Top Love: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Young Adult Stepbrother and Billionaire Romance Stories) (23 page)

“You know,” Riley said, “I wonder if we should maybe stay another night here. I’m not sure I have nine hours of driving energy in me. What do you think?”

“Another night in the Sunshine Lodge?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why not?”

“If that’s what you want. But let me tell you…Brenton has no night life. It’ll just be you, me, and whatever reruns or movies we can find on the TV at the motel.”

“Sounds fine to me,” he said. “But another thing I was thinking about might be even more fun.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, you know how I took you to my field when we started dating?”

“Yes,” she said. She could still see the field that Riley had called his sanctuary in her mind’s eye. It had been his secret place…the place he had retreated to when life got hard and he needed to be alone. Him sharing that with her had been one of the more romantic things anyone had ever done for her up until that point in her life.

“What was the equivalent of that for you? Did you have a secret place you went to when you were a kid?”

She did. And when she brought it up in her mind, her heart warmed and she felt the need to cry. How have I not thought of that for so long? I’d nearly forgotten about it…

“Yes,” she said.

“Take me there,” he said. “I’d like to see it.”

“I would do,” Lauren said. “It’s been a while.”

The car was parked at the top of her parents’ driveway. Smiling, Riley looked both ways and said, “Where do I go?”

“Turn left,” she said.

Riley did, turning back out onto the secondary road and through a series of fields, pastures, and forests that Lauren hardly ever thought about anymore. They spent the next fifteen minutes taking a series of backroads until they came to an old dirt road. When Riley turned onto it, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” Lauren asked.

“This is something of a milestone for me,” he said. “I have never driven down a dirt road.”

“I’m glad to be your first, then,” she said with a laugh.

“So this is…like…the country, right?” Riley asked. “The sorts of things they sing about on those country radio stations.”

“Yes. Exactly the same.”

Riley slowly led his car down the dusty dirt road. There were dead fields to both sides of the road. Lauren explained to him that these fields had once been lush hayfields but when the grandfather of the family that had owned the farm died, his land had gone to waste. From the age of twelve or so until she left for college, this property had never really belong to anyone. It had become a popular spot for hunters in the fall and winter and, according to high school, lore, a great spot for couples to park and make-out.

“And did you ever take advantage of that?” he asked.

“No,” Lauren answered. “I only had one make-out worthy boyfriend in high school and all that amounted to was awkward kissing. And it was never in a car.”

“Well then, see…you make fun of me for never having been down a dirt road. I, on the other hand, can tease you for never having experienced the crude joy of necking in a car.”

“Oh hush,” she said. “And right there,” she said, pointing to their right. “That’s where we’re going.”

Riley looked in that direction and didn’t see much. There was an old gnarled tree and the ruins of what looked to have once been a small house. Other than that, the place was featureless.

He finally saw the place for what it was when he brought the car to the end of the dirt road. It stopped several yards away from the tree, in a thick overgrowth of grass and weeds. The house stood in shambles to the right, like a ghost of the land. But behind it all there was a large pond that looked to be covered in a film of pond scum all the way across.

“This is it,” she said. “But it looks nothing like it did when I used to come out here.”

They got out of the car and Lauren instantly walked to the edge of the pond and looked out. The afternoon sun bounced from it, but its reflection was dingy and dirty. She then turned and looked to the old tree. She walked to it and placed her left hand on it, frowning.

“I would come out here about two or three times a week. Sometimes I’d have a friend with me, but it was usually just me. And if you look here,” she said, pointing to one specific area of the tree, “you can see what was usually on my mind when I first started coming here.”

Riley came over to where she stood and looked. There were two sets of initials carved into the tree; one of them was L.H. Lauren Hughes. The other was P.W.

“So who is P.W.?” Riley asked.

“Peter Warden,” Lauren said. “Oh, he was so dreamy in fifth grade.”

“Most of us boys are. Except the ones that pick their nose…and eat it.”

She laughed, but the memories of what this place had meant to her came flooding back. Before she knew it, she was sharing some of her most private moments from her adolescence.

“When I first found the place, I was with Missy. We came out here and talked about boys and school and how shitty we thought our parents were. But I sometimes rode my bike out here without her. I’d sit in that tree right there and look out across the pond—which was much prettier back then. I’d stay here until I could see dusk coming and then pedal back home. It was just somewhere to come and sort of sit in silence, you know. And when you’re a teenager, you sort of need that, you know? Especially when you’re a teenager that gets less popular as school goes on…a teenager that started to put on the extra pounds as high school got closer and closer to ending. I…well, I cried a lot out here; I won’t lie about it. But it was good. This was my alone place.”

Riley took it in slowly, looking from his right to his left in a panoramic stance. “It is quiet out here,” he said. “A good place for thinking.”

She nodded as he came to her side and took her by the hands. They shared a lingering kiss and then simply hugged one another. “This is so weird,” she said. “Surreal, even.”

“I bet. It was weird for me to share my field, too. But I’m glad I did.”

“Me too,” she said.

“Now,” Riley said. “Because this is such a great place for thinking, I have two different things I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Okay. What are they?”

“Your dad…he seems like a great man. He seems like a man that takes great pride in his work. And I hate to see people like that in a bad financial place. I don’t know if it’s because I’m blessed in that I never have to really worry about money or what…but whenever I see people in those situations, I want to help. But I also see your dad as the type that has to work for his money…the kind that won’t accept handouts.”

“You got that right,” Lauren said.

“So what if I made an investment…just like I did for Mr. Farr’s shoe store? If I did some digging and found a suitable building somewhere within thirty miles or so, do you think your dad would be interested in running his own shop? The furniture he showed me was remarkable. If I didn’t think he would have seen it as charity, I would have easily offered him five or six hundred bucks for that coffee table.”

“And you’d do that for him?”

“Well, let’s be honest,” Riley said. “I’d be making an investment and I’d have the contract written up to make it very clear that certain dividends will come back to me…but very little. It would be your dad’s business. A little town like these needs all the economic help it can get…and that includes businesses that can have appeal outside of the immediate area. We could set him up with a website and I can have someone work out all of the shipping and all that. I wouldn’t even think about this sort of thing for just anyone…not even if it is your dad. But that furniture was remarkable.”

“I don’t know,” Lauren said. “I mean, you can ask him and see. But he’s weird about stuff like that. And do you really want him to know that you’re a multi-millionaire?”

Riley shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me. Would it bother you?”

“No,” she said. “Not at all.”

“So there we have it. Maybe tomorrow…I’ll ask him tomorrow. Or, rather, we will. I’m still a stranger to him and you’re still his little girl. I could see that in the way he looks at you.”

“Yeah. I felt that way, too. It makes me feel wretched for staying away from them for so long. Last year, I only saw them three times…and never for more than two days at a time.”

“You have a life of your own now,” Riley said. “I’m sure they understand.”

“Anyway…,” Lauren said. “What was the second thing?”

“Oh yeah,” Riley said, as if he had forgotten that there was a second thing. “Well, I’ve been thinking about it…and I don’t get into fistfights at high-school reunions for just anyone. And I also don’t fly people out in private jets to cherished locations from my childhood. So I hope by now that you know how I feel about you. You know that I love you, right?”

“I do,” she said. “And I love you, too.”

“The prove it,” he said. “Let’s find something sharp around here and put my initials over that P.W. on the tree. What do you say?”

“I say you’re cheesy…but that’s cute. But alas, I don’t have anything sharp.”

“One second,” Riley said. He went back to the car and removed the keys from the ignition. There were five keys on the ring and he selected the biggest one. “Use this. It unlocks a storage trailer that I haven’t been in for months. I can get it replaced.”

“Are you serious right now?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said.

She took the keys from him and was dumbfounded at how easily the childhood wonder of love was coming back to her as she stood in this special place, with this special man. Feeling like a kid again, Lauren approached the tree with the key held tightly in her hands. She looked back to Riley once more and smiled.

“This is foolish,” she said.

“What can I say?” he said. “I’m a foolish man.”

“You got that right.”

Still, she had never felt more loved when she started chipping away at the initials of P.W. The wood was old, the tree mostly dead, so the bark came off easy enough. As she chiseled it away, he could almost remember carving those initials sixteen years ago. She couldn’t even remember what Peter Warden had looked like back then, much less why she’d felt so prompted to carve his initials into this tree with hers.

With Peter’s initial’s gone, she then started on R.T. The key dug into the wood easily enough, the splinters and dust flying. When she finished out the T, she let out a girlish laugh. “There,” she said, still laughing as she turned to face him. “Are you happy n—“

The last word froze in her throat when she saw him. At first, she couldn’t make sense of it but within two seconds the reality of what she was seeing slammed into her like a physical weight. She took a step back, her hand going to her mouth.

He was kneeling…only not really. He was actually only down on one knee.

He had something in his hand and seemed to be offering it to her.

The sunlight hit the ring that sat inside of the small box and it seemed to wink at her.

“Lauren,” Riley said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it before. “Will you marry me?”

The yes was almost instantaneous, but it got trapped somewhere between her head and her heart. She felt it trying to come out of her throat, but she was physically unable to speak for a second or two. Her hands were trembling and her heart felt like it might burst.

Finally, the word came out of her mouth and it sounded like music.

“Yes.”

She hit her knees then, unable to stand. Riley came to her in a half-crawl and kissed her. She returned it and kissed him with a passion that made her dizzy. When she pulled back, the world felt like it was spinning. In some other world, she was aware of Riley taking her left hand and slipping the ring on it. It felt perfect as it slid across her skin. She tried to look at the ring, but the tears that were stinging her eyes made it next to impossible.

“Are you…are you sure?” she asked.

“Of course I am,” he said. As if to prove his point further, he gave her another kiss. When he pulled back, he helped her to her feet. They fell into one another, hugging tightly as she wept her tears of joy.

“Wait,” she said, stepping back to look at him with amazement. “You’ve had this ring on you all day?”

“Yes.”

“When did you get it?”

“A week ago.  I didn’t have the nerve to ask you at first and kept putting it off. But then the reunion thing came up and you mentioned meeting your parents. So I thought I’d do things the old way and get your father’s permission first.”

“And did you get it?” she asked.

“Yes. I asked him when he took me out to his shed to look at more of his furniture.”

“Riley Thomson, you’re sneaky.”

“I know.”

She kissed him again and then wiped tears away, finally able to look at her ring. It was far too big in her mind but then again, who the hell was she to say anything? The happiness inside of her felt like it would explode through her skin and she felt like she might start floating away on waves of it at any moment.

“This is…,” she started to say, and then looked out to the pond. “This is perfect.”

“Do you want to tell you parents?” he asked.