“Billie, just say it.”
“He’s devastated. How did you think he would feel?”
Tears sprang to Bobbi’s eyes. How had she let this happen? How could she do this to the man she had pledged to love?
The man she did love. So what if it wasn’t the mad, passionate sort of thing she’d experienced in the past. With Shane. That kind of love had nearly destroyed her.
“Shit,” she said hoarsely. “What have I done?”
But there was no quick reply of advice. No words to make her feel better. And as her eyes strayed to the bed once more, her gut rolled and she thought she was going to be sick. Had she slept with Shane last night? Would she be that stupid?
I just walked out on the man who could have given me everything and I’m asking myself if I’m stupid or not?
“What are you going to do?” Billie prodded gently.
Bobbi took a moment. She forced her stomach to settle and tucked her wild hair behind her ears. She licked her dry lips and shrugged. “I have no idea. I have to make things right with Gerald.”
“And that’s what you want.”
“Yes,” she exhaled. “It’s what I want.”
But I have to find Shane first.
Carefully she let herself out of the bedroom and stepped into an open concept loft. Shane rented the old carriage house on Logan Forest’s property—she knew this—but Bobbi was surprised at how warm and welcoming the place was. Large windows let in an abundance of natural light, emphasizing the warm oak floors, and dark leather furniture.
A large table to the right caught her attention and her fingers trailed over it as she walked by. It looked like teak, maybe? But the design was simple. Sturdy.
And expensive looking.
Her brow furled. How in the hell was Shane able to afford something like this? It must have cost a small fortune. As far as she knew he’d never made amends with his father, so she was fairly certain Shane’s dad wasn’t funneling Gallagher family money into his home.
She glanced around the large, open, space once more, taking in the muted palette of moss green, rich oak and black. It was masculine and yet elegant. Everything about the room was so well put together that she had to wonder…was Shane involved with someone? Was this the work of a woman’s touch?
Pia barked twice and Bobbi jumped, her heart taking off like a rocket as she whirled around—a little too fast—and she clutched her head and groaned.
Where was Shane?
She spied the dog near the stairs and watched the little fireball disappear down them and it was then that she realized he must be below. For a few seconds she was frozen in her spot, but then she gave herself a mental shake down and forced herself to move.
“Just get it over with,” she muttered.
Bobbi made her way over to the stairs and peered down. Her feet were still bare and she wrinkled her toes against the cool floor boards, as she inhaled a host of scents that seemed out of place. Wood. Oils. Sharp and metallic scents.
Carefully she made her way down, though she hesitated on the last step, her heart in her chest, her skin cold and clammy.
For one brief moment she thought of running back upstairs. Of hiding beneath the tangled mess of blankets on the bed. Of closing her eyes and doing her best to forget everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours.
But then the damn dog appeared at her feet and outed her with one yelp. Before she lost her nerve, Bobbi stepped off and turned the corner.
She could say that her heart nearly fell out of her chest because she was damn surprised at what she found—it looked like a freaking furniture store, and the paintings…the paintings were incredible. Vivid. Bleak. Raw.
But, they only held her attention for a moment because her hungry eyes found Shane seconds later and her entire body felt as if it had been dipped in hot, electric, water.
He was bent over a long piece of wood, running a sander over the dark lines. Slowly. Back and forth. The muscles in his arms and shoulders drew her attention—pretty hard not to, when he wore nothing but a pair of faded jeans that hung dangerously low on his hips. His feet were bare and as her gaze traveled up his back, she rested her eyes on the intricate tattoo that adorned the back of his left shoulder.
It was new and she wondered if he still had the one. That special one on his left bicep. A sheen of sweat covered his skin as he worked the sander in slow, methodic strokes.
He turned slightly, his profile, way too damn intoxicating, the strong lines of his nose, his jaw and chin, too achingly familiar. His hair, always longer than the norm, touched the tops of his shoulders, the thick coffee colored waves, shining from the light above him.
An image of her hands buried in his hair as he nuzzled her breasts flashed before her eyes and Bobbi’s breath caught in the back of her throat.
Ear buds were in place and for the moment he didn’t know she was there. Bobbi’s hand crept up behind her right ear, to the place that had always belonged to him, to the mark he’d put there—the one that matched his—and something inside her twisted so painfully she gasped.
The dog barked.
Shane glanced up.
And she was lost.
Chapter Six
For a few seconds the only sound in his work room was Pia’s mad barking. The little mutt barked at Bobbi and then ran back to Shane, her excited yelps growing in intensity until with one look, and a quick scratch behind the ears, she quieted.
Shane took a second, not only to remove the ear buds but to make sure not one trace of emotion showed on his face. Seeing Bobbi like that, half naked and wearing his T-shirt, did all sorts of things to him that he didn’t want to think about or dwell on. Hell, it had been bad enough the night before when he’d struggled to get her out of her damn wedding dress and into the stupid shirt.
When she wasn’t giggling like a crazy lady, she was rubbing that hot body wherever she could touch. It had taken everything in Shane to not take what she was offering, and in fact, not even twenty minutes in a cold shower had offered much relief.
Her hair was still a mess, the thick dark strands wild and crazy—the total opposite to the sleek look she’d been sporting since he’d been back in town. There were shadows beneath her eyes though, dark smudges that told of a night without much sleep and her skin was pale.
Pia barked once more and Bobbi winced—no doubt because he knew she was suffering from one hell of a hangover.
“Thought you’d be in bed for hours yet,” he said, watching her closely as she took a step forward.
She cleared her throat and shook her head, though her eyes left him and she turned in a semi-circle, her gaze on the walls.
“You still paint,” she said softly.
Shane followed her gaze and nodded, his lips tight, a frown in place. “Yep.” He sure as hell wasn’t in the mood for a walk down memory lane. And to be honest, he was questioning his decision to bring her back here in the first place. What had he been thinking? He should have left her with her family and Dooley.
Pia barked once more. Seemed as if the dog agreed too.
He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and watched her cross the room to stand in front of a painting he’d done not long after he’d come back to New Waterford. He had created it from memory, with the aid of a few sketches he’d brought back with him.
“Who’s that?” she pointed and turned to him.
“No one you would know.”
For a moment the two of them stared at each other in silence, and he thought that maybe a shadow of hurt crossed her face. If so, it was gone just as fast as it had come, replaced once more with the cool, composed woman he’d come home to.
She was a stranger to him, and yet…
She wrapped her arms around her body as if seeking warmth and rested her gaze on the table he was working on. She blew out a long breath and took a few hesitant steps forward, though when Pia barked once more she scowled.
“Okay, your dog needs to relax.�
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“Pia’s a little territorial,” Shane replied.
“Well she doesn’t have to worry about me,” she retorted frostily.
“She’s not.”
“She’s not,” Bobbi repeated.
“Nope.”
The dog glanced between the two adults and growled.
“I find that hard to believe,” Bobbi said as she took one step back.
“It’s me she’s worried about.”
Bobbi muttered something unintelligible under her breath before nodding toward the table and gesturing around the large, main floor of the carriage house. The entire area was his workspace, the one place where he felt at home and relaxed.
That is until today.
“I thought you worked for Logan at his shop.”
“I do,” he answered easily. He had returned to New Waterford because at the time he’d had no choice. As an ex-con, fresh out of prison and on parole, he’d had to procure employment and Logan had stepped in, offering him the chance to work in his bike shop, building custom rides. It’s something he enjoyed and it served its purpose, but it wasn’t his dream.
“So what’s all this?” she asked, finally meeting his gaze.
Shane shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood to play nice with Bobbi. Not today. Not ever.
“I’m just fooling around.”
Her delicate eyebrows furled and he knew she wasn’t going to let this go.
“Since when do you love working with wood?”
“Since prison.”
Her face flushed and she muttered, “Oh.”
He’d skimmed the facts for sure. Working in the wood shop had pretty much saved him because when Shane had been sentenced to his three year term, he was definitely in a bad way. He’d checked out on life and didn’t give a shit about anything. If not for Wilson, the old man in the painting, he wasn’t sure where the hell he’d be right now.
Awkward silence fell between them and Shane rolled his shoulders as the muscles across his back tightened. Two minutes in her company and he was already wound tighter than a damn top.
“Get dressed and I’ll take you home,” he said roughly, nudging Pia aside with his foot as he nodded toward the stairs.
Her chin shot up. So did her eyebrows.
“I’m not going anywhere until we discuss what happened last night.”
That surprised him. He thought she’d want to hightail it out of his place as soon as possible.
She fingered the edge of his T-shirt nervously and glanced away, her large eyes suddenly shadowed. It hit him then. She wasn’t just hung over. She was suffering from the after effects of one too many shots of tequila. The main one being memory loss.
A cool grin touched his mouth as he moved forward, and something perverse and dangerous rifled through him when he saw the panicked look that crept into her face.
“You want to talk about last night,” he said slowly.
She swallowed and his gaze rested on her mouth. That damn, delectable, soft and wicked mouth. Bobbi cleared her throat as the air between them exploded in a crackle of fireworks and sizzling energy.
“Well,” she began breathlessly, her pulse beating fast and hard at her neck. “Don’t you think we should?”
Shane was inches from her now. She should smell like a damn brewery—or at least like the kind of woman who had spent the night in a bar tossing back way too much whiskey and tequila. But she didn’t. Hell the fuck no. The subtle fragrance that clung to her hair and lived on her skin, was something familiar and his groin tightened at the memory of it.
She smelled like summer. It was cold as hell outside with a brisk north wind blowing and yet, Bobbi smelled like fucking summer. Go figure.
“It was your wedding night,” he said gruffly, pissed that she affected him so much.
Her pink tongue ran along her top lip and his focus shifted. It had to. Because he was suddenly as hard as a rock and was thanking the good Lord that his jeans had more than enough room between his legs. Though if she kept it up…kept up with the mouth and the lips and the tugging on the edge of his damn T-shirt, there was no way he would be able to hide how turned on he was.
“In case you missed it, I ended up at the Hard Rock in a wedding dress minus a groom.”
“True,” he answered. “Why did you run out on Dooley?”
“I didn’t,” she began and then blew out a hot breath. “I…didn’t,”
“You didn’t.” He arched an eyebrow and narrowed his gaze.
“Well I did, but I’m,” she thrust her chin out and glared at him. “I’m going to fix it.”
Shane snorted and cocked his head to the side. Something black stirred inside him. “How the hell are you going to manage that?”
Her eyes flashed and he knew she was annoyed at his tone. “I got nervous. It happens. And I’ll explain all of it to him and he’ll be fine.”
Her blue eyes were shiny, her mouth wet where her tongue had darted out. In that moment the only thing Shane wanted to do was pull her into his arms and taste her. Taste her and rip his T-shirt off along with the sexy black panties he knew was underneath.
Instead, he gave himself a mental smack down.
“You think Dooley will be fine with the fact that you left him at the altar and made a fool out of him on his wedding day?”
She stared at him and said nothing, though she nodded slightly.
“In front of half the town?”
She winced, but damn, she had the audacity to nod again.
Shane snorted. “You’re crazier than I remember.” She opened her mouth but he stopped her cold. “No, not crazy…you’re deluded.”
“Gerald loves me and I’ll make him understand it was just a mistake.”
“You expect him to believe that your decision to not show up was a mistake.”
Her bottom lip trembled and he wasn’t exactly sure why he was pushing her so hard. He didn’t care about Bobbi or Gerald anymore. Bringing her here was a mistake. A lapse in judgment and he was going to blame it on….Fuck he didn’t know what he was going to blame it on, but he sure as hell knew whatever they’d once shared was gone.
It was in the past..
He was done with her. Sure he still found her hot as hell but that was it. It had to be, or he was screwed.
“I expect him to give me a chance and I know he’ll listen to me, I mean he’s a decent guy but first…”
“But first?” he prodded.
“Well,” she exhaled nervously and bit her bottom lip, a sure fire sign she was uncomfortable .
Suddenly he knew where she was headed and that blackness that was stirring sharpened and intensified.
“You want to know if we slept together.”
She swallowed but didn’t answer, her eyes shiny and wide.
“Would it matter?” he continued, as he moved closer and didn’t stop until there was barely a whisper between them. He felt her body heat and that insane smell of summer assaulted him as surely as if she’d laid her hands on his chest.
“What do you mean?”
“If we did,” he leaned down. “If I screwed the hell out of you last night, would you run to Dooley and tell him that you did the nasty with your ex, ex-con? Or would you keep it a secret.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “Because we both know you like keeping secrets.”
He bent low, and moved her hair away from her neck leaving her Gaelic tattoo exposed. He traced the lines with his forefinger, aware the air between that had changed. Her breaths were falling faster, harsher, and that blackness inside of him threatened to spill out.
In that moment he wanted to hurt her in ways that he’d not thought of since that awful night, several years back, when they’d broken up. When they’d trashed each other’s hearts and souls with ugly, dark things—things neither one of them would ever forget.
Suddenly he had enough. He had no desire to do this dance with Bobbi. To revisit a past that would do nothing but hurt them both. If she wanted to spend her life
with someone like Gerald Dooley, who was he to stop her?
Shane stepped back and nodded toward the stairs.
“Don’t worry princess. Nothing happened last night.”
She stared at him for several moments, chest heaving, her pale cheeks now flushed a deep rose color.
“I’ll call Billie. I don’t need a ride,” she said finally before turning and disappearing back up the stairs.
Shane wasn’t sure how long he stood in silence, gazing at the top of the stairs. Finally, he moved, inserted his ear buds, grabbed the sander and once more ran it along the huge piece of teak. Unlike his mind and his heart, his motions were controlled and the sounds of classic Van Halen blotted out the sound of a car pulling up to his place.
And of the slamming door behind the girl who’d damn near broken him.
Chapter Seven
It was a week after the wedding-that-never-happened and Bobbi was about to face her groom. Or rather, the groom and fiancé she’d stood up. As it turned out, he’d left for their honeymoon—taken his mother as his companion—and had only gotten back to town the night before. He had left a message with Herschel earlier and she knew he’d be by shortly.
Her sister Billie thought the whole thing was weird—taking his mother along on what was supposed to have been his honeymoon. According to Billie, it would have made more sense for him to take a buddy—someone to drink and party his way through the week with.
Bobbi knew that Gerald didn’t have too many close guy friends, at least none outside of business and she couldn’t fault him for taking the trip. It was certainly the practical thing to do, though really, his mother?
She glanced down at the diamond that still adorned her left ring finger, turning her hand slightly so the two carat stone reflected the bright sunlight that filtered in from the kitchen window.
“God, you’re still wearing that thing?”
She turned, her expression tightening as her other sister Betty wandered into the kitchen, her lithe form barely covered by a silky blue robe. Loosely belted, it gaped open, showing off more than just a little peek of her breasts, in fact, Bobbi’s frown deepened as her sister stretched and both of the girls fell out.
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