Conceal (The Barker Triplets 3)

“When you were with him…was he like the others?”

Betty stilled, not liking where the conversation was headed. “What do you mean?”

“Was he a disconnect? Or a connect?”

Betty’s heart began to pound. He’d been a connect. A definite, hard, exhilarating, connect.

And look what it had gotten her.

“That’s what I thought.” Matt finished off the whiskey and set the bottle down carefully. “You’re afraid of him.”

“I’m not afraid of Beau Simon. I can’t stand Beau Simon.”

But Matt paid no attention to anything she said. “I get that he hurt you, but honestly, Betty, that’s in the past and you’ve got to get over it. You want this part? Take it. Own it. And use him this time. Use this gift he’s giving you to show all those assholes that you have what it takes. That you’re not a fuck up. That you have real talent and most of all…that you deserve something good.”

For a long time she stared out the window at the last rays of sunlight falling into the night sky. She glanced at the empty whiskey bottle on the floor. At her friend Matt, whose pain rolled off him in waves.

At the family photos on the table beside the sofa—smiling faces of three identical girls with their father and mother.

Looking at those photos, Betty couldn’t help but think that she’d been happy once. Maybe.

“If I do this…I can’t let him…” God, she could barely get her thoughts out. “Beau needs to know I’m hands off. I don’t trust him.”

I don’t trust myself.

Matt got to his feet, all six feet four inches of brawny good looks. Hawkins looked like a biker, a bad boy with a dark side, but only Betty knew it was a carefully cultivated image that Matt hid behind.

“That’s where I come in, babe.” He held his hand out. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Well, isn’t that barbecue kick off thing tonight?”

Betty nodded warily.

“And since Beau Simon is in town, won’t he be there?”

“I guess, but—“

“No buts.” Matt retrieved his keys from the pockets of his jeans and handed them over. “You drive. I’m pretty damn sure I’m over the legal limit and it’s a bit of a drive out to Gallagher’s place.”

“But I don’t—“

He yanked her up. “I said no buts. Let’s go to this thing and before the night is over, Beau Simon will think that you’re mine. I’ll make sure he understands that you’re off limits and that if he fucks with you, he fucks with me.”

Betty considered Matt’s words. She knew he would never lift his considerable fists to anyone who didn’t deserve it. But Beau didn’t know that.

Heck, no one in New Waterford did either. The entire town thought that Matt Hawkins was a cold hearted son-of-a-bitch, who partied too hard and would never amount to anything. They had no idea what lay beneath his hard exterior or why he was the way he was.

In their eyes he was the male version of Betty Jo. Loose. Immoral.

She bit her lip, her mind wavering. It really was kind of perfect.

“You coming?”

She glanced down at her outfit. It was as if she’d known she was going out tonight.

Black cotton tube-top. Check.