“How’s the new baby?” she asked.
“Growing fast,” he said, and she supposed it had been almost a month since the infant had been born.
“We’ll come see him soon,” she said.
“Okay.” He lifted his hand in a wave as more people started gathering. She picked up her notes and went out to the common area where they held their morning meetings. She handed out assignments and then said, “I’m going to have a lemonade bar here tomorrow. Tell your wives and kids and friends. It’ll be set up about nine and stay through evening.” She smiled around at her crew who worked so hard on the acres and acres of land the inn encompassed. “My sisters and I want to thank you for everything you do to make The Heartwood Inn the best it can be.”
She didn’t even care if Olympia approved the expense report for the lemonade bar. It was important that her employees knew they were valued, and if she had to pour the lemonade for twelve hours tomorrow, she would.
The meeting broke up, and Sheryl had reached the point in her new routine where she dashed upstairs to see Gage for a few minutes before she donned gloves and hitched a trailer to an ATV and got to work outside.
She grabbed her gloves from her office and took the stairs up to the first floor. Instead of going down the hall and into the lobby, she went outside an turned left toward the corner where the bakery waited for her.
The bell chimed when she entered, but she didn’t see Gage. She was a little bit late, and he hadn’t even answered her about the fish fry that night. Perhaps he was too busy for their fifteen minutes of breakfast.
She loved hot chocolate, no matter what the weather was like, so she stepped up to the counter and ordered that, along with three ham and cheese croissants. Gage would eat two of them, and she’d nibble on the middle of hers where all the filling was. She’d rather conserve her calories for the liquid chocolate with whipped cream.
She’d sipped her treat while she waited for Gage, and she’d eaten her entire croissant by the time he bumped his way through the swinging black door behind the pastry cases. He looked to their table, his frustration evident. He stepped over to Harriett and spoke to her, taking his apron off and clapping his hands together before he came toward her.
“Hey.” She rose to meet him, sensing something strange about him. “You okay?”
“Busy today,” he said, sliding into the seat across the table from her, a smile filling his face. “It’s so great to see you.”
Sheryl ducked her head and giggled, definitely feeling like a teenager with her first serious boyfriend.
Six months later:
Sheryl could still ride her scooter to work, though the summer had ended. The tourists were gone, and the Christmas season had ended. She’d enjoy a few months with just locals on the island, and the groundskeeping slowed in the winter months. Thankfully.
She went in an hour later in the morning, and one day, she pushed into her office to find one of Gage’s sweet treats sitting on her desk. From the glazed raspberries and strawberries with the immaculate swirls of whipped cream, she knew it was his lemon tart.
Her favorite.
Her mouth watered before she’d even sat down, and she didn’t take the time to put her purse away before sitting down and picking up the plastic spoon he’d left for her. She made sure to get a bite of the pie crust, the custard, and a beautiful, red, ripe raspberry.
The tanginess from the custard and the sweetness from the fruit, along with the crunchy crust, made a party in her mouth. A groan started in her throat, and she closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “That is so good.”
She put another bite in her mouth, put her purse away, and opened her laptop. She’d leant some of her crew to Celeste as one of the biggest weddings of the year was taking place next week, and she needed the extra manpower.
The door opened and closed, and her crew started to show up. She grabbed her folder of assignments for the day and put another bite of her tart in her mouth, intending to finish it after the meeting.
Something hard touched her tongue, and her first reaction was to spit out the dessert. She grabbed a napkin, surprise filing her, along with a bit of alarm. Her tongue separated the item from the custard, and she managed to get the object into the napkin.
She was aware of someone coming into her office, but she couldn’t look away from the diamond ring staring back at her. “Oh, my word,” she whispered.
“Oh, that’s a good reaction,” Gage said, and she jerked her attention up to him. He smiled down at her, pure love in his smile. “I love you, Sheryl.” He took the napkin from her, because Sheryl’s whole body had gone numb. Her brain didn’t seem to be working.
Olympia had gotten engaged in October, but Alissa was still dating Shawn. Could Sheryl get engaged?
She and Gage had spent every day together for the past six months, and she loved him. She wanted to be his wife, and she wanted to have his babies.
He produced the newly-cleaned ring and got down on both knees. “Will you marry me?”
Excitement built beneath Sheryl’s tongue, so when she said “Yes,” it came out in a burst of air. She started laughing, and Gage swept her into his arms, also chuckling.
Sheryl’s tears leaked out of her eyes as she cradled Gage’s face and kissed him. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you so much,” he whispered back. “I can’t wait to share my life with you.”
Sheryl kissed him again, because she could only imagine the great adventures she and Gage would have together.
She’d never been happier, and she asked, “Will you make these lemon tarts for our wedding?”
“I’d do anything for you,” he said, and Sheryl had never felt so loved.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next book in the series, NOT HER REAL FIANCÉ to meet another Heartwood sister and the man she definitely does NOT want…
Woo hoo! I’m glad Sheryl and Gage found a way to be together! If you are too, please leave a review here.
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Sneak Peek! Not Her Real Fiancé Chapter One
Bradley Keith positioned the hardhat on his head, the construction site before him like a breath of fresh air. He loved the scent of concrete dust combined with the salty air only found on the island of Carter’s Cove.
He’d been back in town for a few years now, and gratitude for this hometown project spread through him. Sometimes his jobs took him all over the South, and it was nice to have a construction site just down the road from where he lived.
The Heartwood Inn was the premier destination on the island, and they wanted another pool on the second floor for their VIP guests.
The floor was relatively quiet, as most of their conference center space sat on this floor, along with two huge ballrooms where the rich and famous booked their weddings. Brad knew, because his once-fiancée had booked their marriage-to-be right here at the inn. Thankfully, Emily had called off the wedding before Brad had had to do it.
“Where are we with the tiles?” he asked his floor supervisor.
James sighed. “They’re delayed out of Atlanta. Apparently they’ve had some thunderstorms down there.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Brad muttered. He hated Atlanta, though he’d lived there for a few years. Started his construction business there, too. Maybe that was why he held such antagonistic feelings toward the city.
Because he’d almost lost everything there too, thanks to another fiancée that hadn’t become his wife. And he had been the one to tell Tamara that the relationship wasn’t going to work out between them.
That single act had caused him to lose his biggest financial backer—Tamara’s father.
He wiped the memories from his mind as he surveyed what looked like one big hole in the cement. “Is she cured?”
“Yep,” James said. “We just need those tiles. I have the guys working on the floor today. That’ll be the second coat. We’ll do the walls while we wait. And t
he floor tiles are in.”
“They are? Show me those.” Brad glanced at his clipboard as he followed James through the construction site. A couple of men worked in the dressing rooms too, where the white subway tiles had gone in last week.
Brad felt like his whole life had been consumed by tiles. But when building an indoor swimming pool, that was kind of how things went.
“How was your date the other night?” James asked, stepping past a workbench filled with power tools.
“Oh, uh.” Brad heaved another sigh. “I don’t think I’m going to be seeing Carmen again.” Anyone for that matter, but especially Carmen. He didn’t date journalists, for one, and if he’d known who she was, he never would’ve agreed to go out with her. Number two, she hadn’t really seemed interested in him, but in getting a story on him. And number three, she had the power to reduce him to ashes with a few strokes on her keyboard.
No, thank you. He’d left that high-profile life—but he hadn’t been able to get out of the restaurant without a reason why he couldn’t date her. He squirmed in his own skin just thinking about what he’d told her to get out of going on a second date with her.
“Why not?”
“I’m just not into the dating scene here,” he said. “I grew up here, you know?”
“So? What does that have to do with anything?” James stopped in front of a stack of boxes. “These are the floor tiles for the pool surround.”
Brad proceeded to cut through the tape on the top box to reveal—“These are red,” he said.
“No.” James frowned. “Didn’t we order gray?”
“We sure did.” Brad pulled one of the twelve-inch square tiles out of the box. “This is definitely red.” He lifted the burnt orange tile almost above his head, wanting to smash it at his feet.
James made a sound like a leaking balloon, and he pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “I’ll call them. Do you have the form?”
Brad did…somewhere. He looked at his clipboard and started flipping the papers attached there. “What was the name of the company again?” The letters in front of him blurred and rearranged themselves into nonsensical formations.
“Castle-something,” James said.
A big C caught his attention, and he pulled that paper out of the top clasp. “I think this is it.” No one knew about his reading struggles, and he’d managed to restart his business without help from anyone. Spending seventeen years playing professional football had allowed him certain…luxuries.
He’d returned to Carter’s Cove, as there always seemed to be some sort of development going on here, and he’d managed to make a decent living the past few years.
“So you don’t want to go out with Kelly,” James said, looking at the paper.
“No,” Brad said. “I’m not going out with anyone anymore.” He’d been engaged twice, and he was thinking maybe he’d just stay married to his business, the way Tamara had claimed he already was.
Plus, at age forty-seven, he wasn’t exactly in the prime years of his life for swimming in the dating pool. James had been the one to set him up with Emily here on the island, and in fact, every date Brad had been on once he’d re-established himself her in Carter’s Cove had been set up by James.
“You could be missing out,” James said, turning away a moment later with, “Yes, this is James Long with Keith Construction. We ordered….” His voice faded out, and Brad let him go.
He wandered out of the dressing room and back into the main pool area, where a few other people worked. He didn’t have a huge construction firm, but he knew plenty of people, and when he got hired on a big job, he could bring the manpower.
He loved the beach, but he had a sudden longing to travel to Lexington, where he’d spent summers growing up on his grandfather’s horse farm.
He’d lived a good life for his forty-seven years, even if he didn’t have a wife and kids to show for it.
You might be missing out rang in his ears, but he scoffed them away. James didn’t know what he was talking about. He couldn’t even set Brad up with someone even remotely compatible with him, and they’d been friends for five years.
A feminine form moved past the plastic separating the construction site from the rest of the hotel, and Brad turned away from the woman. Instant heat shot to his face, reminding him that even forty-seven-year-olds had hormones.
But Celeste Heartwood was one thousand percent off-limits. Not only was she completely out of his league, what with her pencil skirts and professionally pressed blouses—and those heels. Wow, Brad liked those heels that woman wore—but she knew she was out of his league.
“Did you hear me?”
“What?” Brad spun away from the plastic, where Celeste had been. She wasn’t even there anymore, and foolishness hit Brad right between his ribs.
“They’re putting a rush on the right tile,” James said. “It should be here by the end of the week.”
“Great,” Brad said. “Great.” He took a deep breath, wondering where he’d been on his to-do list for that morning before thoughts of Celeste had distracted him.
“Are you going down to South Port today?” James asked.
“Yes,” Brad said, seizing onto the topic. “I do need to go down there.”
“Okay, so—” He cut off so suddenly that Brad looked at him only to find him staring at something straight ahead. He followed his gaze to see Carmen Lunt standing there.
His stomach dropped to his boots, and whatever James said didn’t register in Brad’s ears. All he could see was that fiery Latina stalking toward him. She said something in rapid Spanish that Brad knew enough to translate into something bad, and then she arrived in front of him.
“You said you were engaged?” The words echoed throughout the entire construction site, as it was mostly cement and very open.
“You said what?” James asked.
“I am,” Brad said, his voice a little weaker than he’d like it to be.
“To who?” Carmen folded her arms and cocked one hip. Her head bobbled like one of those dolls, daring him to lie to her again.
He could see the headlines now…. He felt like he was falling for a moment, and his own name left his mind. Celeste walked by the plastic again, causing it to flutter, and he seized onto the idea. “Celeste Heartwood,” he said. “There she is. Excuse me.” He ducked around Carmen and jogged toward the plastic.
He’d known Celeste’s family growing up, though he was quite a bit older than the woman herself. Olympia, her older sister, was probably five years younger than him, and Brad had competed in the surfing championship right here at the inn before he’d been drafted into professional football and shipped all over the country.
He’d spent the most time down in Florida, playing for the Falcons, where he’d ended his career after eight years there.
“Celeste,” he called after her once he’d freed himself from the construction site. She turned back, surprise in those gorgeous eyes as she paused right outside her office door.
Gorgeous eyes? Where had that come from?
“Hey.” He chuckled as he jogged up to her. “Can I talk to you? For a minute?” He glanced over his shoulder and back toward the construction site. James and Carmen hadn’t emerged yet. She was his next-door neighbor, so maybe he was trying to calm her down.
Brad could hope and pray, and he needed a solution—fast.
“I suppose,” Celeste said, confusion on her face.
“Great.” He reached past her and twisted her doorknob, pushing the door in so she’d enter. Another quick look over his shoulder told him that he had maybe thirty seconds inside this office, as Carmen stood there, watching them now.
Celeste either didn’t care or didn’t see her, because she entered her office, one hand on the door while he followed. She closed the door and asked, “What’s going on? Is there a problem with the construction? I can get the manager—”
“There’s no problem with the construction.” Brad pulled himself out of the situati
on and put himself on the football field. Sure, he’d retired from the league eight years ago, but he’d never focused better than when playing football.
And he needed to focus now, on the right things. Not Celeste’s very feminine form, with all these curves and swells in the right place. Not her very pink lips that called to his male side. Not the pale blue eyes and the softly curled blonde hair that begged him to run his hands through it moments before he kissed her so completely that he’d forget the look of disdain on her face.
He really needed to get control of his thoughts, because he would never be with this woman.
“I said,” she said. “What’s the problem?”
“Oh, uh.” He glanced behind him. “I need a favor, and I’m afraid I need it right now.”
Carmen knocked on the door, a string of muffled Spanish following.
“What in the world?” Celeste asked, stepping one of those deliciously heeled feet toward the door.
Brad jumped in front of her. “I need you to say you’re my fiancée.”
Her eyes flew to his, wide and scared. Scared? Was that right?
Alarmed, for sure. Surprised. And yes, a little scared.
“Just tell her,” he said. “Please, Celeste. It’ll just be for the next ten minutes, and I just—” His voice got covered by louder knocking.
Pure desperation pulled through him, and he had no idea what he’d do if she said no.
She jumped as the door rattled in the frame as Carmen beat on it. She looked from it to him and tugged on the bottom of her blouse. It was pure white, with tiny pink palm trees on it, and Brad had a brief flash of the two of them lying on the sand, under some palm trees together.
“I’ll take care of this,” Celeste said, reaching for the door.
But that hadn’t exactly answered Brad’s plea, and he had no idea what she was going to say to the very angry woman on the other side of the door.
I can’t wait to see what happens when Celeste opens that door!
Bodyguard, Not Boyfriend Page 13