It's About Time (Hunt Family #5) (13 page)

"Look to your left when you first walk in the front door," he said. "There's a little half bath on that wall under the stairs. I'll get Cupcake and your stuff and bring it in."

Chapter 17

There were about a million people in the house when I opened the front door. Evan had told me about his family, and I had heard stories from Paige and Mia over the years, but for some reason I pictured an empty room would be waiting for me when I opened the door—maybe I thought they were all at the beach, or maybe I just wasn't thinking about it. Either way, the amount of people who turned to look when I opened the door had me feeling stunned.

I smiled and tried to look like I wasn't shocked at all as I let my eyes fall onto all the faces staring back at me. My brain began to register the ones I knew. Paige, Izzy, Christy and Dan, Cody, A-list movie star, Dee-dee, and then a few who I'd seen in the salon but had never met.

My heart was already beating rapidly on account of Evan, but this unexpected greeting had it going in hyper mode. "That's Annabel, y'all," Dee-dee announced.

I glanced at her, and she smiled and waved at me. I smiled and waved back, even though I was speechless at the sight of so many people. One of the kids was sitting on the counter next to Dee-dee, and she was the next to speak. "Who's Annabel?" she said.

"Uncle Evan's girlfriend," I heard another kid say in a matter of fact tone.

"Ryan!" Paige said, urging her daughter not to embarrass me.

"What?" Ryan asked shrugging and looking at her mom with a slightly injured expression. "Uncle Evan told me that's who she was just a minute ago when we were coming up from the beach."

"But you don't have to repeat stuff…" Paige trailed off and turned to look at the rest of the family who couldn’t help but hear the conversation. "Annabel's also a good friend of ours," Paige said. "She's one of the best stylist at our salon, and her family owns our favorite breakfast place."

"Amen to that," Dee-dee said, making everyone laugh.

I glanced in her direction again when she said it, and noticed for the first time that Nathan Voth was standing in the kitchen near her. I stared at him for a second before peeling my eyes away to look at everyone else.

"It's very nice to meet you all," I said, smiling and doing a tiny, impromptu curtsey. Just as I was doing it, Evan opened the door behind me and let Cupcake come inside.

"Horse-ey!" Izzy yelled with her arms in the air. She and Ryan had met Cupcake before, and Izzy called her a horse every time.

"It's a dog," Ryan said to her little sister like it was the hundredth time she'd corrected her.

"Doggy!" one of the kids in the kitchen cried, hopping off the counter to go to Cupcake. Another child began to cry and cling to her mom when Cupcake went toward her.

"Cupcake, heel," I said in my most serious, dog-trainer tone. Cupcake abandoned her intention to sniff the kid and ran straight to me to sit by my side. "I'm sorry," I said to the mom (a person I'd seen at the salon, but otherwise didn't know).

"She's fine," the lady said. "Is your dog friendly?"

"Oh, my goodness, yes," I said as Cupcake sat obediently by my side. "Cupcake wouldn't hurt a fly."

"She'll get used to her," the lady assured me. She smiled. "I'm Willow. My husband's Andy," she said.

"Annabel," I said. "I think I've seen you guys at the salon."

"You have," she said, smiling. "We live in Charlotte, and we all go to Paige to have our hair done."

"Did you use the bathroom?" Evan asked, pinching my side from his spot next to me.

I looked at him and smiled. "Not yet," I said.

"What are you guys doing holding the girl up," Evan said, looking out at his family like they should be ashamed of themselves. "She's been holding it since Charlotte."

"Get in that bathroom, girl," Dee-dee said, pointing toward the wall on the left just like Evan explained.

"You got Cupcake?" I whispered to Evan.

"She's fine," he said with a reassuring smile. "Go."

I walked quickly to the door I knew was the half-bath. I had needed to use the restroom for so long that it took me a second to make it happen. I knew I should have stopped on my way into town so that I wouldn't be the girl who had to run to the restroom right when she met everyone, but I wanted to see Evan so badly that the thought never even crossed my mind.

I stared at myself in the mirror as I washed my hands. I took a deep, calming breath, preparing myself to go out there and continue meeting his massive family. I couldn’t help but smile when it crossed my mind that one of the people out there was Mr. Voth.

I was still smiling about it when I switched off the light and opened the door. Evan was sitting on the floor, holding the same young child who had just been crying over Cupcake. He had Cupcake sitting by his side so that he and the baby (and several other children) could check her out at the same time. Evan held that tiny little hand in his as they rubbed Cupcake, who just sat there wide-eyed and breathing open-mouthed on account of her own nerves. I let out a little giggle at the sight of them.

"See?" Willow said. "I told you she'd be fine."

"Cupcake's intimidating to most adults," I said. "She probably seems like a giant to small children."

"Horse-ey," Izzy said.

"Horse-ey!" Mia's boy, Tristan, repeated imitating his cousin.

"Yes, she's a horse-ey," Ryan said, rolling her eyes like the little kids would just never get it.

"Cup-cake," another baby said in the most precious baby voice.

"Is she your dog?" one of the other girls (who I knew from the salon as Willow's) said, looking at Evan.

"I think so, pretty much," he said to her with no hesitation or concern with how I felt about his answer.

"I'm Charlotte," I heard someone say, as I was contemplating that last exchange between Evan and the girl. I glanced in the direction of the one who spoke to find a beautiful blonde holding a baby. She introduced herself as "Evan's cousin from California," and I told her I'd already heard a lot about her, which was entirely true. She introduced me to her husband, baby boy, parents, and her brother and his wife, which were essentially the rest of the California crew. It didn't even really register that I was sitting in the same room with one of the most famous movie stars in Hollywood. I thought I would be star-struck to meet the Logan Ritchie, but I was ten times more anxious about impressing his cousin.

This room was full of some handsome-looking men, but Evan Hunt was far and away the most gorgeous one of them all. His hair was pulled back as usual, and I felt the strong urge to reach behind him and pull out his hair-tie so I could run my fingers through it. His long hair was perfectly suited for his otherwise masculine appearance, and I caught myself staring at him as he interacted with Cupcake and the kids who were gathered around.

"This is Nathan Voth," Dee-dee said, after I spoke with Charlotte and the others from California for a few minutes.

"I know Mr. Voth," I said. "He comes into the restaurant."

Dee-dee slapped her hand to her forehead. "I should have had a V-8," she said. "He's joining us for a couple of days so he can take some pictures and do a few sketches," she continued. "I've commissioned him to do a painting of the house and some sketches of us in action here at the beach."

"Aw, that sounds amazing," I said. "I'll bet they're gonna turn out great." I smiled at Nathan. "I've seen some of your work, and it's beautiful."

Several other family members chimed in, agreeing that they'd seen some of his stuff and were looking forward to the results of this trip. I knew the artwork was legit, but I smiled inwardly at the fact that Dee-dee acted like Nathan was strictly there on business.

Someone brought up getting ready for dinner, and the family turned to discussing that. I glanced at Evan, and he smiled and patted the space next to him. There were about four inches of space between him and my dog, and I crossed over to them and squeezed into it. Evan scooted over to give me some room.

"Ryan told us she was your girlfriend," Willow's older daughter said when I sat down.

"Ava, remember what Aunt Paige said to Ryan?" Willow said, overhearing her daughter even though most of the other adults in the room were talking about dinner plans.

"She
is
my girlfriend," Evan said, pulling me to him by the shoulder.

The girl put her hands over her face and giggled as if seeing Evan with a girl was the silliest thing she could imagine.

"You want me to kiss her on the lips and prove it?" Evan said, teasing the girl, who giggled harder.

"I do!" Ryan yelled.

"Yeah, yeah, I do, too!" Izzy repeated even though she didn't quite understand and was mostly just saying it to be like her sister. Tristan wiggled and grunted as if he wanted it too, whatever it was.

Evan looked at me with a smile and shrug like he was just doing his uncle-ey duty by kissing me. He leaned down and placed a sweet kiss on the top of my cheek.

"You didn't kiss her on the lips," Willow's daughter said, taking her hands from her face to point at Evan.

"Oh, y'all
want
me to?" Evan asked.

He looked at me and shrugged as if to say we better go ahead and give the crowd what they wanted.

I smiled and leaned up to kiss him as sweetly as he kissed me. Our lips touched, and we both smiled. I was smiling at how good it felt, and I assumed he was doing the same.

"Oh my goodness, that is the most adorable thing I have ever seen!" Charlotte said from across the room, getting everyone's attention and causing us to break eye contact and look at her. She was staring straight at Evan and me. She looked directly at Evan with a smile. "She is just too cute," she said.

"I know," Paige said. "And she's sweet, too. Evan did good."

"I can't believe Evan did good!" Charlotte said. Her expression was genuinely perplexed like she thought Evan would bring home somebody totally different and she respected the unexpected choice. "I just love her already," she said, shaking her head at me like she couldn’t quite believe it.

"Annabel's a keeper," Dee-dee added.

"You better not mess it up, Evan," Logan said, giving his cousin a hard time.

"I'm not," Evan said. He put his arm around me and squeezed me. "Why do you think I moved to Charlotte?"

In a quick motion, I pulled back far enough to stare up at him, and he shifted so he could see me as well. "You didn't already know that?" he asked.

"I don't guess I did," I said quietly.

"So we have Annabel to thank for getting our baby boy back home to us?" Christy asked.

"Pretty much," Evan agreed, smiling at me.

I just smiled dazedly at him, feeling unable to fully appreciate everything that was being said.

"Thank God Dee-dee didn't get it right the first time," Paige said. "Or I wouldn't exist in this family."

Dee-dee let out a hardy laugh when Paige's statement hit her. "She's right," Dee-dee said, still laughing. "I brought Paige here to fix her up with Evan."

"You did
what
?" Cody asked, causing us all to laugh.

"I remember that!" Dan said. "She took Christy and me out onto the balcony one morning and said we needed to help her make Evan fall in love with the young lady she brought with her from Charlotte."

Everyone laughed again, including Dee-dee, who shook her head and held her hands up in surrender. "Hey," she said. "God used me to get Paige here for Cody," she said. "I'm pretty proud of that, so I'm not gonna be ashamed by my slight miscalculation." She winked at Evan and pointed straight at me. "And this one was working at Amy's that morning when I met Paige."

"I was telling her that," Paige said, shaking her head and smiling. "Thank goodness you brought the wrong girl that day."

"God knows," Dee-dee said. "As much as I wanted him to be, Evan wasn't ready back then."

"That's exactly what
I
said," Paige said. "I'm glad you think it too, though. It makes me feel a little better about taking Annabel's spot that year."

"Annabel found her spot just fine," Evan said, leaning into me.

Chapter 18

Takeout options were discussed, but we decided to go out to eat. There were twenty-six of us (counting babies), so we called ahead to make sure the restaurant made accommodations. It was an Italian place, and Dee-dee set it up where they just served us several big dishes so we could eat family-style.

Dan got everyone's attention and said the blessing for all of us, thanking God for the food we were about to eat and for "the tremendous blessing of family," which made me want to cry. Evan reached over and grabbed my hand while his dad prayed, which only made matters worse. I could barely pay attention to the end of the prayer because I was trying to suppress my urge to cry.

I was an only child raised by parents who were divorced. My dad's mom was the one who owned the restaurant, and I was pretty close to her, but she was getting older now, and couldn’t do all the things she once could. I had a few cousins in St. Louis, but I had never been close to them. I loved my family, and knew I had a good life, but I had never experienced anything close to the situation I now found myself in with the Hunts. They were all wonderful people, and I felt so blessed by the way they wanted to take me into the fold.

Thankfully, his heartfelt prayer was brief; otherwise, I would have been wiping my eyes. As it stood, I got by with several exaggerated blinks to clear the tears. I smiled at Evan once his dad finished praying, and he squeezed my hand before letting go so he could grab one of the dishes in the middle of the table.

The servers had brought three types of pasta and a few pizzas, and we all just passed dishes around the table so we could serve ourselves. Evan asked me what I wanted and helped me with my food. He knew I was perfectly capable of doing it myself, but he almost seemed to enjoy taking care of me.

Male chivalry, especially when coming from a devastatingly handsome man, gives girls all sorts of warm-fuzzy feelings… at least it did for me. Being a gentleman could make a not-so-handsome man more appealing, so just imagine how good it looked on Evan Hunt. It was a surreal experience having his attention and affection focused on me.

The restaurant had set up two huge tables in a semi-private room. We could see the main dining room, but we were on the other side of a half-wall. Evan and I sat next to each other near the middle of one of the tables. The other table was behind our backs, so we were nearly back-to-back with Logan and his wife, Rachel. Paige and Cody were directly across from us, and Evan's mom and dad were sitting on my right.

We ended up talking to the people right beside us as we ate. Paige had been answering someone's question about the salon when she turned the conversation to me and the fact that I got them connected with one of the local women's shelters.

"In a couple of weeks we're gonna do a spa day at the Hope Center," she said. "We have ten stylists who are going to set up over there and bring some fresh, new looks to those ladies."

At least six or eight of the people sitting around us were listening to her talk.

"I think that's amazing!" Christy said, sweetly.

"Annabel's the one who hooked us up with that," Paige said, gesturing to me proudly. "She was planning on volunteering all by herself, and she got me feeling like I wanted in on it. You should tell them about the girl," Paige added, looking directly at me from across the table.

I shook my head almost imperceptibly at her. I didn't necessarily want to tell the story. Mostly because I felt like I had already been blessed by it enough. If I got any sort of praise out of the deal, I would just feel guilty.

"What girl?" Evan asked, since I hadn't even told him about it.

"I'm gonna tell them if you don't," Paige said stubbornly.

The only reason
she
knew about it was because she knew I had been up at the salon until after 10PM this past Monday night. "Annabel fit a week's worth of clients into a few days," Paige said. "We're normally closed on Monday's, but she had to move her clients around to make arrangements to be here with us this weekend. Anyway, long story short, the woman from the shelter called Annabel on Monday to see if she could help out one of the women who had a job interview on Tuesday."

"She knew it was last-minute," I said, taking up for her. "They didn't think about asking me until right before they called, and she said for me not to feel pressure to do it."

"Well, Annabel ended up doing it," Paige said. "She worked at the restaurant Monday morning, then she came in and did seven hours worth of rearranged hair appointments before the woman came in. I think they were there till ten-thirty that night. At least that's what the alarm record says."

"That's so sweet," Christy said, patting my back like she was proud of me. The woman's story was all the thanks I needed, and again, I felt unworthy of any further pats on the back.

"That's not all!" Paige said. "That's not the best part."

I sent her a shocked look that made her laugh.

"Mrs. Cartwright called me," she said.

Mrs. Cartwright was my main contact at the Hope Center. She had called me, too, which was why I knew the rest of the story—I just didn't know Paige knew it.

"Brenda got the job," Paige said. She shook her head as tears welled in her eyes. "The lady said she'd never seen such a transformation. She said having her hair done made the difference… That the confidence it gave Brenda was the reason the interview had gone so well." Paige's face crumpled slightly as she was talking, which made tears begin to form in my own eyes. "She said you helped that lady get back on her feet. That her life will change because of what you did."

It was completely ridiculous that Paige was crying and making me cry in front of all these nice people. I wiped my eyes and shook my head at her smiling through the tears that I was trying to keep at bay.

"Well, it was Evan who inspired me," I said, since it was the truth. "He's always doing something to help someone."

"I love my grandbabies so much!" Dee-dee yelled from the other end of the table, since pretty much the whole table was now listening to our conversation. "Seriously, y'all," she said. "You don't know how happy it makes my heart to hear about how much you do for others. All of my babies have such kind, giving hearts."

"Who do you think we get it from, Mom?" Dan asked from the other side of me. My eyes stung again as everyone at both tables agreed that they were the way they were because of Dee-dee.

After that, everyone just sort of continued eating and began talking in small groups again. Evan put his hand on my leg and gave it a squeeze. I had on shorts, so we were skin to skin, and the feeling of it sent chills up my spine. I literally shivered. He leaned over so he could whisper in my ear.

"You're never getting rid of me, you know," he said as a statement of fact and not a question.

"I guess I don't really want to," I said, seriously.

"Good, because you're not."

"Good, because I don't want to," I said, cracking a tiny smile.

"I'm taking you to the beach when we get back," he said.

"You are?"

"Yep."

"I haven't been to the beach yet," I said.

"I know."

"I'm probably gonna like it."

"Yep, you are," he said, giving my leg another squeeze. "And I am too."

"You are?"

He nodded with a mischievous grin.

"What's gonna happen at that beach?" I asked, feeling that familiar buzzing sensation. For the next few seconds, Evan blatantly stared at my lips. He unabashedly sat there and stared straight at them as if thinking of what he wanted to do with them. I had to bite my lip to keep from breaking into a huge grin, and he glanced up to meet my eyes with a funny expression like he thought I was trying to egg him on by biting my lip.

I laughed and pushed at him with my shoulder.

"You know what's happening at that beach," he said as he looked away, casually reaching over me to take a dish from his mom.

We had taken several cars to the restaurant, so half of them went to an ice cream place, and those of us who didn't want ice cream went straight home. Evan and I went with the non-ice cream bunch so that I could get back and check on Cupcake. I knew she'd be fine, but I was so amped up about this supposed walk to the beach that I wasn't hungry for ice cream. Evan was glad to get back to the house, so I didn't feel bad about that being my vote.

The sun was deep in the sky, but it was still daylight by the time we got back home and decided to head out to the beach. All of the little kids had gone out for ice cream, so the house was quiet as we made our way through it.

"What do you think about living in this house?"

"The life!" I said, smiling at him as I made a swooning gesture.

"So you want to?" he asked.

"Unless you're kicking me out to a hotel," I said, pinching him in a flirty way. "But I already put my things upstairs, and I'm pretty attached to that spot."

"I mean permanently. With me."

We had been walking through the living room, but Evan stopped once we were in the kitchen and leaned against the counter. There were a couple of people in the living room, but they had already turned on the TV, and were preoccupied. I smiled at him, but furrowed my eyebrows as if to ask what in the world he was talking about—at least that's what I hoped he understood by my expression.

"I'm sort of serious," he said. "I've been talking to Dee-dee and my parents and uncles this week. None of them are interested in living here full-time, so they're willing to let me buy it from Dee-dee. She said she'd love to know it's in the family and being lived in." Evan paused and smiled at me patiently as if he knew he'd just dropped a bomb on me. "I looked at a couple of places for a restaurant, and the girls know of a spa where you could maybe work." He gestured around him. "We'd have to be open to having these hoodlums around every summer, but I didn't think that'd be such a big deal." He paused and glanced at me with a genuinely curious expression. "Would it be?"

"Would it be what?" I asked since I was basically in the middle of mentally short-circuiting.

"Would it be okay with you to have them take over our house like this every June?"

"Our house?" I asked, tilting my head.

He smiled. "Yes. I mean obviously you'd have to think about it or whatever, but I thought I should tell you sooner rather than later that it's on the table since you're a part of the equation."

I pointed at myself. "Are you asking my opinion about whether or not you should buy this house?" I asked, feeling genuinely confused.

He smiled and reached out to pinch me gently. "Well, I'm not buying the house unless I plan on moving here, and I'm not moving anywhere unless it's with you, so yeah, I guess I'm sort of asking your opinion." He paused and smiled. "No pressure, though."

"So we would move to Myrtle Beach?" I asked.

He shrugged. "It's an option."

"Me and you?"

Another smile. "Yeah, me and you. We don't have to decide tonight or anything, but it's on the table. Dee-dee would give me a fair price, and everyone agrees that they want to keep it in the family."

"And you're Aunt and Uncle are okay with it?" I asked.

"We've worked it out where it's fair for everyone. None of the others want to live here full time, and they're happy for me to be here to keep up with it."

Just then, his mom came downstairs and into the kitchen, making us stop our conversation. Evan pulled me into his arms and situated me with my back against his chest where I was facing his mom. For the next few minutes, we talked to her about sandcastles and other random vacation-related things that didn’t include major life decisions.