by Shayla Black
Cutter knelt beside Brea and murmured soft questions. Shealyn gently patted her back.
“I’m sorry,” the pregnant woman said. “I’m still queasy some days, but if I go too long without food—”
“Don’t apologize,” Shealyn said. “You’re growing a human being and it’s hard work.”
Suddenly, Sarah spotted him and darted over. “Thank you so much.”
“I’m glad to help. What else can I do?”
Sarah smiled and shook her head. “We’re fine. Maggie, can you—”
“On it.” The gorgeous blonde glided toward them.
Josiah couldn’t stop staring. He’d met women who looked attractive enough from a distance. Maggie was one of those rare gems who got more beautiful the closer she came. As he stole an eyeful of the delicate lace hugging her cleavage, his heart started to pound. She met his gaze, and he finally discerned the exact color of her eyes—a clear, bright turquoise. He couldn’t blink his way out of an aroused trance. When she drew near and he caught a whiff of peaches and musk, a primal switch inside him flipped.
He had to have this woman tonight.
“Hi.” He smiled her way. “I’m Josiah.”
“Magnolia,” she answered with a little blush, then held out her hand for the water glass.
He gave it over with his breath held because, damn, she was so fucking gorgeous. Maggie was a fine name, but this woman was a Magnolia—delicate, Southern, proud as a fresh bloom.
He stifled the urge to make his move in the middle of Brea’s crisis. Instead, he followed her—ogling her naked back in that bang-up dress—toward Brea, who now sat up straight, her face ghostly pale.
“Did you tell the doctor at your last appointment that you’re having trouble with your blood sugar?”
She gave a tired nod. “My glucose screening is next week.”
Cutter’s jaw firmed. “While I’m on my honeymoon? Bre-bee, you should have scheduled it while I could be with you—”
“I can’t. My pregnancy is a little more than half over. This has to be done now.”
“I’ll take her,” Cage volunteered.
“I don’t need someone to hold my hand,” Brea protested.
“You might need someone to keep One-Mile at bay.”
That inconvenient reality shut her up. She pressed her lips together for a long moment. “He can’t see me.”
Cutter sighed. “It’s not as if he doesn’t know you’re pregnant.”
She slammed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, they were full of tears. “I don’t want him to see me like this . . .”
Brea was working herself up when she was already overwrought. The grim expression both Cutter and Cage wore said they knew it, too. Time to change the subject.
“Hi, Brea. I’m Josiah Grant. I work with Cutter. I brought you something to nibble on if you can keep it down.”
“And I’ve got water.” Maggie crouched beside Brea and held out the glass.
Gratefully, the little brunette took them both and began cautiously consuming them. Five minutes later, her color returned, and the mood in the room lightened with relief.
Finally, Cutter helped her to her feet. Maggie took her empty plate and glass away while Sarah handed her a tube of lipstick. The pictures resumed.
In quick order, the photographer finished snapping wedding photos. The bridal party emerged from the barn and headed toward the tent. Cutter squeezed his wife’s hand and sent her a look of thanks for her understanding, but her answering expression told him no thanks were necessary. She cared about Brea, too.
Maggie held back from the rest of the group, glancing over her shoulder his way. “So, you’re one of Cutter’s knight-in-shining-armor teammates, huh?”
She was flirting, and the slight Southern lilt to her voice turned him on, too.
He grinned. “Well, I ditched the armor a while back. Heavy, sweaty, high-maintenance. It got rusty . . . Not for me. But it’s true that Cutter and I work together. You live here or are you in LA with your sister, making it big?”
“LA is fine, but Shealyn’s loss of privacy isn’t something I could deal with. Besides, my grandparents need me here to help with the ranch.” She shrugged as if her staying behind was perfectly natural and made total sense.
Josiah wondered if she was actually content or wanted something more.
“You like it in Comfort?”
“I’ve lived here with my grandparents for most of my life. They raised me. I like it well enough, I suppose.” She glanced toward Shealyn, who disappeared inside the tent. “I just wish those damn Enlightenment Fields people would leave Granna and Papa the hell alone.”
He frowned. “They’re harassing your family?”
“They come around once a week or so and try to persuade Papa to sign on the dotted line. Sometimes they offer more money. Sometimes they try to sell him on how great their agricultural commune will be for this isolated area of the map. Sometimes they give him fast-talking crap about his life coming to a close and his soul needing karma points or whatever they believe in. Lately, they’ve been a tad heavier-handed.”
“Have they threatened him?”
“Not in so many words, but I definitely don’t like their tone.”
Scowling, Josiah narrowed his eyes. “Do they bother you?”
When she hesitated, it set off all his protective instincts. “Sometimes at the grocery store or while I’m running errands their followers try to talk to me about my grandparents blockading peace and prosperity in Kendall County. One literally begged me to talk them into selling. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have that power. Papa is stubborn. Besides, if they sold out, I’d lose my home, too.”
He disliked all that. But today was her sister’s wedding day, and she shouldn’t be worrying about bullies or having a roof over her head when they were celebrating. This shit was his department.
Josiah led her inside the tent. “That’s not happening, and they’re not worth your time. How about a dance later?”
She raised a pale brow. “Are you flirting with me, Mr. Grant?”
“It’s Josiah, and yes, I am. If that’s not clear, I’ll be happy to try harder.”
Maggie laughed, the sound light and melodic. Everything about her was so female, from the sweep of her arched brow, to the delicate bow of her lips, to the swell of her breasts and hips. Damn . . .
“I got the message.” Then she leaned closer to whisper in his ear, “And I’m not going to stop you.”
“So that’s a yes to the dance?”
“Do you actually know how?” she challenged. “And I don’t mean gluing your hands to my ass and rocking from side to side while you try to find the beat of the music.”
“I know how. In fact, I know how to do a lot of things that may surprise you.” He grinned.
Let her guess what he meant by that.
“Hmm. So what’s your story?”
Josiah lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug. “Not much to say. I’d rather talk about you.”
Because his story was typical and boring. Great parents, a couple of sisters, nice childhood . . . Nothing out of the ordinary.
“What do you want to know?”
“Right now?” He glanced around the room and saw that all was well if surreal. Shealyn was hugging the pretty boy from that vampire show everyone raved about. Cutter was shaking hands with a talk-show legend. “Let’s start with what you’d like to drink.”
There was that giggle that made him smile again. “What do you think I like?”
The way she often answered a question with another question was both frustrating and intriguing. “I think you’re the sort of girl who likes things sweet and fruity, but you’re not afraid to drink hard every once in a while.”
She looked impressed. “You might be right. Why do I get the feeling you’
re not a mere light-beer drinker?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Not even close. If I’m picking my poison, it’s usually something with vodka. But I spent some time bartending in the past. Want me to pick for you?”
“Think you can?” she taunted.
“Absolutely. Hang tight.”
Thankfully, the line to get drinks had died down and waitstaff were circulating the room, taking wine orders for the coming meal. Within minutes, he’d explained the drink to the bartender, who seemed oddly happy for a challenge. Then, with cups in hand, he returned to Maggie’s side. She was chatting with Shealyn and some guy who starred in a family sitcom whose name Josiah had forgotten. He didn’t like the way the actor leered at Maggie.
He sidled up to her possessively. “I’ve got your drink, baby.”
She cast a grateful smile up to him. Good to know she’d wanted to be saved. “Thanks. What is it?”
With a laugh, he tipped his head to the bride and her famous friend. “Impatient?”
As Maggie tsked at him and took her drink from him, Josiah helped her to her feet, wrapped his arm around her waist, and led her away with a wave to settle into a quiet corner. “Take a sip. It’s called Suck, Bang, and Blow.”
“Is that what you’re hoping will happen tonight?”
Josiah gave her a lopsided grin. “No expectations . . . but it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”
“It might not hurt mine, either.” She winked. “What’s in this concoction?”
Holy shit. How long until he could get her alone? “So much booze. Gold tequila, two flavors of vodka, Jägermeister, peppermint liqueur, orange gin, cinnamon schnapps, cranberry juice, a lime, and some other shit you won’t taste—”
“Right. Because the rest will put me on my ass.”
He laughed. “Something like that. At least the glasses are small.”
“So I might be able to walk out of here after one.”
“Maybe,” he teased. “Take a sip.”
Her berry-painted lips pursed around the glass. Her eyes closed. She swallowed, then sighed in pleasure. His dick went hard.
“You like that?”
“Given how much alcohol is in this sucker, it should not taste that good. But it does.”
Nice to know he’d guessed right.
She sucked down a few more sips, then the festivities got under way. Dinner was served. Toasts were made. There were laughs and tears. Shealyn’s mother gave a heartfelt speech about how much her daughters meant to her. Josiah watched Maggie’s guarded expression. They clearly had some history that wasn’t all happiness and rainbows. The bride looked completely touched by her mother’s words, but Maggie . . . She seemed unmoved.
Finally, Cutter and Shealyn cut their cake. Their first dance as husband and wife followed, and they kissed through most of it. Josiah tried to stay removed from the sentiment, but hell . . . Maybe he was getting older. He didn’t believe he’d ever find lasting love, but the thought of having someone he could rely on, a woman he could cherish and protect every day for the rest of his life, didn’t revile him the way it once had.
He sent a glance Maggie’s way. Yeah, he’d just met her, so the odds of her being his lifelong one-and-only, if such a thing even existed, were slim to none. Maybe the wedding had gotten to him. Maybe he was feeling his solitary thirty-two years. Whatever the reason, he was going to shelve his cynical nature tonight, enjoy Maggie’s company, and see if more than a one-night stand was in their cards.
Weirder things had happened, right?
God knew she tempted him. So much so that he felt compelled to figure her out.
What better time to get started than the present?
Now that the pomp of the reception was over and the party had commenced, he could start learning—and unraveling—Magnolia West.
He found her next to her sister and the groom, then reached his hand out to her. “How about that dance?”
* * *
• • •
Maggie was shocked to feel her hand tremble when she put her fingers in Josiah Grant’s massive palm. He’d been more than nice to look at, and she’d already entertained more than one fantasy about how hot he might look out of that sharp charcoal-gray suit. But now that she was actually going to touch him, her brain felt in eminent danger of short-circuiting. How the devil would she manage if he actually kissed her? Peeled off her clothes? Thrust his hard cock—which should be large, given the size of his hands—inside her?
She’d combust on the spot.
“Sure,” she managed to murmur while seeming somewhere between cool and detached. It was her signature move.
As they reached the dance floor, the party tune faded away, replaced by Ed Sheeran crooning that he’d love the woman in his arms until he was seventy. As Josiah pulled her close and began to sway to the slow beat, she peered up at him. Her lashes fluttered, along with her heart. She sucked in a breath. God, she had to stop being such a nervous idiot. He was a man. She was a woman. This would probably be nothing more than a fling she’d enjoy the hell out of.
But looking into his eyes, she wasn’t so sure. They weren’t blue or green or brown or even hazel. They were more unusual. They were a glinting gray with a thick fringe of lashes against tanned skin. That gaze, along with the buzz of his brown hair, made him look somewhere between exotic and dangerous. And he was staring right at her, looking entirely serious.
Mercy, what was it about this man?
He swallowed like maybe she got to him, too.
“So . . .” She searched for a conversational topic to cut her nerves.
“So . . .” He smirked in return.
“You actually can dance. I’m impressed.”
He let loose a laugh. “See? I’m a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”
Josiah glided them around the floor effortlessly, turning her under his arm, reeling her in closer, then settling his hot fingertips in the middle of her bare back before he caressed his way down her spine and placed his palm close to her ass.
Lord, he felt good. Maggie tried not to imagine how his fingers would feel skimming her whole body with that soft, unhurried stroke. “Tell me . . . Were you in the service, like Cutter?”
Josiah shook his head. “CIA.”
Wow. “That sounds dangerous.”
“The mortality rate was higher than, say, for an accountant.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s an understatement?”
He simply shrugged. Okay, he didn’t want to talk about it. Or couldn’t. She respected that.
“How long have you worked for EM Security?”
“About a year. I signed on because I wanted to learn from the best. Then a few months later, Caleb Edgington retired. Thankfully, his sons have proven anything but amateur. What about you?”
Since he’d done important things like save the world, he would laugh a million times at what she’d chosen to do with her life. At least he’d never guess. It wasn’t as if a guy like him would ever read an Azalea North novel. In fact, no one had figured her secret out yet, not even her sister.
“I’m . . . on hold right now. Shealyn has this big life to lead, and now she’s married. My grandparents are needing more help as they get older. Papa fell last week. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt, but Granna can’t lift him. I barely can. And she can’t remember to take her medicine half the time. They’re little issues, at least right now. But they’re going to require more care in the coming years.”
“What about your mom? Can she help?”
Maggie bit back something pointless he wouldn’t understand and she’d probably regret. “She lives in Costa Rica with her husband and my ten-year-old half brother. Up until the last few months, she really hasn’t been in my life. We’re, um . . . getting to know each other.”
“You didn’t grow up with her?”
Hopefully, he’d read between the lines. In her book, it was a closed subject. She still wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about her mom. A few conversations didn’t erase a whole childhood of resentment, but Maggie wasn’t the sort to hold on to hate. And it wasn’t as if her youth in Comfort had been terrible.
“What about your parents?” she said to fill what could become an awkward silence.
“Long story, as well.”
In other words, he had secrets he’d rather keep, too. Fine by her.
The silence she’d been trying to avoid fell between them. Surprisingly, it wasn’t awkward at all. But it was tight, full of awareness. She could feel herself yearning to be closer to him. But what blindsided her was his desire for her. It hung so thick in the air it was almost tangible. Like a blanket, it wrapped around her, warmed her from the January chill that blew in under the tent. It left her no doubt about what he thought or wanted.
The song ended. Neither one of them moved, they simply stared. Those wicked fingertips of his prowled their way up her bare back again, making her shiver, before gliding down in a barely there caress.
“Josiah?”
“How much longer do you have to stay at the reception?”
Half dazed, she scanned the room. Her sister was wrapped in her husband’s arms on the opposite corner of the dance floor. Granna and Papa had already retired. Brea, bless her, had finally managed to calm her stomach enough to enjoy the festivities. The rest of the guests had either left or kicked off their shoes, started their third drink, and gotten ready to party.
“Not another minute. Are you planning to take me to bed?”
He cupped her cheek, looking like he wanted to kiss her. Instead, he backed away, teeth gritted in restraint—for now. She had a feeling that moderation wouldn’t last.
Josiah took her hand. “Yes, I am.”
CHAPTER 2
They were almost out the door. Almost . . . but those last few feet between them and the exit would prove to be a fucking pain in the ass.
