A week later, Sadie was sitting in the bridal shop on the ground floor of the Pacific Pier Building listening to her mom, her aunt Thea, and her older sister, Clara, go on and on—and on and on—about Clara’s upcoming wedding.

The shop was new and tastefully decorated. The owner of the shop, Addie, was actually a client of Sadie’s. She’d tattooed over some scars Addie had wanted to not have to look at anymore.

Sadie had recommended the shop to Clara, but now she felt a little sorry for Addie, who was stuck dealing with the chaos that was the Lane family women.

“Sadie, are you even listening?” her mom asked.

“Of course.” She totally wasn’t listening. She was eating from a big bag of salt and vinegar chips and daydreaming about the way Caleb had kissed her against the Canvas Shop’s door last week. No, wait, she’d kissed him. She’d kissed him and it’d been . . . She shook her head, still dizzy from the feel of his mouth on hers.

It’d been a-maz-ing.

Every time she thought about it, she got a hot flash. Either she was going through the change of life at twenty-eight, or she had it bad.

Neither option appealed.

So she stuffed another chip into her mouth and went back to daydreaming about how it’d felt to be hauled up against Caleb’s hard body, his hands gripping her like he didn’t want to let her go, and his mouth, God that mouth—

“Well then?”

Sadie jumped a little and glanced up at Clara, who was in her bridal gown looking . . . well, white. And perfect as always.

A seamstress and Addie, as well as Sadie’s mom and aunt, fluttered around the bride, all of it reflecting back at Sadie, the sole audience, through the six huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors in a half circle around the bride-to-be.

“Yes or no?” her mom asked Sadie.

“Um . . .” She’d zoned out thinking about Caleb and wondering why she’d been stupid enough to avoid being alone with him for a long week. To stall, she made a show of looking around. “Anyone have ranch dip? No? Maybe a margarita?”

Her mom sighed. “Will you be serious for once?”

“I am serious. I’m starving.”

“You keep eating those chips and we’ll have to order up a size when we order your bridesmaid dress.”

Addie sucked in a little breath of shock, but managed to say calmly, “We don’t size-shame here.”

“It’s okay,” Sadie told her. “I’m fairly un-shameable.” And that was true. For the most part, the things her well-meaning family said didn’t get to her. Except for once in a great while, in the deep, dark of the night when she lay in bed, replaying every stupid thing she’d ever done instead of sleeping, including stress-eating a big bag of chips so that her yoga pants—which had never seen an actual yoga class—became too tight.

With a sigh, she set aside the chips and carefully picked off a few crumbs and those too so as to not make a mess. The gesture made her miss Lollipop, who had turned out to be a great companion and a most excellent vacuum cleaner.

For the past seven days she and Caleb had been co-parenting the adorable three-legged dog by handing off custody each day, the time varying depending on whether or not she worked at the spa. It’d been shockingly easy. This morning Caleb had picked up Lollipop early, leaving Sadie without a buffer between her and her family at the moment.

Not ideal.

But she smiled at the memory of Caleb dropping to his knees to hug Lollipop hello, laughing softly at the sight of several lip gloss kiss prints that Sadie had inadvertently left all over the dog’s face. “Lucky dog,” he’d murmured and something had quivered deep inside Sadie as their eyes had met and held.

And she’d had to admit to herself that she wouldn’t have minded having her mouth on that square scruffy jaw.

Or on his lips . . .

“Helloooooo!” Clara went hands on hips, accidentally dislodging the seamstress off the platform. “Bride here! Can you or can you not can see nipplage through this dress?”

Sadie looked over her sister’s perfect store-bought C’s. “Yep, but if it helps, it’s pretty nice-looking nipplage.”

Her aunt Thea gasped as if personally affronted.

“Oh my God.” Clara slapped her hands over her breasts.

“No worries,” Addie said quickly. “We carry some strapless bras for just this very thing. We can sew it right into the dress.” She produced one quickly and Clara sucked in a breath at the price tag of one hundred bucks.

“It’s fine,” her mom said. “We don’t put a price on hiding our nipples.”

While the bride worked on getting herself into the bra, her mom looked around. “Now. What about Sadie?”

Sadie froze with a chip halfway to her mouth, realizing the question was the refrain of her entire life in three words.

What about Sadie?

Once upon a time this would have sent her spiraling. But she’d learned to accept herself.

Mostly.

Clara turned her attention from her reflection to Sadie. “Did you pick out which style of bridesmaid dress you like yet?”

“Whichever you want me to wear,” Sadie said.

“I want you to pick.”

Sadie glanced at the rack of bridesmaid dresses that they’d all already gone through. She loved Addie, she really did, but none of the dresses were her style. “Today’s about you. I’ll come back to do that another time.”

Clara shook her head. “We’ve shopped around for months. Why can’t you just pick one?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie said. “Why do bras cost a hundred bucks and dresses cost a gazillion dollars and yet men’s shirts come in a plastic pack of four for ten bucks? Just another of life’s little mysteries.”

“Do you have any new tattoos you’ll have to hide with your dress?” Aunt Thea asked.

Since the subject of Sadie’s tattoos had long been a bone of contention, everyone stilled.

“Well, I’m just saying,” Aunt Thea said. “They’re pretty permanent, you know.”

“And you have four kids,” Clara said in Sadie’s defense. “Those are pretty damn permanent too.”

“It’s okay,” Sadie said, not wanting this to turn into a fight. “I’ll wear whatever you guys want.”

Her mom sighed.

Sadie knew that sigh. It was the martyr sigh. The one that said Sadie was being difficult again. And since she wasn’t actually trying for difficult, she gave a peace offering. “Really. Whatever you guys want, I like them all.”

At this, her sister snorted. “No, you don’t. You hate big fancy weddings and all the craziness that goes with them.”

“And yet you made me a bridesmaid.”

“Hey, you should be thanking me for not making you maid of honor. Can you just pick the dress that you hate the least?”

Since Sadie wasn’t a fan of taffeta or satin, not to mention weddings in general, she wasn’t sure that was possible, but for Clara, she’d try. “Are you sure you don’t have a favorite yourself?”

Addie gently piped in here, clearly trying to be helpful. “Usually, a bridesmaid really wants to have a say in what she wears—”

“Oh, that’s just Sadie,” her mom said. “Don’t bother pushing her, she doesn’t care. You could tell her the world was coming to an end tomorrow and she wouldn’t care about that either.”

Sadie stuffed another chip in her mouth. She’d heard her mom say this before, many times. It wasn’t accurate, it wasn’t even close to accurate, but she could see how her mom had gotten there, since when it came to the Lane family, Sadie was the Which-Of-These-Things-Is-Not-Like-The-Others.

And she got it, she really did. She’d grown up in a very normal middle-America-type existence. A suburban home complete with white picket fence, two parents and a sister who’d happily played soccer, taken gymnastic lessons, and been a Girl Scout.

And then there was Sadie, the square peg that couldn’t fit into the round hole to save her own life. Growing up, she’d preferred being alone with a sketch pad and a pencil to sports, clubs, or birthday parties. She’d been quiet, and when spoken to by anyone she didn’t know, she’d come off as sullen and uninterested.

The uninterested part might have been true. But she had always felt so out of place in her own skin and hadn’t known how to express that. She’d used her art when she could, drawing in secret, refusing to allow anyone to see her work.

Complicating her existence was the fact that she also didn’t look like anyone in her family. Her parents and sister were tall and lanky lean. They ate like birds and exercised to within an inch of their regimented lives.

And that was great. For them.

But Sadie had never been lanky lean, not from day one, no matter how she ate or exercised. Nothing changed the fact that she was . . . well, curvy. And fighting it by restricting her food intake and exercising herself half to death for way too many years had only made her hate life.

Her parents had not known what to do with her. She’d been fourteen when they’d sneaked a peek into one of her sketch pads and found some drawings she’d done of a teenage girl wielding a knife, and they’d freaked out. Her mom had contacted a psychologist, Sadie’s school, and practically the National Guard.

This had put her on near lock-down with little to no privacy allowed. They might as well have cut off her hands because drawing had been her only outlet. Once that had become monitored, she’d started a new secret thing, one she could control. The only thing she could control.

Cutting.

And when that had been discovered two years later, her parents had institutionalized her. The nightmare had lasted only a few weeks, but to this day it’d been the worst, darkest time of her life.

She’d come a long way since then, but it’d been a learning curve. These days she didn’t care much about what people thought. And that alone was the reason she was still here. She didn’t live to make people happy, even if those people were her own family.

Needing a quick bout of happy at the moment, she pulled out her phone and brought up her pics, specifically the one from this morning when Caleb had come to pick up Lollipop. She’d run on her three legs right for him and taken a flying leap. The pic was live, showing Lollipop hitting Caleb’s chest and then his arms coming around the dog, but it was the smile on both man’s and dog’s face that caught her.

“What are you smiling at?” her mom asked, sitting next to her. “Who’s that?”

Sadie had played aloof so long she’d almost started to believe it about herself, but the truth was, there wasn’t anything aloof about how she felt about the dog. She was starting to come to terms with the fact that she felt a whole hell of a lot for the man too. Or at least certain parts of her did. “No one,” she said and slipped her phone away.

Her mom opened her mouth to press, but Addie interrupted and cemented a place in Sadie’s heart for it.

“How about this dress for you?” Addie asked. “It’d suit you.” She was holding up a long lacy bridesmaid dress that was actually pretty except for the fact that it was pink. But at least it was pale pink, almost a champagne color, and who didn’t like champagne . . . “This is the right color, yes?” she asked Clara.

Clara nodded. “And it’s great for Sadie’s skin tone.”

“Her tattoos will show,” her mom said. “And what will we do about her hair?”

Sadie reached for the bag of chips again just as her phone went off with a text from the Canvas Shop letting her know her next client was in.

Perfect.

She stood. “Sorry, gotta get to work.” She hugged Addie, and then on second thought hugged her sister, her mom, and her aunt too, even though the Lanes weren’t exactly the hugging type. Stepping back, she let out a breath, officially hugged out for the rest of the year. She was halfway out the door of the bridal shop when she heard her mom.

“But seriously, what about Sadie—?”

She couldn’t hear the rest of the question, but chances were that it was a valid one. No one ever knew what to do with her.

Three minutes later, Sadie entered the Canvas Shop. Rocco gave a jerk of his head to the back room. His version of asking her to talk for a minute.

She followed him.

He leaned back against a counter and stared at her. His black hair was wild as always and months past needing a cut. His jeans were torn up, his kickass boots battered, his T-shirt advertised his own shop, and his expression was dialed to Cranky Ass. Unlike Sadie, who only had a few very strategically placed tattoos, Rocco was inked from head to toe. Tattoos gave a history, a road map so to speak. There were prison tats. Russian tats. Drunken tats . . . Every one of them told a story and Rocco had started young.

Not Sadie. After high school, she hadn’t been able to get an apprenticeship with a tattoo artist, so she’d gotten her esthetician license instead and started doing permanent makeup instead, working at a spa that did a lot of pro bono work for cancer patients.

It’d been eye-opening. What she’d heard most often was the devastation of dealing with the aftermath and recovery, including surgical scars.

When she’d finally gotten a chance to become an apprentice at Rocco’s tattoo shop, she’d jumped on it. She’d worked under him for three years, doing whatever work Rocco had given her before getting her own clients, and she’d made her own niche. Because unlike anyone else in their shop, she specialized in covering scars.

Rocco was only five years older than her, but besides being her boss, he also considered himself her protector and her very nosy older brother.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

He handed her a brown bag from the coffee shop. It was filled with Tina’s famous mouthwatering muffins.

“Wow,” she said. “Thanks. Is it Christmas?”

“They’re not from me.”

Her heart took a good hard leap against her ribs as she realized they must be from Caleb. The night before he’d had a late work night and he’d needed her to cover Lollipop for him. She’d happily done it and hadn’t expected a reward of muffins, but she would take it.

Rocco met her gaze. “I thought you learned your lesson with the last suit.”

He was referring to her very-ex-boyfriend, Wes. She’d dated him for six months a couple of years back and he’d nearly destroyed her. No, correction. She’d nearly allowed him to destroy her. In any case, she had a rule, she didn’t talk about him. Ever. “Excuse me?” she asked in her best PMS voice.

“Don’t pull that pissy tone, you know what I’m talking about.”

Yeah, unfortunately she did. All her life she’d chosen the wrong guy. Clearly, there was something in her genetic makeup that made her go for guys who treated her much like her family did, like she was someone they weren’t quite sure what to do with.

Wes had been a lawyer, of all things. Cool and calm and unflappable. And into her. It’d been that to draw her in, and once he’d paid her even the slightest bit of attention, she’d fallen hard.

Stupid, stupid, stupid . . . “Actually,” she said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah?” Rocco pointed at her. “So why then are you using your lie voice, the one that’s two octaves above your regular voice? You’re dating Suits, just admit it.”

“I’m not dating anyone. First of all, men are stupid. Second of all, I’m a new dog mom and holding down two jobs. Do the math. No time for a man anyway. Third . . .” She’d run out of reasons, so she went with a repeat. “Men are stupid.” She jabbed a finger at him. “So you’re wrong.”

“Old Man Eddie saw you two getting all hot and heavy up against my front door.”

“That was a week ago. Your news is old.” Crap. “And Old Man Eddie smoked half his brain cells gone. He doesn’t know what he saw.”

Rocco shook his head. “You swore off men because you make bad decisions in that arena and you made me promise to hold you back.” He snatched the bag of muffins and dug in. “So this is me, keeping my promise.”

She snatched the bag back and the muffin from his fingers. “I release you from that promise.”

“Wow,” he said. “Okay, so remind me again, when you get into a mood like this, am I supposed to give you space or attention?”

“Yes,” she said.

He tossed up his hands.

“There’s nothing going on with me and Suits.”

“Really?” he asked, voice heavy with disbelief. “Because he’s been here every day this week.”

“To exchange custody of Lollipop! And let me just say, yes, fine, I’ve made some questionable choices, but I own those, okay? I stand by who I am now, and it’d sure be nice if the people in my life could do the same and have some damn confidence in me.” She pointed at him. “And you know what? If you’re in such a chatty mood, how about we talk about you and Tyler? I can see the screen on your phone and he just texted you. Twice. I thought you’d blocked him.”

Tyler was Rocco’s ex-boyfriend. They’d been together forever and then one day Rocco didn’t show up for work. He’d stayed away for two whole weeks, word being that he’d gone on an epic bender after a blow-up fight and the subsequent breakup. When Rocco had finally showed back up at work, he’d been even more surly, grumpy, and pissed off at the world than usual. And refusing to discuss anything.

That had been a month ago.

Rocco’s scowl deepened, if that was even possible. He glared at her. “My personal life isn’t up for discussion.”

“Ditto.”

He shook his head. “I can’t out-stubborn you, I don’t even know why I try. Fine, get your heart stomped on again.”

She shook her head, because that wasn’t going to happen. She was insanely careful about that very thing. Letting people in, letting them get to know her, meant revealing herself. All of herself. And her track record with that, with someone loving her for her, was zip.

As for why Caleb had gotten beneath her guard, she had no explanation for that. All she knew was that she would have to be even more careful now because no matter what she told Rocco, Caleb was working his way in through her walls with his easy confidence and just-for-her smile. She was definitely in trouble.

Or at least her heart was.