Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Emerson
I stretch and wake up in a strange bed. Frowning, I bolt upright. Where am I? I’m never not in my bed.
A log wall greets me on one side with a slate-gray wall on the other. The artwork is familiar. Why?
I slide out of the plush bed. Pain screams through my calves and I let out a cry. I slap a hand over my mouth and hobble to the painting.
There’s a knock on the door. “Em? You okay?”
I stiffen and spin, then wince and dance from foot to foot. My lower legs feel like they’re getting shredded. “Yeah. Good.”
Leave me alone. Yet warmth spreads through me, wrapping around my heart first and making me feel safe. Why does his voice have to be so pleasingly gruff in the morning?
I gingerly pick my way to my suitcase. No warming to him! I’m not falling for another good-looking package. I’ll be the one unwrapped and tossed away like trash.
I have one more set of clothing. Thankfully, I packed extra in case I needed to stop on the way back to Denver and nurse some complicated feelings before returning to my empty apartment. However, my stash won’t last until Brooks can sell his house and then buy our father’s place. My place.
I hold my left hand out and a quiet, bitter laugh leaves me. How did I not foresee this? Married, sleeping in the guest bedroom, and ringless. Go through the effort; have nothing to show for it.
At least my husband’s under the same roof, and that’s more than the example I had growing up.
I get dressed in my jean shorts and a gray Colorado Avalanche shirt, then I creep across to the bathroom. It looks like I’m sneaking when my legs are on fire.
When I finish in there, I dig out my socks and athletic shoes. Hope he doesn’t mind shoes inside. He never said anything yesterday, but I took my heels off anyway. I should’ve done so before I ran around outside with Hillary.
How did she and my brother do in Hutch’s place last night? When Brooks returned from town, he had Chinese takeout, and we ate outside, where I could ignore Lane.
I’m being more than a little unfair to the handsome distiller. Rancher? Cowboy distiller? Regardless, I can’t imagine finding someone like that, and he probably considered Hutch a friend. My own baggage doesn’t compare, but I lashed out anyway.
Squaring my shoulders, I face the door. I just have to get through a few weeks. Two months, give or take. Please don’t be more. But I can be civil.
When I leave the room, the smell of something delicious teases my nose. My stomach rumbles as if I didn’t pack down an ungodly amount of lo mein yesterday. I’m intrigued and dismayed. He’s here.
I stop when I see him in the kitchen. He’s wearing a black polo shirt with a yellow Foster House logo on the chest and blue jeans. My shoes aren’t an issue. The maple hardwood floor can handle a little shoe traffic if he’s okay with his cowboy boots on. He’s more than okay with those on.
Could I wake up to this every day?
When he lifts his gaze from the stove, a slow, rolling wave of desire passes through every vessel in my body. He has no business looking that good at eight in the morning.
“Don’t you have to work?” I ask, irritated about everything. The trust. This beautiful house. That gorgeous man.
“I’ll head there soon. Hungry?” His tone makes it clear he’s offering more than just food. Like an apology. I haven’t forgotten what he said about Hutch, but the more I think about it, the more I seem like the asshole in that situation.
I never asked who found Hutch, much less thought about how it affected them. No, Lane was owed that outburst.
“I can find something.” I twist my hands together before I hug myself. He slides eggs from the pan next to a pile of sausage on a plate. My stomach growls, and I press my hands into my gut. “I’ll grab groceries today so I don’t eat your food.”
“I don’t mind. Cooking for two isn’t that much more.”
He told me about taking care of Cruz growing up, but a green flare of jealousy still sparks. “You get married for a few months here and there a lot?”
The hint of a smile returns. Does he realize he holds back a lot? When we talked in his office and he loosened up, his grin could incinerate panties. It very nearly did that night. But that’s been the only time I’ve seen it.
“So far, just the once.”
“Don’t recommend it.” I limp toward the table. “What time did you wake up anyway?”
“An hour and a half ago to do chores. What’s wrong with your legs?”
Gingerly, I sit and kick an ankle to my knee to rub my calf. I dig in, but it’d be better if I had a roller. That’s one of the few useful things left in my apartment. I wince when I hit a knot. “It happens sometimes when I wear heels too long.”
“You don’t run around with ecstatic Australian shepherds in stilettos often?”
My leg muscles tighten just hearing the description. Lady was excited, and Hillary’s enthusiasm was contagious and it helped me forget that I was back in Huckleberry Springs and that I was married to a guy who seemed too good to be true.
I switch legs. Minimal relief is better than none. “No, not usually.”
He slides a plate of steaming food in front of me and sets down a juice. I swap legs again and shake my hands out. They’re wussing out on me.
He pulls out a chair and sits facing me. “Let me see what I can do.”
I gawk at his wiggling fingers beckoning for me to give him my leg. “N-no.”
His bright eyes glitter. “Afraid I might actually help?”
Yes. What if it does take away the pain? Worse, what if I end up nothing but a soaked pair of panties when he puts his hands on me? “You have, what? Two or three jobs. Is masseuse one of them?”
“You gonna pay me?”
My tab is up pretty high. I owe him for cleaning my dad’s house, for the room I sleep in, and now for food. “You should know that your wife is broke.”
The back of my throat burns to admit it. At least my joking tone might be believable.
He doesn’t move, just waits patiently. “Em, are you really going to go through a day of pain instead of seeing if I can help?”
I am that stubborn, yes.
He waits, ignoring his food until I roll my eyes and lift a leg.
Fine. His hands are stronger anyway. He rests my foot on his knee, motioning for my other leg.
I try to hold out, I really do, but the heat seeping into me from him is already diminishing the ache.
I do as he wants. His fingers find the exact points of pain, kneading and rolling through the knots in my calves.
The pain-pleasure is exactly what I was after.
Groaning, I slip down in my chair. My eyelids flutter shut and I’m in a state of bliss.
The release spreads higher. Seductive warmth advances up my legs, whispering promises of ecstasy.
What if he rubbed higher? What if he put a fingertip right there, at the little bud that throbs to my heartbeat? What if he put his mouth—
I sit up with a gasp. He freezes, alarm in his eyes. Breakfast is sitting at my elbow and I’m hornier than I’ve ever been in my life.
I can’t be around him. I can’t be anywhere near him. I’m going to get my heart broken by my husband.
Standing up, I nearly tip my chair back. My legs feel better though. “I, um, forgot I have a meeting.” What day even is it?
“You don’t have time to eat?”
“No, you can put it in the fridge. Sorry.” I rush back to the guest room, like a chicken running for cover when a hawk is soaring overhead.
Lane
The other four owners of the distillery, excluding Myles, sit across from me in the boardroom on the second floor of the distillery. There are the three Hennessy brothers, then there’s Cruz. Here it goes.
“I got married yesterday.”
The Hennessys exchange befuddled glances. Cruz’s brows crash together. They all know this isn’t how I joke around. So I must be serious.
“You’re going to need to elaborate there, Lane,” Cruz says tightly, and the sense I’ve betrayed him won’t leave me. Is that hurt in his eyes? I don’t want to know.
My stomach cramps around my breakfast, but I explain how it all happened. I’ve already recited the story once. I called Myles on my way over and laid it all out to him.
He asked about prenups and postnups, and a smarter man would’ve insisted on all that.
A smarter man would be talking to Zack about it, or at least planning to.
A smarter man would’ve spent the time needed to make Emerson feel more comfortable or figure out how to get out of the trust. But she was driven to get it over with to help her brother, and who am I to make her wait?
The type that almost laid her out on the table this morning for a feast.
“It’s done?” Shock echoes in Cruz’s voice. “You’re married married?”
In an ideal world, my wedding would have had all my loved ones. We had our witness, but he was Emerson’s person. The pressure on my chest doesn’t ease. “It’s not like that. It’s just a legal box to tick off to get the house sold to her brother, but he needs to sell his first so he has the funds.”
“Fuck me. Married just like that?” Iverson, the oldest Hennessy, asks. When I nod, he blows out a breath. “She must feel all sorts of ways.”
I nod, appreciating that he’s concerned about someone he’s never met.
Haven, the youngest Hennessy brother, shakes his head. “This was what Hutch was planning last year that bothered you?”
“Yep.” I drum my fingers on the tabletop.
It bothered me how much it didn’t bother me.
I was more worried about Emerson, and I still am.
“I couldn’t talk him out of it. He said I’d take care of his girl since his boy has Hillary to care for.
Apparently, he thought that I was the best choice since he liked to talk to me about her. ”
And the first time I pulled up her headshot at the marketing agency she worked for, I might’ve considered encouraging Hutch.
Her shrewd gaze challenged the camera. But her bio underneath the picture was short, glossing over everything before college.
Her past was summed up as “raised in Montana.” I admired the privacy she’d constructed for herself.