Made For Loving You

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

“Can you see my baby bump?”

Paisley Parish dutifully looked as her best friend turned sideways and smoothed her sweater over her rounded midsection. “Yes. Although, to be fair, you’ve been showing for a month.”

Emerson grimaced. “I’ve looked fat for a month. I’m trying to figure out if I look pregnant.”

Smirking, Paisley sipped at a mug of tea. “I mean, the regular announcements to all and sundry by your very hot, younger husband kinda took care of that for you.” She’d never seen anybody more excited to be a father than Caleb Romero. His enthusiasm and absolute devotion to her friend was the stuff of romance novels. Paisley would know, as she wrote them for a living. The whole thing did her heart good.

Emerson rolled her eyes, but adoration was clear in the gesture. “He’s so very proud of his virility.”

“And you’re crying so hard about everyone knowing that sexy, unicorn of a firefighter is yours.”

Color pinked Emerson’s cheeks as she offered a sheepish grin. “I mean… you’ve seen him.”

“I have indeed,” Paisley grinned back. “And if he hadn’t been in love with you all this time, I’d have pursued him myself. Alas, he only ever had eyes for you.”

Watching Emerson and Caleb dance around each other for years had been like the longest running will-they-won’t-they romance plot in a favorite TV series. But unlike a show, Paisley had the option to call the protagonists out when they were being idiots. As a devout romance lover, she prided herself on intervening only when absolutely necessary—which she had when Emerson had lost her damned mind, letting fear get the best of her and walking away from the best thing to ever happen to her. They’d toasted Paisley at their wedding, and she was angling to have Baby Romero named after her in tribute. If her own love life was a hot mess, at least someone she loved was getting a happily ever after.

Emerson slid onto the other barstool at her kitchen counter with her own mug of tea. “Speaking of love and romance, how was Ivy and Harrison’s wedding?”

And that just turned Paisley’s mind to the precise hot mess she was trying valiantly not to obsess over. She’d recently attended the wedding of another writer friend and had her world turned upside down.

“The wedding was beautiful.”

“You say that like the reception was not. Did something happen?”

She’d been sitting on this for nearly two weeks, and the not talking about it wasn’t helping. Might as well come clean. “You could say that.” She fixed her gaze on the contents of her mug, as if the chamomile held some kind of answers. “Ty was one of the groomsmen.”

The thunk of Emerson’s mug on the counter made her wince. “Ty? Like the Ty? Your Ty? The high school boyfriend, who smashed your heart to bits? That Ty?”

Paisley held in a wince. That was the part she’d been trying not to think about. “That would be the one.”

After a long moment, Emerson picked up her tea again. “Wow. How was that?”

“It was fine.” Oh, brilliant, Parish. Fine. This is why you get paid the big bucks. You have such a command with descriptive words.

“Fine like you were civil to each other at the buffet table? Fine like he got bald and fat and you’re relieved you dodged that bullet?”

Paisley pressed her lips together. Damn, that tea sure looked interesting. Maybe if she stared hard enough, she could read her own fortune.

“Pais…spill.” Emerson pulled out the Mom tone she’d perfected on her teenager, Fiona.

“Okay, okay.” Maybe if she said it fast, like ripping off a bandage. “Fine like he grew up hot as hell, and we still have enough chemistry to light up metro Nashville, and I took him home with me.’’

Emerson’s jaw dropped. “You cannot just drop a bomb like that and stop there. Details, woman!”

She shrugged with more nonchalance than she felt. “This Creeper of a guy was hitting on me, and Ty stepped in pretending to be my date.”

“Wait…like he did when you met in high school?”

He’d done the exact same thing at a homecoming dance their sophomore year of high school, cementing his place as her first official hero. “It was a very déjà vu situation, except that he didn’t hesitate when I kissed him this time.’’

No, where the boy had frozen when she’d laid one on him to sell the fiction he’d presented, the man had pulled her in and laid waste to her defenses with a kiss that had been playing on her highlight reel of the night. It was a helluva lengthy reel.

“Oh my god! It’s like something out of one of your novels!”

It was, indeed. And that was part of the problem.

“What happened next?” Emerson demanded.

Eighteen years of wanting and wondering made me stupid.

“Creep went away, we danced, then walked down memory lane for a while, and I invited him home.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

One brow winged up. Damn, Emerson really had the Mom Stare down. “Do I look dumb enough to buy that? I know how bad he hurt you.”

As Emerson had been the one to pick up the pieces when they’d met as roommates their freshman year of college, right after Ty had dumped Paisley and left for boot camp, she knew perhaps better than anyone how devastated Paisley had been. And it was that more than anything else that had kept her from spilling her guts right after the wedding. She didn’t want to answer the inevitable smart questions she hadn’t been willing to ask herself.

“It was a long time ago.” It was, and she should’ve been able to be as casual about it as she pretended to be. But when had anything with Ty Brooks ever been casual?

As the silence dragged out, confirming Paisley wasn’t going to address that issue on her own, Emerson asked, “Was he as good as you remembered?”

This Paisley could talk about. “No.” She couldn’t repress a purr. “He’s even better.” As he’d proved multiple times through the night she hadn’t wanted to end. That highlight reel began to play again, cranking up her inner thermostat.

“So, what was this? Closure? Are you starting over with him? Picking back up where you left off?”

All excellent questions—none of which had answers.

Paisley shrugged again. “It was one fabulous night with no understanding or expectation of more.”

Emerson’s moue of disappointment echoed her own. Not that Paisley wanted to acknowledge that outside the privacy of her own head.

“You’re not even going to keep in touch?”

“He lives in Eden’s Ridge now.”

“It’s a four-hour drive. Caleb and I have made it a few times to visit his sisters. That’s not so bad.”

“Not exactly easy dating distance.” Even if he’d been so inclined. Which he hadn’t.

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“We’re keeping in touch,” Paisley conceded. “But it’s casual. Neither of us wants serious.” Liar liar, pants on fire.

She’d done casual for years, since her second divorce had left her inherent sense of romanticism thoroughly dented, proving once and for all that men could be enjoyed but not counted on. It was all she could handle. So, she’d be fine doing casual with Ty, if that was all she could have. And if her stupid, foolish heart was aching for more, she’d get over it. Besides, she had more pressing things to worry about than when she was next going to get Ty Brooks into her bed, and that was a sad and depressing state of affairs.

Paisley’s phone began to ring. Joel Fisher flashed across the screen.

Rookie mistake. Think about the problem, and that s**t manifests.

Bracing herself, she hit answer. “Detective. Tell me you have something.”