Once Upon A Grump, page 25
“I don’t eat meat anymore,” Benny said. “Do they have any vegan options?”
I sighed. Remember how happy he makes Max. “I’m sure I could find you some lettuce. Or maybe a carrot or something?”
Benny grimaced. “That’s alright, Mr. Stone. I’m good.”
I pulled Lola away from the group later that night and took her to sit on a rock overlooking the river that ran through Fairhope. She rested her head on my shoulder and I kissed the top of her head. “In a few years, Lance will be out of jail. Assuming he doesn’t do something stupid before then, at least.”
“Yeah,” Lola said. “How do you think Max will react?”
“If you’re worried she’s going to forget about us, don’t be. She was never happy like this before. I love my brother, but he was always a fuckup. He thought about himself first and everyone else second. He really missed out on forming a bond with her, and he’ll have a lot of work to do to repair the damage he did with her.”
Lola nodded. “I want them to have a relationship.”
“They will. I’ll make sure my brother doesn’t fuck it up this time. But I don’t really think she’s going to move in with him. She’ll be in college or finished with it by then.”
“Oh,” Lola said. “Kate is coming to visit in a week. She wants to be here when the baby comes.”
“Alright,” I said. By my count, that meant her parents, Kate, Paisley, Harper, Greyson, their kids, Max, and just about half of the fucking town was going to be waiting outside the delivery room. Even my brother Hector and his wife Candice were going to fly in from California for the birth. A year ago, the thought of so many people crowding into our lives probably would’ve irritated me. I guess I’d grown, because all it did now was make me feel warm. It made me feel at home. “Good,” I said.
“Good?” she asked, looking up at me with those big doe eyes of hers.
“Yeah. Good. She can stay at the ranch if she wants.”
Lola raised an eyebrow. “When did you become so sweet?”
“I’m not sweet. I just like to make you happy.”
“Hm. You realize that is sweet, right?”
“I’m sweet for you. Everybody else still gets my usual, grumpy ass self.”
She laughed. “Well, I can live with that, I guess.”
“Good. Because you’re stuck with me.”
“Happily stuck,” she corrected.
I pulled her tighter and found myself smiling. I doubted there was such a thing as perfect, but this had to be as close as it got.
The End
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If you enjoyed the town of Fairhope and want to see more of Greyson and Harper, you can read the Amazon Bestselling story Once Upon A Bet next! The events precede Once Upon A Grump but both stories can be read in any order!
* * *
All I ever wanted was the perfect happily ever after.
All he ever wanted was to ruin my freaking life.
Okay, that’s a smidge dramatic, but hear me out.
My new neighbor might as well plant an “unavailable” sign in his front yard.
He’s got biceps made for pulling swooning maidens out of danger, eyes built for melting glaciers (and panties), and a smile that makes my knees want to buckle.
But he’s grumpy, stubborn, divorced with two kids, and he’s only in town for three months.
It’s pretty obvious I need to stay far, far away.
But then he kisses me.
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48
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49
ONCE UPON A BET: SNEAK PEAK (GREYSON)
The two little people behind me giggled while we waited in line. I knew exactly what that giggle meant but pretended I didn’t. Rule number one of being a fun dad was playing along. It was honestly pretty easy to keep kids happy if you just stuck to that simple rule. Unfortunately, keeping my ex-wife happy hadn’t been nearly as simple.
I showed no sign of hearing the giggling. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and looked around, just admiring the dinky little small town general store. That was me–the totally unsuspecting dad. Just the old guy taking a nostalgic look around his former stomping grounds. There wasn’t a clue in my mind that my little angels were scheming behind me.
“You’ve got to,” one of the small voices whispered. That one was Billy, my nine-year-old.
“We’re gonna get in trouble.” That slightly lisping, raspy voice was Molly, my six-year-old.
I whistled with no particular tune, letting them know I still had no idea.
I wasn’t exactly in the mood to play games, but I knew this was hard on them. I’d just uprooted them from our lives in D.C. so we could come to the middle of nowhere town of Fairhope, Colorado. It was temporary, but three months might as well be an eternity for little kids. They wouldn’t be seeing their mom–my ex-wife, Katie–for two weeks, either.
It would’ve been easier to let them stay with her until I got settled in here, but it worked out for Katie to let me have them, and I never passed up time with the kids when I could get it. I may have never been meant to be a good husband, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be a good dad. A damn good one, in fact.
My boss had only given me three months leave for the family emergency, but this was going to be great for all of us. I was going to make sure of that. Besides, it was good to show the kids where their old man had grown up, even if Fairhope was a little… dated.
The giggling continued while I looked around, noting the dust gathering on boxes of name-brand medication high up on the shelves behind the counter. I lifted my finger to tap a little candy-cane decoration that was about two months past the season. The whole town had a sense of being frozen in time. Like nothing had changed since I left after high school.
The downtown was a scattering of rustic little specialty shops and a few mainstays like the theater, the general store, the bowling alley, and of course, my grandpa’s inn. If you drove a minute or two in any direction, you’d be in the rolling hills that were dotted with charming little houses that were all built in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
I’d been back to visit every couple years to see my Grandpa, and the feeling struck me every time I was here. This whole place was a strange little bubble–completely insulated from the outside world. Once or twice, I’d fantasized about packing up and moving out here, but there wasn’t exactly work for someone with an M.B.A. in business in a small town like this. No. To me, this place was a dying reality.
“Just do it,” Billy urged.
“You promise he won’t get mad?”
I whistled a little louder. Being a good dad wasn’t always easy. But it was always worth it. I repeated that to myself like a mantra. It was a mantra I’d decided to drill into myself when I found out I was going to be a father. I might be a lot of things, but I was never going to be him. My own father was a narcissistic asshole who saw his kids as trophies. He didn’t even give a shit about gramps or his failing health. If you didn’t serve a purpose, he’d cast you out of his life without a second thought.
A small hand suddenly clutched mine and Molly started tugging like she was trying to break free from my grasp.
I looked down at my daughter and felt my stomach drop when she met my gaze. She did the breathing exercise I’d taught her when she was scared, never taking her big eyes from mine. Oh, shit. What did you put her up to, Billy?
“He’s not my daddy!” she screamed.
Her voice might as well have been a gunshot. Every pair of eyes in the small store was on us in an instant. For the longest second of my life, nobody moved.
The only sign that time hadn’t frozen was my precious little daughter tugging against my hand like I was the one holding her. I stared at her. Curly brown hair and big blue eyes. She had the face of an angel, and a few steps behind her stood the little devil who took after his dad. Billy was watching with the wide eyes of a pyromaniac who had just lit a fire and was somewhere between awe and terror at how quickly it had grown.
“Billy,” I said very carefully while Molly continued to tug at my hand and repeat that I wasn’t her daddy. “Tell these nice people this is your idea of a joke.”
I moved toward Billy, dragging Molly behind me as she continued her act of pretending to pull away from me. I reached for him.
That turned out to be a mistake.
My own son met my eyes, grinned for an instant, then clapped his hands to his face and did his best Home Alone scream.
I chuckled nervously, lifting my free hand while I looked around the shop. “These kids,” I muttered. I knelt down to get in their faces. Molly was red in the face from screaming and Billy’s mouth was open so wide I could see his tonsils.
“Tell them you two are joking,” I hissed at them.
I turned just in time to see a very small, very attractive woman winding up to hit me over the head with her purse.
50
HARPER
I pulled up to McDermit’s General Store in my old PT Cruiser, Rose. Rose was the kind of car that had been around the block and hadn’t exactly been given an oil change on any of those trips around the block. Or new tires. Or any of the other things you’re supposed to do to keep your car in good running condition.
I loved the car, but I was the wrong combination of poor and car illiterate to really take care of it. She let out a chugging, choking sound and gave a happy little shake when I put her in park and turned off the engine. I tried to imagine it like a cute dog shivering before curling up to sleep.
It definitely didn’t have anything to do with all the flashing warning lights about my engine on the dash.
I needed to grab a few supplies and then hurry back home to work on the catering order for tomorrow night. Fairhope was a small town, and it was exactly the kind of small town that threw adorable little events almost every weekend. We had the slippery pig chase, the butt-balloon-buster, the town wide hide and seek, and dozens of other yearly events to look forward to. Tomorrow night was what we called the Night of Lights, where all the kids let paper lanterns loose at the bottom of the river and tried to race up to the bridge on Mainstreet in time to see which one came through first.
And I was going to get the perfect opportunity to show off what I’d learned on my brief culinary tour in France by catering it all. In our little world, the fact that I’d gone out of the country to study the culinary arts was just about the most exciting thing that had happened in recent memory. I’d been back over two months and I still got asked about it almost every day.
I popped into McDermit’s and froze at the door, eyes going wide.
There was a man in line who towered over everybody. He was stacked with muscle, but I couldn’t quite see his face. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and I found my eyes locked on the shape of his broad, delicious shoulders, tapered waist, and long legs. He looked like he could’ve picked up the entire beverage fridge and tossed it through a window without breaking a sweat. Or picked me up and dragged me kicking and squealing back to whatever sexy cave he came from…
Be cool, Harper. Don’t stare like a freak. I smoothed my forehead and plastered a comically casual expression on my face. Don’t mind me, folks. Just strolling through the store with no particular purpose.
As discreetly as I could, I started browsing in a direction that would let me get a better look at him. Fairhope was a small enough town that a man like this didn’t just escape notice. So who was he?
I heard a little lisping voice cry out, “He’s not my daddy!”
My heart stopped for a beat. There were only a few other people in the store, but every one of them could’ve got the senior discount at Teddy’s theater without showing I.D.
The man turned around and tried to say something to defend himself, but I barely heard. This was exactly the kind of situation I’d taken self-defense classes for. It was the kind of thing I ran mental exercises for in the shower. What would I do if someone tried to kidnap a kid in front of me?
I took a few quick breaths, trying to calm my nerves as I got a tighter grip on my purse. Thankfully, I was planning to cash some coins in at the bank later, so my purse was feeling particularly beefy. The man was much, much bigger than me, but I’d have the element of surprise.
My heart hammered against my chest. I could feel hot blood pumping through me like lava, preparing my mostly untrained body for the moment of attack.
I crept closer, inching around an aisle and using a display of potato chips as cover to get within a few steps of him. Then I saw him reach for a little boy who clapped his hands to his face and screamed.
They need my help. The thought came with a clenching of every single muscle I was able to clench. Every. Muscle.
I took a few more quick breaths, then rushed forward and swung my purse overhand at the man. He turned just in time to catch it square in the cheek instead of the back of his head.
I saw it all in slow motion. The graceful arc of my attack zipping through the dusty air in the shop. The shockwave of his skin where the edge of my purse met his cheek. The furious surprise in his dreamboat eyes…
Time returned to normal, and all the sights and sounds came along with it.
Suddenly I was standing there with a purse in my hand that I’d just used to smack a stranger in the face. The stranger was tall. So tall. He was gorgeous, angry, and glaring right down at me.
He staggered backwards and both the kids stopped yelling. The little girl squeezed his leg. “Sorry, daddy!” she said over and over.
“Dad, I didn’t–” the little boy said.
Dad? “You said he wasn’t…” I muttered.
“What the hell is going on?” McDermit asked. He’d come out from behind the desk and the three old ladies were all cowering behind him like they were expecting a bomb to go off.
The man’s face was covered by his big hand. He tilted his head back and let out an irritated growl. When he lowered his hand, I saw an already-forming red welt just below his eye. “That was their idea of a joke,” he said. He had a deep voice that rumbled through my chest.
And God. That face. He was breathtaking, with cheekbones so defined it was no surprise my purse had been drawn to them. I bet flocks of birds were sucked in by the gravity of his supernatural sexiness. Instrument panels on airplanes probably malfunctioned when they flew overhead…
An irrational part of me wanted to hop on my tiptoes and offer to kiss it better.
No, no, no. Because I saw there was also a patch of gray at his temples and in the scruff around his chin. He wore it well. Distractingly well, actually. But he was way too old for me. He was also probably married, even if he wasn’t wearing a ring. He probably took it off to work out. Like six times a day, if his muscles were any indication.
“Um,” I said, slowly moving the purse to hold it behind my back. “I’m sorry I overpowered you.”
He blinked like he was still shaking off the disorientation from the blow. Then a very dangerously charming smile formed. “Overpowered me? Is that what happened?”
I lowered my eyes, embarrassment touching my cheeks. Were we flirting? “I did get you to stop trying to kidnap those kids.”
“My kids, you mean.”
I shrugged, and that smile of his wasn’t going anywhere. Oh my goodness. This man was practically a narcotic. What was it they said about hard drugs in school? Just try them once? For some reason my brain was struggling to recall.
He touched the spot on his cheek and a hint of anger flashed in his eyes. “What the hell do you have in your purse? Bricks?”
“Coins, actually,” I said, lifting out a few rolls of pennies and smiling weakly.
He didn’t appear amused.
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51
SUGGESTED READING ORDER
I realize that it can be a little overwhelming to click an author name on Amazon and get an entire list of titles going back for more than five years. Which one should you read next and what’s the best order?
So that’s what this section is here to answer!
If you enjoyed this book, then my suggestions for what to read next are below, in order from most relevant to least relevant. I haven’t included all of my books because I think the romantic comedies are going to be the best match with this book, but I’ll include one of my favorite non romantic comedy books just incase you’re interested in diving into that side of my catalog as well.
Which book should you read immediately after this one? This one is easy. Once Upon A Bet. I try to write my series so they can be read in any order, which makes it nice if you discover a series in the “wrong” order. In this case, if you read Once Upon A Grump first, you can easily go back to read Once Upon A Bet without feeling like anything was really spoiled for you.
What should you read after that?
