Page 14 of Bride for Keeps

He dropped the papers on the floor, then picked up one sheet of paper. The second-honeymoon ideas. He tossed it in. Then his calendar where he’d planned out a timetable of when he’d win her back by.

Goodbye, calendar. Goodbye, lists. Goodbye, life.

It was very lucky he was drunk, because he didn’t have the wherewithal to panic at the fact his life was over and gone. He didn’t have to worry it felt that way even though he had a job—animportantjob. The kind of job only people like him could do.

Except he’d believed that because of all that McArthur blood coursing through his veins. He’d believed he was offering a service to the world because that was the McArthur way.

He wasn’t a McArthur.

He wasn’t a McArthur.

Months of that sentence marching around inside of him, and he’d never allowed himself to fully form the words. Say it. He’d been too numb, too horrified. So he’d simply let it sit there on the edges, much like Sierra.

“I’m not a McArthur,” he forced himself to say aloud and into the fire.

Carter slowly lowered himself to the floor, something horrible and clawing working through him. An emotion he couldn’t push away, something like a sob if he was the kind of man who cried. The kind of man who broke.

But he wasn’t that. Except when he rubbed his hands over his face, sitting on the cold floor with the heat of his fake fire on his face, his palms came away wet, and that horrible, clawing feeling dug in deeper and worse.

So, alcohol was in fact a terrible idea. No more of that. No, he should have thrown himself into work. That was familiar. That wasn’t dangerous or confronting. It didn’t bring all his shields down and force him to face an ugly truth that he’d messed this all up on his own.

It took three rings of the doorbell for him to realize that’s what the sound was. He managed to crawl to his feet and stumble to the front door.

There seemed to be two or three doorknobs to choose from, which of course wasn’t possible, and still he couldn’t focus enough to get a hand on the knob on the first try.

Third time was the charm and he managed to swing the door open. In his drunken state, he didn’t know who to expect. The couple before him in the soft morning light was at the bottom of that nonexistent list though.

His brother stood on his stoop, Jess standing next to him. It was so strange to stand here and realize he was more like Jess than Cole. Jess had been a foster kid who’d befriended Cole in high school, and because of her nursing aspirations, Dad had taken her under his wing.

Carter might as well be a foster kid to his father, meanwhile Cole—the screw-up rodeo star who’d refused everything Dad had tried to mold him into—was actually a McArthur.

Jess’s eyes widened and she looked up at Cole. “He’s drunk.” Jess looked at the watch on her wrist. “At eight in the morning.”

Carter laughed at the comically shocked look on Jess’s face. Cole didn’t look quite so shocked, but then Cole didn’t know him. Not really. They were acquaintances at best. Carter used to think it was his superiority that kept them separated—as much as Cole running away to rodeo for almost ten years—but maybe it was that lack of McArthur blood to bind them.

“Half brother,” Carter mumbled.

“What’s that?”

“We’re notbrothers, are we? We’rehalfbrothers.”

“So?”

Carter shrugged and turned away from them both. He stumbled a bit as the floor seemed to tilt underneath him. Luckily the wall came up out of nowhere to hold him up and steady. “To what do I owe the visit?”

“Mom’s worried.”

“So, she sent you.” Carter collapsed onto the couch. Standing seemed like too much, too hard.

“No. She sent Lina. Who refused. But then asked Jess to check in on you, and I figured I should come along.”

Carter stared up at the white ceiling. “Why’d Lina refuse?”

“It isn’t important,” Jess said gently.

Cole sat himself at the edge of the couch, easily knocking Carter’s legs to the floor, though Carter managed to keep his body on the cushion. “She said you’re a self-centered ass who hurt her friend and she won’t pander to your sorry bullshit.”

Jess sighed. “It wasn’t important,” she grumbled. “It isn’t time to take sides.”

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