Scarred: Trey and Autumn
Cliffside Bay Series, Book 8
Tess Thompson
Contents
A note to readers
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
Also by Tess Thompson
This book is dedicated to the memory of my uncle Robert Keith Thompson. Gone too soon.
May he rest in peace, making music with the angels.
A note to readers
Dear Reader,
I’m so glad you’ve found your way to Cliffside Bay. What a journey it’s been writing these love stories. I first imagined the town and characters at the end of 2017. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of days with my #ButtInSeat. I still love the Dogs and Wolves and the women they love as much as I did when I started the series with Traded: Brody and Kara. I hope you do, too.
If you’re new to me or the series, I’m happy to “meet” you. I love to hear from readers, so drop me a note at [email protected]. If you haven’t read the rest of the series, you can find them all on my website at https://tesswrites.com/. Finally, although each book can be read as a standalone, I think they’re much more fun read in order. I hope you enjoy Trey and Autumn’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Happy reading. Xo
Tess
1
Trey
* * *
The first evening of summer smelled of the sea and honeysuckle. A warm breeze kissed Trey Wattson’s skin with a promise of the long, languid days to come. All memories of the sulky grey days of the northern California winter seemed only a dream under the clear night sky. Stars twinkled down at them, competing for attention with the white lights strung between the pool house and outdoor kitchen of the Mullens’ stone patio. A half-dozen couples danced, silhouettes on the other end of the pool deck. Others mingled near the pizza oven and bar area, drinking beer from etched pint glasses or champagne from skinny flutes. Their laughter combined with a country ballad that streamed through unseen speakers. Beyond the patio, a stretch of freshly mowed grass ended at the edge of a steep cliff, with the sea below. A steel fence kept intruders out and little children in while maintaining the integrity of the view.
Trey sat in a lounge chair just outside the open doors of the newly decorated pool house with his legs stretched out, watching as the party went on around him. Unlike the rest of the men, who were dressed in cargo shorts and T-shirts, he wore pressed khaki pants and a cotton shirt the color of the cobalt-tiled pool. His wavy brown hair, almost tamed by products and a meticulously styled cut, disobeyed by flopping over his forehead. These days, he spent too long deciding what to wear and how to comb his hair. Falling in love with a woman did that to a man.
Next to him, the object of his tortured heart, Autumn Hickman, shared an oversize lounge chair with her friend Sara. Their heads were together, chatting as women do about things men were not privy to and probably didn’t want to be. If he’d strained, he might have heard what they whispered to each other, but it was of no interest to him. He was content to sit next to Autumn and occasionally catch a whiff of her perfume.
Kara and Brody Mullen’s property was an oasis from noise, traffic, and tourists who would flood the stores and beach all summer. Here, it was as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. Thick woods to the south and north hid a cottage and Brody’s brother’s house. Although not visible from here, the town of Cliffside Bay was five miles down the road, in the valley between two competing slopes.
His gaze fixed on the host and hostess. Kara and Brody, separated by her very pregnant belly, swayed to the music at arm’s length like two kids at a Catholic school dance.
Tonight’s party was to celebrate the redecoration of their pool house. Trey had spent the last few weeks transforming it from bland to bright and cheery. Kara had asked for citrus colors to brighten up the dried-grass and eggshell interiors of the pool house. He’d combined lemon-yellow walls with lime and orange accents but kept the eggshell cabinets and colors subtle. No one wanted a room that looked like a carton of Popsicles. The outside patio furniture mirrored the inside, including striped lime-and-orange umbrellas, which he’d had specially made.
To thank him for his work, Kara had invited him to the party. He didn’t usually run in the same circle as the former professional quarterback turned color commentator and his stunning wife. The Mullens were good people, without a hint of pretention, but they were rich and like finely bred racehorses, stronger and smarter than the rest of the world. Brody was tall with a muscular body made for football and a chiseled face perfect for television. Kara was dark-haired and athletic. A nurse practitioner, she was as smart as she was compassionate. They hung with a group of four other couples, all rich and shiny and as close as family. They called themselves the Dogs and the Wags. Trey was simply their decorator. Not that he was complaining. He and the other four partners of their construction company, Wolf Enterprises, were grateful for their business.
On the poolside dance floor, Brody placed his hand on Kara’s stomach. Darned if Trey’s eyes didn’t sting at the sight of them. What had happened to him over the last few months? As if he didn’t know. Right. He knew. He knew exactly.
Autumn had happened. Like a strong riptide, she’d pulled him under and out to sea. Autumn and her ridiculously charming cottage. She’d hired him to remodel the 1940s beach bungalow. What should have been a simple job had turned into much more than that. The job and the woman had changed him. Before any of the walls had succumbed to his jackhammer, he’d fallen into Autumn’s current, never to return to his bitter, disillusioned, cuckold self. Or was it former cuckold? Was that a temporary title, expunged after a divorce?
Autumn’s presence in his life had turned back time to the man he was before his heart had been shattered. He’d once been a romantic, a dreamer. A man who believed in marriage and loyalty and building a life with the woman he loved. His ex-wife had killed that man. Like the dish running away with the spoon, she’d run off with their intern. That had been that. He’d fallen from the moon, done with love. Ruined. Shattered. Scarred. His heart transformed into a bitter mass of humiliation and rage. He was no longer a romantic-comedy-loving fool. No, he was a cold, hard lone wolf who watched action films and drank scotch and felt nothing but disdain for his former self.
That had been his intent, anyway. He’d been determined to be a lone wolf, except for hanging out with the other mangy Wolves of Cliffside Bay. His friends were one thing. Sure, he could love the other Wolves and his mother and sister. His heart wasn’t totally dead. Just dead to the idea of romance.
Or it had been. Past tense. He’d tried to retain the promise he’d made to himself. For months, he’d kept his lovesick feelings hidden first from himself, then from her and everyone else in their lives. He’d pushed his feckless thoughts aside time and again. Yet there they were. Like the honeysuckle’s blooms and long summer days, love had come around again.
He loved Autumn Hickman. He wanted her to be his forever.
“Trey,” Autumn said, startling him from his meandering thoughts. “You’re quieter than usual. All good?”
He turned to look at her. “Yes, just watching.”
“Nothing odd there.” Her mouth curved into her gentle smile and his stomach fluttered. He’d not known a smile could do that to a person.
“How about you?” he asked. “You okay?”
“Yes, more than okay.” Autumn’s hair, a color somewhere between brown and red, shone under the lights. She smiled again, looking younger than her thirty years with her fair skin caressed into a pink blush by a few glasses of wine. “Thanks for bringing us tonight.”
“Seriously,” Sara said, poking her head around Autumn to look at him. “I haven’t had a night out in ages.” She sighed, seeming slightly tipsy. “If only I had what those two have.” She pointed to the Mullens. “I most certainly do not have that, do I now?” Sara was raising her baby daughter alone, with the help of an au pair, after her husband’s death.
“You will,” Autumn said. “It’s only been a year.”
“Isn’t one year supposed to be the magic number?” Sara asked. “The time I’m supposed to feel better?”
Autumn tilted her head to rest on Sara’s shoulder and patted her friend’s hand. “Give it a little more time.”
“I’ve had too much wine and now I’m feeling sorry for myself.” She said this with a lighthearted lilt to her voice, but Trey suspected the words were very true. There was no timeline for grief. He wished there were.
Sara glanced at her watch. “I should call my nanny and check on Harper. Mimi’s old-school. She won’t go to bed until I call and tell her I’m fine and what time I’ll be home. It’s like living with my mother.” She rolled out of the chaise with a husky giggle. “This chair’s way taller than it was a minute ago.” She straightened her dress and patted the back of her auburn tresses. “I’ll call her from the house. Too noisy out here.”
As Sara walked toward the house, the first notes of an eighties rock ballad came from the speakers. A Journey song—one of Autumn’s favorites.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
She hesitated, almost like a silent hiccup. Autumn had to ration her dances. Her damaged legs grew weak after a long day. After dinner he’d sensed she was fatigued and had suggested they sit by the pool instead of joining the dancing couples. Autumn had been in a car accident when she was fourteen, both her legs broken in multiple places. Her left leg had been so mangled they’d considered amputation. In the end, they did what they could, including taking skin from her hip to replace what had been torn from her legs. For the most part, through physical therapy and several surgeries, doctors had been able to restore the functionality of her legs. Still, she tired easily and she never, ever showed her bare legs to anyone.
“Do you feel up to dancing?” he asked.
She rested her fingertips on his wrist, smiling over at him. “Do you know you’re the only one who’s ever asked me to dance?”
“Really?”
“It’s true. You, Trey Wattson, are the first man ever to ask me to dance. Men are too afraid I’ll stumble and embarrass them or myself.”
“I’d never let you stumble. It’s my job to make sure you’re safe.” He would hold her tightly, make sure she didn’t fall or trip.
She smacked his shoulder. “What’re you talking about? I’m not your responsibility.”
I want you to be. Out loud, he said, “Last time I checked, you were busy looking after me.”
“How so?” Her finely shaped brows knit together.
“Sara told me what you did the other day. In the city.” While shopping for furniture in San Francisco, the ladies had stumbled into the showroom of Wattson and Smith Design before realizing it was the former showroom he shared with his ex-wife. The name had once been Wattson and Wattson Design. Smith was the name of the intern. River Smith. A boy with hippie parents. He didn’t actually know River Smith’s background, but that didn’t stop him from making assumptions. The twerp had slept with Malia in Trey’s house. Gloves were off, knives sharpened. After all, the little upstart had taken Trey’s whole life.
“Oh, that? That was nothing. Any friend would do it.” The lights from the pool threw shadows across Autumn’s face. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he detected a hint of triumph in the set of her jaw.
After the divorce, he’d left San Francisco and moved to Cliffside Bay to start another business. A few years into his fledging interior design business, he’d met the other Wolves and agreed to join them in partnership. They were now gaining steady business, and Trey was finally starting to climb out of the financial hole he’d created when he let his ex-wife take everything he’d worked so hard to build.
He could have fought harder, spent more money on attorney fees, but his inner warrior was stuck in the trenches. The humiliation had been so intense, the betrayal so hurtful, that he’d walked away from the entire mess and entered survival mode. Even though he had to start again, it was the only thing he could do at the time.
He now found himself at the other end of his starting-over period. He was ready to live fully without the burden of his bitterness. The past was the past.
“What did you think of her?” he asked Autumn.
“Your ex-wife?” Autumn touched her fingertips to her temple and tilted her head, continuing to look out to the pool. “She’s very beautiful.”
“I used to think so.”
She turned toward him. “You don’t now?”
“No. Not when I know the inside doesn’t match the outside.”
She nodded, smiling as a slightly evil glint came to her eyes. “She was taken aback when we said we knew you. In fact, she went a little green.”
He chuckled. “Is that when you told her off?”
“I didn’t tell her off exactly. I simply told her we knew her former partner and pointed out how well you’re doing in Cliffside Bay. I might have dropped Brody Mullen’s name as an example of one of your new clients and said something about how you can’t keep true talent down, even when someone without any steals his business.” She laughed. “I don’t know what came over me. When I saw her, I just wanted to make her hurt for what she’d done to you.”
“I’m fine now.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t care anymore. I’m glad it all happened. Now I have the Wolves and Cliffside Bay.” And you. “But thanks for making her a little green.”
With her face propped in her hand, she regarded him. “Careful now, Wattson, you’re losing all your bitter edges.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you want to dance? I’ll be there to catch you if you stumble.”
She stared at him for a few seconds longer than she should have. Did she know his words covered more than just dancing? If so, she didn’t let on. Instead, she held out her hand. “I’d love to dance. At least for a song or two.”
He rose to his feet and helped her up with a gentle tug. Still holding her hand in his, he led her across the pool deck to the makeshift dance floor. When they reached where the other couples were dancing, she went easily into his embrace. Neither tall nor short, she came up to his shoulders. She almost never wore high heels; he supposed they were too unsteady. Tonight, she wore a white-and-yellow maxi dress that made him think of a fresh daisy.
He gazed down at her. The swoop of her long eyelashes reminded him of a cresting wave. She nestled against him, resting her cheek on his chest. Her hair smelled clean and sweet. He’d never known anyone to smell as good as Autumn. She shifted slightly in his arms, and a faint squeak came from her throat, as if she were settling against his body for a long nap. A feeling of bottomless tenderness washed through him. If it were possible to hold her with more care, he would. Yet she was as strong and tough as anyone he knew. The pain and rehabilitation from her accident would have taken most girls of fourteen down. Not Autumn. Under her delicate appearance lay level upon level of strength.
Next to them, Zane and Honor Shaw, in a rare night out without their two kids, danced with their bodies pressed so tightly against each other they might as well have been superglued. Lance and Mary Mullen, having confessed earlier that this was their first night out after their second baby, a little boy, had arrived the last week of April, were currently staring into each other’s eyes as they moved aro
und the pool deck. No one looked at his wife with more adoration than Lance. Although a savvy hedge fund manager type, Lance had opened a bookstore to make his librarian wife happy. If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was. He’d had such a great time planning the interiors for the Cliffside Bay Bookstore with Lance. Like him and Autumn, the Mullens had started out as friends before they fell in love. This gave him hope that someday Autumn would look at him as a man instead of just a friend.
Autumn’s oldest brother, Kyle, danced with his wife, Violet, near the edge of the pool. They had their arms around each other, almost propping each other up, like those old photos from the 1930s of couples in a dance contest. Violet yawned and buried her face in her husband’s neck. They’d be headed home soon. Trey figured four kids under the age of seven made for early bedtimes.
What was it like to go home to a houseful of children with the love of your life? Trey had thought he’d have that with Malia. The bitterness rose in his throat, but not as strong as it used to be. Really only a twinge now. He’d let it go, moved on. Because of Autumn.
He wasn’t even sure when his feelings had changed from platonic to love. One day he woke up and knew. I love Autumn Hickman.
That truth had frozen him in place. He didn’t know what to do with his feelings. Did he tell her and risk rejection? Was it possible she felt the same way? He doubted it, which kept him from saying the words out loud to her or anyone else. His tender heart, so recently hurt, seemed content to remain hidden.
One day she’d announced her desire to meet a man. The man. Then she joined an online dating site, and his nightmare began.
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