Tough Luck Hero

“Does that mean you’re going to get up on the pole for me?” Lydia asked, leaning back in her seat and stretching her legs out in front of her. She was doing her very best to keep her tone casual, to keep from blushing. To keep from remembering anything that might have happened last night.

This entire morning—afternoon—had been a study in walking through the deepest darkest pit of hell as far as she was concerned.

A hangover like she hadn’t experienced in ever, a walk of shame in a ridiculously fluffy bridesmaid dress and rhinestone-encrusted high heels along with hair so large she would inspire envy in beauty pageant contestants everywhere.

But that wasn’t the worst part. Experiencing this with any guy would be traumatic. Experiencing it with Colton West was just too much. Her dignity was now a rare and endangered species. Like a spotted owl or snowy plover. She needed someone to come and protect it. Maybe if she had feathers people would be more concerned for her well-being.

Her dignity might have been damaged, but her sense of self-pity had never been healthier.

“You say that, Lydia, but I have a feeling you would actually pay me good money to stay off the pole.”

“True,” she said, gripping her purse tightly, as though it might shield her from yet more embarrassment. Plus, focusing on clinging to that specific item helped keep her brain busy so it didn’t do anything stupid like imagine how Colton might look if he were to engage in any sort of striptease.

Nope. No.

She might not be able to remember last night, but her memories of him shirtless in the hotel room were still way too vivid for comfort.

He was...he was everything a man should be. Broad-shouldered and lean. A chest and stomach so defined he looked like he belonged on the cover of a men’s magazine, making other men feel insecure about their lack of abs.

Except, in order to be on a men’s magazine he would have to be waxed bare. And Colton was not.

She swallowed hard, her throat dry. She did not need to be pondering his chest hair. Or his muscles. Or anything at all except the predicament they were in.

The drive to the airport seemed interminable. She could only hope they would be able to get seats far, far away from each other on the plane.

Of course, that turned out not to be the case. When they arrived at the airport check-in the very helpful, very friendly man at the counter offered them a free ticket exchange, and a bump up to first class. For the newlyweds, he’d said, overly cheerful.

Why was it that today of all days they were experiencing the height of customer service everywhere they went?

She was so accustomed to people not giving a damn, and in this situation she would have preferred it.

But no. Everyone was doing their best to make sure that Colton and Lydia got to spend as much time together as possible.

Still, she thought ruefully, as they sat on the small plane waiting to take off and the stewardess poured champagne into a real glass, it could be worse. She lifted the bubbly to her lips, needing a little bit of a crutch to boost her for the journey.

“Your attempt at a hangover cure?” Colton asked, nodding toward her glass.

“At this point there’s no making it worse, really.” Her head still hurt, in spite of the coffee.

“Don’t drink too much,” he said.

“You’re not the boss of me,” she muttered.

“No, but when you start drinking you find it difficult to keep your hands off me.”

She scrunched her face. “Colton, me being a little bit buzzed is the only way we’re going to make it through this flight without me doing you serious bodily harm.”

“So you’re saying there’s a happy alcohol medium you’re reaching for?”

“Yes. Totally sober I would like to strangle you. Completely trashed I apparently...” She let that sentence die as her face heated. “But a glass of champagne or two might just take the edge off.”

“The edge? Because I’m so horrible.”

“You aren’t horrible.” She looked down at her glass. “You’re...you know...well, you’re you.”

“That’s very informative, Lydia.”

She gritted her teeth. “You’re high-handed. A bit bossy.”

He laughed. “That’s funny coming from you.”

“I already know I don’t want to know why you think that’s funny,” she bit out, determined to ignore him now.

Thankfully, the flight from Las Vegas back up to Portland wasn’t terribly long, and she busied herself answering texts thanks to the onboard Wi-Fi. Though she wasn’t entirely certain answering those texts was any less uncomfortable than making conversation with her groom.

Because people wanted explanations. And in all honesty, she couldn’t give them one. She didn’t have an explanation.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the plane touched down, but that was short-lived when she fully realized that they now had to make their way back to Copper Ridge.

Their town was too small to have its own airport. Which meant they had to make an hour and a half drive over to Portland’s whenever they wanted to go anywhere.

“We have to rent a car,” she said, feeling extremely persecuted.

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

“I know you’re a West, Colton,” she said, following after him. “Success leaks from your pores, lightning from your fingertips and all that hyperbole. But I do have my own money.”

“Yes. I know you do. Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you hang out? Spend some time admiring the carpet, I hear it’s famous.”

“No, the carpet they ripped out was famous. This carpet isn’t famous.”

He lifted a shoulder, his expression one of supreme disinterest. “I only caught part of the news story.”

“The carpet was the Grand Marshal in a parade,” she continued, because she knew about it and he didn’t. And it felt important to exert superior knowledge, even if it was about an old airport carpet and the general strangeness of the Portland area.

His eyebrows shot upward. “We really need to get the hell out of Portland.”

They were sorted into their rental car quickly and on the road only a half hour later. They headed out of the city, taking a winding two-lane road that led to the coast.

“I haven’t been on a road trip in a while,” she said. “Well, not since we went to the airport yesterday.”

“But we had a driver,” he pointed out. “That isn’t the same.”

“True. So,” she said, taking a deep breath, “what...are we going to do?”

It occurred to her then, now that the earlier fog was wearing off, that she and Colton had never actually had a conversation when they were alone. They were usually in groups, or standing somewhere where they had friends nearby. Because they never willingly interacted. It was always circumstantial. Always something they had to partake in to be polite. Definitely not something either of them would ever do on purpose. And now they were trapped in a car together.

Now they were trapped in a marriage together.

Lydia’s heart started beating faster. Her palms were sweating. She was officially starting to panic.

Then suddenly, a hysterical bubble of laughter exploded from her lips.

“Something funny?” he asked.

“All of this,” she said, the words coming out as half a screech. “We hate each other. And yet...we’re married.”

“I still don’t think it’s very funny.”

“It’s hilarious,” she said. “Made even more hilarious by the fact that we made it impossible to fix this. Because we texted the whole world. And even then...if we were anyone else...it wouldn’t matter, would it?”

“Maybe not.”

The hysteria subsided, and suddenly she felt just...much less. Much less everything. Small and weak sitting next to Colton. Unsure of what to do with what had happened. Unsure of how to cope with the reality of the situation they were in.

And she was never unsure. Not anymore. She’d found her place. Her people. And she knew what to do with that.

She hated this. She had to get it together.

She took a shaky breath. “The election is in four months,” she said. “I can’t have anything messing up my chances.”

“Of course not,” he said, sounding resigned.

“Why did Natalie... I mean, maybe we talked about this last night, but I honestly don’t remember. Why did she leave?”

“Hell if I know,” he said, the words harsh. “She did nothing but obsess about this wedding for the past eight months. She was...I would say overly invested in the idea of marrying into a family like mine.”

“You mentioned...you mentioned something about your dad.”

There was a slight pause, and she turned to look at him. His arms were tense, his hands gripping the wheel tight. “My dad, it turned out, had a bastard child some thirty-two years ago,” Colton said, his tone dry. “That may have had something to do with her deciding not to show up, it’s true.”

She tried her best to process that bit of information. But it was a lot. Nathan West had never seemed like anything but the perfect husband, father and role model for the community, at least not from her point of view. It was difficult to imagine him betraying his legacy like that.

“But,” Colton continued, “since causing a scandal was her primary issue with that bit of information about my dad, I can’t really imagine she would have abandoned me at the altar to try and avoid gossip.”

“You have a point.” She worried her lip. “Wait... Do we know who...”

“Jack Monaghan.”

Lydia nearly choked. “Jack Monaghan is your half brother?”

She had gotten to know Jack in passing over the years. Really, every woman in town was aware of him on some level. Most of them on an intimate level, prior to his getting engaged to Kate Garrett.

Lydia didn’t know him that way. Lydia had never gone there. She wasn’t one for bad boys with wicked blue eyes and charming smiles. Well, she noticed them. She thought they were hot, and spent a little bit of time staring at them, but she didn’t pursue one-night stands. Not with anyone.

She remembered last night and groaned.

There was nothing wicked about Colton’s blue eyes, nothing particularly charming about his smile. Yet, even while she thought of that, she realized that his eyes were the same color as Jack’s.

But they seemed cold. And he didn’t have that easy way about him. That breezy charm that seemed to roll off of Jack in waves. No, Colton was rigid. He was controlled. He was inflexible.

“I was going to say that I can’t believe it,” she said, “except, you do sort of look like him.”

“I guess,” Colton said, his words clipped. “Lord knows how long before this gets spread around. I think it’s kind of a miracle it hasn’t already. But then, it isn’t just my dad making waves. There’s Sierra, taking up with a bartender.”

“Ace owns the bar, so it isn’t quite like you’re making it sound.”

“Pregnant out of wedlock,” he pointed out.

“Didn’t they get married after?”

He shrugged. “I guess so. I’m just listing my family’s sins. Of course, there’s Madison. And her little indiscretion, but she was seventeen. Still, people tend to blame her for what happened with that dick because she was painted as some kind of home wrecker, even though she was still a kid.”

“For respectable pillars of the community you do have a lot of skeletons.”

“I think respectable pillars of the community do tend to have more than their fair share. Respectability makes a wonderful smoke screen.”

“And what about you?”

He laughed, a rueful sound. “I’m actually respectable.”

“Me too,” she said.

Common ground with Colton. That was almost as weird as being married to him. Almost.

“I guess we just blew all that to hell.”

“No. We didn’t,” she said. “Because true love.”

He took his focus off the road for a moment, the electric blue of his eyes sending a shock straight down through her system. “True love?”

“That’s how we’re going to spin it.”

“Definitely better than the truth.”

They were silent for the rest of the drive. She was too exhausted to think of anything logical to say. She had a feeling that if she tried to continue making conversation with him they would only fight. She didn’t have the energy for that, either. So she kept her focus pinned on the scenery. The trees that grew thicker and taller as they drove farther out from the city. The mountains shrouded them on either side, making it feel darker here. As though they were shielded from the sun, a canopy of lush greens protecting them from the harshest rays.

Unlike most of the locals in her age group, she was not originally from Copper Ridge. She had moved there from Seattle eight years ago.

Most people left for a while, came back later to settle down. Or, if they were first-time residents of Copper Ridge, they were usually retirees. She was the odd one out. But she loved her adopted home more than anything. Expanding the tourism there was a passion of hers, and had been from the moment she had arrived. Strengthening the economy, making it more viable for people to stay. For people to raise families and thrive doing something other than working hard in the mills, or deep-sea fishing. She had carved out a place for herself there. The place she had never had anywhere else. She couldn’t face the idea of losing it now.

“Do you know where I live?” she asked, as they entered town finally.

She looked at all the beautiful brick buildings, their facade like something out of an old Western, made completely and wholly unique by the nautical details that clung to the exteriors like ornate barnacles. And again by the ocean beyond them, gray with whitecaps rising and falling with the tide. That was Copper Ridge.

In case you needed to escape some sort of high-pressure situation you could scurry into the mountains or float away in the sea. It was one of the things she liked about it. Multiple escape routes. Not that she was paranoid, she was just a planner.

“No,” he said. He said it almost like he was pleased.

“I’m here in town,” she said. “Just past where the buildings end. On Hyacinth.”

She loved her sweet little home by the ocean. She had spent a good amount of time cultivating a nice garden, making sure every bit of it was cozy and comfortable, and absolutely for her.

“You won’t be able to stay at your house,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“What?”

“You’re going to have to move in with me,” he said, his voice steady as the road they were driving on.

“I...” Oh, well, she hadn’t thought of that.

“We can’t live separately. That negates the whole thing.”

“But we...we don’t even... We can’t even have a conversation without swinging wildly between stilted and hostile. How are we supposed to live together?”

“We just will,” he said, his tone shot through with steel. “I don’t run from my mistakes, Lydia. I own them. I fix them.”

“If by own you mean obscure with a more convenient version of the truth.”

“My mother can’t know this isn’t real,” he said.

“Your mother...”

“Is still reeling from finding out about my dad. She was very close to Natalie. She poured everything into this wedding. It’s been her therapy. So yeah, I’m with you. For now, this has to look as real as possible. That means you’re moving in with me.”

She hated him and his infallible logic. “Why do we have to do that? Why can’t you move in with me?”

Just as she said that, they pulled up to the front of her house. That at least was exactly as it should be. Pristine and well kept, the lawn green and freshly mown, the white fence newly painted, flowers matching the name of the street growing through the slats.

Her front porch was cheery, a wreath made of sunflowers hanging on the door, a bright red ribbon wound through the blossoms. There was a chair and table in a matching red that was just her style. She liked to sit out there in the evenings, with a blanket over her lap, listening to the sound of the waves on the rocks. This was her place. The most important place in the entire world to her.

“Because it’s tiny,” he said, effectively dismissing the most important thing in her world with incredible ease.

“But it’s my home,” she said.

“I have a ranch,” he said. “Not a huge operation, but I have livestock. And yes, I do have men to come work on the property, but I can’t leave it abandoned. My property is big, my house is big. It will accommodate both of us better.”

She looked longingly back at her little two-bedroom. She couldn’t really deny the wisdom of what he was saying.

Mostly because when she thought of Colton West’s large, muscular frame filling up the tiny rooms of her house she got hot all over. She didn’t need that. Didn’t need memories of cohabiting with him there. That was one of the beautiful things about her house. It was a clean slate. It was all hers. She had never lived in it with anyone else, had never had to make any concessions to another human being within those walls. And she didn’t intend to start.

So, on this, she had to reluctantly concede he was right.

“I can’t... Not tonight,” she said.

He nodded once. “I have to figure out what to do about Natalie’s things, anyway. My house has a few bedrooms, and she was using one of them. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

“Oh,” she said, slightly puzzled by what he was saying. But she imagined that when Natalie had moved out of whichever home she’d been living in before, she’d had to put some of her extra furniture somewhere. “I guess you have to get a hold of her.”

“Or, I just throw her shit out on the lawn,” he said, sounding cheerier than he had all day. The coarse language on his lips was odd, slightly jarring. He was usually much more...appropriate. Even when she’d first met him at Ace’s he hadn’t talked like a lot of the men in the group who used profanity like a comma. It just wasn’t him.

“I don’t think you should do that. Especially since you’re trying to look like you’re in control of the situation.”

“It might be worth it.”

“You won’t think so later.” She had no idea. She had never felt passionately enough about someone to consider throwing their things outside and leaving them to rot.

For a while, she had had some feelings for Eli Garrett, Copper Ridge’s sheriff. Those had been pretty strong. So she thought. But when Sadie had come into the picture she had fully realized just how little he liked her, by watching him interact with the other woman.

There had been no reason to keep after him at that point. She had her pride. And she had never seen the point of making yourself a crazy person over attraction.

It was funny, because on the surface Colton seemed a lot like Eli. Tall, broad, dark-haired and responsible. But whenever she had been around Eli a sense of serene calm had come over her. Whenever she was around Colton she wanted to punch him in the face.

“I’ll... I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, still feeling dazed when she got out of the car and stumbled up to the front walk. Her hands shook as she shoved the key in the lock, and they didn’t stop shaking, even when she went inside and closed the door behind her.

She leaned against it, her heart pounding heavily. It was strange. Everything here was undisturbed. Everything here seemed the same. But in reality, everything had changed. And in that moment, she sort of resented her house for maintaining its calm, cozy order when everything inside of her was thrown completely out of whack.

She walked back toward her bedroom in a daze, staring down at the extremely feminine, floral bedspread and the matching curtains. She wondered what Colton’s bed would look like.

“That,” she said out loud, “doesn’t matter. Because you’re not going to sleep in his bed.”

Just the thought made her stomach turn over violently.

They would get through this. Basically, they would be roommates. Roommates until everything with the election was sorted, and until all of the gossip over the Wedding That Wasn’t died down.

And yes, then they would have to go through the very public process of a divorce, and that wouldn’t be pleasant. But as long as they could remain amicable, she imagined the town could, too. By then, they would trust her in her position as mayor, and it wouldn’t be so dependent on everything in her life looking stable.

Maybe. She hoped.

She flopped down onto the bed. “You are insane,” she said, her face muffled against the mattress.

She turned over onto her back and took a deep breath. No. She wasn’t insane. She was in an insane situation; that much was true. But everything would be okay. Because she had a plan.

CHAPTER FOUR

“HOW IS MOM?” Colton asked, settling across the small wooden table from both of his sisters. The Grind, Copper Ridge’s coffeehouse, was in a lull between the early-morning, before-work crowd, and the retired set that would come and fill the tables sometime around nine. Which made it a safe enough place to have this conversation.

“Catatonic.”

If Colton was hoping to get reassurance from his younger sister Madison, he should have known he was looking in the wrong place. Sierra, the youngest West, was a better bet for reassurance—false or otherwise.

Evidenced by the fact she was currently glaring at Maddy as though Maddy had just stabbed Colton in the eye with the stir stick she was using in her coffee.

“It’s not that bad,” Sierra said, lifting her tea to her lips, then frowning. “Cutting down on caffeine sucks.”

At nearly eight months pregnant, Sierra was in the throes of pregnancy discomfort. And making her husband fully aware of it, Colton imagined.

It still screwed with his head. That the baby of the family was the first one of them to turn into an actual adult.

“Well,” Maddy said, her voice crisp. “There you have it. Mom isn’t that bad. Sierra’s caffeine consumption however—”

“I’m round, Maddy,” Sierra said, her pale brows locking together. “Spherical. I’m entitled to complaints.”

“I’m sorry for your roundness,” Colton said. “But can we get back to my situation?”

“Your fiancée was horrible,” Maddy said.

“She was,” Sierra added. “Like...basically one of the servants of hell. And I’m sorry you got left at the altar, but it’s really just more evidence of the fact that she’s the worst.”

“The actual worst.”

“So forget about Mom,” Sierra said. “How are you?”

Both of his sisters had grown large-eyed. He shifted beneath their uncomfortably dewy gazes. “I’m fine,” he said.

He realized how true it was the moment he said it. He really was fine. Pissed, sure. Sierra was right. Leaving someone at the altar was a low move. There were any number of ways Natalie could have gone about ending things with him, and not ending them until the entire town had watched him get stood up was about the worst way to do it.

He was angry. Completely, justifiably so. But otherwise he really was fine.

“Right. That’s why you flew to Vegas for one night.” Maddy was looking at him skeptically.

He gritted his teeth. He had to do this. There was no other option. And right then and there, he knew he had to lie to his sisters too. He didn’t like it, but there really wasn’t another way to play it. He didn’t need them opposing him when it came to dealing with their mother. And, since his youngest sister was married to the town bartender, who was the commander of the town gossip hub, he had to be even more careful than he might have been otherwise.

“Well, I didn’t just go to Vegas overnight for no reason. I went to Vegas to get married.”

“You’re having a psychotic episode, aren’t you?” Maddy’s face contorted. “Please don’t tell me that you married a stripper. If some Las Vegas stripper ends up with a portion of our inheritance because you married her without a prenup...”

“I did not marry a stripper. I went to Vegas with Lydia Carpenter.”

“You did what?” Sierra’s voice had risen several octaves.

“I’m kind of surprised you didn’t hear about it already.” He watched their faces closely, using their responses as a primer for what it would look like to confess all of this to his mother. Not to mention his father.