by Gina Azzi
“Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.” Aaron’s hands cup my cheeks as I hook my fingers around his wrists. “What kind of a wedding do you want?”
“Small, intimate, private.”
“Sounds perfect.” He kisses me again.
“In Nashville.” I add.
“Whatever you want, love.” Another soulful kiss.
“With Olivia as our flower girl.”
“She’ll love that.”
Lifting on my tippy toes, I arc up to brush another kiss across his lips before I tell him the news. “And our baby as our secret guest.”
“Great.” Aaron answers, kissing me back and …freezing. He pulls back slowly, a confused kind of wonder shimmering in his eyes. “Wait what?”
Taking his hands, I place them on my abdomen, pressing my fingers over his. “I’m pregnant, Aar. We’re having a baby.”
His eyes widen, his mouth falling open. A long exhale escapes from his lips before he whoops wildly, picking me up and spinning me around. “You’re serious?” he asks, placing me on the ground, his fingers gripping my hips. “We’re really having a baby?”
“We’re really having a baby.” I smile back. “And I can’t wait to grow our family with you, Aaron Anderson.”
Pressing his forehead to mine, Aaron smiles. “This is just the beginning, Lee.”
Thank you so much for reading This Time Around. I hope you loved Aaron and Everly’s story.
Do you adore second-chance romances?
If you answered yes (and aren’t ready to say good-bye to these characters), check out Rescuing Broken (The Kane Brothers, Book 1). Get ready for an emotional and heart-wrenching ride! Read now to find out what happens when Jaxon Kane returns home from the Army and discovers that Evie Maywood never left town.
Rescuing Broken
Evie
Jenny and Miranda have moved on to sugary sweet, brightly-colored beverages that remind me of all-inclusive vacations to Mexico or the Caribbean. Completely out of place in Raf's, we can't stop joking over how ridiculous they are, but Lenny insisted as he's trying to improve his bartending skills. Still nursing my G and T, but drinking more of my water, I smile at my friends’ antics, posing for a quick selfie.
I'm looking over Jenny's head, laughing at something she's saying, when my eyes fasten on his. A mirage. A shadow of my past still haunting my present, despite his absence from it.
It's the scar that causes me to falter, the sight of it, long and thin and pale, hooking around his left eyebrow like a jab. Like the ones he threw so many years ago on the football field. Back before I really knew him. Back before I fell in love with him.
Sometimes, it seems like yesterday and other times, another life completely. And yet staring at the man before me, tracing his scar with my eyes, it still takes a full minute for me to realize that it's him. Undeniably so.
Jaxon Kane has returned home.
And I've never left.
I swallow back a nervous giggle threatening to escape as I avert my gaze, my fingers moving to grip the underside of the bar for something to hold on to. Some of my drink sloshes over the rim of my glass when I knock it with my elbow, and I watch the little droplets as they form a sticky pool on the surface of the bar. I take a deep breath. Jax has always had this ability, to somehow knock me completely off balance while centering me at the same time.
"Is that..." Jenny’s eyes flick over Jax's shorn hair, his broad shoulders, the soft blue Henley that hugs the well-defined muscles of his biceps, the faded jeans hanging low on his hips.
"Jesus, he's still sexy as fuck," Miranda says, twirling her fuchsia cocktail umbrella.
"Mm-hmm," Jenny agrees, plucking a Maraschino cherry out of Lenny’s fruit tray and popping it into her mouth.
I want to roll my eyes at their antics or laugh off their words. Or chime in with something witty. Instead, I look down at my hands, my nails digging into the underside of the bar, my fingers stinging. I try to distract my mind from the sudden, albeit expected, burn of tears that smart behind my nose.
Jaxon Kane is back.
"Don't look now, " Miranda says, alerting me that Jax must be making his way over.
"Evie." His voice is low and husky, smooth and unhurried. It's exactly as I remember and completely different. More mature, worldly... harder.
My body involuntarily reacts to his nearness, to him. My hands grow clammy, my heart races in my chest; I feel my pulse quicken in my throat, throb in my temples. It’s thrilling and terrifying and overwhelming. I bite my lower lip, still looking at my hands, urging myself to pull it together.
Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I meet his gaze, forcing my lips to curl upwards in what I hope is a friendly, casual smile. I can be normal. "Jax."
A ghost of a grin shadows his lips but it's gone so quickly, it may have been a trick of the light. He smiles easily at my friends, greeting them as though he just saw them a few days ago at the mini-mart. I’m relieved when Jenny and Miranda chat him up, peppering him with random questions and allowing me a moment to collect myself.
It seems like only seconds pass before his eyes cut back to me. They’re the same seafoam green mixed with moss that I remember from high school but a graveness lines them now, a maturity loaded with experience, shadowed by sorrow. Nerves skate up my spine at the heady silence and I shiver.
"You're home." I swallow, desperate to fill the still space between us.
"Yeah," he answers, looking around the old, beaten-down bar. He runs a hand over his head, something he does when he's nervous. "How are you?" he asks, turning back to me, his eyes peering into mine.
He holds my gaze for several seconds, and I feel frozen to the spot. A tick pulses in his jaw, and I know whatever he sees in me concerns him. He didn't expect to find me here, to randomly run into me at Raf's. He must think I'm lame, still hanging out in the town bar while he went off and explored the world, helped others, and changed lives.
"Great. How long are you here for?"
He continues to watch me. His eyes track how my knuckles turn white from my grip on the bar, the way I can't stop chewing the left corner of my mouth, and how I'm so nervous to be standing in front of him, I could worry myself away.
"For good," he says finally, rocking back on his heels. "I'm back, Evie."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"Hey, Jax, you want a beer or something?" Miranda cuts in.
Jax turns to her and shakes his head, an easy grin on his lips. That's the thing about him; he's always warm, sincere, genuine. He lets others in as easily as I block them out. "No, thanks." He gestures toward a booth in the back. "I'm here with my brothers. Carter's already grabbing drinks."
"Carter's here?"
Jax's head swings toward me. "Yeah. Why? You want to come say hi?"
I shake my head, my skin tingling from his proximity, my heart short-circuiting as a sense of awareness consumes me. Jaxon Kane is here. Talking to me. "That's all right. You guys enjoy catching up."
He tugs the back of his neck before reaching toward me. His fingers squeeze my elbow gently, and I flinch out of habit. Guilt and embarrassment bloom in my cheeks the second I react, and he pulls away as if I've burned him. Maybe I have.
"You okay?"
"Fine. I, uh, I just need some air." I look past him and focus on the door, finally letting go of the bar and taking a half step back. "Good to see you, Jax. Welcome home."
I ignore Jenny's concerned expression and Miranda's wink as I cut around my friends and hurry out the front door of Raf's into the sticky, sweet night air.
Turning to the left, I walk around to the side of the bar, near the entrance to the kitchen. There's enough light that I can see anyone approaching but enough quiet that I can take a minute to process everything that just happened.
He's back.
Holy hell. I can't believe it. I never thought I would see him again. After he left, it felt like my world was ending. That summer, he kept reaching out, phone calls, emails, text messages. Every
time I heard from him, the hole in my heart simultaneously stretched and shrank. I looked forward to the sound of his voice even though hearing it cut me to the core.
But then I asked him to stop. Demanded it. Told him to just let me go.
And he did.
I still remember the day he told me he enlisted. It haunts me almost as much as everything that came after.
He's nervous. I can tell the moment I descend the stairs, faltering momentarily on the landing. Whatever he's about to say, I already know I don't want to hear it. I wonder if I can turn around and stumble back up to my room and ignore whatever it is that has that look crossing Jax's face.
"Evie." His voice is low and husky, his hand reaching up to tug on the back of his neck. He won't meet my eyes, and a sinking sensation settles in my stomach, floods through my limbs, and keeps me rooted halfway down the staircase.
"What's going on?" I hate the shaky note in my tone.
Gripping the banister, I take the last three steps slowly, my eyes never leaving Jax as he struggles to look anywhere but at me.
"Can we, um, talk for a minute?" He turns toward the formal sitting room that my mom only uses for her obligatory military entertaining. It's stuffy and serious, and a room I never thought I'd find myself in with Jax.
Still, I follow him inside and perch on the edge of a stiff chair. Folding my hands in my lap, I clench my fingers together to keep them from shaking.
"Are you okay?" I ask, beseeching him with my eyes to look at me.
Finally, he turns toward me and nods, taking a seat across from me.
"Yeah. I, um, I just need to talk to you."
"Okay."
He blows out a deep breath, his cheeks puffing the air out in a long stream that ends on a near whistle. He leans forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. Rocking forward, he moves as if to grab my hand but thinks better of it at the last second, letting his hand fall to his side. "Evie." A wry grin twists the corners of his mouth in a cross between a smile and a grimace. "I can't tell you how much this year, getting to know you, hell, falling in love with you, has changed my life. I want you to know how much you mean to me, how much your believing in me has given me a future I never could have imagined. I'll always be grateful to you, my Maywood, and I'll never forget what you and your family taught me, showed me." He chuckles but it sounds forced. "All of this," he says, gesturing around the great room with his hand, "was inconceivable to me before I knew you."
“You’ve changed my life too.” My voice is quiet but steady, and I’m grateful that the shaking of my hands hasn’t yet taken hold of my tongue.
An awkward silence I’ve never experienced with Jax stretches between us.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.” I admit.
Jax sighs, rubbing his hands together. "You've made me dream, Evie. You've made me realize my future could be full of so many opportunities and chances and, and things I never thought about since my mom passed,” he swallows, offering me a sad smile.
"I'm glad." I smile back. "You're so smart and talented, Jax. You could do anything you want. I'm happy we're going to New York together. West Point has been my dream for forever and you’re going to love John Jay College. I know you haven’t heard back from their financial aid department yet but I’m sure you’ll get a scholarship. Even if you have to defer and do a few courses at a community college first; it will all work out.”
He nods, his hand tugging the back of his neck again. "I want to do something I could be proud of. Be someone you could be proud of."
"I am proud of you."
He holds my eyes for a beat and in that pause, a flood of emotions flows between us—a torrent of shared moments and unspoken words. And I know whatever comes next is going to level me.
"I've enlisted. I report to Fort Bragg in two weeks." His voice is even and measured, his words belying his calm tone. His eyes are clear and focused. He watches intently for my reaction, waits for me to give him a piece of my mind like I normally do.
But I’m too shocked to think clearly. I sit in silence, my heart breaking, my world crumbling. Are we breaking up? I stand shakily, my mind jumping from one thought to the next. My face and neck heat with embarrassment, with rejection. A burn behind my eyelids and nose signals that I'm about to cry.
"Evie," he says gently, reaching for me.
But I escape his grasp, flee past him, and leave the stupid great room.
I bound up the stairs, my steps quickening the closer I get to the top, to the safety of my bedroom. Locking my bedroom door behind me, my back slides down the door until I'm a puddle on the floor, a torrent of tears melting with the sorrow and pain I carry.
Jax is leaving me.
He's enlisted.
He's Army now.
Letting my tears dry on my cheeks, I manage to calm my breathing as my embarrassment morphs into anger.
Today is the last day I will ever think about Jaxon Kane.
No, that's not true.
But today is the last day that I'll see him.
That much I know is certain.
Except it wasn't certain. Because I never left. And now he returned.
"You're going to give yourself a headache." Denver's gravelly voice cuts through the quiet, and I swing around to look at him. "Thinking that hard." He smirks, leaning back against the old brick of Raf's, one foot kicked up behind him, resting against the building. "You want?" He holds out a pack of cigarettes.
I shake my head, briefly alarmed that I didn't hear him approach. He must have exited through the kitchen after heckling the two cooks who work here.
"Haven't seen you around lately," he comments, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long pull.
"I haven't been around."
He exhales a cloud of smoke. "Yeah. You surprised to see him?"
"Yes."
"Eventually, y'all are going to have to talk, y'know? Clear the air."
"Guess so."
Denver chuckles. "I always appreciated this about you, Evie." He gestures toward me with the lit tip of his cigarette.
"What's that?"
"You're a woman of few words." He drops his head back against the brick, looking up at the dark sky. "You tell it like it is but only when you have to. The rest of the time, you give nothing away. Unless you’re giving Jax shit but it's been quite some time since I've seen you riled up like that.” He tosses the butt and grounds his heel into it.
"I think that's the most you've ever said to me."
He laughs, the sound rich and warm. "Probably. But sometimes, talkin’, really talkin’, and lettin’ go of the past and all the bullshit," he says, shrugging and kicking off the wall, "it can help."
I turn away from him, quiet for a beat, and let his words sink in. I feel him walk closer to me, stopping an arm's length away. He knows better than to touch me, even as a friend, even in a moment of comfort. "Think about it."
Then he's gone, and I'm alone with the black sky and my dark thoughts.
Click to read Rescuing Broken now!
Also by Gina Azzi
The Kane Brothers Series:
Rescuing Broken (Jax’s Story)
Recovering Beauty (Carter’s Story)
Reclaiming Brave (Denver’s Story)
My Christmas Wish
(A Kane Family Christmas
+ One Last Chance FREE prequel)
Finding Love in Scotland Series:
My Christmas Wish
(A Kane Family Christmas
+ One Last Chance FREE prequel)
One Last Chance (Daisy and Finn)
This Time Around (Aaron and Everly)
The College Pact Series:
The Last First Game (Lila’s Story)
Kiss Me Goodnight in Rome (Mia’s Story)
All the While (Maura’s Story)
Me + You (Emma’s Story)
Standalone
Corner of Ocean and Bay
Acknowledgments
Hey there!
As always, so many wonderful people were involved in the creation of this book. Thank you never seems like enough but I’m so grateful to have such a supportive circle.
A huge thanks to Regina Wamba for creating the most amazing covers that always capture my characters perfectly!
Thank you to Rebecca Jaycox for editing this project and asking the tough questions that helped me develop Aaron’s character.
So many thanks to Patrick Hodges for always being a sounding board, offering invaluable advice, and catching all the typos I miss no matter how many times I read the manuscript.
Thank you x a million to Melissa Panio-Peterson for always listening, answering my crazy questions, and supporting each step of my journey! You are the best, lady!
To the fabulous ladies at Give Me Books Promotions - thank you for all of your hard work and help organizing all the things. I appreciate it so much and love working with you!
Shoutout and thanks to the members of Gina’s Group for Book Gossip. I’m so grateful to you all!
To all the Bloggers, members of my ARC Team, and author friends (shoutout to YAAR and the OP) - thank you from the bottom of my heart for your constant support.
Sending so much gratitude and love to you, dear reader, for taking a chance on me and this book. Thank you for experiencing a love story with a slice of Scotland alongside me.
All my thanks and love to my world - Tony, Aiva, Rome, and Luna.
Happy Reading!
XOXO,
Gina
About the Author
Gina Azzi writes Contemporary Romance with relatable, genuine characters experiencing real life love, friendships, and obstacles. She is the author of The Kane Brothers Series, Finding Love in Scotland Series, The College Pact Series, and Corner of Ocean and Bay. All of her books can be read as stand-alones.