“It’s good to have you back, Poppy.” Something just this side of fatigue is layered in that look he gives me. It’s probably closer to regret or resentment.
“You don’t have to fake it with me, Jaxson. You hate this. I’m the last person on the planet you want to even pretend to like.” I growl over at him without meaning to. “Don’t worry. As soon as our big reveal is through, I plan on being on the next plane back to L.A.”
The band stops playing, and the lead singer starts in on the New Year’s countdown as couples scurry together to get their midnight molestations underway.
“Now go ahead and get back to that boob parade you’re the grand marshal of,” I snip. “I’d hate for any of your bodily members to miss out on their shining moment.”
And with that, I head back into the icy night, slipping all the way to my mother’s loaner in my thousand dollar L.A. Louboutins and freezing in my flimsy leather jacket.
I shiver all the way back home, wondering just what in the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
Jaxson
Poppy Montgomery.
Now there’s a name that never leaves my conscious—but that face, those hot full lips I would love to take a bite out of, they never seem to leave my dreams. It’s one thing to think about her, but another altogether to have her here in the flesh. Her beating heart was just a second away from mine last night. I didn’t want her to leave like that, but it seems like my entire life I’ve had the ability to chase her away. It wasn’t always that way—somewhere around sophomore year I turned scaring Poppy away into an unintentional art form. Wish to hell I knew what I did wrong. I rack my brain trying to figure that out every damn day.
“Penny for your thoughts.” My mother comes up beside me as I stare out the window at the construction crew working busily away on this the first day of the new year. I didn’t hang out after Poppy left last night. In fact, I followed her home, just to make sure she got there safe. I hung back far enough for her not to notice. I’m not sure she would care if I did. I’m not sure why I care. I’ve never been hated so much by anyone the way that girl hates me. Not that I didn’t secretly enjoy every moment we’ve ever spent together. I made all of her rage worth her while. Half the things I did in my life were meant to infuriate that girl.
“It’ll cost you a billion,” I tease as I sigh at the sight. “Contractor says two more months. You think you can handle my man stink for that long?”
Mom tips her head at me in the way only moms can do when they’re looking at you from under their lashes. For the most part, she’s a shorter, far more feminine version of myself, and I’ve always been proud to take after her in more ways than one. She’s a strong woman. Full of fight with a feisty heart. “Only if you throw that stink in the shower every now and again.”
“Will do.” I ruffle up her hair.
The property my mother owns is more or less a compound spread over three hundred acres. The day I turned eighteen I moved into the guesthouse about a stone’s throw from the main house. My father died just prior to that, and I knew I didn’t want to leave a house full of my favorite women all alone in the countryside.
My older sister, Jules, was dating at the time, and Kali was still in middle school. And now that Jules is newly divorced—the asshole who thought it was a great idea to marry and knock her up left her with a two-year-old boy whom I’ve become a surrogate father to, I couldn’t leave too much farther. I’ve given the guesthouse to Jules and my sweet nephew Jensen while I’ve built—am in the process of building, a new home for myself just about a half mile down the road. Kali is still in the house with Mom, and I think everyone is happy with this new arrangement.
Mom gives a little chuckle. “Word on the mean streets of Oak Grove is that Poppy Montgomery flew in on her broomstick last night.” She gives a little wink while stirring her coffee. I know that broomstick quip was meant to rile me up more than it was an insult toward Pops. Mom loves Poppy as if she were her own. “Charlene invited us to dinner tonight to welcome her back. How many stocks of Stade Steel do I have to bribe you with to make sure you show up for that good time?”
My heart gives an unnatural thump. Here it is—show time crept up on me a hell of a lot sooner than I expected. “Of course, I’ll be there. And you know that big announcement you and Char have happening in just a few weeks?”
Mom jogs in place, nearly spilling her coffee as she gets worked up like a giddy schoolgirl. Her eyes burn bright as blue flames. My father used to say I have my mother’s eyes, and that’s something I don’t mind at all. I happen to think my mother is beautiful both inside and out, no matter how certifiable she’s proven to be over the years.
“I’ve got a little announcement myself I’ll be making tonight.” I give a quick kiss to her cheek as I take off.
“Wait a minute!” she calls after me. “An announcement? You know I’m no good with suspense! I can’t wait until tonight!”
A dark laugh pulses through me as I head out into the icy air, the snow billowing in mounds alongside the driveway. I start in on a sprint as I go to track down Kali and Jules at the guesthouse. I don’t think either of my sisters will care that I’ll be dating—or in the least pretending to date Poppy. Jules might flinch, but she’ll get over it. There’s only one person whom I think might do a little more than flinch, and that person is Conner Montgomery. He’s been like the brother I’ve never had, still is. I see him every damn day ever since I hired him as head of legal at Stade Steel.
No, Conner will not appreciate me anywhere near his baby sister. That’s too bad for Conner because we’re all grown up now, and I’m done listening to anything he has to say on the matter.
I should have never listened to begin with.
The guesthouse is quaint, which is a nice way of saying small as hell, but I made it work for eight long years. And much to my sister’s credit, she has managed to strip this tiny abode of any signs that a grown man ever lived in it. Instead, she’s turned it into a shabby chic disaster that any thirteen-year-old girl would die for.
Jensen runs over and whacks me on the knee with his toy fire truck that lights up and shrills an obnoxious howl in my ear. He’s redheaded and freckled and cute as a bug, and at the same time a doppelganger of the father who left him.
“Hey, buddy, why don’t you show me how to work the TV?”
“I knows dat!” The look of persistence in his eyes gets me, and I tuck a quick kiss to the top of his head. “I can do it for Mommy!” He takes off for the sofa, and I nod for Kali and Jules to join me at the table. My sisters all share my mother’s features, same dark hair, same siren blue eyes. There’s a saying in Oak Grove that the Stades are all dimpled lookalikes. It’s fair to say they’re right.
“What’s up?” Jules plucks Kali’s phone out from her hand, and now they’re both frowning over at me.
Just as I’m about to fill them in on my latest, possibly greatest deception, a fist grows in my throat, and I can’t seem to push the words out. There’s something about having this false relationship with Poppy of all people that seems to have struck a nerve. I couldn’t get her out of my head last night. Not that it’s anything new, but this time there was a genuine level of heartache behind it. Poppy and I are fragile. We have been for so long. I’m not sure what this will do to us. One thing is for sure—it’s going to get messy.
“What is it?” Kali’s eyes widen, large as windows that let you peer right into her sweet soul.
“It’s a surprise.” There. It’s about all I can manage at the moment. “I’m making an announcement tonight at the Montgomery’s. I’ll need both of you there.” I couldn’t tell them the truth. If Mom gets a whiff of this being a ruse, she might break them for the info, and I’d hate to put them in that position.
“You’ll be at the Montgomery’s?” Jules’s face tempers to repulsion. Jules is well aware that Poppy broke my heart. Ironic since Poppy is yet to be let in on that fact. “You do realize that Poppy is in town.” The look on Jules’s
face is priceless. You would think having Poppy Montgomery in my life is the equivalent of head lice. Jules tips her chin down, her expression stern as shit. “Is it about the company?”
Ever since that clown she was married to took off, she’s seen the world through crap covered glasses. It’s as if she’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not that her life will ever be hard. Our grandfather ensured that very thing once he founded Stade Steel. Nope. Forever the three of us will be well taken care of far beyond any material wealth most of the world will ever know. I think that’s why we strive to be close, to keep the lines of communication open, and to never, ever lie to one another—like I’m doing now.
“It’s not about the company.”
Kali huffs a quick laugh. “This has to do with her, doesn’t it?” Her face brightens with the question as if calling me out on my bullshit.
Kali was at the bar last night along with that kid she hangs out with twenty-four seven, Cole—and so help him God if he offends her with a simple wink. I don’t have a very high tolerance toward people of the opposite gender treating either of my sisters poorly. I’m still in the process of making Ron’s life a living nightmare for leaving Jules and Jensen—but at the moment, I appreciate him out of their lives. It makes room for peace, for me, for our family to grow tighter as a unit. After my father died, I became the man of the family and that’s exactly who I plan on being until my dying day.
“Well?” Kali’s eyes bug out. “I knew it. I saw the way you two were sitting at that table last night. And the way you both left at about the same time. Eww! Did you bring her to your room and screw her?”
Jules chokes out a laugh. “I bet if you woke Mom up, she would have cheered from the sidelines.”
As sick and twisted as that sounds, I know it’s true.
Jules sours as if on cue. “Don’t tell me you and that hussy have something happening between you. She treated you like less than dirt for the better half of your life. I’m not going to let her take advantage of you that way. And if she’s suddenly your best friend again after all these years, I can’t help but wonder if it’s some Stade Steel green she’s after.”
Poppy isn’t a gold digger, but as much as I want to defend her, it’ll only rile Jules up. Jules can be rabid once she gloms onto a subject. Get her lathered up in a heap, and there’s no letting go of it on her part. And the last thing I want her shredding to pieces is Poppy.
“You’ll have to wait and see like everybody else. Dinner tonight at the Montgomery’s. It’s going to be a memorable night.”
“I bet.” Kali kicks me from under the table as if she’s already enjoying the prospect of Poppy and me toughing it out. Not that the thought of being with Pops would be tough on any level. I miss her. The old Poppy, Eight Ball to be exact. I miss the old us. I miss my father being here and our mothers colluding to get us together. I miss a lot of things. But this new version of what we’ve become is one thing I can do without.
Jensen crashes into my arms as Jules snorts out a laugh. “I wouldn’t miss tonight for the world.” Jules shakes her head at me, her eyes already both disappointed and curious as to why I’d ever keep a secret from her. “What have you gotten yourself into, Jaxson?”
“Wait and see.” I turn Jensen into an airplane for the rest of the afternoon. I could listen to his laughter all day long, and I do just that until it’s time for dinner with a girl I never thought I’d see again.
Poppy and I are about to kill it.
It’s show time.
I put on a suit. I take off a suit. I put on my favorite jeans. I take them off. I take two hot showers, brush my teeth ten times, and practically down the mouthwash. How far are we going to take this? Why isn’t Poppy returning any of my text messages? Was this all some big prank on me? The thought has crossed my mind about a dozen times this afternoon. Poppy has always been up for tossing a good jab my way. There weren’t too many occasions that I escaped that razor-sharp tongue of hers.
A dull smile comes and goes. I’d love to tame that little shrew. And as much as I used to pretend I hated our acid coated banter, I secretly loved every barb-wired minute.
I opt for the button-down shirt, twill blazer, and a pair of cords I’ve excavated from the dusty end of my old closet. It’s strange being back in my childhood bedroom. Of course, I could leave, stay at a hotel, not that there is a plethora of choices in Oak Grove. But Denver is certainly an option. I can run the company from a satellite office for as long as I like—hell, I own the company. I can uproot my office any damn day I please, but I choose to leave it be each and every time.
My mother and sisters drive down to the Montgomery’s first. I pull in last, not so much to make an entrance, but because for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m nervous as hell.
The minute Poppy Montgomery walked into that bar looking hot as liquid steel, her tiny body squeezed into those jeans, that leather jacket that screamed let me tie you up and teach you a lesson or two—and I would welcome Poppy tying me up, although I have a feeling she’s going to teach me a lesson or two regardless—I knew I was in for a ride I would not forget. Poppy was smoking hot, and I wanted nothing else but to stomp my way over and toss her onto the nearest table and take her like a beast. I may be known for my revolving door of bedmates—although there have been far fewer than public perception has been rumored to believe—but in my spare time, during every lonely night it’s Poppy I go to bed with.
Before the great fall that spelled out our demise, Poppy was the closest I had ever gotten to another human being. Since then, there have been plenty of girls, but not one of them has even compared to the intimacy Poppy and I once shared. Ironic, since I never knew Poppy in a carnal sense. And a part of me wonders, hopes against hope, that our relationship might take a turn for the carnal. But the truth is, with Poppy, I’d want something far more than that. I’d want everything we had back in spades, and then some.
The Montgomery home is stately in a humble, suburban country house sort of way. They live a good ten miles from us, but as the crow flies you could cut across the woods and cross our property and end up on theirs.
I spot Frasier Montgomery on the porch swilling a highball in his hand, whiskey over ice with seltzer to finish it off, just the way my dad used to drink it. Much like Charlene and my mother, Frasier and my dad were the best of friends. Way back when, my father offered Frasier a position at the steel mill that would have set the Montgomerys up with a nice nest egg, stock options, mega retirement payout, but Frasier was too proud to take it, and retired recently from the insurance job he held for a majority of his life.
“Well, if it isn’t the prince of peace.” He offers me a quick slap to the back as we head on in.
“That’s one nickname I don’t think I’ve ever been called.” I laugh at the thought.
“Are you kidding? You’ve been as quiet as a ghost. I don’t think I’ve seen you at this end of town in the last five years.” It’s true. For as close as my mother is to the Montgomerys, I never seem to venture over.
Conner is in my life on a daily basis, and that’s always been enough Montgomery for me. My stomach clenches at the lie. Yes, Conner has been around for me, but I’ve always craved a little more Montgomery. I’ve craved Poppy. She’s addictive, the kind of person people naturally magnetize to, and not always for the right reasons. She’s a show if anything.
Five years. It’s been five long years since Poppy left for L.A. and this house became a painful reminder of everything that transpired between us.
“That’s right,” I muse as I take in the familiar foyer. “But I’m haunting the place tonight,” I say, ducking into what amounts to a time warp. The Montgomery home is light and bright, white walls, painted wooden floors, a cluster of family photos on all of the walls. Every free surface is adorned with frames filled with pictures that I remember seeing as a child. If it’s one thing Charlene Montgomery is good at, it’s holding on to the past. And ironically, if it’s one thin
g Poppy Montgomery is good at, it’s forgetting it ever existed.
I glance into the living room and spot Poppy with Sadie, and behind them Jules and Kali mill around with Conner. But Poppy. She’s stunning in red. Her hair is long and wild, and the unruly beast in me demands to twist it around my wrists as I make her mine.
“Jaxson Stade?” Char shouts so loud that everyone behind her stops all movement and turns my way. “Look who decided to come to dinner!” She glances to my mother, shocked as hell. It’s clear that Mom held out on her as she barrels on over, squeezing my cheeks as if I were three-years-old all over again. “My God! Did you know that Poppy is here tonight, too? It’s a real Montgomery-Stade reunion with all of the important members front and center!”
My eyes snag on a picture of my father just over her shoulder. It’s the picture we took as a family—the last one—at Lawson creek after Kali caught a trout. It’s hard to believe that family as I once knew it is done and in the record books.
I want to correct a well-meaning Char, that no, not all of the important members are front and center tonight.
Poppy appears beside her mother wearing a grin and not much else. Holy hell, that dress, that body, those eyes that have always seemed to see right through me.
My mouth opens, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what comes next.
“I think dinner is getting cold,” Poppy offers, and both our mothers busy themselves ushering everyone to the table. And just like that, here we are, alone, just Poppy and me, a deception at the ready that involves the two of us in ways I used to dream about.
Poppy steps in close, her perfume pours over me like a fine wine, and I would give anything to drink this girl down right now.
Damn, she smells good, intoxicating. And those velvet eyes. How I’ve missed them. I thought I knew how much, but having her here next to me, the warmth of her body exuding toward mine makes me ache in the deepest part of my heart.