Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

My hands curled into fists and then relaxed, over and over again as I choked back every thought that rushed to my tongue. Crossing my arms over my chest when her attention caught on my hands, I tried to keep my tone even and disinterested when I said, “You’re right . . . I don’t.”

  A crease formed between her brows, suspicion bleeding from her as she studied me. She shifted in her seat to face me, uncrossing her legs as she did like she was preparing to stand. “So, if I were to walk away from this table right now . . .”

  I glanced at her uneaten food and ground my jaw to keep from begging her not to.

  “So intense,” she murmured, crossing her legs again.

  She was testing me . . . gently pushing me. But she had no damn clue what kind of pain she was inflicting . . . what kind of old wounds she was slicing open.

  “Why would you choose not to eat?” The question was out before I could stop it, but the plea and the pain were thankfully absent.

  A soft laugh climbed up her throat. “Are you this invasive with everyone you meet?”

  “It’s just a question.”

  “Asking for my name is a normal question,” she countered, but the laughter in her eyes offset the chastise.

  “I wanna know that, too,” I said honestly, even though my mind was still demanding that I needed to walk away before I forgot why I should.

  She watched me for a while before saying, “I told you yesterday, sometimes food isn’t important when your focus is wholly caught up in other things. I had a lot I needed to sort through, and I’ve done that now.” She took a sip of her coffee, then tilted her head at me. “So, you can stop pushing food on me every time you see me.”

  “Eat, and I won’t have to.”

  “So intense,” she murmured with her mug to her lips again, but she stilled before she could take another drink. Her movements were slow as she set the mug on the table and looked at me, all hints of teasing gone. “Is that why you’re here?”

  One of my eyebrows lifted in question, and my mouth parted to remind her that she was in my town, shaking up my life, opening wounds and resurfacing painful memories when I’d successfully kept them at bay for years.

  “This morning . . . here,” she said slowly. “Were you waiting for me to wake up so you could try to force me to eat?”

  A startled laugh pushed from my chest. “You might be new, and we might’ve gotten off to a weird start, but I promise you aren’t so interesting that I’d be waiting around for you like a damn dog.”

  Instead of any of the responses I might’ve expected from her, she pressed those full lips into a firm line, as if she were biting back a laugh.

  I gestured toward the hall that led to the stairs. “Your fan, the one you didn’t want me looking at?” When her brow furrowed with confusion, I said, “My brother’s pissed that I didn’t fix it. I’m not supposed to leave here until it’s done.”

  “Then fix it so you can leave and I can stop worrying that you’ll yell at me for something else—like my sleeping patterns.” She scooped up her mug as she turned to the table and huffed. “You said weird start like you didn’t break into my room and attack me and then become the most invasive person all within twenty-four hours.”

  My eyes narrowed at the dry sarcasm coating her words and I rocked back a step. “I’m gonna go fix your fan.”

  “Have fun,” she said against the rim of her mug, a smile shaping her lips. “Don’t be that weird person who goes through my stuff.”

  Part of me knew I deserved every bit of her teasing. Knew it was a miracle she was laughing everything off rather than running away after what I’d done and said the few times we’d seen each other.

  Even though running would’ve been a godsend since I didn’t have enough common sense to do what I needed when it came to her.

  Look away . . .

  Walk away . . .

  Stop thinking about the way she looked and the way she would feel against me.

  And then the sexiest damn giggle came from behind me as I walked from the kitchen. Soft, low, raspy, as if she couldn’t help herself.

  God damn.

  It took every ounce of willpower to continue walking away when all I wanted was to look back at her, to see the expression that went with that sound.

  But while I worked in her room, surrounded by her sweet scent, I kept hearing that sound on repeat.

  Seeing those lips and those eyes. Thinking about what they would look like when she was moaning my name, when she was shattering beneath me . . .

  Fuck.

  I stopped screwing the fan back to the base and let my head drop as I tried to force the images from my mind, as I tried to remember who I was and who I needed to be.

  What I refused to ever go near again.

  Why.

  I was nearly finished securing the fan, the constant chant in my mind finally having drowned out everything else, when she stepped into the doorway.

  She isn’t my type. She isn’t attractive. I want nothing to do with her. She isn’t my type. She isn’t—fuck.

  “Almost done,” I ground out, my tone coming out harsher than I intended.

  Once again, it seemed to amuse her. Her head listed, gesturing down the hall. “I ate every bite. Even contemplated eating the plate.”

  My jaw flexed at the simple joke that unintentionally packed the punch of a sledgehammer, but I still shot back, “I went through your shit.”

  A hum sounded in her throat. “All of it?”

  I echoed the noise she’d just made, but didn’t respond otherwise.

  “So, you found my toys?”

  My hands stilled and my stare slowly shifted to her. I didn’t have to ask what kind, the tone and raised eyebrow said it all.

  But then her mouth twisted into a smirk before her chest shook with her silent laughter.

  “Not that you would have found anything had you actually gone through my stuff, but I wouldn’t have thought anything to do with pleasure would shock someone like you.”

  I hadn’t been shocked.

  I’d been trying to block out the image of her touching herself before it could fully form.

  And, Jesus Christ, she was fucking bold.

  “Someone like me,” I began. “And here I thought we didn’t know each other.”

  “Oh, we don’t,” she agreed, though her expression said the opposite. “But I know your type.” She let her eyes roam over me as I stepped off the short ladder, her gaze assessing and still holding a hint of amusement. “You’re a player, Sawyer Dixon. You hop from one bed to another and think you’re God’s gift to women. Everything about you screams it.”

  I resisted the urge to look down at myself and held her challenging stare as my chest started rising and falling faster.

  Because she wasn’t wrong.

  I did fall in and out of beds. I gave women the best sex of their lives before walking away from them because I didn’t want a connection. I didn’t want a relationship. I didn’t want to be consumed by a woman once we left each other’s beds.

  But there was a reason for that.

  A punishment and a reminder.

  “Or,” she continued, drawing out the word as she rested against the doorjamb, “maybe it’s that the people in your town gossip a lot. Especially after someone, say, walks out of a bar . . .”

  “That all you heard?” I asked when I was sure I could speak calmly. When she looked at me questioningly, I clarified, “When I left last night, did you hear anything else about me?”

  “Is there something else you expected me to hear?”

  Considering everyone in this town had known me for most of my life, there was so much she could’ve heard, but from the confusion that had briefly crossed her face, I knew she hadn’t.

  I gave a subtle shake and said, “No.” Before she could say anything else, I nodded toward the switch by her. “Fan should be working.”

  She glanced to the wall and flipped the switch that was still down. When nothing happened, a flash of disappoi
ntment tore through her eyes. “Does this mean you aren’t leaving?”

  I reached up and tugged on the chain hanging from the fan, letting the slow rotation of the blades answer for me.

  I grabbed the tools and ladder and started for the door, not saying a word as I set them in the hall only to turn and catch the door she was shutting.

  Her eyes widened in surprise and question, and her lips parted to speak, but I spoke first.

  “And what exactly did you plan on doing with what you found out about me?”

  The question in her eyes deepened. “Excuse me?”

  “Player? Yeah . . . I’ll own that. Bed-hopping? That too.” I stepped closer until her head was tilted back to hold my stare. “You know who I am. You clearly wanted me to know. So, now, what is it you want? To see if I really am God’s gift to women?”

  A near-silent laugh fell from her lips. “Well, you’re something all right, but, no. If anything, it makes me want your arrogant, demanding self even farther from me than before.”

  “That right?”

  She made that same hum from earlier, and now that I was so close, I was dying to place my fingers against her throat to feel it vibrate with the sound.

  I curled them against the doorjamb and door so I wouldn’t move.

  “You see, Sawyer, when men fall into my bed, they tend to stay.”

  I didn’t have to wonder why. If I had a night with her, I already knew I would find a reason to make it last until the morning, only to find a reason to make it continue on and on and on.

  Swallowing back the thoughts and urge to once again take in what was so readily in front of me, I forced a smirk and said, “Then I guess it’s a good thing you aren’t my type.”

  That damn amusement was back, dancing in her eyes and tugging at her mouth that was sure to be the death of me, as if she already knew every thought and want I was battling.

  As if she knew exactly what she was doing to me.

  But just when I thought I had her figured out, she turned everything on me again. “On second thought, this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  I was so caught off guard by this girl that she was able to nearly shut the door before I stopped it again.

  She gave me a wide-eyed stare and began peeling my fingers away from the door as she spoke. “I’ve been assured you aren’t a psycho from your friend and sister-in-law, but if you insist on keeping me from a shower and my job, I’ll revoke our friendship before it can begin.”

  “You never gave me your name,” I said, removing my hands from the door and the frame for her—anything so long as she would stop touching me.

  The false regret that dashed across her face contradicted her playful words. “You never actually asked.”

  And then the door was shutting in my face, and that soft, husky giggle was sounding from the other side, fading as she walked away.

  I stood there, staring blankly at the door, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. Not with her shutting the door on me, but our entire conversation since she’d entered the room—shit, since she’d walked into the kitchen that morning.

  I’d been aggressive and invasive.

  I’d lost my mind and just about begged her to let me take her to bed.

  I’d insulted her.

  And, yet, every response and reaction had surprised me.

  The girl was unexpected in every way, and damn if that didn’t make her more appealing.

  When I finally walked away, I was smiling.

  Chapter 8

  Rae

  I stepped inside Brewed, automatically breathing in a deep lungful of the rich aroma that I could always count on to comfort and soothe me. After ordering a drink, I found a table near the corner of the shop, smiling at the few people cluttering the other tables as I made my way over there.

  As they had my first day in Amber, they were all staring.

  Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I’d still left Blossom with the vain hope that today would be different. Then again, I hadn’t exactly given them a chance to get used to me—the stranger in their small, perfect town.

  Other than making a trip to the store after getting directions from Savannah, I hadn’t left Blossom in the three days since Sawyer had fixed my fan.

  I’d worked. I’d tried to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to do. I’d worked some more to procrastinate in a way only I knew how to. And I’d cursed Sawyer Dixon about a dozen times a day.

  My readers expected certain books filled with a certain type of hero from me. Rock star romances filled with sexy, brooding alphas. And, yet, my hero didn’t just resemble Sawyer anymore, he was him, and my entire manuscript had turned into a Mayberry nightmare.

  It didn’t matter that I was here under the guise of getting a feel for small-town life for my next series, I’d had no intention of actually writing anything that had to do with this trip.

  I blamed the infuriating man who had starred in my dreams every night since I’d met him. With those damn dimples and messy, dark hair and fuck-me smirk.

  “Hey!”

  I stilled in my seat when Emberly set my coffee down and dropped into the large, upholstered chair opposite me.

  Awkward.

  This. This right here was one of those things I’d been preparing for and putting off in the days I’d been holed up in that beautiful house.

  But in hiding away, I’d come to the realization that not only could I not hide from Emberly when I had a purpose here, but she also had no fault in this. She didn’t deserve the bitter resentment that had been quick to fill my chest those first couple of days.

  After all, she probably didn’t even know.

  I took a steadying breath, reminding myself of that and forcing away lingering remnants of anger, and returned her smile. “Hey yourself.”

  “Heard you haven’t left Blossom . . .” Her lips twisted into a wry smirk. “Did we scare you off that fast?”

  Surprise pulsed through me. “You heard?”

  “Small town,” she said as if to remind me, then angled her head. “Plus, I have Sawyer, and he sort of knows the owners.” From her amused expression, she already knew I was well aware that Sawyer was related to the owners of Blossom.

  But that wasn’t what I was stuck on.

  I kept hearing the three words she’d said flippantly, and trying to connect the little I had seen and heard, and failing. “So, you and Sawyer . . .”

  Emberly’s expression looked as if she’d eaten something sour. “Oh God, no.” A shiver ran through her body before she continued. “He’s like the brother I never wanted, but wouldn’t give up for the world.”

  I wanted to tell her there were countless, written stories about relationships that had started out as friendships like hers and Sawyer’s, but from the genuine disgust that had crossed her face when she’d realized what I was assuming, I decided against it.

  “Got it, sorry.” I reached for the hot mug and curled my hands around it, savoring the warmth that had always been a solace. “To answer your question . . . no. Your town didn’t scare me off, I’ve just been busy. There’s a lot I’d neglected and needed to take care of.”

  She narrowed her gaze, studying me for a moment before saying, “Right, we scared you. Was it Sawyer? I heard about the morning after you arrived, and I know he came across as a little much.”

  “A little?”

  A laugh that was a mixture of frustration and defeat left her. “A lot,” she conceded and then hesitated for a moment. “But it’s from a good place. He isn’t . . . he isn’t usually so abrasive and in-your-face. He’s very much the good-time friend. He’s the best.”

  I didn’t need a mirror to know my doubt was written all over my face.

  “He just . . .” She wavered, seeming to war with herself over dropping it or trying to argue Sawyer’s case. “Well, there are some things we’re never meant to get over. For Sawyer, what he was saying to you, that’s it.”

  “Eatin
g,” I said softly, trying to clarify. Because Sawyer had said many things the other morning.

  But Emberly didn’t respond, she just worried her bottom lip and looked away, as if she’d said more than she was supposed to.

  If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in wondering what could’ve happened in Sawyer’s life to make him demand that a stranger eat, I might have been more fascinated by that nervous tick of hers.

  Because I had the same one.

  But Savannah had said and done something similar the other morning as I’d made my plate, and it made my unwelcome curiosity in Sawyer Dixon grow.

  “Don’t mind Sawyer,” Savannah had said uneasily. “If you don’t wanna eat you don’t have to . . . really. He just—he went through—he has good intentions, I promise.” Her mouth had formed a thin line, her jaw flexing when she’d looked away from me as if she’d been forcing herself not to say anything more and already regretted what little she had said.

  A strangled laugh left Emberly as she returned her focus to me. “Here I am talking about the town scaring you off, and I went and got all deep with you as soon as you resurfaced. Good job, Em,” she murmured and then shifted in the chair, readying to stand. “Let me know if I can get you anything.”

  “Are you always here?” I asked before she could get to her feet. “Wait, that sounded rude. I just meant that you’ve been here every time I’ve come, and I’ve shown up at very different times.”

  She shrugged and a smile pulled at her plum-painted mouth as she glanced around the café. “This is my baby.” When she noticed my confusion, she hurried to say, “Sorry, I’m not used to people not knowing everything. I own Brewed with my mom.”

  That flare of bitterness was unstoppable, but I tried so damn hard to suppress it. Even still, my voice was just a breath when I said, “Do you?”

  She tilted her head back a bit, gesturing to the barn doors leading to the bar area. “I grew up in that bar. My mom managed it and then bought it from the owners when they didn’t want it anymore. When I was in high school, this space opened, and I told my mom we should buy it and turn it into a coffee shop since the only place to get coffee within a half-hour was the diner.” She shuddered and leaned closer. “And, trust me, no one ever drinks the coffee at the diner.”