Page 14 of The Spice Is Nice

“I’m not getting used to anything. We are done. I couldn’t care less what you do.”

He laughed, a short, hard sound, nothing warm in it, and he held my gaze for a beat too long. Trevor had finished his speech, and the small crowd started clapping. Seth joined in with slow, mocking applause, his eyes still on me as his hands came together. Then he turned his back on us and walked toward the stage, dismissing us.

My tight grip on Colt’s arm turned my knuckles white. I forced myself to let go. The imprint of my fingers stayed on his skin like a brand.

Colt glanced back at Knox. “We’ll catch up. Load the truck.” He tossed them the bag and then put his hand on my lower back. With only the slightest pressure, he sparked my body alive and steered me away from the square until we reached the front of Wylde West Outfitters.

He opened my shop door and held it for me, and I walked through on spaghetti legs. Inside, I could breathe again in the comfort of my familiar surroundings. The cool interior of the shop held the same smell it always did, of leather and cedar. The second the door closed behind us, the composure I’d held together on the sidewalk cracked down the middle.

“Why here, and why now?” I didn’t cry about Seth, not anymore. But I pressed both hands flat on the sales counter and leaned into it, my breath shaky. “He’s not here for his brother. I know for a fact he doesn’t give a damn, and never could stand his family.”

The real answer sat in my chest like a theory.Because of me? Could he have figured out I was the one who put him in prison, and he’s here to make me pay for it?But I couldn’t say that to Colt without saying everything, and everything was a door I wasn’t ready to open. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Worried?” Colt removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair.

“He’s not passing through this time. You heard him. He’s staying. That raises all kinds of red flags to me.”

He crossed to the counter and leaned against it, opposite me, mirroring my stance, so we were eye to eye. The closeness was enough that the warmth radiated off him, wrapping around me. The scent of sawdust and the outdoors and everything manly from him hit me at once. For a brief moment, I wanted to climb him like a solid oak tree and feel his arms wrap around me tightly.

“At the wedding, you indicated things with him were bad.” His jaw clenched, and he spoke through gritted teeth. “How bad? Did he hurt you?”

“Not the way you mean. He never hit me.” He’d done worse. He’d made me believe I was the type of woman who belonged in his MC world, and then he showed me exactly the twisted world he lived in. And by the time I’d gotten out, I didn’t know who I was anymore. But I couldn’t explain that in the boot shop on a Tuesday afternoon, so I straightened up.

“He scares me. I won’t pretend he doesn’t. I’ve seen the things he’s capable of. But when he sees me with you, he hesitates. At the wedding, he backed off. Just now, he didn’t push. Your presence somehow changes things for him. For that I’m grateful.” My lips gave a flatlined smile.

He chewed his cheek. I could see him turning something over behind his light irises, the same way he did on the dance floor at Cowboy Night, deliberately, weighing consequences.

“Then I have a proposition for you. We make things look real between us,” he said. “What if, as far as anyone knows, especially him, we’re together?”

“Wh-what?” I blinked in rapid succession.

“Look, I didn’t care for what you did at Cowboy Night, introducing those ladies to us. I’m not in a position right now to go after any kind of relationship. And you’ve also said the same for yourself. So… I figure we can help each other.”

“By what? Posing as a couple around here?”

“Yep.”

My heart shifted into a complicated rhythm that I was absolutely not capable of examining closer right now. “Calhoun, I can’t ask you to?—”

“You’re not asking. I’m telling you.” His voice wassteady. No bravado, no chest-pounding. Just the calm, certain tone of a man who’d made a decision and wasn’t interested in debating it. “You came to me at the wedding and kissed me. You grabbed my arm out there today. You already chose this, Wylde, chose me as your protector. I’m just saying I’m all in.”

“Like friends doing each other a favor?” I stared at him. The afternoon sunlight broke through the doom and gloom of the rally outside and came through the shop windows at the right time. It caught the stubble on his jaw, the faint scar above his eyebrow, and the place above his collar showing the hollow of his throat. And I thought about how easy it would be to ruin this. To let the lines blur between fake and real. To forget this was a strategy between friends, and start believing it was something else.

“That’s all,” he agreed, but his eyes held mine, and neither of us moved away from the counter. “We can do this. The sheriff’s election is the first week of November.”

“Seth might leave town then.”

“And hopefully not bother you at all if he hears about us together and sees us together, especially if he knows you come under the protection of the ODRR guys. Because we protect what isours.”

A shiver went down my spine at the wordours.

“There was something that happened between Ash and Seth when the ranch started operations. I don’t know the full story, but that might be why Seth backs off,” I mentioned.

“I’ll talk to Ash about it and see what’s there. So what do you say? Be my fake girlfriend?” He held out his hand toshake, and accompanied it with a smoldering smile that he’d better stop using or I might think things were real.

“Thank you.” My voice came out softer than I wanted it to. I put my hand in his—big mistake. My palm burned with his, skin on skin. Sparks flew between us.

I let go and straightened up, grateful for the support of the counter, because if I stood next to him, I was going to do something stupid like rest my head on his shoulder and breathe him in. “I mean it. Thank you.”