B00VQNYV1Y (R) (3 page)

He froze, arching one dark brow. “I think I’ll stay over here.”

She wasn’t entirely sure if she’d been propositioning him just then, or if she was being nice. The restless ache between her thighs, and the heaviness in her breasts told her she was probably propositioning him. Why did she still want Luke? It was so patently clear he didn’t want her. And making any kind of overt move would only compromise their friendship. If not kill it dead.

“You don’t have to.” She wanted to stuff the edge of the blanket into her mouth to make herself shut up.

“Yeah, I do.” His voice sounded strained, weird.

“Why?”

Silence settled between them. “Go to sleep, Mel.”

She was on the verge of opening her mouth to tell him she couldn’t, when a deep heaviness settled over her. She was only going to close her eyes for a couple of seconds. And then she was going to tell him exactly what she thought of all of his commands.

*

L
UKE DID THE
very meanest thing he could think to do the next morning. He threw the curtains back, letting the early morning sunlight flood the tiny hotel room. But he was sore, he was grumpy, and he felt very much like taking it out on Mel. She was, after all, the cause of a good deal of his problems.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

She curled more deeply into a ball beneath the thin, knitted blanket he had thrown on top of her last night, her blonde hair tangled up over her face.

She made a snorting noise and rolled onto her back, strands of hair stuck to her lips. She looked like a cautionary tale, and his body should respond accordingly. Or at least, should respond like it was looking at a friend and not a potential playmate. Sadly, neither was the case.

“Melanie,” he said, increasing the volume of his voice. “Mel!”

She startled, pushing her hair off her face, and opening her eyes. Then she grimaced, squeezing them shut tight again and rolling back to her side, burying her face in the bedspread. “Ow.”

“The morning after isn’t all that pretty, is it?”

“Why are you talking?”

“Because I’m a mean son of a bitch who spent the night on a couch.” After he’d felt the curves of her body pressed against him as he’d carried her out of the bar, after she had expressed anguish over not getting to hook up, and after she had told him that she was a virgin. He deserved a medal. A gold-plated one. No, a solid gold one that he could melt down into currency and pay off all his debt with.

A man who had been struggling with an inappropriate attraction to his best friend—a best friend who needed protection, not penetration—should not have to know things like that.

Though, he’d had a feeling she was probably mostly untouched. He knew her. He knew that she didn’t exactly date. Knew that she didn’t go out to bars, knew that she had a lot of hangups where relationships were concerned. But he didn’t think about it. He tried as hard as he could not think about her in those terms.

Trying
was not always
succeeding
, but he did try.

“You’re not mean,” she said.

He grabbed hold of her blanket, and pulled it from her body. She squeaked, and curled up more tightly until he could see a fair bit more of her leg than he imagined she wanted him to. “Care to revise that opinion?”

She slid toward the edge of the bed, her black skirt rising up to a dangerous point. And he shouldn’t be watching with keen interest, that was certain. He should look away.

He didn’t. He would consider it recompense for the night on the couch that he was absolutely too tall for.

She rubbed her eyes, smearing her already smeared eye makeup in an even more exaggerated fashion. She looked like a bleary raccoon just making her way out of a burrow.

“Oh yeah. I forgot about last night. You’re a jackass.” She rolled her shoulders forward and grimaced as she tilted her head to the side. “And also you took my blanket.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s nine in the morning.”

“Oh, damn!”

“Yeah.”

“I have cake stuff,” she said, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I imagine the cake can wait.”

“Bleh. I feel like I licked the inside of your boot.”

He snorted. “Yeah. Well, you can’t use my toothbrush so we better get your barely-covered ass home so you can use your own.”

She stood, wobbling slightly as she walked over to the door, where she’d discarded her shoes last night. She clumsily, and not very modestly, put the shoes back on, and he did his best to keep from taking in the whole show on offer.

His best, it turned out, wasn’t all that good.

“Let’s go,” she mumbled, unlocking the front door and opening it.

When the sunlight filtered in, she recoiled like a vampire, and he couldn’t help but laugh at her. She was a lightweight. Who’d probably never been remotely hungover before.

Considering the torment she’d put him through the past eight hours or so, he felt like he was owed at least a moment to relish her discomfort.

“Are you cold?” he asked. He could only enjoy her discomfort for so long.

“A little.”

The sun in Montana was still a little bit thin in May, not quite managing to warm the chilly mountain air around them. “Okay, hang on.” He reached toward the side table by the door and grabbed his leather jacket. Then he joined her outside, holding it out toward her. She just stared at it like he was offering her a headless lizard. “I’m trying to be chivalrous, dammit. Don’t make it so difficult.”

“What?”

He let out a heavy sigh and walked toward her, then behind her, draping the jacket over her shoulders. “See? Chivalry.”

“Thanks.” She opened the passenger door of his car and got inside.

He waited a moment before joining her, taking a breath of fresh air before he committed to breathing Melanie-scented air for the next few minutes. He closed the door and jammed his key in the ignition, starting the engine.

He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, but he heard her shifting in the seat next to him. “Oh my gosh!”

He looked over at her, and saw that she was examining her reflection in the mirror on the sun shade. “This is why they call it the walk of shame, Mel.” He put the car in reverse and pulled out of his parking space. “Clothes from the night before, in the woman’s case, makeup running halfway down her face, hair pointing every which way. And just think, if I hadn’t grabbed you out of Grey’s last night you would have been waking up with a total stranger looking like this. Except, probably naked.”

He kept his eyes on the road as he pulled out of the driveway and headed back toward town, but he saw Melanie fold in half in her seat, her head between her knees. “Don’t remind me.”

“Yeah, the broad light of day has a way of showing all the flaws from the night before. Lucky for you, you didn’t make a huge mistake. Because of me.”

“I wanted to make the mistake.”

He gritted his teeth. “Really? Even this morning, you still stand by that?”

“Yes.”

“See you were going to… You can’t do that, Mel. Your virginity is a big deal. You can’t just give it to some random guy in a bar.”

“That is exactly the right person to give it to!” She exploded. “I’m not looking to get married right now. But I need to not be some scared, awkward little freak, who jumps every time she sees her shadow. I’ve let my past become bigger than anything in the present. It’s not right. It’s not normal. I just wanted to deal with it and move on. I want to start dating. I want to be normal.”

“Why would you want to be normal? You’re better than normal. You’re you.”

She made a scoffing sound. “Well, better than normal means thoroughly untouched and more than a little bit lonely.”

For a full ten seconds he didn’t know how to respond. Mainly because he could see nothing wrong with her remaining untouched. He didn’t like to think of Melanie as a sexual being. Though, this seemed to be the week for experiencing uncomfortable revelations about the women in his life. Melanie was out in a mini skirt trying to hook up, Kaitlin was pregnant.

Oh, fuck. Kaitlin was pregnant. He had allowed himself to be diverted by the Melanie crisis last night. Frankly, he needed the diversion. Because if he dwelled too long on the Kaitlin crisis he would lapse into some kind of rage, and literally kill Beckett.

He couldn’t really see a downside to that right now, but he imagined later he might.

“I’ll take you back to get your car,” he said, needing the subject to change. Badly.

“Thanks.”

They made the rest of the ride back to town in silence, and Luke was grateful. He wasn’t quite sure when his life had turned completely upside down, or why, he only knew that it had. He was pretty sure it had started sometime around Sierra’s wedding. First of all, his youngest sister had gotten married. There was something slightly wrong about that. As far as he was concerned, she was barely out of diapers. But, given that Sierra had always been a wild child, it was a relief to have her settled in many ways.

Of course, he knew now that it was at the wedding that Beckett had made his move on Kaitlin.

Then there had been that strange moment with Mel. Out back in the field behind the building Sierra’s reception had been in. He’d been drinking a beer, settled back against the top rail of the fence watching the party through a window, watching his little sister dance wearing a bridal gown, when he was pretty damn sure he’d been watching her dance around playing dress-up in a princess dress just yesterday. Melanie had come out to join him and there had been this moment… Insanity, that was all that could explain it. Some kind of weird, emotional breakdown that happened because his baby sister had pledged her whole life to a guy that Luke had always thought was kind of a douchebag.

Whatever it was, there had been this moment where the reception had kind of gone fuzzy, the lights blurring out, the music seeming to fade away completely. Melanie had looked at him, and he knew that she hadn’t meant anything by it. Not Melanie. Mel, who had been his to protect from the moment he’d first seen her. And not just because her grandmother had commanded it. Still, even though he knew that hadn’t been an invitation etched onto her beautiful face, his body had taken it as one. And for one completely crazy moment he’d nearly leaned in and closed the distance between their lips.

Then he’d remembered who he was. Who she was. And he’d gotten a grip on himself just in time.

But after that she’d been invading his dreams in a way she never had before. Ever since then other women just hadn’t appealed. He’d gone as far as to bring a woman back to his apartment in Bozeman. They’d both been drunk, and ultimately, he just hadn’t been in the mood. He’d let her crash for the night though, because he was a gentleman even when he was kind of being a pig. Of course, that was the day Melanie had shown up to have lunch with him, and he knew that she’d seen the woman—whatever her name had been—leaving his house. He hadn’t figured it would matter much to her, but just in case she’d felt that strange tension between them at the wedding, he’d figured it was for the best that she thought he’d moved on from it.

Of course, that was before he realized she was attempting to hook up with a random stranger. Attempting to
lose her virginity
to a random stranger.

He
had
to stop fixating on that.

He spotted Melanie’s blue truck across the street from Grey’s and he pulled up behind her. “Well, I guess I’ll see you later.” He had no idea how long he was going to be in town. Until he was sure Beckett wasn’t going to do irreparable damage. Or, more accurately until Beckett had finished up the irreparable damage already done.

Someone would have to be here to clean up after him. And it would be Luke.

His parents would be as supportive as they could be. But he imagined they would take to the idea of Kaitlin having a baby out of wedlock even worse than they took the bombshell that he would be opening up his own garage. And they’d taken that pretty badly. You would’ve thought he’d murdered somebody rather than opting to skip college to go into the workforce.

He was a damn entrepreneur, and they were still angry at him for taking the hard road when they felt they’d spent years doing that so he didn’t have to. He couldn’t imagine how angry they would be with Kaitlin. The fact that it was Beckett’s baby would only make things worse. They blamed Beckett for a good portion of Luke’s not going to college. After all, Beckett had owned a stake in Shuller Automotive until recently. He was an accomplice as far as Luke’s mom and dad were concerned.

He couldn’t think about that just now.

“See you,” she said, opening the passenger door and getting out.

Before she could shut it, Luke reached across the car and held it open with his hand. “I’m going to be in town for a while, Mel. If I catch you down here again trying any more stupid shit, I’m going to carry you right back out again.”

She frowned and slammed the door shut, and he only just managed to get his hand out of the way in time. He watched her walk to her truck, and he realized quite a few of the shop owners were watching her too. He’d hazard a guess that they knew who she was. Hell, half of them probably knew who he was too. The odds of the rumor mill starting to churn were high.

Perfect. That was all he needed.

He waited until she’d gotten into her truck, started it, and pulled away from the curb.

Now that Melanie was handled, he had his family to deal with.

Chapter Three

‡

M
ELANIE HAD HEARD
it said that Hell was other people. She felt it was a little harsh to cast such a wide net over the entire human race. Melanie had an alternate theory: Hell was brides.

Perfectly nice, normal women transformed into beings of rage and woe the moment an engagement ring was slipped onto their finger. Then suddenly they started breathing fire, leaving scorch marks in their wake.

But, it wasn’t Melanie’s job to judge those women. Or dislike those women. It was her job to smile, make cakes for those women, and collect their money.