Unbroken by Love (The Basin Lake Series Book 4)

by Vercier, Stephanie

  “So, I was wondering if I could have yours?” Even he cringes when he says it.

  It’s so ridiculous that I laugh. “I’m not single, Mike, but even if I was, you might want to work on that line some more.”

  “Who’s using a pick up line?” Garrett steps up behind Mike and puts a basket full of food on the conveyer belt.

  I’m so happy to see him and make sure he sees the big smile I’m directing his way.

  “Uh… hey, there Garrett.” Mike, once our high school quarterback, shrinks like a wilting flower. He must be aware Garrett is the guy I’m dating and isn’t so fast and loose with his words now that he’s face to face with him.

  “You trying to pick up on my girl, here?” Garrett looks intimidating, maybe even a little angry, but I can see the amusement in his eyes just under the surface. He’s enjoying putting a scare into Mike.

  “No… ‘course not. I’m really happy for you guys.”

  I could have handled Mike on my own, but Garrett showing up in my line, as he often does, is pretty much perfect.

  “I bet that happens to you all day long,” Garrett tells me once Mike has left.

  “Hardly.” I don’t want him to think I’m pushing away men and their advances all day long, even though some days I’m doing it at least once or twice.

  “Hardly? Ben said he’s had to tell more than one guy to lay off. Maybe I need to put an engagement ring on that finger of yours to keep them at bay.”

  I bite my lower lip and offer a quick, unsure look before I return to scanning his groceries.

  “What? I’m serious.” His smile is so genuine, and I know he’s not joking.

  The offer sends a radiating warmth through my body and plays havoc with the produce codes I’m attempting to enter for the fruits and vegetables he’s decided to buy. “I wouldn’t want you… well, I wouldn’t want you to have to do that just so guys wouldn’t hit on me,” I say, then finally find the correct code for zucchini after messing it up twice already.

  “That wouldn’t be the only reason… far from it.” He’s offering me that same genuine look, but I think I can hear a slight edge of insecurity in his voice. I don’t want to be the cause of that, but getting engaged is going to force me to be as real as I can be with him.

  “You’ve got quite a few vegetables here,” I say, pushing his engagement talk to the side.

  He clears his throat. “I’m trying a new recipe. Figured I’d make dinner tonight for the first time in the Mur—I mean, in my house.”

  “Oh? Sounds like quite a dinner.” I’m picturing him inviting his parents or his entire family over and find myself feeling jealous that he hasn’t asked me.

  “It will be. Of course you’ll be there to eat it, so you can let me know how well I do.”

  “I will? How do you know I don’t already have plans?” I’m playfully aloof, but I’m sure he can see right through me.

  “Because you aren’t babysitting tonight. I called Ben just to be sure.”

  I’m tempted to keep this back and forth up a bit longer, but I’m done playing games when Garrett deserves so much better than that. “Well, lucky for you, I washed my hair last night, so I’m completely free.”

  “Oh, yeah, the hair thing definitely gets in the way. You must have had a premonition you needed the night off.”

  I laugh and shake my head at him. He’s such a big, masculine guy, and yet he’s absolutely adorable when he jokes around with things like that. “Looks like we’re having spaghetti,” I say, scanning a box of pasta and two jars of marinara sauce.

  “And salad and sautéed zucchini—Skyler makes the best kind—you don’t hate zucchini, do you?”

  “No, I don’t hate it, and even if I did, I’d try it just because you made it.”

  “Hey, that’s pretty sweet.”

  “So are you.” And he is. I put a loaf of bread on top of the rest of his groceries, then tell him, “That will be forty-two-fifty.”

  He slides his card into the pay pad before leaning over the small counter. “And here’s a tip,” he says, kissing me right on the lips.

  My eyes are still closed when the weight of his lips are no longer on mine. And when I open them, he’s already walking away and carrying his bag.

  “I’ll pick you up at six!” he calls out, and then he’s gone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  KATE

  “It’s coming along,” I tell Garrett after getting a good look around the living room, new drywall going up in a lot of the areas that had been torn up for new electrical.

  “A lot of that is thanks to you,” he says, his arms crossed over his massive chest when I turn and catch him pretty much staring at me.

  I imagine it’s the dress. Mom had surprised me with the Volvo this afternoon, having followed through and gotten herself a new car, one of those cute wagon hybrids that’s sporty but has enough room to haul stuff around in the back. I’d actually cried a little when she’d handed me the keys, and having gotten off my shift at Forester’s, I hadn’t wasted any time at all in utilizing my newfound independence. I’d driven over to Liza’s, the boutique next door to Pamela’s, and bought myself a little black dress that showed off my legs and cleavage without making me look slutty. I’d paired it with some sling-back heels I already owned but didn’t wear often, and Garrett’s eyes had pretty much been glued to me since he’d picked me up at Mom’s house.

  “I’m glad to help.” I walk over to him, unable to stay away, and grip onto those strong arms of his. “And I think the stuff from Hansen’s fits the size of the rooms pretty good, don’t you?”

  “Sure, it looks great.” He wraps me up, then turns my entire body around so that my back is to him, his chin resting on my shoulder. “Once we really get to work in here, repaint the walls, get new windows and have the hardwood floors refinished, then you can really get to decorating.”

  “Me?” I laugh, whipping right back around to face him. “It’s not my house, Garrett. Of course I’m happy to help, but do you really want me making all those decisions about this place?”

  “If it means I get to see even more of you, then yeah, I really do.”

  The kiss he plants on my lips is electrifying. It makes me kind of breathless, and I paw at his hard chest, as if to anchor myself, as if to keep from floating up and into the clouds.

  But in the next moment, I’m pulling those same hands back as if I’d just touched a hot stove and wrestling my lips from his, just out of reach when he tries for another landing. “I’m really kind of hungry,” I say.

  He raises one brow, then allows his hands to slide away from my hips. “I guess I did promise you dinner,” he says, amusedly disappointed.

  “You most certainly did,” I remind him, hoping he doesn’t see how badly I’d wanted to keep my hands on his chest and how much I’d have loved for his lips to remain firmly cemented to mine. “And I’m really curious to see how your cooking skills measure up,” I add, though I’d have been more curious about what would have happened had we kept on kissing, something fear keeps me from acting on.

  “Man, I hope I don’t disappoint.”

  You won’t.

  We head into the kitchen, which is probably going to be a full tear-out. The cabinets are old and have been painted over, most of them sticking when you try to open them. Garrett has already gotten a new range and a refrigerator but said he’ll wait on a dishwasher until he can get everything remodeled.

  He goes to the fridge and pulls out rounds of zucchini that he’d already cut up, along with onions, some garlic and fresh spinach that he adds to the marinara sauce he has heating on the stove.

  “Well, you’re prepared,” I say.

  “And I made a salad too.” The bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and red onions is the next thing he grabs from the refrigerator. “Italian vinaigrette good with you?”

  “It’s great… and the dining room table looks really nice too.” I’m more than a little impressed at the time he’d taken to set i
t.

  “I wanted it to be perfect for you,” he says, setting the bowl down and pulling me up and into him.

  “Well, it is,” I assure him. “I can tell your culinary skills are top notch before I’ve actually even tried a bite.”

  “Did you say bite?” At that, he gently takes my earlobe between his teeth and pulls.

  I’m drawn in again and am already surrendering to the bevy of tactile sensations that arrive with his touch. I want so desperately to give in to Garrett, but I’m at least attempting to promise myself I won’t allow things to go too far before I share my truth. But hell if he’s making that easy on me.

  With a warmth between my legs and a flutter of desire in my abdomen, I’m just about ready to fall right into him, promises or not, when a bubbling sound interrupts me. In my current state, I don’t quite know what it is until I force myself to open my eyes.

  “Garrett…” I whisper, not really wanting him to let go of me but noting that the marinara sauce is starting to boil over the pan it’s in.

  “Shhh…” he orders, nibbling down my neck.

  “Your sauce is bubbling over.”

  He laughs hoarsely. “So that’s what they’re calling it these days?”

  “No, the marinara sauce, silly!” I very begrudgingly escape his grasp and run over to the stove, turn the burner down and stir the sauce up until it settles down into a very light simmer.

  “Oh… that sauce.” He’s laughing when he comes over, then takes the spoon out of my hand and takes over. “See, without you, I’m completely hopeless.”

  Once his attention has returned to food, he insists on doing all the remaining prep work, only asking me to pour some wine for us after he’s popped the cork.

  “I’m not legal, you know… for the wine,” I tell him as I take the bottle and begin pouring into the two glasses set out on the counter.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” he says with a grin.

  “You’re a regular scofflaw, aren’t you?” I tease, and his grin just widens.

  “I’m sure I’ll be forgiven for this… unless you don’t like it? Wine I mean?”

  “No, I do.” I take a sip from one glass to prove it and hand him the other. It’s sweeter than beer and less biting or nauseating than hard liquor. It’s red and tart with a hint of what tastes like honey. “But I thought you liked beer more,” I say once I’ve had a good taste of it.

  “Usually,” he says, guiding me toward the table, setting his glass down and pulling out a chair that he beckons me to sit in. “But I can be civilized too.”

  He’s more than civilized. While Garrett may have been better versed on the football field than in fine dining, he’s managing pretty well.

  “This is gorgeous.” I pull my chair in a bit more and take a small sip of the wine as he sets the last of the food down and then lights two candles. The ambience he creates makes the half finished walls and holes in the ceiling disappear.

  “I think a word like gorgeous should be reserved for you, Kate.”

  I don’t attempt to deflect the compliment because the reality is that it feels really good to hear that from him.

  He sits down and raises his wine glass. “I think we need to do a toast.”

  “And what should we toast to?” I ask, mirroring him with my own glass.

  “To both of us returning to small town living at just the right time… to finding one another. I, for one, am pretty damn happy about it.”

  “To finding one another,” I repeat before we clink glasses.

  It really had been a wonder, that we both got back to town at the same time and were both free and single, me because of an idiot ex-boyfriend, and Garrett… well… actually I didn’t know what Garrett had. I hadn’t really asked him much about his prior relationships, mainly because it made me jealous thinking of him with another woman, made my insides twist and turn a little to imagine he might have been in love with someone or at least in a long-term relationship with them. Of course there had been Paige, but I knew all about that, knew it was finished, even knew that the furthest they’d gone was Paige going down on him… once. She told me that a few years ago when I’d asked how far they’d gotten, and I remember being relieved that’s all they’d done, even then, even at a time when I hadn’t really thought much about Garrett.

  And if Shawn had given me another chance, maybe just to string me along for another year or two, I wouldn’t be here in Basin Lake or in this farmhouse of Garrett’s and eating the dinner he’s made, which, as it turns out, is really good. I’m just taking my second bite of zucchini when Garrett loads a pile of spaghetti on his fork, and a lone noodle full of marinara sauce pretty much flies onto his crisp, white shirt.

  “Your shirt!”

  “Huh?” He looks down, following my eyes.

  “It’s going to stain if you don’t take it off right now.” I’m already up and turning my head in the direction of the kitchen. “Hurry!”

  “It’s just a shirt,” he says with an amused smile. “I have others.”

  “But no need to ruin it.”

  We’re both at the sink, me running the cool water. “Take if off,” I tell him, my honest intention wanting to salvage his shirt. But when he starts to unbutton, I’m reassessing that.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  By the time he’s gotten halfway down, I’m swallowing hard and then biting my lips, trying not to look like a perv. I’ve surely seen Garrett without his shirt before, either at the lake or maybe after he’d been at a football practice and I’d been in the bleachers with Mom and Claire waiting for one of Paige’s track meets to start. But it’s been years and always from a distance.

  But he’s standing right next to me now, and I can’t help but to be in awe of his tanned muscular chest and the abs just below that reflect the fact he still keeps up a routine workout schedule. Without wanting to stare, I avert my eyes to the forearms covered in blond hair, up to his thick upper arms and the broad shoulders that I’ve so loved wrapping my hands around.

  “You have tattoos,” I say, unable to keep the thought to myself as my gaze travels back to his upper arms.

  He laughs. “I do.”

  “Sorry.” I’m nervous, almost giggling, and I hope I don’t sound like an idiot. “It’s just that I never pictured you with any.” Maybe if I’d paid closer attention to his NFL games, I’d have already known about them.

  “I stopped at three,” he says with a grin and hands his shirt over. “I like the star on my left arm the best. I don’t think I was ever a big star watcher, but that’s something you miss seeing in a big city, a clear night sky above you.”

  “That’s actually really cool.” I take his shirt and run it under the cold water, adding a dab of dish soap. Keeping a stain from setting is my main goal, but it doesn’t keep me from eyeing his torso. “And how about the other two? What are those about?”

  He turns his body to show me his other shoulder. “You don’t recognize that?” He points to the tattoo on his upper right arm. “Doesn’t even look familiar?”

  I turn, allowing the water to continue to run over his shirt while I take a better look. “Oh… it’s a wheat bundle.” I’m tempted to outline it with the tip of my finger, the image of a bunch of harvested wheat encircled by a rope, but I keep the finger to myself. “Interesting choice. Another reminder of home, huh?”

  “Yeah. You can take the boy out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.” He seems to laugh at himself before turning his back to me. “And that last one is easy.”

  “A Viking.” The image of a bearded man’s face with a Viking hat is just below his right shoulder. “But it’s not like your team logo.” It’s more traditional looking, like a true artist was responsible for the rendering.

  “No, I wanted to be a team player,” he says, turning back to me, “but I didn’t really want to be inked with an NFL logo. But this guy on my shoulder… he’s all good. I named him Sven.”

  “Sven? I didn’t realize
people named their tattoos.” I take a quick moment to check his shirt, decide it needs a bit more manpower and continue scrubbing.

  “I might be the only one, but if you’ve got a guy on your back, I figure you should probably name him.”

  God, he makes me smile, and I’m filled with a warm, fuzzy feeling while I finish up his shirt.

  “And you?” he asks. “No tattoos from that whole rebellious phase you went through?”

  “The black hair?” I’m guessing that’s what he’s alluding to unless he’d heard more about the way I used to skulk around during my teenage years.

  “Yeah… it had rebellion stamped all over it.”

  “I’m not sure how much that was really about rebellion… but still no tattoos,” I tell him while I give his shirt one good last rinse.

  I guess rebellious is what I’d looked like to Garrett on the few times I’d seen him over the years. I certainly hadn’t been the excited little girl I was when Paige was still home.

  “Good for you. I think I might come to regret them… not the designs, just the idea of what they’re going to look like in thirty years.”

  “You can always get them removed. No need to walk around like a sailor with one of those faded anchor tattoos, right?”

  He laughs. “I suppose I should go up and get a fresh shirt, huh?”

  I nod, turning the water off and wringing out his shirt. “This one’s going to be wet for a while, so unless you want to finish dinner without a shirt…”

  “It could get chilly.”

  I swallow hard, knowing how ridiculous it would be to sit across from a shirtless man through dinner, and yet I still picture it.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says, and I’m left alone in the kitchen, the stairs to the second floor creaking as he goes up.

  While he’s gone, I finish wringing out his shirt. Still not over the way seeing him shirtless made me feel, I’m half tempted to follow him up the stairs. I could totally do it, and just the idea gives me a thrill. With the shirt in hand, I take a step toward the stairs, but freeze, chickening out because I’m not sure I’d even know what to actually do once I got to the second floor. If I want to do more than just kiss Garrett, then I have to be willing to follow through and not stop when things get too heated.