Kiss Me, Sweetheart

by Codi Gary

  Well, he hadn’t had the chance to do worse, but as of yesterday, they had connected Will to five unsolved rapes in El Dorado County. There was a good chance she’d have to testify when it came time for his trial, but she wasn’t scared of facing him.

  In fact, the last few months had shown her that she didn’t need to be afraid of anything. She was strong. She was smart.

  And she was in love.

  She rounded the corner with Raider tripping her up and found Dustin in a pair of sweats, shirtless and dancing as he mixed up something in one of her good Pyrex bowls.

  “Whatcha you got there, Chef Boyardee?” she said.

  He jumped, and spun around, never slowing his mixing. “I’m making you something special.”

  “Oh yeah? I want to taste.”

  “Nuh uh!” He held the bowl away from her. “You will wait for the finished product.” In a terrible French accent, he said, “Now, geet out of my keetchen.”

  Rylie leaned against the doorjamb and smiled. “I love you.”

  Dustin froze, staring at her like a deer caught in a set of headlights. “What did you say?”

  Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as brave as she thought. Suddenly, her palms were sweating bullets and her heart wouldn’t stop racing.

  “I said that I’m in love with you. And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, but I wanted to tell you because life is too short not to say it. You know? Dustin?” He was like the Tin Man without his oil. “Blink once if you’re okay, twice if I need to call for help.”

  “I…damn it.” He set the bowl on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why do you always surprise me?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I had a plan. I was going to make you my mother’s raspberry scones, and then after breakfast, slip you the recipe.”

  “But she said she’d only give it to family.”

  He took several steps until he’d eaten up the distance between them and took her hands in his. “You’re my family. Rylie, I’ve shared more with you than with people who share my blood. You’ve seen me be a complete and utter dickhead, and you didn’t write me off. I want to be with you and only you.”

  Rylie couldn’t believe that Dustin, who had only two months ago sworn to avoid relationships at all costs, was declaring himself.

  And it scared her just a bit. “I want you to be sure about this, because if you’re not, if this is just some kind of experiment, I’m out.”

  He smiled softly, his gaze full of such tenderness that a ball of emotion clogged her throat. “I wouldn’t be offering you my mother’s secret recipe, which will definitely incur her wrath, if I wasn’t sure.”

  That was good enough for her. Rylie dropped his hands and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her cheek against his chest. She could hear the rapid thump of his heart and smiled, knowing he was scared shitless. It was kind of nice having the always cocky Dustin Kent off his game.

  “If you don’t believe me, Rys, I’ll prove it to you. Just give me time.”

  “How much time do you need?”

  “As much as you’re willing to give me.”

  She looked up at him, her chin resting on his chest.

  “How about forever? Does that work for you?”

  He dipped his head to kiss her, his lips warm and gentle. When he finally pulled away, he traced his finger down her cheek with a smile that still wrecked her every time.

  “Forever sounds perfect.”

  Epilogue

  Four Years Later

  Dustin was a nervous wreck as he paced the “Groom’s Saloon,” one of the restored buildings in Buzzard Gulch that was made for the groom and his party to get ready for the big day. Charlie, his best man, sat on one of the barstools, nursing a beer while Luke and his other two brothers sat around a card table playing poker.

  Dustin checked the clock again as he passed by. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Are you really that nervous, little brother?” Charlie teased.

  Dustin didn’t want to admit that he was terrified. From the moment that Rylie had finally agreed to marry him, he’d known what was coming. Kelly and her minions had complete control over his wedding and unless his bride had interceded, Kelly would finally have her revenge.

  “Hello, boys,” Kelly said, pushing through the swinging saloon doors. She was wearing a red and white floral dress and bright red cowboy boots. In her arms were five shoe boxes and behind her were two of her newer bridesmaids for hire, holding garment bags.

  Kelly set the boxes down on the nearest table and clapped her hands. “I’ve got everything you need to get ready right here. Ceremony starts in twenty minutes, so you better get going.”

  Dustin flipped the lid on one of the boxes, his mouth falling open. “Cowboy boots.”

  “Yep. It’s a themed wedding. Welcome to the Old West.”

  “She’s kidding, right?” Charlie asked.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with cowboy boots?” Luke asked.

  Dustin held up one of the boots…in bright red leather.

  * * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Dustin stood under the floral-covered arbor in his black suit with red tie. On his head sat a black cowboy hat and he had squeezed his feet into those fire engine red boots. If Kelly thought she could break him, she was wrong. He’d waited too long for this to let a few practical jokes scare him off.

  Rylie had been the one who wanted to wait at least three years before she’d consider living together, let alone marriage. In that time, they’d completely restored Buzzard Gulch and Rylie had saved the money she’d earned working at Something Borrowed and baking the wedding cakes for the company to open her own little gourmet bakery. Seize the Cake had filled a void when the other bakery in town had been shut down due to health code violations. Plus everyone loved Rylie’s treats.

  A haunting country love song played over the speakers, and everyone in the chairs stood.

  Dustin’s twin nephews, his older brother Paul’s boys, came up the aisle in little black suits, making every woman sigh and coo. The boys each had their own pillow with no actual rings on it. They were only two, after all. His mother had been pleased to finally get a daughter-in-law and grandchildren, but as his brother and his family lived in Seattle, the pressure was still on him and Charlie.

  He hadn’t told his mom yet that Rylie was already eight weeks pregnant. They hadn’t planned it, but they hadn’t been preventing it either.

  Next was Marley and Luke’s daughter, Chloe, holding on to her mother’s hand the whole way down the aisle. The little girl’s brown eyes took up half her face as she stared around nervously. Her white tutu dress with red sash was perfect with her bouncing blond curls.

  If they had a little girl first, Dustin hoped she had Rylie’s smile.

  Marley let Chloe run to her grandmother, Rose, and then took her place. She winked to him when he caught her eye and he smiled back. Marley had warmed to him over the years after a lot of groveling on his part, but Luke and she were counted among his growing group of friends.

  Marley was wearing a red off-the-shoulder dress with black cowboy boots. She was soon joined by Tonya, who Rylie had become good friends with after her wedding, and two of Rylie’s friends from Something Borrowed, Emmy and Darcy.

  And then Rylie was standing at the end of the aisle, her arm looped through Charlie’s. Raider sat at her side, wearing a red bow tie.

  Dustin would have laughed if he wasn’t completely captivated by his bride to be.

  She was wearing an ivory halter dress, the skirt gathered in waves. Her hair was swept up with curls rioting down her neck and red baby roses pinned in the brown strands.

  When Charlie finally passed her hand to his, he brought it to his lips and she grinned at him.

  He blinked. Rylie’s front tooth was missing.

 
“What happened?”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked innocently.

  “Where’s your tooth?” he practically shouted.

  The whole crowd bust out laughing, including the pastor, and Rylie.

  “Relax, honey, it will come off before pictures,” Rylie said.

  He was stupefied. “You helped Kelly punk me?”

  “You know what they say. Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Kelly hollered from the front row.

  Dustin tipped his hat to her. “Well played.”

  “So, think you can marry a woman with a blackened tooth and a heart of gold?” Rylie asked, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  Dustin pretended to consider, then hugged her back.

  “Hell yeah. What are we waiting for?”

  Acknowledgements

  I would first like to thank my husband and children because after four and a half years, they know how to work the mommy-is-on-deadline system and leave me alone (for the most part). I love you, honey and babies. I am grateful to my fantastic agent, Sarah, and my uber awesome editor, Norma, for being there for me and making this book great. To the rest of #TeamKensington who made my beautiful cover, copy edited, formatted, and organized my publicity, I appreciate all that you do. I need to thank my extended family and wonderful friends for reading and sharing my books. To my Rockers, who amaze me and always brighten my day with their warm hearts and sexy man pics. I love your guts. To my amazing friends Darcy Burke, Rachel Lacey, T.J. Kline, and the ladies in our Contemporary Crushes group, I adore you! And to all the readers who took a chance on this series… I hope I made you smile.

  Be Mine, Sweetheart

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at

  the next book in Codi Gary’s Something Borrowed series!

  Available in August 2018 from Lyrical Shine.

  Chapter 1

  Kelly Barrow stared down at the court papers, completely flabbergasted. Her company, Something Borrowed Wedding Solutions, and personal attorney, Christian Ryan, sat across from her, and she could tell he was fighting a grin.

  “This is a joke, right?” she asked.

  Chris shook his head. “No joke. I received them this morning.”

  “Who in the hell sues someone for”—she read the amount again and scoffed—“thirty-two dollars and seventeen cents?”

  “Apparently, someone who doesn’t appreciate you walking out on a date with them.”

  “I didn’t walk out! I told him that I had a work emergency and had to go.”

  Chris shrugged his broad shoulders. “Guess he didn’t believe you because he is suing you for the cost of your dinner and your ticket to…Pirates of the Caribbean.”

  This is why she hadn’t dated in almost ten years. Men were absolute idiots.

  “Can you just take care of this? Send him a check or whatever so he will go away.”

  “Not that simple, Kel,” Chris said. “The man wants a formal apology and for you to be his date for his sister’s wedding.”

  Kelly looked down at the papers again and sure enough, it was in bold print. “Why would he want me to be his date if I pissed him off so bad he had to file a lawsuit against me?”

  “The guy must be hard-up. I can’t think of a single reason he’d want to take you…oh wait. There’s the fact that you’re beautiful, intelligent, and will no doubt make whatever ex-girlfriend he’s afraid of bumping into jealous.”

  Kelly stuck her tongue out at him, but he just laughed at her childishness. She’d known Chris since eighth grade, when he’d walked up to her for his friend, Ray Jackson, and told her Ray liked her. Since that moment, it had been the three of them together; Ray and her as sweethearts and Chris as their dear friend.

  Then high school had ended, and Chris had gone away to college while Ray had joined the military. And Kelly, well, she’d gotten a job at the local bridal boutique and stayed right here in Sweetheart, California. She’d missed them dreadfully, and when Ray came home on his first leave and asked her to marry him, she’d said yes. They started making plans for when his four years were up. She was already taking courses at Consumes River College, and when Ray got out, he would get his degree too. They’d get jobs, then get married and eventually, have four kids. The plan was to be happy and in love forever.

  Only Ray had never come home. He’d been killed in action just before his twentieth birthday, and Kelly had been a mess. Her parents. Her friends. No one could bring her out of her misery.

  Until Chris had come home and sat on the bed next to her prone form. At first he’d been patient and understanding. When she still wouldn’t acknowledge him, he lost his temper. He’d grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him.

  “You aren’t the only one who loved Ray, and he wouldn’t want you behaving like this. So wrapped up in your own grief that you don’t give a shit about anyone else who may be hurting.”

  She’d come out of her depression enough to slap him, and the rush of emotions that followed had her pummeling his chest, screaming at him. Chris had just wrapped his arms around her until she stopped fighting and just wailed. Screaming and sobbing her heartbreak all while he cried into the crook of her neck. It had been Chris’s tears that had been the key to fully waking her up.

  After Ray’s funeral, Chris had gone back to Stanford, but they’d stayed close. And when he’d finished law school, she’d begged him to come back and set up shop in Sweetheart.

  And now, here they were. Poring over a frivolous lawsuit.

  Kelly shot Chris a pleading look. “I don’t really have to go out with him again, do I?”

  Chris laughed, throwing his head back, and Kelly studied him. At thirteen, Chris had been a towheaded kid, bean pole thin with glasses. As a man, his white blond hair had darkened to a mix of mahogany and rich gold, and he wore contacts over his light blue eyes. Kelly wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Chris had become a handsome guy; it just didn’t matter. He would always be Chris. Ray’s best friend, and then hers.

  “No, Kelly. I’ll handle it.”

  “Thanks, C. What would I do without you?”

  “Continue to date losers?”

  “Ha ha,” she said. “So funny.”

  “What did prompt you to go out with this guy?” Chris asked.

  Kelly shifted in her chair awkwardly, embarrassed to tell him that she had joined an online dating site, but she didn’t lie to Chris.

  “I signed up on LastFirstKiss.com, and that guy was one of the top matches the website spit out.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. When he contacted me and I looked at his profile, it all looked good.”

  “So what happened?”

  She grimaced. “He lied on his profile.”

  “Shocker. What did he say? That he was six two instead of five two?”

  “Well, he lied about his job, what he likes to do for fun, and he was a complete douche nozzle to the waiter at the restaurant. Frankly, I was glad that Veronica called me and pulled me out of the movie because the way he chewed popcorn was just…disgusting.”

  Chris chuckled. “Ah, Kel, I love you.”

  “I know.”

  They shared a smile over the desk. Since the first time they went to a Star Wars marathon in high school, Chris and she had done the Han Solo and Princess Leia bit. It used to drive Ray crazy, but that had never stopped them.

  Kelly leaned her head back in the chair and groaned. “Ugh, I don’t know what to do. I haven’t been dating since LFO was cool and it was only ever with one guy. I don’t know how to do this.”

  “So don’t. No one says you have to date.”

  She met his gaze sadly. “It’s time. I used to think that my future died with Ray, but the truth is, watching all my friends find love and get married, start families… It made me realize I still want those things. I’m thirty-two years old
; I need to move on.”

  Chris didn’t say anything for several moments, and she sat forward. “Don’t you think?”

  She couldn’t tell what he was really thinking, but when he nodded, she almost sighed aloud in relief. She couldn’t have Chris mad at her. He was the most important person in her life.

  Chris reached across the desk, taking her hand in his.

  “You deserve to be happy, Kel. I’ll support you in whatever you do. You know that.”

  Meet the Author

  An obsessive bookworm, Codi Gary likes to write sexy, small-town contemporary romances with humor, grand gestures, and blush-worthy moments. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading her favorite authors, squealing over her must-watch shows, and playing with her children. She lives in Idaho with her family.

  Visit her on the web at www.codigarysbooks.com.