Main Street Dealmaker (Holidays in Havenbrook Book 1), page 16
“That’s right.”
“I just wanna make sure I get some credit is all.”
Cole chuckled under his breath and shook his head. “I’ll make sure you do.” Then, to Sadie, he said, “I owe her for this, but she’s a real pain in my ass sometimes.”
“I heard that!”
“I meant for you to.”
Sadie rolled her eyes and stuffed her hands in her pockets, already feeling the nip in the air. “If you two are done bickerin’, maybe one of y’all can tell me what’s goin’ on.”
“Like I was sayin’, I did a little scopin’ out earlier today. Seems Alec has a yearly poker game with some pretty hefty stakes.”
“Alec…as in Elise’s ex-husband? What the hell were you hangin’ out with him for?”
“Did I ever tell you my mom taught me how to play poker? Said I needed to learn so I could win some spendin’ money while I was away at college.”
Sadie laughed and shook her head, though she wasn’t surprised. Cole’s momma was a spitfire who’d done what she had to to make ends meet. Sadie had come to love her in the year she and Cole had been together. “You didn’t, but I’m not sure what that has to do with what you and Edna got up to this afternoon, or why Rory and Nash’s truck is backed into the inn’s driveway.”
“I’m gettin’ there.”
“Get there faster—I’m freezin’.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, bending down to press a kiss to her lips. One that didn’t last nearly long enough before he pulled away. “This probably won’t surprise you, but Alec’s a cocky little fuck, and he was all too willin’ to put up exactly what I asked for in the last bet of the afternoon.” Cole unlatched the doors and swung them open to reveal a packed backend full of…
Her family’s antiques?
“Cole…” she breathed, stepping closer and running her fingers over the smooth mahogany of her grandmother’s old writing desk. The one she’d sat at with her as a child, practicing her ABC’s. A lump formed in her throat, and tears pricked her eyes. Every single piece Alec had taken from her family was inside—the armoire that’d once held her grandma’s clothes, the sewing machine passed down from her great-great-grandma, the grandfather clock she’d come to associate with staying with her grandparents. All of it was right there in front of her when she’d resigned herself to never seeing them again. “How did you do this?”
He stepped up behind her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her back into his chest. Pressing a kiss to her temple, he held her close. “Like I said, he’s an arrogant shit. I just had to put up something really good against all this, and he was all too willin’ to pony up.”
“What’d you bet?”
“My car.”
Sadie’s mouth dropped open, and she spun around to face him. “Wait, your car? The one you love more than me that you just bought three months ago?”
Cole rolled his eyes and reached a hand into his pocket. “First of all, I do not love it more than you. And second, yes.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“What? That I love it more than you?”
“Yes. You even named it. How is Claudette doin’ today, anyway?”
“She’s fine, and so what? Lots of people name their cars. I don’t sleep with it every night, do I?”
“Well, no. But—”
“And I don’t make sweet, sweet love to it either, do I?”
She scoffed. “I’d hardly call what you do to me makin’ sweet, sweet—”
“And I also didn’t buy it one of these and plan to ask it to spend the rest of its life with me, did I?”
“You…what?” she asked, her brow furrowed. But then he grabbed her left hand and slipped something onto the third finger, and she froze. “Cole?”
He tugged her even closer, so there wasn’t a breath of space between them, and lifted her hand to press a kiss against the ring he’d just slipped on. “Marry me.”
She breathed out a laugh as tears stung her eyes, and her stomach did cartwheels. “You’re supposed to ask me that, not demand it.”
He shrugged, completely unrepentant, and kissed her. Long and deep, his tongue sweeping against her lower lip as he held her tight. Like even pressed up against her, they were too far apart. Like he never wanted to let her go.
Finally breaking away, he said, “I don’t wanna ask because I don’t wanna give you the idea I’d be okay with you sayin’ no. I told you a long time ago I wasn’t subtle or romantic. I want what I want, and I’m not afraid to go after it. And what I want is you.” He cupped her face in his palms and pressed his lips to hers once more. “For the rest of my life. Say yes, firecracker.”
She glanced down at the beautiful ring on her finger, then up at the man who’d completely and utterly stolen her heart, soul, and every ounce of her being. “You may not be subtle, but I hate to tell you…this is romantic as hell.”
“I told you!” Edna yelled from the truck. “Now, are you gonna answer him already?”
Cole squeezed his eyes shut as Sadie giggled, her heart in her throat as a tear trailed down her cheek. “Well? Are you gonna put us both out of our misery, or should I grab a chair and camp out here for the night?”
She bit her lip and darted her eyes between his, looking for any apprehension on his part. Any hesitation or uncertainty. But she didn’t find it anywhere. All she saw when she looked into his eyes was the same thing she knew he saw in hers. Pure, unconditional love.
“I don’t know,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and admiring the sparkle of the stone under the twinkling lights outside. “What if you drive me crazy for the rest of my life?”
“Oh, I’d count on it, firecracker.”
“Give the poor man a yes!” Edna yelled.
Sadie laughed against Cole’s lips as he stared down at her, eyes sparkling. “After bribing me with all these antiques, how could I say no?”
“I wasn’t above doin’ that if it meant I got to call you mine forever. Does that mean your answer’s a yes?”
“You know it is. With you, it’s always yes.”
Edna whooped in the cab of the truck as a grin split Cole’s face. He kissed her, slipping his tongue into her mouth when she parted her lips on a sigh. Sadie had spent her life dreaming about this very thing—a forever kind of love she wouldn’t give up for anything. The kind that made her toes curl and her heart sing. That drove her crazy and soothed her all at once.
Cole was her forever, her happily ever after. And she was his.
________
Thank you for reading Cole and Sadie’s story! Find out what happens when Nat comes back to Havenbrook to play wife to her best friend Asher after his life is turned upside down in Small Town Pretender.
Asher McCoy can win over a crowd with a strum of his guitar, but proving to a judge he’s responsible enough to gain custody of his niece and nephew? Not so easy. His big idea—a fake marriage. And who better to play his doting bride than his longtime best friend, Natalie Haven?
Except a fake marriage means a not-so-fake living arrangement, including only one bed. And this strictly friend business is starting to feel a lot like love…
Order Small Town Pretender now!
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And don’t miss the free first in series that started it all!
“Delicious, sexy and utterly charming.” —USA Today bestselling author Stefanie London
He was the resident bad boy. She’s small town royalty. Their love was doomed from the start.
Finn Thomas, the bad boy of Havenbrook, has returned after ten years to claim the one who got away…and he’s not taking no for an answer. Willow Haven might be royalty in this small, southern town, but there are some things even a princess can't resist...especially when it comes to a man like him.
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________
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Keep reading for an excerpt of Small Town Pretender!
Small Town Pretender Excerpt
Asher McCoy could say without a doubt that this wasn't what he expected his life to look like. Three days ago, he’d been a twenty-seven-year-old musician making a living from his music and on the verge of his big break. He’d had a meeting scheduled with a record label to discuss signing on with them after a recent video of him at The Bluebird Cafe went viral. His life consisted of late night gigs, some overzealous fans, and spontaneity.
In the blink of an eye, that had changed.
Now, suddenly, he was a twenty-seven-year-old in charge of two kids under four. His new late night sessions were less the acoustic country-rock variety while beautiful girls vied for his attention, and now more the lullaby variety, which included wails of frustration instead of screams of delight. Overzealous fans had been swapped for two enamored tiny people, and nap schedules had replaced his spontaneity.
He’d changed more diapers in the past three days than he had the past three years combined. On the plus side, he was getting pretty good at it—he hadn’t been peed on in twenty-four hours.
Somehow, he'd managed to juggle it all since he’d arrived in Havenbrook along with the rising sun, knowing, for the first time, his sister wouldn’t be there to greet him with a hug and a smile. Thankfully, he’d had help from the Havens, his second family. Rory had been a godsend, stepping in and taking charge in her Rory way, exactly how he desperately needed considering he had no idea what he was doing.
It was late afternoon, and Owen refused to nap. Which meant the only thing his nephew was interested in doing was crying. June, on the other hand, was bouncing off the walls, though that was probably his fault. He was still learning the unspoken rules of child supervision. Namely, being the cool uncle who gave his niece ice cream for lunch had extremely short lived benefits.
“Let's play circus, Uncle Asher!” June cried, bouncing from couch cushion to couch cushion before taking a flying leap and hanging from his back like a spider monkey. The move jostled him, and thus jostled Owen in his arms, which only ratcheted up the baby's cries.
He held Owen tighter, bouncing the little guy in an effort to be soothing. Quite the feat with an acrobatic four-year-old doing everything in her power to turn this house into an actual circus. “Believe me, Junebug, there is nothing I’d rather do than play with you, but your brother isn't gonna like that much.”
She scrunched up her nose as she leaned over Asher’s shoulder and stared down at her little brother. “It doesn’t sound like he’s gonna like anything.”
Asher smothered a laugh. “You’re not wrong.”
“Take me on a ride, then, like Daddy does!”
Just like it’d done at every mention of his sister or brother-in-law, his heart clenched, an empty ache radiating throughout his chest. And, just like every mention, he did exactly what June asked for. What else could he do?
“Okay, hang on tight.”
She squealed in response to his command, tightening her grip until he was damn near asphyxiated. No one could accuse her of half-assing anything.
As he stood, he kept up Owen’s steady bounce, even with June hanging off his back, her legs hooked around his waist as she squealed in giddy delight. She might actually be the one to blow out his ear drums—and that was saying something, considering the amount of shows he’d played.
He cradled Owen with one hand as he spun to June’s symphony of excitement, his forearm braced below her bottom to make sure she didn’t slip down.
“More, Uncle Asher! More!” she demanded.
But if Asher did this anymore, he was going to puke. And, considering June’s lunch, he probably wouldn’t be the only one.
Just as he slowed his spins, the doorbell rang, and he breathed out a sigh of relief. At least now he had an actual excuse to stop. He paused for a couple seconds, just long enough to gain his balance. It seemed it was just long enough, too, for Owen’s cries to start back up, his wails ricocheting off the walls.
June wasn’t bothered by it, however, and just spoke louder so as to be heard over the commotion. “Do it again, Uncle Asher!”
“In a minute. We’ve gotta see who’s at the door.”
Every time the doorbell rang—which, in a town like Havenbrook, following the untimely deaths of two of their younger and beloved residents, meant it was fairly often. The freezer, at least, was stocked with enough casseroles to last them a month—he thought it might finally be Nat. Considering she was supposed to arrive yesterday but had been held up in Buenos Aires, he'd given up hope of that after her fifth text to update him on yet another delay.
Nash was on call to pick her up at the Memphis airport whenever she arrived, taking one thing off Asher’s extremely full plate. He’d assumed they’d keep him up to date as to her whereabouts.
But when he opened the door, there she stood, her appraising blue eyes roving over him, her full lips tipped up in that way that made her seem like she was perpetually amused. Her hair was the closest to her natural shade that he’d seen in more than five years—dark chestnut on the top with the ends a bright, vibrant teal.
He couldn’t explain it, but seeing her had everything inside him shifting. Settling. As if he knew that her being there meant everything was going to be okay. After three days of uncertainty and turmoil, it was like a balm to his soul.
Nash’s honk pulled him out of his thoughts. His friend waved from his truck before pulling out of the driveway, and Asher could only manage a chin lift in response, considering his hands were full of sixty pounds of pissed off and/or hyper children.
“He's already late for a meeting, thanks to my delays, but he said he’ll stop by later.” Nat glanced to Owen who was still screaming, his face a mottled red, and then to June as she clung from Asher’s neck. “Sounds like maybe you need some help.”
“Nat!” June yelled, releasing her grip on Asher to throw her arms wide.
Asher’s muscles tightened as he compensated for June’s lack of leverage, holding her up with his forearm. “Gotta hang on, Junebug, or you’re gonna be flattened on the ground like a real June bug.”
She giggled and threw her arms back around Asher’s neck, though she miscalculated and accidentally thumped Owen in the head. His screams only intensified.
“I’m sorry, Bubbie,” June said over Asher’s shoulder as she peered down at a wailing Owen and rubbed a hand over the baby’s downy soft thatch of hair. “I didn’t mean to, promise!”
Without missing a beat, Nat stepped into the house, dropped her bags next to the front door, and scooped a contrite June off of Asher’s back. To him, she said, “You’ve got the screamer.”
“That means you’ve got the one hopped up on sugar.”
Nat only shrugged. “Perfect, then we match. I’ve eaten nothing but chips and peanut MnMs for three days.”
With that, she tossed June over her shoulder before spinning the little girl around in helicopters. After a few moments, she dropped a giggling June on the couch and stared down at her, fists propped on her hips. “I have a deal for you. What do you think of that?”
His niece, ever the skeptic, narrowed her eyes. “What kind of deal?”
“Whoever picks up the most before your brother stops cryin’ gets a cupcake from The Sweet Spot. Agree?”
Asher was pretty sure the last thing his niece needed today—or this week, for that matter—was more sugar. But there was no denying that Nat’s tactics worked because June agreed immediately, flying off the couch and dashing around the disastrous living room to get started. The house was strewn with enough toys to fill an entire store, not to mention the dirty dishes he hadn’t been able to get to or the handful of discarded outfits June insisted on tearing through each day. Then there were all the pee stained shirts of his, as well as Owen’s—the kid hadn’t woken up dry once since Asher had arrived.
Nat may not have been the maternal type, but she was the see something, do something type, which was why her immediacy didn’t surprise him. No matter how long they spent apart, it was never weird when they saw each other again. Whether it was after five weeks or five months, they fell right back into the same easy rhythm there had always been between them.
She wore jeans and an oversized hoodie—her standard airplane uniform—and he knew from experience she was dying for a shower. While she loved traveling and seeing the world, she didn’t love airplanes or being stuffed like sardines with a bunch of random people she didn’t know, breathing in recycled air.
“Quit starin’ at me, creep,” Nat said as she bent to pick up a discarded sippy cup, not even bothering to look over her shoulder.
He huffed out a laugh at the exact moment a particularly sharp wail sounded from Owen. Asher adjusted the baby into a different position, lifting him upright and propping his butt on Asher’s forearm. Owen stared at him, as if Asher was the one responsible for all of this, his bottom lip quivering as he rubbed an angry fist into his eyes.
“I know, buddy.” Asher rubbed Owen’s back as he walked them toward the little boy’s room and away from the peals of laughter from June and Nat. “Now that Nat’s here to take care of your sister, maybe I can finally get you to sleep.”
Somehow, beyond all hope, Owen actually did fall asleep—on top of Asher while he rocked him in the chair in his room, which meant Asher fell asleep, too. He woke up to Owen’s hands slapping happily on his cheeks and his nephew’s face pressed so close he was blurry.
