Chapter 15
When he kisses me, I wonder who he sees. If it’s her, I might die.
P erry could admit that her decision-making during the day had been erratic.
She had gone to Medford in the morning, had gone to the mall, and had bought an extremely short dress.
The bonus feature of the extremely short dress was that it was also very tight.
And left absolutely no detail of her body to the imagination.
It wasn’t her usual thing, but it was entirely possible she was dressing for revenge.
She had spent so much time in her head, so much time analyzing everything, that she decided to turn her brain off. She didn’t want to rehash that almost kiss. To rake it over and over. What she wanted to do was live. Feel. Something for somebody else.
Or maybe just for herself.
After that, she went back to Rustler Mountain. She texted West and asked if he wanted to meet her at the Watering Hole that night.
She could have done it earlier. But she sent a picture of herself in the fitting room in the dress, and he responded with a fire emoji and a yes.
So she’d gone and basically announced to the man that she was DTF. Great.
Adrenaline fueled her through getting dressed and ready.
It got her all the way down to the Watering Hole itself.
Then she started to question herself a little bit.
She parked her car against the curb right around the same time West pulled his motorcycle up to the front.
He was wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans.
He was hot—really, there was no denying it.
He definitely fell into the outlaw category of Rustler Mountain lore.
Well. Apparently, she could easily make that her thing. Though West didn’t seem to have any interest in reforming.
Unlike Carson. Who cared so much and felt he was accomplishing so little.
“Perry the florist,” he said, appraising her. He clearly liked the dress. “I didn’t expect all this.”
“Really? You know the company I keep. I like an outlaw.” Apparently, she did know how to flirt. How nice for her.
“True. Though I’m a little surprised your Wilder isn’t with you like he was the other night.”
“Where Carson is or isn’t—that isn’t my problem or yours tonight.”
“Great. Let’s go get that drink.”
He put his hand low on her back, definitely grazing her ass, not that she was complaining, because this was what she wanted.
To be reckless. To do something without thinking.
To do something that wasn’t about Carson or the future.
Because she was bruised and battered and tied up in knots, because she felt every action had so much consequence. And she just wanted …
The truth was she didn’t want West. But she wanted to feel something, and she thought he might be the easiest road to that feeling. Maybe it wasn’t fair to him, but she didn’t take him for the kind of man who would care.
He opened the door to the Watering Hole and held it for her. She walked in ahead of him and was overwhelmed by the noise and the smell of booze inside the place.
“Wasn’t your dad like a banker or something?”
“My dad is a prick,” she said, smiling. “But he was a mortgage broker. I suppose he still is. And we went to church every Sunday.”
“Interesting,” he said, sidling up to the bar. “Gus,” he said to the bartender, “I’ll have a beer. You know what I like. And the lady will have …”
“Beer,” she said.
“So are you rebelling against your dad?” he asked, leaning against the bar and looking at her.
She smiled. “Something like that.”
“Fine by me.”
“I imagine daddy issues often work in your favor.”
“I certainly don’t mind it if you want to call me daddy.”
This was really an elite opportunity for her to take a step off the straight and narrow. She might not be a virgin, but she usually wasn’t one for casual sex. But this casual sex could potentially serve a purpose. To give herself a clean slate. To wipe yesterday afternoon out of her mind.
Carson had made his position clear. There really was no point pushing it any further.
In fact it was stupid.
She wished she had someone she could talk to who wasn’t Carson.
She’d suddenly realized that there was a deficit in her life that she should have tried to fill a long time ago.
If you fell in love with a guy who was your best friend, you should do your level best to find someone else you could confide in, so you weren’t out at a bar tempting fate with a stranger.
Not that he was a stranger danger level of stranger. He was a known entity. West had been enough years ahead of her in school that she didn’t know him well, but she knew he had a reputation for only mild mischief about town.
“Carson is fixing our wagon, right?” he asked, an abrupt change of pace that had nothing to do with what she could call him.
“Yes,” she said. “Jessie Jane brought it up to the ranch a couple of days ago. I live there.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“All of the above, really. That any Wilder would consent to fix our wagon, that you live on the ranch. You know. All of that. It’s interesting.”
“Right. Well. I don’t know that it’s that interesting.”
“They hate us. All because of some ancient family feud that I can’t even be bothered to think about. History doesn’t solve a damn thing.”
“Well. History doesn’t. I think it’s kind of up to us to solve the messes that history made. Don’t you?”
She realized that she was headed down the wrong path. She shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. Let’s dance.”
They were seated in a window at dinner, directly across from the Watering Hole.
And he hadn’t been able to help himself—he had glanced out the window at some point to see if he could spot Perry, and once he had started, he hadn’t been able to stop.
It wasn’t really fair, because Marissa was making perfectly pleasant conversation, and he should absolutely be giving her his full attention.
But once Perry’s little car pulled up against the curb, his concentration had been shot.
Right at the same time, a motorcycle had rumbled up. And when West had gotten off the bike and Perry had gotten out of her car in the shortest damned dress he’d ever seen her in, he suddenly understood.
Perry had fired shots. Perry was deliberately creating drama.
Because there was no way that she was out on a date with West Hancock at random. No way she was wearing that dress for nothing.
She was trying to make him mad.
She didn’t plan on your watching her out a window, asshole.
Maybe not. But she was poking at him, and he was getting fired up. It was working, dammit.
He tried to keep his focus on Marissa. She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And dinner was great. She was interesting, and he should be listening to her. But in his mind, Perry’s name was echoing on loop.
“Do you want to head over to the Watering Hole?” He waited to ask the question until she had taken her last bite.
She looked surprised. And then there was a slight shift in her expression that suggested she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he was a Wilder, so of course he would want to go to a disreputable bar.
“Sure.”
Which made him suspect his being disreputable was part of why she was going out with him.
Though, to be fair, he was not as disreputable as his younger brother, and Austin was completely reformed.
He hadn’t given much thought to his reputation in a very long time.
He’d had bigger issues. He supposed he was going to end up thinking about it again and often if he was actually going to date.
“Great. I’ll get the check.”
He flagged the waitress and gave her his debit card. He hadn’t thought this through, he realized, as they headed across the street toward the bar. Because they were going to be walking into the same space that Perry and West were in, and he didn’t exactly have a plan.
“What do you like to drink?” he asked as he opened the bar door for her.
“I don’t know. You can choose.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Carson,” Gus said from behind the bar, giving him a broad smile. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, Gus.”
“Usual?”
“Yes. And something for the lady. Bartender’s choice.”
He looked at Marissa, and he could see that he had made a mistake somehow. By letting the bartender choose. Well, hell, he didn’t have any thoughts about what this woman he didn’t know might want to drink. His lack of interest was probably what she sensed. Was probably what bothered her.
He looked across the room and saw Perry on the dance floor with West. She had her arms wrapped around Hancock’s neck, and he felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
She had been standing right in front of him yesterday. He had touched her face. And now she had her arms around another man’s neck?
You’re jealous.
Jealous.
The word echoed inside him, and he wasn’t quite sure why.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t know what the hell to do with it. It wasn’t … it wasn’t them. It wasn’t him. He had never been jealous over a woman in his life, let alone his best friend.
That was a pointless exercise if ever there was one.
You’re the patron saint of pointless exercises, Carson Wilder.
He shoved that thought to the side. It was truer than he would like to admit. Trying to be a hero. Trying to be a husband. He did love a pointless fucking exercise.
Dating with no real goal. Trying to get excited about having sex?
In truth, he hadn’t missed it.
His mind skipped back to Perry yesterday, and he felt his whole body try to reject the answering arousal.
Arousal. Over his friend. His best friend.
But that guy was touching her. Touching her like she was someone whose clothes he wanted to take off.
That felt like a violation. Carson knew that Perry wasn’t a virgin.
So men had taken her clothes off. They had touched her; they had kissed her.
His vision went a little bit blurry.
“Do you want to sit down?” Marissa touched his arm.