Free SunnyWithAChanceofTrueLove by Jessie Evans Page B

whatever backwoods hole she came from and took her stuffed animals with her.’ ”
    Ross snorted. “What an asshole. But I am glad you came crawling back to the hole you came from.” He paused, smile slipping as he ran a hand through his hat-flattened hair. “But I wanted to let you know, I’ve been thinking, and if you decide you don’t want to stay in Lonesome Point after all, I’d understand.”
    Elodie blinked at the unexpected words, not sure how to respond until Ross added in a softer voice—
    “But I hope you’ll think about taking me with you. I’d go. I could find a job wherever we end up and I don’t want you to spend another minute being bullied by Spencer or anyone else.”
    Elodie reached up, cupping his handsome face in her hand. “There are bullies everywhere, babe. I’m not going to let them scare me away. I want to stay here. With you. Your friends and family are here and we’re making memories that are making me love this town more every day.”
    And love you more every day, she added silently. Every day, in a hundred different ways, she and Ross said I love you, but they both still shied away from the words. Elodie kept reminding herself that they’d only been a couple for a short time and it wasn’t really a big deal, but as they neared their second week of constant togetherness and Ross began to feel like a part of her flesh and bones, not just a person she loved having around, she was beginning to worry.
    Her brave side insisted she should go ahead and say it first, but the part of her that was still the timid girl Ross had befriended years ago was afraid. What if he wasn’t quite there yet? What if she pushed too soon and scared him away?
    And so she held her tongue and swallowed the words down, instead suggesting, “Why don’t you go schmooze? Everyone’s almost finished with dessert and I know they want to meet the chef. I’ll get cleaned up and be down in a little while.”
    “Okay,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Wish me luck.”
    “You won’t need it. You’ve got talent and charisma,” she said with a wink, making him laugh as he headed toward the dining room.
    She hurried upstairs, changing out of the blue dress she wore to waitress and into jeans and a soft white sweatshirt she didn’t mind getting dirty, wondering what sort of celebration Ross had in mind. She lingered in the bathroom for a little longer than usual, brushing mascara on her lashes and smoothing fresh Chap Stick onto her lips before re-braiding her two braids into one long French braid that trailed down between her shoulders.
    These days she couldn’t stand to have hair tickling her neck, but back when she was a kid, she’d worn her hair in braids because she thought it helped hide the fact that she often went as much as a week or two without being able to wash it. When she was growing up, the water at the house was always getting turned off. The water or the electricity, so that even when they had water, it was often freezing cold. Elodie had very few golden memories of childhood or of her drug-addled parents, but she didn’t hold that against Lonesome Point itself.
    She’d told Ross the truth—she was making wonderful new memories here every day.
    But she was also making enemies, a fact that became abundantly clear when she stepped into the now empty restaurant and looked through the windows to see Ross facing down their childhood nemesis and his very big, very scary looking friend on the sidewalk outside.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
    Ross
     
    “You seriously think you’re getting paid for what you did?” Ross shook his head, unable to hold in the laugh that rumbled in his chest, though the look on Spencer’s face made it clear he wasn’t in a laughing mood. “You’re even crazier than you look.”
    “I made up the name for your stupid restaurant. I should get paid for it.” Spencer took a menacing step forward, but Ross refused to take a step back.
    This had