Tough Luck Hero

Well, his wedding night had certainly been something.

He just couldn’t remember what. And here he was, looking at a very rumpled, rather attractive woman, not having a clue in hell what had happened between them.

She shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. “What?”

“I don’t suppose you remember last night?” he asked. “After we got here, I mean?”

“No,” she said, her voice tight.

That was very Lydia. Rigid. Tight. Determined and single-minded in ways that were designed to dig beneath your skin and keep digging until you crawled out of said skin and left it behind. Something about the way she was made him feel like he needed to take a step back from her. And even then, that space between them always felt alive. He didn’t like it.

“Maybe we used a condom to make balloon animals?” he suggested.

Her face turned bright red. He wasn’t entirely certain he had ever seen Lydia flustered, but that was the only word for what she was right now. And something about that grabbed him, hard and fast, low in his gut.

A memory of something. Or maybe just a fleeting reminder of fantasies he didn’t let himself have. Images that pushed at the back of his brain. That he never, ever let come forward.

Just what it would be like to see her lose all that control. To him.

He gritted his teeth, ignoring the fact that his dick was deciding to wake up. Ignoring those thoughts that he couldn’t afford to have. Not now. Not ever.

“Somehow, I doubt it,” she said, clipped. “Did you find...”

He bent over and picked up the wrapper, holding it up.

Lydia’s entire frame seemed to sag. She clutched her head, a low moan escaping her lips. “I don’t do things like this,” she said.

“You think I do?”

“No. But I really don’t do things like this. I am not spontaneous. I am not irresponsible. I do not...sleep with men that I don’t like.”

He snorted. “I don’t usually sleep with women with superiority complexes.”

And he’d ended up with Natalie how? But she didn’t ask that out loud because she thought it best not to poke that particular beehive. “Why? In case they conflict with yours?”

This was a return to form for her. Rumpled she might be, in yesterday’s dress, with her makeup drifting down her cheeks and her dark hair fluffier than usual, but she was buttoned-down inside. Completely. Thoroughly.

He’d damn well let her stay that way.

“Listen, I think it’s pretty easy to get an annulment,” he said. “Especially here.”

She looked stricken. “You can’t get an annulment if you...consummated, can you?”

“We don’t have to tell them that we consummated,” he said. “Hell, you don’t even remember. Maybe we didn’t.”

“There is a condom wrapper,” she said, her cheeks getting even redder. “And you are...you are naked.”

He looked down at the blanket that was covering his lap. He was suddenly very aware of how little was between them. No one was here. He wasn’t wearing clothes. And Natalie had run off, so he didn’t even have a fiancée as a buffer.

No, you have a wife now. Good job.

“Turn around,” he bit out.

She obeyed with no argument. He stood, holding the sheet up in front of himself and surveying the room, in search of his clothes.

“If it helps,” she said, “I found my dress on top of the bar.”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead. He didn’t do this. He didn’t drink to excess, and he didn’t have casual sex. When his brother had abandoned the family it had been up to Colton to hold it all together. To hold the people he loved most together.

Then, a few weeks before his wedding he’d found out that his father had had an affair that had resulted in a child who was now Colton’s age.

Now he was holding everyone together from that latest blow, too. His mother was so fragile one more thing would break her completely.

And this morning was evidence of why he had to live life the way he did. With control. With a code. Without it, he wasn’t much better than the other men in his family.

“We can’t get an annulment,” Lydia continued.

“We sure as hell can.” He spotted his pants and dropped the sheet, striding across the room and taking hold of them, tugging them on as quickly as possible.

“We sure as hell can’t,” Lydia said, turning around, her eyes going to his chest, then determinedly to his face. “I don’t know about you, but I texted quite a few people last night to let them know about our happy news.”

“Well, that isn’t my problem, princess.”

Seriously, he must still be a little bit drunk. He had no idea where the endearment had come from. Not that he was using it as an endearment.

“So, your plan is to return to town and let everybody know that we got married by accident? Tell them that we got drunk and made a mistake? People are going to assume we hooked up. Correctly, if the evidence is any indication.”

“What’s your plan?” he asked. “Staying married?”

“Yes. That’s exactly my plan.”

“Maybe you hit your head last night.”

She treated him to a withering glare, her brown eyes full of scorn. “Obviously I sustained some kind of head injury, Colton, if I slept with you,” she said.

He offered her a tight smile. “Maybe we both hit our heads.”

“Whatever. I don’t know if it’s escaped your notice but I’m currently running for mayor.”

He laughed. “Oh, I know. There’s no possible way I could have missed that, since that little stunt almost ruined the wedding.”

It was her turn to laugh. Hysterically. “First of all, it’s hardly a stunt. Second, I only almost ruined your wedding. Natalie actually ruined your wedding by not showing up.”

“You are her bridesmaid—her friend—and you started a campaign against her father.”

“Can you honestly tell me you think an...institution like Richard Bailey is the best thing for Copper Ridge? He’s entrenched in old-school ideas. He doesn’t know the new, vibrant economy the way that I do—”

“Are you actually stumping for votes right now?”

“No,” she said, her tone fierce. “I’m trying to explain to you why this annulment can’t happen. We have to find a way to spin the marriage, Colton, otherwise my campaign is doomed. I cannot come out of this looking flighty or like marriage is a joke to me or something.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “This kind of thing would be serious for anyone, but as a woman it’s even worse. The fact that I was single was never in my favor, because people questioned if I was cold or somehow felt above marriage and family and I just... This is the worst. I have to somehow manage to not look like a crazy person or I’m doomed.”

“Uh-huh.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “And can you explain to me why I should care about the state of your campaign?”

“Well, I don’t know. It could be because I am the best thing for the town, and that isn’t me being full of myself. It’s a fact.”

“I’ll reserve my judgment on that.”

“Go ahead. While you’re at it go ahead and reserve judgment on whether or not the sky is blue.”

“Honey, we live on the Oregon coast. The sky is usually gray.”

“Bite me.”

The command, which was really very immature, simmered between them. It did more than that. It caught fire. Sparks racing over his skin, prickling at the back of his neck. Being around her was always unsettling. But this was something else.

He gritted his teeth. “I very well might have last night. Neither of us remember, though, so I can’t be sure.”

He needed to get out of this hotel room. He needed to get out of this situation. Talking to Lydia, being near Lydia, it always made him feel edgy. Of all Natalie’s friends, she was his least favorite to deal with. There was just something about her that bothered him. And it was definitely mutual.

Right now, so was this other thing. That was a pretty serious problem.

She closed her eyes. “I’m going to ignore that.” She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, staring him down.

She moved mutely around the room, straightening things that didn’t need to be straightened, vibrating with unspent energy. He knew she was holding back a rant, which suited him just fine. He didn’t have any desire to hear it. Not at all.

He silently finished doing a sweep for his things, then looked back at his phone.

He had not sent any photos of Lydia and himself to his parents or to his sisters, thank God. He didn’t seem to have texted them at all, other than that one placating response to his mother.

Sierra had texted to ask if he was okay. And he also had two missed calls from her. His youngest sister was obviously very concerned. While Maddy, his other sister, had sent a text commanding him not to do anything stupid.

He looked across the room at the very, very stupid thing he’d done.

Too late for that.

“Here’s the thing,” Lydia said, as though sensing his attention shifting to her. “Natalie left you at the altar. She could have told you she was having second thoughts anytime, and she didn’t. She humiliated you in front of the entire town. And now you have a chance to get revenge.”

The damn woman was like a dog with a bone.

“You want us to stay married so that I can get revenge on her?”

She shook her head, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. “No, I want us to stay married because a scandal like a divorce is going to completely ruin my chances. If we tell people that we’ve always had feelings for each other and Natalie not showing up at the wedding gave you the perfect chance to fully realize those feelings...”

“Anybody who knows us will know that is not true.”

She lifted her hands up in the air and brought them back down hard, slapping her thighs. “And yet, we’re married. So, what does it matter what they know?”

He grabbed his phone off the bed and looked back down at it. He had a text from Natalie, response to the picture he had sent of Lydia and himself hanging all over each other in the bar.

What the hell is going on, Colton?

That was a good question, though he didn’t feel like the woman who left him at the altar had the right to question him. But even if she did, he didn’t have the answer.

He couldn’t remember being that person. Couldn’t remember that moment. And he certainly couldn’t reconcile the woman in the picture with the one standing in front of him glaring like he was something she had stepped in in a pasture.

He went back to the main screen in his messages. He had sent a few pictures of the impromptu wedding to some of the guys who worked for his construction company and hadn’t received any responses. A few of them probably had phones that were too old to view pictures. He had a feeling he had been intending to send them to Natalie, but had failed, thanks to his advanced state of inebriation.

And further down there was a text from his mother. He almost didn’t want to look. He knew it would be full of hysterics—since she often was. And he also knew that he would have to calm her. As he always did.

“Who did you text?” he asked.

Lydia fidgeted. “Sadie Garrett.”

“Dammit. Who else?” Sadie Garrett, owner of Copper Ridge’s most popular B and B, was like a small blond explosion. She did nothing quietly, and she tended to throw parties on a whim.

Lydia winced. “A few of the ladies at the Chamber. Who are probably already making...banners and things.”

Great. News would be spreading already. He wondered if it had gotten to his family yet.

His mother, who was likely apoplectic over the abandonment of Natalie and the utter destruction of the wedding she had spent months working on.

He let his thumb hover over the message from her, and then he touched it.

Colton, please tell me you know where Natalie is. Please tell me there will be a wedding.

Oh, shit. Finding out about his dad, the fact he’d fathered a child out of wedlock more than thirty years earlier, had shaken her already fragile foundation. This on top of it would be so difficult for her.

He wasn’t the one who broke things. He repaired them. That’s what he’d always done. And he would fix this, too.

Everything will be fine. Don’t worry.

He sent the message, then put his phone back down. He took a quick scan of the room and saw his T-shirt wadded up in a corner several feet from where he had found his jeans. He had changed before going to Ace’s, that much was obvious, though, he couldn’t exactly remember that. There were large gaps in all of his memories from yesterday, then suddenly something would hit, blindingly bright and clear.

He pulled his shirt on over his head, fighting against one such memory as he did. Standing at the head of the aisle, waiting for Natalie to appear in the flowered archway she had spent weeks worrying about, debating which blossoms would look the most effective, the most bridal. He’d stared at it, expecting her to appear any moment, even long after the bridal march had stopped playing. Because she had chosen each and every one of those flowers, so how could she fail to come and stand beneath that damn archway?

He sighed heavily and pulled up his email, taking a look at the receipt for the tickets he’d bought for Lydia and himself. Dammit to hell, they were booked to stay in Vegas through next weekend. What the hell?

Drunk Colton was an ass.

“Coffee,” he said, shoving that memory to the back of his mind.

“What?” She blinked rapidly.

“We’re going out for coffee. And then we’re going to get our tickets changed and get back to Copper Ridge.”

Lydia hesitated, her hands clasped in front of her, making her look vaguely mouse-like. “We’re going back already?”

“Unless you want to stay and play the slots.”

“Of course I don’t,” she said, smoothing her hair.

“I think your hair is a lost cause.” He reached out and brushed a strand from her face. Too late, he realized that was a damned mistake.

Lightning shot from where his fingertips brushed against her, straight down to his cock. His unrest around Lydia had always been a vague, unsettling thing. Like static just beneath his skin. But all at once it was like the veil had been torn away and he saw it for what it was.

Attraction. Desire.

Hell no.

He pulled his hand away.

She turned, looking into a mirror that hung on the far wall, her eyes round, her hand shaking as she brushed her hair away from her face. She was just as affected by this. By him. “I need...probably to be dipped in a vat of mousse.”

“No time for that.” He needed to get out of this hotel room. Away from her.

He was going to leave these strange feelings in Vegas and never look back. The marriage might not be something they could leave behind, but this insanity was staying in Nevada, where it belonged.

She looked around. “I’m wearing last night’s dress.”

“And that’s another thing we can take care of. Unless you want to wear it on the plane ride back.”

She cringed. “No thank you.”

“Then come on.”

She made a low whining sound, but ultimately followed him out of the room. “Please slow down. The room is spinning and I’m wearing high heels.”

He continued to stride down the hall, paying as little attention as possible to the tacky decor. Natalie would be appalled. She had planned for them to honeymoon in New York and spend some time in a posh hotel in Manhattan. He’d just been along for the ride, because he failed to see the appeal in the rush of a city that size.

But then, he’d ended up in Vegas when drunk and left to his own devices, so he supposed he had no room to judge.

“You’re so mean.” She stepped into the elevator with him.

“I’m efficient,” he said, hitting the button that would take them to the lobby.

“Is that the positive spin that assholes put on their inconsiderate behavior?”

“Yes,” he said, not really feeling the need to defend himself. What would be the point? Lydia didn’t like him anyway. He had never liked her. He didn’t have to explain himself to her.

She let out a long, slow sigh, no doubt designed to demonstrate just how deeply she disapproved of him. Finally, the doors to the elevator slid open and he walked out ahead of her. He could hear her clicking along behind him, her steps unsteady on the high-gloss marble in the lobby.

He paused, turning to face her. “First coffee. Then we’ll do something about that.”

“About what?”

“That,” he said, indicating her attire.

“You’re going to make me hobble to get coffee first?”

“We can fix your head or your feet first. Choose.”

She grumbled. “Coffee. Fix my head. Please fix my head.”

There was a coffee shop down at the other end of the lobby, and fortunately, since it was getting to be the middle of the day, it wasn’t all that crowded. He quickly procured them two very strong Americanos.

“Do you need sugar or anything?” he asked, pointing to the stand in the corner that held half-and-half, cinnamon and any other items you could possibly want to doctor up a coffee.

“I just need you to stop talking. And some sunglasses.” She squinted, looking a little bit like a pathetic rodent that had been prematurely rooted out of her burrow.

“One of those I can get you.”

“I can buy my own sunglasses, thank you, Colton.”

“It’s our honeymoon, dear. The least I can do is buy you a new outfit.”

Color washed over her face. “It is not our honeymoon.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is. Especially since you’re insisting that we stay married.”

“It’s the only thing we can do.”

“I guess I see your point,” he said, turning toward the gift shop that was located across from the café.

He didn’t want to see her point, but he did. His mother was already on the verge of a breakdown, and he was going to be the primary topic of town gossip for months. Adding to it all with this weird marriage and a quick divorce seemed...well, it seemed like the path of most resistance.

Lydia clicked after him. “You do?”

“I have a reputation in the community that I need to maintain.”

“I suppose drunkenly marrying your former fiancée’s bridesmaid doesn’t really jibe with that.”

“Less so quickly divorcing her. I’m not sure if Natalie told you about my father.”

Lydia blinked. “It may have escaped your notice that Natalie and I weren’t exactly on fantastic terms there in the end.”

“Oh, it did not escape my notice.” He began to rifle through the clothing racks. There wasn’t anything normal in this place. It all had dice and glitter on it. Lydia didn’t seem like the sort of woman who would wear either. “What size do you wear?” he asked. He was happy enough to change the subject away from his family.

“I can find my own clothes,” she said, grabbing hold of a large pair of sunglasses that had small glittery dice on the earpieces and putting them on quickly. She turned around, grabbing a fuzzy black zip-up hoodie off a rack, followed by a matching pair of pants. “These will do fine.”

He turned around, snagging a white T-shirt from a nearby rack and holding it out. It just so happened to say Bride across the chest in rhinestones. “You might want something short-sleeved,” he said.

She frowned. “That’s tacky.”

“But true,” he said.

Lydia scowled, taking a pair of black shoes with gold dice on them that looked an awful lot like men’s smoking slippers. Then she took everything over to the counter, where a young woman was waiting to check them out.

“So,” the girl said, taking the sunglasses from Lydia and scanning them. “You just got married?”

Lydia smiled, and it might have looked genuine if he was standing a little farther away. If it wasn’t so apparent to him how intensely she was grinding her teeth together. “Yes. I bet you don’t get a lot of newlyweds in here.”

Lydia’s dry tone completely went over the woman’s head. “Oh, we do. Getting married is a pretty popular pastime here.”

“What else are you going to do in a desert?” Colton asked.

“Pretty much nothing,” the girl responded, folding up the sweatshirt and then starting on the pants.

“Actually,” Lydia said, “I kind of want to change now.”

“Must have had some party after the wedding, huh?” the checker asked.

Lydia touched her hair again. “Or something.”

“She’s dressed a lot fancier than you,” the woman said, this time directing her comment at Colton.

“Yes, well she was standing outside a chapel waiting around for her groom. I just happened to show up.”

“I should have been waiting where you were waiting,” the checker said, winking at Lydia.

“If only you had been,” Lydia responded drily. “I’m just going to go change.”

Lydia disappeared for a few moments and Colton pretended to look at the merchandise in the store. Merchandise he would never in a million years consider buying. But it was better than attempting conversation with the woman at the counter. When Lydia reappeared her hair was still a disaster, and she looked a little like a Real Housewife of Somewhere. All she was missing was a small dog.

“Are you checking out?” the sales clerk asked.

“Yes,” Lydia said emphatically.

“In a hurry to start the honeymoon?” the woman asked with a grin.

“Something like that,” Colton said as they left the store.

While they waited in line to check out, Colton took his phone out of his pocket and dialed the airline. After giving all of the relevant information, he made a request for a change of flight.

“Mr. West, that is going to be an expensive fee,” the woman on the other end of the line—Julia, according to her initial introduction—said.

“I don’t care,” he responded.

“Four hundred dollars a ticket,” Julia continued.

He gritted his teeth. It didn’t really matter to him, in any way beyond principle, anyway. “I understand. But my new wife and I need to get back as quickly as possible.”

Lydia shot him a deadly glare. He shrugged.

“You’re on your honeymoon?” Julia asked, sounding surprised and delighted now.

“Yes. But regrettably we have to cut it short.”

“When you get to the airport, explain the situation,” she continued. “I can’t make any guarantees, but let’s see what they can do.”

He hung up after that, then smiled at the man behind the counter. This was an awful lot of human interaction for being this hungover. “Just checking out,” Colton said.

“Oh yes, Callie from the gift shop called over to let me know you would be over here. Newlyweds.”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead. “Yes.”

“Do you need transportation to the airport?”

“Yes,” Lydia supplied for him. “A taxi would be great.”

“I think,” the guy said, smiling as though he had just managed to procure them heaven and earth, “I can make that a little bit more special for you. The car will be waiting at the curb in a few moments.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Colton said.

“Of course it is, Mr. West,” he said. “We want to make sure you have the best possible service during this special time.”

Colton supplied his credit card and everything else, signing the bill before handing it back to the man.

“Thank you,” Colton said, keeping a tight leash on his temper.

Because that was what he did. Regardless of how he felt. Even when all was right with the world.

Then he walked toward the automatic doors that would lead them outside into the bright midafternoon sunlight. And when they arrived outside, they both stopped in their tracks.

CHAPTER THREE

“NO WAY,” LYDIA SAID, looking around the inside of the Hummer limousine they were currently taking to the airport. “There’s a stripper pole over there. In the limo.”

“Maybe it’s just so people have something to hold on to.”

“Well, that’s all I would be using it for.”

“This is our honeymoon,” he pointed out, probably just to rile her because there was no way in all the world Colton was sincerely suggesting she get up and dance.