Meant to be More (Meant to Be Series Book 4)

  Meant

  to be

  More

  Meant to Be Series

  Book Four

  By AMELIA FOSTER

  Meant To Be More

  Copyright © 2020 by Amelia Foster.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: June 2020

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Book Pages By Design

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-884-4

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my furbabies that offer endless snuggles and try to help me write by plopping their fuzzy feline rear ends on my laptop.

  Table Of Contents

  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

  Chapter One

  Dean

  Present Day

  The nearly decade old pop song blared from the phone in Dean’s back pocket. He tossed the pitchfork to the side, slid the device out, and grinned at the glass. He knew exactly who it was before even looking because only one person had that assigned text alert. His fingers flew across the screen typing out a hasty reply.

  Dean: Yep, be there in thirty.

  He grabbed the leather jacket hanging on the hook inside the small office Wyatt had built into the barn and was halfway to the motorcycle glinting in the sun when he was hit with the annoying concept of reality. “Well, shit.”

  Once more he pulled out his phone, this time swiping until he cued up his brother’s number. He tapped his foot against the red clay dirt, still slightly damp from the frequent late spring showers.

  “What?” The single word greeting would have been rude coming from anyone other than Wyatt Carlisle. His brother managed to embody every stereotypical expectation for cowboys including using as few words as possible for anyone who wasn’t his wife, Georgia.

  Despite the fact that they were related and gave each other endless amounts of grief, when it came to the ranch and everything attached to it, Dean was conscientious of giving Wyatt respect. “Jillian just landed at the airport and asked me to pick her up, do you mind if I borrow the truck?”

  “As long as you and your girlfriend don’t make out in the front seat. That’s what the bed of the truck is for.” Even with the weak cell phone reception, Wyatt’s mocking tone came across the line loud and clear and made Dean roll his eyes toward the picture perfect blue sky.

  Dean huffed as he marched back into the barn to collect the keys from the office. “She’s not my girlfriend.” Yet, he added in his mind where only he could hear. “And she probably has a mountain of luggage, no way it’ll fit on my bike.”

  A not unusual flurry of excitement washed over Dean as he climbed into the front seat of the massive pick-up and slammed the driver’s door emblazoned with the RA Ranch logo. Each time Jillian had come back from one of her trips into the field, serenity and joy had warred within him for top billing.

  No matter her assurances and no matter how many times she returned home safely, when she left for another war-torn country, he was on edge. A scenario that had played on repeat multiple times and yet with each one it had never dawned on him that there was a chance in hell he felt anything other than friendship. Looking back on it, he could admit that he was delusional. Waiting up until he got the three a.m. text or phone call confirming that she’d safely landed in Ethiopia or Colombia or the Philippines was slightly above and beyond a normal friendship. Something even her mother would never dream of doing.

  “I’m such a dumbass.” He chastised himself as he pressed harder on the gas pedal, flicking the signal to merge onto the highway leading to the airport. It had taken saying goodbye the most recent time to click on the lightbulb over his head that he’d fallen for her.

  Dean forced himself to ease off the accelerator slightly. She would be exhausted and it would be far from the ideal time to proclaim to his best friend that he’d recently managed to pull his head far enough out of his ass to realize he was in love with her.

  That thought triggered an avalanche of additional ones. Girls liked flowers and chocolate and all the romantic shit he was hopelessly incapable of delivering. And it had never been like that between him and Jillian so the very notion of planning some candlelit interlude hadn’t blipped on his radar. He should figure out something special.

  For a half a second he closed his eyes and groaned before he focused on the road once more and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Despite humoring Jillian by watching reality dating shows with her, he didn’t have a clue where to start with romance in the real world.

  This would require asking his brothers for help and admitting that their teasing had been right. Possibly a fate worse than death.

  He rubbed a hand down his chronically stubbled jaw and sighed. Later. All of that would be figured out later. Right now what mattered was getting Jillian to the soft bed she was certain to be in need of and selfishly let his eyes feast on visible proof she was home and in one piece.

  He cursed the full parking lot that resulted in him circling around before finally claiming a space somewhere seemingly fifty miles from the building. Moderating his pace was an impossibility and he jogged down the asphalt and through the sliding doors, hanging a left to head to the baggage claim area.

  Much easier said than done. He silently swore as he wove through the lines of people waiting at the ticket counter. The epithets were directed just as much toward himself as the crowd making his end goal harder to reach.

  If Asheville housed anything larger than a regional airport he might have gone crazy trying to navigate his way to Jillian.

  He scanned the crowd standing beside the carousel waiting for their baggage, an involuntary smile taking over his face when his eyes landed on red hair, haphazardly knotted on top of her head, and sun-kissed cheeks dotted with freckles.

  She was safe.

  She was home.

  He closed the space between them in long strides, stopping only when he stood behind her. Despite her countless hours of travel, the soft scent of her soap wafted over him, tightening the band that had formed around his chest over the months she was gone when he’d finally come to acknowledge that what he felt for Jillian went far deeper than f
riendship.

  This was Jillian. The girl he’d known since he was seven years old. The one who was damn near a fixture in every part of his life since then. Why the hell was his hand shaking as he lifted it to tap her shoulder?

  “You requested a car, madam?” He affected something as close to a posh British accent as his light southern drawl would allow.

  She spun to face him and in the space of half a second a dozen emotions played out across her face. Everything from delight to relief to…sadness?

  What in the actual hell was that?

  His next words were cut off when she launched her small five-foot one-inch frame at his much larger one. Her arms and legs wrapped around him with a vise-like grip and hot, wet drops landed against his neck. Without a moment’s hesitation he held her tightly to him.

  “If you say one word about me crying I swear I’ll punch you, and you know I’m stronger than you.”

  Her hiccupped threat was ice water to his mounting concern and didn’t fail in making him laugh. “Duly noted, Jillybean, but I’d appreciate knowing why you’re definitely not crying right now.”

  She pulled back and her dark-rimmed emerald eyes reflected back the exhaustion induced by days’ worth of travel across numerous time zones. “Because everything has gone to hell in a handbasket, Sparky, and you need to marry me.”

  ***

  Jillian

  Present Day

  If she hadn’t been delirious from a lack of sleep she probably would have handled the entire situation far better. She would have waited to drop the news—hell, she would have made it more of a request than a demand—at least until they were in his car. Her stomach growled. Preferably after she’d had food and at least six consecutive hours of sleep…a luxury she wasn’t sure she could even remember.

  Playing it off as a joke wasn’t an option. It was more deceitful than the actual plan she’d hatched during her nearly thirty-six hours of travel home from the small village in Sierra Leone back to Asheville.

  One she’d have to talk Dean into if she had any hope of fixing everything that had shattered in her absence. But that at least had to wait until they were somewhere slightly more private than the baggage claim at Asheville Regional Airport.

  Dean blinked three times, each more painfully slow than the one before. “What did you say?”

  Heat licked across her face as she disentangled herself from him. “I’ll…” What? Bury my head in the sand because I am beyond embarrassed I actually just blurted that out? “I’ll explain in the car.” The next best thing.

  She yanked one enormous bag after another off the slowly rotating machine and lifted her brows to look at him. “Think you can fit all of this in your chick magnet?”

  Ever since the first time Dean had skidded to a stop in front of her house in the crimson sports car, she’d given him endless grief about choosing a car based solely on what appealed most to the female population.

  The twitching at the corners of his mouth was both encouraging and concerning. She was hopeful she’d at least pushed the M word off the table long enough to collect her scattered, not fully logical thoughts before diving back in. But the mischief lighting his sapphire eyes was anything but settling.

  “What do you have up your sleeve, Dean Carlisle?” She pulled up the handles of her two largest cases and wheeled them over to him, silently requesting he take them out as she repeated the action with her smaller bags and drug them behind her.

  He arched a brow and cut a sideways glance at her as they exited through the sliding doors. “You propose marriage to me in the middle of a crowded airport without any notice and you wonder what I’m plotting?” He winked. “Not that I minded. I’m only shocked it took you eighteen years to see that you wanted this entire package.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes and muttered curses in a stage whisper that made him laugh. “Yeah, that’s it. All the Carlisle men are just completely irresistible and I couldn’t hold out any longer.” The legs that had been cramped up for far too many hours on various planes screamed at the movement as she struggled to keep up with Dean’s pace through the parking lot. “Where the hell did you park, Sparky? Timbuktu?”

  “Nope.” He popped the P on the end of the word as he swung her cases to a stop at the bumper of an enormous black truck that sparkled in the sun. “Timbuktu adjacent.”

  She frowned as he effortlessly lifted the bags she knew were exceptionally heavy into the bed. “This is what you drive now? Have I really been gone that long I missed the Dean Carlisle transition into adulthood? I may never forgive myself, little butterfly.”

  Before her brain had a chance to catch up to her mouth, Dean crowded her against the rear panel of the truck, bracing his hands on the metal ledge on either side of her head. “You demand my hand in marriage in a decidedly unromantic way and have the nerve to give me shit?” The grin on his face belied his words. Heat from the vehicle warmed her spine. “Maybe you need to watch a few more rose ceremonies to see how it’s really done.”

  Jillian pushed his shoulder lightly and ducked beneath his arm when he didn’t move. “Why don’t you get in your big boy car and I’ll explain what I really meant.”

  Dean took advantage of the extra foot he had on her and crossed in front of her to open the door before she could reach for the handle. Once she had climbed inside he slapped a palm to his chest and sighed. “Are you telling me I don’t get wined and dined? Damn, you’re a shitty date.”

  She clicked her buckle into place and dipped her chin, offering a sardonic smile. And a good natured middle finger. “Good thing you’ve never dated me.” With that, she reached for the handle and jerked the door out of his hand, slamming it shut.

  In usual Dean fashion, which was one of about a million reasons she knew she could only go to him for this kind of help, he hopped into the driver’s seat and backed out of the parking space without pushing for more information. Several minutes had passed as he eased back onto the highway with only silence between them. He knew her so well he gave her the time she needed to collect her thoughts. The nerves she tried to cover with the sarcastic, biting remarks so representative of their friendship ramped up with every rotation of the wheels drawing her closer to home.

  Shit. Home. No, the conversation she needed to have, the massive favor she would have to beg for absolutely could not happen there.

  “Do you have to get back to…whatever it is you do at Wyatt’s?”

  A shadow passed over his face and for just a moment his expression was indecipherable, even with nearly two decades of experience reading Dean like the back of her hand. As quickly as it appeared, it faded and a grin slipped easily into place.

  “Whatcha up for?”

  The childhood nickname she’d always treasured wrapped around her in a new way after her latest, and longest, absence from home. And Dean. “Fredrock?”

  His impish grin grew into a broad smile as he flicked the arm of the turn signal. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  For the first time in more than two weeks since she’d first gotten wind of a problem, a portion of the mantle of responsibility that weighed heavily on her lifted. She settled back into the surprisingly plush seat, tilted her head back on the rest, and closed her eyes. If anyone could right her spiraling world, it would be Dean. He was the one constant she could always count on.

  Chapter Two

  Dean

  Nineteen Years Ago

  “You need to stay where I can see you, understand?”

  Dean and Connor exchanged bored expressions until their father cleared his throat, then both boys stood at attention. “Yes, sir.” Despite the less than two year age difference, they spoke the words in the same unified voice they did everything, behaving more as twins.

  They circled the lake, discussing with as manly tones as possible the viability of fishing in the seemingly expansive crystal water. Tag morphed into hide and seek, still well within the line of sight of their father and older brothers a few yards away, walking out
the best portion of land for the barn and corral to house Wyatt’s horses.

  Connor turned to face the trunk of a tree and buried his face in the bark. “One…two…three…”

  As his voice trailed off, Dean ran to the left, then backtracked to the right. His seven-year-old face lit up when he spied a massive, flat rock he was sure he could easily hide behind. He skidded to a halt and dove behind the stone, feeling rather proud of himself.

  Up until he looked to his right and directly into startled green-colored eyes. A nearly comically large bow sat atop a head of red hair exploding from her head in perfect rings. The girl’s entire small body was swallowed by glittering, frothy pink fabric that shimmered the way his mother’s New Year’s Eve dress did when she and his father went out.

  “Who are you?” The soft voice held curiosity more than recrimination.

  Dean scooted a little nearer to her on the dirty ground and opened his mouth to answer, but his brother’s voice steadily growing closer made him snap it closed and press his index finger to his lips. After a moment the sounds faded, but Dean intentionally kept his voice at a whisper.

  The manners his mother tirelessly tried to beat into his and his three brothers’ heads kicked in and he stuck out his right hand. “Dean Carlisle. What are you doing here and who are you?”

  The girl’s small, soft fingers curled around his, giving a gentle shake. “Jillian Leigh Monroe. I live right over there.” She released her grip to point to the imposing mansion visible in the distance. “And I’m hiding too.”

  Dean moved his mouth closer to her ear to drop his voice even lower. “Who are you hidin’ from?”

  Jillian folded her thin arms over her chest with a huff. “My mother. She’s having one of her fancy parties and I don’t wanna be there anymore. It’s boring and the people are annoying.” She scrunched her freckle covered nose. “And the men smoke stinky cigars in Daddy’s study.”