Page 23

His stomach churns when one of the worst people he’s ever met looks at her like he knows more than just her name.

The younger Weber does the same, he makes her smile.

That waste of space and life makes her smile, and he sees red.

Or maybe it’s green.

A tiny hand trying to yank out a chunk of my hair jolts me awake.

Squinting through one eye at the baby who somehow wound up in my bed, my groggy grimace fades to a groggy smile. “How’d you get here?”

“Teleportation,” the woman dumping a duffel bag and a travel cot on my bedroom floor drawls. “He’s very advanced for his age.”

As I roll onto my back, stretching and yawning, Izzy makes quick work of crawling onto my chest, his sweet fifteen-month-old giggles warming the skin above my collarbone. Splaying one hand across his back, I prop myself upright with the other. “What’re you doing here?”

“What’re you doing in bed?” The mother of the little boy slobbering all over my t-shirt answers my question with one of her own, looking oh-so-maternal as she braces a palm on the headrest of my bed and peers down at me. “It’s so early.”

God forbid a girl tries to nap after a long day’s work. “I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Luna makes a noise in the back of her throat. “If I thought you were drunk, I wouldn’t have brought my son over for you to babysit, would I?”

Babysit? “Seriously?”

“Exam season,” she explains without actually explaining very much. “Mama’s gotta study and Daddy’s gonna rub her feet while she does it.”

“Exams?” I question as I fish my hair out of Isaac’s mouth before he chokes on it—because that would be just my luck. “Don’t tell me Sun Valley held you back.”

If not for my nephew, I reckon that comment would’ve earned me a thwack upside the head. Instead, I get a snippy denial, and an exasperated shake of a blonde head. “I graduated two years ago, smartass. I take a JD program part-time now.”

Right. Yeah, I knew that. Or I knew it was the plan, but I figured with the baby and the wedding that that might’ve changed. I should’ve known better—I should’ve remembered Luna is the kind of person to do something purely because it’s hard.

Me, not so much. And keeping a whole ass person alive kind of seems a little fucking hard. “Lux is busy?”

“Lux is always busy.”

“Eliza couldn’t watch him?”

“Didn’t ask her.”

“I—”

“You don’t want to watch your beautiful, wonderful, smart nephew?” Luna pouts, stooping to kiss the crown of her son’s head. “You hear that, Iz?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I would never say that. I’d think it, maybe, but I didn’t do that either. I’m just confused. I would’ve thought my brother and his fiancé would sooner drive all the way to the small college town where their friends still live and leave him with them than entrust him to me overnight.

Evidently, I thought wrong.

“There’s milk and snacks downstairs,” Luna tells me.

“He’s an angel, obviously , so he’ll probably sleep through the night.

Jackson’ll swing by and get him in the morning.

Oh, and—” She stoops to grab something out of the diaper bag on the floor and, with a flick of her hand, a swath of silky material floats towards me.

“Try this on. Now, preferably, so we can get it altered in time for the wedding.”

I frown at the light blue fabric sitting on my bed. “What is it?”

Luna looks at me like I’m a dumbass. “Your bridesmaids dress.”

I almost choke. “My what ?”

She repeats herself, slow and over-enunciating, but I still don’t get it. “You don’t have to do this,” I say just as slow. “I don’t have to be in the wedding.”

“I want you to be.”

Unfathomable . “Luna…”

“You think I just had an extra dress lying around? I want you in the wedding, Lottie. I always wanted you to be in the wedding.”

Cheeks going a little hot, I watch my thumb and forefinger as they pinch the smooth fabric, rubbing it between them. “And you thought if you hoped hard enough I’d magically appear?”

“No, snippy. I thought you’d get the invitation we sent.”

“I never got any invitation.”

“Yeah, we know that now. We thought you just ignored it.”

I drop my gaze, struck with an unsettling bout of shame because I probably would’ve. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Wearing a soft, cautious, very un-Luna-like smile, my future sister-in-law perches on the edge of my bed. “What’re the chances you’ll dye your hair to match my color scheme?”

“Slim to none.”

She sighs. “Thought so. Fix the roots and I’ll be happy.”

I only mumble a reluctant agreement because I know if I don’t, she’ll probably do it for me in my sleep.

For the same reason, I clamber to my feet at her urging, letting her snatch her son back in exchange for what I’ll be wearing to her wedding—to be in her wedding.

Because privacy is not a concept Luna is familiar with, she doesn’t allow me any as I change.

It’s surprising, honestly, that she even turns her back, humming a lullaby beneath her breath as she scans the small space around us with way too much interest for my liking.

“The wine’s hidden in my underwear drawer, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“You’ve got a complex, you know that?” Luna sighs again as she turns around, the noise becoming a gasp as her face contorts into an expression that’s as goofy as the way she croons my name.

I, on the other hand, groan at my reflection in the long mirror propped against the wall.

The dress is so… Luna . One wrong move away from scandalous with a touch of ridiculous extravagance.

Skin-tight from the scoop cowl neck to where the hem hits the floor, with thick straps that give way to…

well, nothing. My whole back is out, from the nape of my neck down to just above the waistband of my thong, and a satin fucking bow really highlights the tattoo I got when I was nineteen and thought a tramp stamp was the coolest thing in the world.

To be fair, I still do.

And while I love to show off the pretty, intricate butterfly wings the same way I love to show off a little skin, I still think, “I look ridiculous.”

“You look beautiful.” Luna appears in the mirror too, her head crooked to one side as her eyes stray to something in the reflection that isn’t me. “Finn, doesn’t she look beautiful?”

I tense. More desperate for a response than I care to admit, I twist to face the man half-emerging from the attic trapdoor—the man who hasn’t spoken to me since I told him to go fuck himself.

He’s barely even looked at me in two days, so I consider it a real miracle when those dark eyes land on me long enough to widen before flitting away.

That long, thick neck constricts with a tight swallow. “She does.”

Well, color me convinced.

Finn tells me dinner is ready with more conviction, barely waiting for my nod of acknowledgement before he’s gone. As his footsteps thump down the hallway below us, Luna pokes my arm. “What was that?”

I play the fool. “What was what?”

“The cold shoulder.” She pretends to shiver. “What did you do to him?”

“Why do I have to have done something to him ?”

Luna shoots me a deadpan look.

Yeah. Fair enough.

“I didn't do anything.” Not really. Only because he started it. “He just doesn’t like me.”

“Now who on earth wouldn't anyone like you?” Luna teases, pinching my cheek before firmly patting it. “Fix it, kid. I don’t want any fighting at my wedding. Apologize. Or if he did something—’’ Which she very much doubts, I can see it in those bright blue eyes.

“—make him apologize. Swan around in that dress for a little while longer and I’m sure he will. ”

And there I go again, grimacing at my reflection once more. “You’re never gonna get Grace into one of these.”

“I know. Everyone’s wearing something different.”

“Oh, so the slutty dress was specially picked for me?”

Luna smirks. “Exactly.”

My nephew hates me.

He hates me, and that’s why he’s chosen to fling an entire bowl of mashed Weetabix and berries at me.

There’s beige sludge all over my t-shirt. Under my t-shirt. Splattered on my neck. I tip my head forward to survey the damage properly and a smushed blueberry plops onto the counter.

Of course that , the kid eats.

“Little man.” I sigh. “Not cool.”

Isaac Jackson-Evans looks exactly like his mother as he giggles—no, I swear, he snickers .

Double-checking he’s securely strapped into his high chair, I turn to the sink and whip off my shirt, rinsing off the chunky bits of food before dipping into the laundry room next to the kitchen to chuck it in the washing machine.

I snag a towel while I’m in there and use it to the clean myself off too, wetting it beneath the faucet and dapping at my neck while tutting at Izzy.

Right as I’m bending over the sink to rinse off a particularly affected strand of hair, I hear the front door open.

Naturally. Because God forbid I be half-naked and covered in baby food with only the baby in question present to witness it.

Thanking my past self for at least putting on a decent sports bra before sloping downstairs to feed the tiny menace, I turn around, not even a little bit surprised when I find Finn rustling in the pantry because of course, it’s him.

I think I surprise us both, though, by muttering a, “Hey.”

I think he surprises us both too by saying nothing at all.

“Finn.” I cross my arms over my chest only to quickly uncross when I realize what that does to my tits—and then I cross then again when I consider a little obscene cleavage might help me out here. “C’mon.”

With as much enthusiasm as someone getting their teeth pulled, the man grumbles, “What’s up?”

“Are you done yet?”

That very defined jaw clenches, but still, he keeps his gaze on the bag of dried mango he snags from the pantry. “Done with what, Charlotte?”

Charlotte . Jesus Christ. “Ignoring me. Being all pissy.”

“Being all pissy,” he repeats through gritted teeth, raising his gaze, but to the ceiling, not to me. “Okay.”

“Okay, as in you’re done?”

I don’t sound hopeful. I definitely don’t because I’m not. I just want him to be done because the only thing that pisses me off more than someone talking my ear off is someone ignoring me.

Not hopeful, that’s what I am, and it’s a good fucking thing.

“Okay,” Finn repeats, and I already know where this is going, I already know I’m not going to like it. “As in I’m doing exactly what you asked. I’m fucking off. Everyone else might put up with you talking to them like shit, but I won’t.”

Suddenly, I’m glad he won’t look at me—that means he doesn’t see me flinch.

He doesn’t see how his words cut as deep as he likely intended them to, far deeper than I would prefer.

Deep enough to pierce something soft and protective and reactive, and fuck, do I react.

“So you can make out like I’m the antichrist, but I can’t tell you to go fuck yourself when you do? ”

Finally, he deigns to grace me with his stare. His wary, weary stare. “That’s not what I was doing.”

I scoff. I avoid his gaze now. I find Izzy’s and silently apologize for tarnishing his sweet little eardrums with such foul language, and then I remember who his mother is and I don’t feel so bad. I remember who the fuck I am, and I look at Finn again. “Sure sounded like it.”

“To you, maybe. Jesus, princess, not everything is a personal attack. If you let me finish —”

Ironic, I know, but I interrupt him. “It felt pretty fucking personal, Finn. I get it. I’m an asshole, I’m a bitch, I’m the most terrible person in the whole entire world and I don’t deserve to be a Jackson. Fine. I know . I don’t need everyone telling me that all the time.”

Just like that, the hard expression making that handsome, masculine face look so severe crumples. “Lottie…”

“Don’t,” I spit, I change my mind, I don’t care if he never speaks to me again. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want your shitty, guilty sympathy. I don’t want anything from you but silence and some fucking distance, okay?”

He drops his chin, lifts his brows, looks at me like I’m full of shit, and I guess he has every right to think that because I’m the one who started this conversation, I approached him . “I don’t think that’s true.”

“I don’t give a single fuck what you think.”

He doesn’t think that’s true either. I don’t even think it’s true. I think I give entirely too many fucks what he thinks, what everyone thinks, but I’m not going to stand around trying to convince either of us.

“Forget it.” Hoisting a whimpering Isaac into my arms, I mutter soft, frustrated apologies against his temple as I walk—okay, stomp —to the stairs. “Good night.”

Finn says my name again, I think he even follows me halfway upstairs, but I don’t stop. I don’t care. I think it’s bullshit, that I’m always the villain, always the one in the wrong, that everyone can say whatever the fuck they want to me, but if I react, then I’m the problem.

He started it. He accused me of fraternizing with the enemy, with the Webers of all people, and fine, sure, I’ve done a little more than fraternize in the past, but that was years ago.

Before their ranch even had horses, back when it was just cattle, back when I was a kid , practically.

It was a mistake. I’m not friends with them, not now, not then, not ever. I’m not like them.

Except Finn thinks I am. He took one look at my upturned mouth and didn’t see it for the same snarky sneer I’ve aimed at him more than once, and he jumped to his own conclusions.

And the worst part is, I don’t think he jumped very far.

I think it was more of a hop. Because he already thought I was terrible, it took nothing, literally fucking nothing , to cross the line into abhorrent.

Story of my fucking life, right?