Page 38 of Caught Up In You (The Monroes 2)

He smiled in the darkness. “Brown.”

“And your hair?”

“Also brown. Basic and boring. Nothing too exciting.”

Without turning her head to face him, she brought up one hand and stroked over his stubbled jaw. “Nothing boring and basic about you, Braxton Monroe. I’m just envisioning what you look like. I needed to know.”

He never wanted those fingertips to stop touching him. “You have an image now?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

Her fingers slid over his mouth and Braxton stopped breathing. She. Was. Killing. Him.

“I have a beautiful image,” she whispered as she tucked her hand back into the blanket. “Can we stay here? Just a little longer.”

He’d stay here all night, holding her just like this, if that’s what she wanted. In response, he tucked her tighter against his side and kissed the top of her head.

A part of him regretted taking this semester off from the college to help with the resort. He could use that extra out to take his mind away from all that was going on. He needed to focus on something besides his worry for the success of his late sister’s dream and the new whirlwind that blew into town and left him breathless.

His lips were still tingling and he knew they wouldn’t stop anytime soon.

Braxton held Cora tighter, not quite ready to let the moment go. But he didn’t pursue her past any longer. If she ever wanted to open up, he just hoped she’d come to him. He hoped she’d trust him enough to let him in, to let him protect her from whatever it was she was afraid of.

And the fact he wanted to get in that deep with her was revealing. Clearly, he’d hit a stopping point in searching for something to fill that empty void in his life. Whatever the hell that meant was something he’d have to analyze later. Much later.

Chapter Eight

“You don’t like them?”

The hurt in Sophie’s tone had Braxton staring at Zach, waiting for his moronic brother to reassure his fiancée that the pamphlets she’d had printed—all four thousand of them—were beautiful and perfect for the image the resort wanted to portray.

“They’re just . . . so pink.”

Sophie rolled her eyes and snatched the glossy ad from Zach’s hand. “They’re geared toward women. And they’re not just pink. They’re champagne with a tone-on-tone pattern.”

Braxton reached across Zach’s kitchen table and grabbed one from the box. Indeed, they were, uh, champagne.

“I think they’re just what would attract women here,” Braxton stated.

Zach pushed away from the table, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. “Stop sucking up. We already fed you dinner.”

“If you’d think like a business owner trying to draw in women and not a grouch for once, you’d see that Sophie hit this dead-on.” Braxton turned the pamphlet toward Zach. “The picture of the house on the front i

n the center with the name above and hours and Web site below are simple, but it’s eye-catching the way the scrolling pattern frames it all.”

“And we already have the holiday fliers out, but these will be on display at the open house so people can take it with them.”

Zach glared across the table. “They’re fine. I’m just surprised. I wouldn’t have picked pink.”

“Champagne,” Sophie and Braxton stated at the same time. Sophie shot him a wink and a grin.

Throwing his arms in the air, Zach stood from the table. “You two win. I’m not arguing about shades of pink. If we have guests, then that’s all I care about.”

Sophie’s smile widened. “Actually, I already booked our first group this morning.”

Braxton sat up straighter in his chair. “You did?”

With an enthusiastic nod, Sophie said, “I did. A group of ladies from Charleston are coming for a retreat at the first of the year. They quilt or something. Anyway, one of them said they’d been searching the Savannah area and spotted our site.”

“Glad I got that site up and running last week,” Braxton stated.

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