Craving His Best Friend's Ex

Ethan leaned back against the countertop. “They can be a pain in the backside. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I were an only child.”

“But you don’t still feel that way?”

He shook his head. He was glad he had his brothers and that he lived so close to his family.

“I was thinking while you are here, you might want to do a feature on Cole’s Hill for one of those travel blogs you write for in addition to doing your vlogs. We have the SpaceNow and NASA Cronus training facility here now. I marked them on a map for you while I was in my office,” he said, going over to the desk in the kitchen and picking up the map he’d drawn for her.

He handed it to her and she arched both eyebrows at him. “You seem to have put a lot of time into this.”

“It didn’t take much time,” he said. “I figured you’d want to keep busy. I know that’s how I felt in the past when my relationships ended.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “I thought you were the one-night man.”

“No need to ask where you heard that,” he said. Mason always called him that. “I’ve had a few relationships that lasted longer.”

“I kind of want to dig into that and find out why you never let yourself get involved for longer,” she said, then winked at him. “But that would be too prying.”

“It would be,” he agreed. He’d have to make up something if she did try to probe more deeply, because she was the reason he’d never gotten involved with anyone for the long term. It had never seemed fair to get involved with one woman when he was obsessed with another one.

She gave him one of her sweet smiles and then came around the counter and hugged him. He held himself stiff at first but then put his arms around her and hugged her back, even knowing that he shouldn’t. He closed his eyes and breathed in the flowery scent of her hair, and then forced himself to step back.

“I’ll let you keep your secrets for now,” she said.

“Should I say thank you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Ready to go to dinner?”

She nodded. “Let me get my bag and phone.”

She walked out of the room and again he watched her go, knowing he was fooling himself pretending to be her friend. He was good at arguing a point in court and convincing juries to believe his point of view, but he’d never been able to bluff himself. He had always been very aware of his own weaknesses and if he was being completely honest, Crissanne felt like a dangerous vulnerability. There was no way he was going to ever be able to look at her and not want more, not want to feel her lips under his and not want her body twined with his all night long.

Two (#udb74f83f-ef8f-557e-80a9-3ee4aae3b85e)

The Peace Creek Steakhouse was conveniently located near the downtown area of Cole’s Hill. When Ethan was growing up, his family would rent the wine room in the back to celebrate major accomplishments. As he and Crissanne stood in the foyer waiting to be seated, he remembered how he’d get money from Babs, one of his parents’ housekeepers, to get mints from the machine in the front of the restaurant and how he and his brothers would all scramble to be the first one there.

It was in his childhood that Ethan learned to argue with his words and not his fists. He was never going to be stronger than Nate, who was two inches taller than Ethan. But Nate could be distracted by anyone who didn’t share his point of view. Of course, some of those early arguments had ended in a broken nose for him. But it had been worth it to be the first to the candy machine.

“What are you thinking about?” Crissanne asked.

He shook his head. “Fighting with my brothers to be the first to get a mint from that candy machine.”

“It’s so foreign to me that you’ve lived in the same place most of your life,” she said. “I bet everywhere you go there are memories.”

“There are,” he said. “Don’t you have places where you could go back to?”

“I guess,” she said. “The group home I lived in as a kid was torn down a few years ago, and then as a teen I was in a home in Northern California, but I hated it. I felt so...out of place in my Goodwill clothing. I think I’m better at looking to the future,” she said.

He started to reach out to squeeze her shoulder but stopped and dropped his hand. Desire had always been such a part of the atmosphere when he was around Crissanne. With Mason as a barrier to anything ever actually happening, he’d allowed himself casual touches that were much more dangerous now. He needed to be careful.

She was still off-limits, but it didn’t feel that way.

“That’s the best way to look at it,” he said. “You can’t change the past.”

She moved away to look at the pictures on the wall while he gave their name to the hostess, who was the daughter of one his cousins, Liam Shannon. He exchanged small talk with her as she promised him the first table that was available and then moved away from the hostess stand. Ethan had never noticed the framed prints before. They were all images of cowboys that were at least thirty years old, which he knew because there was one of his father when he’d first inherited the Rockin’ C, standing in front of his F-150 pickup with the Rockin’ C logo. His dad had been the one to take the ranch to the next level of production. The family company had the mineral rights that earned them a large part of their fortune, but Winston Caruthers had made the cattle ranching operation a contender in the portfolio.

“This guy... I love the mixture of confidence and bravado in his eyes,” Crissanne said as Ethan joined her.

“That’s my dad,” Ethan said. “One of his sayings is ‘he who hesitates is lost.’ He’s always just gone for whatever it is he wants.”

She turned to look at him. “You have inherited that. You never hesitate, do you?”

One time.

When he and Mason had both seen Crissanne across the quad and he’d stood there wondering if he should ask her out, while Mason, always willing to take a chance, had stridden over and done just that.

His dad was right.

Again.

He took a deep breath. “I have my ups and downs.”

“Seems to me that you have more ups than downs,” she said. “Your business is very successful.”

“Usually, but I don’t like to brag.”

She mock-punched him on the shoulder. Damn, her touch sent an electric current through him, even though he realized she was still touching him like a friend. He had hesitated...damn, he’d done it again. She rattled him.

He prided himself on being calm and in control, but she was messing with his restraint. He didn’t like it.

If he’d learned anything in his thirty years on this earth, it was that he didn’t do well without some sort of limits.

A strand of her hair fell forward, and he lifted his hand to tuck it back behind her ear. Her lips parted and she caught her breath. He couldn’t help rubbing his finger down the side of her neck—her skin was so soft—before he dropped his hand.

“Ethan...”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Caruthers,” the hostess called. “Your table is ready.”

Crissanne swallowed hard and then nodded and stepped around him to follow the hostess into the dining room. The dynamic had changed between the two of them.

He had changed it. He’d tried to be casual about touching her, but there was no way he could continue to hide the way he felt, especially now that Mason was out of the picture.

And while a part of him knew that caution would be the noble route, another part of him didn’t care about that, the selfish part that could only see the woman he’d always wanted walking in front of him to a table set for two. Her hips swayed gently with each step, her blond hair swinging back and forth as he watched.

But they were friends.