Moonlight in Paris

by Pamela Hearon

  That brought her around to face him straight on. “Garrett...please tell me what’s going on.”

  His chest heaved as he took a breath, then let it out, and his gaze bored into hers, pinning her to the spot. “Tara,” he said. “I love you.”

  * * *

  IT PROBABLY WASN’T THE best place to start, but it was the truth, and Garrett wanted her to know where he was coming from. No secrets. No ghosts.

  She tilted her head in question and slid her hands into her back pockets—a stance that kept her elbows back and placed her heart right out there. An encouraging sign. “Did Mama and Dad know you were going to say that?”

  He nodded. “They told me that to win your trust, I was just going to have to lay it all out there.”

  “Go on.” She started to gnaw on her bottom lip.

  “After you left, I did some soul-searching, and I realized you were right. You couldn’t trust me. Hell, I couldn’t trust myself. I was afraid. Running away from my past. Running away from Angie. I’d pulled Dylan away from the family he needed...the family who needed him and me...at the time when we all needed each other the most. And I’d done it because I didn’t want to deal with the memories and the guilt.” He paused.

  Her nod was encouraging, but a shrug followed in its wake. “Great. But I’m still not getting it.”

  “Dylan and I moved back to St. Louis last month.”

  An audible gasp rushed from her lungs as her eyes widened.

  “I quit Soulard, sublet the flat and we moved back home. A friend from college had been in contact with me for several years about starting a new marketing firm in St. Louis. I’d always turned him down before, but this time, we decided to go for it.”

  For the first time, he edged closer to her. She didn’t move, but her eyes clouded. “What about Henri?”

  His heart twinged at the mention of his best friend, who he missed like hell. “He wasn’t happy about it, but we both knew it was for the best. We’ll visit.” He held out his hand, and when she placed hers in it, his heart twinged in a different way that he didn’t dare stop to analyze. It felt promising. And, if it wasn’t, he didn’t want to know yet. “I was hoping you and I could do that, too. Take turns visiting on weekends and during school breaks. Dylan and I can come down here. You can come up there. I just want you back in our lives, Tara. We can take it as slow as you want. Or as fast. Just give us a chance.”

  The words had barely left his mouth before she was in his arms. Her hands clasped around his neck and she kissed him with a fervor he hadn’t allowed himself to think about for months.

  “I’m so glad you’re here! I love you, Garrett.” The words poured out, straight from her heart to his. “And I love Dylan. But things happened so fast, and I was so upset and confused. Trust takes time...I learned that from a very wise man. I knew in my heart that I’d screwed up by not giving us the time we needed to work through the trust issue. And I’ve been miserable for the past eighty-nine days because of it.”

  He laughed at her exactness while she laughed and cried at the same time.

  He kissed her again then pulled her to his chest, against his heart. “God, I missed you. Your parents kept telling me you were miserable, but I didn’t think there was any way you could be as miserable as I felt.”

  “At least you had Dylan.” She sniffed. “All I had were memories.” She gave him a squeeze. “But not anymore. I can’t believe you’re here.”

  He kissed the top of her hair where the morning sun was burnishing the copper tresses. “Believe it.”

  She leaned back in his arms and he brushed back the damp hair that had stuck to the tears on her cheeks, brushed the eyebrow ring with his thumb and kissed it.

  “How’d you get my dad’s number?” she asked.

  That brought a chuckle. “As opposed to your other elusive father, Sawyer O’Malley was listed in the online phone book.”

  She narrowed her eyes and gave him a pretend pout. “I don’t know who you’re referring to. I only have one dad.”

  The sound of car doors slamming came from the front of the cabin. She grabbed his hand and took off running in that direction.

  They rounded the corner as Dylan was skipping up the sidewalk, chattering excitedly to Faith and Sawyer.

  “Dylan!” Tara called.

  The unbridled joy on his son’s face when he turned and saw Tara would stay with Garrett for the rest of his life.

  “Tara!” Dylan ran to them, and they swooped him off the ground in an ecstatic, three-way hug.

  Garrett’s arms were full, but his heart was fuller. If he let go of Dylan and Tara right then, he would float away on happiness.

  Over Tara’s head, he watched Sawyer stop and eye them for a moment, then he nodded, and Garrett nodded back.

  The exchange was brief, but its meaning unmistakable.

  Sawyer O’Malley had just given his daughter away.

  EPILOGUE

  June of the following year

  “FAITH, YOU LOOK STUNNING.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart.” She smiled at him, and Garrett watched the soft blush rise from the round neck of her pink dress.

  “And the pink is perfect.” He pointed to the hot pink streak of hair that swept through her bangs.

  She fingered it self-consciously and shrugged. “Hey, this is Paris, right?”

  “I think it’s lovely.”

  Garrett turned at the sound of his mom’s voice as she slid her arm around his waist.

  “And you are a vision of beauty in that blue,” he told her.

  She slapped her chest in mock horror. “Oh God, it’s getting deep, and I’m in open-toed shoes.” She grinned up at him. “But Henri’s shoveling it out more than you are.”

  Over her head, Garrett could see his friend talking with Thea and Emma, most certainly in his element. Garrett had warned Tara that taking Henri up on his offer to have her sister and her best friend stay with him might be a mistake, but she’d insisted everything would be fine with Trent there.

  Garrett sighed. They were all adults, and today, he wasn’t going to worry about anything.

  His phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket and read the text.

  I’m ready (again). I love you.

  He smiled at their private joke. Switching off the phone, he clapped his hands loudly.

  “All right, people. It’s showtime.”

  The few guests took their seats as the wedding party found their places.

  Garrett nodded to the harpist, and she began.

  * * *

  THE STRAINS OF “ODE TO JOY” floated through the open door.

  Tara took a deep breath and gave her dad a smile.

  “Ready to make this official in God’s eyes?” he asked. He was the only one in on the secret that, because of French law, a civil ceremony had already taken place.

  “I’ve never been more ready, Dad.”

  She took the arm he proffered, and they stepped through the door onto the terrace.

  Her eyes locked with Garrett’s, and her heart swelled at the look on his ruggedly handsome face. “I love you,” he mouthed, and she felt her answering smile spread across her face.

  She shifted her eyes to Dylan, who was standing in front of his dad, and kissed the air in his direction. He giggled and blew her a kiss in return. It caught in her throat, lodging on a bubble of joy her heart had released.

  When she reached the wedding party, Emma took her flowers as her dad kissed her on the cheek and then moved to stand beside the French minister.

  Garrett reached for one hand and Dylan for the other, and, as the three of them exchanged their vows, she recalled the first time she’d stood on this terrace during the raging storm.

  She’d sought shelter, and she’d found
it in the hearts of these two guys.

  She understood how her dad felt now. Dylan wasn’t hers by blood, but that didn’t make any difference to her heart.

  Garrett was hers, and Dylan was hers.

  They were a family.

  And they would stay a family forever.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A RANCH TO KEEP by Claire McEwen.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  THE EASTERN SIDE of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was the perfect setting for fleeing a funeral. The high drama of the granite peaks rising abruptly from low, jagged hills, the earthy scent of sagebrush and pine, the open space of the high desert, were naturally suited to thoughts of life and death.

  Grandma Ruth had loved these mountains. She’d lived most of her life in them. Driving down the scenic highway, marveling at each gorgeous view, seemed a much better way to celebrate her life than sitting in a musty Reno funeral chapel. Samantha still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up on this impromptu road trip. One minute she’d been listening to the pastor’s words, and the next an outraged voice was screaming in her head that this service wasn’t doing justice to Ruth. The rote text didn’t describe the loving, vibrant grandmother she knew. Samantha couldn’t stand it anymore, so she’d fled.

  Running away wasn’t like her. Samantha felt her forehead, wondering if she was getting sick. She was known for showing up, helping out and always doing the right thing. But instead she’d abandoned the funeral and then, from the parking lot, called work to let them know she wouldn’t be in today. She’d cancelled all her meetings and now, instead of the many things she should be doing, she was speeding down this scenic highway to the ranch outside of Benson.

  Her ranch. That idea would take some getting used to. Samantha smiled. In the past few years, Grandma Ruth had tried to get her to be more adventurous. Maybe leaving her the ranch was her last attempt to shake her granddaughter up a bit. “Well, Grandma,” Samantha said aloud to the mountains, “you have definitely stirred things up this time.”

  Samantha turned up the volume on her iPod and let the strains of opera soar. Maybe it was melodramatic, but it had seemed like the only music appropriate for the splendor of this drive, the sadness in her heart and the emotion of this homecoming.

  A few tears insisted on rolling down her cheeks. Samantha brushed them off and took a deep breath. All this crying wasn’t her usual style. More evidence that it would do her good to be away for a few days, to see something other than the crowded streets of San Francisco and the busy conference rooms of Taylor Advertising. She pictured the ranch as she remembered it from childhood. It might make her sad to be there without her grandparents, but how amazing to see the ranch again after so many years. Growing up, it was the closest thing to a home Samantha had known.

  She glanced at the keys on the seat beside her, hooked on a ring neatly labeled Rylant, Ranch House. What would the old house be like? Ruth had moved to Reno ten years ago—what had she left behind? And in what state? The will had promised Samantha four thousand acres of ranch: barns, house, outbuildings “and all items found on the premises therein.” She hoped some of those items included furniture or it was going to be a long night.

  Copyright © 2014 by Claire Haiken

  ISBN-13: 9781460326046

  MOONLIGHT IN PARIS

  Copyright © 2014 by Pamela Hearon Hodges

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