Chapter Two
PRACTICALLY THE WHOLE town turned out for the annual Christmas barn dance. Colorful lights were strewn over the dance floor, and a massive Christmas tree anchored one side of the makeshift stage, where the band was playing. Children, dressed in their holiday best, ran around with cookies and punch while their parents danced and mingled. Hugh had never thought he’d move back to Weston, a small ranch town where gossip traveled faster than the speed of light and the main drag was built to replicate the Wild West. It had all seemed hokey when he was younger, and he couldn’t wait to get out in the world and make his mark. Now, surrounded by his siblings and their families as his mother-in-law danced with his father and he danced with his beautiful wife, while watching Christian run around with his cousins and Layla whisper with her school friends, he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
“Hey, baby.” Hugh nuzzled against Brianna’s neck and said, “Want to sneak out to the car?”
Her soft brown eyes simmered with heat. She was the sexiest woman, the sweetest mother, and the best friend Hugh had ever known. He counted himself lucky for the blind-date-gone-wrong that had ended with his meeting Brianna.
“You know I would, but with this belly, we’d need to find a motor home,” she said, rubbing her burgeoning baby bump. Her eyes turned serious, shifting to Layla talking with a boy beneath the mistletoe, and she said, “But we can’t. That’s Easton, the boy Layla likes, and she might get her first kiss tonight.”
Hugh’s chest tightened. “What? She’s only twelve.”
“And she has a crush, Hugh,” Brianna said with a smile.
Hugh watched their daughter smiling and blushing at the lanky blond boy before her, and all he could think about was the innocent almost-six-year-old little girl full of hopes and dreams of finding her Prince Charming she’d been when he’d first met her. She’d called him Prince Hugh, and he’d melted inside. Now she was under the mistletoe with some boy looking to steal her first kiss? A kiss she could never get back? A kiss that would surely start her on the path of wanting more kisses? Hugh gritted his teeth. No fucking way.
“Daddy’s britches in a twist over his little girl?” Max teased as she and Treat danced beside them. “Oh no, brace yourself for the cavalry.” She motioned toward Josh, Rex, and Dane, heading their way with determined looks on their faces.
“You see what’s going on over there?” Josh sidled up to them with Abigail in his arms and said, “Abi isn’t dating until she’s thirty.”
“Right?” Hugh huffed. “Layla’s not even a teenager. And they’re standing way too close beneath the mistletoe.” He stepped back from Brianna, but she held tightly to his arms. Her long dark hair framed her gorgeous face, and Layla looked just like her. Hugh had always known Layla would attract boys, but he hadn’t expected it to be so soon. He wasn’t ready for this.
“Hugh, relax,” Brianna urged.
“Fuck that,” Rex said. He looked like he was going to blow smoke out of his ears, which was exactly how Hugh felt. “We need to intervene.”
“I’m in,” Dane said.
Treat narrowed his eyes and said, “Agreed. Let’s go.”
As Josh tried to hand Abigail to Brianna, she said, “No! You cannot do this. You’ll mortify her.”
“I don’t give a damn,” Hugh said, stepping around her and watching their little girl. “She’s our daughter, and that boy is not stealing her first kiss. She’ll build fantasies from that kiss, dream of him falling in love with her. And for what? So he can move on to the next little girl? Over my dead body.”
Brianna put her hands on his cheeks, directing his eyes to hers as she said, “That’s what little girls and little boys do. If you screw this up for her, she’ll hate you for it.”
Hugh’s jaw clenched tight. He’d already hit a few rough patches with their emotional tween daughter, when he’d nixed her attending a boy-girl birthday party and again when he’d caught her talking on the phone with a boy. He looked at his brothers, each of whom were also grinding their teeth and shrugging, as if they didn’t know if it was true, or maybe as if it didn’t matter if it was.
Treat turned to his wife and said, “Max? What do you think?”
“It’s true,” Max said. “She’ll think you’re all big pains in her butt and will probably go weeks without talking to any of you. Right now all she’s thinking about is how much she hopes that boy will kiss her. She’s probably discussed it at length with her girlfriends and even practiced with her pillow.”
“I do not need to know about the pillow,” Hugh said as he looked at Layla in her sparkly dress and matching ballet flats. Brianna, Savannah, and his sisters-in-law had spent forever primping and curling Layla’s hair for her, and now he understood why. They were all in on it, and Hugh and his brothers hadn’t been clued in. When did Layla get so grown up? He’d seen the changes happening over the last two years, as she’d cleaned out her closet, ridding it of fluffy dresses and tiaras, but he hadn’t pictured those things being replaced with a boy. And when had his wife started keeping secrets?
“You knew about this first-kiss plan and didn’t tell me?” he asked Brianna.
“Oh, please, Hugh,” Max said. “Like any of us could tell any of you about a first kiss without you losing your minds?”
“Jade sure as hell better tell me when it’s Joss’s turn,” Rex seethed.
Brianna laughed. “It’s part of growing up, a rite of passage, and I’m telling you, Hugh, she’ll be livid.”
Hugh’s protective urges surged forward, and he said, “She’ll get over it.”
Hugh headed across the barn with his brothers and Brianna in tow, ready to save his little girl from what he was sure would be weeks of a broken heart. As they neared, he heard the group of boys taunting Easton.
“Easton has a crush!” a scrawny redheaded boy said, as another boy made kissing noises.
“Easton has a girlfriend!” another boy teased.
“Why don’t you kiss her, Easton?” a third boy called out, following it up with more kissing noises.
Hugh was going to tear them apart. His hands fisted at his sides as Easton said something to Layla and then took off running out of the barn, with his posse on his heels.
Layla burst into tears and ran in the opposite direction. Hugh’s heart shattered.
“I’m going to kill him,” Hugh seethed, turning to go after Easton.
Brianna grabbed his hand and said, “He doesn’t need you right now. Our daughter does.”
“That kid needs to be taught a lesson,” Hugh ground out.
“We’ve got him and his friends.” Rex looked at their brothers and said, “Let’s go teach those boys to be men.” Rex, Dane, and Josh went after the boys.
“Damn it,” Treat snapped. “Now we’re picking fights with middle schoolers?”
As Treat took off after their brothers, Hugh went in search of Layla and found her just outside the back doors, sitting on a haystack on the patio surrounded by her girlfriends. They were patting her on the shoulder, reassuring her and calling Easton all sorts of bad names. Hugh had a few harsh names of his own to add to their list.
Layla wiped her eyes and looked up at him.
Her girlfriends said, “Hi, Mr. Braden,” in unison.
“Hi, girls. Would you mind giving me a minute alone with Layla?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Braden,” one of her friends said.
They hugged Layla, each leaving her with a word of encouragement, before they walked away in a huddle. He was glad Layla had such close friends, but as he sat beside her, he wished she didn’t need them for this particular situation.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said sullenly.
Hugh sighed as he took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. “You do? What’s that?”
“That I’m too young to like a boy.” She fidgeted with the sparkles on her dress.
Hugh thought about that and about what Brianna had said. “You know what, princess? You’re right. I did want to say that, and I wanted to give that boy a piece of my mind, too, for making you cry. But you’re not a little girl anymore. You’re turning into a beautiful young lady.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m not beautiful.”
“Oh, honey, you’re so very wrong. That boy picked the most beautiful girl in school to like, and that’s really scary for a boy his age. Heck, it’s scary at any age. He didn’t run away because he didn’t want to kiss you under the mistletoe. He ran away because he wanted to kiss you so much, it scared him.”
She nibbled on her lower lip. “That’s stupid.”
He smiled and said, “Boys are stupid sometimes.” He took her small hand in his and said, “I know this hurts right now, and you probably feel like your heart is crushed.”
She nodded, and he felt his own heart crumble into pieces again.
“I’m the only one of my friends who hasn’t kissed a boy,” she said woefully.
“Good,” slipped out before he could check it, and she slumped beside him. “I don’t mean that the way it sounds, sweetheart. What I mean is good, because it means you’re not kissing just any boy. You’re waiting for the right boy.”
“Easton is the right boy,” she said.
“Maybe so,” he said, because who the hell knew…It could happen. His own father had met his mother when she was only fourteen, and their love was as true as it got.
“He’s smart, and funny, and he draws really well. And I love talking to him, Daddy. He’s not like the other boys. He doesn’t say stupid stuff.” She paused, and then she looked at him with her big brown eyes and said, “Do you remember your first kiss?”
“I do, and do you want to know what I remember most about it?”
She nodded.
“I remember feeling like a champion, because I got my first kiss before all my friends did. That gave me bragging rights, and you know how much I like to brag.” That earned him a smile, and he squeezed her hand. “But I don’t even remember the girl’s name, and do you want to know what I think about my first kiss now?”
She nodded, and he brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“I wish your mom could have been my first kiss, and part of me pretends she was. When I met your mom, she was almost six years into an eighteen-year plan of not kissing any men until you were off to college. You see, princess, my real first kiss was snuck between classes in the hallway of my middle school. And that girl? She kissed me on a dare, and that kiss gave her bragging rights. But I had to earn my kiss with your mom and prove to her and to myself—and to you—that I was worthy of it. That first kiss was one I’ll never forget.”
She kicked her legs, fidgeted with her dress, and said, “Thanks, Daddy.”
Hugh’s heart swelled with love. When he’d married Brianna and adopted Layla, he’d dreamed of these moments, of being Daddy and helping her through hard times.
“Don’t worry, princess. If Easton’s supposed to be your first kiss, he will be.” He kissed her temple and said, “But maybe next time you want to kiss a boy, you should do it where I don’t have to watch, or you might give your old man a heart attack.”
She giggled, and Hugh stood up and reached for her hand. “How about you come inside and dance with me?”
She stood up and handed him his jacket. Then she looked sheepishly at the ground, pushing the toe of her ballet flat into the patio. “Um, Daddy?” She glanced inside the barn, where her friends were huddled together, sneaking glances at them. “Would it be okay if we didn’t dance right now, and I joined my friends instead?”
So this was what it felt like to be ditched by his little girl. Damn, it stung. “Sure, princess. Go have fun.”
“Thank you. I love you!” She bounced on her toes and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight and soothing the sting her growing up had caused.