Love So Unexpected (The Lawson Brothers #6)

by Marquita Valentine

  “Try again.” As soon as his cock sprung free of his boxers, he thrust inside of her. She was already so wet for him that it didn’t take long at all to work his way completely inside.

  “Caleb,” she gasped, grabbing his wide shoulders.

  “You’re going to marry me.”

  Thrust.

  “Yes.”

  “Have my babies.”

  Thrust.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” She clung to him, even as she rode him with abandon. Her head fell back. His tongue licked a hot path up her neck.

  “Never leaving me again.”

  “No.”

  “You stay and talk to me. I’ll listen.”

  How could he talk right now? “Whatever you want.”

  “I want you, Sofia. Since the first day I met you.” He reached between them, rubbing her clit in just the right way. “Now come for me, sweetheart.”

  She might have screamed his name and God’s. Might have clawed his shoulders and back. What she did know was that her orgasm was even better than the ones he’d given her before.

  A few thrusts later, he joined her.

  “No condom,” he panted.

  “No pill.”

  His face became serious. “I should—”

  “Do it again?” she teased. “Right after you make an honest woman of me.”

  He framed her face in his hands. “We’ll get married tomorrow. I know a preacher.”

  “That’s...”

  “Unexpected?”

  She shook her head. “Perfect.” Just like him.

  ***

  Two weeks later

  “We have time. Sit still,” Tia Bianca ordered, and Sofia quit squirming. “I have to finish your eye make-up.”

  “If I make Caleb wait any longer, I think he’ll kidnap me and have our wedding while we’re on the honeymoon.” He hadn’t been joking when he said he wanted to marry her as soon as possible. He’d bought a ring, proposed to her the proper way so she could share with her family and friends, then drove her into town to get the marriage license. The only reason he hadn’t married her the next day was so she could invite her entire family to the wedding.

  He was sweet like that.

  She smiled.

  “I know that look,” Tia Carmen said. “You are truly in love with him.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “And he makes you happy. Truly happy,” Tia Bianca chimed in. “There. Take a look in the mirror.”

  Sofia stood, moving the mirror propped against the closet door. “Oh wow.” She gently touched her face. “Is that me?” She looked so bride-like in her wedding gown, which was the point, but...

  The door opened, and one of her soon-to-be sisters-in-law walked in the room, then froze as she saw Sofia. “Oh my goodness. You are a beautiful bride. Caleb won’t be able to stand himself when he sees you. I’m Joy, Adam’s wife. It’s okay if you don’t remember meeting me because there are so many of us and we tend to converge at once. It can be overwhelming.”

  “A little, but give me time, and I’ll be the one introducing everyone.” Sofia gave the short, plump woman a hug. “I can’t wait to call you sister.”

  Joy hugged her back. “I can’t either.” She stepped back, her face sweet as she smiled at everyone in the room and spoke to each person before turning her attention back to Sofia. “My husband sent me up here to let you know that the ceremony is about to start, and if he doesn’t get you hitched to Caleb in the next ten minutes, then Caleb’s liable to come get you himself.”

  “I’d like to see him get past my tias,” Sofia replied with a soft snort. “But I don’t want to wait any longer either. Tell Adam I’m on my way.”

  Joy nodded. “I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to tell you what a Proverbs 31 woman I think you are. Caleb is blessed to have you walking alongside him.”

  “He’s not the only one who is blessed.”

  Her tias nodded.

  “We are all fortunate for this day,” abuela agreed, then she repeated her words in English for Joy’s benefit. The woman smiled so big that dimples appeared in her cheeks.

  “See you in a bit.” Then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

  *

  Sofia held up her skirt as she practically floated outside. All but her grandmother had gone ahead. Caleb’s brother, Austin, winked at her as she passed by. He was marrying Harper, a teacher who was the cousin of his brother’s wife, Lemon.

  “Hold up. It’s my job to man the door.” He got in front of them, right in the middle of the doors and pushed outward. “You’re going to love this.”

  The barn doors parted, and she walked inside, gasping at the transformation. Gone were the hay bales and equipment. Gone were the cows and feedbags. In their place were sweet smelling flowers and rose petals scattered on the cement floor. Rows of chairs faced an arch made of vines and fairy lights. More lights were twined around the beams in the ceiling and around each stall’s door.

  When in the world had his family and hers done this? It must have taken hours, maybe even days.

  “Is this why we had the rehearsal at Lemon and Tristan’s house?” she asked her grandmother, and the older woman nodded.

  “My feet ache, but that smile is worth it,” Abuela said. “Your mother is in this place. I feel her. She’s happy for you.”

  Sofia began to cry, but her abuela gently wiped at her tears. “Thank you so much. I don’t know how my bad luck changed so quickly.”

  “It wasn’t bad luck that brought you here. It was fate.” With one last kiss on her cheek, she walked away and took her seat in the front row, right beside Dinah, who grabbed her hand. The two women smiled at one another, then looked at her.

  Sofia didn’t think her heart could get any fuller than it was in this moment ... until Caleb walked in from the side to stand near Adam. In a simple white shirt and dress pants, he took her breath away.

  His blue eyes met hers, the love in them shining brighter than all the lights combined.

  David walked to her, holding out his arm as he joined her “If you don’t mind, I’d like to do the honor of walking you down the aisle.”

  Fresh tears welled in her eyes as she slid her arm inside of his. “Why?” She’d planned on walking to Caleb by herself, and no one had said anything against that at the rehearsal last night. She hadn’t minded at all.

  “You’ve become like a daughter to Dinah and me. I want to make sure my son knows how we truly feel about you, and that he’ll have to answer to us when he does stupid stuff.”

  “My Caleb would never do anything stupid.”

  “Yes, he will.” David laughed. “He’s a man. It’s in our DNA.”

  The music started.

  “That’s our cue,” she said. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Thank you for coming into my son’s life. You don’t know how much he needed you. We didn’t know how much, until we saw y’all together.”

  “I don’t know ... I think I needed him just as much.”

  Caleb gave his dad a pointed look.

  David laughed, and so did Sofia.

  Then they began to walk down the aisle to the man she knew she’d spend the rest of her life with.

  Epilogue

  Three years later

  Evening was Caleb’s favorite time of day. Sofia and the kids would already be in the kitchen, his parents at the table, too. At Sofia’s insistence, after the honeymoon, they moved into the farmhouse.

  Before he would have minded, but now that he was older, he understood things a younger man couldn’t.

  Like how he could still have his independence surrounded by family. He didn’t have to choose between the two.

  “Hey beautiful,” he said, taking off his work boots at the door. His shoulders were sore from wrestling with a cow more stubborn than Mule had ever been.

  “Hi yourself.” To his surprise, there was no one in the kitchen but Sofia. “Where is everyone?”

  “David and Dinah took the
kids to Brody and Sydney’s house to play with their primos.”

  “That means it’s just us.”

  “Si.”

  He loved they way she sprinkled Spanish while talking to him. He’d never told her though. “Don’t bother cooking for us tonight.”

  “Why is that?”

  He encircled her waist with his arms. “Because I’m going to take my pretty wife out dancing, then when we’re hot and sweaty, I figured we could go skinny dipping.”

  “You still want to skinny dip with me after two babies?” She tipped up her chin, and he couldn’t help but kiss her.

  “Two babies. Four babies. Ten grandkids. I’ll always want to skinny dip with you.”

  “You always know what I need to hear,” she said softly.

  “Only saying what I mean. And Mrs. Lawson, I love you.”

  Thank you for reading LOVE SO UNEXPECTED. If you enjoyed Sofia and Caleb’s story, please consider leaving a review to let others know. If you’d like to be notified of my newest releases, sales, cover reveals, and giveaways, please sign up for my newsletter and get a free book, too!

  Keep going to read the first TWO CHAPTERS of how it all began in LOVE SO HOT (Book #1), where Fire Captain Brody Lawson is just as in love with his best friend Sydney McKnight as she is with him. Only neither want to risk their friendship by admitting it. Then Sydney works up the nerve to ask Brody to teach her how to properly seduce a man and everything starts to change...

  Love So Hot

  The Lawsons

  Book 1

  Chapter One

  Brody Lawson couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t want to be a firefighter. He wanted to rescue people from skyscrapers, farms animals from burning barns, and use the Jaws of Life to pry open cars. By the time he was fifteen, and allowed to see uncut version of Backdraft, he knew every line of the movie by heart.

  He made it his mission to be everyone’s friend, everyone’s champion, and the guy that everyone could always count on to do the right thing. His parents had encouraged that line of thinking, cheering him on when he gave up a baseball scholarship to go to Fire Fighter Academy.

  Nothing had given him more pleasure than to see his entire family—parents, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—at his swearing-in ceremony.

  But, no one had informed him that his duty as a fireman would to be to climb up a knobby pine tree that had seen better days. The damned thing swayed so badly that he was sure it would break in half at any moment.

  “Come on, sweetheart, just a little closer,” he crooned to the four-year-old, who was currently stuck in said tree. “Just slide down to the next branch.”

  Fat tears rolled down her rosy cheeks. “I can’t,” she wailed.

  “Yes, you can,” he said. She had to move closer. The tree limbs at the top were too slender to hold his weight and the truck with the ladder that could reach this high was being used for training purposes.

  A plaintive cry came from beside him. He adjusted his stance on the branch below him, scraping his forearms in the process and sucking in air. Pine bark hurt like a son of a gun.

  “Kitty,” Jena Lynn squealed, nearly tumbling from the branch. Her little fingers dug into the bark. “My kitty!”

  So that was why she’d climbed up this far. He should have known.

  “C’mon down, Jena,” her mother shouted from below.

  Brody glanced at the woman, who had concern etched on her face. He knew her mother would have been up here herself, but she’d broken her arm last week, sliding into home while playing on the county’s softball league. Since Brody was co-captain, he felt responsible for her broken arm and it was why he’d come himself, instead of sending one of the newbies to help.

  “I want my daddy,” Jena Lynn said, her little nose scrunching up. “I want my kitty and my daddy.”

  Sympathy flooded Brody. Jena Lynn’s father wouldn’t be coming home for at least two more months. He was serving in Afghanistan for the third time. “I know you do, baby girl, but right now, your momma needs you to come down because—” He paused. There was no way he could tell the little girl that her mother was scared. That would only cause more panic for both of them. “It’s time to eat lunch,” he hastily improvised.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Your kitty is.” The kitty chose that moment to sink its claws into his bicep. He gritted his teeth a little.

  “No, she’s not.”

  Brody winced. “I’m hungry.”

  “Then go eat.”

  He swallowed a laugh. Jena Lynn had definitely inherited her dad’s stubborn ways, but she had also inherited her mother’s sense of empathy. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asked the little girl.

  She eyed him. “Mommy says adults shouldn’t ask kids to keep a secret. It’s not safe.”

  He nodded. “Your mom is smart. But, this secret you can share with her and your daddy—just don’t tell my brothers. Okay?”

  That was exactly the thing to say to her because she nodded and smiled. “Okay. I’m telling Mommy and Daddy, but not your brothers. Not even at circle time when Mr. Tristan asks us to share something cool about our day.”

  “Thanks,” he said wryly. His brother, a former officer in the Marines, had recently become the head librarian for the town. Tristan had gone from handling guns and serving in a war to shelving books and heading up Mom’s Morning Out.

  “I’m listening,” she sang out, no longer crying.

  “I need you to come a little closer to me, so I can whisper it to you.”

  Jena Lynn climbed down exactly one branch. She was still higher than he could safely reach, but it was a start.

  “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he said in a loud whisper.

  “Like peeing in your bed at night?” she asked.

  “Yeah, like that.”

  Jena Lyn’s eyes got wide. “You still pee in your bed?” she asked in a voice loud enough to be heard three counties over.

  Her mother chortled below them.

  “No,” he almost shouted, and then gentled his voice. “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “Then why did you climb up my tree?” she asked, looking at him like he was the dumbest thing on the planet.

  So much for empathy, he thought.

  “Because you and your kitty needed help. It’s my job to rescue people and animals,” he said solemnly. “But, now I need your help getting down.”

  “Oh.” She seemed to consider his words and then extended one leg. “I’ll save you.”

  He bit back his grin. “Thank you.”

  The kitten scampered off his arm and up the tree, distracting Jena Lynn. “My kitty,” she screeched, lunging for it.

  Ah, hell.

  The branch cracked under her weight, and she began to fall. Her mother screamed. Brody grabbed for her, somehow catching the little girl under her arm.

  “Got you, baby girl.” He pulled her up to him. She wrapped her chubby, little legs and arms around him, her tiny body racked with tears and shudders. “It’s okay. I’m here. Now, I’m going to climb down and take you to your momma.”

  “Oh thank God,” her mother cried as he gingerly made his way down the tall pine tree. She rushed to him as soon as his feet hit the ground, taking her daughter while scolding and loving on her.

  “I’m sorry,” Jena Lyn kept saying over and over.

  He rubbed her back to help calm her down and glanced up the tree. The cause of all their problems jumped from branch to branch until it landed neatly on the ground. The cat stalked away, tail twitching in the air.

  “No appreciation at all,” he grunted. Turning to Jena Lyn’s mother, he asked, “Is there anything else I can do?”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, but no. You’ve already done enough. Is there anything we can do for you?”

  “Get Jena Lynn a dog?” he suggested. “They’re less ornery.”

  The woman’s tears turned to laughter. “We didn’t get her the cat. It’s a stray.”

>   This time, Brody shook his head in disbelief. “Make sure she tells her daddy what happened. I think Max would love to hear the story.”

  “I know he would.”

  Jena Lynn lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder to peek at him. He ruffled her hair and winked. “Keep climbing trees, baby girl. Just pick ones with better branches next time.”

  She nodded. The two of them walked inside, waving at Brody before the door shut behind them.

  Inspecting his arm, he walked back to his truck. The kitten’s claws had run deep and the pine bark had scratched most of his skin off. But, it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed up. Although, the EMT might recommend he get tested for rabies. He groaned. Those shots hurt like a son of a gun.

  The last time he had to get them, he was sore for a week.

  “Thanks for the help, Rookie,” he said.

  Kyle Davidson sat on the passenger side with a smirk on his face and a cell phone in his hand. “You had everything handled. Besides, I figured if you needed my help, you would have ordered me over there.”

  That was true. Brody had told Kyle to stay in the truck and wait, because it wouldn’t take long to get her. But, that had been almost an hour ago.

  Sweat trickled down his back, making it itch. His hands were sticky from the sap, too. He would have to take a shower before he could eat lunch.

  Kyle waited until Brody slid inside and had clicked his seatbelt in place before replaying the video. “You pee in your bed?” could be clearly heard.

  Kyle’s smirk got bigger. “I’m trying to decide if this should go on the town’s Facebook page or ours. Maybe both.”

  “YouTube doesn’t have enough subscribers for you?” Brody deadpanned.

  “It’s already there, Captain.”

  Brody put the truck in drive and headed out to the highway. “Maybe it’s time to rethink hiring self-starters.”

  Kyle barked out a laugh. “You would have done the same to me.”

  The rookie had a point. Brody loved a good joke as much as the next guy. “Did you at least get the part where I caught her?”

  “Yeah. I like having a job.”