Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,74

platter.

“Excuse me, Forrest James, I know that’s what you’ve always done because I’ve watched you do it on five different dinner, lunch, or breakfast occasions. You promise you’ll clean after everyone cooks and prepares, and magically, you’re nowhere to be found when the crap lands in the sink! Sooo, I know you’ve done it your whole life because people are creatures of habits. Who also form those habits because their family and friends allow them to get away with it. But that’s not the case tonight. I’ll make sure you clean those dishes if it means stapling your stomach to the counter and cabinets.”

We all stare at Presley, slack-jawed, until Mom starts clapping her hands and laughing so hard that tears spring forth from her eyes.

“My God, girl, I knew I loved you.” Mom hugs Presley.

Presley just stares at Forrest with a smug, victorious look on her face, and my most egotistical brother seems to cower in fear.

I knew I loved her, too, even before she gave Forrest a total dressing down. That’s why I’m going to convince her to move in with me. Not that she knows that yet. But I’m going to do it so subtly, she’ll think it’s her idea. How smart am I? First I got her to fall in love with me, and now I’m going to trick her into spending the rest of her life with me.

I’m a lucky, lucky man and I know that. Before Presley blew into town, I thought happiness was just a mild feeling. That the life I was living was decent and I shouldn’t strive for more.

How wrong I’d been.

Mom, Forrest, and Bowen begin to take their seats around the table while I finish off the rest of the main course on the grill. As I slide the last burger onto the plate, I feel arms wrap around my waist, and catch a lock of fiery hair blowing in the wind out of the corner of my eye.

“I think I should get you one of those aprons that says Kiss the Cook,” Presley jokes, nuzzling her cheek to my sweater-clad shoulder.

“You don’t need the apron, I’m yours. You can kiss me anytime you want.” I look back at her over my shoulder.

“Even in front of your family?” She raises an eyebrow.

I shrug. “My brothers may taunt us, but they’re just jealous. Go ahead, lay one on me, gorgeous.”

So she does. Plants one on my lips with a searing, hot, quick kiss. And just like I predicted, my brothers begin to heckle us while my mom tries to admonish them.

The smile that traces my mouth and transfers to Presley’s is genuine, and I give her lips one more gentle brush before we move to join the taunters for dinner.

And as I look around the table, my family chatting away under the stars, I know that this was the life I was waiting for.

She was the woman I was waiting for.

Epilogue

Presley

Eight Months Later

“Thank you all so much for coming today. This was a lifelong dream that I never realized I had until I moved to Fawn Hill. The people here, they’ve become my family and welcomed me in so loving of a way that I only had the courage to open this studio because of them.”

The small crowd gathered on the shiny hardwood of my brand new yoga studio are all faces who have helped get me to this place. A soft open for my brand-new business venture, featuring the people in Fawn Hill I love the most. Grandma, in her jeans and boots … I knew she wouldn’t be open to the free class I was giving for my most valued customers, but she was here and that’s what mattered. She’d believed in me when no one else had … and after all, the business was half hers.

Lily and Penelope, and a couple of my other park yoga regulars who had helped with the concept and design of the studio. I’d made lifelong friends from the moment I’d started to develop this dream, and I’d never be able to put into words how much they meant.

The entire Nash family is here, and they had become my family, too. They had helped with the construction on the studio … but no one more than Fletcher. While Keaton helped with every spare second he had, he wasn’t always available. And once Fletch had gotten out of rehab, he needed something to occupy his time.

We’d grown close, and I’d learned he had much