Page 21 of Wanting Happily Ever After

She melted into the feel of him and at once felt stronger just for his presence.

“It’s okay to be stressed about this, you know? It’s a big deal. It might not be an easy day.” He kissed her on the top of her head and smiled. “But I’m here for it. I’m here for you, Sarah. It’ll be okay and I’m willing to bet that we’re actually going to have a good time.”

Something about the way he said it actually made her believe it. She nodded a little but before she could respond, Rory ran into the room and Sarah took an instinctive step away from Brody.

“We’re going to the beach!” She screeched in that high-pitched way that little girls had and spun in a dramatic circle, showing off her outfit.

“Wow.” Sarah pulled out of Brody’s arms and held her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing. “You sure look ready.”

“Right?” Rory spun again. “Do you like it?”

She wore a sunshine-yellow one-piece swimsuit with large purple polka dots adorning it. It was perfectly bright and ridiculous. On her head was a floppy straw hat and oversized white sunglasses.

“Where did you get all that?” Sarah shook her head as she asked the question she already knew the answer to.

“Auntie Nicole! Do you like it?” She spun yet again, her little arms out at her side as she did so.

“I love it.” Sarah pulled her into a quick hug before handing her the bag of sand toys. “Let’s get going before I change my mind.”

She realized her mistake as soon as the words came out of her mouth.

“Why would you change your mind, Mommy?” Rory looked at her with such innocence it threatened to break her heart. “I’ve always wanted to go to the beach.”

Sarah stared at her daughter and smiled. Itwasgoing to be a hard day. But it was also going to be a good one.

“You’re going to have a great time,” she said and looked to Brody. “It’s going to be a good day.”

Brody winked in support. “Damn right it will.”

As Rory bent down to gather up the towels in her arms, Brody caught Sarah’s gaze again, and mouthed the words, “I got you.”

Her stomach flipped a little, and Sarah couldn’t help but hope like hell that he was right.

It had taken most of the day, but Brody was happy to see that Sarah had finally started to relax at the lake. It helped that so many of her friends had come out to share the day with her. They occupied a decent chunk of the beach and the grassy area that sat under the giant leafy trees. Brody recognized most of the faces, but there were a few new ones, too.

All around him, people were swimming, building sandcastles, reading, sleeping, and even playing a particularly cutthroat game of beach volleyball.

From his spot on their blanket, Brody glanced across the crowd to see Sarah and Rory building a sandcastle with Katie. He couldn’t help but notice that they’d set up farther away from the water’s edge than he would have thought practical. Katie was making all the trips with the bucket to collect water, but it looked as if both Sarah and Rory were having a good time. And that was really all that mattered.

Now, knowing what he knew about what had happened the last time Sarah and Rory had been to the beach, he was a little more sensitive with her. Okay, a lot more. She had some hard memories to deal with, that much was for sure, but he was determined to change that for her. At least in a small way.

Brody looked past them to where his chef Amy was lying on a blanket, quite closely, to Sarah’s sister-in-law. He couldn’t help but smile. Amy hadn’t been very forthright about their relationship, but there was no denying that something was going on between them. The way they each leaned up on an elbow, looking at the other, it was pretty clear that whatever was going on between them was stronger than a simple friendship.

Maybe love was really in the air.

He thought again to his kiss the other night with Sarah. Nothing about that night had been planned. Hell, nothing with Sarah had been planned.

Sarah herself hadn’t been planned.

And it definitely hadn’t been part of the plan for Sarah to confess the secret that had been weighing on her for five years, let alone the admission that she was fully prepared to deny herself the happiness that she deserved as some sort of misguided punishment for it.

He’d be patient with her. He had no other choice. Especially now that he knew that she had feelings for him too. As screwed up as it all was, there would be time to figure it all out. Besides, he’d waited this long to have a relationship; he could wait a little longer. Brody had never considered having an actual relationship before, not in any serious way. It’s not that he was a player who didn’t want to settle down, not at all. It was more that he’d had other priorities. And those priorities hadn’t changed when he moved to Glacier Falls and bought Birchwood. If anything, they’d only grown more important. He’d invested every single cent he’d saved into that restaurant. He had to make it work. There was no back-up plan. A relationship was even less on the radar than before.

Then he’d met Sarah and Rory.

He wasn’t sure who’d stolen his heart first, but when he’d seen them in the park next to the waterfall in town, kicking a soccer ball back and forth in the newly fallen snow, something had shifted. He’d gone over to join them; after all, he was new to town, and he didn’t know, maybe playing soccer in the snow was a thing in Glacier Falls. Rory had agreed right away to let him play with them, but Sarah had been a little more hesitant, as a good mom should be. After all, he was a complete stranger. Somehow he’d convinced her that he was harmless, and when Rory, who’d readily confessed that she’d only recently decided to be a professional soccer player, heard that he used to play with his high school team, Sarah didn’t have much choice than to let him play with them.

Over the next few weeks of seeing them around town, and discovering that they had some mutual friends, things between them started to develop too. Into a friendship, obviously. But a strong one. And somewhere along the line, his feelings started to change. It had happened slowly, probably because it was the last thing he’d been looking for. He never had a great role model for relationships growing up, and it was just never a priority. After all, why would you want to get involved with someone who you fought with all the time, like his parents? But with Sarah, it was different. They had fun together and laughed and played. They complemented each other. And even before the other night, Brody honestly couldn’t imagine his life without her daily text messages, quick chats on the phone, and shared dinners.

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