Chapter 12
Wild Ones Tip #369
A Wild One is always right. Unless they’re wrong.
LILAH
“Oh, the wedding should be here. At the house. It’s where you two met, after all,” Aunt Penny is saying, while I force a straight face.
Benson is surprisingly not ruffled by the thousand and one wedding details Aunt Penny has been rattling off for the past hour. We’ve literally been dating for two days, and she has our wedding planned.
Told you.
“I bet all of Tomahawk would come out to see these two tie the knot,” my uncle chimes in before taking another drag off his pipe.
The pipe tobacco is permeating the air, even though we’re outside. At our picnic table. I’m leaning against Benson as I’ve done for years, but it means something different than it used to.
And his arm is around me, because we can’t stop touching. It’s even worse than when we were just friends. I don’t think we’ve stopped touching each other in some way unless bathroom breaks were required.
Benson’s lips find my forehead, and I close my eyes, soaking it in. Until there’s a terrifying squeal.
We both look at my aunt, who is clutching her hands together and staring at us with hearts in her eyes. That weird sound was apparently her vocalizing her excitement and not the sound of a cat losing its tail.
“You’re so beautiful together. It’s just lovely. It takes me back to when Bill and I first got together. I can’t wait to see you in your mother’s dress.”
My heart thumps, and I tense, but Aunt Penny keeps on talking.
“I can alter it, if you want. But I don’t think we should make any major changes. It would look so beautiful on you just as it is.”
I offer her a tight smile in response. This pressure is only going to get more suffocating.
“I think we’re just going to take it one day at a time for a while,” Benson says, trying to keep the wedding planner at bay. “We’ve only just started dating,” he reminds her, like a sane, rational person would.
She bats a hand. “You two love each other. You’ve been friends for years. You wouldn’t be in a relationship now if it wasn’t the real thing. I never thought it’d happen unless I kept trying to fix her up with guys.”
To this, Benson and I look at each other, confused, before glancing back at her.
“Say what now?” I ask.
Her mischievous smile spreads, and my uncle laughs under his breath before he answers that question.
“She knew you weren’t interested in anyone she brought out. She kept picking all those pretty boys for a reason. Benson wasn’t making a move, but you two would practically be in each other’s pockets when a potential suitor was involved. Your aunt figured she’d push Benson along, hoping he’d finally break.”
Benson frowns. “That’s not what happened.”
“In a way it was,” Aunt Penny says, delighted with herself.
“Actually, it was my brothers wrecking my bed that did it.”
Her face falls, and I feel like I’ve stolen something from her.
“That was what did it for her. For me, it was Liam coming into the picture,” Benson lies. He’s already told me the real moment he started having feelings for me that crossed the friendship line.
But it perks my aunt right up, and I want to kiss him for giving her that. My uncle winks at him like he knows what just happened too.
And I want Benson to myself for a while now so I can reward him properly.
“We need to go. I have some jobs to finish up,” I tell her, tugging at Benson’s hand.
He’s quick to leap to his feet, ready to get out of here too.
“Oh, I’ll make some wedding cake samples to see which is your favorite!” Aunt Penny calls out as we hurriedly make our way to the boat.
“Sounds good,” I say over my shoulder, not slowing down.
As soon as we’re pulling away from the dock, I look over at Benson. “Told you.”
He laughs under his breath. “It wasn’t as bad as you made it sound.”
“I’ll remind you of that when we come over for dinner one night, only to realize it’s a surprise wedding and she’s shoving us both down the aisle.”
He laughs, but I’m not kidding. It’s totally something she would do.
I watch him as he grins, relaxed in his seat like we didn’t just endure an hour of wedding plans after two days of dating.
“You know my family so well, and I know nothing at all about yours,” I say over the roar of the motor.
His smile disappears instantly.
We coast to his dock, and he starts tying off. I wonder if he’s about to dismiss me the way he usually does when I pry.
“My family isn’t like yours. Your brothers may drive you crazy, but they’d never hurt you or wrong you in any way. They have your back no matter what.”
I finish tying off the back of the boat, and he lifts himself out before turning to offer me a hand.
“Are you saying you have a brother?”
He nods slowly. “Our relationship is likely beyond repair, but for a few weeks out of every year, we pretend we don’t hate each other for the sake of our mother. Those are holidays that I go home, vacation weeks they come out here, and special occasions when I go to visit them.”
My stomach flips, because it’s the first time he’s ever shared anything about his family. I knew he visited them, because I always go through withdrawals when he leaves Tomahawk.
Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t consider my feelings for him sooner.
He looks around, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. He grabs my hand, and he doesn’t meet my eyes as he guides me onto the bank then up those fifteen steps to his door. But he talks while we walk.
“I moved out here because I needed a change, something that didn’t remind me of everything that had happened. Hell, I wasn’t here hardly five days before your uncle showed up, introduced himself, and told me there was a beard challenge. Then he informed me of the consequences if I didn’t accept.”
He grins like he’s thinking back, and I grin too, because I can actually see it in my mind.
“Even though I kept to myself, I still started growing that damn beard. It was just too ludicrous of a request to ignore. And before I knew it, I belonged to Tomahawk. It fit me. And I never wanted it tainted with my past. I never wanted to give up what this place gave me back. And so…I never told anyone anything about my past. It was better to be a mystery than an open book.”
He guides me inside his house, and I follow behind him, unsure how much to press for.
“What happened between you and your brother?” I decide to ask.
He turns to face me, blows out a breath, then gestures for me to sit down with him. I do, but he pulls me into his lap, nuzzling my neck with his nose.
“A woman.”
I tense. Obviously.
I suddenly hate asking any questions.
“I dated a girl in high school,” he goes on, “and the night of senior prom, right before we left in the limo, I got down on one knee and proposed to her.”
Yeah…can’t breathe. He proposed to someone?
I don’t even know her and I hate her. Which is a new brand of crazy I’m not used to. It’s also annoying, because I liked thinking of Benson as a virgin—no, I’m not delusional. It was just my fantasy.
“I thought we were in love. Hell, she was the only girl I’d ever been with.” He keeps talking into my neck, and I’m thankful he can’t see the inane panic on my face.
“She said yes. I should mention she was six months pregnant at this time,” he says, leaning back to look into my eyes.
My heart plummets. He has a kid?!
Dizzy and lightheaded, I sway a little on his lap.
“Almost four months later, my kid was born. Or so I thought. My mother insisted on a paternity test, because she was convinced Sadie was lying. I went along with it just to prove her wrong. Sadie was reluctant, but she agreed. She regretted that when the paternity test showed the baby wasn’t mine.”
This time, my heart plummets for a different reason, because he looks away. I can practically feel his pain vibrating off him.
“I’d already baby-proofed our house—my mom’s house. I still lived at home. She already lived with us, and my mother was going to help us raise our kid while we went to college. It definitely shattered me to learn she’d been pregnant with another man’s baby—had cheated on me. I was still debating on if I could forgive her for the sake of the kid…but it was twice as devastating when she announced the baby was my brother’s.”
My arms wrap around his neck, and he tugs me closer, kissing my cheek. “Decision made that I couldn’t get past either betrayal, I moved out here to escape all that. Instead, found somewhere I actually belong.”
His eyes meet mine again, and I brush my hand along his jaw, feeling that soft hair there.
“I’m sorry. I had no clue.”
He gives me a grim smile. “I didn’t want anyone knowing. You’re the first person I’ve told since moving out here. I’d appreciate it if it stayed between us.”
I mime the motion of zipping my lips, and he smiles again, a real one this time.
“I’m an awesome secret keeper,” I remind him.
His eyes narrow playfully. “I know. You never would tell me that it was your brothers who sank my canoe.”
Because it wasn’t my brothers. It was me. I didn’t mean to shoot it. I was aiming at the damn woodpecker that was making my life hell, but tripped over my boot’s untied shoelace as I fired the shot.
But, since I’m an awesome secret keeper, I keep that to myself and just grin at him.
“What happened between your brother and your ex?” I ask before I can stop myself.
That small bit of humor dies. “Nothing. My brother wasn’t actually the father. That was just Sadie’s way of tearing us apart by getting him to confess he’d screwed her behind my back. The baby belonged to another guy who eventually married her. But Sadie’s marriage ended this past year.”
I nod, even though I don’t know why I’m nodding. I guess I’m not sure what else to say.
“One more thing,” I say, prompting him to sigh.
“I think I’ve told you most of the drama that is my family. I don’t really feel like saying more about it today.”
I shake my head. “How do you make your money? I’ve Googled Benson Nolans a thousand times, and nothing ever pops up on you.”
His grin instantly returns. “You’ve Googled me a thousand times?”
I nod, unashamed.
“I admit that I was mostly curious about what you looked like without a horrible beard—obviously this was before you lost it.”
He chuckles under his breath.
“That’s because I legally changed my name to Nolans before moving here. That was my grandmother’s maiden name. My father hasn’t been in the picture for a really long time, and that name would have pulled up some interesting things, if anyone from Tomahawk got curious and started asking questions.”
“Why would you care?” I ask, confused.
He grins broader. “Because this is Tomahawk.”
I groan as he laughs.
“Then what’s your real name?”
He stands, putting me on my feet, before tugging my hand in his.
“My real name is Benson Nolans. It’s the only name I care about. Everything before this version of me feels like a different person in a different life.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” I ask as he starts guiding me upstairs.
He turns his head and flashes that devilishly perfect smile at me.
“The secret to being a bore is to tell someone everything.”
When I groan again, he laughs, practically dragging me up the stairs to his bedroom.
I suddenly don’t give a damn about his past when he presently starts kissing me stupid. I sigh into his mouth, too content to let this moment slip away, when his arms come around my waist and lift me so that he doesn’t have to bend.
He lowers me to the bed before undressing me, and I push his clothes off him as fast as I can. I’m almost crazy with need when he finally pushes into me.
His lips stay on mine as his lazy thrusts do unpredictably awesome things to my body. I never knew how right something could feel.
In this moment, everything is perfect.