Tough Luck Hero (26 page)

“I mentioned it to you yesterday. That doesn't make it new. Just because you heard about it for the first time doesn't mean it's anything but business as usual on my end.”

“So what was the point of telling me? Are you just going to invest in something you don't even care about for the rest of your life?”

“I'm going to do the right thing. Because sometimes you have to stand by your family even if it isn't comfortable.”

His words had been chosen carefully to silence her. He knew that phrasing it that way would tap into her own guilt. And he felt like an ass for doing it, but really, there was no other choice.

“Your dad can't put someone else in charge? I don't believe that for one second.” Lydia, it turned out, was not so easily cowed.

“That isn't the point. It's the West family legacy. It can't be handed over to someone who isn't a West.”

“Your sister Madison isn't available?”

“He's not going to put Maddy in charge of the construction.”

“As if she couldn't do it? I've only met her twice, I grant you that, but I'm pretty sure she could order men around on a job site if she really wanted to.”

“Even if she could, my father wouldn't allow it. That isn't how it works. My family has been in Copper Ridge ever since the town's inception. Our ranching operation has passed from father to son over all those years. My father is hardly going to change it.”

“So what?” She said the word so easily, as if they could simply dismiss generations of tradition. As if they could wipe away an entire legacy.

“So, it's up to me to keep everything together. If I don't carry on the family legacy, then no one else will. If I don't stay and take care of my mother, my father certainly isn't going to do it. If I ostracize myself from him, then my sisters have to have another brother that's outside of the family. And we'll be splintered even more than we already are.”

“So you have to sacrifice everything for everyone else's happiness?”

He curled his hands into fists. “Yes. Absolutely. And it isn't like I'm unhappy. It's all ranch work. It's splitting hairs to care about whether it's at his property or mine.”

“It's not splitting hairs. It's splitting your dream.”

“Fine for you to get principled, I guess. You left your family.” He was pushing hard now. He was being something far beyond an ass. And he couldn't stop himself. Not now. “You left, so you don't see why it shouldn't be simple for me to do the same.”

“You think it was simple? You think it was easy to leave home? To gradually decrease contact with my family because every conversation was like walking back into the past? Because walking around my own home was like wandering through a mausoleum? If you think that was easy, if you think losing my sister to a terminal illness that ate away at her slowly somehow made my choice to try and find my own life simple? You're kind of an idiot.”

Her words hit him like a slap, echoed in the room, made him feel every bit the small, mean jackass that he was. “I'm just saying it isn't an option for me.”

“You're making it sound like talking to your father about you doing what you want is the same as cutting him out of your life forever. Which, by the way, is not what I did with my parents. I moved away. A lot of people move away.”

“Opposing my father does mean cutting him out of my life. Worse, it means cutting my mother out of it. And that's what I care about more than anything. She's lost enough. That's why we're involved in this marriage, in case you forgot. On my end? It's about protecting her. She can't lose another child. She can't have the family upset any more than it already is. You expect me to cause a giant rift while she's dealing with finding out her husband had an affair?”

“There's always going to be a wound, Colton.”

He pushed his hand through his hair, pacing the length of the room. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You're using yourself as a Band-Aid. Trying to cover everyone's pain, everyone's injury. But there's never going to be a point where everything is magically okay. There's always going to be another wound. But at some point you have to stop.”

“I can't listen to this. I have to work.”

“Oh, that's hilarious. I just have to sit here and braid my hair. I have to work too, but I feel like this is something we should discuss.”

She was getting too close to something. Something that he couldn't quite put a name to. Something he didn't want to think about too deeply. He clenched his jaw, taking a step back. “You seem to be forgetting, Lydia, we don't need to discuss anything. You're not my damn wife. Not really. Just because we're having sex doesn't mean it's different.”

And then he turned and walked out of her office, and he didn't look back.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

S
HE
WAS
BAKING
revenge zucchini bread. She had no idea if that was mentally balanced or not, but Marlene had brought five zucchinis into the office this morning, and Lydia had left with her arms full of the offending green vegetable.

And now she was in Colton's kitchen, up to her elbows in flour—flour she had purchased with her own money—putting together loaves of sweet, cinnamon-infused bread. Because Colton had said she wasn't his wife. So her very logical, noncrazy response was to go straight into his kitchen and act as much like a housewife as possible.

“You're crazy,” she muttered, pulling the first pan of finished bread out of the oven.

Yes, she was. It didn't stop her from baking.

She heard the front door slam shut. So obviously, her husband, who didn't think of himself as her husband, was home.

“Hi, honey,” she said, making her voice as singsong as possible. “I'm just in the kitchen.” Something evil entered her mind just then. “Barefoot.”

As suspected, he appeared very quickly after that. “And?” he asked, looking very concerned.

She smiled, letting the silence stretch between them. “And nothing,” she said finally, after he had gotten a little bit pale.

Were she in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant as she knew she had just made him suspect, she would be the one who was pale. He had a swing. She didn't want to swing, so to speak.

“What are you doing?”

She smiled even wider. “Baking.”

“Did you put arsenic in the bread?”

“Just cinnamon. That you know of.”

“Why are you in my kitchen baking me bread? I was an ass to you earlier.”

She threw a dish towel on the floor. “Because. I wanted to have you come in and see me being a 1950s housewife. I wanted to give you a heart attack.”

“Well, I don't believe you're here being domestic, so my first thought is that you're going to poison me. Congratulations, I do feel a little bit unsettled.”

She stamped, bending over and picking up the dish towel.

“You are horrible. And vile.” He crossed the space between them, advancing on her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up against him. Which he had a bad habit of doing. She narrowed her eyes. “Don't you dare,” she warned.

He didn't listen. His mouth crashed down on hers, his kiss hard, swift. Toe curling. “I'm mad at you,” she hissed.

“I'm mad at
you
.”

“Why? All I did was give you advice. Good advice. You...” She poked him in the chest. “You were mean and you said mean things.”

“And that was different to the way we interact usually how?”

She wiggled out of his arms. “I know that I'm not your wife, you moron. Not in a real way. I get that. That isn't where my advice was coming from. I thought that maybe we were... I don't know. Friends, maybe?”

“I'm not sure that I would call us friends.”

“Well—” she threw her hands up, then slammed them back down on the counter “—nobody else here knows about Frannie. You're the only one. And then, when I tried to help you out with your issues, you use that against me. How dare you do that to me? How dare you?”

His face changed. His expression suddenly looked...contrite. At least, she thought that's what it might be. She had never really seen Colton contrite, so it was hard to say.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “You're right. I shouldn't have used that against you.”

Her head was spinning. Because not only had he looked sorry, he had said sorry. One was rare enough; the other was basically unheard of. “Good,” she said, “you should be sorry.”

“Everyone in town knows that Gage left. So it isn't like you're the keeper of any of my deep dark secrets. But I've never talked to anybody about the position I feel that puts me in. So no one has ever tried to give me advice about it. It turns out, I don't like being told things that I already know, but don't want to do.”

“Well, nobody likes that.”

“Is the zucchini really poison?”

“It's revenge bread.”

“How is it revenge bread? Does it have itching powder in it, laxatives... Will it kill me?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “It's revenge bread, because I was trying to unsettle you with my housewifely ways.”

“You realize that's a really unappealing name for a baked good.”

“Then don't eat any. And my revenge will be complete.”

A smile curved his lips upward, and something in it drained the rage straight out of her. That smile, that slightly cocky, arrogant grin, used to wind her up like nothing else. It certainly wouldn't have defused her anger a month ago. Was the sex making her mushy? Was it just impossible for her to have a sex-only relationship? Maybe.

Except she knew that was selling it short. They didn't just have sex. They shared secrets on a swing, and he had told her about what he really wanted. About the children he hoped to have. It reluctantly made her understand why he had been willing to enter into a marriage that was less than a wild and crazy love match.

He hadn't seen much in the way of love being demonstrated. Not in his family. She understood what it was like to turn away from strong emotion. And she knew what it was like to grow up in a situation that was less than functional. So she could see why he had opted for something else. Why he had thought maybe the answer would lie in a sensible union. One with someone he was compatible with.

So that he could have kids to use that swing. So that he could have his home the way that he saw it, at least, as much as he could without feeling like he was betraying his family.

She really didn't want to understand him. The problem was, she did.

“I would like some of your zucchini bread,” he said.

“Fine. If you die it's coincidental.”

He only smiled again and everything inside of her sighed. He crossed the kitchen and retrieved a knife, cutting a slice of bread off the fresh loaf, and then another. Suddenly, her plan was backfiring, because she had a sexy man serving revenge zucchini bread to her. And it was not being served cold.

“Coffee?”

“Do you have anything sweet to put in it? I'm kind of a wimp.”

“I actually noticed that. I bought some peppermint syrup the other day at the store.”

And that right there made her internal organs feel like they were about to take flight. “Oh. That's...very nice.”

He flipped the switch on his electric kettle, bringing some water to a boil and starting a French press. Suddenly, she felt like the one who was getting a joke played on them.

This felt like the kind of domestic bliss she had spent years trying to avoid. Sharing space. Peppermint syrup in his house because she liked it. And he was preparing everything for her.

He pushed the plate of zucchini bread toward her, along with a small fork, and she accepted it, trying to ignore the warm sensation in her chest.

“Did you learn this recipe from your mom?” He was pushing for more information about her, and the fact that he cared made her want to give it.

“No. Marlene. My mom didn't cook. I mean, she never did. But, we did used to bake sometimes, before Frannie got sick. But not after.”

“I'm sorry. Again. For what I said.”

“No. You don't have to apologize. Everything you said...I've thought it. You're right. They lost a daughter, how could their only remaining child pull away so completely? I mean, I still speak to them. I call my mother once a week or so. But I just can't... All of the dreams that they had for Frannie and me ended up focused on me.”

“I can imagine that. I mean, to a smaller degree.”

“I needed to go to prom because Frannie would never get to go to prom. I needed to carry an extra rose at graduation for my sister who couldn't be there. And you know, before your wedding, when I was supposed to be a bridesmaid, my mother was angry, because I hadn't gotten married yet. My sister is never going to have a family, Colton. She's never going to get married. She's never going to fall in love. It's somehow up to me to do all of these things for her, and for her memory.

“And at the same time I'm not ever supposed to be too happy because we're missing someone. I'm missing a part of myself. I don't know how to be all of those things. So I had to come here where I didn't have to be anything. I had to come here so that I could find out who I was. Because nothing there was ever going to be mine. Not my life. Not my grief. I felt like I was half, but that was what I was always going to be for them, too. Like I had this vacant space they could pour into, to try and make up for what happened.”

She felt drained, saying all of that. Putting words to what had been inside of her for so long. That weight, that responsibility that had been placed on her, it was a part of everything.

“But you're right,” she continued, “I left. I decided that what they were asking was too much. And I don't know if I had that right. She's gone. Doesn't she deserve all of those things in her memory? Who am I to decide that it isn't important? Who am I to decide that I can move on if they can't?”

“I don't... I can't actually speak to loss like that. My brother left. He's still alive. As far as I know he's off doing exactly what he wants without giving any thought to the pain he's caused our mother, or to anyone else. I get to be angry at him. That helps a lot with the missing. So, if I'm wrong, and I might be, feel free to tell me to go to hell. But what does your sister get out of these monuments to her memory?”

“I...I just think it...it means so much to my parents...and it...” Everything inside of her felt frozen, completely seized up.

“I can't imagine the grief they must have gone through. But if the way they're handling it affects your life, what's the point? I understand you have guilt over being the only child remaining, the one that left. But it sounds to me like they're putting more into the child they lost than the child they have.”

He was speaking the words that she had felt deep inside for so long. The things that made her feel guilty. The anger that made her feel like a child on the verge of throwing a tantrum over something she didn't deserve to have. How could you be angry at people who were grieving? How could you be angry that a sibling was sick? How could you feel sorry for yourself?

“I just...” She felt like she was cracking apart inside, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “I wish that I could be strong enough to do everything they needed me to do. I wish that I could have been enough. That I could have filled both spaces. Instead, I couldn't even fill one. I had to leave. I couldn't... I just couldn't live that life.”

“You shouldn't have to.”

“That's as simple as me saying the same thing to you. Meaning, it isn't simple at all.”

“It sounds to me that you weren't allowed to have anything of your own,” he continued, ignoring what she had just said.

That was exactly the truth, and he had hit it head-on. Nothing had been hers. Not anymore. Not her happiness, not even her grief.

A memory pushed at the back of her mind, one that she tried to keep at bay. That day when Frannie had died, and she had been inconsolable. She hadn't even had the strength to fling herself across the bed and cry, she had simply gone to the floor where she'd been standing, weeping as though she'd lost a part of herself, because she had. Because she was destined to spend the rest of her life as an incomplete half. And she had known then as clearly as she knew it now.

“My father told me that I needed to hide my grief in front of my mother,” she said softly. “He told me that my grief couldn't compare to theirs. Because I had lost a sister, but they had lost a child, and that was the worst pain in the world. He said that my mother didn't need to be worried about me on top of dealing with her own pain.”

“Lydia,” he said, his voice tense, “that isn't fair at all. That doesn't... It doesn't work that way.”

“Maybe it doesn't. But that's the thing, Colton. Grief isn't rational. And in that moment, my father had lost his child and had a wife that had fallen apart. I think he couldn't handle me being devastated. He would never say that, but that's what I think happened. I think he panicked. Because the entire world was resting on his shoulders and he was in pain. And I had to...I had to be stronger for them. But that's... Nothing was mine. Not anymore. Not even my grief. I needed to go somewhere where things could be mine. Copper Ridge is mine. My house by the ocean, that's mine. It's my space. To feel what I want, to say what I want, to be what I want. And I guess that all seems pretty childish, but it's all I have.”

“I don't think there's anything childish about taking control of your life. Or realizing that you need something different than what you have.”

She shifted, feeling fragile, brittle. Everything felt like it hurt. She felt tender. New and strangely hopeful. Speaking these words out loud and having the world not fall around her. Telling someone and having acceptance, rather than judgment... It changed so much about what she thought. About how she felt.

It also made her want to hide, but she supposed that was nothing new.

It made her want to go to her house, her house that was her sanctuary, her self-created sanctuary that belonged to only her, and hide away from this man who seemed to be able to see down deep into her soul. Who saw parts of her that she didn't even know were there.

Parts of herself she had done a pretty good job of keeping hidden even from herself. But she had a tendency to want to show herself to him. Had a tendency to open herself up and let him see the dirty, messy things that she normally swept under the metaphorical rug.

“But maybe there is something a little bit childish about hiding most of your past from everyone you know, so that you never have to deal with it at all,” she said, looking down at her bread.