“Surely, the other wives and girlfriends were in the same boat. You must’ve had friends through his teammates.”
“I don’t know why you’re attacking me. Those ‘friends’ weren’t going to help me change nappies. It wasn’t their job to help me raise my child. It was my husband’s. He should’ve been there.”
“The other wives must have felt neglected, too. And I’m sure they had children.”
“The other wives had family. Their mums would come out and stay for weeks when they had a baby. I had no one.”
Phinny had never pressed her mum before, and now she knew why. But she did her best to ignore the hostility and self-pity to get some answers. “Except out here. You said you had community here in Calamity.”
“The neighbors were cowboys. The women wore prairie dresses. You’ve no idea what a foreign world it was to me.”
Ten months ago, before she’d been cut off, she would’ve gobbled up her mum’s words. Used to them fortify the wall she’d built to protect her feelings. If Kurt was a bad man, it was a damn good thing he wasn’t in her life.
But tonight, Phinny heard them. “You made it sound like you were alone out here. No help, no neighbors, nothing. You told me they rejected you because of your accent. That’s what you said. You said you stuck out like a sore thumb, and they treated you like an outsider.”
“I was an outsider.”
If she could talk to one of the hockey wives who’d known her parents back in Boston, she suspected she’d find out that her mum had been the difficult one. And now, instead of hurt and anger over Kurt’s challenge, she was almost excited. She wanted to learn the truth about him.
“Well, you’d love it here now, Mum. Calamity’s got posh shops and fancy restaurants.” The bustling Wild West town was charming and lively and far more high-end than she’d expected. “It’s even got a gourmet food shop. Not quite as good as Harrod’s but close.”
“Well, take pictures because I certainly won’t be visiting.”
She didn’t want to talk to her mum anymore. “Right, well, I’ll let you get back to sleep. Maybe someone I meet here will know more about Kurt’s relatives.”
“Darling, I would be careful about stirring that pot. With a property of that value, you don’t want long-lost Grevers popping out of the woodwork making a claim.”
Disappointment twisted through her. Where Declan’s first impulse had been to step away from her inheritance, her mum’s inclinations were quite different. “Goodnight.”
After they got off the phone, she stared unseeing at the photo album in her lap. Her mum’s ugliness left her feeling detached and so alone.
She really wished Declan were awake. She might not know him well, but for some strange reason she liked being with him. She felt safe around him.
It wasn’t just his size or his rugged demeanor. It was his inherent goodness, his strength. In a zombie apocalypse, she’d elect him as the leader.
She wanted to go back up those stairs, tiptoe into his room, and climb into bed. She wanted his strong arms to wrap around her. She wanted—
Awareness rippled across her skin, and her gaze jerked up.
As if she’d conjured him…there he was.
Declan stood at the top of the stairs.
Chapter Eight
Tall, broad-shouldered, with the ripped physique of an elite athlete, Declan wore nothing but gray sweatpants that hung low on his hips. With all those tattoos, he looked like a biker or a brawler…as far from refined as a man could get.
Slowly, he came down the stairs. “Everything okay?”
Her chest tightened, and all she could do was nod. Fearing he’d pick up on her neediness, she turned back to the photo album. As she waited for him to go into the kitchen or wherever he’d been headed, she forced herself to calm down. But her hyperawareness of him made it impossible to take in anything other than short, shallow breaths.
Sit with me.
Be with me.
I know we barely know each other, and I’m competing against you, but I’ve missed you in the six hours since dinner, and I want you with me.
Anxiety spiked when a pair of big feet entered her peripheral vision.
“What’s that?” His voice matched his tattoos and messy hair—deep, sexy, and with a raspy growl.
She lifted the book to show him. “All those drawers? They’re filled with these.”
Dropping to a crouch, he pulled out a random album. When he flipped it open, a grin broke through the scruff, turning his rugged features unbearably handsome. “Look at that car. Must be from the Forties.” He got up, knees cracking, and moved to the far end of the bookcase. Pulling another one out, he brought it to the leather ottoman and sat down. “Oh, man.” Elbows on his knees, he flipped through the pages, shaking his head in wonder. Even curled over like that, he didn’t have a poochy belly. The man was all lean muscle.
Needing his comfort, she got up and sat beside him. “Let me see.” And, oh, God, she could feel the heat from his bare skin. She wanted him to wrap those strong arms around her and hold her close. She wanted to trace the lines of his ink with her fingertips.
He tilted the book toward her.
“Of course.” She laughed. “You would go straight to hockey.” She peered closer to get a better look and got hit with the scent of clean cotton, warm skin, and potent masculinity. It hit deep in her gut, stirring a primal reaction of hot, carnal desire. Closing her eyes to breathe him in, an image dropped into her mind. His hands braced on either side of her head, his biceps bulging, that shoulder-length hair spilling forward, as he thrust into her. Hard, rough…holding nothing back.
Lust ignited in her core, the flames licking out and making her burn.
Oh, God. Don’t do that. But maybe she’d never had an orgasm with her past boyfriends because they’d all been so…tidy. So polite. Maybe rough, dirty-mouthed badasses cranked her engine.
Discreetly, she took in the planes and angles of his shoulders and back, the defined ridges on his abdomen. Where Cameron had a lot of dark body hair, Declan’s was much lighter, softer-looking. He had a tattoo underneath his belly button that she couldn’t make out and a stunning image on his ribcage of four boys playing hockey on a mountain lake in the moonlight. Of their own volition, her fingers moved to touch it. “This is absolutely lovely.”
When he didn’t answer, she looked up to find him watching her with a smoldering gaze. His skin pebbled underneath her touch, and she boldly traced the outline of the moon. Caught in the magnetic pull of this attraction, she couldn’t look away if she tried.
But then his gaze slowly lowered to her finger, and he arched a brow.
The unspoken command had her pulling away. Flustered, she focused on the photographs in the book. Stupid, stupid girl. As if a guy like him would ever be interested in someone as frivolous as me.
They’d both been thrust into the same situation, and yet while she’d been tottering around in two-year-old designer heels and chasing after a Border Collie, he’d been cool, collected, and confidently getting shit done. Whatever. I’m doing the best I can. And there’s nothing wrong with admiring his ink. Looking him right in the eyes, she said, “It’s beautiful. Do the guys know it’s there?”