by Maggie Way
One hand slipped around her waist while the other smoothed over her large belly. “How’s he doing today?”
“He’s active. I think he’s excited, too.”
An ultrasound showed the baby to be developing well and in perfect health. It also showed they were having a boy. With the news, the wonder-terror had returned with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns. What did she know about raising a little boy?
But then she remembered she didn’t have to do it alone. Luke was there, and he had enough confidence for ten people. What’s more, she had Luke’s brothers, and Mina, and Isobel was quickly becoming a dear friend to her.
One thing Emily knew for certain, she and her baby would be loved.
Luke took a long taste of her mouth. “And how are you today, Mrs. Nolan?”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m perfect.”
“Yes, you are.” He kissed the top of her head as a car turned and ambled up the drive.
When it rolled to a stop in front of the house, Luke went around to the driver-side door to greet Leo.
At his appearance, Emily’s heart squeezed. He was thin, gaunt even, and his eyes appeared sunken in his too-thin face.
He was the first of their weekend guests, though Leo would be staying with them after the others left next week.
It’d be their third time hosting the retreat program Luke and Chloe Smallwood had worked to bring to fruition. This weekend’s group was their most diverse yet and included military and law enforcement personnel, as well as rape survivors.
Warriors from every battlefield, Luke had said when he’d first told her about the idea.
The brothers stood at the car for a time, talking, until finally, they moved to join her on the front porch.
A light twinkled in Luke’s emerald eyes when he smiled at her. “You’ll never guess what happened.”
“What happened?” she repeated.
“They lost Leo’s luggage.”
Leo glowered at him, though his scowl held no bite. “He told me I’m lucky.”
Luke lifted one shoulder. “You could’ve found your things thrown all over the airport terminal.”
Heat rushed into Emily’s cheeks. “Speaking of, y-you still haven’t returned BOB to m-me.”
Luke slung his arm over her shoulders and pulled her close into his side. “You and BOB are through. I’m entirely too insecure to share you with another man.”
“Who’s Bob?” Leo asked.
Emily laughed and slipped her arms around Luke’s waist as they walked with Leo into the house.
It struck her then that her whole world, when snuggled close and held tight, fit inside of her arms.
Luke lay in their bed, awaiting her return.
When finally she waddled back into the bedroom, her belly heavy and round in front of her, his heart expanded. It seemed to get bigger every day, growing a little wider, a little fuller, every time he looked at his wife with the beautiful heart. The one that’d saved him.
He stretched, filching a prepackaged cookie from the plate she carried. “Hey, guess what? There’s a plot.”
“Really?” The mattress dipped when she climbed onto the. “What’s happening?”
“So Serena has made the tough choice to sell her virginity to the highest bidder.”
Emily’s pouty mouth twisted into a wry frown. “Tough choice, huh?”
“Her little brother has a rare form of cancer and she has to come up with the money to pay for his treatment.”
Her mouth turned down with a twist of sympathy “Okay, that is a good reason.” She adjusted a pillow behind her back.
He bit into a cookie and hit play to resume the movie. “The highest bidder is some old dude named Roger and she’s arrived at his beach house mansion to make good on the deal.” He held up the cookie. “You know, these aren’t that bad.”
“I told you so.”
He placed one hand on her bare leg. “I’ve learned there’s a place for cheap and easy in my life after all.”
She slapped his arm. “What happened when Serena got to Roger’s mansion? Did they do it?”
Luke shook his head. “Not yet. Roger’s son, Chase, saw her first. Now he’s pretending to be Roger.”
Emily snuggled down under the quilt. “How s-stupid is Serena if she can’t tell the difference between a sixty-year-old and a twenty-year-old?”
The scene changed to a dark night on the beach.
Luke frowned at the TV. “They weren’t supposed to film on the beach. That’s a permit violation.”
“Max appealed and won. I think Drew m-may have used his influence on that one, too.”
“He’s a real servant to the public, isn’t he?”
On the TV screen, Honey emerged from the lake. Water sloughed off her naked body. On shore, a man waited for her.
Emily peered at the TV. “Is that a boom mike?”
“You’re looking at the scenery?”
“I’ve already seen Honey naked.” She cast him a sidelong look. “I gather from your familiarity with her resume, so have you.”
“Lucky for you, I don’t get tired of looking at naked women.”
Honey’s voice carried through the TV. “I seem to have misplaced my clothes.”
“You don’t need them.” Will snatched Honey to him and kissed her.
“I like this guy.” Luke took another bite of his cookie.
Emily frowned. “His delivery isn’t the only thing that’s a little stiff.”
With his bark of laughter, he choked on a chocolate chip.
Soft moans and grunts offset the slippery sounds of their kissing.
He squinted at the TV. “Are they actually doing it?”
“Max told me Will’s wearing a skin-colored banana hammock.”
Another boom mike poked into the frame.
Her nose crinkled adorably. “Knowing them kind of ruins it, doesn’t it?”
Luke tilted his head to the side as the couple on the screen rolled in the sand. “Yeah, it kinda does.”
He hit the Fast-Forward button until the scene changed. Honey and Will had moved to the library and were doing it on the desk.
“Do you think we missed a plot point or something?” he asked.
Emily flushed pink all over. “I thought the skinny dipping was just a coincidence.” She tucked a soft strand of her light hair behind her ear. “You don’t think…? Max didn’t… know that we… Did he?”
Luke frowned, chasing his memory. “Was he even here for your little skinny dip?”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Luke shrugged. “I guess we just picked all the best places to have sex.”
She crunched on a cookie and a crease puckered her brow while she chewed. “I really need to clean that desk.”
“You’re thinking about cleaning?”
She winced. “Sorry. Fast-forward some more.”
Images rushed by, until Honey and Will emerged on the screen with their clothes on, and Luke hit the Play button.
They were arguing, as somehow Serena had found out Chase wasn’t Roger. Through tears, Honey told Will she didn’t care he lied because she was in love with him. Then they did it again.
“Oh, good.” Emily breathed a relieved sigh. “We never did it on that balcony.”
“We need to correct that grievous oversight.”
She titled her head to the side and watched the action on the screen for a long moment. “She looks kind of bored.”
He hit Fast-Forward.
“Sex never lasts this long,” he felt compelled to point out.
He stopped the video. Serena stood in the foyer, a suitcase at her feet. When Chase appeared, she wanted to know why he didn’t have his suitcase. They were going to miss their flight to Vegas. Chase told Serena he couldn’t marry her. He would marry Mitzi, the daughter of his father’s business partner, as the families arranged years ago.
The credits rolled.
“Wow,” Luk
e said. “Plot twist.” He hit the Power button and the TV went dark.
Emily snuggled into his side.
He ran a hand over her ginormous belly. “I can’t believe I married a woman who will watch porn with me.”
“It’s not porn. There’s a plot.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. And if you’re counting up my virtues, don’t forget I bake, too,” she said proudly.
“That’s pushing it.”
He buried his face in her hair.
For years on the force, he’d had to find little ways to lie to himself, to try to convince himself that some goodness remained in this world.
Now, he didn’t have to lie.
With a deep breath, he drew her sweet scent into his nostrils.
He was no longer a cop. At one time, the mere possibility of that happening would’ve destroyed him. It’d been hard, at first. He didn’t know how to be anything other than a cop. He didn’t know how to do anything other than fight for the good guys.
But over the last few weeks, he’d eased into his new life. He’d had a different story planned for himself, one with a different ending, but this one would do.
The background noise had faded somewhat, and as it turned out, talking to Emily about that day and all that’d changed for him, inside him, in the aftermath, proved the most healing of all. She got it. She got him. She loved him despite his struggles, and he loved her all the more for it. Their love made him better.
He had them, and somehow, it was enough to fill the hole. To erase the void that’d opened up inside him the day a disturbed kid lashed out.
And while he’d never regain what was lost that day, he’d made some peace with it. What if one of the children at that school, facing the other end of that gun, had belonged to him and Emily? There were no winners, no heroes, in such tragedies. Only anguish.
His arms tightened around them.
He was no longer just a cop, or merely the negative imprint of Daniel Nolan.
Now, he had options.
He was an inn owner. A community activist.
He was a brother and an uncle.
Soon, he’d be a dad.
He was Emily’s husband.
And it was enough.
It was everything.
About the Author
Dear Reader,
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Thank you for reading SWEETEST MISTAKE! I hope you enjoyed Luke and Emily’s story. If you did, and you’d like to help other readers discover this book, please consider leaving a review at Amazon and/or Goodreads.
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In case you missed it, you can read Noah and Mina’s story in BEAUTIFUL RUIN, Book 1 of the Nolan Brothers series. Book 3 in the series, DIRTY PLAY, is Jack and Haven’s story and is on sale now. If you’d like to let know when Leo and Shea’s stories are available, please add your email to my newsletter sign up here and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
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Finally, I love hearing from fellow romance readers! Please feel free to shoot me an email or connect online.
Thank you again for taking a chance on SWEETEST MISTAKE.
* * *
Happy reading!
Amy
About The Author
Amy Olle writes sexy contemporary romances filled with charmingly flawed characters and cozy settings. Her debut novel, Beautiful Ruin, is the first book in a series about the five Irish-born Nolan brothers sent as children to live with family on a remote island in northern Michigan. She is delighted to put her Psychology degrees to good use writing romance.
Amy lives in Michigan with her longsuffering husband, brilliant son, and (female) turtle named George.
She loves to hear from readers! Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook or contact her at [email protected].
For information on new releases and giveaways, join Amy’s mailing list!
Books available in the contemporary romance series about the Nolan brothers (in chronological order):
Beautiful Ruin (Noah and Mina ~ available now)
Sweetest Mistake (Luke and Emily ~ available now)
Dirty Play (Jack and Haven ~ available now)
Be Mine
by Amy Brent
Chapter One
Alexandra Hart
It was the biggest day of my life. I should have been jumping for joy because I was just minutes away from walking across the stage to accept the MBA degree that had taken me six years and over two-hundred-thousand dollars to earn.
Not only that, I was about to graduate from the Wharton Business School, one of the most prestigious (and the most expensive) Ivy League schools in the country.
In just a few minutes I would join the ranks of alumni like President Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, and many other captains of industry.
So why wasn’t I jumping for joy?
Because along with my MBA, I’d be leaving Wharton with a mountain of debt that I didn’t know if I could ever pay off. You could buy a house for what I owe in school debt.
Even if I landed a job paying a hundred grand a year, after taxes and living expenses, I’d barely have enough to cover the payment on my student loans. I tried not to think about it because it was a bit overwhelming and I tended to freak out easily.
So, yeah...
Honestly, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’d dug myself a very deep hole and even with a Wharton MBA, it was going to take forever to fill that hole in.
Don’t get me wrong. I was proud of my accomplishments. I didn’t come from a wealthy family. I came from a middle-class potato-farming family in Twin Falls, Idaho.
“We grow the potatoes the world eats!” my stepdad, Fred, liked to say. Fred had lots of cute sayings about potatoes, but no money saved for my college. I didn’t have a trust fund. I wasn’t showered with honorariums and scholarships. I was on my own.
I’d earned that MBA the old-fashioned way: by working my ass off waiting tables and washing dishes and scrubbing floors and applying for every loan I could find.
My dad died when I was twelve, so I was raised by a single mother who struggled to keep the farm going. Even after she married Fred, there was no money for a college fund for me. They did their best just to survive.
I don’t blame my mom. She did the best with what she had.
And I certainly don’t blame my dad. He was the center of my universe and I was his little potato princess. He even called me “Tater”.
He was a young man when he died, so he hadn’t given much thought to life insurance or college funds. Like most people, he thought he had all the time in the world to take care of his little girl’s future.
He didn’t ask for the heart attack that stole him from me when he was just thirty-five and I was six. I think of him every day and will never stop loving my dad. Someday, I hope to meet and marry a man just like him.
If anyone is to blame for my predicament, it’s me. I’m the one who didn’t focus on getting straight A’s in high school. I’m the one who had the coordination of a one-legged duck and couldn’t excel at sports.
Scholarships were never an option for me in high school, so I buckled down to get my Bachelor’s degree with honors from Pitt, which, along with the recommendation of my state senator whom I’d never met, got me accepted into Wharton, which accepts less than twenty-percent of applicants.
“Alexandra Hart.”
I heard the dean of students call my name and I heard the audience politely applaud, but I didn’t move until the boy behind me gave me a gentle nudge in the back.
With a heart-full of pride and a head-full of fears, I took a deep breath and walked across the stage to accept the degree that would very soon change my life.
There were several-hundred people gathered in the reception hall after graduation; proud family, friends, professors, and alumni, walking around with little plates of hors d’oeuvres and glasses of wine.
Everyone was laughing and mingling and taking selfies. Well, everyone except
Mom and Fred, who stood off to the side of the crowd with my boyfriend Perry Wiggins scotched between them. They were watching the festivities like frightened deer in headlights.
In Twin Falls, Idaho, the biggest event of the year is the annual Potato Festival, which might attract as many as a hundred folks at best. Mom, Fred, and Perry were so out of their element it made me grin.
Fred is a third-generation potato farmer who merged his operation with mom’s when they got married. Perry is Fred’s nephew and right hand man. Perry’s as loyal as an old hound dog and Fred wouldn’t know what to do without him. Perry’s only goal in life is to work in the family business, if you can even call the farm a real business.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the concept that digging potatoes out of the ground is an actual business. I mean, I know it’s a business (I have a Wharton MBA, for petesake), but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend their entire life on a potato farm.
I spent the first eighteen years of my life there and I have no plan to ever go back. I know, what am I going to tell Perry, who looks at me with those big brown puppy dog eyes and tells me how great our life will be back on the farm. That’s a bridge I’ll have to cross soon, now that I’m finished with school.
“Congratulations!” Mom squealed when she saw me coming through the crowd with my diploma in hand. She threw open her arms and pulled me in for one her famous bear hugs. I swear, Mom could make Hulk Hogan yell, “UNCLE!”
She pulled back to look me in the eye. I could tell that she’d been crying. She said, “I am so proud of you, Alex. Imagine, my little girl graduating from the same school as the president of the United States!”
“Maybe you’ll get to meet Mr. Trump,” Fred said, bubbling with excitement. Mom and Fred were big Trump supporters. Perry, too, of course.
“I doubt that,” I said, giving Fred a hug. Fred was a good man. He’d been a good husband to Mom and a good stepdad to me. He wasn’t my dad and never put himself in that place, but he was a good provider and a good man, so I’m glad he came into our lives.