The Broody Brit: For Christmas ( A Hot Single Father Second Chance Romance) (A Holiday Springs novel)

by MJ Fields

  I try to remember a time when Townes wasn't sneaking a peek at his phone, therefore setting the precedence for it to be acceptable when we were anywhere. Hell, he’d roll off me to take ‘an important call’ or check his email. There was no boundary between us and social media.

  I quickly glance up and scan the field for Raff, feeling guilty that I even thought about Townes and me in bed. I immediately spot him, and he’s looking directly at me. All thoughts of anything on this earth, other than the man I’m looking at, disappear.

  He lifts a chin as if he’s checking on me. I give him a thumbs up and a big grin. He cocks his head to the side and gives me a playful smirk.

  “God. Raff is just so hot,” someone behind me sighs.

  My blood boils, and I yearn to turn around and tell her to look at someone else. The fact that my immediate reaction is to let my claws out and tell whoever she is that he’s mine makes me smile. Hell, I was never jealous at all over the women in the city talking about how they’d like to bed Townes.

  “And apparently off the market,” another woman replies.

  “Yeah, for how long this time?”

  Inwardly, I reply, “forever.” And then cringe at myself for silently getting into a conversation between two women—about me.

  I hear one of them taking a loud sip of an iced drink. “You remember what he did to that poor girl from Vail? She was banging on his door, crying for weeks after he dumped her.”

  “Well,” the other woman pipes up, “I bumped into her at the pharmacy, and she told me that Raff told her he wanted forever. And just like that,” she snaps, “he froze her out.”

  “Well, you look about ready to blow.” Jenny sits down beside me.

  I smile and lean into her. “I’m good now that you’re here.” The urge to cry hits me, but I swallow it down.

  “Yeah, well, I have to warn you, I’m not all that happy with you,” she huffs.

  “Why?” I smile.

  “Seriously, I am trying to live vicariously through you, and you’re keeping me out!”

  “Well, then, I can assure you, I won’t disappoint.” I throw an arm over her shoulder, deciding I don’t want to listen to those losers behind me. I know what I have with Raff, and I won’t let their words come between us.

  Rule Number Seventeen

  Save a horse, ride a cowgirl

  Raff

  The game ended with an easy team win. The difficulty was getting the damn ball from Beckett; the man is a ball hog if I ever knew one. As hard as it was to outscore him—who clearly was taking out some sort of pent-up frustration on the field—I did, by one.

  Running a towel over my soaked hair, I walk toward the stands where Nikki and Jenny stand beside a group of women, most of whom I recognize as mothers of our soccer team.

  From the field, I call up, “You ready, Red, or do you need some more girl time?”

  The soccer moms look at one another, speculating I’m sure to whom I am referring. I’d rather they not waste their or my time.

  Loudly, I call, “Nikki Winterfield, did you hear me?”

  The smirk on her lips tells me she did.

  “I don’t think she did,” Jenny calls back.

  “Nikki, we have a date. Our third date, and plans after for—”

  “Okay, fine, I’m coming.” She hurries to the sides of the bleachers, taking the stairs down to me.

  The whispers begin immediately. What the hell are these women saying?

  All thoughts disappear as Nikki jumps down the last step.

  “Looks like you enjoyed the game.” I shove the towel in my bag, wanting to get home and jump in the shower. Preferably, with her.

  “It was awesome.” She smiles. “Those goals you scored? Unreal.”

  “Unreal, huh?” I pause, my shirt too wet with sweat to stay on. I pull it off above my head. She gasps, looking around as I reach down and pull a fresh towel and shirt out of my bag.

  When I look up, she’s scowling at me.

  “Red, did I miss something?” I quickly wipe the sweat off my chest and back.

  “Oh, no, and neither did any of them,” she huffs, pointing to the stands. The women stare at me, smiles on their faces like they just got a free show. Jesus, but they’re practically molesting me with their eyes.

  I quickly pull the shirt on, grab my bag, and hurry to catch up with Nikki as she all but stomps toward the car.

  I grab her hand, and she looks back.

  “Words, Nikki, give them to me.”

  “What?” She looks at me like I’m insane when she’s the one who just literally and figuratively did a one-eighty.

  “I’m not a mind reader. So, tell me what just—”

  “The striptease, Raff!” She throws her hands up in the air. “I mean, really?”

  “The.” I stop and shake my head, feeling pretty good right now. Nikki jealous is definitely the hottest version of her in public. “I was doing you a courtesy.”

  “A courtesy?”

  I spin her around and pull her into me. “Taking off my sweat-drenched shirt before I did this.”

  I crash my lips down on hers and groan at the connection as her body melts into mine. “Perfect fucking fit.” I brush my lips across hers.

  I pull my mouth from hers and look down at her blushing face. “Are we better now? Because I’d like to take you to lunch, then get home and make you my dessert, then possibly you could answer the question I’ve been pondering throughout the entire game.”

  “Question?”

  I step back and take her hand. “Does she ride English or Western?”

  She laughs as I do my best to slow down my pace so I’m not dragging her the rest of the way to the car. My heart is filling up so damn fast. It’s almost frightening.

  Once we’re both inside, I turn fully and look at her. “So, we just had our first public disagreement. How did it feel?”

  “It’s not you. It’s them.” She nods to the crowd still standing there, watching us.

  “I don’t recall them being invited into our proverbial bedroom, Nikki, and I hope that you can begin to ignore it because if I want to kiss you, I’m gonna do it where and when I want. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”

  She looks down and nods. “I guess just listening to the way they talked about you, and—”

  I lift her chin. “You’ve every right to tell them to shut the fuck up.”

  She scowls. “That’s rude.”

  “The sooner you do, the sooner they’ll back off. Which will make wasting time having discussions like this obsolete.”

  “You really think they’ll back off?” Her eyes are so innocent when she asks. I know that she doesn’t like to upset people. Nikki can put up a front, but deep down, she’s only softness.

  “I do. With the possible exception of that cousin of yours.”

  She shakes her head. “No, she’s good actually.”

  “We’re talking about the same cousin, right? Nellie, the one who—”

  She smiles and nods. “She was here, and we had it out. And I think we’re good.”

  “I certainly hope that’s true. However, you proved my point. Do the same with the others.”

  She leans forward and kisses me. It’s quick, and it’s as if she’s testing it out. “Can we go?”

  “Yeah, Red, we can.”

  Pulling out of the car park, she laughs. “So, Nellie doesn’t really hate me. She hates her situation. And I’m going to make it better.”

  I take her hand and bring her palm to my lips. “Her happiness isn’t your responsibility.”

  “No, but I understand a little better now. It turns out the Sweet Spot is actually more of my responsibility than I thought.”

  While we head to the restaurant I’d picked for lunch, a delicious burger joint off the highway; she talks excitedly about Holiday Springs and her future in it. Filling me in about her conversation with Nellie and her plans, I can sense her excitement.

  “I’m glad you’re sorti
ng things out.”

  “It’s not just her. I feel like I can make a mark here. So many things I’ve always wished I could do, and now I know I can. I want to take the Sweet Spot to another level. I don’t have to go back to the city anymore, Raff. I really want to make this work.”

  A smile spreads across my face. “I won’t say that doesn’t please me because it absolutely does. But will you still be working for Hawthorne?”

  “Of course. Without that income, I don’t think I could pull the Sweet Spot out of the hole it’s in. I want to devise a plan this week with Nellie. Get her focused on making the shop profitable, and then work days for Hawthorne to bring in the income we’ll need to make it work.”

  I nod, knowing damn well this means I’m going to get a hell of a lot less of her than I want. And while that annoys me, the adult in me knows that to really keep her in my life, I have to support her dreams. The truth is, I’m proud of her.

  “So I was thinking, maybe I should stay put for a while. See how it goes.”

  And there we have it.

  “I mean, I think it’s best for Nathaniel, too,” she continues.

  Quickly, I tell her, “Nathaniel isn’t something you need to worry about.” I’m touched that she cares, but I don’t want guilt to be any part of our equation.

  She sits back and nods. “Right.” Her gaze moves out the window.

  After a few minutes of silence, she says, “How about we make lunch at your place?”

  “I don’t want to screw up your three-date rule.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  After a few more minutes of silence, she leans up and turns on the radio.

  When the tail end of that same song from the other night comes on, “You and Me,” I grip the steering wheel as if it will act as a gag keeping every word, every truth of what led her and me to this point, silenced.

  If alone and feeling like this, I would probably park the car on the side of the road and drop a match on the fucking thing and walk.

  When the next begins, I feel like I’m getting prodded like cattle to flip my shit.

  “I know your insides are feeling so hollow, and it’s a hard pill for you to swallow, but if I fall for you, I’ll never recover, if I fall for you, I’ll never be the same…”

  When I see her knee bouncing to the beat and a smile tug the corner of her lips, the verbal constipation is nearly killing me.

  The next song taunts me. I shift my gaze to the sadistic sound box and wish I had the ability to shoot laser beams from my eyes and fry it. But because I have none of those abilities, and I realize I’m borderline losing my shit, which I have never done in my life, not even when we lost Hope, I keep it together.

  Logic over emotion. I reach up and turn the volume down, and the song plays on.

  ‘You tell all the boys no, makes you feel good, yeah, I know you're out of my league. But that won't scare me away, oh no. You've carried on so long. You couldn't stop if you tried it. You've built your wall so high. That no one could climb it. But I'm gonna try.’

  Nikki turns to me. “About a mile up, there’s an old logging trail. Could you pull over and see if it’s still there?”

  I nod. “Sure.”

  When Sam Smith begins to sing, “Too Good at Goodbye,” my resolve splinters into a million tiny pieces, and I can’t hold back. “This is getting absurd, Nikki.”

  Her head turns so she’s looking at me.

  “The day we met—”

  She interrupts me, pointing forward. “It’s up here, just a little bit.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?”

  She shakes her head, no. “Like, right here.”

  I hold my hand in front of her as I hit the brakes just in time to pull into the spot she’s so dead set on seeing.

  I slow down.

  “See how far in you can drive without hurting your car, of course.” She clicks her seat belt off. “Here’s good.” Her voice shakes.

  I slam it in park and turn toward her. “The day I met you, the circumstances we met under should have rendered any sort of feelings useless.”

  She opens the door quickly and steps out.

  I take off my belt and walk out of the car. “It was Hope’s birthday.”

  Her lower lip pouts out a bit, concerned.

  “We celebrate that day. My son, the one you’re so concerned with, holds a party with cake and candles, and he tells us all what she would wish, or gift us if she were alive. He might as well have painted me a picture. So, he’s not a problem.”

  “I never said he was!” she screams at me. “People leave me or push me away. It’s not him. It’s not you. It’s me.” She points at her chest.

  “That’s absurd, Nikki. I’m all but one promise of forever because I trust my feelings. I’ve never felt such an instant spark followed by a deep connection, and you’re afraid to admit that you feel it, too.”

  “Oh my God, Raff, I’m here, aren’t I? Crazy as this all sounds, I know what I feel, but the past proves that maybe I shouldn’t trust my feelings.”

  “Fuck the past! It’s gone. But don’t you dare piss on the future.”

  She shakes her head, exasperated. “I’m not. If anything, I’m trying to protect it.”

  “Nathaniel doesn’t need protecting.”

  “Well, his rich prick British, hot as fuck daddy needs to realize that I need to slow this down for him and for me. And if he keeps telling me that Nathaniel isn’t my concern, then he’s proving my point.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You and Nathaniel are a package. Jenny—”

  “Of course, Jenny. Her husband warned me—”

  “Would you be quiet and listen?”

  “I’m not quite sure I’m capable of that right now. And I’ve never been incapable of holding anything inside—until you.”

  She smiles and then shakes her head.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “This is not one-bit amusing to me.”

  “No, but it sure makes me feel better about us.” She walks to the back of the car. “I want to build a relationship with him, not just bombard him.”

  I follow her. “Then be there. Be next door.”

  She puts her hands over her face. “Can’t we give it a month at least, for God’s sake?”

  “And waste time?”

  “No, Raff, it’s not wasting time. It’s building a foundation.” She laughs. “I want Nathaniel and me to go on dates.”

  Completely confused, I ask, “What?”

  “Jenny mentioned.” I start to interject, and she holds up her hand, stopping me. “If something happened to her, she’d want the boys to get to know and like anyone who came into their lives. She’d want them to feel like they had a choice in the matter before just moving in.”

  “Well, as wrong as I think that is, we don’t have that issue. Nathaniel likes you.”

  “Yeah, well, I need to let him know that I know I’ll never replace Hope. I need him to know that if you and he both choose to have me in your lives, I’m not going anywhere because I won’t do that to any of us if I can help it. And, Raff, if we, not just you, knew we had something,” she shakes her head, “oddly spectacular, in this short of time, I’m sure he will, too. But please let me do this.”

  “Let you date my son?”

  She nods. “Poor choice of words, but let him and I get to know each other without feeling like we’re both doing so because that’s what you need. But let him lead.”

  “You want an eleven-year-old to determine our future?”

  “I want him to feel like he has a choice because I didn’t. At eleven, I had no choice when my parents never came back. Everything changed in the blink of an eye. I felt like a burden, and like I didn’t belong.”

  “So, this is for you, too.”

  “Raff,” she groans in frustration. “It’s for all involved. Let me get to know him, and him me. Hell, we don’t know each other all that well. Let’s slow this down, let it simmer and soak. I�
��m not looking to get back to the city. I know I belong here, so we have to do it right because I don’t want to have any reason to run.”

  “The fact that you thought before you learned you were next in line at the Sweet Spot that you could run is cute because I wouldn’t let you. Do you get that?”

  “We’re deep in the woods, and I don’t even feel a little bit afraid, so apparently, I trust you.”

  I pull at the roots of my hair. “You’ve got me feeling things I’ve never felt before with a woman.”

  “It’s called a challenge.” She rolls her eyes playfully.

  “I’m aware of what it’s called, and in business, it’s appreciated. In this case, not so much.”

  “Put the pride and ego in check, Raff. I’m here.” She opens the boot, and footballs begin to tumble out.

  Bending down, I grab a few bouncing away. “You looking for something?”

  “Some space.” She climbs into the back, shoving my gear around. Even annoyed, I smile, enjoying the view of Nikki on all fours. She’s got a great arse...

  “Yeah, I don’t really like space, but—”

  “Western.” She turns around to face me, looking like a dream.

  She grabs the bottom of my sweatshirt and begins to lift it. “I don’t know how to ride English, I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but this Colorado girl can ride western.”

  I clamp my jaw shut so it doesn’t hit the leaf-covered ground.

  “Arms up, shirts off, and—”

  My mouth is on hers before she even says another word, my hands removing her clothes, hers removing mine, while devouring each other’s mouths, like we’re both starved.

  I grab her arse, and she pushes my hands away.

  “Damn it, Nikki,” I hiss.

  Panting, she moves to the side, leaving space for me to sit in the hatch. “Get in the stall, stallion. This girl promised to ride.”

  She reaches down, pulling her jeans off, then reaches in the pocket, grabs a familiar foiled packet, and tosses it to me, saying, “Saddle up” as she continues undressing.

  God, I love America.

  Watching her, I tear open the condom and roll it on, then sit on the back of the vehicle, my arse hitting freezing cold metal.