Love in a Small Town Box Set Volume II Read online

  LOVE IN A SMALL TOWN

  ALWAYS FOR YOU

  UNDERNEATH MY CHRISTMAS TREE

  ALWAYS MY OWN

  MY OWN & ALWAYS

  ALWAYS OUT LOVE

  TAWDRA KANDLE

  Love in a Small Town Box Set II

  Copyright © 2018 Tawdra Kandle

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Cover design: Meg Murrey

  Formatting: Champagne Book Design

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Always for You

  Synopsis

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Always For You Play List

  Underneath My Christmas Tree

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Sam and Meghan’s Christmas Morning

  Always My Own

  Synopsis

  Dedication

  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

  Epilogue

  Always My Own Play List

  Acknowledgements

  My One & Always

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Acknowledgments

  Always Our Love

  Synopsis

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Always Our Love Play List

  The Posse

  Acknowledgements

  Preview of The Love Song Girl

  Other Books

  About the Author

  ALWAYS FOR YOU

  Always For You

  Maureen Evans has had a crush on Smith Harrington since they were in college together. She always knew he didn’t see her as anything more than his best friend—just one of the guys—but that didn’t stop her from weaving sexy fantasies about him.

  Now, after years of maintaining a long-distance friendship, Smith’s moving to Burton, Georgia, Maureen’s hometown, to become her partner at the veterinary clinic. After all this time, she should be able to handle working with him without getting hot and bothered.

  Or maybe not.

  The more determined Maureen is to maintain their just-friends bond, the more Smith seems intent on testing those boundaries. And when flirting crosses the line into something more, it ends in a night neither of them can forget.

  When friendship is no longer enough, there’s always love.

  Dedication

  When I was growing up, my father always said, “The strongest basis of a marriage is friendship. You’ll fall in and out of love with your husband over the course of the years, but if you’re friends first, that will sustain you.”

  To a young girl craving romance and happily-ever-afters, that didn’t sound right. But I’m glad I listened to him and married a man who’s been my best friend as well as my one true love for thirty years.

  And so this book about friends who become more is dedicated to Daddy, with love. I miss you every day, but your wisdom and your words are with me always.

  Prologue

  Six Years Ago

  “NO, SEE, YOU’RE FORGETTING To pull out the variable here.” Smith leaned over me, pulled the pencil from my fingers and used it to point to the x in the numerator. I held my breath so that I wouldn’t be tempted to inhale deeply, just to get a whiff of the delicious aroma that was pure Smith. A little bit of expensive cologne, a hint of his shaving gel, a dash of manly shampoo, plus that indefinable something I’d not been able to figure out yet.

  “And once you do that—” The pencil flew across the paper as the very tip of his tongue appeared in the corner of his mouth. “Then you cancel that, and you get rid of the denominator.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his gorgeous gray eyes. “Does that make sense?”

  At that moment, everything in the world suddenly made sense, because Smith Harrington was here, his arm almost around me as he leaned down over my desk and his face next to mine. If some foreign government took it into its head to bomb the state of Georgia right now, I’d die a happy girl. A horny girl, yes, but definitely a happy one.

  I realized he was waiting for me to respond. “Oh, uh, yeah. I think so. I always forget to factor those out.” I shifted just enough that my shoulder touched his fingers where they gripped my chair.

  He grinned. “Yup. We all have those little math quirks that trip us up. I’d tell you mine, but you’d lose all respect for me.”

  As if. I managed to smile back. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.”

  “Think you got this now?” His mouth was so close to my ear that I shivered when his breath caressed my skin.

  “I think so.” I didn’t mean to whisper, but it came out that way. Shaking myself, I straightened up and leaned away. “I mean, yes. I do. Thanks for spending the time to explain it to me.”

  “Any time.” He stood up, stretching his back so that his T-shirt rode up and revealed a tantalizing band of tanned abs. Sweet baby Jesus, save me now. I swallowed hard and forced myself to look away.

  “So.” I managed a semi-casual sounding voice. “You doing anything exciting tonight?”

  Smith shrugged. “Just a date with some girl my mother asked me to take out. I’m taking her to see a movie and then we’ll probably stop in at the Epsilon party. You going?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. I’ve got too much to do tonight.” Plus it would kill me to see you there with another girl, touching her, laughing with her . . . disappearing into one of the upstairs bedrooms with her . . .

  “Well, that sucks.” He looked genuinely disappointed, although it might’ve been
pity for the poor girl who’d rather do homework than get drunk and party with friends on a Friday night.

  “Yeah, well, we can’t all be preternaturally intelligent.” I managed a teasing grin.

  “Preternaturally? As in, my intelligence is beyond natural explanation, even beyond the supernatural, having its genesis in an unknown place boarding on the miraculous? Kind of like . . . dare I say . . . a superhero?” Smith feigned shock.

  “The fact that you could spout off that definition so fast proves my point. In your case, the super power is your ability to party all weekend and still ace the midterm on Monday.” I tapped the pile of books on my desk. “The rest of us mere mortals have to actually review the material.”

  “I’ll say it again. Sucks to be you.” He grabbed his jacket from the end of my bed where he’d dropped it an hour ago, pausing just long enough to glance at me as he slid his arms into it. “Seriously, Reenie, if you need help, call me tomorrow. I’ll come by and go over the math with you.”

  Of course he would. Because Smith Harrington was just that good a friend. The kind who’d interrupt his Sunday of being awesome to swoop down and save his dweeby friend from failing her exam.

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

  “’kay. Later.” And he was gone, swinging out the door and down the hall. Before my door clicked shut, I heard several people greeting him in the hallway and his cheerful response. Because, again, he was Smith, and that’s just how he was. Friendly. Happy. Always ready to lend a hand.

  I tossed my pencil onto the desk and threw myself onto my bed. Burying my face in the pillow, I screamed out my frustration, beat my fists and kicked my feet against the mattress, only coming to an abrupt halt when I heard the door open again. Panic made me flip over and almost fall off the bed.

  “Oh, it’s you.” I settled back down, closing my eyes against my roommate’s quizzical expression.

  “Since I just passed him on the steps, I’m going to assume that this little display is brought to us by the letters ‘S’ and ‘H’. And maybe also by the words ‘lust’ and ‘coward’.”

  I picked up one of my small accent pillows and threw it at her. “Shut up, Lainey. I’m in agony here.”

  She shook her head. “You’re in agony because you won’t woman up already and make a move on the guy. Jesus Christ, Maureen. How long have you known him?”

  I slitted my eyes at her. “Three and a half years. And don’t take the name of the Lord in vain.” Yeah, I could cuss with the best of them—I’d won a contest for who could use fuck the most times in one sentence at a party sophomore year—but there were certain lines, and when they were crossed, I heard my mom’s voice loud in my head.

  Lainey ignored the second part of what I’d said. “Three and a half years of the two of you circling around each other, dating other people, pretending you don’t have the serious hots for the other one—and why? Because you’re afraid to lose his friendship?”

  I blew out a long breath. “You’re rewriting history. We haven’t circled or pretended. Well, he hasn’t. Smith doesn’t see me as any more than a good friend, the one he has to help with math on a regular basis. The one he hangs out with when he doesn’t have a regular girlfriend. That’s it.” I grasped another pillow and covered my face with it. “It’s me who’s dying of unrequited love.”

  “Buck up, buttercup.” Lainey tugged the pillow away. “This is so stupid. We’re graduating this year, and then you’re going to have four more years of vet school with him. This is the perfect time to finally tell the man how you feel. You could have a wild affair while you’re in grad school together. Or you could both figure out that you’re madly in love and move in together, save some bucks and start your happily-ever-after.” She pretended to gag. “That sounds so perfect, it makes me fucking sick.”

  “I can’t do it.” I shook my head. “He doesn’t feel the same way, Laine. If he did, wouldn’t he have made a move by now?”

  She sat down on the edge of my bed. “I think he has, Reen, and you just haven’t noticed. All those times he says, ‘Hey, Maureen, you going to that party?’ That’s his way of testing the waters.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just say something, then? Tell me he wants me to go with him?”

  “Because he’s a guy, toots. He’s got feelings, and he doesn’t want to get shot down. And every time he asks, you have an excuse, which would tell him you’re not interested, even though he looks at you like a yummy treat.”

  “He does not. You’re only saying that because you’re my friend. I think you’re confusing pity with lust.”

  “I’m your friend, yes, but I’m always straight with you. Did you ever think that maybe this little scenario is playing out across campus in Smith’s apartment, with all of his dude friends telling him that he needs to make his move and him claiming you only see him as a friend? Talk to him, Maureen. Lay it on the line.”

  “I can’t. I’ll screw up our friendship, he’ll end up feeling uncomfortable around me, and then I’ll never see him again. At least this way, I can love him from afar. But close up.”

  “Girlfriend, you are seriously mental, you know that?” She sighed. “But whatever. Just don’t come sobbing to me when he finally gives up on you and finds a second-best. When you have to go to his wedding and watch him walk down the aisle to some skinny society bitch, knowing the whole time that your husband is marrying someone else.”

  I frowned. “Did you just quote When Harry Met Sally to me?”

  Lainey rolled her eyes. “Of course I did, Maureen. It’s only the best-written, most romantic, funniest movie of all time. Plus, Nora Ephron was a fucking genius, God rest her soul.” We both paused for the requisite moment of silence. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m such a damn chicken. When I think about telling Smith I’ve been madly, deeply in love with him since we met freshman year, I want to throw up. The idea scares me shitless.”

  Lainey dropped back onto the bed to lie next to me. We both stared up at the ceiling. “So you’re going to do this—the sighing, the mooning, the gazing when you think he’s not looking, the screaming into your pillow in frustration—for the next four years?” She gave my foot a gentle kick. “Have I said I’m glad I’m moving back to Kentucky after we graduate?”

  “Yeah, you’re abandoning me. Go ahead and rub it in.”

  “And then what? You finish vet school, and you each go your separate ways. Exchange Christmas cards for a few years, until that stops too, and then you never see each other until we all come back here for our twentieth class reunion—”

  “Hey, what about our tenth?”

  “You won’t come to that one, because you just found out that Smith and his skinny bitch society wife popped out a kid. But twentieth is different. You think you’ve grown. You think you’re over him. Hell, you might’ve even married a consolation prize yourself. But then your eyes meet across the sub-standard buffet at the reunion dinner, and you realize . . . you’ve wasted twenty years being scared and spineless and not having who you want . . . so the two of you end up in a janitor’s closet going at it like bunnies.”

  I tried not to giggle, but I couldn’t hold it back. “You paint quite a picture, Laine. Thanks for that visual.”

  “Hey, it’s your life, not mine. I’m just the storyteller. So now what’re you going to do?”

  I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. “I’m going to talk to Smith. I’ll . . . I’ll do it after midterms are over, when I can think again.”

  Lainey sat up, too, and pushed me off the bed. “Nope. Do it tonight, before you can talk yourself out of it. Go get a shower, do your hair and makeup, and I’ll pick out a smokin’ outfit for you. Smith’s going to the Epsilon party, right? He never misses one.” She offered me her hand, hauled me to my feet and smacked my ass. “Get moving, girl. Tonight’s the night.”

  “Tonight’s the night.” I echoed the words, as my stomach clenched with equal parts dread and exciteme
nt. “God help me, tonight’s the night.”

  Chapter One

  Maureen

  “HAVE NO FEAR, REINFORCEMENTS ARE here!”

  I heard Meghan’s voice before her red head poked around the corner of my bedroom door. She grinned at me and held up the pile of flattened packing boxes she’d brought. “As promised. And I’ve got some wrapping paper and tape in the car. I’ll go grab them.”

  “Why don’t you hold on for the moment? We’ve got enough to get started, and we’re tight on space.” I gazed around my room, sighing. Who would think that thirty years of living in the same house, with a brief hiatus during college, would let me accumulate this much crap? And yet here we were, knee-deep in boxes, knick-knacks, books and clothes.

  “Okay, where should I start?” Meghan stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the scene. “This is your show. I’m just a hired hand.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t expect anything in the way of recompense, toots. This is strictly a charity gig. I’m poor now, you know.”

  “Don’t worry. The only expectations I have are paper cuts and maybe a pizza and a couple of beers.”

  “That I can handle. Why don’t you start with the books? There’re a few sturdy boxes from the liquor store in the corner.”

  “On it.” She retrieved one of the boxes and began pulling books from the tall shelves that lined my walls, stacking them carefully. “I passed your mom on my way in. She seemed a little, ah, preoccupied. Everything okay?”

  I blew my bangs out of my eyes. “Yeah. She’s picking up the pizza.” I concentrated on wrapping a small crystal box. “She claims it’s not true, but I think on some level, she’d started to think I was going to live here with her forever. You know, the widow Evans and her spinster daughter.”

  “Shut up. You’re not a spinster.”

  I nodded. “Oh, you’re right. I forgot about the husband and kids I have. Crap, where did I leave them now?”

  Meghan rolled her eyes. “I just mean, you’re hardly old and dried up. Lots of women stay single later nowadays. You’re a modern career gal.”