Dirty, Reckless Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 3)

We go home, and I get ready for bed in the saddest silence I’ve ever experienced. It’s the kind of quiet that makes your thoughts too loud and your bo

nes ache like a cold day. I wait until he’s done in the bathroom, then brush my teeth and change into one of his old T-shirts. The cotton is soft and smells a little like him.

Colton’s in the living room. I can hear him on the phone, but instead of the silky whispers of his more recent late-night phone calls, his low voice is angry. “You’re going to listen to what I have to say,” he growls into the phone. “Oh, you think I’m scared of you now? No. Try the other way around.”

I frown and step into the living room just as he ends the call. “Who was that?”

He mutters something under his breath before replying. “No one. Just some asshole who thinks he can screw me out of money.” He waves a hand. “Business stuff, you know.”

“Business stuff? At eleven o’clock at night?”

He folds his arms across his chest. “Like I said. An asshole.”

More secrets.

Colton has always been private. Only a very small circle of people get to know what’s really going on in his life. I’m not sure when I got pushed out of that circle, and I’m wondering if Levi’s been pushed out too. Maybe it’s just Colton and Molly against the world now. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Grant wants me to meet him for a beer,” he says.

“At this hour? Are you even sober enough to drive?”

“I’m a grown-ass man, Ellie. Quit mothering me. I’ll be home later.” He stomps out of the house, and when he slams the front door behind him, it reverberates all the way through my spine.

I close my eyes for a beat. This problem can’t and won’t be solved in one night. We can tackle it tomorrow. Together.

When I crawl into bed, I promise myself that everything will be better in the morning. The calls were about Colton’s son. The looks he was throwing Molly at the bar were about this giant new responsibility in his life. Everything is going to be okay.

The next time I wake up, it’s two in the morning and I’m still alone in bed.

I sit up and grab my phone off the bedside table to check for messages. Nothing. I text him. Where are you?

I climb out of bed and pace the bedroom. When he hasn’t replied twenty minutes later, I pull on my jeans and shoes and race to the garage.

Rain pummels my car the moment I back out, and I have to turn the wipers on high to see anything. I grip the wheel so tightly my hands hurt, but I can’t relax.

“Where are you, Colton?” I whisper into the darkness, but part of me must already know the answer, because I drive straight to the Tiffany Hotel. Colton’s truck is parked in front of the converted Victorian, and I yank the wheel, parking in the first available spot before jumping out of the car.

I’m not an idiot who believes they’re just talking in there after two a.m. He lied about where he was going. Grant wants to meet for a drink, my ass. And who does Molly McKinley think she is? Coming to town and swooping in to steal Colton right out from under me?

I storm up the stairs onto the dark porch but freeze when I see the silhouettes in the window to the right of the door.

I’d recognize those broad shoulders anywhere. Colton carries himself with the posture of a fighter. Molly stands close, and they’re talking, but I can’t make out their words or even see well enough to read their lips. But then he pulls her into his arms, and all the rage that propelled me here drains away, pushed out by fear and despair.

I didn’t want to be right.

He strokes her hair and lowers his mouth to her ear.

I back up. One foot. Then another. Then another. I tumble sideways down the steps and hit the sidewalk. My cheek stings. My elbow aches.

I close my eyes and pull my knees into my chest. The rain is cold and feels like tiny needles of ice slicing into me. My phone buzzes, and I sit up to pull it from my pocket, wiping the rain from my face so I can read the words on the screen.

Colton: Drank too much. Gonna crash at Jake’s.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to scream. To cry. To throw the phone and his lie right through the window. To pound on the door and tell him he can fuck himself.

But mostly, I want to go home and pretend this night never happened.

I grip the phone so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter in my hand. “Get up, Ellie. Get the fuck up.”