Finding Peace Read online

  The fact she has no respect for their marriage vows makes her scum and even if he were single and available, I’d have a few choice words if he ever brought Belle home to us. She’s not welcome.

  He cherishes the ground Izzy walks on though. He always has. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell Belle could come between them, but that still doesn’t make her attempts okay.

  Drawn from my distraction with Belle, I slow my steps as I spot a jean clad ass poking up in front of the milk fridge. My dick twitches in my pants at the same moment my lip twitches at her swaying and barely there bouncing.

  It’s a good ass. Juicy, like a peach. It’s nice. Round. Looks solid. Grabbable. Bitable.

  Fuck. I need to get laid.

  I’m mentally fucking some poor blonde in the back of Jonah’s store. I bet that’s not what she came shopping for.

  But that blonde hair… it’s nice in its own right. It’s pretty. Long, almost reaching said round-grabbable-ass. It’s sleek and straight and I want to run my fingers through it like I would hold my hand under a slow trickle of water. To feel the way it flows over and through my fingers.

  Folding my arms across my chest and kicking my left ankle across in front of the right, I stand beside the bread display like a total fucking creeper and I watch the way the girl with the hot ass sways to her own inner tune.

  Best thing I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe ever.

  “Aiden.”

  I swing around, knocking loaves to the floor, barely stopping myself from grabbing my heart and then barely stopping myself from swearing when I realize it’s Belle calling me.

  Fuck. Off. Belle.

  I look back to The Ass, then I rock back on my heels, actually touching my chest this time when our eyes meet. I know those eyes.

  Blue like the ocean. Made up and smoky and beautiful.

  I take a step toward her at the same moment Belle’s spider hands clutch onto my arm and my whole body breaks out in goosebumps.

  Don’t fucking touch me.

  “Wait.” Belle pulls on my sleeve, but I ignore her and look back to The Ass to find her eyes still on me, but they look like she’s readying to split. I can’t let her go again. I haven’t seen her in months. I legitimately thought I must’ve dreamed her existence, it’s been so long since I last saw her - in this very store actually.

  I pull away from Belle at the same moment The Ass tears her eyes from mine. She snatches up a gallon of milk then takes off in the opposite direction away from Belle and me.

  “Wait.” I follow, grabbing her arm the way Belle grabbed mine, and she flinches the way I flinched from Belle.

  As though I were touching a hot poker, I snap my arms away and take a big step back, holding my hands up in surrender. I won’t hurt her. But her eyes look like they think I will.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I just wanted to say hey.”

  “S’okay.” She hugs the cold milk against her chest and studies my feet. She sure doesn’t look like it’s okay. She looks like I punched her grandma in the face. With a puppy.

  “I’m sorry. Truly. I just… do you remember? We met before. Sort of. Well not actually…” I trail off lamely when I remember we didn’t actually meet. What we did, a long time ago, was bump into each other, literally, our carts, and we stopped for a moment and talked about cereal.

  Lamest conversation ever, definitely not my best work and probably the very reason why I haven’t see her since. She’s probably been avoiding the idiot from Jonah’s.

  “I remember,” she mumbles quietly. My heart gallops in my chest. She remembers me.

  “Ah…”

  “Aiden.”

  Biting the inside of my mouth, beyond fucking pissed, I turn to Belle again, my eyes ready to strike her down where she stands. “What?” I snap, louder than I intended and causing both women to jump.

  “K. Bye.” The Ass walks away fast, mumbling her goodbyes. Shit!

  Belle, having recovered herself, walks up to me and stands entirely too close, peering up from under her unnaturally long lashes. “Have you seen--”

  “I gotta go.” I push past her, leaving the dropped bread on the floor and Izzy’s milk forgotten and I chase The Ass out of the store and onto the street.

  “Wait. Please.” I catch up to her as she nears the bakery near the end of the block and she stops on a dime, her shoulders coming up high, defensive. Fuck. Maybe I should just leave her the hell alone.

  She turns slowly, her silky hair swinging despite her slow movements and my mouth goes dry when she faces me again.

  She’s… different.

  Beautiful. Exotic even. Her skin is like cream and roses, her cheeks a pretty pink. Her eyes light blue like the Caribbean, so deep and fluid I want to actually dive right in.

  She has scars.

  Lots of scars, marring her face but not taking away from her beauty. They’re just… there. Part of her. They’re pink and white, healed a while ago, but definitely noticeable.

  I visually trace a long deep scar along her brow and down toward the outer corner of her eye, stretching across her temple and hiding in her hair. Another along her neck, along the side and again hiding in her hair. A few others, less noticeable but still there along her rosy cheek.

  I wonder what happened to her and I wince internally because I know they must have hurt. I don’t show my discomfort outwardly though. I’d hate for her to think I’m judging them.

  She wears those jeans, a second skin showing off her delectable derriere and cute wedges giving her an extra couple inches. She’s not short, maybe about my sister-in-law Kit’s height. Perhaps a tiny bit shorter once she takes the shoes off.

  She has perfectly perky handfuls proudly displayed upon her chest, begging me to bite them, although her modest top doesn’t actually show any skin.

  She’s wearing a completely modest, non-revealing outfit, covered almost top to toe, but somehow she makes it sexy. And the intrigue to want to see what’s under it all hurts my chest.

  She continues staring at me and I realize I’ve been staring, cataloging her, but not speaking. I’m such an idiot.

  “Hey.” I speak softly, actually fisting my hands in my pockets so I don’t reach out. I want to take her hand in mine. I’d love to feel the arch of her spine under my fingers. I’d die to smell her hair, or the warm pulse point of her throat. “What’s your name?”

  “Sarah,” she mumbles softly, then she sucks in her breath, slapping her hand over her mouth as though she regrets speaking.

  My head tilts on my shoulders, enquiring. I want to know what she’s thinking. What does she think of the meat head fighter chasing her down in the street? I take another step toward her, slowly closing the gap that she seems set on putting between us. “Sarah. That’s a pretty name.”

  “I have to go.”

  “No. Just wait a second.” I take another step forward but I stop when she steps back. She’s skittish and ready to run. “I’ve been wondering if I’d ever see you again.”

  She looks at me quizzically, as though I was speaking a foreign language. “You have?”

  “Definitely.”

  Damn, I’ve been thinking about her. I’ve been dreaming about her. I’ve been whacking off thinking about her pretty hair and juicy lips. “I feel like you must’ve been hiding and ducking for cover any time I was near. This ain’t a big town but I haven’t seen you.”

  Sarah shakes her head softly, her pretty hair floating around her shoulders with her movement and my eyes snap to the ends then back to her eyes. I’m finding it difficult to focus on any one thing. “I’ve been busy but I’ve been around. No ducking.”

  “I guess we keep missing each other then.”

  “Guess so.”

  “Do you wanna go out with me?”

  Her eyes snap up to mine in shock. “What?”

  I hesitate, swallowing down my nervousness. I didn’t intend to ask that. Or at least I didn’t intend on blurting it out so suddenly. But I do want to take her o
ut. She looks like she’d be a nice date and her banter over Cap’n crunch that time hasn’t been forgotten.

  “I’d like to take you out… On a date. To eat food.”

  “You’d like to take me out for food?” she asks, her lips twitching, fighting a smile and I feel my face turn warm.

  Fuck, sometimes I wish I was as outgoing as my brothers. It’s not that I’m shy, not really. Just more selective with who I talk with, and over time and out of practice, I guess I’ve forgotten how to be friendly. Everyone kind of thinks I’m a grump most of the time.

  “Yeah. I’d like to pick you up from your home one night and take you to a restaurant where we can eat food and tell each other our redeeming qualities.”

  “Only the redeeming ones?” she asks with that twitching lip again and I fight the urge not to lean down and bite it. I bet it tastes good.

  “Yeah, though I’ve been told I don’t have many, so you should probably bring topic cards or something.”

  She frowns, her scar actually moving with her brow as she steps toward me fractionally. “Who said you don’t have any redeeming qualities?”

  “My sisters… and my brothers,” I finish with a chuckle.

  “You have a lot?”

  “Yeah, a bunch, but we won’t talk now or we’ll run out of shit to talk about on our date,” I joke, stepping forward again, close enough now that I could touch her if I just lifted my hands a little. “Write ‘siblings’ on the topic cards. That’ll give me at least an hour of material.”

  Sarah’s wary eyes turn warm. “You’re kind of funny. I forgot about that.”

  “You think so?” Jesus. No one else does.

  “Yeah. I remember your whole ten-minute spiel on lucky charms. My d--” Despite finally seeming to relax, she snaps her mouth closed again without finishing her thought and I tilt my head the other way.

  She’s got me intrigued. Fuckin’ A, I want to know what’s in her head.

  “Your what?”

  “Nothing. I was thinking of something else, don’t worry about it.”

  Sarah is a walking contradiction. Or at least she is in my mind. She looks beautiful, like noticeable, magazine-cover beautiful. She has the platinum hair and striking eyes. Her body is bangin’. She’s not short but she’s not a giant either. Her ass sits really fucking good; makes me want to bite it.

  Her waist cinches in just so, giving her a beautiful womanly figure but in an athletic kind of way.

  She’s got all that going on, so much so she should be walking around with the corn festival tiara or some shit perched on her head and her hand waving like the Queen of England does, but instead she shuffles her feet and mumbles and seeks invisibility as soon as she gets a chance.

  It’s crazy.

  “So….” I let the word hang until her eyes meet mine again in question. “Dinner?”

  “Ah…” she winces. “I mean. I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “You,” she laughs softly, tucking her hair behind her ear, unconsciously exposing more of the scar on the side of her neck and I look as discreetly as I can. It goes a long way back.

  I have this insane urge to hug her, to ask what happened to her and end that things existence. What the hell happened to her?

  “Me?” I refocus, not wanting to waste a moment with her. “Well, you know I have siblings. You know what cereal I eat. You know I like the UFC.”

  Her pretty brow lifts curiously and I bite down on my own lip this time. “I do?”

  I pull my hand from my pocket and point at my hat, watching as her eyes track my moves. She nods in understanding then she watches my hand again as it digs back into my pocket.

  I’m so fuckin’ pleased to note she’s staring at my dick now, so I stay still and silent, waiting for her to get her fill, meanwhile trying to think of things other than her so’s not to fill out my pants and embarrass myself.

  I wouldn’t mind filling her out.

  Shit. That didn’t help.

  Sarah’s eyes snap back to mine, her cheeks filled and pink, not helping my pants situation at all and I find myself shuffling my own feet. Shit.

  It’s like I’ve completely forgotten how to talk to anyone that’s not related to me.

  “K, anyway, dinner, you wanna?”

  She smiles softly, shrugging her delicate shoulder. “Okay.”

  Two

  Tina

  Sly Grins

  Present Day – March 2016

  I dial Kit’s house, sighing and drowning in disappointment because I have no other option. I have to make this call. Evie is sick. I have no choice, but I still feel the disappointment wash over me for having to cancel tonight’s date.

  I finally found the hot guy from the store again – well, he found me – then we awkwardly organized a date, but now I have to cancel at the eleventh hour.

  It just sucks.

  I listen to the dial tone, wishing things could be different, daydreaming about what could have been had he and I gotten the chance to dress up and eat fancy food together. I know he’d have been an awesome date. He’s funny and witty, and handsome as hell. The line connects on Kit’s end and I come crashing back down to earth.

  This sucks.

  “Hello, Kincaid residence.”

  “Oh hey, this is Tina. Is this Bobby?”

  “Hey Tina, ah, no. This is Aiden, Bobby’s brother.”

  “Oh--” My god.

  “I talked to you before. At the wedding…”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Lawd, do I remember.

  I remember the elusive, mysterious, reportedly sexy as hell Aiden Kincaid with the deep raspy voice and the self-proclaimed crush on my daughter. I swoon every time I think of the charming man on the other end of the phone.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m good,” he answers softly. His voice is like a warm hug and I roll my eyes at my ridiculousness. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah… It has…”

  I have no clue what to say next. I legitimately don’t know him. We awkwardly stay silent, listening to the other breathe for a minute and I argue with myself about what funny thing I could say, something to have the sexy voice smile for me.

  “So…”

  Nope. I’ve got nothing. “Yeah. Listen, is Kit th--”

  “Is it weird that you and I have never met?”

  I smile at my phone even as I touch my stomach and my heart thumps in my chest. I don’t know why just a phone conversation with this man makes me nervous, but it does. I felt the tingles in my belly last time we spoke too.

  But then I remember my disappointment and the reason I called – to cancel Kit’s babysitting services, for a date with a man that is not the man currently giving me tummy tingles.

  I’m a mess. A mess that hasn’t been laid in… I don’t even know. I do the math in my head. Two years? More.

  I nod even though he can’t see me. “It is a little weird we keep missing each other.”

  “I guess you’ve been ducking.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I stammer awkwardly, totally off kilter and not knowing why my stomach jumps for this man. “Anyway. Is Kit there?” I need to get away from him before I ask for a FaceTime chat.

  “Yeah, she is,” he chuckles throatily. “She’s hitting me because she knows it’s you and she wants the phone.”

  I realize as I listen carefully, that I can actually hear them scuffling around on their end.

  Then I realize his deep chuckle is sexy as hell.

  Stopppppp.

  “Hey Tina!” Kit takes the phone, greeting me excitedly, then I hear a deep grunt in the background and I smile because I know she hit Aiden again. “Get lost,” she says away from the phone.

  “I wasn’t done talking!”

  Smiling, I sit on my couch beside my still sick baby as she cuddles up to puppy and watches Disney, and I listen to one of my best friends argue with her husband’s brother.

  “Perhaps you should call her on your own
time,” Kit teases him. “She’s single.”

  “Kit!” I shout down the line, feeling my face burn with humiliation. It may technically be true, but still. Don’t tell the sexy Kincaid that. I’m not desperate. I had a date for tonight at least.

  “What?” Kit asks, coming back to the phone and I sigh.

  “Don’t tell him that.”

  “Why not? It’s true. And he’s single too,” Kit says with a teasing smile in her voice, then I hear Aiden grumbling and walking away.

  “Whatever,” she says away from the phone, then she comes back to me. “I think I annoyed him.” She doesn’t sound worried. Just stating a fact.

  “Well perhaps you should stop telling everyone about everyone else’s dating status? It’s embarrassing.”

  “Why’s it embarrassing? It’s true.”

  “Shut up. Just because you’re married and happy and shit.”

  “This is true. I married the best one. The others are just… sub-par,” she finishes, but with a giggle, telling me ‘the others’ are still within listening distance.

  “You’re mean.”

  “And you’re wasting time. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your date?”

  At least she mentioned the date; hopefully certain other single men in that house heard and won’t think I’m a total loser.

  “Yeah, I have to cancel. Evie’s sick.”

  Kit’s cheerful, trouble making demeanor turns concerned instantly. “Oh no, is she okay?”

  “She’s vomiting a lot. She’s miserable.”

  “Oh, sweet baby. I can come to your house and sit with her if you want? You don’t have to cancel.”

  “No, it’s okay. She wants me so I’ll just cancel and maybe he’ll ask me for another time.” Although cancel isn’t the right word because I don’t actually have his number or a way to contact him.

  We just planned a place and time and decided we’d meet there. Sexy Store guy is going to be stood up tonight. I sigh out loud, hating that I’ll be doing that to him. I feel awful.

  “You sound sad, babe.”

  “I kinda am,” I tell her, but I chuckle nervously. “I was looking forward to it.”

  Although this might be a good thing. I can’t believe I told him my name was Sarah! I haven’t said that name is a long, long time. No one here knows me by that name, but for some strange reason, I told the sexy stranger my birth name, the name I’ve been hiding from for so long.