Waiting for Forever, page 1
Waiting for Forever
Sparks in Texas
Book 9
Mari Carr
Copyright © 2025 by Mari Carr
MARI CARR® is registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Kylie Fascelli
Editor: Kelli Collins
Contents
Waiting for Forever
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
About the Author
Waiting for Forever
Forever starts now.
Paige Sparks has always played by the rules—valedictorian, family girl, and now the no-nonsense office manager of her family’s famous barbecue joint in the heart of Maris, Texas. While her cousins find love and start families of their own, Paige is stuck managing spreadsheets, supplier drama, and the crushing realization that predictability has become her entire life.
When she decides to renovate the charming old house she just bought, hiring the new carpenter in town seems like the perfect solution—until she realizes the man holding the hammer is none other than Hudson Ryan. The same Hudson who tormented her in high school, then vanished without a trace.
The years have changed Hudson. Beneath the tattoos and cocky grin is a man shaped by hardship, hard work, and hard-won redemption. Paige wants to believe people can change, but trusting Hudson may be the biggest risk she’s ever taken.
As the walls come down—both in the house and between their hearts—old grudges ignite into something neither of them saw coming. In a town where everyone knows your name and your business, Paige and Hudson must decide if their unexpected spark is just a flicker of the past… or the start of something real.
Chapter One
Paige kicked back in the Adirondack chair and took in the sheer madness surrounding her, grateful for the glass of wine in her hand. Wine was a necessary provision whenever attending a Sparks family event, especially nowadays, as her cousins had all settled down and were starting to have babies.
Paige looked around at the five kids ranging from newborn to three years old, most small enough that they were still being held by their parents. Evan was pushing his tiny daughter, Eryn, around the yard in a little car as his wife, Annie, watched, cradling their newborn son, Ezra, in her arms.
Diego was coddling his daughter, Eliana, though that was little surprise. Both Jeannette and Luc complained about Diego being a terrible “baby hog,” rarely putting the girl down or sharing her with them. The words were always spoken with genuine affection rather than anger, of course. Luc and Diego grew up in foster care, and Diego, whose parents were in prison for selling heroin, was determined his daughter would never know anything but love and a stable, safe home, things he’d never had growing up.
Her cousin Sydney was chasing around her ten-month-old son, CJ, who had just learned how to crawl, and Paige was impressed by how fast the kid could move. Macie and her husband, Coop, were watching Sydney dash around behind him as their own one-year-old, Henry, sat atop his father’s shoulders, giggling as Macie played peek-a-boo with him.
The fact there were already five next-generation Sparks would have been overwhelming enough, but in addition to those kids, Paige was also entertaining herself by counting pregnant bellies. She was surrounded by them.
Her brother Tyson and his partners, Harley and Caleb, were sitting at one of the picnic tables in Evan’s backyard. Evan and Annie, like Tyson, had bought a house on the lake, so the family typically alternated between their two houses in the summer so they could beat the heat by swimming if they wanted to. Not that heat was an issue today, as it was early November. Fortunately, they lived in Texas, so they were currently enjoying a beautiful seventy-degree, sunshiny day.
Tyson’s hand rested on Harley’s very pregnant belly, while Caleb hovered like the nervous father-to-be he’d become. Paige was shocked the guy wasn’t wearing a baseball glove, just in case Harley dropped the baby right here. The fact Tyson was a doctor, and perfectly capable of delivering their child if necessary, did nothing to reassure Caleb that she was fine at the picnic, despite being eight months pregnant.
While Caleb was all jitters and anxiety, Paige was over the moon about becoming a first-time auntie to their little boy. She had serious plans to spoil her nephew rotten.
In addition to her sister-in-law, Harley, Paige’s cousins Lacy and Adele were also pregnant. It was Lacy’s pregnancy that had brought them together today, as they were holding a gender reveal party.
Paige wasn’t sure when the world had become quite so insane, but in the last three years, she’d attended more bridal and baby showers, bachelorette parties, gender reveal parties, and weddings than she could even begin to count. And that was on top of the typical celebrations like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July. She swore it felt like she was attending a special family occasion every other damn weekend. And while it was all wonderful, it was also, in truth, exhausting…and expensive.
Today’s reveal was taking place during dessert, as Paige’s aunts had baked a special cake in their bakery, filling it with pink or blue M&Ms that would announce the gender. Paige tried to work up some enthusiasm, but apparently she’d hit her limit on celebrations.
Not because she wasn’t thrilled for her family. They were the greatest people on the planet, and they deserved nothing but happiness. It was just…with each passing party, it had become more and more obvious that while her family members were all moving forward with their lives, she’d been standing still in hers.
Well, maybe not completely still.
At work, she was on fire.
As manager of Sparks Barbeque, the restaurant she ran with her cousins, she was making very exciting changes. The restaurant was owned—and supposedly operated—by her uncle TJ, though there was no one in Maris, Texas, who really believed that. Uncle TJ did little more than sit at the bar holding court, leaving the actual running of the restaurant to the Sparks girls. Eventually, Macie and Adele, TJ’s daughters, would inherit the place, but neither was interested in running it any more than their father. They were content to work the bar, wait tables, and entertain the patrons with their lively stories.
So, they left the major restaurant decisions, scheduling, and bookkeeping to Paige, deferring to her, as Macie called it, “fancy-ass business degree.”
Paige had been pursued by countless consulting firms and financial service institutions after graduating top of her class with an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. There’d been some very lucrative offers, but Paige had known from the moment they put that diploma in her hands, the only place she was going was back home to Maris and the restaurant—much to her father’s dismay.
Judge George Sparks had always had extremely high expectations for her and Tyson, and while she loved her father very much, she’d also felt a great deal of pressure growing up trying to please him. She and Tyson had both been valedictorians of their classes, served as presidents of various clubs, and Paige was still, to this day, the only kid in Maris to never miss a single day of school from kindergarten to graduation.
They’d even written an article about it in the local newspaper—like that wasn’t totally mortifying. The headline simply read, “Perfect,” in regard to her perfect attendance…and it went a long way toward solidifying her role as a big-ass nerd amongst her classmates.
Dad had been delighted by the job offers coming in as graduation approached, discussing the pros and cons of each for weeks before she finally found the courage to tell him she wasn’t taking any of them. When she’d expressed a desire to come home and run Sparks Barbeque, things took a decidedly frosty turn.
His displeasure had been so deep and intimidating, she’d very nearly caved and accepted one of the other offers, but in the end, it was Tyson who told her to stick to her guns. Her beloved big brother reminded her that the only person walking around in her shoes was her, and she needed to find her own happiness without worrying what others thought—even Dad.
Those words had stuck with her. So much so, she’d given them back to Tyson when he’d been dealing with the blowback from Dad over his unorthodox threesome relationship with Harley and Caleb.
“Hey, Paige. Did you hear back from the Food Network people yet?” Sydney asked, when little CJ crawled over to her.
Paige shook her head as she bent down and took the little boy’s fingers in her hands. Now that he was somewhat mobile, CJ was chomping at the bit to learn to walk. He used her fingers to find his feet, wobbling unsteady while giving her a three-tooth grin.
“The man said he’d be in touch next week, so hopefully I’ll find out soon.” Part of her being “on fire” at work had to do with getting Sparks Barbeque featured on a show with the network. There was a new show—similar to Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives—that toured the country, checking out barbeque joints. Each episode was filmed in one restaurant, and Paige was working overtime to convince the show’s producers that Sparks Barbeque should be on their list to visit.
Between the show, and researching packing companies and food distributors so that they could mass produce and sell thei r barbeque sauce, and the fact she was this close to making a deal on acquiring the store next to them on Main Street so they could double the size of the restaurant…
Yeah, she was killing it.
And those weren’t even the biggest of her plans. But she hadn’t shared her real hopes for the future of the business to anyone yet.
Sydney crossed her fingers, then scooped CJ into her arms and headed toward the food table. “Time to feed Thor,” she joked, using the nickname they’d given CJ, who was legit the biggest, strongest baby Paige had ever seen.
Paige waved, then sighed somewhat wearily. While she was making great strides at work, it was her personal life that needed some help.
A lot of it.
“Did you get the keys yet?”
Paige looked up as her brother claimed the Adirondack next to her.
She nodded. “Signed on the dotted line yesterday. It’s all mine.”
Tyson lifted his bottle of beer, tapping it against her wineglass. “Good for you. Welcome to the world of being a homeowner. Just an FYI, this is when everything in the house starts to fall apart.”
Paige laughed. “Everything in that house fell apart years ago. I’m not expecting much in the way of surprises.” Buying a house hadn’t been on Paige’s radar until the last baby shower—Adele’s—when she realized she was thirty-one years old and essentially just sitting around waiting for…well, for her forever to start.
She’d gone home from the shower feeling stupid because she’d wasted years waiting for something to happen, even though she didn’t know what that something was. Getting married and having kids like every other person in her family was one option, but Paige was just as happy remaining single.
Maybe a little too happy, which was why she wasn’t actively pursuing a long-term relationship.
Paige was a workaholic, primarily because she loved her job. It never felt like work, so she tended to spend a lot of hours holed up in her office, either the one at Sparks or the one at home. She didn’t go on a lot of dates, simply because she wasn’t around people enough for anyone to ask her out. Plus, while she’d been out of high school for well over a decade, most guys around here viewed her as the same high-strung, nerdy Paige she’d been as a teen, which, to be fair, wasn’t too far from who she still was.
She was a creature of comfort, and for her, that meant schedules and predictable routines and lots and lots of big, fat, juicy to-do lists. God, she loved a to-do list.
And while her social life and list of available suitors basically sucked, she wasn’t desperate enough to find someone to try online dating. Jesus, just the thought of signing up for that kind of chaotic, “toss the dart and hope to pop a balloon” style of dating blew her controlled, methodical mind.
Paige preferred dating the old-school way. Meet someone, strike up a conversation, feel an attraction, go out for coffee then—if that goes well—advance to dinner. Putting her photo and pointless information about herself on a website, then letting a bunch of randoms spam her inbox was just all kinds of wrong.
Since she wasn’t sure where she wanted to land on the relationship front, she had decided to take the bull by the horns on another aspect of her personal life instead. She was sick of wasting money on rent, so she bought herself a house.
“How long did that house sit empty?” Tyson asked.
Paige grimaced. “Five years. Ms. Bly never married, so everything she had was left to a great-nephew, who’s apparently independently wealthy. I guess Ms. Bly’s house wasn’t worth enough in his mind that he needed to sell it right away.”
“Must be nice,” Tyson murmured.
“Right? Rent it or Airbnb or something, but he just paid the property taxes and let it sit empty. Anyway, the neighbors got tired of mowing the grass and complained to the town.”
Tyson chuckled. “Only in Maris would neighbors mow the yard of an abandoned house for five years before thinking to complain.”
Paige giggled. “In their defense, they’d taken turns mowing it for Ms. Bly for a good twenty years before her death. The woman was ninety-four when she died, for Pete’s sake. Anyway, the town reached out to the great-nephew, which forced him to get off his ass and deal with the house.”
“When do I get a tour?” Tyson asked. “Tomorrow? How about tomorrow?”
Paige sighed because she’d been expecting and dreading that request. “It needs a lot of work, Ty.” She’d done the walk-through with the real estate agent on her own, and so far, no one in her family had seen the monstrosity she’d bought.
Tyson shrugged. “I assumed so. Ms. Bly lived in the thing for over sixty years. Is it the blast from the past I’m anticipating?”
“Maybe even worse. It’s the house time forgot. It’s a seventies nightmare, with avocado and brown appliances in the kitchen, shag carpeting and aggressively floral wallpaper in every room, not to mention the wood paneling. So much wood paneling,” she said with a shudder.
“Jesus. I can’t wait to see it.” Tyson rubbed his hands together with too much glee at her expense.
She narrowed her eyes. “If I promise to take before and after pics, can I convince you to wait until I’ve tackled at least part of the remodel?”
Tyson shook his head. “Hell no. I’m already planning a photo shoot for me, Harley, and Cal in seventies attire, sitting on that shag carpeting for our Christmas card this year. Harley’s getting maternity bell bottoms and Cal and I are thinking of growing pornstaches. You gotta let us in.”
“You idiot,” Paige laughed, picking up a pretzel from her paper plate and chucked it at her brother’s head. “That’s my house you’re talking about.”
Tyson deftly dodged the flying pretzel. “Besides, you can’t keep us out. We’re helping you move in, remember?”
He had a point there. “Oh. Yeah.”
“You still determined to do the lion’s share of the renovation work yourself?”
Paige nodded. “I’d like to. I think it will be a fun project. I’ve been all work and no play for years. It’s time for me to start chiseling out some time for myself.”
Tyson smirked. “I think you and I should discuss the concept of play, because I don’t think you’re fully grasping it. Renovating a house falls in the work category. The hard work category.”
Paige brushed off her brother’s joke. “You, Cal, and Harley are doing something to that house of yours nearly every single weekend.”
“Because we need to. Not because we love painting or power-washing the deck or retiling the kitchen floor. Those things needed to be done,” Tyson pointed out.
“Just like those things need to be done in my house. Besides, I recall you all had a lot of fun decorating the nursery.”
Tyson grinned. “That’s different.”
“I love home improvement projects. I did a ton of work in my last apartment that the landlord loved.”
Tyson barked out a laugh at her use of the term “landlord,” since she’d been renting her last place from Caleb. Regardless, he didn’t deny the truth of her statement. “Cal says it’s nice enough now that he can charge more rent for it. Still planning move-in day for next weekend?”
“Yeah.” Because Caleb was basically her brother-in-law, he let her out of the lease early and even offered his truck and strong back to help her move her furniture. Paige planned to move a bunch of stuff throughout the week on her own—like the fragile items, her artwork, and clothing. Simply because she was too excited to wait a whole week. Then she had no less than ten relatives lined up to do the big “official” move next Saturday, which was when she would be subjected to the “OMG, WTF” expressions.
Because the house really was…wow…so gross.
“You sure you don’t want to tackle some the renovations before you move in? Cal hasn’t rented your place yet. If it’s as bad as you say…”
Paige shook her head. “The house is at least three times the size of my apartment, so it’s not like it’s going to be overflowing with furniture. And while it’s eye-assaulting ugly right now, it’s perfectly livable.”
