Page 39 of Finding Denver
“It was. He was bigger than me back then, and he tried to kick my ass.”
I place my palms together in a prayer. “Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.”
He glares at me. “Anyway, my shirt was ripped, and I was covered in blood and mud. I knew my mom would kill me, and Ronan said he’d ask his aunt to clean me up. I nearly punched him for his pity, but he just told me to shut up and follow, so I did. Helena cleaned me up, sewed my shirt, and then yelled at us for fighting in the first place.”
Helena McEwan. Finn McEwan’s wife. The Queen of New York without ever having to hold a gun.
“Anyway, Helena took me home, and it turned out she knew my mom. After that, Ronan and I were pretty inseparable.” He tilts his head. “I wonder how different things would have been with Denver DeLuca a couple of blocks over.”
That’s a strange alternate reality. If my parents hadn’t moved, I’d have probably gone to school with Ronan and Colt. My parents left New York because my mother’s family, the Gallaghers, didn’t want their daughter marrying a DeLuca. They didn’t speak much about their life before San Francisco, but it was clear that things were more than a little tense.
“We’d have all been friends,” Colt says.
I snort. “Let’s not push it. My dad wouldn’t have wanted me mixing with men like him.”
“But you married Ranger.”
His words from the car come rushing back to me. I married a monster, a man my father would have hated me marrying.
“Well, the heart wants what it wants.”
“Maybe your heart would have wanted me.”
My laugh is loud and Colt grins at me, his eyes sparkling. “Colt, I’ll tell you what Ranger tells every man who has flirted with me. You couldn’t handle me, so don’t even try.”
“I have no doubt about that,” he says, and this time, he does reach for the bottle. “While we’re stuck here, can we just pretend?”
“Pretend what?”
“That you’re not you, and I’m not me. You’re not a Luxe, and I’m not a Harland.” He drinks more. “That you don’t hate me, and I’m not the reason you hurt?”
My breath shakes a little as I let it out. “You’re not the reason I hurt, Colt.” His name feels strange in my mouth. Maybe it’s the whiskey.
His gaze is penetrating, but not cruel, not powerful, not the look of a man in control.
Just a man.
The brother of my enemy.
Chapter 11
Colt
“Why do you hate being called Deluxe?”
She snorts. “Would you like it if everyone called you Ghost like it’s your actual name?”
“Ghost is cool.”
“Deluxe is a weight.”
That’s an interesting way to put it. “A weight?”
“It’s like … being sent out on stage without a script. Be Deluxe, live Deluxe, we love Deluxe! Who even is she? Because she’s sure as shit not me.”
“I get that. People think I’m some kind of phantom and it’s become almost a game to get me. Do you know how many people have tried to kill me in the last month?Six.”
She exhales deeply. “They need to try harder.”
