Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

  “I did!” he defended. “You just out-dance me. Hard to realize how great I am when you’re out there showing me up.”

  Betty smirked, taking a sip of her lemonade before she leaned against the edge. “I knew your father, you know?”

  Those words sucked the air out of my lungs, and judging by the way Noah’s smile slipped off his face, they did the same to him. He glanced up at me, a question in his eyes, but I just shook my head slightly.

  I hadn’t told her anything about him, not before we got here. And all I’d said was, “Betty, this is Noah.”

  I shrugged, an apology in my eyes as Noah cleared his throat, turning to Betty once more. “My father?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, nodding with a knowing smile. “You’re Noah Becker. I’d know those eyes and that mischievous grin anywhere.”

  At that, my mouth popped open, and Noah stilled completely.

  “Your father took a liking to my Leroy,” she explained, her eyes growing misty as she watched the water from the pool lap the sides. “And my Leroy sure did appreciate having a friend, especially there toward the end.”

  I swallowed. “Leroy was Betty’s husband,” I explained. “He passed away about twenty years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Noah said in a hushed voice, and the confusion in his eyes shifted to sympathy as he put a hand on Betty’s shoulder.

  “It was a hard time,” she said. “But, honestly, it’s him I feel sorry for. Poor bastard has been waiting at Heaven’s gates for me all this time. He had to know I’d take a while, but I’m sure if he could, he’d holler down at me just like he used to holler up the stairs.” She chuckled, brows folding together as she did her best impression. “Woman, get your cute behind down here. Ain’t no makeup or hair curlers gonna make you look any more beautiful than you already are.”

  My heart swelled, and Noah smirked up at me before he dropped his hand from Betty’s shoulder. “He sounds like quite the guy.”

  “He was,” she agreed. “But, then again, so was your father. It seems we lose all the best ones too young.”

  Noah sobered at that, nodding just once. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Your father would come see us every Good Friday,” Betty explained, which was the nickname the distillery had given to the last Friday of every month, when they would give each of their employees a free bottle of whiskey with their paycheck. “Every single one for about four years, right up until the time the good Lord took my Leroy. They had met down at Buck’s one night, and I don’t know what transpired there, but boy, did those two take a liking to each other.” She smiled. “So, every Good Friday, your father would come by with his bottle of Scooter Whiskey and a bag full of fried chicken. We’d all sit out on the porch and eat and drink and laugh until it was way too late for two old folks to be up. Sometimes your mom would join, sometimes not. But John? Well… Johnny was always there.”

  Noah swallowed, looking down at the water for a long moment before he met her gaze once more. “Sounds like a wonderful friendship.”

  “It was,” she agreed. “And your father, he was a good man. When I met you today, I almost swore a ghost had come back to life. You look just like him, you know?” She beamed. “Same eyes, same hair, same Becker Trouble Grin.”

  She pinched his cheek at that, and Noah smirked.

  “You’ve got his spirit,” she said, her voice softer now as she watched Noah. “You’re a good man, too, Noah Becker. And I’m glad I got to spend the afternoon with you.”

  I watched what I would have sworn was Noah’s bottom lip trembling, but as soon as I thought I’d seen it shake, it was steady again. He smiled through whatever he was feeling — and I knew he was feeling something — as he reached forward to pull Betty in for a soft hug.

  “Me, too, Miss Betty. Even if you did show me up on the dance floor.”

  She chuckled, her little shoulders shaking in his broad arms.

  When he pulled back, he cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get a shower and dry off. I’ve got this thing I’ve got to get to.”

  “What thing?” I probed.

  He grabbed the back of his neck. “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Me and my brothers try to get together every weekend to play cards. I usually host, and they’ll be heading over in about an hour.” He shrugged, giving me a soft smile, though he still seemed caught up in his thoughts. “Someone’s gotta order the pizza.”

  I nodded, but my stomach sank at the realization that the day was nearly over. Noah would go hang out with his brothers, and I’d go home…

  To wedding planning.

  And Mama.

  And all the stress I’d forgotten about over the last few hours.

  I chewed my lip, eyes bouncing back and forth between Noah’s before I swallowed. “I like cards…”

  He blinked, the tiniest smirk climbing at the corner of his lips. “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “I used to play blackjack and Texas hold ‘em with my dad and his friends sometimes. Just for fun, but… yeah.”

  Noah smiled wider. “You want to come over? We could use some fresh blood at the table.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, a little too quickly. “I don’t want to impose.”

  Please say yes.

  He shook his head. “We’d love to have you. I’m just going to go change and we can head out, grab the pizza and beer on our way. Meet you out front?”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Noah placed his palms flat on the edge next to me, lifting his body out easily and saying one last goodbye to Betty before he made his way inside. Betty and I both watched him go, the water spilling down his back like water falling over the strongest side of a mountain, carved carefully over thousands of years.

  When he disappeared through the doors, I turned back to Betty, and she was smirking at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  Betty’s smile climbed higher. “You sly devil. You didn’t tell me you were engaged to a Becker.”

  The color drained from my face.

  “You lied about him not being as handsome as Richard Gere, my dear,” she said, wagging her finger at me. “But, hell, I suppose I would have done the same. If that boy was mine, I wouldn’t want a single other woman coming onto him.”

  “Betty…”

  “I like him,” she said, not letting me interrupt. “He’s a good man, from a good family. He’ll treat you right, Ruby Grace.” She smiled wider, squeezing my knee where it hung off the edge. “You did good, my girl.”

  My cheeks burned, because somewhere under my haste to tell her she had the wrong guy, I felt something else, something stronger.

  Longing, I realized distantly.

  And then I stamped it down in the same breath.

  “Noah’s not my fiancé,” I explained with a gentle smile. “We’re just friends.”

  Betty frowned. “Friends?”

  I nodded, but Betty’s eyes drifted over my shoulder. When I followed her gaze, I saw Noah through the pool fence waiting for me in the parking lot, his hands shoved in his pockets, back leaned against his old, beat-up truck. I felt Betty watching me, but I couldn’t hide the blush on my cheeks, the bob of my throat as I swallowed.

  A few feet from the pool, my phone vibrated on my towel, screen lighting up with Anthony’s name — with the picture of us that I loved so much.

  Betty eyed it with me, and when I turned back to her, she just lifted one silver eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

  * * *

  Noah

  Dad was still on my mind as I watched Ruby Grace hustle my brothers in poker that night.

  We were all gathered around my folding table in the middle of my modest home, Sturgill Simpson on the stereo, two half-eaten boxes of pizza propped open on the kitchen counter behind us. My house was the one most “in town” between me and my brothers, just a few blocks off the Main Street drag on the south side. Jordan’s house was ten minutes out of town, to the west, and Logan’s wa
s northeast, a little farther out than Mom’s.

  I still couldn’t be sure if we’d meant to surround Mom’s house the way we did, flanking her on all sides, or if we’d done it subconsciously. Either way, none of us were more than twenty minutes from each other, and we were all less than ten from Mom’s.

  My house was the closest to beer and pizza, however, which meant it was the prime choice for poker night.

  It was pretty standard for my brothers and me to get together sometime during the weekend to play cards.

  Ruby Grace, however, was a new addition.

  “That’s bullshit!” Logan yelled, thrusting his cards forward. They fluttered over the massive pot he and Ruby Grace had built up during the hand, and he sulked further when she reached forward with a grin to rake it all in.

  “Don’t hate the player, Logan.”

  “I hate the cheater,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

  “I don’t even have sleeves to hide cards,” she pointed out, gesturing to her toned, tanned arms. “Come on, now. Beckers aren’t sore losers, are they?”

  “Don’t let his little boy actions speak for all of us,” Jordan chimed in. He was being a good sport with our new guest at the table, but I didn’t miss the questioning glances he shot me over his cards the whole night.

  Logan stuck his tongue out, but then smirked, shaking his head and gathering the cards for his turn to deal. “You didn’t warn us that you were bringing a shark to the table tonight, Noah.”

  I shrugged. “Ruby Grace is full of surprises.”

  Her eyes caught mine, then, my brothers picking up the conversation around us as we stared. Her smile was soft and sweet, the blush on her cheeks just barely visible now that her tan from the day was setting in. She held my gaze for a long while before tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear and picking up her cards for the next hand.

  I kicked back in my chair, checking out my own cards as the day floated through my mind. I couldn’t believe Betty knew my father, and the way she’d talked about him made my chest tighten. She was right — he was a good man. He was the best man, and it was a knife to my gut every time I realized that he wasn’t here anymore, that he didn’t get to see us boys grow into men, that he wouldn’t be there to stand next to Mikey when Bailey walked down the aisle to him.

  Or next to me, if I ever found a woman who would do the same.

  The next dozen rounds of poker flew by, and after Ruby Grace knocked all the guys out once again in a bigger hand, Mikey groaned, tossing his cards in and standing. “I need a root beer float. Anyone else?”

  Logan scoffed. “Uh, no thanks, Mikey. We’re all old enough to drink actual beer. But thank you.”

  “She’s not,” he pointed out, gesturing to Ruby Grace.

  That fact soured my gut a little.

  “And besides, you’re telling me that just because you’re old enough to drink beer, you don’t want a delicious root beer topped off with creamy vanilla ice cream right now?”

  Logan’s mouth pulled to the side, his eyes glancing around the table, to his cards from the last game, and back up again.

  “Alright, I give. That does sound fucking delicious.”

  Mikey smirked triumphantly. “That’s what I thought. One round of root beer floats coming up.”

  “You better not spill it down the sides,” Logan called after him. “I swear, if my glass is sticky, I’ll thwomp you!”

  “Extra sticky glass, you got it, big bro!”

  Logan humphed, pushing back in his chair before trotting after Mikey into the kitchen.

  “I better help,” Jordan said, standing. “If Logan goes into an OCD attack, no one is safe.”

  Ruby Grace chuckled lightly as Jordan tipped his imaginary hat at us, leaving us alone at the table. She leaned back in her chair, then, gathering her hair in one fist before letting it fall behind her. It exposed the delicate lines of her collar bone, the lean muscles of her neck, and I hated that I wanted to taste her so bad I had to physically hold onto the edge of the table to keep me from getting up and doing just that.

  Seeing her with Betty and the rest of the residents at the nursing home today hit me in a way I didn’t expect. She wasn’t anything like the girl in church. No, at the nursing home, she was boisterous, playful, entertaining. She was everyone’s highlight of the day, and she shone as bright as the sun did at that pool.

  They loved her, it was easy to see.

  And it was also easy to see why.

  When she came back to my place for dinner and to play cards, I’d sat on the opposite side of the table from her. I needed to put space between us — especially after being skin to skin in the pool, her toned stomach pressed against mine, her surprisingly ample breasts exposed in her little bikini top.

  But getting away from her didn’t prove to be helpful.

  If anything, it only gave me a better view of her hazel eyes, the freckles dotting her cheeks, her smooth, plump lips. I was thankful I couldn’t see her legs under the table, because I already knew what those did to me.

  And watching her with my brothers, handing out shit just as well as she was taking it from them, it made me feel something I never had before. I couldn’t even put my finger on it, what that warmth in my chest was, that sinking in my gut.

  As her phone lit up yet again with her fiancé’s name on my folding table, I realized it was a longing, a sense of loss.

  Because no matter how I tried to deny it, I wanted her to be mine.

  It was silly to even think it when we hadn’t so much as held hands, but I felt it — some sort of deep possessiveness over a girl I’d never have. She was going to marry another man, entertain his brothers, or family or friends. She would cook for him, hold him when shit got rough, be his rock when he needed to lean. She would wrap those pretty little legs around him at night, and I’d never get to touch them.

  Jealousy ripped through me, and I knew it was the wrong move, I knew I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop myself. When she reached for her phone like she was finally going to answer him, I called out her name.

  “Ruby Grace.”

  She paused, frowning at the phone before she looked up at me.

  “Want to get some fresh air with me on the porch while Mikey makes those floats?”

  I expected her to hesitate, to say, “Yes, but let me answer this call first.” Or to just flat out deny me. But, she smiled almost instantly, her cheeks high and rosy as she nodded, tucking her phone away in the purse she had hanging on her chair. “Sure.”

  Jordan eyed me suspiciously from the kitchen as I rose from my chair, meeting Ruby Grace on the other side of the table. I didn’t meet his gaze for long, though — maybe because I knew what facts he wanted to point out.

  I knew them very well.

  The night was pleasantly cool, considering how hot the day had been. That was what I loved about June in Tennessee. The days were long and hot, but the nights were cool — perfect for a bonfire or to get close to someone for a little warmth.

  “It’s beautiful out,” Ruby Grace commented, leaning her arms on the wooden railing of my porch. It had been old and rotted when I moved in, but it was my first project — fixing up the exterior. Now, the porch was maybe the best part of the entire house, rebuilt and painted white with a couple of rocking chairs Mom had gifted me when the project was done.

  I considered asking Ruby Grace to sit, but she looked so comfortable against the railing, her eyes scanning the yard and the houses across the street, that I just slid up next to her, instead.

  “It is. It was a nice day at the pool, too.”

  She smiled. “Thanks for coming with me today.”

  I shrugged. “Hey, there are much worse ways you could have made me pay for being such an asshole to you.”

  “Betty adored you.”

  “Oh, we’re totally getting married,” I joked.

  “Funny. She said the same thing.”

  I chuckled, letting the sounds of the crickets settle betw
een us before I spoke again. “You were really in your element there.”

  Another smile bloomed on her lips, but this one fell a little too quickly. “Yeah.”

  “I liked you like that today.”

  She frowned, turning to me, then. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” I started with a shrug. “Carefree. Young. Unrestrained. You’re always so put together.” I paused. “I like it better when you’re just a girl being a girl.”

  I could see the warmth in her eyes under the porch light as I spoke, but when I finished, she stood taller, shoulders back. “I’m a woman, thank you very much.”

  “Oh, trust me,” I said, eyes trailing down her legs. “I know that, too.”

  When I met her gaze again, she was biting her lip against a smile, and she turned back toward the yard, draping her arms over the railing once more. “I really do love it there,” she said after a while. “It was my favorite thing to do when I was in high school, spend a day volunteering at the home. My best friend, Annie, works there full time now.”

  “Did you think you would, too?”

  She considered that. “No, I don’t think so. I always pictured Annie and I going to UNC together, and then…” Her voice faded, and she glanced down at her hands hanging over the railing.

  At her ring, maybe?

  “And then?” I prompted her.

  “Oh, it’s silly. Anyway, I suppose nothing turns out how we imagined, right?”

  I frowned, turning toward her. I chanced touching the soft skin of the inside of her elbow, getting her to face me, too. “Hey, don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t act like what you want doesn’t matter.”

  She swallowed, looking at the porch beneath us. “It’s just like I told you that night we went riding. Annie and I always had dreams of joining AmeriCorps. We wanted to give back, to travel and help others for a while after we graduated.” She smiled. “I just thought it’d be so fun, you know? I’d be with my best friend, we’d see new places, meet new people. I’d get to do what makes my heart happy.”

  “I remember you talking about that,” I said, also remembering how frustrated I’d been that she didn’t see that as an option anymore. That night, I had left it alone. But tonight, I wanted to probe. “What happened?”