“More specifically, a beer with you at the end of the day. This is what I thought about these past few months. The thing I missed. Cracking a couple open or heading to Doc Holliday’s and talking.” Those blue eyes focused on mine, flashing with humor. “I didn’t quite imagine we’d be talking about our engagement, though.”
I winced and began picking at the label on my own bottle.
“You’ve been trying to get me alone to talk to me about this all day. Now’s your chance.” And he simply waited in that calm, patient, ready-for-anything Kellan way.
I’d thought and thought and thought about how to tell this story. Nothing seemed good or right. So I started logically at the beginning.
“I heard about a feature that Southeastern Landscape Design Digest was planning on couple-run businesses. I thought the publicity would be good for ours. Things have been—well, not bad—but the economy is in a rough place, and folks have less money to spend on this kind of thing. I thought if Mountain Laurel got featured, that it would just be some good publicity. I mean, I know we’re not a couple like that, but we’re sort of a couple, and I thought that if we got chosen, I could just be good and vague about that in the interview. So I applied on a whim. Then I did end up getting contacted and interviewed, and the author made some assumptions, which were understandable based on the brief for the article itself. But, I mean, it’s a landscape architecture magazine. I thought nobody from Huckleberry Creek would ever hear about it.”
“Except somebody did.”
Miserable, I nodded. “Yeah. Then the local paper picked it up and embellished some details without asking me. They were the ones who started the engagement rumor, and it just picked up steam, and I had no idea how to stop this runaway train without looking bad. I thought—well, I guess I thought you could help me figure out how to get out of it when you got back because you were always the brains behind getting us out of scrapes growing up.” I forced myself to meet his gaze. “I’m so sorry this got sprung on you like this. I have no idea how we’re going to fix it in a way that makes everybody not hate me for lying or does damage to the very business I was trying to help.”
He sipped his beer, watching, absorbing, while I agonized over every second that ticked by without a reply. This was one of those occasions when I absolutely despised his military training, because he could so easily hide behind that flat soldier mask, and I couldn’t read him. I desperately needed to know that I hadn’t ruined our friendship.
“That is something of a pickle,” he finally conceded.
“A pickle,” I repeated, faintly incredulous. Was that really all he had to say?
He nodded. Sipped again. “Obviously, we have to continue the ruse until we figure it out. We’re a happily engaged couple, and I just got home from a year-long deployment. Everybody is gonna expect us to be joined at the hip, so I guess I’m moving in.”
I gaped at him. Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t this. “I’m sorry… what?”
Kellan jerked a shoulder. “Well, you could move in with me, but Cornbread’s stuff is already here, and I have less stuff to move. Just clothes and things. And I feel like your place is more comfortable.” He shoved up from the table.
The runaway train I’d been chasing for the past few weeks was somehow picking up steam and moving even faster. I shot to my feet. “That’s not what I… Kellan, what are you?—”
His big hands closed over my shoulders and pulled me in for a hug. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure all this out.”
How could he do that? Say it in such a way that I actually believed that somehow everything was all going to turn out okay? I didn’t see how that was remotely possible under the circumstances, but maybe he was right. With a little more time to absorb and think about it, maybe he’d come up with some sort of genius master plan.
I squeezed him back, relieved beyond belief not to be in this on my own anymore. “Well, then I guess we should go get your stuff.”
Five
Kellan
Tate’s honey-blonde hair slipped through my fingers like silk as I pulled her closer, deepening the kiss beyond that first, shocking public display. In the dream—and a part of me knew I was dreaming—we weren’t surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers. No friends. No family watching. Just us. I took full advantage, backing her against the nearest vertical surface—the bus that had carried me home—and lifting until her long legs wrapped around my waist. My straining erection pressed against the softness at her center, separated only by a few layers of fabric. Desperate for more, I rocked against her, letting her feel exactly what she did to me.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this? Wanted you?”
Her pretty pink lips parted on a gasp. “Kellan…”
The hard metal of the bus morphed into the soft give of a mattress. I didn’t know if I was dizzy from the sudden shift in orientation or because Tate lay spread out beneath me, her skin glowing golden in the dim light as I followed the curve of her shoulder with little, nibbling kisses. Her scent was intoxicating… a blend of honeysuckle and something indefinably her.
A warm weight pressed against my side. Still caught in the hazy space between sleep and wakefulness, I rolled toward it reaching to pull her closer. “Tate?”
A warm, wet tongue swiped across my face.
“Wha—“ My eyes snapped open.
Cornbread lay stretched out beside me, pressed close as a lover, his big, soulful brown eyes staring into mine in sheer adoration. When he saw I was awake, his tail began to thump against the bed hard enough to make it shake, his whole body wiggling with pure joy.
The niggling sense of disappointment that it wasn’t Tate in my bed rapidly faded. How could I be disappointed that my best boy had missed me?
“Morning, pal. Since when do you sleep in the bed, huh?” I scratched behind his ears, and he collapsed across my chest with a delighted groan. “Yeah, I missed you, too.”
Cornbread snuggled closer. There was absolutely nothing like the love of a good dog, even if his bony elbows were digging into my chest. This one had been my ride or die, getting me through some rough patches before my deployment. I was grateful Tate had been willing to keep him at her place while I was gone. My parents had certainly been willing, but I knew Tate would continue to take him to job sites like he was used to, and that continuation of at least part of his routine would make the separation not quite so bad. Even if it seemed he’d picked up some new habits while I’d been away.
