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Headlights cut through the night, flashing against the rain-spattered windows.
“What did I tell you?” Denver asked, his lips twisting wryly. “Right on schedule.”
They heard boots clatter against the porch steps. The back door squeaked open. Footsteps paused in the kitchen and the refrigerator door clicked open.
“In here,” Denver called over his shoulder.
“We thought you’d be back,” Tessa said. She peeked over the back of the couch just as Colton McLean, one arm supported by a sling, his free hand clenched around the neck of a beer bottle, appeared in the hallway. Tall and lean, with suspicious gray eyes, an unruly beard and a rain-speckled suede jacket, Colton walked into the room as if he owned the place. Which he did. Or, at the very least, half of it.
Denver’s muscles became rock hard as he slowly straightened. “Well, you finally made it! About time,” he drawled, clapping his brother fondly on his back. “And from the looks of it, you’re not too much the worse for wear.”
Colton’s glance slid to Tessa. “So tomorrow’s the big day,” he said without inflection. Grimacing a little, he twisted off the cap of his beer.
Tension crackled in the air. Tessa sat up quickly, smoothing her denim skirt and feeling very much like a sixteen-year-old virgin caught in the backseat of a car. Reminding herself that Colton was just Denver’s brother, nothing more, she forced a smile. “I’m glad you made it. We were worried you might not get here in time for the ceremony.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Colton drawled, sweeping his gaze back to Denver. “The day that Tessa Kramer finally traps you into marriage is a red letter day for the McLeans.”
“No one trapped anyone.” Denver’s eyes became slits, and his affable smile tightened into a thin line of frustration. Crossing the room, he draped his arm possessively around Tessa’s waist.
Tessa, thinking of the baby within her, wanted to die. Would Denver think she’d tried to trap him? Colton would surely hammer the point home.
“So you’ve said,” Colton replied, his gaze drifting through the house where he’d grown up.
There was a fight brewing—as intense as the storm outside. Tessa could feel it in the tightness of Denver’s muscles, see it in the pulse throbbing at his temple. She tried to intervene. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Just great,” Colton muttered. He leaned against the windowsill, staring at the black night beyond. His gray eyes were dark, his lips drawn tight. “Anyone else around?”
Denver shook his head. “Just us.”
“So where’s the rest of the Kramer clan?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“It’s been a long time,” Colton said slowly. “I just wanted to talk with my new family.”
“Leave it alone, Colt,” Denver commanded.
Tessa was in no mood for Colton’s snide insinuations. She tilted her chin up proudly. “Dad’s down at his place and Mitchell’s due back anytime.”
“Good.”
“You know,” she said, watching as he crossed the room, dropped into a chair and rested the heels of his boots on a coffee table, “my family wasn’t too thrilled about this marriage.”
“I’ll bet.”
“But they came around.”
He lifted skeptical dark brows. “And why’s that?”
“For the same reason you came all the way back here,” she said, “because they care about me. Just as you care about Denver.”
Colton took a long swallow of beer. “I didn’t come here just to give you a wedding present,” he said, wincing a little as he shifted in the chair. His face grew taut and white from pain. “I want to know how you can reconcile yourself to all this, Denver. How you can give up your life in L.A. and marry a woman you can’t trust?”
Denver stepped between Tessa and Colton. “It’s simple.”
“Is it?”
“We love each other.”
