Protecting You: A Small Town Romance Origin Story (The Bailey Brothers Book 1)

by Claire Kingsley

  “Remember when we used to play house here?” he asked, finally breaking the long silence.

  “Yeah, I was just thinking about that.”

  He was quiet again for a moment. We stood facing the house, still holding hands, the only sound frogs croaking somewhere nearby.

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.” His voice was soft and low. “Growing up, and moving out, and the future. But I’ve also been thinking about the past. I feel like we went wrong somewhere, Grace. Like those kids we used to be were onto something.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I wasn’t sure what to say. So I waited.

  “I made a big mistake in high school.”

  “What was that?”

  “Not telling you how I felt about you.”

  I was grateful Asher didn’t let go of my hand because the weight of his words nearly knocked me over. My voice came out in a whisper. “How did you feel about me?”

  “The same way I do now.” He turned me toward him and looked me in the eyes. “Grace, I’m in love with you.”

  I stared at him. At his dark brown eyes, his face silhouetted in the moonlight. At the man who’d been my best friend for most of my life. Who my heart had missed so much.

  He ran his thumb across my lips. “It’s okay; you don’t have to say anything right now. I wasn’t going to dump this on you tonight. I was only going to ask you out to dinner. I kept telling myself I had all summer to convince you to give us a shot and I needed to take it slow. But I just can’t. I need you to know. I love you. I’m not asking you to say it back yet. All I’m asking for is a chance. Just give me the summer.”

  So many emotions swirled through me, I felt like bright rainbows of feeling would burst from my fingertips. It was almost too much for my body to contain. “But Asher, I didn’t think…”

  “You didn’t think I wanted you?” His eyes roved over my face and he traced his thumb down my cheek. “I’ve always wanted you. That was my mistake. I was afraid, so I never told you. I thought we were too close, that our families were too close, and if it didn’t work out, I’d ruin things for everyone. But damn it, Grace, what if it does work out? What if this is everything I think it is?

  “And I know you have school, and it’s four hours away. But that’s the thing—I’m not even worried about that. If we get to the end of summer and we want to stay together, we’ll just do it long distance for a while. You can come home a little more often, and I can come see you in between. Plus, I only have one more year. After that, I could move to Pullman while you finish your degree. And then, I don’t know, we decide where we want to be.”

  A tear broke free from the corner of one of my eyes, leaving a hot trail down my cheek.

  He held my face in both hands and leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. “If the answer is no, I won’t make things hard for you. I want you, but more than anything, I want you to be happy. I’m just asking for a chance.”

  He pulled away slightly and looked into my eyes. I stared back, captivated. He wasn’t just a cute guy from college—someone who might be fun to hang out with. I couldn’t date him casually, just to see where things went. He was asking for a summer, but if I gave him so much as a moment, I’d have to give him all my moments. My heart wouldn’t accept anything less.

  I didn’t know how I could be so sure. How I could flip a switch so quickly and be ready to change everything for him.

  Except this was Asher Bailey, and a part of me had always known.

  My answer left my lips on a whisper. “Okay. Yes.”

  “Yes?” His fingers slid through my hair, kneading my scalp. “We’ll start with dinner. Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow is perfect.” My eyes flicked to the house. “And if things work out, maybe we’ll wind up back here, buying this old house to fix up together.”

  “Deal.” He smiled, and emotion welled up in my chest, tightening my throat. I’d seen Asher smile a million times, but I’d never seen this smile. He was so happy, I could feel it. As if our souls were intertwining and the depth of his emotion flowed into me.

  I’d give anything to keep seeing him smile at me like this.

  His hands were still in my hair, and his gaze dropped to my mouth. Every nerve ending tingled with anticipation as he drew closer, and I tilted my chin up to meet his kiss.

  Our lips came together, his pressing against mine in a gentle caress. My eyes drifted closed, and we hesitated there for the space of a heartbeat.

  With a subtle shift, he slanted his mouth over mine more fully, and we sank into the kiss. I wound my arms around his neck and parted my lips, inviting him in deeper. His tongue slid against mine, warm and velvety soft.

  The world around me fell away to nothing as he kissed me deep and slow. I melted into him, surrendering. Secure in his embrace. He was enticingly new and intimately familiar, all at once.

  He was everything. He was home.

  8

  Asher

  Whistling a random tune, I flipped the eggs over, silently congratulating myself when neither of the yolks broke. The scent of toast filled the kitchen and I wondered how long it would take for the smell of food to wake my brothers up.

  Heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs. Not long, apparently.

  “Morning,” I said right as the toast popped up.

  I heard the scrape of a chair, then Evan muttered a greeting. I plucked out the toast and tossed it onto a plate.

  “Hungry?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Whistling again, I scraped some butter onto the toast, then slid the eggs on top. Perfect.

  “You’re in a good mood,” he said.

  I set the plate in front of him. Hell yes, I was in a good mood. How could I not be? I’d bared my soul to Grace—told her I loved her. And she’d agreed to give us a chance. “Yeah. So?”

  “It’s too early.”

  I went back to the toaster and dropped in two more slices of bread. “I was awake, so I figured I’d get up.”

  He scrubbed his hands over his face, then picked up his fork. “Me too. I had an early class last semester and now I can’t sleep in. Where’s Gram?”

  I glanced out the window. “Out in the garden. Probably trying to do her thing out there before it gets too hot. Were you guys out late last night?”

  “Yeah. After Gram went to bed, Logan and Levi and a bunch of their friends went down to the river. Gavin, too. I knew they’d have beer, so I went with them to make sure no one did anything stupid.”

  “Thanks, man.” I felt kind of bad about that. Usually I was the one making sure our brothers got home in one piece. But by the time Grace and I had come back, the party had already broken up.

  “It wasn’t a big deal. No one got too crazy. Gavin jumped in the river with all his clothes on, but that’s not new.”

  Chuckling, I cracked two more eggs into the pan. It was a running joke in our family that if there was water nearby, Gavin would get wet. When he’d been little, Gram had brought at least two changes of clothes for him wherever we went.

  Now, she’d just shrug and tell him he was old enough to know how water worked.

  I finished cooking my eggs, buttered my toast, and brought it all to the table. Evan had almost finished his breakfast, but he still didn’t look awake.

  I wondered if something else was bothering him. He tended to keep to himself, but he’d been extra quiet since coming home from school.

  “You okay?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, just tired.”

  “Are you sure? It kinda seems like there’s something going on.” I folded a piece of toast around one of the eggs and took a bite.

  He looked away, but instead of grumbling about needing more sleep or our brothers driving him nuts, his mouth turned up in a smile. “I sorta met a girl.”

  “No shit?” I paused, half-expecting Gram to scold me for my language even though she was outside. “Who is she? How’d you meet her?”

  “Her name’s Carly LiMarza. We were
in a history class together last fall, but I didn’t really talk to her until we wound up in the same study group for econ this semester. That was the early class. I probably would have dropped it, except she was in it.”

  I smiled and licked egg yolk off my fingers.

  “Anyway, I finally quit dicking around and asked her out. Things have been going great, but she went home to California for the summer.”

  “And you miss her.”

  “It sounds stupid, but I’m basically counting down the days until we go back. We talked about getting together, maybe having her come up here, or me driving down there. But we both have to work all summer, so we decided to just suffer through. We’ve been Facetiming a lot.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything? Does Gram know?”

  “Yeah, I told Gram, but I didn’t want to make a thing out of it yet. We’ve only been dating for a few months.”

  Evan was trying to play this off like it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew him. And I recognized the look in his eyes. He was only twenty, but even though he was young, it wouldn’t surprise me if he put a ring on that girl’s finger sooner rather than later.

  I just wondered which of us would do it first.

  Probably me.

  Thinking about rings made me think about Grace, which made me think about our date. And about kissing her last night. Her soft lips and my hands in her hair. I wanted to run next door and wake her up, just so I could kiss her again. I didn’t want to wait until tonight.

  I mopped up some egg yolk with my second piece of toast. Evan watched me with a furrowed brow.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Where were you last night?”

  Grinning at him again, I took a bite.

  “Ash.”

  “Grace and I went for a walk.”

  Grunting like he’d been hoping for a more interesting answer, he put the last piece of toast in his mouth.

  “And I asked her out.”

  His eyebrows shot up his forehead and he swallowed almost without chewing. “You did what?”

  “I asked her out on a date.”

  “Our Grace? Grace Miles?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why? Because I want to go out with her.”

  He stared at me for a few seconds, his brow furrowing. “Since when do you want to go out with Grace?”

  “Since I do. You got a problem with that?”

  “No, it’s not a problem. I’m just surprised. She’s…”

  “She’s what?”

  “She’s Grace. She’s like our sister.”

  I scowled, like he was being gross, but I wasn’t surprised he said that. I’d tried pretty hard to keep my feelings for Grace to myself, and it had obviously worked. “She has never been like a sister to me.”

  “Who’s never been like a sister?” Logan asked through a yawn. He shuffled into the kitchen, dressed in nothing but a pair of plaid pajama pants.

  “Grace,” I said. “Nice bedhead.”

  He raked his hands through his hair, messing it up even more. “I smell food.”

  I thought about telling him to make his own damn breakfast, but I was in a great mood, so why not. I got up and went to the fridge for more eggs. “Sit. I got it.”

  “Really? Awesome.”

  I put more bread in the toaster and kept the eggs out, since I was undoubtedly going to keep playing short-order cook when Levi and Gavin made it downstairs.

  “Who’s the girl you were with last night?” Evan asked.

  Logan pulled out a chair and sat. “Which one?”

  “The one you were making out with.”

  He grinned and scratched his head, making his hair worse. “Which one?”

  I shook my head and cracked an egg into the pan.

  “You’re playing with fire, little brother,” Evan said.

  Logan just snickered.

  More footsteps heralded the arrival of my last two brothers. Levi didn’t say anything, just took a seat at the other end of the table. Gavin held a palm to his head, like he was in pain.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  “Shh.” He winced. “Don’t talk so loud. I think I hit my head last night.”

  “You didn’t hit your head, dork, you drank too much,” Logan said. “It’s called a hangover.”

  “Seriously? This sucks.”

  “He shouldn’t have been drinking anyway,” Levi grumbled.

  “It was just a few beers,” Logan said. “He’ll be fine. Drink some water, Gav.”

  Mumbling, Gavin got a glass of water and slumped into a chair. I kept cooking breakfast. The eggs started to sizzle, but they weren’t quite ready to turn.

  “What did you mean by that, Ash?” Logan asked.

  “Mean by what?”

  “That Grace has never been like a sister.”

  I could hear the suspicion in his voice. This was going to be interesting.

  “Just what I said. You guys think of her as a sister. I don’t. And…” I paused to flip the eggs. “I asked her out last night.”

  Logan flew to his feet. “Holy shit, Ash. You’re going out with Grace? Wait, are you? Did she say yes?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, at the four sets of brown eyes fixed on me. “Yeah, she said yes.”

  Logan smacked his hand on the table. “That’s fucking amazing.”

  “Logan. Language.” Gram’s muffled voice came from outside.

  He gaped at the back door—still closed. “How did she…?”

  I plated Logan’s food and set it on the table. “Look, I know this probably seems like it’s coming out of left field. But you guys don’t have anything to worry about. I’m serious about her.”

  “I don’t think anyone doubts that,” Levi said. “You don’t need our permission to date her.”

  “You could have asked my permission,” Gavin said. “What if I wanted to date her?”

  Logan snorted. “You? Gavin, you’re still in high school.”

  “So were you until like a month ago. And I won’t always be in high school. She might have waited for me.”

  Logan patted him on the back. “I have some hard truths for you, buddy. Grace isn’t going to wait for your balls to drop. And neither is Ms. Hanson.”

  My brow furrowed. “Who’s Ms. Hanson?”

  “Math teacher.” Logan took a bite of his breakfast.

  I shook my head again. Gavin had had crushes on every one of his babysitters from the time he was three, plus a handful of teachers over the years. The girls he actually dated were his own age, so I didn’t worry too much about it. I tended to think he just wanted what he couldn’t have.

  “Hey,” Gavin said, pointing at Logan. “Ms. Hanson is a beautiful, intelligent woman, and you never know what might happen after I graduate in a couple of years.”

  Levi rolled his eyes. “Gav, your math teacher is not going to date you.”

  Gavin scoffed. “You’re just saying that because she wouldn’t date you.”

  “I never—” Levi scowled. “Never mind. I’m not having this conversation with you.”

  “This sucks,” Logan said around a bite of toast.

  “Don’t be a dick, Logan,” Levi said. “Asher didn’t have to make you eggs.”

  “No, the food is great,” Logan said, gesturing to his plate. “But I can’t make any inappropriate jokes about Asher going out with someone because it’s Grace. Damn it, Ash, you always ruin my fun.”

  I laughed softly and went back to the stove to cook more eggs and toast. My brothers kept talking while I worked. The conversation moved on from me and Grace to Logan and Levi’s training at the fire station and whether the wildfires would be bad this year. Then Evan told them about his girlfriend. Logan cracked a few jokes, Evan threatened to beat him senseless, and I couldn’t help but feel like everything was right with the world.

  By the time I handed Levi his breakfast, Gram was coming up the stairs onto the porch. The door let in a b
reath of fresh summer air before she clicked it closed behind her.

  She paused next to the table and the lines around her eyes crinkled with her smile. “Breakfast time for my cubs, I see. You boys better clean up your own dishes.”

  She was met with a chorus of “We will” as she went to the sink to wash her hands.

  Logan raised his eyebrows at me and mouthed, Did you tell her?

  “Did he tell me what?” Gram asked without looking over.

  “How does she do that?” he muttered.

  I cleared my throat, preparing myself for a repeat of the I thought she was like a sister to you speech. “I asked Grace out on a date.”

  Gram turned off the water. “It’s about time.”

  Her answer took me by surprise. “What?”

  “Oh, come on now,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask that girl out since you were sixteen. What took you so long?”

  “You knew I liked her?”

  “I have eyes, don’t I?”

  “They didn’t know.” I gestured to my brothers at the table.

  She eyed them all like she wasn’t impressed.

  “Yeah, well, I’m taking her out tonight.” My date with Grace wasn’t the only big piece of news I had to share. I’d signed the lease on the apartment, but I still hadn’t told them. “Gram, there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  Her brown eyes were soft. “What’s that, Bear?”

  “I got an apartment in town.”

  My brothers all started talking at once.

  “What?”

  “You’re moving out?”

  “An apartment?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Boys.” Gram hadn’t raised her voice even a notch, but everyone quieted.

  I continued. “It’s on Timber Street, so it’s walking distance to pretty much everything. Two bedroom—”

  “Dibs,” Logan said.

  Levi groaned. “Damn it, Logan.”

  “I’ll bunk with you, bro. It’ll be like old times.”

  “Old times?” Levi asked. “We share a room now.”

  I let out an exasperated breath. “Neither of you are moving in.”