Good Girls Don't

by Victoria Dahl

  She waved him off. “Yeah. I know. I just need to find a way to ease him away from being mad at you.”

  “Ha!” Luke shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. I’m hoping to find a way to get to work without a black eye.”

  “He won’t hit you.”

  “Uh, he’d be happy to hit me right now, Tessa. Best-case scenario, he knows exactly what we did last night.”

  “Oh.” She felt her cheeks start to burn.

  “Yeah, exactly. Worst case, he knows what we did last night and he thinks I bullied you into it. So yeah, he’s capable of violence.”

  She nodded and hurried to her dresser to pull on sweats and a T-shirt. “Okay, wait here. And, you know…” She waved toward his bare chest. “Get dressed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Your clothes are under the bed. And check the closet, too.”

  Tessa slipped into the hallway, trying to pat her hair down as she snuck toward the living room. If one brother thought she was a complete innocent, then the other did, too. She’d played her role too well, damn it. Now, how was she going to spin her way out of this one?

  She expected to find him brooding on the couch, but instead Eric stood next to the front door with his arms crossed. When she took a few steps closer, she realized why he hadn’t taken a seat. The clothes that Luke had pulled off her last night were still strewn across the floor in front of the couch. Crap.

  Her feet slowed until she stopped. They stared at each other.

  Eric spoke first. “You don’t know anything about this guy.”

  “I do,” she said.

  His jaw tightened as his eyes darted to the couch and back to her. “I’m sorry to tell you this after…after you…”

  “For God’s sake, Eric. I’ve dated for a long time. College, high school—”

  “High school?” he screeched.

  “I don’t mean that! I just…” She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. “I just meant I don’t need protecting. I’m fine.”

  Eric hung his head as if the weight of the world were pulling down on him. When he looked up, his eyes held sorrow. “Luke Asher’s partner is pregnant with his child.”

  She was hit with such relief she actually smiled. “No, that’s not true. Simone is just his partner. The baby isn’t his, Eric.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Well, that’s hardly the only—”

  The door of her bedroom opened, and Eric cut himself off and looked toward the hallway. Tessa turned to see Luke step into the room. “Eric,” he said neutrally.

  Her brother didn’t answer. When she looked at him, he growled, “We’ll talk about this later,” before he opened the door and left. She watched the door until she heard his car start.

  “See?” she finally said. “No black eye.”

  Luke’s arms were suddenly curving around her. “Are you okay?”

  She pressed her face to his shirt. “I’m fine. Honest. But I’m not sure Eric’s okay. And what about you?”

  “Me? Hell, even a brother bent on righteous murder can’t ruin my good mood this morning.”

  Tipping her face up to kiss his neck, Tessa smiled at the smell of her soap and shampoo.

  “Crap. I’m late.” But even as he said it, his fingers spread and smoothed up and down her back.

  “Okay.” She pressed one last kiss to the warmth of his neck. “You go.”

  “I feel like I should hang around. That was a big night, with you becoming a woman and all.”

  Tessa pushed him away with a growl. “You’re worse than my brothers.”

  “Not true. I adjusted to reality a lot better than they will. I think I showed admirable courage in the line of duty.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “Wow. You might deserve an award.”

  “Oh, I think I do.” He stepped closer, sneaking his arms around her waist.

  “Good,” she said, pressing herself into his hard body. “I’ve got a whole box of them in my closet just for this situation. Well…half a box after last year. It was a good one.”

  Luke smiled, then grinned, then he threw his head back and laughed. Tessa just stood there smiling like an idiot. He had a gorgeous laugh, deep and booming. She put her ear to his chest to listen to the rumble, and then his heartbeat, and finally his sigh.

  “I really do have to go,” he whispered against the top of her head. “I’ve got to catch some bad guys. Or at least do a lot of paperwork.”

  She kissed his chest. “You watch too much TV.”

  He laughed again, and kissed her, and Tessa’s skin was still tingling when he left. Maybe it was a good thing that her brothers knew about Luke, because Tessa liked him more than she’d liked any of the men they hadn’t known about. Maybe way more. She touched her lips where they felt sparkly with heat and smiled against her own fingers.

  Or maybe she just watched too much TV.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TESSA OPENED THE BACK door of the brewery as quietly as she could and slipped into the kitchen. It was empty, thank God. She tiptoed across the gray tile and edged her head around the hallway. Eric’s door was halfway open, and she could see his desk and one of his hands typing on the keyboard.

  Holding her breath, she rushed past the hallway and pushed through the double doors to the front room. Jamie was just taking the chairs down from the tables after vacuuming.

  “Jamie!” she whispered. “I need to talk to you.”

  He rounded on her with wide eyes. “You need to talk to me?”

  “Yes—”

  “Are you kidding me? You slept with him. You slept with him after I told you not to!”

  “Come on. You don’t get to tell me who to sleep with.”

  “I do, too!” he shouted.

  Tessa shook her head frantically and rushed at him to put her hand over his mouth. “Be quiet! Eric will hear you.”

  “Oh, he wants to speak to you, too, believe me.” His words were slightly muffled by her hand, but at least he wasn’t yelling.

  She set Jamie free and wiped her hand on her pants. “This isn’t about Luke.”

  “Luke,” he spat.

  “Listen! You didn’t call me back yesterday. I talked to Kendall. I think I might be able to get him back on board.”

  “I— What?”

  She nodded. “He’s agreed to think about it for a few days. But we still need a backup plan.”

  He looked suspicious instead of enthusiastic. “What kind of backup plan?”

  “Something to offer Eric if this falls through. Something that’ll help him forget about High West. What about your idea to turn the barroom into more of a pub? Sandwiches and burgers and stuff?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot you weren’t around when I suggested that. He basically told me I was trying to ruin the place and drive us into bankruptcy while I was at it.”

  Tessa cringed at the leftover fury in Jamie’s voice.

  “So I don’t think that’s a suitable distraction.”

  “Okay,” she said, dropping it and moving on to her next idea. “What about that vendor who—” Before she could finish her question, Jamie looked up and coughed.

  Tessa turned and found herself facing Eric. He stared at her with icy eyes, and in that moment, Tessa was a girl facing her father. A father who’d seen some thing he really, really shouldn’t have. She clasped her fingers in front of her and swallowed hard.

  Eric crossed his arms and stared her down. “I don’t know why you snuck past me to talk to Jamie about it. He’s just as pissed as I am.”

  She swallowed one more time, reset her spinning mind, then put her shoulders back. “Neither of you has anything to be pissed about. As a matter of fact, I’m pissed at Jamie.” She stepped back so she could keep both of them in her sight, but Jamie was still wearing a leftover expression of confusion from the interrupted conversation. “You had no right to talk to Luke about my sex life.”

  That got his mind off the discussio
n of a new deal. Jamie’s eyes nearly bugged from his head. “You told me you didn’t have a sex life!”

  “I did not! I’ve never said a darn thing to either of you about that.”

  Jamie pointed his finger at her. “You said you weren’t engaged in anything.”

  Eric jerked his chin up. “It’s true. You said that.”

  “I meant I wasn’t doing anything that would get me pregnant right at that moment.”

  “Oh,” Jamie snapped, “but you are now?”

  “For God’s sake, Jamie, you don’t get to talk to me about saving myself for marriage, all right?” He paled a little and she rounded on Eric. “And you! When was the last time you had sex? We should have an in-depth conversation about it, because apparently I’m supposed to protect you from that.”

  As if her two brothers were complete opposites in every regard, Eric’s face flamed to bright red. “I don’t… You… That’s none of your business.”

  “Exactly.”

  Eric cleared his throat and examined his shoes. “So… You didn’t just let Luke spend the night on your couch?”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “I thought there was a chance. Maybe he needed a place to stay.”

  Good Lord. She really had kept up her charade with too much skill. He thought of her as a seventeen-year-old girl. Actually… Tessa thought back to her senior year in high school and revised the age down to sixteen.

  But even though she hadn’t been sixteen in a long time, it had seemed easier to hold on to that charade. Easier for Tessa and, more importantly, easier for Eric. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this,” she muttered.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, either, but it’s not just about you doing…stuff.”

  Tessa covered her eyes.

  “It’s about Luke. He’s not the guy for you.”

  “I told you—”

  Jamie jumped in. “It’s not just his partner. Has he bothered to mention his divorce?”

  Tessa tried not to let her shock show. No, he hadn’t said anything about a divorce, but was she truly surprised? “We haven’t discussed previous relationships. It’s not that serious yet.”

  Eric snorted in disgust.

  “His divorce is his business,” she insisted.

  Jamie and Eric exchanged a look and the weight of it made her uncomfortable. “Wait, he is divorced, right? You’re not saying he’s married?”

  “No,” Eric said, but he stared at Jamie until Jamie finally nodded. And then Eric turned and left the room.

  “What’s going on?” Tessa actually felt afraid. She was starting to worry that his ex-wife had been injured in a mysterious accident involving a malfunctioning brake line.

  Jamie dropped into a chair and signaled her to join him. Tessa lowered herself carefully down, perching on the very edge of the seat.

  “I didn’t want to tell you this.”

  She made a hurry-up gesture.

  “He married a girl he met in school. I don’t know anything about the marriage, but a few years ago, she got sick.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Breast cancer.”

  Tessa pressed both her hands to her mouth to smother her gasp. “Did she… But you said he was divorced.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said flatly. “He left her. While she was sick.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment. It was just too ridiculous to take in. What kind of man would do that? Not the kind of man who was eaten up with worry over his partner’s pregnancy. “No,” she said simply. “It didn’t happen that way.”

  “It did.”

  “Jamie, you know him. He’d never do that.”

  “Tessa, I know him as a guy I used to party with. We didn’t get into a lot of deep discussions about marriage and morality.”

  “Well, it’s not true,” she snapped.

  Jamie sighed and pressed his fingers to his temples. “Don’t be one of those girls, Tessa. Please.”

  She’d pushed her chair out, but she froze at his words and put her hands flat to the table. “One of what girls?”

  “Tessa.” His mouth flattened with disappointment. “Come on. ‘It’s not his baby, he didn’t leave his wife, nobody understands him, he’s really a great guy.’”

  Tessa gasped in horror. “I’m not that girl!”

  “Good, because we haven’t raised you to put up with being stepped on.”

  “Oh, please. You didn’t raise me.”

  Now it was Jamie’s turn to look outraged. “Hey, I did my part.”

  She could see that she’d hurt his feelings and backtracked. “Okay. You’re great at being a big brother. An obnoxious big brother.”

  “Fine,” he snapped. “But it’d better fall under big brother duties to beat the shit out of Luke Asher the next time I see him, because that’s happening.”

  Still feeling bad for her careless words, Tessa walked around to the back of his chair to put her arms around him. “No hitting. Stay out of it.” She kissed his cheek as he grumbled. “I need to get to work,” she said, and let him go.

  “Wait a minute! What exactly did Kendall say?”

  “Shh!” she scolded as she hurried out of the bar area. Tessa rushed to her office and shut the door, then leaned against it with a groan. When had her life started spiraling? Granted, she was always busy with keeping Jamie happy and Eric calm and her work on track and her love life private. But the reward for all that work was supposed to be smooth sailing, not twenty-four-hour insanity.

  And now her stomach burned with anxious hurt over Luke. Could she have misread him so badly? He seemed like such a good guy inside that hard exterior. Was that just an act? She hated to admit it, but Jamie had a point. How many women did she know who refused to see the truth that was so evident to everybody else?

  One of her best friendships had been ruined because of stupidity over a man. Over Jamie, actually. Her friend Grace had developed a bad habit of falling madly in love with the wrong men. Jamie had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d flirted with Grace, as he flirted with everyone, and the girl had tumbled head over heels into stalkerlike love. A few weeks later, when she’d been banned from the brewery for behavior that fell comfortably into the stalking category, she’d finally moved on to a married man who promised he planned to leave his wife soon.

  Pure delusion.

  Had Tessa picked up that baton and started seeing things in Luke that didn’t exist? She was almost sure she hadn’t…but that was just another symptom, wasn’t it?

  She tried to shake it off. After all, she’d had sex with the man; she hadn’t married him. Regardless of whether he was an asshole or not, he damn sure knew his way around a woman’s body. She’d walked away more than happy. That’s all it needed to be.

  She smoothed her T-shirt down and took a deep breath, then sat down to go through the invoices awaiting her attention. She processed them as quickly as possible, because she needed to carve out time for some secret number crunching. If Jamie’s idea to add food to the bar menu wouldn’t make Eric happy, then Tessa had to work extra hard on the Kendall deal. She’d run the High West numbers for Eric months ago, but what if she could nudge them a little bit? Sweeten the pot for Roland Kendall? Excitement urged her on, the feeling that she could make this right. She could fix it. She always did.

  Yes, there was definitely some wiggle room in the numbers. Not much, but a little. And if she served them up to Kendall on a silver platter, with garnish, and a big, confident smile…?

  A feeling of impending triumph kept her grinning as she closed the spreadsheet. Determined to keep the feeling going, she opened her Twitter feed and read all the compliments women had left for Jamie. The public had a great affection for his bare legs, not to mention a burning curiosity about what he wore under his kilt. She ignored all that—it wasn’t her job to flirt on his behalf—and posted a new message.

  If enough people request “Danny Boy” tonight, maybe I’ll dust off the old vocal chords.

&n
bsp; Ha. He hated that song. She wished she could hang around to see it.

  But the lightness of her mood didn’t last. The hard strike of a knock on her door wiped her smile clean. “Come in,” she said warily.

  Eric pushed the door open, but seemed hesitant to walk in. “Hey,” he said. He raised a hand to show the stack of envelopes he held. “Bills,” he said unnecessarily.

  “Thanks.”

  He stepped in and put them on the edge of her desk, then immediately stepped back.

  Tessa was torn. On one hand, she wanted to apologize to him for this morning, to assure him that everything was fine and he didn’t have to worry about her. He never had to worry about her. That was the point of everything she did.

  On the other hand, she wanted to ask for her key and tell him not to drop in anymore. But she knew she wouldn’t do that. That house had belonged to their parents. Frankly, it still belonged to all of them, though her brothers had tried to sell her their shares at a laughably low price. How could she refuse him entrance to their family home? Better just to conduct any sexual liaisons at the man’s house instead.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but Eric only shook his head.

  “No, I’m sorry. You’re an adult and you don’t need my permission to…” He waved his hand. “Do…anything. I’ve just been stressed out.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “That bastard Kendall has started ignoring my calls again.”

  Tessa’s heart dropped. “Oh,” she managed to push out past her closing throat.

  “We’ve already drawn up the final contract. All we need to do is sign it! What the hell does he think he’s doing?”

  Tessa had to gulp down a deep breath in order to speak. “Maybe he’s… Maybe he’s not even in town.”

  “Yeah, he’s out of town, but he’s not answering his cell phone, either.”

  “He’s probably busy. It’s not like he hasn’t done this before.”

  Eric didn’t look anything close to convinced. “It doesn’t feel right. Before he was trying to make me work for this deal. But now we have an agreement.”

  “Well, don’t keep calling him,” she said in a rush. “You’re just going to piss him off.”