Happily Ever After: A Contemporary Romance Boxed Set

by Piper Rayne

  “Will you let me take you to dinner? To show you that I at least have basic table manners? The rest can come in baby steps.”

  I see hesitation in her eyes, the moment of consideration as she looks at me and her eyes wander down across my shoulders and chest before coming back. Then she stands, pulling out her wallet and grabbing a few bills that she drops on the table. “Go to hell, Wolfe.”

  Her footsteps sound loudly on the floor as she storms all the way out the door, and I laugh, still smiling as I wave down the waitress so she can take my order.

  5

  Ellie

  I’m hitting the pavement with my feet harder than is absolutely necessary, but it’s the best way to show my frustration without screaming and drawing even more attention to myself.

  Brandon Wolfe has got a lot of nerve. Trying to be…I don’t know, friends with me after what he’s trying to do? Even sitting down with me like we have some kind of relationship is going to start rumors about the two of us.

  Did you see Red and that out-of-towner? I saw them getting cozy at the diner.

  That’s the way it worked here. I’m already the talk of the town, and this would just emphasize that I was exactly who they thought I was. Red Thompson strikes again. Barely in town a month and she’s already got herself a man. I almost roll my eyes.

  That is exactly what I didn’t want—what had made Caleb think that he could put his hands on me the other night. Because he thought that I was the same. I wasn’t the same.

  And I knew that it wasn’t entirely Brandon that I was mad at. I was angry at me too for getting caught up in it. He was charming and gorgeous and he somehow managed to read me like a book.

  I felt drawn to him, even if I wish that I didn’t. When we were sitting there, I hadn’t even realized how close we were leaning together until he’d looked at my lips like he’d wanted to kiss me. And in spite of the fact that we were in public and I hated his guts, I kind of wanted him to do it.

  Purely so I could see just how bad a kisser he was and put away these ridiculous fantasies that I was having. I couldn’t get them out of my head. And I hate that he made me want that.

  After everything…I didn’t like feeling out of control. And everything about Brandon Wolfe made me feel out of control. From the way he was coming after my business to the way his glances had my insides lighting up like a fucking Christmas tree.

  Fuck. For the first time in the ten years since I left, I have the urge to smoke. I hadn’t seriously done that since I left here ten years ago, and I hadn’t even been serious then. But maybe like the desert and everything else that is a little bit a part of me. I had liked looking like a rebel and everything that came with that.

  But I don’t need someone to see me smoking to add to what I’m sure are already going to be rapidly growing rumors. And I value my lungs. So I cross my arms, put my head down, and try to think about what I need to do at the bar tonight. Anything to ignore the vivid memories of rich brown eyes looking at me across the table. Seeing me for me.

  I’d had enough upheaval in my life. I wasn’t going to let some man in a suit—or anyone who thought they could tell me who to be in this town—sway me away from my goal and who I’d decided to be when I came back. Who I promised my grandmother that I was now. Someone who could be relied on.

  “Red!” someone calls. I don’t look back. This is not what I need right now. Someone probably chasing me down to ask me what the hell I’m doing back in town.

  “Ellie!” I turn at the sound of my real name. Honestly, I’m not even sure half the town remembers it. That narrows down who it could be.

  The voice sounds familiar, but the face sure as hell doesn’t. The woman walking towards me is pretty. In that casual way that only a certain type of person can pull off. Messy bun, loose t-shirt and leggings that she wore with the effortless ease of an Instagram model. But she didn’t look like she was aware of it either. Grandma would say it’s the type of pretty that comes from being a good person.

  “Hey,” she says, stopping in front of me and slightly out of breath from trying to catch up.

  “Hey,” I say cautiously. Even up close, I’m having a hard time placing her, though she clearly knows me.

  She laughs lightly. “It’s Jenna.”

  “Jenna—” I startle in shock. “Jenna Perry?”

  “Jenna Carpenter now,” she says with a grin. “But yeah.”

  I blink. Holy shit. Jenna was my best friend in high school. But if you’d put pictures of the two women side by side, I’d be willing to bet I wouldn’t be the only one with recognition problems. I have memories of a very different girl. One with a nose ring, bleached hair, and an attitude almost as bad as mine. Where I’d smoked more ironically than anything else, Jenna had developed a habit. And as wild as I’d been, she’d beaten me every step of the way.

  If there was one person in Devil’s Hood who could rival me for high school reputation, it was Jenna. But I was still having a hard time reconciling the girl I knew with the woman standing in front of me. But I can see her face in there.

  “Wow.” I pull her in for a brief hug. “Talk about a blast from the past.”

  “I know. Someone mentioned to me the other day that they thought they’d seen you and I told them no way. Until I saw you in the diner.”

  Inwardly, I groan, hoping that I was the only person that she noticed. Shaking my head, I try to wrap my head around it. “Carpenter…” I freeze. “You married flipper?”

  There was only one family in town with that last name, and unlike the way I ran from here like my life depended on it, most people didn’t.

  She laughs, high and bright, reminding me of a thousand inside jokes and sleepovers and hot summer evenings. “Oh my god, I can’t remember the last time someone called him that, but yeah.”

  I smile. “Did he get any taller?”

  Flipper was a quiet kid with an unlucky nickname. In elementary school we’d taken a field trip to the Phoenix aquarium, and he’d been so upset about the fact that there weren’t any dolphins that he cried. Some boys started calling him Flipper since he loved dolphins so much, and it stuck.

  He was a quiet kid. Teacher’s pet. Definitely not someone that I would have spent any time with, but from what I remembered he seemed sweet.

  Jenna smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Her voice sounds happy though. “No, he didn’t get any taller. But I don’t mind. He’s a good man.”

  “I’m glad,” I say, finding I actually mean it. “Who’d have thought you’d end up with him?”

  “Right?” Jenna shakes her head, but she’s grinning like a maniac. “He went out East for college, and when he came back, he came back hot.” She laughs. “I was done for. Before that, you’re right, I never would have looked at him twice. But people can change.”

  She looks at me a little strangely when she says it, like she’s challenging me to prove that it’s true.

  “Yeah, they can,” I say, keeping my tone light. “I mean, look at you.” Back in high school Jenna had sworn she’d take her first real life paycheck, buy a Harley, and drive off into the sunset. She said it so often that all our friends would finish her sentence for her when she started to say it. Now she seems…responsible. Mature. Who all our teachers swore that we would end up being even as we actively tried to prove them wrong.

  She snorts. “I know. I’m not surprised you had no clue who I was. If high school me knew that this was the way I turned out, she’d kick my ass.”

  I laugh with her.

  “But then there’s the people that never change,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Like Caleb Bowers?”

  I wince. “You heard about that?”

  “That he got banned from Granny’s? Hell yes I did. I didn’t know that you were the one that did it though. It’s about time. The man has been arrested for bar fights so many times that it’s not even part of the gossip rounds anymore.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe I ever dated him. Or that you did
.”

  “Yeah,” I cringe. There was more than one guy that both Jenna and I had dated. That’s what happened when you lived in small towns. “We made good choices.”

  “We made choices all right. Speaking of those, what have you been doing and why are you back? Last I heard, you were living the dream in New York. All I did was get married and have a baby. You’ve got to have better stories than I do.”

  “Wait,” I hold up a hand. Had she just— “A mom? You had a baby?” My voice is amazed. I never pictured Jenna as a mother. It’s kind of amazing, actually.

  But she freezes, as if I hit a tender spot. A kind of sadness I don’t expect is on her face, gone in a flash. “Do you have pictures?”

  This smile is real. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Then I’m going to see those. Right now, Jen-jen.” I use her nickname from high school as if no time has passed. Standing with her kind of feels like that. After all, the past is never really the past in Devil’s Hood.

  “Dear god. That nickname is not making a comeback,” she says, pulling out her phone. But it achieved my goal of making her smile.

  “Fine,” I say. “I won’t call you that if you don’t call me Red.”

  “Fair. This is Hope.” She holds out her phone to me, and I see a photo of a laughing toddler. I can see elements of both her parents in her. Her mother’s dark hair and her father’s eye. She’s going to be beautiful when she gets older.

  “Jen, she’s precious.”

  She smiles softly. “She’s my whole world.”

  I can see that it’s true too, in the way that she looks at the photos that she shows me, along with an adorable video of the little girl blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

  Abruptly she puts her phone away. “That’s enough about me. Spill. Tell me what you’ve been up to…since you disappeared after graduation.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I say.

  She waves a hand. “I’m not mad. It’s in the past. I’m just glad you’re back and I really want to hear everything.”

  I don’t think that on the street is really where I want to get into everything. Frankly, I’m not even sure that I’m ready to talk about it. How do I explain everything that happened with Chris? The time I wasted? The fact that I’m at the center of a national scandal even though no one knows my name? “It was just…time to come home.”

  “Cryptic.” She gives me a look like she knows I’m full of shit.

  “Always,” I say, checking my phone for the time. “Tell you what. If you come to Granny’s tonight, I’ll fill you in on a bunch of stuff between serving the few people that actually show up on a Monday.”

  “I can do that,” she says. “As long as you promise me that that will involve details about the guy I just saw you with. Mr. Cryptic?” she teases.

  I roll my eyes and hold up my left hand to show my very empty finger. “Definitely not, and don’t remind me.”

  “Please. The way he was looking at you, I think you should very much be reminded. He was practically drooling, Ellie.”

  “He wasn’t drooling.” I would have noticed if he was, given how close we were to each other.

  Jenna laughs. “Oh, he definitely was. And it looked like you were pretty close yourself.” She elbows me and winks, grinning at me until I break.

  “Fine, I admit it. He’s…attractive. And also infuriating, and an absolute pain in my ass. I swear he wins the award for the most frustrating man in the state of Arizona.”

  “Considering this state holds at least ten of our combined exes, that’s saying a lot.”

  “Are you counting Travis and Caleb once or twice?” I say sarcastically. “Since we both dated him.”

  Jenna crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling. “We’re not counting Travis at all, because we were in sixth grade, and you dated him for a day.”

  “A whirlwind romance compared to you lasting a week.”

  “It was love at first sight,” she sighs. Jenna’s eyes sparkle, the way they used to when she’d pass me a note during class. “But now, I’m married. I’m settled and boring and seeing people like my long-lost best friend hook up with mysterious strangers is really the only way that I have any fun.” Jenna had always had a dramatic side.

  “It’s not what you think,” I say. “He’s only pretending to like me so he can take Granny’s out from under me.”

  She looks surprised. “Are you sure?”

  “Very. I know guys like him.”

  Her eyes go wide, and she laughs. “There are other guys like him? That hot? In New York? Please god, if they’re all like that don’t tell me so I don’t feel bad about staying here my whole life.”

  I do my best not to flinch. I’d felt like her not that long ago, but now I knew better. Going to New York hadn’t ended in anything but pain. “They’re everywhere. Men like him are just wolves in expensive suits. You can’t trust them. If you do, they’ll eat you alive.”

  Suddenly, Jenna throws her arms around me, squeezing me tight in a warm hug. She still smells the same, like the body spray we’d practically bathed in way back when. The memories hit me like a ton of bricks. I wish things were as simple as they were a decade ago. I hug her back.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she says. “Trust me.”

  I don’t know how she knows that’s exactly what I need to hear, but it is. But then, Jenna has always been good at that. She sees through all the bullshit like it’s not even there.

  “Thank you,” I say, hiding the fact that there are tears in my eyes.

  “I’ll come by tonight, once we’ve got Hope in bed, okay? Let’s catch up for real, and I expect details.”

  “What, this wasn’t enough bonding?” I’m not sure why I let this friendship fade away. Jenna was never a part of my problem with this town, so why didn’t I call her? Even just checked in? Because I’d decided that I was putting this town in my rear view, and that included everyone in it.

  Maybe if I hadn’t done that, I would have seen what was happening in my own life sooner. Jenna always had given the best advice. She and I had been practically sisters, and I’d ditched her.

  “This? Come on now, real bonding involves us making some coconut-rum-mojitos and dancing on tables, right?” she winks at me. “At least the first half of that, tonight, deal?”

  “Deal,” I reply. She waves and walks back in the direction of the diner, and I head toward Granny’s, feeling better than I have all day.

  6

  Brandon

  Granny’s is busier than I expected for a Monday night. Testament to the nice atmosphere, and more than that, the food. I’ve barely been in town and I can clearly see which people are from out of town because they’ve heard about this place.

  Strange that after only a few days I don’t feel like I’m out of town. I suppose that’s good. If I have it my way, I’ll be hanging around here quite a bit for the next few months. It’s always nice if you actually like the place where you’ll be living.

  I’m sitting at the bar in the same spot that I did that first night, and Ellie is ignoring me. Pointedly.

  She does her job, slamming drinks down in front of me when I raise my hand for a refill, but other than that and the occasional dangerous glare, nothing. At least nothing that she thinks I can see.

  It shouldn’t make me smile, but it does. In my experience, someone pushing that hard against something is resisting when they should be running towards it.

  I’m not an idiot, and I’m not a monster. If I thought she actually hated me, I would leave her alone. But I don’t think she does. I catch her studying me when I’m looking down or away, gravitating towards me before catching herself and retreating.

  Fuck everything else. I don’t care. I want to get to know this woman. I want to know why I cause her thorns to go up when she’s open and smiling with everyone else. There’s a genuine ease that draws people to her at the bar, and she charms them.

  I want to know what makes her so wary of
what I want to do for her business when it could help her. What happened to make her have such walls? I’ve never had the instinct to peel back someone’s layers like this. But something deep down wants to protect Ellie. Soothe her pain and make it better.

  And even more than that, I want her. My mind won’t stop conjuring images of us together. What it would be like if we came together in the explosion that she described this morning. I am absolutely sure that it would be amazing. But that can wait.

  The first step is getting her to admit that she’s attracted to me at all. After that, we’ll see.

  There’s a commotion at the door behind me, and I turn to see the bouncer blocking the door. I also see his body jerk as he absorbs a hit from the person on the other side. I’m on my feet before I fully realize it, ready to back the guy up.

  There’s at least two others that move with me, and that’s good. I like knowing that the people of the town have Ellie’s back.

  It’s the same guy—the one that she put down on the bar the night we met. He’s breathing hard, looking furious, even though the bouncer is still fully blocking the door like he didn’t just take a punch to the gut.

  “Let me in.”

  The bouncer isn’t facing me, but I can still almost hear him roll his eyes. “You’re on the ban list, Caleb. That means no. You’re not coming in, you’re not welcome at Granny’s. End of story.”

  “I’m banned for flirting with some bitch?”

  The bouncer laughs. “If that’s what you think you did, I can’t help you.”

  Caleb sneers. “Enlighten me. What did I do?”

  “You assaulted the owner of the bar in front of about a hundred witnesses,” I say, drawing his attention to me. “Maybe you should have thought about that—or the fact that it’s not okay to touch people without permission—if you didn’t want to get banned from the best bar in this town. You’re lucky there weren’t charges pressed.”