Page 6 of Tiny Precious Secrets (The Brothers of Calloway Creek The Montanas #4)

Allie

I wipe my eyes and answer the door to find Mom standing there, looking all tan and much younger than her years.

She’s wearing a two-piece bathing suit, the bottoms covered by a pair of sheer lounge pants.

Her hair is escaping a tangled bun, an indicator of just how windy it is outside. She looks really pretty.

Everyone says I look like my mom. I hope that means I’ll also look a decade younger when I’m in my fifties.

“Those kids are going to run me ragged,” she says, stepping over the threshold while searching through her bag, for a hairbrush most likely. “I just dropped them off with Blake for a few hours so I could come check on you and—”

She finally looks up at me, and her head tilts as she studies my face. Her eyes soften as she runs a finger down my cheek. “You’ve been crying.” She looks over at Mitchell, who’s lying in his bouncy seat. “Bad day?” Taking my hand, she pulls me toward the couch. “Come sit.”

She doesn’t have to ask why I’m having a bad day, and I don’t tell her.

She knows. She’s one of a select few people who know what being around Mitchell does to my heart.

That it both expands and breaks at the very same time.

That it makes me want to laugh yet scream.

That being around any baby solidifies my stance to never become anything but a doting aunt.

“Why don’t I take him and let you get some rest?”

“I’m fine, Mom. And I don’t need rest. I just had a nap.” I glance outside. “Which is why I was crying.”

“Oh, honey, were you dreaming of him?”

I nod.

She squeezes my hand. “I know it’s not the same, not even close, but to this day I still sometimes dream about the baby I lost before I got pregnant with you.”

I nuzzle into her shoulder. “You never told me that. I mean, I knew about the miscarriage, but not that you had dreams.”

“After what you went through, I didn’t think it was fair to bring it up. There’s just no comparing our experiences.”

“What are your dreams?”

“Mostly about you having an older sister. Maybe that’s what I mourn the most. The boys all had each other, but you never got to have that special bond.”

“I had you ,” I say, looking up at her. “And I’m lucky to have three brothers I get along with so well.”

She smiles. “So, what are your plans for the rest of the day?” She must see a certain look in my eyes, because her smile becomes brighter.

“Oh, right. Today is the day Asher and Bug arrive.” She hops off the couch and starts gathering Mitchell’s things.

“You’ll want to shower and shave and primp and all that. ”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

Mom stops folding the portable bassinet. “You are happy he’s coming, aren’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Allie, we don’t talk about it much, mostly because you seem to change the subject every time I ask, but what exactly is Asher to you? Is he a… phase? Or are you thinking long term?”

I can’t tell which answer would please her more.

She’s been aware of Asher and me hooking up since the beginning.

I mean, I do live in her house, and she did catch him doing the walk of shame that first time.

And even though we never talk details, she knows about my monthly-ish visits to Manhattan.

Sometimes I wonder if it bothers her that he’s so much older.

Strangely, it doesn’t seem to bother my brothers.

Then again, maybe none of them believe anything will ever come of it. And they’d be right.

“He has a kid. They live in Florida. We don’t talk about things like that.”

Her head cocks. “You’ve been together over a year and you’ve never talked about your relationship?”

“We’re not in a relationship, Mom.”

Her gaze scolds me. “Honey, you drop everything and run to the city every time he’s there.

Sure, we don’t speak of him much, but whenever you say his name, there’s a certain twinkle in your eyes.

And, Allie, when he visits Calloway Creek with Bug and I see him look at you from across the room…

Anyone can see what you have is a relationship. ”

“So we’re hot for each other.”

“I think it’s more than that.” She shakes her head as she stuffs burp rags into Mitchell’s diaper bag. “You young people. You never want to define your relationships. Things were different when your dad and I met. You had a boyfriend or you didn’t. There was none of this in-between stuff.”

I laugh. “You led a sheltered life, Mom. I hate to break it to you, but people have been doing the friends-with-benefits thing for hundreds of years.”

“Friends.” She gives me a sharp stare. “ That’s what you are? Come on.”

I shrug, not wanting to get into this with her again.

As close as we are, I do not want to have another conversation with her about me and guys.

She obviously wants me to be happy, and she thinks I need to be married to accomplish that.

But she should know better. She should know there’s a part of me that can never be happy.

She picks Mitchell up, resting him against her shoulder, and grabs the diaper bag. “Can you help me bring his things over to our bungalow?”

I get the bassinet and bouncy chair, then remember the other bottle in the fridge, and follow her out the door and across a courtyard to their palatial rental that’s five times as big as mine.

It makes me wonder where Asher and Bug will be staying.

I know some wedding guests will be down at the main building of the hotel.

It’s where my friends Ren and Addy are staying, along with their husbands and kids.

Most of the Calloways are making the trip here.

They’re our cousins, and our families have always been close.

We pass the large stairway that leads down to the restaurants, bars, and pools in the center of the massive hotel complex.

I can almost see Asher climbing the stairs, maybe even taking two at a time in his excitement to get to me.

After the videos, I know we’re both chomping at the bit to see what’s next.

“Allie?”

I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking and am staring at the steps.

“What? Yeah, coming.”

After leaving Mom and Mitchell at her place and returning to my own, I get a call from Mia.

“Has the sex god arrived?”

I laugh. She’s the only one I talk about Asher with. My other friends ask about him often, but it’s hard for them to understand why I like things the way they are. Mia knows. She knows about all of it. Jason. Christopher. My aversion to anything permanent. “Not yet.”

“I’m going to need details. I’m seriously suffering from FOMO here, Allie.”

“You could have come, you know.”

“Ha! A Cruz at a Montana wedding?”

“Dallas has nothing against you.”

“Still, it would have been weird. But I want pictures. Do you have your dress yet? I’ll bet the sex god is going to flip out when he sees you in it.”

A smile creeps up my face. We have picked up the bridesmaid dresses.

And I do believe Mia is correct and Asher might just want to tear it right off me when he sees me up there.

If the plunging neckline doesn’t do the trick, the amount of thigh that’ll be showing through the long slit up the side ought to do it.

Bug’s dress is like mine—a blue-green shade that matches the sea—minus the sexy neckline and thigh-revealing slit.

It’s going to be strange, Bug and me standing up next to Marti as her two attendants.

Marti didn’t have many friends before coming to Cal Creek.

Since her move, we’ve gotten close. And Bug is her niece.

It only made sense that we’d be standing up with her at what will be a small, intimate ceremony.

Still, it will be a bit awkward being right next to Asher’s daughter—the kid who hates me because she thinks I’m stealing her dad’s attention.

Sometimes I wonder if it would make things better or worse if I told her this is nothing more than a long-term fling. Would she be relieved that I’m not going to be a permanent fixture in their lives? Or would she be pissed that I’m using her dad to satisfy an itch?

“Allie?”

“Sorry. Still here. Yes, I’ll send pictures.”

“And you’ll call me tomorrow? You know, after whatever happens with the sex god. I’m dying to know how he’s going to top the video thing.”

I laugh. “Yes, Mia, I’ll call you tomorrow. Sorry, no pictures of that.”

She huffs a pout. “I still say as your best friend I should get to watch the videos. It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked, girl.” She pauses. “Or maybe you’re being a bit territorial about the sex god?”

“Will you quit calling him that?”

“You’re the one who started it, way back when. If I recall, you texted me those exact words the morning after you first hooked up.”

“Yeah, but you’ve said it like a hundred times in the past few minutes. It’s weird.”

I hear someone shouting at her in the background, something about towing a car. She must be at work. She and her brothers own an auto repair shop. I kind of love that about her. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and that makes her one badass chick.

“Hey, I gotta go. Tomorrow!”

“Okay, okay. I promise I’ll call you in the morning.”

She ends the call, and I’m left staring down at the bay, searching for more stingrays, wondering if Asher is making plans to ‘top’ the videos. Or maybe I’m not wondering at all. Maybe I’m hoping .

I toss my phone onto the couch and pull out the outfit I may have shopped way too long and carefully to find yesterday.

The outfit I plan to wear when Asher arrives.

The one that will show my tanned legs when I’m sitting nonchalantly at the hotel bar hoping to be noticed.

The one I hope he tears off me when he does god-knows-what to me after sneaking into my bungalow.

I stop myself right there. Because I’m getting too excited. There’s nothing different about this time. It’s the same as all the others.

I glance out the window knowing it’s not. This one is happening in paradise. In a place people come to get married. A place where people fall in love.

Closing my eyes, I sigh, once again trying to push away the feeling that niggles my insides. The one that presses against my heart as if knocking on a door to try and get inside. Because I know I’ll never, ever , open it.