“Was that a yes, Annie? Because, to be honest with you, I don’t have a whole lot to give a woman.” He caught hold of her hand, bringing it up in the traditional style of a man about to put a ring on a woman’s finger. Instead, he drew something from his shirt pocket and settled it gently into her cupped palm. “But I can promise you this. There will always be flowers.”
Annie looked down at the daisy he’d placed in her hand, a new and perfect flower to replace the one long dead that he’d “picked” for her with his whip. Something unbearably sweet flared through her senses, making it impossible to tell him how much she loved the flower, how terribly she loved him.
She brought the daisy to her lips, tears in her eyes. “It’s enough,” she said.
Epilogue
IT WAS A summer morning too perfect for anything but the quiet celebration of nature, picking wild blackberries on the banks of a lazy mountain river ... or marrying the man you adore alongside it. Annie chose the latter, and she had never looked more lovely. Her wedding gown was a simple white organdy, its sweetheart neckline revealing soft, rounded shoulders and porcelain skin, glowing with excitement. A garland of wild daisies adorned her copper-colored hair.
Chase wore a chamois jacket with western fringe swinging from the sleeves; a brand-new black Stetson shaded his dark eyes in honor of the occasion. Several of the women in the small assemblage of guests regarded him with frankly admiring glances as he stood before the preacher, waiting for his bride. And Muriel Jensen, who sang the Lord’s Prayer, was overheard referring to the groom as “outlandishly handsome.”
The crowd hushed as Annie came forward to join Chase. Even the finches’ throaty chirping in the willows overhead went quiet as the bride took her place next to the groom. Anticipation peaked as the couple’s eyes met for one sweet, brief moment before they turned to face the priest. And then someone released a sigh.
Johnny Starhawk was Chase’s best man, his dark hair tied back, his expression solemn as the nuptials began. Next to Johnny sat Chase’s Border collie, his tail thumping noisily. The melodious rush of the river provided background music for the short ceremony, but as the priest pronounced the couple husband and wife, and they sealed their union with a lingering kiss, an odd rumbling noise could be heard in the distance.
As Annie and Chase finally turned to the crowd, the ominous sound built, roaring like a fleet of approaching helicopters. The earth seemed to vibrate, and the racket soared to a crescendo as a single streak of black and chrome burst into view. To everyone’s surprise, a huge motorcycle swooped around the bend in the road that led to the river.
“Who is he?” Voices in the crowd rose anxiously as a lone figure on a massive black Harley shot straight for the ceremony. The rider’s mirrored aviator glasses flashed in the sunlight, and the ties of the black bandanna he wore around his head streamed in the wind.
The rider looked as menacing as the demon machine he rode as he gunned the bike up onto the grass and wheeled it around, coming to a stop not six feet from the startled crowd. Sunlight glinted off his glasses as he scanned their faces, searching for someone. Unshorn and unshaven, his rich blond hair sun-whitened against the black bandanna, he was a blunt weapon to the senses. A golden mountain lion of a man.
Both Chase and Johnny seemed to recognize the rider as he dropped the bike’s kickstand and swung off. But it was Annie who said the man’s name. In his marine fatigues, olive-drab T-shirt, and flak vest, Geoff Dias looked exactly as Annie remembered him from five years before. He was a stark and beautiful specter from the past, reminding her of every tragic detail, every shining moment, of the commandos’ last mission.
She glanced at Chase beside her and realized that he was remembering it, too, every moment, as though time had turned in on itself and rushed backward. Even Johnny Starhawk looked oddly transfixed.
“Chase Beaudine?” said Geoff, approaching the gathering. “I was told I could find him here.” The crowd inched back as if the stranger really were a mountain lion.
Chase made a path through the throng, drawing Annie behind him. “Dias! It’s me, Chase.”
Geoff Dias stared at Chase’s wedding apparel in total confusion. “What’s going on, Beaudine? I got an urgent message. It said your life was in danger.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Chase informed him, a slow smile breaking. “You’re too late to save me now. I just got married.”
“Married?” Geoff’s rugged features registered shock as he stared at his old friend. “I don’t believe it. Chase Beaudine married?” Husky laughter erupted, and he shook his head in disbelief. “God, man, I’m really sorry to hear that. Maybe if I’d been here an hour earlier, I could have saved you.”
“If you’d been here an hour earlier, you could have given away the bride.” The sardonic remark came from Johnny Starhawk as he moved through the crowd to greet the late arrival.
“Starhawk? What are you doing here?”
Johnny grinned, his dark eyes glinting as he clasped hands with his former partner. “Part of the conspiracy to get Chase Beaudine out of action.”
Geoff Dias glanced again at Chase, now wholly sympathetic to the man’s plight. “When you said you were in danger, Beaudine, you meant it!”
“Maybe you’d like to meet the danger in person.” Chase ushered Annie forward, draping an arm around her shoulder. “This is my beautiful wife. You may remember her as Annie Wells.”
Recognition slowly crept into Geoff’s emerald green eyes as he searched Annie’s luminous face. “She’s the girl you rescued,” he said finally. “The one they told us was dead.” He turned to Chase with new understanding. “She’s more than beautiful, Beaudine. She’s eerie. No wonder you lost your head.”
Annie reached out her hand and caught hold of Geoff’s. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes going misty, and very, very blue. A moment later Geoff pulled her into his arms.
It was a friendly enough welcome, but Chase broke them up anyway, drawing his tiny wife away from Geoff Dias’s bear hug of an embrace. “Find your own woman, Dias,” he said possessively, enfolding Annie in his arms. “This one’s mine.”
The other two men stepped back, laughing at their old friend’s uncharacteristic behavior.
“Don’t be so smug, compadres,” Chase warned them both. “It could happen to you.”
Both Chase and Annie laughed at the men’s vehement denials. But as Annie studied her husband’s former partners, a stirring of intuition warned her that these two men were inveterate loners, and probably as averse to emotional involvement as Chase had been. She didn’t envy the woman who tangled with either of them. As for Geoff Dias, she would not want to be the woman who tried to tame that lion. It would surely take a whip and a chair. Or one very smart lioness.
And as for Johnny Starhawk, he was as quietly dangerous as any jungle cat she’d ever come across, a black panther lying in wait. But for whom? If she could have looked into the future and seen the unsuspecting one who would cross his path, Annie would have warned her to run for her life.
She gave an involuntary shudder, grateful to be exactly where she was, warm in Chase’s arms. Laughing voices rose and champagne corks began to pop in the background, bringing her back to the celebration at hand—her own wedding! Glancing up at the love in her husband’s dark eyes, at her most secret dream realized, she joined in the joyous laughter. Miracle Number Two, she thought. May there be many more.
A Biography of Suzanne Forster
Suzanne Forster, the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty romance novels, was on a career path to becoming a clinical psychologist until a life-altering car accident changed everything. While recovering, she tried her hand at writing to pass the time and quickly found that it was her true passion. Before she was ready to return to school, her first manuscript had won second place in a contest sponsored by the Romance Writers of America for unpublished writers. Before she knew it, she sold her first novel, Undercover Angel (1985), and embarked on a new path.
Throughout her career, Forster has made unconventional plot choices for the romance genre, such as setting her novel The Devil and Ms. Moody (1990) in the gritty world of motorcycle gangs, an idea her publisher resisted for years. The hero, Diablo, an intimidating yet tender rogue in black leather who rides a Harley-Davidson, was given the WISH (Women in Search of a Hero) Award by RT Book Reviews. For her Stealth Commandos trilogy she chose mercenaries and bounty hunters as her heroes. Child Bride (1992), the first in the trilogy, became her publisher’s top-selling series romance that year. The romantic thriller The Morning After (2000) appeared on several bestseller lists including the New York Times.
RT Book Reviews has twice honored Forster’s work, first in 1990 with a Career Achievement Award in Series Sensual Romance, and again in 1996 in the category of Best Contemporary Romantic Suspense. In 1996 she was also a nominee for the Romance Reader’s Anonymous Award for Best Contemporary Author. Her mainstream debut, Shameless (2001), won the National Readers Choice Award. Forster’s 2004 novel Unfinished Business was made into a movie, called Romancing the Bride, for the Oxygen Network.
Forster lives in Southern California with her husband, and has taught women’s contemporary fiction writing seminars at UCLA and UC Riverside.
Suzanne at five years old, smiling with her beloved family dog, Duchess. Suzanne was the youngest of four children, and Duchess was passed down to the children as they grew up.
Suzanne sitting on her grandfather’s knee outside their home in Olympia, Washington. Known in the community as the unofficial poet laureate of Olympia, her grandfather was a prolific writer and performer of poetry, actively performing at church, community events, and special occasions. The family never had a Sunday dinner without him reading a new poem.
A family Christmas photograph from Suzanne’s childhood. Suzanne, age seven, is at the far left, standing by older sister Carolyn, brothers Michael and John, and her parents. Suzanne credits her father’s side of the family with sparking her artistic ability, as her father was a writer of eloquent letters and her grandfather a prolific writer of poetry.
Suzanne with husband Allan at their wedding in the mid-seventies. The two married in a wedding chapel in California, and then took a three-week trip up the coastline to Vancouver, British Columbia, stopping to spend time with Suzanne’s family in Olympia, Washington.
Suzanne at her college graduation, photographed by her mother. Suzanne graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of California at Irvine in 1978, and went on to a post-graduate degree in psychology. She wouldn’t begin writing until her psychology career was derailed by a car accident; in order to pass the time while recovering, she began to write some of her first stories.
A photograph of Suzanne with husband Allan in their first apartment together in Westminster, California. After they married in the early 1980s, Suzanne and Allan had a ready-made family, including Suzanne’s son, Kenny, and Allan’s three children from his first marriage. At the time of the photograph, Suzanne was working on her first book, Undercover Angel.
Suzanne at her first book signing at a small independent bookstore in California. The signing was held for Wild Child, Suzanne’s second release through the Loveswept series, and was a success—over one hundred copies of the book were sold.
Suzanne, left, with close friend and fellow author Meryl Sawyer at the RT Book Lovers Convention in Atlanta in 1990. The two are celebrating The Devil and Ms. Moody, which garnered myriad awards that year, including the Career Achievement Award for its author.
One of Suzanne’s favorite photographs: she and Allan in Hawaii, preparing to take a helicopter tour of Maui. Suzanne frequently mined her vacations for material for her books, and later used a lunging helicopter in her romantic suspense novel The Morning After.
Suzanne, left, spending time with her son, Kenny, her grandchildren, and extended family.
Suzanne wearing a biker jacket in reference to The Devil and Ms. Moody, her award-winning motorcycle romance novel. Her husband, Allan, bought the jacket as a gift in honor of her biker romances that swept award ceremonies in the 1990s and essentially established her as a star in the genre.
Suzanne holds up a copy of The Morning After during a signing at Borders. The novel was the first book to hit the New York Times bestseller list, an experience that Suzanne called “thrilling, amazing, and unexpected.” The romantic thriller also hit top spots on lists at USA Today, Waldenbooks, and Barnes & Noble.
Suzanne and her writing group, brainstorming at the beach. From left to right: Olga Bicos, Lou Kaku, Jill Marie Landis, Lou Herter, Suzanne Forster, and Meryl Sawyer. Meeting monthly, the group discussed craft and story ideas. With rare exceptions, the meetings sparked ideas for nearly all of Suzanne’s books.
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 ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1992 by Suzanne Forster
cover design by Karen Horton
978-1-4532-2036-8
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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