by Easton, Meg
“Sweet romance at its best!
I want to visit Nestled Hollow over and over again!”
-Elana Johnson
USA Today bestselling author of the Hawthorn Harbor series and the Getaway Bay series
“Romance done right!
This series is going to be a keeper!”
-Kimberly Krey
Best-selling author of the Sweet Montana Brides series
More than Friends in the Middle of Main
A Nestled Hollow Romance, Book 3
Meg Easton
Book Three in the Nestled Hollow Romance series
Copyright © 2019 by Meg Easton
ISBN 13: 9781796844405
ASIN: B07KTNSW2Y
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction and names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, incidents, and places is coincidental.
Cover Illustration by Blue Water Books
Interior Design by Mountain Heights Publishing
Author website: www.megeaston.com
For my parents, Dennis and Julie
Contents
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MORE THAN FRIENDS IN THE MIDDLE OF MAIN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
COMING SOON: NESTLED HOLLOW ROMANCE BOOK 4
OTHER BOOKS IN THE NESTLED HOLLOW ROMANCE SERIES
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MORE THAN FRIENDS IN THE MIDDLE OF MAIN
A Nestled Hollow Romance
By Meg Easton
Chapter One
Cole hadn’t gotten away from the restaurant as early as he had scheduled, and he’d been behind all night. He’d even gotten his daughter, Samantha, tucked into bed a full fifteen minutes late.
But even though it had taken all evening to catch up, here he was at 10:30, getting into bed at exactly the time he should be. It felt good to at least end the day on schedule, especially after being off so much of the day.
He picked up the book he was reading on how to raise a confident tween, and had only gotten through two pages when a text lit up his phone. It was from his best friend, Brooke. He slid to open the text.
Mrs. Holt texted that you’ve got a bear in your yard that you should probably scare off.
She can see it from her bedroom window.
His brow crinkled. Strange. He typed back a message and touched send.
Why did she text you about it?
She said, and I quote “That boy keeps such an exact schedule, he was probably in bed by ten, and I just didn’t want to wake him up.”
He shook his head. There was nothing wrong with keeping to a schedule—doctors recommended it for the best sleep—but even with a tight schedule, a bear in his yard was a good enough reason to text a neighbor after you thought they might be in bed. He got up and put his bathrobe on over his pajamas so he wouldn’t freeze in the chilly night air, and texted Brooke back.
So she texted someone in New York instead?
She didn’t know I was out of town.
Your bedtime is 10:30, and you read for exactly 12 minutes before calling it a night. It’s only 10:37, so I know you’re still awake.
You should probably go check on that bear.
I’ve got my bathrobe on, flashlight in hand, almost to the door. If I don’t text back in 5 minutes, assume I got mauled by the bear.
Cole had heard of bears coming down from the mountains and rifling through people’s trash, but not for a long time, and almost never in Nestled Hollow. Hopefully Mrs. Holt just saw a big dog or something, and not an actual bear. He flipped the flashlight on, opened the front door, and listened for a moment, shining the flashlight around the front yard. When he didn’t hear any sounds or see anything suspicious, he crept toward the side of his house nearest Mrs. Holt’s, sweeping the flashlight back and forth, looking for any movement, every sense on alert to danger.
The side yard was empty of large, potentially lethal animals, so he crept toward the back of his house. He was just passing some of his taller shrubs when movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, then something leapt out of the shrubs, roaring.
Cole yelped, jumped back, and dropped his flashlight before he realized what he was seeing. “Brooke! What are you doing here?” He picked up the flashlight and shone it her direction, trying to see her without it blinding her, before aiming it at the ground. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. Aren’t you supposed to be in New York until tomorrow?” He tried to slow his breathing and his racing heart.
Brooke attempted to stifle her laughter. “I caught an earlier flight and drove into town moments ago. That look on your face was priceless. I wish I would’ve recorded it.”
“But what are you doing here, in my shrubs?”
“You mean besides admiring your bathrobe?”
Cole chuckled and shook his head. They’d been friends for long enough that she couldn’t make him embarrassed by something as small as being seen in his pajamas.
“I came to bring you this.”
Brooke held out the bear, and Cole shone his flashlight on the small stuffed animal. He read the words on the little guy’s shirt out loud. “‘Being away from you is unBEARable.’ Aww, that’s sweet.”
Being out here, standing against a backdrop of stars, the moonlight bathing her face in silver light, her expression earnest and open and full of mischief, Brooke was breathtaking. Her eyes sparkled, her flawless skin shone, and her full lips, curved into a smile, made his heart rate pick up again.
And even though she’d spent the last half a dozen hours traveling, she still smelled as intoxicating as always. He didn’t know what kind of perfume she wore, and couldn’t pick out what the individual scents were, exactly. All he knew was that it was bold, yet soft, radiant, and completely captivating. A smell that was exactly, perfectly Brooke.
He shook his head. This was another reason why he shouldn’t be out after bedtime. It weakened his normally strong ability to resist Brooke. That ability had only weakened to dangerous levels once, four months ago, and he vowed to never let it again. It was late on a Friday night, and they were cleaning up the mess of paper snips left from the snowflakes they had been cutting out with Sam before he had gotten her to bed. He and Brooke had kissed, and it had been glorious and amazing for about the four seconds it took for Cole’s brain to kick in and stop it. He had told her, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this to Samantha. I know how y
ou feel about marriage and commitment, and I can’t compromise with my kid on the line.”
Their friendship had only recently recovered from the awkwardness and gotten back to feeling normal and easy again. Even still, though, he tried to limit the time he spent with her, because it was just too risky. His heart was on the line, too, so he just needed to keep the mindset that they were nothing more than friends, and that’s all they ever would be.
“I got one for Sam, too.” Brooke pulled a little stuffed cat from her bag and held it out to Cole. It was wearing a shirt that said, “Stick with me. I’ll leave you FELINE good.”
Cole took the cat, tried to ignore the feel of her soft skin against his as their hands brushed, and said, “Sam will love this.”
“I know. Now race me around your house. First one back to the bear sighting wins.”
“Race you...around my house?”
Brooke nodded.
“Brooke, it’s late. It’s dark. And we should both probably be in bed.”
“Because now it’s after ten forty-two? I’ll tell you what. I’ve been gone for five days— you name one time you’ve been spontaneous in the past five days, and we’ll call the race off.”
“Define ‘spontaneous.’”
“Choosing to do something that wasn’t on your schedule for the day.”
Cole opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out, so he closed it. Then he said, “I’m both parents for Sam. If I don’t schedule everything, things will fall through the cracks.”
She ignored his protest. “Ready?”
“Exercise right before bed causes insomnia,” Cole said.
“Nah. It just makes you good and tired so you’ll fall asleep quickly. Set?” Brooke crouched down into a racing position.
If it had been anyone else at his house this late on a weeknight, trying to get him to race around the house, he’d have already been back inside by now. Brooke just had a way of convincing him to do crazy things he’d never do otherwise. “I’ve got longer legs, so you won’t be able to win.” He was still vocally protesting, but found himself getting in a position to take off running anyway.
“And I had a coffee mid-flight to keep from being drowsy on the drive from the airport, so you won’t be able to win. Go!”
Brooke took off running, and Cole raced after her a moment later. She leapt over the two-and-a-half foot high fence into the backyard, so he did the same. She darted around the swing set, but he ran right between two swings and caught up to her as she ran right through the sandbox. They were neck and neck as they reached the fence to the side yard, and they leaped almost simultaneously. Brooke stumbled a bit as she dodged the garbage cans against the side of the house that had been hiding in the shadow of the moon, but she grabbed the arm of his bathrobe and pulled it backwards.
He’d learned long ago that she was in it to win and that she enjoyed some good competition. So he slipped his arms out of the bathrobe as he ran, leaving it in her hand, and made it to the front yard before her. Brooke cut across the porch, though, and leapt over the railing at the other end, landing at the side yard. They reached the starting point at almost exactly the same time.
A smile spread across Cole’s face as he stood in his t-shirt and pajama pants, breathing heavy, feeling exhilarated and refreshed after such a rough day. Brooke seemed to have a way of knowing exactly what he most needed and talking him into doing it, even if he hadn’t realized himself how much he’d needed it. “It’s good to have you back in town, Brooke.”
Brooke pushed the bathrobe into Cole’s chest and he grabbed hold with the hands that still held the stuffed animals she’d brought. “It’s good to be back.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Now that I’ve worn you out, you should be able to sleep like a baby. And I’ll sleep better knowing that you’re not dying from spontaneity deprivation.”
His shoulder muscles involuntarily flexed at her touch, but he didn’t allow himself to think about how it felt to have her hand rest there.
“Thanks for having my back,” Cole called out as Brooke walked toward her car, and she turned and waved.
He stayed outside until she pulled away and drove down the street toward her house. It didn’t matter how attracted he was to Brooke or how long ago he’d actually fallen for her—for his daughter’s sake, he would never have a future with Brooke.
Chapter Two
Early the next morning, Brooke stood at her design table in the back rooms of Best Dressed, sketching a new dress design. On the airplane the previous night, she had sat next to a fascinating woman and, as usually happened when she was talking with someone, the perfect dress for them came to mind. The fifty-something-year-old woman was a humanities professor and, in her younger years, a CIA field agent. She still had the hints of strong lines and angles from her earlier years, but had been softened by age, experience, and a kindness that shone in her face.
The business dress Brooke was sketching had the same feel. Strong lines that showed off the woman’s regal presence, but softened. A dress that would look powerful on stage while giving a keynote address at a conference, yet perfectly at home offstage cradling a grandbaby.
Her brand, By the Brooke, wasn’t a collection meant for one specific type of person. They were meant to show all the strong, diverse personalities of the human race. She loved when someone inspired a project that would represent a portion of the population that had been missing from her collection.
She stifled a yawn. The late coffee may have been a mistake. Or possibly the race around Cole’s house. Or maybe the mix of the two. Whatever it was, she was paying for it now. She had been wired when she had finally gotten home, so she couldn’t fall asleep and couldn’t stop thinking about the dress. When she finally did fall asleep, she even dreamed about it. She probably should’ve been working on other business stuff after being away, but she wasn’t going to stop dreaming about it until her sketches were complete.
As her two employees, Noemi and Delbrina, unlocked the back door and walked in, chatting, Brooke looked up and smiled.
“Brooke!” Noemi said as she ran in and gave her a hug. “I thought your plane didn’t come in until this afternoon!”
“I finished early and there was a flight with a seat available last night, so I got home about eleven.”
“Yet you still beat us in to work, while we’re slower than a Sunday afternoon,” Delbrina said as she hung her purse and jacket on its hook and pulled a stool up to the design table. “Ooo, that’s beautiful. Are we going to test this dress in my size?”
Brooke laughed. Whenever she designed anything with strong lines and angles, Delbrina wanted to test it. Anything flowing and girly, Noemi wanted to try. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She slipped the paper into her design portfolio. “We’ve got a lot to get done today. Are you two ready for our team meeting?”
Noemi joined them at the design table. “Only if it starts by you telling us how your meeting with Van Zandt Corporate went.”
They did have a lot to do today, especially since she’d been gone. But Brooke smiled just thinking about her pitch yesterday. “Well, it turns out they invited thirty-six of us to come present.”
“So few?” Delbrina asked.
At the same time Noemi said, “So many?”
“Few enough to be honored that they invited me to present,” Brooke said. “But enough to know better than to get my hopes up. Regardless of what happens, I’m glad I went. It was quite the experience presenting to executives at a department store as big as Van Zandt.”
“The biggest in the nation,” Noemi interrupted.
“Okay, the biggest. They had twelve of us present a day, and we each got twenty minutes to show our portfolio and talk about what kind of things we’d include in a clothing line if they chose to feature us in next year’s spring catalog, just like we had planned. But then they took an extra ten minutes asking questions about our business size and production levels, online and brick and mortar stores, and manufacturi
ng.”
“How did it go?” Noemi asked.
“I was on top of my game,” Brooke said, smiling. She really had done even better than she had all the times she’d run through it in her head during the days leading up to it.
“And,” Delbrina said, drawing out the word, “what we really want to know is how was the competition? Were they cutthroat?”
Brooke laughed. “They had a reception for us, and there were only a few I hadn’t met before. Not a single label sent a marketing rep—there were only designers who were also the owners of their label. These people are my friends, my mentors, my peers. They’re all amazing, and I’m sure they all did well.”
Getting her designs into a department store chain like Van Zandt had always been Brooke’s dream, and with this invitation to demo, Van Zandt was also offering to feature the label. Everything she had been doing with her business—from her online store, to her product in boutiques, to the industry relationships she nurtured, and even to her own store here in Nestled Hollow—had been, at least in part, to attract the attention of a business like Van Zandt.
