Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (Eight Fun, Romantic Novels by Eight Bestselling Authors)

by Violet Duke

  “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s going to say to me today.” She lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the sun and smiled at him.

  “Just in case, let me also tell you that you look beautiful.”

  Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail and she wore no jewelry and very light makeup. She looked like she could do a commercial for facial cleanser or herbal shampoo.

  She was so different from the women he was used to spending time with. They were polished and put together—not an eyelash or thread out of place. They were beautiful, but he would have never gotten hot and heavy on the hood of his car with any of them. He wouldn’t have wanted to wrinkle them.

  In contrast, Adrianne looked sweet and wholesome and he really wanted to wrinkle her some more.

  At his compliment, she grinned. “That’s the nicest thing anyone will say all week.”

  “That’s terrible. People should be telling you nice things all the time.”

  “Why are you honeying up to me? You’re the one I’m supposed to be wowing with the building plans.”

  “Honeying up?” he repeated. “Isn’t the term kissing up?”

  She blushed.

  All he said was kissing up and she blushed. He liked that. He hadn’t really been worried that she’d forgotten the kiss from the night before, but this made him positive she’d been thinking about it.

  “Same thing,” she muttered, her gaze on the fence next to him instead of on him.

  He moved closer. “I like anything with kissing in it better.”

  “Anyway,” she said. “I’m supposed to be telling you about the building plans.”

  “Okay, what part of the property are you thinking about using?”

  She laughed. “Right here. And a lot of the yard and extending into the fields.”

  Mason looked at her, not sure what the emotion was that he was feeling. The farm held great memories for him. Yes, it was a part of him. But he’d owned it for two years without visiting. He couldn’t possibly be feeling protective of it. He couldn’t really feel possessive. He didn’t care if they knocked the house down and paved the yard.

  Except that in that moment he did.

  “We’ll need to pave a road and put in parking too,” she said.

  Mason looked out from the rise that came up gently from the land around it, where Milt had built his house. It wasn’t truly a hill by any definition. And it was three and a half miles from town. And it wasn’t like they could slap some cement on and call it a road.

  “Why right here?”

  “Well, it’s a hill…”

  “Barely.”

  She shrugged. “It’s more of a hill than anywhere else out here.”

  That was probably true. “Why does it have to be out here?”

  “It’s unused land that’s big enough and not too far from the two major highways.”

  “But why do you want it outside of town?” That didn’t make sense at all to him.

  “That’s part of the charm,” she said, her eyes bright. “It’s not only Sapphire Falls. We have potential business owners from Pierce and Dawson City too.”

  “It’s not very accessible. Are you thinking about how to route traffic?”

  She nodded. “Highway Three is busier than Forty-four. From Highway Three you have to go through Sapphire Falls to get here. This way people have to go through town. See what else we have to offer. Stop there too.”

  It was hard to resist that smile. Adrianne was clearly enthusiastic about the project. It was enough to make him continue talking about it to keep her smiling and talking with that bounce in her voice. But he had no intention of donating any money.

  “What do the plans include exactly?”

  And there was no way he was giving up the land. He was going to have to come up with some way of explaining that to Lauren. He’d get to work on that as soon as he came up with a way to explain it to himself.

  He was having a hard time concentrating on anything, though, with the breeze continually blowing that strand of hair against Adrianne’s lips. The lips that were moving as she talked but that kept throwing his thoughts back to the night before.

  They were alone out here. He could have her dress off and her up against the maple tree in seconds.

  Wow.

  He shook his head. He never had this much trouble concentrating. He was picturing her naked while she was trying to make a business pitch. There was a snowball’s chance in hell he was going to invest, but it was the professional, respectful thing to do to listen and ask questions.

  Not picture her grasping that lower branch as he thrust up—

  Yeah, that was the other problem. He never had that kind of sex. He’d never needed nor wanted to.

  Until now.

  She flipped a few pages up on her clipboard and then read off the potential businesses for this little shopping area. A card and stationery store, a furniture store, a candy shop, a sports bar, and a couple of still-open spots.

  He frowned down at sheet she was reading from. “Tyler Bennett is opening a sports bar?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. Well, maybe,” she amended. “He’s agreed to be a part of it if we get the rest of it up and going.”

  Mason knew Tyler. Well, he knew of Tyler. Ty was the youngest of the Bennett boys, but they were all rather infamous. Ty’s older brother, Travis, had been in Mason and Hailey’s class in high school. They were a family of team captains and homecoming kings and they all seemed to have pockets full of get-out-of-jail-free cards. It was hard not to know of them. No matter how hard someone tried not to.

  “Why would Tyler Bennett open a sports bar?” Mason asked.

  “He was a medalist in the Olympics.”

  Yep, even Mason Riley knew about Tyler’s silver medal. “How does that qualify him to run a sports bar?” How did it qualify him to do anything other than run, bike and swim?

  Adrianne gave him a little smile. “I’m assuming Ty’s had his fair share of beer.”

  Not likely with the kind of training regimen the triathlons would require. Mason crossed his arms. “Uh huh. I’ve traveled on an airplane. Several times. Still pretty sure I shouldn’t be flying the thing.”

  Adrianne winced slightly. “He’ll bring a well-recognized name to the project. He has a…following.”

  “You think they’ll all come to Sapphire Falls to drink his beer?”

  Adrianne lifted one shoulder. “Even if not, Sapphire Hills will be mentioned whenever Tyler’s mentioned in the media and he’ll talk about it all over. And all the businesses are prepared for mail order.”

  Mason sighed. Mail order. Sure, that would solve every problem with this project.

  “How does a sports bar fit into the vision for Sapphire Hills?” Mason asked. A collection of quaint locally owned shops and then a place where guys would gather to drink and yell at televisions? It didn’t make sense.

  Mason saw Adrianne grimace slightly and he knew that she agreed it didn’t quite fit. But she then proceeded to completely ignore his question.

  “Here,” Adrianne said, digging in her bag and pulling out a small white organdy bag. “Since we didn’t know you were coming for sure, we didn’t have this in your room at the bed and breakfast like we did for the others.”

  He fought a smile. Ignoring the ridiculousness didn’t make it any less ridiculous. He took the bag and lifted it, looking through the gauzy fabric. “What’s this?”

  “Samples.” She smiled. “There’s some candy from the proposed candy shop, some of the specialty ground coffee from the coffee shop, a card like the ones Jennifer will create for her
shop, and some photos of some of the furniture Greg wants to make in his store.”

  Mason opened the bag and withdrew a one-inch ball covered in chocolate. He held it up.

  “That’s a cake drop,” she said, her eyes crinkling adorably at the corners. “Try it.”

  He bit into the sample and his eyebrows rose in appreciation. “Okay, that’s pretty good,” he said as he swallowed. It was perfect. He wasn’t much for sweets, but the cake drop tasted like a perfect bite of the best red velvet cake and cream-cheese frosting he’d ever tasted.

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  He liked her. The realization seemed to hit him out of the blue. Not that he’d disliked her for even a moment since meeting her, but it was clear the chemistry from the night before was very real and very present even in the morning light. Now, in addition to wanting her with a nearly staggering force, he also liked her.

  “So Ty’s place will be competing with Dottie’s?” he asked briskly, trying to focus and a little pissed that he couldn’t.

  She looked startled by his sudden shortness. “A, um…” She cleared her throat. “No, not directly.”

  If he was going to say no, which he definitely was, he at least owed it to them to hear all the details first. “How is it not direct? Dottie serves food in town at the café. Ty will serve food out here. If people are already here, there’s no reason for them to go back into town to Dottie’s, right?”

  He wasn’t trying to antagonize Adrianne. But he was annoyed with her and couldn’t seem to help it coming out. Annoyed that she was so tempting, so distracting, so able to make him not really want to talk about practical things like how much money he would waste on this project if he listened to her and looked into those big brown eyes.

  “I haven’t talked to Dottie about it,” she finally answered. “But she hasn’t said anything. She’s friends with Tyler’s mom, so I’m sure she knows about it.”

  “Maybe she’d like to provide food out here.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But that won’t be okay with Ty, will it?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “And there’s not really anything to keep them here overnight.”

  “Here?”

  “Sapphire Falls.”

  “Overnight? No.” Adrianne frowned.

  “So this won’t benefit the bed and breakfast.”

  “No, but—”

  “And you’re an hour away from the city where there are shows and movies and concerts. So if someone wants to catch something like that on a weekend, either they won’t come here or they’ll leave early to make it.”

  She crossed her arms over her clipboard and frowned up at him. “Are you always so negative?”

  “I’m always so logical. And honest.” He was always logical—that’s why this was driving him nuts. More specifically, why she was driving him nuts. None of this was logical. None of this made sense. There was attraction and then there was whatever this was.

  “Hmm,” was all she said.

  That also drove him nuts. She was affected by him. He knew that. But she didn’t seem bothered by it like he was. Did this happen to her so often that she was used to it?

  Women were strange. It didn’t matter how long or thoroughly he studied them—there were things that didn’t make sense.

  “You know a lot about this project.”

  She narrowed her eyes but nodded. “Anything you want to know.”

  He didn’t like the idea overall, and usually he didn’t care how someone would feel about that. In business, it was business, not personal. But somehow he sensed this was important to her and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

  Which meant this was even more of an anomaly. He found himself wanting to tread carefully so that he didn’t hurt her feelings.

  “Was it your idea?”

  “Hailey wanted to do something during her term as mayor that was really big for the town, something that would really matter.”

  That didn’t answer his question.

  “This was all Hailey’s idea?”

  She waved her hand as if it wasn’t important. “We’ve worked on it together from the beginning. It’s hard to remember who came up with what exactly.”

  He could tell it was a purposefully vague answer. “So you came up with it.”

  “I didn’t say that.” But she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “You clearly like the idea.”

  Her head came up. “I do. I think it would be great for the town.”

  “So?” He watched her carefully.

  “So Sapphire Falls deserves to have something great happen.”

  “Why?” He wasn’t sure why he was pushing. He didn’t want a tornado to destroy the town or anything, but he did want to know why this Chicago transplant cared so much about a place she’d only lived in for a short time. A town that he didn’t have a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings for.

  “This town is full of good people, living good lives, taking care of their families and friends and neighbors. If they have a dream, why can’t we try to make it come true?”

  Wow. Okay. “They’re not that different from any other little town.”

  She seemed to pause to think about that. “Well, they’re different from the towns and people I know.” Then she took a deep breath. “And now they’re my town.”

  “Why do you care so much?” he asked. “You haven’t been here long.”

  She looked up at him with a thoughtful expression. “Home isn’t about time,” she finally said. “It’s about where you feel good and can be yourself.”

  “Ah, well, that would explain why I don’t feel at home here.” He didn’t mean to sound bitter. He’d been himself here, but it hadn’t made him want to build them stuff.

  She tipped her head and looked up at him, not with pity or censure, but with understanding. “Home is also the place that has what you need. Maybe you didn’t need anything here.”

  Maybe. But that was now quickly becoming not the case. There was something he was beginning to really need right here in the middle of Sapphire Falls.

  He looked into her eyes and sighed. “This is quite inconvenient.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “What’s inconvenient? This meeting? I thought that Hailey—”

  “The fact that I can’t concentrate on anything.”

  “Anything like—”

  “The business proposal, the details of the plan, why it’s a bad idea.”

  She looked surprised. “You think it’s a bad idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s…” He sighed and rubbed the middle of his forehead. This was ridiculous. “For a number of reasons I can’t quite put into a plausible argument right now. Which is the inconvenient part.”

  “I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded ticked off. “I didn’t realize that I was getting in your way of…something.” She recapped her pen and started to turn.

  He grabbed her elbow as she started to step away. “Adrianne.”

  She stopped but didn’t face him.

  “You’re in the way of me thinking clearly and acting logically.”

  She twisted to look up at him. “You’re not acting logically?”

  “No. And it’s about to get worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to kiss you, probably even more than that given half the chance, rather than tell you all of the
reasons that this building plan doesn’t make sense and would be a bad investment for me and anyone else.”

  She blinked several times, the tension in her body relaxing under his hand. “You want to kiss me?”

  “Even if I hadn’t had a taste of you last night.”

  She sucked in a quick breath and turned to completely face him. “Kissing can be logical.”

  “Oh?” He pulled her closer and her thighs bumped his.

  “It seems logical given the chemistry between us.”

  He could go with that argument. Hell, he didn’t remember what didn’t make sense about it right now anyway. He leaned in slowly. Last night in the parking lot had been crazy, out of control, nuts. This was still nuts, but at least it was intentional. He could handle things much better when they were intentional.

  Adrianne slid her fingers into his hair, pulling him close. Her clipboard fell to the ground as he put his hands on her hips. He loved her hips. She wasn’t skinny. She had places he could hold onto and squeeze. She was soft and curvy and sweet. He brought her against him and touched his lips to hers.

  He wanted to go slow. He wanted to be thorough. She was a variance in what he knew. That brought out the researcher in him. He needed to examine her effect on him fully.

  He breathed in, wanting to remember her scent. He concentrated on memorizing the feel of her lips, the feel of the soft cotton dress under his palms, the heat of her skin through the cotton. He even noted the feel of the sun on the back of his neck, that there was a light breeze and that the dirt shifted slightly under his right shoe. This is good, he thought as he lifted his head and tipped the opposite direction to taste her again. He was beginning to gather data—

  Which all went to hell when she sighed and opened her mouth.

  She flicked her tongue out along his bottom lip, pressed her breasts to his ribs and arched closer.

  Screw data.

  Mason licked her lip in return, then stroked in along her tongue, the hot, wet slickness erotic and new. She tasted faintly of mint, smelled like honey and felt like…nothing he’d ever felt before.