt and all, past an open-mouthed Taylor and right out the door. As the impact of that look—and the kiss—ebbed, irritation surged to take its place. What was he thinking with that display? Now Taylor would get ideas.
She was going to kill Jennings Hill Sunday when she went over to look over his books. In fact, forget that. He could find another accountant.
As soon as he drove away, Taylor swung around, grinning widely. “Ashley Hughes. You bad, bad girl.”
Chapter Four
Ashley shook her head with a put upon sigh, then winced. “Nothing happened.”
“Yeah, right. Last time I checked, the two of you butt heads any time you’re within a hundred feet of each other.”
“That hasn’t changed—”
Taylor wagged her finger. “Uh-uh. Don’t try that. The question is, was last night a random hookup? Or the beginning of a make-up and something special?” She sucked in a sharp breath. “The Hills will love that. So will Mom and Dad.”
Ashley opened her mouth to argue, but a subtle shift in her sister’s expression—pure relief combined with sparkling happiness—stopped her. No more of the pity or watchfulness like she expected Ashley to spontaneously burst into hysterics.
A brief flash of selfish irritation spiked. After two years, why is it on me to make Eric and Taylor feel better?
Ashley had done everything she could, short of signing in blood, to convince her family she was not only over Eric, but happy about the upcoming marriage. That much she was sure of, so why couldn’t anyone believe her?
Rather than refuting Taylor’s assumptions, Ashley sighed. “One night doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sleeping with the man is a decent start.”
“Or a one-night stand.” Always the more glass half empty of the two, Ashley couldn’t help but point that out. Not that anything had happened. “He’s still the guy who decided I wasn’t worth being friends with anymore.”
Taylor had had front row seats to that situation and how hurt Ashley had been by him. Although…hindsight told her she’d had more a role in how they’d torn apart at the seams than she’d copped to at the time.
She barely kept from shaking her head at herself. She’d picked the wrong guy. Thrown away a valued friend. For years. Not that Eric was a bad person, but she’d hung all her dreams—of living on her family’s ranch, getting married, and starting a family of her own—on him. Even when she’d felt them growing apart. Now that she was in Dallas, alone, and those dreams were so far out of reach, she’d fall over trying to touch them.
“Yeah. I guess that’s true.” Disappointment tugged at Taylor’s lips. She crossed the room and flopped down on the end of the bed.
Ashley grunted through a round of extra throbbing.
“Sorry.” Taylor squeezed her foot through the blanket. Then sat quietly for a minute. “Ash?”
Ashley gave a mental grimace. She’d come home late enough yesterday to just have time to get ready to go out. “Are you really okay with all this?” Taylor raised her gaze, her grey eyes full of worry.
This, at least, she could do. None of w
hat happened between Eric and Taylor had been on purpose or even behind her back. None meant to hurt her.
One broken heart was enough in their family.
The question was, what did she say to convince Taylor? They’d talked. She’d had both of them up to stay with her several times. She was the maid of honor in their wedding. But maybe opening up more might help.
“You remember two years ago after we graduated college and Eric and I moved home to work on the ranch?”
Eric’s parents had always lived in town, but the man loved ranching. Ashley claimed the role of financial manager, taking over for her father and giving him more time outside, which he preferred, an arrangement that worked for them both. Eric worked beside him along with Taylor, who had earned a degree in ranch management.
Taylor nodded, listening closely.
Ashley blew out a breath, trying to figure out how to put into words something that had been deeply personal. “Things felt off. Even then. Even before then. The last year of school was more like hanging out with a friend than the man I was supposed to love.”
Taylor plucked at the blanket, distracted. “But you acted like everything was fine.”
Ashley shrugged. “I didn’t want it not to be fine, and maybe Eric didn’t either. You know?”
They’d been focused on finishing school—knowing their relationship was off, but not how or why. Something she couldn’t put her finger on—a nagging feeling that wouldn’t leave her alone.
She’d assumed at the time her angst had to do with Eric’s not proposing. Given how long they’d been together, she’d expected a ring for graduation. When that hadn’t happened, and more time passed, each occasion that came and went without one got that much harder.
“Then we went to that New Year’s party two years ago.” The community put one on every year at the community center near town and the three of them had gone.
That was when she’d realized the problem. She and Eric weren’t in love anymore and hadn’t been for a long time.
Taylor bit her lip. “I know you broke things off with Eric after that, but you never said why.”
Here was the tricky part. Explaining that in a way that wouldn’t make Taylor feel guilty.
Ashley had been talking to a group of old high school friends she hadn’t seen in a while, not paying much attention to how long she took or Eric’s whereabouts, when their favorite song came on. She went in search of him, only to discover he and Taylor were already on the dance floor. They weren’t doing anything crazy, simply smiling and chatting as they danced.
“I saw you dancing with him, and I just knew.”
Taylor sat up straighter. “We didn’t do anything though. It was just a dance. I’d never—”
Ashley grabbed her sister’s hands. “I know.” God, she knew. No way would Taylor ever, ever have hurt her or overstepped, let alone cheated. Eric too.
“It wasn’t just that. I’d already realized I didn’t love him anymore. At the same time, I could see this connection between you.”
“How?” Taylor whispered. “I didn’t even know myself.”
Ashley just shook her head. There was no explaining it in a way that made sense.
They’d just been dancing, like Taylor said. Two people perfectly in sync without even trying. When Ashley danced with Eric, they managed to step all over each other. It had even become a bit of a family joke. But, with no effort, Taylor’s and Eric’s steps matched. He twirled her in an intricate series of spins without a single misstep, all while they talked.
Eric didn’t talk to Ashley that way or smile at her that way, like he couldn’t wait for more. The blatant chemistry between her sister and her boyfriend had smacked Ashley between the eyes. How had she missed it? Yet, deep down, hadn’t she always known? Those two were always laughing and sharing things. Nothing heavy. Goofy things. Ashley had been thrilled her sister and her boyfriend got along so well.
Just one more example of how her instincts when it came to relationships were total crap.
Three fundamental truths hit her at the exact same time that night.
Her sister—sweeter, more selfless—would spend her life hiding her feelings, even from herself. Eric—an honorable guy, a good man—would probably keep going and marry Ashley if she didn’t say anything. And finally, the hardest of all, was the realization that she should have damn well seen this sooner. Not Taylor and Eric necessarily, but the fact that she and Eric had been drifting apart for years. Maybe he’d sensed it too, and that was why he’d yet to propose.
All those dreams of family, and home, and the ranch—regardless of the current day’s standards that said women were somehow supposed to want more—had shattered. And she’d done the only thing she could think of that gave all three of them the distance they needed to figure stuff out.
She’d run.
Rather than ruin the party, she’d waited until the next day to break things off with Eric—a heart-wrenching, tear-filled conversation. Following that, she’d been frankly honest with her sister, telling Taylor in no uncertain terms that if Eric was the man for her, she should grab tight with both hands and never let go.
Taylor, stricken, refused to talk about it. So, with zero job prospects, Ashley had left for Dallas a few weeks later in mid-January to take herself out of the equation. Maybe it had been to lick her own wounds in private as well.
Hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. She’d spent the first three months finding a job, getting settled, and dealing with a pathetically constant state of tears. At the same time, underneath that pain, she’d had to admit that the tears were less about Eric, and more about her and the plans for her life that had evaporated like wispy fog. Not to mention all those wasted years.
“Here’s the thing…I won’t lie and say I wasn’t devastated.”
Tears immediately welled in Taylor’s eyes. Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, God. I knew it. You were always so cool about it on the phone or when we’d visit, but—”
Ashley shook her head, stopping Taylor before she got on a roll. “Not because of you, Tay. My choice, remember? It took a few months, but I realized after the initial shock that I didn’t miss Eric.”
Taylor slowly lowered her hands. “You didn’t?”
She might still be a hot mess wishing for a life that wouldn’t happen now, but this, at least was true. It had made things easier. “Not like I would if the love had been deep. Like it is with you two. I missed Mom and Dad, you, the ranch. I missed Eric’s easy friendship. But not… him.”
She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “I’m not making any sense. Am I?”
“So…” Taylor swallowed. “You’re really okay with us getting married?”
“I won’t deny that things might be awkward for a while, but it’s not because I still love him.”
Taylor bit her lip. “I hate the awkward between us.”
“Me too.” It was tempting to make it all go away with out and out lies, but she was human, despite her pending sainthood. “That’ll go away. And I promise that it makes me happy to see you happy.”
“Really?” A small smile tugged at Taylor’s lips.
“Really. Go out and marry that man.” She wrapped her sister up in a hug, her heart squeezing at Taylor’s happy laugh, edged with a small part of relief.
“Good. Because I really want to marry him,” Taylor said next to her ear as they hugged a little extra long.
She’d missed this. Their closeness.
Eric might not be the man for her, but he was a good guy, and he loved her sister. The awkwardness would go away eventually. “Now, go get breakfast. The girls have to be wondering where you are.”
Dabbing at her eyes, Taylor got to her feet. “Hash browns?” she asked, with a sly grin.
Jennings again.
Eric and Taylor had been the last thing on Ashley’s mind waking up next to him. A thought she immediately stuffed in the don’t-go-there category.
And the return of the speculative
twinkle in Taylor’s eyes, which got Ashley thinking. Would it hurt to allow her sister to think she was starting a thing with the cowboy?
All through high school, Jennings had been like a bad case of poison ivy. An itch she couldn’t scratch. Okay, so maybe he’d been proven right, and she’d worn blinders when it came to her boyfriend and their relationship. Plus, he’d apologized last night and taken care of her. But that didn’t mean they could find their way back to a friendship long gone, let alone some kind of faked relationship.
He didn’t deserve that, after all this time, and she couldn’t ask.
“Was he as good as rumor says he is?” Taylor teased.
Her sister’s relief that another guy was in the picture was telegraphed through her eyes, which brightened, and her smile appeared a tad easier than even after their talk.
Shoot. Maybe she could…
Two weeks of time-consuming wedding and Christmas festivities, during which she’d be busy, and then she’d be out of here. She could imply there was something there, then “break up” with Jennings later. He’d never know.
Or was this crazy idea her own desperation to at least appear to be a whole human being again, and not some wounded, cast-off woman?
She’d let the hangover wear off and think about this some more. Ashley waved toward the door. “The girls are waiting on you.”
Taylor laughed as she held up her hands. “I can take a hint.” Before closing the door completely, Taylor popped her head back inside. “Just one more thing… Does Jennings know about the bachelorette auction Mama signed you up for today?”
Ashley flopped back down and pulled the covers over her head with a groan. Double damn with a cherry on top.
*
Jennings hunched into his thick jacket as wind whipped across the large open field where he worked patching fences with his brothers. Autry and Will had been less than thrilled with the late start, but for some odd reason, after falling asleep and not leaving when he’d intended, Jennings had been reluctant to pull himself out of Ashley’s bed this morning, waiting to see how she woke up.