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  The entire room was laid out beautifully, tables stationed throughout the rest of the interior, clear Christmas lights wrapped around the chandelier and the beams. The little pies and pastries she had brought over yesterday were distributed on one table, and pasta and other foods—provided by Lane—were on another.

  Soon, people began to trickle in, filling their plates up first with food. Alison watched from her position, feeling a strange sort of aptness to the whole thing. Most of the town was there, part of the party, celebrating together. And she was just kind of separate. Set apart. It had been like that when she and Jared were married. Because she was the sad woman with the abusive husband that no one could quite bring themselves to make eye contact with.

  And then afterward she had been the victim. The object of pity, a project that people had wanted to help. But it had been very difficult to find actual friends. Just another reason she prized Lane, Rebecca and Cassie so very much.

  That they had brought her into the fold, and they hadn’t treated her like damaged goods. That they were patient with her irritation when she felt like she couldn’t talk about her past, and then with her reluctance to actually do it when the topic came up.

  She hadn’t realized how truly isolated she had become in her marriage until she had started forging connections with people again. Hadn’t realized just how special it was, how essential it was, to have that network of people who cared for you. Who were there to help pick you up when you fell, or just sit down on the floor with you for a while if that was what you needed.

  She looked over at Violet, and noticed that she had a wistful expression on her face. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Violet returned. “It’s just kind of crazy to see everyone all dressed up. I mean, I don’t really associate Copper Ridge with fancy events.”

  “Madison West is something of a town princess,” Alison said, keeping her voice low. “The daughter of one of the richest men in town, though he’s had a lot of controversy over the past couple of years. And her husband, Sam, is actually a famous artist.”

  Violet’s eyebrows shot up. “An artist?”

  “Yes. And blacksmith.”

  Violet snorted. “Okay. That’s a little more what I would expect from Copper Ridge.”

  “It’s a great place,” Alison said, meaning it with every part of herself. “I could have left at any time, but I decided I wanted to stay. I’ve never regretted that.”

  “Yeah,” Violet said. “I’m not sure I’ll stay.”

  “Well, that’s up to you. And it will be here waiting if you ever decide to come back.”

  “I haven’t slept with anybody,” Violet said, her voice hushed. “Just... Just so you know.”

  Alison felt something tighten at the base of her spine that reminded her vaguely of panic. “Okay,” she said, shuffling a few plates around, trying to keep her hands busy. “That’s... Probably good.”

  “I kind of would like to.”

  “Well...well, I mean you’re sixteen and there’s...a lot of time to do that.”

  “I guess.”

  She let out a long, slow breath. “Why do you want to? Because you want to know what it’s like? Let me tell you that doesn’t end very well. That ends after about five minutes and him having way more fun than you.”

  “I just... I mean, sure. But, it seems like it would be nice to be that close to somebody.”

  Alison shook her head. “Okay, this I have some experience with. You don’t. You don’t feel closer to him. You feel good for a minute, and then afterward sometimes you feel more alone than ever, because the thing that you just did was close—so close—to looking like a real connection, but then at the end of it he goes home, and so do you. And that hole inside of you just gets deeper.”

  Violet blinked and looked down at the cake. “Sometimes I just want to do something. Something big. Something that will quiet everything down. Because the inside of my brain is so loud, and sometimes it all hurts so bad.”

  “Then make it something that’s for you,” Alison said. “Not something that’s also serving some random guy. If you meet someone, and you love him... And frankly, are more than ready to handle the potential consequences of failed birth control, then those are good reasons. But just wanting to fix something isn’t. Because sex doesn’t fix anything. Usually, it just breaks it worse.”

  She tried very hard not to let her own words sink down too deeply inside of her. It was fine advice for a sixteen-year-old girl. Violet did not need to be having sex. And was emotionally unequipped to handle the fallout from that. Alison was not. She’d had a lot of experience, a lot of mistakes made that she had already dealt with and sorted through, emotionally speaking.

  She was thirty-two years old. She already knew that sex wasn’t going to fill any kind of emotional void. Plus, Cain was good at sex. So, it wasn’t some physical disappointment she was submitting herself to for a little bit of attention.

  She knew exactly what she wanted, and she was getting exactly that. She had no regrets. And she was going to be fine. She wasn’t a hypocrite, because she was a grown-ass woman and Violet was a kid. A kid with a wide-open daisy-field expectations when it came to boys and being physical with them.

  Alison had already run that particular gauntlet. She had met disappointing, unsatisfying, underwhelming, speedy, tiny, mouth-breather and bully. Basically Alison and the Seven Douchebags. There was nothing she was looking for that she hadn’t already found. She wasn’t looking for anything with Cain. She was just having. Experiencing.

  Because she had the maturity level to deal with that. She did.

  “You’re going to be fine, Violet. It’s hard, being sixteen. It’s hard even for those perfect, sparkly-looking cheerleader girls with both parents and a house in a cul-de-sac. It’s really hard for people like you and me. Who have already experienced the kind of pain adults don’t handle well. I mean, you can see how much your mom leaving hurts your dad. Why would it hurt you less? It won’t. Of course it’s going to hurt you even more. So all of that stuff that you’re feeling... You’re not being dramatic. You’re not making things up. It’s real. It’s real and it hurts and it was never going to do anything less. But sometimes, you can’t make feelings go away. Not really. All you can do is hold them back for a minute. With alcohol, with sex, but those don’t fix anything. The only way you can get rid of the feelings is to feel them. Really feel them. And then try to walk forward.”

  “Does it ever quit hurting?”

  Alison thought about that. Really hard. Because she had never been abandoned by her parents. They had just been emotionally distant. And leaving an abusive marriage wasn’t really the same thing. She had been the one to walk both times. They had been very painful situations she was walking away from, but she had stayed until she was good and ready to deal with the fallout. That was different than having somebody wrench themselves from your life.

  “It changes,” she said, trying to be as honest as possible. She didn’t want to tell her that it was going to be okay. That it would never hurt. Because what would happen if Violet reached the end of the decade without her mother and it still hurt? And she was afraid it always would? Was afraid that she was broken in some way. “It changes, and eventually it becomes bearable. Eventually, it becomes part of who you are. I think that sounds scary, but it isn’t. These hard things, they can make you stronger if you let them. You can use them as a road map to guide you. To the place that you do want to be, by reminding you what kind of person you don’t want to be.”

  That was certainly true for her. If Alison knew anything it was that she didn’t want to go back to being the kind of person who could be with a man like Jared. Somehow, she had contorted and twisted and shrunk herself down to fit into that marriage, and when she had emerged she had been reduced. Lifeless and colorless. It had taken a long time to find that
color. But she had. And now she was aware that was something she couldn’t simply take for granted. Now she was aware that it wasn’t a permanent part of her that could withstand any manner of abuse and indignity. She had to take care of herself. She had to prize her own happiness.

  She figured there was probably a way to come to that conclusion without living in an abusive situation for nearly a decade, but that wasn’t her story. That wasn’t her experience. And all she could do was take that horror and try to use it for good.

  “Well, I’m not going to abandon anybody.” Violet put her hand on her chest. “Because it hurts.”

  “That’s something.” She reached out, putting her hand on Violet’s shoulder. “It really is.”

  Then, the room erupted into applause, and both she and Violet looked toward the entryway of the barn. And there they were, the bride and groom, huge smiles on their faces. Madison West looked absolutely perfect, her blond hair left loose and cascading around her shoulders, her formfitting lace wedding dress making her look like an edgy fairy-tale princess.

  Then there was Sam, a surprise in a traditional tuxedo and black cowboy hat, looking rugged and absolutely taken with his bride.

  Both she and Violet traded glances and shared a wistful smile. Alison had no idea why she felt wistful. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want a wedding. Didn’t want a husband. Didn’t even want a man who looked at her like she was the center of the universe. Because she knew that no matter how it started it could all go badly in the end.

  She kept telling herself that, over and over again as her heart clutched tight watching Sam McCormack gaze lovingly at Madison.

  She didn’t want it. Because no matter how much the man may love her, eventually, she wouldn’t be able to love herself. Some people just weren’t meant for love or marriage.

  She was one of them. She was better off alone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “HOW DID THE wedding go?”

  Cain had decided to bring Violet to work that morning, and it was only partly because he wanted to see Alison. He leaned over the counter, holding his cup of coffee from The Grind as he tried to make a decision about which pastry he wanted.

  “Good,” Alison said. “You know, even if she is a little bit difficult right now, Violet is a really good kid, Cain. You should be proud of her.”

  She reached across the counter, her fingertips brushing lightly against his knuckles, the gesture, casual enough, sending a sharp shock of heat all the way down to his groin. It was weird, trying to affect this casual manner with her in public. When they were talking about Violet, and he was just the father of one of her employees, rather than the man who had screwed her senseless in the back seat of her car the other night.

  He hadn’t had time to see her yesterday. The wedding had gone late and she had been busy. Then, by the time she had dropped Violet off at the house, he had seen the dark circles under her eyes that were like bruises punched there by someone’s thumbs, and he had figured it was best to just let her go home.

  She had looked a little relieved when he had said good-night, so he had figured in the end it had been the right choice. And it shouldn’t have been difficult for him to spend one night without sex. Not after four years without it. Now that he had been reminded of how good it was, however, going without was a lot harder—no pun intended—than it had been previously.

  He had spent some time in the shower taking care of business. He wasn’t going to take some damned cold shower and deny himself the release. No. He had too many years of punishing himself. And honestly, the world was punishing him enough. He might as well get whatever pleasure he could from it.

  “I’m glad you think so,” he told Alison now. “Actually, it’s really encouraging to have your insight into that. Because half the time all I see is this angry kid that I don’t know how to handle. Mostly because I’m angry too. How do you defuse somebody’s anger when you feel it for them? When you feel it for you? I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  This was perilously close to being soul-baring, and all he and Alison were supposed to be doing was body-baring. But again, those lines. Those blurry lines that were starting to intersect. He didn’t like it.

  “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be angry for her. It probably helps. Though it might help her a little bit more if she knew that’s how you felt.”

  “She doesn’t know?”

  Alison hesitated. “What kind of food do you want?”

  “What?”

  “You’re having a turnover. A marionberry turnover. Go sit down. I’m going to bring it to you in a second.”

  He scowled but walked over to the tables, then he paused for a moment. He deliberately selected the one he’d made love to her on the other night. Mostly because he wanted to remind her.

  When she made her way out from behind the counter, she stopped, a plate in hand. Her mouth flattened into a line and tilted slightly to the side, her eyes narrowing. He grinned.

  He could practically feel the force of the breath she let out from across the room. So, he just leaned back in that chair, nice and comfortable, widening that smile.

  “Are you twelve?” she asked, setting the plate of turnover in front of him and sitting across from him.

  “No, ma’am. Which you know. As you are intimately acquainted with certain aspects of me.”

  She blushed and looked around the room. “Stop that.”

  “It’s the ass crack of dawn and barely anybody is here.”

  “Your daughter is here. Cooking in the back room. And you’re out here being indecent.”

  He had to laugh at that. “I know. What would she think if she knew? I mean, I remember being a teenager, and I certainly assumed that the days of indecency were long past for my parents. Though, my father was hell-bent on proving that wasn’t the case by spreading his seed hither and yon with whatever woman he came across. He was done with that by the time I was sixteen though. Or, if he wasn’t, he didn’t claim any of those other kids.”

  Alison frowned. “I don’t really know your family situation. I mean, a couple of things from Lane. You didn’t grow up with your brothers.”

  “No. I’m the oldest. I grew up in Texas, spent summers here. Finn grew up in Washington, but not near Liam and Alex, who were mostly in Washington too. That’s where we all converged. At the Laughing Irish Ranch, our grandpa’s ranch. He recently passed away.”

  “I knew that from Lane. I’m sorry to hear it,” she said.

  “He was a crusty old bastard, but he was a good man. Which is more than I can say for our father, who is mostly a horny old goat. Probably see him less than we see our grandfather. Who is dead, if you recall.”

  The corner of her mouth tilted upward, like she couldn’t quite decide if she was supposed to smile about that.

  “You can laugh,” he said. “It’s actually damned funny.”

  “Is it?”

  “Kind of. I guess the Donnellys are destined to be left at one point or another. Some of us twice.”

  “I wouldn’t say it was destiny. I would say it was bad luck to know more than one asshole.”

  “Some of us have bad luck, right?”

  He watched her face closely. He could see the ghost of something—some deep emotion—flash in those golden eyes. She had been married, and divorced, she had confessed that the other night. So, even though she was reluctant to talk about it, he knew that she had been through something similar to him.

  That whole till-death-do-them-part not panning out. The marriage just ending up done because someone decided to quit. And she said it was different for her, because she had done the leaving. Still, he didn’t think it was ever easy.

  Divorce sucked.

  And if the divorce itself didn’t suck, then every little thing that led you to that point did. Either w
ay, you came out with a few scars. But they were talking about the two of them. They were supposed to be talking about Violet.

  Here he had just been concerned about blurry lines and he had gone and sat at the table he had screwed her on. Clearly he had some issues with boundaries, whatever he told himself.

  “I guess so,” she replied finally, looking back behind her again, as if she was checking to see if there was anybody in the bakery who might find the two of them sitting together incriminating. He knew that Cassie at The Grind had been more than a little suspicious about the two of them associating with each other. At the time, there had been nothing happening between them. That was not the case now.

  “You were telling me what a great kid my child is,” he said, picking up the turnover on his plate and taking a bite.

  It was perfect. Tart berries, flaky crust, encrusted with sugar on the outside to give it that little bit of sweetness on top of the sour. A hell of a lot like Alison herself.

  “She is. But she’s hurting, Cain. And I think she feels really alone in that. I don’t want to violate her trust and, in fact, I promised her that I wouldn’t. She kind of expects that I’m reporting back to you in some regard, because she isn’t an idiot. She knows that being over legal drinking age is thicker than water, I guess. She’s a kid, so of course if there was anything dangerous that she was involved in I would tell you. Because I want to protect her. But...she has a good head on her shoulders. We talked about a few things... Some kind of deep things, that I think she probably wouldn’t be very comfortable saying to you. But if she just knew that you wanted to talk...”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “I can’t... I can’t tell you. Not really. Not in detail. If you want to know what’s happening with Violet you’re going to have to talk to her.”

  Irritation fired through him. “But she talked to you,” he said. “You could just tell me.”

  “I could. But then she wouldn’t trust me anymore. And you wouldn’t be any closer to her, you would just be the NSA wiretapping her personal life. That’s not the same. It’s not the same as knowing somebody cares. And she needs that.”