Miranda wiggled in the seat. “Tell me everything. I’m your best friend. You know all my secrets.”
She was pretty sure she didn’t know all of Miranda’s secrets, but this one was bound to get out. “He caught us. On one of the desks at the school. After a Halloween committee meeting.”
Miranda gave another scandalized gasp. “Oh my God. Beth Ann! On a desk? In the school? That is so not like you!”
For some reason, that made Beth Ann’s mouth curl up in a smile. “I know.”
“I’m thinking he’s a bad influence on you,” Miranda said darkly. Her arms crossed over her chest.
“I’m thinking I like that bad influence, honey,” Beth Ann said with a smile. “I like it a lot.”
To Beth Ann’s surprise, Miranda reached backward and took Beth Ann’s free hand. She squeezed it. “I want you to be happy, girl. I’m tired of seeing you get hurt.”
Tears pricked Beth Ann’s eyes, and she resisted the urge to drop the curling iron and hug the pants off of her best friend. “Me, too, honey. Me, too.”
“You realize I have to tell Dane this.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Man, he is going to flip out. He thought you guys hated each other.”
“We did,” Beth Ann mused. “Until we got stranded together.”
Miranda released Beth Ann’s hand and gestured at her hair. “You keep curling. And tell me all the gory details. Well, most of the gory details. I don’t want to know the nasty stuff.”
“You don’t want to know how big and thick his man parts are, then?” Beth Ann drawled, teasing.
“Ugh! God no. I have to look him in the eye, you know. I don’t want to imagine anyone’s man parts but Dane’s.”
Beth Ann told her the story of their weekend together, skipping over the details of their physical relationship. Miranda made sympathetic noises at all the rain and mud, and gasped with horror at the Louboutins being destroyed. “I loved those shoes!”
“I didn’t,” Beth Ann said dryly. “I have two more pairs sitting in my closet that Allan gave me. You want them?”
“Heck yes. They’re a little out of a librarian’s salary, you know.”
“A beautician’s salary, too,” Beth Ann said with a grin.
Miranda turned to look back at her again. “Won’t Allan be mad that you gave them to me?”
She didn’t care if he was. “Allan—and everyone else in this town—needs to learn that he doesn’t own me.”
Now that Miranda knew about Colt and Beth Ann, it was just a matter of time before Grant and Dane descended on him with questions.
He’d managed to avoid both of them so far, thanks to a three-day beginner class in survival. He’d taken them deep into the woods to his favorite spot, and kept the focus on teaching them how to make fires and fish with few to no supplies. He most definitely was not thinking about Beth Ann or if Allan was harassing her. Or if Dane and Grant were trying to squeeze details from her. Or if she laid on that sad air mattress in the back of her little salon and thought about him. Did she masturbate thinking about him? Touch herself because she needed him? Or did she just go blissfully about her day?
Brenna had called his satellite phone repeatedly, making kissy noises, so he’d turned the damn thing off so he could concentrate. But when he took his class in for their graduation, Grant was there to take their pictures, and he wore a knowing smile.
Brenna saw him and immediately started singing a nursery rhyme under her breath. “Colt and Beth Ann sitting in a tree…F-U-C-K-I-N-G—”
“Both of you can go to hell,” he said, as soon as the class was sent on their way.
Brenna’s green eyes widened. “Someone’s a little touchy.”
He should have guessed they’d be so childish about the whole damn thing. They knew Beth Ann. Had laughed and commented on how they didn’t get along. And now they were laughing and commenting about how much they were getting along.
“Laugh it up, you two jackasses,” he said, pointing at Brenna and Grant. “Just a matter of time.”
Grant scowled at him, while Brenna looked confused. “Matter of time for what?”
Before you two start f**king, Colt wanted to say, but it’d drive them crazier to wonder, so he simply smiled and headed back to the main lodge to log his class records.
Dane was sitting at their desk when he came in, feet kicked up on the desk, hands behind his head. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
Colt ripped the log book out from under Dane’s feet. “Not you, too.”
But Dane grinned, all boyish enthusiasm. “You’re nailing Beth Ann Williamson? She’s so sweet and proper. I didn’t take her for your type.”
“And what is my type?” he drawled, moving to Grant’s desk and sitting down.
Dane shrugged, turning his chair so he could continue his conversation with Colt. “Little trashy. Little easy. One f**k and gone.”
Great. So Beth Ann wasn’t his type because she wasn’t trash? That crawled under his skin. Did not even his friends think that he deserved someone classy like her? “Just f**k off about it, man.”
Dane looked surprised at Colt’s irritation. “I’m just trying to warn you, bro. She’s bad news. She may sleep with you now, but she’s going to run right back to Allan the moment she feels like he’s suffered enough. She can’t stay away from him. They’ve been together since high school. Remember?”
Oh, he remembered all right. She’d been laughing and popular and completely dismissive of him back in high school. He hadn’t existed for her—her tiny world had included Allan, Allan’s friends, and her friends. Colt hadn’t even been a blip on her radar, even in a graduating class of only fifty students. He’d been a loner, kept to himself. Hadn’t touched a girl until he got in the military. Then, they’d been falling all over the uniform. He’d been nobody in Bluebonnet.
And Allan had had everything. Fuck Allan. Colt had Beth Ann now. “She’s not going back to him.”
Dane shrugged. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Miranda says she keeps going back to him over and over again. She hopes that Beth Ann’s kicked him for good, but I think Miranda’s worried that she’ll go back again. I’m supposed to tell you not to break Beth Ann’s heart, or my girl will come after you with a knife.” And he grinned like that was adorable.