“And Michael doesn’t want me, so the joke’s on you.” Lucy pressed the broom to his chest, forcing him out the door. “Go away, Ty. I can take care of myself. I’m a grown-ass woman.”
She turned and walked away.
Van gave him a shake of his head and handed him his coat. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she gets home okay.”
He slammed the door in his face, the lock clicking into place.
And he was left on the outside looking in.
He should have stuck with the plan. He stared at that locked door and heard a deep chuckle coming from the shadows to his left.
“Guess Lucy knows how to take out the trash,” Michael said.
“Why the hell are you still here?” He forced his arms into his coat and zipped up.
He watched as Michael’s shadowy figure shrugged. “Her car doesn’t work half the time, and I don’t know that kid in there enough to trust him to take care of her.”
Asshole. Still, it was exactly what a man who cared about a woman would say. He knew he’d been right.
And Lucy was interested in Michael. She didn’t take Ty seriously, but he couldn’t deny that she’d responded to him sexually.
“I don’t think I would like what’s going on in that head of yours, would I?” Michael asked.
Lucy wanted Michael. Ty wanted Lucy. But Lucy was only a moth to Michael’s cranky, crabby flame, and if she could see how much better Ty could take care of her, she would come around.
What to do about that?
If he was back in Virginia, it would be a quandary.
But he was in Bliss.
“No. I don’t think you’ll like it at all.” It was a plan. A bad plan. A Bliss plan.
Chapter Two
Michael pulled his SUV into the parking lot of Hell on Wheels and thought about not going in. It had been a shitty night, and the better choice would be to go home and drink alone.
But then he might not be able to punch someone, and he really felt like punching someone.
I’m going to make sure you don’t even remember Michael Novack’s name.
Little shit.
He probably should have let them know he was standing in the doorway. He hated the fact that he’d stood there and listened in and when he’d realized Ty was kissing her, he hadn’t walked away. He’d moved closer so he could watch.
He’d been in Bliss too long.
He slammed out of the SUV and his boots were hitting the gravel when he realized someone was pulling up next to him.
Just his fucking luck. There was nearly no one in the parking lot but this asshole decided to park right beside his SUV.
His mood dipped even further as he realized he recognized that Jeep.
“Are you following me?” He might be able to start a fight right here and now. Cracking that pretty boy’s face might make him feel better, might make him forget the way Lucy had looked when he’d been such an ass to her.
I can see plainly that you don’t need any help.
The words themselves hadn’t been particularly nasty, but he’d meant them to hurt. He’d meant to lash out at both of them because they were younger and less fucking damaged and they probably belonged together in their happy Bliss world. He didn’t have a place with her, and that was exactly why he’d held back. He wanted her. He burned for her.
He’d been around Nell too much. He was starting to sound like one of her heroines. Nell Flanders wrote books where one character burned for another and longed and wished.
“I thought we should talk.” Ty’s jaw squared like he was ready to take a coming punch.
When had he become the old man who yelled at kids playing too close to his yard? Lucy wasn’t even his yard, and she never would be. He should have taken this evening as another reminder that he was too old for her, too hard for her. He needed a drink or five. He turned toward the worst bar in the county and started for the front door. “Nothing to talk about. Lucy got home all right. The new guy followed her all the way and then waited to make sure she got in the door. You saw that as well as I did.”
Because they’d formed a caravan that would have worried most women. Lucy had a line of vehicles following her tiny piece of crap, wouldn’t-even-call-that-thing a car. She’d waved the new guy’s way and disappeared into River’s cabin.
And then he’d driven to the other side of the mountain to drink his cares away, except one of those cares had fucking followed him.
“I know that, but I still need to talk to you,” Ty insisted.
He slammed through the red metal door that led inside the den of regret and bad choices known as Hell on Wheels. He was immediately hit with the smell of beer and possible criminal activity. Crime in Colorado, Michael had learned, smelled a little like beer but held unmistakable notes of tobacco and freshly mown grass.