by Taylor Hart
Ocean’s mom frowned and shushed them, then put a hand on Ty’s shoulder. “We should get in the van.” Was it Augusta’s imagination, or was Ellen not so pleased by Ty’s very showy romance with Luna?
As everyone milled around putting the last things in the van, Ocean took Augusta’s hand. “Maybe those are the kind of kisses we should call church kisses.”
She laughed, feeling awkward, and stepped back. “Ah, no.”
Ocean’s eyes glinted mischievously. “You could think about it.” Then he snaked an arm around her waist, pressing his lips to hers.
Taken off guard, she clung to his broad shoulders. The muscles there were much more defined in this shirt. She gave in to the kiss for a moment, then pulled back.
Ocean searched her face. “Augusta,” he whispered, before burying his face in her neck. “You smell so good.”
The gesture felt intimate, and her heart thumped.
A laughing Ty moved past them. “Get a room.”
Ocean waved a hand at Ty. “Oh, quiet down, little bro.”
The others were piling into the van, and Augusta moved to join them.
“Hold up,” Ocean said, whispering in her ear. “You didn’t put restrictions on just holding you close.”
“You’re hopeless.” And dang if it didn’t feel real and right to be swept off her feet by Ocean Brady.
Gazing into her eyes, he let go of her, pushing a piece of her hair out of the way.
“You’re down to one kiss,” she warned him.
His eyebrow rose, and he stared at her lips. “I should kiss you again for that, just to teach you a lesson.”
“What lesson would that be?” She leaned in closer. “Because cheek kisses count, too. I told you that.”
He laughed, then kissed her ear. “And I told you we should have made an official contract, because terms can change so easily and it’s just hard to enforce.”
“No, they don’t.” She laughed, even as her ear tingled where his lips had touched it.
He gave her a sheepish grin. “You’re a future attorney. You can just change the kissing terms right now.”
She shot him a mock glare, but she really liked the idea of changing the kissing terms.
He laughed again and yelled out, “Let’s roll, people!”
An hour later, they were about halfway up to the Hollywood sign, and most of them had broken into pairs as they walked. Ocean’s mother was in the back, talking with Larissa and Dave. Augusta could hear Larissa telling her all kinds of stuff about their family, about her sisters, about her. It was making her nervous.
Ocean nudged her. “What’s up?” He twisted the cap off of his water and took a sip before offering it out to her.
“No, I’m kind of a germaphobe.”
He gave her a little smile, then put the cap back on. “Oh, is that why you only do church kisses?”
She let out a light laugh. “You’re getting persistent about those church kisses.” Yet the truth was that she’d been obsessed with them herself during the whole drive here, just thinking about the way Ocean had held her so close. It felt like this was all real. And it wasn’t.
“Well, I’m down to one, so yeah.”
Butterflies erupted in her lower stomach. “You’re fault.” She pointed at him and wiggled her finger.
He laughed and took her hand. “You think?”
That sounded like a challenge. She raised her chin, looking down her nose at him. “Yeah, I know.”
Suddenly, he pulled her close again, stopping. “I think you want me to run out of kisses. Then what will I do?”
The others walked past them, yelling out catcalls. Ocean ignored them.
“I should have negotiated how often you could pull me close to you like this.”
“Say the word and I’ll pull back.”
Chills rushed through her. She’d never been this attracted to anyone. “This isn’t real,” she whispered, trying to remind herself.
He spoke softly in her ear. “What if this was real?”
The question stopped her cold. How was she supposed to respond? They barely knew each other, and everything was happening so fast and—
He stared at her, his grin widening. “What if it was?”
Her heartbeat quadrupled in speed. “Are you serious, or are you teasing me?”
The rest of the group was ahead of them now, but Ocean didn’t seem worried about falling behind. “I wouldn’t joke about this. So?” he pressed. His breath brushed her face like a caress of soft feathers. “What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” she finally said, a bit breathless.
“Woman, you’re killing me.” He let her go and put his free hand to his chest.
She still didn’t know how to answer. “I—”
Ocean put up a hand, and she saw his face fall. He started walking again. “It’s fine. Let’s go.”
“Ocean, wait.” She caught up to him. “Did I hurt your feelings?” She hadn’t meant to. She just didn’t know what to say or how she was feeling or what it all meant.
He took her hand and met her gaze. “No.” Back was his male bravado. “I knew what this was. We have terms, right?”
She nodded, her pulse racing. “Right.”
They kept walking, stewing in an awkward silence.
Ocean sighed. “Sorry, that was intense. I—”
“It’s fine.”
But for the rest of the way up, her mind raced. Was he serious? Did Ocean Brady want this to be real? Did she?
Chapter 14
The group arrived at a park that Larissa had picked for their picnic. Some sat at the picnic tables; others sat on the grass. Ty was already throwing a Frisbee with Luna.
Ocean sat next to Augusta at a picnic table. His mother sat on Augusta’s other side, and the women were all talking about a Christmas craft his mother wanted to do.
“I saw it in Country Living Magazine,” Ellen said. “And I brought the clipping. I was thinking that tomorrow, after we snorkel—while you ladies snorkel, anyway—I will go grab the things that we’d need and we could make the ornaments.” She turned to Larissa. “And of course you can help us. In fact, let’s do it after dinner. We’ll help you clean up tomorrow so there will be more time.”
“No,” Larissa complained. “You guys are already way too nice.”
“But I want you to,” Ellen said.
It warmed his heart to see his mother so happy. She had always dreamed of a time when she would have daughters-in-law to help her do this kind of thing. Not that he and his brothers and his father hadn’t tried. He loved this for his mother. Then his heart sank, because his part in it wasn’t real. It annoyed him that he’d played the fool with Augusta on the trail earlier. What the crap was he thinking, saying those kinds of things to her? They’d both known what this was when they got into it. It was just fake. He stood, needing something else to focus on.
It seemed his other brothers were looking for a reason to get up as well. Dax waved at Ocean. “I saw a football in the back of the van. Should we play?”
“Read my mind,” Ocean said, bumping Ziggy’s shoulder. “Think you can outrun me yet?”
Ziggy grunted and stood. “I could outrun you your whole life.”
Sophia rolled her eyes and scooted closer to Augusta. “Oh man, here we go.”
Ellen waved a hand. “Ignore them. Here, girls, look at this necklace we could make.”
Augusta looked up at him. Their eyes met, and she smiled at him, silently asking if he was okay.
He nodded and winked at her. Then he turned to Boston. “You gonna sit there and get lazy, or you gonna be on my team and beat these idiots?”
Boston sighed and kissed Addison before standing. “Duty calls, ladies.”
Addison waved him away without looking up from the pictures Ellen was passing around. “I totally think we could buy matching stones, and then we’d have something to remember this trip.”
The other girls squealed.
Augusta l
aughed, her eyes still on him. Dang, she was gorgeous.
Ty smacked Ocean’s back. “Come on, quit being twitterpated and focus on the dying brother here, okay? We’re gonna win, ’cause I’m on your team and no one’s going to tackle me.” He pointed at everyone. “But save some energy for tomorrow! Because we are snorkeling, people!”
Ocean cringed at Ty’s casual mention of death, but he smacked his brother on the shoulder and made a note to make some calls about the snorkeling for tomorrow.
“Let’s go put on the whoop!” Ty said, leaning into him and smiling.
“Let’s go put on the whoop,” Ocean replied, less enthusiastic.
Too bad they didn’t get very far. Ty stumbled into Ocean, who felt a surge of panic as he scrambled to grab hold of his brother. “Ty!” Something was very wrong.
“Dang it.” Ty passed out.
Chapter 15
Augusta sat in the very elite, very private hospital waiting room for VIPs at Los Angeles General Hospital. The past six hours had been full of helicopters—one to life-flight Ty, another to transport the Brady clan. It’d been crowded with doctors and all of the brothers and Ocean’s mother on the phone with different specialists.
The surprising part to Augusta—and she wasn’t sure why it was surprising—was that Luna handled everything like a pro, talking with the doctors, Ty’s brothers and mother, and the specialist back in South Carolina.
Augusta, Addison, Sky, and Sophia were pretty much all sitting together, on alert, observing all of the commotion happening. They were very much on the outside.
Larissa and Dave had stayed behind, but Larissa had been texting her constantly. She was pretty much hysterical. Augusta was borderline hysterical herself. She hated that this was happening to Ty and his family, and she wanted to be with Ocean right now and comfort him. This had all gotten way too real.
So she did the only thing she could think of: she prayed for a long time.
Just before midnight, Ocean’s mother emerged and told them that Ty was doing much better. It had been his blood pressure—some of the drugs he was taking had caused a huge drop and therefore triggered the fainting spell. But he was fine. Stable. He was asking to see them all.
Augusta shuffled into the room with the other women, where all of the brothers were surrounding Ty and touching his shoulders or his legs. Their mother took Ty’s hand; her other hand rested on Luna.
This was a good family. Augusta blinked, suddenly emotional as she thought about all they were going through. For a minute, she regretted that she’d agreed to this. How would his family feel when they discovered the truth about her? She didn’t belong here. She was an imposter.
But all of her worry melted away when Ocean turned to face her and then opened his arms. She rushed into them and found that this wasn’t fake anything.
He needed her comfort. And she needed his too.
“Sorry, you guys,” Ty whispered with a scratchy voice. He pointed to the water, and Luna grabbed a cup with a straw and put it to his lips so he could take a sip. “Thank you. Thank you all for your support.” He smiled weakly, and his eyes drifted open and closed.
Fear gripped Augusta’s heart. Ty was dying, really dying. She’d known it from the start, but it hadn’t really sunk in until now. She blinked again. She would not fall apart.
“I’m okay, we’ll get the meds under control.” Ty turned to Ocean. “No snorkeling tomorrow, bro, but the doctor says I should be able to go home tomorrow and I’ll recover quick from this.”
Ocean sniffed and nodded. “I hate snorkeling anyway.”
Ziggy grunted. “We’ll kick your butt at Uno instead.”
“Or Spoons.” Dax nudged Boston.
Boston patted Ty’s shoulder. His voice was soft as he spoke. “I think it’s time to take the Spoons champ title away from you. You’re getting too cocky.”
“You wish,” Ty retorted equally softly.
A stray tear fell down Augusta’s face, and she wiped it away.
Ocean took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah, Ty thinks he’s all that at Spoons.”
Ocean’s mom was crying, but she was clearly trying to stop. “And the girls and I will do a craft. It will be great.”
“Okay.” Ty scanned them. “Go home. Get some rest.”
Luna nodded. “I’ll stay.”
“I’ll stay too.” His mom put her hand on Luna’s shoulder.
Ocean had ordered a car to take them home from the hospital, and when it pulled up to her house, Augusta was hesitant to get out. She didn’t want to leave him. She’d told him she could take her own Uber, but he’d insisted that he’d go with her before heading back to his place, even though it was out of the way.
For the whole drive, she’d held his hand, but he hadn’t spoken. He’d just stared out the window, looking forlorn.
Ocean got out of the car and went around to open her door. She slid out, and suddenly she couldn’t help herself. She just reached up and slipped her hands around his shoulders.
He put his arms around her waist and crushed her against him.
“Ocean,” she whispered. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. It wasn’t true, but there was nothing either of them could do about it.
She tugged back, putting a hand to his five-o’clock shadow. “You don’t have to be okay, ya know. You are important. And I care about what you’re feeling.”
He stared at her with sad, bloodshot eyes. Then he pulled her back to him, and she felt him shaking. This strong man who she’d met less than a week ago was falling apart in her arms. She held him tightly while he cried.
Finally, the driver asked, “Should I stay or go?” He wasn’t trying to take a picture of them, and she appreciated that.
She leaned into Ocean. “Will you stay here? Just stay and let me hold you?” She wanted to comfort this man who had become her friend.
His bloodshot eyes met hers, asking silent questions. “I don’t want to put you in that position.”
“You are my friend. That’s the position. And that’s what’s real.”
Finally, he said, “Yeah, then I’ll stay.”
She waved the driver away and walked hand in hand with Ocean to her sister’s house. It was quiet inside, but the moonlight cast a bright enough light that they could see as she pulled him down the hallway to the guest room.
Panic hit her out of the blue. She was bringing a man back to her room. Her throat tightened as she remembered waking up with Jason next to her and wondering what had happened.
She hesitated by the door.
Ocean was right behind her, waiting. “I can go,” he whispered.
She sucked in a breath. Ocean wasn’t Jason. By every count, Ocean Brady was more than just a decent guy; he was the kind of guy who would clearly do anything for his family. She turned and faced him, whispering, “I want you to stay, but I really meant it when I said I just want to hold you. With everything I told you about Jason, part of the reason it was so confusing and hard was because I don’t … I mean, I haven’t …”
Ocean took her hand. “I know, Superwoman, and I wasn’t thinking this would be that kind of night.”
Augusta sighed in relief. “Okay.” She turned the doorknob and pulled him in after her.
“But I do need to make something clear.”
She paused as the tension stretched between them again—tension that hadn’t been there at the hospital or in the cab or even when she’d held him and he’d cried. “Okay.”
The side of his lip pulled up. “This isn’t fake for me anymore. And I don’t know what that is exactly, but you have to know that it’s more than just being your friend.”
Chapter 16
Ocean jolted awake at seven the next morning to the buzzing of his phone. He’d set the alarm to vibrate and put it in his pocket, and now he fumbled to yank it out and quickly turn it off.
The sun was shining into the room and he grinned as he looked around at the pink baby elephant wallpaper. This must be th
e guest and baby room. Augusta had mentioned that Larissa and Dave had had problems with infertility, and the memory made his heart sink a little. He hoped that they could get pregnant soon. He liked Larissa and Dave a lot.
His gaze shifted to Augusta, and his heart rate spiked. Her hair was feathered out on her pillow as she slept facing him, a bit of drool on her lip. Delight wove through him. He almost took a picture, but he resisted. She would hate it. Instead, he reached out and touched the soft blond strands.
Another wave of attraction hit him. This woman was so gorgeous—not just because she was physically beautiful, but because after spending the past few days getting to know her, he liked everything about her. He liked how she teased him about being an egomaniac. He liked that she had resisted physical contact with him aside from holding hands or hugging and a couple of kisses. He liked how she was good. He liked that she was hardworking and didn’t take things for granted. She was grounded and fun.
Again, he thought of kissing her. He still had one left. The thought made him smile.
Last night, he’d been inwardly stunned as he’d cried in her arms, because he’d never broken down like that in front of a woman before. She’d just held him. She’d let him cry and she’d told him he was important, and she’d had no idea how much he needed that. Heck, he hadn’t known he’d needed that until she’d offered. Because she didn’t say it in a patronizing way. She meant it. She cared about him.
Plus, she’d asked him to stay. And even though he knew she’d only asked because she wanted to comfort him, which she had, he’d gotten to hold her as he’d fallen asleep, and that had been heavenly.
Out of nowhere, he thought of the punk who had hurt her. Anger surged within him. How could someone do that to her and then creep her out by leaving gifts or watching her? He wanted to slam the guy to the ground and give him a good old-fashioned wailing. He didn’t know what would end up happening between him and Augusta, but one thing he did know—this Jason fella wouldn’t be messing with her again.
