“You wanted to buy that land.”
“I did. And I thought your dad would agree once I told him what it was for. But when I went and talked to him earlier today, he said he’d sold it.” He pulled her in closer, trying to stave off a freakout if that was what was about to happen. “And I know Josh has been leaning hard on him for that land. And I know that your dad is feeling a lot of guilt over his relationship with you, and I don’t know if maybe he sold Josh the land for some stupid amount of money so he could give that money to you.”
“Do you think my dad would do that?”
“When it comes to you, right now, your dad doesn’t make sense all the time.”
“Dad said Josh offered him three million.”
“Oh my God, he did it,” Dean breathed, his stomach in knots. “He sold the land to my asshole brother. Okay.” He grabbed their beers and put them in the sink. “Go get your shoes.”
“What? Why?”
“We need to go talk to your dad. It’s probably not too late to reverse the sale. Or whatever. Or maybe we should go talk to Josh. Crap. Three million is so much money. We could ask my mom, maybe, but I don’t know if she’s got that.”
“You want to buy the land back from Josh?” she asked.
“What else are we going to do?” He looked at her. “Why are you so calm? It’s freaking me out that you are so calm right now.”
“Because Dad didn’t sell it to Josh. He gave it to me.”
She walked back into the living room, to the tree with the lights and the ornaments, all newly bought this year. She pulled from the branches two envelopes.
One envelope had her name on it and the other envelope had his scrawled across it.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Dad told me about the offer from Josh, and he told me it was tempting so he could give me three million dollars, but that he knew I’d be heartbroken. So he gave me the land. To do whatever I wanted with it. I was talking about it with your mother when we were up in Fort McMurray, and when we got home she gave me this.”
She handed Dean the envelope with his name on it.
“I didn’t open it,” she said. “I was waiting for the morning.”
“I’m so relieved your dad didn’t sell that land,” he said.
“I’m so touched you wanted to buy it.”
He wanted to pull down the moon for her. Buying that land seemed easy.
The envelope in his hand crinkled in his grip. “Open it,” she said. “Now I’m dying of curiosity.”
He tore open the seal and pulled out five pieces of paper.
“It’s a land deed,” he said, rifling through the papers.
For you, the letter said in his mother’s handwriting. My dear Dean. I know you don’t want any part of Dad’s company, but I want to leave you something. Something just for you, for the future. This is the last of my family’s original ranch. My mother deeded it to me with the promise that I would never sell it. And I haven’t. It’s the same promise I am asking you to make. That’s the only string attached. Please don’t sell it. Otherwise it’s yours, in good health.
“She’s giving me some land. Wow, two hundred acres. The last of her mom’s original ranch.”
“Is this a map?” she asked, as one of the other pieces of paper slipped from his hand. They held it together, pulling it straight. “That’s the creek,” she said, “between our properties. That’s the land Dad just gave me.” She pointed to all the land west of the creek. The land east of the creek was marked off in pink highlighter.
“And that’s the land Mom gave me,” he said. The acreage connected at the creek, and together it meant they had roughly three hundred acres of Wyoming.
“Oh my,” she breathed. He glanced over at her and saw the tears in her eyes, and he couldn’t quite hide the tears in his.
It was a legacy, and it was theirs. Without strings. Without poison.
“What a gift,” she breathed. “What a beautiful gift.”
You are, he thought, watching the red Christmas lights turn his skin to rose. You are the gift.
She glanced up and met his eyes, a smile slowly illuminating her face.
“I love Christmas Eve.”
“Come on,” he said, glad to be laughing. “You’re just saying that.”
“Nope. It’s true. As of right now, it’s my favorite day.”
“We fixed it?”
“You fixed it. It was all you, baby.”
He disagreed, but she was kissing him. And taking off that Santa shirt. And then his shirt came off too and he couldn’t remember what he was disagreeing with. It seemed like a bad idea to disagree with a girl who was taking off her pants.
That night they ate yule log for dinner and they played each other their favorite songs on the stereo. She asked him to move his guitar in first thing in the morning, and he told her he had bought her a piano. An old standup he’d found outside of Laramie. That was his Christmas gift to her.
They lay in each other’s arms and held hands, watching the tree and the snow gather at the edges of the window.
“Merry Christmas, Dean,” she whispered.
“Merry Christmas, Trina.”
And it was. And it would be. Forever.
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for picking up Sweet Talk and supporting Juvenile Diabetes Research. I hope you enjoyed Christmas Eve: A Love Story, as much as I enjoyed writing it and being a part of this amazing box set.
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If you would like to read more of my contemporary westerns, check out THE CROOKED CREEK Digital bundle, which includes the RITA award winning CRAZY THING CALLED LOVE.
When We Touch
You’re invited to a wedding in Whiskey Creek, Heart of the Gold Country
Unfortunately, it’s the wrong wedding. Olivia Arnold is arranging the festivities
—and it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done. Because she should be marrying Kyle Houseman. They were together for more than a year…. But her jealous sister, Noelle, stole him away—and now she’s pregnant.
All their friends in Whiskey Creek know as well as Olivia does that Kyle’s making a mistake. His stepbrother, Brandon, knows it, too. But Kyle’s determined to go through with it, for his child’s sake.
Olivia’s devastated, but surprisingly Brandon—the black sheep of the family— is there to provide comfort and consolation. The intensity between them, both physical and emotional, shows Olivia that maybe Kyle wasn’t the right man for her….
But is Brandon?
***
“Brenda Novak is always a joy to read—and never more than with this new series!”
—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Dear Reader,
I recently came off a stint of wedding movies—Something Borrowed, Made of Honor, The Wedding Planner, The Wedding Date. Some of these are dated.
You probably realize that. I’m not sure how I missed them when they first came out, but it was fun catching up. I had renewed interest in this subject because the first of my five children was married recently. Everyone talks about how stressful such an event is. With only two months to plan, we whipped through the preparations but were so pleased with how it all turned out (thanks in large part to the fact that one of my BFFs owns the best wedding venue in the area and another is a fantastic photographer). I can honestly say I’ve never been to a more beautiful wedding (completely objective opinion, of course
Anyway, all those “I do” vibes and sighs of love put me in the mood to w
rite my own wedding story—a first for me. Here you have it. Only this wedding doesn’t go quite as smoothly for some participants as others….
I’m excited to be able to offer you this story. I think it’s a fabulous way to introduce you to my Whiskey Creek series. If you like When We Touch, you’ll hopefully enjoy When Lightning Strikes, When Snow Falls, When Summer Comes, Home to Whiskey Creek, Take Me Home for Christmas, Come Home to Me, The Heart of Christmas and This Heart of Mine. More details about the series can be found at my web site (www.brendanovak.com), where you can also enter my monthly drawings, join my fan club, or learn more about my efforts to raise money for diabetes research. So far, with the support of so many, I’ve been able to raise $2.4 million. Visit www.brendanovakforthecure.org to see how you can help!
Brenda
Dedication
To Megan and German...
Watching you two fall in love has been one of the most gratifying things I’ve experienced as a mother and confirms everything I believe as a romance writer.
You can live the dream. Never, never lose what you have!
Chapter One
Returning for her sister’s wedding would’ve been difficult had it merely meant pretending to be a happy and supportive bridesmaid. But being in charge of the whole event? That added insult to the most heart-wrenching emotional injury Olivia Arnold had ever sustained.
As she drove back to Whiskey Creek for the first time since learning that Noelle would be marrying Kyle Houseman—the man she’d been dating herself until three months ago—she wished she’d had the nerve to refuse her parents. Noelle tried to beat Olivia at anything and everything she did. It had been that way since they were children.
But Olivia planned weddings for a living. She was also the family peacemaker, so it came naturally to try to forgive, to move on. And, as her mother had pointed out, she was the one who’d asked Kyle if they could take a “break” while she moved to Sacramento to build her business. She’d wanted one year to see if she could develop it into something spectacular in a bigger city before marrying Kyle and settling down in Whiskey Creek.
Given all that, how could she refuse to help? Especially when she could save her father so much money?
Despite her determination to soldier on through everything that was happening, an odd sense of panic welled up as she reached the edge of town. Pulling over just beyond the sign that said Welcome to Whiskey Creek, The Heart of Gold Country she tried to get hold of herself but almost turned her Acura around. Within an hour, she could be home in Sacramento. She could hide away until this wedding was a distant memory and, if she was lucky, avoid her sister and new brother-in-law for a decade or two. Maybe by then she’d be able to face them without wanting to cry.
And why shouldn’t she turn back? If she stayed, the humiliation of the next few days would be as painful as the heartbreak. Whiskey Creek was a town of only two thousand people. Thanks to the fact that she and Kyle had been a couple for two years, and had separated so recently, she couldn’t possibly escape the whispers, the pitying looks or the condolences of the friends and neighbors who’d known her most of her life.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!” Bumping her forehead against the steering wheel, she pictured Kyle kissing “the bride” and groaned at the disappointment and betrayal. Noelle had waited for just the right moment. When Olivia was in Sacramento, trying to experience something new before starting her life with Kyle. When he was alone and not coping well with the separation. Then she’d made her move. Olivia wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive her sister, especially since it was Olivia’s own tears and confidences that had armed Noelle. They’d never been particularly close, but they came from the same family and had lived under the same roof until Olivia relocated to Sacramento last February. That gave Noelle certain insights she wouldn’t otherwise have had.
But if she left, if she ran, her sister would know she was just as hurt today as she had been that terrible evening the horrible truth—that Kyle and Noelle had been seeing each other—came out. Why give Noelle the pleasure? Why confirm that her sister, younger by two years (which only made it worse), had finally landed the coup de grâce of their sibling rivalry?
“Ahhhhh!” She pounded the steering wheel with her fists this time, before hitting everything else in sight. Somehow, seeing her hometown looming ahead had destroyed her restraint. Rage seemed to be a monster growing in strength and power until it was bursting out of her chest—
A knock on the window interrupted her mid-sob. She’d been so focused on her distress, on screaming and beating her dashboard, she hadn’t heard anyone approach.
Mortified to realize she had a witness to her behavior, she turned to see a tall, blond man dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops. His mouth, tense with some emotion, made a slash in his face beneath a pair of mirror like sunglasses.
Oh, God… Despite those glasses, it wasn’t a cop, as she’d expected. Worse—it was Kyle’s stepbrother, Brandon Lucero. He was younger than Kyle by a year, which made him almost a year older than her, and he appeared to be… concerned. No doubt he thought she’d lost her mind.
He might as well have caught her with her pants down. It would’ve been less embarrassing. Her only consolation was that Brandon wasn’t likely to tell Kyle what he’d seen, even if he connected it to the upcoming wedding. There was no love lost between the two men. They’d lived under the same roof while in high school, after Kyle’s older sister had married and moved out and Brandon’s mother married Kyle’s father, but that hadn’t made them friends.
Brandon waited to speak until she rolled down the window. “You okay?” he asked, his teeth a stark contrast to his golden tan.
After getting abusive with the interior of her innocent car, her right hand hurt so badly she was afraid she’d fractured it. She cradled it in her lap, hoping he wouldn’t notice the swelling, and wiped her other hand over her wet cheeks. This kind of behavior wasn’t like her.
“Don’t I look okay?” she countered as if she hadn’t just lost control. “Babe.” He shook his head. “Tell me this has nothing to do with Kyle.”
She dabbed at her eyes, inadvertently smearing her mascara, which she wiped onto her white shorts. Cut low at the hips and high on the leg, they’d been purchased with one goal in mind—turning male heads. In her current situation, she needed the ego boost. But her pride in the body she’d worked so hard to slenderize and tone had gone out the window, along with her composure. What did it matter if she looked better than she ever had? Noelle was marrying the man Olivia thought would be her husband. “Would you believe I broke a nail?”
His biceps bulged, stretching the sleeves of his T-shirt as he folded his arms. “Not a chance. Want to try something else?”
“No. Who cares if you think I’m an idiot?” she grumbled as she pushed her long hair out of her face. “You’ve never liked me much to begin with.”
This seemed to surprise him. “What gave you that impression?”
“I don’t know.” She managed a facetious smirk. “Maybe the way you scowl every time you see me? Or, if you can’t avoid me, which is always your first choice, you just grunt so you don’t have to say hello?”
He scowled when she’d expected him to laugh. “Would you believe I was saving you from myself?”
“No.”
“I can be chivalrous when I want to be.”
“That’s definitely not an adjective I’d use to describe you. I’m sure all the women with broken hearts you’ve left behind would agree with me.”
His scowl darkened. “What women with broken hearts?”
She could’ve named a few. Some of them were acquaintances. He was a tempting challenge—few women could refuse him. But he didn’t give her the chance to be more specific. He was still talking.
“I’m going to assume you’re angry or you wouldn’t have said that. You’re obviously having a bad day.”
Ah, the understatement of the year. And since she had to face Kyl
e and Noelle as well as her parents in the next few minutes, her day was going to get worse.
“We had a class together, remember?” he added. “I took you to my junior prom. I’ve always liked you just fine.”
She couldn’t see his eyes, but she sensed that they were moving over her, taking inventory of what her clothes revealed. Instinctively she wanted to cover up. The only thing stopping her was the sure knowledge that doing so would draw more attention to her atypical attire. “And—” he grinned “—from what I can see so far, I’m going to like the new you even more.”
What had she been thinking when she’d put on this outfit? If Kyle didn’t regret what he’d done by now, a pair of short shorts and a low-cut blouse wouldn’t do the trick. It was too late to save what they’d had, anyway. It wasn’t as if she could take him back.
“I dressed in a weak moment,” she explained, her face burning. “I needed to feel attractive.”
“Mission accomplished.” He whistled. “You could stop traffic. You stopped me, didn’t you?”
She considered the amusement on his face. “I’m pretty sure you thought I was having engine trouble.”
“To be honest, I thought a bee had gotten into your car and you were under attack.”
“Thanks for the visual. That helps with the embarrassment. But it wasn’t that bad.”
His eyebrows rose above his sunglasses. “It was alarming. But back to your changed wardrobe. I don’t think showing that much skin is the best way to recover.” He scratched his smooth-shaven chin. “I mean…I’d hate to see you wind up with the wrong kind of guy. Again.”
“Kyle was the wrong kind of guy?” She was anxious to hear his justification for that statement. The general belief was that Brandon was the less reliable of the two. Kyle had attended UC Berkeley on an academic scholarship while getting a degree in electrical engineering. He’d started his own company manufacturing solar panels after that, which was currently making him rich. He was strong, kind, talented.
Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) Page 117