Healing Beau (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 6)

Avon, Massachusetts

Copyright © 2015 by Jean Hovey and Stephanie Jones.
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Crimson Romance

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.crimsonromance.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-8203-3

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8203-5

eISBN 10: 1-4405-8204-1

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8204-2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Cover art © [cover art credit. Inserted by the editor.].

For Linda Howard. Thank you for taking the trips to Merritt and Beauford and for liking what you found there. It means the world.

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• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Epilogue
  
• Acknowledgments
  
• About the Author
  
• More from This Author
  
• Also Available
  

If ever a Southern belle had been born who could ignore a ringing bell—whether it be door, phone, wedding, or ice cream truck—it wasn’t Christian Cauthen Hambrick. There were lots of good reasons to ignore that doorbell: It was after midnight. There were no vacant rooms at Firefly Hall, her ancestral plantation home turned B&B. She still needed to leave instructions for the breakfast cook about Mrs. Shelley’s peanut allergy and Mr. Cranston’s desire to start the day with a Bloody Mary and a ham sandwich. But the main reason Christian wanted to avoid the door was that seeing Beau Beauford tonight had put her heart through the wringer twenty-eight times—once for every year she’d loved him and he hadn’t loved her back—and she was in no mood for midnight visitors asking for rooms she couldn’t give them.

Yet, even as she enumerated these reasons for ignoring the ringing bell, she walked briskly toward the door, past the fine antiques, the family silver tea service, and the three Christmas trees decorated with ornaments collected by various Cauthens and Hambricks for the past hundred years. Maybe more.

Merry Christmas.

For so many reasons, among them that she had a reputation to maintain as an innkeeper, Christian did not have the luxury of being rude. So she forced a smile as she reached for the brass doorknob.

But when she opened the door, that smile died and her expression morphed into surprise. There was a time when finding him outside this door would have made hope pulse through her, but time had taught her not to hope.

James Mason Beauford, III. Beau didn’t have the talent of his oldest brother, country superstar Jackson, or the athletic ability of the twins—Gabe, the Tennessee Titans star wide receiver, or Rafe, the recently retired world championship bull rider. But he was the most beautiful and the smartest of all the Beauford brothers. Even they said so, and there were some big egos wrapped around those men. With Jackson’s dark hair and the twins’ Carolina blue eyes, it was almost as if the Beauford genes had finally gotten it together and saved the best combination for last.

“Christian.” He smiled that smile—the one that had been turning her inside out all her life— though she couldn’t imagine how he managed it, considering the fiasco the evening had been.

“Hello, Beau.” She looked over his shoulder to where one of the Around the Bend Elegant Events vans was parked. “Where’s that tricked out Porsche SUV Jackson bought you?”

He shook his head and gave out a half laugh as he stepped inside. He always stepped in the door without being asked, probably because he always knew he was welcome.

“You mean the symbolic fatted calf? It’s back at Beauford Bend.”

“You’re hardly the prodigal son.” The smile that bloomed on her face this time was real.

It was true. The Beauford brothers had been orphaned when their parents and little sister were killed in a fire when Beau was eight. Through sheer iron will and with what she made on her events business, etiquette classes, and charm school for young ladies, their great-aunt Amelia had finished raising those boys without selling the family plantation house. Tough times. But by the time Beau and Christian had graduated from high school, Jackson had hit it big, and his first gold record was in the books. He’d had things all mapped out for Beau—Vanderbilt University, then law school and a nice, clean, safe life.

But other ideas had been swirling around in Beau’s head—secret ideas. He’d run away to join the Army not an hour after making the valedictorian speech at the Beauford High School commencement, while everyone—including Christian—had waited for him at his graduation party at Beauford Bend.

After that, Christian had changed her own plans to attend Vandy and accepted a basketball scholarship at the University of Tennessee instead. Eventually, Beau had become a Ranger, and no one at Beauford Bend (or Firefly Hall, though she tried hard not show it) had ever gotten past the near-paralyzing fear, wondering where Beau was and if he was hurt or alive.

Until now, when he was finally home, a little worse for wear, but out of the path of bullets, bombs, and bad men.

“Maybe not the prodigal son, but close enough,” Beau said.

“True.” Christian moved toward the sofa in front of the fireplace, knowing Beau would follow. How many times had they sat here? Playing games while their mothers had coffee, reading together, Beau helping Christian with her chemistry and physics—and talking, talking, always talking. They were the best of friends, but he had never gotten around to saving a dance for her—something she had intended to change at that graduation party. She’d figured it was then or never. Turned out, it was never. “The prodigal son returned of his own free will, didn’t he?”

“I’m here of my own free will.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles.

They both knew that was only partially true. While he could have theoretically gone somewhere else, he wasn’t a soldier anymore and never would be again. While the back injury he’d sustained in Afghanistan wasn’t debilitating, he couldn’t be a Ranger anymore, and if he couldn’t be a Ranger, he was done with the military—something that had practically made Jackson, who lived in constant fear for Beau’s safety, giddy with joy.

“Do you want a drink?” Christian asked. “I got a bottle of good bourbon when I found out you were coming home.”

He grinned, crinkled his eyes, and tossed his head as if he were a model and a photographer had shouted at him,
“Look boyish.”

“Not you, too? I thought this was the place I could count on not to roll out the red carpet for the returning hero.”

“I only bought a fifth, not the distillery. And I didn’t put it in a baby bottle.”

“Actually, I’d love a drink, but I can’t. Pain pills.” Beau closed his eyes and shook his head. “Though I could use it after tonight. That was something, wasn’t it?”

And indeed it had been. The Beaufords had been so intent on welcoming Beau home like he was a prince and the empire’s last hope, that the welcome had gotten lost in in the tension and the coddling. Jackson had been so caught up in presenting Beau with the keys to the SUV and the live-in medical staff he’d hired, that he hadn’t even noticed how uncomfortable all the attention was making Beau. And the twins hadn’t been much better, buzzing around, making sure Beau had a comfortable place to sit, and acting ready to pounce the second that he might seem to need something. It was surprising that no had tried to put him in a wheelchair and cover his legs with a plaid blanket.

Christian reached for the remote and turned on the gas logs in the fireplace. “Is the pain very bad?” This was something she’d been dying to know but hadn’t wanted to contribute to the fuss by asking.

Beau shrugged. “Not as bad as it was, and it’ll get better. But the plus side of landing on the wrong side of a parachute jump is I’m always going to have a rain predictor. At least that’s what they tell me.”

Christian nodded. That meant the pain was worse than he was letting on. She knew from Beau’s sisters-in-law, who were her best friends, that with time and physical therapy, Beau would be able to do most things. But most didn’t work for Beau. It never had. He wanted
all.
And she knew better than to speak in platitudes or show sympathy that his life as a special ops soldier was over. If she had a talent, other than the ability to sink a basketball from mid court, Christian knew when to say nothing at all. This was one of those times.

Beau motioned to the fireplace. “Time was, wood was burned in the fireplace.”

She nodded. “Time was, this was a private home, my daddy was alive, my mama hadn’t moved to Florida, and keeping the fireplace clean wasn’t my problem.”

Beau nodded. “Safer anyway.” He reached out and took her hand—the way he’d been doing for twenty-eight years. “Aren’t you wondering why I showed up here in the middle of the night? After we just saw each other at Beauford Bend?”

No. She hadn’t wondered, though she knew what he hadn’t come for—her.

“Not really. It doesn’t much matter.”

“It never did, did it? You’re always just glad to see me. It’s good to have something like that to count on.”

Something like that.
Not that, precisely, but something like that.

“Okay, why are you here in the middle of the night?”

He shifted in his seat, and the pain that must have shot through his spine flashed briefly across his face.

“Because I’m exhausted. I need to sleep, and I need a room to do it in—and not just for one night. Christian, can I move in here?”

• • •

Beau knew he ought not to be holding Christian’s hand. Even now, she was holding very, very still as if hoping if she didn’t move he wouldn’t let go. But he needed an anchor, and they were a long way from thirteen when Christian might or might not have had a crush on him. At the time, Jackson had told him she did and warned him to never lead her on. Beau hadn’t believed it, but—foolish as it was now—he’d always heeded Jackson’s advice. If, at thirteen, he’d known Christian’s friendship was too precious to risk losing, it was practically a religious vow now. There were times when her unwavering support were all that had kept him going when the jungle was too dark, the desert was too hot and hopeless, and too many men had died by his hand—evil, soulless men who’d had to die, but who haunted him nonetheless.

Here in the lights from the fire and the Christmas tree, that life was far in the distant past, and Christian looked so pretty with her long, strawberry blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and shining, almond-shaped brown eyes looking intently into his. There had been a time when she’d been too tall, with feet that she couldn’t seem to get control of. Her transformation into a goddess who moved like a dancer must have occurred a long time ago, but he hadn’t noticed until tonight at that disaster of a welcome home party at his childhood home.