Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Hazel
That morning, we have breakfast with Cooper and Bea at the inn. Bea makes me promise to come visit her sometime in Cincinnati, and I tell her she needs to come back for a proper vacation. Cooper and Ramsey talk football and his daughter. Then we see them both off to the airport. I go back to the inn, and he goes back to ranch life. Even if he is a little pouty at the loss of his friends.
When I get home that night from the inn, Ramsey’s still uncharacteristically quiet. I thought we might have made some progress, especially since Cooper and Bea were here, but he barely greets me when I put my things away in the breezeway. He looks like he’s on a mission and doesn’t have time to chat.
“Kit put some dinner together for us.” I hold up the aluminum foil tray she handed me on my way out the door. “I need a shower after the hike we did this afternoon, but after that, if you want, I can heat this up, and we can eat together?” I try to offer an olive branch.
“Sure.” It’s a terse reply, and then he heads out the back screen door. It slams in his wake, and I storm up the steps. This is exactly why this would never work. There’s no changing the man. I’m busy counting down the list of reasons why I should still hate him when I get in the shower, and I’ve only managed to work myself back down slightly from my temper by the time I’m done thirty minutes later. Because I’m not about to rush to have dinner with an asshole.
I wrap a towel around myself and walk out into the bedroom to find where I put my body lotion. But there in the middle of the bed is a set of lingerie. One of the new ones I just purchased on Ramsey’s credit card. Next to it is an embossed card that’s been written over.
I look more closely, picking it up, and my heart sinks. It’s the wedding invitations for Curtis and me. They must have come in the mail, and Ramsey found them. No wonder he’s pissed. I read the note in Ramsey’s writing.
Put this on and come downstairs to the den.
-R
The den had always been Ramsey’s favorite room in the house, the place where he took all his important meetings, so I assume I’m headed there for some sort of dressing down. I stare at the white lace. I should tell him where he can shove it. But something about the demand makes me curious.
I take my time putting the lingerie and my robe on. I’m in no hurry to fight with him, and I’m hoping his temper cools by the time I get downstairs. When I walk through the den door, Ramsey’s set up in the big leather armchair near the fireplace. He’s got a glass of whiskey in one hand and a white piece of paper in the other. A piece that he stares at for a long moment before he chucks into the fire. He watches it burn to ashes before he finally looks up at me.
“What are you doing?” Dread runs through me.
“Using this invitation as kindling,” he answers bluntly.
“You’re not!” I gasp as I round the old brown leather couch in the room and see the stack of them he has on the table next to him. The box is half empty, and the fire is roaring at its side. “Did you burn the rest?”
“Yep.”
“Are you fucking insane? Do you know how much those cost and how long it took to get them? They were custom. I drove to Denver three times just to get the design right.” I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“A waste of time if you ask me.”
I lunge at him to take back the invitation he currently has in his hand. He whisks it out of my reach and flings it into the fire, standing as I screech at the way the paper catches fire.
“Give it to me,” I demand when he picks up another one but ignores me, holding it up too high for me to reach. “ Now .” I glare at him, and his expression sours in return.
“He might like being bossed around all the time, darlin’. But I like saving that for special occasions.”
“So help me, God, Ramsey. If you toss another one in the fire…” My hands are on my hips as I threaten him, and he looks down at me and smirks.
“Then what?” His eyes glint in the reflection of the fire, amusement dancing over his face.
“I haven’t figured it out yet, but it’ll be bad for you. I promise that much.”
He drops his hand and holds the invitation out for me. I eye him warily before I take it, worried this is all a trap. I snatch it from his grasp and my fears are confirmed a moment later.
“Read it to me.” He nods to the paper.
“No.” I pull it behind my back and glare at him.
“Suit yourself.” He grabs another handful off the pile and chucks them headlong into the fire.
“Stop doing that!” I yell, falling to my knees and covering the rest of the invitations with my arms.
“Read the invitation to me,” he repeats, his voice cool and even.
“Fine. You’re a fucking psycho, though, you know that? I thought we’d made some progress. But no.”
“Read—” he starts, but I interrupt him by doing what he asks.
“You are cordially invited to the wedding of Hazel Briggs Stockton and Curtis Martin Flanagan at Bull Rush Ranch on March 15 at one p.m. Reception will follow at the Purgatory Falls Inn, with a post-reception party at the Seven Sins Bar in town.” I look up, and he’s furious.
“So you’re going to marry him with my name, on my ranch, and celebrate it at the inn my great grandparents built? Do I have that right?”
“Where did you think we were going to get married, Ramsey? There’re only a couple of places in town that can accommodate a wedding, and I’m not made of money.”
“Somewhere, anywhere fucking else,” he roars. “Are you going to wear the same dress too? Let him fuck you in it? Make sure he spends a couple of hours on his knees for you first first though. Repeat the whole experience. Then again, I doubt he has the same kind of stamina I do.”
“I have a new dress. And I tried to have the wedding at the casino hotel, in the ballroom, but your brothers refused to allow the booking.”
There’s a flash of surprise on his face before he grins. “Good for them. At least someone with the Stockton name knows what loyalty means.”
I slap him without thinking. The crack of my palm on his cheek is deafening, and my breath catches in my throat when I realize what I’ve done. His eyes blaze with fury, and I’ve stoked the fire even hotter.
Might as well lean into it.
“You want to talk about loyalty? I don’t think you’re ready for that conversation.” I steel my spine, holding back the thing I really want to say since it’ll only make this fight worse—because loyalty would have meant he stayed on his family land with his family.
We stand in silence for what seems like an eternity, staring each other down and daring the other one to make the next move.
“You’re right. We can save the small talk for another day,” he answers at last, his calm tone returning.
I turn to leave the room. I’ve had enough of him, and I’m so pissed I could kill him myself.
“Where’s the dress?” he asks. “I want to see it.”
I stop in my tracks and turn to look at him.
“So you can burn it too?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” A wicked little smile grows on his lips. “Maybe that too.”
I turn around and poke him in the chest. “Absolutely not.”
“Was I going to get one?”
“Get what?” I frown; momentarily imagining Ramsey in a wedding dress brings an unwanted smile to my lips.
“An invitation.”
“No.” I look at him like he’s lost what’s left of his mind.
“Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“Because you didn’t want me to see you reliving ours or because you thought seeing me would make it too hard to marry him?”
“Because I hate you with the fire of a thousand fucking suns! I hate how you sweep in and turn everything upside down. How you make me rethink every choice I ever made. How you just walk in and take whatever you want whenever you want and damn the consequences. You’re trying to ruin everything .”
“Not everything. Just you.” His hands go to my robe and untie it; it falls to the side, and he sees the lingerie I’m wearing in place of my usual post-shower tee and shorts. I’m mad that I even put it on now.
“I had a misplaced addiction. I’m cured now.” I inform him. It’s a lie. I’m every bit as addicted as I ever was, or I wouldn’t be doing any of this.
“Well, I’m not.”
“Clearly.” I stare at the pile of ashes in the fireplace.
“I’ll buy you new ones in a couple of months. Those needed corrections anyway.” He kisses his way down my neck.
“Don’t try to kiss up now, Stockton,” I warn.
“No? You’d rather have it be rough instead? You can hit me a few more times and tell me how much you hate me if you want. I know how wet that gets you these days.” I slide him a sideways look of disapproval, but he just eats it up.
“I’d rather have peace and quiet.”
“That’s a lie, or you wouldn’t have worn this down here.” He runs his fingers under one of the shoulder straps and pulls it down.
“I saw the invitation and was trying to placate you,” I grumble.
“Is that what you were trying to do just now?” He mocks me as his fingers twist in my hair, and he pushes it off my shoulder.
“It went awry, but yes.” I close my eyes as he starts to kiss his way over my shoulder in short, deliberate brushes of his lips on my skin.
“So finish showing me how it was going to go,” he says softly.