Archer’s biggest regret . . . ? What did that even mean?
“I’m going to have another s’more while we’re waiting,” Kylie said, and she walked back to the fire.
Still reeling while pretending not to be, Elle stayed beneath the tree, looking up through the branches to the night sky, which was clear, crisp, and admittedly stunning.
She felt Archer come up beside her, felt the heat and strength of him, and as always her body stilled although she didn’t take her eyes off the sky. “What did you mean?” she asked.
He didn’t pretend to not understand. “That night,” he said quietly. “I didn’t get you out before you got hurt. That’s my biggest regret.”
The air backed up in her lungs at this unexpected statement and unwelcome memories flooded her. She and Morgan had left home about six months before that night, leaving their grifter mom to her business. The sisters had wanted a better life for themselves, a life free of trouble. Or at least that was what Elle had wanted, but Morgan, eighteen to Elle’s sixteen, had difficulty leaving trouble behind.
Unbeknownst to Elle, Morgan had gone back to working on the side for Lars, her bad-news boyfriend, in the same field as their mom. When one of Lars’s cons had involved a jewelry heist with a load of invaluable Russian antiques, Morgan had gotten scared and come clean to Elle, wanting out but having no idea how to get out.
Elle had told her she’d take care of it. And she’d tried. She’d taken the part of the loot that Morgan had in her possession back to Lars to tell him to leave her sister the hell alone or else. She had no “else” but she’d been willing to wing it in order to get Morgan out.
Unfortunately, two things had gone wrong. One, Lars hadn’t been amenable to what she had to say. In fact, he’d pinned her against the wall, his plan to beat her into submission and she wasn’t sure what else, but it wasn’t going to be good. He’d gotten halfway through that plan when the second problem had hit and hit hard.
A police raid and drug bust. Seemed along with illegal antiques, the boyfriend had also been drug running. And there she’d been, holding evidence no less. She should’ve been caught up with the others and arrested, but she’d had a guardian angel looking over her that night.
Archer.
He’d been undercover and he’d blown his cover to pull her out. It’d cost him everything. His job. His relationship with his dad.
She had no idea how he’d ever forgiven her. Or maybe he hadn’t, given that so many years had gone by without any contact between them. That had changed last year when she’d landed her job in the same building as Hunt Investigations, but she couldn’t say they’d made much headway, since whenever they ended up in the same place at the same time they either bickered like children or were as silent and awkward as strangers.
And now she could add or kissed like their lives depended on it to the list.
But mostly what she remembered when she thought about that night was how alone she’d been. Alone, scared, and cornered in that old park . . . And Archer had seen her that way. No wonder he didn’t want her. To him, she was nothing but that little girl. All the maturing and growing up she’d done, the success she’d had, none of it could erase that horrifying first impression she’d made.
And as always happened when she thought about it, the bottom fell out of her stomach. She swallowed hard and shook her head. “You weren’t responsible for me, Archer. I was there of my own accord. What happened was my fault. Everything that happened that night was my fault.”
“And yet you’ve never forgiven me for it,” he said.
Her heart squeezed so hard she had to close her eyes and take a long, deep breath and a moment to try to get herself together. She couldn’t believe he thought that. “It wasn’t you I had to forgive. It was myself.”
When he didn’t speak, she opened her eyes.
But just like that long-ago night, she was alone.
Four nights later, after several long days of work and hours and hours of homework in her office, Elle finally followed her stomach downstairs and across the courtyard, the goal being the pub for some of Finn’s famous chicken wings and a tall glass of something with a good kick.
She’d gotten a text from Finn that tonight was country night. Her concession to a costume was switching out her heels for some pretty cowboy boots and adding a cowboy hat and a belt that proclaimed her a Rebel on the silver belt buckle.
She hadn’t spoken to Archer since the Kiss Debacle. And although she hadn’t run into him, he’d made plenty of appearances in her dreams and he hadn’t walked away from her in those. In fact, just thinking about all the things he’d done to her in the deep dark of her fantasy world always made her break out in a sweat.
She could only imagine what would happen if they were ever stupid enough to try to swallow each other’s tonsils again. Her vagina might actually go up in flames . . .
But they wouldn’t be stupid enough for that. Or at least he wouldn’t. After all, he’d been the one to put the brakes on. And he’d not even looked back.
Which made that the second time. She didn’t usually keep score but she really needed to remember that the next time he appeared behind her eyelids in the night. He wasn’t right for her. And he was never going to be right for her.
Ever.
And if that thought hurt, she shoved it away, shoved it deep. She was good at that, real good. She’d shoved deep lots of bad before. Such as giving up on ever having anything that resembled a “normal” family. She’d never known her dad and she’d walked away from her mom a long time ago. She’d had to do the same with her sister, although that one had been a lot harder and still haunted her.
So Archer not wanting her? Right in her wheelhouse.
Halfway across the courtyard, she ran into Kylie standing at the fountain. She stood there in skinny jeans that emphasized her toned, petite body. She had a tear in one knee and another across her opposite thigh, was wearing a tool belt and a fleece-line leather bomber jacket, and was looking both incredibly feminine and badass at the same time.
Elle loved the look, although she thought Kylie could use a little lip gloss. Not to please a man or anything like that. Just because she seemed pale today and needed a little color.
Kylie blew out a sigh like the day had been hard and long, and shoved back her long, wavy brunette hair, leaving a streak of sawdust in it.
“Um,” Elle said, pointing to it but Kylie waved her hand like she didn’t care. She had her little rescue pup, Vinnie, on a bright blue leash at her side. Four months ago he’d been all head and ears, small enough to fit into her pocket.
He was still all head and ears, and might still grow up to be either a very big rat or a French Bulldog. It was anyone’s guess.
In any case, Vinnie was wearing a bolo tie—clearly ready for country night at the pub. He looked up at her, his warm brown eyes dancing with the kind of excitement for life only a dog could muster.
“You look very handsome, cowboy,” she told him.
Vinnie panted happily and melted to the cobblestones to expose his kibbles and bits.
“Just like a man,” Elle said on a laugh but dutifully bent down to scratch his belly. She looked up at Kylie. “You’re staring down that water like it’s your mortal enemy. What gives?”
Kylie shrugged. “It’s going to sound pretty stupid to you.”
“Try me.”
“Okay,” Kylie said. “I’m trying to decide if I trust love enough to actually wish for it.” She revealed the quarter in her palm.
“Is that what you’re doing out here?” Elle asked. “You’re trying to get the balls together to wish for love?”
“Well, yeah.” Kylie looked at her. “Both Pru and Willa found love as a direct result of their wishing.”
“You really believe that?”
Kylie bit her lower lip, watching as Willa and Keane came out of the stairwell holding hands as they made their way through the wrought-iron gate to the street and vanished. “I want to beli
eve.” She looked at Elle. “You really don’t ever feel tempted?”
Maybe for a teeny-tiny second . . . but she was over that now, not that she’d ruin someone else’s dream. “I don’t know. But I do know this—I wouldn’t want to have to wish for it. If it were to happen, I’d want it to happen organically.”
Kylie blinked at her. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming from you. You’re a closet romantic.”
Elle hadn’t seen that coming either, but it was unfortunately true. She let out a low laugh and shook her head. “In the end, it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what you think that really matters.” She took the quarter from Kylie’s hand and tossed it into the water. “Bring Kylie true love,” she told the fountain. She looked at Kylie. “There. It’s out of your hands now. It’s done.”
Kylie flashed a grin. “Because you’ve deemed it so?”
“That’s right.”
Kylie shook her head, still smiling. “Does the whole world always do exactly as you command?”
She got that question a lot. “When it knows what’s good for it,” she quipped.
Kylie smiled. “So are you going to laugh at me if I say I really want to believe the wish will come true?”
“Well, not to your face,” Elle said. “Are you hungry? Because I need Finn’s chicken wings in the worst possible way and you don’t even want to know how badly I need a drink to go with them.”
“Yes,” Kylie said fervently.
“Okay, then. But first . . .” Elle pulled as much of the sawdust from Kylie’s hair as she could.
The pub was crowded. Luckily for them, Finn always kept the far side of the bar open to the people who lived and worked in the building. Pru, Haley, Willa, and Keane were already there, in varying degrees of “cowboy” attire.
Kylie sat, but Elle remained on her feet as they dug into the chicken wings. She’d been sitting all day and she feared getting a flat ass. She wasn’t ready to concede her curves just because she was working her ass off for a better life than she’d ever had before.
She wanted the good life and her curves, dammit.
“There’s one unhappy cowboy,” Pru said, gesturing to one of the dining tables, where a family sat with two little kids wearing more barbeque sauce than their food. The two-year-old was wailing at the top of his lungs, the slightly older one grinning from ear to ear.
Elle shuddered. “Can you imagine?”
“Yes,” Pru said with a soft smile.
Willa nodded, looking a little sappy. “It can’t be harder than having pets. At least kids eventually learn to use the toilet.”
Her boyfriend, Keane, laughed. “Such a romantic.”
“Always,” Willa said. “Maybe we should go practice procreation.”
Keane leaned in for a kiss. “Anytime.”
“You too,” Finn said to Pru. “You just say the word. I could practice the shit out of procreating.”
Elle watched the kids another minute. Small children tended to make her nervous. They were like little ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. “I don’t know if I see myself with kids,” she admitted.
“Hey, you’d make a great mother,” Pru said sincerely. “You’re strong and smart, and you always stick up for those you care about. Seriously, any kid would be lucky to have you as a mom.”
“The whole birth thing though,” Elle said. “It just seems like a poor exit strategy, doesn’t it?”
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to face a guy in a very nice suit, looking like a million bucks. And his smile looked like another million. Mike, she remembered, one of Archer’s clients.
“Hey,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Uh-huh. “You know I work in the building,” she said.
He rubbed his jaw and gave a wry smile. “Okay, so I was hoping to see you here. I’d really like to ask you to dance because that’s my signature move, but Archer told me very firmly that you were taken.”
She put her drink down and purposefully inhaled a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “He said what?”
Mike nodded and took a few nuts out of the mixed nuts bowl on the bar. “Yeah. He was pretty clear about it, actually.”
Archer, the man who didn’t want her for himself, had said she was taken. She could actually feel steam coming out of her ears. She hadn’t had a guy into her in . . . well, forever. In fact, she hadn’t had sex in two years and her parts were threatening to mutiny. “He said I was taken,” she repeated, needing to be sure before she planned Archer’s death.
His slow, painful death.
“He did,” Mike said. “I think his exact words were ‘off-limits’ and ‘don’t even think about it.’”
She might have growled. She certainly seethed. But honestly, a lot of the temper was at herself because when would she learn? Archer would never stop thinking of her as a responsibility, and she really did owe it to herself to move on, to find a man who could see her for more than just a scared, vulnerable girl.
“Whoa there, rebel,” Spence murmured behind her, having come in during the exchange. “No sense committing murder before you’ve finished your drink.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because I see a lot of sense in it.”
Spence shook his head. “I’m not in the mood to bail you out of jail today.”
“Tomorrow then?” she asked, but sighed at his firm expression. “Oh forget it. I hate orange and I think jumpsuits are the work of the devil.”
“That’s my girl,” Spence said. “Always thinking.”
Mike, who’d followed the conversation closely, grinned. “So . . . you’re saying Archer was mistaken.”
Oh yes. Mistaken. On so many levels. And she mentally tossed in the towel. Enough was enough, it really was time to move on from him and get herself that life she wanted. Past time. “I’m saying Archer shouldn’t speak for me,” she said as she took a second, closer look at Mike, who was successful, sharp, and quite easy on the eyes. Sure, he didn’t send her heart rate into the stratosphere, but hey, maybe she could work on that.
“I’m sitting over there, having drinks with some buddies.” He gestured behind him to a table where three guys were drinking beer and watching a game on one of the big-screen TVs on the wall. “They bet me that I wouldn’t be able to start a conversation with the most beautiful woman in the bar.” He grinned. “Wanna prove them wrong and go out to dinner with me on their dime?”
Deciding she needed a second opinion, she glanced over at Spence who gave her a slow head shake.
“Negative,” Spence said. “It’s a bad idea.”
Okay, never mind the second opinion. She turned back to Mike. Being impulsive had never been her thing but there was a first time for everything. “Yes,” she said.
“Oh Christ,” Spence muttered.
Mike grinned. “Great, let’s go.”
“Go?” she asked, having expected they’d stay in the pub.
“Oh, I’ve got something different from the pub in mind, great as it is,” he said. “Trust me?”
“Hell no.”
Mike just laughed. “An honest woman. I love it. And smart too. How about this. I promise you a good time, and if I fail you can sic Archer on me to kick my ass. How’s that?”
“I fight my own battles,” she said.
“Fine. You can kick my ass.” He was nudging her to the front door of the pub, his hand on the small of her back when Elle felt a prickle of awareness at the nape of her neck. Turning her head, her gaze tracked to the back of the pub, where Archer had come out of the pool room, cue in hand, eyes on her.
For the briefest of seconds she hesitated there at the pub door, Mike at her side, Archer in her peripheral vision. There was no expression on his face, none. He was his usual cool, calm, impenetrable self and it was that, in the end that got to her. If he didn’t want her to go out with someone else, well then he should’ve asked her out himself—before she’d changed her mind about him, that is.
“You okay?”
Mike asked, eyes on her, seemingly unaware of Archer’s presence.
She had no idea, to be honest. She suspected she wasn’t but that had never stopped her from pretending to be. “Of course. I’m fine,” she said, exercising her one true superpower of shoving her emotions down deep.
Thirty minutes later she found herself boarding a helicopter for a tour of the city. She’d never done anything like it in her entire life and she could feel her heart pounding in her throat excitedly as they rose straight up into the air.
Mike, sitting next to her, proved to be a great tour guide. He showed her a view of San Francisco she’d never seen from this angle before. The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Fisherman’s Wharf . . . They even flew above Point Reyes, where she could see the entire mountainside covered in a blanket of greens and oranges and browns, the cliffs rolling toward the sea. Sunlight glinted off the deep blue ocean.
And then halfway through their hour of flight time, the pilot spoke privately to Mike through their comms.