Box of Hearts (The Connor's Series Book 1)

by Nikki Ashton

  I zipped up my bag and was just about to push up when I heard a commotion from the row of seats near to the entrance.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” a familiar voice shouted as they pushed past people.

  My chest tightened and I felt a hot sweat blanket my skin. Jesse was here and I had no idea what to do. I was stuck to my seat, staring at the top of his head bobbing along, as he ploughed through the people standing around. As he got closer and closer to the row that I was sitting in, my breathing got faster and my legs started shaking uncontrollably.

  Then, as he reached the end of the row, he spotted me and his eyes locked with mine. Tears flowed as I watched him walk towards me. His hair was mussed up, he was wearing his casual jeans, the ones that were well worn and hung from his hips, and his black t-shirt was covered in some sort of pink sticky liquid, but he’d never looked more beautiful.

  “Armalita,” he said in a low voice, stopping a couple of feet in front of me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “Home,” I whispered around the lump in my throat.

  “Why?” He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to the side, waiting expectantly for my answer. “Well?”

  “Because it’s what’s best,” I replied.

  “For fucking who?” he asked, leaning forwards from the waist.

  “Hey, do you mind?” Stinky asked. “There’s no need for cursing in front of the lady.”

  I held my breath as Jesse turned to him and furrowed his brow.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m trying to talk to my girl here. I apologize for my language sir, but this is fucking important.” He then turned back to me. “Now, tell me who is it best for that you go home?”

  “Me,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You too, you’re not ready to move on.”

  “How do you know what I’m ready for? And tell me, how do you feel sitting here waiting to go back home, without me, knowing that once you get on that plane you’ll probably never see me again, hmm?”

  Jesse’s hands moved to his hips, and his legs parted. His muscular chest flexed underneath his t-shirt and I could see a few people were now starting to quiet their chatter to watch and listen.

  “Answer me, Armalita,” he said. “How the hell do you feel?”

  “What’s that on your t-shirt?” I asked distractedly.

  Jesse glanced down at his chest, and scrubbed a hand over his head. “It’s not important, now tell me how you damn well feel about getting on that plane.”

  “Hey, miss, if you want me to get security, I will,” Stinky kindly offered.

  I looked at him and shook my head. “No, it’s fine, thank you, though.”

  He sighed. “Whatever, but if that man is harassing you, then I think you should call them.”

  “He’s not,” I assured him. I turned back to Jesse, who was still staring at me, waiting for my answer. “I feel as though I have an open wound in my chest, and someone keeps poking it,” I replied. “I feel that if I get on that plane I’ll just shrivel up and die.”

  My voice broke on a quiet sob, and I placed a flat palm against my stomach, trying to stem the nausea.

  Jesse gave me a slow smile and let out a long breath. He took a step closer to me and dropped to his haunches, taking my shaking hands in his.

  “Shall I tell you how I feel?” he asked. “How I feel about the thought of you getting on that plane?”

  I chewed on my bottom lip and nodded.

  “If you got on that plane, baby, I’d feel as though my soul had been ripped out. The pain I would feel if you left me, would be nothing like I have ever felt before, and I mean ever. You are mine, sweetness, you’re meant to be with me, and I don’t just mean for the next ten months. I mean forever, for always, until I have no breath left in my body.”

  I heard a gasp behind Jesse, and when I looked around him, I saw a lady dressed in a pink velour tracksuit, and lots of gold jewelry, fanning her eyes.

  “That’s so beautiful,” she cooed in a broad British, Yorkshire accent. “Andy, why’ve you never said anything like that to me?”

  The man, who I guessed was Andy, simply shrugged.

  “Well if you don’t want him, love, I’ll take him off your hands.”

  I let out a nervous giggle and sniffled. Stinky shoved a tissue into my hand, one that was thankfully clean.

  “Do. You. Get. It. Armalita?” Jesse asked, nodding his head on each word, to bring home the point.

  “Get what?” I asked, dabbing at my nose.

  “How much I love you.” He gave me a soft, gentle smile, the sort that warmed my heart, my blood, my soul. “I love you beyond words, beyond actions, but it means nothing if you don’t believe it. You need to know, to understand and believe, because if you don’t, then you may as well get on that plane.”

  “No!” Pink velour lady shouted. “Of course she knows, don’t ya love?”

  Jesse swivelled to look at the lady and I guessed that he’d given her a smile, because her cheeks suddenly matched her tracksuit. He then turned back to me.

  “Do you know?” he asked quietly, his blue eyes pleading with me.

  “What about what happened, when you found out?” I asked. “You were hurting so much, and I don’t expect you to brush it off, not something like that, but it felt like you still loved her.”

  Jesse ran a hand through his hair as he contemplated his words.

  “It was a shock, I admit, but the thought of her with someone else didn’t give me the pain I thought it would. What I couldn’t handle was the agony it had all caused Addy. She’s my baby, Millie, and she’s been through so much damn hurt and she’s only four years old. I hated that her mother denied her and was just going to leave her without a care. I hate that Melody dying meant that I pushed her away, too, and that was part of the distress I felt that day. And what sort of man would I be if I didn’t feel sadness at the way Melody died, alone and in pain? You know the autopsy said she probably survived about five or ten minutes after she went through that windshield. Five or ten minutes when she might have been conscious, knowing she was dying.” Jesse dragged in a breath and looked down at the floor. His shoulders sagged and I knew reliving what Brandon had told him must have been hard.

  “Jesse,” I whispered, reaching out a tentative hand. “I understand all of that, I really do, but I can’t live in her shadow. But what sort of woman would I be if I tried to push her from your memories?”

  “Oh, baby, you won’t live in her shadow, you could never live in anyone’s shadow. You shine much too brightly for that.” He reached forward and took my hand, rubbing his thumb along the back of it. “I have to keep some memories alive though, for Addy, not because Melody deserves it, but because Addy does. Addy needs to think her momma loved her more than life itself, more than diamonds, fast cars, and swimming pools. The Melody I loved left me a long time before she passed away. I think she left me the day I married her.”

  He dropped to his knees and moved over to me, cradling my face in his hands.

  “I love you, Armalita Braithwaite, and I will do everything in my power to make you happy. You deserve happy, we deserve happy, and I know we can get that together. So, are you getting on that plane?”

  I didn’t even need to think about it. A sob escaped as I shook my head and flung my arms around Jesse’s neck. “No,” I cried. “I’m not getting on the plane.”

  “Thank fuck for that,” he said, his lips finding mine and kissing me hard.

  “Bloody brilliant,” Pink velour shouted.

  Jesse pulled away from me, so I tried to drag him back. He laughed and shook his head.

  “There’s something I need to do,” he said, giving me another very quick kiss.

  He sat back on his calves and put his finger and thumb in his mouth and gave two short whistles. The next thing I knew, a tiny little blonde princess was running towards us, dragging a fluffy, white rabbit holding a red velvet heart behind her.

  “Millie!” she yelled, her eyes brig
ht with excitement. “I brought your rabbit.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, you did,” I replied, with tears falling rapidly down my face.

  “Well, there’s a special reason for that, isn’t there, baby?” Jesse pulled Addy to him and sat her on his knee.

  “Yep,” Addy said with a resounding nod. “Do I give it to her now, Daddy?”

  Jesse kissed the back of her head and laughed. “Yes, you can give it to her now.”

  Addy thrust the rabbit at me, almost pushing it in my face, so I had no choice to take it from her.

  “Thank you,” I spluttered.

  “Look at the rabbit’s neck,” Addy said, bouncing up and down on Jesse’s knee.

  I looked down to see a ribbon around the rabbit’s neck, and hanging from it was a blue foil heart. On it was the word, ‘Daddy’. I gasped, knowing exactly what this meant, and peered at Jesse over the top of the fluffy bunny. Addy was watching me wide eyed, a bundle of nervous energy.

  “Did you see it?” she asked.

  I nodded, not able to speak.

  “It’s Daddy’s heart,” she said. “He wants you to have it.”

  “He does?” I asked with a sniff.

  “Yeah, I do,” Jesse answered, his voice deep and full of emotion. “Although we had an incident with a strawberry milkshake on the way here, and it nearly got soaked.”

  I looked at his chest and giggled.

  “I told you not to keep it in that pocket,” Addy complained, poking at the breast pocket of his t-shirt. “Daddy’s are so silly sometimes.”

  “So, Armalita,” Jesse sighed with a smile and shake of his head. “Do you accept my heart?”

  I nodded and clutched the rabbit to my chest. Addy squealed, jumped up, and reached inside the little pocket of her jeans.

  “I brought you this,” she said, shoving something at me.

  I looked down and there was a piece of white fabric with lemon flowers on it in the shape of a heart, and on it was my name. It was my heart, made for me by the warmest and most loving little girl I had ever met.

  I took it from her tiny fingers and looked at Jesse. “Will you take my heart, Jesse Connor?”

  Without hesitation, Jesse took it from me and placed it in his t-shirt pocket. “Too damn right I will.” He leaned around Addy and kissed me, but then pulled back again.

  “One last thing,” he said, holding up a finger. “Okay, you ready, baby?”

  Addy nodded and grinned widely. “Yep, sure am.”

  Jesse cleared his throat and, placing Addy on one knee, he lifted the other and put his foot on the ground. As soon as I recognized his kneeling stance, my hands started shaking and my heart began punching its way out of my chest.

  “Armalita Braithwaite, I love you more than I can say in words. You’re my beginning and my end, and I don’t want to spend a day without you, so if that means moving to England then we’ll do it, won’t we, Addy?”

  Addy nodded. “Granma argued with Daddy about that all the way here, but she was okay in the end.”

  I glanced over my shoulder in the direction that Addy was nodding and saw Bonnie. She was standing a few feet away, behind us, and her face was tear stained, too. She gave me a beautiful smile and nodded her head.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said, turning back to Jesse and Addy. “I love it here, and I love the ranch.”

  Jesse seemed to relax with relief, but I loved that he was willing to come to England with me.

  “As long as you’re sure,” he whispered.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Okay, so the final thing then.” He coughed and held Addy’s hand. “I don’t have a ring yet, but Armalita, will you do us the honor of marrying us?”

  Before I’d even finished the word ‘yes’ I was dragged into their embrace and kissed thoroughly by Jesse, while in the background I heard Stinky crying and Pink velour lady whooping loudly.

  Jesse Connor was the love of my life and he had my heart forever.

  Epilogue – 7 years later

  Millie

  To say that Jesse was freaking out was an understatement. His baby girl was about to fly the nest and he was hating every single minute of it. Addy had been accepted on a Gifted Child program at a specialist School two hours away, and Addy being Addy, said she wanted to board. She was just eleven, so Jesse being Jesse said, ‘hell will freeze over first’. Addy being Addy, had wrapped her daddy around her little finger and he was now packing up the truck to take her.

  “I fucking hate this,” he muttered to me as he heaved a suitcase into the flatbed of the truck. “I don’t know why she can’t come home every day.”

  As he turned to face me, I saw the utter grief etched over his handsome features. I ran my fingers through his hair, brushing it away from his beautiful eyes and kissed him gently.

  “Baby, she wants to do this. She’s going to be home every Thursday evening.”

  “Yeah, until some science club or reading group starts, or she makes friends with some rich kid who wants her to do sleepovers, or some other shit. Then,” he cried throwing his hands into the air, “the next thing, there’ll be some little dickwad with hormones who thinks he’s a fucking stud!”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at my husband’s little temper tantrum. It was evident now where our youngest, Hunter, got his temper from. He was only two, but could throw a fit with the best of them. Clemmie, or Clementine to give her proper name, our six year old, was all me. With her olive skin, big brown eyes, and black hair, her Spanish side was prominent. Thankfully, she hadn’t inherited a Spanish or Connor temper and was so relaxed she should have had a mattress strapped to her back. Hunter and Addy, however, were Connor’s through and through, both in looks and temperament.

  “It ain’t funny, Armalita,” Jesse growled, and I knew that I was in trouble. I was only ever Armalita when I was in trouble.

  “Oh, come on, it is,” I giggled. “You know none of that is going to happen.”

  “How do I?”

  Jesse pouted and kicked at a stone that ricocheted off the hub cap of his old truck. Yes, he still had it. He said he couldn’t get rid of it because of the happy memories it gave him; memories of us having amazing sex on the front seat, the night we’d argued over Brandon. In fact, we couldn’t be sure, but we think Hunter was conceived on that front seat. We’d been to Rowdy’s and I’d got drunk, so when Jesse parked up at the side of the house, I pounced on him and rode him until he bellowed my name. In return, Jesse gave me two amazing orgasms and possibly a baby. We’d loved it, and over breakfast neither of us could stop grinning. That was until Ted told Jesse he needed to sort the suspension out on the truck, ‘because it made the noise of a creaking gate the whole time you were going at it’.

  “She loves you too much to not want to come home,” I replied. “Plus, there’s Dapple, she will not leave that horse for long.”

  Jesse grinned, realising that the horse that he’d finally bought and given in to letting Addy break in by herself, was probably going to ensure his baby girl came home every weekend.

  “Told you it was a good idea,” he muttered.

  “You told me?” I gasped. “I think you’ll find it was me that kept hearing ‘Momma please ask Daddy if I can have a horse to break in by myself…Momma did you ask Daddy… Momma why is Daddy so mean about me having a horse’.”

  Jesse let out a laugh and dragged me into his embrace.

  “Did I tell you today that I love you?”

  “Nope,” I said with pouty lips. “You didn’t.”

  “I sure did show you this morning though, didn’t I?”

  Jesse’s low, sexy drawl had me wanting to drag him to our room and rip his clothes off. Nothing had changed in that respect over the last seven years; I still fancied the pants of him, and did whenever possible.

  “How about you show me again, when you get back. I’ll get the kids to bed and then maybe I’ll put on that sexy underwear that you bought me for Christmas.”

  Jesse moan
ed and pushed himself against me, so I was in no doubt what his answer was. The rock hard dick straining against his jeans said it all.

  “Good thing Mom and Dad moved out of the house,” he groaned. “Because I’m gonna fuck you so long and so hard you’ll be screaming my name.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Jesse took my mouth in his and gave me a long, intoxicating kiss that fired up all my senses.

  “Baby, we need to stop, Addy will be back from seeing your mum and dad in a minute.”

  Bonnie and Ted had moved out of the house once Hunter was born. Not only did we need the room to accommodate three rowdy, growing children, but Hunter was not a good sleeper and he disturbed everyone in the house pretty much every night. Jesse had built them a cabin house just on the other side of the pasture, opposite our house. He’d got a construction company to come in and build them a fantastic home, all done to Jesse’s specification. It was beautiful and modern, yet still retaining the rustic feel that Bonnie had missed from the main house after Jesse had developed it. I told Jesse that once he finished ranching, if Hunter didn’t want to take over, then he should sell up and go into construction design because he had a great eye for it. He just laughed and said hell would freeze over before this ranch belonged to anyone but a Connor. He really did have a thing about hell freezing over one day.

  “Okay,” Jesse said, pulling away from me. “You’re right, but you’d better be naked and waiting for me when I get home.”

  “You can count on it.”

  “So, did Garratt say what time he was getting here this weekend?”

  I grinned, knowing that Jesse’s change of subject was to try and erase pictures of me naked from his mind and ease his hard on before Addy came back.

  “Probably early evening on Thursday. He wants to be here when the bus drops Addy back.”

  “Ah, she’ll love that.”

  Addy still adored her Uncle Garratt and had no idea that he was coming over next weekend, because we hadn’t told her we were going to have a party to celebrate her first week at her new school.

  “I’m still not happy about her coming home on a bus, though.” Jesse ran a hand down his face and I knew that he was starting to struggle again, but the bus was the best option.