Chapter Eight #2
“--my mama I needed to talk to you before I could make a decision about lunch.” She stared up at those gorgeous eyes — and really, how could his eyes be so much prettier than Tick’s when they were the same shape and color, had the same thick fringe of dark lashes?
She had never found herself wanting to gaze into Tick’s like this, picking out a stray fleck of hazel.
Plus, she was so darned relieved the tension from earlier had drained away or at least lessened.
“We might as well tell them we’re seeing each other. ”
“She’s gonna be awful.” He tugged his phone from his pocket and tapped out a text. “I’m just telling you.”
“Like Mona will be any better.” Holly made a dismissive noise in her throat. Actually, she didn’t know how her mother would take this. She’d had her hopes pinned on Tick as a son-in-law for so long. Who knew what her reaction would be to Colt’s presence in Holly’s life?
“Remember later I warned you.” He tucked the device away. The foyer had emptied out, except for the pastors and their wives, a few other stragglers, murmured conversations hanging in the still air.
“You make her sound like a dragon or something.” Shaking her head, she tucked her bag more securely on her shoulder and moved toward the door. Sunlight and cool air washed over her when she pushed it open. “It’s Sue.”
“Have you experienced Sue on a mission?” Even with him behind her, she knew his mouth twisted. “She’s gonna be all over you and me together.”
“That’s not a bad thing.” The memory of Lenora’s reticence toward Caitlin rose again. Those weeks — okay, months — had been awful, Holly feeling guilty simply for existing.
His low chuckle, kind of humorless, warmed her anyway. A few small groups hovered in the parking lot, chatting, and she headed for his truck.
“You don’t want to meet me there?” He spoke behind her, not quite at her side.
“No.” She didn’t glance over her shoulder, eyes on the gleaming white F-150. “You can run me back for my car later. This way we can talk in the truck.”
If she didn’t know him, she might think she’d imagined that “great” muttered under his breath.
She waited after he unlocked the truck, knowing he’d open the passenger door for her. “Thank you.”
The sun streaming through the windshield warmed the cab, and she sank into the seat with relief. The wind remained chilly outside despite the sunlight and clear sky, and while her sweater dress was cute, it wasn’t the warmest thing she owned. The breeze kind of cut through the waffle knit.
Behind the wheel, he latched his seatbelt and fired the engine. His chest rose and fell on a breath, and he rested a wrist on the steering wheel, fingers fanned. “Listen, about earlier—”
“I am sorry.” She cringed, aware the nonverbal exchange and its intensity bothered him, maybe even hurt him.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” He shrugged and reached for the gearshift. “It’s new to me, the idea of you and him—”
“Can we please not put it that way?”
“—and seeing you’re not over him—”
“Um, that is not true.”
“Well, that’s hard.” An arm stretched out so he gripped the back of her headrest, he looked over his shoulder to back out of the spot.
Her heart folded in on itself. “Colt.”
“It is.” His shoulders rolled while he wheeled the truck around and headed for the driveway outlet. “I’m not going to lie about that, Holly.”
“No.” She raked her teeth over her fingernail. She hated this, how the emotional morass that had been the so-called relationship she shared with Scott lingered, hurting Colt now. “I’m . . . mostly over him.”
He whipped an askance look at her, mouth twisted, brows raised. “Sure you are. That’s what that stare-down was about this morning.”
She sighed, subsiding into the seat as he turned into the sparse traffic on Broad. “I don’t know what that was . . . okay, I do. He’s so . . .”
Her frustration emerged as an inarticulate growl, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a grin.
“He does not get to hold an opinion about my personal life.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Not anymore.”
His head whipped in her direction once more, his mouth tight, but he remained silent. He gripped the wheel with one hand, knuckles white.
A thick silence hung in the cab. When he slowed for the red light at Scott Street, he cleared his throat. “Maybe you two need to have a sit down and sort out if you're going to be friends or what and what kind of boundaries that would have.”
Holly stared at him, lips parted in horror. “That is the worst idea you’ve ever had.”
A rusty chuckle fell between them. “It’s a perfectly valid idea. You just don’t like personal conflict.”
He wasn’t wrong, and she particularly disliked wrangling with Scott and his innate cynicism.
The light flared green, vehicles moving ahead of them, and he hooked the left to take them south toward the lake and his parents’ home.
“Colt.” She propped an elbow on the door, resting her temple on her hand, and pouted. “I don’t want to hash stuff out with him. He’s awful.”
“Oh, he’s a total asshole, worse than Ralph.” Humor quirked at his mouth before he sobered. “What do you see in him, anyway?”
“Did, past tense.” She fiddled with the hem of her thin sweater dress, inches above her knees when she was sitting.
How to explain the attraction? She tapped a booted toe against the floorboard.
“He’s smart, funny, has a pretty defined sense of morality.
Dedicated to his work, and he wants to do right by his clients. He loves his daddy and . . .”
The words died away, holding her throat with sharp claws.
“And he loves you.”
“Not enough.” Bitterness twisted through her chest, crumpling her heart into a tight, painful mess. A deep breath helped loosen the tension somewhat. “But I didn’t love him enough either.”
He flicked a sidelong glance at her. “Didn’t. Past tense?”
“I love him, sure.” She rolled a shoulder, an irritable shrug. The whole conversation prickled under her skin. “But I love Tick and David and Mackey, too. I can love him and not want to be with him. I can love him and understand that we are not right for one another.”
Eyes fixed on the two-lane, he nodded. “I don’t want to be a stand-in for him, Holly. Or your rebound.”
Hadn’t she known he didn’t need any more maybes in his life? Fumbling to a sideways position in her seatbelt, she laid a hand on his thigh, snug denim and hard muscle beneath her palm. He shot another quick look her way but didn’t shrug away from her touch.
“I only see you for yourself, Colton.” She tightened her fingers. “I only want you for yourself.”
His head jerked in another taut nod, his mouth grim, a muscle flicking in his cheek. “I need you to be honest with me, especially about that.”
“I am.” Her gaze clung to the stern lines of his face. “I don’t see him or anyone else when I look at you.”
Long fingers covered hers, tangling their hands together on his thigh, and his chin dipped. “Okay.”
He kept their hands joined until the left turn into the Pinecrest lakefront community loomed.
Settled now, more secure than she’d felt all morning, Holly eyed the tall home Sue loved so much.
The deep red brick and white trim had been the height of fashion back when D had had the home built for her and Pinecrest was the it suburb around Coney.
The man wanted her to be happy, and it showed in every decision he made.
The house was as much an assertion of love as Colt’s cabin was his independence and maybe a touch of rebellion. She bet his little home made Sue crazy.
And that was kinda crazy because he was more of a lowkey mama’s boy than Tick was. He adored Sue, despite her issues, and went out of his way to keep her life calm.
Drawing the truck to a halt behind his daddy’s silver Ford, he lifted a brow. “Remember, I warned you.”
She pushed her door open and stepped out on the pristine concrete walkway. “Stop being mean about Sue.”
“You know you’re supposed to let me come around and open that.” He tossed the words across the hood before meeting her at the front of the truck.
“Only when we’re going out somewhere.” She gestured toward the house, the garage door open, everything neatly in its place. “This is lunch at your mama’s.”
“Oh, little girl.” He grimaced. “That is going out.”
“I’m not sure little girl is any better than babe.” She slipped her hand into his as they approached the garage.
He smirked. “You do realize Gene’s pet name for Louise is ‘hot mama,’ right?”
“I do.” Because Tick knew it and melted down over that endearment on the regular. Of course he called Caitlin ‘precious’ and how lame and gag-inducing was that? “Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, no.” He swung the storm door open and perched on the steps to wave her ahead of him. “When he’s not calling her Sue Ellen, D calls Sue ‘sweetness,’ and we are not going there, either.”
“What does she call him?” She paused with her hand on the doorknob, looking at him over her shoulder, which wasn’t a hardship, since his stance highlighted those rockhard thighs under tight denim and the length of his body. My Lord, he was put together well.
“Sugarbear.” His pained expression tickled her, drawing a helpless smile to her lips. “Don’t even think about it. Colton is just fine since you’re the only person who calls me that.”
“Really?” She wrinkled her nose. Shoot, she’d called him Colton since high school. She liked being the only person to use that name, like it was some kind of secret between them.
“Really.” He came up a step, closer to her, chest brushing her shoulder, surrounding her with cedar and ocean salt, maybe a hint of starch from his shirt and leather from his boots. He dropped his head, not quite kissing her, so she felt his whisper over her lips. “I kinda like it.”
“Good.” She tilted her chin, bringing their mouths together. “What else do you like?”