Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (173 page)

He was dressed casually in a Cubs baseball hat, turned backwards—which had always
done it
for Haley for some strange reason—navy blue basketball shorts, and a white t-shirt. His muscled calves peeked out below the loose-fitting shorts, and although Eddie’s calves didn’t even rank on the top ten list of ‘Eddie’s body parts she loved,’ they were certainly doing something for her today.

Equally distracting was the fact that, as he flipped the burgers, his shirt pulled taut across his back and biceps, making her hands tingle with the memory of touching him. Haley now knew what that body felt like. She now knew what it looked like butt naked. That knowledge had kept her awake, tossing and turning with need, for the last two nights.

“Are you excited?” Chelle asked a little hesitantly.

“Oh”—Haley let out a forced laugh as she looked across the table at her friend—“Yes! Of course. I can’t wait to open to the public. Maybe
then
it will finally seem real.”

A look of relief crossed Chelle’s face. “Okay, good. It’s just… You seem a little distracted and I wasn’t sure if everything was okay.”

“Oh no. Everything is great. I’ve just had a lot on my plate lately. I haven’t been sleeping that well, so I keep zoning out.” Her lack of sleep and focus had absolutely zero to do with the fact that her store’s grand opening was in a week and everything to do with the man standing at the grill. But Chelle didn’t need to know her brother was the cause of Haley’s sleepless nights.

Chelle’s brow furrowed in worry. “Don’t work too hard. And if you need any help, anything at all, you know I’m here.”

“Thanks,” Haley answered sincerely. She knew that Chelle meant it. Eddie’s sister was one of the sweetest, most caring people Haley knew.

Growing up, Chelle had dated David Price, who was a total ass clown. Her cousins had even nicknamed him David the Douchebag. Haley never understood what
Chelle
could have possibly seen in
him.
It had obviously been something because the two of them had been engaged. Then, a month before their wedding, he called it off because he’d been sleeping with his eighteen-year-old secretary and had knocked her up.

In the wake of his betrayal, Chelle left town to clear her head. She hightailed it to her best friend Katie’s vacant apartment in San Francisco. Katie, who had just married Haley’s cousin Jason, was on their honeymoon at the time. When Chelle stopped answering her phone, Katie got worried, so they sent out a search party of one—Riley. He’d just gotten out of the Marines and was coincidentally in California.

To this day, Haley didn’t know all the details—and she didn’t want to—but a few months after they returned to Harper’s Crossing, Chelle was pregnant with baby Mya and she and Riley got married.

Haley was so happy for the two of them. Riley had been pretty wild in his teen years. He and Eddie had gotten into a lot of trouble. Chelle had seen right through the ‘bad boy’ image and loved Riley for Riley.

It reminded Haley of how she herself felt about Eddie. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure all of the Sloan family happily-ever-after juju had been used up by all of her happily married male cousins. She didn’t see any big love stories in the future for herself or her sisters.

Her issues were obvious. She was in love with someone who was unattainable. Which she guessed was Krista’s problem too. She truly believed in her heart of hearts that Krista had
never
gotten over Chase Malone. The two of them had been together off and on for six years before he’d finally left and never came back.

Haley desperately wished her sister would move on, even though she knew that was totally a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Still, she was her big sister, so she got to be the pot. It was more of a ‘do as I say not as I do’ type of situation.

Haley knew for a fact that it didn’t help matters that since then, Chase became a bona fide rock star. There were reminders of him everywhere Krista turned. Plus, she knew, even though her sister didn’t talk about it, she still stopped by and checked on Mrs. Malone at least once a week. Krista had always had a soft spot in her heart for Chase’s mom.

Then there was Jessie. She kept everything so close to the vest that Haley had no idea what was going on in her love life, if anything. During high school, she’d casually dated but never seemed overly invested in any of the relationships. Now that she was in college thousands of miles away, Haley really had no idea. If Haley was an open book, then Jessie would be considered a closed book, with a padlock, kept in a safe that only Jessie knew the combination to.

As far as Becca went, well, Haley had always related with Becca more than either of their other sisters. Becca was truly a romantic at heart. Also, much like Haley, she’d always had her head buried in a book—for totally different reasons than Haley though. Haley read for pleasure, whereas Becca read to learn. School was always a top priority for her. Now that she was pre-med at Stanford, from what Haley could glean through Skype and emails, it was a top priority to her beautiful youngest sister now more than ever.

“Isn’t that just the cutest thing you ever saw?” Chelle asked with a smile in her tone. Haley turned to see what her friend was talking about.

Riley was outside, standing in the middle of the grass, tossing Mya up in the air and catching her. The baby was giggling, her chubby cheeks red with laughter. Chelle’s face glowed with happiness as she watched her husband with her daughter. Haley’s eyes, however, automatically locked on Eddie like a heat-seeking missile. The six-foot-four man of her dreams was kneeling beside the grill, teaching Emily how to barbeque.

Eddie was
such
a great dad.

When Em had asked her last week if she could come over to help get everything ready the night before their birthdays, Haley had happily agreed without so much of a passing thought that she should run it by Eddie.
Now
she wasn’t sure how Eddie felt about her being here. Tonight was the first time she’d been face to face with him since their bow-chicka-bow-wow, Al-Green-Let’s-Get-It-On-moment—or
moments
—two nights ago.

Tonight, she’d been a total spaz when he’d opened the door to let her in. She’d taken one look at him and had no idea how to act. So she’d gone with the always sexy awkward wave with a “Hi there,” like a total dork.

Haley knew she was being ridiculous. She’d promised him that nothing would change. When she’d made that promise, she’d believed in what she had been committing to one million percent.

But that was before. Before the best night of her life had happened. Before her soul connected to his in a way she never even knew was possible. The term soul mate had always struck Haley as people trying too hard. She’d never seen the shame in just saying that you loved the one you were with—until she’d made love to Eddie. Because somewhere between Eddie backing her up against that dressing room wall and Haley riding him so hard she had leather burns on the side of her legs from the chair they were sitting in, her soul met its perfect mate.

Haley had thought, fantasized, and dreamed about what being with Eddie would be like. So much so that she had her favorites mentally listed in alphabetical order. Usually when you built something up to that mythical epic proportion, reality failed to live up to your inflated expectations.

She had learned that lesson the hard way the summer they opened the Splash N’ Slide water park about ninety minutes from her house. All summer long, brightly colored enticing commercials were running on the local stations of kids splashing in the water, sliding down slides, and floating in tubes. Basically, having the flippin’ most fantastical time of their lives. She’d spent her entire summer wanting more than anything else to go to Splash N’ Slide. Finally, the weekend before school was going to start, she got the chance to go with a few of her friends.

Haley remembered that she didn’t sleep the night before. She couldn’t; she was just too stinking excited. Then, during the entire one-and-a-half-hour drive to get to the water park, she’d barely been able to contain her excitement. She’d bounced off the two girls she was squished between in the back of her friend’s mom’s minivan like a ping pong ball.

But after arriving at the gates, spending an hour in line just to enter, another half of an hour to get lockers, then two hours in line to go on the first waterslide, Haley was over it. She’d built it up so high in her head that she was just so disappointed at what it really was. So she spent the remainder of the day at the water park reading a book on a lounge chair beside the lap pool while her friends stood in hour-or-longer lines to go down a thirty-second slide.

Haley had had the thought that this could be something exactly like that and had tried to prepare herself at least a little bit for that very real possibility.

But the exact opposite had happened when it came to Eddie. It might have been a few years since she’d been up on a horse, but this wasn’t her first rodeo. She’d had sex before. Most of the time, she’d even enjoyed it. With the right partner, it could be good times. Sure, it hadn’t been like the romance novels that she liked to read. There had been no earth-shattering moments of wild abandon, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t had good, satisfying sex.

Of course, whenever she imagined herself being with Eddie, her fantasies leaned more towards the romance-novel encounters and less towards her real-life ones. But hey, they were
fantasies
. Not to mention, they were the only things she had to keep herself going over the last four years.

Never in her wildest imagination would she have thought that Eddie could not only live up to her fantasy, but blow it clean out of the water. Every moment, every touch, every time they’d made love it
had
been earth shattering. And she’d definitely experienced several moments of wild abandon.

The sliding door opened and Riley stepped in with baby Mya. “She’s stinky. Where’s the diaper bag?”

Chelle hopped up out of the chair, her brunette ponytail bouncing as she did. “I’ve got it. Come here, pretty girl,” she cooed to baby Mya as she took her out of Riley’s arms.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Chelle beamed up at her husband.

Riley held his hands up in surrender, shaking his head. “Okay.” Then leaning down, he kissed both of his girls on the forehead and went back out onto the deck.

Chelle took Mya into the TV room to change her and Haley found herself alone in the kitchen. She had to face the cold hard truth of the situation that even being at Eddie’s house felt different now. Everything had changed. In one sense, she felt closer to Eddie than she ever had before. On the other hand, she also felt like more of an outsider in his life
than she ever had before.

Still, even with the turmoil and adjustment she was facing now, she wouldn’t take back the night they’d shared. No matter how this all played out, she’d always have the memory of the most amazing, life-changing night of her life.

* * * * *

“MAN, I CAN’T BELIEVE she’s going to be eight tomorrow.” Eddie leaned on the railing as he watched his daughter doing cartwheels all over the backyard.

“I remember when you wrote me and told me Lacey was expecting.” Riley grabbed a water out of the ice chest. “I couldn’t believe you were going to be a dad.”

“That made two of us,” Eddie laughed.

“But you’ve done such a great job, man. And by yourself.” Riley patted him on the shoulder.

Eddie felt like telling him that his pat on the back might be a little premature. He had a feeling that the toughest years with Emily were still to come. Just the past month or so had been bumpier than the last four years combined.

“So, do you know anything about some guy who owns a coffee shop across from Haley’s new place?” Riley asked as he pulled up a chair across from Eddie and sat down, propping his legs up on the fire pit.

“No. Why?” Eddie took a drink of water.

“Nothin’.” Riley shrugged. “I just heard Katie, Amber, and Chelle all talking about how perfect he would be for Haley. I think they might decide to play cupid. I just thought, since you’ve been doing some work over there, you might have run into him.”

“Nah, I haven’t seen him.” Eddie felt the muscles in his shoulder tense and his jaw lock at just the thought of Haley being set up with
anyone.
He’d
never
been a big fan of the idea, but after he’d made love to her, he couldn’t even imagine watching some ass clown pick her up for a date or, even worse, start hanging out at her house, showing up for family events. Eddie couldn’t stomach the thought of her actually being in a relationship with someone. Not after what they’d shared.

In those few hours they had been together, it had simultaneously felt like time had stood still and flown by. He’d made love to her two more times after their first time on the couch. The next time, they’d been standing while they watched their reflections in the mirror, which, on a hotness scale, was off-the-charts sexy. And last, but certainly not least, they’d had sex while he sat on one of the oversized chairs and she straddled him.

That night was by far the single most intimate, erotic experience he’d ever had.

His mind had been totally consumed with thoughts of it ever since. He’d thought he had been a fiend for Haley before they’d slept together, but that had been mild attraction compared to what he was going through now. Not a minute went by without him wanting her again. Not only sexually, but just missing her. Her smile, her laugh, her touch. He
craved
her.

The thing was, if she were a drug, he could just quit her cold turkey. But that couldn’t happen. He saw her almost every day and there were reminders of her everywhere. Even now, she sat in his house, happily giving up her Friday evening to help get Em’s party favors together.

When he’d opened the door and seen her tonight, he’d almost pulled her into his arms and kissed her. In fact, his arms had started to lift and the only thing that had stopped them was the nervous look in Haley’s china blue eyes as she’d raised her hand in a cute wave. He hadn’t been thinking at all about the fact that her cousin and his sister were sitting on the couch. Or that he didn’t actually have the right to do things like that because Haley wasn’t his girlfriend.