Tough Luck Hero (29 page)

She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest, listened to the sound of his beating heart. Suddenly, she felt more grounded. More present. Happy.

A pang of discomfort hit her hard. And she found herself pulling away.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I'm about a thousand times more ready to get put on a rocket ship and sent to Mars then I am to deal with tonight's election.”

“Well, they did find water on Mars. But you can often find wine at events thrown by my family. So I feel like maybe you're better off just coming tonight instead of leaving the planet.”

Darn him. He made her chest feel all tender and soft.

“Okay, I promise I will stay earthbound. But I'm not entirely certain what's in it for me other than the wine.”

“Potential electoral victory?”

“I don't know.”

“Cake. Because any party planned by my sisters will have cake.”

“Okay, that's a little bit more enticing.”

“And,” he said, his blue eyes filled with humor, “we can make out afterward.”

Everything inside of her honest to God quivered. “I hope you do a lot more than make out with me.”

“Remember when you used to hate me?”

A jolt of nerves rocked her. “I still don't like you very much,” she lied.

“If you're going to lie, you have to do a better job than that.”

“I never lie.”

“You're a politician.”

“That's insulting. Also, bad stereotyping.”

He reached out, capturing her chin between his thumb and forefinger, his blue eyes going sharp. “You would beg for me, and we both know it. You
more
than like me, Lydia Carpenter.”

The worst part about his words was that they sent a giddy little shot of recklessness straight through her. Hot and straight up, like the shots they'd downed the night they got married.

It added to the suspicion that it had never been the alcohol at all. Sure, the alcohol had lowered inhibitions, had made a lot of the worries and general common sense they usually carried around go away. But it had a lot more to do with him than with Jack Daniel's.

“I don't want to be late,” she said, moving away from him. Some of the heat in his eyes cooled. And she knew that she had ruined a moment. She didn't know why she had felt so compelled to ruin that moment, only that she had done it with swift, incisive purpose.

“Of course not, peaches.” He extended his hand and she reached out, taking it. He was her husband, and they were attending this together. So, as much as she needed distance, she couldn't actually have it. But breaking some of the tension a moment ago had at least helped. Or, hurt, which in its way was helpful.

And now, when he said
peaches
, it didn't have any of the warmth it had had last time. That hurt. It shouldn't hurt.

“Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “Let's go see if I won an election.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

L
YDIA
AND
C
OLTON
were greeted by Maddy and Sierra. The latter was looking fatigued, which was unsurprising, given her current state. As if Lydia didn't feel guilty enough. Both of the other women were being so kind to her, and Sierra was at the very tail end of her pregnancy, doing things for her she would never do if she knew that Lydia wasn't her actual sister-in-law.

The unsettled, awful feeling that had taken root inside of her earlier expanded. Grew.

“This is so exciting,” Maddy said, treating Lydia to what she thought might be the first genuine smile she'd seen the younger woman hand out. “Last I checked you were ahead in the polls by quite a bit.”

Lydia's stomach dipped. “Oh, I hadn't been checking.”

“Seriously? I would be checking every two seconds.”

“Honestly, these things change so many times before the actual results are announced. I just don't think I can subject myself to watching any kind of live speculation.”

Colton tightened his hold on her, his hand large and warm on her waist. She was such a lost cause. The fact that he affected her so deeply, simultaneously turning her on and calming her down with just the touch of his hand.

“No matter what happens, this is going to be a great party,” he said. “But she is going to win.”

“Assuming everybody is as tired of having the same person running the town as I am,” Madison said. “Anyway, it will be nice to have a woman in charge.”

“Which is probably also going to play against me,” Lydia said. “People are probably afraid that I'm going to start painting things pink.”

Maddy waved a hand. “That's ridiculous. You have much better taste than that.”

“If I were running for mayor it would be a genuine concern,” Sierra added.

“You should sit down.” Sierra's husband approached them, placing his hand on his wife's stomach. “You're worrying me.”

“Stop it,” she said, swatting Ace on the arm. “I can stand up. I'm pregnant, I'm not an invalid.”

“You look precarious. Like you might be prone to tipping over.”

“Wow. That's very flattering, honey,” she said. “Now, do I need to worry about the youth of Copper Ridge playing a new game? Instead of going cow tipping, they'll go Sierra tipping?”

He leaned in and kissed the top of her head. “No one is going to tip you. Anyway, if they did, I would refuse to serve them alcohol. If we let that threat get around, you're safe for sure.”

There was something in their easy affection that made her feel a deep, gnawing envy.

Then Colton touched her hand, and the combination of this real, deep relationship in front of her and that casual contact that wasn't casual at all, but engineered to carry out their fiction in a believable way, sent her stomach into a free fall.

You are being crazy. It's the night of your election. The night where you find out exactly what the next four years of your life are going to look like, and you're fixating over a man.

Yeah, it would be fine if it were that easy to trivialize. If he were
only
a man, in the general, broad sense, and she were a teenage girl being silly. But this wasn't kids playing with matches. This was two adults with kerosene and a flamethrower. The scope for devastation was real.

So there was nothing
only
about him. No way to reduce him because this was romance, and not the career milestone she had been working toward. There was no way to tell it to get in line, so she could deal with it in an orderly fashion.

This wasn't even actually supposed to be romance. It was supposed to be a ruse in service of this election. Sex in service of her long-neglected needs.

It was not supposed to be a roiling mass of confusion, insecurity, jealousy born just from seeing a couple who had genuine emotion between them.

Not that she wanted emotion between herself and Colton. But what she wanted and what was actually occurring in her chest were two different things.

She swallowed hard, letting go of Colton's hand. “I think I'm going to circulate.”

It was strange, how much easier it was to grab hold of her purse, rather than Colton, and breeze her way through, making casual conversation with people she had barely had any interaction with before, than it was to stand there with Colton's family and pretend to be something she wasn't. To pretend to mean something to him that she didn't.

Probably because this sort of thing came as second nature to her. She could make small talk on autopilot. And meanwhile, her brain could weave tales of woe regarding everything that was happening with Colton, everything that was going to happen tonight and what her life would look like when the dust had settled.

This night was a much bigger deal than she had let herself imagine. If the election didn't go her way then everything really ended. Or rather, it all went back to the way it had been before. Nothing would
change
.

That was disconcerting on multiple levels.

She would continue serving at the Chamber of Commerce, continue serving the people of Copper Ridge much the way she had been for the past several years. She and Colton would divorce, and they would go their separate ways, and scandal and public perception wouldn't really matter.

But if she got elected then things would change. Her function in the community would change, and, yes, they would be changes that she wanted, but still, it was change. She and Colton would have to continue to pretend to be married until they decided that the dust had settled enough for them to end their union. And if they continued pretending they were married, then they would obviously continue to sleep together. Or, maybe not obviously. Maybe she was making assumptions that weren't entirely accurate.

It was suddenly quite surreal to be standing there on the glittering, well-decorated lawn at the West Estate imagining what it might be like tomorrow if she woke up in her bed, alone. At her own house, as though none of this had happened. As if it were all just a dream.

Not a mayor. Not a wife.

Not a lover.

In the safe little cocoon she'd woven for herself, still an inert caterpillar determined to never become a butterfly.

She couldn't decide if it sounded horrible, or wonderful.

Colton came and found her again when the buffet was served, and they made their plates and took their seats at a table together. It was the first time she had come face-to-face with Nathan West since their marriage. And she knew it was the same for Colton.

The older West didn't seem at all put off by the situation. In fact, he was surprisingly warm and friendly to Lydia.

“I'm glad to see that my son married someone with ambition,” Nathan said, looking at Colton as he spoke. Lydia wasn't entirely certain which one of them he was addressing, or if he was aware of how closely his words echoed what his wife had said when she'd first learned of the marriage.

She chose to assume his sentiment had been aimed at her. “I'm very appreciative of you opening up your property for tonight,” she said.

“Well, if it puts me in favor with the mayor's office it will be worth it. Of course, if it pits me against the mayor, we may have a problem. Depending on the outcome.”

She had no idea if he was joking or not. But if she lost the election he wouldn't be her father-in-law for very long, so she imagined it didn't really matter.

“I'm sure that Lydia prefers to be optimistic,” Colton said.

“Lydia is mostly nervous,” she said, earning a chuckle from Nathan and the others at the table. She couldn't help but notice that Colton's mother was very quiet. She had a nervous energy about her, which Lydia had gathered based on the fact that Colton wanted to remain in their marriage in order to protect his mother's mental health. She had also had it reinforced that day at lunch. Still, seeing her seated next to her husband—a husband that Lydia knew had betrayed her in the worst way possible—so pale and silent gave her a deeper understanding of exactly what Colton was managing at home.

Colton put his hand over hers. “Don't be. You're the best person for the position.”

The gentle contact, and the nice words, sent a rush of warmth through her. Of course, she had no way of knowing if he meant them at all, or if he was just doing his part to reinforce the facade of the marriage. And it shouldn't matter. She had no idea why she was suddenly having a breakdown about their feelings for each other. Maybe because recently it felt like they had grown closer. But she kind of liked that.

It was good to have a friendship with the guy you were sleeping with, at least, at a minimum. Of course, she hadn't imagined that she and Colton could ever be friends. And, that was part of why she imagined she would be safe sleeping with him. Because there was no chance for any sort of feelings to grow out of the animosity that had once existed between them.

That was before she had gotten to know him. Now she knew that they were more alike than they had originally imagined. Now she knew that he wasn't just a stubborn, pigheaded jerk. He was a man with too much on his shoulders. A man who carried the weight of the world, at least, the weight of his world, and the weight of several of his family members' worlds.

It was impossible to remain immune to him when she knew all that.

Plus, he was amazing in bed. There was no way she could remain neutral through that. In bed, on counter, against woodshed. His sex game was on point.

But that had nothing to do with warm, fuzzy feelings and wishing that their marriage could be real.

Her breath caught in her throat. No, she did
not
want their marriage to be real. If there was one thing she was even more certain of after her confessional to Colton about her sister, it was that she was not prepared to be in that kind of relationship. To have children, to have people depend on her emotionally.

She was just freaking out because of everything that was happening. That was it. The beginning and end of it. Her brain was like a tornado right now, swirling around and picking up concerns, adding them to the column of doom twisting in her brain.

Actively looking for yet more things to obsess about.

“Just thinking of the kind of legacy the two of you can have is...well, it's better than I anticipated having for this family.” Lydia bristled as Nathan West spoke. She had a feeling this wasn't going anywhere good. “My children have been difficult, as I know you know,” he said, addressing the entire table. Lydia could only be grateful that Sierra and Madison weren't sitting here, because she had a feeling it would not stop him from saying everything he was about to say. “So when Colton was left at the altar by Natalie Bailey, I thought we were in much the same situation with him as we have been with the others. But I have to hand it to him. Marrying the most likely candidate for the next town mayor was a better choice than simply marrying the daughter of the irrelevant incumbent.”

Strangely, Lydia felt indignant on behalf of Natalie. Though not only on behalf of Natalie. She had heard that Nathan West could be the very thing he'd just accused his children of being—difficult. And obviously, she knew that he had fathered a love child during his marriage that he had never acknowledged, and that the situation had been difficult for everyone involved, so she wasn't sure what she had expected. Not this. She wasn't entirely sure that you could expect...this.

She also noticed that Nathan was very comfortable listing the sins of his children, but had left his own scandal out of the mix. She noticed, but she wasn't surprised.

“With Colton committed to taking over the ranch after I retire, and Lydia at the helm of the town, the West name has most definitely assured its place in history.”

The other old men at the table raised their glasses to that, because clearly, they wanted to be in the good graces of the people who would continue to run the town so that it benefited them. She could see that was what they imagined. That, because she had married Colton, she was becoming some kind of establishment candidate. Such as the establishment was in Copper Ridge.

Truly, the election was over so there was no point in correcting them, but she was tempted to. It was only out of deference to Colton that she didn't. Out of deference to his mother, and to what she knew was a precarious situation.

She looked at Colton, hoping he would say something. Hoping that he would comment on the fact that he was going to focus on his own operation, and not on the West family legacy. Of course, that was a completely impractical hope. Because even in his position she wouldn't do that. Not at this venue. It was a conversation he was going to have to have with his father in private, and Lydia knew that. Still, she couldn't help but think that his father going on like this was going to make things more difficult. And she resented that.

For the rest of the meal they mostly listened to Nathan West talk, which seemed to be something he enjoyed. She decided that if she were going to stay married to Colton for the rest of her life, dealing with his father was probably going to be the most challenging aspect of that. She could see why he didn't seek out conversations with the older man.

She could also see why his allegiance to his mother and sisters was so strong. He was doing his father's bidding in many ways, but also, he was committed to keeping a kind of peace so that he could stay close. So that he could still be involved with the family. He'd told her that if you crossed the patriarch of the West family, you were forbidden from being involved with the rest of them.

She had no doubt that Colton was strong enough to oppose that. Colton was the strongest man she had ever met. It wasn't weakness that kept him where he was, it was actually an unimaginable strength. Self-sacrificing. Giving. She imagined him standing there, physically holding his family members together, keeping them from breaking apart, using everything he had in order to keep them whole.