Carried Away: A Small Town Romance (The Moore Brothers Book 2) (13 page)

I
n times of crisis
, there was only one thing to do and that was turn to family. While Ellie had sat dumbfounded and broken outside her ruined cafe, James had rallied the troops, calling his parents and his brothers and his sister to circle the wagons. Alone, they were weak, but together, they were unbreakable. His dad had always likened family to a shield wall. They would pull together and create an impenetrable defense, moving forward in the face of adversity and using their strength to protect the person standing beside them. His whole family was waiting for them at the Moore family home; his mom sure to be busy in the kitchen making something warm and easy on the stomach.

Ellie barely said a word as he drove, just stared out the window, her face slack and her eyes glazed over. He resisted the urge to ask her if she was going to be okay because he knew the answer. She would tell him yes and mean no, but that’s only because she hadn’t realized what it meant to have a Moore in her corner yet. He had to wonder if she had any idea as to what it was like to have
anyone
in her corner. Ever.

His heart broke for the girl who’d had to learn to fend for herself. For the girl who had built all these walls around herself. For the girl who sat next to him in his truck, thinking she had lost it all.

He would just have to show her that she hadn’t lost a thing.

“Where are we?” she asked as he pulled up in front of his parents’ house.

“Welcome to the quaint, though somewhat imposing home of Frank and Diane Moore.” James smiled and reached across the truck to squeeze her knee. “When disaster strikes, Moores come together.”

Ellie stared at the large, cottage-style mansion with its wraparound porch and sweeping views of the beach. “I don’t belong here,” she murmured.

James scowled. “Of course you do. Now, get out of the truck and prepare yourself.”

“For what?”

“For the glory of the Moores in action.”

He slid out of the truck and closed the door. Waited for her to join him and took her hand. In all the weeks they had been together, he had never seen Ellie stumble under the weight of any emotion. Any adversity. Period. She always just taken a beat, swallowed hard, and then pulled herself up by the bootstraps while that mask came down over and hid what she was really thinking and she just dealt with it. He kept waiting for her to turn to him and smile and tell her she would be just fine and she just kept not doing it.

He pushed through the front door into the house and was assaulted with the scent of fried chicken and coffee and some kind of chocolate baked something or other. His brothers rushed them the moment the door closed clicked into its frame, asking questions about the damage at the store. Asking whether Ellie was okay. Julz and his sister, Lilah, hung back, looking worried and wringing their hands, and his dad handed Ellie a tumbler filled with more than a few fingers of scotch.

Ellie shrunk back into James, tucked herself right under his arm, and peered out at the family with her eyes wide.

“Back, you beasts,” James said, making a shooing motion with his hands. “Give the woman a moment to breathe.”

Ellie giggled nervously and James led her into the living room to have a seat. She sipped at the scotch and smiled, looking more unnerved than she had at the crime scene. James inwardly fumed at the mess of glass and paint and crumbled baked goods. Someone had actually punched the muffins in the display. If it wasn’t so awful, it would be funny, thinking about someone upset enough to punch a pastry. But this was Ellie and nothing about it was funny at all.

Who would do that to her?
Why
would they do it to her? Those names scrawling across the walls in hot red slashes of paint, those were born of anger. The urine in her office, that was personal. But Ellie was the kindest, sweetest person James had ever met. A woman who went out of her way to help people. A woman who put her head down and did what was needed. A woman who persevered.

A woman who had inched her way through his defenses and made him remember what it meant to care about someone. Made him
want
to care about someone. And not just any someone. Her specifically. He couldn’t imagine that anyone who knew her wouldn’t end up having feelings for her. Hell, even that cook of hers had gotten wrapped up in her. So much so that he had walked out on his job when he discovered Ellie was dating James.

His mouth fell open and all the blood in his body slowed to a stop and then raced on through his veins to make up for lost time. “Ellie,” he said, interrupting the conversation she was having with one of his brothers. “That cook. The crazy one who left you in a lurch.”

Her mouth fell open. “Ben.”

“You don’t think...?”

“I don’t know...”

“But could he...?”

“I guess so....” Ellie rested the tumbler of scotch on her knee. “What do I do?”

Ian watched the conversation as if it were a tennis match, his head ping-ponging back and forth between the two of them. “Would one of you finish a sentence?”

Ellie and James explained who Ben was and how he had quit so suddenly. Ian nodded as he listened, and shrugged when they finished. “Sounds totally plausible.”

There was another flurry of discussion and Ellie called the police and filled them in while the Moores stood watch over her. They cheered and applauded when she hung up and something warm filled James’s heart as he watched her face soften. Her posture relax. Her smile stretch easily across her face.

There was no medicine like family, that was for damn sure. And there was something extra sweet about watching that medicine go to work on Ellie. By the time his mom called them all in for food, Ellie seemed almost completely like herself again.

James watched her compliment his mother on the meal. Laugh at Ian’s jokes. Ask his dad questions about the scotch in her glass that got magically refilled every time she left it alone. She spoke to Juliet like they were old friends and asked Harrison about his restaurant. She even managed to make Lilah smile and no one managed to make Lilah smile.

It was like Ellie belonged here. Like she was a missing part of the family. Like she had always been here. Her demeanor was so easy and natural. So sweet and caring. It made him question what would actually happen after Ian’s wedding. Would he be willing to let her go? Could he really imagine a life without her?

And more importantly, if he asked her to stay, would she?

S
omething
in her gut told her that Ben was the one who had ruined her cafe. There were very few people in life that Ellie couldn’t get along with, wasn’t interested in getting to know. Ben had been one of those people. She had drawn hard lines with him the since the beginning. Had that been some kind of sense of who he was? Her subconscious sensing danger and keeping her safe?

Calling the police and giving them his name felt good, but sitting down to a family meal with the Moores felt even better. It brought her back, way back, to one of her favorite memories. One so old it was missing detail in some places, yet was almost sensory overload in others. Worn and exaggerated by time. Before her father died and her mother lost her mind, they made time to sit down to family dinner every night.

Her favorite memory was nothing more than the three of them laughing over some joke she had long forgotten. She could still feel the rough skin of her father’s palm, the coarse bit of hair that grew on his knuckles, as he took her hand in his. The scent of pasta and garlic and tomato sauce overwhelmed her. The light had been long and slanted, coming in warm and bright through the open window to illuminate the smile on her mother’s face. Their laughter echoed through time, distorted and hung in the sunlight, dancing like dust motes.

Ellie couldn’t remember if that was the last dinner they’d had together or the best dinner they’d had together. Time had blurred the details. But the memory haunted her through years of eating dinner alone. Or eating dinner under the barking orders of militant foster dads. Or making dinner for the family and eating it in terse silence.

And here, with the Moores laughing and joking, teasing each other and rallying around her on a genuinely awful day, she felt like she had found that memory of her parents again. Like finally, after all these years, she was getting to experience it again and it made her feel all warm and melty inside. Of course, maybe that was the scotch. Somehow, no matter how much she drank, the glass always seemed full.

Diane gathered plates from the table and Ellie stood. “Here,” she said, clutching the arms of her chair as the world spun. “Let me help.”

“Oh no.” Diane gave her a stern look. “You sit. Relax. Let me take care of you. Lord knows you’ve had your hands full with my son.”

“Hey!” said James. “I resemble that remark.”

Diane returned carrying a plate of brownies and a carafe of coffee. “If I hadn’t seen you turn down a drink with my very eyes I wouldn’t have believed it was possible after the way you’ve been living lately.”

James smiled at Ellie and took her hand. “I made this woman a promise and I’ll be damned if I let her down. She deserves better.”

Frank nodded and reached out to give Ellie’s other hand a squeeze, his rough palm scraping her knuckles and this surge of bittersweet emotion nearly took away her ability to speak. “I’d say,” said Frank in his perfectly gravelly voice, “that James may have finally met his match.” Frank took a sip of his coffee. “She’s gotten him to quit drinking. To stop moping around his house like a wounded child. She even got him to spend a day working at her cafe.”

Or maybe I’m the one who has met my match,
Ellie thought. She had opened up, shared her past with him. Let him see how she was struggling. Let him help her when she needed it. Accepted his money. His support. A room in his house.

“Now,” said Lilah, interrupting Ellie’s train of thought. “If she could only manage to get him to stop with all the fighting.” Lilah turned to James. “Seriously. With all the bruises and the cuts? Those jerks you’ve been hanging out with? Pounding people to a pulp or whatever it is you do? How do you think that makes me look? To have my brother strutting around with bruised knuckles and black eyes?”

Harry shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Because it’s always about you, isn’t it, Lilah?”

She pursed her lips and sat back, tossing her wheat-colored hair over her shoulders.

“Seriously, Lilah.” James crossed his arms on the table. “I’m not gonna quit fighting. And now that I know how much it affects you, what a hardship it is on you to have a brother like me, I might just get even more into it.”

Lilah rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to return what was sure to be a vicious comment, given the look in her eyes, but Diane interrupted her.

“That’s enough, you two.” She winked at Ellie. “You can play nice or go to your rooms.”

“So,” Ian said. “On that note. What are we going to do about Ellie and this Ben guy? She can’t go home.”

James nodded his head. “That’s for sure. She’ll stay with me.”

Ian made a face as if that made perfect sense and Ellie’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Excuse me,” she said, laughing. “I know Moore men apparently have this bossy gene, but I’m right here. What if I want to go home?”

“That’s out of the question,” both Ian and James answered at the same time. Ellie looked to Juliet and Diane, who only smiled and shrugged as if to say
what are you going to do
?

“Ben doesn’t know where I live—” she began.

James held up a hand. “And how can you know that for certain?”

“James is right.” Ian threaded his fingers into his hair. “You’re going to have to assume that if this guy is unhinged enough to do the damage he did to your cafe, that he knows where you live and has it out for you. You can’t be alone.”

“But—” Ellie began. She turned to Harry, who shrugged.

“They’re right,” Harry said, an apology softening his gray eyes. “I know you don’t like it, but they’re right.”

Ellie took a sip of her scotch, followed by a long drink of her coffee and sighed. “I can take care of myself,” she muttered.

“I know you can.” James stood and put his hands on her shoulders. “You always have and you’ve done a good job of it. Thing is, now you don’t have to anymore. You’ve got an army of Moore men at your disposal.”

The day had been too emotional for Ellie to make any sense of what rose in her chest, the flip-flopping in her stomach. She just smiled and relaxed into his touch and promised she would make sense of it all after she had time to process. Reminded herself not to get too caught up in the fairy tale. This wasn’t her life. She was only borrowing it for a few months.

The men were wrapped up in a discussion of how to get Good Beginnings put back to rights. Ian had lumber and building materials. Harrison had some kitchen supplies and could sacrifice some glassware, plates, silverware. Frank thought he could get a good line on some tables and chairs. Even Lilah thought she might be able to help with painting the walls. Maybe pick out a better color scheme.

Juliet caught Ellie’s gaze from across the table. “They’re good people,” she said. “Take it from me, meeting a Moore was the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” she said and meant it with all her heart.

“
I
had a thought
,” James said as they climbed into the truck after a long day with his family. “I’m supposed to go to The Pit tonight with Ethan and Oliver. You should come.”

“I have very little interest in watching you get beat up, thank you very much.”

“Hey! I’ll be doing the beating, but thank you for your vote of confidence.”

“Either way. Not interested in worrying about how badly you’re going to get hurt, even if you do hurt the other guys more,” she added after she saw his face.

“For the record, I didn’t invite you so you could watch. I thought it might do you some good to get physical. Maybe throw a few punches yourself.”

“You want me to what? Take my anger out on someone else? Double no thank you.”

“Well, not on someone else. Because then I would be the one worrying about you getting hurt. But on a heavy bag? Hell yeah I want you to do that. I think it’d do you a lot of good.”

Ellie shook her head. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“You’re a damn good lover, but the way you fuck makes me think you’d be a damn good fighter, too.”

Ellie blushed from her head to her toes. “Thanks? I think?”

“That’s a mighty fine compliment, sweet Ellie.” He turned the truck towards Bliss, away from his house and nerves danced in her belly. “Think about it, you’ve spent your whole life fighting, but it’s all been internal. You versus all the shit life had to throw at you. How good would it feel to ball up that tiny little fist of yours and take all that mental anguish and make it physical?”

“Sounds like a different kind of awful to me.”

“Nah. Here’s the thing. You take all that mental anguish and you make it physical and just sweat it out. You channel it and use it to fuel your body. What happens to the gas that runs this truck as I’m driving?”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mr. Condescending. I get it.”

“I’m not trying to be condescending. I’m just saying.”

She couldn’t believe it, but she was actually considering his idea. Actually on the verge of agreeing to go to some weird, testosterone driven place called The Pit and learn to throw a punch. Her busy life never left time for exercise even though she knew she would feel better if she were more in shape. Maybe fighting wasn’t exactly the way she had envisioned getting in shape, but she never turned down opportunity when it came knocking.

James turned the truck onto a familiar road and Ellie realized where they were going. “Why are you taking me to my apartment? I thought I wasn’t supposed to go to my apartment.” She hated the surge of fear that ate away at the calmness being with the Moores had brought her.

“Just to get you some clothes to work out in.”

“But I haven’t even agreed to go yet.”

“You didn’t have to. I knew you would.”

They weren’t in her apartment long, but being there gave her the serious creeps. James kept a flashlight in his truck and somehow, walking around the darkened apartment with only a single beam of light to illuminate the corners made everything seem sinister and dangerous. She dug through her drawers as quickly as she could and found an old pair of sweats and a sports bra that might still fit. She grabbed a tank top that she usually used for sleeping and was a little shaky by the time they got back in the truck.

“You good?” James asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but she would be soon.

“Okay.” He flipped on the turn signal and craned his head to check for oncoming traffic before he pulled out onto the road. “Now, give me the real answer.”

“It was a little strange being there. In the dark. Afraid some psycho might be there, too. Or had been there, too.” She held out her hand and showed him how it quivered. “I’m shaking.”

James threaded his fingers into hers. “You’re safe with me. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He flipped on the radio and gave her his favorite wicked smile. “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters. Be the hero, Ellie.”

“Wow,” she said. “That’s deep. I’m impressed.”

“I’d take credit if I could, but some other guy way more famous than me said it.”

She wasn’t sure how throwing a few punches at bag hanging from the ceiling was going to make her a hero, but after that cold hand of fear crept up her spine and twisted its fingers around her heart in her apartment, she couldn’t think of a reason
not
to learn how to throw a decent punch.