by Violet Duke
“He probably is, you know,” commented Emma as she handed him a fork and a giant slice of cake. “Peyton actually knew that I had a huge crush on you, and he always used to tell me that he’d kick your butt if you did wrong by me.”
Jake beamed. Just when he thought he couldn’t love the little guy any more. “I think that’s earned Peyton the first slice of cake.”
“No!”
Jake froze. “What?”
“That’s your slice.”
“Okay,” he replied slowly as Emma quickly cut another slice for Peyton and then one for herself.
“Dig in,” she said cheerfully.
She even went so far as to push the plate closer to him.
Was it just him, or was she being even stranger than usual?
Putting a pin in that for the time being, he slid his fork into the moist cake and took his first unbelievable bite.
Holy crap. “That’s even better than my mom’s.”
Emma lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yeah? Okay, keep eating.”
Back to the peculiar behavior again. But an intriguing variety for sure. He just gave her a smiling headshake and went in for another bite.
Only his fork clanged against something hard inside the cake. He slid his fork out and tried again. Again it bumped into something hard, seemingly metallic, in his slice.
A shy smile bloomed across Emma’s face.
“Is this—” he began, too surprised and too at a loss for words to even finish his question.
He’d seen this very thing in a bunch of movies before. Never once did he imagine that he would be on the receiving end of it. Truth be told, he’d always thought the whole thing a little silly.
But it wasn’t silly. In fact, it was romantic as hell.
“I’ve thought about this a lot,” said Emma in a quiet, contemplative voice. “If I could turn back time, knowing everything I do now . . . about you taking the fall for a stranger who I still don’t want to learn the identity of—just FYI—and about how our lives would play out, I’m pretty sure I’d do everything exactly the same way.”
“Yeah?” he asked as he hooked his fork on the symbolic little gift Emma had made sure he’d find, the reason she’d been so adamant that he have this particular slice.
“Well, except for one thing,” she amended, emotion-rich eyes watching his every reaction. “I’d make sure to visit you at juvie. Especially on your birthday.”
Even though Jake had been adamant about his siblings not visiting him in juvie, if Emma had shown up, he would’ve seen her in a heartbeat.
“You told that mystery caller you were talking to on the phone that if the woman you wanted to spend the rest of your life with couldn’t come to terms with your past, with the choices you’d made a part of your history fourteen years ago, if she couldn’t accept that part of you, of who you were, then there was no possible future there.”
Damn. She’d remembered it almost verbatim. He nodded, now seeing her gift, her loud-and-clear message to him in an even more meaningful light.
“So yes.” Her gaze held his. “To show you that I’m that woman, the one you should spend the rest of your life with, I’d make absolutely certain to visit you at juvie on your birthday.”
He pulled her closer. “With this cake?”
“Yup.”
“With this very romantic, very meaningful metal file baked into it?”
She blushed shyly even as her voice grew bolder. “Definitely.”
“God, I love you, woman.”
Epilogue
Four months later
“I still don’t understand why you won’t tell me more about your older brother. It’s bad enough you’ve kept him a secret all this time. The least you could do is answer a few questions about the man.”
Jake sighed as his beautiful, bossy bride took the lead on the dance floor and tried to squeeze classified info out of him like a sexy spy on a mission.
“Why is he the only one that kept the Carmichael name? And how is it that you went from barely speaking to the guy to him becoming your best man? And holy crap, is he hitting on my sister?”
That last one caught Jake’s attention, as well. When he looked over to where Megan was standing, sure enough, there was Carter. Huh.
Yeah, he wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. Those two were consenting adults. They were possibly the most ill-conceived match on the planet, but, then again, most would’ve said the same thing about his relationship with Emma. So again, he was giving that entire situation a wide berth.
“I’m sure he’s just talking to her about her house,” hazarded Jake, knowing that had to be at least partially true. He’d caught Carter jotting down various things that needed fixing at Megan’s house. Jake had no doubt he’d be getting a nice covert to-do list when he and Emma came back from their honeymoon.
As far as he knew, Megan still didn’t know that Carter was the man behind a lot of the financial help throughout her life. So that meant Carter would be expecting him to get creative on getting Megan to accept his “help.”
Having Carter back in his life again was a lot of work.
But it was . . . nice.
When it looked as if Emma was getting ready to launch another wave of questions, he quickly diverted her attention to a more pressing, very real concern. “Sweetheart, are you sure I’m not going to poison all our guests?”
A doting smile overtook her features as she finally refocused all her attention back on him. “We’ve gone over this. Your last few practice runs turned out great. Everyone’s going to love the wedding cake. You’re stressed over nothing.”
He gave the leaning five-tiered cake he’d baked and spackled with frosting that morning another dubious look before replying. “Don’t play Miss Cool Cucumber. You’re one to talk. I saw you continuously peeking up at the wedding arch you’d built like it was going to fall atop our heads.”
“That’s different.” She sniffed, eyes shooting back over to the wedding arch in question now that he’d reminded her of it. They’d wrapped enough ivy and flowers around it so you almost couldn’t notice the copious amounts of duct tape Emma had used to reinforce certain areas.
“Really? How so?”
“Easy. I’m a much better teacher than you.”
He chuckled, then leaned in to whisper, “That’s not what you said the other night when we—”
Emma whacked him before he could finish that dirty recap.
“Aand, there she goes, folks,” called out Megan, shaking her head. “The first whack of their marriage. Glad to see that marriage hasn’t changed them one bit.”
The crowd laughed.
As did the bride and groom.
“She’s transformed so much,” murmured Emma proudly. “Six months ago, Megan would never have been able to host our wedding and reception in her backyard. But did you see her earlier? She was running the whole thing like a boss.”
Jake couldn’t agree more.
Their wedding had been perfect. With all their town friends in attendance and dressed to the nines, like the fifteen garden gnomes Megan had dressed in fancy little suits for the occasion.
Sans the tiny-pecker condoms.
Truth is, they no longer needed the condoms, seeing as how they’d decided to start trying for a baby the very night they’d gotten engaged. They knew better than most how important it was to live life to the fullest. And they were both ready. Business was booming, and the new home they’d moved into next door to Megan’s had a little room perfect for a nursery.
With a crib waiting for them the day they’d moved in, adorned with a big red bow.
Courtesy of Megan, whom they’d asked not only to be their future baby’s godmother but also to honor them with picking the baby’s middle name.
Megan, being Megan, had decided to keep them in suspense from that day forward, giving them wacky hints of the names she was thinking of, each crazier than the last.
Now, sitting on the deck opening wedding gi
fts with their siblings, Jake and Emma found that Megan had spent the past month knitting the most intricate baby blanket they’d ever seen. And in the corner of it, embroidered in a gender-neutral green was her middle-name choice for the baby.
Peyton.
Looking over at his beautiful, emotional wife, Jake leaned in to suggest quietly, “I say we make her pick again.”
At Emma’s shocked, dismayed expression, he quickly added with a smile as he wrapped his arms around her, “Because I think that would be perfect as a first name, don’t you?”
She gifted him with a stunning smile. “Peyton Rowan would be a strong name for a boy as rascally as his namesake.”
He chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. “Or a beautiful name for a girl as adorable as her mom.”
She deployed her freckles happily. “Peyton Rowan it is.” Looking around at their family and friends all gushing over the beautiful blanket, she whispered in his ear, “Should we tell them already?”
Jake felt his heart nearly bust out of his chest again, same as it had three nights ago when Emma had first told him—in her cute, bossy way—that he needed to be in charge of finding their something old, something borrowed, and something blue, because FYI, she already had the “new” part taken care of.
Immediately he’d known just the thing to satisfy all three requirements.
After kissing the hell out of Emma, he’d hopped Megan’s fence and “borrowed” the old blue yarn blob that had been serving as Gnomeo the garden gnome’s beret since the night of her first barbecue.
Given the way everything had worked out for him and Emma, it seemed fitting that the blob got to reinvent itself a second time, as well.
Turned out all the blob needed was a simple wooden frame . . . to turn into a perfect fluffy little cradle, just big enough to nestle the ultrasound printout Emma had surprised him with that night. In more ways than one.
“I have a better question,” he whispered back to his beautiful wife, his hand gently rubbing her tummy. “Have you decided which of my siblings you’re going to ask to pick the other baby’s name yet?”
Acknowledgments
To my amazing Montlake team and especially my stupendously brilliant and supportive dev editor, Lauren . . . thank you all for making this book a possibility. It’s the book that’s been in me to write for longer than even I realized. I might not have ever found it if not for you. So thank you for unearthing the story I didn’t know I’ve been looking for, for believing that I could do it justice, and for turning it into the book it is today.
To all of my “friends in the biz” and kindred souls who give me that sense of belonging I’ve never felt until now . . . thank you for being you. You all are the smartest, savviest, most inspirational people I’ve had the privilege of calling my colleagues and friends. You’re also the most supportive rocks who manage to both ground me and challenge me when I need it. I’ve never been prouder or more grateful to be a part of the unique family that is the romance author community.
To all of the authors whose books I inhale like there is no tomorrow . . . thank you for writing the hell out of these books. Each of you helps make this world we live in such a special place that’s seemingly boundless in possibilities because of all you create and dare to dream. I wouldn’t be the author I am today if I weren’t still the voracious reader I’ve been my entire life. Rather than getting lost in a book, for me, reading has always been how I’ve found my way. Thus, you are each a part of the constellation I look to whenever I lose track of my true north. So thank you for always navigating me in the right direction, and lighting the way with your incredible talent.
To my husband, Mr. Violet Duke . . . thank you for being my everything. You are one of my favorite human beings on this planet, one of the few folks who can make me actually laugh out loud. You help me forget about meds, symptoms, and prognoses. And only you can get me to silly-smile even when you’re driving me bonkers. Whenever you’re near me, I feel stronger, happier, more inspired. Thank you for always making me believe I can do anything.
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Violet Duke is a former English professor ecstatic to now be on the other side of the page. She enjoys writing emotion-rich stories with fun, everyday characters and sweet, sexy matchups. Since her acclaimed debut series in 2013, more than a million readers have put Violet’s contemporary romances on the USA Today bestseller list sixteen times, the New York Times bestseller list three times, and the Top 10 charts across the major e-retailers, both in the United States and internationally. Born and raised in Hawaii, Violet continues to live the no-shoes island way with her nutty kids and crazy husband, her most devoted fan. Learn about Violet’s new releases at www.VioletDuke.com.
