Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology Read online

  “Not as much as I love you. I’ll be home late, don’t wait up.”

  “Only if you promise to wake me up when you get in.” She squeaked as his hand slid around to cup her bottom, his fingers teasing between her cheeks.

  “I promise to wake you up with dirty demands every night for the rest of your life, my beautiful wife.”

  When she roused again, he was long gone and her legs rubbed restlessly against each other. She blushed at the heat that instantly bloomed as she thought of Rafe’s hands on her. She’d been so nervous when he’d proposed—yes, she felt things for him that she’d only read about in romance novels, and it felt like the real deal, but marriage? And a move, way up north?

  She’d been working at Starbucks, it wasn’t like she’d left behind a major career, but six months earlier she hadn’t even known this man and now she was completely dependent on him. It wasn’t a permanent situation, this housewife business. She was looking for a job, but with her limited resume, she wasn’t qualified for much.

  And yet…they were making it work. And much of the time, just making it. Which definitely worked for her. Her husband was walking sex dipped in sugar.

  A knock at the door interrupted her horny reflection. When it repeated a minute later, she dragged herself out of bed. Who would want to see her at eight in the morning? She was halfway across their small apartment before she realized there was only one possible answer. A quick glance at her bare legs peeking out from underneath one of Rafe’s green army shirts had her turning around—she needed to be wearing her own pyjamas, buttoned from tip to toe, before she opened the door.

  “Anne, what a pleasure!” she said twenty-five seconds later, quite out of breath as she gestured to their thankfully tidy sitting area. “Come in!”

  In the two months they’d been in Pine Harbour, they’d had dinner at Rafe’s parents’ place every Sunday night he wasn’t working—seven long meals that hadn’t given her any insight into how to win over this woman. The rest of his loud, loving family was a different story. She’d bonded right away with Rafe’s nineteen-year-old baby sister, Dani, and his brothers were all awesome. Even his dad seemed to like her. But Anne Minelli had proved a tough nut to crack.

  “Rafe is at work, I’m afraid.”

  “I know, I came to see you.”

  “Me?”

  “I understand you’ve been circulating your résumé around town.”

  “Yes, I’d like to find a job.”

  “You didn’t apply with me.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I own a cafe and a catering company. You’re a waitress. Is there a reason you don’t want to work for me?”

  Olivia could think of at least two primo reasons right off the top of her head, but instead she shook her head. “Of course not, I just didn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

  “I’m a professional, Olivia. You have nothing to fear in that regard.”

  “Well….” There was no good way to decline the offer. Crap. “Of course, I’d be honoured if you’d consider me for a wait staff position.”

  “This will be a good thing, dear. Give us a chance to get to know each other better, and if you both have jobs, it’s easier to get a mortgage.”

  Olivia’s scalp prickled with new understanding. “We’re not in a hurry to buy a house,” she said tentatively, feeling out the other woman. Watching her carefully for any clue that she was on the right track.

  Anne pulled her lips together tight and glanced around. They’d done their best to make the rental unit a little home. It didn’t look temporary. And until five minutes ago, Olivia had been quite proud of it. “You’re not happy here?”

  “Here?” No way was she offering any new information.

  “In Pine Harbour.” Her mother-in-law’s face settled into a mask. Clue-time was over, but Olivia had more information than she’d had before the day started, so that was something.

  “Of course we’re happy here.” She leaned forward and smiled. “Rafe and I will probably be house-hunting in the spring. We’d love your help.”

  * * *

  — —

  * * *

  “You told her she could help us find a house?”

  “It was a trap, what else could I say?” She buried her face in Rafe’s chest. He’d come to bed naked and instead of sex, he’d gotten an earful about his mother. Really, it was his own fault for moving Olivia to his hometown.

  “I’m sorry she came over.”

  She rolled away from him, stretching out on her back. “It’s okay. I need to build a better relationship with her. At some point she’ll be my kids’ grandmother. Can’t have her bad mouthing me behind my back.”

  Even in the dark, she caught the feral grin caused by her words. “Kids?”

  “Eventually.”

  He slid his hand over her belly—her still flat, unmarked, youthful belly. That he wanted to fill with babies. A smile twisted at her lips as he teased his fingers around her navel, then dipped lower, under the waistband of her panties. “You’ll be so beautiful pregnant.”

  This was a dangerous game to play, one that made her want to flush her pills down the toilet and take a leap of faith. But even though they were married, they were still just getting to know each other. They weren’t ready, no matter how hot this conversation made them both. It did, though, and she couldn’t resist playing. “You like that idea? Filling me up?”

  He groaned and took her mouth, hard and fast, at the same time as he floated his fingers over her sex. She opened for him in every way, kissing him and lifting her hips, moaning as he found her soaking wet. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled their bodies together as he shoved her underwear down her legs. He took her hard and fast, neither of them needing any more foreplay than the whispered words and lingering image of conceiving a child together.

  They surged as one, her legs riding high on his waist as he braced his arms on either side of her face. He held each thrust deep inside her, and she wondered how he knew just how perfect that felt. “Ohmygodohmygod,” she chanted as he rocked over that spot again and again, sending her rapidly in the direction of a screaming hot orgasm. “Come with me, Rafe. Come in me.”

  He lost it at those three words, as he always did, and she exploded around him. He pistoned his hips against her bottom, his hands tangling in her hair as he joined her.

  The crisp, curly hair on his legs slid roughly against the sweat-slicked backs of her thighs as she collapsed beneath him, her limbs heavy with satisfaction. “God, that was…intense.”

  He mumbled something into her neck about a wash cloth, and she pushed him over, leaving a loving kiss on his arm as she scrambled out of bed and hopped to the bathroom. “You know condoms would be less messy, right?”

  “But not nearly as hot.”

  “The post-sex crab walk is anything but hot.”

  “I offered to clean up,” he protested lamely.

  She shut the door, did her business, then ran a clean washcloth under the hot water tap before sauntering back to bed. She handed it over and curled up into his side with a yawn. “You cleaning me up usually leads to a second round of sex.”

  He kissed her brow. “You saved us from that awful fate?”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” she mumbled, and he said something else with a low, rumbly laugh, but she didn’t hear it because sleep had already tugged its all-encompassing warmth over her head.

  * * *

  — —

  * * *

  It was never good when Liv came home from work and slammed the door. She’d been working for his mother for a couple of months and he’d come to understand a lot about how her day had gone from how she came home. She dumped her purse on one of the piles of moving boxes, kicked her boots on to the mat beside the door, and stomped into the kitchen.

  “Long day?”

  She shot him a grumpy look over her shoulder as she filled the kettle at the sink. “Your mother is something else.”

  “Sorry.”r />
  “You don’t need to be sorry, it wasn’t your stupid idea that I go work for her. That’s all on me.”

  Something about that didn’t quite feel right, but he couldn’t sort out what. He’d told her over and over again that she didn’t need to work. He made decent money, and after a few years on the force, his salary would be more than enough to support a family. Until then, he supplemented with his army reserve duty. They were fine. But Liv wanted to work, and in Pine Harbour, her options were limited. And while she was happy to talk about babies in the abstract, she kept taking her pills religiously.

  He wasn’t in a hurry to start a family, exactly, but it was on his mind. Maybe it was because he was three years older than her. Or that he came from a large family himself. Liv had a sister, who lived in Vancouver, and her parents were divorced and living at opposite ends of the province. None of them were close. Whereas even though Rafe’s two younger siblings were at school in cities further south, they came home at least once a month for a family dinner. Speaking of which…

  “Dani and Tom are going to be home this weekend. Ma wants to do a big dinner—“

  “On Sunday, I know, she told me today.” Liv ripped a tea bag out of a cardboard box then jerked the cupboard open, looking for a mug. He said a small prayer of thanks that he’d thought to do the dishes before she got home. At least their new place would have a dishwasher. And a backyard, which would be nice in the summer. It had been a long winter stuck in a tiny apartment together. Getting used to living together.

  Even though he was twenty-five, he’d lived at home until he went south to for the three-month long Police College course after he was hired on to the OPP. As long as they paid nominal rent, his parents didn’t say a word about any of their grown children coming and going. So this had been his first real home of his own, a fact that Liv found shocking. Even though she was only twenty-two, she’d lived on her own since she was eighteen.

  Their differences made conversations like this a challenge for Rafe. If she was mad at him, why didn’t she just yell at him? Tell him he was a fuckwad and how he could fix it? That’s what his family would do. Well, his mother wouldn’t say fuckwad. She’d call him an idiot.

  “Hey, Ma hasn’t said anything inappropriate to you, has she?” He was grasping at straws and he knew it.

  Liv shot him a you totally don’t get it look. No shit. “No.”

  “You want to tell me how I can make this better?”

  “Make what better?”

  “You’re in a bad mood.”

  “Yeah, sometimes that happens.”

  But it didn’t feel the same as when he had a bad day at work. Because when she rubbed his shoulders and kissed his head, it made it all better. And the closer he got to her as she simmered with undefined rage, waiting for the kettle to boil, the worse her mood seemed to get.

  “I just need some space, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” But the week before she’d told him how much she missed him now that they were often working opposite shifts. Space seemed like the wrong thing, even if it was what she asked for. He hovered in the kitchen door for a minute, then returned to packing up the living room for the move.

  She came and found him after half an hour and tugged him to bed. Four months into their marriage and this was still amazing to him, how much they continued to want each other—and how different it was than anything he’d had with women in the past.

  She shoved his t-shirt up, splaying her small hands across his midsection and his dick jerked to attention. Her touch undid him every single time. “Liv,” he said, his voice rough with desire. “We should talk.”

  “Nothing to talk about,” she breathed, sliding her hands north to circle his nipples, then higher still until he got the message and pulled his shirt off entirely. “I need you. I need this, us together. I need to feel your love for me.”

  He watched as she lost her own shirt, then tugged her hair out of its ponytail. He slid his hands through her silky waves then lifted her effortlessly into his arms. “I love you with all of me. Not just my body. I love talking to you, baby, and I want to know about your shitty fucking day. Don’t shut me out.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t want to talk about it. I want…” She wiggled in his arms and sighed as his mouth found the valley between her breasts. He breathed in the scent of her skin. Faint remnants of baby powder deodorant and a fruity body wash teased his nose, but mostly he just smelled her. His wife.

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “I am. Right now, with you…this is perfect.”

  * * *

  — —

  * * *

  “Master Corporal Minelli, do you have a minute?”

  Captain Jacobson strode toward him across the parade square and he stood at attention. “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s an opportunity we’d like to put your name forward for, if you can get time off work.”

  “What sort of opportunity?”

  “Dubai. Training, short contract. Thirty-three brigade has given up a spot and we can nab it if we’re quick.”

  The provincial police force was supportive of reserve military service, but tours of duty were more tricky to accommodate. “When?”

  “Go see the RSM, he’ll get all the details for you.”

  An overseas tour was something any soldier wanted, reg force and reservist alike. Rafe hadn’t had a chance before he joined the police force, and he wasn’t sure when or if another short contract would be offered to him. He’d find a way to get the time off.

  “And if your wife needs support while you’re away, the regular provisions would be made, of course.” The captain clapped him on the shoulder and moved on, leaving Rafe standing there, reeling. It wasn’t just his decision any longer.

  She was fast asleep when he got home. He tucked into bed with her, spooning her from behind. She made some welcome home noises, and he kissed the back of her neck. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered as she wound her arm backwards around his waist.

  Jesus, she was going to be pissed at him.

  The next morning he got up extra early and made her favourite coffee. They were moving in two days, but the coffee machine would be the last thing packed and the first to come out of the boxes. Outside it was a cold early March morning, still dark, and he had no idea how she’d take the news.

  Thirty minutes later, she sat and stared at him for just about as long as he’d expected, her face unreadable. “Is it dangerous?”

  He shook his head. “No more dangerous than any other business travel to the Middle East.”

  “And you won’t have to go to Afghanistan?”

  “No. But I would—if something freaky happened, another large-scale terrorist attack or something. I won’t lie to you about that. I’m a soldier, Liv, that’s my job. I’m not afraid of doing it.”

  She tilted her head to the side and stared off into the distance. “I’ll miss you,” she said, her voice small and light. Like the words could float away if he didn’t grab on to them.

  “It’s just three months. Ninety days.” The same amount of time he was at Police College and it took them to go from meeting to marriage. A blink of an eye.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  She offered a small, sad smile. “I’m not going to hold you back from your dreams.”

  “Will you stay here?”

  Her head jerked back. “Of course.”

  “I just meant, if you want to go back to London, stay with friends or something.”

  “No, this is my home now. Besides, your mother would have a fit if I quit for three months to go party while her son was off at war.”

  “I don’t want you to be lonely.”

  “That’s a given.” She shrugged. “I’ll manage. Maybe I’ll decorate this place while you’re gone. When do you leave?”

  “Not until June.”

  “Then let’s make the most of the spring together, yes?”

  Yes. The tightness in his chest
eased. It was going to be okay.

  Chapter 6

  Present day

  THE thought of going to a bush party would have made Olivia’s heart ache a few weeks earlier. She’d loved them when she first came north. That first summer, while Rafe was in Dubai, his siblings and friends made sure she was invited to everything. Bonfires, beach parties, barbecues…even though she’d missed him like crazy, that summer had a lovely side effect of Olivia finding her new Pine Harbour self. Sort of. Enough of an identity that she didn’t turn tail and run while he was gone. It had taken another five years for her to find something professional to get excited about.

  She refused to think it was sad that her excitement was so high over a six month, part-time gig where she basically waited for a phone call to go take a picture of something. It was still more fascinating than anything she’d done in her life to date. And worthy of celebrating. So when Lynn Howard texted and invited her to a bonfire at Scott Turner’s farm on Saturday evening, it didn’t take long for her to accept.

  For the first time in two years she didn’t feel like she was just barely hanging on—to her independence, a livelihood, or her sense of self. She was going to celebrate. That Rafe might be there, and she knew it would be okay if he was…that was the icing on the cupcake. It might even be nice now that they’d had a bit more closure. Sure, his visit had been bittersweet and kissing him had probably been a mistake, but she hadn’t woken up in a tizzy over it all week. She’d been too busy. This would be a good test. Now that she had a second job, one that she was super excited about, maybe Rafe wouldn’t have the same effect on her.