Page 3 of Stunner (Whiskey Dolls 3)

Then there was Jackson, and I would have been lying if I said our friendship hadn’t taken most of our classmates by surprise. Hell, even I didn’t understand it most of the time. Our mothers had been best friends since diapers, so that played a big role in it. When they entered adulthood, Jackson’s mother married for money, wanting more than the life she’d been born into, while mine was content with her lot in life and married for love. My folks were still happily married to this day, while Jackson’s had divorced—bitterly—back when we were in middle school. Even though there was a combined total of five marriages between them, giving them both more than enough victims to spread their animosity over, they were each other’s favorite target and got off on pushing buttons simply for the sake of it.

Despite the fork in the road that had split our moms onto two different paths, their friendship remained rock solid. Given that we’d grown up together just like they had, it was only natural that Jackson and I had developed a similar sort of bond.

Sure, there were more than a handful of annoyances that came with being his friend. Given the silver spoon he’d grown up sucking on, he was spoiled and a self-centered shithead from time to time. The jackass had come out of the womb good-looking, never experiencing any of the embarrassments that came with puberty and such, and the prick knew it, letting it get to his head and inflate it even more.

There were times—more frequent as we got older—I wondered how he was able to fit his ego through the door, it was so damn big. But that bond from childhood was still there, a past and familial connection that tangled us up, making it damn near impossible to cut ties. As we got older, he seemed to get worse and worse, making hanging with him more of a chore than something to look forward to. I felt like an asshole for thinking it, but the main reason I’d held on the past year and half was so I wouldn’t lose my connection to Asher completely. As painful as it was to see them together, I’d convinced myself it was better than nothing at all.

As I got older, I’d eventually gotten over my hang-ups and had no problem landing a date whenever I wanted. I was just a bit slower when it came to making my move. Where Jackson dove in head first, I liked to take my time and feel out a situation, see if an opening formed naturally instead of sledgehammering my way in like he did.

That had been my biggest regret, because it gave Jackson more than enough time to swoop in that night and win Asher over before I’d even devised a plan of action. Admitting to him that I’d wanted her, that I’d seen her first, wouldn’t have done a damn bit of good either. He would have turned it intoa competition that probably would have damaged an already-floundering friendship beyond repair.

As with everything else in his life, when Jackson decided he wanted something, he went after it with the single-minded focus and determination of a Great White that had just scented blood in the water.

That had been the case with Asher. I’d fucked up by saying I didn’t see them as a match not long after they started dating, mostly because it was true, but also because I was a whole hell of a lot more than a little bitter she was with him and not me. Unfortunately, he took my words as a personal challenge. For months, his sole focus had been winning her and keeping her. Then—just like with everything else he “won”—once he had her locked down, he started to grow bored.

I had to give him credit, it had taken longer than most of his other relationships, the honeymoon phase lasting for six months, a record for him, before finally wearing off. Only, he didn’t react how he normally would. Usually, he gave the chick some lame excuse, the cliched “it’s not you, it’s me” bullshit, and sent them on their way, practically forgetting them the moment the door hit them on the ass on the way out. But that hadn’t been the case with Asher, for whatever reason. I wasn’t sure why the hell he thought proposing would solve that problem, but he refused to see reason, convinced that putting a ring on her finger would get them back to that place where everything seemed bright and shiny.

Being his friend, as hard as that was becoming, but also the man who owed him my life, I’d had no choice but to say yes when he’d asked me to stand beside him as his best man, no matter how much it killed to think of them spending the rest of their lives together. The fact of the matter was, even if she never developed feelings for me, Asher deserved so much better than Jackson.

The longer the two of them were together, the better I got to know her, and the differences between the two of them were night and day, like pieces to two totally different puzzles. She was ambitious and funny. She worked her ass off and had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. She was into comics and action movies. Then there was the small fact she was drop-dead gorgeous, a real-life stunner. I’d lost my breath when I saw her across that bar. When she smiled, it had nearly knocked me on my ass. The only time in my life that had ever happened was like a goddamn lightning strike, at the end of which, she ended up with someone else. Talk about a cruel joke from a higher power.

I didn’t understand what Asher saw in a man whose main ambition in life was to do the bare minimum in order to get by, counting on his charm to give him what he thought he deserved. Jackson had absolutely no drive. While I’d wanted to be a veterinarian since I was five-years old, Jackson hadn’t known what the hell he wanted to do with his life, so he’d taken a job at his father’s company right out of college because it had been expected of him, and even there, he phoned it in. I lost track of the number of nights I laid awake in bed, wondering why in the hell she’d say yes to marrying him, and I still hadn’t come up with an answer.

A year had passed with Jackson’s ring on Asher’s finger when the wedding day had finally arrived. I was resigned to see this through to the very end, even though it tore me apart. Then, not even a handful of hours ago, he’d informed me that he’d made a huge mistake.

No fucking shit, I’d thought to myself. I would have backed his play if he’d decided to handle the situation the right way. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Asher getting hurt, but I knew, given time, she would look back on this day and realize it was all for the best. Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, and I was a patient man. Well, patient enough. But that wasn’t what hewanted to do. He’d wanted to take the coward’s way out and make a run for it. As much as I didn’t want him to marry her, no fucking way was I letting it go down like that.

He hadn’t taken it too well when I blocked the doorway and told him to grow some balls and handle his shit like a man. That fell back to always expecting to get what he wanted. When words didn’t work, he tried everything from evasion to forcing me out of the way. Sadly for him, I was bigger, a hell of a lot stronger, and didn’t give a shit about fucking up my paraffin manicure, whatever the hell that was.

In my defense, the first punch I landed was strictly in self-defense, the second reactionary, and as far as I was concerned, it was his own damn fault for messing with someone who hit a lot harder than he did. I couldn’t say I regretted it though. The son of a bitch deserved those blows and a whole lot more, especially after sneaking out the goddamn window of the bathroom when he was supposed to have been cleaning his busted lip. Next time I saw him I was going to pound him into the ground for what he’d done to Asher.

But that was something I’d have to worry about later. For now, I had bigger, more important things to deal with, such as making sure Asher hadn’t gotten herself into trouble with a bunch of outlaw bikers.

Everything in the bar ground to a halt the moment I threw the door open and stepped inside. I’d been wrong before, this crowd wasn’t just rough, it was downright dangerous, and in the middle of it all, in her puffy white dress, was Asher, sitting at the bar and stuffing a burger the size of my face into her mouth.

I took a single step in her direction, and a wall of leather and denim suddenly shot up in front of me, separating me from my target.What the fuck?

I looked at the guy in the middle. If I had to guess, I would have put him somewhere in his sixties, I just wasn’t sure whereon that line he fell. He was average height, about three inches shorter than I was, and a hell of a lot softer than I was, but I was willing to bet he had serious power hidden behind all that cushioning. My gut told me he was the ringleader of this band of felons. “You mind stepping aside?”

“Turn around and walk the hell out the way you came. Your kind’s not welcome here, son.”

Any other time, I would have been more than happy to oblige. I wasn’t all that fond of getting my ass handed to me, as it was. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option, and my already dark mood was growing even blacker with each passing second they blocked me from Asher.

Stepping closer to the leader of the crew, I lowered my voice and clenched my hands into fists, the ache from punching Jackson earlier returning to my knuckles. I could more than hold my own in an evenly matched fight. This wouldn’t be that, not by a long shot, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t cause some of these assholes serious pain before this crowd finally took me down. “You don’t know me, so I’ll fill you in on something. Right at this very moment, you’re standing between me and my destination. I’m not the kind of man who’s fond of that. You’ve got five seconds to get out of my way and let me get to Asher, or I’ll go right through you.”

He smiled in a way that would have made my balls shrivel to the size of raisins if I wasn’t already so pissed off. I was kind of itching for a fight, and this dude was as good a stand-in for Jackson as anyone.

“That so, asshole?”

“Goddamn right it is.”

A younger guy standing beside the leader spoke up then. “Funny how this prick thinks we’re gonna let him anywhere near Princess after the shit he pulled on her today.”

My eyebrows dipped, the skin between them puckering with my intensely confused frown. “Excuse me?”

“You got a set of balls on you, motherfucker,” the ringleader pointed out. “Tracking her down here and showing your face after leaving her high and dry the way you did.”

“That wasn’t him.” The words came from the direction of the bar before I could speak up to defend myself. The defensive line in front of me split in several places as everyone turned to look at Asher. “I appreciate you looking out, Butch,” she continued in a slurred voice, “but he’s not my ex-asshole. He’s just a regular asshole.”

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