Keep It Together

chapter Eight

The small handguns, boxes of ammunition, and gleaming silver-tipped arrows winked up at her as she lowered her head to the glass-topped counter. Ten more minutes and she could go home. She could shower and take a nap and forget the look of disbelief on Russ’s face when she opened the door to the hotel room belonging to his brother.

She didn’t have to work again until tomorrow night. That was just fine with her. The day had been a long one. Standing on her feet all day after being on her back all night… Though she’d take the tired after a night like that any time.

“If you drool on the counter, you have to clean it up.”

Chrissie looked up to see James, one of the sales associates in her department, standing in front of her. “No. You would be cleaning it up. I’m the boss, remember?” Not that she liked pulling the boss card. It was a rare thing for her, but the day just hadn’t gone all that great, and she didn’t want to be around anyone anymore.

She wanted to go home and crawl under the covers. Her body ached in many different places. Her * hurt when she moved a certain way or bent another way, making the seam of her jeans rub against it. But it wasn’t the way Colt had rubbed it and teased it and made it feel so good.

“You look like you had a rough night.”

“No. I had a great night,” she corrected before she caught herself. The heat in her cheeks was immediate. “This morning was the rough part.”

“Hangover?”

Easy answer. “Something like that.” Difficult answer. No, it wasn’t a hangover. Not in the alcohol way. It was more or less a man hangover. Not the kind she had back in December, though. This was sort of a good man hangover. Only Russ had shown up at the door, all her good feelings had plummeted, and she’d dragged them out of the room, down the hall, and into the elevator behind her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.”

“I don’t remember the last time I’ve been like this.” But she couldn’t wait to feel it again. She had the distinct notion that Colt was going to be a distraction, and all she could think about was letting him become one, allowing him to overload her senses with conversation and really hot sex. She’d built herself a good life these last months, and while she hadn’t been looking for involvement with anyone, being with Colt had felt incredible and so…right. Had it not been for Russ showing up, she might have even turned her car around on the way to work and called in sick.

“You can go on home,” James offered. “I can relay any important info to the next shift. I don’t mind.”

“I’m supposed to tell you that, James.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I was just trying to help.”

“And win a few brownie points? I know how you operate.” James was one of the most diligent workers. He did everything asked of him and even more when he was trying to get in her good graces so he could sneak out early or take a busy weekend off to be a college kid and party for a few days. “I appreciate it, and I do believe I’ll take you up on the offer.” This was so uncharacteristic for her. She didn’t shirk her responsibilities, and while she may have nothing more than a job in a store that was primarily meant for men, in a department definitely primarily meant for men, she loved her job. She was exhausted, though. She hadn’t had sex like that in years and maybe not even then.

Her body ached, her head ached, her heart ached. That was the one thing confusing her. Why should her heart ache if she was over Russ?

She made it out of the store without anyone taking notice or trying to stop her for chitchat. Being able to talk was one very important prerequisite for working in retail, and many of the employees took that job requirement to heart. Normally, she didn’t mind and had even come to enjoy it. Today would not have been one of those days.

Several miles down the road, in the opposite direction of historic downtown and Colt’s hotel, she stopped for a chocolate milk shake at the Sonic Drive-In near the interstate, then headed out under the overpass toward home.

Windows in her pickup rolled down, and her stereo blaring with the latest Miranda Lambert album, Chrissie couldn’t wait to spend a little time alone. She needed some space, some time to think. It would probably be a good idea to call Colt, to let him know that she was all right, but after months of depending on herself in a time of need…

Calling her mother was out of the question too. She’d have expected Chrissie to smile and ask how Russ was doing instead of running down the hall like her ass was on fire. She’d have expected Chrissie to wish him all the happiness in the world and for her knees not to shake and her palms not to sweat.

Chrissie’s mother was the soul of genteel Southern upbringing, and though she’d tried to raise her only daughter to be the same, the lessons just hadn’t taken.

Lost in thought as she was, sucking down the sweet, thick chocolate ice cream, and singing along to the songs, her house seemed to appear out of nowhere. It wasn’t good to drive by rote on the curvy country roads, but she had a hard time keeping herself focused. Luckily, she was between schools letting out and people getting off work, so traffic was light. The biggest hazard she might have come up against was a squirrel or two.

The vase of flowers on the front porch surprised her, but the man who pulled up and parked behind her before she was out of her car was the shock.

“Russ?” To say she was caught unawares would not be much of an understatement. She hadn’t noticed him or anyone following her, a testament to just how deep inside her own head she was. “Twice in one day. Dare I ask why?”

He smiled that charming smile she once knew so well, and as he came close, she could see the uncertainty lurking in his eyes. She felt nothing. Not the old twinge of anticipation. Not the thrill she used to get when he’d show up unannounced. Not a thing. Well, okay, some sadness perhaps, a bit of regret. But even those were in very small amounts.

How could seeing someone she once loved and was prepared to marry make her feel nothing?

Whereas his brother Colt made her feel something. Something deep and wonderful. He made her feel…everything. All at once. She could be herself with him and she never tried to impress him, like she’d done with Russ. Colt had seen her at her worst, and he’d seen her at her best. Everything else was the gravy in between.

“Nice roses.”

“They…” She nodded. “They are. Thank you.”

“My brother?”

“Probably.” She edged around him and headed toward the house, the vase of flowers in her hand. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she walked.

“I honestly don’t know. After this morning, I wanted to see you, talk to you. I wanted to see if…” He pursed his lips and looked away, out toward the trees at the edge of the property.

She didn’t need him to finish his thought. “After all these months?” Chrissie unlocked the door and stepped inside. Russ followed her, taking one tentative step after another.

She was attuned to uncertainty and wariness. She’d been hunting. She knew what it was to walk through the woods and not make a sound. She knew what it was to smell another hunter’s scent and not want to encroach on his territory. Russ had it written all over him in the way he moved, careful and cautious. Maybe he thought she would shoot him…

She set the vase in the kitchen window. The red, yellow, and orange-colored roses lit the room up in a way that was different than simply the sun shining in. They were brilliant and so full of life. She loved them immediately. She loved that Colt thought enough of her to send them, and even though there was no card, she knew in her gut they were from him. She loved him for it, for the night before, for the morning tease, for wanting her.

She loved him.

“When I saw you this morning with Colt, I… Christina, please look at me.”

He was the only person other than her mother who’d ever called her Christina. She was sure that should have told her something a long time ago, only it wasn’t until now that she’d realized it.

Then again, she’d just put it together that she was in love with her ex’s brother. She turned to Russ with that sentiment front and center in her brain. She didn’t know how to look at Russ and not wince at the mere idea that Colt meant more to her than just a one-night thing. But then, how could she love him? She’d spent one night with him, sharing stories and making love. They hadn’t even talked for any length of time before that, unless she counted the day after when he came to check on her. Then there was his admission that he’d been calling her father every once in a while to make sure she was all right. Those things touched her in ways nothing ever had with Russ. He really had done her a favor by skipping out on her.

Someone—Colt—cared about her. Just her. Not money. Not connections. Not for whatever reason Russ might have thought he cared about her.

Colt didn’t have to do any of the things he’d done, however small and insignificant they may seem to others. To her, they were everything.

Maybe she had meant that she should have married him instead. Maybe she had meant, been admitting without actually saying the words out loud, that Russ had never been the right man for her.

Romance between them hadn’t been instantaneous or earth-shattering. They’d seemed to fit and liked each other well enough, spent time together, and love grew into it, only… Was it really love?

Her mother would have said that whatever it was, love or not, was better than what most people had ever found with someone else. Would Chrissie have really believed that? Would Russ?

If so and if they had married, somewhere down the road…

“Christina?”

“What?” She shook herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry. What did you want to say?”

“My brother seems to have worn you out.” He said it with a small smile, and there was no hint of malice in his eyes or his tone of voice. Chrissie knew she should have felt bad, but she didn’t. Russ made his choice. Colt had made his. And now it was her turn to make hers.

“Yes, he did.”

“Good.” He shifted his stance but he didn’t look away from her. “I want to apologize. No, that’s not right. I need to apologize for what happened.”

“You mean, leaving me at the altar?”

“Yes.” He drew himself up. “For leaving you at the altar.”

“It was a bit Cowardly Lion, Russ. For a man who can talk to courtrooms full of people, become best pals with attendees at a party, you were cowardly in how you handled me.” She wasn’t interested in embarrassing him or humiliating him or making him feel any worse that he had probably already felt. It was about moving forward and cleaning the slate, so to speak.

“You’re right, it was,” he admitted. “I can’t explain. I tried, with Colt this morning, but I—“

“I don’t need one, Russ. Maybe some women would, but not me.”

“Most women would.”

Chrissie smiled. A full, real smile. “I think we’ve all established that I am not most women.”

“Yes, we have.” Russ cleared his throat after a few minutes. “I, ah… Even though I’m glad you and Colt seem to have found each other out of this whole thing, I was jealous when I saw you with him this morning.”

“Jealous? Really, Russ. That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“I know, yet it’s true. My brother in a hotel room with my ex. It was the first time I’d seen you since the night before we were supposed to get married. I was… It was unexpected. A lot of old feelings came rushing back, and I wondered briefly if—”

“If they were still real? If you still loved me?”

“Yes,” he said with relief evident in his voice. “Something like that.”

Chrissie stared hard at him. She didn’t want to hurt him with what she had to say, but she knew the words might. Whatever fantasies she might have had about hurting him, harming him in the days immediately following the jilting, she never meant any of it. She never really wanted him to feel the things she’d felt. “I don’t have feelings for you, Russ. Not anymore. Not like that. I think I could be your friend without issue, but that’s all.” She felt helpless and emotional. She’d imagined this conversation going so many different ways, and in all of them, he ended up dead or gutted like a fish or pierced through the heart and penis with arrows. Then again, that’s how she’d had to get through it, deal with it. This emotional-freeing feeling was better than any of her imagined outcomes. “When I was trying to get over you, I shot. I spent hours outside shooting. I went through so many boxes of ammunition. Each one had a word written across the top. Not very nice words, but they served the purpose I needed them to at the time. I bought enough ammunition, enough arrows for my quivers that I was offered a job at the local gun store. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I started getting over you. I could never have been what you wanted me to be. I wasn’t the feminine, gush-over, talk-up-her-man kind of woman we all, including me, tried to make me believe I was, but in the end…” She shook her head. “You did us both a favor, Russ. And we should both be able to admit that. You hurt my pride, you humiliated me, you even broke my heart to some extent. I’ve never hurt like that, and I don’t want to hurt like that ever again.”

Russ nodded and shoved his hands deep in his pants pockets. He always did cut a sharp figure in a suit. And he was still so handsome to her, but not in the way his brother tripped up her brain waves.

“I can appreciate that, and your honesty is welcome. You have feelings for Colt?”

No sense in denying it. “I think so, yes.” With the exception of some very erotic dreams about him that paled in comparison to the real thing, there was no logical reason she should have the love kind of feelings for him. But, she did.

“He said he saw you the day after.”

She nodded and smiled. “He came by on his way to the airport. Wanted to make sure I was okay.”

“You two been talking ever since?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.” There was no heat to her scolding of him, but the slight coloring in his cheeks gave her an unusual amount of pleasure. “Yesterday was the first time since. I’m over you, Russ.”

“It would seem so, and honestly, I’m happy that you are. I am too. Over you, that is. I know that now, and I knew that this morning. I just had to be sure.”

“I get it. I’m no longer mad or angry. I feel hurt sometimes still, but I think that’s to be expected. We were very close. We were friends. You loved me once and I loved you. It just wasn’t right for us, and it wasn’t the forever love it needed to be.”

“Is it right with Colt?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Yes. The answer was yes. But Russ didn’t need to know that.

“He thinks it’s right with you. That’s got to count for something. He won’t do to you what I did. He won’t hurt you like that.”

“Thank you.” She hoped he was right. “You look good, by the way.” That was nothing new to either of them, though. He always looked good. She was the one trying to be a working girl, trying to make her own way, but Russ was well put together, an attorney always dressed to the nines. He worked hard and, as she’d discussed with Colt, played hard.

“Except I have the short, respectable haircut and my brother has the longer one.”

Chrissie laughed. “I meant in general, but you’re right about the hair.” She hadn’t seen Colt all that much while she and Russ were engaged, but when she’d first met him, he had a short, very tailored haircut, and Russ had had one that was a little more unruly. As time went on, Russ started cutting and styling his hair much like many of the businessmen downtown. It was almost as though the two had switched some part of their personalities, at least outwardly.

Russ left not long after that, and Chrissie found herself staring at the roses in her kitchen window for a time. They made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Seeing Russ made her feel… She had no idea how it made her feel. Yesterday and last night with Colt had been beautiful and sexy and fun, and she hadn’t been able to remember a first date where she’d been happier.

Or more forward.

She’d had several glasses of beer, but she hadn’t been drunk. She hadn’t had anything at all to drink when she’d grabbed the box of condoms from the drugstore on her way to work, then slipped one into her purse. She didn’t know what she’d actually planned on happening, but the second she turned the corner and saw Colt waiting for her, she knew exactly what she wanted to happen.

He had simply sat there, staring out at the river before turning around and catching her eyes. His smile was all for her and she was hooked. Again.

He wasn’t hurried and he didn’t check his e-mail on his phone. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember seeing a phone all night until they got to his hotel room.

Russ’s phone was always buzzing or chiming or ringing and he always had to take it.

Things with Colt were different. It made being with him warm and inviting. She felt safe and comfortable with him. And horny. She definitely couldn’t forget how hungry for sex he made her. He’d wanted her when he met her the first time, and she’d thought he was handsome, ruggedly so, but she’d put her brain on autopilot and concentrated on Russ.

All bets were off on what and who she noticed when Colt showed up on her doorstep the day after her nonwedding. She’d seen him as a man, as a very sexy, very sweet man. When he’d shown up again yesterday, she’d seen him the same way, only not the same.

A lightbulb went off in the middle of a summer afternoon.

He was sex-on-a-stick hot to her, and he had been there not out of concern for her but because he wanted her. Sex with him was a given after that. Oh sure, she tried to play it off as she was busy and didn’t think it was a good idea, but there was no way she was letting him leave town without crawling all over him naked and wet.

And now that she’d had him… The dreams, sex-filled though they’d been, had been trying to tell her something. The laughter and conversation between them from the night before also told her something… Colt was the one she was meant to be with. He’d teased her about being the right brother, but he’d been right.

She’d never dreamed about Russ. She never gave Russ much thought at all in that regard.

“God,” she groaned and hung her head, resting it on her folded arms on the counter. She was cold without having meant to be. She’d been trying to find herself when she and Russ were thrown together by her mother and a longtime friend of her father’s. She met him, and as long as she kept the conversation off herself and just listened to him… She’d taken it as a sign that she was moving in the direction she was meant to be going. Boy howdy, she’d been wrong.

She hadn’t recognized a spark between herself and Colt the times they’d met while she was engaged. If she thought back on it all, she could see what she missed. His eyes. His brilliant, steady blue eyes. The way he looked at her, friendly but with an intensity she figured was out of concern for his brother, for making sure she was doing right by Russ. That hadn’t been it, because she’d seen that same intensity every time he looked at her yesterday, back on her porch in winter, last night over beer, this morning before she left him.

Her worn and comfy harvest-gold upholstered chair beckoned, and she listened. It was her thinking chair and her heartbreak chair and her read-a-fantastic-book chair and her sip-tea-and-work-on-something-to-give-back chair and her find-herself chair.

She should have gone to take a shower, but she just wanted to sit for a few minutes. She’d get up in a bit to head upstairs. She had some engraving projects that needed to be finished, and she had several afghans to tie off and tuck the ends in on before she could take them to the shelter on her way to work the next day. For the moment though, she’d just set a spell, as her grandmother used to say.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and realized she missed Colt.