Always & Forever: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection, Books 1 - 4)

by Brenna Jacobs

  And lady, you can WRITE.

  I think you are dead wrong that you don’t write books people will want to read.

  I imagined what this book would be like if Victoria had all the best parts of you in addition to her fears and insecurities. Then I used that to finish our synopsis challenge.

  It’s my way of showing I’m sorry. I hope it helps. I don’t have your gift with words, but I do understand stories. This one just needed more Emma in it.

  Everything is better that way.

  Yours,

  Aidan

  “Yours.” She said it aloud. Was that just a polite way to end an email? “Mine,” she repeated. It sent a wave of heat washing over her. “Mine.”

  What did it mean to Aidan to have “more Emma” in a story? She almost fumbled in her eagerness to find out, opening the synopsis he attached to read through it. By page four, she had her hands pressed to her cheeks. And by page five, as he wound toward the inevitable conclusion, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she sensed where he was going with it.

  He’d written a final scene where Victoria was living in her grandmother’s old farmhouse, restoring it with patience and love, all with the help of a good man beside her, the man who had seen through her defenses to who she really was and loved her anyway.

  A man who reminded her an awful lot of Aidan.

  A laugh-sob escaped her.

  Aidan saw her. He understood her.

  And he thought he owed her an apology for a trivial misunderstanding, one that had happened because she’d been in the gray fog of publishing, of trying to figure out what would please Arianna Lindsor and the critics her mother respected.

  Emma was done with that. She could only hope that Aidan wasn’t done with her.

  Her fingers flew back to her keyboard. For two days straight, she’d managed to find all the right words. Now she hoped that the magic would last just a little bit longer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He stared at the message on his screen. She’d texted him. Got your email. Will respond later.

  That was it. No “Got your email and loved it.” Not even a “Got your email and hated it.”

  And no hint when “later” might be.

  It was Tuesday night. He’d only finished slaving over his email and sent it to her an hour ago. Had she read his synopsis already? Did this mean she hadn’t but she would?

  He had no idea what else he was supposed to do but wait. He spent Wednesday morning writing, still fighting through the thicket of his story, still with no clear sense of how to give Mara Lanzini a victory. Not when there had been none in real life. He spent Wednesday afternoon at the youth center. Jamal Ingram had agreed to come in and do a reading with the boys, then work on free verse poems with them. By the time he and Aidan left, Aidan was exhausted by how hard it was to carry the weight of the disclosures the boys had made in their writing with Jamal but also excited by the way a few of them had opened up who hadn’t before.

  As he and Jamal walked to the parking lot, Aidan’s phone rang and he snatched it from his pocket like he was a cowboy in a showdown.

  Jamal laughed. “That’s either your agent or your girl. Only two things that will send me for my phone that fast.”

  Aidan had been inseparable from his phone as he waited to hear from Emma. He opened it and smiled. “It’s neither,” he said, handing the phone to Jamal. It was a text from Isaac, one of the kids they’d just left behind in the center. That Jamal dude is a beast, it read.

  Jamal laughed. “That means they liked me, in case you need a translation.”

  “I didn’t even need a text. I could tell by watching them. Let me know if you ever want to come down again.”

  “Actually, man, I’d like to make this a regular thing. Cool?”

  “Cool.” He held out his hand for a shake, but Jamal bypassed it and gave him a bro-hug before jumping in his red Mazda and heading off.

  Aidan stopped by the little market nearest him to grab some steak to grill then went to work on dinner in his kitchen. He kept the French doors open so he could listen to the lapping water and birds outside even though it reminded him of standing out there and almost kissing Emma.

  He ate his dinner in a quiet that sounded deeper than it ever had before. It had been that way ever since Emma came for dinner. He wasn’t hungry anymore, so he covered his half-eaten steak, stored it in the fridge, and wandered into his living room to collapse on his sofa and stare at his ceiling while he waited for “later.”

  He must have fallen asleep because when his phone buzzed, the light falling across his face was early morning sun coming through his east windows.

  He struggled upright and swiped open his phone, his heart giving a single extra hard slam against his ribcage when he saw Emma’s name. She’d emailed him.

  He opened it and dove in.

  Hi, Aidan.

  The only one who should be apologizing here is me. I have jumped to so many conclusions about you, and every single one of them has been wrong.

  I’m sorry. And I mean it. With all my heart.

  I’m sorry I said that what you do is formulaic. I’m sorry that I said you weren’t working hard in telling these kinds of stories, and for suggesting that your value as a writer hinged on perfect metaphors.

  What you do is so important. You write stories about justice that make people believe there is some fairness in the universe, that evil can’t walk unchecked.

  I know your lead detective is a blonde woman, but honestly, she is also the best parts of you. Smart, fair, and determined to stand for those who need defending. Like you tried to do for me with Luther, even when we were both wrong about what he wanted.

  I think that’s why you’re struggling with this story. There was no justice for Mara after something so heinous. And you’re trying to find a way to make it right. It’s that white knight inside you that you can’t hide even under a leather biker jacket.

  The thing is . . . there are different kinds of victories. The greatest tragedy in this story would be if her family didn’t find a way to press forward, to keep the spirit of Mara alive. So what if your story Mara had a daughter. And what if you end the story the way it happened in real life, but you give readers an epilogue where we see that daughter years in the future, around the same age as Mara when she died, and the reader finds out that the future Donovan Whittaker tried to kill lives on in her daughter? Because that’s a powerful victory: to stand after a tragedy, still whole, still fighting.

  I know it’s not the neat bow with Whittaker getting exactly what he deserves. But real life isn’t like that. And yet we can still hope, right? That’s what I figured out with Victoria’s story. I wrote a synopsis for it too, and when I read yours, it ended exactly the same way I decided to end it.

  I think . . .

  I think I believe in real life happy endings now.

  Is it possible for you and me to have one when I’ve kept getting in the way of us even beginning?

  You’re a masterful storyteller, Aidan. Do you think we can write a better story about us if your co-author is willing to listen this time?

  Yours,

  Emma

  “Yours,” he repeated aloud. He wondered if she meant it the way he had when he’d signed his email to her. Because the way he’d meant it was as the literal truth. He’d fallen completely under her spell.

  He opened the attached file and read her synopsis, admiring the emotional nuance she’d infused even into the clinical format of a synopsis. And when he read the outline for the epilogue she’d suggested, the hair rose on the back of his neck.

  She was right. She’d found the solution.

  She could write great stories, not just great sentences.

  And she wanted them, him and Emma, to have a better story.

  He checked his watch. It was early. He’d have enough time for a shower and change, but then it was time to start their new chapter.

  An hour later, he pulled into the parking lot of Mu
gsy’s, already half-full with the cars of people anxious for their early morning hit of caffeine before they headed to the ferry and off to their 9-to-5 lives. He doubted Emma would be inside if she even came in today at all. But he didn’t need her to be there for this part of his plan.

  He grinned when he spotted the barista who had been working the day of his first encounter with Emma in the café. After a twenty dollar tip to buy some extra time for a long conversation with her, he tipped Hailey another twenty and headed back home.

  Hailey had been too smart to tell him whether Emma came in on Thursdays, but when he’d explained what he wanted, she smiled and told him he probably shouldn’t wander too far from home around noon. He’d written his message on a cardboard sleeve and handed it to her, then hurried back to his place to get ready.

  Three hours later, he stood in his garage, drenched in sweat, covered in sawdust, and proud as could be of the new desk he’d built. He pulled it around the side of the house and onto his screened-in sun porch, nestling it into the corner opposite his own desk, but with both of them overlooking the view of the Sound.

  He looked at his watch again. It was almost noon. He took his second shower of the day then settled into one of his deck chairs and waited. It reminded him of his former life and the excruciating wait for a judge to hand down a ruling, only this was one of the times where his gut said he might have won his case.

  A light tap on the French door sounded behind him, and he turned as Emma stepped through, wearing a slight smile and holding a to-go cup of tea in her hand.

  “Hi,” he said, suddenly at a loss for better words.

  She read from the label. “Keemun Chinese black tea with rose petals.” She took a sip and eyed him over the brim. “Hailey says she calls this Love Potion Number Nine.”

  Heat rose up his neck. “She didn’t tell me the name of it. I told her that I wanted to get you flowers. Rose petals sounded right.”

  Emma nodded and turned the sleeve to read his writing on the other side. “‘I’ve always wanted a co-author. I found us a workspace. Come find me on my deck.’ So. I’m here about the workspace.”

  He didn’t miss the smile that was trying to creep out. He gave her a solemn nod. “Understood. Follow me?”

  Slipping past her in the doorway, he hesitated for a second, hungry to skip to the ending of this scene, the one he could almost taste as his eyes fixed on her lips, and she let her smile out this time. It was a heady combination of shyness and invitation, and it took everything he had to lead her inside and then to the sun porch.

  He opened the door and waved her inside, watching her carefully as her eyes traveled from his well-used desk to the brand new, unpainted one in the other corner. “That’s yours,” he said. “I’ll paint it whatever color you want.”

  He stepped closer to her and reached for her waist, pulling her closer. “I know you like writing at the café. And I know you have your own place. But writing is such a part of who you are, and I want you to have space here if you need it too. Maybe sometimes we could work here? I promise to keep the coffee hot and my keyboard quiet.”

  She rested her hands against his chest and smiled up at him. “I want to write our story with you. But is it okay if I already know the ending?”

  “Only if it ends like this.” Then he leaned down and kissed her, and just like it did every time she touched him, the world disappeared. She was soft and warm, melting and twining around him, and as he deepened the kiss, her soft purr wrung an answering growl from him. He never wanted this to end.

  Almost as if she read his thoughts, she drew back enough to peer up at him, a new smile on her lips. “What if we never write ‘The end?’”

  “You’re brilliant,” he said. And then he pulled her tight for another kiss.

  Epilogue

  “Mrs. Maxwell,” Aidan said, nudging Emma’s foot where it rested at the end of her deck chair, the warm June sun streaming down on her.

  “Yes, Mr. Maxwell?”

  “I just got knocked off the top of The New York Times bestseller list.”

  “I’m sorry, Aidan. But at least you got to hold that spot for four months straight. You’re one of a handful of authors who has ever done that. That’s so good, honey.”

  “I’m not upset.” He tried hard to keep a straight face.

  She sat up a little straighter. “You’re not. Which doesn’t surprise me. But you sound . . . Happy about it? That surprises me.”

  He handed her a newspaper, folded over to show the book list. “Check out the new number one.”

  Emma Maxwell.

  She blinked at it, then up at her grinning husband, then back at the list. “But my book came out a month ago. How is it on the list now?” Usually if a book was going to hit the list, it debuted there and then fell off after a few weeks. “Oh. Reese?”

  “Reese.”

  The popular actress and lifestyle guru had tweeted about it two weeks before. “I expected a bump in book sales, but I had no idea her endorsement was that powerful.”

  “I think it’s only a little about that,” he said, settling on the chaise beside her and smiling. “I think her nudge got people to pick it up, and then I think a whole bunch read it right away and then told a whole bunch more people to buy it too. Congratulations, sweetheart.”

  Her eyes moved from him to her name on the list then back again, her face expression dazed. “Last time I had a book out I was Emerson Lindsor.”

  “And now Emma Maxwell is lighting the literary world on fire. I’m so proud of you. Thousands of people are falling in love with Victoria, the same way I did with you.”

  She traced her name in the newspaper again, but her eyes seemed to be looking past the letters. “Speaking of congratulations and expecting bumps . . .”

  She glanced at him through her lashes and waited.

  He stared at her, slightly confused, until suddenly he got it. His eyebrows flew up, and he rested his hand on her abdomen. “Really?” he asked, his voice barely audible above the seagulls overhead.

  “Really,” she said. “Looks like we’ll have a new release this winter.”

  Aidan immediately stretched out beside her and began talking to the Maxwell sequel. “Hi, little one,” he said to her belly, not minding at all when Emma laughed. He smiled up at her. “Now this is the best thing we’ve ever made.”

  And Emma’s smile said that she agreed.

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>>

  I hope you enjoyed Emma and Aidan’s story!

  Leave a review for Falling for her Foe

  a sweet romantic comedy

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ivy Morehouse tugged on the door of Velvet Undergrounds Coffee and pushed it all the way open with her hip. The old-school cowbell banged against the glass door, announcing her late arrival to the whole shop.

  The dark and delicious smells of the greatest coffee shop chain to grace the western United States floated to the door to greet her along with the icy blast of air conditioning required to keep people inside drinking coffee in Phoenix. She inhaled the smell and pushed her bicycle inside before letting the door slip closed behind her.

  Elizabeth Grant, the manager who hated Ivy, glared toward the door. Ivy imagined that Elizabeth (or, as she referred to her in her less charitable moments, Old Betty) was measuring the temperature differentials Ivy and her bike caused. How many times would Old Betty mention the Arizona heat today? Ivy wondered as she wheeled her bike to the back room.

  As Ivy walked back into the shop’s main room, Old Betty managed to purse her lips and send Ivy a look of disapproval at the same time that she took someone’s order. It was a skill Ivy grudgingly admired. For all her practice, she was so far unable to glare and smile at the same time. Maybe with a few more decades…

  Ivy’s thoughts drifted away as she pulled an apron from the hook at the register. She wrapped it so it covered most of the stain from last shift. Some kid had bumped her as she carried a huge mug of coffee from the counter to the couch by the s
tage. The shirt was dark gray, anyway. Nobody’d notice that the bottom half of the vinyl-record logo was sticky with caramel macchiato.

  She’d planned to wash the shirt before her shift, but laundry was far enough down on the priority list that she didn’t make it happen. Not after working two jobs. Eat. Sleep. Watch Putting It On, her favorite makeover show. Then laundry. If there was time. Priorities.

  She tucked the stickiest part of her shirt into the apron and scanned her hand to clock in. Top-shelf technology, side-by-side with retro-kitsch punk rock décor.

  Ivy loved the punk-themed room with 80s laser lights and vintage band posters all over the walls. She couldn’t tell if the juke box was actually vintage or if it was a careful reproduction, but she was fairly confident that every Velvet Undergrounds location had the same one. The shop managed to feel original and unique, even when there were franchises on practically every other block that looked exactly like this.

  Washing her hands and drying off on a bamboo towel, she waved goodbye to Old Betty as they traded places at the end of Betty’s shift. Betty’s grimace took in the whole room as she skulked out the door.

  As the cowbell clanged to announce another customer, Ivy leaned against the glass counter on her elbows. This was the posture that sold the most drinks: elbows on the counter, fingers laced together under her chin. It gave the impression that Ivy was friendly and harmless, both of which were at least partially true.

  She watched the guy walk into the shop, and she could tell by the way he looked around that he’d been inside a Velvet Undergrounds before. She saw him mentally checking off items he must have expected to see there: brick wall, funky couch, cool lamps, tiny raised stage, mismatched chairs around the tables, jukebox, posters.