Call Her Mine (Harmony Pointe #1)- Melissa Foster Page 0,47
know, deep down, when you close your eyes at night and wonder why on earth you’re with a guy who has a baby, is that there has never been a time when I could imagine my world without you in it.”
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“What?”
“That kerplunk? That was me falling even harder for you.” She pressed her lips to his, and then she kissed B’s forehead. “Seeing you with B sends my heart into overdrive, but when you say things like that to me, it makes me feel like my heart might explode.” She pushed to her feet and said, “I’m going downstairs before that happens.”
He grabbed her hand, tugging her in for another kiss, but stopped a whisper away and said, “I love knowing you’re right downstairs instead of a town away.”
“Ben . . .” she said dreamily.
“Now get out of here before I put her in her playpen and”—he eyed the bed—“put you in ours.”
Yes, please. “Somehow I think it’s going to be hard to concentrate on inventory.”
She was still thinking about his threat when she entered the bookstore. She spotted Everly coming out of the stockroom and tried to squelch those thoughts, but it was like trying not to let the world know she’d won the lottery.
Every one of Piper’s crew watched Everly strutting toward her in a fringed suede miniskirt, black Harley-Davidson T-shirt, and leather booties. Aurelia didn’t blame them. At five nine, with long, wavy brown hair and natural blond highlights, a perky nose, and mile-long legs, Everly could be a model. She could pass for eighteen as easily as her real age of twenty-six—until she opened her mouth and started spouting facts. The girl was as brilliant an artist as she was a genius on most topics, and she wasted no time on dolts.
Everly paid the men no mind as she approached Aurelia and said, “I was beginning to think you’d decided not to come down today. Do you have a secret hottie locked upstairs in your apartment?”
Aurelia grabbed her wrist and hauled her toward the stockroom. “There’s been a major plot twist in my life. I’ll fill you in.”
Half an hour later, after Aurelia explained everything she and Ben had been through lately, Everly said, “A baby?” for the tenth time while they worked through the inventory in the stockroom. “Ben Dalton with a baby? I can’t even picture it.”
“He’s amazing with her. Once he got past the initial shock of this tiny, pooping, hungry, needy creature, he stepped up to the plate. Of course, we’re both still adjusting, but like he does with everything else in his life, he took control and figured it out.”
“Sounds like Ben,” she said with a sigh. “This is big, Aurelia. His family must be losing their minds.”
“His parents don’t know yet, but his sisters have been texting and calling ten times a day. Having a baby around is exhausting, but at least we have all the right stuff now, thanks to Piper.”
“I would have paid anything to have seen the two of you the day you found her.” She looked at Aurelia with a serious expression and said, “And you’re sure about the whole you-and-Ben thing? I know how you feel about him. That’s been obvious to everyone for a long time. But are you ready for instafamily?”
“It’s crazy, I know, and I can’t explain it, but there’s no doubt in my mind or in my heart about either of them. Although I have to admit that at first I wondered if Ben wanted me because it was so hard to take care of her on his own.” She thought about his confessions—how long he’d loved her and how he’d planned to tell her at Bridgette’s wedding—and she said, “But now I know better.”
Everly set a book into a box and reached for the tape. As she taped the box shut, she said, “So, are you moving in with Ben in Sweetwater?”
“No,” she said. “We haven’t talked about any of that, but I don’t want to move back there. I can’t go backward. I love my apartment.” Even more with Ben and B in it. “I need to be here to receive deliveries, and we’re opening in a few weeks.”
“It wouldn’t be the end of the world if you had to drive from Sweetwater.”
“No, but this is my new beginning. This is where it’s supposed to be. I feel it in my bones, the same way things with Ben and B feel right.” But she