Tough Luck Hero

And she was never unsure. Not anymore. She’d found her place. Her people. And she knew what to do with that.

She hated this. She had to get it together.

She took a shaky breath. “The election is in four months,” she said. “I can’t have anything messing up my chances.”

“Of course not,” he said, sounding resigned.

“Why did Natalie... I mean, maybe we talked about this last night, but I honestly don’t remember. Why did she leave?”

“Hell if I know,” he said, the words harsh. “She did nothing but obsess about this wedding for the past eight months. She was...I would say overly invested in the idea of marrying into a family like mine.”

“You mentioned...you mentioned something about your dad.”

There was a slight pause, and she turned to look at him. His arms were tense, his hands gripping the wheel tight. “My dad, it turned out, had a bastard child some thirty-two years ago,” Colton said, his tone dry. “That may have had something to do with her deciding not to show up, it’s true.”

She tried her best to process that bit of information. But it was a lot. Nathan West had never seemed like anything but the perfect husband, father and role model for the community, at least not from her point of view. It was difficult to imagine him betraying his legacy like that.

“But,” Colton continued, “since causing a scandal was her primary issue with that bit of information about my dad, I can’t really imagine she would have abandoned me at the altar to try and avoid gossip.”

“You have a point.” She worried her lip. “Wait... Do we know who...”

“Jack Monaghan.”

Lydia nearly choked. “Jack Monaghan is your half brother?”

She had gotten to know Jack in passing over the years. Really, every woman in town was aware of him on some level. Most of them on an intimate level, prior to his getting engaged to Kate Garrett.

Lydia didn’t know him that way. Lydia had never gone there. She wasn’t one for bad boys with wicked blue eyes and charming smiles. Well, she noticed them. She thought they were hot, and spent a little bit of time staring at them, but she didn’t pursue one-night stands. Not with anyone.

She remembered last night and groaned.

There was nothing wicked about Colton’s blue eyes, nothing particularly charming about his smile. Yet, even while she thought of that, she realized that his eyes were the same color as Jack’s.

But they seemed cold. And he didn’t have that easy way about him. That breezy charm that seemed to roll off of Jack in waves. No, Colton was rigid. He was controlled. He was inflexible.

“I was going to say that I can’t believe it,” she said, “except, you do sort of look like him.”

“I guess,” Colton said, his words clipped. “Lord knows how long before this gets spread around. I think it’s kind of a miracle it hasn’t already. But then, it isn’t just my dad making waves. There’s Sierra, taking up with a bartender.”

“Ace owns the bar, so it isn’t quite like you’re making it sound.”

“Pregnant out of wedlock,” he pointed out.

“Didn’t they get married after?”

He shrugged. “I guess so. I’m just listing my family’s sins. Of course, there’s Madison. And her little indiscretion, but she was seventeen. Still, people tend to blame her for what happened with that dick because she was painted as some kind of home wrecker, even though she was still a kid.”

“For respectable pillars of the community you do have a lot of skeletons.”

“I think respectable pillars of the community do tend to have more than their fair share. Respectability makes a wonderful smoke screen.”

“And what about you?”

He laughed, a rueful sound. “I’m actually respectable.”

“Me too,” she said.

Common ground with Colton. That was almost as weird as being married to him. Almost.

“I guess we just blew all that to hell.”

“No. We didn’t,” she said. “Because true love.”

He took his focus off the road for a moment, the electric blue of his eyes sending a shock straight down through her system. “True love?”

“That’s how we’re going to spin it.”

“Definitely better than the truth.”

They were silent for the rest of the drive. She was too exhausted to think of anything logical to say. She had a feeling that if she tried to continue making conversation with him they would only fight. She didn’t have the energy for that, either. So she kept her focus pinned on the scenery. The trees that grew thicker and taller as they drove farther out from the city. The mountains shrouded them on either side, making it feel darker here. As though they were shielded from the sun, a canopy of lush greens protecting them from the harshest rays.

Unlike most of the locals in her age group, she was not originally from Copper Ridge. She had moved there from Seattle eight years ago.

Most people left for a while, came back later to settle down. Or, if they were first-time residents of Copper Ridge, they were usually retirees. She was the odd one out. But she loved her adopted home more than anything. Expanding the tourism there was a passion of hers, and had been from the moment she had arrived. Strengthening the economy, making it more viable for people to stay. For people to raise families and thrive doing something other than working hard in the mills, or deep-sea fishing. She had carved out a place for herself there. The place she had never had anywhere else. She couldn’t face the idea of losing it now.

“Do you know where I live?” she asked, as they entered town finally.

She looked at all the beautiful brick buildings, their facade like something out of an old Western, made completely and wholly unique by the nautical details that clung to the exteriors like ornate barnacles. And again by the ocean beyond them, gray with whitecaps rising and falling with the tide. That was Copper Ridge.

In case you needed to escape some sort of high-pressure situation you could scurry into the mountains or float away in the sea. It was one of the things she liked about it. Multiple escape routes. Not that she was paranoid, she was just a planner.

“No,” he said. He said it almost like he was pleased.

“I’m here in town,” she said. “Just past where the buildings end. On Hyacinth.”

She loved her sweet little home by the ocean. She had spent a good amount of time cultivating a nice garden, making sure every bit of it was cozy and comfortable, and absolutely for her.

“You won’t be able to stay at your house,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“What?”

“You’re going to have to move in with me,” he said, his voice steady as the road they were driving on.

“I...” Oh, well, she hadn’t thought of that.

“We can’t live separately. That negates the whole thing.”

“But we...we don’t even... We can’t even have a conversation without swinging wildly between stilted and hostile. How are we supposed to live together?”