by Cindy Kirk
She said it as fact, instead of a question, knowing she spoke the truth. And if he denied it, he’d be not only lying to her but to himself.
“Of course I want kids. So do you.”
Gabi slowly nodded.
“You don’t have to give birth to them.” His voice softened and he squeezed the hand he still held. “There are so many options nowadays. We could adopt, either a baby or an older child. We could use a surrogate. And if, when it’s all said and done, it ends up just being the two of us, I’d be okay with that, too. What I’m not okay with is being without you.”
Her heart hitched. Still, she refused to minimize what he might face in the future. “While I’ve done well since my transplant, something could go wrong without warning.”
“Darlin’,” he drawled, in a thick Texas accent that made blood slide like warm honey through her veins. “A horse could toss me tomorrow and I could break my neck. There are no guarantees for any of us.”
“That’s true. But just so you understand—”
“What I understand, what I insist on, is no more lies between us.”
She swallowed hard, gave a jerky nod.
“One more thing.” He paused. “I’d like my ring back.”
Pain rose inside Gabi with a force so strong tears spurted to her eyes. Fumbling badly, she managed to pull the chain over her head then handed it to him with fingers that trembled.
With a careless gesture, he dropped the ring and chain to the table.
She’d given him the information. He’d made the decision to break their connection. The ground that had seemed so firm only seconds earlier was disintegrating beneath her feet. Jude clasped her hand in his for what she assumed was a final goodbye.
His choice, she reminded herself, blinking back tears.
“I remember the first time I saw you. It was like being kicked by a mule. I dated a lot of women in the past but never wanted to stick with any of them. Now I know why. I was waiting for you.” His lips curved. “But I see now that starting off as friends gave our relationship a rock-solid foundation.”
For a second his gaze dropped to the championship ring and chain lying on the table. Then he lifted his gaze and those eyes, clear and so very blue, pinned her. “Going steady was good. But not enough. Not nearly enough.”
As she struggled to remember how to breathe, he continued, his voice deep and thick with emotion.
“I want more. I need more.” Jude spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I love you, Gabi. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. Whether God gives us fifty days or fifty years, I want to spend them all with you.”
Before she could comprehend what was happening, Jude dropped down on one knee and snapped open a small velvet box. A sparkling square-cut diamond flashed fire while love blazed strong in his eyes. “Gabriella Mendoza, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Tears streamed down Gabi’s cheeks. Now that it was her time to speak, all she could do was nod. Oh, and hold out her hand for him to slide that gorgeous ring on her finger.
The bar, which had quieted during the proposal, erupted into cheers and applause.
“Way to go, cowboy,” someone yelled.
Jude rose, tugged her up against him. “We’re going to be so happy.”
“Guaranteed,” Gabi murmured as his lips closed over hers.
* * * * *
Look for the next installment
in the new Special Edition continuity
THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS:
WELCOME TO HORSEBACK HOLLOW!
Don’t call Liam Jones a Fortune! He has no interest in being linked to his wealthy Atlanta relatives—or to just one woman. Can Julia Tierney convince him of the value of family ties?
Don’t miss LASSOED BY FORTUNE
by USA TODAY Bestselling Author Marie Ferrarella
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Chapter One
Her arm muscles screaming from the weight of the sacked-out toddler slumped against her chest, Kelly McNeil blinked up at the multigabled Queen Anne, so still and serene in the dark...and prayed she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
Okay, the second-biggest mistake—
“Who’d you say these people were again?”
Behind her, the minivan’s engine ticked itself to sleep, the sound overloud in the deep winter silence, and Kelly smiled briefly for her young son.
“This is where my best friend lived,” she said, her heart knocking as they started up the softly lit brick walk that bisected the snow-shrouded front yard. “We’ll be safe here.”
Between the twin disks of his Harry Potter glasses, Cooper’s nose scrunched. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Kelly said, because she had to believe that or die. As it was, she felt as though she’d never be completely free of the fear knotting her stomach...a fear that had finally trampled her last shred of common sense. Because this was so not her, this was insane, uprooting two kids in the middle of the night and taking them someplace she hadn’t even seen for nearly twenty years. She knew the Colonel still lived there, Sabrina had said so in her last Christmas letter, but his number was unlisted and Sabrina had apparently changed her cell phone number—
Swallowing hard, Kelly boosted Aislin higher on her shoulder and trudged up the steps to the porch, where brass coach lamps still stood sentry on either side of the glossy black door, illuminating the weathered gray floorboards, the dark green porch swing that had been privy to many a summer night’s adolescent gripefest....
Blowing out a breath, Kelly pressed the doorbell. A dog barked. A big one, by the sound of it. Coop sidled closer.
“Dad—”
“Doesn’t know where we are, sweetie.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“How come?”
Because by the time she and Rick had met, her third year of college, her father was dead and her mother had moved to Philly and Maple River, New Jersey, had quietly slipped into her past. Oh, Sabrina had been one of Kelly’s bridesmaids and had visited after Coop’s birth, but there’d been no reason for Kelly to return here. “It never came up,” she said quietly, and Coop nodded.
Except he then glanced over his shoulder, worried, and Kelly tugged him closer, fury hard-edging the fear. A moment later, through the frosted panels framing the door, a light flashed on. Sabrina wasn’t there, of course—girlfriend had traded the Garden State ’burbs for Manhattan years before. And Bree’s mom, Jeanne, had died some years before. Which left the Colonel. Who’d always scared Kelly a little, truth be told. Man hadn’t risen through the ranks of the air force as quickly as he had by being a softie, that was for sure.
But for all Preston Noble’s penchant for order and discipline, he’d also adored his five kids, four of whom were adopted. And Kelly had come to associate “next door” with love and laughter and the security that comes from being in a large family where everyone had each other�
�s backs. Sure, Sabrina’s dad might glower and bluster for a moment, especially at the late hour, but Kelly had no doubt he’d allow her and her children the same refuge he’d not only given to an untold number of foster kids over the years but also more rescue animals than she could count.
At least until she figured out what came next.
The door swung open; Kelly sucked in a breath...only to nearly choke when she realized the dark-haired, beard-hazed man hanging on to the excited bear of a dog wasn’t the Colonel. The man frowned, confusion rampant in deep brown eyes even more intense than she remembered.
“Alf! Sit!” he commanded, glowering first at the dog, then her after the beast obeyed. “Can I help you?”
Clearly, he had no idea who she was. But even after eighteen years, Kelly would have recognized Sabrina’s twin brother, Matt, anywhere.
Hell.
* * *
Behind owl-like glasses, embarrassment flared in the woman’s oddly familiar green eyes as she cradled the baby’s head to her shoulder. The chipmunk-cheeked boy beside her inched closer, the move belying the minute thrust to his chin. Wrong house would be Matt’s guess.
Until she said, “Matt? It’s...Kelly. Kelly Harrison. McNeil, I mean. Sabrina’s old friend?” And he felt like he’d been sucker punched.
Holy crap. When was the last time he’d even thought about Kelly McNeil—?
She cleared her throat. “Is...is your dad here?”
“Uh, no.” Unable to contain herself at the sight of the boy, Alf surged to her feet again; Matt tightened his hold on her collar until butt once again touched floor. “Actually, he’s out of town.”
“Oh. Well. Um... Sorry for bothering you.” Kelly touched the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, Coop—”
“No, it’s okay,” Matt said, confused as hell but not about to send a woman and two kids back out in subfreezing weather. “Please...come in.” He opened the door wider, kneeing aside the whimpering Newfoundland. When Kelly hesitated, Matt sighed. “Really. And don’t mind Alf, she’s harmless. Although you might want to watch out for slobber.”
That got a pair of tiny smiles, before, with a murmured “Thanks,” Kelly ushered the boy inside. Matt shouldered shut the heavy door as the draft sideswiped the thermostat, kicking it on. The kid—Coop—immediately hunkered in front of the brass floor register, the concerned dog standing guard, while Kelly lowered herself and the sleeping toddler to the painted bench in the foyer. Unbuttoning the top button to her own coat, she released a long breath. “That feels so good. The heat I mean. The heater’s wonky in my car, and it took longer to get here than I’d expected.”
“From?”
“Haleysburg,” she said, naming a town about a half-hour’s drive away. Her face reddened. “I don’t want to put you out—”
“You’re not.”
“If you’re sure,” she whispered, her eyes drifting closed, and he realized this clearly exhausted woman was not the same stuck-up girl who wouldn’t give his sorry-assed self the time of day all those years ago. Still, an explanation might be nice right about now.
“Your kids, I take it?”
Kelly jerked, her eyes popping open. “Yes, sorry. I’m...” Yawning, she yanked off her white knit hat, freeing a billion red curls. Barely past her shoulders now. Not as bright. “This is Aislin. And that’s Cooper. Coop?” The boy pushed upright, grabbing the dog’s ruff to steady himself. “This is Matt Noble. My best friend’s brother.”
Coop seemed to gather himself before sticking out his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, like he was sixty, for God’s sake, and Matt felt a smile elbow through his not-exactly-chipper mood.
“Pleased to meet you, too, Cooper.” Not much of Kelly in the boy that he could see. Except for the curls, maybe, although they were brown. The set to his chin, however—that was Kelly all the way.
“Can I go in there?” he said, looking toward the living room, still crammed with Matt’s mother’s sometimes bizarre Americana collection.
“Sure. Knock yourself out.”
As boy and dog wandered off, Kelly fingered back the baby’s snowsuit hood to stroke her damp, strawberry-blond curls off her face. “I apologize for showing up out of the blue like this, but Sabrina must’ve changed her number and I’d forgotten the one here....” Her chin wobbled, steadied again. “And I was...desperate.”
Matt’s eyes narrowed. “You in some kind of trouble?” he asked, giving voice to the question that’d been poking him between the eyes from the moment he laid eyes on her. Because you can take the cop off the force, but taking the force out of the cop—not so easy.
Kelly’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Not sure that’s the right word. My ex—”
The toddler suddenly jolted awake, huge blue eyes assessing Matt for a moment before swerving to her mother.
“Mama—?”
“It’s okay, baby,” Kelly whispered, smiling for her little girl, a smile like Matt remembered her giving to anybody but him back in the day, and something pinged in the pit of his stomach. The kind of pinging lonely, divorced schlubs would do well to ignore.
“Your ex-what?”
Except then Cooper and Alf reappeared, and Kelly shook her head, color once more flooding her cheeks. And finally it clicked, what would make a woman drag two kids out in the middle of the night, to someplace she hadn’t been in years. True, there weren’t any obvious signs, no black eyes or visible bruises, but—
“You guys want something to eat?” he asked, tamping down a repulsion that had never faded, even after nearly thirty years, and Kelly’s grateful smile cracked his heart. Because the past had nothing to do with now.
And now she obviously needed his help.
Whether he was totally on board with that idea or not.
* * *
Kelly sat at the glittery white quartz island, Aislin pitched forward on her lap to smush pudgy little fingers into the sparklies, thinking that, on the one hand, the heat purring through the register and the smell of browned butter as Matt made grilled-cheese sandwiches—under the dog’s unwavering supervision—were soothingly familiar. Enough that Kelly felt her perpetually tight shoulder muscles unknot. A little.
Because what was also familiar—and not soothing in the least—was her wack-a-doo reaction to this dude she hadn’t seen since she was sixteen. An eon, practically, during which she’d fallen in love, married, become a mom twice over. As in, moved on?
And yet...
True, she was worn-out, and emotionally trashed, and time had definitely blessed Matteo Noble, who hadn’t exactly been shabby before. On him, that whole dark, moody, broody thing worked. It was how it was all working on her that was seriously messing with her already fritzed brain.
So, no. Not going there.
Instead she ruffled Coop’s hair as he sat next to her, staring up at the assorted copper cookware hanging off a rack, and corralled her wayward thoughts as she gave the renovated kitchen a once-over. Gone were the knotty pine cupboards, the beat-up, trampoline-size maple table where the island now stood, the brick-patterned linoleum. Now it was all very HGTV, stainless steel, glass-tile backsplash and pale wood floor. Very nice, very generic. Very not Matt’s mom, an energetic little blonde who’d always been far too busy feeding people to worry about her kitchen’s décor.
As if reading her mind, Matt said, “We talked Dad into a remodel a few months. Since he’s making noises about wanting to sell the house, anyway, and eighties nostalgia wasn’t gonna cut it.”
Remembering that their mother had died several years before, Kelly gently asked, “How’s he doing?”
Matt flipped the sandwiches on the griddle. Shrugged. “He functions. Putters. Reads. Sometimes hangs out at Tyler and Abby’s salvage shop—Sabrina tell you about that?”
“Briefly, yes. How’s that going?”
“Good. Restoration’s a hot market these days. So’s repurposing. It’s amazing, the stuff they pull out of old buildings. Not to mention who buys it. This one guy, he completely refaced the outside of his house with bricks from a demolished factory in Trenton. Nuts, right?”
What was nuts was how they were shooting the breeze as though it hadn’t been a million years since they’d seen each other. As though things hadn’t been painfully awkward between them, especially at the end.
And that was the smaller of the two elephants in the room. The far larger, stinkier one was the big old “why?” that was behind her bringing the kids here.
Especially since she knew Matt was a cop. A detective, if memory served. So this reprieve—because of the kids, the hour—would undoubtedly be short-lived. At some point there would be questions. Questions Matt had every right to ask. Not that his dad wouldn’t have expected explanations, too, but she’d always felt she could trust the Colonel to protect her, the same way he’d protected his own children. Not to mention all those foster kids he and Jeanne had taken in over the years.
But Matt... This was uncharted territory. Yes, he was feeding them and being chatty—he’d been raised right—but could she count on him to take her side? To even believe her—?
“You got awfully quiet,” Matt said, scattering her thoughts.
“It’s been a long...day.”
His forehead wrinkled for a moment before he said, with a wink for Aislin, “Almost done.”
Her eyes stinging, Kelly pulled her baby closer, burying her cheek in her silky curls. Thank God this one seemed unaffected by the events of the past two years. The same, however, couldn’t be said for Cooper, who leaned heavily on the counter as he watched Matt, smushed face propped in hand. Yawning, he shoved up his glasses to rub his eyes, and Kelly’s heart turned over. Poor guy was probably dead on his feet.
