by Addison Cole
“I don’t think she’ll care if her gift arrives late, or at all. Look at her, with that goofy smile and all dressed up in that fancy little black dress. That’s a woman who wants for nothing.”
But Rick knew Violet was wrong. There were things Desiree wanted, and he was determined to give her all of them.
“Vi!” Serena called from across the room, waving her over.
Rick caught Desiree’s eye as she peered around the Christmas tree. A shy smile curved her lips. She looked like she belonged on a holiday card, with her beautiful blond hair tumbling over her shoulders, the lights of the tree sparkling beside her, and the gold and red ribbons lining the windows, candles sparkling on the sills. Her eyes darted to Violet and Serena, then to Drake and Dean, standing by the fireplace talking. Drake’s eyes had been locked on Serena in her little red dress all evening. Desiree’s eyes found Rick’s again, the air between them igniting. She lifted the hem of her dress, flashing thigh-high stockings and a black garter belt. She was going to be the death of him, with furtive glances one minute and bold sensuality the next. And what a perfect death it would be. How was he going to make it through the evening knowing she was all sexed up under that little black dress?
Serena called Desiree over to help her get something from the kitchen, and Desiree smoothed her dress over her thighs and walked gracefully across the room as if she hadn’t just set his body on fire.
DESIREE POURED CHAMPAGNE into glasses and set them on a tray, looking around their gorgeous new kitchen. She and Violet had learned to compromise. She’d gotten the stainless-steel appliances she’d wanted, and the countertops—black granite with flecks of gold and amber—were all Violet. The maple cabinets tied it all together beautifully, the same way the Cape had bound the sisters together. She had a full new life, but she missed Emery terribly. Saying goodbye had been the hardest thing she’d done in forever. They kept in touch with FaceTime and texts, but it wasn’t the same as having her best friend barge through the front door demanding breakfast or ranting about this date or that one. She had plenty of new friends, but they’d never replace Emery.
Desiree, Violet, and Serena had spent the afternoon baking cookies and making an elaborate lamb dinner while the guys had decorated. She wished Emery and her mother could have been there for the party, but Emery was spending the holidays with her brothers. She’d sent an email to Lizza, and wasn’t surprised by her response. Miss you, too, lovey. I’m always with you in spirit!
When Violet and Serena finished arranging the hors d’oeuvres on trays, Serena said, “I think we’re ready.”
“I can’t wait to give Rick his present.” She’d painted a picture of Rick and his father on the boat, and hoped they could hang it above the fireplace in their cottage.
“Let me carry the champagne.” Violet took the tray from Desiree. “Wouldn’t want you to drop it when you get all googly-eyed over your Savage.”
“I wouldn’t.” Desiree laughed, but it wasn’t so far-fetched. Rick made her weak in the knees with his thoughtfulness and their late-night talks as they walked along the shore. Even now, when it was too cold to sit on the beach, they spent time around the fire pit at the resort, with Drake and the others. Rick was playing guitar more often, and Desiree would never tire of hearing him sing.
She followed the girls out of the kitchen, carrying a tray of cookies.
“Surprise!” everyone yelled, and the tray fell from her hands, crashing to the floor, and sending cookie pieces flying.
Tears flooded Desiree’s eyes at the sight of Emery and Lizza standing before the tree with big red ribbons across their bodies like they had won a beauty pageant. She barreled into both of them, hugging them so tight, she thought they might break.
“You’re here!” Crying and laughing, she looked over their shoulders at Rick, who was grinning so wide, she knew he’d orchestrated the whole thing. He mouthed, Merry Christmas. I love you, which made her cry harder.
“Violet!” Desiree waved her over.
“Go for it, hugaboom,” Violet said as she picked up the tray from the floor. “I said my hellos when they got in last night.”
“You knew?”
“Someone had to help track down Lizza,” Violet said.
“I think my heart just exploded. Thank you both.” Desiree couldn’t stop crying even as Rick introduced Emery to the others and Lizza embraced her again.
“That man, Desi,” Lizza said. “He loves you to pieces.”
“I know.” She went to him, and he gathered her in his arms. “I don’t know how to say thank you for something this wonderful.”
“I promised to make all your dreams come true, and I meant it.” He leaned in closer and whispered, “And thank you for my gift. I can’t wait to unwrap you later.”
“Shh.” Her eyes darted to the others. “Violet will make a public announcement if she finds out.”
Desiree’s heart was full as Emery hugged each one of her friends. Dean watched every move she made, and when Emery embraced him, the sparks could be felt around the room. He’d grown a beard over the winter, and Emery had a definite thing for beards.
“Someone get the man a pair of scissors before he tears that bow off her,” Violet said as she carried a broom out from the kitchen.
“Forget the scissors. You save that ribbon for later, doll,” Dean said with a lascivious look in his eyes. “I can think of a few good uses for it.”
“Dude, she just got here.” Drake dragged Dean away.
Desiree pulled Emery and Lizza into her arms again. “Thank you both for coming.”
“Your man sent us plane tickets.” Emery smiled at Rick. “You now have my official approval, and you may proceed with dating him.”
“How about marrying him?” Rick asked as he reached for Desiree’s hand and dropped to one knee.
There was a collective gasp, and it took Desiree a second to catch up and realize this was real. Rick gazed up at her with so much love in his eyes it wrapped around her and brought her to her knees in front of him.
“Rick?” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks again.
A smile lifted his lips. “Sweetheart, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. From the very first moment I saw you, I have fallen deeper in love with you. And I know my love will continue to grow with each passing day. Baby, you light up my days and heat up my nights. I want to give you everything and experience all that life has to offer with you. Babies and white picket fences, family dinners and moonlight walks. I want to see you paint pictures of our children playing on the beach, and make you blush when you’re old and gray.”
He wiped her tears away with the pad of his thumb, and she inched closer, until they were knee to knee.
“Will you marry me, Desiree? Be mine and let me be yours forever?”
She lunged into his arms, nearly knocking them both over. “Yes! A thousand times yes!”
Cheers rang out around them, and Cosmos yapped happily, circling them as they sealed their promises with kisses. They were passed from one friend to the other, hugged and congratulated, and then she was in Rick’s arms again, gazing into his dark, loving eyes. The eyes of my future husband.
Cosmos circled them, and Rick scooped him up. “I owe pool hopper a world of thanks for leading me to you.”
Desiree glanced at her mother, who was busy talking with Dean and Emery, and she realized her mother was right after all. With a little help from her mother, Cosmos had known what needed to be done.
Ready for more Bayside fun?
Fall in love with Dean and Emery in Sweet Passions at Bayside!
Chapter One
THERE WERE A few things worse than being stuck in traffic and needing to pee, but after driving since the crack of dawn and sitting on the same stretch of highway for the past forty minutes—which was about thirty minutes longer than her bladder could handle—Emery Andrews couldn’t think of a single one. Her back teeth were floating, and if she didn’t find a bathroom soon, her car
would become a swimming pool. She should have thought about weekend traffic before hightailing it out of Oak Falls, Virginia, and heading for her new home and workplace, Summer House Inn, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. But thinking things through wasn’t Emery’s forte. She was more of a just-do-it-and-worry-about-things-later type of girl, as evident in her move to the Cape.
Now, if she could only get there.
She gazed out at the long line of brake lights in front of her and picked up her phone to call her best friend, Desiree Cleary. Desiree had been like a sister to her since they were five years old, and last summer, she had fallen in love, reconnected with her half sister, Violet, and decided to move to the Cape and open the inn, all in the space of a few short weeks. Desiree’s excitement was contagious. Every time they spoke on the phone, she raved about her new life with her fiancé, Rick Savage, and her plans for the inn, and it had sparked introspection in Emery. She realized she wasn’t living a life she was excited by in Oak Falls—and she had no one to blame but herself. After making a poor decision right before the holidays and going out with her boss at the Oak Falls Back Care and Rehabilitation Center, where she had worked full-time as a yoga back-care specialist, she’d ended up leaving the practice. Unfortunately, she’d signed a non-compete specifically for providing the one thing that brought her the most fulfillment and could no longer practice yoga back care within a fifty-mile radius of the rehabilitation center. In the small rural town of Oak Falls, her career, and her personal life, seemed to have stalled.
She’d needed a fresh start, and when Desiree had invited her up to Wellfleet to teach yoga at the inn, she’d jumped at the chance.
Desiree answered the phone on the second ring. “Hey, Em. I can’t talk. It’s changeover day. I have three customers waiting to be checked in and two on hold. Call you later?”
“Wait! I’m in Orleans, trying to get there. But—”
“Orleans? Really?” There was no missing the excitement, or the hesitation, in Desiree’s voice. “I thought you were coming next week. I don’t have an open room until this Wednesday. Why didn’t you call and let me know you were coming early?”
“Because after quitting my job and packing up my apartment, the emptiness freaked me out and I was excited to get the heck out of Oak Falls and see you!”
Emery had always been the adventurous one, while Desiree had been cautious, thinking things through to the nth degree. But along with Emery’s boxed-up belongings came a big what if. What if she couldn’t find enough clients to make a living? And as she’d sat in her empty apartment contemplating that worry, she’d realized that leaving the only place she’d ever lived, and leaving her family, wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d imagined. But although she’d been sad about leaving them, her three older brothers had called her several times during her long ride up, making her glad to be moving out from under their watchful eyes. She knew if she had stayed in town for another week, they, and her other worries, would have driven her batty. She had never let anything stop her from doing things in the past, and she knew the only way to get over those fears was to plow full speed ahead—and plow she did!
“But with this traffic,” Emery said, “I’ll never get there. I’m stuck on the highway right before the rotary. Should I get a motel room until you have a vacancy?”
“Oh, Em, you’ll never get one. It’s peak season. Everyone’s booked. But don’t worry. I’m sure Vi will let you stay in her cottage.” Desiree and Violet had renovated the old Victorian and the four cottages that had once been owned by their grandparents. “I’ll mention it to Vi, but you might as well find someplace to hang out for a few hours until the traffic eases up. Maybe you can do some shopping in Orleans,” Desiree suggested. “I’m so sorry, but I really can’t talk right now. Will you be okay for a few hours on your own?” Before Emery could respond Desiree said, “Of course you will be. You love new adventures! We’ll catch up when you get here. And if you hang out in Orleans, be sure to bring me something from the Chocolate Sparrow!” Desiree blew a kiss into the phone and the line went dead.
The decadent chocolate shop had been closed when Emery had visited over the holidays, and the way Desiree talked about it, their chocolates sounded practically orgasmic.
I could use a few orgasms—chocolate inspired or otherwise.
She mulled over the idea of trying to make it to the chocolate shop as the cars ahead of her crawled into the rotary. Traffic was at a standstill getting off the rotary and onto the main drag in either direction—toward the Summer House Inn and toward the orgasmic chocolates in Orleans. She squeezed her thighs together. She’d worn her new bikini beneath her tank dress and had hoped to be lying out on the beach by now. The last thing she needed was to pee all over it. She spotted an exit on the opposite side of the rotary.
The heck with it. Desiree was always telling her about back roads the tourists didn’t know about. It was time for her first Wellfleet adventure.
She squeezed by the line of cars waiting to get onto the main drag and drove halfway around the rotary to a side road. As she pulled onto it, she realized it ran in the wrong direction, back the way she’d come. She scrolled through her contacts and called the man who had become her second best friend, Dean Masters. She’d met Dean when Rick, who was Dean’s business partner and one of his closest friends, had flown Emery in over the holidays to surprise Desiree the night he proposed. They’d hit it off right away, and they’d kept in touch after she’d returned home to Virginia. What had started as a storm of daily teasing texts about a big red ribbon she’d had tied around her body the night they’d met had turned into evening phone calls and morning wake-up messages, and eventually, into a friendship she’d come to trust and rely on.
“Hi, doll. How’s it going?”
Dean’s deep voice, and the endearment he’d used since the day they’d met, brought a smile, and just like that, the knot in her stomach eased. Dean had seamlessly filled the gap Desiree had left behind, binge-watching shows with Emery while they Skyped and talking until the wee hours of the morning about everything and nothing at all. They were so different, they shouldn’t have clicked. While Emery barreled into situations with little thought about repercussions, Dean was a thinker, careful and methodical, like Desiree. And, like Desiree, he’d become the yang to her yin.
“Hey, big guy. Please tell me you can get me to the inn from”—she glanced at the road sign—“Rock Harbor Road.” At the next corner, she turned off the main road and onto a residential street, hoping to find a back way to the inn or maybe one of those small-town shops Desiree was always talking about, so she could use their bathroom.
“You’re in town?”
“Yes! Please get me to someplace with a bathroom fast. Traffic is a nightmare, and I’ve got to pee so bad I swear I’m going to knock on the next door I see.”
“Okay, slow down,” he said with a serious tone. “Before you make some stranger’s day, follow my directions. Turn right onto Bridge Road.”
“Um…” She looked for road signs. “I turned off the main road already, and I have no idea what street I’m on now.”
“Of course you don’t.”
She rolled her eyes at the smirk in his voice.
“Why don’t you use your GPS?”
Two weeks ago, she’d called him when she’d gotten lost coming home from a concert and he’d walked her through how to use the GPS. Even with his careful instructions, she’d gotten frustrated and nearly thrown the darn thing out the window. “You know I hate that thing. The stupid voice tells me what to do way too late, and I can’t hear it with the radio on, and I really think it should have a male voice option anyway.”
He laughed.
She tried to concentrate on the narrow, windy road and not on her near-bursting bladder. “Don’t do that!”
“What?” He chuckled again.
She squeezed her thighs together. “Don’t laugh! If I laugh I’ll wet my pants.”
He was silent for so long she checked
her phone for a signal. “Hello? Dean? Are you there?”
“Sorry. I muted you.”
“Why?”
“You told me not to laugh, and I’m picturing you bouncing in your seat trying not to pee, and…” His words were lost in his laughter.
And so went the next fifteen minutes as Dean figured out where she was and directed her to his house. By the time she got there she was ready to burst. She flew out of her car, tearing a path around gorgeous, overflowing gardens, and headed for Dean’s front door. He came around the side yard, shirtless, carrying an enormous rock that covered his entire torso. His jaw was clenched tight. Veins bulged in his thick neck, broad chest, and massive arms as he bent his knees and set the rock at the edge of a garden.
Her breath whooshed from her lungs.
Holy mother of hotness.
She’d almost forgotten how large and powerful, how commanding, he was in person, and how from their very first glance, he’d made her stomach flip and tumble. His hair was the same honey-wheat color as hers, cropped so short he looked military. And wow, he’d kept the beard he’d grown over the winter after all. He’d told her he usually went clean-shaven over the summers, but she’d pleaded with him to keep it. She’d told him the girls would love it, and she knew she was right. He looked even tougher than usual, and coupled with his perpetually serious expression, he appeared as if he were going to snap at any moment.
The big faker.
Beneath that big, bad facade was the most patient man she’d ever met. That trait had taken her by surprise, and now she found herself swallowing hard to silence the lascivious woman inside her who was preparing for a coming-home party.
No way. Not happening. She’d dated friends before, and it never ended well. She’d long ago put Dean into the off-limits section of her brain, whether her body remembered that rule or not.
He rose to his full height of six-plus feet, spotting her. An amused look rose in his gunmetal-blue eyes, and she realized she was staring at him, with her thighs pressed together. Aw, heck! What could she do but laugh, which quickly sent an urgent sensation rippling through her bladder.
