Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  We could’ve had a lovely marriage where neither of us actually had to love each other, where there was no danger of a broken heart, because all we wanted was someone to be married to.

  But I could have so much more.

  Laughter. Joy. Tears. Heartbreak.

  With a man who knows me. Who gets me. Who accepts me.

  All of me. The good and the bad. The pretty and the ugly. The broken and the whole.

  If I’m willing to go for it.

  Wyatt doesn’t pause on his way out the door.

  He doesn’t have to.

  Because he’s tossed the ball back in my court. And left his address, his home phone number, and his work phone number on the couch between us.

  It’s my turn to decide what to do.

  If I’m going to do anything at all.

  Chapter Thirty

  Wyatt

  I fucked up.

  I fucked up hardcore. And I hate fucking up.

  I also hate hundred-degree weather with humidity so high you can’t get your balls dry when you get out of the shower in the morning, but that’s life in Georgia.

  I hate hearing from my colonel that there’s nothing we can do right now to reapply for early release from my service commitment.

  I hate that I’d be arrested for being AWOL if I left Georgia forever anyway in August when I have to take Tucker back to Copper Valley.

  And I hate that I feel like a shitty parent because I hurt, and I don’t know if I’m making this the best or the worst summer of my son’s life.

  “Wow, Dad, you missed that by a mile,” he calls with a laugh as I jog after a baseball in my backyard. The live oaks provide enough shade to block the sun from helping the grass grow. Or maybe the grass has also lost the will to live in the damn heat.

  My hand’s sweating so bad my glove can barely stay on.

  But Tucker’s grinning and squealing and laughing while we play catch, which is really more him flinging the ball wildly about the backyard while I try to aim to gently toss a baseball into his mitt.

  I love Saturdays.

  And I hate Saturdays.

  “Does Miss Captain Ellie know how to play catch?” Tucker asks when I toss him the ball.

  “Yep.”

  “Is she as good as you?”

  “Don’t know, bud.”

  “Can I see her when I go back with Mom?”

  “That’s up to your mom.”

  “Ha! Dad, you missed again.”

  I sure did.

  I bend to grab the ball as my phone rings, and when I see who’s calling, I almost drop it.

  Both the ball and the phone, actually.

  “Hey, bud, I gotta take this,” I say. “Throw it at that back tree for a bit, okay? Be right back.”

  “Okay, Dad!”

  I angle around to the side of the two-bedroom brick house I’m renting a couple miles from the base and put the phone to my ear, my heart in my throat. “Ellie?”

  “I thought of you while I masturbated last week and then I ran over a squirrel.”

  My lungs freeze and I grunt out an unintelligible answer.

  She barks out a high-pitched laugh. “Kidding. I mean, not about thinking about you while I masturbate. I mean about the squirrel. Nothing bad happened.”

  “Fuck, Ellie,” I manage, because now I’m hard as a pipe and so damn glad to hear her voice and terrified what she might say next.

  “And I’ve kissed your picture every night this week before I went to bed, and all that happened was I ran out of milk.”

  Her voice is wobbling, which is understandable, because my knees are wobbling too. “And?” I ask.

  “I miss you,” she whispers.

  “I miss you too.”

  “Did you know the odds of getting in an accident and having your house burn down in the same lifetime are less than your odds of getting struck by lightning?”

  I have no idea the real statistics. “Of course. I remember all the Trivial Pursuit answers I read.”

  She laughs, and it sounds watery, and I wish like hell I could hold her right now. Or just look at her. “Shut up,” she says, but there’s none of the old venom or irritation.

  This is all playful Ellie.

  Hesitantly playful, but playful.

  “When I’m right, it’s my duty to tell you so.” My cheeks crack with the effort of smiling, and my heart’s buzzing like it’s hooked up to a car battery. But this is what we do.

  We give each other shit.

  “Fine, Mister Smartypants. What are the odds I’m in your driveway?” she asks.

  I freeze.

  But only a split second before I’m striding to the front of the house.

  The back bumper of a white Prius comes into view.

  My pulse amps higher.

  She’s here.

  Ellie’s here.

  I drop my hands to my side, just staring while she pulls herself out of the driver’s seat. She cut her hair shorter, so it’s framing her ears with crazy, beautiful curls. Her blue eyes match the deep summer sky, but the hesitancy in them almost makes my knees buckle.

  “You drove,” I say dumbly.

  Her lips hitch toward the sky. “The whole way. After I told the universe I was coming to talk you out of your pants. And no vultures attacked my car. Bears didn’t dash in front of me. Random ice storms didn’t pop up out of nowhere. My hotel didn’t burn down. And so I don’t have to interrupt the space-time continuum and bring about another ice age.”

  I’m supposed to smile, but I still can’t believe she’s standing here. “What—why—”

  She limps as she starts around the car, but holds a hand up when I move toward her. “Do you know what irritates the fuck out of me about you?”

  My eyes shift toward the side of the house, but I can hear Tucker still laughing in back, so he missed that little F-bomb. “How perfect I am?” I guess, even though I’m so far from it.

  “Exactly. You even knew I was going to say that.”

  Her gait is smoothing out as she rounds the car.

  My fingers itch, and my arms are aching to hold her, but I wait, because I know she’ll read me the riot act if I try to make this any easier on her.

  “I’m not perfect, Ellie.”

  “Do you remember what you said? That if anyone would flip off the universe and do what I wanted anyway, it was me?”

  She stops inches from me, the waver still in her voice.

  I nod.

  “You forgot a part.”

  “What part?”

  “The part where I won’t have to do it alone.”

  “I thought that’s what you were afraid of.”

  “I don’t want to be afraid to live.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “I love you, Wyatt.” She finally closes the distance between us and lines her body up with mine, her hands sliding up my chest. “Do you still want me?” she whispers.

  “Always.”

  “Even if always is only like thirty more seconds?”

  I laugh, because she’s teasing. And she’s here. “Ellie Ryder, I will love you long after my heart stops beating. And that, you can count on.”

  She pushes up on her toes while I angle my head down to meet her, and there’s no head-crashing, no black eyes, no sneezes, just her lips teasing mine, here, real, here, in the hot Georgia sauna, her hands exploring while I crush her to me because I am never letting her go.

  Ever.

  “Dad! Are you—Miss Captain Ellie!”

  The joy in Tucker’s voice puts a lump in my throat, and I’m blinking hard as Ellie pulls back and leans down to hug my son. “Hey, kiddo. You teaching your dad to play ball?”

  “Yeah, he’s kinda bad. He keeps missing the ball. Are you better?”

  “Probably not.”

  “That’s okay. We have ice cream when you’re bad.”

  I choke on a laugh. “We what?”

  He grins hopefully at me. “Right, Dad? Ice cream. Miss Captain Ellie, can
you stay for ice cream? My dad’s grilling burgers later too. You can have his. He’ll go to the store for more.”

  I gape at him, because he’s moving in and pulling smoother moves than I have.

  But Ellie hugs him again. “You are adorable.”

  “I don’t think he needs encouragement,” I tell her.

  She rises and smiles at me, but as she does, something white lands in her hair.

  My jaw slips.

  Her brows furrow, and she starts to reach for her head, but I snag her hand. “Don’t. Just… Hey, Tucker? Go get the gloves and bring them inside, okay? We’ll get ice cream. We’ll get ice cream right now.”

  He giggles. “Miss Captain Ellie, a bird just pooped in your hair!”

  “Go on,” I say, giving him a gentle shove in the right direction.

  “Are you kidding me?” Ellie mutters.

  I can’t decide if I want to laugh or if I need to go into full-on overprotective mode, but as soon as Tucker turns his back, she lifts a middle finger to the sky. “Bring it, asshole,” she mutters.

  “If you really meant it,” I tell her, “you’d use both middle fingers.”

  Something squawks, and a bird bounces off the neighbor’s side window. It falls on the ground, leaps to its feet, bounces around like it’s dizzy for a minute, and then takes off again in the opposite direction.

  Ellie dusts her hands. “That’s right. Who’s in charge now?”

  I don’t bother stifling a smile.

  Because that’s my girl.

  Epilogue

  Ellie, aka a kickass hottie who’s not taking any grief from the universe (and yes, Wyatt insisted that’s how she be described for the rest of her life)

  A year after Wyatt invaded Beck’s house to dunk me in the tub—yes, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it—we’re back in Shipwreck for the Pirate Festival with Tucker, and this year, we have a strategy to find the peg leg.

  “It’s in the fountain!” Tucker shrieks while we stroll down Blackbeard Avenue with all the clues printed out.

  “Ssh,” Wyatt murmurs. “Don’t tell the whole town. They’ll beat us to it.”

  Tucker grins.

  He’s grown at least six inches since last summer, I swear he has.

  “Race you there, Miss Captain Ellie,” he says.

  I pretend to swoon, mostly to take advantage of the opportunity to lean into Wyatt’s solid body. “I can’t possibly race if I don’t fuel up first.”

  “Dad! Dad, I need four dollars to buy Miss Captain Ellie a donut,” Tucker says.

  “A plain donut?” Wyatt’s nose wrinkles.

  “A banana pudding donut,” Tucker says in exasperation.

  “But she’ll be useless after that,” Wyatt replies dramatically. “All I’m so full. Tucker, you have to carry on without me.”

  Tucker giggles.

  “I will not,” I declare. “You’re just trying to sneak your way into eating half my donut.”

  As if I won’t share with him.

  He flashes my favorite smile as he hands Tucker a ten. “Also possibly true.”

  Tucker scampers into the bakery while we watch, Wyatt’s arm casually slung around me. He kisses my crown. “He’s getting too tall,” he grumbles.

  “I hear it happens.” I squeeze him around the waist. Because of a couple scheduling snafus, it’s been six weeks since Wyatt saw Tucker.

  But he starts a new job at the base just north of Copper Valley in three weeks, and the three of us are hanging out every last minute of those three weeks until he reports for duty. And once summer’s over, we’ll get Tucker every other week.

  Every week of the year.

  Grady waves at us from the counter after giving Tucker his change and a donut bag, and the not-so-little boy scampers back to us. “He has unicorn donuts, Dad!”

  “Oh, that’s trouble,” I murmur. “Sarcasm won’t like that. But it’s not like they get the monopoly on unicorns just because they have a unicorn festival.”

  Wyatt watches with his jaw moving up and down while Tucker pulls a pastel rainbow painted donut with a cotton candy horn out of the bag and bites into it.

  I follow suit and pull out the banana pudding donut, which is oozing on the edge, and take a giant bite that makes pudding and banana slide down my chin.

  “You two,” Wyatt murmurs with a grin, wiping my chin for me and licking his thumb.

  “C’mon, guys!” Tucker says. “It’s at the fountain, I know it is!”

  We trail after him, sharing the banana pudding donut, with Wyatt staying pristine and clean, and me getting pudding all over my pirate festival T-shirt.

  It’s my compromise with the universe.

  I sometimes get dirtier than I should be, and it lets me have all the sex I want with Wyatt without making me crash, burn down houses, or accidentally kill small rodents.

  Okay, okay.

  The universe and I don’t actually have an agreement.

  I just finally decided to stop being scared, and chose to be happy, and cut back some on my hours at work, and I’m finally running again.

  Not marathons yet, but I’m running.

  A year makes a huge difference.

  Especially with a helper for my physical therapy exercises.

  Or a drill sergeant.

  Depends on if Tucker or Wyatt has the job.

  But if it’s Wyatt, I usually pencil him into a new cartoon of Dick and the Nuts, and always in a compromising position.

  Since we’re the only two who ever see my doodle pad anymore, it’s worked well to keep the spark alive between us.

  Or possibly the fun.

  Not that we need much help.

  “It’s like we never left,” Wyatt says as we cross the street toward the garden. The wild goats are still here, and the townspeople of Shipwreck have adopted them all.

  Beck’s house is still standing.

  Although the Frogger score has me slightly suspicious.

  “Here! I know it!” Tucker calls. “Right here!”

  Wyatt tucks in a smile.

  I know that smile

  It’s a something’s up smile.

  “What?” I ask.

  He lifts his brows like he has no idea what I’m talking about.

  “Hmm.” I squint at him.

  His lips spread in a full smile, and he pats my ass. “Doesn’t take much to make you suspicious, does it?”

  “With you? Never.”

  Tucker’s leaping around the fountain. “It’s here! It’s here!”

  “Where?” I ask, following him around the statue of Thorny Rock.

  “There!” he cries, pointing to Thorny Rock’s leg.

  “Tucker,” I say, laughing, “he’s always had a peg leg. We’re looking for a wooden peg leg not attached to a pirate.”

  “It’s there, Miss Captain Ellie,” he says, grinning big with his crooked front teeth. “Look closer!”

  I lean into the statue, half-expecting Wyatt to shove me into the fountain. “Tucker, bud, I really don’t—”

  I turn, and I stop, because the two most important men in my life are both down on one knee behind me.

  Tucker giggles. “Or I might be wrong,” he says, his bright brown eyes dancing.

  Wyatt’s smiling too, but it’s a solemn smile.

  “Calamity Ellie,” he says, taking my hand, “will you do us the honor of being my pirate captain?”

  “And my powder monkey!” Tucker pipes up. He fishes something out of his pocket, and suddenly I’m being presented with a plastic pirate ring.

  Which is almost as beautiful as the diamond Wyatt’s now holding out.

  I think.

  I can’t tell exactly through the blur clouding my eyes. “Yes,” I tell them both.

  One of the town goats bleats in approval from its spot on the bench where Wyatt did heavenly things to me last year, and I’m laughing through tears as each of them slide a ring onto my fingers.

  “Fucking weddings,” Long Beak Silver says fr
om the wall above us.

  “Go walk the plank, you bad bird,” Tucker chides.

  And the bird does.

  And when he catches himself before he hits the ground, he recovers by swooping straight at my head.

  I duck, my foot slips, and I go ass over teakettle into the fountain.

  “Miss Captain Ellie!” Tucker shrieks.

  My legs are all akimbo, my butt soaked, my T-shirt dripping, and I’m touching slimy quarters and pennies in the bottom of the fountain, but as I look at Wyatt, all I can do is laugh.

  And not just because he’s doubled over as he holds out a hand to help me up.

  “Maybe it’s Shipwreck,” I say while he hoists me out of the fountain. “Because this doesn’t happen anywhere else.”

  “I think it’s life, Ellie,” he says. “Now you get over here and kiss me before I take my ring back.”

  You can’t say I won’t be a dutiful wife, because I do get over there and kiss him.

  I rub my wet, soggy, slimy body all over him, laughing while I kiss him, but I kiss him.

  Because he’s my best friend.

  My everything.

  And my one true love.

  Bonus Epilogue

  Wyatt

  There’s nothing quite as beautiful as watching Ellie pause in her yoga routine next to the bar in Beck’s basement to smile at her ring. Tucker’s passed out cold upstairs after more fun at the pirate festival than even I thought possible, and though he’ll be up with the sun, I have plans for this pretty lady that involve getting her naked ASAP and neither of us sleeping for hours.

  “That as far as you can stretch?” I ask. “C’mon, Ryder. You’re barely touching your knees.”

  She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling. “With my nose, you big jerk. Like to see you try.”

  I settle on the ground next to her, on my hands and knees, and I bend over and kiss her knee. “See? Nothing to it.”

  “You goober,” she says with a laugh, rubbing my short hair and catching me by the back of the neck so she can kiss me.

  And so I can kiss her back.

  If I live to be two hundred, I’ll never get tired of kissing Ellie. I sometimes can’t believe I spent so many years thinking she was just an annoying twit, because this Ellie is all heart.