Dirty Ginger by Stacey Kennedy

3

After a round of texts with Luka, Amelia parked her bright blue Yaris at the curb in downtown River Rock, the hard lump still stuck in her throat. The very last thing she wanted to do was face Luka, but no way would she let Beckett take the fall for the mess she’d caused. She kept her head down, feeling watchful stares from the locals. No doubt they wanted to give their condolences, like her life was over. Dammit, her life wasn’t over, not even close. On her honeymoon, and after a much-deserved emotional breakdown, she’d discovered a newfound steadiness inside herself. She would live her life on her terms. She had a clear head, and she was determined to listen to her heart instead of stuffing all her emotions deep down and ignoring them. And her heart was telling her that she needed to do this for Beckett, no matter how much she wanted to turn and run far away from Luka.

She crossed the road, approaching the signage that read: Hot Brew and Eats. The local coffee shop made a killer pumpkin spiced latte in the fall and a chocolate fudge brownie to die for all year long. When she entered the brown-bricked building, she found the shop quiet this morning, only a few customers sitting around the retro-style booths finished in brown leather. In one of those booths sat Luka. He caught her arrival and gave her a small, pathetic smile, which she didn’t return. Instead, she headed for the counter. “Hey Betty,” she said, reaching the twenty-something woman with the big brown eyes. “Can I get a vanilla latte?” She’d gone to high school with Betty’s older sister.

“Sure. That’ll be three sixty-five,” Betty said, giving a sweet as sugar smile. “I told him that he wasn’t welcome here, but he said you were meeting him. That’s the only reason his sorry ass is still in the shop.”

Amelia laughed softly, taking out her debit card. “Thanks for sticking up for me, but yeah, I asked him to meet me here.” Even the locals in the booths around the shop were giving Amelia a warm smile, then proceeded to give Luka the stink eye. He was the city guy out of Denver who’d broken the heart of a River Rock native. No one would welcome him back. Amelia cursed the part of her heart, albeit a small part, that felt bad for him.

Betty typed the amount into the debit machine. “If that changes, let me know, and I’ll kick him outta here.”

“Thanks, Betty. I appreciate it.” Amelia tapped her card against the machine, waiting for the beep before she slid her card back into her wallet. “Do you mind bringing my drink over when it’s ready?”

“Not at all. It’ll just be a minute.”

Amelia sent her another grateful smile both for the latte and the protection, and then she did the one thing she didn’t want to do; she approached Luka. His gaze remained glued to her every step. His expression uneasy. He didn’t rise when she sidled up to the table, something he never did when a woman approached a table. Something River Rock men always did. It occurred to her now how much that used to bother her about Luka. She wondered when she’d stopped caring that he had terrible manners.

“Hi,” she said, sliding into the booth in front of him. Only then did she get a good look at him, and she cringed. “Your face looks terrible.” His nose definitely had been broken. The middle now had a dent in it, and he was sporting two black eyes.

“My face feels terrible,” Luka grumbled, fiddling with the to-go mug. His voice didn’t sound quite right either, more nasally.

Betty approached the table. She set Amelia’s latte down in the front of her and said to her, “Enjoy.” To Luka, she snapped, “I hope you choke on your drink.”

Amelia fought her smile as Betty whirled and headed back to the counter.

Luka sighed. “Everyone here hates me.”

“Are you surprised?” Amelia asked, glancing his way again, finding his head bowed.

He shrugged. “Not really.”

She took in the slump of his shoulders and the heaviness in his voice, and her heart reached for him, even though she knew it shouldn’t. For the last two weeks, she’d been living it up, healing her heart with pina coladas and sunshine by the ocean. He’d obviously been in a living hell. She could only imagine the fury of his mother at wasting her hard-earned money on a wedding that never happened. And the embarrassment she must have endured within her catty group of friends. She really didn’t want to punish him further. “I didn’t ask you to come here to hash everything out or to make you feel bad or anything like that.”

His head lifted, surprise glinting on his face. “You don’t want to talk about what happened?”

“Actually, no I don’t,” she said, a revelation to herself too. “I don’t want to relive everything that happened. We were something. Now we’re nothing.”

Tears welled in his eyes before he looked down to his coffee cup and composed himself. “I wish I would have done—”

“Stop.” He snapped his gaze to hers, and she sighed. “Please just stop. I left River Rock heartbroken. I don’t feel heartbroken anymore. I feel raw, but okay. I don’t want apologies. I want to move on with my life.”

His head cocked, curiosity brimming in his eyes. “Then why did you call me here?”

To shake off the confusing, pitying emotion she did feel for Luka, and the slight fear that she had no clue what would happen from this day forward, she took a long sip of her latte, glad for the warmth the drink sent into her bones. “To talk about the charges that you filed against Beckett,” she eventually said.

Luka’s expression changed in a flash, all the sadness turning into something vengeful. “There’s nothing to talk about. The charges have nothing to do with you.”

“It certainly feels like it has something to do with me,” she countered, setting her drink down in front of her. “Not only did you end our engagement in the most spectacularly cruel way, but now you’re dragging all this out by charging one of my friends with assault.”

Luka pointed to his nose. “Look at what he did to my face, Amelia.”

She cringed. “Yeah, I see what he did. It’s bad.” Maisie had said that Beckett had knocked Luka out cold, but Amelia hadn’t stuck around to find out. She’d run out of the brewery and locked herself in the bathroom until everyone left. “But not as bad as what you did to my heart.”

Luka blew out a frustrated breath. He scraped a hand across his face, then groaned when his fingers reached his black eye. “I’m sorry for breaking your heart.”

Her whole plan wasn’t to go there, but her heart suddenly demanded an answer. “Are you sorry? Truly sorry?”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” He set those puppy dog eyes on her that she once loved having look her way. Her heart squeezed, but not as much as she expected, as he said, “But come on, you must have known that something wasn’t right with us. We just got stuck in the idea of a wedding. It can’t just be me. We haven’t been happy for a while. All we did was argue. I saved us from a nasty divorce down the road.”

“You saved us?” she asked, incredulous. “Oh, well, thank you very much for being so considerate for saving me from being hurt further by dumping me at the altar.”

He sighed. “You know what I mean.”

“Actually, what I do know is that you think you know what’s best for me. And you most certainly don’t, because if you did, you wouldn’t have embarrassed me in front of all my family and friends.”

“My family was there too.”

“That makes what you did better?” She drew in a deep breath, her insides shaking, which was exactly what she didn’t want. She let out a slow, deep breath, cooling the heat boiling in her blood. “I don’t want to do this. We’re never going to find a resolution, because what you did was cruel even though you thought it was the right thing to do.” She took another long sip of her drink, steadying her hand, shoving all the hot rage away. “Again, this isn’t why I called you here. I don’t want to talk about us, about what happened, about anything.”

“Then what do you want?” Luka asked, coldly.

“I want you to drop the charges against Beckett.”

He shook his head firmly. “I can’t do that.”

She fisted her hands on the table. “Why? Pride? Did Beckett make you feel small in front of all your family?”

“No,” Luka said with a loud snort. “I need to fix what he did to my fucking nose, Amelia. My insurance only covered the original break. When it healed, it looked like this.” He pointed to his nose. “The surgery costs ten grand to make it look normal again. I don’t have that kind of money lying around after paying for the wedding. Look at me. I can’t leave my nose like this.”

Oh. “Well, did you ask Beckett to pay for the surgery?”

“I did. He refused.”

She sighed. Of course, he did. “You deserved that punch, Luka, whether you want to own up to that or not,” she said, loudly, over the grinding of the coffee beans. A rich nutty aroma infused the air as she continued, “Sending a good man to jail because you broke my heart into a million pieces for all to see is wrong.”

Luka glanced back down to his paper cup and gave a small shrug. “He’s gotta pay for the surgery. I’m not going into debt because he broke my fucking nose.”

Amelia paused, drawing in the deepest breath of her life, determined to put all this behind her and to get a fresh start. “Ten thousand, that’s what you need for the surgery?”

Luka’s gaze met hers. “Yeah.”

Amelia rose, taking her latte with her. “I’ll courier the check to your house tomorrow morning. I expect you to drop the charges after you receive the money. Got it?”

“I’m not going to take ten grand from you,” Luka said, adamant.

“Actually, you are,” she snapped, glaring at him. “Because you owe me this. After the shit you’ve pulled, you will do this and let this go so I can move on with my life.”

Luka paused, hot jealously flaring on his expression. “Why are you doing this for him?”

Before she turned away from Luka forever, she said, “I put Beckett into this situation because I brought you into our lives. He was protecting me. Now it’s my turn to protect him.”

* * *

“Dad, you could help a little,”Beckett groaned, holding half of his father’s weight as he helped him up the rickety old porch steps of his childhood home that was located on the cusp of his grandfather’s land. The Duncans had once owned two hundred acres of pristine Colorado countryside. When his grandfather passed, he left the land to Beckett’s mother, which transferred to his father after the accident. Jim had sold all the land, except for the ten acres around the house. But on the east side of the land, alongside a babbling creek, Beckett inherited his grandfather’s ranch style farmhouse and the horse farm, along with the fifty acres surrounding the property. That land would remain Beckett’s for as long as he was alive, in honor of his grandfather. He’d moved into the property the day after he turned eighteen years old, and the farm officially became his under the estate.

Hayes grunted on the other side of Jim. “How is he still this drunk?”

“It’s a talent,” Beckett grumbled, awkwardly holding his father while using his key to open the front door of his childhood home.

They staggered through the door, and Beckett inhaled the familiar scents around him. A little dusty, a bit damp, all that was missing was the aromas coming from the kitchen of his mother baking something delicious for him to eat. He left the front door wide open. His childhood cat that would have once escaped had passed a few years ago at the age of twenty-seven. Nothing in this house was as it once was, the emptiness was near suffocating.

By the time they set Jim into the recliner in front of the television in the small living room, Beckett was breathing heavily and sweating. He grabbed his dad’s shirt and adjusted him in the chair before flipping the leg rest up. His dad’s snores followed.

“Will he be all right here?” Hayes asked.

“Yeah, he’ll be all right. I’ll check in on him later.” Beckett grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch, and after removing his dad’s shoes, his set the blanket over him. There were things Beckett knew for certain. One, his father’s life drastically changed when his wife died in that accident that altered all their lives forever. Two, he never recovered from his pain. And Beckett, without a doubt in his mind, would never be like him. His pain was always there, but the heavy loss of his mother and grandfather wasn’t the driving force of his life. At least not anymore, after years of therapy and the will to better his life.

He’d tried for years to save his father. But when Beckett realized he hadn’t followed Amelia to Denver, and he’d given up his dreams of becoming a professional calf roper, all because he needed to stay in town and be close to his father to watch out for him, he knew he had to stop. He loved his father, but he quit hurting his life to better his father’s.

Hayes followed Beckett back outside, and as Beckett relocked the front door, Hayes asked, “Any idea what spurred this?”

“Yesterday was my mother’s birthday,” Beckett said, trotting down the porch steps and hoping back into his truck, fastening his seatbelt.

“Shit,” said Hayes, when he slid into the seat next to him. “I totally forgot. You all right, man?”

Beckett nodded, turning on his truck and reversing out of the driveway. “I’m not in the same headspace as him. Yeah, I miss her, but not living isn’t going to bring her back.”

Hayes agreed with a swift nod, fastening his seatbelt. “Good headspace to have.”

Beckett settled his wrist atop the steering wheel, the truck’s engine humming as he drove Hayes back into town. “Is my dad looking at any charges?”

Hayes shook his head. “Nah, he wasn’t being a nuisance, just an eyesore to those in the park.”

Beckett hadn’t felt embarrassed over his father in a long time. The town knew his dad, knew his history, and knew that sometimes Jim fell apart. Beckett had been well on his way to becoming that same guy. Until his mind cleared and healing began, and while he had wished the same healing for his father, Beckett eventually accepted, with the help of therapy, that was never going to happen. Determined to keep his promise to never again allow his father to ruin his day, he shifted the conversation. “Did you hear Amelia’s back?”

“Yeah, I did,” Hayes said, tension in his voice.

Beckett gave him a quick look. “What is it?”

Hayes’ lips pinched before he glanced sidelong. “Amelia was in town meeting with Luka.”

Beckett swerved the truck to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes, dust bellowing around them. “Say that again?”

Hayes removed his hand from the dash he’d obviously been holding to avoid slamming into it. “I told Maisie you wouldn’t be happy about this, but when do any of the Carter sisters listen to me?”

Only one thing mattered to Beckett. “Is she getting back together with him?”

“That’s a negative,” Hayes said with a snort, leaning his elbow against the open window. “Maisie said there’s absolutely no chance of that.”

“Thank God,” Beckett breathed, slowly his racing heart. “That prick doesn’t deserve her.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

Beckett glanced out the front window, realizing he pulled off outside his house. From the road, the quaint but gorgeously built ranch farmhouse stood proud atop a small hill. The barn with the five horse stables was to the right. The property had four large paddocks, with a sand ring and round pen that his grandfather used during his rodeo career. Beckett knew that’s why his grandfather left him the property in his will and didn’t gift it to his mother. Back then, Beckett was meant to follow in his footsteps. Even if Beckett wasn’t using the stables or fields, he kept the property in pristine condition and he never stopped training with his rope. He still loved the sport, missed it every day, but he knew he would never go pro. He let out a long sigh, considering what he heard. “If Amelia is not meeting him to reconnect, why is she seeing him?”

“Yeah, this is the part you’re not going to like,” Hayes grumbled. “Darryl and Penelope popped over to her house this morning with groceries. Maisie told me that they updated her on what transpired between you and Luka.”

“And somehow, that made Amelia want to meet up with that fuckhead?” Christ, Beckett had only just seen her again.

“From what Maisie’s told me, she’s doing it to protect you.”

Beckett went still. “Protect me from what exactly?”

“Jail time.”

Beckett’s hand tightened around the steering wheel. He didn’t have to look to know his knuckles were white. “Where is he?”

Hayes gave him a firm look. The cop, at the ready. “Get that idea out of your head. You can’t go see him. He’s got a restraining order.” Unusual softness reached Hayes’ gaze as he shifted in his seat and cupped Beckett’s shoulder. “Besides, what’s done is done, there is nothing you can do now anyway.”

That fire burning in his gut began to creep up his face. “What do you mean, what’s done is done?”

“Apparently, Amelia paid off Luka for the surgery to make this all go away.”

Beckett’s vision tunneled. He thrust his hands into his hair, desperately trying to hold onto his damn pride. “What in the hell was she thinking?”

“It’s not hard to imagine how responsible she’d feel for this. That she’d want to protect you.”

Beckett dropped his head back against his head rest and breathed deep. “I didn’t want to pay that fucker off.”

Hayes chuckled. “He did look good sporting that nose.”

Beckett slid his glanced sideways and gave a grin he doubted looked amused. “He did.”

A long moment passed as a tractor drove by, the slight breeze carrying the fresh scents of timothy hay in his neighbor’s fields. On one hand, rage simmered that she’d pay that prick off. On the other hand, he liked her jumping in to save him from jail time. It gave him hope that somehow, someway, he’d win her back and she’d never know what a broken heart felt like again.

“So,” Hayes eventually said, breaking the silence. “What’s the plan now?”

Beckett looked his way with an arched eyebrow. “With Amelia?”

“Yeah.”

Beckett focused back on his house. So many wonderful memories were held there. All the hours Amelia spent watching Beckett as he trained for the rodeo under his grandfather’s guidance. All the rides they’d gone on, exploring the Duncan land on horseback. His gaze found the barn, the hayloft being the very spot that Beckett had taken Amelia’s virginity. Knowing there was nothing he wouldn’t do now to get her back in this house with him, he grinned at Hayes. “I hope she throat punches that asshole, and then I’m going to give her hell for paying a debt that belonged to me.”

Hayes laughed. “Sounds like a damn good plan to me.”