I'll Be There For You (Canyon Creek, Co. Book 5)

by Lori Ryan

  “Don’t worry,” Jake kissed her cheek. “It can wait.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. Suddenly Becca appeared in front of them.

  “What do you think, toe-poe-lina?” Becca asked, twirling around in her dress like she was a ballerina.

  “I think you look beautiful.” Lina smiled.

  Becca climbed up in Lina’s lap, running her small hands through Lina’s hair. “I like your hair,” she said wistfully.

  Lina bit back a remark. She’d recently colored the ends purple, Becca’s favorite color. The girl had been hinting for several days that she wanted to color her hair too but knew Jake was vehemently opposed to the idea.

  Becca cut her gaze up to Jake in silent request.

  “Nope,” he said, shaking his head.

  “But Aunt Mia said she has colored chalk she can put in my hair and it washes out.” She fluttered her eyes, making a sad, puppy dog face. Lina felt for Jake. This girl was going to give him so much grief the older she got. Becca had learned how to play her father like a fine-tuned instrument.

  Jake’s gaze travelled from Becca to Lina, as if silently asking what she thought.

  She shrugged. “Mia said it’s temporary color.”

  Jake drew in a deep breath and released a heavy sigh.

  Becca bit back a smile. They both knew sighing was a good thing when it came to Jake. He telegraphed when he was giving in.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  Becca’s smile fell and she sagged in her father’s lap.

  “That means no.” She pouted.

  Lina tilted her face to meet hers. “Not always, topolina,” she said, giving Becca a wink.

  Becca clapped her hands together and smiled.

  Lina raised her brows in warning and Becca immediately stopped. They both knew they couldn’t show signs of victory too soon.

  “Dude,” Grant said, leaning into Jake. “You are so screwed. Both those girls have you wrapped.”

  Becca put one hand on her hip and held out the other, palm up. “One dollar, Uncle Grant,” she said.

  “I thought it was a quarter.”

  “Nope.” She shook her head, her long curly hair tumbling over her shoulders.

  “But you didn’t make Max pay a dollar and he said like three.”

  “Stop being a baby and pay,” Max said, turning to Becca and winking.

  “What the—” Grant stopped, censoring himself.

  “Looks like she’s got you whipped too, brother dearest.” Jake laughed.

  “I worked a special deal with Uncle Max because he uses a lot of bad words,” Becca said. “He pays in advance.”

  “That sounds like a sucky plan,” Grant said. “You could make a mint off of him.”

  Becca turned to Jake. “Is sucky a bad word?”

  “Would I let you say it?” he asked.

  She shook her head then turned back to Grant. “Two dollars please.”

  Grant leaned back on the sofa, his head falling back. “Ah, hell.”

  “Three,” everyone yelled.

  Becca giggled.

  Grant rolled his eyes then turned to Becca.

  “You’re going to bankrupt him, Becca.” Lina laughed.

  “What’s bankrupt?” she asked

  Lina noticed Grant went still and the room became still. She knew Grant had a physical altercation with his manager months ago and rumor was he lost a lot of money, but no one knew exactly why. Well, at least the public didn’t. And she’d never felt the need to ask Jake. Grant seemed happy now.

  “Come on, squirt,” Holly called from the other side of the room. “Time for us to go.”

  Becca crawled over the sofa into Grant’s lap, one brow raised. She looked so much like Jake it was alarming. “Three dollars please.”

  “I should get a discount,” Grant said. “I’m your father’s twin. We shared the same womb for nine months. And he kicked me a lot.”

  Becca’s face remained steady.

  “What about Max?” Grant practically squeaked. “I know you’re giving him a discount. No way you charge him for every swear.”

  “Uncle Max lets me use his playscape. And his treehouse.”

  “When?” Max asked, quizzing her with a raised a brow.

  “Only when an adult is with me,” she said.

  They all shuddered at the memory of her being stuck so high in the tree. Max had built a platform further up to try to block her from going too high again, but still.

  “Okay,” tell you what, Grant said, toying with Becca’s dress. “Oh, by the way, did I tell you how beautiful you look in your dress?” He graced his niece with one of those heart-stopping smiles that made every woman’s panties around the globe melt.

  Becca’s face remained impassive. She obviously had her uncle’s number and wasn’t falling for his charm.

  “I’ll spend,” Grant’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling as if calculating a trigonometry problem. “Five supervised hours a week with you on the playscape and tree house if you cut me some slack on the swear jar.”

  Becca looked over at Jake, then Lina. They both shrugged.

  “I didn’t think you were sticking around after the film festival,” Maggie said.

  Grant smiled, a rakish grin like that of a small child about to do something wicked. “Let’s just say, my plans have changed.”

  “Intriguing,” Max said. “Do tell, little brother.”

  “I’ll tell you if you promise not to play that friggin’ movie tonight,” Grant said.

  “Not on your life.” Max laughed.

  “Okay,” Becca said. “Deal.” She stuck out her hand in a business-like gesture as if they’d just negotiated world peace. “And I won’t charge you for saying friggin,’” she whispered the word. “Aunt Sally says it, too.”

  Grant glanced down at her hand and smiled, slipping his large one into hers. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, ma’am.”

  Becca giggled.

  “Come on,” Holly yelled again. “We gotta go or my mom will eat all the Mickey Mouse cookies.”

  “Oh, no!” Becca practically shouted, jumping from Grant’s lap and making a beeline toward Holly.

  “Hold on, we’ve got to get you out of that dress first.”

  Lina watched as Holly scooped Becca up in her arms and carried her up the stairs, the two chattering the entire time.

  “She really loves Holly,” Lina said.

  “Of course she does. Holly makes dresses.” Jake laughed.

  The room buzzed with conversation all around them but Jake turned his attention to her. “So about the rock?” he said, his voice sounding insecure.

  “We’ll see.” She winked.

  Jake groaned, rolling his eyes.

  “We’ll see doesn’t always mean no.” She laughed, kissing him sweetly. In her heart, she knew she’d take him to the Kissing Cave. Probably tonight. He was her Walt Disney prince, after all, and she knew in her heart this was true love.

  Jake Sumner had pushed past her defenses, changed all her plans, and taught her what passion was really about. In the end, she knew she would go anywhere with this man. He and his daughter had snuck under her defenses and completely stolen her heart.

  We hope you loved this story! If you want to see Max and Devlin's wedding you can pre-order it here. Or, sign up for our newsletter and we'll send it to you two weeks early! You can join our newsletter list here: http://loriandkay.com/join-our-reader-list/

  * * *

  Fall in love with all the Sumner brothers in each of their stand alone novels, available now.

  Born to be My Baby (Ben and Maggie)

  Never Say Goodbye (Emmett and Elle)

  Thank You for Loving Me (Max and Devlin)

  With These Two Hands (Aaron and Kayleigh)

  I'll Be There for You (Jake and Lina)

  If That's What It Takes (Grant and Sophie) - COMING SOON!

  About the Authors

  Hi! it's Lori here. We could do the boring old bio s
tuff here—and we will—but, first, I want to tell you about the two of us.

  Me and Kay, Kay and me, we're besties and buddies and soulmates and the mostest of everything. We occasionally have to do some serious marriage-counseling-type negotiations when we get into creative differences, but most of the time, writing with Kay is a BLAST! I love, love, love what we create when we get together. When we first started talking about writing books together, I didn't imagine it would be this great.

  I'm so dang proud of the books and series we've put together. The heroes are steamy and sexy, the heroines strong and powerful...and, maybe, a little goofy, like me and Kay. We hope you love the people of Canyon Creek as much as we do. We hope you love coming back to the town and visiting again and again. We hope you want to stay there forever. We do.

  Now, here's the regular bio stuff I promised, along with links to each of our websites where you can find the stuff we write separately, in case you can't get enough of us!

  Lori Ryan is a NY Times and USA Today bestselling author who writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense. She lives with an extremely understanding husband, three wonderful children, and two mostly-behaved dogs in Austin, Texas. It’s a bit of a zoo, but she wouldn’t change a thing.

  Lori published her first romance novel in April of 2013 and has loved every bit of the crazy adventure this career has taken her on since then. She is a hybrid author, publishing both independently and through SilverHart Publishing.

  To see what Lori writes on her own, visit her website at www.loriryanromance.com.

  In addition to being an author, Kay Manis is also a wife and mom. She lives with her husband and daughter in the Live Music Capital of the World, Austin, Texas. In January of 2012, after listening to Kay blather on and on about the millions of book ideas floating around in her head, her daughter finally reached her limit and said, “Just write it Mom!” They were the four most important words to Kay's new career and a catalyst for everything she's done since. In other words, she owes it all to her daughter! If you ask Kay, she'll tell you she can’t thank her daughter enough for her motivating words and belief that Kay could do more with her talents.

  To see what Kay writes on her own, visit her website at www.kaymanis.com.