Embracing Her Heart

by Melissa Foster

  Embracing Her

  Heart

  The Bradens & Montgomerys

  (Pleasant Hill – Oak Falls)

  Love in Bloom Series

  Melissa Foster

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

  EMBRACING HER HEART

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2018 Melissa Foster

  Kobo Edition

  V1.0

  This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover Design: Elizabeth Mackey Designs

  Cover Photograph: Sara Eirew Photography

  WORLD LITERARY PRESS

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  A Note to Readers

  I am thrilled to bring you the Montgomerys, another fun, close-knit family and group of friends to fall in love with. If this is your first Melissa Foster book, all of my books are written to stand alone, so dive right in and enjoy the fun, sexy ride!

  The best way to keep up to date with new releases, sales, and exclusive content is to sign up for my newsletter or download my free app.

  www.MelissaFoster.com/News

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  Two Love in Bloom Worlds Become One!

  Meet the Bradens & Montgomerys (Pleasant Hill – Oak Falls)

  I am excited to share some fantastic news with you! The Bradens at Pleasant Hill and the Montgomerys have become one magnificent series! In book three, Trails of Love, the Montgomerys and the Bradens are going to be deeply intertwined. For that reason, I am combining the series to make it easier for readers to keep track of characters, weddings, babies, etc. What this means is that after the first two books (Embracing Her Heart and Anything for Love) you will see both worlds in most of the books. Some stories might weigh more heavily in one location than the other, but they are all going to cross over. In book one, Embracing Her Heart you will met the Montgomerys, and in book two, Anything for Love, you will meet the Bradens. I hope you love them all as much as I do!

  About the Love in Bloom Big-Family Romance Collection

  The Bradens & Montgomerys is just one of the series in the Love in Bloom big-family romance collection. Each Love in Bloom book is written to be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel or as part of the larger series. There are no cliffhangers and no unresolved issues. Characters from each series make appearances in future books, so you never miss an engagement, wedding, or birth. A complete list of all series titles is included at the end of this book, along with previews of upcoming publications.

  Visit Melissa’s Reader Goodies page for free ebooks, checklists, family trees, and more!

  www.MelissaFoster.com/RG

  A Special Surprise for Fans!

  I am part of a fantastic group of romance authors called the Ladies Who Write (LWW), and we have created a fun, sexy world just for you! In EMBRACING HER HEART you will hear about LWW and meet member Amber Montgomery. In the next book in the Bradens & Montgomerys series, ANYTHING FOR LOVE, you will meet several other fictional members of LWW in a much bigger way, each of whom, along with Amber, will have their own book written by me and the other LWW authors. For more information on our group, and to stay up to date on the release of LWW books, visit www.LadiesWhoWrite.com and sign up for our newsletter.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  A Note to Readers

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ready for more Bradens & Montgomerys?

  About the Love in Bloom Series

  More Books By Melissa

  Acknowledgments

  Meet Melissa

  Chapter One

  “OUCH!”

  Brindle? Grace blinked awake at the sound of whispers in the dark room. It took her a moment to remember she was in her childhood bedroom at her parents’ home in Oak Falls, Virginia, and not in her Manhattan loft. She narrowed her eyes, trying to decipher which of her five sisters were intent on waking her up at…She glanced at the clock. Four thirty in the morning?

  “Shh. You’re such a klutz.”

  Sable. Of course. Who else would think it was okay to wake her up at this hour besides Brindle, her youngest and most rebellious sister, and Sable, the night owl?

  “I tripped over a suitcase,” Brindle whispered. Something thunked. “Oh shit!” She tumbled onto the bed in a fit of laughter, bringing Sable down with her—right on top of Grace, who let out an “Oomph!” as her parents’ cat, Clayton, leapt off the bed and tore out of the room.

  “Shh! You’ll wake Mom and Dad, or the dogs,” Sable whispered between giggles.

  “What are you doing?” Grace tried to sound stern, but her sisters’ laughter was contagious. The last thing she needed was to be awake at this hour after a grueling week and a painfully long drive, but her sisters were excited about Grace coming home, and if Grace were honest with herself, despite the mounds of scripts she had to get through during her visit, she was excited to see them, too. Other than a quick trip for her friend Sophie’s wedding, she hadn’t been home since Christmas, and it was already May.

  “Get up.” Brindle tugged her off the bed and felt around on the floor. “We’re going out, just like old times.” She threw the slacks and blouse Grace had worn home the night before in Grace’s face. “Get dressed.”

  “I’m not going—”

  “Shut up and take this off.” Sable pulled Grace’s silk nighty over her head despite Grace’s struggles to stop her. She knew it was a futile effort. What Sable wanted, Sable got. Even though she and her twin sister, Pepper, were a year younger than Grace, Sable had always been the pushiest of them all.

  Grace reluctantly stepped into her slacks. “Where are we going?” She reached for her hairbrush as Brindle grabbed her hand and dragged her out the bedroom door. “Wait! My shoes!”’

  “We’ll grab Mom’s boots from by the door,” Sable said, flanking her other side as they hurried down the hall tripping over each other.

  “I’m not wearing cowgirl boots.” Grace had worked hard to shake the country-bumpkin habits that were as deeply ingrained as her love for her six siblings. Habits like hair twirling, saying y’all, and wearing cutoffs and cowgirl boots, the hallmarks of her youth. She stood on the sprawling front porch with her hands on her hips, staring at her sisters, who were waiting for her to put on her mother
’s boots.

  “Step into them or I swear I’ll make you climb that hill barefoot, and you know that’s not fun,” Sable said.

  “God! You two are royal pains in the ass.” Grace shoved her feet into the boots. They’re only boots. They don’t erase all of my hard work. Oak Falls might be where her roots had sprouted, but they’d since spread far and wide, and she was never—ever—going to be that small-town girl again.

  The moon illuminated the path before them. The pungent scent of horses and hay lingered in the air as they crossed the grass toward the familiar hill. Great. They were taking her to Hottie Hill. Grace groaned, wondering why she hadn’t tossed them out of her bedroom and locked the door instead of going along with their crazy like-old-times plan. Three weeks at home would be both a blessing and a curse. Grace loved her sisters, but she imagined three weeks of Sable playing her guitar until all hours of the night and her other younger sisters popping in and out with their dogs and their drama, all while their mother carefully threw out queries about their dating lives and their father tried not to growl at their responses.

  Brindle strutted up the steep hill in her boots and barely there sundress, expertly avoiding the dips and ruts in the grass, while Grace hurried behind her, stumbling over each one as she tried to keep up.

  Sable reached the peak of the hill first. She turned on her booted heels, placed her hands on her hips, and grinned like a fool. “Hurry up! You’ll miss it!”

  It was one thing to deal with family drama from afar, when all it took was a quick excuse to get off the phone, but three weeks? Grace couldn’t even blame her decision on being drunk, since she had been stone-cold sober when her sister Amber had asked her to help bolster her bookstore’s presence by hosting a playwriting course. You made it, Gracie! You’re such an inspiration to everyone here, Amber had pleaded. Besides, Brindle is leaving soon for Paris, and it’s the last time we’ll all be together for months. It’ll be like old times. Grace was living her dream, writing and producing off-Broadway plays, although lately, that’s all the living she was doing, and the diva attitudes of the industry were grating on her last nerve. Besides, how could she say no to Amber, the sweetest sister of them all?

  Grace slipped on the hill and caught herself seconds before face-planting in the grass. “Damn it! This is the last thing I want to be doing right now.”

  “Shh,” Brindle chided as she reached for Grace’s hand.

  Sable ran down the hill annoyingly fast. Holding her black cowgirl hat in place atop her long dark hair with one hand, she reached for Grace with the other and said, “Get up, you big baby.”

  “I can’t believe you dragged my ass out of bed for this. What are we? Twelve?” Grace asked in her own harsh whisper.

  “Twelve-year-olds don’t sneak out to watch the hottest men in Oak Falls break in horses,” Brindle said as they reached the top of the hill.

  “Liar. We’ve been doing it since you were twelve,” Sable reminded her.

  “I can’t believe they’re still doing this at this ungodly hour.” They were the Jericho brothers, and they’d been breaking in horses before dawn since they were teenagers. They claimed it was the only time they had before the heat of the day hit, but Grace thought it had more to do with it feeling more exciting doing it in the dark.

  The Jericho brothers were the hottest guys around. Well, at least since Reed Cross left town after high school graduation. Grace tried to tamp down thoughts of the guy who had taken her—and given her his—virginity, and turned her heart inside out. The man she’d turned away in pursuit of her production career, and the person she’d compared every single man to ever since. She refused to let herself go down memory lane.

  “I’m exhausted,” Grace complained as they reached the peak of the hill overlooking the Jericho ranch. The Jerichos owned several hundred acres and were very active in the community, opening one of their barns once a month to the community for jam sessions, where anyone that played an instrument could take part. People of all ages came to enjoy the music, dance, and take part in various games like potato sack races, ring toss, and touch football. It was just another of the small-town events that Grace hadn’t regretted leaving behind.

  “It’s not like I haven’t seen these guys a million times,” she pleaded. “Besides, Brindle, you’ve slept with Trace more times than you can probably count. It’s not like you haven’t seen him shirtless. Why are we even—”

  “Shh!” Brindle and Sable said in unison as they pulled Grace down to her knees.

  She followed their gazes to the illuminated riding ring below, where the four Jericho brothers, Trace, Justus, aka “JJ,” Shane, and Jeb, and a handful of other shirtless, jeans-clad guys were milling about. They were always shirtless, because what men weren’t when they were proving they were the manliest of the group?

  “Trace and I are over,” Brindle whispered. “For real this time.” She and Trace had been in an on-again-off-again relationship forever. They were a hopeless case of rebellious guy and rebellious girl, up for anything risky. Two people who didn’t have a chance in hell of ever settling down but seemed to fill a need in each other’s lives—or at least in their beds.

  “That’s not what Morgyn said.” Sable smirked. Morgyn was a year older than Brindle and just as outgoing.

  “Why didn’t you drag her out instead of me?” Grace complained.

  “I would have, but she wasn’t home,” Brindle explained.

  Grace and her sisters had spent many hours as teenagers lying on this same hill when they should have been sleeping, watching the Jericho brothers and other guys ride wild horses or rope cattle. Pepper and Amber had come with them only twice. Pepper had complained the whole time about it being a waste of brain power, and Amber had been more embarrassed than turned on by the shirtless cock-and-bull show. If only I’d been born shy.

  She laughed to herself. Shy? Right. She’d blazed a path in a man’s world. There was no room for shy in her repertoire. And there was no room for this nonsense anymore, either. She pushed up onto her knees. “Brindle, maybe at twenty-four this is still fun, but I’m twenty-eight. I’ve got work to do in the morning, and I’m so far past this it’s not even funny.”

  “God, Grace! You’ve turned into a workaholic ice queen,” Sable whispered as she yanked Grace back down to her stomach. “And I, your very loving sister who feels the need to keep you young, aim to fix that. Starting now.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Ice queen? Just because I’ve grown up and don’t find this type of thing fun anymore?” As she said the words the men below walked out of the ring and stood on the outside of the fence, their muscular arms hanging over the top rail.

  “Ice queen because you think you’re too good for—” Sable swallowed her words as Trace and JJ pushed open the enormous wooden barn doors and a wild horse blasted into the ring with a shirtless man on its back.

  Their gazes snapped to the show below. It wasn’t a Jericho on the back of this horse for its first ride, and despite her protests, Grace squinted into the night to get a better look at the virility before her.

  “Damn,” Brindle said in a husky voice.

  “Holy shit, that’s hot,” Sable whispered. “See, Gracie? Totally worth it.”

  Grace took in the arch of the rider’s shoulders as the horse bucked him forward and back, his thick arms holding tightly to the reins. His wavy brown hair and the square set of his chin sent a shudder of recognition through her.

  “Ouch! Grace! You’re digging your nails into me.” Sable pried Grace’s fingers off her forearm.

  “Is that…?” Grace choked on the anger and arousal warring inside her. She’d recognize Reed Cross anywhere, even at a distance, after all these years of seeing him only in her dreams. She pushed to her feet, unable to make sense of seeing the forbidden lover she’d risked everything to have—and then cast aside—in Oak Falls, with the guys who’d once hated the sight of him. What the hell was he doing here? The last she’d heard, he’d moved to somewhere i
n the Midwest after high school.

  “Reed…?” His name rolled off her tongue too easily, and she stumbled backward. Memories of being in his arms slammed into her, his gruff voice telling her he wanted her, he loved her. She didn’t want to remember what they’d had, and as her sisters reached for her, trying to pull her back down to the grass, she took off running the way they’d come.

  “Gracie, wait!” Sable shouted in a harsh whisper as she and Brindle ran after her.

  Grace ran fast and hard, trying to outrun the memories, and knew it was a futile effort, which only pissed her off even more. She spun on her heels, anger and hurt burning through her. “You didn’t think to warn me?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t come,” Sable said.

  “Damn right I wouldn’t.” She started down the hill again.

  “Wait, Grace!” Brindle grabbed her hand and tried to slow her down, but Grace kept going, dragging her sister with her. “What is going on?” Brindle pleaded. “Why are you so mad?”

  Grace slowed, realizing in that moment that Sable had kept her secret for the past decade. That was something she hadn’t expected. Then again, she hadn’t expected to have a visceral, titillating reaction to seeing Reed again, either. Hell, she hadn’t expected to ever see him again. Period. He had been the quarterback at their rival high school. Small-town rivalries weren’t taken lightly back then, and she and Reed had been careful never to be seen together for fear of Grace, a cheerleader, being ostracized by her friends. As graduation neared, they both knew Grace wanted to follow her dreams and write and produce plays in the Big Apple. They might have stayed together if Reed had told her that he would be willing to move away from the small town one day, but he’d been adamant about never leaving his family.

  At least he had been until she’d ended their relationship to pursue her dreams.

  Then he’d left town for good.

  Or so she’d thought.

  That still stung, even now, as his deep voice carried in the air, bringing with it memories of the secrets they’d shared and the stolen sensual nights they’d enjoyed.