Rescuing the Bad Boy

by Jessica Lemmon

  Stepping back a few inches, he gave her some physical space, enough to allow her angry gaze to burn into him.

  Now to shove angry into infuriated.

  “Guessing you picked up a few tricks since we were together.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  Closer.

  He smirked. “Or a lot of tricks.”

  Her jaw tensed. Her eyebrows lowered.

  Jackpot.

  In his peripheral, he registered her lifting her palm.

  He’d never been able to watch an incoming hit. Even after he’d pulled himself out of the cage of fear his father had shoved him into. Even after he’d stood up for himself. Even after he’d started fighting back. Out of years of habit, and in the nanosecond before her hand did what he expected—cracked across his face—he closed his eyes. Braced himself to accept what was coming.

  Seconds passed.

  Nothing came.

  Not angry words. Not the sting of her palm on his cheek. Nothing.

  He opened his eyes to find Sofie’s anger had ebbed, replaced with a gentle expression reflecting her softhearted, trusting nature.

  Her bleating heart her greatest fault.

  People always let you down. Sooner rather than later. Better to be armored up than bare.

  Her arm lifted again. This time he didn’t flinch. Her hand finished the journey to his face, where she skimmed her fingers lightly over his cheek and down his jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  What he should be saying to her for everything that had happened in this very house. But the words had come from her.

  Pissed, he clenched his jaw tighter and spoke between teeth welded together. “No, Scampi.”

  Her fingertips stroked from his jaw to his chin. “You thought I was going to hit you again.” She looked at his mouth.

  Again. Like she had in his Jeep. The moment he’d told her to get out. He’d turned cold and mean minutes after seducing her in the warmest way possible. He didn’t deserve her apology. In no way should she feel anything but satisfied for hitting him. He’d deserved that slap.

  He hated her vulnerability. Hated more the idea that men must have—had to have—taken advantage of her in the years since he’d done it first. Donovan had one night with her. There’d been thousands of nights since him. How many of those nights had she spent with men who didn’t deserve her? Men who’d taken advantage of her vulnerability, had guilted her into apologizing when she’d done nothing wrong.

  Too many, he’d bet.

  Like you would have treated her better?

  No. That was why he left.

  He wouldn’t use her guilt against her now, turn it on her like a weapon. Like his father had done to his mother, driving her away when Donovan was a toddler. Robert had learned that method from Gertrude.

  Patterns. A pattern Donovan was determined to break.

  “I lived.” He took her wrist and pulled her hand from his face, but found he couldn’t let her go right away. Finally, after a few seconds, he released her. He needed to get the hell away from her gentle touch, those green eyes revealing too much of her tenderness. Had to stop feeling the warmth and sweetness rolling off her like fog on the lake.

  He stalked out of the kitchen, away from the suffocating air bearing down on him. Accusations followed, the knowledge that he’d been responsible for her at one moment in time; it snapped at his heels, dogged his every footfall.

  He blew his chance to save her. From that truth, there was no running.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sofie handed over the checklist to Charlie Harris—soon to be Charlie Downey after she and Evan were married. “I made a list of the kinds of photos we’ll need for the event. I should have gotten this to you sooner.”

  An entrepreneur, Charlie was an amazing photographer. Sofie had admired her work since she met her at Cozy Home Furniture. They’d become fast friends, and when Charlie mentioned her love for the hobby, Sofie found a way to get her involved in the next event she planned.

  “No, no it’s great.” With her long, honey-blond hair and sunny yellow dress, Charlie looked like summer arrived early. She slapped the list on the breakfast bar in the house she shared with Evan, wiggled in her seat, and grinned.

  Uh-oh.

  “Now, are you going to tell me what it was like to reunite with Donny¸ your long lost first time?”

  Charlie’s face. So filled with love and hope and heart-shaped helium balloons.

  Sofie gave her friend a patient smile. Why was it everyone who was in love thought everyone else should also be in love? Sofie’s sister Lacey was the same way both times she’d been engaged. She was all hearts and roses, too. So darn happy it almost made Sofie’s stomach turn.

  Almost.

  She would never begrudge Charlie and Evan the happiness they’d found. Charlie had battled through orc-laden landscapes of guilt for falling in love with her late best friend’s husband. And Evan, who had lost his wife five years ago now, fought for Charlie, understanding they deserved each other. Understanding his son, Lyon, deserved to have another shot at a mother.

  No, Sofie would never dream of denying her friends what they’d so rightfully won: each other.

  Charlie was still smiling at her. “Pleeeease tell me?”

  Sofie allowed herself a smile. “Well, first he came to see me at Make It an Event and threatened not to let me use the mansion. Then”—she held up a finger—“he came back, said it would be best for the community if I did use the mansion for the charity dinner, and gave me a key to the house.”

  Her friend’s smile morphed to a frown. “Moody.”

  Ticking off another finger, Sofie continued. “Then, yesterday, when I stopped by the mansion, one of the thrift store guys insulted me and Donny defended my honor. Of course, after that he told me to stay out of his way and he’d stay out of mine.” She screwed her eyes to the left in thought, ready to tick off another item if needed. “Yep, that’s about it.”

  No way was she bringing up the moment in the kitchen where he got in her face, clogging her personal space with the smell of spice, those achingly mysterious eyes boring into hers.

  She sure wasn’t bringing up the part where he’d insinuated he might like to… how had he put it? Give her another “bounce on the library sofa.” And why were her palms sweating? That offer was not a turn-on. Not at all.

  “Sofia,” Evan greeted as he strode into the kitchen in that signature swagger of his. He placed a kiss on his fiancée’s forehead, and Charlie beamed at him. Seriously, beamed. It was beautiful.

  Sofie’s heart pinged with the slightest bit of envy. Not because she wanted Evan for herself—although his dark mussed bedhead and turquoise gaze would give any girl a heart-flutter—but because she would be lying if she said she didn’t want someone in her life who loved her as much as he loved Charlie.

  And he seriously loved Charlie.

  “Hey, Evan,” Sofie greeted.

  He was dressed in running shorts and a tank, his tattoos on display. A former tattoo artist, Evan hadn’t entirely given up the passion when he turned children’s book illustrator with Asher Knight at the writing helm. Evan had designed each bit of ink he wore himself. Charlie told her the stories behind them. The roses on his shoulder were for his mother and aunt who passed away too soon. The lion on his other shoulder represented his son, Lyon, the rambunctious eight-year-old who was very much thriving in Evergreen Cove. The town herself was commemorated on one of Evan’s forearms, a host of pines tracking up to his elbow. That one earmarked him and Lyon moving here last year.

  He’d branded Charlie with a camera tattoo on her rib cage—her passion, adding in watercolor strokes—his passion.

  Two lives. Merged.

  Beautiful.

  As they so often did as of late, Sofie’s thoughts turned to Donovan. She wondered the meaning behind the star on his finger, or the raven, the gnarled tree on his forearm, the arrow on the other…

  So many. They had to stand
for something.

  “So that was it? No recognition? No moment of longing settling between you two?” Charlie asked. “It’s romantic.” Her gaze settled over Sofie’s shoulder, then softened. “Reunited after seven years apart…”

  When she rerouted her gaze and saw Sofie’s look of dejection, she quickly added, “Sorry. Rose-colored glasses.”

  Sofie cupped her friend’s hand over the bar. “Never apologize to me for your happiness, do you hear me? Never. My being single doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for you.” She took her hand back and waved dismissively. “I’m just… frustrated.”

  And confused. Donovan Pate was a hard man to read.

  “I’m sorry. I should be—”

  “Ace.” Evan interrupted as he poured a cup of coffee.

  Charlie rolled her eyes. Evan had been trying to get her to kick the habit of saying “sorry” for everything since he moved here. It was cute, almost as cute as him calling her “Ace.” And he was right—she had nothing to be sorry about.

  “Did you know your buddy Donovan was a jerk?” Charlie asked him.

  A crooked smile played the corner of his mouth as he lifted the mug to his lips. “Yeah.”

  His eyes flickered to Sofie. “Bet you knew that already.”

  Oh Lord. What did that mean?

  Evan winked at Charlie and retreated to his art studio on the other side of the house.

  Did everyone know Sofie and Donny had done the deed?

  After he’d gone, she turned to her friend, whose hazel eyes went wide.

  “I only told him what I know.”

  “Charlie!”

  She winced. “Sorry! I tell him all sorts of things. I didn’t know he really listened to me.”

  Evan knew Sofie had lost her virginity to one of his buddies. Fabulous.

  “How am I supposed to keep showing up there to work?” Sofie buried her face in her hands. “Maybe I’ll make Faith do it.”

  But that made no sense. Sofie had held charity dinners in the mansion for the past three years. She was familiar with the routine of setting up there, of tearing down. Parking. The way the catering was handled. She knew the boxes being donated to the thrift shop shouldn’t have been on that truck—Faith never would have known any different.

  “Ugh. What am I supposed to do?”

  Charlie tugged at Sofie’s wrists until she relinquished and revealed her face. “You’re going to continue to show up and do whatever it is you do. Who cares if he doesn’t talk to you?”

  But that was the whole problem. She did care.

  Taking a deep breath, Sofie announced, “I slapped him.”

  “When?” Charlie’s big eyes grew bigger. “Why?”

  “Seven years ago. The night of the… incident,” she whispered needlessly. Evan was far out of earshot and Lyon was in school. “After”—she motioned with one hand rather than spell it out—“ after, he yelled at me, told me to get out of his car. I was hurt.”

  Sofie covered one cheek with her hand. She could almost feel the cool air from the Jeep’s vent blowing on her face. Hurt was putting it lightly. She’d been devastated.

  “I hauled off and smacked him.” She shook her head. “Right in the face.”

  Charlie crossed her arms in front of her on the bar. “Good.”

  But it wasn’t good. Sofie’s actions may have been justified, but there was no good that came from striking another person.

  “Yesterday, he was… I don’t know, trying to make me upset or something.”

  Donny hadn’t been warm and welcoming, but he also hadn’t exactly been mean. His goading seemed more defensive than anything.

  “He stood really close to me and I raised my hand while I was talking—like I do.” Sofie waved her hand briefly to demonstrate.

  Charlie leaned in the slightest bit. “And?”

  She pictured long, dark lashes scrunching over his eyes.

  “He flinched.”

  Her friend’s head jerked back in surprise. “Flinched?”

  “All six-foot-four of him.”

  Charlie’s mouth pulled into a frown. “What’s that about?”

  That memory merged into another—the boy at Open Arms who’d reacted the same way. He’d flinched, too. Ruby mentioned he’d been hit a lot by his mother and not to take his reaction personally.

  Her face infused with heat as the visual of the boy’s face swapped places with Donny’s. Was that the case with Donovan? Had his mother slapped him when he was younger? Had Gertrude? Was that why he hated his late grandmother so much?

  The idea of a younger version of him being struck—

  God. Sofie couldn’t handle the thought.

  She also needed to stop jumping to conclusions before she jumped to the wrong one. “I don’t know what it meant. Maybe nothing.”

  There was a possibility he’d simply reacted… but instinct said there was nothing simple about his reaction.

  “Hmm,” her friend hummed. Sofie didn’t like the look of unhappy contemplation on Charlie’s face. She didn’t like what it might mean, or that it mirrored her own concern for Donovan’s past.

  “Thanks in advance for doing the photos.” Sofie stood and lifted her purse from the countertop. “I have to get going. I have a zillion things to do before the big family dinner.”

  Charlie walked her to the front door. “Both sisters, I assume.”

  “Oh, the whole family will be there.” Sofie sighed. “Wish me luck.”

  “Luck?” Charlie crinkled her cute nose, then smiled. “Just remember, Sofe, not everyone is lucky enough to have a whole family to sit down to dinner with.”

  That was true. Charlie’s scattered, distant family was proof.

  “You’re right,” Sofie said.

  “They love you. Sometimes families have a funny way of showing it.”

  And sometimes, Sofie thought, her thoughts returning to Donovan as she headed for her car, families showed it in the worst way imaginable.

  She hoped she was wrong about his reaction.

  The idea of him being abused was unbearable.

  Sylvia Martin delivered a basket of bread to the dinner table. “Honestly, Sofia, I have no idea why you refuse to plan Lacey’s wedding.” Her mother sat down and extended her hands to either side of her.

  Lacey’s second wedding. Forget that Sofie attempted to plan her first one. It was a source of contention between her and her older sister… and a source of cluelessness for her mother. Sylvia often pretended the conflict had never happened. Head, meet sand.

  The argument was tiresome, but she found herself growing defensive. “I don’t plan weddings anymore, Mom. The Cove has plenty of opportunities for event planners. I can make a perfectly respectable living doing fundraisers and—”

  “No bragging, dear. We’re praying.” Sylvia snapped the fingers on both hands, prompting Sofie’s dad, Patrick, and Sofie’s oldest sister, Lacey, to grab her hands.

  Bragging. Sofie felt her hairline start to broil.

  “Hurry. Before my food gets cold.”

  Sofie extended her hands to both sides, took the hand of her younger sister, Kinsley, and her father’s. He smiled and gave her a wink and she shut her eyes for the prayer.

  Giving thanks went quickly in the Martin household. Sylvia didn’t like to dawdle with piping hot food on the table. After plates were filled and the breadbasket passed, she started in again on Lacey’s wedding plans. Lacey looked annoyed when the attention shifted from her to Sofie.

  “I’m just saying”—Sylvia cut into her pot roast—“sweetheart, why aren’t you eating?”

  “I’m eating,” Sofie argued, looking at her plate.

  She hated pot roast. Honestly, was there anything worse than a piece of meat cooked until the toughness bled out of it? She’d filled her plate with the carrots, potatoes, and celery instead, though they basically tasted like mushy pot roast since the food had steeped in the same cast iron pot. Not a salad to be found, but there was a giant bowl of macaroni and chee
se on the table. No way was she touching that calorie-dump.

  “She’s dieting again,” Kinsley pointed out, buttering her roll with an unbelievable amount of margarine.

  “I’m not,” Sofie argued. “I’m just—”

  “Point being,” her mother cut her off again to change the subject. “Lacey is paying through the nose for this fancy wedding planner when you could simply gift her your services.”

  “Mom,” Lacey started.

  Living in a vacation town, most young girls made their living either in the hospitality business or in the food service business. Sofie happened to try both. After serving her time at the Wharf slinging plates, she migrated to the Evergreen Club to sling plates there. It wasn’t long before her manager, Belinda, started asking her to run large catering parties in the reception hall. Soon after, Sofie had begun planning events on her own.

  The gig had bolstered her confidence, and soon she was doing her own event planning on the side. Before she opened Make It an Event, the first job she’d taken on was the last wedding she ever attempted.

  Lacey Martin’s fiasco.

  “I don’t do weddings,” Sofie bit out, purposely keeping her eyes on her food.

  If she had the time to plan her sister’s wedding—and she didn’t—she wouldn’t. The rift between her and Lacey was alive and well. The water may be under the bridge, but it churned enough to create an undertow.

  Having been the go-to girl at the Club during the years she worked there, Sofie knew how to plan a wedding, so it wasn’t her lack of knowledge that had gotten her fired by her eldest sibling. Nor was it fallout because Lacey was nearly impossible to please. I know it’s peach, Sofie, but I want a peachier peach. It wasn’t the demands, the cost, or the time…

  What caused the blowout was the groom.

  Jeff Bluff. What an idiot. Belching, brash, foul-mouthed… the man was Lacey’s polar opposite in every way. He made the entire family uncomfortable, belittled Kins and Sofie in a vain attempt to get a laugh out of their father—Patrick was not impressed—and, to top off that charming package, Jeff had also been jobless.