Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
L ucas got into his squad car, clenching his jaw. He’d known Riley would date other guys after their breakup, but it bothered him more than he expected to find her in Nick Floyd’s car. He’d always been a tool.
From the backseat, Nick let out an exasperated breath. “I was wondering how long you planned on leaving me here. Is standing around talking with a man’s date usually part of the DUI process, or do I get special treatment?”
“I was ensuring Riley makes it home safely—something you should’ve done but didn’t.” Lucas took his time filling out the towing form just to make Nick wait longer.
Nick clanked his handcuffs. “We were fine, bro, and you ruined my date. Everything was going perfectly until you decided to play lord of the flashing lights.”
Lucas started the car. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but she wasn’t into you.”
Nick scoffed. “You didn’t see us dancing earlier. She was into me.”
An image of Riley dancing rushed into Lucas’s mind. The woman knew how to move on a dance floor. She’d always been so confident, so fluid. And when they slow danced, well, Lucas didn’t like thinking about her slow dancing with Nick.
Lucas drove out of the parking lot. “When I pulled up behind you, I saw your outlines.” Riley had been leaning away from him, not toward him. “Trust me, you’re not her type.”
Nick scoffed again, then sat forward in his seat and laughed. “Wait, you dated Riley last year, didn’t you? I just remembered that.”
Lucas didn’t answer.
“Is that why you’re really hauling me to the station? I encroached on your territory?”
“I’m taking you in because your blood alcohol is over the limit.”
“Barely.”
“Barely is enough.” Especially when Nick had been threatening to run over people with his car.
“Dude, we played football together. You know me, and you cuffed me anyway.”
“Sorry. That’s part of the procedure.” And okay, he could’ve made an exception about the cuffing, but he hadn’t felt like it.
Nick remained silent for a few minutes. It was an improvement. When they were nearly to the station, he said, “Arresting me won’t impress her. She knows why you’re doing this, and it will only make her want to date me more. I bet she’s already left me several texts telling me how sorry she is that her ex is harassing me.”
Was he right? Lucas didn’t think Riley liked Nick but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go out with him again just to show Lucas that he couldn’t tell her what to do.
He turned into the station parking lot. “She’d feel differently if she knew about that charge on your record for soliciting prostitution.”
Nick straightened and sputtered. “That was just a frat house thing. You wouldn’t…you’re not allowed to tell people what’s on my record.”
Lucas parked the car. “I won’t tell anyone anything. But if you ever ask Riley out again, I might let her best friend know that she ought to run a check on you. Arrests are in the public record. I’m sure Riley’s friends will have opinions about the frat boy stuff.”
Lucas got out, went to the back of the car, and opened the door. Nick shrugged off Lucas’s attempt to help him out. “This is an abuse of power.”
“Some women like bad boys. Maybe you should look for that type next.”
Nick stomped off toward the station. “Maybe you should get over Riley and find someone who likes self-important, squad-car-tyrants.”
Nick added a few stronger adjectives to the list, but Lucas had stopped listening. Being called names was nothing new. The odd thing was that this was the second time in a week that someone had told him that he wasn’t over Riley.
It wasn’t true.
Okay, perhaps tonight proved that it was a little true. But that didn’t change things.
Still, after he was through with Nick, he found himself messaging Winter and telling her to call him when she had some time to talk.
He didn’t expect to hear from her until the next day, but she called a few minutes later. He was due for a break, so he went to one of the empty back rooms and answered the call.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I’m surprised you are,” he said. “It’s late.”
“You keep odd hours when you have no place to go.” A note of self-pity played in her voice.
He kept his voice low even though he was alone. “Going stir crazy?”
“I’m counting the days until my due date.”
“It’s not too long.”
She gave a wry laugh. “You only think that because you don’t have a baby lodged into your lungs. So, why did you call?”
He wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of Riley. He’d thought he’d have more time to plan what to say. “I ran into Riley tonight.”
“Oh.” Winter drew out the word. “How is she?”
Still beautiful. Still angry. And dating idiots now. He wouldn’t tell her about Nick, though. He didn’t gossip about what happened on the job. “She still sees me as the villain. What makes that worse is that Carson is putting in an offer to buy The Riverside Inn and wants me to manage it. I’ll probably end up being her boss. Riley and I need to be able to have a working relationship.”
“It’s been a while since you two broke up. Sounds like Riley needs to get over herself.”
“It would help if I could explain why I was at your house that night.” He’d told Winter this before. They’d talked about it after the breakup. Back then, she’d made a veiled threat of what she’d do if Lucas told Riley anything.
But like Winter said, it had been six months. They’d all had time to cool down.
There was a pause on the phone.
He waited.
Finally, Winter let out a long sigh. “I only took you into my confidence because you promised I could trust you. You promised me you would keep my secrets.”
“I think you could trust Riley to keep your secrets too.”
Another sigh. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I really am. But I haven’t even told my friends about this. I don’t want your angry ex- girlfriend who hates me to find out about it. I have to think about my future and my baby’s privacy.”
He’d understood her insistence for privacy when she’d still been deciding what to do about her unplanned pregnancy. It seemed less urgent now. “You don’t have to keep everything a secret,” he said. “These things happen. People understand.”
“People understand?” Winter repeated in disbelief. “How many women do you know who’ve given up a baby for adoption?” Without waiting for an answer, she added, “And how many of those women are planning on competing in the Miss Montana pageant? I don’t want my situation and choices debated on every single media platform.”
He couldn’t argue that people would be kind or even respectful online.
“I’m sorry,” she went on. “If I’d known this would ruin things with Riley, I would’ve never come to you for advice. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Don’t apologize for that.” When Winter had first told him she was pregnant and her ex-boyfriend was pressuring her to have an abortion, she’d been distraught and didn’t know what to do.
She hadn’t told her friends or even her parents about the pregnancy. Winter had come to Lucas. She said it was because he could keep a secret. He’d instinctively known the real reason she’d come to him, though. She wanted to be talked out of an abortion.
He’d sat with her, held her while she cried, and discussed her options. He’d been the one to find an adoption agency for her. And when her ex got nasty and said that if she continued with the pregnancy, he wouldn’t sign the papers relinquishing his rights—just to spite her—Lucas had a forceful conversation with him in which he may have threatened him with some creative and slightly illegal retribution.
The guy had folded. He’d been nothing but a bully who wasn’t used to being called out for it.
Winter had told people she was going to Europe to study for two semesters. She’d actually moved in with an aunt and would stay there after the baby was born until she got back into shape.
Only her parents, aunt, and Lucas knew the truth.
Lucas rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the pressure of this impossible situation. “I’m glad you came to me when you needed someone. It’s just, you realize how things looked from Riley’s perspective. I’ve never been able to convince her I wasn’t cheating on her.”
“If she refused to trust you, she doesn’t deserve you and would never make you happy. Really, can you imagine having to answer to her every time you came home late from work or spent time talking with another woman? You two never would have lasted. You’re a man who keeps his word. That’s why I came to you. You need to find a woman who realizes that about you.”
The bit about him keeping his word was Winter’s reminder that he shouldn’t go against her wishes and tell Riley anyway.
“I want to make things right with Riley. You can understand that.”
Winter sighed. “And the next time she gets mad at you and wants to hurt you, it will be my life that gets ruined. I’ve never told any of your secrets. I wouldn’t want the things you and Jace did to come back to bite you. Just show me the same respect and don’t tell mine.”
And there was the subtle threat. Because Winter knew what Lucas had done during their senior year. It was a secret he never should have told her.
At the last minute, Jace wasn’t able to take the SAT. He’d waited until November to sign up for the test so he could get in more studying. December would be too late for any sort of scholarships, and Jace had been depending on receiving some financial aid.
So without telling Jace what he was doing, Lucas used his twin’s ID and took the test in his place.
At eighteen, it had seemed like just one more instance in a long list of switching places; something that was harmless. Granted, Lucas had scored high enough to earn a full tuition scholarship for Jace, but that’s not why he pretended to be his twin. He wasn’t trying to game the system. Jace probably would’ve scored as high on his own. Maybe even higher.
Now that Lucas was older, he realized what he’d done was technically fraud and illegal. If the truth came out, it might not only have consequences for Lucas’s place on the police force, but the university that gave Jace his scholarship would have the right to revoke his degree.
Lucas wasn’t so worried about his own job, but he couldn’t do anything to risk his brother’s career. Not when Jace had worked so hard for so long.
“I’m sorry,” Winter said. “I wish things were different.”
That made two of them.
He wished Winter would be more reasonable. He wished he hadn’t been stupid enough in high school to tell her about taking Jace’s test. He wished he hadn’t lied to Riley about meeting with Winter. If he’d told her the truth about that one thing, everything else would’ve been different.
He didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Did I lose you?” she asked.
No, they hadn’t lost each other. He’d just lost Riley.
He said his goodbyes to Winter and hung up.
On some days, Lucas told himself that if Riley couldn’t forgive him for one mistake and trust him again, if she couldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt even once, then the two of them didn’t belong together.
Today wasn’t one of those days.
Today he couldn’t stop thinking about Riley dancing with Nick.