Sophie Oak: Pure Bliss

“Is old Red still giving you hell?” Bo asked, gesturing toward the barn.

Red was a horse he was trying to break. Big and powerful, the gelding would make a perfect ranch horse if he wasn’t such a stubborn son of a bitch. Just yesterday, the horse had tossed James right into the dirt. His backside still ached. “He gives everyone hell.”

Bo grinned. “I’ve worked around horses all my life, and I won’t go near that one. That one is a mean son of a bitch. I bet he came out of his momma with an attitude problem. How did you end up with him?”

James rolled his eyes. “Because I’m a dumb-ass and a cheapskate. Now I’m going to have to either eat the money and buy another horse or even worse, admit to Max Harper that I can’t break Red to a saddle.”

“Max is the horse trainer? The one everyone claims is the meanest man in town?”

James laughed. “Max isn’t mean. Max is an intolerant, impatient son of a bitch, but he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. I like Max, but he charges through the damn roof, and he will never let me hear the end of it. No. I am going to break that horse.”

“Not if he breaks you first,” Bo said, palming his keys. “Can you look in on Beth while I’m gone? I shouldn’t be too long.”

“What’s wrong with Beth? And where’s Trev?” He hadn’t seen his partner this morning. If something was wrong with his wife, Trev would be climbing the walls. He was crazy about his wife. Beth McNamara-O’Malley was a sweet little thing. And she was almost intimidating when it came to home improvement. She was planning to completely renovate the guest house for her family. Beth was planning a second floor and an expansion that would rival the main house.

God, he’d had to sell half his land just to keep afloat. It wasn’t just Glen land anymore. It was McNamara land, too. His father would hate him for that.

Bo smiled, a secret little grin. “She’s all right. She’s perfect, actually. She’s just puking her guts out, but apparently that’s to be expected when she’s…well, expecting.”

James felt his eyes go wide. “Beth is pregnant?”

There must be something in the damn water. Everyone was pregnant lately. Rachel Harper had a baby. Callie had given birth to twins. And now Beth. Bliss was getting damn full of babies. And it didn’t freak him out the way it should. He kind of liked babies. He really liked the idea of a family.

He was getting fucking old.

Bo’s grin split his face and made the blond man look like a teenager. “Trev and I forced her to pee on a stick last night. Now she has to stay away from paint fumes and all sorts of things. She’s real depressed about that. She loves the guesthouse, though. She says she can expand it without inhaling a single fume that might hurt the baby.”

Beth had all sorts of plans for beautifying the ranch. Now those plans would include a nursery. Something weird twisted in his gut at the idea of babies running around the ranch. They wouldn’t be his. The world kept moving on, and James just stayed in one place.

Why was he staying away from Hope when he wanted her? Was he really going to let his life slip by because he wasn’t sure he could care for a woman on his own? He could still hear his fathers joking with each other that the ranch was a second wife, that between the ranch and a woman, no single man would be able to handle them both. The ranch took so damn much time. Every girl he’d tried to seriously date had walked away because he couldn’t treat them right. He’d stopped trying. It had been different when Noah was around. Maybe he needed to be stronger. Maybe he needed to figure out a way to have the family he wanted. The one-night stands were getting old.

Of course, he might be shit out of luck. Hope wouldn’t stay in the same room with him anymore. Had he been wrong about her? He’d been so sure she was interested, but maybe she’d figured out he wasn’t a great catch.

“I’m headed into town. Trev went to a meeting in Alamosa, so it looks like I’m on saltine duty.” Bo didn’t look like a man who minded. James didn’t bother to ask if Bo was disturbed by the fact that the baby in Beth’s belly could be his or Trev’s. It wouldn’t have bothered James. It would have been his kid no matter what.

James nodded as Bo took off toward some future he was reaching for. James stood in the drive and wondered if he even had a future.

Hope looked up into the newcomer’s eyes and wondered if the universe just hated her. He was gorgeous. Six and a half feet of pure sin walking in a pair of Levi’s. He had dark hair and a perfect face. He was sober.

That last part was meaningful to Hope—unfortunately, he was also married.

She sighed and decided it was for the best. She shouldn’t meet the future father of her children at an AA meeting. “You said your name was Trev?”

He’d introduced himself to the group for the first time this morning. She’d been deeply affected by his story. Trev had lost everything to his disease. He’d had a promising career, money, everything a person could want, and he’d thrown it all away. Of course, the fact that he was here meant he knew how to fight his way back. She admired the hell out of that. She supposed he was from Alamosa. Most of the group was. She was the only idiot alcoholic who had to drive in from Bliss.

She might be the only alcoholic in Bliss. Though she loved the town, its inhabitants were oddly perfect for all their troubles. She doubted Max Harper, for all his rage issues, had ever put himself in a hospital because he just had to find the bottom of a bottle. She was pretty sure that even Mel could have the occasional beer without spiraling into a well of self-hatred.

Of course, she also bet neither of the men had seen what she had seen.

“Yes. It’s Trev. And you’re Hope, right? Is that a fake name? It’s okay if it is. Trev is really my name. I can’t exactly fake it, you know.”

She didn’t, but it didn’t matter. “My name is really Hope. Listen, I was moved by your story. I’m glad I came in today. It’s been a hard week.”

Trev took a long drink of his coffee. He’d walked in with a travel mug of coffee and had been refilling it every half an hour or so. The man seemed to like his coffee. “What’s been rough?”

What hadn’t been? And James Glen wasn’t making it easier. He seemed to be taking up where Logan had left off. She’d thought when Logan had ridden off with Wolf that she could hide what was going on. But no, James “too hot for any one woman to handle” Glen was suddenly very interested in how she was doing. Logan had set an attack dog on her. But she wasn’t about to tell Trev that. She had plenty of other crappy things happening. “Well, my boss just had twins a few weeks ago. He didn’t have them. His wife did, but we only have one deputy now, so I’m working a lot. My car is nearly dead. It’s on its last legs. I’ll be surprised if I make it home. Oh, and there was a fire in the diner. I live over the diner. My apartment is now unlivable. I’m homeless. Yay!”

Trev’s lips quirked up. “I can see where it’s been a bad week. You need a place to stay?”

Addicts stuck together. It almost brought a tear to her eye. “Oh, I’ll be fine. I live in a small town. I’ll find a place to stay.”

Stella had given her the bad news earlier today. It was why she’d run here. She’d basically packed up her Corolla with everything that wasn’t smoke damaged and driven straight to the nearest AA meeting after teaching Cam how to work the dispatch. Not that there was anyone to dispatch. Cam was the only one working. And there was the fact that she was seeing ghosts. She was seeing ghosts everywhere. Since that day Serena had ambushed her, she thought she saw Christian more and more often. She would catch a glimpse out of the corner of her eye only to turn and realize it was nothing.