Page 29 of Working For Her Attention

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?”

“That means I owe them big, and that’s not something they will ever let me live down.” She laughed again, resting her head on my shoulder for a beat. And I loved just how perfectly she fit there. “I do have to go home and change. I can’t meet your mom wearing your shirt.”

“I don’t know. I like you wearing my stuff. Feels like I marked you,” I told her honestly, and she rewarded me with a soft giggle.

“Sam.”

“Fine, I’ll go with you.”

“Okay,” she agreed easily.

The morning might not have gone exactly how I’d wanted after she’d woken me up so damn sweetly with her mouth, but the rest of the day went pretty much without a hitch.

After going back to her house to change, we returned to my place, and just like I knew they would, my sisters fell in love with my girl. They brought her into the fold so easily you would think she had been part of the family for decades.

And when my mom showed up?

She had taken one look at Avery after I’d introduced them and started to cry. Avery looked at me in panic, and my sisters looked like they weren’t sure what was going on. Thankfully, my mom caught her breath through what she said were happy tears because it was about time I met the woman I was going to marry.

What could I say? The women in my life were a little bit dramatic.

Not that my mom was wrong.

Avery was the woman I was going to one day marry.

CHAPTER 9

AVERY

Life was good.

No, scratch that, life was incredibly amazing. It still shocked me to see just how much life had changed in the last two weeks. Two weeks since I’d taken a chance, gone over to Sam’s and explained. Two weeks of us being… together.

But as wonderful as it was, old habits died hard. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Sam to show a side of him, a red flag of some sort, that would explain and show me that not everything was as great as it seemed. Because life was damn close to perfect.

His family was everything a girl with nothing would ever want.

His sisters were as chaotic as he’d warned, but it didn’t take away just how loving and welcoming they were. And his mom? God, all I wanted to do was hug his mom and thank her profusely. Not just in gratitude for the incredible man she’d raised, but because she was so warm and caring. I’d seen her three times in the last two weeks after her birthday lunch, and each time felt like she’d hand-sewn a little piece of the jagged edges of my heart. Not by doing anything out of the normal, or love bombing, just by clearly and unmistakably bringing me into the fold of their family.

I wasn’t just her son’s girlfriend or the person he was dating. I was one of them.

For the first time in my life, I belonged. Not just to the Miranda family but the Forge Creek community. I met people out and about in a real way. I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling falling for Sam had cracked my heart open and demolished all the shields I’d kept up to keep people an arms-length away. I was actually letting people in.

And it was terrifying because I knew what it felt like not to have that, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that one wrong move or step would make that all disappear.

I shook my head and walked out of my small home office towards the kitchen. Just as I reached the living room, I heard the doorknob start to turn and watched as the door opened. There he was. This big, beautiful man stood there looking way too good than should be fair.

“Sam?” I called. He smiled at me. A smile I felt all the way through me, warm and thick. He was supposed to be working late, so we had planned for me to meet him at his place later.

“Honey, I’m home.” The combination of those three words and the happy tone in his voice stalled my feet beneath me. Honey, I’m home. Those three words did something. Emotions bubbled up my throat to the point where I was almost choking on them.

“Avery?” he said, but I stumbled, taking a step back. His dark gaze narrowed behind his glasses, and he slowly ran a hand through his freshly trimmed beard.