Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Jonah
I had a bride in my passenger seat, but I was a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor.
I maneuvered out of Bozeman and headed toward Bourbon Canyon.
Summer was curled up with her head on her hand, staring out the window.
Snow had fallen last week and then Montana had had a couple of days of above-freezing weather.
The streets were a mix of brown and grungy white.
The closer to the edge of city limits I got, the thinner the snow piles were, covering the landscape more evenly.
The brown wasn’t from dirt but dormant grasses, and from green fir trees farther up the hills.
The ground disappeared again under the white of the mountain peaks.
She was so quiet. I’d never seen Summer quiet. She fit her name. Bold. Bright. Sunshine. The embodiment of confidence and happiness. As a kid, she’d been bossy, opinionated, and stubborn. Time might’ve polished her, but her edges couldn’t be dulled.
If she didn’t want to be around anyone, that made me her guy.
Not her man. Never her man.
An old, familiar ache burned behind my sternum.
I wanted to go home. I hadn’t wanted to leave, but I had owed my mom an appearance at the wedding.
Summer’s wedding would make her more emotional than most. The thoughts of what-could-have-been haunted her.
I owed my brother to see that Summer married someone who deserved her.
I owed it to myself to see her happily wed to another man.
Now my mom wouldn’t have to sit through the nuptials, and I would make sure that pompous, abusive jackass of a groom couldn’t find Summer.
I had a cabin in the mountains outside of Bourbon Canyon.
No one would bother her there. Her disgusting fiancé likely wouldn’t get over himself enough to go looking for her.
I glanced at the gray sky. Another snowfall was in the forecast, regular weather that townsfolk wouldn’t notice, but Summer might have to camp out with me a few more days than planned.
“Why were you there?” she asked, her voice tiny.
Shit, I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t alone. No. Her strawberries-and-sugar smell wouldn’t let me. She was infusing the cab of my truck, her scent curling around me and amping up the ache in my chest. How long before I quit smelling her when I climbed in?
“My family got an invite and insisted I go.” I’d balked. I’d argued with Mom. I didn’t like making trips to town, much less to Bozeman.
She’d reminded me I’d been holed up in the cabin most of the winter—again. I hated when Mom worried, and I couldn’t tell her I went to town more often than she thought. She’d ask why and things would get awkward.
A guy got tired of his hand.
Eventually, Mom had pulled the brother card. Can you do it for Eli?
Summer’s laugh was dry and sad. “So I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be there?” She let out a weary sigh. “No, I meant why were you in the hallway? Did you see us arguing?”
They hadn’t argued. She’d told him she didn’t want to get married, and her oaf of a fiancé had hit her. “I was looking for a bathroom.”
Her lower lip pouted out, pink and swollen from getting chewed on. She might look ready to drop but that sharp mind of hers was whirring. “Do you need to stop somewhere?”
“Why?” I maneuvered around a curve.
“You didn’t get to a bathroom.”
“I didn’t need to take a piss.” My hand tightened on the wheel. “I needed to get away from the crowd.” Away from the thought of seeing Summer walk down the aisle.
She twisted toward me in her seat as much as her seat belt would allow. “Were there a lot of people?”
“Not many I recognized.”
She let out a relieved breath. “Corinne invited half the town and wanted to restrict my guest list.”
Corinne must be the woman who’d been ready to fuck me up. Good thing Summer had known the exact threats needed to get her ex and his family to behave. I wasn’t sure my reputation would survive fighting a wealthy woman off me and Summer.
“Has he hit you before?” I had to know if I should regret my restraint.
“No.” She rested her head on the headrest. “But now I can’t quit thinking of the signs. He isolated me. Made me question my own mind. He was controlling. I can’t believe I fell for it all. I was just so busy with work.”
I slid my gaze in her direction for a second, then focused on the road.
“What?” she asked, defensive.
Summer wasn’t the type to let her boyfriend bulldoze her. My brother had trailed behind her like a lovesick puppy. Summer had done what she wanted, and if Eli had wanted to be with her, he’d had to keep up. “Why are you taking responsibility for his actions?”
“I was minutes away from marrying him.” Another long exhale. “Where are you taking me?”
There was an edge to her question. If she didn’t like my answer, she’d tuck and roll out the door, highway speeds be damned. This was the Summer I knew. “My cabin. You wanted privacy. You can’t get more private.” Except I’d be there.
She studied me. “Are you sure?”
No. She’d needed help, and I’d jumped to serve, just like all the men in her life, except that dickweed ex. “You can have the guest room. I’ll leave you alone.”
“It’s just . . .” She shook her head. “The last time we talked—”
“People change.” I didn’t want to remember her last visit to the hospital after the accident that had taken my brother’s life. She’d come to see me a few times. Probably more than I remembered since I’d been out of it for so long. She’d quit coming because I’d told her to.
“They do.” She went back to staring out the passenger window. “They change sometimes right before your eyes.”
And we were back on her ex. Safe ground. “Is what’s-his-name going to be a problem?”
“I don’t think so. He hit me and you saw. They can call me a liar, but the seed would be planted in people’s heads. Add in that I didn’t go through with the wedding and I’d look more truthful than him.”
“Do you live with him?”
She shook her head. “Thankfully, no. Daddy—” She sniffled. “Daddy, uh, told me once that he didn’t want his girls living with men before marriage.”
“I didn’t realize he was that old-fashioned.” Darin Bailey had been a good man, but he hadn’t seemed like he’d deny his girls much of anything.
“He encouraged independence—emotional, mental, and financial. And . . . he didn’t care for Boyd.” Her admission came out on a wave of shame.
Darin Bailey wasn’t Summer’s birth dad, but she was still her daddy’s girl. All the Kerrigan sisters were. “You stayed with the one guy Darin Bailey didn’t like?”
“Don’t judge.” She turned toward me and those lips formed a mutinous line. “Daddy didn’t like any of my boyfriends.” She went back to window gazing. “Except Eli, of course.”
Everyone had liked Eli. He’d been the likable brother.
Darin had hated Boyd Harrington. The thought gave me a boost. When I’d been better friends with Teller, I’d enjoyed chatting with Darin. He’d been an easy guy to get along with and had been aware of his family’s contributions to the town. He’d gone out of his way to be affable instead of entitled.
I could understand why he’d disliked Boyd.
Boyd’s and Summer’s names in fancy script on the invitation had irritated the shit out of me.
The entire invite had. Cream-colored paper.
Lace overlay. I had to break through three envelopes to get to it.
Even the wrinkles were fancy, like it was antique papyrus or some shit.
But her name in complicated calligraphy had just been wrong.
Summer wasn’t a complicated name and it shouldn’t be made into something it wasn’t.
“I’m going to judge,” I said to goad her.
Her anger flowed over me when she turned toward me. “Is that what you do? Sit in that boring cabin and get all judgmental?”
I kept driving, but satisfaction settled deep in my gut. There was the fire that fueled the woman. She’d lost it when that asshole had slapped her. “No, Summer. We’re going to sit in the boring cabin and get all judgmental.”
She paused. “How bad is it that I’m looking forward to it?”
For her? This was nothing but a blip on her radar. Sunny Summer Kerrigan would continue to bulldoze through life, doing things her way.
For me? Once she was gone, I’d be left thinking about everything I’d lost.
Summer
Ages ago, I’d been to Jonah’s cabin. He lived on the edge of Bailey land, on the farthest reaches of the Dunns’ land, so close that if our families didn’t get along, there could be issues. But Jonah kept to himself, respected his property and ours, and was overall a dream neighbor.
According to Teller, and from what I’d seen, Jonah was as much of a recluse as he could be. The thought made the “dream neighbor” label sad.
When Jonah was a kid, he used to help Tate and Teller on the ranch.
The three of them, along with Tenor, would race four-wheelers and snowmobiles, pull out the tractors they got stuck in the mud, and hunt and fish until we thought they weren’t coming home.
They didn’t stop as they entered their adult years.
During my brothers’ college breaks, either Jonah was back at the house or Teller was at his.
Then Jonah’s brother was killed. Eli Dunn. My high school boyfriend. Jonah had withdrawn into himself, become a hermit, and made it clear he didn’t want to see or speak to me again.
I must’ve looked extra pathetic in my puffy wedding dress if he was letting me hide at his place.
Memories surged as we got closer to the cabin.
Eli and I stopping in when Eli’s mom couldn’t get ahold of Jonah and sent Eli to check on him.
Eli grabbing camping equipment for the weekends out with friends I refused to go on.
I’d never told Eli the real reason why. He’d been my friend before he’d been my boyfriend, but there was so much I hadn’t told him.
Until he’d figured out part of it. And things had ended horribly.
Jonah drove up the base of the mountain, the wipers on the pickup swiping at the flurries coming down.