Their unexpected forever, p.1
Their Unexpected Forever, page 1
“Depends on what you mean by ‘expect.’
“I’d never tell you to do anything. I might have thought you’d want to, though. We aren’t exactly looking to bring a kid into the world together.”
“We aren’t. I might be, though.” Some days all she wanted was to be a mom. If she actually conceived...
She was still aching after all these years, and her logic shouted as if!
Her heart lacked the same degree of intelligence. It should have built up enough of a protective shell by this point to repel any chance of one more loss.
But for whatever reason, it ignored the as if and clung to the what if.
His mouth gaped. “You might be looking to have a baby with me?”
“Not with you,” she emphasized quickly. “Just...having one.”
Dear Reader,
Wedding bells are ringing in Hideaway Wharf, and Violet Frost has someone gorgeous waiting for her at the altar. Not a groom—Matias Kahale is the best man, and she’s the maid of honor determined not to be his clichéd hookup. She will smile and enjoy her brother’s happy nuptials and not perseverate over the time she almost said “I do” and—ugh. Fine. Matias is right. She needs a distraction. She’ll spend one night with him. One night can’t change anything.
Until it changes everything. She’s pregnant with a baby she’s desperate to have, though her history of pregnancy loss means she’s half thrilled, half terrified. And since when does Matias want to be a father? He’s stepping up in every way possible while also getting his new brewery off the ground—nothing like the man she thought she knew. Has she been so busy searching for guarantees in life that she’s overlooked the very person with whom she can welcome the unknown?
Thanks for choosing Violet and Matias’s story—it has its emotional moments, given how personal it is to heal from pregnancy loss, even in fiction. Take good care while reading, and know that hope is at the heart of this one.
Keep up-to-date on Love at Hideaway Wharf at www.laurelgreer.com, where you’ll find extras, news and a link to my newsletter. You can also find me on Facebook or Instagram. I’m @laurelgreerauthor on both.
Happy reading!
Laurel
Their Unexpected Forever
Laurel Greer
USA TODAY bestselling author Laurel Greer loves writing about all the ways love can change people for the better, especially when messy families and charming small towns are involved. She lives outside Vancouver, BC, with her law-talking husband and two daughters, and is never far from a cup of tea, a good book or the ocean—preferably all three. Find her at www.laurelgreer.com.
Books by Laurel Greer
Harlequin Special Edition
Love at Hideaway Wharf
Diving into Forever
Their Unexpected Forever
Sutter Creek, Montana
From Exes to Expecting
A Father for Her Child
Holiday by Candlelight
Their Nine-Month Surprise
In Service of Love
Snowbound with the Sheriff
Twelve Dates of Christmas
Lights, Camera...Wedding?
What to Expect When She’s Expecting
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
To the two midwives who ushered my girls into the world with love and skill and abundant care—thank you.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Excerpt from Tying the Knot by Brenda Novak
Chapter One
Violet Frost took careful steps toward the handcrafted driftwood altar. The February wind teased her cheeks and sneaked under the hem of the delicate wool cloak she’d been unable to resist buying for the occasion. The most adorable baby in the world snoozed in her arms, perfect from the red curls on the top of her head to the tiny UGG boots on her feet. An atrociously hot man waited at the end of the aisle for her.
None of it, save the cloak, was hers.
Exactly how she wanted it.
The baby? Her niece, Iris, three months old and sound asleep in a crocheted blanket, clueless of her role in her parents’ wedding rehearsal. The gorgeous being standing at the altar, smirking like he knew a secret about her? Her brother’s best man, the owner of Oyster Island’s most popular—read only—pub.
Her neck heated, despite the cold air. Matias Kahale did know a secret about her. One that was not allowed to disrupt her brother’s wedding weekend, thank you very much.
She shot him a stern look and continued her slow stroll between the few dozen chairs lining either side of the aisle, ready to be filled with family and friends for tomorrow’s ceremony. Dew tipped the ocean-side lawn of her childhood home. Her heeled Fluevog shoes exposed the tops of her feet, and the soft blades of grass dragged like chilly ribbons on her skin, even through her tights.
The altar, backlit by the afternoon sun lazily kissing the watery horizon, couldn’t have been a prettier setting for Violet’s brother Archer’s wedding. Especially since he was marrying Violet’s best friend. In twenty-four hours, Violet would get to call Franci her sister for real.
A wedding of her own, though... No, thanks. No need to try and fail to have one of those again.
No doubt Matias shared the desire to avoid saying vows. She was surprised he wasn’t breaking out in hives from standing so close to an altar.
She never would have known that from just looking at him, though. The best man appeared born to make romantic declarations with the Pacific at his back. God. It almost hurt to look at him, with his dark, wavy hair tossed by the wind into beautiful chaos. The knitted sleeves of his thick fisherman’s sweater were trying and failing to contain his biceps, and the cream color highlighted his bronze skin, tanned deeper than usual after a ski holiday he’d taken at Mount Baker last month.
And those talented pub owner’s hands, tucked into the pockets of his jeans... Argh. She stifled a groan, remembering the last time she’d let herself enjoy the thrill of those hands on her skin.
By the curious heat in his gaze, the memory wasn’t far from his mind, either.
Once a year, she let herself clutch those arms and fall into that stare.
Once a year, in October.
Not February.
Five years, and no one had found out about their agreement.
And if the infernally sexy look on his face blew their secret out of the water, she’d march him out to the end of Archer’s long dock and push him into the frigid ocean. On an island where everything was everyone else’s business, secrecy was both a necessity and a luxury.
This weekend in particular.
Until she saw Franci and Archer’s wedding go off without a hitch, she’d be antsy. The couple had been through so much before falling in love. They deserved a perfect day.
Smiling at the bride’s brother, Sam, who was doing special duty as the officiant, Violet took her place across from Matias, managing to avoid his piercing gaze.
“How’s the flower girl?” Sam murmured.
“Sleeping like a baby,” she said, earning an eye roll from the best man. She ignored him and waved her free hand at Sam’s attire, his blazer and dress shirt a few steps up from Matias’s lack of formality. “Looking snazzy, Walker. Nice work dialing back from mountain man.”
His cheeks pinked, and he ran a hand over his short auburn-tinged beard. “Kellan gave me a trim. Picked out my jacket, too.”
“Happy to be useful, love!” Sam’s adorable Irish fiancé called from the front row of chairs.
“God, you’re sickening,” Violet mock complained. The couple was coming up on their first anniversary. “When are you setting a date?”
“As soon as we decide where in the world we want to get hitched,” Sam said, peering down the empty aisle with knitted brows. “Wherever it is, we’ll be more on time than my sister.”
“I’m sure it will be perfect.” And no matter what continent they chose, Violet would attend and cheer them on. Maybe even get misty, because between the two grooms, at least one of them would cry, which would make her well up, too. A perfect new chapter in their love story.
Sam and Kellan, Franci and Archer... They could keep the matrimonial happiness. Of all the parts of today and tomorrow, the only one Violet coveted was having a sweet baby like Iris.
Maybe Violet needed to do what Franci had done. Get pregnant from a one-night stand with a tourist, deliver the baby while trapped by a record-breaking windstorm with only her best friend’s brother for company and then realize she was head over heels for him.
A dry laugh bubbled up. Don’t get your hopes up. Being a single mom would be really tough. Her midwifery practice demanded so much of her time—and her emotions. Violet saw people at their most vulnerable, at their best and at their worst. The highs and lows of pregnancy, the ways a delivery could go sideways, the difficult postpartum days—a person needed the most reliable partner for it all.
She’d proven herself soundly incapable of finding someone to trust with those moments.
Up until now, she’d contented herself with shepherding other mothers’ babies into the world. Times like this, though, snuggling Iris and seeing the changes her sweet face had already gone through since her momentous arrival in the middle of a November superstorm, made her wish for her own miracle, no matter how impossible it had seemed in the past.
Her eyes stung. She suppressed a sniffle.
“Violet?” Across the altar, Matias raised a thick dark brow. “You okay?”
“Of course!” Iris’s big brown eyes flew open. Shoot. “What, I’m not allowed to get emotional at my brother’s wedding?”
“It’s not the actual wedding yet,” he said.
“It’s his wedding weekend. Close enough. I don’t plan on restricting my joy to tomorrow alone.”
“You don’t look joyful.”
His soft words were too much.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she snapped.
Both he and Sam looked at her in silent question.
Matias’s gaze stayed on her, heavy and meaningful. The last time he’d served as a best man, the groom had bolted the night before the wedding.
The wedding that should have been Violet’s.
Really, she should have warned Archer and Franci against having Matias in their wedding party. The guy was clearly bad luck.
“Uh, Violet?” Sam said. “Were Franci and Archer not following you?”
Wow, way to get tied up in her thoughts. She hadn’t clued in to the lack of bride and groom. “They should have been. I left them in the sunroom.”
The couple had decided to walk down the aisle together instead of Franci walking with her dad or going it alone. The gesture of walking toward their future together warmed Violet’s soul. She didn’t have a lot of confidence in relationships, but she did in Archer and Franci. They’d made it through a birth that had gone more than sideways—because of a road getting washed out during the storm, her brother had actually delivered Iris. And they’d survived the postpartum weeks, too. He wasn’t Iris’s biological father, but he’d be her dad in every way that mattered.
“I saw them through the window, but now I don’t,” Sam said.
“Must have found something diverting,” Matias murmured. “Probably each other.”
His gaze suggested he thought the couple was on to something.
“Come on, Matias, they wouldn’t fool around now,” Violet said between clenched teeth. Nor should we. Ever.
She hadn’t anticipated ignoring the best man to be a part of supporting Franci and Archer. She and Matias were ultracareful not to clue anyone in on their hookups. But for whatever reason, he was staring at her like she’d painted the fuchsia and tangerine streaks across the sky.
No, that wasn’t quite right. There weren’t actual emotions behind his attention. Just sex. Shaking her head at him, she looked the other way.
“In what world would you have expected Franci to be on time, Vi?” Sam asked. “Even for her own wedding?”
She glared at him out of loyalty to her friend, though of all people, Sam dealt with his sister’s inability to keep time the most. He owned Oyster Island’s local dive shop, where Franci was the manager and Archer led the dive crew.
“They were literally right behind me.” Though the rehearsal was starting fifteen minutes late because Iris had taken a long time with her afternoon feed.
Iris squawked.
“Exactly, sweet pea. You defend your mama.”
The baby’s lower lip stuck out, and she let out a single wah.
“Oh, hey, shh.”
The next wah drowned out the acoustic guitar music coming from Sam’s phone.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Violet soothed. “We want this perfect for your mom.”
“If she ever gets here,” Sam said dryly.
Iris’s cries went from complaints to a wail.
Violet rocked from one foot to the other. “Oh, lovey, hush. I had one job today.” She glanced up at Matias. The corners of his mouth turned down in concern. His eyes had lost their heated edge.
They were still magnetic.
“Two jobs,” she whispered to the squalling baby. The tiny face reddened by the second.
Matias crossed in front of Sam to stand next to Violet. “If this one’s job number one,” he said in a low voice, “what’s the second?”
Stop staring at you.
Matias had inherited his striking looks from his Kānaka Maoli father and his Austrian runway model mother. It was hard to look away sometimes.
Objectively.
She muttered some comforting nonsense to her red-faced niece.
Matias added a low shush to her own and scooped the baby out of her arms. Iris immediately quieted, staring up at her rescuer with wide, curious eyes.
A low growl escaped Violet. “I can’t believe she likes you better than me.”
“She doesn’t,” he replied in a low voice. “She can just tell you’re stressed.”
“Well, yeah. There’s a lot riding on this weekend.” Violet squinted at the house to see where the hell her brother and her best friend had ended up.
Franci and Archer finally emerged from the sliding door on the back of the house and came out on the deck.
“Sorry!” Franci called. Her red curls were rumpled, and her lips were puffy.
Nudging Violet with an elbow, Matias said, “Told you.”
The couple approached the far end of the aisle, hand in hand. Franci’s brows knotted in confusion, and she stared at Violet and Matias. “Weren’t you going to stand on opposite sides of Sam?”
“Iris took umbrage with me,” Violet admitted.
The baby squirmed in Matias’s arms, seeming to search for where her mother’s voice was coming from.
“And apparently Matias, too,” Violet added. That took the sting off a bit.
“Hmm,” Franci said. “If Iris isn’t going to want to be with you, Violet, maybe we need to change things up.”
Violet’s stomach tightened. She knew as much as anyone here—more, when it came to most of them—how unpredictable infants could be.
It still felt like she was failing her friend, who’d been so hoping to have Iris at the altar.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine tomorrow,” Violet said.
Franci shook her head. “Let’s try something different. You can take my bouquet. I’ll take my baby.”
Violet smiled. “Aw, that will be perfect.”
“And you and Matias can walk down the aisle together.”
His mouth quirked, a glint in his eyes as he studied Violet’s face. “Also perfect.”
The elbow she planted in his side earned a satisfying oof.
A few minutes later, she stood at the start of the aisle next to him, no baby in her arms to supply any sort of distance between the burly bar owner and herself. She gripped the paper-towel-roll handle of the ribbon-and-bow bouquet she’d crafted for Franci at the wedding shower. The thin cardboard crumpled.
Matias held out his elbow, something flickering in his gaze to which she didn’t want to get near.
Or that’s exactly what I want.
If she was being honest with herself, she had for a long time, ever since the first anniversary of her fiancé leaving Oyster Island to join a mainland brewing empire. Her ex had walked out right before their wedding rehearsal. Deserting Matias, too, and the plans he and Lawson had been about to implement for a brewery of their own. Exactly a year later, she’d been sitting at Matias’s bar, pretending her drink was celebratory.
Matias had known the truth, damn him.
In that ill-considered moment when she and Matias had comforted each other over their lingering grief and upset, things had gone too far. The following year, too.
And the year after that.
Tradition. An odd one. But once a year never hurt anyone.
There were people you had relationships with and people you had flings with, and thanks to his love-’em-and-leave-’em tendencies and being one of her brother’s best friends, Matias was neither. He was...a habit.
