by Lori Wilde
She brushed grass from her butt. “I wasn’t mad, but it did give me the kick in the pants I needed to do the right thing.”
“Go back to your fiancé?” His stomach tensed, and he waited for her to say the words that would strike him like a blow.
“Are you insane? Of course I’m not going back to Chance.” She flattened her lips and exhaled heavily from her nose. If he hadn’t been almost giddy with relief at what she’d just said, he would have found her exasperation amusing.
Grabbing the front of his utility belt, she tugged him close. “I came back to explain to Chance why I couldn’t marry him. And to apologize for running off.” She tipped her head back. “I saw how strong and mature Kat is, how you guys are still friends, and it made me feel about two inches tall. Next to her, I saw that I had been acting like a spoiled brat.”
Hank gripped her shoulders and took his first full breath since he’d received Kat’s phone call. “You’re not a brat. You were in a bad situation. You’ve been in a pressure cooker of the town’s and your parents’ expectations for years. You had to blow sometime.”
“Just my luck I lost it in front of all of Serendipity.” She rested her forehead against his chest. “It’s going to be embarrassing facing everyone. But at least I’ve made it right with the people who matter. I went to see my parents and Chance. My parents first. I think they still don’t know quite what to make of my behavior, but I’ve convinced them a marriage to Chance would have been a mistake. And they want me to be happy.”
“And Worthington?” Hank dipped his head, inhaled the sweet scent of her shampoo. She was warm and soft in his arms, and she fit against him like a puzzle piece snapping into place.
“That was even harder. He forgave me.”
“Big of him.” Hank couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.
Savannah slapped his arm and curled her body closer. Her left ring finger was beautifully bare. “It was big of him. Although I don’t think he was too broken up about my defection. But I didn’t want him to think badly of me.”
“You care too much about what people think of you,” Hank said gruffly.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I care more about what you think of me. I don’t want to be the type of woman who runs away from problems. I want to be someone you can be proud of. Who I can be proud of.”
His body shook with his laughter. “Babe, you don’t have to worry about that. I like you when you’re wild and go tearing out of town. And I like you when you’re sweet and cuddling up next to me. Just as long as you give all your crazy sides to me, as long as you’re honest with yourself and go after what you want, not what anyone else expects, then I’ll be proud to stand next to you.”
She sighed and sagged into his body. He liked that most of all, when she let down all her walls and gave him her weight.
“Any more stops on this apology tour?” he asked. “Or can I take you home?”
“I’m just leaving the Ducati here for my uncle, so actually I do need a ride.” She grinned. “I like the idea of showing you my condo. I even have sheets on my bed.”
“Fancy.” Wrapping his hand in her hair, he tugged her head back. Her mouth was right there. He couldn’t not take it. Her lips were soft, yielding. He nibbled her bottom lip and swept his tongue along the seam.
She opened to him. Hot. Sweet. Enthusiastic. Their tongues tangled, sparred, and desire arrowed down his spine.
He pulled back, breathing heavily. “You’re still going out with me Friday?”
She nodded and chased after his mouth.
“And tonight, tomorrow, and the next night?”
She rocked back on her heels, but kept her hands laced around his waist. “Hank Evans—are you asking me to go steady with you?”
“I am.” He kissed one corner of her mouth, and the other. “And will you?”
“I will.”
“Good.” Clutching her shirt at the small of her back, he dragged her against his chest. “I’m going to hold you to that.” He brushed his lips over the soft skin of her neck. “Babe, fair warning. If you run, I’ll track you down. I’ve got resources.”
She arched her back. “It’s nice to know I’m worth fighting for. But Hank”—she stared him straight in the eye—“I’m done running. I’m going to start living the life I want. Being with the people who like me for me. Savannah Loving is finally her own damn person.”
“Hmm. I kind of liked pulling you over. If you don’t run, how will I chase you?”
She smiled. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that.” Taking his hand, she walked across the lawn toward the inn. “I didn’t like handing back the keys to my uncle’s bike, so I decided I’m going to buy my own. It will probably be a used jalopy since that’s all I can afford on my salary, but I’ll make sure it has enough horsepower to light up your speed gun. You can chase me to your heart’s content.”
And he would. Tugging her around the Bluebird toward his truck, he felt his feet were barely touching the ground. He’d come home to Serendipity to reunite with his family. His community. Thought he’d need time to adjust to the slower pace of life in small-town Texas.
He needn’t have worried. Savannah brought all the speed, the heat that he could ever want. He didn’t know what lay ahead. But he knew it was going to be a hell of a lot of fun keeping her in his sights.
Savannah was a headstrong, stubborn woman. And life was sweeter with her by his side.
Loving Hailey
Stacey Keith
Chapter One
When Hailey Deacon parked her ten-speed next to the Bluebird Inn, her heart was pounding, but it wasn’t from the ride over. She sat in the shadow of the old Victorian, trying to catch her breath, and still her pulse wouldn’t stop bumping.
Just admit it, you coward.
After almost four years of maybes and what ifs and I hope he’s happy at med school, she was going to see Joshua Loving again. Four years of wondering what might have been if things were different. If she hadn’t been plain Hailey Deacon of Serendipity, Texas, and he hadn’t been Joshua Loving of the Mayflower Lovings, the closest thing to royalty they had in these parts.
But that was as far as it went, of course. Hailey leaned her paint-flaked ten-speed on its rusty kickstand and started toward the back entrance marked Staff. Her old feelings for him were as gone and buried as . . . well, a lot of things in her life. You went on because you had to. Joshua might have broken her heart, but they’d been eighteen then. Just kids. At twenty-two, they were both past all that.
Hailey pressed one hand against her fluttery chest. It was weird, working his sister’s wedding, knowing he would be there. Maybe with a date. Probably with a date. Beneath the crisp white shirt of her catering uniform, Hailey felt her heart give another double thump. Oh, for crying out loud, why? She needed to be focused right now, not this jumbling mess of nerves.
You’re the strongest girl I know, Josh had told her once. Not just strong—a warrior.
Okay, so she’d be a warrior. But when she glanced at her reflection in a window, her fledgling confidence did a face-plant. Even for a tomboy who preferred cargo pants, sleeveless tees, and dog tags, she saw at once that the thick black slacks were boxy and the pink bow tie made her look like a circus clown. She passed one hand over her ponytail to smooth the flyaways, cringing when she saw her bitten nails.
Get a grip, she told herself. You don’t care now, remember? Stop being such a . . . girl.
She opened the garden gate that led to the back entrance and darted a look around. None of the Lovings were there yet—not Joshua, not his sister Savannah, not even their parents Marion and Joseph. They were probably inside the house getting ready.
Good.
She knew what Joshua’s family thought of her. The Deacons—what were left of them, anyway—were “poor folk.” Nowhere near good enough for the son and heir of the Loving family fortune. Unlike Savannah, Hailey didn’t attend debutante balls or pledge sororities or go to spring cotillion w
ith men like Dr. Chance Worthington.
No, Hailey worked. She had three jobs right now. Catering, which wasn’t steady enough to do full-time. Dog walking. And being a pump jockey down at Wilbur Garrison’s corner gas station. Serendipity was small—hardly the kind of Texas town that was cranking out high-paying jobs.
“Hailey!” Sam Besher waved to her from the pergola, which had ivy and yards of white tulle wrapped around it. Chatty, gossipy Sam fit in perfectly, as though she’d been decorated for the wedding, too—a self-described “candy box blonde” with her dyed platinum hair, pink push-up bras, and false eyelashes that could clear a bookshelf. She had a twelve-year-old boy whose dad had left them in Memphis and a kind of lazy cynicism about men that Hailey found exciting, probably because she herself didn’t know the first thing about them.
But the backyard was beautiful. Metal folding chairs, sectioned into rows, had elaborate aqua bows and aqua seat cushions—more color in a garden that was full of the bright pink clusters of redbud, creamy yellow butterfly magnolia, juicy cones of purple grape hyacinth, and a trail of sunny trillium. Ten other catering people Hailey didn’t recognize zipped around with stemware, cut flowers, and wedding programs. Even from a distance, Hailey saw the words Savannah Loving and Dr. Chance Worthington on those programs in gold curlicue letters.
That was what beautiful pampered princesses like Savannah got on their wedding day. What girls like Hailey got was carpal tunnel syndrome from carrying the trays.
She heard Harper, the wedding planner, squawking at some hapless male behind her. Grabbing a bunch of long-stemmed pink roses off a nearby cart, Hailey hurried to join Sam at the pergola. The only problem with the pergola was that if Joshua came outside, Hailey knew she’d have nowhere to hide. And she wasn’t ready to see him yet. Or ever. She never wanted to feel the way she had the night he said good-bye.
“Harper’s on the warpath, so you’d better watch it,” Sam told her. “This shindig must be a bigger deal than I thought.”
“The biggest.” Hailey tried to focus on stuffing flowers into the puffy tulle bows that were tied to the four supports of the pergola, but neither her fingers nor her thoughts would cooperate. Sam was new to Serendipity. She didn’t know who was important here. She didn’t know that Joshua Loving had dimples that were deep enough to hold a magnum of champagne. She didn’t know that he had the gentleness of the big and strong. At six foot three, he was over a foot taller than Hailey’s five foot one. And Sam didn’t know that Joshua had been Hailey’s first and only love, probably because Hailey tended not to talk about it.
Hey, no one had ever accused her of being an open book.
Hailey pretended to fuss with the bows. Unlike Sam, she sucked at decorating. She was much better at changing the oil in a car, shingling a roof, mowing a lawn.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to work this event,” Hailey said.
“What’s wrong, sweetie? You’re not worried about Harper, are you? You know how type A she is. All bark and no bite.”
“I’m more worried about paying my light bill.” Hailey looked out over the sun-drenched garden. The yellow daffodils nodding gracefully in the breeze. The terra-cotta planters crowded with pink petunias. Sparrows splashing in a marble birdbath. Funny how it seemed as though nothing bad could ever happen here.
Yet a shiver of apprehension raised the hair on her arms. It might have had something to do with Joshua, but was probably something else. What, was she receiving psychic premonitions now? She was getting as bad as Grams.
Clipboard clutched to her chest, heels making little divots in the grass behind her, Harper came barreling toward the pergola. “The guests are arriving,” she said crisply. “Hailey, you and Sam start prepping in the kitchen. I want those trays ready for the reception in thirty minutes with new waves every ten.” Pointing to one of the ushers, she added, “You there. Straighten the aisle runner. This is a wedding, not a livestock show.”
Hailey trudged toward the kitchen. Inside, the Bluebird Inn was cooler than the garden. The hallway gleamed with dark wood and cut-glass chandeliers. She could hear commotion upstairs—footsteps, some clearly male; voices, most clearly female. Every room was an obstacle course of chests and shoulders, which were pretty much all you saw when you were Hailey’s height.
“This is a nightmare,” Sam said behind her. “When I win the lottery, the first thing I’m going to do is tell Harper to kiss my—”
“Joshua.” Hailey halted at the entrance to the kitchen. She clutched the doorjamb for support. Sam collided into her. Joshua Loving was standing by the appetizers, clearly trying to shovel in as many as he could before the wedding.
The minute he locked eyes with her—that dark, intelligent gaze she felt in places that hadn’t felt anything in so long—Hailey knew the last four years meant nothing at all. The dates with other guys when she had congratulated herself for “being mature” and “moving on.” The curiosity she painstakingly concealed when asking mutual friends how Joshua was doing. The million times she told herself it wasn’t love she was feeling, just a persistent case of nostalgia.
All of that was a lie.
Seeing Joshua was an arrow through her heart.
* * *
Joshua set down the appetizers and swallowed hard.
Hailey.
Next to him, his college roommate, Trip Driscoll, pointed to the empanada Joshua had dropped and said, “Dude, you gonna eat that?”
But Joshua had lost all awareness of his surroundings. The noisy kitchen. The jostling workers. The fact that he was standing here in a stupid tux. The only things he saw were Hailey’s wide blue eyes. It was like staring at the sky too long, that kind of which-side-is-up dizziness that made him feel as though he were six years old again doing cartwheels. She was so beautiful. And it had been a long time since he’d seen her face-to-face instead of from the shadows.
It all came rushing back. The memories, good and bad. The guilt over what he’d done to her. The regrets that were right there, ready to punch him in the face.
“Oh, hey there, Hailey,” he said, trying to play it off and act cool. Failing. “Good to see you.”
She lurched into the kitchen—or was pushed maybe by a blond woman in an identical pink bow tie. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you working my sister’s wedding?”
Hailey gave him a half-hearted smile. “It’s my job. I sort of go where they tell me.”
“If you ask me, which you didn’t, you invited way too many people.” The blond woman stuck her hand out. “Samantha Besher. Sam, actually. Nice to meet you.”
Trip elbowed him in the ribs, but Joshua had already guessed his college roommate was into her. Trip liked slightly older blondes. Joshua shook Sam’s hand and waited for Trip to wipe the drool off his chin so he could introduce himself, too.
Sam could probably eat Trip for breakfast and spit out the bones. All Joshua wanted was a chance to talk to Hailey.
“Are you supposed to be in here?” Hailey asked. She found a pop-up box full of plastic gloves and tugged a pair over her hands. “I thought the kitchen was just for staff.”
Joshua seemed to have lost ground, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Just being in the same room with Hailey made him feel . . . well, like he might have found something he’d been missing for a long time. “I was hungry,” he said. “Didn’t get much to eat this morning. If they expect me to stand out there in the hot sun wearing this monkey suit, they’re going to have to feed me.”
There, that did it. Hailey cracked a smile, and Joshua felt as though he’d won a medal for pole-vaulting.
She passed him a tray of mini-sliders. For a second, her warm hand touched his, and the shock of contact raced through his veins.
“Still grazing, I see,” she said dryly. “Here, have some real food.”
Trip dove into the tray while Hailey and Sam went to another prep station to spear vegetables onto bamboo skewers. Joshua’s legendary appetite deserted him. He could feel himself sweating in t
he hot kitchen. He wasn’t sure what to say or how to approach her. All he knew was the urge to be near her reminded him of old times. Did she hate him? Most girls would.
Hailey still wore her deceased mother’s opal-and-pearl ring. She still bit her nails. Somehow the sight brought back a rush of tenderness. He knew better than anyone what that one nervous habit said about her life. Who she was. What she’d been through.
“Dude,” Trip muttered to him. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“That chick. You know the one. With the thing? And then you bailed?”
Joshua glared at him.
“She’s so your type.” Trip chewed lustily, clearly pleased with his discovery. “A little bit country, a little bit jock, and a whole lotta sexy.”
“Could you please not say words?”
“Good thing I’m totally into her friend. Hook us up.”
“You’re on your own.” Joshua watched Hailey and made a real effort to keep his gaze respectful and topside. Boy, it wasn’t easy. He wished the kitchen weren’t packed with people. There were even two little girls playing in one corner. He wished Trip were a million miles away. But what he really wished was for him and Hailey to be able to go off somewhere quiet and talk. Catch up a bit.
Liar. You know you want more than that.
When he’d come back to Serendipity for his sister’s wedding, Joshua hadn’t expected to run into Hailey. He figured he might see her here and there—while he kept a safe distance. But now that Hailey was right in front of him, he felt as though keeping his distance this time would be damn near impossible.
His mother, Marion Loving, stuck her head in the kitchen. She wore a tiny hat with a veil and a bluebird on it. “Joshua, why aren’t you in the garden? The wedding starts in five minutes.”
Marion’s eyes slid over Hailey, but Marion didn’t say anything. It wasn’t as though she didn’t recognize her or know it was Hailey standing there. Hot anger crept up the sides of Joshua’s neck. He loved his mom, but it was no secret that Marion was a snob. She wore her wealth and breeding like a membership badge. Dad was no better. One time out on the golf course Joe had bogeyed a shot. He’d gotten so mad about it, he threw an entire set of signature golf clubs into the lake and then marched up to the clubhouse to buy a new one.