Page 3 of To Hold and Protect

If that phone call had come before she’d caught her fiancé sticking his penis into her best friend, she would have put the house in Marsville up for sale without coming here. But in one night, she’d lost her future husband, her home, and her best friend of fourteen years.

Willow didn’t get Ella’s betrayal. Not in a million years. No matter how hot she thought a guy was, she never would touch her bestie’s boyfriend. They’d both blamed it on too much alcohol, which in Willow’s mind made it even worse.

They’d also denied it had happened before that night, but she knew Brady’s tells, and the left side of his deceitful mouth had twitched, something it did when he was uncomfortable. He was lying through his twitchy mouth. Ella had refused to even look at her when she’d sworn it had never happened before.

If Brady and Ella had come to her and told her they were in love, it would have hurt, but she would have found it within herself to wish them the best. Well, she liked to think that was what she would have done.

To blame their cheating on too much booze was a cop-out. In a matter of seconds, she’d lost respect for the two people she’d loved most in the world. Funny that she thought she’d miss Brady more than she did. After she’d gotten over the initial shock and had a good cry, she’d realized she was more angry than hurt. That was a good thing.

Maybe it was because this was her second broken engagement that she didn’t think it was the end of the world the way she had the first time around, like she was now immune from that kind of hurt. She’d loved Brady, but not in the all-consuming way she had Austin. When Austin had ended things a week before their wedding, he’d broken her. It had taken a long time before she could smile again. At least she and Brady hadn’t set a wedding date, and she hadn’t had to face the painful and embarrassing task of returning wedding gifts.

Because of Austin, she’d made a promise to herself. Never again would she give a man the power to hurt her like that. She hated dating—had never signed up on a dating app—and everything involved in meeting new guys. She loathed the awkwardness of first dates, but she liked being in a relationship, and Brady had suited her...until recently.

The past few months Brady had been putting pressure on her to set a date, then getting irritated with her when she used her book deadline as an excuse to drag her feet. She wasn’t sure why, since she had planned to marry him someday, but what was the rush? What she realized, now that he was out of her life, was that she’d loved him, but she hadn’t been in love with him. Not the way she’d loved Austin. She wouldn’t allow it. She also realized that her resolve to protect her heart hadn’t been fair to Brady, and for that, she was sorry. Didn’t excuse his cheating, though.

So, after a surprise phone call from an attorney when she was living in a hotel room with a semibroken heart and a looming deadline, wondering where to live, a house had landed in her lap. Since she could write from anywhere, she’d packed up her clothes, gotten into Sunshine—her yellow VW Beetle—and driven to Marsville.

Her first thought on entering the Victorian-style house was, boy, did it ever need a lot of work. There wasn’t even a microwave, which was a necessity since she lived off microwavable meals when she was on deadline.

The first thing she’d done was order a microwave online since she didn’t know where in Marsville to get one. Thankfully, it would arrive tomorrow. In the meantime, she was forced to cook dinner on an ancient stove that had only one functioning burner. Forget the oven. She’d taken one look inside and shuddered as she’d slammed the door closed. The kitchen was going to be the first room to remodel.

She hadn’t gotten rich off her children’s book sales, but she wasn’t hurting either. She’d bought Sunshine with cash, and she planned to do most of the remodeling on the house herself to save on the costs. How hard could it be to tear up carpets and paint walls?

Her plan was to finish this book and the next one while she remodeled and then put the house up for sale. Then she’d buy a condo on an ocean somewhere. She just hadn’t decided where yet. She didn’t much care as long as she was living on the beach.

When the can of cream of mushroom soup was bubbly, she poured it in a bowl. After adding a handful of crackers and a peeled Mandarin orange to a paper plate, she put everything on a tray. She couldn’t wait to have a working oven so she could bake her favorite cookies but with three store-bought oatmeal cookies and a glass of ice water, she was good to go. She carried the tray out the back door to the slate patio where she’d set up a small table and a lawn chair.

Her uncle had obviously never done anything with the backyard, and as she ate, her gaze roamed over the landscape. There was so much potential for a beautiful flower garden. If she was staying, she’d do it herself, even if it took a year or two to get it the way she wanted. But she wasn’t, so she needed to find a landscaper who could make it attractive enough for when she put the house up for sale. She figured she could get that done fairly cheaply.

Sounds from next door filled the air. There was a tall wooden fence, so she couldn’t see her neighbor’s yard, but that was Everly laughing, and it sounded like more than one dog barking. According to Everly, the family had three. There were male voices and more laughter.

Since she’d walked out on Brady two weeks ago, she hadn’t taken the time to just sit like she was doing now, and hearing the family enjoying a beautiful spring evening, she was suddenly lonely. She’d gone from having a fiancé, friends, and a home to just her and a house that was going to be a money pit.

Maybe she should get a goldfish. At least she’d have something to talk to. Except she’d probably forget to feed it when she was on a deadline, and then she’d cry while she flushed it down the toilet. Finished with her dinner, she picked up her tray, and as she was going inside, she heard what sounded like Parker Church’s voice and Everly giggling hysterically. Female voices were yelling cheerleader chants.

“Remember, curiosity killed the cat,” she muttered, but after dropping the tray on the kitchen counter, she headed upstairs anyway.

One window in her bedroom looked down over her neighbor’s yard. She pulled aside the edge of the ugliest curtain the world had ever seen, and dust swirled around her, making her sneeze. She mentally putreplace curtainson her growing to-do list.

She fanned her hand in front of her face, clearing the dust. Then she peeked out the window and spied on her neighbors. What she saw confused her for a minute, but when she realized what they were doing, she laughed.

Three men—one was Parker, so she assumed the other two were his brothers since they favored Parker—were playing football in a backyard much larger than hers, using Everly as the football. One of the brothers held Everly against his hip as he dodged the other two while running toward an orange cone. When he reached it, he and Everly yelled, “Score!” Then he tossed Everly to Parker, and the scene was repeated, but in the opposite direction where there was another orange cone.

Two women—one blonde and one brunette—waving pompoms cheered them on, and three dogs raced around the yard, joining in the fun. Willow watched for a few minutes as Everly—a laughing human football—was tossed from one brother to the other.

She studied the two pretty women and wondered which one was with which brother. They were obviously friends, and having lost hers, she couldn’t help feeling jealous and lonelier than ever. Her gaze returned to the men. Like him, Parker’s brothers were big, strong, and good-looking, but it was Parker her gaze kept returning to.

As if he felt her eyes on him, he lifted his face and stared directly at her bedroom window. She jumped back. Had he seen her spying on them? No, it was impossible. Except for the slit she was peeking through, the curtains were closed.

Time to stop spying on her hot neighbor and get to work. This book wasn’t going to write itself.

Chapter Three

“Everly asked Harper and me if we’d take her shopping for cowboy boots,” Skylar said. “Said she wants some like Miss Willow.”

“Who’s Miss Willow?” Kade asked.

“New neighbor. Probably here to sell the house.” Parker hoped so because that would mean she wasn’t staying. She disturbed him.

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