His One and Only Read online

  “No,” Fairgood answered. “Not yet.”

  Beau smiled. “See what I mean. If I’d been you, I would have sealed the deal by now.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Prescott.”

  But nothing could wipe the smile off of Beau’s face at this point. “You tried. You tried your damnedest, coming back to Alabama with your big music career and your platinum albums, and she still said no.”

  “What she said,” Colin corrected, “was she wasn’t ready to be in a relationship.”

  “With you,” Beau said.

  “Because of what you did to her!” Fairgood all but hissed back.

  “Let me talk to her.” Beau turned his head from left to right, straining to hear if she was anywhere in the suite, then when he didn’t hear her, he said, “If you were any kind of man, you’d let me talk to her—”

  “She’s not here,” the sweet voice assured him.

  “Shut up,” Colin said, his voice low and dangerous. “Shut up right now. This ain’t none of your business.”

  “No, but it’s not necessarily any of yours either. And I’m not going to let you torture this guy just because he tried to beat you up once in high school after you stole his girlfriend.”

  Beau frowned. This woman knew about that? How? And why did her voice sound so familiar, like a distant memory on the tip of his tongue? But before he could ask, she said, “She came by for the show yesterday, and he’s scheduled to meet her for brunch today. Colin was going to use me to make her jealous, but from what I’m putting together, that plan wouldn’t have worked out so well.”

  “If you tell him, all those hopes and dreams of yours? Well, I’m going to make sure they never happen,” Colin said between what sounded like clenched teeth.

  Beau crooked his head to the side. Apparently, Josie wasn’t the only one who’d undergone some changes since high school. Back then Colin had been easy-going and slightly goofy, but now it sounded like fame had turned him into a major dick. Not only was he trying to keep Beau from Josie, but he was obviously trying to manipulate this woman into making sure his plan was a success.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Beau said, his voice strong and determined. “As someone who pinned all his hopes and dreams on getting his sight back, I’m here to tell you, none of that stuff truly matters in the end. I can live without my sight or football, but I am nothing without Josie. She is the love of my life. So please tell me how to find her.” Then just in case his impassioned plea wasn’t enough, he added. “Plus, whatever Fairgood is paying you, I will double it.”

  “You can’t pay her what she’d be giving up if she says one more word,” Colin shot back. Then to the mystery woman, he said, “One more word and your career is over, I swear to God.”

  He could feel the woman hesitating. “Please,” Beau said again.

  Then he waited to see whose side she picked.

  CHAPTER 22

  “THANKS FOR THE RIDE, SAM,” Josie told her friend when they pulled up outside the Birmingham Grand.

  “No problem, but you need to get a new car already. It’s always breaking down on you, and you know that’s not safe.”

  “With what money?” Josie asked with a grin.

  The money Beau had paid her for the one week they’d spent together before she quit had been well spent. It’d been enough to keep Ruth’s House open and allow her enough credits to complete her degree at UAB. But even living as frugally as she had for the last six months, there wasn’t enough left over to replace her junker car.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you could ask Mr. Moneybags Country Singer in there?” Sam suggested. “You didn’t seem to have any problem hitting him up for that big donation last night.”

  “That’s different. The money Beau Prescott donated will only take us so far, and we’ve got to keep hustling.”

  Sam grinned. “And that’s why I can’t wait until you’re done with your summer classes and can come work at the shelter full time.”

  “Me either,” Josie said, meaning it. She welcomed the idea of getting money from legitimate sources, ones she didn’t have to almost lie about. Sam knew that the money to keep Ruth’s House open came from Beau. But she had no idea what Josie had done to get it. “But right now I am so late, girl. I’ve got to go.”

  “Yeah, uh-huh. Don’t think this car topic won’t come up later,” Sam told her.

  But Josie just laughed and stepped out of the car into the Alabama sunshine, feeling better than she had in years. Healed. Because car or no car, she’d finally become the independent woman she’d been longing to be ever since realizing that her marriage was more of a well-laid trap than a dream come true.

  But then a gray-haired couple came out of the Grand’s sliding front door, laughing and holding hands. Josie’s heart fluttered with a memory of how Beau and she had laughed together over the hijinks of the heroine’s android assistant in the Clara Quinn novel they’d been reading together, the one she hadn’t had the heart to finish alone.

  Her steps faltered a bit. Indepence was a little lonlier than she’d thought it would be.

  But she eventually squared her shoulders and kept on walking. So what if the memory of the one week she’d spent in Beau’s bed had kept her up at night for six months? So what if she still had trouble doing the reading homework for her assignments, because whenever she got bored, her mind would drift to thoughts of him, his hands on her body, his commands for her to tell him what he was doing to her even as he was doing them?

  Losing Beau was a small price to pay for achieving her dreams, for finally getting to live her life as she chose and on her own terms. Josie sailed into the hotel’s lobby with the hook to Destiny Child’s “Indepedent Woman” resounding inside her head...

  Right up until she saw a now clean-shaven Beau Prescott walk out of the elevator bank on the other side of the lobby with a gorgeous black woman on his arm.

  The record scratched then and Josie stopped dead in her tracks. This was not the Beau Prescott she had left behind to wallow in a pool of his own misery six months ago.

  This Beau was well-coiffed, wearing a pair of gold-plated aviators, and dressed in a summer blazer and white pants that both looked like they had been tailored specifically for him. This Beau looked so good it took her breath away. She literally didn’t breathe as he walked toward her with confidence and what looked like a light saber leading the way.

  He was happily smiling in the direction of his companion, a woman with flawless light brown skin and a head of read curls that framed her heart-shaped face beautifully. He said a few words, then they stopped, and Beau leaned down to hug her.

  Not only had Beau learned to navigate his blindness, but it also looked like he had moved on to someone new. And though she tried to be happy for him, she just couldn’t manage it. Something inside her curdled, watching him hug up on another woman.

  But then Beau let the gorgeous woman out of the hug and started walking toward Josie again. This time alone. And she scrambled out of his pathway, hiding behind a ficus to watch as he walked by. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually talk to him either.

  But then right as he was about to pass by, he sniffed the air and turned toward her. “Josie?”

  “H-how did you know it was me?” she asked in surprise, stepping out from behind the ficus.

  “Your scent,” he answered with a sheepish smile. “Sandalwood. That’s pretty distinctive in a place like this.”

  Josie looked around the lobby at the other hotel patrons, most of whom were white now that the other black women had left. “I guess so. Well, it’s good to see you looking so well, Beau. I mean, you look great. Really good.” Then she made herself stop talking because she was just embarrassing herself now.

  Her eyes went to his cane. “Is that one of those ultrasonic canes?” she asked. “I thought they were only in the prototype stage. At least that’s what I read when I was…” she trailed off, as a fresh wave of embarrassment made
her face go hot. “…working for you.”

  But instead of following her down the path of small talk, he said, “Josie, I don’t want to talk with you about my cane.”

  And just when she thought the situation couldn’t get any more embarrassing. “Oh, sorry. I’ll just let you get on your way. Nice seeing you again,” she said. She stepped away from him then, but her somewhat dignified exit was cut short when she tripped over the ficus she’d forgotten was behind her.

  To her surprise, he caught her before she could stumble more than a few steps. “You okay?” he asked, pulling her up to his chest.

  “I’m fine,” she answered. “Thanks. I’ll just be getting on my way. I’m already...” She started to extract herself from their unexpected embrace, but he held her there, his arms as strong as a pair of steel bands around her. “…late.”

  He smiled. “It feels like you’ve gained a little more weight. I like it.”

  Josie looked around. A few patrons had stopped to stare. But Beau acted like there was nothing the least bit strange about how he was holding on to her.

  “I’m steady now,” she told him. “You can let me go.”

  “But how about if I don’t want to?” he asked. “How about if I never want to let you go?”

  Her heart started to soar, but then she remembered, “Weren’t you just hugged up on somebody a few minutes ago? A really, really good-looking somebody?”

  He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “His plan worked. You got jealous. It’s just it wasn’t over the right person.”

  “I’m not jealous,” she said, even though she totally was. “I was just wondering why you’re talking about never wanting to let me go when you obviously were just hugged up on somebody else.”

  “Man, you sound angry. Was she that cute?”

  Now she really started struggling to get free. “Let me go,” she said. “Let me go right now, Beau Prescott.”

  “No,” he said. “Not until you promise to marry me.”

  She stopped struggling. “What?”

  And he cursed. “I’m not doing this right.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “You should have been here earlier. I had this whole speech about how much I love you, about how you make me a better person. But now we’re here, and it sounds like I’m threatening you, but I’m not. Josie, I love you. That’s all. More than I ever loved anybody else, ever.” He reached up and stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “So even though, I know Prescotts don’t apologize, here’s me, Beau Prescott, telling you, Josie Witherspoon, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the things I said, the way I treated you. Sorrier than I’ve ever been about anything in my entire life. And I’m sorry I can’t leave you alone, but I want you to—no, scratch that, darlin’, I need you to spend the rest of your life with me.”

  She stared up at him, her eyes glistening with tears. That speech had been so beautiful, she could barely believe it had come out of Beau Prescott’s mouth. Yet even though his voice shook when he spoke--and this was likely the first apology he’d made to anyone in over twenty years--there was just one more thing she had to see to truly believe he meant what he’d just said.

  His eyes.

  She tentatively reached up and removed his sunglasses.

  He let her, but his arms stiffened around her waist as she took them off, which let her know he wasn’t wholly unaffected by what she was doing.

  She found his beautiful silver eyes filled with tears, just like hers. And to her surprise, the dark pupils inside of them shrank under the lobby’s bright lights. “Have you gotten some of your sight back?”

  “No, my eyes still respond to light, but they don’t relay a picture to my brain. That’s how my condition works.” She could almost see the effort it was taking for him to hold still under her scrutiny. “I decided to make a donation to UAB’s Department of Ophthalmology, and I’ve got a few other neurosurgeons looking at my file, but as far as I know, I’m going to be blind until further notice. I know that’s not ideal. But I promise, I won’t ever let it affect my ability to love you the way you deserve to be loved ever again.”

  She regarded him for several seconds before saying. “You’re right. I don’t like you as much now as when you had your sight.”

  His grip around his waist slackened. “Oh,” he said, the expression on his face going from hopeful to devastated to resigned in the space of a few seconds.

  But then she said, “I like you way better. Way, way better.” She smiled up at him. “In fact, I love you, too, because now you’re perfect. Yes, Beau, I’ll marry you.”

  And he smiled back, before pressing his mouth into hers. For a moment, the staring Alabamans in the lobby faded away, and it was only them returned to the love-struck teenagers they’d once been, but then she remembered, “Oh my God, Colin! We were supposed to meet to talk about him giving Ruth’s House a donation.”

  But his arms only curled tighter around her and he said, “However much you were planning to ask him for, I’ll match it.”

  “But—”

  “Double it.”

  “Beau—”

  “Hell, you’re going to be my wife. I’ll give you my checkbook and let you decide on the amount.”

  And lest she think he was actually trying to buy her again, he capped this declaration with the sweetest, most sincere, and most grateful kiss she had ever known.

  EPILOGUE

  TO THEIR CREDIT, Josie and he did manage to make it out of the back of Mac’s car, before they consummated their reunion. But there was no way he was going to let them get all the way up the stairs, or even to a chair or couch. In fact, Beau considered himself a damn gentleman for closing the door all the way behind him, before he threw Josie down on the foyer’s floor.

  She seemed desperate for him, too, because not only did she go down on her back without a word of protest, she unzipped his pants and pulled him out as she did so.

  But despite his many changed ways, Beau still wasn’t the type to give his future wife what she wanted without making her work for it. “I don’t hear you narrating, darlin’,” he said, refusing to go along with her as she started to position his cock between her wet folds.

  Below him, she went still. “Are you kidding me?” she asked.

  “Not even a little bit,” he answered, pulling back slightly to make his point.

  She let out a huff of air, but eventually said, “I’ve got your thing in my hand.”

  “Josie…”

  “I’ve got your dick in my hand—and wow! It just got harder as soon as I said that.”

  “What’s your other hand doing?” he asked, trying to ignore the aching pain that came with wanting to be inside someone this much.

  “It’s, um, on your butt, trying to get you to….”

  He finally allowed himself to sink his cock into her, and savored the sound of her delighted moan when he was all the way inside and began moving. Now both her hands were on his ass. But soon after he started thrusting into her with long, hard jerks, he felt both of her hands thread themselves under his arms, before hooking around his shoulders from behind, as if she were trying to hold on.

  “Tell me what you see,” he said.

  “From this position, just my hands on your shoulders.”

  “Describe them to me.”

  And he could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Well, the right one is just my plain old hand, but the left one has a big honking diamond on it.”

  His diamond. The one he’d put on her in the back of Mac’s car when he realized he’d forgotten to propose to her with it.

  He let out a strangled groan and pushed into her even harder, making sure he hit her clit with each stroke. More than anything, he wanted to please Josie, wanted to spend the rest of his life pleasing her.

  His lips searched for and eventually found the thin scar at the top of her left breast. He promised himself that from then on, he’d kiss it every time they made love, for
the rest of his life, as a reminder of what she had survived in order to make her way back to him.

  And it felt like his heart would come out of his chest when she began bucking beneath him. She cried out his name, “Beau!” before she seized up and came with a happy sigh.

  He was glad she was happy. He wanted that even more than he wanted his own orgasm, which came crashing over him a few minutes later. He released into her, already knowing after their upcoming wedding and the birth of their children, this moment would be forever seared in his mind as his most favorite.

  But then it was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. “Yoo-hoo, Beau, darling!” came his mother’s voice. “I’m finally….”

  The thud of what sounded like one of his mother’s expensive purses hitting the floor came next. “…home.” Then: “Josie Witherspoon, I do not believe this is the job I hired you for.”

  “Oh. My. God,” Josie said underneath him, obviously mortified.

  But Beau just laughed. Not even this latest interruption could diminish the joy of finally winning the heart of Josie Witherspoon. His dream girl. His favorite ally.

  His one and only love.

  THE END

  But wait! Who was that mystery woman? Find out in 2014, when Colin Fairgood finally gets a southern-fried love story of his very own.

  If you liked this story, check out the other books in the 50 Loving State series:

  THE OWNER OF HIS HEART

  HER RUSSIAN BILLIONAIRE

  HER VIKING WOLF

  THE WILD ONE

  HER PERFECT GIFT

  Theodora Taylor reads, writes, and reviews in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When not reading, writing, or reviewing, she enjoys going to the movies, daydreaming, and attending dinner parties thrown by others with her wonderful husband. Feel free to contact her at [email protected], and if you love IR romance as much as she does, check out her review blog at irbookreviews.com