Cole ruffled her hair and kissed her forehead. “Yes, you can.” And then he gazed at Charlie.
“Tell me what?” Charlie asked as Addyson climbed up on her lap.
“I wuv you.” She hugged her tight and then scrambled off again. “And I have a present for you. Daddy and I got it for you.”
Staring after her, Charlie knew exactly how people felt when they won the lottery. “She loves me?” It. Was. Amazing.
“Yes, she does. Nearly as much as I do.”
“Got it!” Addyson came running back in with a little treasure chest that had something rattling around inside. She crawled back on her lap. “I wuv you.”
Charlie laughed and kissed her head. “And I love you. Why did you have to ask permission to tell me?”
“Daddy said I couldn’t tell you until he told you. And he wasn’t going to tell you until you were here. I had to wait forever.” She drug the word out and made a zombie-esque face to go with it.
“Some things are better in person. I must admit.”
“You wuv Daddy too, right? Like a whole bunch?” Addyson swept her arms in a big circle. Obviously demonstrating what a whole bunch looked like.
“A whole bunch. Both of you.”
She wiped imaginary sweat from her brow. “That’s good.”
“Why?”
“’Cause Daddy has a question for you and he said you had to wuv us a whole whole bunch to say yes.”
Charlie looked from Addyson to Cole, then back again. “Ask me what?”
Addyson handed her the treasure box. “I got to keep it safe until you came back.”
“That’s wonderful. I bet it was so safe with yo—” Charlie gasped and started shaking.
It was an engagement ring. But it wasn’t the traditional diamond ring you saw on every left hand. The larger stone in the center was a ruby surrounded by a rainbow of gemstones around the entire sterling band. She looked up at him and he shrugged.
“Seemed appropriate.”
“Look inside, Charwee. It has gravy.”
“Engraving,” Cole corrected.
“Yes. Gravy.”
Charlie read the words and emotion tightened her throat. “Cole?”
“My job. It’s not always easy. It can get scary. But it’s important.” He looked at Addyson. “And I don’t want to give it up.”
“I would never ask you to do that.”
“I know you wouldn’t. But those words. They will always bring me back to you.”
She tried to hold it together. She did. But he’d just torn past every wall she’d ever built. Right to the core of her.
Addyson hugged her tight. “What does it say?”
Charlie swallowed several times and turned the ring around so they could both see the words. “No place like home.”
Charlie scooped up her soon-to-be daughter and settled in the lap of her soon-to-be husband. She handed the ring to him and held out her left hand.
He slid it on and then kissed her knuckles. “So…is that a yes?”
All she could do was nod. Tears slid down her cheeks and she laughed. Emotions overflowed as she hugged her family with a silent vow never to let them go.
“Yes, my love. From every inch of me. Yes.”
* * * * *
A year, almost to the day, later, Charlie walked hand in hand with Addyson, her newly adopted daughter, down the aisle in a wedding chapel that looked distinctly like a yellow brick road.
At the end stood Cole, dressed in a tuxedo.
Charlie wore a bright white dress and carried a bouquet of poppies. She’d traded the streak of purple in her hair for red to match her flowers.
Addyson wore a dress with every color in the rainbow.
And peeking out from beneath their long flowing skirts on every step?
Ruby red slippers.
After she and Cole took their vows and said, “I do,” they took hundreds of photos. Then Cole pulled her onto the dance floor and held her close for their first song.
What played?
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
He held her tight as she sang it to him, just loud enough so only he could hear.
“I love you, Mrs.”
Looking up, seeing the love and devotion in his eyes, she knew she’d never let him go. “You’re my magic. You know that?”
He ran his nose along the bridge of hers and kissed her forehead. “And you’re mine.”
They gazed at one another.
Lost in each other.
“Shall I start with forever?”
She stared at him and ran her fingertips across his lips. “Forever for what?”
“To love you.”
Emotions surged inside her with his three little words. “Forever, huh?”
He nodded and thumbed away her tears.
“Forever. I think that’s an absolutely perfect place to start.”
About the Author
Jennifer Kacey is a writer, mother and business owner living with her mini-man in Texas. She sings in the shower, plays piano in her dreams and has to have a different color of nail polish every week. She’s the Amazon top seller and award-winning author of the “Elite Warriors” series, “Members Only” series and the “Surrender” series along with quite a few standalone novels and novellas. The best advice she’s ever been given? Find the real you and never settle for anything less.
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Look for these titles by Jennifer Kacey
Now Available:
The Surrender Series
Final Surrender
The Coming Home Series
No Place Like Home
Coming Soon:
Ultimate Surrender
Don’t miss these other titles by Jennifer Kacey
Without trust, their hearts—and their lives—don’t stand a chance in hell.
Surrender, Book 1
Ten years ago, Angela Meyers told everyone she went to New York to find herself. It was a lie. She fled from the aftermath of one hot night with Clay Waters. A night filled with wet heat, all-consuming releases…then his regret.
Now, with a stalker threatening to destroy her career, there’s only one man she trusts to protect her. The man she still loves, hates, needs with every breath she takes.
It’s not that Clay never craved his best friend’s younger sister. With a ticket to boot camp burning a hole in his pocket, he couldn’t allow himself to love her. The moment he lays eyes on her again, the old need—to take down her tightly wound hair, press her long, lean body to his—surges inside him stronger than ever.
But this is no ordinary bodyguard assignment. The best way to identify the voice in Angela’s shadow is to lure it into the light of day. Even if it means convincing her to trust him with her heart…and surrendering his own.
Warning: When an ex-Marine reunites with his best friend’s younger sister, explosive sex is a given. So are explosive secrets. You may never look at a pair of Snoopy pajama pants the same way again.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are pr
oducts of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
No Place Like Home
Copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Kacey
ISBN: 978-1-61923-275-4
Edited by Latoya Smith
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2016
www.samhainpublishing.com
No Place Like Home: The Coming Home Series, Book 1 Page 12
