Lovers at Heart by Melissa Foster
He bolted down the stairs and headed back toward the highway, spurred on by the knowledge that Max was coming for him.
BY THE TIME she pulled up in front of the ranch, Max had had plenty of time to mull over Kaylie’s questions, and she’d driven herself into a relative frenzy. She had asked him to love her through her insecurities, and he’d promised he would. Maybe she was making a mistake after all. Maybe since he hadn’t come for her, he didn’t really love her like he claimed.
She parked the car and felt the anger building in her chest, battling with the love that was tugging at her heart. She hadn’t given him a choice. She hadn’t said, Follow me. Love me. No. Instead she’d been an idiot and written, Please don’t follow me. Still, he should have known better. He should have figured it out, like she had when she’d gone to Wellfleet.
She watched one of Treat’s brothers riding a horse across the field, toward her car. As he approached, she saw it was the one with the huge muscles. Not that any of them weren’t cut from some incredibly sexy fabric that she’d never known existed, but this brother’s biceps were the size of footballs.
He pulled up on the reins of the beautiful red and gray horse as Max stepped from the car.
“Max?” He ran his eyes slowly down her body with an appreciative nod.
Ugh! She had forgotten what she was wearing, and now, with the crests of her breasts saying hello to the world and her leather pants leaving nothing to the imagination, she felt like a fool, which only spurred on her anger even more.
“Rex, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s right. You just missed Treat. He took off to take care of some business.”
Damn it. “Business?” Why the hell isn’t he taking care of fixing our relationship?
Rex shrugged. “That’s what he said.”
His eyes roved to her breasts and remained there. Max cleared her throat, and he met her eyes with a nod of his head.
“Thank you,” she said curtly and climbed back into her car. Business? Business! She snapped on her seat belt. And the way Rex had ogled her? She’d come out looking to entice Treat and now she looked like nothing but a tramp! If Treat were there, they would have recognized her sexy attire as the lure it was meant to be. Damn it. She jerked her car into reverse and slammed the pedal to the floor—she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
She felt the impact that sent her flying chest first into the steering wheel before she heard the crunching of metal on metal.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Dazed and shaken, Max blinked away her angry, scared tears and saw the rest of the Braden clan running toward her car. What the hell had she done now?
Rex yanked open the door. “Max? Are you okay?”
“Is she okay?” Max heard someone yell.
“Get away from her.”
Treat?
“I’ll get her,” he said.
And there he was, yanking Rex from beside her door and pulling her gently into his arms. Treat. Max registered voices behind him, but she was still too shocked from the accident to think beyond being in Treat’s strong arms.
“I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Wait. Let’s see if she’s okay first.”
“What happened?”
“Max?” Treat’s gentle voice was shaken and scared. “Sweetness, look at me.”
She looked into his eyes as he pulled her to her feet.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She saw his car behind hers, the front end smashed in by the rear of hers.
“Yeah, I think so,” she whispered. Then, amid the shock, the worry, and his family members pawing at her, the anger returned, boiling in her belly and rising like heat into her chest.
“You said you’d love me through it.” What happened to my voice? Why am I whispering? That won’t do.
“What, sweetness?” Treat asked.
“You said you’d love me through it,” Max repeated, this time a little louder. The confusion on Treat’s face only pissed her off even more. She pushed away from him. Her chest was sore, but she could walk and stand and, damn it, she could talk—and yell.
“You said you’d love me through it. I asked you, that night in Wellfleet, when I told you that if I got scared and those walls of insecurity went up, I’d need you to love me through it.” Why the hell am I crying? “And you said you’d love me through anything, Treat. Anything! You promised. But you didn’t.”
“Max.” He stepped closer, reaching for her.
She pushed him away.
“Uh-oh,” Dane said.
His siblings stared at her. His father watched Treat. Max looked from his father to Treat and then back again. She didn’t care if she was making a fool of herself, or if his father were sending him telepathic messages telling him she was a freak. She’d trusted him and he hadn’t come for her!
“Max,” he tried again gently.
She pushed him away again, trying to back into her car, which she couldn’t drive away if she tried because she’d smashed into Treat’s car. He grabbed her arm, keeping her from hiding.
“Max!” Treat finally said loud and strong, leaving no room for her refusal to listen. “I called you thirty-seven times in the last two days. Not once did you return my calls.”
“Thirty-seven?” Savannah whispered.
“You—” Max fumbled for words.
“You had your say; now it’s my turn. I tried to give you space. I tried to wait for you to come back. I called, and damn it, Max, don’t you think that every call that went unanswered was like a slap in the face?”
“I didn’t have my ph—”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want to finish what I started. I’m not giving up my life for you. I’m not giving up Thailand or anything else.”
Max swallowed back the sobs that pressed at her throat. He’s done. Finished. It’s over. This time for good.
“Treat,” Savannah cautioned.
Treat held up his palm toward his sister. “Let me goddamn finish.” He turned back to Max, and when he spoke, his voice was a tender caress to her broken heart. “Max, I’m rearranging how things are done, not giving them up. I’m coming back to help my father on the ranch—for a while, anyway—and I do want to put down roots. But I don’t care where, as long as you’re with me. I will love you through anything, Max. I promised, and I always fulfill my promises.”
He wiped her tears with a whisper of his finger across her cheek and moved in closer. “I slayed my demons, Max. All of them.”
“You called me thirty-seven times?” Max’s legs trembled from the accident and mostly from seeing Treat again. She relished his breath on her lips, his hands on her arms, and then the most intimate touch, as he reached up and pushed the hair from her shoulder. She closed her eyes. I’m not going to make the same mistake again.
“Open your eyes,” Treat said with a smile. When he had her attention, he said, “You can push me away as much as you want from here on out, but I’m not budging. It’s enough already. This is who we are. Treat and Max. Not Treat Braden and Max Armstrong, two separate people. It’s us, not you and me.”
Us. She swiped at the waterfall of tears streaming down her cheeks and shook her head. “I left my phone in Wellfleet.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“I’ll travel.”
“What?”
“Whatever we need to do for your business. I’ll travel with you. I can work from anywhere.”
“Max, we’ll figure all that out,” he said.
She couldn’t think straight. Everything was tumbling together. Treat loved her. He loved her! She was in his arms. It was real. This wasn’t a dream.
Then Treat released her, and for a moment, the world stood still. Her eyes bounced from Savannah’s to Josh’s. Josh’s eyes grew wide, and a smile pulled at the right side of his mouth. Dane put a hand on Savannah’s shoulder, watching his brother with an intent and happy gaze. Max looked at Hugh, then Rex, still on Hope’s back, grinning like
“Max.” He took her hand in his as he perched on one knee.
She gasped. “Treat?”
“Max, I would be honored if you would let me love you through the rest of your life. Through every insecurity and every argument.”
The world stood still and her mouth went dry. She couldn’t do anything more than stare at his beautiful face.
“Max?” he asked again. “Will you be my wife?”
“I…wife…? What if I freak out again?”
He stood and looked into her eyes. “Then I’ll be there every step of the freak-out to make sure you’re okay. To make sure we’re okay.”
“You want to marry me? After everything I did? After how angry I was? After I smashed your car?”
“Yes.”
Savannah grabbed Josh’s arm, and that little movement pulled Max from her stupor.
“You’re sure?” she asked again.
“You are one stubborn, beautiful woman. Yes, I’m more than sure.”
Max threw her arms around his neck. Her chest ached with the constriction of her muscles, but she didn’t care. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”
“I cannot wait to design her gown!” Josh exclaimed.
Treat’s laughter filled the air, mixing with the cheers from his family and Savannah’s giddy squeal. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed the ache right out of her body, claiming her in a way she felt through her entire soul.
“Looks like we’re gonna have a wedding!” his father said.
Treat lowered her back down to the ground and slipped a velvet bag out of his pocket. Looking her in the eye, he asked, “Max, just to be clear, will you marry me?”
“Absolutely, one hundred percent yes.”
He slid the most gorgeous canary diamond ring on her finger, stealing the remainder of her breath from her lungs.
TREAT HELD MAX’s trembling, soft hand in his and never wanted to let it go. In all the business dealings he’d ever handled, in all the resorts he’d acquired and the other businessmen he’d put to shame, never once had he felt the way he did at that very moment. It was as if the universe had righted itself, and he and Max were in the perfect place at the perfect time.
Rex pushed past Treat to hug Max. Treat didn’t miss the full-body glance Rex gave her before pulling her into his arms. That was when he first noticed what Max was wearing. His body reacted instantly to seeing her in such a formfitting, sinfully sexy outfit. Unfortunately, with the way Rex was holding on to her, he assumed her figure had his brother reacting in the exact same way.
He tugged him away from Max by his collar. “Okay, back off. Get your own fiancée.” He loved the feel of that word on his lips. Fiancée.
Savannah slid in between them and wrapped her arms around Treat. “Finally! I love her!” she whispered. “She’ll keep you on your toes.” She turned to Max with a wide smile and said, “I’ve wanted a sister for way too long,” then pulled her in close.
Treat couldn’t wait to get Max’s hand back into his own, where it belonged.
“Max.” Hal wrapped his strong arms around her. “That was my wife’s ring,” he said with a nod at her hand.
Max touched the gorgeous stone. “Thank you for the honor of allowing me to wear it and share in the joy of one day being a Braden.”
He nodded. “It was my wife’s doing.”
Savannah shook her head, but her beaming smile remained.
When congratulations had been doled out and they finally came together again, Treat whispered in her ear, “That outfit is going to make me do dirty things to you right here and now.”
Max smiled. “Then it fulfilled its purpose.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE SOUND OF hooves on pavement called everyone’s attention past the crunched vehicles and to the road. A beautiful woman riding a black stallion came to a stop at the end of their driveway. She flipped her long dark hair behind her back and settled her cowgirl boots into the shiny stirrups.
“Is that Jade?” Treat asked.
Rex spun around, practically salivating at the sight of her. “Jesus,” he whispered.
“Looks like someone got the best of your cars!” she hollered. She wore a flowing white dress, hiked up and bundled across her thighs.
“Earl Johnson’s girl?” Treat asked Rex. When Rex was in high school, he’d had an enormous crush on her. The Johnsons and the Bradens had been feuding for years, and Treat had always written that crush off as Rex wanting the forbidden fruit. But from the way Rex was looking at her, he could see that crush was still steaming hot.
Rex mounted Hope and looked over his shoulder at her, then turned away again. “One and the same,” he answered.
Treat didn’t miss the way his eyes narrowed as he drank her in, or the twitching of his biceps as he wrapped tight fists around Hope’s reins.
Hugh looked up from where he was inspecting the damage to the cars and shot an uncomfortable look at Treat. Treat glanced back at the house. Luckily their father had already headed inside to dig up a bottle of champagne to celebrate Treat and Max’s engagement. If their father caught them talking to a Johnson, they’d never hear the end of it, but being rude was not an easy thing to do to a beautiful woman. “Good to see you, Jade,” Hugh said in a low, tethered voice.
“Not quite a Ferrari, is it?” she teased his racecar-driving brother. She looked at Rex and said, “Good thing y’all weren’t on horses, huh?”
Rex’s jaw flexed double-time.
“I think she’s talking to you, Rex,” Max said.
Hugh looked back at his brother and shook his head. “We’ll be sending this wreck to your neighbor’s garage,” he said to Jade. Jimmy Palen owned the best body shop in Weston and owned the property on the other side of the Johnsons’.
“Jimmy’ll be glad to hear that.” Jade smiled, but Treat saw the hurt in her eyes when she looked at Rex again, who had ignored her comment. “See y’all around,” she said with a wave, then galloped down the road.
When she was out of earshot, Treat smacked Rex’s leg. “What the hell? You didn’t have to be such an ass.”
“I’ll talk to a Johnson when hell freezes over.” Rex gave Hope a quick jab with his heels and trotted off toward the barn.
“What was that all about? She was stunning.” Max couldn’t stop touching the ring on her finger.
“Hatfields and McCoys,” Savannah teased. “He loves her.” Savannah took Max’s arm and they headed toward the house. “He just doesn’t know it yet. Braden boys are thick that way.”
Treat watched Savannah drag Max away, swearing that chartering that plane had been the best thing he’d ever done.
The End
Please enjoy a preview of the next Love in Bloom novel
Destined for Love
The Bradens, Book Two
Love in Bloom Series
Melissa Foster
Chapter One
REX BRADEN AWOKE before dawn, just as he had every Sunday morning for the past twenty-six years—since the Sunday after his mother died, when he was eight years old. He didn’t know what had startled him awake on that very first Sunday after she’d passed, but he swore it was her whispering voice that led him down to the barn and had him mounting Hope, the horse his father had bought for his mother when she first became ill. In the years since, Hope had remained strong and healthy; his mother, however, was not as lucky.
In the gray, predawn hours, the air was still downright cold, which wasn’t unusual for May in Colorado. By afternoon they’d see temps in the early seventies. Rex pulled his Stetson down low on his head and rounded his shoulders forward as he headed into the barn.
The other horses itched to be set free the moment he walked by their stalls, but Rex’s focus on Sunday mornings was solely on Hope.
“How are you, girl?” he asked in a deep, soft voice. He saddled
Hope nuzzled her nose into his massive chest with a gentle neigh. Most of his T-shirts had worn spots at his solar plexus from that familiar nudge. Rex had helped his father on the ranch ever since he was a boy, and after graduating from college, he’d returned to the ranch full-time. Now he ran the show—well, as much as anyone could run anything under Hal Braden’s strong will.
“Taking our normal ride, okay, Hope?” He looked into her enormous brown eyes, and not for the first time, he swore he saw his mother’s beautiful face smiling back at him. The face he remembered from before her illness had stolen the color from her skin and the sparkle from her eyes. Rex put his hands on Hope’s strong jaw and kissed her on the soft pad of skin between her nostrils. Then he removed his hat and rested his forehead against the same tender spot, closing his eyes just long enough to sear that image into his mind.
They trotted down the well-worn trail in the dense woods that bordered his family’s five-hundred-acre ranch. Rex had grown up playing in those woods with his five siblings. He knew every dip in the landscape and could ride every trail blindfolded. They rode out to the point where the trail abruptly came to an end at the adjacent property. The line between the Braden ranch and the unoccupied property might be invisible to some. The grass melded together, and the trees looked identical on either side. To Rex, the division was clear. On the Braden side, the land had life and breath, while on the unoccupied side, the land seemed to exude a longing for more.
Hope instinctively knew to turn around at that point, as they’d done so many times before. Today, Rex pulled her reins gently, bringing her to a halt. He took a deep breath as the sun began to rise, his chest tightening at the silent three hundred acres of prime ranch land that would remain empty forever. Forty-five years earlier, his father and Earl Johnson, their neighbor and his father’s childhood friend, had jointly purchased that acreage between the two properties with the hopes of one day turning it over for a profit. After five years of arguing over everything from who would pay to subdivide the property to who they’d sell it to, both Hal and Earl took the hardest stand they could, each refusing to ever sell. The feud still had not resolved. The Hatfields’ and McCoys’ harsh and loyal stance to protect their family honor was mild compared to the loyalty that ran within the Braden veins. The Bradens had been raised to be loyal to their family above all else. Rex felt a pang of guilt as he looked over the property, and not for the first time, he wished he could make it his own.