The Southern Bride

by Leonra Worth

“Yeah. I miss her.”

  His eyes held a brightness that she’d missed so much, as if he was up to mischief and couldn’t wait to tell her.

  She leaned over and kissed him. “Are you hungry?”

  His gaze moved over her. “Starving.”

  “Well, I’m grilling vegetables and a juicy steak. You need protein and iron.”

  “I need you,” he said, standing, reaching for a cane.

  Then she noticed his big cast was off and he was wearing a leg brace. “Judson? How did that happen?”

  “I went to the doctor this morning. Sam took me. I wanted to surprise you. I’ve done such a good job, the doc sent me home with a cane and the brace. Looks like I’m healing up better than even the doctor expected.”

  Tears burned at her eyes. “Yes, you sure are.” She dropped her bags and held him close, kissing him again.

  He backed away and grinned at her and then pulled a small black box out of his pocket. “I can’t get down on one knee—”

  “Judson?” Her heart tripled in size.

  He opened the box, anticipation brightening his expression. “Melissa Sonnier, will you marry me? I mean really marry me, for better or worse, for all that other stuff, for the real stuff, for the quiet times, and forever?”

  Melissa’s pulse moved along with the soft gurgle of the river down beyond the trees. “Yes, you know I will.”

  He took the simple solitaire and placed it on her finger. “It’s not much—”

  She held a finger to his lips. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  When she saw the tears in his eyes, her own flowed freely. “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you,” he replied. “Because you stayed.”

  She laughed. “And you didn’t leave.”

  “I kinda couldn’t leave,” he said on a chuckle.

  He kissed her again and then looked over her shoulder. “I have another surprise for you.”

  Then he turned her to face the big cabin.

  Melissa gasped. There walking up the lane was her entire family—Roscoe and Ruby, Uncle Jaybo, Michelle and Brodie, Sam and Maddie and Spike. And Judson’s aunt and uncle. Even Betsy, whom she’d just left. And Big Joe, the cook from the Surf Shack who’d taken Judson under his wings. Everyone she loved and cared about was here.

  “What is this?” she asked, tears flowing freely now.

  “It’s your engagement party,” Michelle called out, laughing, her belly rounded and beautiful.

  “Good thing you said yes,” Brodie shouted.

  Soon, everyone was hugging and kissing and crying.

  Melissa couldn’t contain her happiness.

  Judson kissed her and held up a hand to silence the revelry. “I owe all of you so much. Thanks to Aunt Helena for giving me my grandmother’s ring. Thanks to the rest of you for giving me a place to get well and heal. And thanks to Melissa for finally saying yes and meaning it and for giving me the family I always wanted.”

  Everyone laughed and clapped and cried all over again.

  “About time,” Brodie called out. “Okay, let’s get to cooking. I’m hungry.”

  Later, after a good meal and a lot of conversation, Judson walked slowly toward the stables with Melissa. “We can plan the wedding for next spring, if you want. I’ll be free and clear by then. No crutches, or canes, or braces. Doc says I should be good to go for working here on the ranch. Meantime, I can start slow and do what I can.”

  She nodded as they entered the coolness of the building, both Blackbeard and Coco snorting a greeting. “A spring wedding. On the beach, by our piece of driftwood.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Judson said, nuzzling her hair.

  “A new beginning,” Melissa replied. “I know this is reality, but it sure feels like a fairy tale.”

  “A dream come true,” Judson said, kissing her again.

  “Compromise, my mom would say.”

  Blackbeard leaned his head out and nudged at Judson’s shoulder. When they pulled apart, the big horse neighed and moved his head in a nod of approval.

  “I guess that settles that,” Judson said.

  Melissa bobbed her head in agreement. “We’ll have to decide where to live but, for now, I love this place.”

  “Good. It might take me a while to build you a big house.”

  “I don’t need a big house,” Melissa replied. “I only need you.”

  He reached out and pulled her hair. “I finally caught you.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  They turned back toward the cabins, a rain of soft fall leaves dancing behind them and a whole new future straight ahead.

  The End

  If you loved The Southern Bride, you’ll love...

  Undercover Princess

  by Lenora Worth

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  The Driftwood Bay Series

  If you loved The Southern Bride, the rest of the Driftwood Bay series are must-reads!

  Book 1: The Southern Cowboy

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  An Exclusive Excerpt from The Southern Cowboy

  Turn the page to get a sneak peek at Book 1 in the Driftwood Bay series, The Southern Cowboy!

  The Southern Cowboy

  Copyright © 2016 Lenora Worth

  Brodie Stevens didn’t like horses. Maybe because he’d fallen off a pony once when he was around seven. Happened at a birthday party at some upscale beach house near his daddy’s bachelor pad and since his dear ol’ dad had been trying very hard to impress the wealthy divorcee who’d invited them to the party, he’d shouted at Brodie in a drunken rage to get up and get back on the horse.

  Brodie had done just that. He’d survived the ride but he hadn’t survived the embarrassment. He and his dad were not and had never been close, so just to prove a point, after high school Brodie had found work on a big Florida plantation complete with a hunting lodge. The very same plantation where his father worked as a horse trainer and all around gofer. Brodie had outworked, outridden, and all out agitated his daddy to no end.

  When Brodie got fired after a drunken brawl over a woman, he took himself off to join the Army. Just to prove another point.

  But now that he was a self-declared beach bum, he’d stopped trying to prove anything to anyone. Especially to Broderick Stevens. He didn’t even talk to his daddy anymore, except for the occasional forced phone call. Last he’d heard, the old man was living in a trailer somewhere in Ocala, Florida.

  Of course, he’d learned one thing from his philandering father. They both appreciated beautiful women.

  So ... even though Brodie hated horses, he had no problem with a beautiful woman riding a horse.

  And since an intriguing woman riding a beautiful chestnut mare was headed up the beach toward Brodie, he smiled and watched in amazement. She had the air of someone who’d been around money, but she didn’t look like the debutante type. More of a society woman who’d settled into herself nicely. The dangerous type.

  This woman knew how to handle a horse.

  She was beautiful from a distance but as she approached, her long blondish-silver hair flying out around her face, a white gauzy scarf lifting over her neck and shoulders and dark sunshades hiding her eyes, Brodie noticed something else about this woman.

  She didn’t seem to see him there. She appeared to be focused on something beyond him.

  The water.

  She wasn’t headed up the shoreline. She was headed right into the water. Right toward where he stood in the whitecaps.

  As she got closer, the horse neighed and then reared up and kicked against the surf, causing her to finally see Brodie. She lifted the shades but the horse lifted and kicked again. The woman’s dark shades went flying out from her face, dropping into the whitecaps. The sea took them out in one giant surge of water.

  Her eyes met Brodie’s in a panicked look full of despair and
shock. Then she reached up and swiped at her eyes. She was crying.

  Brodie saw the tear streaks moving down her tanned cheekbones, watched the waterworks flying out around her temples. Her tears glistened in the early morning sun while the salty surf of the Gulf of Mexico sprayed up toward her with each beat of the horse’s powerful hoofs. He could hear the animal’s snorts and breaths but the woman cried silently and looked away from Brodie again, her head up as if focusing on something far out over the water. Somewhere she needed to be.

  “Hey, are you all right?” he called.

  She didn’t answer him.

  Brodie stopped, held tightly to the two-foot-long piece of heavy driftwood he’d found washed up after last night’s storm. Held his breath against the pain he saw etched in her exotic features and saw the white-knuckled way she held to the bridle. Something was warring inside of her. She looked back at him and then she looked out at the deep waters beyond the swells.

  He opened his mouth to ask again if she was okay but the woman nudged the big animal into action and the horse leapt right past him in such an ethereal crash of sun and surf, animal and dirt, tears and ocean, he had to blink.

  Here one minute and then gone on by in a flash. Brodie sure knew that feeling.

  Shaking his head and thinking he’d had one too many tequila shots last night, Brodie stood motionless and wondered if he’d imagined the whole beautiful scene. But his gut told him he’d stumbled into the path of a woman on a mission.

  He pulled out his cellphone and called his best friend Sam Hinson just to get a reality check.

  “What?”

  He’d probably woken up the ornery bartender. “Hey, Sam, it’s Brodie. What do you know about the woman on the horse?”

  Sam grunted, coughed, creaked. “Not much. And ... you need to stay away from that one, bro. Nobody messes with Michelle. She’s from Louisiana and she knows how to shoot anything that moves.”

  “Michelle? From Louisiana?” The name suited her. “What’s her story?”

  “She’s not here to tell you a story. She doesn’t go for small talk or pick-up lines, get me? She’s a nice lady from a small town. Leave her alone, Brodie.”

  Yeah, Sam knew Brodie’s penchant for having a keen interest in beautiful women. “Okay, yeah. I’ll talk to you when you’re in a better mood.”

  “I’d be in a better mood if you hadn’t woken me up with the roosters.”

  The call ended due to Sam’s ending the call. Brodie stood there staring out into the azure morning water. The sound of the surf hitting the shore echoed in a gentle cadence. The way the sunrise slashed across the sea and made it glisten kind of reminded him of how that woman’s tears had glistened on her high cheekbones.

  And those tears kind of made him not want to leave it alone. Made him not want to leave her alone.

  He’d never been good at heeding advice.

  And he’d never been good at leaving well enough alone.

  Maybe because he had gotten back on that pony all those years ago. He liked a good challenge.

  She’d vowed to never cry again.

  But today was a tough day for Michelle Lancaster. One year ago today, her life had fallen apart. It didn’t help that she’d purposely gotten up early, way too early, so she could ride Coco in peace, alone, on the beach. So she could cry in peace, alone, on the beach. She missed her family back in Spirit, Louisiana. She missed her life in that small town tucked in the northwest corner of the state. But she needed to be here alone right now in this self-imposed exile.

  Completely alone. That was her punishment. But she’d accepted her fate with the split second decision she’d formed on her morning ride. A decision that would have changed everything.

  That plan had almost worked until she’d seen him.

  The driftwood man.

  The raw-edged beach bum and noted local artist with the gray eyes. The gray-tinged shaggy light-brown-hair kind of man.

  He usually wore dark shades just as she did, but one day he’d taken them off while he sat at the bar in Sam’s Surf Shack and she’d glanced up from reading a book to see where the deep laughter was coming from. So she’d watched him from her hidden spot in a corner booth and decided he was all laugh-lines and storm gray eyes. But the laughter had ended just as abruptly as it had begun. He had one beer and then he’d slipped the aviator shades back on and left.

  She’d spotted him several times since that day, sometimes early like this and sometimes late, like last night. And she’d always managed to avoid him. Until this morning.

  This morning she’d been so wrapped up in her mantle of pain that she hadn’t spotted him until it was too late. Or it could have been that the sunrise had blinded her enough that she hadn’t had time to turn the horse and ride in the other direction.

  Too late. It didn’t matter anyway. She had not stopped to explain that she really wanted to be alone or to ask why he was on what was supposed to be a private beach anyway and why did she even care?

  He’d seen her tears. He’d witnessed her humiliation and seen her grief. And that mattered to Michelle. She didn’t want to let anyone in, didn’t need anyone to become that intimate with her. She wanted solitude and loneliness and ... quiet.

  She just wanted some quiet from the screaming pain that never really left her mind.

  But he’d seen her. And Michelle had seen him from the shield of her own dark sunshades until she’d lost them to the sea. She’d noticed his skin—so bronzed and dark it looked like rich leather, the kind of leather that would age beautifully. And since this time his shades had been pushed up on his head, she’d seen his eyes up close for a second or two. They’d been as blue-gray and open as the sea behind him. Eyes that had washed over her, held her, watched her. Did he understand her pain?

  He looked like a man who didn’t care about what other people thought. The kind of man who’d get into a fight in a bar just out of boredom. The kind who’d probably turned away from the world to live life on his terms. In worn jeans, rolled up and wet, and a loose, open button-up shirt that looked as worn and washed as the person wearing it.

  A dangerous man. Emotionally dangerous and damaged. The worst kind.

  So it irked her to no end that he’d seen her crying. And that he’d gotten in her way.

  But Michelle didn’t have to worry about the driftwood man. She didn’t plan on running into him again. She was careful to avoid people, careful to keep her eyes straight ahead. Every now and then, she would stroll along the quaint streets of Driftwood Bay and buy trinkets from the street vendors or shop at the fashionable Beach Boutique. Every now and then, she felt her pulse just to make sure she was still alive.

  And that was what had upset her the most about him seeing her. Or maybe about her not seeing him until it was too late. Too late to turn away or avert her eyes. He’d stared down the shoreline at her. He’d made her pulse leap.

  That could be the most dangerous thing of all.

  Find out what happens next...

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  About the Author

  Lenora Worth writes award-winning romance and romantic suspense for Love Inspired and also writes for Tule, Zondervan and Redbud Press. Three of her books finaled in the ACFW Carol Awards and several of her books have been RT Reviewer’s Choice finalist. “Logan’s Child” won the 1998 Best Love Inspired for RT. Her Love Inspired Suspense “Body of Evidence” became a NY Times Bestseller. Her novella in Mistletoe Kisses, along with several other writers, also made her a USA Today Bestselling author. With sixty books published and millions of books in print, she goes on adventures with her retired husband, Don. They have two grown children. Lenora enjoys reading, baking and shopping ... especially shoe shopping.

  Visit her website at www.LenoraWorth.com

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