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“It’s true,” Alex chimed in, “they do. I go with ‘wounded war hero smiling bravely through my pain,’ and Liam...well, hell if I know why, but something about looking angry at the world seems to draw them in. You could work that angle, Cain.”
“I don’t want an angle to work,” he said, taking another drink, looking across the room to try to find the redhead again. She had sat down at a table with a couple of other women, and they were eating, laughing. Definitely having more fun than he was.
She laughed at something that must’ve been particularly funny, throwing her head back and making all that hair shimmer again.
He had to wonder if what he had just said to his brother was true.
“Planning on being alone forever?” Alex asked.
“I’m not alone. I have a daughter. You two don’t know anything about that kind of responsibility. I’m not going to bring women in and out of her life just because I want to get laid. It’s not responsible.”
“Plenty of people have kids and relationships,” Alex pointed out.
“Yeah, well, those people aren’t parenting Violet. She’s not happy with the move, you know that.”
“She seems happier since she got her job,” Liam said.
“It’s hard to tell with her.” His stomach tightened slightly as he thought about his daughter and all of the things he seemed to get wrong with her.
“We’ve all got shit to handle,” Alex said, taking a drink. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun too.”
“You don’t know from having shit to handle,” Cain growled. Then felt like a dick because for all that Alex played it down, he was a war hero, and given the fact he never talked about his years of service in a substantial way, Cain had a feeling Alex was pretty deeply affected by them.
It was the Donnelly way. The more it hurt, the more you laughed it off.
He forced his gaze resolutely away from the redhead. Because there was no point in fostering any fantasies. He had too much on his plate.
“So,” Alex said, “are you just going to sit here all night?”
“I was planning on it.”
“Okay. As long as we’re clear that it’s your choice, and we’re not abandoning you.” He stood up, clapping Cain on the back. “We’re going to go be social.” Alex picked his cowboy hat up from the table and placed it firmly on his head, then he and Liam headed over to that group of women they had pointed out earlier.
Cain shook his head, leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed. He wasn’t envious of them. In his opinion, they really didn’t understand what was important in life yet. They didn’t have anything bigger to live for. Not like him. He had Violet.
And, even when she was challenging, she was the reason he got up every morning. No, he didn’t envy his brothers. Or their so-called freedom. It was empty as far as he was concerned.
He took one more look back at the redhead, ignoring the tightening in his gut, in his groin. Yeah, he didn’t envy them at all. But while he saw their freedom as empty, his bed was empty too. And right now, he was just damn sick of that.
* * *
“HE’S CHECKING YOU OUT.”
Alison glanced up from her dinner, keeping her expression purposefully bland as she looked across the table at her friend Cassie Caldwell. “Who?” She knew who. She had felt his gaze on her while she’d been standing at the bar. She’d sneaked a covert glance when he had been talking to the guys he was with, and her heart had done some weird fluttering thing that had made her want to punch her own face.
“The really hot guy over there,” Cassie supplied helpfully. “Well, the hot guy in the plaid shirt who was sitting next to the two other hot guys.”
The guy wasn’t just hot. He defied such a paltry descriptor. He was broad-shouldered, with the kind of muscles that came from serious labor. He had dark hair, mostly covered by a black cowboy hat, and a square jawline that was visible even with the beard he was sporting.
He was gesturing broadly with very, very large hands that made her feel jittery sensations in parts of her body she preferred to ignore.
He was new, and in a town this size that was noticeable. But there was something familiar about him too.
He shifted in his seat and looked in her direction. Quickly. But she still caught it.
She averted her gaze.
“I seriously doubt he was checking me out.” Except she knew he had been, and she was processing the strange, giddy feeling that had come on as a result.
She hadn’t felt that in... Well, it had been long enough that she really couldn’t remember. Probably sometime back in high school when boys had felt new and exciting, and sneaking off with them had felt like exhilarating rebellion.
Before she had realized just how bad a turn that sort of rebellion could take.
“Well,” Cassie said with obnoxious authority, “he was.”
Alison shot her friend Rebecca a look, hoping that the other woman would back her up. Rebecca just shrugged. “Sorry,” she said, “but I think he was.”
“And?”
“Maybe you should go talk to him,” Rebecca said, flicking some dark hair behind her ear, her engagement ring glittering in the low bar light.
This was the problem. All of her friends were in relationships. Not just relationships, but the relationship. The real thing, the be-all and end-all, soul mates and all of that. Consequently, they had all turned on her. Even Lane, who had stayed home tonight rather than going out because she was spending the evening in with her best-friend-turned-boyfriend, Finn.
Before the great Sexual Finn Awakening, Lane had been the one who had understood Alison’s aversion to romantic relationships. But now that Lane had dealt with her own past trauma and moved on, she most definitely seemed to think that Alison needed to do the same. Though, she was a little more gentle than Rebecca and Cassie.
Barracudas were more gentle than Rebecca and Cassie.
“I’m not going to talk to him,” she said, taking a sip of her Diet Coke.
“Why not?” Rebecca asked. “Talking doesn’t mean anything else. It might be good practice.”
“For what? My future as everyone’s favorite spinster? I don’t need to talk to him for that, Rebecca,” she said drily.
“Suit yourself,” Rebecca said. “But he was looking at you. And that’s a nice ego boost if nothing else.”
Alison nodded begrudgingly and took hold of her straw, nudging a piece of ice up to the top of the glass and crunching it between her teeth. There, he probably wasn’t checking her out now. Who wanted to watch somebody noisily crunch ice?
Much to her chagrin, she looked back over to where he was—and, also much to her chagrin, felt a stab of disappointment when he wasn’t looking back at her. There was no reason to feel disappointed.
But the feeling only increased when he stood and made his way over to the bar, speaking to Ace for a moment before tipping his hat and heading toward the door.
Then he was gone. And she might never have a chance to talk to him. She didn’t know who he was. So he probably wasn’t local. Since she owned a bakery, and before that, had worked at Rona’s diner, which had been one of the more popular diners in town until Rona had retired and closed the place down, Alison was fairly confident that she could spot the out-of-towners.
He was probably one of the tourists that frequented the retail space Rona’s had been divided up into. He had probably been some rambling cowboy, just passing through town for a brief moment before moving on. And now she would never see him again.
Relief warred with a strange clenching feeling in her stomach. Something that felt a lot like temptation. Well, temptation had just removed itself. From her sight. Possibly from town. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to contend with it ever again.
“The only ego boost I need,” she said, dragging her gaze away from the door, drawing in a breath and forcing herself to calm down, “is for people to enjoy my baked goods.”
Rebecca and Cassie looked at each other and the corner of Rebecca’s mouth twitched.
Alison frowned. “I did not mean that euphemistically. I own a bakery.” She wadded up her paper napkin and threw it in their direction. It missed, rather grandly, and rolled sadly onto the floor.
“Sure,” Cassie said, smiling.
“My life is full,” she persisted, taking a bite of her side salad.
And if sometimes she felt a little bit wistful when she saw a handsome man, then looked at her life and saw nowhere to put him, well, that was understandable. Someday. Someday she would try to sort all that out. But for now, she was enjoying her aloneness. Enjoying her own company. Something she had absolutely not been able to do before her marriage had ended.
She had never wanted to be alone with her own thoughts, because she had hated that sad, small woman that she was. Almost as much as she had hated her husband in the end.
She had absolutely no regrets about her decisions. About the way she had chosen to move on.
One hot-ass guy in a flannel shirt and Stetson eyeing her up wasn’t going to change that.
CHAPTER TWO (#u4c65c955-b2e9-56f0-8268-8c30bc43b85b)
“HEY, Bo,” CAIN CALLED, looking around the kitchen and living room area for his daughter, who was on the verge of being late for her second week on the job. “Are you ready to go?”
He heard footsteps hit the bottom landing, followed by a disgusted noise. “Do you have to call me that?”
“Yes,” he said, keeping his tone and expression serious. “Though I could always go back to the full name. Violet Beauregarde the Walking Blueberry.” She’d thought that nod to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was great. Back when she was four and all he’d had to do was smile funny to get her to belly laugh.
“Pass.”
“I have to call you at least one horrifying nickname a week, all the better if it slips out in public.”
“Is there public in Copper Ridge? Because I’ve yet to see it.”
“Hey, you serve the public as part of your job. And, unless you’re being a bit overdramatic about how challenging your job is, I assume you see more than two people on a given day.”
“The presence of humanity does not mean the presence of culture.”
“Chill out, Sylvia Plath. Your commitment to being angry at the world is getting old.” He shook his head, looking at his dark-haired, green-eyed daughter who was now edging closer to being a woman than being that round, rosy-cheeked little girl he still saw in his mind’s eye.
“Well, you don’t have to bear witness to it today. Lane is giving me a ride into town.”
Cain frowned. He still hadn’t been in to see Violet at work. In part because she clearly didn’t want him to. But, he had assumed that once she was established and feeling independent she wouldn’t mind if he took her.
Clearly, she did.
“Great,” he said, “I have more work to do around here anyway.”
“The life of a dairy farmer is never dull. Well, no, it’s always dull, it just never stops.” Violet walked over to the couch where she had deposited her purse yesterday and picked it up. “Same with baking pies, I guess.”
“I have yet to sample any of the pie you make.”
“I’ll bring some home if there’s any leftover,” she said, working hard to keep from sounding happy. At least, that’s how it seemed to him.
“Are you ready to go, Violet?” Lane came breezing into the room looking slightly disheveled, Cain’s younger brother Finn close behind her, also looking suspiciously mussed.
Absolutely no points for guessing what they had just been up to. Though he could see that Violet was oblivious. If she had guessed, she wouldn’t be able to hide her reaction. Which warmed his heart in a way. That his daughter was still pretty innocent about some things. That she was still young in some ways.
Hard to retain any sort of innocence when your mother abandoned you. And, since he knew all about parental abandonment and how much it screwed with you, he was even more angry that his daughter was going through the same thing.
Though she was actually a little more well-adjusted than he’d been.
Sometimes he was almost tempted to take the credit for that.
Not that it was very great credit. His own mother had been a drunk gambling addict when his father had left, so the threshold for being better than her was not a high one.
“Ready,” Violet responded.
Even though it was a one-word answer, it lacked the edge usually involved in her responses to him. He supposed being jealous of his brother’s girlfriend was a little bit ridiculous.
“Have fun,” he said, just because he knew it would irritate her.
He had lost the power to make her laugh. To make her smile, with any kind of ease. So, he supposed he would just embrace his ability to irritate.
At least he excelled at that.
He could tell he had excelled yet again when she didn’t smile at him as she left the room with Lane.
“Wait,” Finn said, walking past him and grabbing Lane around the waist, turning her and kissing her deep.
It was all Cain could do to keep from groaning audibly. Between his horndog younger brothers and his incredibly happy other brother he felt like sex was being thrown in his face constantly. Except not in a fun way that involved him having it.
Just him watching other people get it.
Lane and Violet left, and Finn walked back into the living room. “I’m going to marry that woman,” he said, the self-satisfied grin on his face scraping at Cain’s current irritation. He had a feeling he and Finn had the same smile. But it had been so long since he’d actually smiled it was hard to say.
“Have you asked her yet?”
“Not officially. But I’m going to.”
“She might not say yes,” Cain said. He was feeling like an asshole, so he figured he would go ahead and be one. “Or, worse, she might say yes.”
Finn was not deterred by Cain’s bad mood. “I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“That’s a long time. Trust me. Married years are different than regular years.” He had way too much experience living with somebody who didn’t even like him anymore. Way too much experience walking quietly through his own house so that he could avoid the conversation that needed to be had, or avoid the silence that seemed magnified when the two of them were in the same room.
He didn’t think Finn would suffer the same fate though. Finn and Lane had known each other for years, and they had been friends before they were a couple. Cain and Kathleen had been stupid and young. He had gotten her pregnant and wanted to do the right thing, instead of doing the kind of thing his father would do.
All in all, it wasn’t the best foundation for a marriage.
For a while, they had tried. Both of them. He wasn’t really sure when they had stopped. He couldn’t blame her for that part. For the silence and the nights when it was easier to pretend he was asleep when she slid between the sheets than it was to try to make love with someone who didn’t have two words to say to you.
Ironically, he would be thrilled to make love with someone who didn’t have two words to say to him now. But hooking up was different than marriage. At least, he vaguely remembered that it was.
