Free Ever After (The Christmas Cottage - Book 2) by Samantha Chase Page B

Ava wasn’t overly vain , but she knew that she was attractive and again, most men gave her what she wanted because of how she looked.  Not Brian.  She could walk around without any makeup on and her hair in a ponytail and he’d still want to take her out.  Not that she tested that theory too often, but he never really made a big deal about her appearance.
    That thought made her frown a little.  Clearly he found her attractive , but was it normal to not even acknowledge when she went from one extreme to another?  Mason had often made her feel bad when she would be at home in her sweats on a Saturday, just wanting to hang out.  He’d ask if she was going to do her hair or put on some makeup but Brian never said anything like that.  He accepted her no matter what.
    It was a feeling that left her a little unbalanced.  How did she go about pleasing him when he didn’t seem inclined to share with her what she did that pleased him?  Well, she knew the things that she did that pleased him, but that was in the bedroom; she was curious how to keep Brian satisfied out of the bedroom, because eventually, that part of the relationship died down too, didn’t it?
    To be honest, that part of their relationship just kept getting better and better , but how long would that last?  Shouldn’t they be cooling down by now?  Settling into things?  Talking about the future? It had been about six weeks and although she could still hear Lacey reminding her to take it slow, Ava felt that at age twenty-seven, there was only a certain level of slow that she was willing to go!  The bottom line still remained:  she wanted to find a job first and foremost, but her ultimate goal was to get married and have a baby before she was thirty. 
    That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?  Was Brian going to be the man to make that dream come true?  She wracked her brain to try and remember if in any of t heir lengthy conversations he’d mentioned his plans for a family but somehow that never seemed to come up.  Or, rather, he never directly answered her.  Why was that?  Was Brian not interested in having a family or was he not interested in leading Ava to believe that he wanted a family with her?
    She frowned for a moment.  The more that she thought about it , the more she realized that in all the time she and Brian had been together he really hadn’t said that he loved her again; not like he had that night in her hotel room before her wedding.  He sometimes referred to her as the woman he loved and she could feel it in the things that he did for her, but he never said the words; never looked deeply into her eyes and professed his love to her.
    Then again, she hadn’t said those three little words to him either.  Was Brian waiting for that?  Waiting for her to profess her love to him before he was okay with saying it to her?  Did she love him?  Was she seriously ready for that?
    “Ugh,” she grumbled.  “Why don’t relationships come with manuals?”
    That weekend they took in a local music festival and were wandering the streets holding hands and Ava thought that life didn’ t get much better than this; A beautiful day, good music, good food and spending time with Brian.  She wanted to tell him that she thought it was the perfect day but decided to omit that one little word from her vocabulary for a while so as to not upset Brian.
    “Ooo…cotton candy,” she commented as they stopped to listen to a three-piece bluegrass band.
    “Where?”
    “Across the parking lot.  Want some?” she asked, already fishing through her purse for her wallet.
    Brian couldn’t help but smile because the purse looked innocent enough but really contained enough to keep a person alive in the forest for days.  “Thanks, but I’m still full from the corn dog earlier.”
    Ava raised her head and looked at him as if he spoke a foreign language.  “But it’s cotton candy,” she simply stated.
    “And?”
    “And there’s always room for