Making You Mine – the Bradens & Montgomerys (Pleasant Hill – Oak Falls)

by Melissa Foster

  She snagged the phone from his hand, studying the images. “Oh my God. How can there be another fairy-tale aficionado as out there as Char’s great-grandparents?” She poked around on his phone and said, “Maybe we can convince the owners to let us use it. I hope you don’t mind. I’m texting the link to myself and also to Becca so she can jump on it. I’m sorry. This is rude to do in a restaurant, but I’m too excited to wait.”

  “I like your determination,” Graham said. “You and Knox are two peas in a pod. The man waits for nothing and no one.”

  If you only knew how long I bided my time with Aubrey. He glanced at her and could see the gears in her mind churning as she typed on his phone. You were worth the wait.

  The conversation eventually circled back to Charlotte and Beau’s wedding.

  “Will we see you guys there?” Graham asked.

  “You’re looking at the maid of honor right here. Char has been my best friend since we were kids. I wouldn’t miss her wedding for the world.” Aubrey glanced at Knox with a playful expression as she said, “I probably need a date for the wedding, huh?” She shifted her attention to Graham and added, “Which of your brothers are still single?”

  Knox hauled her against him, chair and all, and said, “Don’t even…”

  Graham and Morgyn laughed along with them.

  “Oh, did you want to be my date?” Aubrey teased, grinning like the jokester she was.

  “Damn right, for that and every other commitment we make.”

  “Gosh, you guys are so cute together,” Morgyn said. “I can hardly believe this is the same Aubrey who just last summer told me she preferred being a free agent to being tied down in a monogamous relationship.”

  “Don’t let her fool you.” Knox set a serious stare on Aubrey and said, “She wasn’t a free agent last summer. We were both just too stubborn, scared, or simply too damn stupid to admit that what we had was bigger than either of us.”

  “Yeah, well…” Morgyn gazed at Graham with so much love, it radiated across the table. “The heart is a powerful thing. I met my soul mate and realized the only thing to be scared of was a life without him.”

  “Aw, sunshine.” Graham brushed his lips over hers and said, “It’s been the best adventure of my life, and I look forward to every day with you even more than I did yesterday.”

  Knox glanced at Aubrey, catching her staring at him with a soulful look in her eyes. She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t mouth silent love for him, or do a single thing other than look so deeply into his eyes, he felt, rather than saw, her emotions. She slid her hand into his, weaving their fingers together the same way he felt their hearts becoming one. Was this what Landon felt with Carlos? Like he couldn’t imagine a day without him and his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. He was vaguely aware of Graham’s voice, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Aubrey’s. Everything around them faded away, until there was only him and Aubrey and the unbreakable bond forming between them.

  When they finally left the restaurant, Knox was still a little light-headed from his discovery, and he could tell by the look in Aubrey’s eyes that she felt it too. He had the urge to tell her how he felt, but he wasn’t sure if it would make the scared bunny in her scamper away.

  “Don’t forget to let me know when you get your stuff in the boutique on the Cape,” Aubrey said as she hugged Morgyn. “I’ll talk to Presley about getting your designs on the cover of LWW’s fashion magazine.”

  “That would be awesome,” Morgyn said. “Thank you.”

  Graham opened his arms, embracing Aubrey warmly. “It’s nice to finally meet the woman who has had my buddy flustered for all these months. I look forward to doing some traveling with you guys as a couple, starting with Seattle.”

  Aubrey stole a glance at Knox. Her cheeks flushed as she reached for his hand. “I hope so. Maybe we can get together again. Are you staying in the city for the weekend?”

  It didn’t matter that Knox knew Graham and Morgyn had other plans. Aubrey’s efforts to plan another double date filled him with happiness.

  “We’re actually heading to the airport to meet my cousin Ty and his wife, Aiyla. We’re going cross-country skiing. I was going to invite you two, but Knox said with the movie project, you probably can’t get away.”

  “He’s right,” she said with a hint of disappointment. “Maybe another time.”

  Knox and Graham made plans to connect the following week about an investment Graham was looking into, and then they climbed into separate cabs. After giving the cabbie his address, Knox put his arm around Aubrey and said, “If I’m not mistaken, my non-dater just tried to arrange another double date and agreed to travel to Seattle in a few weeks for a weekend double date. Sounds like a long-term commitment to me.”

  “Yeah.” She leaned her head on his shoulder and said, “Dating isn’t so scary after all. I really like you, Knoxy boy, and I like our worlds coming together.”

  Knoxy boy. Her endearment tweaked something deep in his chest, and his emotions tumbled out. “Aubrey, I’m fall—”

  She silenced him with a sweet touch of her lips, and then she whispered, “Some things are bigger without words.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHORTLY AFTER NOON on Saturday, Aubrey stood in a Manhattan theater waiting as Knox purchased tickets for Jaws. The theater was hosting a throwback films month and was showing movies from the seventies. Knox was talking to the guy in line in front of him. Though Knox wasn’t wearing anything special to make him stand out in the crowd, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He knew how to fill out a pair of jeans. His boots and leather coat gave him a rugged appearance, softened slightly by the red and black scarf hanging around his neck. He hadn’t shaved, and his hair was messy from the gray hat that now peeked out of his coat pocket, but damn, the man looked hot.

  Knox glanced over and winked before returning his attention to the conversation. Her pulse quickened, and her mind reeled back to earlier that morning. She’d been awake long before Knox, and she’d lain in his big, beautiful bed surrounded by the scents and sights of the man who had captured her heart so many months ago. She’d waited for panic to set in as she thought about how much had changed between them. Her clothes were hanging beside his in the closet, her toiletries were no longer in a bag, ready to be zipped up and carried away until the next event when she’d see him again. As if what they had hadn’t been real when they weren’t together. That thought made her laugh now. How could she have even tried to deny what she felt?

  They’d spent a lazy morning tangled up in each other in bed and hit a café for breakfast before roaming through shops, grabbing hot dogs and pretzels from a street vendor for lunch, and finally deciding to see a movie. For the first time in forever, she wasn’t thinking about work.

  She was thinking about them.

  Ever since she and the girls had opened LWW, she’d spent almost every day working, even if working from home, researching or strategizing. It had been a very long time since she’d enjoyed this type of down time and even longer since she’d had a man in her life the way Knox was. Her first year of college she’d had a boyfriend for a few months, but he never felt irreplaceable the way Knox did.

  A group of women did a double take as they passed Knox. Jealousy streaked through Aubrey. It was a different, and annoying, feeling. How could she be jealous now, when she’d spent two years not having any idea where he was or what he was doing in between their sexy hotel trysts?

  Gawk your fill, ladies, because he’s definitely taken.

  She smiled to herself. Wouldn’t Knox love to know what she was thinking right now?

  She imagined the smug look he’d flash, the snarky comments he’d make, and her smile grew bigger. He looked so easy and unguarded right then, but didn’t he usually appear that way? It was one of the things she loved about him. Her smile faded as she remembered the way he’d tensed up around his father.

  Knox had mentioned over breakfast that morning that he had to go t
o Los Angeles Monday to take care of some family business. He didn’t offer any details, and she didn’t ask, but she wondered if he was helping Landon and if he was glad to be working on something for his family again. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone, a few days maybe. And here she was, wondering why she was already starting to miss him.

  She slipped her phone from her pocket and snapped a quick picture of him as he paid for their tickets. At least she could look at the picture while he was gone and remember the incredible weekend they’d had. She glanced down at the picture, studying his beautiful face. You came out of nowhere…

  “Work catch up with you?” Knox asked as he came to her side, tickets in hand.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” She pocketed her phone. “Can we get popcorn?”

  “Heck yes.” He took her hand and they waited in the refreshment line. When it was their turn he said, “A large popcorn and a bottle of water, please.”

  “And two bags of Cheetos and one box of Reese’s Pieces,” she chimed in.

  “Guess that hot dog and pretzel didn’t fill you up?” Knox asked as he paid for their treats.

  “I’m never too full for movie-theater food.” She snagged the bucket of popcorn, Cheetos, and Reese’s and said, “Come on.”

  At the condiment counter she dumped out some of the popcorn, poured the Cheetos and Reese’s into the bucket with the popcorn. Then she put her hands in the bucket and mixed it all up. Knox watched with amusement.

  “Let me just wash my hands.” She ducked into the ladies’ room. When she returned they headed into the theater, and Knox dragged her down the back row. “Don’t you want to sit closer?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve got you in a dark theater. I’m not missing out on making out with the hottest girl in New York in the back of a theater.”

  “Another teenage fantasy?”

  “Oh yeah. And don’t think I’m above tearing a hole in the bottom of the bucket and giving you a whole lot more than popcorn and candy.”

  She gasped, and as the lights dimmed, he tugged her into a salacious kiss.

  Two hours later they left the theater in a lusty haze, having seen only parts of the movie. They hadn’t dumped the treats—that would have been sacrilegious—but since they were the only people in the back row, they’d gotten sinfully handsy.

  The brisk air stung Aubrey’s cheeks, clearing the fog from her brain.

  Knox ushered her into a cab and said, “Rockefeller Center, please,” to the driver.

  “Do you have this whole day planned?” she asked.

  “Babe, I spent months in the blazing heat of Belize trying to get over you, and when that didn’t work, I thought of all the things I would do with you if you were my girl. At the top of the list was getting you out of a hotel room and into my bed.” He pressed his lips to hers. “Second on that list was getting an invitation into yours.”

  “Wow, you really skipped courting me, didn’t you?”

  “I’d only been thinking about having you naked in my bed since our first night together. What do you expect?”

  “What other locations made your Nail Aubrey list?”

  “That’s a whole different list, and to answer your question, I’m not sure there’s a place on the planet where I haven’t thought about taking you to pound town.” He snickered, and she couldn’t stop grinning. “But this list, my Things I Would Do with Aubrey If She Were Mine list, is made up of all the places and things I’ve gone and done since meeting you, when I’d wished you were with me.”

  “Does that mean you were making out in the back of a theater with another woman and thinking about me?”

  He frowned. “That would make me a prick. I went to see Under the Pie-Filled Sky—alone—and wished you were there.”

  “You saw that movie?” It was an LWW Production, an endearing tale about a young girl whose mother baked pies for the homeless. It spanned two decades, following the lives of the little girl and two of the homeless people she’d come in contact with. It was a real tearjerker and had been touted as a movie for the biggest of hearts.

  As they climbed from the cab at Rockefeller Center he said, “I’ve seen all of your movies. That probably makes me a sap.”

  “Yup,” she teased. “I’m not gonna lie. It pretty much does.”

  He grabbed her around the waist and crushed his mouth to hers, taking her in a rough, possessive kiss. “Do I need to prove to you how manly I am?”

  “Yes,” she said a little dizzily. “Over and over again.”

  KNOX SHOULD HAVE known better than to assume he could skate circles around Aubrey to impress her. She skated like she was born with blades on her feet and a rink in her basement. They skated for a long time, racing around laughing and kissing as people flew past, and even though he couldn’t wow her with his skating, her giddy laughter proved she’d had a blast.

  Knox had stolen a look at his phone while she was in the ladies’ room, and he learned there was a chocolate festival a few blocks away. They left Rockefeller Center hand in hand and headed for the festival.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever done so much in one day,” she said, her cheeks pink from the cold. She was adorable, wearing a pretty white hat that matched her sweater and her blond hair spilling over the shoulders of her coat.

  “Would you rather take a cab?”

  “No. This is nice. It feels good to be outside, seeing all this life around us. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything besides work or hit the gym. Then you barged into my life with Cheetos, lingerie, and lipstick, offering to help me secure the best possible location for my project. And now I’m hanging out in the city acting like I could be just any old girl on a Saturday without a business to run.”

  “You could never be just anyone, Wattsy. Besides the fact that you’re too smart, sexy, and funny, you’re with me,” he said arrogantly, with the sole purpose of making her laugh. “You know I could never be with just anyone.”

  She laughed softly as they followed a crowd across the street. “It’s strange for me to take all this time off, and I’m not even freaking out about it or checking my phone every five minutes.”

  He draped an arm over her shoulder as they came to the park, which was bustling with festivalgoers who were eating, dancing, and shopping. Kiosks and tents offered everything from clothing and gifts to food and crafts. A DJ played music from atop a platform, and colored lights hung from all the trees.

  As they headed into the crowd he said, “And LWW hasn’t gone to hell in a handbasket because of it. Come on, let’s get some hot chocolate.”

  “Why aren’t you working more?”

  Knox spotted a vendor selling hot chocolate and held Aubrey close as they weaved through the crowd. “I work my ass off when I have to, but I love life too much to give it up for money. I used to work twenty-four-seven, but I quickly realized that wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. I love taking road trips on my motorcycle, hitting the slopes, or going backpacking. Hell, give me a week at a beach with you and I’ll be a happy dude.”

  They joined the end of the line at the hot-chocolate vendor, and Aubrey said, “No trips to Paris or Italy on your agenda?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, if I’m going with you or friends, but I went there enough when I was a kid.” He gathered her closer, moving up as the line progressed, and said, “Think of me as a regular guy with a few bucks.”

  “Says the regular guy with a Ducati bike.”

  “Okay, a regular guy with good taste and expensive toys. So what, Aubrey? Does that make me a bad guy? Your house had to cost a few mil.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that at our level, we’re not just regular people.” Her eyes became hooded and she said, “Do you ever worry that if you let up, it’ll all fall apart?”

  “Sure I do. I think anyone in our position would. But does that mean I’ll give up weekends like this just to make sure that doesn’t happen?” He lifted her face with a finger under her chin and said, “I did that for
years, Aubrey, and I wouldn’t trade this for anything.” He pressed his lips to hers, and she made an appreciative sound, so he did it again.

  “As much as I didn’t want to be like my father, I worked day and night when I first began investing. I was in college then, so I was also going to classes and studying.” He paid for their hot chocolates, and they stepped away from the booth. “Our second year of school, Graham asked me to go with him on a ski trip over winter break, and I said I had too much work to do. I was always researching prospective investments, tweaking my strategies. He came back refreshed and invigorated, and though my portfolio was thicker, I wasn’t living the life I’d imagined for myself. But success was like a drug. The more I achieved, the more I wanted.”

  “I feel that all the time,” she said. “Don’t you wonder if that’s part of what made your father the way he is?”

  “I’m sure it is. I also thought I had to prove something to him, but I realized the only person I needed to prove a damn thing to was myself. But changing those habits wasn’t easy, and believe me, that made me appreciate how hard my father is trying now.”

  “How did you break free from it? How did you change your ways?”

  “I did what I do best. I gave myself a deadline. A goal. Something else to achieve.”

  “Brilliant, Bentley.” She bumped him with her shoulder.

  “You’re just learning this about me? Sheesh, Wattsy. Think about it. You say don’t come yet, I meet the challenge every time.”

  “You’re impossible,” she said with a grin. “Deliciously impossible.”

  He chuckled. “I’m great with goals and deadlines. My deadline was graduation. I worked my ass off until then, and once I graduated, I made a fresh start. I was already only making deals that spoke to me on a personal level—eco-friendly investments—but from then on I made sure that while I worked hard, I also played hard.”

  They window-shopped as they walked along the kiosks, and he said, “Every time I got that knot in my gut about taking time off, I thought of that winter break. And if that didn’t work, I thought, ‘What would my father do?’ And that was enough to make me see the light.”