Too Tempting (The Lewis Cousins 1)

“It is,” I replied, looking out at the classically red structure that sat about a half mile away from the house. “It’s empty, except for the riding lawnmower and a tractor that the previous owners left behind. I’m not here enough to have animals or anything yet, maybe if I move here permanently someday.”

“So you have a barn, that’s practically empty?” she remarked, causing me to look at her curiously, then her question from earlier came to me.

“You want to have a barn dance,” I said as more of a statement than a question.

I ran my hand down her long hair, which was free and hanging down past her shoulders, realizing I’d give her anything, even if it was a damn barn dance.

“I really do,” she replied wistfully, swinging away from the railing to launch herself into my arms.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

“What’s that?”

“You plan your dance for Halloween, and ask my mom to help, throw in a hayride or some shit, you’ll have her eating out of the palm of your hands.”

Zoey pulled back, her wide eyes on me.

“Really?”

“Hell yeah,” I replied, leaning down to drop a kiss on the tip of her pretty little nose. “If there’s one thing Annabeth Lewis loves, it’s a party.”

“Awesome.”

I ran my nose along the length of hers and whispered softly, “I’m happy you’re here.”

“Me too.”

“And I’m sorry my mom’s being a little difficult, but you give her some time, just be you, and let her help you plan the town’s first-ever barn dance, and I promise, she’ll love you as much as I do.”

“Okay.”

“Now, what do you say I grab you a glass of wine, I get a beer, and we sit over on that porch swing a while.”

“That sounds perfect.”

We sat out on the swing, talking about our plans for the immediate future. I had my son up in his room happily playing video games, and the woman I loved curled up next to me on my porch, and I knew without a doubt I was the luckiest man in the world.

Epilogue

“Does this stay or go?” Chloe asked, pointing to my cardboard cutout of R2D2.

“Um, stay, but I’ll move it to my office,” I replied, then went back to packing up my books.

It had been five months since I made the decision to get on that plane and go to Gabe, and our lives had been moving at warp speed since.

We’d split a lot of time between North Carolina and Cherry Springs, going there for all of the holidays, and taking Chloe and Chris along with us. Rather than rent a house here, I’d told Gabe he should just move in with me, which he had … happily. We’d finished off a bonus room over my garage and turned it into my office and were busy moving everything up there to give us more space in the main part of the house. He hadn’t moved a bunch of stuff in, but keeping my office downstairs didn’t work, especially since I needed silence to write, and he always had some sort of sport playing on the television.

It was weird, living with another person and sharing space, but I found that even the annoying things he did didn’t outweigh the fact that I was the happiest I’d ever been.

My Young Adult series was complete and I’d finished the press tour before Thanksgiving, and my time travel book had been sold to a new publishing house, which made me excited, but terribly nervous. Now I was beginning a new series. It was about a zombie apocalypse, set in the nineteen seventies, and took place in Cherry Springs.

The town inspired me. The small-town feel, the way everyone knew each other and looked out for one another. So that got me thinking, what if one of their local sweethearts, a real “girl next door” type, contracted a disease on spring break on a remote island, and became a zombie. How would the town react? Would they hide her secret from the world, protect her? Or would they turn against her, kill her, and try to keep it a secret?

I didn’t have all the details worked out yet, but Gabe and I were moving to his place in Spring Creek for a few months to help me get in the right headspace.

We were already planning to bring Chris out for his spring break, Easter, and Memorial Day, then for the summer, but I knew both he and Gabe were going to miss each other fiercely. They’d grown incredibly close over the last few months.

“Have you thought any more about moving with us to Cherry Springs?” I asked Chloe, nervous about bringing it up again. I didn’t want her to feel pressured, but I really wanted her to come. “You can go back to school, and I know Chris wouldn’t mind…”