More tears flowed from her eyes as she nodded her head. “Yes, yes, Stonewall, I will marry you.”
He brought his lips down to meet hers, and she knew this was the beginning of their lives together. The beginning of forever.
EPILOGUE
“THIS PLACE IS STUNNING,” Joy whispered to Margo. They were on Glendale Shores, an island off the South Carolina coast that was owned by Randi and her family. It was a beautiful September day. A gorgeous one for an outdoor wedding. Joy thought Stonewall, Striker Jennings, Roland Summers and Sheppard Granger all looked handsome standing beside Quasar Patterson as his best men. Joy had thought it sad that no member of Quasar’s family had been invited. But after Stonewall had explained why she then understood.
Randi had told them that the wedding would be held in the same spot where her parents, her brother, and her sister had exchanged their wedding vows years ago. Randi had looked simply beautiful walking toward Quasar on the arm of her father, Randolph Fuller. A man who Joy thought looked pretty darn handsome, as well.
Now Quasar and Randi stood facing each other, reciting their wedding vows. Joy had to wipe tears from her eyes. They looked so much in love. Joy and Stonewall had decided on a June wedding, and her parents were happy they’d decided not to rush things. That would give her mother time to plan the wedding she and Stonewall both wanted. Or the wedding her mother thought they should have.
The wedding reception was held at the main house on the island. It was beautiful as well, and Joy thought Randi was blessed to have an island in the family. She had been talking to the Grangers earlier. This was the first time they’d left town without their babies, but they knew the woman watching over their little ones, with Hannah’s help, would do fine.
Jules and Dalton had named the twins Hannah and Harrison. Jace and Caden had teased Dalton mercilessly about how many diapers he had to change compared to them.
“Miss me?”
Joy turned when Stonewall wrapped his arms around her waist. “Yes, I missed you.” It had been two months since the rescue of the women, and Stonewall was still getting offers for television and radio appearances. He’d even gotten a call from a movie director in Hollywood. Sunnie Clay and the Carringtons, among others, were still in court battling out legal rights. Every baby born to the women had been located, and neither side wanted to give up their babies. So the legal feud continued.
“Are the newlyweds ready to leave for their honeymoon?” she asked.
“In a few. They still have to cut the cake.”
She had taken Stonewall to Louisiana to meet her parents and siblings, and they’d loved him. Her father had thanked him profusely for protecting her. She glanced over at Roland Summers. The man she had to thank for not only giving Stonewall a job when he’d gotten released from prison but for being a mentor and good friend to him, as well. He was standing alone, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. To Joy he looked sad. From what Stonewall had told her, Roland never intended to marry again. But she hoped that a special woman would one day come into his life.
Joy and Stonewall would leave here to spend a couple of days in Martha’s Vineyard. The place where they had their first date. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?” he whispered for her ears only.
She glanced down at the beautiful engagement ring on her finger before smiling up at him. “Yes, and I always love hearing you say it.”
“I love you, my Joy in the morning.”
“And I love you, too, sweetheart. My hero and protector.”
* * * * *
Don’t miss a single story in THE PROTECTORS series by New York Times bestselling author Brenda Jackson:
FORGED IN DESIRE
SEIZED BY SEDUCTION
LOCKED IN TEMPTATION
If you like sexy and steamy stories with strong heroines and irresistible heroes, you’ll love LITTLE SECRETS: HIS UNEXPECTED HEIR by USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child.
After a fling with a sexy marine leaves Rita pregnant, her attempts to reach the billionaire are met with silence...until now! Brooding, reclusive Jack offers to marry Rita—in name only. Will his new family give him the heart to embrace life—and love—again?
Keep reading for a sneak peek at LITTLE SECRETS: HIS UNEXPECTED HEIR!
New York Times bestselling author Brenda Jackson brings you the hottest heroes and the best in romance with her The Protectors series!
Forged in Desire
Seized by Seduction
Locked in Temptation
Collect all the novels in this sizzling series today!
“The only flaw of this first-rate, satisfying sexy tale is that it ends.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Forged in Desire
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Little Secrets: His Unexpected Heir
by Maureen Child
Jack Buchanan listened to his interior decorator talk about swatches and color and found his mind drifting...to anything else.
Four months ago, he’d been in a desert, making life and death decisions. Today, he was in an upholstery shop in Long Beach, California, deciding between leather or fabric for the bar seats on the Buchanan Shipping’s latest cruise ship. He didn’t know whether to be depressed or amused. So he went with impatient.
Why the hell was Jack even here? He was the CEO of Buchanan Shipping. Didn’t he have minions he could have sent to take care of this?
But even as he thought it, he reminded himself that being here today, in person, had all been his idea. To immerse himself in every aspect of the business. He’d been away for the last ten years, so he had a lot of catching up to do.
Jack, his brother Sam and their sister, Cass, had all interned at Buchanan growing up. They’d put in their time from the ground up, starting in janitorial, since their father had firmly believed that kids raised with all the money in the world grew up to be asses. He’d made sure that his children knew what it was to really work.
Now, looking back, Jack could see it had been the right thing to do. At the time, he hadn’t loved it of course. But today, he could step into the CEO’s shoes with a lot less trepidation because of his father’s rules. He had the basics on running the company. But it was this stuff—the day-to-day, small, but necessary decisions—that he had to get used to.
Buchanan Shipping had interests all over the world. From cruise liners to cargo ships to the fishing fleet Jack’s brother, Sam, ran out of San Diego. The company had grown well beyond his great-grandfather’s dreams when he’d started the business with one commercial fishing boat.
The Buchanans had been on the California coast since before the gold rush. While other men bought land and fought with the dirt to scratch out a fortune, the Buchanans had turned to the sea. They had a reputation for excellence that nothing had ever marred and Jack wanted to keep it that way.
Their latest cruise ship was top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art throughout and would, he told himself, more than live up to her name, the Sea Queen.
“Mr. Buchanan,” the decorator said, forcing Jack out of his thoughts and back to reality.
“Yeah. What is it?”
“There are still choices to be made on height of stools, width of booths...”
Okay, details were one thing, minutia another.
Jack stopped her with one hand held up for silence. “You can handle that, Ms. Price.” To take any sting out of his words, he added, “I trust your judgment,” and watched pleasure flash in her eyes.
“Of course, of course,” she said. “I’ll fax you a complete record of all decisions made this afternoon.”
“That’s fine. Thanks.” He waved a hand at the men in the back of the shop and left. Stepping outside, he was immediately slapped by a strong, cool breeze that carried the scent of the sea. The sky was a clear, bold blue and this small corner of the city hummed with an energy that pulsed inside Jack.
He wasn’t ready to go back to the company. To sit in that palatial office, fielding phone calls and going over reports. Being outside, even being here, dealing with fabrics of all things, was better than being stuck behind his desk. With that thought firmly in mind, he walked to his car, got in and fired it up. Steering away from work, responsibility and the restless, itchy feeling scratching at his soul, Jack drove toward peace.
Okay, maybe peace was the wrong word, he told himself twenty minutes later. The crowd on Main Street in Seal Beach was thick, the noise deafening and the mingled scents from restaurants, pubs and bakeries swamped him.
Jack Buchanan fought his way through the summer crowds blocking the sidewalk. He’d been home from his last tour of duty for four months and he still wasn’t used to being surrounded by so many people. Made him feel on edge, as if every nerve in his body was strung tight enough to snap.
Summer in Southern California was always going to be packed with the tourists who flocked in from all over the world. And ordinarily Jack avoided the worst of the crowds by keeping close to his office building and the penthouse apartment he lived in. But at least once a month, Jack forced himself to go out into the throngs of people—just to prove to himself that he could.
Being surrounded by people brought out every defensive instinct he possessed. He felt on guard, watching the passing people through suspicious, wary eyes and hated himself for it. But four months home from a battlefield wasn’t long enough to ease the instincts that had kept him alive in the desert. And still, he worked at forcing himself to relax those instincts because he refused to be defined by what he’d gone through. What he’d seen. Frowning at his own thoughts, he concentrated again on the crowd and realized it had been a couple months since he’d been in Seal Beach.
A small beach community, it lay alongside Long Beach where he lived and worked, but Jack didn’t make a habit of coming here. Memories were thick and he tended to avoid them, because remembering wouldn’t get him a damn thing. But against his will, images filled his mind.
Last February, he’d been on R and R. He’d had two weeks to return to his life, see his family and decompress. He’d spent the first few days visiting his father, brother and sister, then he’d drawn back, pulling into himself. He’d come to the beach then, walking the sand at night, letting the sea whisper to him. Until the night he’d met her.
A beautiful woman, alone on the beach, the moonlight caressing her skin, shining in her hair until he’d almost convinced himself she wasn’t real. Until she turned her head and gave him a cautious smile.
She should have been cautious. A woman alone on a dark beach. Rita Marchetti had been smart enough to be careful and strong enough to be friendly. They’d talked, he remembered, there in the moonlight and then met again the following day and the day after that. The remainder of his leave, he’d spent with her and every damn moment of that time was etched into his brain in living, vibrant color. He could hear the sound of her voice. The music of her laughter. He saw the shine in her eyes and felt the silk of her touch.
“And you’ve been working for months to forget it,” he reminded himself in a mutter. “No point in dredging it up now.”
What they’d found together all those months ago was over now. There was no going back. He’d made a promise to himself. One he intended to keep. Never again would he put himself in the position of loss and pain and he wouldn’t ever be close enough to someone else that his loss would bring pain.
It was a hard lesson to learn, but he had learned it in the hot, dry sands of a distant country. And that lesson haunted him to this day. Enough that just walking through this crowd made him edgy. There was an itch at the back of his neck and it took everything he had not to give in to the urge to get out. Get away.
But Jack Buchanan didn’t surrender to the dregs of fear, so he kept walking, made himself notice the everyday world pulsing around him. Along the street, a pair of musicians were playing for the crowd and the dollar bills tossed into an open guitar case. Shop owners had tables set up outside their storefronts to entice customers and farther down the street, a line snaked from a bakery’s doors all along the sidewalk.
He hadn’t been downtown in months, so he’d never seen the bakery before. Apparently though, it had quite the loyal customer base. Dozens of people waited patiently to get through the open bakery door. As he got closer, amazing scents wafted through the air and he understood the crowds gathering. Idly, Jack glanced through the wide, shining front window at the throng within, then stopped dead as an all too familiar laugh drifted to him.
Everything inside Jack went cold and still. He hadn’t heard that laughter in months, but he’d have known it anywhere. Throaty, rich, it made him think of long hot nights, silk sheets and big brown eyes staring up into his in the darkness.
He’d tried to forget her. Had, he’d thought, buried the memories; yet now, they came roaring back, swamping him until Jack had to fight for breath.
Even as he told himself it couldn’t be her, Jack was bypassing the line and stalking into the bakery. He followed the sound of that laugh as if it were a trail of bread crumbs. He had to know. Had to see.
“Hey, dude,” a surfer with long dark hair told him, “end of the line’s back a ways.”
“I’m not buying anything,” he growled out and sent the younger man a look icy enough to freeze blood. Must have worked because the guy went quiet and gave a half shrug.
But Jack had already moved on. Conversations rose and fell all around him. The cheerful jingle of the old-fashioned cash register sounded out every purchase as if celebrating. But Jack wasn’t paying attention. His sharp gaze swept across the people in the shop, looking for the woman he’d never thought to see again.
Then that laugh came again and he spun around like a wolf finding the scent of its mate. Gaze narrowed, heartbeat thundering in his ears, he spotted her—and everything else in the room dropped away.
Rita Marchetti. He took a breath and simply stared at her for what felt like forever. Her smile was wide and bright, her gaze focused on customers who laughed with her. What the hell was she doing in a bakery in Seal Beach, California, when she lived in Ogden, Utah? And why did she have to look so damn good?
He watched her, smiling and laughing with a customer as she boxed what looked like a couple dozen cookies, then deftly tied a white ribbon around the tall red box. Her hands were small and efficient. Her eyes were big and brown and shone with warmth. Her shoulder-length curly brown hair was pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck and swung like a pendulum with her every movement.
Her skin was golden—all over, as he had reason to know—her mouth was wide and full and though she was short, her figure was lush. His memories were clear enough that every drop of blood in his body dropped to his groin, leaving him light-headed—briefly. In an instant though, all of that changed and a surge of differing emotions raced through him. Pleasure at seeing her again, anger at being faced with a past he’d already let go of, and desire that was so hot, so thick, it grabbed him by the throat and choked off his air.
The heat of his gaze must have alerted her. She looked up and across the crowd, locking her gaze with his. Her eyes went wide, her amazing mouth dropped open and she li
fted one hand to the base of her throat as if she, too, was having trouble breathing. Gaze still locked with his, she walked away from the counter, came around the display case and though Jack braced himself for facing her again—nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.
She was pregnant.
Very pregnant.
Jack’s heartbeat galloped in his chest as he lifted his eyes to meet hers. He had a million questions and didn’t have time to nail down a single one before, in spite of the crowd watching them, Rita threw herself into his arms.
“Jack!” She hugged him hard, then seemed to notice he wasn’t returning her hug, so she let him go and stepped back. Confusion filled her eyes even as her smile faded into a flat, thin line. “How can you be here? I thought you must be dead. I never heard from you and—”
He flinched and gave a quick glance around. Their little reunion was garnering way too much attention. No way was he going to have this chat with an audience listening to every word. And, he told himself, gaze dropping to that belly again, they had a lot to talk about.
“Not here,” he ground out, giving himself points for keeping a tight rein on the emotions rushing through him. “Let’s take a walk.”
“I’m working,” she pointed out, waving her hand at the counter and customers behind her.
“Take a break.” Jack felt everyone watching them and an itch at the back of his neck urged him to get moving. But he was going nowhere without Rita. He needed some answers and he wasn’t going to be denied. She was here. She was pregnant. Judging by the size of her belly, he was guessing about six months pregnant. That meant they had to talk. Now.
She frowned a little and even the downturn of her mouth was sexy. Which told Jack he was walking into some serious trouble. But there was no way to avoid any of it.
While he stared at her, he could practically see the wheels turning in her brain. She didn’t like him telling her what to do, but she was so surprised to see him that she clearly wanted answers as badly as he did. She was smart, opinionated and had a temper, he recalled. Just a few of the reasons that he’d once been crazy about her.
Locked in Temptation Page 35
