He really wanted her back in his cabin, in his bedroom, as his wife. They’d talked about children and marriage, finances and living arrangements.
He’d bought a big SUV, but he rarely used it. He still got his groceries delivered and he still walked to work. But he could drive himself to his lumberjack job, and over to her house, and anywhere else she needed him.
“Is it hot in the cabin?” he asked. “Is that why you’re out here?”
“It’s not cool,” she said. “We’ll definitely have to put central air in this place once we’re married.”
“You think so?”
“Phoenix,” she said reprovingly, lacing her fingers through his as he finished climbing the steps and went into the cabin.
“So it’s a little warm,” he said as a wall of warmer air met him inside the cabin. “Just flip that fan around, and we’ll open the back door too. It’ll clear out quickly.” He made the adjustments while Allegra went into the kitchen and started preheating the oven for the pizza.
“Allegra?” he asked, sitting at his bar while she busied herself with a sheet pan and unwrapping the food.
“Hmm?” She glanced at him.
But he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to marry him right there. No, he had a plan, and he’d stick to it. “It’s good to see you,” he said with a smile. “How are things?”
She knew what he was asking, because she flashed him a warning look before turning to put the pizzas in the oven. She faced him and reached back to take her hair out of its ponytail, smooth it back, and re-secure it.
He just watched her, giving her the time she needed to answer him. She would, he knew. They’d agreed not to bottle things up and deal with feelings or fear alone. Heaven knew he’d expressed more to her than any other human being over the last few months, and she’d become his best friend and the only person he wanted to share intimate things with.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about fall and winter, and I’m not sure how things will go then.”
“Fall and winter?”
“Well, I broke up with Devon in the fall, and everything happened last winter, and.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid it’ll bring up too many bad memories and I’ll regress.”
“Have you talked to Doctor Fujimoto about it?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re putting a plan in place.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, I told her you’d be happy about that.”
“I can’t help it if I like making a good plan.” He kicked a smile in her direction. She laughed, and the sound of it in the cabin brought joy right into his heart.
“I know you can’t.”
* * *
Sunday morning dawned, making Phoenix nervous. He and Allegra were spending the day with his family on the beach, and he got up and got ready, putting the diamond ring he’d bought from an online jewelry designer in the pocket of his shorts.
He’d no sooner done that when Dozer barked a few times. One, two, three times. Phoenix’s heart jumped and pulsed in his chest, a flashback to that night outside the white house on Lakeshore Drive hitting him like a bucket of icy water.
He blinked and went down the hall to find Allegra greeting the dogs. She wore a pair of cutoffs that sent his heartbeat into a tailspin for an entirely different reason, and a sheer tank top that showed a bright red bikini top beneath that.
They’d been to the beach dozens of times this summer, as Allegra said it was her happy place, and his family happened to own a couple of miles of private beachfront.
But today was different.
“Hey.” He kissed her quickly and pulled open the fridge. “I overslept,” he said, grabbing out two boxes of soda. “Can you grab the cooler? I left it by the back door.”
“You overslept?” she asked as she went to get the cooler.
“Yeah.” He ripped open the boxes and loaded them into the cooler. After pouring half a bag of ice on them, he lodged in another couple dozen cans and covered those with the rest of the ice.
“Ready.”
They drove over to the lake, and he was relieved to see they weren’t the last to arrive. Karly and her husband still hadn’t shown up, but she’d just announced that she was pregnant, so Phoenix expected his oldest sister to milk that for all it was worth.
When she did finally show up, she’d make a big deal about her barely-there baby bump and how tired she was, and wow, her feet were so swollen.
Phoenix had heard it all already.
“Hey, bro,” he said to Jon, who laid in his floatie while his fiancée, Cassie, sat cross-legged on a towel beside him, leafing through a restaurant supply magazine.
“There you are.” Jon got up and gave Phoenix a quick slap on the back before turning to Allegra. “Hey, you look great.” He gave her a hug too and sat back down in his floatation device. “The water’s not quite warm enough yet.”
“Really?” Phoenix asked. “It’s been so hot this week.” He watched the water undulate toward shore, the sound of the waves something that soothed him. Allegra had even bought him a white noise machine that simulated the waves.
“It’ll warm up,” Cassie said without looking up. “Oh, and Phoenix, Kimmie is looking for you.”
“That’s because she knows I’m the fun uncle,” he said, scanning the beach for his niece. Or maybe it was because he’d asked her to help him with the proposal. Either way, he spotted the seven-year-old over by her father and his parents.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” he said, without inviting Allegra to come with him. So when she sidled up next to him, he almost pushed her back.
“Allegra,” Cassie called after her. “I have to ask you something.” She met Phoenix’s eye as she got up, and he was glad he’d involved her and Jon in today’s plans too. The engagement would be a surprise to everyone else, and his heart stuttered inside his chest.
Cassie drew Allegra away with talk of the community center class they were planning for the fall, and Phoenix hurried over to Kimmie.
“Hey, girl,” he said to her, swinging her up and into a hug. “Are you ready? Did you get your dad to bring the cupcakes?”
“Hey, Nixon,” she said, giggling. “Yeah, he brought them. I told him I had to have the red velvet one, and he got two.”
Phoenix smiled up at his cute blonde-haired niece and glanced over his shoulder. “Okay, so I’m going to give you the ring, and you’re going to put it in one of the cupcakes, okay? You can’t lose it.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
“What’s going on here?” Liam asked, and Phoenix put Kimmie back on the ground. He brushed the sand from his hands and faced his other brother.
“Nothing,” Phoenix said. “Kimmie was just telling me about the cupcakes you brought.”
“We’re not eating those until after lunch,” Liam said, looking at his daughter with sternness in his eyes.
“That’s what she said,” Phoenix said. “She wouldn’t even give me one.” He ruffled Kimmie’s hair and grinned down at her. “Where’s Serenity?”
“She has the day off,” Liam said, plucking his sunglasses from where he’d tucked them into his collar and put them on.
Phoenix wondered what having a nanny would be like, but Liam’s wife had died a few years ago, and he was set to take over the orchards one day. Phoenix knew he worked much longer hours than anyone else in the family, except maybe their father, and he had no idea what it took to raise a child alone.
Allegra came toward them, and Phoenix had to abandon his plans to pass the diamond to Kimmie for the time being. He talked to his parents, and Karly finally arrived with the grill so the hamburgers and hot dogs could be cooked.
Her husband manned that while she organized all the dishes everyone else had brought. They’d taken two picnic tables and his dad and Liam pushed them together to make it so they could all sit together. Mia and his mom put a plastic tablecloth over the tables, and Phoenix stood and watched the vibrancy of his family.<
br />
When he’d cut himself off from the rest of the town, he hadn’t severed the ties with them, and he was grateful for that. They’d given him space—well, sometimes Jon didn’t—and support and unconditional love.
His heart felt so full, but he managed to wait until everyone had their food and were settling down at the table. Jon met his eye, and Kimmie did too, and there was no way to get the ring into the cupcake.
He smiled at her and shook his head before standing up. “I have something I’d like to say,” he said.
“Oh my heck,” Karly said, gasping, and he hadn’t even said anything yet. He shot her a look that said don’t ruin this for me, and turned back to Allegra.
“Sweetheart,” he said, his voice catching. “I’m in love with you, and we’ve talked a lot about our future together.” He dug into his pocket, all his carefully thought-out words abandoning him in this crucial moment.
He held up the ring and dropped to one knee as Allegra pressed one hand to her mouth and one to her heartbeat.
“I think we should make it all official. Will you marry me?” He looked up at her, glad she’d lowered her hand so he could see her smile.
“Really?” she asked, looking down at the ring.
“Is that a real question?” he asked, panic starting to constrict in his chest. Maybe he shouldn’t have done this in front of his family.
“I thought I was supposed to bite into a cupcake and be surprised,” she said. “I’ve been practicing for a week.” Her blue eyes shone like stars as she teased him.
Phoenix blinked as understanding washed over him. “Kimmie,” he said. “Did you tell?”
“I didn’t, Uncle Nixon,” she said. “I swear.”
“That would be me,” Jon said. “I came by the cabin one day, and you weren’t home yet, and well, I may have said something.”
Annoyance surged through Phoenix, but he pushed it away. “Thanks a lot, bro. I didn’t ruin your proposal.”
“And this isn’t ruined either,” Allegra said, leaning forward and taking his face in both of her hands. “I love you. Of course I’ll marry you.” She kissed him, pulling away quickly and adding, “So put that diamond on my finger already.”
He chuckled and did exactly as she asked, kissing her again while his mother took pictures and wept. Much hugging ensued, and when he pulled Jon into a quick embrace, he said, “You’re lucky I didn’t bring my axe, bro.”
Jon just laughed and said, “Go sit by your fiancée. I’m starving, and we can’t eat until you guys wrap this up.”
Phoenix sat down, put his arm around his fiancée, and whispered, “I love you.” No, before that blizzard last January, he’d never pictured himself with Allegra Wright. Now, he couldn’t picture his life without the woman who’d come to stay in his cabin as a secret guest.
She admired the ring and leaned into his embrace. “I love you too.”
“And you’ll show up on our wedding day, right?” he whispered, though she’d told him a half a dozen times before that she would.
She kissed him in response, and Phoenix had all the answers he needed to that question.
* * *
Read on for a sneak peek of WORKING IT OUT, featuring Liam, Phoenix’s brother, and his new au pair…. Then go read it - available in Kindle Unlimited.
Oooh, Phoenix and Allegra made a tough situation work! I just love them. If you are too, please leave a review now!
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Sneak Peek! WORKING IT OUT Chapter One
Liam Addler sat beside his daughter, his nerves firing on all cylinders the way his luxury car did. Fine, the vehicle was an SUV, and it had been a luxury one a few years ago. He’d drive it until it died, because while his parents owned one of the largest cherry orchards in the state of Michigan, they’d taught him to live frugally.
Or maybe he just didn’t want to drive a real luxury car through the muddy orchards in the spring. Thankfully, the ground had all dried up now that June was almost here. It felt like everyone in town was holding their breath for school to get out, and his seven-year-old was no exception. She was so done with second grade, she’d readily agreed to her yearly test at the oncologist.
“Kimmie,” a woman called, and Liam tapped his daughter’s leg. She had headphones in her ears and was watching a video on his phone. She looked up at him, his late wife’s eyes staring right back into his.
“It’s our turn,” he said, expecting the pinch in his heart. It came slowly these days, where it used to steal his breath and make him immobile for a moment. Liam wasn’t sure how he felt about not missing his wife as much as he used to, but he wondered if he could go out with someone and not be crippled with guilt. For the first time since Heather’s death, he actually wanted to try going out with another woman.
Kimmie swooped the earbuds out and stood up. Liam made eye contact with the nurse, who smiled at him like he and Kimmie were just so cute.
He’d seen it all before. He’d grown up in Forbidden Lake, and so had his wife, Heather. Breast cancer had taken her from him and Kimmie three years ago, and it was only in the last twelve months or so that anyone looked at him normally again.
And the women…well, he could sense a woman’s interest in him from a mile away, and this nurse—definitely interested.
Liam was not interested in her, though he probably should be. After all, dating a nurse at a doctor’s office would be acceptable. Totally okay. Normal.
“How are you today, Kimmie?” the nurse asked, and Liam had forgotten her name again.
“Fine,” his daughter said.
Yes, Heather’s cancer had been extremely rare. Most women didn’t develop breast cancer in their early thirties. But she had. And it had already spread to her lymph nodes and lungs and liver. The doctor estimated she’d lived with the cancer for a decade, and he was “shocked” she’d been able to carry Kimmie to full term.
Liam had been advised to have his daughter screened each year, though she had no breast tissue. The doctors couldn’t tell which area of Heather’s body had developed the cancer first, and Liam didn’t want to have to bury his daughter too.
And so she got a CT scan once a year, got to get out of school for a while, and he could rest easier for the next three hundred and sixty-four days. Not that Liam rested all that easy anyway, especially as his nanny had just given notice that she was quitting—one week before school got out. Right at the crucial moment when he’d actually need her full-time.
Kimmie could help him in the orchards a little bit, but his father had started giving Liam almost all of the meetings now, and a seven-year-old shouldn’t have to suffer through those. He barely wanted to go.
“All right, go on in,” the nurse said, and Kimmie skipped through the door to the technician inside. Liam hadn’t even realized she’d left to change, and he wandered over to the row of chairs against the wall where he normally waited.
The nurse-whose-name-he-couldn’t-remember turned toward him. “Has she had any symptoms?”
“No,” he said. “We’re just here for preventative stuff.”
She smiled and tossed her dark hair over her shoulder as she turned to press a button. “Are you guys doing free-pick yet out at the orchard?”
He almost scoffed. It wasn’t even June yet, and everyone knew the week-long Cherry Festival happened at the end of July. Didn’t they? He was pretty sure this woman had been at the hospital last year when he’d brought in Kimmie.
She turned toward him, and Liam realized he hadn’t answered. “No,” he said. “You can rent the cabins at the lake, but you can’t pick cherries until they’re ripe. That doesn’t happen until July.”
“Oh.” She smiled her cherry-red lips at him, but Liam was so not interested. He wondered if he’d even know if he was, but he folded his arms, glad when the nurse didn’t ask him any more questions.
The minutes passed, and Liam got drawn into a text
ing conversation with his foreman, McKenna Rodgers. She oversaw all the work with the trees, and it was a huge job. He had someone over the cabin rentals too, and someone over the fence line repair. Someone to clean the cabins. Someone to maintain their private beach. But out of them all, McKenna’s job was by far the biggest and hardest.
And she wasn’t getting along with Charles, who ran their beach rentals. He keeps telling people they can go through the orchards, she’d texted. And they can’t. They hit the trees with their beach chairs and they don’t watch their kids. We’re losing money over this, Liam.
I’ll talk to Charles, he promised her, glancing up to see if Kimmie had finished changing yet.
She came out a few minutes later, and she said, “Do I have to go to school?”
“Yep,” he said. “I have a problem at work, and we don’t get our new nanny until tonight.”
He’d only texted with his new nanny—oops, au pair—Serenity over the past few days. “It’s a new agency, remember?”
“I hope she’s nice.”
“Of course she’s nice,” he said, though he really had no way of knowing that for sure. “I contacted her family in France, and they loved her. They had three kids—they all loved her.” He put his arm around his daughter. “Think of that. She has to be totally nice, and fun, and just awesome to get three kids to love her.” He grinned down at her, and Kimmie smiled back.
“All right. Is she living with us like Ella did?”
“This agency does things differently,” he said, a bit anxious about the all the changes with it being so close to summer. He didn’t know this new woman, and she didn’t know him, and sometimes he had to run out early in the morning. It had been really great to have Ella in the basement, where she had a fully furnished apartment of her own. Locking door on the steps. Everything.
“So Serenity has a housing allowance, and I’m told she has an apartment right across from that park you love.” Liam waved to the woman who scheduled the tests for them, and he and Kimmie left the imaging wing of the hospital.
Taking A Chance (Rebels 0f Forbidden Lake Book 2) Page 10