“Then say yes,” he urged, releasing one of her hands to take a ring out of his pocket and offer it to her. “Not just to coming to Georgia, but making a life with me. Let me be your husband and Kylie and Zachary’s stepfather. Let us be a family.”
She was dazzled by his proposal even more than the diamond in his hand, but... “You said you weren’t the forever-after type,” she reminded him.
“Because I wasn’t...until I met you.”
“You also said love was a gamble.”
“And I’m willing to go for broke,” he told her. “Because I know that as long as you’re by my side, I can’t lose.”
She saw the conviction in his eyes, felt it in her heart. They could make this work—they would make this work. “You have all the answers, don’t you?”
“Not quite,” he said. “I’m still waiting for yours.”
She didn’t make him wait any longer. “My answer is yes. With one minor amendment.”
“Anything,” he promised.
“I want you to be my husband,” she told him. “But I’m not looking for a stepfather for my children. They need a real father. They deserve a full-time, forever-after kind of dad.”
“Do you think I could be that kind of dad?” he asked, a little cautiously.
She lifted her free hand to his cheek. “You already are.”
He slid the ring on her hand, and it was as perfect a fit for her finger as he was for her life. And then he kissed her, and it was a perfect kiss, too.
“I think my sister was right,” she murmured.
“What was she right about?”
“I should never have tried to guess our ending—or given up hope that it would be a happy one.”
“She was only partly right,” he said. “This isn’t an ending—it’s our happy beginning.”
Epilogue
On Christmas morning, Kylie awoke early, excited to discover what presents Santa had left for her and Zachary. ’Cept Mama had one very strict rule—no presents could be opened until everyone was awake. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t sneak downstairs and just peek at what was under the tree, did it?
She climbed out of bed and stuffed her feet into her slippers, then tiptoed to the stairs. She held tight on to the handrail as she made her way down. Some of the steps used to make a scary sound when she stepped on them. Mama said they groaned like an old man, but Ryder fixed that. Ryder fixed a lot of things that used to be broken—like the roof. Now even when it rained really, really hard, with thunder and lightning and everything, it didn’t rain in her castle.
She was going to miss her castle when they went to... Watkin-something. She scrunched up her face and tried real hard but she couldn’t ’member the name. But Mama showed it to her on a map, and it didn’t look very far away. Her tummy felt a little funny when she thought about moving, but Mama said it wasn’t forever. Just till Ryder fixed all the things that needed fixing in some old house there; then they would come back here.
She reached the last step and tiptoed into the living room. There were lots of presents wrapped in bright paper, but it was the castle in front of the tree that made her breath stop inside her.
She took another step closer and dropped to her knees for a better look. She reached out, wanting to touch it, but snatched her hand back. She was only s’posed to peek, but now she really wanted to see what was inside.
She heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly backed away from the castle, climbing up onto the sofa so that she wouldn’t get in trouble for peeking.
Ryder smiled at her from the doorway. “I thought I heard someone tiptoeing around down here.”
“I twied to be quiet,” Kylie whispered.
“Why did you try to be quiet?” he asked. “Don’t you want to open your presents?”
She nodded. “But Mama said no pwesents till everyone is awake.”
“Then we need to go back upstairs, stomping our feet the whole way, to wake them up, don’t we?”
Kylie giggled. “Will Mama get mad?”
“Nah. Not on Christmas,” he promised.
She slid off the edge of the sofa again but couldn’t resist another peek at the presents under the tree.
“You’re looking at that castle,” he guessed.
She nodded. “Do you think it’s for me?” she whispered the question.
“Let’s find out,” he said, taking her hand and guiding her closer. “Is your name on the tag?”
She couldn’t print her name yet but she knew how to read it. She nodded as her finger pointed to each letter. “K-Y-L-I-E.”
“That’s right—it says ‘To Kylie, From Santa.’”
She felt her mouth smile but she couldn’t find any words to say.
He crouched down beside her. “Do you want to look inside?”
She nodded her head up and down.
So Ryder showed her the latch on the side, then helped her open it up. Her breath stopped again as the castle unfolded. She didn’t know where to look—there was so much to see, so many rooms with lots of stuff inside.
“Did Santa do pretty good with this present then?” he asked, after she’d looked it all over.
“It’s—” she need a second to ’member the word “—awesome.”
He smiled. “The bestest present ever?”
She didn’t have to think about the question long before she shook her head. “The bestest present ever is my new daddy.”
His eyes were shiny when he hugged her. “I’m glad,” he said. “Because your mom and you and Zachary are my bestest presents ever, too.”
Kylie put her arms around his neck and kissed his scratchy cheek. “Can we wake Mama an’ Zack now?” she asked him.
Ryder smiled. “Absolutely.”
Then he took her hand and they stomped up the stairs together.
* * * * *
Don’t miss Braden Garrett’s story, BABY TALK & WEDDING BELLS the next installment in award-winning author Brenda Harlen’s miniseries THOSE ENGAGING GARRETTS! Coming soon.
And catch up with Lauryn’s and Ryder’s siblings by reading the previous books in the THOSE ENGAGING GARRETTS! miniseries for Harlequin Special Edition:
TWO DOCTORS & A BABY
THE BACHELOR TAKES A BRIDE.
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Single mom Andrea Montgomery only agreed to look in on injured sheriff Marshall Bailey as a favor to his sister, but when these lonely hearts are snowed in together, there’s no telling what Christmas wishes might come true.
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Snowfall on Haven Point
by RaeAnne Thayne
CHAPTER ONE
SHE REALLY NEEDED to learn how to say no once in a while.
Andrea Montgomery stood on the doorstep of the small, charming stone house just down the street from hers on Riverbend Road, her arms loaded with a tray of food that was cooling by the minute in the icy December wind blowing off the Hell’s Fury River.
Her hands on the tray felt clammy and the flock of butterflies that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her stomach jumped around maniacally. She didn’t want to be here. Marshall Bailey, the man on the other side of that door, made her nervous under the best of circumstances.
This moment definitely did not fall into that category.
How could she turn down any request from Wynona Bailey, though? She owed Wynona whatever she wanted. The woman had taken a bullet for her, after all. If Wyn wanted her to march up and down the main drag in Haven Point wearing a tutu and combat boots, she would rush right out and try to find the perfect ensemble.
She would almost prefer that to Wyn’s actual request, but her friend had sounded desperate when she called earlier that day from Boise, where she was in graduate school to become a social worker.
“It’s only for a week or so, until I can wrap things up here with my practicum and Mom and Uncle Mike make it back from their honeymoon,” Wyn had said.
“It’s not a problem at all,” she had assured her. Apparently she was better at telling fibs than she thought because Wynona didn’t even question her.
“Trust my brother to break his leg the one week that his mother and both of his sisters are completely unavailable to help him. I think he did it on purpose.”
“Didn’t you tell me he was struck by a hit-and-run driver?”
“Yes, but the timing couldn’t be worse, with Katrina out of the country and Mom and Uncle Mike on their cruise until the end of the week. Marshall assures me he doesn’t need help, but the man has a compound fracture, for crying out loud. He’s not supposed to be weight-bearing at all. I would feel better the first few days he’s home from the hospital if I knew that someone who lived close by could keep an eye on him.”
Andie didn’t want to be that someone. But how could she say no to Wynona?
It was a good thing her friend had been a police officer until recently. If Wynona had wanted a partner in crime, Thelma & Louise style, Andie wasn’t sure she could have said no.
“Aren’t you going to ring the doorbell, Mama?” Chloe asked, eyes apprehensive and her voice wavering a little. Her daughter was picking up her own nerves, Andie knew, with that weird radar kids had, but she had also become much more timid and anxious since the terrifying incident that summer when Wyn and Cade Emmett had rescued them all.
“I can do it,” her four-year-old son, Will, offered. “My feet are freezing out here.”
Her heart filled with love for both of her funny, sweet, wonderful children. Will was the spitting image of Jason, while Chloe had his mouth and his eyes.
This would be their third Christmas without him and she had to hope she could make it much better than the previous two.
She repositioned the tray and forced herself to focus on the matter at hand. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else.”
She couldn’t very well tell her children that she hadn’t knocked yet because she was too busy thinking about how much she didn’t want to be here.
“I told you that Sheriff Bailey has a broken leg and can’t get around very well. He probably can’t make it to the door easily and I don’t want to make him get up. He should be expecting us. Wynona said she was calling him.”
She transferred the tray to one arm just long enough to knock a couple of times loudly and twist the doorknob, which gave way easily. The door was blessedly unlocked.
“Sheriff Bailey? Hello? It’s Andrea Montgomery.”
“And Will and Chloe Montgomery,” her son called helpfully, and Andie had to smile, despite the nerves jangling through her.
An instant later, she heard a crash, a thud and a muffled groan.
“Sheriff Bailey?”
“Not really...a good time.”
She couldn’t miss the pain in the voice of Wynona’s older brother. It made her realize how ridiculous she was being. The man had been through a terrible ordeal in the last twenty-four hours and all she could think about was how much he intimidated her.
Nice, Andie. Feeling small and ashamed, she set the tray down on the nearest flat service, a small table in the foyer still decorated in Wyn’s quirky fun style even though her brother had been living in the home since late August.
“Kids, wait right here for a moment,” she said.
Chloe immediately planted herself on the floor by the door, her features taking on the fearful look she had worn too frequently since Rob Warren burst back into their lives so violently. Will, on the other hand, looked bored already. How had her children’s roles reversed so abruptly? Chloe used to be the brave one, charging enthusiastically past any challenge, while Will had been the more tentative child.
“Do you need help?” Chloe asked tentatively.
“No. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She was sure the sound had come from the room where Wyn had spent most of her time when she lived here, a space that served as den, family room and TV viewing room in one. Her gaze immediately went to Marshall Bailey, trying to heft himself back up to the sofa from the floor.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”
“What do you think happened?” he growled. “You knocked on the door so I tried to get up to answer and the damn crutches slipped out from under me.”
“I’m so sorry. I only knocked to give you a little warning before we barged in. I didn’t mean for you to get up.”
He glowered. “Then you shouldn’t have come over and knocked on the door.”
She hated any conversation that came across as a confrontation. They always made her want to hide away in her room like she was a teenager again in her grandfather’s house. It was completely immature of her, she knew. Grown-ups couldn’t always walk away.
“Wyn asked me to check on you. Didn’t she tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to her since yesterday. My phone ran out of juice and I haven’t had a chance to charge it.”
By now, the county sheriff had pulled himself back onto the sofa and was trying to position pillows for his leg that sported a black orthopedic boot from his toes to just below his knee. His features contorted as he tried to reach the pillows, but he quickly smoothed them out again. The man was obviously in pain and doing his best to conceal it.
She couldn’t leave him to suffer, no matter how nervous his gruff demeanor made her.
She hurried forward and pulled the second pillow into place. “Is that how you wanted it?” she asked.
She had a sudden memory of seeing the sheriff the night Rob Warren had broken into her home, assaulted her, held her at gunpoint and ended up in a shoot-out with the Haven Point police chief, Cade Emmett. He had burst into her home after the situation had been largely defused, to find Cade on the ground trying to revive a bleeding Wynona.
The stark fear on Marshall’s face had haunted her, knowing that she might have unwittingly contributed to him losing another sibling after he had already lost his father and a younger brother in the line of duty.
Now Marshall’s features were a shade or two paler and his eyes had the glassy, distant look of someone in a great deal of pain.
“How long have you been out of the hospital?”
He shrugged. “A couple hours. Give or take.”
“And you’re here by yourself?” she exclaimed. “I thought you were supposed to be home earlier this morning and someone was going to stay with you for the first few hours. Wynona told me that was the plan.”
“One of my deputies drove me home from the hospital, but I told him Chief Emmett would probably keep an eye on me.”
The police chief lived across the street from Andie and just down the street from Marshall, which boded well for crime prevention in the neighborhood. Having the sheriff and the police chief on the same street should be any sane burglar’s worst nightmare—especially this particular sheriff and police chief.
“And has he been by?”
“Uh, no. I didn’t ask him to.” Marshall’s eyes looked unnaturally blue in his pain-tight features. “Did my sister send you to babysit me?”
“Babysit, no. She only asked me to periodically check on you. I also brought dinner for the next few nights.”
“Also unnecessary. If I get hungry, I’ll call Serrano’s for a pizza later.”
Building the Perfect Daddy Page 21
