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  Fool for You

  Book 7 Southern Bride Copyright © 2021 by Kelly Elliott

  Cover photo by: Shannon Cain/Photography by Shannon Cain

  Cover Design by: RBA Designs, www.rbadesigns.com

  Interior Design & Formatting by: Elaine York, www.allusionpublishing.com

  Developmental Editor: Elaine York, www.allusionpublishing.com

  Content Editor: Rachel Carter, Yellow Bird Editing

  Proofing Editor: Erin Quinn-Kong, Yellow Bird Editing

  Proofing Editor: Elaine York, www.allusionpublishing.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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

  For more information on Kelly and her books, please visit her website www.kellyelliottauthor.com.

  Prologue – Landon Lewis

  Chapter 1 – Landon

  Chapter 2 – Emmerson

  Chapter 3 – Landon

  Chapter 4 – Emmerson

  Chapter 5 – Landon

  Chapter 6 – Emmerson

  Chapter 7 – Emmerson

  Chapter 8 – Landon

  Chapter 9 – Emmerson

  Chapter 10 – Emmerson

  Chapter 11 – Landon

  Chapter 12 – Emmerson

  Chapter 13 – Landon

  Chapter 14 – Emmerson

  Chapter 15 – Landon

  Chapter 16 – Emmerson

  Chapter 17 – Emmerson

  Chapter 18 – Landon

  Chapter 19 – Emmerson

  Chapter 20 – Landon

  Chapter 21 – Emmerson

  Chapter 22 – Landon

  Chapter 23 – Emmerson

  Chapter 24 – Landon

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Kelly Elliott

  For those who have asked for Landon and Emmerson’s story from the Speed series. I hope you enjoy this book, it’s for you!

  Landon Lewis - Seventh Grade

  I STOOD WITH My fists clenched at my sides, glaring at Luke Phillips in the courtyard outside of school. “You take that back now!”

  Luke shook his head. “No!”

  “Landon, not again,” Emmerson said as she ran up to me and started to pull on my arm. “Let’s go. It’s not worth you getting into trouble again.”

  “You take back what you said about Emmerson, or I’m going to bust your nuts.”

  My sister Hailey appeared next to Emmerson and sighed. “You really need to work on other threats, Landon.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Emmerson’s younger brother, Noah, as he walked up and stood on my other side.

  “All I said was I thought Emmerson was cute, and I wanted to kiss her,” Luke stated, shrugging his shoulders.

  Noah threw his books down on the ground and put his fists up. “You even touch my sister and I’ll crack your skull open.”

  “You know that neither of y’all will ever have a boyfriend,” someone said from behind me; I assumed they were speaking to Emmerson and Hailey.

  Emmerson stepped around and stood directly in front of me. “Landon Mitchell Lewis, stop this right now. I don’t need you or Noah defending me.”

  I looked around her and glared at Luke.

  “Yeah, why don’t the two of you just leave!” Luke shouted, gaining courage from Emmerson sticking up for him.

  Emmerson spun around and took a few steps forward until she was face to face with the jerk. “And as for you, I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last boy in Texas!”

  “That’s not what I heard,” Luke snickered.

  Before I could make my move, Luke was down on the ground covering his nose.

  “Oh my gosh!” Hailey shouted. “You broke his nose, Emme!”

  I glanced at Noah, and he glanced back at me. Then we both turned our attention to Emmerson, who was shaking her fists and staring down at Luke.

  Emmerson pointed her finger and said, “That will teach you to spread rumors, you little twerp.”

  “What is going on…oh my goodness!” Mrs. Hathaway said, coming over to help Luke stand up. “Your nose is bleeding!”

  Luke pointed at Emmerson. “She hit me, Mrs. Hathaway. Emmerson hit me!”

  Emmerson turned and looked at me and Noah, put her hands on her hips, and declared, “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need you two doing it for me.”

  “Mrs. Hathaway, Luke was saying terrible things about Emmerson. Mean things!” Hailey called out as she took Emmerson by the arm and led her in the direction of the school.

  “Looks like I’ll be calling your parents yet again,” Mrs. Hathaway stated while a teacher’s aide walked Luke to the nurse. “Won’t they be surprised to hear it was you and not your brother Noah throwing the punches this time.”

  As they walked away, Emmerson glanced back over her shoulder and looked at me. When she smiled, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  Someday I was going to marry Emmerson Wallace, and no boy would ever dare mess with her again.

  Once I got back to my classroom, I tore a piece of paper out of my notebook and wrote her a note. With a smile, I folded it up neatly and wrote her name on the back.

  No matter what Emmerson said, I would always stick up for her, and I would love her forever.

  Landon - Present day

  A SINGLE HAND waved in front of my face, drawing me out of my thoughts.

  “Where did you go?” my father asked with a slight chuckle.

  I shook my head and smiled. “Sorry, I was thinking of something I need to take care of later.”

  My father pulled on the wire as I put a tie around it, twisting it onto the fence post. “Everything okay?”

  “It will be.”

  We worked in silence for a little bit before he clearly couldn’t take it anymore. “Want to talk about it? Is it Grace?”

  It was my turn to laugh. If there was one thing about my dad, it was his knack for knowing when something was wrong with one of his kids. Hailey and I could never really get away with anything because our father always seemed to know when we were hiding something. My dad was, once upon a time, one of the most eligible bachelors on the NASCAR circuit. He had everything. Good looks—which I’ve been told I have inherited—money, and women. His heart always belonged to his childhood sweetheart, though. My mother, Adaline Lewis. But everyone called her Addie.

  My father’s brown hair had hints of gray mixed in, but his eyes were the same color as mine. Blue or gray depending on the day, my mother always said.

  “Dad, Grace and I broke up a few months ago, and we weren’t that serious anyway.”

  He paused what he was doing and frowned. “You did?”

  I stood and wiped the sweat from my forehead. “I need a drink.”

  Dad followed my lead as we made our way over to my truck. I grabbed two bottles of water and tossed him one.

  “What happened between y’all?”

  I shrugged. “It just wasn’t working. She wasn’t happy when I was racing. Then she wasn’t happy I was back home for good. She didn’t like the way I wore a baseball cap backwards. And the one issue that always seems to bother the women I date—she didn’t like Emmerson.”

  My father laughed. “Well, can you blame them? You have a female for a best friend.”

  I shrugged. “So? It’s not like there’s ever been anything between me and Emmerson.�
��

  He leaned against my truck and took a long drink before he spoke. “You know, there was a time when we all thought for sure you and Emmerson would become more than just friends.”

  Yeah. Me too.

  “Then we grew up?” I asked with a smile.

  Laughing, he said, “I guess so. You still do movie nights with her on Mondays?”

  “Yeah, it’s been nice being home and being able to start that tradition up again.”

  My father was a retired NASCAR driver. So was his best friend, Malcolm Wallace, who happened to be Emmerson’s father. They were partners now and ran a vineyard, as well as an olive orchard. They also raised cattle, but Emmerson’s brother Noah pretty much ran that side of the business.

  My mother and Emmerson’s mom, Paislie, also owned and ran a bed and breakfast in Clifton, Texas, our hometown.

  I knew my father never expected me to follow in his footsteps with NASCAR, but I had for a short time. I was damn good at it as well, but I hated being gone from Texas. From my family and, most of all, from Emmerson. So I walked away, even though I was on top. Voted most popular driver, even listed as one of People magazine’s sexiest bachelors last year.

  It wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. Sure, it had been fun, but my true passion was restoring old cars and trucks. I also loved working the cattle, but hated the vineyard and the olive orchard. So did Noah. Hailey, my sister, ran most of the administrative stuff and marketing for the vineyard and the olive orchard, as well as handled the marketing for the bed and breakfast. It came as a shock to everyone when both Emmerson and I announced we wanted to pursue jobs outside of the family businesses.

  Emmerson loved the ranch just as much as I did, but she also had her own dreams. She went to Baylor and got a business degree, and right out of college she started up a wedding planning company. Serendipity Wedding Planning. For as long as I could remember, Emmerson had been obsessed with all things weddings. She was damn good at what she did, and had already made a good name for herself, not only in nearby Waco, but in Austin and Dallas as well.

  “And you wonder why Grace was jealous of Emmerson,” Dad observed as he pulled me from my thoughts.

  Even though I didn’t want to admit it to my dad, he was right. Women I had dated over the years either loved Emmerson or hated her. Most of them hated her, or at least our friendship. Emmerson was and would always be one of my very best friends.

  I’d been hiding my deeper feelings for her for as long as I could remember. Every time someone I dated started to get a bit too serious, I knew I had to end things. No matter how many times I tried to tell myself I could move on and fall in love with another woman, I was proven wrong. So when they started talking about futures and asking where I saw us ten years down the road, I was honest. That led to most of them breaking up with me. I hadn’t had many long-term relationships, though. Two, to be exact.

  Emmerson had the same problem. Most of the guys she dated would end up giving her an ultimatum. It was either her friendship with me, or it was them. She always picked me, and I always picked her. It wasn’t hard for me to pick Emmerson over other women, though. I had been in love with her for as long as I could remember. Of course I would never admit that, especially since Emmerson didn’t reciprocate my feelings, or at least she’d never admitted to them. But the damn cat and mouse game was getting old. A part of me knew there was a real chance Emmerson could feel the same way I did. I was just too much of a pussy to find out. No, I was terrified to find out. If she didn’t love me, I wasn’t about to risk our friendship and have things become awkward.

  “Grace and I were never going to work out.”

  My father sighed and pushed off my truck. “The sooner you admit the truth to yourself, son, the sooner you’ll make your mother happy. She wants you to settle down, start a family.”

  I laughed. “Christ, I’m only twenty-seven; I’m not the least bit worried about settling down.”

  He raised a brow as he walked by me.

  “Wait, what do you mean, the sooner I admit the truth?”

  He ignored me and headed back over to the fence. “Come on, I want to finish this up before the sun starts setting. You’re coming to dinner tonight, right?”

  It was Sunday, and that meant family dinner night. It wasn’t just my family, though, it was Emmerson’s as well. Considering our two families lived on top of each other—literally, while growing up—it was no wonder we still had our weekly family dinners.

  When my father and Malcolm both retired from racing, they bought a huge mansion of a house in Clifton. It was over seven-thousand square feet and a two-family home. The first and second floors were where Malcolm and Paislie lived, along with Emmerson and Noah. My family lived on the third and fourth floors. The four of us—Noah, Hailey, me, and Emmerson—had known each other our whole lives. We’d grown up like brothers and sisters.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there. I need to run an errand first.”

  “Don’t forget it’s your turn to bring the wine,” Dad said as he pointed at me.

  I rolled my eyes. Once a month we took turns bringing a new wine that none of us had ever had before—or at least one we hoped no one had had before. Last month, Noah had actually flown to Washington State and bought a bottle of wine at a vineyard up there without so much as ever tasting it first. Hailey had bought a bottle once when she was in France, and admitted she almost broke into it in her hotel just to make sure she wasn’t bringing a shit wine to dinner that month. It was the best sangiovese I’d ever had. The types of grapes we grew here on the ranch, vitis vinifera, were mostly used for merlot and cabernet sauvignon, so we were all used to drinking mostly red wines. I liked white, too, but if I had to choose, red would always be my favorite.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “Where do you think I’m going after this?”

  He laughed. “Was that what you were daydreaming about? The wine?”

  I laughed along with him, but it wasn’t what I had been thinking about. No, what I was thinking was far more complicated than whether everyone would like the wine I picked out.

  He let it go, assuming that was where my thoughts had gone. But my mind was actually on the text message I had received earlier that day from Emmerson, asking to meet me before the family dinner tonight. She said she was in a bit of trouble and needed my help.

  I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that fucking text all day. She wasn’t dating anyone right now, so I knew I wasn’t going to have to kick anyone’s ass. So, what kind of trouble was she in? Money trouble? The kind of trouble that would show up in nine months?

  My fists clenched at that last thought. No, I knew that wasn’t it. Emmerson hadn’t dated anyone since breaking up with that dickhead Jason Emmes a year ago.

  After another ten minutes of repairing the fence, I let out a long breath. I loved working on the ranch, but on days like this when it was so fucking hot out, I longed to be in my shop, tooling around with a car’s engine or watching a badass paint job on a ’55 Chevy. The ranch was in my blood, and anytime my dad or Malcolm needed extra help, I was there. But my heart was back in the middle of Waco in my restoration shop.

  After finishing the last of the ties, I turned to my father. “If you don’t have anything else for me to do today, I’m going to head on home and shower.”

  He nodded. “That’s it, son. Thank you for helping me with this. I know you’re tired from your trip.”

  I had flown back into Dallas last night after traveling up to North Carolina to check on the race team my father and Malcolm both partially owned. It’s the same team I had raced for when I was driving in NASCAR. Not to mention that I was still co-owner of a car as well. I was more of a silent partner, though, and I liked it that way. I hated being in the spotlight; another one of the reasons I left racing.

  “It’s all good—I’m going to head on out. Let me know if I need to bring anything other than the wine tonight.”

  “Will do! Make sure it’s not another pussy-
ass wine this time!” he called out as I climbed into my truck.

  I looked back at him and gaped. “Pussy-ass wine? Excuse me, that was Noah who brought the damn fifty shades of fucked-up wine.”

  He looked up in thought and then laughed. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Leave it to Malcolm’s son to bring something so crappy.”

  Laughing again, I shook my head. My father and Malcolm were the best of friends, but they still had a bit of competition between them. It was all in fun, but they loved sticking it to each other anytime they could. And sometimes it was at the expense of us kids.

  “Later, Dad!” I called out before I drove off and headed to my place. I had bought a house a few months ago, not far from the ranch but closer to Waco. I knew I wanted to be close to both Emmerson and my folks, as well as the shop.

  My phone rang, and Emmerson’s name popped up. I hit answer with a smile on my face. “Hey, Emme.”

  “Hey, are you still able to meet me?”

  “Yeah, I’m heading back to my place to shower and change. Do you want to tell me what’s going on? What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “Um, let’s just wait and talk in person.”

  I groaned. “Emme, are you…I mean…have you gotten yourself…you know?”

  “Have I gotten myself what?” she asked.

  “Pregnant?”

  There was a silence so eerie on the other end of the line, I was positive she was about to confirm my worst fear. Then she broke out in a fit of laughter.

  “Pregnant! I’d actually have to be having sex to get pregnant, Landon.”

  Christ Almighty, the sense of relief I felt was almost terrifying.

  “Well, what in the hell was I supposed to think, Emme?”

  She laughed again and said, “Just meet at my place, then we can go and pick up that expensive-ass wine you’re getting from Rachel.”

  I let out a sigh of relief that the woman I was secretly in love with wasn’t pregnant with another man’s baby. “I’ll be there soon.”

  “Drive carefully, Landon.”

  “I will.”