Chapter 2 #2
Thirteen years might’ve passed, but he could still picture her stretched out on the wooden pontoon in a blue-and-white bikini, blonde hair whipping in the wind, eyes impossibly blue.
And the shock of realizing she’d become someone he saw in a totally different light—not the sometimes-annoying kid, sunburnt nose, grazed knees, who’d followed him around like a puppy, but a young woman he was attracted to—had hit him like a cold slap.
Within the blink of an eye, everything had changed and the kid Poppy had been disappeared.
Their easy, uncomplicated dynamic was gone.
She’d always looked at him like he was safe, like she only ever expected him to be there for her and to be kind.
But his new feelings for Poppy had made him a risk.
She wasn’t that much younger than him, and the age gap now felt smaller than before.
The new dynamic had taken him completely by surprise, and despite it being, on paper, somewhat acceptable, it didn’t feel right to let her down, to stop being someone safe for her.
In those few minutes before clocking her in that bikini and diving off the raft, he’d realized that being around her meant policing himself.
He wouldn’t be able to talk to her or treat her the same way he had before; he’d have to retreat and ignore her.
He’d have to hurt her feelings to protect her.
He hadn’t been the only one who’d noticed her transformation, his brother Benji had too. Back then, Poppy and Benji had made sense. The same age, the same level of experience…
Despite knowing Poppy wouldn’t understand, Thom decided disappearing was the less hurtful option. Clean breaks healed faster, he told himself. It had been the right thing to do, but he’d missed her, missed having someone in his life who thought he hung the moon.
And to be honest, nobody had ever looked at him the way she did.
Poppy stomped into the kitchen and slapped her hand on the only empty space on his table.
The sound of her palm connecting echoed in the empty kitchen.
He studied her warily. If anything, she looked angrier than before—which was saying a lot.
Her blue eyes had lightened and brightened, a telltale sign her temper was sparking.
Beneath her too-heavy makeup, her cheeks were flushed, the color spreading down her throat and across her chest, which was barely contained by a wedding dress that was cut far too low for a confrontation in his kitchen.
“Explain, Sheffield. Right damn now.”
He wasn’t someone who took orders meekly. Or at all. And especially not from someone who’d stumbled into his house looking like a refugee from the wedding from hell. And talking of, why had she agreed to marry Benji in the first place? He thought she was smarter than that.
Thom simply folded his arms and lifted one eyebrow in what Benji used to call his “supercilious shit” look.
“What are you doing to my grandfather’s house?” she demanded, her voice shaking. With anger, dismay, and fear? Or maybe a mixture of all three.
“My house,” he corrected, deliberately sounding bored. “Why aren’t you in Boston saying I do?”
She waved his question away and pushed a heavy strand of hair behind her ears. It never used to be that shade of blonde; it used to be richer, deeper, bottled sunlight.
“My non-wedding has nothing to do with you, but your destruction of my house has everything to do with me,” she yelled. “Who the hell gave you the right to move the furniture and to strip wallpaper, sand floors, and knock out walls?”
“I haven’t knocked out a wall,” he countered. The house was listed, and he wasn’t allowed to make structural changes, even if he wanted to.
“The reception area is twice the size it was,” she pointed out. A gust of wind through the open door tossed her veil over her face, and she ripped it off her head with one hand and threw it to the floor.
“I took out a drywall. And, again, my house. I can do whatever I want with it.”
“I know my grandfather mentioned wanting to sell the inn shortly before he died, but we didn’t hear anything more about it.”
Now that wasn’t true. Her parents knew that he’d bought the property and that he’d offered to allow Grandpa M.
to live in the house until he died. Thom suspected that the rest of Poppy’s siblings knew he was the owner, too, but they’d declined to share that information with the youngest member of the family.
Partly, he suspected, because they knew she would raise hell—this was her favorite place in the world.
But she’d never been, as they would put it, as intellectually, financially, and fiscally educated as they were.
It was just a fancy way of saying that, because Poppy didn’t have at least two college degrees, they considered her stupid.
Her family were very far up their own asses and considered themselves rather special. He considered all of them to be dicks.
“I own this house,” Thom said, bending to pick the water bottle off the floor. He screwed on the cap and gripped it tightly.
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Poppy scoffed. “I would know if our family home went out of the family.”
It had, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Although he knew the answer, he still asked his next question. “Why are you here, Poppy?”
He saw confusion flash in her eyes, a whole bunch of hurt, and caught the wobble of her full bottom lip. She looked around and shrugged. “Because this is where I needed to be.”
That was how he’d felt two years ago when his world fell apart.
But Poppy was the one person he didn’t need in his house, or back in H-Town.
Under her weird hair, makeup, and panda eyes, he could see the beautiful woman he always knew she’d become.
Her heart-shaped, pixie-like face, perfectly feminine with its high cheekbones, straight nose, and ever-so-slightly pouty lips.
Her dress was ridiculous—it was the least Poppy-like creation ever—but the body within it was slim, curvy, effortlessly female.
And God, her eyes. As a kid, they’d always been too big for her face, and that was still, sort of, true. High, arched brows and thick black eyelashes, made longer and thicker by too much mascara, were the perfect contrast to all that blue. Grandma M. had called them Persian Blue.
When Poppy was angry, they turned lighter; when emotional, they deepened to the color of the lake as night fell, dark and mysterious. Thom had never been able to resist her when she looked up at him through her long lashes and thick bangs. Part fairy, part devil.
He pulled his eyes from her and shook himself out of his reverie.
Now wasn’t the time to get soppy. He wasn’t a sentimental guy, and he wasn’t impressed by having his peaceful life—boring, but peaceful—derailed by a heartbroken bride.
He nodded to her dirty wedding dress. “What did Benji do?” he asked. He couldn’t help it; he was curious.
She looked down and smoothed her hand over her stomach, and her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Nothing in particular,” she told him, sounding bleak. “I just … ran.”
Best decision she could’ve made, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “And you ran here.”
She nodded. “I’m going to check in with my grandfather’s lawyer,” she told him, in an obvious attempt to sound tough.
“Be my guest,” he replied. “I’m sure he’ll be in his office on Monday morning.”
“Right. Or maybe I’ll call Luna and ask her to give me his contact details so I can talk to him this afternoon.”
Thom rested his left butt cheek on the edge of the table and swung his leg. “It might be quicker if you called your parents. They know the situation.”
She blanched, horrified at his suggestion and immediately shook her head. “Uh … I’m trying to avoid talking to them as long as possible,” she replied. When he asked why, she looked dumbfounded.
“Because I just ran out on a very expensive wedding, Boston’s wedding of the year. I’d like to delay talking to them for as long as I can. Possibly forever,” she glumly added.
Fair enough. Thom stood up, walked over to the kitchen door and opened it. He gestured for her to walk out. “Fine. Do whatever you need to do, but do it somewhere else.”
She looked from him to the door and back at him. Then her expression turned stubborn. “I’m not leaving until I know.”
He gripped the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb and closed his eyes. “Poppy, seriously, I am losing patience.”
“I’ve been on a bus in the world’s most uncomfortable wedding dress.
I’ve had to endure about a million comments, some sympathetic, some mocking.
I left my shoes in the bathroom of the bridal suite.
A tourist thought I was playing dress-up and made me pose for photos.
I am dirty and sweaty, and I have nothing but my goddamn cell phone.
So, please, don’t talk to me about losing patience,” she told him, her eyes spitting blue fire.
“This was my grandparents’ home. I am staying here until I know what’s what. ”
“Call. Your. Parents,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I damn well won’t.”
“Then I will.”
“I won’t talk to them, and I won’t listen to their confirmation or denial, so we’re back to square one with the lawyer.”
“You are not staying here.”
“Fucking watch me do just that, Sheffield.”
Their eyes clashed and held, and for the first time in too long—months, maybe years—he felt a spark of something other than basic sexual awareness.
Of interest, of well, shit, here you are.
Someone interesting, head-tipping, party-in-my-pants attractive.
Thom didn’t need to be attracted to his brother’s almost wife, to the grown-up, human version of the puppy that had followed him around.
Wrapped up in silk or satin, she embodied the worst type of drama: romantic drama.
“Look, Poppy, my inn is not your refuge from drama, or starry-eyed stupidity. Take your reality show and leave.”