Fool for Love (27 page)

“I was just coming to get you,” she said. “We made some iced tea. If you girls wouldn’t mind taking the jug and tumblers out to the men—”

“Our pleasure,” Chloe said, grateful for the distraction. She hurried toward the kitchen with Monica on her heels, trying to ignore the teasing love ditty her friend was singing under her breath. “Honestly,” Chloe huffed.

Monica just laughed.

Five seconds later, they were navigating a rickety back porch, refreshments in tow. “As beautiful as the interior is,” Chloe said, “the exterior could sure use some work.”

“I know for a fact Devlin offered to put some money into the place, but Rocky refused his help.”

“Pride. I get that.” Chloe eyed the men hard at work. Some with chain saws. Two others heaving debris into the back of a pickup along with Leo. “That’s Jayce, right?”

Monica nodded. “I just met him this morning. Close friend of the family. I know he grew up here and still owns a house here, but I don’t think he visits much. Seems nice enough. Kind of quiet. Intense. Handsome if you go for the bad-boy type.”

Chloe pointed toward the only other man she didn’t know. “Who’s that?”

“Adam Brody. Also a native of Sugar Creek, though I understand he moved away for a few years. I guess you’d call him a freelance sports instructor. Hires out to various lodges and gives lessons in everything from horseback to snowmobile riding. I thought he and Rocky were just friends, but…”

“But what?’

“I don’t know. When we first got here, I noticed them sneaking looks at each other and I sensed … tension.”

“Maybe they had a disagreement.”

“Caught some other looks, too. Between Jayce and Adam, and Rocky and Jayce.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not sure.”

Chloe gestured. “Looks like she’s giving Luke hell just now.”

They fell silent as they reached the disaster area, just as Nash and Sam cut the motors of their chain saws, allowing Luke’s words to carry loud and clear. “Chill out, for Christ’s sake, Rocky! We’ve got it covered. Take a walk or something.
Damn.
”

She spun off in a fury, blond braids swinging, jeans smeared with mud.

Monica cleared her throat to draw attention away from their stressed friend. “In case you guys are thirsty,” she said, holding up a jug of tea.

“Is she all right?” Chloe whispered when Leo joined them.

He simply raised his brows and relieved Monica of the jug. “Maybe you girls should join her.”

Sam took the plastic tumblers from Chloe. “At first I thought it was pride.” He frowned over at Adam. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“We’ll look after her,” Monica said, grasping Chloe’s elbow and hurrying after Rocky, who was jogging toward a distant patch of trees. “I told you. Something’s up between Rocky and Adam.”

“And Adam and Jayce,” Chloe whispered. “Just after Rocky split, I caught them trading a look.”

“Was it hostile?”

“It wasn’t friendly.”

“Oh, boy. All right, well, Rocky’s pretty tight lipped about her private life and she suffers from control issues, so whatever you do, don’t push.”

“Me? You’re the pushy one.”

“True.”

They followed the younger woman into the woods and found her pacing back and forth along a skinny trail. “I can’t breathe,” she blurted as if she’d been waiting for them to hurry and catch up.

“Are you hyperventilating?” Chloe asked.

“Maybe you should sit,” Monica said. “Put your head between your legs.”

“No. I need to walk it off.”

“Would it help to talk about it?”

Chloe glared at Monica and mouthed,
Pushing.

“I don’t know. I don’t…”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Chloe said gently, prodding Monica to sit next to her on a flat-topped boulder. She thought about how frantic she’d been when Ryan had shattered her world. How alone she’d felt with her closest friend hundreds of miles away, even though she was only a phone call away. It wasn’t the same as being in the same breathing space where you could reach out and touch and hug, if that’s what you needed. “Just know we’re here for you,” Chloe said. “That’s all.”

The women sat quietly as Rocky continued to pace and after a minute or two she started spewing. “I just … I feel like my life is spinning out of control. Nothing’s going according to plan, and if that’s not bad enough, I think … I know I hurt Adam.”

“Does it have something to do with Jayce?” Monica asked.

Chloe kneed her just as Rocky stopped in her tracks. “Why would you say that?” she asked, wild eyed.

Chloe swallowed hard, struck by the misery in the younger woman’s tortured gaze. “We just … we saw them trading looks and you seemed to be the cause.”

Rocky sank down on a log across from them, although one leg bounced nervously as she chewed on her thumbnail. “Do you think any of the guys noticed?”

Chloe and Monica shared a look. Sam and Leo had. They shook their heads.

“I doubt it,” Monica lied.

“They were too busy sawing wood and pitching trash,” Chloe said.

“Plus, you know men,” Monica added. “Oblivious.”

Rocky blew out a breath, stared at the ground. “Adam and I have been seeing one another for a few months now. Actually, we’ve just been sleeping together. And not overnight. It’s just about sex.”

“Friends with benefits?” Monica asked.

“Fuck buddies.” She shrugged. “Same difference.”

Chloe instantly wondered if Daisy had picked up that term from Rocky. Although it could have been Luke, who also seemed to have a relaxed attitude toward sex.

Monica whistled. “Wow.”

“It was perfect,” Rocky plowed on. “The perfect arrangement. No promises. No expectations. No grief from anyone, specifically my brothers, since we kept it secret.”

“What happened?” Chloe asked.
So much for not pushing.

“Adam offered to invest in the Red Clover. To partner up professionally. Which was perfect, actually, given his interests and skills.”

“But that complicated the personal end,” Monica ventured.

“From my point of view,” Rocky said, “there was that potential. But mostly, I wasn’t willing to give up full ownership. It made me feel like a failure and threatened my dream.”

“I get that,” Chloe said. “So you turned him down and now he’s hurt.”

“I took him up on the offer and then he caught me in Jayce’s arms this morning. In my underwear,” she added. “
Now
he’s hurt.”

Chloe and Monica swapped gazes.
What the hell?

“Is there something between you and Jayce?” Chloe asked. Only because she sensed Rocky wanted or needed to get this out. That’s not to say she wasn’t curious herself. As was Monica. This was juicy stuff.

“No,” Rocky said, leg bouncing. “Yes. Once. A long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

“I was seventeen. Just.”

“Twelve, thirteen years ago,” Monica said. “Jayce is the same age as Devlin, which means…” She did the math. “He was … twenty-one? Two?
Damn.
”

“Your first?” Chloe guessed, blowing over the jailbait issue.

Rocky dropped her face into her hands. “I was so freaking in love! Had been for
years.
”

Puppy love. First love. At least on her end. But what of Jayce? Forbidden love? Talk about powerful stuff. Still … “He should’ve known better,” Chloe said. “Not to mention he’s your brother’s best friend and, from what I’ve heard, adored by the entire family.”

“Not Jayce’s fault,” she said. “Not that part. I seduced him.”

Monica blinked. “You knew how to seduce a guy at seventeen?”

“I had two older brothers and a pack of male cousins,” Rocky said. “And eyes.”

“Enough said.”

Chloe tried to make sense of it all. “Do you love Adam?”

“No. Although, I do care. I think. Just not in the way I love Jayce.”

“So you love Jayce,” Monica said.

“What? No!” Rocky bolted back to her feet and resumed pacing.

Chloe scrambled. “But you said
love.
Present tense.”

“Loved,” Rocky said. “Past tense.”

“Yet he’s here and coming between you and Adam,” Chloe pointed out. “Does
he
love
you
?”

Rocky snorted. “Yeah, right. If that were true, I would’ve married him when he asked.”

Wide-eyed, Monica looked over her shoulder, making certain they were still alone, then blurted in hushed amazement, “Jayce asked you to
marry
him?”

“When?” Chloe asked.

“The day after we … did it.”

“Thirteen years ago,” Chloe clarified.

“I thought he loved me,” Rocky said in a choked voice. “The way he … he was so gentle. It was so perfect. Then he ruined it the next morning by saying we should get married.”

“
Should,
” Chloe said, beginning to put things together.

“Because it was the
right thing to do,
” Rocky spit out, more angry now than upset.

“So he offered more out of a sense of duty than love,” Monica said. “Ouch.”

“Still,” Chloe pointed out, “there’s honor in that.” She was trying desperately not to judge. She didn’t know Jayce. Didn’t know his side of the story. And Rocky was drawing on the naïve and melodramatic emotions of a teenager.

“Devlin married for honor,” Rocky blurted, “and look what that brought him.”

Monica cast Chloe a glance that verified she knew nothing about Devlin’s previous marriage. Chloe played dumb, because she’d promised Daisy she wouldn’t bring it up.
Ever.

Talk about an awkward moment.

Chloe cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to pry,” she said, redirecting the focus back to Rocky, “but are you certain there’s nothing between you and Jayce?”

“Just a decade of resentment.”

“You resent him for offering marriage out of duty,” Moncia said.

“And he resents you for rejecting his proposal,” Chloe finished. “Not to minimize what must have been an exceedingly intense moment in your lives, but…”
Tread lightly, Madison.
“After all these years, you haven’t been able to … get past this?”

“We’ve never really addressed it.”

Monica gawked. “What?”

“I told him to fuck off and he obliged by keeping his distance.”

“But he’s Devlin’s best friend,” Chloe said. “He owns property here. Surely your paths have crossed before now. He never tried to smooth things over?”

“He brought it up.” Hugging herself against the cool, damp weather, Rocky turned her back on them and stared at her mud-caked Nikes. “I shut him down.”

“Oh, honey,” Monica said in a nurturing voice Chloe knew well, “you need to resolve this with Jayce. Let it go. Move on.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Chloe ached for the woman. She denied it, but obviously she was still in love with Jayce. An idealistic love born of youth and nurtured by repression. In the words of Monica,
what a mess.
“What are you going to do about Adam?”

“I don’t know.” She whirled then and nailed them with frantic eyes. “No one knows about Jayce and … what happened between us.
No one,
” she reemphasized. “Promise me you’ll never repeat this. If it ever got back to Dev … he’d never forgive Jayce for sleeping with me, for being my first, for keeping it secret.…” She blinked back tears. “He thinks of Jayce as a brother. I can’t, I
won’t,
come between them. I can’t live with that, too. Promise me.”

“Of course,” Monica said.

Chloe shifted uncomfortably, feeling as if she was sabotaging her relationship with Devlin before it even got off the ground. At the same time, she empathized with Rocky and respected her desire to protect her brother’s lifelong friendship. Stomach knotted with yet another family secret, Chloe forced a smile and nodded. “I promise.”

TWENTY-SIX

Chloe stared at her laptop. She’d read the same Food Network blog twice and still didn’t know what it said. She couldn’t focus. Not with her brain buzzing around a dozen different concerns. Daisy’s meds. Rocky’s dilemma. The Cupcake proposal. Devlin’s return.

The weekend had passed in a blur.

Devlin had called Friday night to check in. No luck in his efforts to glean insight from Daisy’s mysterious second doctor. A confidentiality issue. Overall Devlin had seemed distracted, and truth told, Chloe had felt uncomfortable, struggling with Rocky’s secret. He did, at least, know about the collapsed shed, thanks to Luke, and though Devlin was frustrated about not being around to take charge, he trusted his brother and cousins to handle the situation.
Thank God Jayce was there when it happened,
he’d said.
I knew my instincts were right when I asked him to stay with her.
Chloe had wanted to argue that point but didn’t. She couldn’t. Thanks to her
promise.
Their phone call had been short and lacking in any flirtation, putting a kink in her already-convoluted mood.

Because the cleanup and installation of Rocky’s new shed extended into Saturday, Luke had asked Chloe for a rain check regarding their plans to attend the Burlington Food Festival.

Fine by her.

Ever since Rocky had unburdened her soul, Chloe had dreaded spending one-on-one time with anyone in the family, especially Rocky’s brothers. Knowing how protective and fierce Devlin was about his kin, Chloe could only imagine how he’d react to his best friend’s betrayal. Would Luke rise to his sister’s honor as well? Probably. Would a face-off merely result in ugly words and broken trust? Or would it get physical? It would have been better if Rocky and Jayce had come clean years ago. Better for them. Better for everyone. Now it was a buried dirty secret putting everyone who knew about it in an awkward position. Although part of Chloe was flattered that Rocky had confided in her, the other part resented the knowledge. Monica seemed to be taking it in stride; then again, Monica wasn’t primed to pursue an intimate relationship with the person Rocky wanted the least to know.

“The girls just called,” Daisy said, tottering into the living room. “They’ll be here in five minutes. How do I look?”

Chloe moved her laptop from her knees to the coffee table and made a show of checking out Daisy’s Sunday frock. Ironically, she’d chosen the blue and green dress Chloe had been wearing when she’d been accused of shoplifting. Which made her think of Devlin and the kiss they’d shared in the office. Which made her giddy and melancholy at the same time. That promise to Rocky hung over her head like an ominous cloud. “You look great.”