Riveted

“Dixie, open the door. I left Kallie and I need a place to crash for a few days.” The voice on the other side of the door was as familiar as my own. His words made me swear out loud as I pulled the door open without another thought given to the fact that Poppy might end up facedown on the carpet.

“You left Kallie?” I barely got the words out before my little sister’s obviously furious and clearly frustrated fiancé barreled into the tiny living space. I shut the door behind him. Dolly went about her typically happy greeting once she realized she knew the tall, lanky, auburn-haired man that was now frantically pacing through my living room, raking his heavily tattooed hands through his messy hair.

“She’s been cheating on me … again. I was such an idiot to believe her when she told me it would never happen again after the last time. How could she do this to me after all we’ve been through together?” His heated blue eyes locked on me and I could see he was struggling to keep both his emotions and the moisture trapped in his eyes in check. “We’re supposed to be getting married in a few months.” His voice cracked and I couldn’t stop myself from walking over and wrapping my arms around his trim waist.

“Oh, Wheeler. I’m so sorry.” My sister was an idiot, but in all honesty so was he. My sister didn’t know how to be an adult without him and he didn’t know how to be a family without her. They were scarily dependent on each other and had been since they were kids. Now Kallie was barely twenty-two and had everything I wanted in the palm of her hand—the brand-new house Wheeler bought for them to start their lives together, an engagement ring that made my heart squeeze with envy. I would treasure the love and promises she had been given and part of me died every single time I watched my sister be careless and reckless with what Wheeler had handed her. “You can stay here for as long as you need to. Do you want me to call her?” If I did I was going to rip her a new one. I loved my sister dearly, but at the moment I would gladly strangle her with my bare hands.

I felt his broad chest rise and fall where I was squeezing him. He heaved another deep sigh and pulled back so that he could shake his head in the negative. “Not tonight.” He growled from low in his chest and roughly dragged his hands over his face. “I need a minute … or ten.”

There was a delicate clearing of a throat and we both shifted our gazes to where Poppy was pressed against the front door like Wheeler could grow razor-sharp claws and mile-long fangs to eviscerate her at any moment. Her eyes were twice their normal size and her teeth were buried so deeply into her bottom lip I was surprised she wasn’t drawing blood.

“I’m going to go.” Her voice quivered and her hands were still shaking.

I felt Wheeler tense where I was still holding on to him, and I watched his eyes narrow as they locked on Poppy. His gaze was normally a mellow light blue that looked amazing with his reddish hair and the dimples that dug into his cheeks. Tonight it flared like the blue at the base of a flame and those adorable indents in his cheeks were nowhere to be found.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. It’s been a shitty night on top of an even shittier week and I’m not thinking too clearly at the moment. I didn’t mean to barge in and make an ass out of myself.” And that was why I loved Hudson Wheeler with every single bit of my heart and soul. His world was crashing down around him. He was drowning in an ocean of his own bad choices (and I would call Kallie a bad choice to her face for this bullshit) and misery, but he still had the wherewithal to gentle his tone and rein in his temper so that he didn’t further terrify the young woman plastered against the only exit. He was a good guy … no, a great guy … and Kallie was a world-class moron for screwing around on him … again.

“It’s fine. You’re … um, fine. Dixie, I’ll see you later.” She leaned down to pet Dolly one last time and then slipped out the door shutting it silently behind her. She moved like smoke and vanished just as fast.

I pulled away from the man that was set to be my brother-in-law and tunneled my fingers through my wild hair and squeezed my head. “That’s my new neighbor.”

He grunted and threw himself down on my well-worn couch. The springs protested under his weight and then groaned again when Dolly climbed up next to him and put her head on his denim-clad thigh.

“I know her. She’s Salem’s sister and Rowdy grew up with her back in Texas. He brought her by when she needed a new car. I tried to sell her a ’64 Bonneville that needed a little work. She would’ve made that car look gorgeous. She ended up with a Toyota Camry. It was a goddamn travesty. A girl that looks like that should have a car that stands out, not something safe and predictable.” I forgot that Wheeler knew a bunch of the boys that frequented my bar because they were family, some by blood and some by something more, with my boss, Rome Archer. Rowdy St. James also worked at the tattoo shop that was responsible for the majority of the ink that covered Wheeler from head to toe. I should have realized he would have run across Poppy at least once or twice since she’d come to Denver, even if Kallie tended to keep him on a tight leash.

I lowered myself onto the only available seating left in my small living room and kicked my feet up so that they were resting on my coffee table. “Poppy isn’t really the standing-out type and she can do with a little safe.”

His gaze shifted to mine and his mouth pulled into a frown. “That’s a damn shame, too.”