Four Months Later

 

“Why won’t you tell me where you’re going?” asked Brittany, her blonde hair beautifully tousled and tan skin flushed from morning sex.

They’d woken up in her bed an hour ago, their naked bodies reaching for each other, still insatiable, though they’d spent every night together since Memorial Day.

“Because it’s a surprise,” he said, kissing her forehead before swinging his legs over the side of her bed. “Don’t you trust me?”

The little apartment over the chapel, which included a bedroom / sitting room combination, tiny bathroom, and galley kitchen, had been the site of many unholy deeds this summer, thought Rory with a devilish grin. Though the ever-growing devotion between him and Brittany was so true and so strong, he couldn’t imagine that a loving God would disapprove.

“You know I do,” she said, a tinge of a whine in her voice. “I’m just being nosy.”

“Well, Leylah Attar’s newest book isn’t going to read itself, mo mhuirnín, so I expect you’ll keep busy.”

He looked at her over his shoulder and smiled at her, wondering if he’d ever tire of the sight of Brittany Manion, naked in bed. He couldn’t imagine a day when it wasn’t his favorite image on earth.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“And I’ll be back tonight,” he added.

“I know,” she grumbled.

“Not to mention, you worked hard all summer, sweetheart. You deserve a few quiet days off now that the busy season’s come and gone.”

She took a deep breath and hummed softly as she let it go. “Mmmm. I guess so. But I’m sorry it’s over already. It was the best summer ever, Rory.”

“Yeah?”

“So much fun,” she said, pushing the blanket down on purpose so that Rory could see her pink nipples. She reached for them, running one finger suggestively around each of the puckering buds until both stood at attention.

Damn, but she was the sexiest, most tempting woman on creation. His cock, still slick from their recent lovemaking, twitched with need, blood quickly pumping it back to its full length and width. He didn’t need to leave for Boston quite yet, did he? His meeting wasn’t until this afternoon.

“I want you,” he murmured, pulling the blanket away from the rest of her body and rolling on top of her. She spread her legs and he slid into her hot, wet center, grunting his pleasure as she sheathed him, the walls of her sex holding him tight.

“I’m yours,” she promised.

He leaned down and kissed her, his tongue sliding against hers as his hips retreated, then slid forward—slowly, so fucking slowly—once again.

“I love you,” she said, rising to meet his slow, deep thrusts.

“I love you more,” he answered, kissing her again as he began to move faster, the friction they created them making them both sigh and moan as their pleasure built.

He cried out his release a moment after she did, emptying himself inside of her and resting his forehead on hers as their breath mingled in sharp, quick pants of exertion.

“Don’t go,” she said.

He kissed her nose, then withdrew from her warm body, missing her already. “I have to.”

Determined not to be tempted by her again, he slipped out of bed and walked straight into her bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping inside the tiny stall as soon as the water was warm. Grabbing a bottle of body wash, he soaped his body, running his hands over the muscles he’d kept in good shape with a summer’s worth of hard work in the books.

Ian had proven as good as his promises, now six months sober and officially the comanager of Summerhaven Conference Center. And Rory, who’d managed to update and polish his business plan from Cornell, was finally meeting with a venture capital firm in Boston today, hoping to get the funds he needed to make his dream a reality. And once he did?

Well, then he’d be ready to ask Brittany a question that had been sitting at the tip of his tongue for weeks. They could keep their tiny apartment at Summerhaven for weekends, or he could even have a cottage built for them somewhere on the property, but either way, they could move to Boston and start a whole new chapter of their life together.

But first, he needed that money.

He was counting on it.

It was the last missing piece of the finished puzzle he could already see in his mind, which included a wife and children he could provide for himself, even if—technically—he didn’t need to.

He turned off the water and grabbed a towel from the hook behind the door, running it through his hair before wrapping it around his waist. He’d go back over to the office apartment to shave and get dressed, but first he wanted to spend a couple more minutes with his woman.

Opening the bathroom door, he found her sitting up in bed, counting something out on her fingers, a perplexed look on her face.

She turned to him, tilting her head to the side. “What’s today’s date?”

“September 30.”

“Hmm,” she said, biting on her bottom lip in thought.

“Why?” he asked, opening the top drawer of her dresser and pulling out a pair of clean boxers. “What happens today?”

She took a deep breath and brightened, smiling at him. “Nothing. It’s easy to lose track of the days here.”

“So…Leylah Attar and sunshine today?” he asked her, grabbing his jeans off the wicker rocking chair where he’d thrown them last night.

“Leylah Attar and sunshine,” she said distractedly, looking out the window at the beautiful fall day.

***

“Are you certain?” asked Cheryl, Chef Jamie’s wife, who’d become one of Brittany’s closest friends over summer. They sat on the main dock in the sunshine, eating a picnic of pesto chicken salad and yucca chips that Jamie had delivered from the kitchen.

“It could be anything,” said Brittany, rubbing her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. “Maybe I’m just miscounting. But I’m on the pill. I generally get it like clockwork on the twentieth of every month. So, yeah. I think it’s late. Ten days late.”

“If you’re on the pill, how did this happen?”

“Remember when Rory came to Boston over Labor Day weekend and surprised me? I was there for the annual Manion gala, and he didn’t think he could make it, but he showed up at the last minute? Remember?” She thought back to that night—to how dreamy Rory looked in a tuxedo, striding into the ballroom, his eyes on a search for her. And the way he’d looked at her once he’d found her? Swoon. Every woman in the room had wished she was Brittany.

“Of course! He borrowed Jamie’s tux.”

“My pills were here. I’d left them here by mistake. Forgotten them…and we—I don’t know…one thing led to another. I didn’t have condoms in my apartment.” And they had practically ripped each other’s clothes off when they’d gotten back to her place after the party.

Cheryl flashed her friend a worried look. “What are you going to do?”

It took Brittany a beat to understand what Cheryl was asking. “Oh! Keep it, of course. I just…”

“What do you think Rory will say?”

She thought back to one of their first conversations when she asked if he wanted kids and he said, Yeah, of course. I’m Irish. It’s one of our specialties.

But saying he wanted kids someday and having a baby next May were two different things. She bit her bottom lip. “Well, I hope that he’ll…I mean, I hope he’ll want it. The timing isn’t perfect, but we love each other, and I…” Her hands landed on her flat tummy as if beckoned there. “I already love it. The baby.”

Cheryl put another scoop of salad on her plate, then looked up at Brittany and grinned. “Rory’s a great guy. I bet he’ll be thrilled.”

“You think?”

“He’s crazy about you. He’s wicked clannish. Why wouldn’t he be crazy about a baby?”

Brittany smiled back at her friend and nodded, but her unease lingered, making the day crawl by like molasses. More than anything, she needed to see Rory’s face and tell him what was going on. She hadn’t meant for this to happen, of course, but it had, and they were both responsible.

As she made the bed in her little apartment after sending some donor-request e-mails on behalf of A Better Tomorrow, it suddenly occurred to her that when she’d least expected it, all of her dreams had suddenly come true: she had a family of friends at Summerhaven, she had true love with Rory, and now, she’d have a baby—the family she’d always longed for…if only Rory wanted it as much as she did.

As day turned to dusk, she took a drive into town and bought a pregnancy test, split between the swelling of pure joy when the test turned positive and her impatience to share the news with Rory. The minutes ticked by. Five o’clock. Six o’clock. Finally, at seven o’clock, she heard the downstairs door open and slam shut and the sound of his shoes on the stairs.

She took a deep breath and braced herself, determined not to act weird or blurt out her news, no matter how much her secret begged to be told.

“Britt?” he called.

“Up here!”

He rounded the corner of the stairs into the loft, wearing a suit and tie, the smile on his face so wide, she was practically blinded by it.

A suit? Now, why was Rory wearing a suit?

“Where have you been?” she asked breathlessly, hurling herself into his open arms. “What happened?”

“Something great,” he said, kissing her soundly before pulling away. He pulled one of two chairs from the tiny kitchen table. “Here. Sit down. I’ll tell you everything.”

She gulped, pushing her own news to the back burner as much as she could to concentrate on his. “Okay.”

Once she was seated, he started. “In college, I had this idea. Conference centers like Summerhaven.”

“And you did it,” said Brittany. “You did a great job transitioning Summerhaven from a kids’ camp to conference center.”

“Thanks. Yeah. I did it here. But that’s not where my idea ended. I wanted to open more than one. One here, outside of Boston. But another outside of Manhattan, and another near Raleigh. Another close to DC. You get it: a collection of camp-style, rustic but luxurious conference and event centers that businesses could use for retreats and team building but that were also available for weddings or—or anniversary parties…”

Brittany nodded, recalling the day Mrs. Toffle had shared Rory’s idea with her. And Brittany had decided, a long time ago, that if he came to her and shared her idea, she’d offer to be his first investor. She didn’t fear that Rory was only with her for her fortune or connections; she knew him far better than that. And she’d be happy to make his dreams come true, just as he had done for her.

“Sounds amazing,” she said. “And I’d like to be—”

“I got it!” he cried, falling to his knees at her feet. “I got the money to do it! I have investors!”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I met with Colgate Venture Capital today. And they agreed to fund me. I have 1.3 million dollars to acquire property outside of Raleigh!”

“Rory!” she exclaimed, reaching for his beaming face and cupping it with her hands. “That’s where you were today? That’s what you were doing? You could have told me!”

His expression sobered a little as he shook his head. “I couldn’t do that, Britt. I remember what you told me when we met that some men chased after you for your money, and I would never, ever want you—even for a second—to wonder if I had pursued you for a leg up. I needed to have the funding in place before I told you. I need to have something to share with you before I…”

His eyes—wildly intense—looked into hers, searching them.

“Before what?” she asked, sliding her hands from his face and clasping them in her lap.

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small black box, his breath hitching as he held it out to her and snapped it open to reveal a diamond ring.

“Before asking you to be my wife.”

She gasped in surprise, tears filling her eyes as she looked down at the small solitaire, which was much smaller than the previous engagement rings she’d received, yet infinitely more perfect for her in every way because of the man who offered it. “Oh, Rory…”

“I wanted to be able to provide for you. I mean, I know you’ll always have your own money, and that’s fine. But it was important to me…to have this. For us.”

She clenched her jaw, trying to keep the tears from falling. This man—this strong, true, smart, beautiful man—had covered every base, placed her and her feelings above everything else in his life, and she was so overwhelmed with love and gratitude, she didn’t think she could speak.

He plucked the ring from its white velvet bed and took her shaking hand in his. “Brittany Manion, I love you. I remember who you were as a teenager, but I fell in love with the woman you became. Please make me the happiest man on earth and say you’ll marry me.”

She inhaled sharply as tears coursed down her cheeks.

Of course she wanted to marry Rory Haven and live happily ever after. But she couldn’t say yes. Not until he knew exactly what he was getting into.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “R-Rory.”

His eyebrows furrowed and his face fell, his breathing audible as he sucked in a breath and held it. He was worried, and she hated that—that she’d stolen his thunder by putting on the brakes for a minute—but she needed to share her news with him before the ring went on her finger. The lasting lesson of her disastrous relationship with Ben was the value of total transparency with her partner. She lifted her chin, grasping for the courage to be forthright and honest and tell Rory about her pregnancy before accepting his proposal.

“Rory, remember when we first met? Again, I mean? When I first came back here in the spring?”

He nodded, his eyes wide and worried, his frozen hand still holding up the ring between them.

“And I asked you…” She gulped. “I asked you if you—if, um, if you wanted kids.”

His forehead wrinkled as he nodded slowly, still staring at her with that intense, uncertain expression.

“And you said”—she paused, taking a shaking breath before continuing—“um, you said that you were Irish and—and it was one of your specialties.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember. But what does that have to do with—”

“You may be even better at it than you thought.”

Closing her mouth, she licked her lips nervously, then reached for the hand holding the ring and drew it to her abdomen, covering his hand, and the ring, with her palm.

“We’re a package deal,” she managed as Rory’s bent head remained focused on their hands. “Me…and…and our…”

He was staring at her belly, but suddenly his head whipped up. His eyes slammed into hers, scanning them, his breathing faster and faster as a smile bloomed on his face—small at first, then bigger and bigger until it was spread ear to ear. “Britt…mo, mhuirnín…are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

She nodded quickly, her words spilling out. “We’re going to have a baby, Rory. In May.”

“Brittany!” he cried, standing up, then reaching down to pull her into his arms. He lifted her off the ground, spinning her around and around in the tiny room. “A baby! We made a baby!”

Laughing and crying at the same time, she held on for dear life and let him celebrate, all of her worries fading away as her husband-to-be reassured her that he was just as delighted about starting a family as she.

“I know the timing isn’t perfect,” she whispered breathlessly near his ear.

He stopped twirling her and leaned back, gazing into her brown eyes. “There could never be a bad time for news like this.”

“I love you,” she murmured, the words spilling from her lips with so much gratitude and awe, she could barely believe the sheer magnitude of her own happiness.

“I love you too.” Holding her cheeks tenderly, he asked, “Is that a yes?”

She nodded, holding out her left hand so he could slip the ring on her fourth finger. “That’s definitely a yes.”

And as he bent his head to hers, capturing her lips in a sweet kiss, Brittany realized that Rory Haven—her teen crush, her true love, her fiancé, and the father of her lucky little baby—would also be her safe haven…forever.

 

 

THE END

 

 

TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT…

SMILING IRISH

The Summerhaven Trio #2

 

(Tierney and Burr’s story)