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

by Violet Duke

  To lighten the mood, she jokingly asked, “Crazy like I need to get you fitted for a strait jacket?”

  He tilted his head as a puff of air left his mouth. “Maybe.”

  “I was kidding,” Haley clarified, even though he knew full well that she hadn’t been serious.

  “I’m not.” Eddie raked his fingers through his thick dark hair and leaned back in his chair. Haley studied the strong lines of his profile as he stared out into the darkness.

  “What’s going on, Eddie? What’s wrong?” Haley knew that something was not right.

  She’d hoped that his recent unusual behavior just meant that he was finally going to make a move. But the expression on his face and the tormented look in his faraway gaze was making her think that she might have been way off the mark on that theory.

  “What’s wrong?” he repeated quietly under his breath. Then he turned to her with a tortured look in his eyes that made her heart clench. “What’s wrong is that you make me want to have things that I can’t have. You make me want to do things that I can’t do. You make me want to say things that I can’t say.”

  “Who says you can’t?” she asked breathlessly. Because if it were up to her, he could say, want, and do just about anything…especially when it came to her.

  She heard the desperation in her own voice and felt her chest rising and falling with short pants of breath, but Haley didn’t try to disguise her reactions, not that it would have done any good anyways. She wasn’t trying to slow her breathing or mask her arousal.

  This was the talk she’d been waiting years to have and she wanted to get her cards on the table. No hiding. Nothing left unsaid.

  “I say I can’t.” He leaned back again, his body language clearly communicating that this conversation was over.

  Yeah, not so much. There was no way she was going to let this drop that easily.

  “Well, I say you can.” Strength and challenge filled her tone, and once again it surprised her.

  She was on fire tonight. Haley had always been the observer. Confrontation made her wildly uncomfortable. Sweeping things under the rug was her normal go-to move. Whatever came of this conversation, Haley was glad that for once she’d stood up for herself.

  Sadly, Eddie did not seem as impressed with her boldness. The moonlight lit his tense expression as he was looking out over the grass, his jaw tighter than she’d ever seen it, his hands fisted at his sides.

  Obviously, the head-on tactic, no matter how impressed she had been by her efforts, was not getting her very far. So, always one to reassess when thrown a curveball, she decided to use a different tactic and throw his own words back at him.

  “You can tell me anything, Eddie. Just like I can tell you anything.”

  That got his attention. Unable to sit back idly, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers threaded together. “Not this.”

  “Yes, this,” Haley persisted. “Something is bothering you. You should talk about it. If you can’t talk to me, then who can you talk to? Your sister?”

  He shook his head definitively. “No.”

  “Riley?”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “Hell no.”

  She shrugged her arms and smiled at him. “Well, looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  “Haley.” He spoke her name in a warning tone that she’d seen men at his jobsite cower under. She wasn’t a man at his jobsite.

  “Eddie,” she mimicked him.

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “This isn’t funny.”

  She shrugged and smiled innocently. “Well, I wouldn’t really know since you won’t tell me what we’re talking about.”

  Finally, his lips parted, revealing his perfectly straight white teeth as the corners of his mouth turned up into a genuine full-blown smile. A glimmer of hope sparked in her chest as his eyes softened and he shook his head back and forth slowly.

  “You’re a brat.”

  “And you’re stubborn,” she shot right back.

  *

  EDDIE HAD SO MANY thoughts racing around in his head it felt like the Indy 500 up there. Things had shifted between himself and Haley. Maybe it had happened a long time ago and he just had been too blind and stupid to notice. Because it felt like their chemistry was a volcano that had been dormant for years but was about to explode. And as much as he would like to explode with Haley, he couldn’t.

  So now he was left with two choices. Confront what was going on between them and address it. Or ignore it and hold it all inside. Confront. Ignore. Confront. Ignore.

  Neither solution would give him what he wanted more than his next breath. Haley. In bed. Naked. So the decision really boiled down to damage control. Which route would lead to the least destruction? One thing was clear. If he didn’t face this thing head-on, he was afraid that it might get out of control. Fast.

  Decision made, he turned to face Haley, ready to confront this thing head-on, but instead he was stopped cold by the sight that greeted him. His breath caught in his throat. The moonlight shone off her golden hair, causing a halo effect. There was an ethereal glow surrounding her. She looked like an angel.

  “You are so beautiful.” His deep voice was a barely audible whisper.

  She sat, silently staring back at him. Her only visible reaction was the widening of her eyes. He saw confusion swimming in the crystal blue pools.

  Which made perfect sense. Who wouldn’t be confused by his actions? He sure as hell knew he was confused by them. His mood swings around Haley were even giving him whiplash. It had to stop.

  No more flirting. No more easy compliments. No more spending unnecessary time together.

  “This”—his hand waved in the empty space between the two of them—“you and me, can’t happen.”

  A look of hurt flashed in her eyes, followed by more confusion. Her brow furrowed as she repeated, “You and me?”

  Shit.

  He knew he was screwing this up. After years of being short, to the point, sometimes even mean to women when having these ‘relationship talks,’ he had obviously lost his touch. The last thing in the world he wanted was to be an asshole to Haley. To avoid that happening, he needed to remove his head from his ass, and he needed to do it quickly.

  “Listen.” He stood and walked to the railing of the deck. He always thought better on his feet. Turning towards her, he leaned back against the wooden plank that lined the rail and faced his back to the yard. “I like you, Haley. A lot more than I should. I think about you a lot more than I should. I want you. A lot more…”

  Eddie stopped because, for one, this line of explanation was going nowhere fast, and two, Haley’s expression was completely blank. For the first time that he could ever remember, he had no idea what was running through her mind. Doubt rose up inside of him like bile as he began to think that he might have built up this whole ‘thing’ happening between them to be lot more than it really was.

  What if she wasn’t interested in him at all? What if all of the times he thought they’d shared a moment, he had just seen a reflection of what he felt for her? What if these feelings he was having were all one-sided and this ‘talk’ he was about to have with her was completely unnecessary?

  He needed to get back on track. “Look, I don’t know how you feel about me but—”

  “I love you,” she said simply, her expression still unreadable.

  What?! Okay, he had not seen that one coming.

  His face must have shown his shock because she calmly added, “I do.”

  If he hadn’t been leaning against the railing, he would have fallen down. He really had no idea how to proceed with this conversation. Love?

  She loved him? T
he bile of doubt that had just risen up inside of him felt like it was washed away from the words she spoke, like the dust on his truck on a rainy day. Calm replaced his anxiety. Calm and…peace.

  Did that really change anything? Did it make any of the reasons that they couldn’t be together go away? No. In fact, it was just one more reason that they couldn’t have any kind of a relationship. He couldn’t return her feelings or give Haley what she wanted, what she deserved.

  “Haley.” He gripped the railing tighter, his fingernails digging into the wood. “I wish things were different. But we can’t do this.”

  “Why not?” she asked calmly.

  When he’d had these talks with other women, some had yelled, some had cried, and a few even had thrown things, but never once had one sat calmly and asked him why. Of course, in all of those circumstances, he’d slept with the women he’d been engaged in this talk with. But somehow this conversation felt more personal, more intimate.

  Her voice steady and smooth, she continued. “You said you want me. You think about me. You like me. What’s the problem?”

  Eddie knew that she might not like or understand his reasoning, but she deserved an answer. “It’s not about just you and me. I have to think about Em—”

  She flinched at his words and was up on her feet in a flash. “I love Emily.”

  Eddie quickly jumped in. “I know. And she loves you. If we did this and things didn’t work out, she would be the one who got hurt. Who suffered.”

  That wasn’t completely true. He had a feeling that if he ever let himself touch Haley, kiss Haley, make love to Haley, he’d never get enough of it. And if—or should he say when—it ended, he would be miserable.

  “My relationship with Emily has nothing to do with my relationship with you.” Her baby blue eyes desperately searched his as she asked, “Do you honestly think that there would be anything you could do to me that would make me stop wanting to be a part of her life?”

  Eddie knew that Haley meant the words that she was saying. But he also knew that, as sincere as she was, things happened. People with the best intentions hurt people they loved. He was proof of that. He’d wanted the best for Lacey. For Emily. A lot of good that had done. Lacey was God knows where doing God knows what. And Em was growing up motherless.

  Taking a deep breath, he raked his hands through his hair, trying to stay calm. “Like I said, I wish things were different.”

  So many different emotions were playing on Haley’s beautiful face. Confusion. Hurt. Anger. Where he couldn’t read a single thought or feeling just a few moments ago, now his gut clenched at the real, raw emotion he saw there.

  “So if nothing can happen between us, why bring it up? Why say anything about it at all?” Her hands flew up animatedly and her voice rose as she spoke.

  “You asked,” he barked. He hadn’t meant to. She didn’t deserve it, but he was tired of always being the bad guy. If she hadn’t pushed to find out what was bothering him, he might not have said anything. Or maybe he would have. He had no idea.

  “Oh,” she said quietly, brushing a strand of her silky golden hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear and nodding. “Right. I did.”

  Eddie waited for more. Waited for her to yell again. Waited for her to tell him why that didn’t matter and she was still right and he was still wrong.

  That never happened.

  Instead, she took two steps forward, stopping directly in front of him, closing the distance between them.

  When she tilted her head up, her sea blue eyes peered up at him through long dark lashes. She softly said, “I know that Emily is the most important thing in your life. She is everything to you and that’s exactly how it should be.”

  He gripped the wood railing tighter in an attempt to anchor his hands and not reach up and cup her face as her perfect lips turned up in a whisper of a smile.

  “The man you are as a father is what I love most about you. I’m not a parent, so I have no idea what the responsibility of having every decision, every action that you make, not just affect but actually mold another person’s life, is like. You have to do what you feel is right when it comes to her and you. I just want you to know that, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen between us, I will always be there for that little girl.”

  As she lifted up on her tiptoes, her pillow-soft full lips brushed a featherlight kiss against his mouth and he felt his head spin, dizzy with arousal. He didn’t react other than to close his eyes and feel. Eddie forced himself to remain perfectly still. Going against every instinct, every desire, every need he had raging inside of himself like a fiery inferno, he didn’t kiss her back. It was a cruel, self-inflicted torture, but he knew that, if he moved even the slightest bit, he’d have her stripped out of those sweats and be buried deep inside of her within seconds.

  “Goodnight,” she finally whispered against his mouth.

  He opened his eyes in time to see her disappear inside his house as she slid the screen door closed, shutting it behind her. She didn’t look back.

  His ears were ringing. The only sound he could decipher was his own labored breathing. After several moments of temporary emotional, physical, and mental paralysis, his head began clearing. He pushed off the railing and moved quickly through the house, opening his front door just in time to see Haley’s long blond hair and perfect backside step onto her porch and make it safely inside her house. Once she shut her front door, he stepped back in and did the same.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back against its solidness. He could still feel the heat of her breath as it fanned his face, the heavenly soft perfection of her lips as they touched him in the sweetest, most innocent kiss he’d ever experienced.

  His hands fisted at his sides as he fought the urge to pick up the phone and ask her, beg her, to come back over so that he could finish that kiss she’d started, this time as a full participant. It would not be sweet or innocent. His kiss would be hot and demanding. Taking and giving pleasure with his mouth.

  Pushing off the door, he took the stairs upstairs two at a time. Knowing that kissing Haley senseless was not an option, he decided to take a cold shower. It wasn’t what he wanted, but at this point, it was the best he had.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HALEY BALANCED THE tray of iced coffees in her right hand as she pulled her keys, held between her lips, with her left. Just as she slipped the key inside the lock, the door opened and Amber stood in front of her.

  “Whoa.” Her light eyes widened. “Ever hear of making two trips?” she asked as she relieved Haley of the large bag of samples she was holding under her arm.

  “Thanks.” Haley set the other bags down on the break table along with a box of donuts. “I’m not a two-trip kind of girl.”

  “Obviously,” Amber smiled as she grabbed her cup of cold joe and opened the pink cardboard box filled with sinfully delicious donuts. Pulling a maple bar with custard filling out, she moaned as she took her first bite.

  Haley grinned to herself. Amber was so put together, classy, stylish, and thin. She looked like the kind of girl who would be expected to eat a salad at every meal. But she loved food. The unhealthier, the better. Pizza, ice cream, donuts, hamburgers. She ate almost as much as Haley’s cousins did and they were all males over six feet tall.

  “We gotta go. Just got a call from Heather. A new space has just become available. She’s there now,” Amber said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin and grabbed her purse.

  “You’re only going to have one?” Haley asked in surprise.

  “No,” Amber answered, looking at Haley like she was out of her mind. “I’m taking one with me.” And with that, she wrapped a glazed donut in two napkins and started moving towards the door.

  That sound
ed more like it.

  “So where is this one?” Haley asked, not getting her hopes up as they stepped outside and Amber locked the door behind them.

  Over the past couple of weeks, they’d seen over a dozen spaces and none of them were right. Too small. Too big. No parking. No foot traffic. Going into this, Haley had had no idea all that went into choosing the right retail space.

  She had never once regretted her decision to go with the partnership deal instead of the investment option Amber had given her. Amber was a smart, savvy, successful businesswoman. Haley hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said she felt like she’d been handed a winning lottery ticket, because that was exactly what going into business with Amber felt like—like winning the lottery.

  “Riverwalk East. I’ll drive,” Amber offered.

  Haley followed behind her. It was a quiet morning in Harper’s Crossing. The only sounds Haley could hear were the birds chirping and the click-clacking of Amber’s high heels as they walked the short distance to her car.

  “Have you seen any pictures of it?” Haley only asked because after the last property they’d seen they decided it would be best if they screen them first so they didn’t waste their or their realtor Heather’s time.

  “I did.” Amber pressed the unlock button on her fob. “Everything looks good, but we’ll see.”

  Haley slid into the passenger side of the car just as she heard Amber’s phone ring. Starting the engine, she pressed the answer button. “Hey, babe. You’re on speaker. Hales is in the car with me. We’re headed over to see a space.”

  The other end of the line was quiet for a moment, and Haley wasn’t sure if the call was still connected until she heard her cousin’s baritone voice come through the speakers.

  “So I shouldn’t talk about our shower this morning.”

  Amber laughed and Haley shook her head and looked out the window as they passed the rolling green hills that bordered the city. She tuned out her cousin and Amber’s conversation as she watched the few hot air balloons that sprinkled the vista. The bright, vibrantly colored patterns that decorated the balloons looked so beautiful against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, dotted with white puffy clouds.