The Road Back to Us Read online

  His lips quirk up into a lazy grin. “Guess you’ll have to find out tomorrow, Care Bear.”

  I cross my arms and pretend to pout. “Fine. But I’m feeling hungry, which surprises me since I got so sick. Can we get a bite to eat?”

  “I have something you can eat,” he jokes.

  I laugh. “Nice try, Romeo. I’m actually craving pizza. Again.”

  “Fine. I’ll provide dessert since you seem so disappointed.”

  “Maybe I want to provide dessert?” I quip.

  He cuts his eyes over to me and his eyes peruse over my tits for a moment before they’re back on the road.

  “Je vais avoir la poitrine,” he orders as if he’s at a restaurant. I’ll have the breast.

  I laugh. “Je pensais que vous aviez faim pour quelque chose doux.” I thought you were hungry for something sweeter.

  His hand slides over to my thigh, and he drags a finger right over the place I indeed hope he’ll be feasting on later. “Who says I can’t have both?” he questions with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Well, I’m not going to argue there,” I tease.

  He chuckles. “Besides,” he says in a serious tone, “I’m eating for two now.”

  This time, I do argue.

  “ARE WE THERE yet?”

  “No.”

  “How ’bout now?”

  “No.”

  “Are we going to your mom’s?”

  “No.”

  “Harley’s?”

  “No.”

  “The cabin in the woods?”

  “No.”

  When she finally gives up, I laugh. For the past several hours, she has bugged the shit out of me to no avail. I won’t budge on my secret. She even attempted to sneak the answer out of me this morning by giving me road head. As much as I fucking loved it and nearly caused a pileup on the highway, I still wouldn’t give in. And when she threatened to never give me a blow job again if I didn’t tell her, I took one look at her still-swollen lips from the last one she’d given me and knew she was lying.

  “You’re spoiled,” I tease.

  “You made me that way,” she counters.

  My grin is hurting my jaw, because I’m so damn happy right now. I plan to continue to spoil her until the day we die. Turns out, I’ve learned that, with Caroline, I don’t need to spoil her with material objects. She appreciates the simpler things that carry a lot more meaning.

  “That was very generous for Judy to offer to handle the estate sale of our home. Going through the furniture and décor will probably be a nightmare. Weird thing is, though, I won’t miss any of it. All that matters to me is in this car,” she says wistfully.

  The night before, we packed our clothes, our pictures, and a few other personal items. After looking around the space, we decided we weren’t really attached to anything there. Having lived so simply in the hunter’s cabin with our cot and tiny, two-chair kitchen table, we learned that we could be happy just about anywhere. So I offered Judy a large commission on whatever we sold if she would handle it all for me. This was in addition to the nice severance package. James was more than happy to swoop in and offer our housekeeper a new job.

  “Spring will be here before we know it. The snow is already melting in some parts. I doubt we’ll see any more harsh winter weather like we had at Christmastime,” Caroline mentions as we drive.

  We’ve long past pulled off the main highway and are winding our way down the roads that, a little over a month ago, nearly took our lives.

  “We’re almost there,” I tell her.

  When I put my blinker on, she shrieks. Just over three weeks ago, we were playing in the snow and taking pictures by our road. The road called “Us.” Now, I’m turning onto the road I had cleared weeks ago, traveling to the place I proposed. The place where it all began.

  “Oh no,” Caroline says sadly as we crunch up the gravel road to the end that overlooks the valley. “Someone lives here. Turn around before they call the police.”

  I smirk when I see the simple, cream-colored mobile home parked on the edge near the trees. “It’s okay. I know the owners.”

  We pull up in front of the trailer and get out. Care stretches her legs and then walks over to the spot I first asked her to marry me. Vancouver was never home for us. It only served to drive us apart. Out here, though, in the Canadian Caribou? This is home. I should have known that the road would lead back to us.

  It takes a moment of scanning the valley below, but I soon spy the orange flag.

  “Come here,” I whisper and haul her to me. Once she’s settled in front of me with her back to my chest, I wrap one arm around her waist to keep her flush against me. With my other hand, I grab hers and raise it to point the flag out. “Do you see it?”

  She is quiet for a moment before she turns to look at me. “That’s the cabin.”

  I nod. “I bought it and the land around it down there.”

  My wife squeals and jumps up and down in my arms. “Oh, Bentley. It’s a little small, so we’re going to have to add on to it. But we can make it work.”

  A loud, booming laugh bursts from me and echoes through the trees. “You’re cute. Actually, I bought this land too. This is our road, and this is our home now.”

  We both twist our heads to regard the plain mobile home. It’s temporary until we can build the small, although larger than the hunter’s cabin, log house on this lot instead. I wanted to wait the six months and show her once it was done, but circumstances made it so that it wasn’t an option. My Care Bear will have a baby soon, and I want her to settle into a place we can call home.

  She moves in my arms and hugs me tight, her cheek pressed against my chest. Her fingers slide up and scratch my shoulders through my coat. Being with her like this is fucking perfect. I kiss her hair and inhale her scent.

  “Bentley Harrison, I love you. Who needs Prince Charming when you have Mountain Man?”

  I grin and pull away so I can peer down at her. The sunshine glistens in her hair—my angel’s hair—and I have the urge to never look away.

  “Care Bear, I love you too. I’ll be your Mountain Man as long as you’ll be my Princess Pussy.”

  She giggles and tickles me. “I did bring the heels. They aren’t quite the same since they took a bath with us, but we can make them work. But only under one condition.” Her features become serious as she presses her lips into a firm line.

  God, she’s so cute like this. She could ask for the entire goddamned world on a platter and I’d figure out a way to give it to her.

  “What’s that, baby?”

  Her face lights up with a breathtaking smile. “You have to grow the beard back. Proper attire for Mountain Man.”

  I explode with laughter and pull her to me. “I thought you’d never ask. But as a precautionary measure, I left the razors with Judy.”

  “Glad we’re on the same page, then,” she says.

  Stroking her hair, I once again inhale the scent of the woman I almost lost forever. “Same page, same book.”

  “And it has a very happy ending,” she adds.

  “Baby, our book is special. We have the happy ending and it’s only beginning.”

  Five years later . . .

  “HERE.” SHE THRUSTS the man doll with plastic hair into my face. “You play Ken since you’re a boy, and I’ll play with Barbie.”

  I groan and shoot a glare over at my brother, who looks more and more like me these days with his overgrown, dark hair and slightly greying beard.

  He chuckles and shrugs his shoulders. “I was Ken yesterday.”

  Reluctantly, I take the doll from my young niece, who is an exact image of her mother with piercing, blue eyes, and inspect it with a frown. “I thought you liked Katniss. Why don’t you go get your Nerf bow and arrow, Kacey? Now, that I can do.”

  Her pink bottom lip juts out and she places her tiny hand on her hip. “Uncle Harley, I do like Katniss. But today, I want to play with Barbie.”

  I grumble, but she isn’
t fazed. She immediately launches into a high-pitched voice about how much she loves Ken. It’s fucking uncomfortable as hell. Bentley and Caroline need to stop popping girls out. This family needs more men.

  “Kacey, I think I hear Grandma’s truck coming up the drive,” Bentley calls out to her.

  Her squeal somehow manages to get even higher. She definitely got those lungs from her momma. Barbie is abandoned in my lap as she scampers off to meet Mom. I burst out a rush of relieved breath and stand, letting the dolls drop to the hardwood floors of the wraparound porch. But just as I go to sit beside my brother, my very pregnant sister-in-law comes out with Kinley in her arms.

  “Quick. Take her, Harley. I’m about to burn the rolls,” she says as she deposits the kid into my arms.

  This one, blond as well, stares at me with a toothy grin. I make a mean face at her and she giggles. But when she throws her arms around me and hugs me with more strength than a two-year-old should possess, I sigh. Sometimes, during moments like these, I envy the life my brother has.

  Bentley did well for himself when he bought this property. And once the builders finished their log home, I was green with envy. This place is unbelievably amazing. He’s been married to a gal who has somehow put up with his crap for a long-ass time, and they have these two cute kids with endless amounts of energy and love with one on the way.

  “You can have her,” Bentley teases with a grin.

  I kiss Kinley on the head and walk over to him. “If she loves Barbie dolls like that one over there, I’m sending her back,” I tell him gruffly.

  She reaches for her father, and I pass her to him.

  “Hey, boys,” Mom calls out to us as she gets out of the truck. “I brought a guest for dinner. Her name’s Barbara—or Barb for short. She started working at the hardware store this week. Since she doesn’t know anyone really, I thought I’d invite her for Sunday dinner.”

  My eyes skitter over to the truck to try to get a glimpse of the woman Mom so innocently invited over. Kacey is standing on the running board and chatting up the woman inside, blocking my view.

  “Mom, it never works,” I warn with a grumble.

  She ignores me as she snatches Kinley into her arms. “Hush now. Go introduce yourself, you big ogre. I think you might like this one.”

  I scoff at her. My mom has struck out on setting me up every time. I’m still not sure why she insists on trying. It just isn’t right.

  As I approach the vehicle, a woman with wild, blond hair and full lips winks at me. I’m momentarily drawn to her mouth, but I eventually drag my gaze to her playful, green eyes. She’s fucking hot. I’ll give Mom an A for trying. If anything, Barb looks like a good fuck, especially with those dick-sucking lips.

  “You must be Barbie,” I say, chuckling at the irony of it all.

  Caroline calls for Kacey, who bounces off toward her mother, leaving me alone with the bombshell.

  “You must be Louise’s ‘sweet boy once you get to know him’ named Harley,” she smirks.

  I roll my eyes. “Unfuckingbelieveable. And she wonders why I’m still single.”

  Barbie laughs, and I decide I like the sound of it—a little husky and a lot sexy. Then she pushes the door open and steps out in front of me. Her hand is still gripping the frame of the door as I peruse her body. I’m expecting to see some gorgeous, short skirt or some shit. But what I see is a whole lot better.

  When I drop to one knee, she looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

  “Will you marry me, Barbie whom I’ve just met? Seriously, I think you might be the perfect woman.”

  She chuckles and kicks some gravel my way. I laugh when I realize I have the same boots but in a much bigger size. Barbie offers me a hand and helps me stand back up. When my eyes skitter up her camouflage overalls, I grin.

  Perfect fucking woman. No lie.

  “Take me on a date first. Then we’ll talk about marriage,” she teases as she shields her eyes to admire the view of the valley.

  As she stares out into the wilderness, I notice that she’s hiding a gorgeous pair of tits under the white tank top that’s peeking out beneath the overalls. I’m already imagining myself yanking the bulky-ass clothing off her and fucking her into next hunting season.

  She catches me checking her out and grins broadly at me. “Well, ‘sweet boy once you get to know him’—are you ready to go eat?”

  I offer her my hand, which she takes, and we start walking toward the house. “I’m always ready to eat.”

  With a nudge of her shoulder against mine as we walk, she says seriously, “Eat up, grizzly. You’ll need your energy later.”

  When I growl at the bold woman, she laughs.

  “Oh, and we have a wedding to plan afterwards,” she reminds me.

  Why do I feel like this woman, this Barbie, is going to turn my world upside down?

  And why in the fuck do I not care one goddamned bit?

  “Barbie, you’re all kinds of trouble.”

  She stops and lifts her lips to my ear. My cock is already on board, ready to pick out cakes and flowers and shit.

  “You have no idea, grizzly man.”

  Her teeth tug at the lobe of my ear before she pops off and saunters off to the house, and I’m left staring after her in shock.

  Bentley chuckles from on the porch, where he apparently witnessed our entire encounter. “Brother, I believe that right there was your moment.”

  My heart is pounding around in my chest as if it has a life of its own. I turn to my brother and stare at him in question.

  “Moment?” I ask.

  “And I’ll tell you like Mom told me. ‘Don’t let her go. True love like that only comes around once. You have to fight for it, dickhead. Promise me you’ll always fight for it’.”

  I raise a thick eyebrow in question. “Mom said dickhead?”

  Bentley shakes his head and grins. “I may have added my own twist. Go get her, Harley.”

  And I do.

  The End

  A Note from K

  If you enjoyed this book, please check out some of my other books. I’ve published over a dozen books in many different genres including: contemporary romance, erotic romance, paranormal romance, and historical romance. My stories are all different and unique from one another. Thank you for taking a chance on my book and I hope to hear how you liked it!

  All is Fair—Big Wreck

  Desire—Meg Myers

  Sorry—Meg Myers

  Make A Shadow—Meg Myers

  Stay With Me—Sam Smith

  The Funeral—Band of Horses

  I Hate Everything About You—Three Days Grace

  Team—Lorde

  Demons—Imagine Dragons

  Madness—Muse

  No One’s Gonna Love You—Band of Horses

  Thank you to my husband for helping me outline this story. You came up with the name, and even though it was a long one, I love everything about it and how I worked it into the story. You’ll always be my inspiration.

  I want to thank the beta readers, whom are also my friends. Nikki McCrae, Wendy Colby, Dena Marie, Elizabeth Thiele, Lori Christensen, Michelle Ramirez, Shannon Martin, Amy Bosica, Sian Davies, Ella Stewart, Nikki Cole, Anne Jolin, Maggie Lugo, Kayla Stewart, Elizabeth Clinton, and Melody Dawn (I hope I didn’t forget anyone) you guys always provide AMAZING feedback. You all give me helpful ideas to make my stories better and give me incredible encouragement. I appreciate all of your comments and suggestions.

  A special thanks to Ella Stewart for reading through and catching any last errors. You’re a star and I love you to bits. . . . SQUIRRELL!!!

  Thank you to my blogger friends that go above and beyond to always share my stuff. You ladies rock!

  I’m especially thankful for the Breaking the Rules Babes. You ladies are amazing with your support and friendship. Each and every single one of you is amazingly supportive and caring.

  I am totally thankful for my author group, the COPA gals, for being there when
I need to take a load off and whine. Y’all rock!

  Mickey, my fabulous editor from I’m a Book Shark, thank you for being such a great editor. You’ve been a great friend as well and I appreciate that.

  Thank you Stacey Blake for being amazing. Everything you do is magic and I absolutely love your creativity and sweet disposition.

  Lastly but certainly not least of all, thank you to all of the wonderful readers out there that are willing to hear my story and enjoy my characters like I do. It means the world to me!

  I’m a thirty four year old self-proclaimed book nerd. Married to my husband for twelve years, we enjoy spending time with our two lovely children. Writing is a fun hobby for me that has now turned into a livelihood over the past year. In the past, I’ve enjoyed the role as a reader. However, I have learned I absolutely love taking on the creative role as the writer. Something about determining how the story will play out intrigues me to no end.

  This writing experience has been a blast and I’ve met some really fabulous people along the way. I hope my readers enjoy reading my stories as much as I do writing them. I look forward to connecting with you all!

  Join K Webster’s newsletter to receive a couple of updates a month on new releases and exclusive content. To join, all you need to do is go here.

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