6. Colton

Storms make trees take deeper roots. —Dolly Parton

Ah, fuck, she didn’t.

Except, yes. Yes, she did.

She’d just said the only thing on the planet to turn me off.

I froze just as she covered me completely. Half a second later, she froze too, her hand still wrapped around my cock.

Then she lifted her face to gauge my reaction, her eyes huge and lips parted in shock.

We just stared at each for, like, the longest second in eternity. And then she finally began to shake her head rapidly back and forth, denying what she’d just said.

“No,” she breathed, her chest heaving with panic. “I…I…I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—”

I jerked back, dislodging her grip from me. Her eyes only grew wider and more worried.

“Yeah, you did,” I said before whirling away to yank off the condom and throw it across the room. I jerked my pants up, wincing because for some reason hearing the girl with her hand around my junk say she loved my brother still hadn’t killed my erection. It hurt like hell to shove it back into my underwear and zip it up, nice and snug and blue-balled.

When I fumbled to close my shirt, I remembered the buttons for it were scattered across the floor.

Shit.

I thrust both hands through my hair, still feeling the imprint of her fingers there.

Double shit.

“Colton?” Her timid, uncertain voice made me wince.

I turned back slowly.

She’d shoved her skirt down, pulled the bustier back over her breasts and hopped off the table so she was standing before me as if I hadn’t been about to fuck her silly.

When she saw my expression, her eyes watered and she brought her hand to her mouth before muffling out, “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. You have to know I never meant—”

Shaking my head, I whipped my tux jacket off the table and started for the door, unable to listen to anymore.

I’d totally intended to be a bigger man than this and somehow help her smooth it all out, tell her it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t like she’d said something I hadn’t already known, and it was probably best we stopped anyway because seriously…drunk hookup at a wedding? Not the best idea. At least not for us two.

Things had morphed into hyperspeed at the drop of a hat. Her ugly, cold-water splash of the facts in our faces had actually been a good thing. We’d almost made a major mistake.

But I just…couldn’t. I couldn’t say I was grateful for what she’d said. I couldn’t stay in that room with her where I could still smell her release on my fingers and taste it on my tongue. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t even look at her.

It felt too much as if I’d just been stabbed in the heart with a really dull, really painful spoon, and I was simply unable to stick around a moment longer.

Suddenly, I hated my brother. Not because Julianna wanted him and not me, but because he’d forced me to go over to her in the first place.

If I’d just fucking stayed away, I wouldn’t have learned what her goddamn earrings meant, I never would’ve suspected she had the cutest, catchiest laugh, I never would’ve buried my fingers inside her or tasted champagne straight from her tongue. I never would’ve thought I might actually stand a chance. But now I knew all of that, and it made the realization that I still didn’t stand a chance all that much harder to swallow.

Stumbling from the room, I hit the still-quiet corridor and kept walking until I reached the door to a rear service exit of the building. Cold January air immediately filled my lungs, and I sucked it in hard, grateful for the sting it brought to my senses. A trio of waitstaff paused their smoke break to glance curiously at me. I nodded before turning in the opposite direction and pacing away for my own privacy.

Then I set my hands on my hips and bent at the waist, blowing out a long deep breath and causing a little vapor cloud to float up around me.

My arousal finally began to subside; the freezing air slapping against my bare chest helped. I straightened and shrugged on my jacket, wondering where my bow tie had gone. Thank God Brandt had forgone vests or cummerbunds when he’d rented our outfits; he was already going to kill me for losing my bow tie and the buttons off my shirt. He’d threatened me within an inch of my life not to spill anything on my tux when he’d handed it over to me earlier to wear. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to react to this.

And why the fuck was I worrying about his reaction to a ruined rented suit?

It was his fault I’d just experienced one of the worst moments of my life.

I felt like a fucking idiot. In the space of an hour—two, tops—I’d developed an extreme fixation on the girl who was hot for my big brother.

Who the fuck did that?

“Hey, man,” a voice called, dragging me from my whirling thoughts. I glanced over to find the reception workers now huddled at the back door. “This door locks from the outside,” the only guy in the group called. “And our break’s up, so if you want back in…”

I waved them off. “Thanks. I’ll just walk around to the front when I’m ready to go back.”

I certainly wasn’t ready to go anywhere at the moment.

They shrugged and disappeared into the building.

Jamming my hands into my pockets, I glanced up at a nearby streetlight, wondering how I was supposed to return to the reception anyway, with my shirt hanging open like this. But before my fingers slid too deep, I encountered damp cloth.

Shit. Her panties.

I pulled them out of my pocket and gaped at them in horror. I couldn’t keep them now, not when they only brought a pain-filled regretful memory. But when I glanced toward the dumpster only a few feet away, my fingers tightened around them protectively, unable to give them up.

An ironic snort left me.

I guess they were my consolation prize.

A consolation prize for the consolation prize.

Jesus, this was pathetic.

I didn’t want to hurt like this, didn’t want to keep replaying it over and over in my head, didn’t want to stick around out here, stuck in my own pity party.

So I liked a girl more than she liked me. Wasn’t the first time, probably wouldn’t be the last. I could deal with this. I’d only gotten to know her for a little while, anyway. We were still basically strangers. I didn’t need to mope around because I’d lost something I’d never even had.

But there was no way I was going back inside to that reception, especially when I knew she’d be there, all slick and bare under that dress…as she gazed longingly at my brother.

Yeah, fuck that.

With a new purpose, I started around the back of the building to the side where I remembered parking my truck. Just as my ride came into view and I slipped my keys from my pocket, my phone buzzed inside my jacket.

Gritting my teeth, I groaned as I pulled it free to check the text I’d just been sent. If Brandt or someone else was beckoning me back inside, I wouldn’t be able to go.

But it was from Noel, thank God.

FROM NOEL: Need you home now.

With a sigh, I pressed the phone to my forehead and closed my eyes. While I was delighted for a legitimate reason to leave, going home to deal with that didn’t sound very appealing either.

But family needed me, and I couldn’t ignore the summons.

I fumbled with my keys to find the right fob, only for my vision to blur and everything to duplicate before my eyes. Damn, I wasn’t as sober as I needed to be.

In no condition to drive, I glanced around the parking lot and tried to calculate how long it’d take me to walk home when I caught sight of a couple exiting the building. The man carried a baby carrier down at his side while the woman next to him held a sleeping boy propped on her hip, his head resting on her shoulder.

I watched them until she caught sight of me. Her welcoming smile glinted from the streetlamps overhead and immediately made me feel comforted. But then, Felicity Parker always had that effect on me; it’s probably why I’d been in love with her since I was ten.

“Colton! What’re you doing out here?” Smile dying, she furrowed her brow as she took in my tattered state of dress. “Is everything okay?”

I ignored the unspoken question of why my shirt was gaping open and my bare chest was on display for all the world to see. I merely said, “Noel needs me home, but…” I glanced at my truck, not really wanting to admit how much I’d had to drink.

Felicity’s face softened with sympathy. “Too much champagne?”

I nodded regretfully.

She sighed. “I saw them leave earlier. Aspen looked pretty pale.”

Glancing up, I felt the instinctive need to defend my sister-in-law and report that Aspen was doing fine. Just fine. But Felicity was her best friend. She knew the truth. All of us closest to her knew.

Shaking her head, Felicity looked up to her husband with pleading eyes. He let out a breath before saying, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get these two home. You take care of the Gambles.”

Face brightening with pleasure, she pushed up onto her toes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you. You’re the best husband ever.” Then she glanced my way. “Give me a second to help Knox get our crew loaded in the car, and then I’ll drive you home in your truck, okay?”

I had no reason to argue with that, so I nodded. “Okay.”

They had parked only a few spaces down from me, and went off to situate their ankle-biters. While they were doing their thing, I unlocked my truck and slipped into the passenger seat. A minute later, Felicity opened the driver’s side door and climbed behind the wheel. I held up my keys for her without a word and continued to stare out the front windshield.

“Thank you,” she murmured as she tugged them from my hand. After she started the engine, she glanced over at me, and I could feel her gaze examining me up and down.

Finally, she asked, “Do I even want to know what happened to your clothes?”

“Nope,” I answered, still staring out the window.

With a sigh, she backed out of the parking spot. “Oh, Colton. How do you manage to get into these pickles?”

I shook my head, clueless. “Just lucky, I guess.”

She made a sound in her throat, and from the contemplative tone of it, I was probably doubly lucky she didn’t say what she was thinking. A dozen years my senior, Felicity was like a second mother to me, or maybe a third mother, since Aspen was technically my second mother, though I thought of her as more of a first mother. Whatever the ranking, I was sure anything Felicity had to say at this moment would not sit well with me.

Because I already felt like shit.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye to make sure she was going to keep her thoughts to herself and caught sight of the earrings dangling from her ears. They weren’t dream catchers, but I was suddenly thinking about dangly dream catcher earrings.

I have no idea why learning Julianna had suffered from childhood nightmares too had endeared me to her. Hitler had lost four of his five siblings, both his parents, given all their pensioned money to his little sister Paula, and then been forced to live in homeless shelters because of it all by the time he was eighteen, and I didn’t feel much sympathy for him. But I’d felt a definite connection with Julianna.

Maybe it was because she still carried around a reminder of her night terrors, or rather the cure that had helped her get over them.

Just like I did.

Without meaning to, I reached out and flicked my finger against the rabbit’s foot and breath spray hanging from the keys in the ignition.

“Oh my goodness,” Felicity murmured, glancing at what I was doing. “Please tell me that’s not the original can of monster repellant I gave you years ago.”

I grinned at her fondly. “And if it is?”

“Colton,” she murmured, shaking her head and grinning wildly. “You sentimental sweetheart. What’re we going to do with you? I can’t believe you kept those silly ol’ things.”

She was probably one of the only two people I’d let call me a sweetheart, or sentimental. Then again, she was probably one of the only two people who’d think that way of me. But then, she and Aspen would probably always see me as their little sweetheart.

“How could they be silly if they worked?” I asked.

She smiled and grasped my wrist before I could retract my hand from the rabbit fur. Squeezing, she murmured, “I’m glad they worked.”

“Me too.” I drew her knuckles to my mouth and kissed them tenderly. “Did I ever thank you for chasing my nightmares away?”

Flushing, she shook her head. “There’s no need for that. I barely did anything.”

Barely anything my ass. She’d taken the time to talk me through my night terrors, then she’d helped me brainstorm ways to combat them, and to top it off, she’d given me these two keychains with a story about how they could protect me. And the nightmares had gone away completely.

I wouldn’t call that nothing. To me, she was a hero.

“You did a hell of a lot more than you know,” I argued as she turned down my street.

She glanced at me and patted my thigh. When she turned into the driveway, she said, “Now, tell me straight before I go in there with you. How bad off is she? Really.”

My chest tightened, and I shook my head adamantly. “You don’t have to come in. It’s fine. Just take my truck home. I’ll pick it up some time tomorrow.”

Felicity killed the engine and I knew she was coming inside. Fuck.

Yeah, she was Aspen’s best friend and all, but it devastated Aspen every time someone outside the family—or anyone inside the family, for that matter—saw her in her current state. And we Gamble men hated seeing anything devastate our Aspen.

She’d weathered the wedding a hell of a lot better than I’d thought she would—than I’m sure we’d all feared she would—but she was probably paying for it now.

My mind raced with some way to talk Felicity out of coming inside. Aspen would probably cry and apologize and feel really shitty, and Noel would kill me for being the cause of it.

Next to me, Felicity sighed throughout the quiet interior of the cab. “I know she’s suffering from more than just a simple case of the baby blues, Colton. She has some major postnatal depression going on, and I’m not sure why you Gamble boys seem so determined to keep it hidden from me, but I am her best friend, you know? So just what are you so afraid I’m going to do to her?”

Glancing at her, I answered honestly. “Make her talk about it. She only gets worse if you make her talk about it. And we’re already getting her help, I promise you. So there’s no need to go pushing any triggers, especially after she’s already spent a full day out of the house and around so many people. She’s got to be extra vulnerable right now.”

“Well.” Felicity blew out a breath. “I can assure you I will not make Aspen talk about it if that’s what you’re so worried about. But the way I see it, there are three people in that house right now who need assistance, so it only makes sense to me that it’ll take three of us to give each of them the attention they need.”

My shoulders slumped as I shook my head, giving in. “Okay. Fine. But Noel won’t like it.”

“Let me handle Noel.”

We climbed out of the truck together and started up the front walk. The moment we hit the porch, the front door came open. Noel bounced a fussing baby on his shoulder as he scowled out at me. “What the hell took you so…” His words died as soon as he saw Felicity, and his gaze went wary before he shifted an accusing glare to me.

“Hey, Noel,” she murmured, taking over before he could say anything. “Reinforcements have arrived. I’ll take the baby.”

Before Noel could really react, she was easing the infant from his shoulder and cradling her in her arms, cooing, “Hey there, little Lucy Olivia. Have you been giving your daddy grief? Yes, it sounds like you have. Aww…aren’t you just precious?”

As Lucy Olivia settled down to gaze up at the woman talking to her, Felicity snagged the burp rag still hanging from Noel’s shoulder and jiggled the baby in a happy manner, still talking to her, as they left the room together and disappeared down the hall in the direction of the nursery.

Noel sighed and rubbed his face. He was still wearing his tux from the wedding, with only the jacket removed and the bow tie undone at his neck.

“Beau’s still awake if you want to—”

“Yeah,” I murmured, waving him off. “I got the kid. Go take care of your wife now.”

Noel nodded gratefully and started to turn away, only to do a double take when he finally focused on me.

Question filled his face as he took in my gaping shirt, but I shook my head. “Long story.”

He looked too weary to pursue it, so he turned away to find Aspen. She was probably curled up in their bed, staring at the wall. She did that a lot these days. It was traumatizing for all of us to see her decline the way she had since Lucy Olivia had arrived, but it had hit Noel the hardest.

It felt as if I aged ten years as I trudged back to my room that I was currently sharing with my nephew. After Brandt had moved out to live with Sarah, the Beau-meister and I had gotten separate rooms. But then Lucy Olivia had come along a few months later. The plan had been for her to stay in a crib with Noel and Aspen in their room, but Aspen hadn’t been able to handle her crying, so Beau and I ended up together in order to make a nursery where baby sounds could be muffled.

When I opened the door to my room, toys lay scattered across the floor, and my three-year-old nephew sat happily in the middle of them, still wearing his slacks, button-up shirt, tie and black dress socks.

“Colt!” he cried eagerly when he saw me. Abandoning his toys, he raced over and jumped so that I had to catch him in midair.

“Hey, Bo Bo. You being good in here?”

He nodded seriously. “I haven’t left once, just like Daddy said not to.”

“Good job, kiddo.” My smile was painful. Beau understood the least why things had changed and he needed to give his mother more time to rest. We’d tried to explain she was sick, but then, of course, he’d had to ask her about her illness, which had, of course, resulted in her having a breakdown and fearing she was failing her son completely.

To say the least, Beau and I had been hanging out a lot more these days.

“Let’s say we get you cleaned up and into some pajamas, huh, big guy?”

Beau wrinkled his nose. “Daddy said I didn’t have to take a bath tonight.”

I totally didn’t get his aversion to baths. The kid loved water—he usually begged to go swimming every day during the summer. And once you wrangled him into the tub, he played with his toys until you had to drag him out with all his fingers and toes pruned and wrinkled. But he fought it every night anyway, without fail.

“Oh, did he?” I murmured, arching a censorious eyebrow. “Let me smell your hair.”

Beau eagerly tilted his head down for me to bring my nose close, and when I actually got a whiff of clean soap, I shrugged. “All right then, bud. But we still gotta brush your teeth.”

He groaned and complained, but I set him on the floor and swatted him lightly on the back to urge him along. “Get going, Captain Underpants.”

He laughed, loving the title, and raced from the room. I followed a little more leisurely and paused just outside the bathroom to let him do his thing on his own. Every wall of the hallway was plastered with hundreds—maybe thousands—of little slips of paper with a quote either handwritten or printed on each one.

When my gaze caught on one near the bathroom entrance, I snorted derisively. It said something about regrets only coming from things you never tried.

“Bull…shit,” I muttered, thinking immediately of bright pink cotton panties and the prettiest pussy I’d ever seen. I definitely regretted trying that, regretted learning more about her and kissing her and watching her come apart in my arms. And most of all, I regretted getting close enough to her that she could hurt me.

Down the hall, in the opposite direction as the nursery, I heard hushed, muffled voices. Needing to know how Aspen was doing, I inched that way and barely peered around the corner into Noel’s bedroom, hoping they didn’t spot me eavesdropping.

The two lay on the bed together, curled around each other, with both of them still wearing the clothes they’d gone to the wedding in.

Aspen sniffed and burrowed her face against Noel. “I didn’t do too bad today, did I? Do you think anyone knew?”

“No, not at all. You did great.” He smoothed her hair behind her ear before kissing her brow. “You did amazing.”

“No,” Aspen murmured, closing her eyes. “I didn’t.” A single tear trailed down her cheek.

Noel quickly wiped it away. “No one suspected a thing. You did just fine.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, and he hugged her close. “I’m tired of being this way, Noel. I’m so tired.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He rested his cheek on the top of her head and smoothed her hair. “It’ll be over soon, and you’ll feel better again. I swear.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

I turned away from the doorway and headed toward the bathroom to check on Beau, believing my brother. His sheer force of will would heal Aspen if nothing else did. I swear, he wanted it to happen so bad, it almost had to. She would get better, eventually. There was no maybe about it.

Noel loved his wife with an intensity I saw in few couples, three of those few being all of my siblings.

It was strange. Noel, Brandt, and Caroline had each found someone to fit them perfectly. In this day and age, that was unheard of, and yet…it left me with this hope, this determination that someday I’d find the same thing too. So I was always on the lookout, testing the waters to find that perfect fit for myself.

I mean, I didn’t turn down casual hookups along the way. Hello, I was an eighteen-year-old dude. But in the back of my mind, the ultimate goal had always been to find her, that girl who filled the gaps in me the same way all my siblings’ spouses had filled the gaps in them.

As my thoughts wandered back to Julianna, I decided something. Maybe I didn’t regret what had happened between us after all. I had tried something, tested the waters, and it hadn’t worked, but at least I’d tried, and now I knew without a doubt, the two of us were definitely not meant to be.