THREE DAYS LATER

Cole stood in a living room of chicken hell. Wallpaper with chickens on it. Chicken clock. Chicken pillows. Framed plates with chickens on it. Hands on his hips, Cole did a slow sweep of the living room, his shoulders twisting as he got full exposure of the disaster that was to be his home for the next four months.

“This is a joke,” he finally managed. “Right? This isn’t actually where I’m staying.”

Ben paled, and Summer, damn her to hell, laughed. He glared at her, and she slapped a hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking underneath the straps of a red sundress. A sundress. It was crazy how the knee-length hem was sexier than that of a minidress, crazier still how he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her legs. The woman had no idea what appropriate attire was for… well… whatever this was. He looked toward the kitchen. “Please say it’s just this room.” He took a step toward the open doorway; Ben fretted, Summer’s giggles increased, and Cole scowled at them both—pushing past them and into the kitchen, stopping short in the doorway.

More chickens. Ceramic ones, perched along the top of the cabinets, squatting alongside the coffee pot, a cookie tin made from an especially fat one. A chicken mat in front of the sink, curtains on either side of the window. He stepped closer and peered… yep. “Chicken cabinet pulls,” he said aloud. “Really?”

“They’re roosters.” Summer said, as if that made any difference. “Not chickens. Note the red comb and wattles.”

“They’re creepy,” Cole retorted, turning to her. “It’s like Dahmer’s human organ decor.”

“That’s creepy,” Summer responded, her brow raising. “Who thinks of that when they see roosters?” Her eyes on him… they were distracting. The mischievous glitter in them lit a spark, somewhere inside him. It wasn’t a good spark. Not with this girl.

Cole looked away first. When he finally spoke, it was to the window. “I want this country shit out of here.”

“It’s cute,” Summer interjected. “And homey.”

That it was. Yet another reason to get it all out.

“We can’t touch any of the décor,” Ben spoke up. “That was a very firm stipulation of Cyndi Kirkland’s. You can’t move or change anything.”

“And who agreed to that bullshit?” Cole exploded.

“We did,” Summer said evenly, stepping forward as if she expected a confrontation. “And that bullshit is the only reason you’re staying here as opposed to a hotel. Do you know how hard Ben has been working? Of course you don’t! You’re too busy in California, surrounded by your—”

Suddenly, the spark became a flame and his mouth was on her, her words swallowed as his hands found her waist and pushed, her feet stumbling, her back—that damn dress—hitting the counter. She tasted of sweet fucking rebellion, her tongue softening, accepting. Then both of her hands were on his chest, and her adorable, tiny knee came up hard between his legs.

The words of his defense didn’t make it out. They were swallowed by the pain—his hand reaching out blindly, needing a support system, a shot of morphine, a gun to shoot this crazy bitch in the head, anything. He wheezed out a breath and cupped himself—distracted for a moment by the chub in his pants. What was he—thirteen? He hadn’t gotten turned on by a kiss since high school. Sex after Nadia had proved it. A sexual three-ring circus was now required to get his cock to pay any attention at all. His eyes found Summer, and she glowered at him, her stiff arms ending in fists at her side, as if she was ready to follow up her knee with a punch. He staggered back. “What’s wrong with you?” he gasped.

“What’s wrong with me?” she hissed. “Are you kidding me? You just—”

“Kissed you. I just kissed you. Big fucking deal. You wouldn’t shut up.”

“You didn’t ask me to shut up.”

“People don’t normally ask someone to shut up. They tell them to.” His joke was accompanied by a smirk, both which came through lingering pain, his attempt to fully straighten painful.

She didn’t appreciate the humor. “Kiss me like that again and I’ll rip your eyes from their sockets.”

He held up his hands with a hard smile. “No worries, princess. I have no desire to repeat that experience.” He leaned forward slightly, enjoying watching her bristle. “And I’m not talking about the cheap shot. I’m talking about the kiss. I’ve had better. Much, much better.”

It was a lie. That kiss, that brief moment before violence…

It might be worth losing sight over.

He held his eyes on her and saw the moment the girl of stone cracked, crumbled, and broke. He saw the quick inhale of breath, the loosening of defiance in her eyes, the tightening of her forehead, in between her eyebrows, her bottom lip curling slightly underneath a tooth. It was a small act, no burst of tears, no wail of drama. Another man might not have even noticed. But Cole saw it all and instantly wanted to take his cruel words back, to stuff them into his hollow shell and see if they’d blot up some of the pain there instead of cutting this innocent thing deep.

He looked away, collected himself, and looked back, but she was gone—the kitchen door flapping against the frame with a loud SMACK.

Ben cleared his throat, and the eye of every chicken stared, accusingly, in his direction.

CHAPTER 39

I hated that man; he was an asshole unlike I’d ever known. Why God deemed to gift men like him with looks like that was beyond me. Or maybe looks like that shaped men into assholes like him.

I stood in the Kirklands’ back yard, on perfectly cut grass, the fingers of which tickled the edges of my feet—a birdbath beside me trickling, a patch of sunflowers swaying before me. Beauty, all around. And behind me, darkening that rooster-infested patch of square footage: The Beast.

I hadn’t kissed someone in three years. The last person was Scott, and look how that turned out. For Cole to just grab me and do that, in front of Ben… I let out a hot breath of anger. And then, his laugh. Scornful and mean. As if it had been nothing. Worse than nothing. Bad.

I hadn’t kissed a lot of men in my life, but for me, it hadn’t been nothing. And it certainly hadn’t been bad. He probably kissed a different girl every day. I’d seen him, onscreen, kissing women so beautiful they’d make your eyes hurt. He’d been married—or technically still was—to Nadia Smith. Why was I not surprised that my kiss didn’t compare? I shouldn’t have felt hurt; I should have felt mad. I had been. Mad enough to push him off and inflict pain while doing so. I was not Cole Masten’s to take. I was certainly not Cole Masten’s to ridicule and push aside with a laugh.

Tears burning the edge of my eyes, I stepped to the picket fence at the edge of the Kirklands’ lawn, undid the latch, and stepped down into the first open lane of cotton. Crossing my hands over my chest, my flip-flops soft in the dirt, I headed home.

CHAPTER 40

Cole rested his hands on the sink and leaned forward, looking out the kitchen’s window, watching Summer’s hair picked up and pulled by the wind. “Where’s she going?”

“Home,” Ben said from behind him. He stepped forward, joining Cole at the sink and pointed, a manicured nail tapping on the glass. “That big house back there is the Holden plantation. Her house is the little one, to the right.”