Fragile Hearts (Poplar Falls #4) - Amber Kelly Page 0,48

selfish, dragging her away from everyone she knew to move here with me, but she insisted that she come along when I told her I was moving.

“Your sister has Wes and the kids and your cousins here. She’ll be fine. I’m coming along to make sure you are fine. Besides, I could use a change of scenery myself, and I hear the Colorado Mountains are divine. If I don’t like it there, I’ll just move back in a year.”

I guess she has decided to stay after all.

“Bellamy tells me you purchased the Sugarman Homestead,” Beverly continues.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She whistles. “It’s a lovely place, but it is definitely going to need a lot of work,” she utters.

“I’m sure you are telling the boy something he already knows, Bev,” Winston interjects.

“Oh, you hush. I’m just making small talk.”

“You’re just being nosy,” he corrects.

“I am not,” she snaps.

“She is,” he says to me.

I decide to go ahead and spill, so they don’t argue. “It is going to be a project, but I’m looking forward to it. Bellamy actually helped me get started, tearing out some of the old cabinetry. Contractors begin the remodel in the kitchen this week. Hopefully, that part will be done by the time Mom gets back.”

“Bellamy is helping, you say?” Her question is laced with curiosity.

“I don’t know if she wants to do anything else, but she was great at tearing things up.”

Winston lets out a guttural laugh. “She always has been a little female wrecking ball,” he muses.

“I’m sure she’ll love to keep helping. She’s always adored that house,” Mrs. Wilson adds.

“I think you’ve made your point, dear. No need to keep pushing and scare the boy off,” Winston advises.

“I don’t know what in the devil you’re going on about,” she says to him, exasperated.

He looks at me and rolls his eyes. “Sure you don’t, dear.”

She opens her mouth, preparing to hurl her retort, when the door swings open and Bellamy appears.

She is wearing a blue-and-white gingham halter-top romper with navy sandals. Her hair is curled and flowing down her back. And a pair of sunglasses are shoved haphazardly on her head.

She looks like a summer day.

“Ready, Doc? Dallas just texted and asked if we could stop in town and grab a couple more bottles of wine. Apparently, Myer didn’t pick up nearly enough.”

I stand. “Ready if you are. Thank you for the lemonade, Mrs. Wilson.”

She stands as well and wraps me in a hug. “Oh, it was my pleasure, and you call me Beverly, you hear. No more of this Mrs. Wilson nonsense,” she demands.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I shake Winston’s hand as she hugs Bellamy.

“I’ll be waiting to carry her in,” he whispers loudly to me.

“Pop! I heard that.” She feigns offense.

“Wasn’t trying to keep you from hearing it, sweetheart.”

He smiles lovingly at his daughter, and she kisses his cheek.

Then, I walk her to my truck, and we head to town.

Bellamy

Brandt and I ride in silence to my brother’s cabin. It’s not exactly awkward, but it’s obvious neither of us knows what to say about what happened last night. At least he isn’t avoiding me, so I guess that’s a good sign.

When we make it to the party, he immediately joins the boys outside at the horseshoe pits while I take the wine inside.

Sophie, Elle, and Silas’s wife, Chloe, are already set up on the living room floor with Faith lying on a blanket.

“Bells, it’s about time you arrived. We’re almost out of wine,” Dallas says from the couch. Empty wineglass in hand.

“Since when do you drink wine?” I ask what I think is a fair question.

She looks down at her glass and frowns. “I thought if I limited myself to wine, I wouldn’t get too drunk. I don’t want to pass out and not hear Faith when she wakes up to feed,” she grumbles.

“I thought that you pumped, so you could drink. Doesn’t that mean Myer can get up and feed her?” Sophie asks.

“I did. But I like getting up with her. And he has to get up at the ass-crack of dawn every day, so I like for him to get extra sleep on Sundays.”

“You know, I heard him talking to Momma the other day, and I think he’s a little bit jealous that you’re the only one who can get up with her and feed her. He really wants some quiet one-on-one time with her,” I tell her, only slightly exaggerating the conversation.

“Really?” she asks.

“Yep. He wants extra daddy-daughter bonding time. You don’t want to rob him