by Mia Ashlinn
Yeah, well, look who’s talking. I’m the queen of the damn robots. Well, not anymore, but still.
“We aren’t dating or anything.” Katie-Anne nervously fiddled with the knobs on the silent radio. “We’re just friends.”
“Eight times in fourteen days, and you two are just friends?” Shannon batted Katie-Anne’s hand. “You’re so full of mud.”
“It’s true.” The sadness in Katie-Anne’s voice called to her, telling her the story without words.
Oh! I see. “Shane doesn’t want to join in with you two.”
Katie-Anne’s face blushed an even darker shade of red. “Actually, Shane doesn’t know we are spending that much time together.”
Caught off guard, Shannon squeaked, “What? You two are hiding it from Shane?”
“Not exactly. We just go out when Shane is out with Leila. Landon doesn’t want to sit at home alone, and I don’t, either. He is in love with Shane, you know.” Katie-Anne’s wistfulness swept through the interior of the car, and Shannon wanted to cry for her friend.
“Everyone knows,” Shannon said gently, laying her hand on Katie-Anne’s arm, hoping to ease the pain her friend couldn’t hide. “He’s in love with you, too.”
Katie-Anne ignored the tail end of her statement, replying, “Shane doesn’t know.”
“Yeah, well. Shane isn’t always bright.”
Katie-Anne snarled. “Are you calling him stupid?”
“Cool it, tiger. Shane’s no dummy. He just hides his head in the sand emotionally.”
“No,” Katie-Anne disagreed vehemently. “He is a moron.”
“I can’t call him stupid, but you can? Talk about your double standard.”
“He’s mine. I can call him whatever I want.” Katie-Anne paled, going from blood red to a ghostlike white. “I did not say that aloud. Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Oh, hell. It’s just you.” Katie-Anne laughed, not sounding remotely amused. “No big deal.”
“I should totally be offended.”
“Yes, you should.”
“But I’m not.”
Katie-Anne smiled, a genuine smile, and remarked cheekily, “Surprise, surprise.”
Silence descended upon them for what could have been seconds or minutes or hours. It was too hard to tell. Shannon soaked up the companionable silence with her best friend. Then finally Katie-Anne inquired hesitantly in a barely audible voice, “Are you going to tell me about last night?”
Shannon’s mind floated back to last night, reliving it in her mind, and she smiled. “If you will tell me what’s going on, I will tell you what happened last night.”
Without taking even a second to contemplate it, Katie-Anne agreed. “Deal, but I know you, Shan. We need rules. You cheat.”
Shannon nodded with a self-deprecating smile, “That I do, my friend. That I do.”
“Why don’t we go back and forth so no one gets screwed over?”
“Sounds good to me,” Shannon replied.
“Ready. Set. Go.” Katie-Anne pointed at Shannon, indicating she should go first. Damn it.
“I fucked Jared, Drew, and Randy. Your turn.”
“Gray and Cade have a surprise for Jaycee. Your turn.”
“Figures.” Shannon rolled her eyes. “Jared and Drew drove me home. When we got to the apartment, I invited them in—”
Katie-Anne took her eyes off the road and wiggled her thin, sculpted eyebrows with enough flair that they appeared rhythmically over the top of her sunglasses. “Oooh, la, la.”
Childishly, Shannon stuck her tongue out at Katie-Anne, rushing to speak again so Katie-Anne wouldn’t hound her with overly intrusive questions. “Things got intense between the three of us, but I called it off before it got too far since Drew wasn’t there. But, then, he showed up. One thing led to another and…we fucked. Your turn.”
“Cade’s paperwork is complete. He’s officially a Blakemore. So, they are going to kidnap Jaycee—again—and take her to the Smoky Mountains to get married. But this time we are all getting kidnapped, too. You go.”
Shannon was having fun with this little back-and-forth, secret sharing game. “This is awesome. We should do it more often.”
Realizing it was her turn to tell her least favorite part of the story, Shannon disgustedly wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something vile. “Anyway, I fell asleep in their arms. Then I got up this morning and showered with Randy. When I went to my room to get dressed, Drew and I had this huge fight because, apparently, I apologized in my sleep last night.”
Katie-Anne chuckled. “Seriously?”
Shannon scowled, glancing down at her fingers in embarrassment. Nervously, she picked at the already too-short nails, chipping the polish in the process. “Seriously.”
“My turn?” Katie-Anne looked at her questioningly, but it was more a courtesy. Her friend wasn’t oblivious enough to have forgotten she was up to bat. “In about two hours, the three of us are going to be whisked away on our ‘bachelorette weekend.’ What Jaycee doesn’t know is that Gray and Cade are waiting for her in Tennessee. They are getting married in this quaint valley surrounded by mountains called Cade’s Cove.”
“Oh, I’ve heard it is beautiful there this time of year.”
“Yes.”
Shannon shivered, not wholly from the cool temperatures of early November in Kansas, and turned the heater up. “Drew stormed out.”
“Are you freezing or something, Shan?” Katie-Anne asked, half closing her vents with a dainty sigh.
“I’m a little chilly.” Shannon rubbed her hands right in front of the air vents, not because she was cold, but because it seemed like the thing she would have done if she were really cool. “I had a little tiff with Jared and Randy after Drew left, but it’s all good.”
Well, sort of, kind of, not exactly. Concluding she wasn’t being entirely truthful, Shannon tacked on, “Actually, it’s mostly good. We just have a few issues to work out.” Like she wasn’t playing games. They wanted her, and they were stuck with her, by God. However, Katie-Anne didn’t need to know that part. Can we say, TMI?
Fidgeting, Shannon increased the heat, turning the knob to the right until it clicked.
“Shan, you are burning my ass up. It’s forty-two degrees outside, not fourteen.” Katie-Anne turned the heater down but not off. “Damn, I guess it’s my turn again.”
Shannon nodded. “Yes, it is.”
“Gray and Cade arranged this whole wedding and honeymoon with Deke and Adam. That is why Deke is in Serenity and Adam is not. One of them had to coordinate with Gray and Cade while the other handled the details in person. Since Adam is from that area in Tennessee, he flew directly to the resort they own there.”
Instead of responding to Katie-Anne like she should have, Shannon blurted out, “I told Jared and Randy that I love them,” before she could change her mind and censor her confession. Her words were spoken so rapidly, they ran over top of each other in their haste to get out. “Your turn.”
Please, don’t understand me. Please don’t understand. Pretty, pretty please with a juicy cherry on top.
Katie-Anne slammed on the brakes, triggering the ABS. Their bodies hurled forward, coming into direct contact with the tightened seat belt that stopped them from flying through the windshield. Coming to a complete stop, they were hauled backward and flattened against the seats. “You what?”
“I told them that I love them.”
“Damn.” Katie-Anne gaped at her with wide eyes. “You told Jared and Randy, but not Drew? That doesn’t make a bit of sense, Shan.”
Shannon sighed, not wanting to get into this particular discussion but needing to talk to someone about it. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but when he told me—”
“Wait! He told you, and you still didn’t tell him?”
Give me a damn minute, sister!
“Let me finish, Katie-Anne,” Shannon countered sharply.
Katie-Anne sighed and started to drive again. “Please
proceed. I have a feeling I’m going to want to hear this.”
“When he told me, I kept thinking that it didn’t feel right. I know that I love him, and I know that he loves me. But I just feel like we are both holding back. I can’t describe it,” she babbled. “He has this piece of himself that I don’t know, that he hasn’t shared. And I have these secrets…”
Shannon took a harsh, uneven breath as she gathered her courage to continue. “I don’t say ‘I love you’—to anyone. You know that. Hell, today was the first time in years that I managed to utter the words, and it was because they just sort of popped out of my mouth. I didn’t have to think about it.”
The more Shannon explained, the more agitated she became. Wringing her hands in her lap, she forced herself to keep going. “For me, it’s this all-consuming thing. It’s the whole world. If he isn’t giving me everything, how can I give him everything? What’s to stop him from doing what he did this morning? He just walked away, damn it.” She choked up on the last sentence, tears welling in her eyes. “I told him that I would fight for him, and I will. But I can’t say those three magical words until I know from the bottom of my heart that it is the right time.”
Katie-Anne shook her head like she was physically clearing her mind. “How will you know?”
“I have no clue, but I will.”
“Um.” Katie-Anne paused, clearing her throat. “You know I’m here for you, right?” Leaving one hand on the wheel, she grabbed Shannon’s hand with the other and squeezed it so tightly that Shannon had to force herself not to flinch. “I would do anything for you, Shan. You and Jaycee are my best friends, and I love you guys dearly.”
Katie-Anne’s uncharacteristic display of emotion stunned Shannon, and she had no clue what to say or how to respond. She wanted to make some deep, meaningful comment to show how much it meant to her but, in all honesty, she was speechless. Her brain seemed to be at a total loss.
“Yeah, w–w–well,” Katie-Anne stammered as she released Shannon’s hand. “We’re almost to Gray’s.”
Katie-Anne turned into her brother’s driveway and goosed it. Her old persona reemerged with a vengeance, her face closing up and her eyes growing distant before they’d made it halfway down the gravel drive.
“Here’s the deal,” Katie-Anne said. “We have to pretend nothing is going on. Jaycee cannot know anything, not even the teeniest, tiniest detail of Gray and Cade’s plans.” She extended her arm, sticking her pinkie in front of Shannon. “Promise?”
You have to be kidding me. Shannon arched her eyebrow in disbelief.
“Do or die,” Katie-Anne threatened.
Clasping her friend’s dainty pinkie with her own, Shannon swore, “I pinkie promise to play stupid.”
Katie-Anne’s hand fell away. “That should be easy for you,” she remarked with a perfectly straight face. Then, a heartbeat later, she died laughing.
The tension in the car drained away, and they were completely back to their old selves. Thank goodness.
Playfully, Shannon huffed. “Bite me, bitch.”
Her scathing retort inspired more laughter from Katie-Anne. “You would like that too much.”
“If you had blonde hair, blue eyes, a sex-on-a-stick body, and a monster cock, then I would like it. Otherwise, not so much.”
Slowing to a crawl, Katie-Anne pulled up to the front of the house and came to a stop. “We’re here. Don’t forget. Bachelorette weekend in Vegas.”
Katie-Anne’s misplaced, pompous confidence was laughable. Shannon didn’t believe, for a moment, they could pull this off. Jaycee would grow suspicious and torment them until they spilled the beans or killed themselves. Her friend wouldn’t have a problem with either scenario.
Shannon snorted. “You seriously believe she won’t notice?”
“No,” Katie-Anne stated with conviction. “We are her distraction.”
“Oh, good. That’ll fix it.” Shannon inspected the lunatic who took up residence in her friend’s body, trying to determine what it was, because Katie-Anne couldn’t be that naive. “Not.”
An evil grin slowly spread across Katie-Anne’s face, blurring the angelic resplendence normally reflected there.
“You do know she is going to kick our asses,” Shannon said with a tinge of warning and a ton of worry.
Katie-Anne opened the door before stepping out of the car regally. “No. We’re helping her out. She’ll thank us.”
“Ha! You are delusional if you believe that crock of shit.”
Katie-Anne leaned back into the car and glowered at Shannon. She snagged her cell phone from the cup holder and said, “We are,” then backed out of the car, keeping her head low and shutting the door.
Shannon got out of the car and mounted the steps right behind Katie-Anne. “I know that, and you know that. But she won’t see it that way.”
“Sure, she will,” Katie-Anne declared, waving her hand dismissively.
Shannon imagined snapping Katie-Anne’s snotty hand, not with enough force to break anything but enough to twist it a little. Her friend’s easy dismissal and superiority complex really pissed her off. “Man, I hope Gray and Cade fuck her until she is too sated to murder us. I’m too damn young to die.”
Chapter 15
Drew flung open the door to Her Majesty’s Pleasure and hollered, “Hit me, Sam,” before his ass hit the bar stool. “Hard.”
“Man, we’re out of bourbon. You drank what was left of it last night,” the bartender, Sam Carrington, informed him with a pitying look. “Guess it didn’t go well, buddy.”
Drew cut his friend a look that said, “Back the fuck off unless you want to eat my fist for breakfast,” and grunted.
Sam threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. What can I get you?”
“Jack Daniel’s,” Drew replied, hoping that drink would be strong enough to drown the gnawing ache growing inside of him, demanding he go back on his hands and knees to beg for forgiveness.
After escaping, his anxiety had shot through the roof as reality set in and comprehension dawned. He saw that he’d overreacted a bit. Mentally, he chuckled in self-condemnation. A bit? That would be an understatement of epic proportions. He’d overreacted a lot.
None of this morning’s fiasco added up. She might have apologized in her sleep, but it couldn’t have been about fucking them. If she regretted it, she wouldn’t have been moaning in the bathroom with Randy first thing this morning. She wouldn’t have told him that she wasn’t giving up on them.
No, she would have thrown them out on their ears, probably naked and without the keys to their trucks. His woman was a spiteful, vengeful little thing who would keep his life colorful.
If she’ll take your stupid ass back. He had royally fucked up, and she would make him crawl, begging and pleading the whole way. Like the besotted fool he was turning into, he would do it for her, and her alone, if it meant he could have her in his arms and in their bed.
Damn, he didn’t even know how to apologize. It wasn’t like he’d done it before. If he figured out what to say and how to say it, would he even be ready? The jury was still out on that one.
“I’m so sorry.” Her words popped into his head, latching on and refusing to let go. God, he’d never known three words could hurt the way those three did. He’d thought the pain would surely suffocate him.
Okay, so he wasn’t ready to apologize, even though he knew she was right. He was scared.
God, he hated this. He felt helpless and confused, weak and out of control. Was this how his bastard father had felt when his mother closed him out? Were these emotions responsible for a father turning his aggression on his own son? He couldn’t answer those questions and neither could his dead scumbag father. Drew would go to his grave never knowing why his father abused him—and only him.
Drew rubbed his hand across his face, remembering every detail of the years he had sworn to never think of. He relived it and breathed it, the air poisonous to his lungs.
His
breathing became harder and harsher, each breath feeling more painful than the last. Air barely passed the massive lump in his throat, tightening his windpipe and choking him. He gasped for air, his mouth going drier than the Sahara desert and his lungs burning hotter than a forest fire.
No! I’m not that boy. I’m a man with a choice. And he had chosen to not go back there—in mind or body—years ago. It had been the right decision then, and it was the right decision now. He couldn’t live that way again. Then why did I dream about him last night?
Someone clapped Drew on the back, startling him. He wheeled around to find out who had approached him and found Katie-Anne’s friends, Ethan Bartlett and Brett Monroe. Those two, along with Sam, had created quite a stir in town. Shane and Landon were jealous. Gray was murderous.
Honestly, Drew had no beef with the three men, but they hadn’t given him a reason to. If they sniffed around Shannon like they had with Katie-Anne or played jealousy games with her like they had with Jaycee, he would be their worst fucking nightmare. His three friends combined would have nothing on him.
“Hey, boys,” Drew greeted coolly as if he wasn’t coming apart at the seams, as if the emotion turmoil wasn’t eating at him. “Want to join me?”
He preferred that they declined his invitation and got the hell away from him. But, of course, no such luck.
Brett, the big, burly former marine, took the stool two seats down from Drew’s while Ethan plopped down on the worn bar stool between them. Smiling congenially, Ethan said, “So, we heard your yelling match with that luscious lady of yours.”
Drew’s hackles rose and he growled reflexively, warning everyone around him. The bastard apparently did want to gain another enemy in Serenity. Bring it on, pretty boy.
Pouring the amber liquid into a highball glass, Sam placed it on the dark, glossy hardwood bar. Drew plucked his glass up and slung back the entire contents of the glass in a single, lengthy swallow. Relishing the blistering heat ripping down his esophagus, he slammed the glass down and demanded, “More, damn it.”
“Whoa there, big brother.” Randy strolled up behind him and laid his palm on Drew’s back, leaning over him and ordering, “I’ll take a scotch on the rocks, Sam, before you refill the lush’s drink.”
