He finally set me on my feet, his hands cupping my hips to steady me as he rose to his full height before tugging off his shirt. Maintaining eye contact, he gripped the hem of mine, sliding it up and off and tossing it to the side. He traced a finger down my neck, across my collarbone, down the valley between my breasts, his gaze heavy with something I couldn’t quite name. Something that warmed my insides, an ember expanding within.
He kissed my jaw, the space just below my ear, and then lifted me up with two handfuls of my ass. Allowing me to feel exactly how much he wanted me. Reassuring me it most definitely wasn’t one-sided. “You should know by now I’d go anywhere with you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NAT
I had traveledaround the world with only my camera as my one constant companion. I’d photographed landscapes and people alike, loving them both equally, but one thing I’d never done was a wedding. This month, I’d taken photos at two.
It was Will’s big day—t-minus forty-five minutes until my sister was going to walk down a petal-strewn aisle at an outdoor ceremony. Along with my sisters, Momma, and Gran, as well as Will’s best friend, Avery, I was holed up in the dressing room stationed in the upper loft of the barn we’d rented for the weekend.
Much like Havenbrook in general, this space had also changed drastically in the time I’d been gone, and I couldn’t believe the transformation.
“I still can’t get over the fact that they turned the Pritchetts’ old decrepit barn intothis,” I said, a note of awe in my voice as I glanced around.
The loft dressing room was large and open, white couches and chairs scattered throughout and a vanity in the far corner, perfect for hair and makeup. On the east wall, French doors opened up to a balcony that overlooked the barn below, where rows of long wooden tables were set up for the reception latertonight and thousands of white lights were strung from the beams. It certainly was a far cry from the rubble Asher, Nash, and I used to wade through just to find someplace private to sneak a couple beers.
“Yeah, well, that’s Rory’s hard work for you,” Will said from where she was seated in front of the vanity, eyes closed as Avery swept eye shadow across her lids. “This was, what, your fifth job together?”
Rory nodded. “Something like that. It’s definitely the biggest one we’ve ever tackled. This place was amess. Nash was mad as all get-out I’d even taken it on—always worried about me comin’ in here because of how dangerous it was. He started leavin’ hard hats everywhere, just in case I forgot mine.”
I huffed out a laugh and shook my head. The man Rory was in love with was a far cry from the troublemaker I had grown up with. The one who’d dared me to walk from one beam to another in this very barn, with nothing but air below me. “He never made me wear a hard hat when we came around.”
“Probably thought your head was hard enough,” Gran said.
“Probably,” I echoed. “Y’all remember when me and the guys used to sneak out here all the time?”
“I remember havin’ to drag your sorry butts home more than once,” Mac said with an eye roll. “The last time was the summer before I started college. You remember that? Hudson was with me ’cause Will bailed.”
“Hey,” Will said. “I just wanted to spend time with my friends before goin’ back to school.”
Mac shrugged. “Doesn’t change that you bailed.”
“Wait a minute,” Momma said, pinning me with a glare even as she fastened Will’s necklace. “I distinctly remember forbidding you from settin’ foot here sometime around Memorial Day that year.”
Rory snorted, smoothing a wayward strand of hair back from Will’s face. “Momma, since when has forbidding Nat fromanythingdone any good?”
“She’s got a point,” Will said, even as Avery applied lipstick. “You probably only made it that much more enticin’ to her.”
“Rude.” I raised my camera to my face and captured Momma making sure Will’s necklace was sitting just so as Avery applied Will’s lipstick. “True, but rude.”
My mom expelled a put-out sigh. “Honestly, Nat, is it any wonder your daddy’s got a head full of gray hair, all of ’em courtesy of you?”
Laughing, I adjusted my camera’s settings as I focused on Will’s dress hanging in the window, the light pouring in around it. “Sorry, Momma, but that’s why I left Havenbrook so quick. Me and rules don’t work so well together.”
“Speakin’ of leavin’…” Gran said from her perch on a love seat, her eyes on the crossword puzzle she’d been working through. “How’ve you been handlin’ bein’ here? Gotta say, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine you’d be back in Havenbrook.” She lifted her eyes, her gaze studying me. “And settlin’ down, no less.”
Settling down…right. God, I hated lying to everyone. Hated that I couldn’t just be honest with them. Though, really, what would that honesty look like now? The basis of my marriage with Asher may have been false, a means to an end, but the more time we spent in the same house…in the same bed…was starting to make things between us feel awfully damn real.
“It’s weird but good, Gran.”
“And how about Asher?” Momma asked. “It looks like he’s been handlin’ things all right, but is he really? This must be so stressful for him. Losin’ his sister and now fightin’ for those kids.”
“I’m sure Nat’s been helpin’ him take the edge off,” Gran said, winking.
“Gran!” I said on a laugh. “You perverted old woman. What’s the matter with you?”
She shrugged, completely unrepentant. “I was once a newlywed, too, you know.”
