The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass by Maisey Yates

CHAPTER ONE

LAZ JENKINSWASin the business of giving out advice. Okay, technically he owned a bar, and was in the business of selling booze. But that job came with a certain responsibility. He took the position of armchair psychologist very seriously. He had been part and parcel of more happy endings in Gold Valley, Oregon than he could even count at this point. He had wondered—often—if he should start some sort of matchmaking service. Though in fairness, he wasn’t the person who matched people up, he just told them when to quit being dumbasses and work it out with each other. His chooselove speech was so well-worn, so tried-and-true, that he could freely mix it up whenever he wanted to.

But when the door to the bar opened after last call and he looked up to see the silhouette of a woman wearing a voluminous dress standing in the doorway, he had a feeling that there wasn’t going to be a choose love speech that would fit this moment.

“You’re closed, aren’t you?”

He would recognize the voice of his best friend anywhere. But his best friend was not supposed to be here today. She was supposed to be getting married. Technically, she was supposed to already be married, and off on her honeymoon with the pointless asshole that she called a fiancé, having that fabled, sparkling wedding night in a fancy hotel in San Francisco, like she had been so looking forward to.

Of course, she appeared to not be there. Something he might have picked up on sooner had he actually gone to the wedding earlier.

He hadn’t.

But he had hoped he wouldn’t have to have that conversation with Jordan so soon after. And he had sort of been hoping that after she’d gone on her honeymoon she might not really care. They’d been planning on going to Hawaii.

“Since when has it mattered to you if I’m closed?”

He pressed both hands on the bar and waited. And he thought back to that first time she’d walked in his bar.

“You’re closed? Aren’t you?”

“Yeah, lastcall was a full half hour ago, princess.” But he looked at what she was wearing—a light sweater and what looked like pajama pants and he was...well, concerned and curious. “Why don’t you come in and sit for a minute. I’ll make you a cup of hot tea.”

She stood there, just staring for a moment, as if she were stunned by the offer. Then she mobilized. Crossing the wide, empty room and making her way to the bar. “Oh you don’t have to do that.” Even as she sat down.

“I insist.”

He wasn’t about to send her off at two thirty in the morning looking that vulnerable. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to her.

She walked closer and he could see she looked familiar.

“I should have gotten dressed,” she said. “I have to be at work in like...an hour and a half. But I just live down the street.”

“Sugar Cup,” he said, suddenly putting her face into context. “You work at the coffeehouse.”

He didn’t recognize her without her guard up, that was the only way he could describe it. He’d gotten coffee from her a couple of times and she was...sullen. But not now. Now she just looked soft, vulnerable and a little sad.

“Yeah, so this bout of insomnia is getting intense.”

“Insomnia, huh?” He poured some hot water into a mug and added a tea bag—he only had one kind, this was a bar, after all—and slid it toward her.

“Yeah, I’ve always had trouble sleeping but it’s gotten worse lately. Just...having trouble sleeping.”

“Sorry to hear it. I’m Laz, by the way.”

She blinked wide blue eyes at him. “I know. I’m Jordan.”

And that was the first of many, many times over the past decade that he and Jordan had shared a cup of tea in his bar at an ungodly hour. From that they’d built a friendship that he wouldn’t have known how to explain if asked. But fortunately, he wasn’t in the business of being asked about his life, nor was he in the business of explaining himself.

It was hard not to go around the bar. Hard not to put himself on the side of the bar she was on. But he didn’t. Because he wanted to know what the hell was happening.

“Haha...hahaha.” He looked at his friend whose shoulders were shaking with the force of her very fake laughter. “Funny story. I didn’t get married. Which, you would know, had you been at the wedding.”

“Looks like you might not have been at the wedding, Jordan. So why do you think I wasn’t?”

“You would have called me. And you didn’t. You haven’t talked to me for three days, actually, Laz.”

“Well. Was there anything to say?”

“Well, I don’t know. We are pretty close, aren’t we? I thought we were.”

Their friendship was a strange one. He could honestly say that he had never been friends with women. Not really. Women liked him. He had absolutely no trouble getting play when he wanted it. He owned a bar, after all. He saw the women who ended up not leaving with the person they wanted to. The women who came to hook up, but didn’t find any they were interested in, except him.

As a blanket policy, he never went home with a woman who had had more than two drinks. Because he was a gentleman like that. And hell, he wanted a woman to know who she was with. And he wanted her to enjoy it. And the fact that he wanted desperately for Jordan to want to be that woman... Well, that was something that stuck in his craw more than he would like to admit. He didn’t do unrequited longing. And hadn’t before he met her.

She’d come in about once a week at first. And in that time he’d managed to collect more and more information on her.

He could still remember the first time she’d mentioned Dylan. Dylan, the eternal boyfriend, who had then become an eternal fiancé. Who had then been intended to be a husband. But was not, it turned out.

“I’ve been with him forever.”

“Is that why you’re still with him?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Weird question.”

“No it isn’t. We get in habits.”

“He’s a person, not a habit.”

He shrugged. “Just checking.”

“Well, no he’s not. He’s amazing. And he liked me when I was the sad girl in high school with no coat and shoes that were too small. And do you know how many people liked me or tried to know me back then? Approximately no one, that’s how many.”

“All right. Fair. But I bet a whole lot more people like you now.”

“I got busy.”

“You got busy. Great.”

“Are you going to castigate me for declining to come to the wedding that you clearly didn’t have, or are you going to actually tell me what the hell happened?”

“There’s no point talking about it,” she said, wading deeper into the bar, kicking the tulle and lace of her dress out of the way. It did something weird to his heart. Made it get tight. Also made it feel too big for his chest all at once.

It was hell. He didn’t like it.

He hadn’t imagined her in such a fussy wedding dress. Jordan was... The thing about Jordan was she wasn’t actually sullen. She was reserved. She took a while to get to know, but he knew her. And he had a feeling it was her almost-mother-in-law’s fault she was in such a fluffy dress.

“I’m not the person that my mother-in-law... My future mother-in-law would’ve chosen for her son. She told me that. I had a lot of changing to do to be...remotely acceptable. Trailer trash and all that.”

“She called you that?”

“Oh, not in so many words. She’s a good churchgoing woman, she would never say it. But she thinks it. I know she does. She was so generous to me, and she gave me a place to stay when I needed one, but it has always come with strings.”

He could remember every conversation they’d had at this bar. For someone who talked to hundreds of people every week, it was telling when he could have a conversation with one person and know it was important.

He’d made good friends with West Caldwell. The guy was an ex-convict from Texas, wrongfully accused of a crime he didn’t commit, who had married the town police chief. There was just something about the guy, easy to get to know, easy to talk to, as well as not talk to. But, he had never once been tempted to kiss West. There were several reasons for that. But it was just one of the many ways that Jordan herself was unique.

Their connection had stuck. That conversation had stuck. And it had bloomed into a friendship. One that took place between the end of his shift and the beginning of hers. That was another thing about Jordan. She often wandered the streets of Gold Valley from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m., captive to her insomnia, which had become the foundation for their relationship. And he had just... Well, he’d forgone a lot of sleep and a lot of sex for the privilege of talking with her.

“There’s no point talking about it, and yet you’re here. In the place where we talk about it. All of it. So you might as well go.”

“I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. I got to the day, and I couldn’t do it. And I owe them everything.”

He knew what she meant. She didn’t just mean Dylan. She meant his whole family. Jordan had been kicked out by her parents when she was sixteen, and it was her boyfriend’s family who had taken her in. He knew that her connection with them was complicated, and went far beyond a simple romantic entanglement with one person. She was enmeshed in the entire family. And she spoke about it in terms of affection and irritation in pretty equal turns. But one thing was certain—always certain—she loved his family. She loved him too, though less often doubted that she loved him the way that a woman should love a man. She carried a lot of affection and obligation for him.

He wasn’t actually an asshole. It was just that Laz didn’t think he was right for Jordan.

And you think you are?

For all his speeches on love, he’d never been in love himself.

He’d been married to this bar for more years than he could count. After moving to Gold Valley to care for his grandmother and work on her ranch, he’d set new goals for himself. And those goals had included buying a piece of the main street of the town that he had come to love so much.

So he’d done that. But along the way... Along the way he hadn’t done the whole marriage and family thing. It had never seemed all that attractive to him. His parents had been steeped in icy silence, the success of their professional lives not compensating for the solid wall of ice that existed in their personal lives. There had just been so much resentment. And if they’d hated being obligated to each other, they hadn’t been a whole lot more excited about Laz and his extracurricular activities either.

It was why Gold Valley had been an easy choice. It was why he left home at seventeen. Chosen to graduate from Gold Valley High rather than the high school in Portland he’d been going to. Because while his grandmother had been stern and firm, running the place with an iron fist, there had also been peace in her house. Long talks late into the night, her particular brand of soul food, and sweet tea, owed to her upbringing in Louisiana. She had been a hardworking woman, and she had run the men who worked the ranch, and her house with unfailing energy.

“I can’t believe that she’s gone.” He poured a shot of whiskey for himself, and then one for Jordan. He set both on the bar.

“I’m so sorry,” Jordan said, her hands on his. And he wished it could be more. “I wish I could have met her.”

“She has been pretty poorly ever since we met. Didn’t come down to town really anymore.” He knocked the shot back. But he wished that his grandmother had met Jordan too. He’d have liked to get her take on them.

“To your grandma.” She took the shot, then gasped. “Oh Lord. I’ve never done that before.”

“Well shit. Didn’t tell me that. I wouldn’t have thrown you in the deep end.”

“It’s okay,” she said, wheezing. “I’m fine.”

He laughed. Absurdly, even while sorrow rolled through him. “She would have really liked you.”

“I can’t think of a better compliment.”

And he couldn’t either. Except... Except that Jordan was Jordan. And that in and of itself was a compliment he knew she would never be able to take.

“She would have liked you. So fuck Dylan’s mom.”

She laughed. “Don’t say that. She took me in. She’s been really good to me.”

“She makes you feel bad about yourself. That’s not good.”

“Yeah. I guess not.”

“You’re special. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Laz...”

But he was done talking about himself. Just profoundly done.

“Do me a favor. Help me get up to that apartment upstairs tonight. Because I’m not going to be able to drive.”

“Whatever you need.”

He didn’t need to think about that. The one night he’d needed someone to be there for him. Gladys would have scolded him. She wouldn’t have wanted her grandson getting sloppy drunk over her, that was for sure.

She’d been a staunchly independent woman. The only one in her family to move from Louisiana to the West Coast. She’d forged her own path, and she’d done it with a firm, uncompromising spirit. She wasn’t a woman to raise her voice, but she wasn’t holding in anger. She just spoke her piece when it needed speaking. She did what needed doing. She didn’t have entanglements she couldn’t handle. And she seemed happier for it. Her husband had died before Laz was born, early in his father’s childhood.

And while she had mourned her husband, she had been content with the life she had built for herself on her own terms.

He’d always admired that. It also internalized that you just couldn’t have the life that you wanted, not down to the final detail, if you shared it with someone else. His parents were unhappy because they had each other, and him, and it was one too many obligations.

Gladys had been good to him. She’d come to his football games at the high school. She’d come to his bar until it had been a bit much for her to make it into town. Her freedom left her free to love him a bit better, and to shine all the brighter.

And he’d wanted to be like her. Not his parents.

His brand of solitude had worked for him.

He saw enough people in the bar.

But then along had come Jordan, and a slow shift of things had begun to make him question whether or not it was what he wanted for always. But then, Dylan had always been a factor. Always Dylan.

“Do you ever wonder if you’ve made a mistake?”

“What kind of mistake?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell if it’s a big one or small one. But I just feel like. I don’t know how to explain it. My life was never easy. I mean, I’m not trying to be a victim or anything like that, it’s just that it was always tough. Growing up in my house. And I took the first available hand that got offered to me. And sometimes I just wonder. I wonder if I’m in the wrong place. Or maybe I’m the wrong person for the place. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“I understand in some ways. I think my parents always felt like they made the wrong choice. Live the wrong lives. And what the hell can you do with that?”

“I don’t know. I guess it depends on how determined you are to keep living in that life.”

Until now, maybe.

“So, what changed?”

“You know, the needing to stand there and say vows. I kept going through them in my head. Over and over again. We didn’t do anything sappy like writing our own vows. You know I hate that shit.”

Jordan liked to play she wasn’t sentimental at all. A holdover from being that girl with no winter coat. But he knew she was. He knew she loved Christmas lights. Just a few months ago the town had been all lit up for Christmas, and it had snowed. And there was Jordan, two in the morning even though it was freezing.

“We should go for a walk.”

“It is fucking freezing.”

“But it’s beautiful outside. The Christmas lights are up.”

“And we’re going to be the two crazy people wandering down the street at three in the morning.”

“Come on.”

She took his arm, and it was something like torture, and they walked down the street together, a strange pressing sense of panic making him want to choke. Because it was domestic. Because it was close to what he wanted, and what he could never have. Not with her, with anyone.

But then the clear Christmas lights illuminated her face and he couldn’t worry about it. Not anymore.

“Dylan will never do this with me.”

Dylan. How he hated the mention of that guy. That guy got to spend his days with her while Laz just got her nights, not in the way that he might like.

The streets were completely empty, the evergreen garlands illuminated by the thousands and thousands of lights wrapped around every support beam and every porch rail on Main Street. And then they stopped in front of the town Christmas tree, Jordan still clinging to his arm. She looked up at him, and he couldn’t breathe for a space of time. If she had been any other woman he would have kissed her. But if she had been any other woman he wouldn’t have gone on a romantic Christmas light walk two days before Christmas either.

“You need to figure out your sleep,” he said.

She laughed softly. “I don’t really want to. Because then we wouldn’t have this.”

“Yes,” he said, remembering the way the Christmas lights lit up her eyes. “I do know you hate that shit.”

“So it was perfect. Just the words. The regular words. The ones that you’re supposed to say. So I’d already heard them, and it was easy to practice. When I imagined saying them to him, when I imagined them being... Permanent and binding, I thought I was going to be sick. When I was supposed to go to the church I thought I was going to be sick, so instead of going to the church I went to the bathroom and got on my knees and got ready to throw up.” She looked over at him. “Not in the dress.” She put her hand on her forehead. “So then I started driving to the church. After I put my dress on. And then I just kept driving. I kept driving and driving and I didn’t stop driving. I went to Medford. I went to In-N-Out Burger and ran in and got a milkshake. They still put the Bible verse on the bottom of the cup, did you know that?”

“I didn’t know there was a... I didn’t know that was the thing.”

“It is. I dipped French fries in the milkshake and sat on the bumper of my car and stared at nothing. There’s a mall there. That’s all there is to look at. I couldn’t go in to any stores, because I was in a wedding dress. So I just sat there. I considered driving to California. At that point, you’re only forty-five minutes away. I checked on the map.”

The image of her eating French fries triggered another memory. This one a lot more recent.

“The wedding is in two weeks.” She dipped a French fry into some ketchup and shoved it into her mouth. “And I... I’m not excited. Which scares me a little bit. Maybe it’s just because I don’t think it’s going to change anything. I’ll be legally bound to his family, which used to be the only thing I ever wanted. But... You know, you can’t choose your family. Like I can’t choose mine. Which is why I never speak to my parents, but they are still my parents. But I’m not sure... His family modeled a functional family for me but I’m not sure that I fit in with them any better. And I actually am choosing them, aren’t I? Except I always feel like they chose me and I have to be grateful for it.”

“Do they actually say that?”

She looked away. “I mean, a little.”

“That’s bullshit, Jordan.”

“Well. I’m the child of a couple of addicts that they would never even speak to, much less choose their daughter to marry their son. I just...”

“You’re going to let people make you feel like the daughter of addicts for the rest of your life? Make you feel like that’s all you are?”

“That’s not... It’s not them. It’s not... It’s just that I’m very conscious of the fact that I have to be careful. That I have to be mindful of what I could turn into if I’m not careful.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Maybe it isn’t. But I don’t have anyone else either. I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen to me if I end up alone.”

“You’ll never be alone. Not as long as you have me.”

“All right. So then you...”

“I kind of blanked out. I mean, I’m not really sure what all I did. I drove around. I just drove around. And then I turned back around and came here. And then... I came right here. Because it was the only place I knew... There’s nowhere else I can go. I don’t have anyone else. I just alienated everyone who has ever loved me.”

He chuckled. “Okay.”

“Except you. I... I’m not going to be able to sleep. This is when I can’t sleep anyway.”

She picked at a scarred part of the bar top.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Her head shot up. “And go to where?”

“My house.”

“Your house.” She frowned.

In fairness, he had never had her out to his house before. She was his best friend, and he would claim that in pretty much any circle, but they had only ever really seen each other here. But then, that was pretty normal for him.

“What am I going to do at your house?”

“You’re going to sleep, Jordan. You are not staying up for more than twenty-four hours. You are not marinating in your own misery to the point that you can no longer stand on your own two feet.”

“Am I not?”

“No,” he said.

A new purpose turned over inside of him. And he realized... Well, he realized that he should have done a little telling her what to do a while ago. Because she wasn’t taking care of herself. And she hadn’t been.

“Let’s go.”

“Right now? I didn’t even get a drink.”

“You shouldn’t have a drink. Not in your current state. Don’t go using it like medicine.”

She frowned. “Oh please don’t be my Jiminy Cricket. I’m in my own head enough about all this stuff.”

“I am not a damned bug. But I am going to tell you what’s good for you. You’re already milkshakefaced. Let’s leave it at that.” He rounded the bar, and walked over to where she was sitting. She just looked up at him, with big blue doe eyes. Jordan was never doe-eyed. He put his hand low on her back, which made his stomach feel hollow.

He walked her out the front of the bar and closed the door behind them, locking it. “You have any clothes other than the wedding dress?”

“No,” she said. “And all of my clothes are at Dylan’s.”

“Right. Let’s just go to my place.” He sighed. “I’ll get you one of my T-shirts.”

That didn’t do anything to improve his disposition.

They walked down the sidewalk, a healthy distance between them. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. And then when they got to the truck he went to the passenger side and opened the door for her. “Get in.”

She obeyed. And he helped her tuck the wedding dress up into the car.

And as he lifted the mountain of tulle up into the truck, their eyes met. And his stomach hollowed out.

“You’re coming to my wedding, aren’t you?”

“I thought we were situational friends.”

She looked hurt by that. Angry. Well, he was hurt and angry about the whole thing.

“We’re friends,” she said. “The best friend I have and I thought that you would come to my...”

“Yeah,” he said. And even then he knew he was lying. “I’ll come to your wedding. I’ll sit there and stare at you as you walk down the aisle. And I’ll behave myself.”

“Good. Not the behaving yourself. That you’ll be there. You know you’re important to me.”

“Yeah.”

But he couldn’t say what he wanted to. And there was no point to it anyway. So he said nothing. Because he’d been over this with her repeatedly. And there was no point arguing. She had doubts, but she was going to do it.

It was best if she did.

He released his hold on her. Closed the truck door decisively. Then he got in and started the engine. Neither of them spoke.

They drove up the winding road that led to the little ranch that had been in his family since the 1960s. The house itself was still much as it had been back in those early years. He’d updated it, fixed it up with his own hands mostly.

The barn had been expanded. Because his true passion was horses, and while he didn’t much care about having every modern convenience in his house, in his barn was another matter.

“This is it,” he said.

“It’s nice,” she responded.

He pulled up to the front and she sat rooted to the seat.

“You can get out, Jordan.”

She started to unbuckle her seat belt, and before she could make a move to get out, he was exiting the truck, rounding to the other side and opening the door for her.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, swinging her legs around and pushing herself out of the truck, ball of white tulle first.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But it seems like the thing to do when somebody has just run out on their wedding.”

“What am I going to do, Laz? I can’t go back to Sugar Cup. Everybody in town is going to know. Everybody in town must already know.”

“I managed to make it through a Friday night without hearing about it.”

“Great. They are protecting me. Because they hoped I was going to come back. That’s what it has to be. But I wasn’t going to come back. I was never going to come back.”

“Why didn’t you just break up with him before the wedding, Jordan. If that’s what you were feeling?”

“Because I was afraid. And I thought that wanting to be part of his family... I thought that wanting to do it was the same as being in love. But it’s not. And beneath all my wanting to do it, I desperately didn’t want to do it. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“Makes sense to me. I understand.”

“It’s such a mess, Laz. I really made a mess of it.”

She was looking up at him, pleading, and he really couldn’t take it.

“Sleep,” he bit out. “Don’t talk about messes. And don’t think about whether or not you should be cleaning them up. You can’t do anything when you haven’t slept.”

“I should know,” she said. “I’ve spent years not sleeping.”

“Me too. Occupational hazard.”

He led her inside, and ushered her through the house, into his bedroom. He gritted his teeth. Jordan was in his bedroom. And who the hell was he that it made him feel this way? He had spent years having casual sex. The desire was easy. The getting there was easy. The saying goodbye was easy. But the scary thing was that Jordan had said hello one day, in the wee hours of the morning, and he had never even considered saying goodbye. That was the problem. She mattered. And he didn’t really know what to do with someone who mattered quite this much.

Except give her a place to stay.

“I’ll get you a T-shirt.”

He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a gray T-shirt. He almost grabbed a white one, but thought that was a shade too masochistic. Imagining her in nothing but a white T-shirt was enough to destroy him completely. Imagining her in a gray one was only going to render him partially reduced.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’ve got sweatpants too but they’re not going to fit you.” Laz was over six feet, Jordan was maybe five-two. She was a tiny little thing. Tiny, feral and angry, and that was all the things he liked about her. All the things she was always trying to cover up. To be acceptable to that boyfriend and his damn family.

“I’ll sort it out,” she said.

“I can go down to town and get some of your things tomorrow if you want.”

“Would you do that?”

“Yeah. Help me figure it out.”

“Well, maybe he went on our honeymoon. If he did...”

“You think he’d go on your honeymoon by himself?”

“Oh, not down to San Francisco. But to Hawaii, yes. We were flying out of San Francisco because we got a deal. Those tickets aren’t refundable. I bet he’s getting on a plane.”

“Too bad plane tickets aren’t transferable anymore. That’s one of those made-for-TV romance movies waiting to happen. He could grab one of your bridesmaids.”

Jordan laughed. “I don’t have bridesmaids.”

And he should have known that. Because the fact of the matter was that he would call Jordan his best friend and she would call him hers.

“It hurt my feelings that you weren’t there,” she said. She smiled. “You know, somewhere between here and Medford.”

“When you realized?”

“Yes.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “You didn’t come to find me. So I knew you didn’t know. I knew... Laz, I knew you would have come for me.”

His breath stopped. Right there in his lungs.

“We’ll talk about that later.”

She nodded. “Did you just think I wouldn’t do it? Is that what you thought? Did you know that I was going to walk into the bar?”

He wished he could say yes. But the fact was, for him, that would’ve been optimism. And he didn’t traffic in that level of optimism. He was a realist. But then, maybe he was going to have to forget about that. Because it was not realistic that Jordan had come to the bar in her wedding dress at 2:00 a.m. when she was supposed to be Mrs. Dylan Walker.

And was instead Jordan.

His Jordan. At his house.

“Get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning. Eggs and bacon?”

“Please don’t tell me that you cook.”

“I live by myself, Jordan. Of course I know how to cook.”

And with that, he left her. By herself, to change into his gray T-shirt.

Laz had never considered himself a saint. But at this point he was considering applying.