Bride by Mistake, page 2
part #3 of Montana Born Brides Series
Bad Blood Beckett Larson had a job he loved and a padded bank account. Why would anyone think he’d steal now?
He could try to explain himself, but he could afford to be kicked out and hurt a lot more than Craig could, if Craig was the real perpetrator, so… So, this was it.
He turned his back to Luke and walked away.
For once in his life, he was taking the high road, and what he thought might actually be the noble one.
Funny, it felt as much like shit as the low road he was so used to.
Chapter Two
‡
Kaitlin survived the ceremony. Her smile only faltered once or twice. Much like she’d survived the past few months by throwing herself into the floral arrangements, she did so today as well.
Any time things got hard, she checked on a bouquet or a centerpiece. Risa, her boss at Sweetpea Flowers, had allowed her to take this wedding over completely. Kaitlin had done everything from processing to design to transportation.
Risa had tried to help out today, but Kaitlin had been adamant. She wanted no help. She wanted the flowers to be her escape.
But even the flowers couldn’t stop her from having to walk down the aisle to sweet lilting music, with Carter at the end. Like every fantasy she’d ever had, only instead of taking his arm at the end, she had to step aside.
And watch Sierra walk up the aisle on Daddy’s arm, be given away to Carter, say I do to Carter.
The words hushed through the church, everyone happy and teary, and all Kaitlin could wonder was how she’d built her entire life around someone. Someone who’d never seen her, never cared. Why had she hung on so tight to a third grade dream? Why had she let it define her life?
What was wrong with her?
That thought looped through her head, back down the aisle, all through the hugs and hellos in the receiving line. Pictures, fake smiles, barely hearing what was going on. What is wrong with me?
Because for the first time in her entire adulthood, she had to sit and think about why she’d let some crush in the third grade turn into the fulmination of her life. Now that reaching the goal was stripped away from her, she could only gape at how stupid the goal had been.
Stupid.
She was never stupid. She was determined and thorough and dedicated. She was smart, things came easily to her. But she stood in the midst of the reception, wondering how long she’d willfully closed her eyes against the truth.
Being good had gotten her precisely nowhere.
For some reason that made her think of Beckett. The way his fingers had trailed down her arm, making the chill of the spring day disappear.
Beckett was not good. Like Sierra, he followed the beat of an internal drum that was different from everyone else. And he didn’t care. Oh, she wanted not to care.
Without fully realizing she was doing it, her eyes roamed the reception trying to find him. The man she’d outright hated since he’d blazed into and out of town suddenly seemed like he might hold all the answers in his screw-off smile.
She didn’t find him, but she did find her brother, and since he was the only reason Beckett had an invite to the wedding, she made her way to Luke.
She tried to be casual, but she knew she resembled a bullet toward its mark. Once Kaitlin had an idea, she went for it full-throttle.
“Hello, sister.” Luke’s smile was… She paused in her mission for a second. Luke didn’t really appear all that happy, which was strange. Then she remembered what Beckett had said about not being eager to find Luke.
She could beat around the bush, gently ask if he was all right, but she and Luke had never had any finesse that way. “What’s wrong? Is it about Beckett?”
“Since when are you so interested in Beckett?”
“He happened to mention you two were…maybe not seeing eye to eye. Which isn’t like you.”
Luke shook his head, but it was such a terse movement. A jerk right, a jerk left.
“Where is he?”
Luke tensed, his knuckles white around the beer bottle he was holding. After a few humming moments of silence, he relented. “I told him to go.”
“Why?” For years Luke had defended Beckett. They’d built a business together. Kaitlin couldn’t think of any possible reason her brother would send his best friend away.
“It’s business,” Luke said with some finality.
That was all her brother was going to give her. Luke could be warm and sweet, but when it came to business, he became someone else entirely. Someone else Kaitlin recognized all too well.
The kind of person who goes after something so wholeheartedly everything else falls away.
At least Luke’s business couldn’t marry someone else.
In the moment, though, she envied Beckett. He’d been dismissed and allowed to disappear. Watching Carter and Sierra dance together, her parents all smiling and exhausted, family and friends so happy.
She looked up at her brother’s tense face. She should stay here and comfort him. Or push herself into the throng and pretend like she was enjoying herself. There were a million things she should do.
But she was tired of pretending. Tired of being good all the darn—no, damn—time. Because she had yet to be rewarded. Yet to get anything out of pretending and being good.
Her duties as bridesmaid were done. Her duties as florist were done. The only thing keeping her here was duty to Sierra. A duty no one else ever felt toward Kaitlin. God knew, if the situation was reversed, Sierra wouldn’t have done Kaitlin’s flowers or stuck around her reception.
No, Sierra would be off doing something destructive.
Again Kaitlin’s mind drifted to Beckett. His fingers on her arm. The way his wicked smile always made her stomach do a long, slow roll.
The way it infiltrated her dreams against her will.
She slipped out of the room, leaving laughter and clinking glasses behind. She stood for a moment, between the exit and the reception. Her conscience fought her frustration, a bitter battle of back and forth. A step in, a step out, only finally interrupted by the loud roar of an engine.
She glanced out the doors, a single headlight appearing in the dark. Beckett certainly wasn’t the only one around here who rode a motorcycle, but…
She edged toward the door. It felt like a sign. All her life she’d ignored signs and fate and things that did not follow her ordered plan.
So, tonight would be different.
*
Beckett’s determination wavered. Luke was celebrating his sister’s wedding. Surely this could wait. If he didn’t tell Luke before, why would he barge in there and do it now?
You shouldn’t do it at all.
He’d been going back and forth all evening. To explain or to give up? Ride away. The impulse ran so deep, his hands were clutched around the bars of his bike even though he’d killed the engine. He could roar away and never come back.
How many times had he thought that in his life? Almost every time he was in Marietta, the desire to get out clutched deep and held hard. And he had, time and time again, escaped. A million and one places he’d escaped to.
Why did he keep bothering to come back?
The door squeaked open, and out stepped a fairytale. He’d be embarrassed of the lame thought if she didn’t remind him exactly of all the paintings his grandmother had of fairies in her room. Dainty things in dresses with flowers in their hair.
Kaitlin didn’t have any of their mischievous smiles. In fact, she looked uncertain and like she was about to dart back inside.
But then, in that Kaitlin way she had, she merely straightened her spine and marched over to him.
“Are you coming in?” she demanded.
He glanced behind her, warm light spilled into the dark street. Voices and happiness and love all contained inside.
“No.” The word was out of his mouth before he’d even realized he’d decided on it. No, the thing with Luke and business could wait. Wait until Beckett had proof and thought he could convince Luke to give Craig a chance.
“What are you doing then?”
He sighed, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Hell if I know. I think I’m going to go get drunk.”
“Oh.” She seemed to ponder his answer as though it were a complex math equation. “I’d like to go with you.”
“Huh?” He was hearing things, because Kaitlin Shuller might someday thaw toward him, be he doubted it would be to ride his motorcycle—literally, not figuratively, second brain—and go to Grey’s with the express purpose of getting drunk.
Her nose wrinkled, presumably at his motorcycle, but again she seemed to shake off her normal reaction. “I’d like to go with you. Is that all right?”
No. It wasn’t all right. Something was very wrong. A rip in the very fabric of the universe. “Are you going to stab me as I drive? Because I can tell you that’d probably kill us both.”
“No.”
“Poison my drink?” he tried.
She had ulterior motives. He could feel them waving off the determined way she faced him. A guy she’d never made any bones about hiding her distaste for was not suddenly her chosen evening companion for no reason.
“No poison.”
“Luke sent you to lecture me then?”
She huffed out an irritated breath, hugging herself assumedly to ward off the chill. “No.”
“Then why do you want to go with me, Kate?”
“You know I hate that you call me that?”
“Yes, I do.” But more often than not, the fair skin of her cheeks went pink, and her plump little mouth pressed into a firm disapproving line, and ah, there it was, she folded her arms under her breasts.
Some fantasies really never got old.
“So why do you insist on doing it?”
“Why are you avoiding my question?” Because he couldn’t inventory all the reasons he insisted on calling her Kate, on getting under her skin.
Because I can, and no one else does.
Yes, that was his secret thrill. He could irritate the polish off Kaitlin Shuller. A badge he’d mentally given himself the summer after tenth grade when he’d realized she didn’t treat anyone else like she treated him. While a lot of people treated him badly, Kaitlin had stood out. Because it never felt like it was about him or where he came from or what he did, her issues with him were hers.
“We could agree to not ask or answer any more questions and simply go.” She gestured in the direction of Grey’s Saloon.
Sometimes she spoke the way he assumed royalty did. The words were a suggestion, the intent an order.
“You’re going to ride my bike?”
Again her nose wrinkled, and then she sighed. “I would ride a pogo stick if it got me away from here.” So serious. So desperate.
Desperation did funny things to people. He should know.
But the image of contained, careful Kaitlin on a pogo stick was enough to make him grin. He reached into the compartment that housed his extra helmet, then tossed it in her direction.
She fumbled, but managed to catch it after a few bobbles. She held it out in front of her like it was a dead animal.
“No helmet, no ride.”
He couldn’t make out her entire expression, but defiance and determination glinted off her in the moonlight and street lamplight. As much as it was complete fantasy to have Kaitlin on the back of his bike with him, he had no illusions of her backing away or giving up.
It might take a few minutes, but soon enough Kaitlin’s long pale legs would be pressed firmly to the backs of his.
Other parts pressing that he’d do well not to look forward to all too much.
Gingerly, Kaitlin strapped the helmet to her head. She approached the bike as one might approach a mountain they were supposed to climb. She tilted her head, ran a hand across the small edge of back seat.
He could pretend like he wasn’t watching her over his shoulder, but what would be the fun in that?
She smoothed hands over the front of her dress. It was loose, but it ended at her knees. Any attempt to get on the bike was going to hike that skirt right up. Yeah, he wasn’t looking away any time soon.
But she didn’t lift her leg and swing it over the seat. Instead she scooted close, then bent her knee onto it. From his vantage point, there was no skirt hiking as she then unfolded her leg on the other side.
The dress hitched up a little with her straddling the seat, but only enough to see knees.
“Leave it to you, Kate,” he muttered. The only woman in the world who could gracefully mount a motorcycle in a dress, or at least who would.
“Leave what to me?”
He shook his head, choosing not to explain it. She glanced back at the inches of space between them. She had to be balancing her butt on the back edge of the seat.
“Scoot up,” he instructed.
“I’m quite comfortable, thank yo—” Her prim ‘thank you’ ended on a squeak as he reached around his back and hers and tugged her forward.
“There.” There indeed. “Now, hold on.” He revved the engine for fun and then took off. It was a short drive to Grey’s, and he was half tempted to keep going. Drive out to Copper Mountain, and farther. Far away from Marietta and Luke and a reputation he thought he’d escaped.
But it would follow him forever, because it was who he was. An accident, a mistake, a problem. Likely the only reason Kaitlin Shuller’s arms were wrapped around his waist was because she was looking to feel better about herself. Which was probably the reason Luke had befriended him when no one else would.
With those oh-so-pleasant thoughts rolling around in his head, he came to an abrupt stop in front of Grey’s.
Chapter Three
‡
Beckett had killed the engine of the motorcycle, but the reverberations still bounced through her. Like her entire skin was vibrating, or maybe her skin was keeping everything inside of her from vibrating apart.
If she was honest with herself, which was not something she was used to being, that had as much to do with holding onto Beckett for dear life as it did having a running vehicle between her legs.
He was so…hard. She’d been flush with the curve of his back, her arms holding on around his middle as tightly as she could manage. There’d been a tenseness in that hard and she didn’t know if that was simply from steering or from something else.
Then there had been the fact the machine between her legs had…well…yeah… She needed not to think about that, about the strange pulling sensation low in her abdomen. The whole thing had been strange and different and…
Exhilarating.
Off balance and off kilter, she brought her knee up to the seat, managing to get off the thing without flashing anyone. Which for some reason made Beckett shake his head. Like she amazed him.
She had never cared about amazing Beckett, but tonight with everything all jumbled up inside her, making anyone amazed was like a gift, and she didn’t care who it was who had given it to her.
She unclipped the helmet and handed it back to him. She was freezing, but it was a weirdly painful good. Like the cold spring wind had blown off all the old polish she’d spent her life building, perfecting, and a new person was left.
A person who would ride a motorcycle with Beckett Larson and find some sort of enjoyment out of it. She’d never be as flashy or as fun loving as Sierra, but being here wasn’t about becoming Sierra or rebelling against everything that was essentially her.
It was about finding that essence, that person she really was if she allowed herself to be. The kernel of what she wanted, aside from what she told herself to want, stability and assurance. A person who didn’t care what the McArthurs thought, or what “good” meant, or what rewards were owed her.
Someone who just did.
Someone like Sierra. Someone like Beckett. Both smiled so much more than she did, which she would have found a way to rationalize yesterday, heck, this morning. But the wind had made her a new woman.
She was starting over, from the ashes of insecurity and stupidity.
When Beckett reached out, a million warring thoughts went through her head. He did things like that and she’d always had to tamp down her response, tell the quiet, subconscious voice she did not want Beckett. Did not want his touch or his eyes to meet hers. She’d conditioned herself to lash out and leave him in the wake of her not always fair temper.
But now she had to tamp down the voice that told her this was trouble, and she should head back to the reception and be a respectable, self-contained woman. She didn’t want to hear that voice anymore.
His hands smoothed over her hair, presumably mussed from the helmet, and his bad-boy, blue eyes gazed steadily at the top of her head. Not at her mouth or down her dress, just at all the wayward tendrils he was setting to rights.
Something in her chest shuddered. Sweet setting-to-rights was not what she expected from Beckett. She wasn’t altogether sure she wanted it either. What she really wanted was a person who didn’t see right through her, as though she were a perfectly pleasant cloud on an even more alluring blue sky.
Beckett had been purposefully irritating for as long as she’d known him. He did things to get reactions out of people, and he enjoyed those reactions. Smiled and laughed when she told him to go to hell.
“So, Kate, have you ever been drunk?”
She lifted her chin, prim and disdainful was always the first knee-jerk reaction when he challenged her goodie-two-shoe’s status.
“No,” she said matter-of-factly. She wasn’t going to lie or pretend. She had never had more than a glass of wine at one sitting. And those occasions were few and far between. “But I would like to tonight.”
“Because McArthur married your sister?”
She blinked, not wanting to give herself away. Not pretending didn’t mean she had to be an open book. But if Beckett had noticed… Had Mom? Daddy? Sierra?
She felt sick to her stomach.
