“Peck, will you say grace?” Nana asks.
Machlan takes my hand and holds it under the table as Peck says grace. I watch him out of the corner of my eye during the prayer. His eyes are closed, a silent prayer of his own going up to the man upstairs. It fills me with a warmth I can’t explain.
Hands reach for spoons, Nana dishing out instructions to add more butter here and to give the baked beans a final stir.
I catch Machlan watching me. He raises a brow, and I nod.
“Hey,” he says over the chaos of the table. “Had and I have something we want to say.”
Everything quiets. All eyes shift to Mach.
“Hadley and I have decided something,” he says. He nudges me with a mischievous grin. “You tell them.”
“We’re getting married,” I say.
I bow my head as everyone celebrates, a mixture of clapping and cheering with a few jabs thrown in from Peck. My heart threatens to explode at the happiness everyone shows for us. When I finally look up, I see Nana.
She’s wiping her eyes with a napkin, wearing the sweetest, softest grin on her face. She reaches for Machlan, and he takes her hand.
“Hadley, sweetheart, I can’t tell you how happy this makes this old lady,” Nana says. “I love you, little girl.”
“I love you, Nana,” I say.
This shouldn’t make me want to cry, but it does. No one has said they love me except my brother, and Machlan as of late, since I was in high school. To hear her say it makes my lips tremble.
“We’re going to elope,” Machlan jokes to take the attention off me.
Nana taps the top of his hand and gives him a no-nonsense look. “I’ll hear none of that,” she says. “I’ve put up with you all these years, and you aren’t cutting me out of the good part now.”
“He’s kidding, Nana,” I say.
“Good. Because if you let them elope, we’re eloping,” Lance says. “I mean, we even have a good excuse.”
There’s something about the way he says it that has everyone looking at him.
Mariah smacks Lance’s shoulder. He must’ve put his foot in his mouth because his eyes go wide. Mariah casts him a glare that really doesn’t look mean before setting her fork next to her plate.
“Everyone,” Mariah says, clearing her throat. “We’re going to adopt a baby.”
“Oh, dear sweet Jesus,” Nana says, clutching her chest. “Are you really?”
“We are,” Lance says. “We’ve been going through the process for a while. It’ll help things if we’re married, which is why we floated the idea of eloping.”
“I still don’t like it,” Nana says, “but if it speeds things up, maybe we can do something here. Would you be up for that?”
Mariah beams. “Nana, I just want to be his wife. We can do it in your kitchen if that works. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“You come here and hug me,” Nana says.
“I really hope you and Sienna will help me get a nursery together, Hadley. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I need some help.” She smiles at me across the table. “I don’t know the first thing about this, and I’m so nervous.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’d love to.”
Sienna carries on about a designer she knows. Machlan wraps an arm around my shoulders.
“You okay?” he whispers. “With the nursery thing?”
I nod, looking into his eyes. “I am. I’m really happy for them.”
Nana sniffles. “You kids are gonna make sure I have another heart attack, aren’t you?”
“Not funny,” Walker and Machlan say at the same time.
She dabs at her eyes again. “Two weddings and a baby. Walker, what do you have for me?”
“Oh, that’s not putting him on the spot.” Peck snorts.
Walker’s chest puffs out like a peacock. “Well, since you asked so nicely.” He grins. “Sienna just got a huge contract for designing gowns for a bridal company.”
“That’s amazing,” I say. “I didn’t know you did that!”
“She can design anything,” Walker beams.
Sienna’s smile lights up the room. “I got the contract a while ago, but with Nana being sick and then I had the flu …” She fires a look at Lance. “I know I got it from you.”
“How’d you get it from me?” he asks.
“You came over that day to get the soup I made for Mariah and left your germs.”
“That soup was excellent, by the way,” Mariah tosses in.
“You made soup, and I didn’t get any?” Peck asks. “Sienna. I’m hurt.”
Walker sighs. “She’s my girlfriend. Not yours. How many goddamn times do I have to tell you that?”
Sienna laughs, resting her head on Walker’s shoulder. “I’ll make you some tomorrow, Peck.”
“Thanks.” He smiles smugly at Walker. “And since everyone is listening to me for a change, I have some news of my own.”
“They aren’t going to like it,” I tell him.
He and I exchange a look at the news he shared with me last night. I want to be excited for him. I want to encourage him and be happy for him, but I’m not. And they won’t be either.
“I don’t care if they like it or not,” he tells me
“Just prepare yourself,” I say.
“Will someone tell the rest of us?” Machlan asks. “And I don’t like you two having secrets.”
“Watch him,” Walker says, taking a bite of beans. “He’ll try to steal your woman.”
Peck glares at Walker and then at Machlan.
He fills his fork full of scalloped potatoes and takes a bite. He winces as he swallows the burnt potatoes but doesn’t say a word about it. He just washes it down with a drink of iced tea.
“Any day now, asshole,” Machlan says, getting a look from Nana.
“I have a date.” Peck sits up, shoulders back, and grins.
“Navie?” Machlan asks.
“Nope. Molly.”
“What the fuck?” Machlan asks.
“Machlan Daniel. Enough,” Nana says.
“I told you,” I tell Peck.
“Oh, wait till you meet her,” Lance tells Nana. “You’ll be ‘What the fuck-ing’ along with the rest of us.”
Peck’s face falls. “Guys, be nice. I don’t give you hell.”
“Yes, you do,” they say in unison, making everyone, even Nana, laugh.
“I’m sure she’s a nice girl if Peck likes her,” Nana offers.
“That’s one way to put it,” Walker mumbles. “She’s nice to everyone, if you catch my drift.”
Peck shrugs and goes back to his meal. “Well, I’m looking forward to it. Things are starting to come around.”
The table breaks out into chatter again, everyone sparring back and forth in typical Gibson fashion. Machlan takes my hand again and holds it while we eat.
I take my time, eating slowly and taking in the love and family around me. I’ve wanted this my entire life. For a while, I didn’t think I’d ever have it.
But as I sit at Nana’s table, listening to Peck give Walker crap about a tractor at Crank and watching Machlan dote on his grandmother, I realize something: things like this, like what’s sitting around this table, don’t happen overnight. You can’t force them to happen. You can’t make them not happen. You just have to water them with love and give them room to breathe and enough support to anchor the roots into the foundation of something good.
If Machlan and I had tried to stay together years ago, our roots weren’t planted yet. They would’ve given in to the weight of the world and we wouldn’t fallen on our faces.
All those years of not being together weren’t in vain. They weren’t a waste, like Machlan thinks. They were a way to build us up to this point so we can enjoy it now.
I look at the little tattoo on my wrist. Machlan catches me looking at it and lifts my arm to his lips. He presses a kiss where the wings meet, letting his lips linger on my skin for a long moment.
“I love
you,” I whisper.
He smiles my favorite smile. The one that’s just for me. “I love you too.”
The End
Copyright © 2019 by Adriana Locke
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Image: Adobe Stock
Cover Design: Kari March
Editing: Marion Making Manuscripts
Jenny Sims, Editing 4 Indies
Also by Adriana Locke
The Exception Series
The Exception
The Connection
The Perception
The Landry Family Series
Sway
Swing
Switch
Swear
Swink
Sweet
The Gibson Boys Series
Crank
Craft
Crave
Crazy
Dogwood Lane
Tumble
Tangle
Trouble
Restraint- Coming Soon
Standalone Novels
Sacrifice
Wherever It Leads
Written in the Scars
Lucky Number Eleven
For an email every time Adriana has a new release, sign up for an alert here: http://bit.ly/AmazonAlertAddy or text the word adriana to 21000
One
Peck
“It’s you.”
A pair of red flip-flops come to a stop next to the truck. Dust billows from the harder-than-necessary halt to movement and flows under the truck and right into my face. I wave my hand in front of me and cough.
“Yeah?” I ask. “What’s your point?”
Toenails painted the color of grass on a spring day tap against the gravel. A thin gold ring adorns the second toe.
“Are you proud of yourself?” she asks.
The tone she’s using nixes any ideas I may have had to scoot out from underneath this vehicle. It has that flair to it, that you’ve-done-and-gone-screwed-up-but-I’m-going-to-make-you-wallow-a-while thing that turns men’s blood to ice.
The only problem is that I can’t figure out what I’ve done. Or who she is.
I drop the wrench in my hand and study the tanned legs visible from my disadvantageous position. They’re short and tanned, the muscles in her calves flexing as she pops one foot up on her toe.
The voice—one that’s clearly annoyed with me for some reason—isn’t familiar, nor are the legs. A quick scan of recent activity doesn’t unearth a woman who should be pissed. Not that a woman needs a reason to be pissed, but still.
“Well,” I say, “it depends on why you’re asking.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you’re asking if I’m proud of the fact that I diagnosed and will have Dave’s truck fixed in under an hour—minus the time I spend in this conversation with you—then yes. I am. Or if you’re asking about the black lines down the middle of Main Street, I’m proud of that too. I—”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Do I?” I scratch the top of my head.
Staring at the undercarriage, I attempt to figure out what the heck is happening here. The day has been a doozy already. Between Nana calling me at four in the morning because she couldn’t get out of bed and my cousin Walker’s pissy mood when I got to work at his mechanic’s shop, Crank, I should’ve just called in sick. I should’ve stayed in bed instead of trying to make the best out of the day.
Sometimes, you just know better. I knew better this morning. I’m just not smart enough to listen to myself.
“You’re a jerk, you know that?” she says with a huff. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “No, I take that back. You’re more than that. You’re a jackass.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Um, nope. I really don’t.”
“Yes, you do. Now come out here and face me like a man.”
“If you insist,” I mutter.
Pressing my heels into the gravel, I roll myself out from under the truck. The sun is bright, almost blinding me with its early afternoon rays. I shield my eyes and look up into the face of a woman who looks like she wants to kill me.
Her bright green eyes widen just a bit before resuming their narrowed position. A set of full lips are pressed together in a hard line. Her face is framed by a couple of unruly strands of sandy brown hair that’s fallen from a lopsided ponytail.
I bite back a smile. I’m one hundred percent certain I’m supposed to be intimidated and not entertained right now, but I can’t help it. She’s fucking adorable.
“Well, here I am,” I say.
She takes a step back. Her eyes release from mine and drag down the length of my body. When they return to my face, she narrows them again. “You’re a jackass.”
“You’ve said that.” I get to my feet and brush off my hands. “Look, do I know you? Not that I don’t love being yelled at by a stranger …”
“You are incredible,” she says, dropping those pretty little lips of hers open.
“Thanks.” I smile. The gesture does not get returned. “If you’re Tad’s daughter or something, tell him I put the gas cans back. It was an emergency. I swear. Just tell him they’re behind the shovels in the barn, and I’ll pay him back. Okay?”
She cocks a brow. “And you steal gas too. Wow. What a winner.”
“You’re awfully judgy for someone who doesn’t even know me.”
“I know all I want to know about you.”
“That’s a shame,” I say, sliding my hands down my jeans.
A gasp sneaks through the air as her hands fall to her sides in exasperation. I take a step back for self-preservation. Just in case.
“Are you hitting on me?” She blinks once, then twice.
“No,” I say. “I mean, if you want me to, I’d—”
She throws her hands up in the air. “She said you worked fast and would move on without thinking twice about it, but I had hoped that she’d be wrong.”
“Who? Who said that? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
She lets out a little laugh that’s anything but funny. I wait for steam to come out of her ears, but the only thing rolling off her is the scent of oranges.
I glance around for cameras because this has to be a joke. Surely, one of my cousins is setting me up. But the longer I look, the more it becomes apparent: she’s as serious as a heart attack.
“You’re exactly like she said you’d be,” she says.
I rub my forehead, wishing once again I’d have stayed home. I have a good twenty minutes left on this truck and then a fifteen-minute drive back to Crank to clock out. Then I need to check on Nana and make sure she got lunch before I can go home and get a shower and close my damn eyes. But before any of that can happen, I have to figure out what the hell this girl is talking about.
Blowing out a breath, I focus.
“Let’s just restart this whole thing,” I say. “What’s your name?”
“We’re really doing this?”
“Doing what?” I hold my hands in front of me. “What are we really doing? I don’t get it.”
She flashes me a disapproving look. “You’re really asking my name?”
“That’s what ya do when you don’t know somebody. At least it is around here.”
“Fine. I’ll play along. I’m Dylan,” she says as if she’s talking to a baby. “And we talked last week about how much you love my best friend.”
The last part of that gets loud. Really, really loud. She takes my cringing as a sign of weakness.
She moves toward me, her eyes flashing her fury at me like bolts of lightning. Her finger jabs me in the chest.
“You better be scared of me,” she says. “Thinking you’re gonna ghost her like some careless asshole after she opens up to you about—”
“Whoa, wait—”
“No, I’m not gonna wait.” She jabs me again, harder this time. Her face twists when I don’t budge. “I shouldn’t have even shown up out here because that probably will make your ego explode.”
My brain scrambles with her accusation but gets even more fogged up with the look in her eyes. Worry is etched on her face.
“Listen, I’m sorry about your friend. Honest. But—”
“I highly doubt that.” She takes a deep breath, the passion starting to wane as she thinks her point has been delivered. “You better stay away from her. Do you hear me?”
I have no idea what we’re doing here, but I feel bad for Dylan. And her friend. And for the guy who ghosted her friend if Dylan ever catches up with him.
A part of me wants to maintain my innocence, but I’m not sure it matters.
“I get it,” I tell her. “Your friend is hurting, and you’re ready to go to battle. I respect that. Lord knows the battles my family has gotten me in. But I …”
This placates her a little. She opens her mouth, but no words come out. Another deep breath is taken, causing the tiny chip of diamond in her nose to shine.
She’s pretty. This girl with her golden-brown skin and long eyelashes and personality for days would have me chasing after her if I didn’t want to run out of fear for my life.
The venom in her eyes subsides. She reaches up and brushes back a strand of hair that came out as she railed me, and I see a tattoo on her wrist. It’s the word family written in a delicate script. I think about my brother, Vincent, and how many times I’ve gone to war for him or my cousins.
I consider telling her I’m not who she thinks I am. But if I do that, she’s going to start shouting again, which means I’ll just be here longer fixing this damn truck. Besides, I did nothing wrong, so maybe I’ll let it go. Let Dylan get it off her chest and move on. I have broad shoulders. Besides, the guy, whomever he is, probably wouldn’t give a shit anyway from how it sounds. It’ll probably make her feel better to think the guy feels bad—at least a little.
Gibson Boys Box Set Page 98
