Chapter 25
ANNALISE
I’ve never understood winter weddings.
They’re cold, there’s no colour outdoors for pictures, and travelling can oftentimes be a pain in the ass.
But I suppose when you have money overflowing from your wallet like most NHL players do, the season with which you decide to get married doesn’t really matter.
Money won’t fix the temperature, but it can certainly buy greenery and compensate unexpected travel expenses.
In all honesty, over the past few weeks, I’d completely forgotten about the wedding Braxton’s forcing me to attend.
Between work, pole, and spending as much time as possible with Brody, I feel like my life has been moving on three-times speed.
December is halfway through, and with it, I’m facing my first unforgivably cold winter and a trip to Ottawa for a wedding I’m terrified to attend.
I haven’t been back to Steele Ranch since that first and only time last week, but that hasn’t stopped me from hanging on to Brody every chance I can get. I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten annoyed with driving me around yet.
We haven’t kissed since we were in the stables either .
. . despite how much I’ve hinted at doing it again.
A woman’s pride can only take so much gentle rejection before she backs off.
To make matters worse, he’s made me so damn horny with his lingering touches and sweet gestures lately that I’ve had to recharge my vibrator three times this week .
It’s cruel, and I’ve begun wondering just what exactly I must have done in my past life to deserve this level of teasing in my present one.
Having Brody around on the regular has also all but completely cut off my conversations with Bo.
It didn’t take me long after spending the day with Brody at his family ranch to confirm my hunch, and I refuse to keep up the ruse.
The two men are one and the same, but for some reason, he’s known and hasn’t made an effort to tell me.
Maybe the guilt from keeping his conclusions to himself has kept him from kissing me again. Something tells me I’m not far off. I could tell him myself, but a stubborn part of me wants him to do it. He realized first, after all.
“You look even better in that dress in person,” Braxton muses.
Scrunching her curly hair in her product-coated hands, she continues gawking at me in the mirror. My older sister is gorgeous, so hearing compliments from her never fails to hit harder than any others.
The master bathroom in her and Maddox’s new house is magazine-worthy, and I’m still struggling to pick my jaw up off the floor at the overwhelming sight of it.
It’s a white marble palace with a spa tub triple the size of my regular tub, a stained-glass window above it, and a long vanity with two sinks and a cabinet built between them.
The shower looks like it could fit ten people.
I’ve already made Braxton promise to let me use it at least once before I go back home.
When she first told me Maddox was planning on hopefully finishing his career in Ottawa, I knew it was only a matter of time before they upgraded from their first house to their forever one.
This place is perfect for them, and I’m so happy for my sister.
She deserves everything she has. A beautiful son, successful career, and a husband who would lie on hot coals just to form a bridge for her to walk across them.
“With such a beautiful date, it’s only fair I try my best,” I reply.
“You’ll have to be the one to break that to Maddox. Poor guy thinks I’m going to the wedding with him.”
I scoff, dragging my fingernail along the edge of my bottom lip to clean up any lipstick. “As if.”
“That’s what I’m saying. My sister is in town, so obviously we’re going to be attached at the hip.”
“I missed you like crazy,” I admit, turning to rest my back against the counter. Braxton leans a hip against it, her eyes going soft.
“I missed you more. Have you spoken to Mom recently?”
“Not for a few weeks. Last we talked, she and Cliff were waiting to board their flight to Arizona. Have you talked to her?”
Braxton twists her mouth. “Not since around the time you did. What about Dad? I got a damn email from him last week that said he wanted our new address to send Christmas gifts for Liam.”
“I hope you told him to piss off,” I grumble.
“Close. I told him to send them to Maddox’s parents’ house and we’d collect them when we see them over the holidays.”
Our dad has never met my nephew, and he never will. His want to send him gifts is just a way to assert his unwanted presence in Braxton’s life. He’s undeserving of that honour.
“I’m sorry. Don’t let him spoil your mood. He’s so not worth that.”
Braxton straightens her shoulders and pushes away from the counter. The knee-length yellow dress she chose for the wedding fits her curves effortlessly and makes her bright blue eyes pop. I fiddle with the gold bangle on my wrist and bite at the inside of my lip.
“Don’t think that all this talking about our parents means I don’t want to hear about you. I’m still curious about all of these new friends and the way they keep you too busy to call me as often as I’d like,” she says, pushing a sparkling diamond stud into her earlobe.
I smooth the silky material of my dress over my stomach with a laugh. “Are you a little jealous, Brax?”
Her eyes narrow on me. “Me? Jealous? Never.”
“Mmhmm. Well, I think you’d really like Bryce and Poppy. Bryce reminds me of Adalyn sometimes.”
Maddox’s little sister, Adalyn, is as outgoing as they come, and I’ve enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with her in the past. There aren’t many people in Braxton’s life that I don’t know, especially those in her husband’s family.
Considering Maddox and Braxton were childhood best friends, I was around his family quite often.
“And they’ve actually got you to join a pole class?”
“Is it really that hard to believe?”
“Not because I don’t think you’d succeed at it. There are very few things you wouldn’t succeed at. You’ve just never done something like that before. I like it for you, Anna.”
I smile softly. “Thank you. It’s definitely out of my comfort zone, but I think that’s why I like it. It makes me feel powerful.”
“You are powerful. Maybe I’ll have to give a pole class a try sometime.”
My brows knit together. “Why? Are you not feeling powerful anymore?”
“We’re not talking about me right now. Don’t think that if you distract me, I won’t keep poking around in your life. There’s more than just those two women keeping you occupied,” she says pointedly.
I spin, hiding the blush I feel warming my cheeks before leaving the bathroom.
“Annalise! Don’t make me chase you.”
“I’m just going to put my shoes on.” I make a dash into the bedroom and find my black heels waiting on the carpet.
“Uh-huh, and I’m just asking about your secrets, not demanding to hear them all.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Ditto, babes.”
The master bedroom is bright and airy, a California king bed beneath a canopy against the wall opposite an electric fireplace.
Floor-to-ceiling windows cover the length of one wall, and a set of double glass doors lead out to their private balcony.
It almost seems criminal to put the bottoms of my heels on the plush, white carpet, despite them never having been worn outside before.
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you used to,” I say, knowing damn well I’m spouting nonsense.
Braxton’s harsh laugh tells me she knows it too. “This reaction is just telling me everything I need to know already.”
“Perfect! I’ll keep my secrets to myself, then.”
She pinches the back of my arm and pushes me to sit on the edge of the bed, my heels forgotten. When her hands find her hips, I sigh. “What gives? You never deny me gossip. Especially not boy gossip.”
Again, my cheeks flush, and I reach up to cover them with my hands before stopping, remembering the makeup I spent an hour applying. They fall to my lap as I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling.
“I’m a bit out of my depth with this one,” I mutter.
When I look forward again, I find Braxton staring at me in disbelief. “What do you mean? You’ve never hidden a guy so hard from me before.”
“I’m not hiding him.”
“You just left the room in order to keep from talking about him. Is something wrong with him? Did he hurt you?” The protectiveness in her voice rings loud, nearly making me flinch.
I shake my head, exhaling heavily. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then explain it to me.” She sits beside me and takes my hand in hers. “You can tell me anything. Always.”
“You have to promise that you won’t be weird.”
“I promise.”
“Do you know who Brody Steele is?”
A pause. She blinks slowly, lips parting and closing before she manages a nod. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m dead serious.”
“How?”
My heart skips a beat. “He’s from Cherry Peak.
We met at a bar and got off on a very wrong foot, but now .
. . now he’s just everything. He’s been driving me to and from work every day because I don’t feel comfortable enough driving on the winter roads, and on top of that, he’s constantly making sure I’m taken care of.
We get along so well that it’s almost creepy, and he even took me to his family’s ranch and introduced me to his grandparents. ”
I leave out the part about Bo because it would only lead to more questions that I don’t have the answers to yet. They’re questions I need him to answer face to face.
Her expression gentles alongside her voice. “So, why did you try to hide him?”
“I wasn’t hiding him; I just wasn’t planning on telling you about him yet,” I defend myself. If ever.
“That’s just as bad. I would have thought you’d want everyone to know about him if he makes you so happy.”
My chest tightens as I say, “He’s leaving soon. Going back to Nashville. Cherry Peak was only a pit stop for him.”
She makes an angry noise in her throat. “I refuse to accept that.”
“There’s nothing to accept, Brax. It’s the truth. And I’ve accepted it.”
Braxton drops my hand and shoots to her feet, glaring down at me.
A fierce determination lights her eyes. “You know, I waited three years to hear that emotion in your voice when talking about Stewart, and I never did. We have one conversation about Brody, and it’s already there. That’s all I need to know.”
“It’s not that easy, and you know it. It was never that easy with you and Maddox,” I argue.
“Maddox and me were different, and you know it.”
Fair enough. “Please just let me do this my way.”
“Fine.”
I arch a brow. “Fine?”
“It’ll be easy enough for me to corner him in person and ask him how he feels about you myself.”
“What?”
Her smirk is devilish, and my stomach drops. “Didn’t you know that he’s performing at the wedding tonight?”