His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3) (3 page)

Clair had cornered the concierge pet care market in Chandlerville and three adjoining communities. The suburbs north of Atlanta were becoming bedroom communities for young, dual-income, affluent families. Caring for their pampered pooches, felines, exotic birds, and fish (and even snakes, hamsters, and once a potbellied pig named Princess) had flourished from Clair’s part-time high school gig into a growing empire that required a full-time staff of four to meet the growing demand for her services.

“Do you need someone to scoop up after the next boom-boom you drop on the curb?” Nicole asked before Clair could sink her gel-polished talons into Benjie’s jugular. “Maybe we can fit you for one of those doggie diapers.”

“They make unfortunate potty training accidents a cinch to handle,” Clair offered, ever so helpful.

“I need the two of you”—he cupped Bethany’s elbow and sneered at her friends—“to stop pointing your bony fingers at my and Bethany’s relationship, just because we all shared the same air in high school.”

“Relationship?” Bethany’s wine rebounded up the back of her throat.

She jerked away and pushed off her stool, swallowing the sickening burn.

Annihilation
. That was what it had been. Her very public comeuppance for believing Benjie Carrington was where she’d find the love and security, the
forever
she’d always craved. They were going to take the art world by storm, he’d said. And she’d left her heart wide open to him, when she hadn’t been able to with anyone before that, not since she was a little girl.

“You never gave me a chance to explain, sugar,” he insisted. “To really apologize. It was a long time ago. And I know I made a mistake. But I can make it right now. We could still be good together. Let’s meet for lunch. Dinner? There’s Dru’s wedding next month. I’ll escort you. It would be a great way for me to break the ice with your whole family. Surely—”

“
Surely
you’ve lost your mind.” Bethany was in his face, fists clenched. Shaking. “Make it right? I loved you! You said you loved me . . .”

To hell with what anyone else heard. Screw him, and screw not letting things get back to her family. Long-buried rage was bubbling over, choking her, fueling the need to do something, anything, to make him understand. He’d been her first but by no means her last mistake of the heart, and she’d never forgive him. She’d never forgive herself for being so stupid.

Her friends were right.

Enough was enough.

“I dare you to show up at Dru’s wedding,” she said. “I’ve been patient. I’ve even felt a little sorry for you. But if you get anywhere near me or my friends or my family on my sister’s big day, I’ll—”

“Bethany?” Clair gripped her arm.

Bethany shrugged her off and silently wished for the several inches of additional height it would take to put her eye-to-eye with the dirty dog in front of her.

“You actually think,” she said to Benjie, “that I’d—”

“Bethany . . .” Nicole said, a split second before McC’s cowboy bartender appeared from out of nowhere and eased Bethany to his side.

“Is there a problem, darlin’?” he asked.

Chapter Two

Bethany stiffened against the strong arm curled around her waist.

She told herself to call off the gorgeous bartender, right then and there. That she could handle Benjie herself. Then the cowboy looked down at her with his dark-chocolate gaze and a quizzical eyebrow that his hat hid from everyone else. And
OMG
did he smell good.

But he’d also called her
darlin’
. And nothing good could come of that. Not when she was liking his lazy amusement on her behalf, and his touch, and his hand on her arm—despite how badly she wanted to scratch Benjie’s eyes out. She tried to step away and failed. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, causing the cowboy’s attention to refocus on her mouth.

The immediate connection between them was stronger than anything she’d ever felt. And that was saying something, considering she’d once had the tendency to lose her heart between
Hello
and
What’s your name?
And then the bartender tucked one of the longer strands of her grape-tinged bangs behind her ear. The sexy, gentle gesture made her feel protected.

Lord help her.

“I’m happy to do whatever you need,” he said. “Just give me the word.”

And then he was pressing her back against his front, and the two of them faced Benjie together. The bartender shot her ex a smile laced with menace. Bethany knew, because she was gaping up at him. So were Clair and Nicole.

“You seem to be upsetting the lady,” he said.

“
You
seem to be looking to get fired,” Benjie lobbed back. “My parents have known Rick Harper for years. What’s your boss gonna say when he hears you’re harassing female customers instead of sticking to serving drinks?”

“He’ll think it’s my first day on the job, and I decided to bounce a bad-news jerk who’s causing a scene.”

Nicole’s shock melted into an approving smile. A quick lift of her chin egged Bethany on.
End this,
she mouthed silently.

“Rick’ll understand my guy standing up for me,” Bethany blurted out. “Especially when I’m being harassed by a dirty dog like you.”

She was rewarded with a chuckle from the man who literally had her back.

“I might not have known my boss since I was in diapers,” he said to Benjie. “But I’d bet my tips tonight that Rick will see things my way, not yours.”

“I’d like a piece of that bet,” Clair weighed in.

“Your guy?” Benjie croaked at Bethany. “Since when?”

“Since we met in Atlanta,” Bethany’s partner in crime fibbed. He’d obviously been paying more attention than he’d let on to her conversation with her girlfriends.

Bethany nestled her head against his chest, starting to enjoy herself. “Friends of friends introduced us.”

“I don’t have to tell you how irresistible she can be,” the cowboy said without a smidge of a Texas drawl. “We sat up the rest of the night talking . . . and so forth.”

Benjie’s eyes narrowed. “And so forth?”

“
My
so forth,” Bethany spat out, while a fresh wave of awareness arced between her and the towering stranger proclaiming how irresistible he found her. “As in my business, not yours.”

Her rescuer snuggled his cheek against the side of her head, as if they cuddled all the time. She glanced up. Her lips brushed the yummy-smelling stubble along his jawline. Totally by accident. But what on earth was that scent he was wearing? And where could she buy like a dozen bottles of the stuff?

She realized she was running her hands up the soft sleeves covering his arms. And she was enjoying the tactile sensation way too much, making the dizziness of being close to him worse. She didn’t even know his name, and she was pawing at him, falling down a familiar rabbit hole.

Any rational man would be sprinting back around the bar. This one gifted her with another playful wink. Meanwhile, her ex was seething.

“Whatever I do.” She refocused on Benjie before she succumbed to licking the cowboy like a lollipop. “Whoever I do it with, nothing about me has anything to do with you anymore.”

“I heard you’d started chasing whatever warm body crossed your path,” Benjie mocked, a drunken ass through and through. “I thought maybe since you were back in Chandlerville, you might be ready to settle down.”

“With you?” Bethany sputtered.

“You want me to make him go away?” The cowboy sounded like he’d relish the task. His muscular arms tightened around her.

She shook her head. “He’s not worth it.”

The humiliation of the spectacle they were making was already bad enough. As was the truth in what Benjie had said. She
had
chased after emotionally unavailable guys—empty relationships that had flamed out fast and furious. And what did she have to show for it? An even more battered heart than when she’d first come to live with her foster family at fifteen, and even more shell-shocked instincts about people.

She wouldn’t recognize real love if it hauled off and slapped her in the face.

She leaned into the stranger holding her. For a second she indulged in his heat, his strength. She wrapped herself in the harmless dream of them really being a couple. Of what it would mean to be part of something lasting that could feel good for more than a moment.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Benjie looked Bethany up and down. “Why the hell are you wasting your life on nobodies like him? You deserve—”

“You?” Bethany asked.

Tears welled. Not because of the long-ago hurt he’d caused. But because she’d let herself still care. She’d avoided dealing with this, and him, for so long. She wanted to go back and confront her teenage self. She wanted to shake herself now.

How could she have tangled up her life with someone who clearly only cared about himself? How could she have kept making the same mistake for so many years after she’d booted Benjie’s ass to the curb?

“You think I deserve
you
?” she asked.

The cowboy turned her to face him, his features no longer teasing. He was quietly furious.

“Not on your life,” he said. “That’s why you invited me to your sister’s wedding. Right, darlin’?”

“What?” Bethany and Benjie said in unison.

She blinked to clear her thoughts. And she would have managed it, too, if the bartender hadn’t pressed her body closer, making everything inside her burst to life with vibrant streaks of inspiration, freedom, anticipation. Emotions that hadn’t consumed her in a very long time. And before now, they’d only come when she was painting.

She framed his face with her hands, trying to understand when she should be pushing him away.

“You deserve so much more, darlin’,” he whispered as their lips inched closer. “Anybody can see that.”

Careening down a slippery slope of her own making, she lost herself in a kiss she wasn’t sure she’d started. Maybe he had. But who cared? He tasted her, and her ears rang. Her body strained closer, and he groaned. His soft, firm lips coaxed, and she was on the tips of her toes, demanding more.

Faintly, from somewhere far away, she heard Benjie curse. Clair and Nicole cheered. Bar patrons clapped. Bethany ignored it all, reveling in the wonder of being wanted. A current of need swept her away. She’d been here countless times, falling with no bottom in sight and no solid place to stop and wonder if she was making a mistake. But it had never felt like this—this gentlest, most bad-ass kiss of her life.

Her cowboy was tender while he crushed her closer. He was patient, letting her take the lead, sliding her hands up his chest, linking them around his neck, her fingers running through silky, shaggy hair, knocking his hat away. She gave herself to the freedom of it feeling like . . . painting. This was the way she’d
once
felt when her art had seemed as easy and natural as breathing. When every time a brush was in her hand, she’d escaped into the rush of being completely herself—the
Bethany
she’d never been able to be with people.

This stranger’s touch and kiss were consuming her with the same kind of inspiration, a bewitching spark of perfection she wanted to cling to, claim as her own, make forever real.

“You two ever gonna come up for air?” Benjie snapped. “Or should I book you a room at the EZ Sleep?”

The cowboy broke off first. His lips caressed Bethany’s flushed temple while her body trembled.
Trembled
. And she didn’t do weak. Not anymore, not with men. She stayed plastered against him, not sure yet if her legs would hold on their own.

He pressed his forehead against hers.

“Hi,” he said, panting for air.

She inhaled, feeling people’s attention glued to them. “Hi, yourself . . .”

“You okay?”

“I . . . I’m not sure.” Of anything at the moment. Including the answering confusion in the guy’s gaze as his attention dropped to her lips.

“I hear ya’.” His smile was easy, charming, dangerously addictive. “Your lip gloss. It’s—”

“Bubble gum.” Her favorite flavor for years. Benjie had hated it.

“Yum,” said the stranger holding her.

Bethany peered at him through her Technicolor bangs, gathering herself to apologize and come clean to everyone about their charade. Things were getting entirely out of hand.

But the guy’s gaze was swirling with desire, his brown eyes nearly black, like rich clouds casting about a stormy sky. His pulse was having a tantrum at the base of his throat. What on earth was she supposed to do about how badly she
didn’t
want to let him go?

“Your cologne,” she whispered. “It’s . . . nice.”

He thumbed her bottom lip. “Some men
are
nice, darlin’.”

“Nice or not, you’re going to be in a world of hurt,” said an all-too-familiar masculine voice that most definitely didn’t belong to Benjie, “if you don’t take your hands off our sister.”

Mike settled the delightful darlin’ against his side. Her petite body had gone rigid. The sweet softness that had melted into his kiss had frozen up, brittle enough to shatter. He hadn’t a clue what he’d gotten himself into. But he had no intention of getting himself out until he knew she was going to be okay.

He studied the mountain of a man who’d spoken.

The guy stood, arms crossed, next to the jerk whose mouthing off had been Mike’s excuse for diving headfirst into helping the auburn-haired, purple-banged pixie he’d had his eyes on since she’d claimed a corner of the bar with her girlfriends. Two equally large and angry guys flanked the mountain—all of them looking to be the same age and shaped from the same
Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry . . .
mold.

Mike’s protective instincts kicked up a notch. He edged in front of the woman her friends had called Bethany, partially shielding her. She stepped right back around him—not so much rejecting his support as not wanting to need it.

“Bethie?” The mountain wore a navy pinstriped suit, a ruthlessly starched white shirt, and a loosened maroon tie.

All of it was Armani, if Mike didn’t miss his guess. But the guy’s street fighter’s stance and the cold glint in his blue eyes hinted that the road to becoming whatever success he was had been neither straight nor narrow.

“Who the hell is this?” Armani demanded.

The dirty dog—Did a grown man really allow himself to be called
Benjie
?—had puffed up again.

“He’s the jerk who just had his tongue down your sister’s throat,” Benjie slurred, well on his way to being blackout drunk. “He’s prob
ably in her pants, too. Says he’s her plus one to Dru’s wedding. I
heard Bethany’d lowered her standards since I left for college.” He
directed the last bit of verbal poison at the woman standing proud
and tall between Mike and the others. “Must be exhausting,” he said
to Bethany, “panting around Atlanta for lowlifes to hook up with.”

“You son of a bitch,” Armani said as Mike’s hand clenched. “You need to shut up before I—”

“Don’t,” Bethany told her brother. She glanced back at Mike, then down at his fist. “Both of you back off.”

“Listen to her.” Benjie’s next slimy smile was for Mike. “You’ll do your time for assault, and then I’ll come after you in civil court. My parents’ lawyers are sharks. You’ll be bartending the rest of your life to cover my settlement. That’s an awful lot to put on the line for a cheap piece of country ass.”