Breaking Hearts (15 page)

I’d designed a simple dress made of the softest crushed velvet with wide shoulder straps and a diamond studded belt at the empire waist. He was wearing a black three-piece tuxedo with a black silk tie over a crisp black shirt. Black was definitely his color.

Instead of voicing my desire to run home and hide, I smiled and ran a finger down his chest. “Well, it’s tough to keep up with you.”

“I should have let you convince me to stay in tonight.” He clasped his hands at the small of my back and leaned in for a kiss. Lost in the moment, it took a second after he pulled away for my vision to clear and notice Kelly standing beside us.

“Hey, Kell.” He stood at my side again, his arm still cradling my waist, and his thumb drawing a lazy back and forth trail on my ribcage.

Kelly leaned in. “Your sister is here, and she doesn’t look too happy with you.”

He shrugged as though he couldn’t have cared less. “She’ll get over it.” But he lowered his eyes and downed his drink. Hmm. For all his big talk, he had a nervous tic to one eye as the always radiant Jocelyn stopped to talk to Gatlin.

“She’s making her way over here.” I resisted the urge to hide behind his broad shoulders.

Simon lifted his chin a notch higher, poked a finger between his collar and his throat, then tilted his head to the side as Kelly spoke to me. “Don’t worry. She’s all bark.”

I nodded as Keaton and Jocelyn approached.

“Joss, you look really pretty tonight.” Simon ignored her glare by turning to shake hands with Keaton. “How’s it going?”

Keaton chuckled. “I guess we’ll see in a minute.”

Jocelyn aimed her displeasure at him a second before pointing it at me. “How long are you staying this time?”

“I bought a house.” What more did I need to say? People who purchased real estate didn’t usually up and leave.

“And there goes the neighborhood.” Her mouth turned downward, and she rolled her eyes.

“Jocelyn.” Simon shot her the one-eyebrow-cocked-scowl. She mirrored the look, and the tension in his fingers cut off my circulation. I pried his hand away, then flexed mine a few times before shaking the blood back into it.

“Joss and Keaton just bought a gorgeous place on Mother Goose Drive.” Leave it to Kelly to try to give us a common ground to stand on.

“Oh, what a pretty neighborhood.” I faked a smile, but I reached around and pinched Simon. At this point, he’d be lucky if he got a good night kiss ever again.

Keaton grinned. “This is going well. Don’t you think, Joss?”

“Dandy.” Clearly, Keaton wouldn’t be getting any that night, either.

“Simon”--Keaton’s boy band grin was still firmly in place--“let’s go check out the food. All this woman drama stresses me out, and you know, when I’m stressed, I eat.” And when he was happy…and sad…and tired…and wired, he ate.

Simon silently asked permission with his eyes. I nodded and received a kiss on the cheek for my trouble before he followed his best friend to a banquet table across the room. Jocelyn regarded me with the wariest gaze I’d ever seen as she took three steps away.

“Joss, wait.” I held my breath as she faced me. Kelly sucked in a loud breath. “I know, okay? I wouldn’t forgive me, either, but we both live here and neither one of us is looking to move away.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is…” I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.” I’d never apologized to her before and figured it couldn’t hurt the situation to try un-burning our bridge.

“It takes more than words, Danielle.” The crunched gravel of her voice ground out past her clenched teeth, but it didn’t deter my hope that someday, probably not soon, she would soften toward me.

Kelly stepped around us to the bartender. “Three shots of tequila.” Obviously, Kelly was either unaware or didn’t care I’d jumped on the path to reformation. Standing with Jocelyn’s anger in my face, I didn’t care too much for reformation myself.

“Great plan, Kell. Tequila is just what two angry chicks who hate each other need.” Jocelyn had one hand on her hip. The other accepted the drink.

“Yeah, Kelly. Pure genius.” I didn’t necessarily want to agree with Jocelyn, but my mind flashed with pictures of us engaged in one of those drunken girl-fights so popular on the Internet.

The flaw in Kelly’s reasoning didn’t stop us from accepting the next three rounds after the first. We walked outside together for some fresh air.

“How did all of this start between you two?” Kelly swayed as she held the door open for us, and Jocelyn reached out and grasped her around the waist. They took two tilted steps together.

I plopped down on the stairs outside the front double doors. Kelly sat between Jocelyn and me.

“She pushed me in a puddle in kindergarten, then she told everyone I pooped in my pants.” Jocelyn frowned, puffed out her lower lip. “They called me poopy butt until fifth grade.”

“That is
not
what happened.”
How dare she blame this on me?
Our feud started months before the mud puddle incident. I leaned around Kelly to give Jocelyn my best version of the stink eye. “Yes, it is.”

When satisfied we had both achieved a modicum of stability, I looked at Jocelyn. “No. No. It is not. We need to correct your warped little memory, right now.”

“There is nothing warped about my memory. Trust me. Poopy-butt is not a name a girl forgets.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t push you. It was one of the highlights of first grade for me. I’m saying it all started long before your ass ever got wet. Don’t you remember? You had your stupid slumber party, and I sat home and cried my heart out because my bestest friend didn’t like me anymore.” My own speech slurred, but I continued undaunted by my inability to be coherent. “You had these really cute Strawberry Shortcake invitations. And you gave them to everybody but me.” As though it had happened only a week earlier, hurt surged through me, and I sniffed as I blinked back tears threatening to ruin my mascara.

Kelly looked from one of us to the other. “This can’t-be-in-the-same-time-zone thing started over a mud puddle and a Strawberry Shortcake slumber party?” She shook her head. “Un-freaking-believable.”

I shrugged, but Jocelyn stood, staggered a step, then popped her hands on her hips. “I am not going to sit here and pretend like we’re friends. You slept with my husband.”

She had her facts wrong, again. “No. Joss. I didn’t. I tried everything, but your man is in love with you, and he always has been. I couldn’t budge the lock he put on his zipper. Nobody is ever getting in there but you.”

She shook her head and stared out at the sprinklers watering the lawn in front of us. “Bullshit, Dani.”

I held up a hand. “I swear. I couldn’t get him drunk enough to forget about you. I tried.”

“I’m sure you did.” But something in her tone--hope, maybe--said otherwise.

I shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever. It’s true.”

Kelly hiccupped, then looked up at Jocelyn. “I always thought you were taller.” She shook her head and stood. “He wasn’t your husband whether she slept with him or”--her gaze slid from Jocelyn across to me--“not. You weren’t with him and you forgave him, Joss. You should forgive her too.” Her words fell on Jocelyn’s back as she stalked to the door. Although, she held it open so we could enter behind her. She’d probably hoped only Kelly would follow, but she didn’t slam it shut when I came through. I took it as a peace offering.

We wobbled inside in heels far too high for tequila shooters to have been a good idea. Simon and Keaton still stood in front of the banquet tables gazing open-mouthed at the giant ice sculpture rendering of Gatlin’s anatomically correct, naked body dripping into a large silver pool. All the quitting, drinking, then drinking, then quitting, drinking, and drinking again played hell with my system, and I swayed unsteadily. Keaton shot me a look I shrugged off. Jocelyn took her place by her husband, who planted a sweet kiss on the edge of her upturned nose. Gatlin joined the group, then whisked me away to the far end of the dance floor. As he pulled me close, I put one hand on his shoulder and he laced our fingers together.

“I wondered when all that Simon love would bring you back to town.”

“Here I am,” I slurred, leaning heavily into him.

“Jocelyn looks happy to see you.”

“Pfft. I haven’t ever seen her when she didn’t look like was training for the Suck-A-Lemon Olympics. Tell me you don’t need more proof than her puss-puss face?”

“The air in the room changed when she got her first look of you. It’s good for her. Sometimes, we need reminded we aren’t universally loved.” He grinned. “Except me.”

“Of course.”

As we danced, he filled me in on the trials and tribulations of living in small town America as though I hadn’t grown up here. He moved from subject to subject until he got to Kelly. Then, his stance grew more rigid, his face colored with a dreamy she-is-too-good-for-me-look only guys who experience unrequited love in the movies get, and the tone in his voice dropped from happy to wistful. Apparently, Gatlin itched to evolve his way out of best-friend-zone with Kelly.

“You okay there, pal?”

He craned his neck and popped his eyes wide. “Of course. Why would you dare ask?”

I grinned. “You love Kelly?” I said the words in tune to a sing-song nursery rhyme. And I repeated them twice more.

“Of course I do. She’s my best friend.”

Ah, but his cheeks colored and the irrepressible Gatlin Reid couldn’t meet my gaze. “Gatlin?”

He wobbled his head from side to side. “Maybe I could see us together in a way that’s more hearts and flowers than basketball games and girl talk, but I need to know some stuff before I can even entertain a thought of being with her.”

“You’ve been entertaining thoughts all night, haven’t you?”

His warm breath tickled my ear as he whispered, “I never told anyone about that night.”

I patted his cheek. “Thanks, buddy.”

“But I have a calculator and a science book. Before I can move on with Kelly, I need to know.”

My mouth dropped open. It flat amazed me how many men were willing to step up and take responsibility for a child who might not have been theirs.

“Gatlin--”

Rather than ask me the question I assumed he wanted the answer to, he grinned. “Does he look like me?”

A chuckle bubbled through my lips. “Not even a little bit.”

He blew out in a loud whoosh. “Oh, thank God. I am not dad material.” He took a hanky from his pocket and wiped a few droplets of sweat from his brow. “Seriously, what a relief.”

I smiled and we turned a few more times, sloshing the alcohol in my stomach. He stopped mid-step. “I told you. You’re so taken.” He stepped aside as Simon pulled me close.

I ran a hand over his upper arm to his shoulder and around to wind a loose strand of his hair around my finger.

His chest rose as he breathed in deeply and fell as he released the air.

I rested my ear against his chest. “Did you sniff my hair?” I looked up at him.

“Of course not.” Then he smiled down at me. “Maybe a little.”

I laughed and he spun us. Jocelyn eyed us from her spot at the table.

“Did you and Jocelyn finally get everything worked out?”

Being in his arms made me not care and I shrugged. “I doubt we’ll ever get everything worked out, but we might be able to live in the same town without becoming an episode of
Cops
.”

He pulled a hand from my waist and caressed my cheek with his thumb. After an intense moment of gazing into my eyes, he lowered his head to deliver a toe-curling kiss.

Whether the alcohol, the kiss, or his arms holding me so gently affected my perceptions, I floated on a cologne-scented cloud of Simon and nothing, not his sister, or my big secrets, or my husband, could drag me back to the surface.

When he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against mine. “How could I have ever chosen anyone else over you?”

I smiled, caught up in the what-could-have-been of the moment. “I was a different person then.” My face heated as much with shame as embarrassment. “I’ve changed a lot since I had Kieran.”

“I wish I remembered more.”

I snuggled closer, my hands creeping inside the tux with him. “I’m glad you don’t.”

Our little chat outside turned out to be a big fat waste of time. Jocelyn didn’t warm toward me at all. She and Keaton stayed on one side of the room while Simon and I hung out on the other. Our men took turns having Gatlin race between us all, trying to keep everyone happy. Between the two groups, he probably walked ten miles at his own party.

I ended up having a lot more fun than I expected, between dancing and the giant ice sculpture falling onto its back halfway through the night. The last month had been peaceful, and I got complacent, forgot someone out there had been waiting for me to relax. I stopped watching over my shoulder.

It took one phone call to remind me of the far-reaching effects of my life with Sean. It came as I walked, heart pounding, from Simon’s car to my front porch. Across the front of my stone house, in reflective orange paint, someone had written the word “whore.” I read the poorly designed graffiti while my phone chirped inside my bag.

After yanking the purse open, I barked my answer without so much as a consulting glance at the screen. “Hello.”

“Honey, I redecorated.” Sean’s drunken purr fed the flames seething inside me. “Do you like it?”

If I’d checked the caller ID, I would have answered quite differently. “You painted my house? What the hell, Sean?” The fury lacing every syllable almost replaced my fear until I realized if he’d done it, he was close. I spun from facing the ugly word to run down the sidewalk, looking up and down the street for an odd car or the telltale glow of a cell phone screen. Finding nothing off about the quiet in front of me, I focused on his words.

“Don’t be a silly goose.” Another of Sean’s personalities came out for show and tell. “I don’t paint. And I damned sure as hell wouldn’t paint your house.” He said it with the disdain of a man who thought any form of manual labor to be beneath him. “But I had it done just for you.”

This had turned into a fun little game for him, a way to abuse me from across the country.