Inked Persuasion: A Montgomery Ink: Fort Collins Novel

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  He didn’t, but he liked making fun of me. I stuck out my tongue at him. “Weirdo,” I teased.

  “Maybe. But as I’m the one who is driving, and it’s my car, you get to follow my rules. And I’ll do you the courtesy of not taking off my shoes in your car when my feet hurt.”

  I grinned and shook my head. We pulled into my driveway, and Benjamin looked over at the house to my right. “Looks like your new neighbor moved in.”

  I nodded. “These houses get gobbled up fast, even in this housing market.”

  “It’s a boom right now, hence why I have a job,” my brother, the landscape architect, said. “But I’m sad your previous neighbor had to move away.”

  “Me, too. I liked her. Hopefully, this new person is just as quiet, doesn’t have forty kids that will be in my yard, and is a happy person.”

  “You know we’re going to end up becoming those crotchety old people who hold brooms and tell kids to get off their lawns.”

  “Well, if they would stop playing in my yard and play in theirs, it wouldn’t be a problem,” I said, laughing.

  “You’re talking to a man who works on landscapes for a living, I understand.” He kissed the top of my head before I got out of the car.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Be careful,” Benjamin added, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  My brothers acted like I could be snatched off the street in front of my home while they watched. But I was careful. I put my key in the lock, walked inside, and then turned and waved as Benjamin drove off. I let out a breath and then frowned as I looked over at the phonebook on my driveway. I hadn’t noticed it being delivered earlier, and I didn’t want it outside all night. I sighed and went to pick it up.

  “Hey.”

  I whirled, dropped my keys, and tripped over my heels. I fell on my ass, the pavement digging into my palms. I looked up at the man silhouetted against the moonlight.

  “Crap. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you or freak you out. I was just letting you know that I was out here, headed into my house. But I accidentally scared you anyway.” He held up a hand, and I looked at him, not wanting to go near him. “Seriously, let me help you up. I promise I’ll stand here, and you can go back inside. Only wanted to say hello. I’m your new neighbor.”

  I frowned, feeling like I knew that voice, but I didn’t know from where. Or how.

  He could be a serial killer. If I kept sitting there, he could still try to kill me. I knew I should at least act like I knew what I was doing and not appear scared. I’d probably be able to fight him off better if I were standing. Maybe. I slid my hand into his and let him help me up. I dusted off my butt and then moved back a few steps, needing space.

  My heart thudded, and my ankle hurt more as if I had twisted it.

  “I am sorry,” the man repeated. “Anyway, as I said, I’m your new neighbor. Jacob. Jacob Queen.”

  Ice slid over me as he stepped into the beam from my porch light. I did the same, my past coming at me full force. I swallowed hard, trying to catch my breath.

  No, it couldn’t be this. Not in the house I had built. Not in my family’s neighborhood, the one we’d put our blood, sweat, and tears into.

  This couldn’t be Jacob. He couldn’t be back.

  But as he looked at me, his face suddenly devoid of color, I knew he recognized me. I knew this was the same Jacob.

  “You,” he whispered.

  “You,” I echoed.

  And then he glowered at me, turned on his heel, and stomped away.

  I couldn’t help but look at the back of the man who had grown up with my late husband. His brother. And the one man in the whole world I knew hated me more with each and every breath.

  Chapter 2

  Jacob

  * * *

  I couldn’t sleep. I stared up at the ceiling, the morning light shining around the closed blinds of my window. My eyes ached, and my heart hurt. Everything was just a little too much at the moment.

  And, truthfully, I only had myself to blame.

  How could I not have known she would be here?

  Fort Collins wasn’t a tiny one-horse town despite the jokes by others in the state and anyone who hadn’t heard of the city. I shouldn’t have ended up next door to the one person I never wanted to see. The one person who grated on me, got under my skin, and made me feel as if I had lost everything all over again. The one person who reminded me that I hadn’t had enough time, and that fate was cruel.

  And now, I couldn’t get rid of her. I’d signed on the dotted line of my mortgage, and I owned every inch of the place I lived in. I couldn’t give it back, say the place was faulty and run away.

  I should’ve known there’d be a damn Montgomery next door. They were everywhere. They had even done some of my ink. I’d been down in New Orleans, visiting friends and trying to forget who I was, and decided I wanted a new tattoo. I had gone into a shop, found the best artist there, and discovered it was one of Annabelle Montgomery’s cousins. I shouldn’t have been surprised that it was a Montgomery, even in a different damn state.

  I wore their ink on my flesh, and their scars on my soul.

  I ran a hand over my beard, annoyed with myself, and was grateful when the alarm went off. I groaned, turned off the alert on my phone, and rolled out of bed. My toes pressed against the hardwood, and I stretched my neck, telling myself that an hour here or there was enough sleep to survive. I had a lot of shit to do, including unpacking. First, however, I needed to see my parents and get to work.

  I was moving my law practice up north. Maybe not the best business decision, considering I had done pretty damn well for myself down in Denver, but my family needed me. And it was about time I was there for them again after running away so long ago.

  I cursed myself once more, unplugged my phone from its charger, and made my way to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, did my business, and headed to the shower, pretending like I wasn’t breaking inside.

  I should have known the memories would come at me hard. Every time I closed my eyes these days, I pictured my baby brother, Jonah, grinning up at me. Even when he was in pain.

  But the damned woman—girl at the time—was all tangled up in those memories, and I hated her for it. She had no right to be there or in my thoughts. She had no right to be in my past to begin with.

  And now she lived next door, and I couldn’t get away from her. I knew she still saw my parents, had wheedled her way into their lives, as well. And given our current situation, I would have to deal with her on an almost daily basis unless I wanted to lose money and sell the house right away. The housing market was doing well enough that I could probably do it and make a couple of bucks. Only not enough to cancel out the pain of moving again, finding another home, and dealing with my parents when they asked why I was picking up and leaving after only staying in my current house for less than a fucking week.

  I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair, ran the soap over my body, and growled at myself as I finished showering. I shut off the water, reached for my towel, and dried off before stepping onto my bathmat.

  The fucking gall of her to look at me as if she had seen a ghost. How dare she look at me as if I would hurt her? She was the one who had ruined everything. Had taken precious time and energy from Jonah. My baby brother hadn’t needed her complications. But she had seemed to want the fucking limelight and hadn’t allowed me the time I needed with my brother before he was gone. I would never fucking forgive her for that.

  I let out a breath, closed my eyes, and counted to ten. I had to stop being so angry. I had left Fort Collins to attend college elsewhere, so I could stop being angry. I took out loans, stayed in school, and went to a state college so my parents didn’t have to spend what little money they had left after Jonah’s diagnosis and life in and out of hospitals. I hadn’t taken a dime from them, even though they’d offered. Because I hadn’t wanted to take any more from them. They’d already lost enough.

  But it seemed th
ey always had Annabelle. My brother’s widow.

  What a fucking crock.

  I got dressed and did my best not to stay angry. I’d been to plenty of therapy sessions and talked to enough bartenders to get myself through and get on with what I needed to do. I didn’t need to be an angry, obsessed man. I just needed to get through my day, help my mother and father, and work my ass off. I didn’t need to think about Annabelle Montgomery—or any other name she chose to use. I didn’t even know if her name was ever Annabelle Queen.

  “Hell,” I mumbled to myself.

  Had she taken my brother’s name? Did she have my name? Chills slid up my back, and I shook them off. Whatever. I needed to stop thinking about that.

  The doorbell rang, and I swallowed hard, hoping it was an overeager postal carrier. But as I opened the door, I knew I wasn’t so lucky.

  Annabelle smiled up at me and held out a pink box from a very familiar place. “The best donuts in the state. As a peace offering for looking like a scared deer in headlights last night when I saw you outside.”

  I looked down at the box, and then at her face, and did my best not to slam the door. “I don’t need a peace offering or whatever the hell you think this is.”

  She paled a bit, her lips pressing into a thin line before she put on a whole new persona like a mask, as if she weren’t an angry woman trying to win me over. Instead, she seemed happy and bubbly as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Maybe she didn’t. Perhaps she didn’t miss my brother as I did.

  It wouldn’t surprise me. It wasn’t like she knew him. No, she had only married him for the press.

  “Well, I wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. This is the Montgomery neighborhood, by the way,” she said through gritted teeth, even though she was smiling.

  Dread filled me. She couldn’t be saying what I thought she was. “What?” I asked.

  “My family? Montgomery Builders? We built every single one of these homes. We all live here, too, though on different blocks. So, even though our name isn’t on the stonework out front for the community, it’s still our place. And…welcome to it.”

  The Montgomerys had built this place? The one development that’d called to me when I did a quick search of the area while looking to find a neighborhood near my parents. Of course, they had. And they surrounded me.

  Like they always did.

  “I see.”

  “Well, I don’t really think I see.” She looked down at the box in her hands and let out a breath. “Jacob, it’s been a long time. I just wanted to say good morning and welcome. We’re going to be neighbors for a while now, unless you move away tomorrow.”

  “I thought about it,” I growled.

  Her eyes widened. “How can you hate me so much that you would think about leaving the home you just moved into?”

  “I can hate you for a lot of reasons.”

  “No, you can’t. Stop being an idiot. It’s not my fault you didn’t realize that my family built this place. It’s probably on all of the documents you signed.”

  “Didn’t see your name.”

  “Then you weren’t looking. You never did see the things that were right in front of you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You want to hash this out?”

  “Maybe we should. Because I’m not a huge fan of undercurrents, and you’ve always been a snide little brat to me.”

  I clenched my fist, and her gaze moved to it. I let my hand relax and met her gaze. “I hate you,” I whispered.

  She didn’t stagger back, but she did swallow hard. “I don’t know why. I miss him, too.”

  “Do you? I don’t know if I believe that.” She shook her head, her hands digging into the pink box. I sighed. “Here, give me that. I don’t want you to ruin perfectly good donuts.”

  “I don’t know if you deserve these now.”

  “You don’t really have a choice, do you? They were a gift.” I grabbed the box from her and then took a step inside to set them on the table. I didn’t invite her in, and she didn’t move forward as if she wanted to come inside. I didn’t know if I blamed her. My alcove was deep and shady enough that unless someone were at Annabelle’s house, they wouldn’t be able to overhear what we were saying. But if a neighbor had binoculars or something, they could probably see her standing there despite the shadows. I didn’t care what my neighbors thought about me, though. Not now.

  “Jonah and I married because he loved me, and I loved him. Maybe not in the way of most adults, but we knew that we didn’t marry for the same kind of love your parents had—or even mine.”

  “You were only using him.”

  She blanched and shook her head. “Never. I promise you. Jonah was my best friend.”

  “Really? I know that’s what you kept telling the press. They ate it up.”

  “Because it’s the truth,” she spat. “Jonah had cystic fibrosis. You know that. You knew, just like I did, that he wouldn’t make it past his eighteenth birthday. The doctors didn’t even think he would make it past his thirteenth.”

  “You don’t have to remind me,” I shouted, then let out a breath and took a step inside. “Come in. I’m not in the mood to make someone call the cops.”

  She glared at me and moved past the threshold, and I closed the door behind her. I didn’t lock it. Even in my current state, I wanted to make sure she knew she was safe from me physically. I wasn’t locking her in or anything. Yet I didn’t even know if she registered that action.

  “You don’t have to tell me what happened with my brother. I know he was sick. I watched him slowly die for his entire life.”

  “But he lived it, too. Don’t forget that. He smiled, laughed, learned. He brought so much to this world, and all he wanted was a wedding. You know he was a romantic. He dreamed of weddings and the perfect love and everything that he knew he’d never get to have. So I gave that to him.” She raised her chin. “Other people might not have understood, but I always thought you would. He was your brother. Didn’t you understand that he wanted what we had?”

  “You weren’t his real wife,” I bit out.

  “Of course, not,” she whispered. “But I was his wife. Because he asked. And because my best friend was dying, and I loved him. I would have done anything to put a smile on his face in those last days. Anything,” she said, her voice breaking. “You know how much pain he was in. He just needed something, and I gave him what I could.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying not to look at her tears. I hated them. I didn’t think they were weapons right now, but I’d thought they were when we were younger. I’d thought she used them for the cameras. But as I looked at her here, I wondered if maybe everything I’d assumed before was wrong. Perhaps she wasn’t a person who needed the limelight. But I didn’t know.

  I really hated those tears. They may look real now, but I didn’t know what to think. Still, I hated her.

  “I hated you for so long,” I bit out. “Jonah was all about you. Everything that he did in the end was for you and about you. He pushed us away.”

  Annabelle reached out, then let her hand fall. “I didn’t realize it at the time,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize that everything was so weird and different. I was only trying to help my best friend. I didn’t know I was hurting you or anyone else in the process. Jacob, I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t think sorry is going to cut it. It never did. You paraded yourself out there in front of the news media as the virgin bride, the perfect, young, eighteen-year-old still in high school, marrying her high school sweetheart.”

  “I hated the press. I hated everything. But your parents asked me to do it because it helped to raise money. You know that.”

  I held back a flinch. “What?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  “No. What are you talking about?”

  “There was a fund to help with the last of the bills. With so many. And the more Jonah’s story was out, the more people cared. And it helped him and the ot
hers in the center. I did what I had to in order to follow his last wishes. But you were there, too. I’m sorry I took moments from you and him. I’m sorry I can’t give them back. But he’s not coming back. I can’t bring him back. I would do anything to make Jonah come back. He was my best friend,” she repeated. “I don’t know what to do. I know you hate me, and I can’t change that. But you’re my neighbor now, and you’ll just have to deal with the fact that I live here.”

  “You need to go,” I whispered, trying to get my thoughts in order.

  “Fine,” she spat. “You know what? It’s fine.” She stormed past me, slamming the door behind her. I looked down at my hands, wondering what the hell I was going to do.

  She had married my brother, given him five days of pure happiness as a husband and a man with a future. Five days of marriage, and then my brother died. And I hadn’t been there because he’d said he needed time with his precious Annabelle.

  I had lost time with my sibling. I’d lost so much. I hadn’t been there.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t even hate her as much as I felt I should.

  I could only hate myself.

  Chapter 3

  Annabelle

  * * *

  “That stupid, self-serving son of a bitch,” I snapped, pacing my office.

  “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” Paige said from beside me, and I rolled on her.

  “Don’t say that in your happy little voice. Be angry with me.”

  “I don’t know who you want me to be angry at,” Paige said, handing over my coffee.

  “Why? Why are you handing me this?” I asked, taking it from her.

  My sister shook her head. “Because you haven’t even had a sip since you walked in here, and you need more caffeine.”

  “I’m shaking with rage, and you want to give me more energy?” I asked dryly.

  She beamed at me. “Well, if you lose any of your caffeine intake, you’ll only get grouchier, and I’m not in a mood to handle that. So, take a sip, breathe, and tell me who I need to help you castrate.”