Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)(109)

“Hey,” she murmured when her husband approached, reaching up to cradle his stubbled face, her heart sighing when he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. “You’re home now.”

He nodded. Opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. “Belle,” he said raggedly, like it had taken all of his strength.

Something was up. He needed to talk to her. She could read him from a single word.

“Okay.” She lifted onto her toes and kissed him, flutters carrying through her stomach and beyond as he slid unsteady fingers into her hair and deepened the kiss with a low, lingering groan. “Are you all right?” she whispered when they parted for air.

Wells kept their foreheads pressed together. “I’m so much better than all right. You’re here. It’s when I’m away that I’m not good.”

“I know.”

“My family is here.”

“And we’ll always be here.” She looked him in the eye until he got through a deep breath, but something continued to weigh on his mind. “Let’s get the kids to bed.”

Wells nodded and the four of them climbed the stairs together, Wells taking their son, Rex, into one room, Josephine herding Mabel into another. Half an hour later, she went looking for her husband. He wasn’t in their bedroom or the kitchen, but intuition told her where to find him, and she was right. Wells stood in the center of his trophy room, her gorgeous champion in sweatpants, no shoes, ink swirling high and low on his broad back.

If she tugged down his pants, she would find her name tattooed on his right butt cheek.

He’d threatened to do it for years and she’d assumed he was joking.

Nope. It had been her thirtieth birthday present.

Property of Josephine in bright blue ink.

Wells turned at her entrance with shadows in his eyes, but his arms opened automatically. On her way into them, she cataloged the changes in her husband over the last eight years. Lines fanning out from wise, contented eyes. The barest sprinkle of gray in his chest hair and stubble. He still radiated confidence, but it was quieter now, like he’d grown into it. And she had so much pride in the man he’d become, it almost hurt to breathe.

They swayed, locked in each other’s arms for a few moments while Wells hummed the first few bars of “California Girls” into her hair.

He pulled back and looked her in the eye while tracing her cheekbones with his thumbs, and she couldn’t help but fall even harder for this man, surrounded by accolades but directing all his affection at her. “Josephine.” He smiled, kissed her softly. “I’m retiring.”

A jolt passed through her. “You’re . . . what?”

“I’m done with the tour. I want to be home.” He stroked her hair, then whispered back the words he’d said to her eight years earlier. Words he said to her every time he returned from a trip. “You don’t know what it’s like to miss you, baby. No fucking idea.”

“I have some idea,” she said back, her chest swamped with bittersweet emotion. “Are you sure?”

“It’s the second most sure I’ve been about anything in my life. You are the first.” He pulled her into a bear hug. “I want to be home to love you more.”

She blinked back tears. “I’ll take all the love from you I can get.”

“Good. I’ve got a lot of it.”

“Me too.”

They stayed that way for a long time, Josephine sensing he needed the anchor.

“Retired at thirty-seven,” she said, finally, kissing his shoulder. “What are you going to do with so much time on your hands?”

“Coach Little League. Help out at the shop. Take the occasional commentating gig. Make love to my wife. Be her trophy husband.” He sighed into her hair. “Golf.”

They laughed their way into a kiss while he continued humming the rest of “California Girls” and they started to dance. And life stayed just like that.

Blissful.

Happy.

Together.

Forever.





Acknowledgments




I ramble through a lot of story ideas on social media, but they don’t always get made into a book. This is one of those rare

times a brainstorm kept me in a chokehold and every once in a while, a reader would message me, asking when I planned to write

the book about the grumpy pro golfer and his superfan who disappears. Thank you for the encouragement. In this case, it really pushed me to write Wells and Josephine’s story . . . and it turned out to

be an all-time favorite.

This book is dedicated to my daughter—and also anyone out there without a working pancreas. But it’s not a book about type 1 diabetes, in the same way people living with T1D are about so much more than the condition. This is a love story. With a side of insulin. Someday this will be the first book of mine that my kid

reads. Please, for the love of God, may she skip over the butt stuff.

Thank you to Nicole Fischer for editing this book with love and honesty—you’re going to be truly missed. Thank you to my husband

for answering my golf questions. And as always, thank you to my readers for being the best in the business.