Love is a Battlefield
Page 24
Her own dark brown eyes mocked her. She stuck out her tongue and made a face, jerking back to attention as the elevator dinged and the door slid open.
She strolled as casually as possible through the foyer, heading for the entrance that opened onto the beach. The warm air outside struck her skin like a caress, the scent of the ocean filling her nose. She twisted, trying to orient herself, moving confidently to her right and up onto the boardwalk.
No need for subterfuge. The bench was empty, the birds still fluttering around it. As she approached, they scattered, only a few of the bolder ones returning to peck at the breadcrumbs littering the sand.
A sense of sadness struck. Emma leaned her hands on the back of the bench and wondered—
On the arm of the bench a little pile of bread crumbs still remained. The birds hadn’t managed to eat enough yet to destroy what was a distinctly heart-shaped pattern. She pressed her hand to her chest as a wave of memory rushed through her.
Fingers linked with hers. Fumbling kisses in the dark that set her heart fluttering. The freshness and wonder of first love.
Emma whirled, searching the boardwalk for another sign of the dark-haired stranger, wondering if what she was imagining was possible, or if she’d seen a ghost. Dean Colter had been everything to her before their paths had separated. That had been a long time ago, and yet the thought of him was enough to make her simultaneously furious and thrilled.
Whoever the man was, he was long gone, but her curiosity was at an all-time high. She turned back to the hotel, striding quickly.
There was nothing to say she couldn’t take a stroll down memory lane with the help of Google. Maybe she’d find out Dean was back in the south, married and with half a dozen kids.
But then again, maybe not. Life didn’t always follow the expected path. It certainly hadn’t for her.
Although she wasn’t sure what she would do if she found out that after all this time they were both in the same city.
Chapter Eighteen
The margaritas were getting stronger.
Pepper eyed the almost-empty glass in her hand, then glanced up at Suz with suspicion. “Did you have a shaking fit while pouring the vodka into the blender? Sweet sombreros, this is strong enough to peel paint.”
“We’re drinking them, not applying to walls,” Suz said, happily raising her glass in the air and letting the afternoon sunshine sparkle off the ice. “Of course, they’d taste better if we could have them delivered by well-oiled, nearly-naked cabana boys, but that’s probably out of the question.”
“Yeah, Parker would cut off the fingers of any man who tried to deliver me a drink,” Lynn spoke up with a sigh.
“Jack wouldn’t be as nice,” Pepper told her almost sister-in-law. “He’d go for the cabana boy’s ding-dong.”
Suz and Lynn hooted, while Gillian, who’d been silently sipping her margarita, cracked a smile.
“What? You pull them, they make noise,” Pepper insisted.
“The cabana boys, or the ding-dongs?” Suz laughed harder. “Oh, baby, you are one of a kind. Never change.”
Pepper wasn’t quite sure if that was a compliment or a subtle insult, but even insults from Suz were right up there on her “okay by me because it just means you love me” list.
A list that kept getting longer the more Pepper thought about it.
A wave of laughter wafted over from the patio, where most of the men had congregated to discuss the upcoming football season. The Sunday barbecue wasn’t as crowded as last time. Pepper’s parents had kept it to immediate family and close friends, though there was one notable absence Pepper was trying not to dwell on. She hadn’t heard from Kendra since the woman moved out, and she didn’t expect to. But Lord, her heart still clenched when she thought about her former best friend.
Or had they ever really been best friends? Pepper wasn’t so sure anymore.
“What’s the next big thing on the agenda?” Gillian asked, prompting a round of groans from the rest of the women.
Suz held out the pitcher toward Gillian’s empty glass. “You. You need to stop working so hard. You need a date? I’ll set you up with someone. Because, lady, you are too fine to spend so much time thinking about work.”
Gillian grinned. “Be careful, or I’ll think you’re hitting on me.”
“Pshaw. If I were hitting on you, you’d know. I’d have you so hot and bothered that the two of us would be writhing by the pool using up a year’s supply of baby oil.”
A male throat cleared.
Pepper choked on a laugh when she glimpsed the glazed look on Dean’s face. He’d appeared behind them, clad in a white tee that stretched over his broad chest and board shorts riding low on his trim hips. As usual, he looked sexy as hell, and he flashed Pepper a secretive wink before turning to Suz.
“Sorry to interrupt—actually no, I’m not sorry at all,” Dean drawled, his gaze shifting from Suz to Gillian. “Baby oil, huh?”
“You know it, hon. Wanna be there to help us out with the hard-to-reach spots?” Suz grinned.
“You know it,” he mimicked. “But first, let me use your phone, Jonesy. I forgot mine in the car.”
Lynn snickered, a surprisingly unladylike sound. “Is there something special about Suz’s phone? You could have grabbed Parker’s. You were right there next to him.”
Dean flashed another deadly smile, this one straight at Lynn. “He said I couldn’t. Something about ‘inappropriate pictures’ he still needs to delete. You two kids getting kinky in public, were you?”
“Shut up, Dean.” Lynn’s cheeks were brilliant red, but she smiled.
“That’s not a denial,” he pointed out, accepting the phone from Suz.
As he strode off toward the gazebo, Pepper picked up the conversation thread and changed the topic. “So, I did make a decision before the alcohol outweighed the blood in my veins. I’ll keep working at DreamMakers, but I’ll also be freelancing. Parker and I talked it through, and he doesn’t think there’ll be enough work for me full time.”
“Your first freelance project should be a hundred-photograph essay of Jack. Naked, of course,” Suz said helpfully.
“I heard that,” came Jack’s voice.
“You were supposed to,” Suz replied as he walked up to the group. “I never throw out the word naked unless I know a hot man is there to hear it.”
“It’s true,” Lynn piped up. “She doesn’t.”
Rolling his eyes, Jack touched Pepper’s arm. “Your mom insists you’re the only one who knows how to put the potato salad together ‘right’. You’ve been summoned to the kitchen.”
Pepper accepted his hand, thankful for the support as the lawn shifted underfoot. “She’s never seen me make a batch after drinking Suz’s ZombieMakers. Holy spamole.”
Jack tucked an arm around her, chuckling as he guided her toward the house. “You’re drunk as a skunk.”
“Nope,” she denied. “I don’t stink. I’m drunk as a wino after a five-day bender and I need you to take me into the house and strip off all my clothes and fuc—”
Jack’s hand clamped over her mouth. “And we’ll just hold that thought for a little longer. Since we’re all of five steps away from your dad and Parker.”
“Oops?”
Pepper made a supreme effort to walk in a straight line as they climbed the patio steps, but her sharp-as-a-hawk pain-in-the-ass brother didn’t miss a thing.
“Dad, Pepper’s drunk,” Parker announced the second she and Jack reached the deck.
Pepper opened her mouth to blast him with a good comeback, but then it just didn’t seem worth the effort. “I love you, too, Spidey.”
His eyes narrowed. Pepper giggled. Ha. He was probably shocked she wasn’t fighting back.
This could be fun. More fun than fighting. Hopefully she’d still remember this interesting tidbit when she wasn’t high on lemony goodness.
“As long as she can still make the potato salad.” Pamela Wilson motioned from the kitchen door.
“You still sober enough to give your mom a helping hand?”
“For you? I’d peel potatoes even if I were in a coma.” Pepper smacked a kiss on Jack’s cheek. “Be right back, Jackjack. My mommy needs me.”
Jack stood aside, another layer of contentment rolling in as Pepper paused to wrap her arms around her mother and squeeze her tight. The easy affection and the sheer-out love was so blatant it shook him to his core.
That was Pepper. Living life large, and these days she was hauling him along with her, and he fucking loved every second.
As the two women disappeared into the house, Parker drifted off to find Lynn, leaving Jack alone with Patrick Wilson. The older man flipped the row of burgers on the grill, then glanced at Jack with a warm smile.
“Come keep me company, son.”
Never in a million years would that get old. Jack settled on top of the tall stool beside Patrick, soaking in the sheer sense of belonging. “You think the ladies will ever return, or will they stay inside all night making plans to torment us?”
“Of course they’ll be back. Right in time to make sure I don’t burn anything.”
Jack laughed.
“Yep. Over forty years together, and she’s still checking to make sure I put my shoes on the right feet every morning.” Patrick’s expression softened. “And you know what? Sometimes I think I’d get it wrong if I didn’t have her challenging me all the time. Keeps me on my toes. You’ll see what I mean—you got yourself a Wilson woman now, too.”
Forty years. It sounded like an astronomical amount of time to Jack. Hell, his parents had barely made it eight years. Wouldn’t have even been that long if his father hadn’t hammered his mother into sticking around.
But damn, it sounded nice. Forty years with Pepper. Forty years of her contagious laughter and thrilling spontaneity and lust for life.
He had himself a Wilson woman, all right, and he was never giving her up.
In the end he was the one who snuck away from Patrick after receiving a final body-jarring back-pounding—the older man was damn powerful for someone who drew comics all day long. Jack slipped into the house, discovering Pepper alone at the island counter, staring in dismay at a pile of cooked cubed potatoes.
He stepped behind her, arms automatically pulling her body to his as he rested his chin on her shoulder. “Whatcha thinking about with such a serious expression?”
She leaned against him, the connection so perfect—so right. Then she spoke in barely a whisper. “They’re staring at me.”
Jack struggled to push down the laughter that wanted to escape. He glanced at the pile but saw nothing there that would freak her out. “You go ahead and put those mean ol’ potatoes into the salad. I’ll be right here to defend you.”
A giggle escaped her. “You making fun of me, Jackjack?”
“Maybe a little,” he confessed.
She twisted in his arms and smiled up at him. “I like you.”
“I like you, too, even when you’re tipsy.”
“I’m not tipsy,” she insisted seriously before cracking a huge grin. “I’m drunk. Two very different things.”
“Ah. Good to know.”
She tilted her head to the side, shining red hair tumbling over her shoulders as she examined his face. “I’m not too drunk to tell you something very, very, very important.”
Jack grinned. “But will you remember what you told me tomorrow?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, because it’s never going to change. I love you today when I’m pissed, and I’ll still love you tomorrow. I’ll love you when I’m pissed off, and when I’m pissing, and—” She stopped and frowned. “Maybe not that last one.”
He lost it, laughter bubbling up and escaping. “You are going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow, baby.”
She swayed again, green eyes blinking brightly at him. “You’ll take care of me, though, because you love me, too. Right? Always?”
Jack brushed a kiss over her mouth, then pulled back. “Always and forever,” he promised.
We hope you enjoyed Jack and Pepper’s story. The next book in the series is DON’T WALK AWAY. Wild man Dean has finally met his match. The woman he left behind is back!
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Love is a Battlefield
Copyright © 2014 by Vivian Arend & Elle Kennedy
ISBN: 978-1-941456-05-7
Edited by Jennifer Miller
Cover by Bree Bridges
Proofed by Sharon Muha
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations.
First electronic publication: July 2014
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Contents
Title
Summary
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Parker
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Dean
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Suz
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Lynn
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Dean
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Emma
Chapter Eighteen
Copyright
Contents