Tempted by Her Innocent Kiss(24)

                 To his never-ending grief, she called him every single day. It baffled him that her timing was utterly impeccable. She always managed to catch him right in the middle of a meeting or when he was with a group of people.

                 After the second instance, he began silencing his phone and putting it on vibrate, but on two occasions, he simply forgot and his entire meeting was treated to Tinker Bell on crack.

                 After two weeks, he began to get amused, indulgent looks from some. Sympathy from others. Delighted grins from the women personnel. And Cam laughed his fool head off.

                 Ashley simply called whenever the mood struck, and unfortunately for him, he could never be sure when she would be moved to call him. Sometimes she wanted advice on wedding details. Like flowers. How the hell did he know what the difference between a tulip and a gardenia was? And invitations. Elopement to Vegas had never looked so enticing as it did right now.

                 Rafael and Ryan hadn’t gone through all of this for their weddings. They’d both had exceedingly simple affairs. Devon was in hell. A wedding that was being planned by the entire Copeland clan.

                 He was ready to throw his cell in the Hudson.





                                      Six

                “Dev?”

                 Devon stuck his head out of the bathroom then proceeded toward the bed, rubbing his hair with a towel. She was laying stomach down on the bed, feet dangling in the air as her jaw rested in her palm.

                 There was a slight frown marring her delicate features, which told him she was thinking about something. He almost didn’t want to ask because he’d quickly learned that Ashley’s thoughts ran the gamut.

                 He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hand over her back. “What’s up?”

                 She turned slightly so she could stare up at him. “Where are we going to live? I mean after we get married. We haven’t really talked about it.”

                 “I assumed we’d live here.”

                 Her lips turned down just a bit and her brow wrinkled. “Oh.”

                 “That doesn’t sound like a good ‘oh.’ Do you not like the apartment? It’s bigger than yours so I naturally thought it would accommodate us better.”

                 She scrambled up and sat cross-legged beside him. “I do like it. This is a great apartment. It’s a little manly-looking. More like a bachelor pad. It’s not really appropriate for children or pets.”

                 “Pets?” he croaked out. “Uh, Ash, I don’t know about pets.”

                 Her frown deepened, which he found distressing. Ashley rarely pouted about anything, which was good, because it was damn hard to resist her when she looked unhappy. Maybe it was because she was rarely ever anything but happy.

                 “I’ve always wanted a house in the country. A place for kids and pets to run and play. The city isn’t a good place to raise a family.”

                 “Lots of people raise families here,” Devon pointed out. “You were raised here.”

                 She shook her head. “Not always, no. We didn’t move to the city until I was ten. Before that we lived on this really great farm. Or at least it was a farm before my father bought it. It was such a beautiful place to live.”