Just Want Somebody to Love (Bella Warren Book 1) (31 page)

He wasn’t sure how to answer that. He wasn’t happy without her. He would be, God, he didn’t even want to think about what he’d be without her. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“It’s not a trick question. I have Peanut and she fulfills my life. She gives me what I’d been missing, what I thought I’d needed from you. Your restaurants always made you content and happy. You don’t have that anymore. You hate a small town. Now you’re living in one. Can you be happy here without me?”

He nodded. “I lost the restaurant, but I gained my brother back. We’re not as close as when we were kids, but we’re better. We won’t be close like that until he’s ready to talk about his wife, but we’re getting there. I missed him when he left, and I didn’t realize how much until I got to see him again every day.”

He sighed and started them walking again. “When we were kids, we wanted to accomplish something great. Be rich beyond our wildest dreams. We’ve done that. Owning the restaurant itself wasn’t our life goal. It was the means to make our goal happen. Selling it wasn’t hard because it wasn’t my life’s work that made me. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Maybe I’ll build a big house and retire and travel. Maybe I’ll whittle. I don’t know. I’m happy knowing I can do what I want. What I want right now is to live in this small town and reconnect with my brother. I get to work next to him every night like we did during some of the happiest days of my life.”

“I’m worried you gave up everything you know to come here for me. I’m worried that in ten years you’ll be bored and hating that you came here and that you’ll start hating me for it.”

He stopped her again and faced her. “Not possible. Where I live doesn’t make me. Who I’m surrounded by makes me into the person I am. The person I want to be.” He gave her a look. “And bored with you? Are you kidding?”

“We just have nothing here. The closest movie theater is thirty miles away. You’re used to the activity of the city.”

He breathed. “I think you’re confused on what I did. I didn’t party all night. I was home. Then at my office. Then at one of my restaurants. That was about it. Sometimes I’d travel to a new location that was opening. Everything I did was work. I’m not going to want to go back to the city, because when I lived there, I didn’t have time for anything like this.” He cupped her cheeks and faced her. “I want a wife. I want kids. I want a dog. I want a house and a yard to mow. I want to crawl into bed with you and hear you laugh when I tickle you. My brother was right. Life was passing me by, and I didn’t notice. I want to be an eighty-year-old man, look out a window, and see what I’ve done with myself. I want to look out and see grandkids and happiness. Not buildings full of strangers eating a meal.”

A tear made tracks down her cheek. He swiped it away with his thumb. She covered his hand with hers and leaned into him. “I love you, Justin. I just wanted to make sure you could love me in the same way.”

All at once, the knots in his chest unraveled. He brushed his lips across hers. “I do. I will.”

Keri Ford
brings sexy contemporary romance to the American South. With a sprinkling of men in suits and women in high heels, you’ll most likely find four-wheeler riding, ball cap wearing fellas trying to sweet-talk sundress wearing ladies in Keri’s books. Raised in the country in South Arkansas, Keri shares this flavor of life in her books. A glass of sweet tea at your elbow while you read is not required, but strongly recommended. Visit Keri’s website at keriford.com, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/keriford
.

Be sure not to miss M. Q. Barber’s small town erotic romance

After her marriage ends in betrayal, Eleanora Howard finds herself struggling to navigate the dating scene as a thirty-one-year-old divorcee. But feeling undesirable, and living alone in the house she once shared with her ex, is hardly the recipe for finding new love—until she meets Rob. He’s just the kind of charming, old-fashioned guy she needs—but he’s also eager for intimacy…

After serving in the Air Force and getting a well-paid civilian career, Rob Vanderhoff planned to settle down with the right woman and raise a family. But at thirty-six, he’s still single and searching—until he meets Eleanora. She’s everything he wants. All he has to do is draw her out of her shell. Soon he’s taking her on high school-style dates, fanning the flames of her desire—and helping Nora re-discover the sexy, adventurous woman they both know she really is…

A Lyrical Press Original

Dead last. Again.

The four of them went out after work every Friday, and every Friday Eleanora sat and smiled while guys bought drinks for Sharilyn. Hit the dance floor with Amber. Chatted up Chelsea’s breasts.

Even the sidekicks—wingmen, whatever guys called themselves—refused to give her a second glance. She couldn’t blame their lack of interest on the ring. She’d taken off the meaningless metal circle before the divorce had been finalized.

But to the endless crowd of broad-smile bar-hoppers, she rated five seconds of stilted conversation between texting or checking sports scores or playing Angry Birds. The highlight of four hours of boredom. Single life almost matched the worst tedium of married life.

That’s what she got for saddling herself with David and galloping through her twenties with his ring on her finger. He’d been her first. Her only.

Now she performed rotating roles as babysitter, chaperone, and charity case. She didn’t belong at a too-small table packed alongside tight-skinned and perky-breasted girls who flashed their IDs with the affected nonchalance of twenty-two-year-olds.

She downed the final sip of her third beer of the night. She didn’t dare hop in her car and head home yet. Given her luck, she’d end up pulled over and facing a drunk-driving charge. David would love any excuse to point out her idiocy. Hiring a lawyer without him finding out would be impossible in this town. She’d never live down the humiliation.

“—and it’s deep, too.”

Chelsea laughed along with what’s-his-name. Dog Collar Dude. Not attractive, but he had deep pockets. Probably thought he’d be getting in deep with Chelsea tonight, payment in exchange for buying round after round of drinks. God knew he hadn’t taken his eyes off her breasts.

Laughter came dangerously close to making Chelsea spill out of her silky, sleeveless v-cut. Eleanora’s closet didn’t hold a shirt anywhere near so revealing. Boring and staid, as much an accountant in her fashion picks as in her career choices. And in her bedroom habits.

She tilted her brown bottle. All gone. No magical extra swallows remained to knock David’s voice from her head.

“Whoa.” An unknown quantity stumbled to a halt beside her chair. “Your friend’s hot.”

Fantastic. The newest Mr. Drunk-and-Horny leaned in close and drenched her nose with the scent of teen body spray. Probably the same disgusting brand he’d used in high school. Probably lived in the same bedroom, too.

“Oh? Which one?” She’d come to this lousy bar with three friends—well, acquaintances—and he didn’t have a chance with any of them.

The skinny blond kid blinked as he scanned their table. Jesus. He looked barely old enough to buy the three beers he held, and she’d celebrated thirty-one six months ago.

Sooner or later she’d have to inform her coworkers she wasn’t going out with them anymore. They were twenty-four, twenty-five, and poaching college boys was fine for them. For her, the whole scene smacked of desperation. Three months of this bullshit added up to quite enough.

“Uh, all of ’em?” He presented a dopey smile.

“Damn, Ellie. Picking ’em young tonight, aren’t you?” Sharilyn swung her martini glass upward, sloshing vodka over the rim. “Good for you.”

“Yeah, no, I’m not—”

The kid wobbled into her chair. “I don’t feel—”

Vomit splattered her shoulder and rolled down her chest. Ugh. Should’ve dodged faster. She shoved him back.

Stumbling over his own feet, he landed on his ass, spilled his three beers all over himself, and retched. The acrid stench of puke replaced the flood of body spray in her nose. A toss-up, really.

She laughed over the chorus of oh-my-gods from the rest of the table. At least the night wasn’t boring anymore.

* * * *

“Oh, fuck.”

Rob swallowed the last of his beer. Lucas had better hurry up with the refills. “What now?”

They’d hit a handful of bars already. Brian had found trouble with every damned one. With Lucas staying at his place for the summer, he’d been playing mother hen for the last three weeks.

“I think my baby brother’s puking his guts out.”

“Take him home. Happy beer-buying birthday and all, but he’s done for the night.” He’d celebrated his own twenty-first on base with a pack of fellow tech geeks. Good guys, including Brian. How had fifteen years gone by so fast? “Pour him into bed.”

“Yeah.” Brian grimaced. “Soon as I figure out what to say to the woman with puke running down her shirt.”

“Try an apology.” He shoved his chair back and stood, scanning the tables for Lucas’s god-awful sea-green pullover. “Where is he?”

He spotted the vomit-splattered woman about the same time Brian answered, “Your four o’clock.”

Shit. Lucas had spewed at a full table, and he couldn’t get eyes on him. Man down. Threat?

No punches thrown, so far as he could tell. A circle of horrified and disgusted faces clustered to one side, their owners staring at the floor. One guy held his phone up. On the far side of the table sat a laughing woman with a beautiful smile and a stained shirt. Damn. He hadn’t taken a woman home in almost four months, and Lucas had party-fouled the first to catch his eye. “C’mon, let’s go rescue Lucas and get out of here.”

Looked like tonight wouldn’t be the night to break his sexless streak.

* * * *

“Oh my God, Ellie, seriously, how can you laugh about this?” Light glinted off glitter-speckled fingernails. Amber pushed back from the table. “Yuck. Danny, take me dancing.” She dragged her boy of the night away with a theatrical flounce.

“You do kinda reek, Ellie.” Sharilyn wrinkled her nose. “Not your fault, but eww.”

Waving in front of her face, Chelsea nodded.

Dog Collar Dude flipped through his phone. “Fuck, I missed the kid’s first splash. You think he could upchuck again? The visual’d make the video so much better.”

Eleanora glanced down with care. The regurgitated beer soaking into her shirt quickly lost its amusement value. The kid had added a puddle beside her chair. He barked out coughs like a hoarse dog.

“No, I don’t think he’s got anything else in his stomach.” She poked his knee with her foot. “Kid? You all right? You got somebody we can call for you?”

No answer, unless she counted more retching. Between the sound and the smell, her stomach started to turn.

A second man with the same pale hair as the first dropped to the floor beside the kid and laid a hand on his back. “Shit, Lucas, I thought you might’ve passed out.”

“Are you all right, miss?”

Sex on a stick. Thick thighs encased in denim inches from her eyes. She launched her head back and her chin skyward. Eyes up. Ohhh, bad idea. The stranger loomed over her with his strong jaw and his short, dark hair and his no-nonsense eyes.

“No, of course you aren’t.” His aborted hand movement stopped short of her shoulder. “Ugh, he did a number on your shirt. Let me give you a hand.”

He slipped around the other side of her seat. Cupping her elbow in one hand and pressing against her back with the other, he coaxed her to her feet. Large hands. Warm hands.

Her body jangled like a change jar spilling on tile.

“Look, he’s really sorry, or he will be when he’s sober.” The stranger glanced down, shaking his head. “He’s twenty-one today.”

She nodded. The blond guy picked the younger one off the floor. First legal drinking day. Okay. She filed the data under
don’t care
and waited for details about Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome.

“You can’t wear that home.”

Her chest had snared more attention in the last five minutes than in three months of flaunting herself at bars. She’d found the secret of dating. When introversion and modest assets failed, distress attracted the good guys. Not how she’d hoped to find someone.

The man with large hands squeezed and let her go. Peeling off his shirt, he revealed a to-die-for body. Solid, toned muscles from top to bottom. Too bad his jeans came almost to his waist. Denim blocked the enticing slope heading into his pants. God, David had never reached such nonchalant bare-chested perfection.

Her rescuer held out his shirt and gestured her toward the back of the bar. “Here, let me give you mine for tonight.”

No fucking way. This guy couldn’t be for real. She stumbled over her chair.

He steadied her with a quick hand on her clean shoulder.