Autumn waves back at both of us. “Lemonade?” she calls.
“Yes!” Olivia yells, running across the driveway toward her mother. “I kicked! Kicked!”
“I saw you kick, Liv,” Autumn says, wrapping her arms around her. “That was so awesome!”
I stand there, a few feet away, watching the two of them for a moment. My family.
Hell, that’s something I never imagined I’d have, not in a million years. But here I am, staying in one place – the one place I never thought I’d return to. And I’m with Autumn and Olivia.
It’s more than I could have ever hoped for. I finally understand what it means to have people in your life that depend on you, and what it’s like to depend on them.
“Luke?” Autumn asks, smiling. “Are you going to stand there all day, staring at me?”
I can’t help but grin. “I could, you know.”
Her cheeks flush, like they do when she’s embarrassed or when she’s self-conscious. I can’t get enough of that. I can’t get enough of her, either. And that’s what I want her to know, every day.
I slide my hand around her waist and walk with her inside the house.
“Do you want me to help prep for tonight?” she asks.
“Nope,” I tell her. “I’m forbidding you to even lift a finger.”
“You’re just saying that because you think I’ll burn something,” Autumn says, laughing.
“I know for certain you’ll burn something,” I tell her, swatting her on the butt as she walks away, with Olivia’s hand in hers.
“Let’s get all cleaned up for lunch, Liv,” she says.
“No! No wash hands!” Olivia protests, as she disappears around the corner with Autumn.
“If you don’t wash your hands, then you can’t eat lunch.”
I listen to their chatter as I grab food for lunch. It makes me happy, hearing them, the noise of their laughter echoing through the house. I never thought I could be still, and yet, now that I am, I can’t imagine things being any different than the way they are now.
Except better. There’s only one thing that would make things better, and that’s why all of our friends and family are coming to dinner tonight.
I take the box from my pocket, and pop it open again, just to see the ring. I never thought I’d be asking this question of anyone, and I feel like the luckiest man on earth, getting to ask it of Autumn.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Autumn
“Is this super lame?” I whirl around so I can see June’s reaction. She’s holding Callie in her arms, bouncing her because she’s fussy from teething, while Cade and Luke keep an eye on Stan and Olivia, who are most likely in the middle of trashing the playroom.
“The dress?” she asks. “No, I love it. That’s not new, is it?”
“No, not the dress,” I say. “The box. This.” I hold out the gift bag, pink and blue patterned, the only thing the drug store two towns over had in stock that wasn’t plastered with “happy birthday” wishes all over it. I had to drive thirty minutes to make sure I didn’t let on about this secret before I told Luke.
June looks at me and then at the bag. “It’s…oh. Oh!” she says. “You’re pregnant!” She wraps her arm around me, hugging me, the baby between us. “Is that for Luke?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “It’s not going to be completely lame, is it?”
“Are you kidding?” she asks. “He’s going to be over the moon. He’ll love it, whatever is in the bag.”
“I’m nervous about this,” I tell her. The butterflies in the pit of my stomach aren’t going away anytime soon. I haven’t exactly had the best of luck with pregnancy announcements, after all.
“It’s going to be great,” she says. “I’m so thrilled for you.”
“I never thought it would end up this way,” I tell her. “It’s more than I hoped for.”
June smiles. “Everything works out in the end,” she says. “Even if it takes some time.”
“Is that how it was for you and Cade?” I ask.
She laughs. “Honey, our road was definitely a winding one.”
I check my hair quickly in the mirror, tucking a loose strand behind my ear, and take a deep breath. “Cade is a good man,” I say.
“So is Luke,” she says. “We’re both lucky.”
“Cade still has friends in his motorcycle club,” I say, choosing my words carefully. I don’t know what happened, or how Cade is connected to it, but the rumor is that a biker club from California took out Jed Easton, after he made it to prison.
“He does, indeed,” June says. “And if a motorcycle club saw fit to be involved with that terrible prison murder, well then, I’d probably guess that Sherriff Easton had done something so wrong that he deserved it.”
“He was a bad man,” I say. In two years, June hasn’t told me much about her past. But I guess we all have secrets that are sometimes better left alone, and that’s okay. “Hey, we should go down there now, and at least make sure the children haven’t completely destroyed the house.”
At dinner, we sit around the farmhouse table in the middle of the kitchen – totally renovated and completely gourmet now, a positive side effect of the fire, I suppose. It’s Luke’s domain – and I’ve gained ten pounds from being the test subject of all of his dishes. He’s cooking for June’s bed and breakfast now, and has been inundated with so many catering requests that he can’t keep up with them. He’s looking into opening a restaurant in town in the next few months, and I know that with his cooking skills, it’s sure to be wildly successful.
I look around at the people sitting around the table, talking and laughing over cider and wine and beer and passing platefuls of food from one person to another. Everyone who means something to us is here – Elias and River, Silas and Tempest, Cade and June. Even Killian is here, off the oil-rig and back in West Bend. He’s seeing a girl, I think, or at least that’s what Luke says, but he hasn’t mentioned anything to me yet. Killian is the quiet type – kind of brooding, but a good guy. He doesn’t like to admit that he has a soft side, but it’s obvious to me that Olivia and Stan already have him wrapped around their little fingers.
Luke stands, tapping his fork against his wine glass. “I didn’t just bring you here for dinner,” he says. “I’m afraid I had an ulterior motive. I have an announcement to make.”
I clear my throat, reaching down into my purse for my gift bag and standing. “I actually have an announcement, too.”
Silas laughs. “You both should do them at the same time,” he says.
“Let Autumn go first,” June says. “She has a big announcement.”
“Same time, same time,” Elias chants.
I grin at Luke from across the table. “Same time?” I ask, keeping the bag behind my back. “I’ll show you yours if you show me mine.”
Luke sighs in mock exasperation, but he can’t hide his smile. “Fine,” he says. “Even though I had a whole speech prepared.”
I hold the bag in front of me, watching as Luke brings a small box from behind his back and opens it. And then I start crying, full-on sobbing, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Olivia yells, trying to get out of her booster seat.
“Happy tears, Olivia,” I say, wiping my cheeks. “I’m crying because I’m happy.”
“What’s in the package?” Elias asks, and River slaps him playfully on the arm.
“Hush, Elias,” she says. “She’s having a moment.”
Luke walks around the table to stand in front of me, and I set the bag on the table, wiping the tears from my cheeks. Taking my hands in his, he kneels down, as everyone at the table collectively utters a huge “awwwww.” Except for Olivia and Stan, who are blowing raspberries at each other and then laughing hysterically.
“Autumn Mayburn,” he says, and the formality makes me giggle because it’s so not Luke. Now I just look like I’m losing my mind, as I try to stifle nervous laughter, the rims of my eyes red from crying. “I�
�ve never wanted to be tied down. The best I’d hoped for in my life was to keep moving, keep going, with no ties to anyone and no responsibilities. Then I met you – and you’re the most stubborn, smart-mouthed woman I’ve ever met.”
“Is this supposed to be a proposal?” I ask, laughing. “This is starting to sound like a list of my flaws.”
“Hush, woman,” he says. “Those are the reasons I love you. I love you and I love Olivia and I love this life we have.”
“I love love,” Silas says, snickering, and from the corner of my eye, I see Killian slug him in the arm.
“So, I’m asking if you and Olivia will have me,” he says.
“Of course,” I say, as he stands to slip the ring on my finger. He slides his arm around my waist and kisses me, full on the lips, and everything in the world stands still for a moment. He only pulls away when Elias groans.
“Get a room, you two,” Elias says, feigning disgust.
“I can’t answer for Olivia, though,” I say. “Would you like Luke to stay with us?”
“I got ice cream for dessert,” Luke says.
“Ice cream!” she yells.
“I think that’s a yes in toddler terms, right?” he asks.
“I think that’s a yes.”
“What was your big news?” he asks. “Am I supposed to open the bag?”
I nod, suddenly mute, as he pulls out the t-shirt for Olivia, with Big Sister emblazoned across the front in pink script. “It’s for Olivia,” I say.
“You’re – “ Luke looks at me, his eyes wide.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” He picks me up, and whirls me around in his arms, before setting me down on the ground. “Holy crap. You’re pregnant!”
“That’s good, right?” I ask. “I mean, you’re happy?”
“Are you kidding?” he asks. “That’s amazing. Insane.”
He leans close and kisses me again, amid the groans and whoops of his brothers. When he draws back, he cups my face in his hands. “I promise I’ll love this family of ours forever.”
And I know that, with more certainty than I know anything else in my life.
THE END
OTHER BOOKS
West Bend Saints Series
Elias
Silas
Motorcycle Club Books
Taming Blaze
Saving Axe
Breaking Hammer
**If you’d like to read more about Cade and June, and their history with the sheriff of West Bend, Saving Axe tells the whole story!**
STEPBROTHER BOOKS
All of my stepbrother books are standalone novels with HEAs and are not part of a series.
Prick
Tool
Cannon
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sabrina Paige writes about smart, sexy women and the hot alpha males who love them. Outlaw bikers, cowboys, and military men make her swoon. She has found her own happily ever after with her active duty military husband and adorable toddler.
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ELIAS
West Bend Saints
Book One
Sabrina Paige
Copyright © 2014 by Sabrina Paige
Copyright © Cover Design by Cormar Covers
Cover Image by curaphotography/DepositPhotos.com
Interior graphics by alexvector/DepositPhotos.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real events, people, or places is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without the permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review.
All quotations used in this book are part of public domain works and/or translated copies existing in public domain. The author acknowledges the trademarked status of products referred to in this book. Trademarks have been used without permission.
This book contains mature content, including graphic sex, language, and violence. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this type of content is disturbing to you.
Trigger Warning: This book contains discussion of self-mutilation by cutting, and this subject matter may be triggering for readers sensitive to the topic.
The characters' hometowns, West Bend and Golden Willow, don't really exist. They're fictional locations inspired by places that are meaningful to me.
DEDICATION
For my darling Emma, always. You are the light of my life. I love you bigger than the whole giant world.
And for my husband, who sacrifices his Saturday nights to plot with me, and has taken the toddler on too many Sunday afternoon adventures so that mommy can write.
PART ONE
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players."
~ Shakespeare, As You Like It
CHAPTER ONE
RIVER
“Are you kidding me?” My voice sounded shrill to my ears, this weird high-pitched sound that was nothing like me. I wanted to strangle the girl whose voice it was. She sounded bitchy, desperate. This was not me. This was not the person I had become.
“River,” he said. He didn’t even try to take his dick out of the girl’s mouth.
Shit, she didn’t even stop blowing him.
I couldn’t see her face. Her blonde hair spilled down her shoulders and back. She was skinny under the little dress she was wearing, the one that should have hugged her curves.
It was my dress she was wearing.
I could see her spine in the middle of her back.
She was too skinny.
I had told her a million times she needed to eat more. But she'd always deprived herself. She'd say it was her fast metabolism, but she subsisted on crackers and diet soda. It was going to kill her eventually.
My sister had never been one to listen to me. She was a model, had been since she was fifteen. First it was catalogs; then she got her first magazine shoot; now she was doing runway. She was famous.
We were famous.
I was about to be more famous- the realization hit me as I was standing there. I was about to be famous for this. Nothing else. This.
It would be in the tabloids tomorrow. The tabloids loved salacious stories, families ripped apart by drama. And this was certainly salacious.
It was like everything stood still, like someone just pushed the pause button on my life, as I looked back and forth from her to him, my mind completely numb.
It was like I was watching it on television.
I almost laughed. There was a part of me that wanted to laugh. I could feel it, bubbling up inside of me, threatening to spill out.
Pretty soon everyone would be watching it on television. The camera crew was behind me, silent, the ones who were filming me for this piece, part of a live special tonight. They were waiting for me to react. Then they could capture it on film, right in the moment.
A woman devastated.
I wanted to cut off his cock. I wanted to pull a Lorena Bobbitt and cut it right off.
I watched his face, screwed up, his hands threade
d through her hair, forcing her head down on him, pushing himself further into her throat.
I knew that expression on his face.
I was just standing there like some kind of idiot, watching him. There was a camera crew behind me, and the asshole didn’t even bother to slow down. He didn’t even break his rhythm.
Jesus H., he's going to come, I thought. She is going to fucking blow him, on camera, right in front of me, and he’s going to come.
And all of this will be broadcast on TV.
I didn’t even look at him as I walked past the two of them.
Traitors.
I didn’t know if the camera crew was behind me or focused on the blow job. What a choice for them to have to make. Both would make equally good television.
I felt strangely calm as I walked through the house, my heels echoing on the marble floors, click-click-clicking through the hall. I passed the photos of us on the wall, the framed pictures of ski trips and Paris and Bora Bora and the tour with the band. I entered his room, the one where he kept the things he loved, the vintage baseballs and cards. The walls were lined with rock memorabilia, the gold record and the guitars he collected. Shelves of stuff signed by his friends, mentors, his idols.
I picked up a bat, this collectible thing that was his pride and joy. I stood there holding it. The objects in here were priceless. Mostly irreplaceable. It was enough to give me pause for a moment. I didn't take stuff like this lightly- I wasn’t one to just destroy precious objects.
Luke: A West Bend Saints Romance Page 20