Rushing In: A Small Town Family Romance

by Claire Kingsley

  My eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, they’ll give us a really good deal on it. It would give us a great place to start our life together. I grew up out here, it’s an awesome place for kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “Yeah. We’ll have our own Bailey cubs in a few years, don’t you think?”

  I laughed, but not because it was funny. Because this was real. This was my life. I was marrying Gavin Bailey and we were going to have babies and raise them here in Tilikum, and I couldn’t imagine anything better.

  “Yes, we definitely will.” My eyes filled with tears. “This is the best surprise.”

  “Yeah? You like it? We can go inside and look around when it’s not the middle of the night. But I just thought this would be perfect for us.”

  “It’s so perfect. Everything is so perfect.”

  I laughed again and Gavin looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  “Sorry, I was just thinking about the first time I saw you.”

  “When you hit me with your car?”

  “Yeah. You were lying in the road and I was freaking out, and I had no idea I’d just hit the man I was going to marry.”

  He reached over and ran his fingers down my cheek. “It does make a great story. And that was just the beginning of the adventures of Gav and Sky.”

  It was just the beginning. Knowing Gavin, we had a lot of adventures ahead of us. And I couldn’t wait. Because he made me brave. He made me better. And we were going to spend the rest of our lives loving each other.

  Loving like crazy.

  Epilogue

  Logan

  My head swam and the walls spun in a dizzying circle. I was so fucking drunk I could barely stand. But I really didn’t care. All that mattered was getting my fucking pants off.

  Why was that so hard?

  Too much alcohol. That was why.

  She grabbed my shirt and yanked me toward her. Our mouths crashed together, tongues darting out. She tasted like bourbon. So fucking delicious.

  I kept fumbling with my pants and finally got the button open. Zipper down. Good. Get them off. Gotta get naked. Was she naked? Didn’t know. Couldn’t see. Probably because my eyes were closed.

  Her hand wrapped around my dick and I grunted hard. Apparently my pants were down around my ankles. Had I blacked out for a second? Maybe.

  Fuck it. I didn’t care. Felt too good.

  We stumbled a few steps and tipped over. I couldn’t quite remember where I was, but I was sure glad there was a bed here to catch me. I rolled over, pinning her on her back, and crawled on top of her.

  I thrust between her legs, but my erection hit fabric. Damn it, what was in my way? I needed to fuck her, and I needed to do it now.

  Bracing myself with one arm, I reached down between us. Panties. I hooked my finger beneath them and groaned. Silky wetness waited for me in there. I slid my finger up and down a few times.

  She ripped them down her legs and kicked them off, then grabbed my shirt and hauled me closer. Suddenly her tongue was in my mouth and her pussy was hot and ready for me.

  I shifted my weight, trying to line up my cock with her opening, but I lost my balance and toppled over. Damn it. I couldn’t be too drunk to fuck her. I was hard as steel. If the room would just stop spinning for a fucking second, I could get this done.

  She whimpered something that sounded like fuck me now. I sat up and manhandled her, rolling her onto her stomach. Then I grabbed her hips and lifted her ass in the air. Kneeling behind her, I drove my cock in.

  The rush of sensation almost knocked me over again. She was so hot. So wet. So tight around me. I held her hips and thrust into her, slamming my cock into her pussy.

  So fucking good.

  She arched her back and I reached up to grab a handful of her hair. Oh yeah. Now I had her right where I wanted her.

  I plunged into her, yanking on her hair, my dick sliding through her wetness. She cried out a steady stream of yeses while I fucked her as hard as I could. I was an animal—grunting, muscles flexing. I couldn’t remember where I was or how I’d gotten here. I just knew that this was fucking awesome.

  Her pussy clenched around my cock and I grunted again. She arched harder, moaning, and her inner muscles pulsed. I slowed down, thrusting with her rhythm while she came all over my dick.

  Hell yes. Not too drunk to make her come.

  The room tilted, and I closed my eyes to keep from falling over. The tension in my groin skyrocketed, heat and pressure building. My back stiffened and I drove into her again, sinking my cock in deep.

  I exploded inside her, coming so hard my consciousness faded. I just kept thrusting, plunging in and out of her while my cock throbbed. The hot pulses of my orgasm kicked the breath from my lungs and by the time it was over, I wasn’t sure if I could take any more.

  Fuck.

  I slid out of her and she slumped onto the bed, like she couldn’t hold herself up anymore. I certainly couldn’t. My sense of balance was gone, and I fell onto the mattress next to her, my vision going black.

  I woke up in a dark room. Where the fuck was I?

  Still too drunk. Couldn’t think.

  Shirt was on. No pants. Where were my pants? Groaning at the way my head swam, I rolled over. Somehow got to my feet. My pants were on the floor, so I grabbed them and tugged them on. Took a few tries.

  Too fucking drunk.

  Wait, had I fucked someone tonight?

  Blinking, I looked around. The room was empty. Bed made, although the covers were rumpled. No one was in here, so I probably hadn’t.

  Confused, I grabbed my dick through my pants. It really felt like I’d fucked someone. And why had my pants been off?

  But maybe it had been a dream.

  A really good dream. But still a dream.

  And I took my pants off all the time. That wasn’t weird.

  I was too drunk to know for sure, or to figure out why I was in someone’s bedroom in the first place. I had a vague memory of Levi telling me I should go lie down. Maybe I had.

  Whatever. I needed to find my phone.

  It was hard to keep my eyes open as I stumbled out of the room. Where was my phone?

  I just needed to call Levi for a ride.

  Uh-oh. Who was she? Find out in Logan Bailey’s story, coming in 2021. Sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss it!

  Have you read the Miles Family? Start with Broken Miles and binge read the entire hot, hilarious, and heartwarming family series.

  Turn the page for a preview of Broken Miles…

  Broken Miles: Chapter 1

  Roland

  All your shit’s gone, and I’m just trying to figure out what the hell happened.

  ~Text from Roland, four years ago

  They wanted a damn miracle. I looked over the email again, already formulating a strategy. What my boss was asking for was tough. But, as the saying went, that was why they paid me the big bucks. I was the youngest CFO in Dimension, Inc.’s history for a reason.

  I was a goddamn miracle worker.

  Glancing at the time, I had to do a double take. It was already after nine. I hadn’t realized it was so late. But I worked late most nights, and it wasn’t like there was anyone around to bitch at me about it. I didn’t have plans with Farrah tonight; she was out of town. And even when we did have plans, she got it. She worked as much as I did, and she understood what it took to make it at this level. I never had to worry about that with her.

  My cell buzzed, vibrating on the desk next to my laptop. Looking down, I winced. My parents’ number. Their business number, to be specific. Which meant it could be either one of them calling. I didn’t particularly want to take the call, but if I didn’t answer, I’d have to call them back. Better to get it over with.

  I picked up the phone and answered. “Yeah.”

  “Hey, it’s Leo.”

  That was odd. My younger brother never called. An occasional text, maybe, but it wasn’t like we were close. This pr
obably meant bad news.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You need to come out here.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Mom and Dad are on the verge of losing the winery,” he said. “It’s a mess.”

  I sat back in my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose. You’ve got to be kidding me. “What do you mean, lose the winery?”

  “The business is in debt up to its eyeballs,” he said. “Dad’s been hiding shit. It’s bad.”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Leo said. “Do you think I would have called you if it wasn’t a big deal? This is serious. You need to come home.”

  Fuck. Home? That was the last place I wanted to go.

  “Now?” I asked. “I can’t just drop everything. I’m sure Dad will figure it out.”

  “Roland,” Leo said, his tone sharp. “Dad’s the one who fucked everything up. He’s not going to fix it. We need you out here, man. If this is about Zoe…”

  “It’s not about Zoe.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose again. Just thinking about Zoe gave me a headache. Why my mom had hired my ex-wife to work at the family winery was beyond me. Although, normally I didn’t give a shit. I was in San Francisco, almost a thousand miles from my hometown in central Washington. It’s not like it had any impact on my life if she worked there.

  “Because we can, I don’t know, find ways to keep some distance between you two or whatever,” he said.

  “I already said it isn’t about her. I’m an adult, I can be in the same room with Zoe.”

  “Good,” he said. “Then get your ass home.”

  “Leo—” I stopped because I heard the click of the call ending. I tossed my phone back onto my desk. “Fuck. Fuck you, Leo. And fuck you, Dad.”

  I checked my calendar. Tomorrow was out, but if I flew out early on Thursday, I could get to the winery and finish up my day from there. I sent my assistant, Danielle, a text, telling her to book me a flight to Seattle and reserve a rental car.

  My concentration was shot to shit. I wasn’t going to get any more work done tonight. But it was late anyway. I closed my laptop, grabbed my things, and went home.

  I’d bought my condo for the view. During the day, I could see all the way to the water. At night, the lights of the city twinkled in the darkness. It had cost me a shit-ton of money, but every night when I stood looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows, I knew it had been worth it.

  I went to the kitchen and took a bottle of Glenlivit out of the liquor cabinet. Poured a glass and took a long swallow. It burned going down, spreading warmth through my chest.

  Danielle texted me back with my flight details for Thursday. I blew out a long breath and took another drink of Scotch.

  Home. I’d grown up in Echo Creek, a small town in the Cascade Mountains. Growing up on a winery sounded idyllic, but I’d been glad to leave it behind.

  How long had it been since I’d been there? Eighteen months? More? That didn’t sound right. But I hadn’t gone back for the holidays last year. It probably had been that long.

  I felt a twinge of guilt at that. It wasn’t that I disliked my family. True, my dad and I butted heads, and my siblings liked to give me crap for having moved away. But I knew my mom would like it if I came home more often.

  I was just so damn busy. It was hard to carve out the time for a trip that wasn’t business related. And I’d have to endure the inevitable guilt trips. Why don’t you visit more often? Can’t you stay longer? Don’t you want to come back and join your brothers in the family business?

  No, I fucking didn’t. But none of them had ever understood why I hadn’t fallen in line. Why I hadn’t taken up my proper place at the winery.

  I was made for bigger things than running a goddamn wine business in a small town out in central nowhere. There was no challenge to it. No risk. And the potential rewards—particularly financially—were much too low for me. Money wasn’t everything, but honestly, it was most things. And I was good at making money. Great, even. I’d made my company a hell of a lot of money in the last several years.

  I was respected here. People deferred to me. Trusted me with millions of dollars. I had my own office, an assistant, a penthouse condo with a priceless view. Enough money that I could have more or less anything I wanted.

  I was living my dream, and I didn’t understand why my family couldn’t just be fucking happy for me. Why they had to harp on the fact that I wasn’t there all the time. My brothers had stayed. My sister would probably wind up back home after college. They even had my ex-wife. What the hell did they need me for?

  I took another sip of Scotch and wandered over to the window, wondering what my dad had done that had Leo so riled up. Leo and I rarely saw eye to eye. He wouldn’t have called me over nothing. The big question was, did my dad know he’d done it? Were they expecting me to ride in with my MBA and save the day? Or was Leo going behind their backs to drag me into their mess?

  I guess I was about to find out.

  Thinking of home brought my thoughts back to Zoe. I went into the bedroom and set my drink down. With a glance over my shoulder—as if half-afraid someone would catch me—I pulled a small box down off a shelf in the closet.

  There was only one thing inside. Zoe’s wedding ring.

  I’d found it sitting on the kitchen counter of our old apartment the day she’d left me. The rest of her things had been gone. Her side of the closet, empty. Her drawers in the bathroom, cleaned out. She hadn’t taken much that had been ours—the things we’d accumulated together. I’d brought some of it to her later—the things I’d thought she’d want to keep—and given away the rest. But not her ring.

  Keeping it was the stupidest thing. I didn’t know why I still had it. It wasn’t even very nice. We’d eloped when we were twenty—just a couple of poor college students. I’d saved for months to get it, and at the time, I’d been pretty damn proud of myself. Looking at it now, it was rather pathetic. Just a plain gold band with a tiny excuse for a diamond. Zoe had loved it when I’d given it to her—said she hadn’t expected a ring at all.

  But we’d been different people, then. Young. Rebellious and wild. Idiots, really. We’d thought teenage hormones had been the real thing. Maybe they had, in their own way. But that hadn’t been enough.

  It hurt to look at it, and I wondered why I did this to myself. I didn’t pull it out very often. Once when I’d randomly remembered it was her birthday. Another time on what had been our anniversary. Occasionally, thoughts of her would creep into my mind and refuse to let go, and I’d find myself right here. Nursing a glass of Scotch and staring at the cheap piece of shit I couldn’t bring myself to throw away.

  I closed the box and put it back on the shelf. Maybe I’d get rid of it for good someday. A colleague of mine had proudly flushed his ex-wife’s ring down a public toilet. Another guy I knew had taken his ring off and dropped it in a garbage can in a park near his office.

  I didn’t have my ring anymore. I’d lost it a few years after we’d gotten married. Zoe and I had been visiting my family for Christmas, and it had snowed. We’d been outside, embroiled in an impromptu snowball fight with my brothers. None of us had been dressed for the cold—no coats, hats, or gloves. Just a bunch of dumbass kids tossing snow at each other until our bare hands hurt. Back inside, I’d realized my ring had come off. We’d looked, but never found it.

  It had been prophetic, in a way.

  But I was past that now. Zoe and I hadn’t worked out. She hadn’t been happy, so she’d left. Moved back to Echo Creek. Started working for my parents. She was fine, and so was I.

  In fact, I was more than fine. I was at the top of my game. Whether or not my family could appreciate it, my life was pretty fucking good.

  I would do what I had to do. Spend a few days at home, look at their books, probably find a few errors. Argue with my dad. Talk shit with my brothers. Let my mom fuss over me a little. Then I’d b
e right back here, where I belonged.

  Continue reading Broken Miles…

  Dear Reader

  Dear reader,

  Gavin, Gavin, Gavin.

  Did you expect his story would be next? Not everyone did. I’ve had a few readers tell me they thought he should be last, because he’s the youngest.

  But, to the surprise of no one, Gavin wouldn’t wait his turn.

  One of the biggest challenges in writing this book was dealing with a hobbled Gavin. He breaks his leg and suddenly he can’t be fully himself. The injury forces him to slow down. To look. To really see things, instead of charging in full speed ahead.

  He wasn’t exactly happy about that. Which made it harder on me.

  Don’t these Bailey boys realize I have their best interests at heart? No, they don’t, and he was just as stubborn and difficult as his brothers. But it’s easy to forgive him with that smile.

  I hesitated a little when it came to making Skylar a writer. Being a writer myself and creating a character who does what I do feels… weird. Or maybe like taking a shortcut. But it really fit her personality, both in her love of quiet and solitude, and her interest in serial killers. Maybe I wasn’t sure about making her a writer, but she WAS one, so I just had to roll with it.

  Sometimes these heroines are just as stubborn as their heroes.

  I loved exploring a female lead who has to cope with anxiety. I know so many people who suffer from the same problem and it impacts their lives in many different ways. I did my best to be true to her and the ways she experiences anxiety, both mentally and physically.

  And pairing a shy girl with crazy Gavin? I mean, obviously.

  Overall, these two were a joy to write. The way they circle around each other for a while, denying their feelings, made it so satisfying when things finally broke open between them. Easy-going, fun-loving Gavin had a lot more going on deep inside than it seemed. And Skylar was perfect for him, the calm to his storm.