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Libby’s changed me.
Made me realize the man-whore I was before isn’t who I want to be.
A complete dick like Sally wants.
I stare her down.
Sally snorts, rolling her eyes. “You’ll come to your senses. You ain’t a one-woman kinda man,” she says, stepping closer.
I lean back instinctively, but I can’t go far with the coffee bar at my back and a cup of hot black coffee steaming in my hand, waiting to scald us both with any sudden movements.
Smirking, Sally reaches out to run her fingertip along my forearm. “I bet I could accommodate you. Don’t you remember how good we were?”
I grimace. “That was high school, Sal. Twenty damn years ago. Everything seems better than it was with that much time passing.”
She lets out a flirty laugh. “Not for me. I remember everything.” Stepping closer still, until I can smell her light, floral perfume, she looks up at me through her long lashes. “I remember how you made me feel, Holt. I remember every day. I don’t know how you did it, but you ruined me for anyone else. And when I heard you were back…”
No. My eyes pinch shut. Don’t fucking say it.
She nibbles at her lower lip, her fingertip against my wrist, hooking the curl of her finger over the wrist bone. “Well, I was hoping you’d come see me. Hoping you thought of me as much as I thought of you.”
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
Sally Jenkins has been in love with me since high school.
And she’s still in love with me now.
Funny thing is, I’d rather kick my own ass a hundred times than hers for this tease.
I’m worse than a player leaving my mark on half the women in town. I’m a reckless douchebag who deserves everything he has coming.
Now it comes down on me like a fucking avalanche.
There’s no denying, all those years ago, I used her.
Used her to get at Blake by making her love me. Making her need me. Making her think we had something special so she’d always choose me over Blake.
Sure, there was always collateral damage from the way Blake and I used to fight, always competing for our screwed up mama’s love.
Thing is, nobody’s heart should ever be collateral damage.
Not from two broken, bitter boys trying to duke out their way to adulthood.
I gotta fix this.
I gotta make this right, but I don’t know how.
Not when, beneath the coy look she’s giving me, I can see hope there, too.
And that’s not even touching the hurt.
I think deep down, she knows.
She knows what a shit I was, and I think she sees I can’t feel anything for her now.
I just don’t want to hurt her even more.
Turning, I sigh and set my coffee on the counter, freeing my hands from the threat of second-degree burns.
Then I capture her hands in mine, pulling them away from her reaching for me.
I can’t let her do it.
Not if I want to keep from hurting her.
Not if I want to be the sort of man Libby respects.
I take hold gently but firmly. From the expression on her face, I think she can tell I’m about to let her down, her brows crumpling slightly, her mouth going soft.
But I’ve got to say this, once and for all, even if everyone in the whole damn Nest is licking their chops, ready for a week’s worth of gossip.
“Sal,” I open my mouth—and stop the second I realize it.
Oh, I’ve got an audience, all right.
And it’s not just the nosy townsfolk.
Aw, shit!
19
Horsing Around (Libby)
Minutes Earlier
Don’t panic.
Do not panic, I tell myself again and again.
Easier said than done.
I stare down at my phone, and the recent call listing Sierra’s number, over and over again.
One inbound call.
Five outbound calls that I let ring and ring and ring until they went to voicemail, only her voicemail box was full. I can’t reach her.
She’d called me.
And even though I told myself I was so angry at her I could spit, the second I recognized the name on the caller ID, I’d scrambled for the phone like my butt was on fire.
I just needed to hear her voice.
Whatever’s gone sour between us…
I just wanted to know my sister’s still safe.
But there was nothing on the line but dead air.
Not even breathing.
Just silence, weird and ominous, that left me struggling to breathe as it stretched on while I said Sierra? Sierra, you there? Talk to me!
I must’ve repeated it five times.
Then, with a sharp digital click, the call went dead in my hand.
Left me practically hyperventilating, imagining the worst after weeks and weeks of radio silence and that abrupt way she took off from town with a demon.
I know men like Declan.
They might be physically big, but they’re small inside—and the only thing that puffs them up is hurting other people.
Hurting women like my sister, who’ll come back for more because there’s something in her searching for a peace she thinks she’ll find with a wolf.
