Chloe!
“Hey, Beck!” Patrick called as he ran up to the truck, jerked open the passenger side door, and jumped in, swiping his hands through his short-cropped hair. “What happened?” He gestured at the phone still clutched in Beck’s hand.
Beck ducked his head, not caring that the wind blew the rain onto him, soaking him further and collecting in his hair and beard to drip from the clumped strands. It’d never been this long before and he imagined he looked as bad as he felt. “Don’t feel like talking about it.”
“Was it…Was it Chloe?” Patrick’s tone was cautious but compassionate and Beck nearly lost it. He regretted ever telling Patrick her name when he’d asked about the photo hanging on Beck’s wall.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” He fiddled with the keys in his other hand and gritted his teeth when he got a glimpse of Chloe’s engagement ring on the key ring. “I need to leave.”
Patrick held his hand out. “You’ve had too much to drink. I’m the designated driver tonight, remember? And Lucy is still in the club.”
Lucy. He’d practically mowed her down trying to get out of the club. Guilt swamped him on numerous levels. Instead of toying with the attraction he’d felt for Lucy and his ménage fantasies, he should’ve been trying harder to get Chloe back. “Damn it.” All he wanted to do right now was escape but this Valentine’s evening outing had been his idea. Even though he hadn’t felt all that great, he’d been in the mood to get out for a while and it was the two of them that he’d wanted to do it with.
“Even though you cursed at her like a damned asshole, she’s in there worried about you.”
“I did? I didn’t mean to.” The guilt he felt for hurting her feelings deepened the pain. Fuck! I’m batting a thousand tonight. “I don’t even remember what I said.” Beck’s gaze was drawn to Patrick by the disgusted sound he made. The look on his face said it all.
“Are you coming back in?” He held his hand out for Beck’s key ring. Knowing he wasn’t in any shape to be driving, especially not in the rain, Beck handed him the keys.
“No, man. I’m staying out here. You go back inside…Have a good time.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Go. Tell Lucy…”
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll apologize to her myself later. Go back inside. I need…I need to be alone.”
“All right. If that’s what you want.” Patrick climbed from the vehicle and sprinted back to the club through the storm. The rain made a rapid tapping sound as it pattered against his jeans and soaked them until he felt the water run into his work boots.
You’re pretty pathetic, aren’t you, O’Malley?
He stood from the driver’s seat and closed the door of the truck, not giving a shit about the rain. He was already soaked to the skin.
I’m not nearly drunk enough.
He set out across the parking lot for the state highway. Just up the road a ways was a liquor store. With any luck, he could make it there before they closed and find something to dull the ache in his chest as he walked home. In his present state of mind, a walk in the rain suited him just fine.
Not feeling the least little bit sorry for ourselves, are we?
Sometimes he wanted to grab that little inner voice of his and wring the motherfucker’s neck.
Chloe was always one to face what needed facing. She’d never been the type who avoided responsibility either. His friends had been kind to not speak too much about it, but he knew that several of them had gotten to know some of the residents of Lusty, Texas, where Chloe had moved to live with her sister, Carrie. She’d called him that night, most likely, because she didn’t want him to find out from anyone else that she was engaged. She still cared about his feelings, even if she was breaking his heart in the process.
He looked back at the receding lights of the club and the deserted street. The wind whipped around him, flinging frigid sheets of rain in his face and ruffling his long, drenched hair.
He reached the liquor store and the old man behind the counter didn’t bat an eyelash as he sold him a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Black Label and put it in a paper sack for him. He mopped up the puddle Beck had created on the floor in front of the counter as Beck walked back out into the rainstorm.
Now that he was properly armed, he went for the full torture, imagining Chloe as she’d dialed his number—
“Oh, fuck me!” he ground out as he trudged along the roadside, his boots kicking up water and squelching in the mud. She’d said she’d called him at home and gotten the answering machine.
He took a drink from the bottle, wondering what she’d thought as she realized he’d never changed their outgoing message. The one that he’d made with her the day they’d moved in together when they still lived in Dallas. He’d tried several times to record a new message, but each time he wound up just sitting there listening to her voice, rewinding several times until he heard it enough to work himself into a good, soul-sucking depression, needing her. Wishing she’d come home.
He’d known she might move on. Find another man who would want to make love to her. Feel her soft skin under his hands. Kiss her sweet lips. And there were two men, she’d said. Of course, just like in Divine, she’d be very likely to find two men in Lusty who’d love her enough to share her.
And she’d taken the time to call him on this evening of all evenings. It was a safe bet that since it was Valentine’s Day, her men had proposed to her earlier that evening. Which meant—
Oh, God.
They were probably making love to her at that very moment. He took another drink from the bottle and ground his teeth together before hollering into the wind until his voice disappeared.
* * * *
Lucy popped open her yellow sunflower printed umbrella as she and Patrick exited the Dancing Pony and hurried to Beck’s gray F-150. Patrick pulled the passenger door open and she climbed in, heart contracting as she breathed in Beck’s scent from the beat-up denim jacket she held in her hands. He’d rushed out of the club without it and now he was somewhere out in the storm with nothing to protect him but his shirtsleeves.
Patrick got in on the driver’s side and started the truck. He gave her a halfhearted smile as he patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Luce. He can’t have gone far.”
Nodding, she scooted forward and put her hands on the dash so she could see out of the windshield. When he didn’t put the vehicle in drive, she looked at him expectantly. He glanced at the seat belt hanging unused by the door, his jaw set.
“Buckle up.”
“Come on, Patrick. I can’t see as well out the window if I sit back and buckle up.”
He obstinately shook his head. “Not moving until you do.”
“Stubborn and bossy. Just like my brother.”
Patrick scoffed. “As much as I like Seth, don’t be comparing us. There’s not a brotherly bone in my body where you’re concerned. Protective, definitely. Brotherly…”
He flicked a glance up and down her body and shook his head. His expression finished his statement. Her cheeks felt warm as she did as he asked, secretly pleased that he cared that much about her safety, and encouraged because he was talking about his feelings. She made a show of clicking the buckle and then made a grand gesture at it. “Can we go now?”
“Sassy thing. Yes, we can go.” They circled the large block the nightclub was located on and then expanded the search to all the main streets leading away.
She strained to see the road in front of them, feeling hypnotized by the rain blowing constantly at the windshield. “This is crazy, being out in this mess with no coat or anything. I’m going to kick his ass. And he wasn’t feeling well to begin with. Do you think he’s walking home?”
“We can head that direction and see.”
That route proved fruitless, and they went back to the Pony and started again as Lucy’s concern grew to panicky proportions. “What would make him just take off like this?”
Patrick sig
hed as he squinted at the road in front of them. “Beck is my closest friend but there are some things we…just don’t talk about, Luce. I respect his privacy and he respects mine.” His statement only raised more questions. He didn’t say anything else even though she waited quietly before she finally spoke again. Words she’d wanted to say for a while.
“You know all of our friends are wondering what the hell is up with us, right?”
“Hmm?” His show of nonchalance didn’t fool her at all.
“This is most unfair to you and that’s all you can say? ‘Hmm?’ I see the questions in their eyes even though they never ask. Well, Jayne asks, but I haven’t talked with her about it. They want to know if there’s something going on between the three of us.”
She put her hands to her cheeks to cool the heat that rose in them. They’d all be surprised to know that absolutely nothing had happened between any of them.
Getting more agitated, she said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. If he wanted more than friendship with me, he’d have acted by now.”
“He just needs time. Maybe whatever happened tonight will push him out of his slump.”
“‘Push’? I think a kick…with a big boot…would be more useful right now.”
Patrick smiled at her, and she saw the spark in his blue eyes. “He’s really lucky you care this much about him. He hasn’t exactly made it easy for you.”
Lucy would’ve given up by that point, except something—her intuition maybe—kept telling her to be patient with Beck. She’d gone out with Patrick a couple of times since Christmas but they’d kept things chaste after he’d mentioned to her that Beck liked her more than he let on. Spurred by his openness on the subject and in a moment of bravery—or perhaps foolishness—she’d admitted to Patrick that she was attracted to Beck, too. Patrick’s accepting attitude had been a relief. Since then, they’d included Beck in all their activities and Lucy had hoped for a sign. Something to encourage her to reach out to Beck. Instead, they’d become the threesome version of The Odd Couple.
“What do you think Beck will do when—or if—he finds out what we’ve been talking about?”
A slow smile crossed his face which was illuminated by the dashboard lights. “I don’t think he’d be all that surprised. He has his head in the sand for reasons we may not understand right now, but in his own way he’s already coming around to it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The other night, when the two of you were watching Duck Dynasty, I was watching you. He was rubbing your feet and he had this look…it wasn’t a ‘just friends’ kind of look. A guy doesn’t look that way or do something intimate like that for a woman unless he has feelings for her. And tonight was his idea, remember? Even though he was under the weather, he wanted to go out with us. On Valentine’s Day. He’d probably never admit to that, especially not after whatever happened with that phone call.”
That stirred-up, warm feeling entered her chest again. She’d thought she’d been imagining the intimacy in the gesture when he’d rubbed her feet, gently stroking her arches and insteps with his fingertips. But then he’d told her that she was overdue for fresh toenail polish and it had been all she could do not to kick him in the balls. “I feel bipolar when I’m around him sometimes, you know?”
An amused chuckle rumbled in his broad, muscular chest. “Yeah, I did notice that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m going to kick his ass for cussing at me and biting my head off…right after I make sure he’s okay. I wish we’d just stayed in and watched a movie.” Wringing her hands together, she leaned forward as they passed a storefront and looked in the sheltered doorway, half afraid she’d see him huddled there in the dark. “Where is that asshole?”
“Luce, I’m taking you home. It’s getting late and you have a big day tomorrow.”
She regretted mentioning to Patrick that she had a full schedule of massage clients for the next day. “I know, but there’s no way I’ll sleep until I know he’s okay. Being out in this weather will probably make him sick.” She recalled noticing the dark shadows under his eyes, as though he wasn’t sleeping much, when she’d opened her front door for them earlier that evening.
Patrick worked his way in the direction of her neighborhood a few blocks off of downtown Divine and she fussed about it, but he wouldn’t argue with her. When Patrick made up his mind about something, there was no debating with him. For the most part she appreciated his concern. And she was grateful that he drove slowly so they could continue to search the deserted, rain-swept streets.
Patrick turned onto her street and they both gasped and gawked out the windshield. “Is that him? He made it all the way over here?” She checked the clock on the dash. They’d been searching for two hours.
She had the door open before Patrick had completely stopped the truck and she rushed to the drainage easement that ran along the length of the street. Beck was lying facedown, unconscious on the grassy slope, with the rain beating down on him. A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey was by his head. The easement was already half full from the downpour and a cold chill went through her that rivaled the frigid rain pouring down on her as they knelt beside him. Another hour or two and his head would’ve been underwater.
“This isn’t you, Beck,” she whispered as she put her hand on his thick shoulder. He should’ve been clammy to the touch but she could feel heat burning through the soaked material of his shirt. “He’s running a fever.”
Patrick squatted down beside her and rolled his best friend over. “Damn, he’s burning up.” With a grunt, Patrick pulled Beck into an upright sitting position and then rose to his feet, lifting Beck with him, and started walking him to the passenger side of the truck. “I’ll load him up and take him home with me.”
Lucy pulled the truck door open for him, shivering as the rain soaked her to the skin. “No. My house is just a few doors down. We need to get that fever under control and he needs to get out of those wet clothes.”
After shoving Beck over on the bench seat, Patrick turned to her, squinting through the rain and panting from the exertion. “Luce, he’s going to be a bear when he wakes up. You know how he is.” He pointed to the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey lying on the ground. “And he’s been drinking on his way here.”
Lucy grabbed the bottle and poured the contents out on the soaked ground and put the bottle on the floorboard to dispose of at home. Patrick helped her back into the truck. “Yeah, and I’ll have a few choice words for him if he starts cussing at me again. Asshole,” she added in a mutter as she put her hand to his forehead. She’d never seen him drink more than a couple of beers on a night out and couldn’t imagine the hurt that had sent him into a bottle of whiskey.
Patrick climbed back into the driver’s seat, teeth chattering, and cursed at his soaked condition.
At her house, she ran ahead of him with keys in hand and let them into her house. The whiskey bottle made a loud clatter when she pitched it in the kitchen trash can. “Bring him to the bathroom.”
Patrick followed her down the hall with Beck dragging along beside him. She marveled that he was strong enough to carry Beck’s soaked dead weight but he managed well. While the tub filled with tepid water, she helped Patrick pull off Beck’s sodden, muddy work boots and then focused on the buttons of his shirt. The wet button holes were uncooperative but distracting as she paid attention to them instead of the fact that they were disrobing a man she wanted in a way that was nearly desperate, despite his bearish behavior of late. Patrick worked at getting Beck’s blue jeans off, struggling with his dead weight. Her cat, Waldo, meowed and rubbed his face against Beck’s jeans, making the process even more difficult.
“Luce, he’s liable to come to when I get him in the tub and be pissed as hell. Let me take over here. I’ll not have him giving you another earful.” His tone was no nonsense but it was obvious he was equally concerned for Beck as he was for her.
Uncertain—and gra
teful—because she really couldn’t take another ego bruising tonight, she nodded. After lighting the old-fashioned gas heater in the bathroom, she reached in the linen closet for two towels. “I’ll put these in the dryer to warm them up for him. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Patrick nodded and put a hand out to stop her. His callused hand was reassuring as he caressed her forearm “Luce, it’s going to be okay.”
She turned to him, trying to avoid looking at Beck, slumped against his shoulder. He seemed so vulnerable—fragile—and she knew he’d hate for her to see him like that.
“I hope so.”
The other reason she avoided looking at him was that despite his unkempt, drunken state, she still found him incredibly attractive.
When he told a joke, his kissable lips quirked at an angle and his green eyes twinkled mischievously. She often fantasized about what his hair would feel like sliding through her fingers, the same as she did with Patrick. She’d definitely given in to the Divine mindset. Whether Beck would was very much up for debate though.
Beck’s head fell back as Patrick shifted him and somehow the way his throat was revealed made him seem even more vulnerable. Longing to stroke him there, she wondered for the hundredth time what he’d look like with the beard shaved off and his hair cut. “You know I’m not just referring to him being sick. It’s going to be okay, Luce. You need to get out of those wet clothes.”
She nodded and turned to the door again as she murmured, “We’ll see, I guess. When he can talk, I need answers before he puts all those walls back up.” She made eye contact with Patrick before she pulled the door closed. “That would be nice from both of you, actually.”
Patrick looked away and nodded as he shifted Beck toward the tub. Through the closed door she heard voices murmuring and realized that Beck must’ve awakened. They argued for a minute and Lucy smiled as Beck cursed. She heard a splash followed by more cussing, this time from Patrick. She was grateful that he’d sent her out.
Lucy's Revenge [Divine Creek Ranch 15] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2
