Finally His Bride (Montana Born Brides Series Book 4)

by Maisey Yates

  And he let go. Let his need, his desire, his pleasure roar through him like a beast, overtaking him completely, stealing his every thought, his every concern.

  Mel held him tight, her breathing soft and steady in his ear. And then she whispered. “I love you, Luke.”

  Chapter Nine

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  The moment the words left her lips, she knew they were true. She also knew that she had made a big mistake. At least, in terms of not scaring Luke away forever. After their conversation, after what had just passed between them, the odds of him reacting favorably to her declaration were slim to none. She knew him well enough to know that.

  Still, even though she knew she was setting herself up for a world of pain, she couldn’t regret it. She wasn’t afraid anymore.

  No, that was a lie. She was afraid. She was terrified. Of what would happen when Luke finally spoke again, of what the future would look like without him. Of any moment beyond this one where he was still holding on to her, still buried deep inside of her. She was afraid of it all. But she wasn’t too afraid to face it. Wasn’t too afraid to press forward, asking for more, not just from him, but from life.

  She had thought her moment of reckoning was in Grey’s a few weeks ago. That it had come the moment she decided she was going to put on a sexy dress, lose her virginity, stop being afraid of the unknown. But no. She could see clearly now that the Great Awakening that had happened then had been another red herring. A cautious step forward. Like a small animal who had only poked her head out of her burrow, and left the rest of herself safely shrouded.

  A sexual relationship without an emotional component. A way to pretend that she was stepping out while continually protecting the parts of herself that were most vulnerable. It had never been her body. It had always been her feelings. That was why she had made such a weak pass at Luke and called it an honest try.

  Because it had always been him. And she’d always known it would be a risk. But she’d been too afraid to try. She wasn’t now. Even being certain she would fail.

  He moved away from her suddenly, leaving her cold, bereft. “What did you say?”

  “I love you,” she repeated without hesitation.

  “Why? I’ve been nothing but a giant asshole to you.”

  “An asshole who made me a picnic in a barn.”

  “And stole your garlic bread.”

  “Yeah, that wasn’t very nice.” She moved into a sitting position, tugging her knees up to her chest. “I’ve always loved you.”

  “Bullshit.” He closed his eyes and looked away from her. “You never said. You never acted like you did. You were never even dating anyone.”

  He sounded panicked now, and part of her could vaguely understand why. She was changing his reality. Changing the rules. It was going to suck for her too, depending on how he reacted. But she couldn’t go back. Not now.

  “I know. Because of the fear thing that I already told you about. I would rather have hooked up with a stranger in a bar than take a real risk in going after you and being rejected. And I told myself it was all about relationships, and finding myself, and making sure I didn’t fall into the same trap my mother did, but the thing is, Luke, I never had to worry about that with you. It was never that. I just didn’t want to lose our friendship. I didn’t want to lose this thing that had meant so much to me. I’ve been content for a very long time to take half. I thought asking for whole might be greedy. And that’s where I’m like her. Like my mother. I’m so afraid of being left with nothing that…”

  “I would never leave you with nothing, Mel. Never. I can’t… I can’t do this.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not me. I just… I don’t finish things that I start. I’m not a long-haul kind of guy. I don’t do the hard yards.”

  “Now it’s my turn to say bullshit. What about your garage? Your business?”

  “I only do that because it’s the only thing I can do. Don’t you think I would probably be better off with a cushy office job? But I can’t do that. You know that. I’m too stupid to do it.”

  “You’re not stupid, Luke. You never have been.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you call it, I still have my limitations. So yeah, I have the garage. Out of necessity. Is it anything to be proud of? Is it anything to really strive for, or parade out as an achievement?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think it is, neither do my parents.”

  “Well, they’re wrong too.”

  “It’s just not me, Mel. It’s not… I can’t. But it doesn’t mean we can’t keep what we have.”

  “What?” Her lip curled. “Friendship with sex on the side?”

  “Don’t sound so disdainful of it. You always order the salad instead of the fries, but I know you want fries. Consider this the fries.”

  “I’d rather have nothing.”

  “What?”

  She started to collect her clothes, a tear tracking down her cheek. “You heard me.”

  “I hope this is still a food metaphor, because you can’t have meant it like I think you did.”

  “It’s all or nothing. Luke, I think you could give me all if you weren’t so afraid.”

  “That isn’t fair.”

  She straightened and he took a step toward her. She extended her hands, shoved him back. “You fucking coward! I’m standing here exposing my soul and you can’t even pull your head out of your ass and look me in the eye.”

  He looked at her, his dark eyes flat. “How’s this? I don’t love you, Melanie. But I care about you. I’m your friend. There’s no reason to throw all of that out because I can give you marriage and whatever else you think you want right now.”

  “Yes, it is. I hid for a long time. I hid behind you. I hid behind what was comfortable, behind our friendship. I’m not going to let you do it too, Luke. If you don’t love me, you don’t love me, and you won’t miss me that much.”

  She tugged her shirt over her head, pulled her jeans on and started hunting for her shoes.

  “You know that isn’t true.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said, straightening, ignoring the pain in her chest and the sinking feeling in her stomach.

  “You should. If you know me as well as you claim to. Well enough that you can psychoanalyze me, and tell me what you think all of my problems are, then you should understand that you mean a hell of a lot to me.”

  “Not enough.”

  “I can’t believe you.”

  “No. You can’t. Of course you can’t. You’re used to me running away. Hiding. Not asking for anything.”

  “Don’t act like that’s what I want from you,” he said, his voice rough. “That isn’t what I want. I don’t want to hide. I don’t want you to take less. But I don’t want you to walk away from this either. From us.”

  “If you don’t love me, then there is no us.” She turned away from him and started to walk out of the barn, doing her very best to hold herself together while she felt like she was cracking from the inside out.

  “We didn’t use a condom.”

  She closed her eyes, his words hitting her with the force of a bullet. “I know,” she said, though she hadn’t been overly aware of it until that moment.

  “What now?”

  “Hope to God I’m not pregnant with your baby.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  She turned to look at him. “Being stuck with a man who just told me he would never love me? Yeah, that bad.” She took a step away from him, then stopped again. “You know what, Luke? You’re only a failure because you’ve settled into it. And I don’t mean the garage, the garage isn’t a failure. But this other stuff? Being afraid to want anything because you think you can’t? That’s all on you. I know your parents made you feel bad about yourself, about what you could and couldn’t do. I know it must have been hard to try for something, to want something, and feel like you couldn’t get it. But you can have me. No strings. The work is already done. You just can’t reach out and take
my hand until you stop clinging to fear.”

  And with that, she turned and walked out of the barn.

  Chapter Ten

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  Everything hurt. His head. His chest. Hell, his toenails hurt.

  It was nearly noon and he was still lying in his bed at the Grizzly Lodge, nursing the biggest hangover of his life and trying to process where everything had gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours.

  He had, at some point, fucked every last thing up. And he had no idea how to get back.

  He scrubbed his hand over his face and swung his legs over the side of the bed, pushing himself into an unsteady standing position, just as there was a heavy knock on the door to the room.

  He made his way over to it, wrapped his hand around the knob and jerked it open, wincing as the sunlight hit him full in the face. He couldn’t even focus on who was standing there. All he knew was that he was being stabbed in the temple by a ray of light. He turned away, just for a second, because it was too damned intense.

  “Luke.”

  Oh, shit. Beckett. He didn’t turn toward him, or the evil sunlight. He just couldn’t. Not right now. Not when Beckett was just another thing he’d fucked-all-to-hell.

  “Trust me, Beckett, now is not the time,” he said, his voice rough from lack of use and the burn of too much whiskey.

  “Trust me, Luke,” Beckett said, his tone hard. “I don’t care. I only have one thing to say to you. It’s simple, and you should have known it all along, but I also should have said it. Outright. Fought for the truth. I didn’t take any money from you.”

  Luke closed his eyes, guilt lancing him, stabbing him deeper than the light had. “That’s a bit late in coming.”

  “I shouldn’t have to say it. You should have believed in me. You should know me better.”

  No. No, no no.

  Luke turned, rage pounding in his skull along with pain, pain that went all the way down through his chest. “All evidence—”

  Beckett frowned, his jaw clenched tight. “Fuck your evidence, Luke. You were my best friend. You were supposed to know me better.”

  No, he couldn’t do this, Couldn’t deal with it now. If he was wrong about Beckett, he was wrong about so many damn things and he just couldn’t do this now. “If you’re trying to win some points with Kaitlin, you’re barking up the right tree. Now, why don’t you go make yourself useful and oh, I don’t know, get the fuck out of her life.”

  If Luke couldn’t get his shit together enough to be there for Mel, how could Beckett possibly do it for Kaitlin? If Luke couldn’t change, how could Beckett? It didn’t make sense.

  You don’t want it to make sense.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Beckett said, his voice a growl.

  Luke crossed his arms over his chest, doing his best to hang onto his control, to keep from shouting, from flipping over the ugly-ass motel room desk. To keep from saying straight to Beckett’s face that if Luke couldn’t triumph over his issues, Beckett had no business doing it either. He didn’t do any of that. Instead, he chose his next words carefully, took aim, and fired. “What, you’re going to stick around and make an honest woman of her and break her heart later?”

  Beckett didn’t let his words knock him back. “If Kaitlin would have me, I would not break her heart. Not now. Not later.”

  Luke’s lip curled. “Right. You’re suddenly Mr. Family Man.”

  “I love her.”

  The words hit Luke hard in the stomach. Holy shit. He meant it. Beckett meant it.

  And you can’t love Mel. You’re so afraid of those words, and he can say them. He might still be a thief but you are a fucking coward.

  He wouldn’t let that voice win. He wouldn’t give in. “So, what, you’re getting married, having a kid, and I’m supposed to magically forgive you for stealing?”

  “I didn’t steal.” Beckett flexed his fingers into fists, and Luke mentally prepared himself for another punch to the face. He’d actually like to earn one about now. “And I would love to marry your sister. I love her and if there was some way I could make her love me too, I would. I would do anything. But I can’t…force it.”

  It reminded him too much of the resignation on Mel’s face when they’d talked about love. When she’d told him it was all or nothing. That she wouldn’t want to be stuck with him if she were pregnant with his baby.

  Luke had never thought he and Kaitlin had all that much in common, but he was starting to wonder if meting out this kind of pain on another person—one who loved you—was in the Shuller genes.

  Luke looked away from the man he’d once considered his best friend. “She deserves better than you.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Damn. He seemed to mean that too. Which made being angry at him hard. But Luke was doing his best. “But find one damn person who would work harder to deserve her.”

  Beckett turned away from the door, and walked down the paved walk in front of the motel, heading to the main office. Luke didn’t watch to see if he went inside, instead he slammed the door closed, wincing as pain shot through him.

  Good for Beckett for trying. Good for fucking him. It didn’t mean anything would come of it. Luke had tried his damnedest to please his parents. To graduate from high school. To overcome his dyslexia and be the kind of inspirational story they made movies about.

  But his life wasn’t a movie. He hadn’t graduated, even though he’d done his best. He couldn’t control his brain. He couldn’t control anything.

  *

  Luke was starting to think he was staying in Grand Central Station instead of a motel. For the second time in as many days there was a heavy knock on the door. Couldn’t these people see he was trying to wallow in misery?

  He answered the door on a growl and froze when he saw his sister standing there, looking pale and in general like bedraggled hell. And she had the audacity to frown at him. “Are you hungover at six o’clock at night?” she asked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same. You could be in Bozeman. Or you could be staying with Mom and Dad. Or I thought I heard some weird rumor about you shacking up with Melanie, which I know couldn’t be true.”

  That was all way too close to reality for his liking. Yeah, he could be back in Bozeman. He could be the hell out of Dodge. But he was here. Here waiting for something that was never going to come to him.

  Melanie.

  For two days he’d been sitting in this motel, pretending he was hanging out because of Beckett and Kaitlin and the unresolved shitstorm still brewing between them.

  Luke scrubbed his hands over his face. “First of all, I’m keeping an eye on you.” Kind of. “You know what? I don’t have the energy for this. Believe it or not, Kaitlin, I actually have my own problems to deal with. You and Beckett tag-teaming me—”

  “Beckett was here?”

  He sighed heavily. “Two nights ago.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I’m right and he’s an asshole.”

  “Not. Funny.” She frowned at him, trying to work out what was going on with any of them. “I’m glad you have your own problems.”

  “Yeah it’s fan-fucking-tastic.” He rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”

  “I need you to…” She swallowed hard, shifting her weight from foot to foot, looking down. “I know you’re angry with Beckett. Still. But I don’t understand why.”

  Luke stepped to the side, allowing her entry into the motel room. “Oh, you mean, stealing wasn’t enough.”

  “You know he didn’t do that.”

  “Whatever, Kaitlin. Listen—”

  “He’d never do that to you. He’d never do that to himself.”

  He didn’t need this right now. He had other issues. Issues that had nothing to do with Beckett and whether or not he was a thief.

  Whether or not Luke was projecting all of his hangups onto Beckett rather than looking at the facts. “I don’t need
you to defend him to me. He might have knocked you up, but you don’t know him. No one knows him. He does that on purpose, and he was my best friend for a long time but that doesn’t mean I knew him.”

  Oh, shit, those words were so close to his own backyard he wanted to cut out his own tongue.

  Been busy protecting yourself for so long, Shuller. Does anyone know you?

  “You should know him! How can you not see? He does that on purpose. What’s wrong with you? Everyone in his life let him down and made him feel like nothing, so yeah, he protected himself a little bit. But he trusted you to see the good in him, and you used that trust for as long as it was easy and the minute it was hard, you broke it.”

  He broke it. Him. Not Beckett. Just like he’d been the one to break Melanie’s trust.

  You’re a coward. You’re afraid to want. Afraid to believe in anything or anyone.

  “He was the only one who could have done it,” Luke insisted, the refrain tired even to his own ears.

  “Except he didn’t. And you should never have thought it of him. That, Luke Shuller, is on you.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to argue with you about him.”

  “He is the father of my child, and I…” She paused, her words choking off for a moment as she paused and took a breath. “I do love him,” she managed on a shaky whisper.

  Luke gritted his teeth. “No, you—”

  “You don’t get to tell me what I feel, Luke.”

  He pushed his hands through his hair, his heart raging out of control. This was too much like that last conversation with Mel. All of this, Kaitlin and Beckett bringing their drama to his doorstep was too close to everything he was trying not to deal with.

  “Do you want to talk about your problems?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Fuck. No.”

  “Okay, do you want to help me?”

  He let out a heavy breath. “I will help you with anything, Kaitlin. I would protect you from—”