Page 35 of The Marriage Deal (Sunset Falls #1)

GETTING COMFORTABLE

LILAH

Spookers jumps onto the island stool beside me as I stare down at the digital mock-up for the kids place Briggs wants to add to the resort. If I’m being honest, I’d thought the massive pool and hot tub were plenty, but this is other worldly.

There’s not just one massive pool now, but two large pools connected by a swimmable channel.

One is within eyesight to the children’s place, while the other is nestled into a nook of planned greenery and lounge chairs.

It’s separate but not, giving guests an opportunity to be with or away from the kids.

Two large hot tubs on either side of the pool are plotted, the larger sitting between the pool and children’s place, which is more in splash park style with a slide dropping into shallower water.

Everything is planned in shades of green, cream, and brown to give a natural and relaxing aesthetic that blends in with the land.

I love it. All of it.

“What do you think?” Briggs interrupts my study.

“I love it,” Shana says from over my shoulder. I jump, entirely unaware that she’d moved in closer.

I lift my eyes to Briggs. “This is really amazing.”

“So, you like it?”

I nod. “I think the town is going to love all of it. There’s so much detail and care.”

He’s standing on the other side of the island, leaning into the counter opposite. He pushes off the counter to cross the space to lean into the island. He’s closer, but not so close I can touch. Not so close I can scent him.

My heart thunders.

Briggs asks again, “Do you like it, Lilah?”

Oh gosh, why does it make me tingle when he says my name like that?

I can’t manage anything more than a breathless, “Yes.”

“Good.” Briggs doesn’t look away. Neither do I.

We’re locked in this heated standoff neither of us seems capable of escaping. I’m not even sure I want to escape. My belly squeezes.

His eyes drop to my mouth. A muscle in his jaw jumps.

Those knots in my stomach twist tighter.

The alarm on the front door chimes to let us know it’s been opened, and I hear Nash call out, “Honey, I’m home.”

“Oh, thank heavens,” Shana exclaims. “Is it hot in here or am I just having a hot flash?”

I tear my gaze from Briggs. I mumble, “It’s hot in here.”

Briggs mutters, “Because someone doesn’t think the AC is necessary.”

Nash pauses in the space between fireplace and kitchen. “I feel like I interrupted something.” He looks to Shana. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Oh, yes, yes you most certainly did.” She’s chuckling as she pats her palm into the wall of Nash’s chest. “Come on, you. I’m starving.”

“Well, we can’t have that, now, can we?” Nash tucks Shana’s arm into the nook of his and calls, “You two kids have fun, now.”

Neither Briggs nor I respond. Both Nash and Shana laugh before the front door silences them.

Alone with Briggs, the heat in the room only intensifies. I feel like I’m warming from the inside out.

Spookers lets out a loud meow and I jump. Briggs chuckles. I ignore him as I give Spookers a pet. Clearly, it’s a good pet because he crawls into my lap.

I clear my throat. “I didn’t realize Shana was going out with Nash tonight.”

“She mentioned it while you were in the shower earlier.” I’d been covered in dirt when I’d returned home, later than usual, from work. It’d been a day of deadheading.

“Oh.”

“Do you want to go out for dinner?”

I sigh, because I really, really don’t. “I’m actually pretty tired. Do you think we can just have an early night?”

He dips his chin, tugging his phone from his pocket. “I’ll order in.”

I perk up. “Pizza?”

The smile he gives me is a different kind of soft from every other smile he’s ever given me. Immediately, my throat feels tight. The air is suddenly thin. I think my hands are trembling.

“Yeah, Lilah, we can do pizza.”

“With olives?” The request comes out sounding raspy.

Briggs nods again. “If that’s what you want.”

“I want.”

He taps his phone and places an online order. Then he says, “It’ll be a bit. Sit with me out on the deck? It looks like one of them storms you love so much is rolling in.”

He doesn’t have to ask me twice. I carry Spookers to his kitty hammock by the window, swipe a throw blanket from the couch and follow Briggs outside with Senior hot on my trail.

I snuggle into the corner of the patio sectional when Briggs returns from the outdoor kitchen with a glass of chilled white wine and a bottle of beer.

I take the glass he hands me. “Thank you.”

“Welcome.” Briggs settles close beside me. Too close.

I pull my knees into my chest, getting comfortable. “You’re not a big fan of wine, are you?”

“I prefer a cold beer.”

I take a sip and bob my head. Then, desperate to fill the silence with something, anything, I say, “Shana and Nash are close.”

Briggs leans back, throwing one arm behind me. No one is here for the show. No one is here to impress or convince. It makes the easy way he comes in close feel natural and real. Too real. Too good.

I swallow a gulp of wine, waiting for his reply as he takes a pull from his beer.

“Nash doesn’t have the greatest parents.

They’re okay, I guess. There are a lot of people with worse, but Shana is better.

And she always wanted another kid, so when I met Nash, and he was always around she sort of just adopted him as her own. ”

“It’s nice he has her then.”

“Yeah, it is.” Briggs gives a huff of a laugh. “For him.”

Concern fills me. “You don’t like that they’re close?”

“No, I do. It’s just that I didn’t know how much of a pain in the ass it’d be having a brother. Nash tells her everything.”

Concern leaves me in low laughter. “I hear you in that. I always wanted a sibling—preferably a sister, not going to lie—and then I sort of got my wish. Dakota tells my mom a lot too.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Dakota?” Briggs nods and I explain, “His mom and mine were best friends from childhood. When I say childhood, I mean childhood. Like, pre-k friends.”

“That’s far back.”

I agree, “It is. Was. Willow—that’s Dakota’s mom. Anyway, she had him a couple years before Mom had me. We were raised together. We played and fought just like siblings. We’ve always been so close…”

“What happened?”

“They were coming home from a date one night with my parents. Nan had me and Dakota. Mom and Dad drove separately—” I choke on the words.

Even all these years later, there is pain in this story.

“Mom and Dad arrived to pick me up. But Dakota’s parents never did.

We learned not long after that they lost control of the car when a tire blew.

You’ve seen the roads around here, so you know that’s never a good thing.

” I finish quietly, “They drove into the lake and couldn’t get out… ”

“I’m sorry.” Briggs shifts his arm from the back of the sectional to my shoulders, tugging me into the warmth of his side.

“Nan wasn’t in a place to parent Dakota. She’d just lost her daughter and—” I sniffle, compose myself and continue, “Mom and Dad taking Dakota was natural. Then he just never left. He was always family, anyway.”

“I’m happy you all could be there for him. That he had you.”

My nose feels prickly with emotion. “I’m happy we have him.”

Briggs’ arm around me tightens in a gentle squeeze as we settle into silence. It doesn’t take long in the nook of his embrace to banish the sting of emotion in my nose and the salt from my eyes.

Dark, heavy clouds roll closer and there’s a heavy wet warmth to the air that tells me this one is going to be a big storm.

Through the patio screen, we hear the doorbell ring. Briggs stands. “That’s the pizza.”

I slip into the kitchen for plates as Briggs retrieves the pizza and we meet again outside.

I can’t take my eyes off the man as he moves.

A dark curl drops onto his forehead when he bends to place the box of pizza on the table.

He combs it back with thick fingers like he does before he puts his cowboy hat back on his head. Though there is no hat now.

“Have you always worn a cowboy hat?” Briggs nods and I admit, “I thought you were a bit of a poser when I first saw you.”

He raises one brow as he lowers to sit beside me, elbows on his knees even as his head is cocked to the side and angled to look back at me. “You did?”

I press my lips together and admit, “I did.”

“Why?”

“I heard you were this polished rich city boy, but there you were on horseback with scuffed boots and a faded cowboy hat.”

“That hat isn’t faded.”

“It’s not new.”

“No, it’s not new. It was my dad’s hat. My stepfather’s hat. He wore it all the time and when he died, Mom gave it to me.” He’s quiet for a moment, his eyes now on the darkening clouds. “It made me feel closer to him when I wore it. More like the man he was. The man I wanted to be one day.”

My heart clenches. “He’d be proud of the man you’ve become, Briggs. I know it.”

His eyes don’t move from the clouds for a long moment. He says nothing in response, but I’ve come to know him well enough to know that he’s feeling things right now. A lot of things.

Then the moment is broken when he reaches for the box of pizza, flipping the lid.

He plates me a slice, foregoing the plate for himself as he sits back with his own slice.

As we eat, we watch the clouds tumble in the sky, but there is no lightning, no thunder.

It’s as though the heavens just can’t bear to let it all out quite yet.

We eat our pizza and Briggs pours me a second glass of wine. All the while, the sky threatens a wild storm that never seems to come. When I finally give up on the storm, finishing my second glass of wine, I stand and tell him, “I’m going to go to bed. It was a long day and I’m exhausted.”

Briggs lifts the box of pizza. “Right. Uh.” He swipes his free hand through his hair. “Guess I’ll join you.”

I do my best to keep the blush from rising as I agree nonchalantly, “Sure.”