Tough Luck Hero (5 page)

“Do you know where I live?” she asked, as they entered town finally.

She looked at all the beautiful brick buildings, their facade like something out of an old Western, made completely and wholly unique by the nautical details that clung to the exteriors like ornate barnacles. And again by the ocean beyond them, gray with whitecaps rising and falling with the tide. That was Copper Ridge.

In case you needed to escape some sort of high-pressure situation you could scurry into the mountains or float away in the sea. It was one of the things she liked about it. Multiple escape routes. Not that she was paranoid, she was just a planner.

“No,” he said. He said it almost like he was pleased.

“I'm here in town,” she said. “Just past where the buildings end. On Hyacinth.”

She loved her sweet little home by the ocean. She had spent a good amount of time cultivating a nice garden, making sure every bit of it was cozy and comfortable, and absolutely for her.

“You won't be able to stay at your house,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“What?”

“You're going to have to move in with me,” he said, his voice steady as the road they were driving on.

“I...” Oh, well, she hadn't thought of that.

“We can't live separately. That negates the whole thing.”

“But we...we don't even... We can't even have a conversation without swinging wildly between stilted and hostile. How are we supposed to live together?”

“We just will,” he said, his tone shot through with steel. “I don't run from my mistakes, Lydia. I own them. I fix them.”

“If by
own
you mean
obscure
with a more convenient version of the truth.”

“My mother can't know this isn't real,” he said.

“Your mother...”

“Is still reeling from finding out about my dad. She was very close to Natalie. She poured everything into this wedding. It's been her therapy. So yeah, I'm with you. For now, this has to look as real as possible. That means you're moving in with me.”

She hated him and his infallible logic. “Why do we have to do that? Why can't you move in with me?”

Just as she said that, they pulled up to the front of her house. That at least was exactly as it should be. Pristine and well kept, the lawn green and freshly mown, the white fence newly painted, flowers matching the name of the street growing through the slats.

Her front porch was cheery, a wreath made of sunflowers hanging on the door, a bright red ribbon wound through the blossoms. There was a chair and table in a matching red that was just her style. She liked to sit out there in the evenings, with a blanket over her lap, listening to the sound of the waves on the rocks. This was her place. The most important place in the entire world to her.

“Because it's tiny,” he said, effectively dismissing the most important thing in her world with incredible ease.

“But it's my home,” she said.

“I have a ranch,” he said. “Not a huge operation, but I have livestock. And yes, I do have men to come work on the property, but I can't leave it abandoned. My property is big, my house is big. It will accommodate both of us better.”

She looked longingly back at her little two-bedroom. She couldn't really deny the wisdom of what he was saying.

Mostly because when she thought of Colton West's large, muscular frame filling up the tiny rooms of her house she got hot all over. She didn't need that. Didn't need memories of cohabiting with him there. That was one of the beautiful things about her house. It was a clean slate. It was all hers. She had never lived in it with anyone else, had never had to make any concessions to another human being within those walls. And she didn't intend to start.

So, on this, she had to reluctantly concede he was right.

“I can't... Not tonight,” she said.

He nodded once. “I have to figure out what to do about Natalie's things, anyway. My house has a few bedrooms, and she was using one of them. Tomorrow's soon enough.”

“Oh,” she said, slightly puzzled by what he was saying. But she imagined that when Natalie had moved out of whichever home she'd been living in before, she'd had to put some of her extra furniture somewhere. “I guess you have to get a hold of her.”

“Or, I just throw her shit out on the lawn,” he said, sounding cheerier than he had all day. The coarse language on his lips was odd, slightly jarring. He was usually much more...appropriate. Even when she'd first met him at Ace's he hadn't talked like a lot of the men in the group who used profanity like a comma. It just wasn't him.

“I don't think you should do that. Especially since you're trying to look like you're in control of the situation.”

“It might be worth it.”

“You won't think so later.” She had no idea. She had never felt passionately enough about someone to consider throwing their things outside and leaving them to rot.

For a while, she had had some feelings for Eli Garrett, Copper Ridge's sheriff. Those had been pretty strong. So she thought. But when Sadie had come into the picture she had fully realized just how little he liked her, by watching him interact with the other woman.

There had been no reason to keep after him at that point. She had her pride. And she had never seen the point of making yourself a crazy person over attraction.

It was funny, because on the surface Colton seemed a lot like Eli. Tall, broad, dark-haired and responsible. But whenever she had been around Eli a sense of serene calm had come over her. Whenever she was around Colton she wanted to punch him in the face.

“I'll... I guess I'll see you tomorrow,” she said, still feeling dazed when she got out of the car and stumbled up to the front walk. Her hands shook as she shoved the key in the lock, and they didn't stop shaking, even when she went inside and closed the door behind her.

She leaned against it, her heart pounding heavily. It was strange. Everything here was undisturbed. Everything here seemed the same. But in reality, everything had changed. And in that moment, she sort of resented her house for maintaining its calm, cozy order when everything inside of her was thrown completely out of whack.

She walked back toward her bedroom in a daze, staring down at the extremely feminine, floral bedspread and the matching curtains. She wondered what Colton's bed would look like.

“That,” she said out loud, “doesn't matter. Because you're not going to sleep in his bed.”

Just the thought made her stomach turn over violently.

They would get through this. Basically, they would be roommates. Roommates until everything with the election was sorted, and until all of the gossip over the Wedding That Wasn't died down.

And yes, then they would have to go through the very public process of a divorce, and that wouldn't be pleasant. But as long as they could remain amicable, she imagined the town could, too. By then, they would trust her in her position as mayor, and it wouldn't be so dependent on everything in her life looking stable.

Maybe. She hoped.

She flopped down onto the bed. “You are insane,” she said, her face muffled against the mattress.

She turned over onto her back and took a deep breath. No. She wasn't insane. She was in an insane situation; that much was true. But everything would be okay. Because she had a plan.

CHAPTER FOUR

“H
OW
IS
M
OM
?” Colton asked, settling across the small wooden table from both of his sisters. The Grind, Copper Ridge's coffeehouse, was in a lull between the early-morning, before-work crowd, and the retired set that would come and fill the tables sometime around nine. Which made it a safe enough place to have this conversation.

“Catatonic.”

If Colton was hoping to get reassurance from his younger sister Madison, he should have known he was looking in the wrong place. Sierra, the youngest West, was a better bet for reassurance—false or otherwise.

Evidenced by the fact she was currently glaring at Maddy as though Maddy had just stabbed Colton in the eye with the stir stick she was using in her coffee.

“It's not that bad,” Sierra said, lifting her tea to her lips, then frowning. “Cutting down on caffeine sucks.”

At nearly eight months pregnant, Sierra was in the throes of pregnancy discomfort. And making her husband fully aware of it, Colton imagined.

It still screwed with his head. That the baby of the family was the first one of them to turn into an actual adult.

“Well,” Maddy said, her voice crisp. “There you have it. Mom isn't that bad. Sierra's caffeine consumption however—”

“I'm round, Maddy,” Sierra said, her pale brows locking together. “Spherical. I'm entitled to complaints.”

“I'm sorry for your roundness,” Colton said. “But can we get back to my situation?”

“Your fiancée was horrible,” Maddy said.

“She was,” Sierra added. “Like...basically one of the servants of hell. And I'm sorry you got left at the altar, but it's really just more evidence of the fact that she's the worst.”

“The actual worst.”

“So forget about Mom,” Sierra said. “How are you?”

Both of his sisters had grown large-eyed. He shifted beneath their uncomfortably dewy gazes. “I'm fine,” he said.

He realized how true it was the moment he said it. He really was fine. Pissed, sure. Sierra was right. Leaving someone at the altar was a low move. There were any number of ways Natalie could have gone about ending things with him, and not ending them until the entire town had watched him get stood up was about the worst way to do it.

He was angry. Completely, justifiably so. But otherwise he really was fine.

“Right. That's why you flew to Vegas for one night.” Maddy was looking at him skeptically.

He gritted his teeth. He had to do this. There was no other option. And right then and there, he knew he had to lie to his sisters too. He didn't like it, but there really wasn't another way to play it. He didn't need them opposing him when it came to dealing with their mother. And, since his youngest sister was married to the town bartender, who was the commander of the town gossip hub, he had to be even more careful than he might have been otherwise.

“Well, I didn't just go to Vegas overnight for no reason. I went to Vegas to get married.”

“You're having a psychotic episode, aren't you?” Maddy's face contorted. “Please don't tell me that you married a stripper. If some Las Vegas stripper ends up with a portion of our inheritance because you married her without a prenup...”

“I did not marry a stripper. I went to Vegas with Lydia Carpenter.”

“You did what?” Sierra's voice had risen several octaves.

“I'm kind of surprised you didn't hear about it already.” He watched their faces closely, using their responses as a primer for what it would look like to confess all of this to his mother. Not to mention his father.

Though he didn't really care about his father's response. His father's sins were part of why he was in this mess. He had a feeling the scandal had influenced Natalie's behavior. More than that, it was one of the biggest reasons he couldn't afford to disappoint his mother.

“Why would we have heard about it? Did you print an announcement in the paper?” Maddy asked.

“Lydia may have...sent some texts.” He cleared his throat. “And I might have sent one or two myself.”

Maddy arched a brow. “And you didn't text your sisters. You got married in Las Vegas to someone that we barely know and texted a bunch of random people to tell them?”

“Texting decisions were made. They were not made entirely sober.”

“So, you got drunk and you got married in Las Vegas,” Maddy said, her gaze pointed.

“It doesn't matter if I was drunk or not. I'm married.”

“Wow,” Sierra said. “I really didn't expect you...”

He looked down at her rounded belly pointedly. “I'm not sure you're in a position to judge about drunken actions.”

Sierra's pregnancy hadn't exactly been planned. But then, her entire relationship with Ace Thompson had been more or less unplanned. And though Colton would never have thought his sister, the town's rodeo princess, would have worked with the flannel-wearing once-confirmed bachelor, he had to admit that they did.

“I'm in love,” Sierra said, flipping her hair.

“And I stand by my decision,” he said.

He wasn't going to go throwing around the word
love
. He hadn't done so even when he'd been engaged to Natalie; he was hardly going to do so now.

Maddy noticed. “So, you marrying the woman running against Natalie's father has nothing to do with...I don't know, revenge?”

Lost somewhere in the murky mists of time was the reasoning behind his decision to marry Lydia. Maybe it had been about revenge. He had a feeling when they'd started taking shots together in Ace's that it had absolutely been about revenge.

But after that? He couldn't remember a damn thing.

So he could pretty much give her whatever answer he wanted to and it wouldn't really be a lie. As long as it sounded reasonable.

“No. I've known Lydia for a long time. It's just that I was involved with Natalie and...”

“And you were going to marry another woman anyway? But then Natalie just so happened to leave you at the altar?” Maddy asked.

“I was committed to Natalie. But then she didn't show up for the wedding. And Lydia and I...”

“You were overcome?” Maddy pressed.

“Yes,” he said, turning his cup in a circle. “I was overcome.”

Colton had never been overcome by anything in his entire life, but if that was what Maddy needed to hear to accept the situation, then that was what he was going to tell her.

He was not going to tell her this was only temporary. He was not going to tell her that he had never felt much of anything but irritation for Lydia, and for some reason a little alcohol added to that mix had resulted in the two of them ending up in bed together.

Maybe he had been overcome. But not by emotion. And he wasn't about to explain that to either of his sisters.

Even with Sierra visibly pregnant, and married, he preferred to pretend that neither of them would have any idea of what he was talking about.

He didn't really have any idea of what he was talking about. Because he still couldn't remember.

“Anyway, obviously I'm going to have to have a talk with Mom,” he continued.

“Obviously. And maybe a therapist.”

“Thank you, Madison. Would you kindly refer me to yours?” he asked, a little bit of bite in his tone.

“My therapist quit and retired to the Bahamas with all of the money I paid him. He said it was really nice that working with me was so financially successful for him, but unfortunately he was going to have to use a good portion of that money to pay for his own therapy,” his sister said drily.

“Maybe it's just as well. Lydia is going to be moving into my house today. So I'll be a little busy.”

“This is borderline scandalous behavior,” Maddy said, her lips curling up into a smile. “How nice of you to join the rest of us in disgrace.”

“You know, you could work a little harder to look concerned for my well-being.”

“I'm just saying,” she said, lifting her shoulder, “it is a bit daunting to be the sister of Saint Colton West. And more than a little satisfying to see your halo get tarnished.”

He looked at Sierra. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding apologetic at all. “It is kind of nice to know that you can make impulsive decisions.”

“Impulsive, maybe. But I stand by it,” he reiterated.

“You're too stubborn to do anything else,” Sierra said.

It was easy for Sierra and Madison to sit there and give him side eye. Yes, Madison knew what it was like to be the center of a scandal. And the town, their parents and the dressage riding community had all been unkind to her when she had been caught in an affair with an older man when she was seventeen.

Colton had wanted nothing more than to break the other man's jaw. Before he killed him. Slowly. But far too many people had held his underage sister responsible for the whole thing.

Madison made a practice of laughing it off now, but Colton knew that she didn't really find it all that funny.

“I'm steady. All things considered, you should appreciate that. I'm not the kind of person to run for the hills when things get difficult.” It was always easiest to turn the condemnation to Gage. Their oldest brother had left town under a cloud years ago.

“So instead you ran off and married a near stranger.”

“I told you, Lydia isn't a stranger.”

The moment he said that he realized what a lie it was. He had seen Lydia out of the corner of his eye at events for years. Hadn't really started speaking to her until he'd gotten involved with Natalie. And then, every time they'd spoken, it had ended pretty badly.

He always managed to get her hackles up, and he didn't feel a whole lot more sanguine about her.

Of course, now he was going to be dealing with her long-term. In close proximity.

Maybe this was what happened when you spent years being responsible. Eventually, it all imploded and you made one decision that was
so
bad it rendered all the others useless.

And, thinking of said bad decision, he had to go yank it out of its den and force it over to his place. And he was imagining that was going to go over well, even though they had agreed on it yesterday. Why? Because he and Lydia couldn't seem to have an interaction that went well.

Actually, they either didn't go well, or they went
too
well.

He had the sudden impression of fingertips trailing over his bare chest and the sensation shocked his system like a bolt of lightning.

“Are you okay?” Madison asked. “You look like someone just let a hamster loose in your shorts.”

He frowned. “Thanks for that. I have to go.”

“In all seriousness,” Maddy said, standing as he did. “If this is a hostage situation, blink twice.”

“It is not a hostage situation. And that wasn't serious.”

“Really seriously now. You aren't having a crisis, are you?”

“I know what it's like,” Sierra said, rising slowly and unsteadily. “That feeling of just being...lost. This—” she pointed to her stomach “—this is where that ends.”

His entire face felt like it had been pushed into a barrel of bees. “This is different. Lydia is a completely sensible choice.”

“And is that all marriage is to you? A sensible choice?” Sierra asked.

“Why else would you get married?”

Sierra practically flailed. “Love?”

“Not you,” he said, looking at Sierra, then to Maddy. “You. Why else would
you
get married?”

“I wouldn't. So you're on your own here.”

“But if you did...”

“Obviously it would be for money,” Maddy replied. “And a big penis.”

Sierra snorted. “Nice.”

“Thanks for that,” he said.

“If you can't stand the heat, don't come into my kitchen,” Maddy said. “Or something.”

“I'll keep that in mind. Look, I'm going to make time to come by and see Mom. Until then, don't tell her anything.”

“Don't you think the news is going to make it through the gossip chain?” asked Sierra.

“The odds are high. But you said Mom was catatonic, so I'm assuming she's avoiding the garden club at the moment.”

“She's avoiding anything that isn't prescribed by her doctor at the moment,” said Maddy.

“That will probably buy me some time. Until I get a chance to sit down with her. And figure out how to spin this in a way that isn't going to cause even more trouble.”

“And until then?” Maddy tilted her head to the side, her golden-brown ponytail swinging with the motion.

“Until then...I have to deal with my wife.”

* * *

L
YDIA
HAD
JUST
hung her purse on the peg in her office at the Chamber when Sadie Garrett burst through the door.

“So. I'm going to need to hear this entire story from the beginning, with no detail spared.” She plopped down into the seat across from Lydia's desk, her blue eyes a little too keen for Lydia's liking.

“Good morning to you, too,” Lydia said.

“The greeting was implied.”

“We couldn't have done this over the phone?”

Over the past year and a half she and Sadie had become fairly close, which was surprising considering they had started out as romantic rivals. Okay, they hadn't really been romantic rivals. That implied that Lydia had ever had a fighting chance with Sadie's gorgeous sheriff.

All she'd ever done was pine. Without any subtlety. But she didn't want to remember that whole chapter of her life.

She was happy with the way things had turned out. She needed a friend more than she needed a boyfriend.

“No,” Sadie said, her voice getting shrill. “We cannot discuss your hasty Vegas marriage over the phone.”

“It's way too early in the morning to discuss my hasty Vegas marriage.”