Final Mend
Page 27
“Well, it’s true,” he said, this time a bit softer. “I don’t want to see her hurt you.”
“She’s not going to hurt me,” Reagan said. “She won’t miss my wedding.”
“Yeah? I hope not.” Actually, it wouldn’t bother him if she did miss the wedding. It’d mean less time for him to have to deal with her but as it was, he had to deal with her. He’d do his best to avoid her as she had avoided him.
“She left because she had a job.”
“Yeah, well, are you paying her to help you with your wedding? What’s going to happen when she gets another job trying to teach someone how to dress?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Garret warned.
“Okay, well I’m headed to Air Dog.” Chayton kissed Reagan’s cheek and thumped his brother on the back.
“But I thought you were going to eat with us,” Reagan said.
“It’s your first dinner in your new home. You both need to enjoy it, just the two of you.” He walked out the door, leaving no room for argument and waving out one last goodbye before the door slammed behind him.
Naomi’s name had been mentioned in that room and he couldn’t stand to be there until her presence dissolved. And it would eventually. It’d happened with Air Dog and on the ski slopes. Her energy had haunted all his hang-outs after she’d left, but he could finally walk around town and not see her everywhere he looked.
That wouldn’t last long. Her return, no matter how brief, would underscore her presence with a permanent marker. He’d see her face everywhere he looked and every one of his friend’s faces would stitch a memory of Naomi in his mind. She’d be at the wedding, she’d be dancing on the dance floor, she’d be standing beside him and his friends and in his town and in his Air Dog.
Naomi strived for perfection, and he wanted to tarnish that reality by taking that perfectly coiffed hair and disrupt it, that perfect speech and botch it, that perfect body and show her perfection’s deceit. He was drawn to those impeccable beings, probably because Diane’s love had been flawless. He couldn’t have asked for a better home, but neither did he believe it could ever happen again. Now all he wanted to do was reveal these seemingly perfect women as human, nothing but a pipe dream.
So he’d almost gotten her arrested. Did she not see the horrors of life in Hollywood? Did she envisage life was this great wonderful box of fucking chocolates?
Did she think he was worse than the man who had put that bruise on her face?
Clenching his teeth, he walked out Garret’s door and into the cool evening air of his hometown. She’d be here to disrupt it again, but he’d bottle his emotions, even if it did make him seem like an asshole. It didn’t take him long to get the hint, and she’d brushed him off one too many times.
If nothing else, they’d been friends before their ordeal. Did she not consider he deserved at least a good-bye? She thought he was a damn bartender. Never mind he owned this frigging bar, the coffee shop down the street, and half the ski shops in this town.
He wasn’t good enough for her, so she’d gone back to her Hollywoodites to teach them how to dress. She’d been a nice break from reality at the time.
He was a rugged, outdoor man who owned a bar and liked to jump out of airplanes. She was a classy, sophisticated girl who dressed celebrities for a living and liked to ski down the black slopes of hell just as much as he did.
Maybe that’s why he was so attracted to her.
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Also look for these books by Angela Smith:
Burn on the Western Slope
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