Bad Boys of Last Stand: Book 2
Ethan Thompson & Penelope Martin-Wakefield
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Will he face his past or run from his future?
Ethan Thompson has been a part of the Martin family since he was a troubled teen and Susannah Martin saved him. He’s always done everything in his power to help the Martins, especially oldest daughter Penelope. But he’s always made sure to keep himself just separate enough to safeguard his heart against the straight-talking beauty.
Pen Martin-Wakefield moved home to Last Stand, Texas, with her three girls hoping it would give them all a fresh start after her husband’s tragic death. She’s ready to move on, and as she deals with the stresses of a holiday season and a broken arm, she realizes Ethan is always the one she’s leaned on.
Ethan’s determined to resist Pen and her girls. He’s got too many secrets and scars to be any good for them, but as a Christmas in Last Stand works its magic, Ethan begins to find out just how tenacious Pen is and how lonely his heart has been.
Other Books in the Series:
(Colt Vance & Sadie Martin)
Excerpt:
Chapter One
It was entirely possible Penelope Wakefield’s greatest secret was that she absolutely despised the holiday season. She hated the lights and the songs and the shopping. She hated that, along with all the extra work she was expected to do in the kitchen, she was supposed to let her daughters help—which only ever made things twice as difficult, messy, and time-consuming. Everything was a chaotic mess, and Pen hated chaos.
But as she woke up the day after Thanksgiving—far too late since she’d been up half the night feeling old and sad and nostalgic and happy and hopeful and old after the announcement of her little sister’s engagement—she was ready to grin and bear said secret.
She would spend the next six weeks singing Christmas carols, decorating the tree and cookies with her girls, with a big smile on her face. Because she wanted desperately for her girls to grow up loving Christmas and thinking it was magic.
Even if that magic had died for Pen the first Christmas without her mother. But just like then, Pen pretended. So no one would ever know her good cheer was a lie.
That was just the way Pen liked it.
Besides, she had to have some hope that her first Christmas living at home in almost twelve years would bring some magic for her girls.
And yourself?
It seemed a bit too much to ask for.
Somehow, despite losing her mother so early, and then losing her husband three years ago when he’d been shot in the line of duty, she managed to look on the bright side of things most of the time. It helped her cope and it helped her feel in control.
But creepy Santa faces seriously, seriously tested that control. No doubt his chubby cheeks and lascivious grin would soon be making the rounds.
Pen allowed herself exactly sixty seconds to groan, wallow, and bemoan her lot in life, before she got out of bed. Despite the late hour, she followed her usual morning routine. Make bed, get dressed, check on the girls’ rooms to see if they were awake and if they’d made their beds.
She found none of her three girls, and three very, very unmade beds.
Frowning, Pen headed for the kitchen, determined to have her first cup of coffee before she started scolding.
But the minute she walked into the kitchen, she noticed the coffeepot was empty and breakfast dishes had been left dirty and scattered about.
Today was so not her day.
She moved to start making another pot when the back door swung open and Ethan marched inside, little Daisy in his arms.
Pen dropped everything she’d been holding and rushed toward her youngest daughter. “What is it?”
“I’m bleeding!” Daisy wailed.
Pen met Ethan’s gaze, which was humorous rather than concerned. Thank God.
He settled her onto a chair. “We had a bit of a fall and Daisy scraped her knee. I told her I’d get her all bandaged up.”
“Oh, I’ll handle it.”
“I want Ethan to do it,” Daisy said between sniffling cries, clinging to Ethan with a death grip.
Pen frowned at her youngest, who was still crying but looking up at Ethan adoringly through her tears. Daisy was usually wary of strangers, though Ethan was hardly a stranger. Pen’s mother had taken him in when Pen herself had been twelve. But Pen had moved to San Antonio with her husband at the age of eighteen, which meant her daughters only knew the three boys Mom and Dad had mentored from visits home to Last Stand. The visits had always been frequent, though, and Ethan was Uncle Ethan to her daughters.
Pen considered Colt, Ethan, and Bracken her daughters’ uncles, and she knew they did too, but Pen was surprised by how easily Daisy had taken to Ethan in the six months since they’d moved to Last Stand.
“I’ll do it,” Ethan said, giving Daisy’s head a little pat. “Better let the first responder expert handle it.” He gave Pen a wink and then went about making a very big deal out of Daisy’s very small scratch.
“Now, look how brave you are,” he said when the princess bandage was attached to her knee.
Daisy sniffled delicately. “Aren’t you going to kiss it?”
Pen watched as Ethan tried to bite back a smile so he looked grave and like he was taking the delicate task of pressing a gentle kiss to her knee very seriously. “There now. Good as new.”
“Can I go back and listen to Grandpa’s story?” Daisy asked, sliding off the chair. Any trace of tears was gone.
“Yes, but once I’ve had my coffee all three of you girls are going to make your beds.”
Daisy groaned, but she exited the kitchen and out the back door to where Fritz Martin was regaling his granddaughters with tales of who knew what. Pen watched him out the window as he gestured broadly. Her girls—even Addie, the sulky oldest—were giggling and taking great delight in whatever he was saying.
It was good to be home. Pen might not have ever wanted to be involved with the goat farm side of things, but she liked that her girls had chores to do, animals to love. It was good to give her girls their gregarious grandfather on a regular basis. If she reminded herself of that she might come to believe Addie would eventually forgive her for moving them here.
On a sigh, she turned from the window and smiled at Ethan. He was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, his hair cropped short. When they’d been teenagers, she and her friends had sighed over how cute Ethan was. It wasn’t the right word anymore. His face was too chiseled, his demeanor too serious. He reminded her of a cowboy in an old black-and-white movie. He just looked noble and serious.
“I don’t know how you’re still single.” She went about preparing the coffee machine. “Good job, good-looking, good with kids. If you wait too long to get on that, Daisy will be old enough to make a pass at you before you know it.” She grinned over her shoulder at him.
“Maybe that’s what I’m waiting for. The chance to be an old pervert.”
She swatted his arm and waited impatiently for her coffee to brew. She glanced out the window over the sink to where her father was still telling stories. Meanwhile Colt and Sadie were walking back toward their side of the property.
Pen sighed. She missed the days of having someone to hold hands with. She liked to think she’d come to grips with Henry’s death, with the fact she’d always miss him. And she supposed she had because truth be told she was ready for that again, even if it wasn’t with the man she’d married—thinking they’d be together forever.
The death in ‘till death do you part’ had come too soon for Henry, and Pen could do nothing but accept that she’d had a good man for too short a time. He’d given her three wonderful daughters.
Besides, her father had lost her mother—the love of his life—far too early and he’d been… Well, the first few years had been rough for him, just like hers had been rough for her. But he was happy now, especially now that he was mostly healed from his bypass surgery last summer.
And now her prickly little sister was getting married. Married. To Colt Vance, one of Mom and Dad’s strays. One of the Bad Boys of Last Stand. Which didn’t suit Colt now, and had never suited the man in the kitchen with her.
“Aren’t they sweet?” Pen murmured.
“Suppose,” Ethan replied.
“I gave Sadie a hard time when she first told me.” Pen thought uncomfortably to the lecture she’d given her sister about not complicating a delicate relationship. Pen had been wrong, and it ate at her a bit how much so. “I didn’t think she knew what she was doing, but I guess she did.”
“I guess she did. You don’t sound…happy.”
Pen shook her head. “I am happy for them. Totally. But, you know, it makes me a little…sad for me. I guess it makes me disloyal, but I can’t picture myself like Dad. I don’t really want to raise my girls alone. Oh, alone isn’t the right word. I have so much help now that we’re home, but I… Well, I’m not opposed to getting married again. I miss that kind of partnership.”
“Why exactly are you saying it to me?”
She waved it away, and smiled over at steady, stoic Ethan. “You’re easy to talk to. You know that. I bet you know half the town’s secrets.”
He only shrugged, but she knew she was right. She also knew, no matter how much anyone else thought Ethan Thompson was a simple, good man, he had secrets of his own.
“I don’t suppose you know anyone around my age, good with kids, good-looking.” She was teasing him, because he so often missed any and all teasing and that always made her laugh.
“I don’t suppose I do.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. Always so clueless was their Ethan. And maybe it was the lack of coffee, or the lack of sleep, but she decided to push it a step further. “You know, I used to have a crush on you.”
“I know.”
She fisted her hands on her hips in shock and mock outrage. Mostly mock anyway. “Well, now, you’ve ruined my whole belief that I was subtle about it.”
He didn’t so much as smile. “Susannah told me.”
The mention of her mother deflated Pen’s good humor. “She told you I had a crush on you?”
“Yes.”
Something about the way he was so serious about it gave her an odd sense of foreboding. “I thought Dad was the one who warned you three boys off of us girls.” She turned to the coffee and poured, not wanting to look at his stoic expression anymore.
“She didn’t warn me off of you.”
“Oh, so I was just that repugnant to you?” She gave him an arch look, but he didn’t wither or try to backtrack. He merely shrugged.
“If that’s what you want to call it.” He stood. “Well, I told Colt I’d help him get ready for the cattle. See you at dinner.”
With that, he left her more than a little offended.
***
It was entirely possible that Ethan Thompson’s greatest secret was that he was, in fact, a natural liar. Most people saw his badge, his clean-cut look, and quiet, easy nature as a sure sign he was an honest, straightforward kind of guy.
But Ethan couldn’t remember a time when lying wasn’t what got him through the day.
Repugnant.
Now, that was a laugh and a half. But Pen had looked at him like she’d believed such ridiculousness. So, he’d lied. And she’d believed him.
He could still remember when Susannah had told him Pen had a crush on him. He’d immediately frozen, so sure Susannah could see some of his less pure thoughts on the matter, and so sure—even then—that the blows would come.
It was his greatest regret in life he hadn’t been able to give Susannah the one thing she’d wanted from him before she’d died.
His complete trust.
But in some ways, Ethan wasn’t sure he would have learned to trust anyone without losing Susannah first. Now he trusted the entire Martin clan, right alongside his brothers-of-the-heart, Colt and Bracken. Susannah had given them each a gift—in life and in death.
The only person he didn’t trust these days was himself.
Because too many things were changing. Sadie and Colt were getting married. Fritz’s health, while improving, seemed…perilous. For once in his life Ethan had to look at the man he admired above all else and see him as vulnerable.
But bigger than all those changes, Pen was home. And her girls called him Uncle Ethan and crawled up in his lap, and the ghost of Henry Wakefield didn’t hang so heavy. Because Pen had talked about moving on and old crushes.
Ethan blew out a breath in the cold air as he hiked across what would become pastureland for Colt’s cattle in the spring. Ethan had been helping out with the cattle prep as much as his schedule at the sheriff’s department allowed, and he’d enjoyed himself.
Even if it did mean meals at the Martin house, and Pen bustling around the kitchen looking pretty as a picture. And Daisy wanting him to kiss her hurts.
Ethan shook away the simple pleasure he’d gotten out of cleaning up a skinned knee, because it was what he would have done for any kid. Too often adults brushed kids’ hurts away as nothing—and he’d vowed never to be the kind of man his father was.
So, Pen might be home, and she might be ready for all life had to offer, but he was still Ethan Thompson. Son of an abusive con man who’d fooled all of Last Stand into thinking he was an upstanding preacher. Until Susannah Martin had done everything in her power to get him out of there.
She has a crush on you, you know.
Ethan practically paused his walking right there as the memory washed over him. Clear and sweet, and with such a potent pang of missing Susannah—the only true mother figure he’d ever known—he wanted to sink to the ground and weep.
Pen is a beautiful, sweet-natured girl with just enough sense of adventure to make her interesting. She’d take care of anyone she loved, fiercely and without reservation. And she’d make any boy a fine partner.
Ethan remembered fidgeting, trying to think of an excuse to run away. It had seemed like such adult talk, and as much as he’d fancied himself an adult, he’d been a skinny and scared fourteen-year-old trying to prove he was brave and tough and that his father’s manipulations and abuses hadn’t touched him. That the year living under Susannah’s roof had made him a different person.
But no matter how many excuses Ethan had made to avoid that conversation, Susannah hadn’t let it go.
But you are not that boy. Not yet. Not until you deal with those demons you think you can bury deep inside you.
Ethan had vowed a long, long time ago to never, ever face those demons, but even if he hadn’t, Pen Wakefield and her girls were firmly off limits. He would protect them from all that he was. Always.
So, he’d have her believe he thought her repugnant.
He was an excellent liar after all.