Chapter 16
I worry about it now. I want my son to be good. I didn’t realize it mattered until I thought I might have to teach another person how to live.
—Austin Wilder’s journal, May 25, 1857
W hen Austin woke up, he was cold. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, he was wearing jeans, and he was on top of the covers.
Shit .
He had spent the night.
He had said he would, but still, the creeping realization that not only had he defiled Millie Talbot, but he had left his truck in the driveway the whole damn night, washed over him fully now that the haze of his orgasm wasn’t blocking his brain cells.
He rolled out of bed and put his hands over his face. She was still asleep.
It was early.
He texted Carson to let him know that he wasn’t going to be up to do the morning chores.
And braced himself for the third degree he knew would follow.
You spent the night somewhere?
Obviously.
With someone?
No, I took myself on a little self-care retreat.
Damn.
Don’t read anything into it.
Out of town?
Not your business.
He left it at that. And ignored the other texts that started rolling in. He put his shirt on and went downstairs, figuring he ought to go ahead and make coffee for the two of them.
He stood there in her kitchen and looked out at his truck, a beacon in the driveway. He could leave. Before the neighbors got up. Before Millie and he created a stir.
But he didn’t want to abandon Millie like that. He hadn’t wanted to last night, and he didn’t want to now. And it wasn’t just because of the documents sitting on the kitchen table. It was because....
The way he had acted....
He had been every bit the bastard his ancestor was.
Taking what wasn’t his. Taking what he didn’t have the right to. What he didn’t have the ability to care for.
He had seen it in black and white. A man could even fall in love with a good woman, but if he didn’t know how to shape up, it didn’t matter.
Austin Wilder had left Katherine Wilder with two small children and a life full of grief.
There was a lot of talk about the Wilder men, and how they died young.
The Wilder women, though, were the ones who really suffered.
The Wilder men got off easy at the end of the day. They peaced out and went to whatever afterlife awaited them.
He didn’t want to do that to Millie. She deserved better.
He heard soft, tentative footsteps on the stairs.
“I’m still here,” he called up.
The footsteps paused.
“Millie,” he said.
The footsteps were resolutely still.
“Are you hiding from me?”
“No,” came a muffled reply.
“What are you doing?”
“Examining a cobweb in the stairwell.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“That’s rude,” she said, sniffing loudly.
“I’m pretty rude.”
She came the rest of the way down the stairs then, looking rumpled. She was wearing a nightgown that covered her from her throat down to her toes.
“Wasn’t I a gentleman all night?” he asked.
She blinked. “After all the sex.”
He laughed. “Yeah. After the sex. I was a gentleman then.”
“You were.”
“So don’t stand there clutching your pearls like you’re afraid I’m going to ravish you.”
She walked into the kitchen, her movements jerky.
“I’m making coffee.”
“Oh. Well. That’s nice. Thank you. For the coffee.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet. Don’t thank me for coffee you haven’t even tried.”
Their words were so careful, and he didn’t like it. He’d never had a morning after before.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a mess. And I feel like I kind of dragged you into that.”
She laughed. “ You’re sorry. I’m a mess. My wedding just got called off. I had no . . . had no business getting involved in something like this. It can’t go anywhere.”
“No.” He frowned. “Well. Good.”
“But there’s sort of a. . . . There’s sort of a poetry to it,” she said slowly. “I mean, this isn’t exactly how I saw putting the feud to bed. . . .”
He snorted. “No. Not really. But then, your dad and my dad were not going to solve the issues our families had like that.”
Her eyebrows shot up so far they disappeared beneath her hairline. “Very much no.”
“We’re still working on this Gold Rush Days thing.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I need to get my book written. I need to figure my shit out.”
“I understand that you don’t want a relationship with me.”
“Well, don’t say it like that.” Except it was true. It was specific to her. Because it just wasn’t going to work. Because she was all wrong for him. Well, she was her own thing. He was all wrong.
“I don’t know another way to say it.”
“It’s about me,” he said.
“Well, maybe it should be about me too.” She lifted her chin. She was a stubborn little thing. Much more so than he would’ve previously believed.
“Okay, sweetie, it can be about you too.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t call me sweetie like I could be any one of the women you’ve slept with. You’re at my house.”
“I don’t call anyone sweetie.” It was true. He didn’t know why he’d called her that.
She sniffed. “Oh. Well. Okay. So, what now?”
“You wanted to make it about you. So you tell me.”
She shook her head. “Like you don’t have an opinion?”
Austin Wilder was a whole lot of things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. If she wanted to play chicken with him until he decided to make a move . . . he was just going to make that move. “I want more.”
“Oh.”
“We ought to get through this Gold Rush Days stuff. All the papers on the table need to be gone through. It’s just not realistic to think we aren’t going to get together again.”
“Do you think so?” With stiff shoulders she walked past him into the kitchen and went over to the coffee maker.
“Yes,” he said, watching her shoulders get even straighter. “I do think so. Because that was damn good sex. I don’t think either of us is going to be looking at each other without thinking about it.”
“Maybe I’m indifferent,” she said, reaching up and taking a coffee mug out of the cabinet. Her movements were precise and somehow prim. He would be lying if he said he didn’t like it. She was entirely different from anyone he was used to.
Last night....
He had done his level best not to think about it. Because he had been lying there on the covers being a damned gentleman while that other condom burned bright as a beacon on the nightstand. But last night had been a revelation.
He knew it had been one for her too.
He knew good and well he had blown her mind. As she had blown his.
And it didn’t hurt his pride to let her know that. Acting a coward about it, acting like it hadn’t been mind-blowing, that was something a man ought to be ashamed of.
“Last night was fucking incredible, and you know it.”
She turned toward him, clutching her mug with both hands, her fingers looking like claws. “It was . . . fine.”
“Millie,” he said, his voice a warning. He closed the distance between them, and she set the cup on the counter hurriedly. Her wide eyes connected with his, and he backed her up against the counter. What he wanted to do was to press himself against her. Show her just how much she wanted him, but he didn’t touch her. He just looked. “Your fiancé made you feel you need to protect yourself by not showing your cards. You’re afraid to let me know how good it was, because you don’t want me to use it against you. Or you’re worried maybe that I might feel less than you. So let’s get one thing out of the way. You’ve been with one man. I don’t know how many women I’ve been with. I don’t count. I don’t care. Last night was as incredible for me as it was for you. Which means it’s us. It’s not about experience. It’s not about anything other than this chemistry between us.”
“Maybe it’s about our ancestors being enemies.”
“Maybe,” he said. “And what the hell is wrong with that?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s the lure of the forbidden. God knows blessed little is forbidden in this world anymore. Takes the fun out of things.”
“I . . . I. . . .”
“I want to kiss you,” he said.
She nodded wordlessly, and he captured her mouth, tasting her thoroughly, deeply. “Go get your coffee,” he said, moving away from her.
He noticed that her hands were shaking when she picked the mug up. When she grabbed the carafe and began to pour coffee into the mug.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“Am I that intimidating?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think I could get addicted to you.”
“Well. Addicts can recover.”
She huffed a laugh. “You’re full of yourself.”
“In certain areas.”
She wrinkled her nose. “This is improbable.”
“I agree. And remember, I’m the one that tried to warn you off, so why the hell you’re pitching a little fit about it now, I don’t know.” Then he understood. “Be careful what you wish for—is that it?”
She looked down. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know what?”
“I didn’t know sex could be like that.”
“Back up,” he said. “I’m going to get coffee too.”
He did, grabbing the biggest mug she had and pouring the whole rest of the pot into it. “Come on,” he said, gesturing for her to go into the dining room. He took his seat at the head of the table, set the coffee cup down in front of him, and looked at her expectantly. She shimmied into the seat two chairs away from his.
“All right,” she said. “Are you calling a meeting?”
“No. I’m not calling a meeting. I want you to explain to me what that means.”
“Sex has never been that intense for me before. It’s never felt that good. I . . . this is so stupid. And it’s embarrassing.”
“Millie, I’ve had my face between your legs. You don’t need to be embarrassed with me.”
Her cheeks went bright red. “That’s another thing. I’ve never done that before.”
“Good God,” he said. “Just when I think I couldn’t disrespect that little weasel more. I have no patience for men who want to fuck women, but then act disgusted by them. Men who want women to service them, but don’t take any real pleasure in the shape of a woman, in the way that she talks, in the way she is. But he did bow out already and make room for the rest of us.”
She blinked at him, her eyes wide. He felt passionately about what he’d said. He was the kind of guy who did hookups, which meant he was part of that scene. He saw too many men who disrespected the women they were sleeping with. Who judged them easy for having one-night stands, but never judged themselves. He hated it, and what she was saying made him think Michael was exactly that kind of guy. Because Millie knew how to give a blowjob. So it was clear she had done it before. But that jackass had never gone down on her? It made him violent.
“There are a lot of guys out there like that, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a flaw. He was just useless. It’s not you. He’s an archetype.”
“Do you still feel sympathetic toward him? Do you still want to know his backstory?”
“I never said I was sympathetic to him. What I said is that everybody has their reasons. And even more insidious, everybody has the story they tell themselves. That he’s better than everybody else, than the other people in this town, than the rules. Than the woman he was engaged to. If I didn’t have so much contempt for Danielle, I might feel sorry for her. Because she landed herself a lemon.”
“Maybe he’s better with her,” Millie said. “Maybe it was the combination of the two of us.”
“No. He wasn’t punished for his bad behavior. And because of that, he’ll just keep on with it. She’s not getting anything better out of it than you did. The sad thing is, maybe she doesn’t want better.”
“I didn’t want better. I didn’t know to want better. I was just so grateful that he. . . .” She looked down at her cup. “That he wanted me.”
Hell. He moved across the space between them and cupped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, looking her right in the eyes. “Millie, I want you to listen to me. I am fucking grateful that you let me into your bed last night. I should get down on my knees and give thanks.”
“And this is why you scare me.”
“Don’t worry. I scare myself a little bit too.”
He moved away from her, went back to his seat. His heart was pounding too hard, and he felt a surge of something moving through his veins. Maybe he was mad because of the politics of this damned town, but if that was true, then he should still be feeling a lot angrier at her than he did. It was that spike of anger that had driven him into her bed last night. But the truth was, anger was an excuse. He had used anger to get him there, because it had blotted out common sense. And he had needed that. So that he could just do what he wanted. And now he had to deal with the consequences.
“So you’re proposing that we keep sleeping together?”
“I think it’s inevitable,” he said. “I didn’t say I thought we should keep sleeping together, or that it was anything like a good idea. It’s actually a terrible idea, I just think the ship sailed last night.”
Thankfully, she didn’t look offended. Instead, she sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “I can agree with that. It was maybe not the wisest decision but . . . but what’s done is done.”
“The horse has bolted.”
“So to speak,” she said, lifting her brows.
“So to speak,” he said.
“I have to head to the library soon,” she said.
He nodded. “Do you mind if I take some of this stuff to go through?”
“No,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I think you should. Because if we are going to be sleeping together, then we need to also make ourselves useful.”
“I make myself very useful in the bedroom.”
Her face went scarlet again. “I know.”
He chuckled. “You have to stop being so cute about it.”
“Why is this cute?”
“I don’t know. It’s just . . . you’re not like anybody I’ve ever been with.”
“Well. Same.”
“I should hope not.”
“Do you have an outlaw outfit?”
It was his turn to look a little bit shocked. “You want to do some role-playing?”
“No! I only meant that . . . we’re going to need costumes. For if you do the walking tour. And maybe I can dress like a sheriff. Or a schoolmarm. That would be more accurate to the period.”
“Well. Whatever you decide. What does an outlaw costume entail?”
“I don’t really know. Black, I would think. But I have some crates of things like that at the library.”
“All right.”
“We should meet up later.”
“I’m counting on it.”
She hightailed it out of the kitchen, going off to get ready, and he sat there staring into his cup of coffee, wondering how his life had gotten turned quite so upside down, and why he wasn’t more upset about it.