Happily Ever After: A Romance Collection

by Amelia Wilde

  “Not if I can help it,” Aria said.

  Lark frowned, but before she could turn around to admonish her sister, Aria had closed the door with a firm thunk.

  Lark sighed, and turned back to him. “Sorry about that,” she whispered as they started down the walk toward his car. “She’s just…protective. And cranky. Crankily protective.”

  “It’s all right. I understand. I’ll win her over. It just might take a year or two.”

  Lark hesitated at the end of the walk and turned to him with a panicked expression. Before she could speak, Mason cupped her face in his hands, brushing his thumb across her lips to keep her protest from entering the world.

  “We’re going fishing, and I’m going to answer every question you can think to ask me,” he said softly. “And then we’re going to talk about what you need me to do to help you trust me again, so start thinking. Whatever you need, I’ll do it. I’ll learn to stand on my head and juggle flaming bowling pins with my feet if that’s what it takes.”

  Lark’s lips parted. “All right,” she whispered. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Mason smiled.

  “I’m not saying I’ll come up with something,” she warned. “And certainly not something as easy as upside down foot juggling, but…I’ll think about it.”

  And that’s a step in the right direction, Mason thought to himself as he helped Lark into the car and trotted around to the driver’s side, ignoring the red-head peering out the front window of the March house with a frown on her face.

  He’d have to win Aria over eventually—the March sisters were closer than most and he would never want to cause long-term friction between them—but for now he was focused on Lark.

  If she couldn’t get past what he’d done, it didn’t matter if the town of Summerville declared him a hero and created a holiday in his honor, he’d still be out of luck.

  Lark was the one who mattered; she was the only one who had ever mattered.

  9

  Lark lay back in the plastic recliner Mason had rigged into the boat, the sun warm on her legs, a bottle of lemonade cold in her hand, and the crisp mineral smell of the water drifting to her nose on a gentle breeze.

  It was a beautiful day—warm enough for the breeze to feel delicious, cool enough that the sun warmed you without summoning up a sweat. Spring was Lark’s favorite season in Georgia, and she knew perfect spring days like this were numbered. Soon, it would be so hot and humid that her neck would be perpetually damp and her hair frizzed into a blonde fluff ball until cooler weather came back around in the fall.

  If anyone else had been sitting across from her, Lark would be drifting off into a catnap with a relaxed smile on her face.

  Instead, her body was humming all over, every inch of her skin prickling with awareness as Mason’s eyes moved between where his red and white float bobbed in the water, and the side of the boat where Lark lay in her bikini. She’d hunted for one of her old one-piece suits, but the only thing she could find in her drawers was a bikini from when she was nineteen and still living at home. She’d thrown it on and dashed, not wanting to leave Mason alone with Aria for too long, but now she wished she’d taken the time to hunt down that one piece she knew was hiding somewhere in her old room.

  There was a lot more of her to fill out the bikini than there had been six years ago. She’d gained twenty-five pounds and gone up a cup size since then, and the top of the suit was downright scandalous. She also had a pooch below her belly button that hadn’t been there the last time she’d worn this suit—a testimony to her love of cheese in all its wondrous forms—but Mason didn’t seem put off by her fuller figure.

  Quite the opposite in fact. The look in his eyes was enough to make her heart race.

  He wasn’t looking at her like a unicorn princess anymore.

  He was looking at her like something he wanted to taste, to savor, and, eventually, to devour. His eyes skimmed down her body from her lips to the tip of her toes, setting every inch of her on fire. She would swear she could almost feel that look, like soft, hot lips trailing over her skin, leaving her breathless and wanting more.

  Lark shifted her legs, trying to ease the ache between them; Mason made a pained sound low in his throat and jerked his attention back to the water.

  “So?” Mason asked, his voice rougher than it had been a moment before, leaving little doubt his thoughts had been headed down a path similar to her own. “Anything else you’d like to ask me?”

  Lark hummed and took a long, cold drink of lemonade, hoping it would clear her head. She and Mason had already had a long talk about the girls he’d dated in New York. If he was to be believed, he’d dated three girls for a few months at a time each, but none of those relationships had evolved beyond the friends-with-benefits stage.

  Learning Mason had been intimate with other women hadn’t been easy to hear, but it wasn’t a surprise either. He hadn’t been a virgin when they’d met. He had never pressured Lark to do more than she was comfortable doing when they’d dated, but Lark had known how much he wanted things to progress to the next level. She’d wanted the same thing, but years of promising her mother she’d wait until marriage had left their mark on her.

  Still, she had wanted Mason so much that some nights it wasn’t easy to tell him to stop. Some nights she wanted to pull him close and beg him to go. To go and go and keep going until they knew each other every way a man and a woman could. She had almost suggested they take that final step the night he’d proposed.

  Instead, she’d gone home to tell her family, and thank goodness she had. It was hard enough dealing with Mason’s abandonment as it was. If she’d lost her virginity to him, it would only have been harder.

  “Is that a thinking hum or a ‘no’ hum?” Mason asked after a moment.

  “A thinking hum,” Lark said, shifting her legs again. Not even thinking about the morning she’d learned Mason had left town was enough to kill the ache building inside her. She was going to have to do something drastic to divert her thoughts, to keep from imagining Mason’s big hands sliding down her waist, his lips hot on her bare stomach as he urged her legs apart and pressed a kiss to—

  “I’m not a virgin anymore,” Lark blurted out. Maybe Mason would stop looking at her with such obvious desire when he realized she had given up on saving herself for marriage the day he left.

  “Oh.” Mason blinked and a slightly pained look flashed behind his eyes. “Well, I… That’s…good to know.”

  “Is it?”

  “Well, no. But I didn’t expect…” He cleared his throat. “I guess if I’d thought about it….” He cleared his throat again and moved his tackle box to the other side of his seat for absolutely no reason. “You’re twenty-five.”

  “I am twenty-five,” Lark said. Twenty-five and not married was bad enough—when she was growing up, she had always assumed she’d be married with a baby on the way by this point in her life—but twenty-five and still a virgin would have been downright sad.

  “Why did you tell me?” Mason asked.

  Lark shrugged. “I thought you should know.”

  Mason nodded, staring at the water for a long moment before turning his soulful blue eyes back to hers. “I wish it had been me.”

  Lark swallowed hard, suddenly wishing she hadn’t started this conversation. She wished it had been him, too. She wished it was Mason’s smell she remembered swirling around her the first time she was with a man, Mason’s hands that had smoothed over her body, making her ache and want and long for him to take the ache away, Mason’s lips on hers as he pushed inside her.

  “Don’t say things like that,” Lark said, closing her eyes and fighting the desire coursing through her, hoping Mason couldn’t see behind her sunglasses.

  “I can’t help it,” Mason said. “It’s the truth.”

  The truth. He was awfully preoccupied with the truth today. To the point that it was downright irritating.

  “All right,” Lark said, opening her eyes.
“Here’s another question for you: Why didn’t you call or write?” He started to reply, but she hurried on before he could speak. “I know why you didn’t when you first left, but what about after a year or so, when you started feeling better about things. Why not call then?”

  Mason met her hard look. “I wasn’t sure I was going to get my shit together and keep it together until early last year. By then, so much time had passed I thought… I thought it was better to finish my residency before I asked for a second chance.”

  Lark snorted. “Just waiting until it was convenient for you, is that it?”

  “No, I just…” Mason sighed. “I told myself it would be better if I was back here for good and settled with a job, but I think… I was just…afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That you’d be in love with someone else,” he said. “And that there wouldn’t be even a chance of getting you back. That I’d screwed up so badly there would be no making it better.”

  Lark was quiet for a moment.

  A part of her was tempted to tell Mason that there was a good chance he had screwed up so badly there would be no making it better, but another part of her was thinking about what he’d said at her parents’ house. About what it would take to make her start trusting him again.

  What would it take? For her to get past how miserable and lonely and foolish she had felt in those months after Mason left? She couldn’t deny a part of her wanted to forgive and forget, to put aside her anger and hurt and embarrassment and give this thing with Mason a real chance.

  But how could she? When what he’d done loomed so large in her heart and mind, casting a shadow so big she didn’t know if she would ever be completely free of it?

  “What are you thinking?” Mason asked.

  “Who says I’m thinking anything?” Lark stared into her bottle, swirling the last of her lemonade around and around the bottom.

  “You’ve got your hamster wheel face on.”

  It was another one of their old jokes—Mason always knew when she was seriously thinking by the face she made—but Lark didn’t laugh. The joke only made her think harder.

  Here was a man who knew her, really knew her. He’d taken the time to memorize her facial expressions and could still read her like the farmers down at the feed store read the sky before a rain, estimating the rainfall within half an inch before a drop had fallen. And she could read him with the same accuracy.

  She could tell this conversation was making him nervous, and knew he was sincere when he talked about how much he wanted a second chance. They had always shared a special connection. Four years apart had damaged that connection, but hadn’t severed it. With a little work, Lark knew their bond could be repaired. All it would take was Lark dropping her guard and letting Mason back in.

  The thought was terrifying, but not as impossible to imagine as it had been even this morning, let alone yesterday.

  Lark glanced at Mason, watching him watch her with those blue, blue eyes, unable to deny the attraction that lived and breathed in the space between them, becoming a third person in the boat, a being too big and loud and outspoken to ignore.

  She wanted him. She wanted him badly. Mason was the only man who’d ever made her drunk on his kisses, the only man whose hands awakened a primal hunger in her that threatened to consume her, body and soul. She wanted to feel that way again, to let Mason take her to that place where all that existed was his breath mingled with hers and their hearts beating in time and his hands everywhere she needed them to be. The chances that she would be able to continue to resist giving in to her attraction after five more dates were slim to none.

  She was going to give in, one way or another, and as soon as she let herself touch Mason, let herself kiss him, taste him, remember how his strong body felt beneath her or leveraged over her as they rolled around in the sleeping bag in the back of his truck, it would only be a matter of time before all her defenses crumbled. She would fall for him all over again, and end up with her head and her heart at odds, tearing her in two different directions.

  Unless…

  What do you need, brain? Lark silently asked herself. What would it take for you to sign on the “Give Mason Another Chance” line?

  Lark thought. And thought. And thought, while Mason sat quietly on the other side of the boat, reeling in his line and tossing it into another patch of shade beneath the trees on this side of the lake.

  He had always known when to push and when to let her be, when to wrap his arms around her and pull her close, and when to sit back and wait for her to come to him. He was a master of reading people, especially her.

  Aria called him manipulative, but he wasn’t, not really. He was simply excellent at helping people get out of their own way and get along. He said it was a side effect of being raised by a moody, unpredictable mom with even moodier, more unpredictable boyfriends. It was also one of the reasons Lark had always thought he would be a wonderful doctor. He was empathetic, a natural leader, and absolutely worthy of the trust people would place in him when they put their health in his hands.

  But what if Mason wasn’t in charge? What if Lark were the one calling the shots for the next date? Would Mason be as willing to follow as he had always been to lead? And would taking her turn in the driver’s seat satisfy Lark’s need to feel in control, to feel like giving Mason another chance was a logical choice she was making instead of a bog of Mason quicksand she was being sucked into against her will?

  The answer was…maybe. Definitely maybe.

  And that was enough to make Lark smile.

  “Worked things out?” Mason asked, peeking at her out of the corner of his eyes.

  “Yes, I think I have.” Lark stretched her legs, pointing her toes. Her smile grew a little wider.

  “And…” Mason prodded after a moment.

  “And I’ve decided I’ll be organizing date number three,” Lark said breezily. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night.”

  Mason didn’t miss a beat, just smiled and said, “Okay. Where are we going?”

  “That’s on a need to know basis,” Lark said, wrinkling her nose and sniffing. “And you don’t have the need to know. Just wear something you don’t mind getting dirty and plan on going with the flow.”

  “Dirty, eh?” Mason asked, obviously intrigued. “All right. I’m staying at the Motor Lodge east of downtown. Room 214.”

  Lark paused. “So…you and Parker are…”

  “Permanently on the outs,” Mason said, but Lark didn’t hear the rage simmering in his voice that usually accompanied talk of his uncle.

  “Good,” Lark said, proud of him. “Parker doesn’t deserve a nephew like you.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said, with a smile that made Lark’s chest feel tight in the best way.

  “You’re welcome,” Lark said. “So, I’ll pick you up at the hotel tomorrow. At seven o’clock.”

  Mason cocked his head, and reached out to capture one of her happily wiggling toes between his fingers, sending a shiver of awareness across her skin. “Does this have anything to do with what we talked about? About earning your trust?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see.” Lark took another sip of lemonade, not surprised to find it suddenly tasted sweeter.

  Mood affected the taste buds; she’d realized that not long after she started catering. An unhappy bride wasn’t going to like the cake, no matter how moist and delicious the insides or how perfectly light and fluffy the frosting, and a happy bride wouldn’t even notice that the chicken was a little dry or the tomatoes in the salad had begun to pucker.

  The lemonade tasted sweeter because, for the first time in four years, she was going to have a chance to make Mason Stewart play by her rules.

  And if he played nice…

  Well, maybe then she’d have a chance at something even better than calling the shots. She might have a chance at the future she’d thought was lost to her forever, a future with Mason by her side and the kind of love she hadn’t dared to dream a
bout since the day he had left her behind.

  10

  Date Three

  “Turn around and close your eyes,” Lark said when Mason opened the door of his cheap hotel room the next night.

  He paused for a long moment, taking in her tight jeans and fitted brown tank top. Lark always looked amazing in a dress—with her curvy bare legs peeking out beneath a swirling skirt—and seeing her in a bikini yesterday had just about given Mason a heart attack, but he loved her best in jeans. The woman could wear the hell out of a pair of jeans.

  Especially from the back.

  “What are you doing?” Lark asked.

  “Trying to sneak a peek at your butt in those jeans,” he said, with a sheepish grin.

  Lark rolled her eyes. “Tonight isn’t about my butt.”

  “I couldn’t help myself. I’m weak when it comes to your butt.”

  “Mason, if you don’t stop talking about my butt, I’m going to leave right now.” Lark gave a stern nod of her head that made her ponytail bounce.

  Mason put on his most serious expression. “All right. Are you ready to go?” he asked, grabbing his wallet from the table by the door and slipping it into the pocket of his jeans. He had taken Lark’s order to dress in something he could get dirty seriously and was wearing his oldest pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt made whisper soft with repeated washings.

  Lark held up a hand, keeping him from stepping outside the door. “I’m ready as soon as you turn around and close your eyes.”

  “Why do I have to—”

  “Just do it, Mason,” she said, not budging an inch. “Tonight is about following directions, and so far, you stink at it.” She propped her hands on her hips, drawing Mason’s attention to the red bandana in her right hand.

  A blindfold?

  It had to be. Why else would she want him to close his eyes?

  Mason hesitated for a moment. He had never liked surprises. When you grew up never knowing if there would be food in the fridge, or whether your mom would come home at night or disappear with whatever loser she was dating for days at a time, leaving you to fend for yourself when you were barely old enough to reach the kitchen cabinets, when you never knew if New Stepdad was going to quietly resent you or take his frustration at being saddled with someone else’s kid out on you with his fists, you learned not to care for surprises.