Unstoppable (A Country Roads Novel) (28 page)

He leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers. His hands dropped from her face and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her flush against his body.

“I love you, Melanie,” he whispered against her mouth.

“I love you, too.”

He pulled back and looked into her face. “Enough to marry me?”

She froze. “Are you asking?”

In the next moment Bennett was dropping to his knee in front of her, reaching for her left hand and holding it in both of his.

“You want to know my ‘I Didn’t Kick the Bucket List’? I want to wake up next to you every morning, even when you’re cranky and caffeine deprived. I want to come home to you every day. I want to have a handful of kids with you. I want to grow old with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But the key in all of those things is
you
. I need you, Mel. I need you to be able to do
any
of it. I need you be able to do
all
of it. So, Melanie O’Bryan, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now I can give you this.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small box. He flipped up the lid to reveal an antique ring. It was white gold with a cushion cut diamond and two diamond filigree leaves on either side.

“It was Jocelyn’s mother’s ring. She gave it to me years ago so that I would have it when I found someone. I never thought in a million years I’d ever give it to anyone. But you changed everything for me.” He pulled the ring out of the box. “I don’t know if it’s going to fit.” He slipped it onto her left hand.

But it fit.

“I guess Jocelyn’s mother had thin fingers, too.” Bennett grinned at her.

“Get up here,” she said, pulling on his hands.

Bennett complied and got up off his knees. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard as he walked her backward into the house, Teddy following behind them. Bennett shut the door with his foot before he locked it. Mel grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hallway to her bedroom.

She turned to him when they were in front of the bed, and she let the blanket fall from her shoulders and puddle around her feet. As Bennett held her close, Mel reached up and grabbed his face.

“Don’t ever do that to me again. It hurt too much. I can’t do that again, Bennett.”

“Not ever. It’s you and me, Mel. I’ve got you. I promise.”

B
ennett had another dream that first night back in Mel’s arms:

He was in that church again, but this time he wasn’t sitting in a pew. No, this time he was standing at the front, and she was walking up the aisle toward him.

She was wearing that white dress, and the sunlight streaming in from the windows lit her up and made her radiant. Her smile was more than anything he could’ve imagined, and the look in her eyes almost had him falling to his knees.

She loved him, and the pure joy she felt from it was evident in everything about her. He knew the feeling because that was the exact same way he felt about her.

When she got to the end of the aisle she reached for him, and his hands instinctively reached out for her. He drew her into his arms.

Bennett woke up, this time not breathing hard, not freaking out, not on the verge of a panic attack. No, he was calm, and as he looked down at the woman in his arms, he was unbelievably happy.

He was going to marry Mel. He was going to spend the rest of his life with her, and he was going to make every moment count.

He couldn’t wait for the day that she did walk down the aisle toward him in that white dress. And on the day of Jax and Grace’s wedding, Bennett might’ve not been all that prepared for the little preview he got.

The girls actually spent the night at Mel’s house the night before the wedding. Bennett hadn’t been too thrilled about a night away from Mel, especially so soon after they’d fixed things, but he’d sucked it up and dealt with it. If anything, not getting to see Mel at all before the wedding made the experience that much more real.

All of the groomsmen were stationed with Jax at the front of the church, and the bridesmaids would be walking down solo. The church was filled with people, green and white flowers decorated the end of every pew, and piano music played from the corner.

Paige was first down the aisle, then Harper. Bennett took a deep breath. Mel was next.

“I think you’re more nervous than Jax is,” Shep whispered under his breath to Bennett.

“I wouldn’t doubt it.”

And then there she was, standing at the end of the aisle. She wore a sleeveless dark green dress that streamed behind her as she walked. It was most likely the exact same dress that the other two women had worn, but Bennett hadn’t really seen it on them. Nope, he only saw it on Mel.

Her curly hair was pinned up on her head, her face glowing, and her smile directed straight at him.

Bennett couldn’t stop the tears that came to his eyes. The next time he stood in a church like this, Mel would be walking down the aisle to marry him.

Shannon Richard grew up in the Panhandle of Florida as the baby sister of two overly protective but loving brothers. She was raised by a more than somewhat eccentric mother, a self-proclaimed vocabularist who showed her how to get lost in a book, and a father who passed on his love for coffee and really loud music. She graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelor’s in English Literature and still lives in Tallahassee, where she battles everyday life with writing, reading, and a rant every once in a while. Okay, so the rants might happen on a regular basis. She’s still waiting for her Southern, scruffy, Mr. Darcy, and in the meantime she writes love stories to indulge her overactive imagination. Oh, and she’s a pretty big fan of the whimsy.

Learn more at:

ShannonRichard.net

Twitter, @Shan_Richard

Facebook.com/ShannonNRichard

Undone

Undeniable

B
ethelda Grimshaw was a snot-nosed wench. She was an evil, mean-spirited, vindictive, horrible human being.

Paige should’ve known. She should’ve known the instant she’d walked into that office and sat down. Bethelda Grimshaw had a malevolent stench radiating off her, kind of like road kill in ninety-degree weather. The interview, if it could even be called that, had been a complete waste of time.

“She didn’t even read my résumé,” Paige said, slamming her hand against the steering wheel as she pulled out of the parking lot of the Mirabelle Information Center.

No, Bethelda had barely even looked at said résumé before she’d set it down on the desk and leaned back in her chair, appraising Paige over her cat’s-eye glasses.

“So you’re the
infamous
Paige Morrison,” Bethelda had said, raising a perfectly plucked, bright red eyebrow. “You’ve caused
quite
a stir since you came to town.”

Quite a stir?

Okay, so there had been that incident down at the Piggly Wiggly, but that hadn’t been Paige’s fault. Betty Whitehurst might seem like a sweet, little old lady but in reality she was as blind as a bat and as vicious as a shrew. Betty drove her shopping cart like she was racing in the Indy 500, which was an accomplishment, as she barely cleared the handle. She’d slammed her cart into Paige, who in turn fell into a display of cans. Paige had been calm for all of about five seconds before Betty had started screeching at her about watching where she was going.

Paige wasn’t one to take things lying down covered in cans of creamed corn, so she’d calmly explained to Betty that she
had
been watching where she was going. “Calmly” being that Paige had started yelling and the store manager had to get involved to quiet everyone down.

Yeah, Paige didn’t deal very well with certain types of people. Certain types being evil, mean-spirited, vindictive, horrible human beings. And Bethelda Grimshaw was quickly climbing to the top of that list.

“As it turns out,” Bethelda had said, pursing her lips in a patronizing pout, “we already filled the position. I’m afraid there was a mistake in having you come down here today.”

“When?”

“Excuse me?” Bethelda had asked, her eyes sparkling with glee.

“When did you fill the position?” Paige had repeated, trying to stay calm.

“Last week.”

Really? So the phone call Paige had gotten that morning to confirm the time of the interview had been a mistake?

This was the eleventh job interview she’d gone on in the last two months. And it had most definitely been the worst. It hadn’t even been an interview. She’d been set up; she just didn’t understand why. But she hadn’t been about to ask that question out loud. So instead of flying off the handle and losing the last bit of restraint she had, Paige had calmly gotten up from the chair and left without making a scene. The whole thing was a freaking joke, which fit perfectly for the current theme of Paige’s life.

Six months ago, Paige had been living in Philadelphia. She’d had a good job in the art department of an advertising agency. She’d shared a tiny two-bedroom apartment above a coffee shop with her best friend, Abby Fields. And she’d had Dylan, a man who she’d been very much in love with.

And then the rug got pulled out from under her and she’d fallen flat on her ass.

First off, Abby got a job at an up-and-coming PR firm. Which was good news, and Paige had been very excited for her, except the job was in Washington, DC, which Paige was not excited about. Then, before Paige could find a new roommate, she’d lost her job. The advertising agency was bought out and she was in the first round of cuts. Without a job, she couldn’t renew her lease, and was therefore homeless. So she’d moved in with Dylan. It was always supposed to be a temporary thing, just until Paige could find another job and get on her feet again.

But it never happened.

Paige had tried for two months and found nothing, and then the real bomb hit. She was either blind or just distracted by everything else that was going on, but either way, she never saw it coming.

Paige had been with Dylan for about a year and she’d really thought he’d been the one. Okay, he tended to be a bit of a snob when it came to certain things. For example, wine. Oh was he ever a wine snob, rather obnoxious about it really. He would always swirl it around in his glass, take a sip, sniff, and then take another loud sip, smacking his lips together.

He was also a snob about books. Paige enjoyed reading the classics, but she also liked reading romance, mystery, and fantasy. Whenever she would curl up with one of her books, Dylan tended to give her a rather patronizing look and shake his head.

“Reading fluff again I see,” he would always say.

Yeah, she didn’t miss
that
at all. Or the way he would roll his eyes when she and Abby would quote movies and TV shows to each other. Or how he’d never liked her music and flat-out refused to dance with her. Which had always been frustrating because Paige loved to dance. But despite all of that, she’d loved him. Loved the way he would run his fingers through his hair when he was distracted, loved his big goofy grin, and loved the way his glasses would slide down his nose.

But the thing was, he hadn’t loved her.

One night, he’d come back to his apartment and sat Paige down on the couch. Looking back on it, she’d been an idiot, because there was a small part of her that thought he was actually about to propose.

“Paige,” he’d said, sitting down on the coffee table and grabbing her hands. “I know that this was supposed to be a temporary thing, but weeks have turned into months. Living with you has brought a lot of things to light.”

It was wrong, everything about that moment was
all
wrong
. She could tell by the look in his eyes, by the tone of his voice, by the way he said
Paige
and
light
. In that moment she’d known exactly where he was going, and it wasn’t anywhere with her. He wasn’t proposing. He was breaking up with her.

She’d pulled her hands out of his and shrank back into the couch.

“This,” he’d said, gesturing between the two of them, “was never going to go further than where we are right now.”

And that was the part where her ears had started ringing.

“At one point I thought I might love you, but I’ve realized I’m not
in
love with you,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I feel like you’ve thought this was going to go further, but the truth is I’m never going to marry you. Paige, you’re not the one. I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of putting in the effort for a relationship that isn’t going anywhere else. It’s not worth it to me.”

“You mean I’m not worth it,” she’d said, shocked.

“Paige, you deserve to be with someone who wants to make the effort, and I deserve to be with someone who I’m willing to make the effort for. It’s better that we end this now, instead of delaying the inevitable.”

He’d made it sound like he was doing her a favor, like he had her best interests at heart.

But all she’d heard was
You’re not worth it
and
I’m not in love with you.
And those were the words that kept repeating in her head, over and over and over again.

Dylan had told her he was going to go stay with one of his friends for the week. She’d told him she’d be out before the end of the next day. She’d spent the entire night packing up her stuff. Well, packing and crying and drinking two entire bottles of the prick’s wine.

Paige didn’t have a lot of stuff. Most of the furniture from her and Abby’s apartment had been Abby’s. Everything that Paige owned had fit into the back of her Jeep and the U-Haul trailer that she’d rented the first thing the following morning. She’d loaded up and gotten out of there before four o’clock in the afternoon.

She’d stayed the night in a hotel room just outside of Philadelphia, where she’d promptly passed out. She’d been exhausted after her marathon packing, which was good because it was harder for a person to feel beyond pathetic in her sleep. No, that was what the following eighteen-hour drive had been reserved for.

Jobless, homeless, and brokenhearted, Paige had nowhere else to go but home to her parents. The problem was, there was no
home
anymore. The house in Philadelphia that Paige had grown up in was no longer her parents’. They’d sold it and retired to a little town in the South.

Mirabelle, Florida: population five thousand.

There was roughly the same amount of people in the six hundred square miles of Mirabelle as there were in half a square mile of Philadelphia. Well, unless the mosquitoes were counted as residents.

People who thought that Florida was all sunshine and sand were sorely mistaken. It did have its fair share of beautiful beaches. The entire southeast side of Mirabelle was the Gulf of Mexico. But about half of the town was made up of water. And all of that water, combined with the humidity that plagued the area, created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Otherwise known as tiny, blood-sucking villains that loved to bite the crap out of Paige’s legs.

Paige had visited her parents a couple of times over the last couple of years, but she’d never been in love with Mirabelle like her parents were. And she still wasn’t. She’d spent a month moping around her parents’ house. Again, she was pathetic enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, Dylan would call her and tell her that he’d been wrong. That he missed her. That he loved her.

He never called, and Paige realized he was never going to. That was when Paige resigned herself to the fact that she had to move on with her life. So she’d started looking for a job.

Which had proved to be highly unsuccessful.

Paige had been living in Mirabelle for three months now. Three long miserable months where nothing had gone right. Not one single thing.

And as that delightful thought crossed her mind, she noticed that her engine was smoking. Great white plumes of steam escaped from the hood of her Jeep Cherokee.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said as she pulled off to the side of the road and turned the engine off. “Fan-freaking-tastic.”

Paige grabbed her purse and started digging around in the infinite abyss, searching for her cell phone. She sifted through old receipts, a paperback book, her wallet, lip gloss, a nail file, gum…
ah
, cell phone. She pressed speed dial for her father. She held the phone against her ear while she leaned over and searched for her shoes that she’d thrown on the floor of the passenger side. As her hand closed over one of her black wedges, the phone beeped in her ear and disconnected. She sat up and held her phone out, staring at the display screen in disbelief.

No service.

“This has to be some sick, twisted joke,” she said, banging her head down on the steering wheel. No service on her cell phone shouldn’t have been that surprising; there were plenty of dead zones around Mirabelle. Apparently there was a lack of cell phone towers in this little piece of purgatory.

Paige resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to walk to find civilization, or at least a bar of service on her cell phone. She went in search of her other wedge, locating it under the passenger seat.

The air conditioner had been off for less than two minutes, and it was already starting to warm up inside the Jeep. It was going to be a long, hot walk. Paige grabbed a hair tie from the gearshift, put her long brown hair up into a messy bun, and opened the door to the sweltering heat.

I
hate
this godforsaken place.

Paige missed Philadelphia. She missed her friends, her apartment with its rafters and squeaky floors. She missed having a job, missed having a paycheck, missed buying shoes. And even though she hated it, she still missed Dylan. Missed his dark shaggy hair, and the way he would nibble on her lower lip when they kissed. She even missed his humming when he cooked.

She shook her head and snapped back to the present. She might as well focus on the task at hand and stop thinking about what was no longer her life.

Paige walked for twenty minutes down the road to nowhere, not a single car passing her. By the time Paige got to Skeeter’s Bait, Tackle, Guns, and Gas, she was sweating like nobody’s business, her dress was sticking to her everywhere, and her feet were killing her. She had a nice blister on the back of her left heel.

She pushed the door open and was greeted with the smell of fish mixed with bleach, making her stomach turn. At least the air conditioner was cranked to full blast. There was a huge stuffed turkey sitting on the counter. The fleshy red thing on its neck looked like the stuff nightmares were made of, and the wall behind the register was covered in mounted fish. She really didn’t get the whole “dead animal as a trophy” motif that the South had going on.

There was a display on the counter that had tiny little bottles that looked like energy drinks.

N
EW AND IMPROVED SCENT.
G
REAT FOR ATTRACTING THE PERFECT GAME
.

She picked up one of the tiny bottles and looked at it. It was doe urine.

She took a closer look at the display. They apparently also had the buck urine variety. She looked at the bottle in her hand, trying to grasp why people would cover themselves in this stuff. Was hunting really worth smelling like an animal’s pee?

“Can I help you?”

The voice startled Paige and she looked up into the face of a very large balding man, his apron covered in God only knew what. She dropped the tiny bottle she had in her hand. It fell to the ground. The cap smashed on the tile floor and liquid poured out everywhere.

It took a total of three seconds for the smell to punch her in the nose. It had to be the most fowl scent she’d ever inhaled.

Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.

She was just stellar at first impressions these days.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, trying not to gag. She took a step back from the offending puddle and looked up at the man.

His arms were folded across his chest and he frowned at her, saying nothing.