Just My Luck (A Shamrock Falls Novel) (Entangled: Bliss) (8 page)

Betsy shook her head. “No thanks. I’m a little tired tonight.”

That was an excuse and he knew it, but didn’t know why. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Before she could reply, a waitress walked up to their table. “How are you guys doing? Can I get you anything else, boss?” The blonde smiled at Sidney and Kade.

“I think we’re okay for now. How are you doing?” Kade asked her.

“Good. We were a little slow earlier, but things are picking up nicely now.”

Kade turned to the group. “This is the new waitress, Tiffany. Tiffany, these are our friends, Betsy, Jace, Rowan, and Breck. Tiffany’s new to town. She just started a few days ago and she’s already making the place run smoother.”

“Thank you. That’s so nice, but I’m just doing my job,” Tiffany replied.

“Well, we really appreciate it,” Sidney told her.

“Thanks!” Tiffany’s eyes moved to Jace. “He said your name’s, Jace, right?”

Jace sat forward, wondering why the woman was interested in who he was. “Yes.”

“I’m not sure if there’s another Jace around, but there was a woman here looking for a Jace not very long ago.” Her eyes darted to Betsy as if she then wondered if she said the wrong thing. “I didn’t get a name or anything…”

Jace felt Betsy tense beside him. On reflex he reached over and put his arm around her, pulling her toward him. Her body flexed tighter, but she didn’t pull away. “Thanks for telling me. If it’s important, whoever it was will get ahold of my wife and me.”

He hoped that would show the rest of the table that he wasn’t keeping anything from Betsy. He had no idea who the woman was, but he didn’t want it to cause unneeded tension.

Jace leaned in, fully aware that Betsy could push him away, but he wanted to make sure she knew the other woman didn’t matter. He put his lips to her ear. “I’m not sure who it is, but I’ll take care of it, B.”

And then, he kissed her cheek.

The group sat around for the next hour or so, talking. Jace wondered what was on Betsy’s mind. Whether she thought he knew who had been looking for him, or if she believed he might have gone behind her back and seen someone else. But then, it wasn’t like a woman he dated was the only possibility.

It didn’t take a genius to know that’s what everyone believed, though. The looks on Rowan’s and Sidney’s faces told him Tiffany’s comment hadn’t gone unnoticed.

When he couldn’t take the curious eyes anymore, Jace excused himself to go to the restroom. It was set back in a small hallway, leaving the doorways unseen from the main part of Lucky’s. Jace took care of his business, washed his hands, and had just stepped out the door when he saw a woman in the hallway.

“Melissa.” Jace nodded at her. She was a very beautiful woman and it was obvious she liked to flaunt the fact. She always dressed nicely, and her makeup was perfect. He’d liked that about her before, but now it struck him as too much.

Their one date had been cut short, but she continued to call. When he told her he’d gotten married, she must not have taken him seriously. Jace didn’t want to be rude, but there could only be one reason she was here, and he wasn’t interested. “What are you doing in our neck of the woods?”

She stood in his way, so he couldn’t get down the hall without passing her. “I came to see you,” she said. “It’s been a while and I thought you might want to hang out.”

Shit
. “I’m sorry you wasted a trip out here, but I explained to you a month ago that I was getting married.” He’d made sure to call any woman he’d dated recently to let her know about his marriage. It was only fair to them and to Betsy.

“Jace Macnamara married? Why don’t I believe that for a second? When we went out, you made damn sure I knew you’d never want something serious.”

Which was true. For the first time, he cursed his history with women. Regretted that it could be so unbelievable that he’d open his heart to someone, that Melissa had driven all the way out here, despite what he told her weeks before.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s true. If you’d excuse me, I’d like to get back to my wife.” This felt wrong, even though he hadn’t done anything. Wrong that there were so many women in his past.

“Word on the street is you like to role play.” She smirked at him. “If you wanted a game, all you had to do was say so.”

“Melissa.” He stepped forward again, placing his hand on her shoulder. “It’s true. She’s my wife.”

Melissa put her hand on Jace’s shoulder and stepped close to him. As she did, Betsy walked around the corner, pulling to a quick halt when she saw them.

“Melissa, this is my wife, Betsy.” When Jace moved, Melissa’s hand fell away.

He headed toward Betsy, but stopped when Melissa said, “
This
is your wife? Really?”

Betsy gave a small gasp at that, as Jace turned on Melissa. “Yes, she’s my wife. I’m lucky she’d have me.”

Melissa stuttered, trying to reply, but Betsy had already started to walk away. Jace cut Melissa off. “Don’t. Nothing you say will excuse that. You had no right to try and hurt her. I won’t tolerate it.”

Then he went after Betsy. “B.”

She ignored him, but Jace kept going.

When he rounded the corner, Sidney and Rowan were on their feet, which made him wonder what the look on Betsy’s face must have said.

She’d ripped her purse off the chair by the time he got there.

“B, wait a minute. It’s not…” The last thing he wanted to do was have this conversation in front of everyone in Lucky’s. He reached for her, but his stall was just the break she needed to walk away. Rowan and Sidney were right behind her, jogging to catch up.

Jace made it one step before he felt a hand grab his shoulder. “Give her a minute, man. Let the girls talk to her,” Breck told him. Kade stood there, arms crossed on his chest—always the protector.

“What the hell happened?” Kade snapped.

Jace’s past had come back to hurt her, that’s what. She was already insecure and the tone of Melissa’s voice had been obvious. “None of your damn business,” Jace threw back at him. “I don’t get between you and Sidney. Don’t get in the middle of my wife and me.”

“Maybe that’s because Peaches doesn’t go storming out of Lucky’s in tears.” Kade didn’t back down.

She’d been crying? Those words broke through his anger. Damned if Kade wasn’t right.

An ache exploded in Jace’s chest as he fisted the back of one of the chairs. Every urge inside him begged to go after Betsy. To tell her how lucky he was that she’d given him a chance. That she was incredible.

“You okay, man?” Breck asked him.

Jace almost said “fine” but instead just shook his head. Did she still have feelings for him? It had been hard to tell since they got married, because things were already so different between them. If so, this would hurt her even more. It killed him that it could be so shocking to a woman that Jace had settled down, that she’d make a trip out here regardless of what he’d told her. What kind of man did that make him?

“No, Breck. I’m not okay.”

Chapter Seven

The next day, Betsy moved around her small apartment cleaning the same things she’d already cleaned at least a hundred times since last night. She wasn’t living here, so it wasn’t like the place was very messy, but she cleaned when upset. The more she worked, the more ridiculous she felt: storming out on Jace, calling a cab home, texting Jace for space, and saying she would be in touch. All of it.

Because it was silly. She got her feelings hurt too easily—all over what someone she didn’t know said about her. Over what she’d known from the beginning, that people wouldn’t really believe that Jace could see anything in her at all.

But really, the part that bothered her just as much was how badly she’d let it hurt her. It was embarrassing and made her feel weak.

Betsy fell onto her worn couch with a groan. Knowing their time was limited, they’d both agreed she should keep it and Jace insisted on paying her rent to help. It was so like him.

And the woman she’d seen beside him fit exactly the kind of person Jace would end up with: beautiful, confident, and well put together. She remembered thinking the same thing the one and only time she’d seen Jace with the woman months before. And Betsy had proven even more that she wasn’t right for him when she got upset.

She’d broken.

And ran.

Betsy always swore to herself she wouldn’t be weak. Wouldn’t become an emotional mess and fold in on herself. That’s what her mom had done, and she wouldn’t be the same. So instead of cleaning anything else, she pushed to her feet, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. She’d show Jace she could handle this. That they could pull off this fake marriage and then go their separate ways, so he could go back to having any woman he wanted.

Too bad a part of her would always wish it were her. Just like it had sent pain ricocheting through her chest to see him with that woman last night, she knew it always would.

Betsy closed the door when she realized one very big detail she hadn’t thought of. She didn’t have her car. All she’d wanted was to go home last night, but she hadn’t been able to have her friends take her here, so she’d called a cab.

How was she supposed to make a grand, I-am-woman entrance if she had to call Jace to pick her up?

Betsy’s emotions volleyed back and forth. She could do this. She
would
do it. Reaching for her cell phone to call a cab again, Betsy looked at the small parking lot in front of her apartment for the first time.

And there he was. Jace.

Her heart immediately picked up speed. She wanted to go back in the apartment so badly it hurt, but instead she took a deep breath and forced herself to move forward. To walk to his car where he stood, leaning against it, and be the woman she’d always wanted to be.

“Hey,” Jace said to her. It was strange seeing him out of his house not completely put together. His blond hair wasn’t styled. He wore tennis shoes and jeans.

“Where you headed?” he asked, when she didn’t reply to his initial hello.

“Home. I was going home. To your home, I mean. Not mine, since obviously I’m already here.” Gah. Why wouldn’t she stop rambling? Half the time she couldn’t speak at all and now she couldn’t stop.

“It’s your home too,” Jace told her.

Oh. “Yeah…I guess it is.”

Jace sighed. “Listen, B. About last night—”

Betsy held up her hand to stop him. “You don’t owe me a response. The way I reacted is completely on me.” But then the more she thought about it, what was that woman doing there in the first place? Was Jace still talking to her even though he promised there would be no other women while they were married? Quite frankly, that very idea pissed her off. Fake marriage or not, he’d given his word that he wouldn’t date anyone else and Jace had always been honest. When her eyes drifted toward the ground, she forced them back up. “But I would appreciate knowing what she was doing there. I know this isn’t a real marriage but—”

“I told you from the beginning I wouldn’t be with anyone else while we’re married and I mean that. Right after we decided to do this, I told Melissa and anyone else I thought might try and get ahold of me that I was getting married. When I do something, it’s a hundred percent, and that includes our marriage.”

Oh…well, that settled that, then. The fact was, she completely trusted Jace and if he said nothing was going on, she believed him.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

Jace’s eyes closed for one, two, three brief seconds, an edge of vulnerability in him. “I would never hurt you like that, B. You mean too much to me. I have no idea what she was doing there, but it wasn’t wanted on my end.”

Betsy fought the urge to ask him exactly what she meant to him. And maybe struggled not to swoon, too. “I know that.”

“I’ll always be honest with you, okay? Whatever you saw…it wasn’t what it looked like. I was worried about you last night.”

His voice cracked on the last part and Betsy found herself wanting to hug him. “Thank you, and I’m sorry for freaking out. It’s not that I don’t trust you. You’re always fair to people and always do the right thing.” Those were her favorite attributes about him. “It’s just…”

“Any man would be lucky to call you his. You know that, right?
Honored.”

No, she didn’t know that. Didn’t know it at all.

“I’m serious, B. I want to make sure you believe that.”

When he said it, it was almost impossible not to. Her heart was going wild. Happiness and confusion wrestled around inside her. And maybe a little bit of pride, too. “Thank you. I’m working on it.”

That seemed to make him relax slightly. He quirked a half smile and she knew something silly was coming. One of those moments when Jace let his guard down and was completely open. Betsy was thankful for it.

“You were coming home, huh? How were you planning on getting there?”

The heat she always hated began to fill her cheeks. She was twenty-seven years old; she really shouldn’t blush this much. “I was going to call a cab. You might not have known it, but I did that last night, too.” Betsy held her head high, trying to look much more confident than she felt.

“I thought Rowan and Sidney brought you home.”

“How could I have explained still keeping my apartment? They insisted on waiting outside with me.”

Jace shook his head, another apology in his expression. “Come here, crazy woman.” Jace wrapped an arm around her and pulled her toward him. He gave her a brief squeeze. “I didn’t even think of that. You’re always surprising me. Do you know that?”

Betsy looked up at him, heat twisting and turning through her. It was very nice to be this close to Jace Macnamara, but that wasn’t all. His words…they were important to her. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, B. The more time I spend with you, I see how much more there is to you than meets the eye.”

Danger! Danger!
He was being much too sweet to her right now and that wasn’t good for her heart. “Just because I called a cab?”

“No. Because you jump on beds while watching football games. You get up at the same time every day whether you work or not. When you need to, even though it’s hard, you find a way to push your strength to the forefront, the strength that often hides in the wings.”

Betsy looked up at him and realized he still had his arm around her. They were so close that she felt the warmth from his body. Her brain wasn’t thinking any kind of coherent thoughts and he was looking down at her, an unreadable expression on his face. Curiosity, maybe?

Before she had the chance to reply, Jace pulled away. “Come on. Let’s go home.” Walking over to the passenger side of the car, he opened her door. Betsy got in and once he closed it behind her, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

…

Things were changing between them. Jace had tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t anymore. He’d enjoyed the feel of her against him the other day, as he’d hugged her outside her apartment. It had killed him when he thought about her being hurt—by him or someone else. He just didn’t know what, if anything, he should do about it.

Betsy knew something about him no one else did—how much this house meant to him. That he was close to losing it. To Jace, that was letting her in to a part of his life he didn’t open up about easily. But at the same time, last night proved he was also the guy a woman would just show up to see, expecting a good time. He still didn’t know how to completely let anyone in, and Betsy deserved someone who would.

Still, he heard her crying sometimes. He didn’t know why, and she wouldn’t tell him. So maybe he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t let someone else in.

Walking into the laundry room, Jace opened the dryer to see it was full of Betsy’s clothes. A memory from his childhood slammed into him at the simple sight.

His dad teasing his mom when she’d forgotten the laundry in the dryer and then gotten frustrated when she couldn’t find something in her drawer. They were like that, always teasing and joking with each other.

A pang hit him. He’d never been like that with anyone.

But then he remembered the tears when they’d passed and the loneliness when he’d wished Wallace was with him. And Jace remembered he kept his distance for a reason.

He leaned against the dryer, remembering the time his dad had taken the clothes and hidden them. They hadn’t been finished for long, and this time, Mom had gone back for them right away, only to discover they weren’t there. She’d laughed, searching the whole house for her missing clothes, the whole time his father feigned innocence.

The strangest feeling to take Betsy’s clothes and hide them from her came to life inside him.

He knew it was ridiculous. She wouldn’t understand what the memory was to him and it wasn’t like they had the same kind of relationship his parents had, but damn if it hadn’t looked fun when Jace had watched them all those years ago.

What is wrong with me?

He heard Betsy on the stairs, found himself closing the dryer and slipping out the back door. He didn’t know why. Hell, maybe because he felt like a creep for almost stealing her dryer full of laundry.

He walked around the backyard once before heading in, figuring she had to be done by now. When he looked through the window in the door, he saw her. She had her back to him, pulling items from the dryer, one at a time before setting them in her basket.

It was almost…comforting. Normal. Like she belonged there doing that. As though he’d seen her doing it forever.

Jace thought about the day he’d pulled her to him outside of her apartment. How he’d noticed the different colorings in her eyes again and how she almost felt like she fit right up against him.

That he’d felt lonely when he pulled away.

Betsy picked up her basket and walked out, but Jace continued to stand there, trying to make sense of all the thoughts in his head. He’d just planned to ignore these feelings, but here they were, pushing to the surface again.

A few minutes later, his cell phone rang. Jace pulled it out of his pocket to see Betsy’s number. “Hey,” he said into the phone.

“Where are you? We’re going to be late for the Shamrock Falls Celebration.” It was a craft fair/cookoff the town had every year. It was held inside, because you never could tell how the weather would be, but it was pretty much law that if you lived in Shamrock Falls, you had to go.

At that, he really worried he was going nuts. How could he forget they were supposed to be leaving? “Um…I needed some fresh air. I’m in the backyard. I’ll be right back.”

Betsy was standing in the kitchen when he walked inside and he’d be damned if he didn’t feel like he was blushing. He didn’t think he’d ever blushed in his life.

“You okay?” she asked, looking concerned.

Of course she would catch on. “Fine. You ready to go?”

She nodded and they walked out to Jace’s car. A few minutes later they were on their way.

“I’ve never been before,” Betsy told him as Jace took the short drive.

“Yeah?” he asked. “It’s not incredibly exciting, but you
have
to experience it at least once. Aunt Mae goes crazy in the chili competition.”

Betsy laughed and it had a slightly different ring to it than it used to. Jace savored the sound.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she asked.

They pulled into the lot and Jace parked. They were halfway to the building before he found himself reaching over and grabbing her hand. Betsy’s head immediately snapped toward him and Jace just shrugged. “You’re my wife, right?”

It was even easier to say now than it had been before.

“Yeah…yeah I am.”

When they reached the building, Jace paused before opening the door. “I’m glad you came today.”

“Me too.”

Walking in, her hand wrapped with his felt normal. Good. He didn’t even let himself over think it, either. Jace just wanted to enjoy their day.

…

Betsy couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, but Jace was acting different today. It wasn’t the fact that they held hands, because his reasoning made sense—they were married and they should look it. It was more in the way he spoke and how his forehead creased as though he was continually in deep thought, but trying to fight it.

She’d never wanted to know what he was thinking more than she did now.

They’d been there a little over an hour. Breck and Rowan hadn’t been able to come because of guests at their bed and breakfast, but they’d seen Sidney and Kade a couple times. There were so many booths where residents of Shamrock Falls sold quilts, painted mugs, and any other craft one could think of. Actually, she was surprised Sidney didn’t have a booth there herself.

Every few seconds there was someone else saying hi to Jace, and he always made sure to introduce her as his wife. The word still sent butterflies racing through her.

“Look at you! Aren’t you a pretty little thing with your hair like that!” an older woman named Martha said. “You should wear it back more often. You got yourself quite the catch, Jace.” Martha smiled at him.

Betsy couldn’t pay much attention to Jace’s response, instead wanting to soak in the words. She wasn’t the type of woman people usually told she was pretty. It had never bothered her much; it just wasn’t who she was.