Merrily in Love

by Melissa West

  But now, Franny was back home, and according to her doctor, in good health, considering what she’d been through. Now she needed to work on her diet and general health to help ensure she didn’t suffer another heart attack.

  It was getting late, and Kylie was tired―exhausted, really. She loved the idea of getting a shower and going to bed, but then what if Franny needed something? Maybe she should sleep on the couch, just to be safe.

  “Do you have your phone?” Franny asked.

  A movie started up on the TV, something about “Jingles in Christmastown” or something. A mousy brunette was talking to what appeared to be her boss about needing a vacation, and he was telling her that retailers didn’t offer vacation around the holidays.

  “Yeah, why?” Kylie passed it over to her, her attention on the screen. In truth, she loved these Hallmark movies as much as Franny.

  The mousy woman huffed and went back to her job in the shoe department. It appeared to be a major department store, and in typical holiday fashion, was filled with people.

  “Good. Okay, can you come get her now?”

  Kylie jerked back and glanced at her godmother. “Who are you talking to and when did you call them? I didn’t even see you make a call.”

  Franny pressed a finger to her lips for Kylie to be quiet. “Shh.” Then she grinned. “No, not you, sweetie. You heading over? All right, good. See you soon. Great, thanks, honey. Bye.”

  She handed the phone back to Kylie, then turned the volume up on the movie. “Oh, I love this one. It kind of has that Cinderella element to it, don’t you think? Now, don’t look at me like that. I know you watch them as much as I do.”

  Kylie glanced around like she’d walked into a different room―a different world. Maybe Franny’s medication was doing freaky things to her head. “Um, did you or did you not just call someone?”

  “I did.”

  “Care to tell me who?” Then Kylie realized that her brain wasn’t working so well either, because she could just look at her calls. She picked up the phone and clicked for recent calls. “Why did you call Brady?”

  The movie went to commercial, and Franny finally glanced over at her. “Because, I want him to take you away for a while so I can rest without you driving me crazy. Before you go, though, can you get me some popcorn?”

  “Wait, what? And no, you can’t have that gross butter-covered stuff.”

  “It might be bad for me, but it’s delicious and you know it.”

  “You can have regular popcorn, no butter.”

  “What?” Franny pulled back in shock. “Who eats popcorn like that?”

  “Plenty of people do. It’s a―no, stop.” Kylie waved her hands in the air. “You back up. What did you ask Brady to do?”

  Just then the doorbell rang and Kylie glanced over to the bedroom door. “What, did he fly here?”

  “He was close by.”

  “But I’m not going out. I need to be here for you.”

  “No. You have been there for me, and I’m fine. Doc said so herself. Now you need to go be there for you. But seeing as how you won’t do that, and you prefer to be stubborn as all hell, I called in reinforcement.”

  The doorbell rang again and Kylie glanced down at the same junk clothes she’d been wearing earlier. Of course, Brady didn’t care. But they were new again, and she liked the idea of impressing him, putting on a little bit of makeup, and dressing up a touch. Okay, so dark jeans instead of light jeans, but still. Sure, he’d seen her at the hospital in all kinds of different things, but that was different.

  A knock came then, followed by a text on her phone.

  “Honey, you better go answer that door before he leaves and goes over to Valerie’s house instead. You know she’s wanted him since birth. Don’t give him a reason to go there.”

  “I…he’s…” She pushed off of the bed, then pointed at her godmother. “I’m not done with you yet.”

  Franny grinned. “Whatever you say.”

  The house was dark as Kylie made her way out of the master bedroom, down the small hall and then into the open floor plan of the main level. They’d left the porch light on, and she could see Brady’s’ form through the glass inset in the wooden door. Her pulse picked up with each step. Why was she so nervous? This was a man who’d once known everything there was to know about her, been with her at her worst, seen her cry and scream and even vomit. Yet…all that felt like a movie she’d watched long ago and couldn’t quite remember the ending. This was new, a chance at a redo. She didn’t want to mess it up.

  Drawing a long breath, she unlocked the door and swung it open. Brady’s lips curved into a small smile when he saw her, and she tried to think of something clever to say, but instead all she could do was stare.

  He’d had a work function and couldn’t come to the hospital that morning, so she hadn’t seen him since the night before. How a man could become more attractive in twenty-four hours was beyond her, yet there he stood, dressed in a button-down that he’d long since rolled to his elbows. Jeans and Converse completed his look, and the shoes reminded her so much of the boy she’d once known and loved that for a second she just stared at them.

  “Converse.”

  “Yeah, I keep them in the car so I can change if I’m in work shoes.”

  “That’s very you.” She glanced up, taking in his shaved head. He looked so different, and yet as she met his eyes, startling blue cradled in full dark lashes, she couldn’t help thinking that he hadn’t changed at all.

  “I’m sorry Franny called you. I’m fine, really.”

  He took a step toward her, took her hand in his. “I know that. But I’d like to take you to a movie anyway. I talked to Ms. Sally next door and she’s going to come over and sit with Franny while we’re gone.”

  “But I—”

  “You are going!” Franny yelled from the bedroom and Kylie glared in that direction.

  “She’s stubborn.”

  “Not so unlike her goddaughter,” Brady said. “But I agree with her. You need this.”

  “Yes, you need this. Now go.” Ms. Sally from next door pushed her four-foot-eight self past Brady and Kylie and stopped in the foyer. She wore a robe and bedroom shoes, and her black hair was pinned back in rollers, a hairnet securing them in place. “I’ve got this, little girl. You go be young.”

  Twenty-eight didn’t exactly register to Kylie as young, but she could tell by Sally’s expression and her hand fixed to her robed hip that she wasn’t going to hear another word about it.

  “Sally, is that you?”

  Sally spun around and cupped her mouth with one hand, then shouted back, “It’s me, Fran! Trying to kick this kid of yours out of here!”

  “Lord, she’s still here?” Franny called back, and Kylie rolled her eyes.

  “Right, so that’s my signal,” she said with a laugh. “You have my number, right?” she asked Sally, who took her turn to roll her eyes and then headed straight for the kitchen. “Grabbing some healthy crap for you, Fran, then I’ll be right in there.”

  Kylie couldn’t help but laugh, and knowing that Sally was a retired nurse made her feel better. She wouldn’t allow Franny to have anything that wasn’t on the approved list.

  “Okay, so a movie?”

  Brady closed the door and took Kylie’s hand, leading her down the front porch steps. “We have two options, each starting in about twenty minutes.”

  A curious smile curved her lips. “I’m listening.”

  “Inappropriate comedy or action-adventure.”

  Immediately, Kylie bounced. “Oooo! What’s the action-adventure? Let’s go to that one.”

  Brady hit the unlock button on his car keys and walked around to open the passenger side door for Kylie. “Action it is, though I heard it’s selling out everywhere.”

  “Uh oh.”

  He leaned
inside the door and whispered in her ear. “Which is why I bought tickets online.”

  “You didn’t. How would you know what I’d choose?”

  Brady pulled back enough so she could see him clearly. “Because I know you, Ky. What’s inside, the deep stuff, it doesn’t change.”

  He kissed her easily, then walked around to get in, and all Kylie could think was that she hoped he was wrong. She was counting on her inner self changing, the deep wounds healing. Otherwise, she was doomed to repeat the mistakes from her past, and she couldn’t do that to Brady.

  Not this time.

  By the time they reached the theater and stepped out of the car, a light snow had started to fall, and kids who had previously been in line with their parents were now running around on the sidewalk, trying to catch it in their mouths.

  The parents stood nearby, watching and laughing, then trying to call their kids inside, all to no avail. What kid wanted to sit in a theater, forced by her parents to sit still and quiet, when they could scream and play in the snow? Of course, the snow wouldn’t stick, but that didn’t stop the magic it brought to the kids’ imaginations.

  Brady gripped Kylie’s hand and pulled her to a stop. He was pensive as he stared down at her. Clearly, something was on his mind, and Kylie wondered if this was all a little too much, too fast for him—Franny’s heart attack, Kylie admitting her feelings—her inability to be this close to him without aching to kiss him.

  Gingerly, he plucked something from her hair. “Snowflake.”

  “Brady, I—”

  He leaned in to kiss her, stealing her words as his lips performed their own version of magic. It took him a moment to pull away. “I’m sorry. It was just seeing you out here, snow all around us, it reminded me of another time.”

  Several of the people passing by had stopped to watch the children. There was something about snow in a place like a movie theater that made kids want to be silly. Kylie knew because this wasn’t the first time she and Brady had been outside a movie theater with snow in the air, only that time school had been canceled and there were six inches on the ground. They’d just started whatever they were starting, and so when he’d come by her house and said he was taking her to a movie, she hadn’t argued. She’d grinned ear to ear, grabbed her coat, and followed him to his truck. At the time, she would have followed him anywhere.

  “I know. I was thinking about the same thing,” she said. “It was the moment I knew you wanted more than friendship.”

  Brady laughed loudly, the sound rumbling from his chest to hers. “Make no mistake, sweetheart. I never had my sights on friendship.” Then his expression turned serious, and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the effort. “I think I loved you the moment I met you.”

  Kylie stilled, her emotions bubbling up, all words lost.

  “Brady?”

  Apparently, some didn’t struggle with words. Or timing.

  Sighing, Kylie took a step back to find Valerie had stopped outside the theater. She stood beside another woman, who likely went to their high school, but Kylie had never been a name person.

  Brady released a slow breath, and Kylie fought back a grin. He seemed as aggravated at the interruption as her.

  “Hey there,” he said. “Seems a busy night here.”

  Valerie offered a grin, then her gaze slid from him to Kylie, and the smile dropped. “Hi, Kylie.”

  “Hi, it’s good to see you.”

  Valerie nodded, and for the second time, Kylie thought she wasn’t the villain that Kylie once assumed her to be. She was just another woman who fell for Brady. “Well, I’ll see y’all later. Enjoy your movie.” She followed her friend into the theater, stopping inside to peer out the window at Brady again before heading over to the ticket counter.

  “Wow.” Kylie shook her head, then laughed. “What in the world did you do to her?”

  “Me?” he scoffed. “I just said hey.”

  “Not now, crazy. Before. In the past. Clearly, she’s still not over it.”

  And now Brady scratched his head uncomfortably. “There might have been a date or two a long time ago. But we ended it as friends.”

  “You ended it as friends. She ended it with an ellipsis of things to come. I guess I can’t say I blame her.”

  Brady opened the door for her and took her hand again as they walked inside. Framed movie posters covered the navy walls. Arcade games lined the back, while the ticket counter took up the left side, and refreshments occupied most of the center. A line to get into one of the movies ran the right-hand side of the theater. “So you’re saying we ended with an ellipsis, too?”

  The kids from outside came in, some by force, others with grumbles, but otherwise following their parents behind Kylie and Brady. One of the movie staffers scanned their tickets on Brady’s phone, then told them which theater to go to.

  “Not answering the question, I see,” Brady whispered as they took their seats, but Kylie didn’t know how to say what was on her mind.

  To her, she wasn’t the one who ended things, the one to keep the sentence—the relationship—open ended. He was. And revealing how often she’d checked her phone after that fateful day, how often she’d searched for him around school, how often she’d driven by his house, only to turn away before she reached the driveway for fear that he would recognize her car.

  “For me, there was never an ellipsis. There was a period after your name, not because we had ended—but because my heart stopped at you.”

  Brady lifted the arm rest between them and tugged her closer, his lips finding hers as the lights to the theater dimmed and previews began.

  She only hoped this time around they were on the same page. Her heart wouldn’t survive Brady leaving her again. But he wasn’t leaving.

  Right?

  Chapter 15

  “Damn, I didn’t realize you were this gone.”

  Brady shook his head, clearing the Kylie-infused daze he’d stepped into the moment he entered the shop, and eyed his brother, Charlie.

  His brothers came by to check on things, which was another way of saying they wanted to make sure he was keeping his head in the game. Which he was…mostly.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brady said as he adjusted the papers in front of him, including a note from Ally that a man had stopped by to see him, with a number below the name.

  “We’re talking about that infatuated look in your eye,” Zac said.

  “What?”

  “You love her,” the brothers said at the same time, and Brady had to turn around to keep from proving them right.

  Because there it was again, the word that refused to leave his head. Holy hell, did he ever love this woman. The original feelings he’d felt before were still there, but something new had blossomed from that foundation, something deeper and more honest. This wasn’t fun, careless love. This was experienced and full of all the realities that adulthood brings. Nothing would be easy, yet with her in his arms, all he could think was that whatever they faced, he could deal with it, so long as they were together.

  A part of him wanted to tell her, but then he thought about how shocked she’d seemed when she saw him at Target. How a person could expect another person to always leave was beyond him. His family counted on one another and rarely disappointed. To never know what stable felt like must be hard, and though he’d seen it firsthand with her parents all those years ago, he’d never understood how deep that fear ran in her until that moment. She thought he’d left her, and the relief on her face was enough to make him want to prove to her over and over that he wouldn’t leave. He was staying.

  But proving that to someone would take time. So he would pocket the love card until she was ready to hear it and trust it. People threw around the word all the time. He wanted her to know that he didn’t just mean it; he intended to put it into practice every day f
or as long as she would put up with him.

  “Look, if there’s nothing else you need, I got a few calls to make.”

  Zac eyed his watch, then clapped Charlie on the back. “I have to get to the farm. You going to Southern Dive?”

  Charlie stretched his arms out behind him. “Meeting Lila at AJ&P for breakfast, then going over a few designs with the printer.”

  “T-shirts or marketing stuff?” Zac asked as Brady’s attention drifted back over to Kylie. She was talking to a customer across the room who was waving his hands frantically as he spoke. Brady couldn’t hear what the man was saying, but if his hands were any inclination, he was letting Kylie have it.

  The protective side of him kicked in, and he held the counter to keep from walking over there to see what was up. He reminded himself that Kylie had always been able to handle herself, and that that was her side of the shop. Brady had no business involving himself.

  Ally came up beside the pair then, and Kylie said something to her before Ally walked to the back.

  “So, I need to check a few things and make those calls. See y’all later?”

  “Yeah, later, brother,” Zac said, then waved as he headed out, Charlie on his heels with his phone out, likely texting Lila that he was on his way.

  Brady waited until they were out of sight, then headed to the back to ask Ally what was going on.

  A grumbling sound of frustration hit his ears as soon as he passed through the swinging door. “What was that?” he asked.

  Ally shot him a look and then bent back down to move around boxes on the Merrily side of the stockroom. “Stupid, self-righteous pond scum out there giving Kylie lip because an ornament on our website isn’t in the store. She tried to explain to him that it’s not a retail site where you can purchase things, that it’s just for looks, but there was no reasoning with him. So now Kylie is having me pull out the ones she put away for the drawing later this month to see if that ornament is one of them. Big giant bull piece of sewer crawl.”

  A laugh broke from Brady’s lips, and he tried to cover it with another laugh before Ally took that anger out on him. “Pond scum sewer crawl?”