by Cait London
Tough? Definitely. A man to last and to love? Most certainly. A good family man whose love ran deep.
Those black eyes pinned her as he came close to stand beside the truck. He stuck out his thumb in a hitchhiker’s gesture, and she nodded.
Nick opened the door and Scout leaped inside, controlled by the man who followed her into the cab. “Hi, lady.”
Maggie hugged Scout, scratching her ears, but her eyes never left Nick’s.
“Hi.” She loved him. Whatever happened between them, however they would argue, there would always be love.
She shifted the gears, and the van lumbered into movement. Nick handed her a small, folded, worn piece of paper. She recognized the note that she’d left for him when she’d discovered Brent was near.
When her look questioned Nick, he shook his head. He’d never opened it.
Maggie slowly tore the paper into pieces and tossed them out the open window. The Maggie who wrote that note, terrified by the past, was completely gone. She’d come through a lifetime just for Nick.
“So is Lorenzo still steamed at me?”
Nick shrugged, and his lips pushed down a smile. “Sure. Expect a few more lectures on how you should trust police. Bake him some cinnamon rolls. Better yet, promise to supply them on a regular basis for him and for any bake sales for the police uniforms or retirement fund.”
“Sounds fair enough.”
Nick’s arm stretched across the back of the seat, behind Scout. He removed Maggie’s ball cap and smoothed her hair, his eyes warm with tenderness and understanding. “So what’s new?”
He spoke easily, waiting for her to come all the way to him. She’d made a difficult journey, but she needed to come to him on her terms, new and ready for the future.
“My nephews are coming to visit. They’ve grown. If you don’t mind, their father and his new wife are coming, too. I like her…I thought we’d go for the big Italian wedding, if that’s okay with you? Invite the winegrowers who gave you so much help?”
Nick seemed to stop breathing, and he said quietly, “I’d like that. I make mistakes, Maggie. You shouldn’t be anything, do anything, but what you want—just for you. If you want to work with me, you should. I mean, you can. Your call.”
“Oh, I’ll be helping you. And I intend to get paid, very well. Maybe not with money.”
His grin shot across the cab’s shadows—because he understood perfectly. And because he knew her, Nick asked, “And what else?”
“I’ll have plenty to do, and everything that I really want to do. Lorna wants babies, and that means she’ll need help at the shop. Then I want to start an herb garden, maybe a really big one, and there are the tulip bulbs to plant, of course. Oh, I have a lot to do. And I think I’ll start with a shower—”
She loved Nick’s blank expression, and his delight. “Gotcha,” she teased.
“Not yet. If you don’t stop handling that stick shift, it may be sooner than later.”
The van lumbered toward his house, and Nick and Maggie crossed through sunshine and shadow, just the same as when they first saw each other—and just as they would spend the rest of their lives.
A week after their mid-October wedding, Maggie stood in the Frenchman’s old lighthouse, Nick’s arms around her as they looked out at the moonlit lake.
The slight wind brought the sound of falling leaves and Celeste’s wind chimes through the open window.
On the small table, there were two framed wedding pictures. The brides were in lace and white—Alyssa with a young Nick, and Maggie with a solemn older Nick.
“Beth, in Iowa, feeding chickens and loving it,” Nick mused. “Now that’s a picture.”
“It’s a beautiful picture.”
“I know how the Frenchman felt, waiting for the woman he loved, watching for her,” Nick said quietly. “I could have waited for you forever.”
Maggie leaned back against this strong, good man who always did his best. “I feel their peace, all of them. I’m glad Alyssa gave you to me. I felt that she did, that she wanted you to be happy.”
“It’s good,” Nick stated simply as he held Maggie closer.
“Very good.”
About the Author
CAIT LONDON is a national award-winning, bestselling author who fully enjoys the perks of her career, like traveling and meeting readers.
Cait’s contemporary, fast-moving style blends romance with suspense and humor, and brings characters to life by using their pasts and heritages. Her books are filled with elements of her own experiences as a scenic and wildlife artist, a photographer, a mountain hiker, a gardener, a seamstress, a professional woman, and a homemaker. She also enjoys computers and reading, aromatherapy and herbs.
Of German-Russian heritage, Cait grew up in rural Washington State. She is now a resident of Missouri and the mother of three daughters, all taller than she.
The best events in her life have always been in threes, her good luck number. Cait London says, ”I enjoy creating romantic collisions between dangerous, brooding heroes and contemporary, strong, active women who know how to manage their lives. I believe that each of my books is a gift to a reader, a part of me on those pages, and I’m thrilled when readers say, ’That was a good book.’“
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Other Avon Contemporary Romances by
Cait London
WHEN NIGHT FALLS
IT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT
LEAVING LONELY TOWN
SLEEPLESS IN MONTANA
THREE KISSES
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WITH HER LAST BREATH. Copyright © 2003 by Lois E. Kleinsasser All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub Edition February 2008 ISBN 9780061758614
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