Sugar's Twice as Sweet: Sugar, Georgia: Book 1 (26 page)

“Boo’s gone,” she whispered.

“I know. Cal’s going to bring him home in the morning.” He heard a muffled little sniffle.
Shit, she was crying.
“I can go get him now.”

“No, they’re probably feeding him bacon gravy and frosting his hair with highlights so he could be the newest member of their posse. Right now they’re most likely teaching him how to gnaw through electrical wires. He’d be mad if he had to miss out.”

After a minute she quietly said, “When I was little and a storm would roll in, I would get scared and Letty would wrap me up in a quilt and we’d snuggle in the salon while she told me stories about fairies and Pearl Fairchild.”

She sniffled again, this time with a little more quiver, and he dropped a kiss to the top of her head. He hated that she was crying. Hated that his grandma had made her feel this way. Mostly, he hated that her body sagged with defeat.

“And sometimes, after a long day of pulling weeds or gardening, we’d eat ice cream out there and paint each other’s toenails. She called it the after-soil-spoil.” She snuggled deeper into him and, man, that did crazy things to his chest. “She always said the one thing people need more of these days is a little pampering. It’s how we show love.” Her arms tightened around him. “I’m not taking away their salon to be mean, I’m doing it to honor what Letty and I talked about. What we dreamed of. A magical place that pampered those brave enough to find their adventure.”

“And Letty would love every bit of it,” Brett said against her hair.

 “Then why do I feel like every time I get one step ahead, I get tossed back two? Sometimes I wonder why I’m even trying.” She looked up, her eyes a piercing blue, filled with a confused hurt that kicked him in the gut.

He took her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tears away. “I’ll talk with Hattie in the morning and this will all go away, I promise.”

“You can’t make them like me, Brett.” She shrugged. “Which means I’ve spent the past seven weeks trying to make a place for myself in a town that doesn’t understand me and with a group of people who don’t care enough to even try. The worst part is that, once again, the family of the man I’m falling for hates me.”

Brett’s breathing probably stopped, but it was hard to tell, since his heart was beating out of his chest.
The man I’m falling for
. It was the closest Joie had come to giving a verbal commitment that she was in this as deep as he was.

“She doesn’t hate you, sugar. Even if she did, it wouldn’t matter to me.” He looked in her eyes so she could see the truth there. “You and your silly dog and this rodent-infested inn matter to me. You, matter to me, Joie. If they can’t see what an amazing woman you are,” he cradled her lower lip between his, “it’s their loss.”

“What if it’s not them? What if it’s me? And no matter how hard I try, no matter how many times I open myself up, it’s not enough?”

He shook his head. The truth was, he knew exactly how she felt. Had been there more times than he cared to admit, and with good reason. But these last few weeks had changed him—she had changed him. Around her, Brett could just be Brett, and she never asked him to be anything more. Joie was genuine and so easy to love. That she doubted that about herself broke his heart.

Brett looked up at the sky, glittering with stars, and back at Joie. “Get your shoes. I want to show you something.”

Brett walked Joie to the edge of the lake, letting go of her hand when they reached the dock. He untied the weathered dinghy and pushed it into the water, letting it sit for a minute to check for leaks. When none appeared, he held a hand out to Joie. She was wearing a tank top, a pair of men’s boxers, and mud up to her knees. And, he had a sinking suspicion, no bra.

She looked at his hand and then to him. “Where are we going?”

“Trust me, Joie.” The minute the words left his mouth he knew he was in deep shit. Her lip trembled slightly, her eyes got shiny, but in the end she took his hands without hesitation.

As he helped her onto the boat, he knew that Joie had just gone all in and he was a lying sack of shit. He started to tell her about the loan, but when he saw the lingering self-doubt in her eyes he knew he couldn’t be the cause of more.

Not tonight.

L
ook up.” Brett leaned back against an old support beam of what was left of his childhood home. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he eased her between his legs.

Tired of fighting, she dropped her head back against his chest and looked up at the sky. Millions of stars flickered against the black backdrop.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, struggling to hold all her emotions inside.

His family’s property, the old oak tree, the crumbling structure and dreams surrounding them, everything rushed at her at once, leaving the overwhelming need to cry.

 “Sometimes when I was a kid, things got so bad I didn’t think I could breathe anymore without the pain killing me. I’d sneak out my bedroom window at Hattie’s and come here to watch the stars. There were so many of them that after a while I didn’t feel like I was slowly suffocating.”

“How long did it take?” Josephina wanted to know. She felt as though she’d been drowning in everyone else’s expectations her whole life. Tonight, Hattie and her friends had held her head under the water, and Josephina was afraid she’d never manage to find her way back up.

“Sometimes I’d stay all night, sneaking back in right as Hattie started banging on doors announcing breakfast. If she knew, she never said a word.”

“She knew. That woman makes it her business to know everything.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her ear.

“For what?”

“Tonight. The Feud. The event. A lot of things.” His breath skated down her neck, sending tingles even lower. “I need to tell you something.”

“Like how many other girls you’ve brought up here?”

“To this place?” He threaded their fingers together and held tight. “Not a one. After the fire—” he shook his head. “No one. Not even Glory.”

Josephina looked at what was left of the structure. There was no roof, few walls, and nothing that would identify this as a place of safety and happiness. The wood that wasn’t scarred black had been beaten away by the weather. The very fact that the house hadn’t been rebuilt told Josephina just how deeply the boys were affected by their parents’ death.

“Was that your mom’s kitchen?” she asked, pointing to a crumbling rock and concrete structure.

“Yeah, and right here, where we’re sitting, was my bedroom.” She felt, more than saw, him waggle a brow.

“Brett McGraw, you lured me to your bedroom
and
between your legs.” She rubbed against him and she could feel the thick, hard length against her back.

“Yes, ma’am.” He leaned down and nipped her earlobe.

“How come they didn’t build the house closer to the lake?”

“Why do you ask?” He craned his head around to look at her profile.

“Just curious.” She turned and their faces met. Immediately, his eyes zeroed in on her lips—just her lips. Her breath caught and she waited for him to kiss her, but as the seconds went on, and he continued to stare, the tension grew past the physical into something deeper.

“Where would you build it?” He studied her, silently assessing.

“I would build it closer to the lake, over by the beautiful oak tree we docked under. But I’d put a small chef’s garden outside the kitchen, just like your mom had.” She broke the connection to look past the kitchen into what she knew used to be a small family garden. “I would probably turn this building into a barn, salvage parts of the original structure. And of course”—she turned her head to face him again, and went for a little humor to cut through this web he was weaving over her—“I would put a pig pen right here where we’re sitting.”

Easygoing Brett looked so unsure of himself, so intent on her every word, as though her opinions really mattered, that warmth spread through her heart.

“I remember when you rescued me out of that old oak tree,” she whispered.

“You were wearing pink ruffles and these cute pigtails.” He gently tugged on her hair before sliding it aside so he could press a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Eyes full of tears, crying up a storm over how you were waiting for your wings so you could fly down.”

“And you believed me.”

His hands slid to cup her face. “Sugar, you wrapped those arms around me and planted one so big on my lips, I would have believed you if you said you were a Falcons linebacker.”

“Did you know that you were my first kiss?” she said, surprised at how shy she felt at the admission.

Brett tilted his head and whispered against her mouth, “Did you know that you were mine?”

Brett cradled her lips for a long, languid, wonderful moment. When he finally pulled back, Josephina asked, “Is that why you offered to buy me a hog farm?”

“No.” He pressed a dozen little kisses along her jaw and hairline. “I was going to build you a hog farm because when you talked about it you smiled, and I would have done anything to not see you cry again.”

When he didn’t laugh or even smile, Josephina’s heart did a flip right up into her throat. If she hadn’t loved him before, she hopelessly fell right then. Fell in love with a man who was destined to leave her.

“Why did you bring me here, Brett?”

“Because I want you to stay.” No hesitation. “I want to see you happy and settled here in Sugar.”

“Letty left me that house, and no matter how much those ladies throw at me, I’m not leaving.” She paused to swallow. “But you are.”

“I could come home.” His hand slid through her hair.

“What, between tournaments?”

“We could make it work.”

“That sounds like a lot of empty nights in between.”

His hand fell and he leaned back. “Are you afraid I’d cheat?”

“What? No.” She wasn’t. He might have slept with his fair share of women, but Josephina knew when he committed himself to a relationship he wouldn’t stray. It went against who he was as a man.

With a sigh, she found herself looking up again, leaning against Brett and letting the vastness of the stars work their magic.

“Wilson was gone so much over the last two years I think we spent more time apart than together. I don’t want another relationship like that. It hurts too much. I deserve more. We both do.” She closed her eyes and forced herself to put it all out there. “I want roots, Brett. And you’re leaving the day after the fundraiser.”

He exhaled hard. “So where does that leave us?”

Walking away now wouldn’t make the blow any less painful. And knowing that she’d opted out of what could be one of the most important relationships of her life because of fear wasn’t going to happen. Nope, Josephina would open herself up to the time they had left and make sure when he went back on tour, went back to his life of twenty-four-hour commitments, there would be no regrets about going half in.

“I figure you have a little over two weeks before you have to leave for New Jersey. That gives us sixteen days and nights to get each other out of our systems.” Even as she said it she knew it was a lie. The way his arms slid around her waist, pulling her to him as if afraid she’d slip away, said that he knew it, too.

“What if I can’t get you out of my system?” he asked.

“It still doesn’t change the fact that you’re leaving.”

Tipping her head to the side, she wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and tugged his mouth toward hers. She kissed him partly because she didn’t want to talk about his leaving, but mostly because she couldn’t go another minute without letting him know just how much he’d come to mean to her. She couldn’t say the words aloud without the threat of tears, but she could show him.

On a groan, Brett’s hands tightened on her waist, brushing over the naked skin of her stomach, the friction of his hands on her making it impossible to catch her breath. He started a careful ascent, around her navel and over each rib, with agonizing slowness, until he was cupping both breasts.

She felt him smile at the discovery that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“God,” he growled. “I knew it.”

“You want to know what else?”

Sliding her hand under her tank, she linked her fingers with Brett’s. The feel of both their hands on her breast was so erotic she realized she could sit there until morning, with Brett thoroughly exploring her with his hands and mouth.

Fingers still laced, she guided his hand down her stomach, under her pajama shorts, and right where her lace and silk should have been.

“Hot damn, girl,” he moaned into her mouth as his fingers grazed her moist, heated skin. “Naked and wet.”

“It’s your fault. You say sugar in that sexy drawl and my whole body melts.”

Now that she had his hand right where she wanted it, she tried to untangle their fingers.

“No, stay with me.” His grip tightened around hers before slowly sliding their fingers back and forth across the sensitive flesh.

“Brett,” she whispered when they both cupped her. Her breath caught and she pushed into their hands, needing more. She had never felt like this, this out of control with need. It was naughty and wild and so damn right.

“Sugar,” he purred, sliding two fingers in, and she almost came apart. “Look up.”

Resting her head against his chest, she did as told, dropping her knees to the side, just in case he needed more room to work. And Brett, she learned, took his work very seriously, slowly loving her while she stared at the stars.

All of her fears and troubles started getting smaller and smaller as that place in her heart, the one now reserved for Brett, got larger and larger until she felt as if her chest would explode trying to hold it all in.

In that moment, their bodies lit only by the moon, the debilitating need to please her parents, to prove to the town that she could make Fairchild House a success, to protect her heart from disappointment, disappeared. In its place was a desire to live—really live and experience everything life was offering.

Feeling bold, Josephina slid her own finger inside. Brett hesitated for only a moment before slowing his rhythm and giving her time to match his. They fell in sync easily, gliding together.

“That’s incredible,” he said. “Sexy as hell, but incredible.”

Yeah, it was.
She loved how they moved together, how their belief in each other dissolved everything until all that remained was their desire and the man that she loved.

“I’m going to come just watching you,” he whispered into her hair, his breath ragged and hot.

Well, if that didn’t steal her breath, then the way their fingers slid in and out, picking up the pace and leaving nothing unexplored, had Josephina teetering on the edge. But when his lips took hers, soft and full of emotion, she felt tears threaten.

No man had ever appreciated her the way Brett did. She could see it in the way he looked at her, feel it in the way he kissed her. And dear God, the man could kiss.

“You are so damn beautiful,” he said, and warmth swelled, starting low in her belly and spreading through her entire body. But where it settled was in her heart.

A mix of emotions, which were too intense to hold back, rushed over her. She felt her muscles tighten around them and her chest expand until she felt so much of everything that she was afraid to breathe. Afraid that if she gave in there would be no going back. Not for her. Not with the way he was holding her, slowly taking up residence in her heart.

“I’ve got you, Joie,” he promised. And she believed him. “Just let go.”

She did. Against her better judgment, she pushed down the fear and she let herself fall—right into him. The stars overhead went blurry and she shattered, his name a strangled cry that cut through the still night air.

Neither moved. Neither spoke. Josephina sat there, cradled against him, their fingers still intertwined, and their gazes locked as they clung to each other. She could feel his heart pounding through her chest.

Every breath, every touch, every cell in her body was saying,
I love you.

And Josephina could have sworn that his body was whispering the same thing.

A few hours later, Brett lit the last candle and dropped another pile of pillows on top of the sleeping bags and quilts. Satisfied with his surprise, he shucked his jeans and crawled under the makeshift bed, wearing the same stupid-ass grin that had been plastered on his face for the past week. Making love under the stars had only made it stupider. So had taking his sweet time in the shower with Joie, helping wash off every speck of mud.

“What are you doing down there?” Joie stood at the bottom of the stairs holding a candle. She was wrapped in a silky pink robe, which only came to her thighs, and, based on his advantageous position, not much else. “Waiting for fairies?”

“Waiting for you.” Something he found himself doing a lot lately. Something, if it meant having this woman in his bed, he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life doing. Even though the thought of a life past tomorrow made him sweat, and thinking of a life past Joie scared the shit out of him.

“I guess I’d better hurry up then.” She glided across the room, limbs loose, hips swaying, eyes dancing with mischief. She moved like a woman who had recently been well-loved. Which she had. Twice.

He waited until she got to the end of the quilts and pulled back the blanket, loving how she licked her lips. He wasn’t wearing much of anything either.

“So I’m guessing a fun game of strip poker is out of the question,” she said, her voice laced with mischief.

“Not the game I had in mind.”

Joie traced the V of her robe, letting her fingers dip under the belt. With a slow pull, the belt fell away and the robe pooled at her feet. No T-shirt, no lace, no silk. Just her. All grace and curves.

And damn, was she beautiful.

“Is this more like what you were thinking?” she teased.

Brett grabbed her by the waist and in record time pulled her under him. His hands glided over her body, loving how her eyes flamed and she nibbled her lower lip when he hit a good spot. “Not quite, but we’re getting there.”

“How about now?” she asked, taking matters into her own hands. Literally. “We getting any closer?”

Brett exhaled hard, absorbing the sensation of her cool hands curving around the hard-on, which he’d been sporting since he realized he couldn’t get the power working and would have to make do with candles. Then he thought of how her naked skin would glow under the flickering light and he was done for.