Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(63)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“No, I’ve got everything set. I just need to finish up this salad and everything is done. Why don’t you go grab a shower?”

He pecked me against the cheek. “Is that your way of telling me I stink?”

“Mmhmm . . . maybe,” I teased, turning my head to catch him at the throat, my nose and my mouth and my smile pressed there. He smelled of dirt and wood and hard work. His soft, stuttered breath was minty, mixed with the lingering hint of cigarettes. Not for a second was it unappealing. Everything about Jared screamed Man. One delicious, gorgeous man.

I hummed.

A knowing chuckle reverberated at my back, and he held me close. “I love you, Aly Moore.”

Playfully, Jared rocked us. “When are we going to change that name of yours, anyway?”

I giggled and lost myself in this Jared, the one who was carefree and whose words flowed with ease and eyes shined with light. The one who chased swarms of butterflies through the fields of my belly, stirred them up with the steady stroke of his hand and the tempting tenor of his voice.

“Don’t you want to wait until I don’t have to waddle down the aisle?”

Jared scoffed. “Waddle? You are insane. You still have no idea, do you? How absolutely stunning you are?” Jared palmed the front of my thighs. “These legs.” This time it was Jared’s turn to hum. “No . . . I don’t want to wait . . . just want to make you mine. Forever.”

“I already am yours,” I contended, grinning, letting him know I was playing even though I was one hundred percent serious. I’d told him again and again. Jared held me in the palm of his hand. Eternally.

Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t wait to be his wife.

Mine and Megan’s conversation from yesterday intruded my thoughts. I shoved it down. With Jared here . . . like this? I didn’t want to be scared, didn’t want to be afraid of what he had the power to destroy.

“It’s beautiful in March . . . maybe sometime in the middle?” I suggested through the bundle of emotion that made itself known right in the center of my chest.

“March,” he reiterated on a murmur that was utterly pro- found.

Jared and I had just set our wedding date.

He left me with a searing kiss before heading into our bathroom to get cleaned up for dinner.

Half an hour later, the doorbell rang.

I dried off my hands, tossed the hand towel to the counter, and ambled to the door. I opened it to my parents and Aug.

I did my best to ignore the unease that so clearly clung to my father’s being.

Instead, I set my attention on my mom. Her hair was sleek and straight, blonder than the last time I saw her. She wore a pair of skinny jeans and heels, topping it off with a cream-colored sweater and a deep plum infinity scarf twisted snugly around her neck.

I stepped forward and threw my arms around her. She squeezed and rocked me.

“Are you trying to make me look bad?” I asked when I pulled away.

She rolled her warm brown eyes. “Hardly.” She let her gaze slide down to my belly while she talked, not hesitating to place her hands on it. “I would’ve killed to look like you when I was pregnant. I was a house. Ask your father.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “He slept on the couch for the last two months each time because my stomach took up the entire bed.”

He grumbled behind her, although his mouth hinted at a smile. “I think you need to check your memory, Karen, because it had nothing to do with the size of your stomach. You complained the entire time that I was hogging the bed. You ran me off.”

She waved offhandedly. “Semantics.”

Laughing, I stepped back and widened the door. “Come on in, you guys.”

Mom came in, stalling in appreciation in the middle of the room. “Oh my God, Aly . . . this place is . . . unbelievable.”

She hadn’t been over for a couple of weeks. Not since Jared had added all of his elegant touches. Everything had come together cohesively and seamlessly. Jared had turned what would have been a simple, comfortable house into something memorable and unique.

It truly was gorgeous.

“It is, isn’t it?” I murmured.

Aug came inside and gave me a less than stellar one-armed hug. I tugged his headphones from his ears and slugged him in the arm. “Hey, can’t you take these out long enough to say hi to your sister? And give her a real hug?”

He shrugged with a dimpled smile and wrapped me up in one of his bear hugs. “Of course I can.”

“Much better.”

With a smirk, he stepped back, working a single ear bud back into his ear while he spoke. “And believe me, I could hear just fine. I should have turned it up . . . the last thing I need to hear are the words Mom, Dad, and bed in the same sentence.”

Mom rolled her eyes again. “You’re so dramatic, Aug, and you have no right to talk. If I have to watch you get that look on your face while reading a text ever again, I might puke. Don’t think I didn’t notice that on the way over here.”

Guilt colored my brother’s face, and he shifted through his laughter. “I swear, you’re some kind of freaky ninja spy.” Exasperated, Aug glanced at me. “She has to have eyes in the back of her head or something,” he said as he wandered the rest of the way inside.

Mom lifted a telling brow. “Keep it up, and you can make it ninja assassin. How I ended up with two boys who don’t understand the meaning of virtue, I’ll never know. You and Christopher need to start taking some pointers from your dad before you send your poor old mother here to her grave.”

Mom and Dad had been together forever, and I knew she was none too impressed with my brothers’ romantic hijinks.

The worst of them rumbled up in his truck. Christopher pulled to the curb in front of my house and hopped from the cab. Raking a hand through his messy hair, he sauntered up to the door on his long stride. “Hi, Dad.” He clapped our dad on the shoulder, angled around him to place a quick kiss to my temple. “Hey there, little sister.”

“Hey, you. Glad you could make it.”

He crossed the threshold and went straight for Mom. He dropped a kiss to her cheek. Then he sniffed the air. “Holy shit, Aly, did you magically learn how to cook since I left earlier today? It smells like a f**king gourmet restaurant in here.”

Like always, he made himself at home. He walked directly into the kitchen and ducked into the fridge for a beer.

“Don’t act like I didn’t spend the last two years cooking for you.”