Keep It Together - By Lissa Matthews Page 0,3
his temples where it was starting to lighten. No reason to take note of his broad shoulders and long legs or to remember how stunning he’d looked in his suit at the church yesterday. “Maybe I should’ve married you instead,” she said absently, barely realizing the words she was speaking.
“Maybe you should have.”
His easy agreement had her gaze flying up to meet his. His smile, while gentle at first glance, understanding that her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, was also indulgent. It was unnerving, tempting even, and it wasn’t doing a damn thing to keep her from wanting to invite him inside and rut on the floor like a pair of animals.
This wasn’t what the jilted bride thought about when the brother of the groom came to check on her, but she couldn’t seem to rein her thoughts in. Was it finally hitting her that she was alone now? There was no fiancé, no husband. There wasn’t even a boyfriend.
No. That wasn’t it. Being alone didn’t bother her. She’d spent enough time that way since she moved away from Pembroke, and well, Russ worked so much that she spent more evenings alone than she did with him. Loneliness wasn’t her issue. Sure, she was still pissed at being left like that. She would probably be pissed for a long time to come. Sure, she was still hurt. She’d cared about him, loved him, would have married him had he shown up…
She gave herself a mental shake. No, these thoughts, unbidden and unseemly given the circumstances, had nothing to do with Russ and everything to do with the man on her porch. Nothing could come of her thoughts though. She wouldn’t put Colt in that kind of compromising position.
She had to go back to the subject of Russ. It was the only thing that could keep her from inviting Colt inside and jumping his bones.
It was going to take a hell of a monumental effort on her part.
“Have you heard from him?” She kept her voice and her gaze as steady as she could and was a little sad when Colt’s smile faded. The warmth that had sprung up between them was gone, and she realized she really didn’t want the answer to her question.
“He’s in Vegas.”
Chrissie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Colt didn’t blink. “Did you say Vegas?” It was early in the morning, and it was entirely possible that her ears weren’t fully awake yet. She had also been deep in fantasy mode too, so… Colt nodded in response. Brow crinkled and lips pursed, she attempted to process that little tidbit. Cold settled in her middle that had nothing to do with the weather. “Do I want to know why he’s in Vegas?”
“No.”
She figured as much, but she plowed forward. She’d started down this road and she needed to get to the end of it. “Why? Did he marry a stripper?” She’d asked it with a smirk, but when he focused on something over her shoulder, her smirk dropped to a frown. “I see. Well…” What else was there to say? Christina Browning, daughter of a mayor in a small Georgia town, jilted at the altar by a man who flew across the country to Las Vegas and married a stripper, was, for once, at a loss for words.
Her mother’s idea of how to handle life’s dramatic moments—calm on the outside while falling apart on the inside—might not work in this situation. But Chrissie would try.
Seems she had a couple of revelations she needed to figure out how to process. After all, she had been ogling another man, her almost brother-in-law, less than five minutes ago. She was jilted, not dead, the voice inside her head whispered. But a case could be made for it being too soon for ogling.
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and hoped that the smile she attempted was, in fact, a smile of gentility and not that of a crazy person. Her emotions were all out of whack, and she had no idea what she was supposed to feel or think or say. So she simply tried for courteous. “Thank you for stopping by and checking on me and… Thank you for telling me about his…” She faltered and knew tears, along with some screaming, were inevitable. She had to make it back inside the house with the door closed and him miles away first, though. He’d seen her broken and mad, and he was on the verge of seeing her