Trouble in Loveland (The Loveland Series Book 1)

by Jennifer Peel

  My men walked me back to their place; each had taken one of my hands. We walked in, and the mood had been set. Low lighting and a table set in front of the fireplace filled with a cheese fondue pot, breads, meats, vegetables, and chocolate fondue with assorted fruits. It was perfect. Ryan lit the candles and started the gas fireplace.

  Ryan helped me in my seat and whispered in my ear, “You look like perfection tonight.” He kissed my neck, and the goose bumps appeared. When was Josh’s bedtime again?

  “Thank you, handsome.”

  I sat between them and ate the best meal ever. Nothing is better than melted cheese and gorgeous men. They are perfect paired together, and who could forget the chocolate? Not Josh. We would be getting his suit dry cleaned as soon as possible.

  Finally, bed time rolled around and Josh was gratefully sleepy. I guess Ryan had purposely played hard with him all day in hopes of him being tuckered out. It worked like a charm. That left his daddy and me to slow dancing and kissing in front of the fireplace. The first song of the evening was the first song we had ever danced to, “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran.

  “You remembered.”

  He pulled me close and we began to sway. “A man never forgets the first time he dances with the woman he loves.”

  “That is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  From then on, it was a lot of nonverbal communication. That was until Josh cried out, “Cherry!”

  Our lips parted and we stopped swaying.

  “He’ll go back to sleep.” Ryan didn’t sound convinced.

  “I better check on him.”

  “You know he only does this when you’re here.”

  “I’m here every night he is.”

  “I know.” Ryan smiled.

  I kissed him. “I’ll be right back.”

  He groaned, but smiled and reluctantly let me go.

  I watched him watch me walk off. Have I mentioned how sexy he was?

  I quietly crept into Josh’s room to find him sitting up, crying in bed. He looked so cutely pathetic. I went to him and wrapped him up. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “I had a bad dream.”

  I held him against my chest and stroked his head. “What about?”

  “Scary dinosaurs.”

  I was going to strangle that teenage babysitter Victoria hired last week. Who shows a four-year-old Jurassic Park? I was at least grateful that wasn’t on our watch. Where Victoria was better, she still wasn’t easy to deal with. She would have raked me over the coals for this if it had been our fault.

  “It was just a dream, honey. Remember those dinosaurs aren’t real. Dinosaurs don’t exist anymore. Do you want me to sing to you?”

  He nodded his head.

  I laid him back down in his now full-size bed; he had way outgrown the toddler bed. I laid next to him and wiped his tears as I began to sing. He snuggled against me, and I felt this amazing rush of emotion for him. It almost made me forget his daddy’s arms were waiting for me. It took longer than normal to calm him down. Just as I was ready to leave, Ryan joined us. He laid on the other side of his son and faced me. The bed really wasn’t made for three, but somehow, we all managed to fit.

  Ryan kissed Josh’s head rested against me. He looked up at me with the most intense gaze. My insides melted as he smoothed my forehead.

  “I was just thinking,” Ryan whispered.

  “About what?”

  “I was thinking about how I would like you to be the mother of my children.”

  “Like right now?” I smiled.

  “I was thinking as soon as possible.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something first?”

  “Will you share my bed with me, minus Josh?”

  I smiled wider. “Um . . . aren’t you forgetting something else?”

  He rested his warm hand against my cheek. “Charlee, please be my wife, best friend, lover, stepmother to my son and mother to our children. Did I forget anything that time?”

  I shook my head no and cried some of those happy tears.

  “So what do you say?”

  “I say yes, but …”

  “But?” He looked worried for half a second.

  “We need to think up another name besides stepmother.”

  He laughed and thought for a moment. “How about goddess?”

  “I can work with that.”

  “Perfect.” His lips met mine.

  And it was.

  Sneak Peek

  More Trouble in Loveland

  “Don’t even get me going on his breath,” the woman told Dr. Mallard. Then she turned to her husband. “Why can’t you brush your teeth at night? Is that too much to ask?”

  Her husband looked up from his dress shoes. His eyes said why am I here? He sat as far away from her as possible, hugging the arm of the couch. It wasn’t a good sign.

  Dr. Ginny Mallard, whom I was shadowing, was at a loss for words. The wife had spent the last forty minutes of this session unloading on her husband. Did she ever have a laundry list— everything from his lack of help around the house to their lackluster sex life. And who could forget her diatribe about how he wasn’t ambitious enough? She couldn’t understand why, at thirty, he wasn’t making at least six figures. Unrealistic expectations, anyone?

  The husband hardly offered a word the whole session, not even in his defense.

  I wanted to whisper to Dr. Mallard that the situation was putting the husband in an unfair position. She should have never given the wife so much time. But what did I know? I was only a student in my practicum. And Dr. Mallard hated students.

  I had to do something. Technically, I was allowed to speak. Or at least, I was supposed to be able to. Dr. Mallard had basically told me to keep my mouth shut before the session started. But if there was any hope for this couple, the husband needed a reason to try, and the wife, who’d dragged him there, must want to save the marriage. Right? She was the one who asked— or probably more like demanded— they attend couple’s counseling.

  I took a deep breath and went for it. “Danica, tell us about your first date.”

  Dr. Mallard’s head whipped my way. Her icy stare tried to intimidate me, but she had nothing on my husband’s ex-wife. I didn’t even flinch.

  I faced the couple in crisis and waited for Danica’s reply. She was taken aback by the request. I remember feeling the same way once upon a time when I was asked the same question, by my favorite teacher and mentor, Professor Yost. One of the best days of my life.

  Jake, the husband, became mildly interested, looked at his wife, and waited for her to say something. Curiosity, and maybe fear, played in his worn eyes.

  Danica ran her fingers through her luxurious blonde hair and thought for a moment. But as soon as her gray eyes narrowed and face tightened, my hopes for ending this session on a good note went out the small window in the office.

  Danica let out a disgusted breath before she let it all out. “It was every girl’s dream date.” Sarcasm clung to every word.

  Jake’s brooding brown eyes hit his shoes.

  “First, he was an hour late picking me up. We missed our dinner reservation, so we grabbed a pizza, and he drove me up to the mountains for a picnic instead.”

  Sounded like my kind of date.

  “Of course, it started to rain.” Danica was a downer.

  That would have been excellent news for me. Dancing in the rain, or making out in the rain, or both at the same time— because we were talented like that— were some of my favorite things to do with Ryan.

  “And to top it all off, he called me Leah when he dropped me off.”

  Ouch.

  That perked Jake up. His head turned toward her, a sinister smile playing on his lips. Oh, that couldn’t be good.

  Yep, he snapped. Jake sat up, and it was like an imaginary hose had filled him with spite. Not that I could blame the guy, but after his forthcoming confession I could confidently say there were bigger reasons this marriage wasn’t working. I was
sure this would be their last marriage counseling session. They were headed for divorce court.

  “Leah,” he said her name like I would say Ryan’s. “I should have married her instead of you.”

  The fire in Danica’s eyes was unquenchable, and it shot out at everyone in the room. “That’s my sister you’re talking about, you—”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Jake interrupted. His stare was scathing. “No, let me tell you something.” Then he pulled the pin out of his grenade. “Leah and I are sleeping together.”

  In that moment, all the air was sucked out of the room in a silent but deadly blow.

  Not even Danica uttered a word, but tears filled her eyes. Maybe a hint of remorse glimmered in Jake’s, but I mostly saw relief.

  When Danica came to, she grabbed her bag and left, slamming the door on her way out.

  Dr. Mallard and I focused on Jake, who shrugged. “It was a mistake to marry the hot sister.”

  As a professional in training I had to keep from wrinkling my nose at his distasteful comment.

  Jake proceeded to unload three years of misery and told how he had fallen in love with Leah, the cute but sweet sister who idolized him.

  The upcoming holidays were not going to be fun in that family.

  Dr. Mallard gave Jake a homework assignment to read a book about how to save a marriage in crisis. His smirk said he wasn’t going to read it. I was surprised she recommended it. Professor Yost said that was a sign of an unskilled counselor. She needed to be recommending divorce counseling. It was apparent Jake had no interest in saving his marriage, which was probably dead on arrival. But I sat like a good student again and took notes.

  Once Jake left and it was time to fill out the paperwork, I got an earful from Dr. Mallard. I knew I would. I was in favor of a client-centered approach, and obviously she didn’t like adapting during a session.

  “Why would you ask such a ridiculous question? Did you see what happened?” Her beady, dark eyes bore into me.

  I stood my ground, or at least sat up tall in the uncomfortable, high-back chair I was sitting in. “My professor—”

  Dr. Mallard rolled her eyes. “This is why I dislike dealing with students. Your professors aren’t living in the real world. They preach from glass towers.”

  “Professor Yost was a practicing therapist for several years.”

  That shut her down, at least for the moment.

  “He believed a good way to tell if a couple had a chance in therapy was to ask them about a time like a first date or the wedding day so he could gauge how they remembered it and what stuck with them. Danica was obviously resentful, and I would say she never felt confident or comfortable in their marriage. And her behavior reflected her discontent and unease.”

  Dr. Mallard stood up in clothes that screamed she hadn’t been shopping since 1985. Who still wore shoulder pads? “You have a lot to learn, and, thanks to you, the divorce rate will be holding steady. Don’t forget to fill out the paperwork.”

  I let out a huge breath when she left. Why was I paired with her today? My last day of my practicum for the semester, and it had to be with her. All the other counselors and psychologists at the clinic loved me.

  Before I finished up the case and psychotherapy notes, I pulled out my phone and called my favorite number. “I love you.” I didn’t even let him say hello.

  “Rough sessions today?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I know you.”

  The butterflies in my stomach still erupted when he talked to me like that. Some of them had been on a 24/7 bender ever since we were married six months ago.

  “I could move some meetings around and come have lunch with you,” Ryan offered.

  “Sounds perfect, but I have my last study group in an hour. I can’t wait until finals are over at the end of this week. And then we get Josh all to ourselves for two weeks. It’s going to be perfect.”

  “Even with all the wedding chaos?”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” My dad and Felicity were finally getting married on Christmas Eve. Their love affair had been a series of ups and downs. They had planned on getting married in May, but they broke up in April, only to rekindle in June at my surprise wedding. Summer was mostly good for them. The beginning of fall was iffy, but supposedly this was a done deal. I wasn’t so sure, but I was trying to keep my personal and semi-professional feelings out of it. I loved Felicity. I loved my dad. But they had more trouble in Loveland than most couples, as my dad liked to say. Not unlike Danica and Jake, my dad and Felicity had insecurities too. Unfortunately, a lot of them were fueled by Felicity’s mom. That dear needed to get a new hobby and stop bashing my dad. But I couldn’t think about it right now. I had finals, a husband who adored me, and a stepson I loved to pieces.

  “I’m sorry. Take a breath, Charlee. I love you. And if you aren’t too tired tonight after Josh’s Christmas concert, I’ll show you exactly how much.”

  The butterflies were now swearing. “I’ll do my best. Sorry I’ve been so exhausted lately, you know it’s not you, right?”

  “I’ve been wondering,” he teased. “I know you’ve had a lot on your plate lately.”

  My schedule had been insane. Between school, practicum, wedding, Ryan, Josh, Victoria (Ryan’s ex-wife), my best friend Krissy and her baby Taylar Ann (Krissy reneged on naming the baby after me. She went with her mom instead. What could I say to that?), I was wiped out. I fell asleep every night as soon as my head hit the pillow. I was being a pitiful newlywed, which was a shame because I loved every part of Ryan, and he was a rock star in the bedroom. “You’re always my main course.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty to me like that.”

  I laughed. “I love you. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “You have no idea how much I look forward to it.”

  Believe me, I did.

  Click here to order More Trouble in Loveland.

  About the Author

  Jennifer Peel is the award-winning bestselling author of the Dating by Design and Women of Merryton series, as well as several other contemporary romances. Though she lives and breathes writing, her first love is her family. She is the mother of three amazing kiddos and has recently added the title of mother-in-law, with the addition of two terrific sons-in-law. She’s been married to her best friend and partner in crime for a lot longer than seems possible. Some of her favorite things are late night talks, beach vacations, the mountains, pink bubble gum ice cream, tours of model homes, and Southern living. She can frequently be found with her laptop on, fingers typing away, indulging in chocolate milk, and writing out the stories that are constantly swirling through her head.

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  Books by Jennifer Peel:

  Other Side of the Wall

  The Girl in Seat 24B

  Professional Boundaries

  House Divided

  Trouble in Loveland

  More Trouble in Loveland

  How to Get Over Your Ex in Ninety Days

  Paige’s Turn

  Hit and Run Love

  Sweet Regrets

  Honeymoon for One in Christmas Falls

  The Women of Merryton Series:

  Boxed Set (Books One, Two, and Three)

  Jessie Belle – Book One

  Taylor Lynne – Book Two

  Rachel Laine – Book Three

  Cheyenne – Book Four

  The Dating by Design Series:

  His Personal Relationship Manager – Book One

  Statistically Improbable – Book Two

  Narcissistic Tendencies – Book Three

  The Pianos and Promises Series:

  Boxed Set (Books One, Two, and Three)

  Christopher and Jaime – Book One

  Beck and Call – Book Two

&
nbsp; Cole and Jillian – Book Three

  The More Than a Wife Series:

  The Sidelined Wife- Book One

  The Secretive Wife- Book Two . . . Coming Soon

  The Dear Wife – Book Three . . . Coming Soon

  A Clairborne Family Novel Series:

  Second Chance in Paradise

  New Beginnings in Paradise. . . Coming Soon

  First Love in Paradise . . . Coming Soon

  Return to Paradise . . . Coming Soon

  To learn more about Jennifer and her books, visit her website at www.jenniferpeel.com