Chloe recognized the nasally voice of Joyce Ledbetter, David’s fourth-grade teacher—the one who had assigned him a book report without making sure he had access to a book. She’d been wanting to tell Joyce what she thought of that stupid idea, but hadn’t seen the other teacher. Maybe now was her chance. And maybe she could draw on her newfound bravery. Except boldness in the bedroom didn’t exactly equate to courage in confrontations.
Still. She could do this. For David. And for herself.
She drew in a breath, then let it out in a rush when she heard Joyce mention Colt’s name.
“I’m telling you,” Joyce was saying. “I saw Chloe get out of his truck.”
“Are you sure it was Colt James?” The other voice scoffed. It belonged to Jane Hoffman, the music teacher. Jane was still in her first year of teaching and had always been kind to Chloe. Until now, apparently.
“As sure as I’m standing here. And it isn’t the first time I’ve seen him drop her off.”
“Maybe he was just giving her a ride. They could be friends, you know.”
Joyce gave a haughty snort. “Yeah right. As far as I’ve seen, Miss Perfect doesn’t have any of those.” She lowered her voice, and Chloe leaned toward the door, tears pricking the backs of her eyes, her courage seeping out of her like air from an old balloon. She should leave, back away, stop listening, but she couldn’t.
“They didn’t look like just friends to me,” Joyce continued. “Not the way he had his arm around her shoulder as he tried to kiss her.”
“Wait. You saw him kiss her?”
“I saw him try to kiss her. But she turned away.”
“What? No way. Now I know you’ve got your story wrong. Why would anyone turn away from a kiss from Colt James? That guy is seriously hot.”
“Precisely my point.”
“There must be something more going on.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it. Although I can’t figure out what. And I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what he could see in her.”
“Oh, come on. Chloe is nice.”
“You say nice, I say boring. That woman is total dullsville. And besides, nice doesn’t get guys like Colt James.”
Chloe let out a shuddering breath. She had to get out of there. Sure, Joyce was being a total witch, but her words carried a ring of truth to them. All the wicked things she’d said were confirming Chloe’s own thoughts about herself. She was boring and dull, and there was no reason for Colt to be interested in her. Everything Joyce had said was true. And even though Chloe had just been cataloging her faults to herself, hearing them from someone else—a colleague, no less—had every word stinging like tiny sharp daggers to her heart.
She sank against the wall, the papers no longer a concern as she wrapped her arms around her stomach in an effort to hold herself together, afraid if she didn’t, her body would fall apart, and her broken heart would leak onto the stained linoleum floor.
Chloe pressed her hand to her chest, willing her rapidly beating heart to slow down. What if she had a heart attack? Right here—on the floor outside the teachers’ lounge? It would serve those nasty gossips right.
As appealing as a revenge heart attack sounded, Chloe would prefer to simply melt into the floor and disappear. Dipping her chin to her chest, she buried her face in her hands.
“Chloe? You all right, darlin’?” a deep voice asked.
She shook her head. Seriously? Could Colt have picked a worse moment to come around the hallway corner—just in time to see her huddled on the floor, burning with shame? She squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to gain her composure and trying to ignore the sudden hush in the teachers’ lounge followed by an embarrassed giggle.
Gathering the fallen papers, she pasted on a smile and gave an Oscar-worthy show of pretending everything was okay. “Of course, I’m fine. I just dropped my papers.”
“Let me help you,” he said, reaching down to capture a loose page and hand it to her.
“I’ve got it,” she answered, brusquer than she’d meant to sound. “I just needed to make some copies before I finish up for the day.”
“Sure, no problem. Although I am anxious to get you home. I’ve got a big surprise for you.”
A short burst of laughter came from the lounge followed by a shushing sound, and heat flamed Chloe’s cheeks as Colt walked into the lounge before she could stop him. Tempted to turn tail and run, she instead let out a sigh, then held her chin up and followed him in. Her coworkers might have guessed she’d heard them, but no way would she let on that their words bothered her.
“Ladies,” Colt said, tipping his cowboy hat as he crossed to the copy machine.
“Hi, Colt,” Joyce replied, casually leaning her hip against the side of a chair. “What’s new?”
“Not much. You?”
Chloe pushed her stack of papers into the tray on the copier and hastily punched the buttons to make thirty copies.
“Nothin’ new or exciting with me. But did I just hear you say you had a big surprise for our friend, Miss Bishop, here? Do tell.”
Our friend? A minute ago, she’d said she didn’t think Chloe had any friends. Now suddenly, she was claiming to be one. The nerve of this woman.
“Did I say that?” He was teasing her, and she was eating it up.
Gag. Chloe grabbed the warm finished copies from the machine. “All done. Let’s go.”
“You don’t need to rush out on our account,” Joyce said, her voice saccharine sweet. “We want to hear all about this surprise.” She raised her hand and pointed back and forth between them. “I hadn’t realized you two knew each other.”
A secret part of Chloe—the small part that was occasionally brave and snarky and confident—wanted to slide her arm around Colt’s waist and flippantly state she and Colt had been shagging their brains out for days now. But of course, she didn’t. Because the realistic part of her—the sane, responsible part—knew that was a bad idea and would only come back to bite her in her smart-alecky behind. So instead, she kept her lips pressed together and tried to smile as she let Colt field the question.
“Oh yeah, we’ve been friends for a while now,” he said. “And Chloe…er…Miss Bishop is helping me coach the eight-and-unders hockey team.”
“Oh, we thought we saw you drop her off at school a couple of times,” Jane interjected.
So much for her being the sweet one. She was just as nosy as Joyce. Not quite as obnoxious about it, but still just as nosy.
“Yeah, her car’s been in the shop so I’ve been giving her a ride.”
Joyce narrowed her eyes at Chloe. “A hockey coach, huh? I didn’t realize you knew so much about hockey.”
Chloe pushed back her shoulders—she did have a little pride left, dang it. “There are quite a lot of things you don’t know about me, Joyce.” She turned to Colt, flashing him what she hoped was her most dazzling smile. “Shall we go? I can’t wait to see this surprise you have for me.”
“Yep.” He tilted his hat once more, then followed her out.
They didn’t say anything else as they walked back to her room, collected her things, and headed for his truck.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” he finally said when they’d buckled in and headed toward her house.
“What do you mean?” she asked, trying to keep up the feigned innocence act.
“I mean that little scene in the teachers’ lounge.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, you mean the one where I walked up and overheard Jane, the music teacher who I had thought was my friend, and Miss Nosy-Nellie Joyce, who is apparently a mean-spirited witch, gossiping about me and a certain cowboy who has been dropping me off at school and contemplating how such an amazingly hot guy could have any interest in someone as dull and boring as me?”
“Ouch. That sounds terrible. But on the positive side, did they really say I was amazingly hot?” He gave her a teasing grin.
She answered with a hard glare.
“Too soon?” He chuckled as he turned the corner.
She held her glare.
“You know I’m just teasing you. And that had to be rough. But seriously, who cares what they think?”
“I care. I have to work with them every day.”
“So what? They were obviously just being petty and jealous. You want me to go back and set them straight? Tell them how it really is?”
“You already did that. You very cleared explained that we were just friends, and you were only dropping me off at school because my car broke down.” She tried to keep the anger out of her voice but failed. Miserably.
He drew his head back, and his brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought I was helping. I was trying to protect your reputation.”
“My reputation?” She shook her head, trying to understand what he meant. “As what? A dull spinster who couldn’t possibly get a man, and especially not one of your caliber? Well, you did a great job there. Now they know for sure that’s true.”
He pulled up in front of her house, cut the engine, and turned to look at her. His teasing tone softened. “Hey, come on now, are you really upset about this thing?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Of course I’m upset. I overhear two gossips talking about how I couldn’t possibly have someone as good-looking as you interested in someone as dull and boring as me. Then you confirm their suspicions by telling them you’re only hanging out with me because we coach a hockey team together and you’re doing me a favor because I don’t have a car.”
“Chloe, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you. I really was trying to protect you. This town is full of gossips and folks who don’t have anything better to do than talk about other people, and I was trying to keep you from becoming the center of one of those rumors. I’m not ashamed of you or us, but I do feel like what’s happening with us is still pretty new. I thought it was better to keep it just between us until we figured out what we wanted it to be first.”
What he was saying made sense, and she wanted to believe him. But there was still a part of her that had to wonder if that was all an excuse, a well-spoken justification for not telling anyone they were involved. She stared into her lap and used the edge of her fingernail to scrape at a spot of dried glue on her thigh. It somehow seemed significant that a cute guy was rationalizing his reasons for not telling other people he was involved with her while she was trying to scratch a chunk of craft glue and some glitter off her jeans.
He reached over and touched her chin, turning her head to face him. “Chloe, don’t let those women get to you. They don’t even matter. You are beautiful—inside and out. And anyone who sees us together knows the truth—that you’re the pretty one who is way too good for a chump like me.”
Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back. Was he serious? His words were sweet but totally untrue. She didn’t know how to respond, how to argue without it turning into a contest of who could flatter the other one more. And she didn’t want to go there because she knew she’d eventually lose. “You’re not a chump” was all she could manage to say.
He grinned. “There are a whole passel of people who would line up to disagree with you. And my brothers would probably be the ones forming the line.”
She studied his face. He was grinning like he was teasing, but there was true pain hidden in his eyes. How did they even get to this place in their conversation? And how could she get them out of it? Her head was pounding from the whole crazy afternoon, and she just wanted to go into her tidy little home and have a hot cup of tea and quit talking about who was the better catch.
“Did you say something about having a surprise for me?” She couldn’t imagine what it could be. Well, she could imagine. She could imagine a lot of things and could probably be persuaded to forgo a cup of tea in favor of a cup of cowboy, but he didn’t act like that’s what the surprise had to do with.
As he jumped out of the truck and came around to get her door, the smile on his face was more like an excited kid who couldn’t wait for someone to open his handmade Christmas gift. “I thought of it while I was fixing your door and spent the better part of the day trying to get it ready for you.”
He led her up the path, and she gasped as she caught sight of her new front door. Her last door had been scarred and battered and made from pressed wood. This door was gorgeous and changed the whole look of the front of her house. “It’s beautiful.”
He unlocked the shiny new brass doorknob, then passed her the key. “I installed the door and put in new locks and a dead bolt.”
She ran her hand over the beautiful oak and marveled at the intricately designed stained-glass window in the center. It was lovely, and most certainly out of her price range for home repairs. “This is so wonderful, but it’s too much. I can’t afford this.”
“Sure you can. I got a great deal on it.”
“I can’t imagine any kind of deal that would put this kind of door into my budget.”
“Really, Gus barely charged me anything,” Colt insisted, referring to the owner of the hardware store. “He got it for a song, then gave it to me at cost.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Let me guess—he owed you a favor?”
Colt shrugged. “Something like that.”
Somehow, she knew arguing with him would get her nowhere, and he seemed so excited about the new door that she didn’t want to ruin it by arguing over the price. “Well, this really is a great surprise. I love it.”
His face broke into an even more excited grin. “Oh, this isn’t even the surprise.” He took her purse and tote bag from her and set them on the bench inside the door, then closed it behind her. “Follow me.” He led her through the living room and into the kitchen.
Everything looked the same as she’d left it that morning, perfectly neat and all her things in their place. He opened the door to the garage and flipped the light switch. A proud smile beamed from his face as he waved his hand toward the center of the room. “Ta-da!”
The garage was her weakness—the one messy out-of-control spot in her house, a good tip-off that whatever he had to show her wasn’t in the sexy category. Not unless he was going to strip down to just a tool belt.
A spark of heat coursed down her back at the mental image. But the spark fizzled and died as she stepped through the door and into the sparkling-clean garage.
The dusty recliner and the heaps of boxes filled with the remnants of her father’s life were gone, and the remaining cartons were stacked neatly against the side wall. The floor had been swept clean, and her car sat in the center of the room, the crumpled door repaired, the new paint job gleaming in the overhead light.
She pressed her hand to her stomach and gasped again. But this time is wasn’t from delight. Not even close. “What have you done?” she cried.
His excited expression crumpled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what have you done? What happened to my dad’s stuff?”
“I took it to the thrift store.”
“You did what?”
“Don’t worry, I only took the boxes that were clearly marked to be donated. Then I stacked and organized the others against the wall so you’d have room to park in here.”
“Who said you could do that?”
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “I guess I thought you did. You told me more than once that you wanted to get rid of all those boxes in the garage, but you just haven’t had the time or the means to do it.”
“So, you thought you’d do it for me?” Chloe could hear her voice rising to a near-shrieking volume.
“Yeah, I was trying to help. Justin called to tell me your car was finished, so I picked it up this afternoon and figured I’d clean out the garage to give you a safe and dry place to park it. I wanted to surprise you.” Colt glanced around the room as if looking for answers. “I don’t get it. I thought you’d be happy.”
“Well, that’s what you get for thinking,” she snapped.
His head jerked back like she’d physically slapped him.
She didn’t care. This, combined with the events of the last week, swirled around her, twisting and roiling in her gut. Nausea churned inside her, and she swallowed at the bile burning the back of her throat. Who did he think he was, touching her things, organizing her space, throwing away her belongings?
Those things were her barometer, the catalyst that would finally let her prove to herself that her father no longer controlled her. She knew that when she finally let go of his things, she would let go of him and the hold he had over her. That she would be free.
Getting rid of the stuff was her final hurdle to proving she was courageous enough to live her own life. And now Colt, another man, had taken that away from her.
So many things had changed in her life this last week. Her whole reality felt altered and distorted. She craved control, routine. Her life was a set of carefully managed schedules. And this man had come crashing in and changed everything. She was going to bed at erratic times, eating differently, changing her shower routine to accommodate another person in the bathroom. Being with him was changing everything—from sharing her bed with someone else to her coworkers laughing at her and mocking her behind her back.
This was all too much, and she couldn’t take it. “You had no right to come in and take my things. I barely know you. Do you think just because we’re sleeping together you have the right to do whatever you want?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not. I was trying to help, to do something nice for you.”
“Something nice would be picking up a pizza. This is too much. This is crossing a line. Before I met you, I had a perfectly controlled life. I knew what to expect and how my day, my week, would go, and now you’re here and everything is changing. I’m changing. My routines are changing. You’re messing everything up, and I can’t handle it.” All the anger and frustration and feelings of inadequacy of the past week whirled together as if in an emotional spin cycle. Her voice was shaking, and she clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling.
He flinched, then gave a slow, disbelieving headshake. “Well, gosh, I’m sorry, Chloe. I sure as hell didn’t mean to mess your entire life up. Here I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“Like you do for everyone else?” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her, but she was mired too far into her own self-righteousness to back down now. “Is that how you see me? As one of your charity cases? Poor little Chloe, a wounded sparrow, how sad she doesn’t have anyone in her life. Maybe I’ll throw her a bone, pay a little attention to her, try to save her from her pathetic life.”
He took a step back. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? How could I possibly see you as a charity case? You honestly think I’ve been with you the past week because I feel sorry for you?”
She crossed her arms, her indignation like a ball of fire burning and raging in her chest. “I honestly have no idea why you’ve been with me.”
The hurt expression on his face changed to one of frustration mixed with anger. “I guess that makes two of us.” He shook his head as he strode out of the garage.
Chloe held herself tighter, pressing her lips together as she listened to his bootheels stomp across her kitchen floor. She waited until the front door slammed before she let the sob escape her as she crumpled to the neatly swept floor of the garage.
* * *
Chloe turned off the water and reached for a towel. She’d spent the last several hours power-cleaning her house, and her back and knees ached from the effort. The hot shower had felt good on her muscles, but had done nothing to soothe the ache in her heart.
She finished drying off, then dropped the damp towel and pulled on her robe. The warm steam had filled the room, and she was glad the condensation covered the mirror so she didn’t have to face herself. Leaving her hair on top of her head in a messy bun, she washed her face and brushed her teeth. It wasn’t quite six o’clock, but she considered crawling into bed anyway and trying to sleep off this awful day.
What a horrible person she’d been to Colt. She couldn’t believe the things she’d said. He didn’t deserve that. He’d only been trying to help. And she had told him she wanted to take those boxes to Goodwill—had very emphatically explained there was nothing in them she wanted, and they were only taking up space in an otherwise functional space.
She hadn’t told him the stuff was important. In fact, she’d made a point of acting like it wasn’t. So why wouldn’t he think he was helping by getting rid of it?
Now he probably thought she was crazy. She’d acted completely out of character. She should have just taken a deep breath and explained why she was so upset.
Why did she freak out on the one man she’d been dreaming about for months and had finally been given a chance to be with?
Because she knew it wouldn’t last, knew there was no possible way it could be real? Because some desperate part of her figured if she pushed him away first, it would be easier than having him leave her later?
I’m such a fool.
He hadn’t pushed her away. He’d done something nice. And she’d wrecked it—wrecked everything.
The doorbell rang, and her heart lifted in hopes it was him. She raced down the hallway, the words of her apology and explanation already on her tongue.
She didn’t even think as she grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door open.
But it wasn’t Colt standing on her doorstep.