by Ciara Knight
Josh waited for the man to step outside, then he swooped Lily into his arms again and kissed her with all the passion and love he could.
When their lips parted, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him tight to her. “I was scared to come here, but now I never want to let you go.”
“You never have to. I’m not leaving your side. There’s no reason I can’t continue work from the beach if that’s what you want.”
“No, I’m coming back to New York. It’s time for me to stop hiding and start facing things.”
“What about Connie?”
“Oh, she’s already out looking at apartments,” Lily said.
Josh pulled her into him and held her tight. Even if they still had to deal with Stephon and his threats, no matter what, he knew they would stay together. If he ever doubted it at all, he only had to look at the drawing to know how she felt about him. Even if she hadn’t said it yet, he knew she loved him.
Epilogue
Eight months later
“I do.” Lily batted her eyelashes to keep the tears from falling and ruining her makeup. It was perfect. The scene was perfect. The smell was perfect. Josh was perfect. Everything was perfect.
Josh slid the silver band onto her ring finger, making it official. They were married.
They turned and stood under the arch of Magnolias hanging from a white arbor. Connie returned the bouquet of white and pink flowers to her and stepped back, eyeing her husband at Josh’s side. Connie and Allen had their own elaborate New York wedding only a few weeks prior. After all that drama, Lily was relieved that Josh had agreed to elope to their spot instead of having a big wedding with a bunch of strangers in attendance. She’d received way too much attention since the Valentine’s Day campaign launched six months earlier.
The wind was low, and she savored the salty taste it brought from its journey across the sea. After living in New York for so long, the ocean filled her with peace and she couldn’t wait to spend an entire week in the cottage, just the two of them. No cell phones, no cameras, no lawsuits, no fame and no work.
They stepped off the white carpet that led from under the arbor up the beach and joined their small group of friends and family who had made the trip down.
“I can’t believe we pulled off a secret wedding,” Josh said, his eyes shining the way they had the first day they’d met. “How did I get so lucky to marry you?”
Lily stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I’m the lucky one. You changed my life.”
“You changed it for yourself. Have I told you how proud I am of you? You took down that creep and made him eat his words. You’re the most sought-after artist in the nation.” Josh held tight to her hand and led her to the picnic area they had set up. “I’ve been dreaming about this shrimp bisque for months.”
Lily bumped his side with her hip. “You said you dreamed about me all these months.”
Josh squeezed her into his side. “I did, trust me. It’s just that smell. Ray’s on the Bay will forever be my favorite restaurant. Our restaurant. Even without the shrimp bisque, it’s special because it was our first real date.”
Lily shook her head. “Okay, any more and you’re going to make me jealous of a soup.”
Josh laughed as his family came over and offered their congratulations. From the moment she’d met her new in-laws, they had opened their arms and welcomed her into their lives. “We’re so glad our Joshie is so happy,” his mother said, squeezing her with surprising strength.
“Even if he didn’t take over the vacuum business, we’re still happy for him,” his father said.
“Wilbur, now you stop that,” his wife chastised.
His sister huffed. “You do realize this is the modern age, right? It never had to be Josh. I’m doing just fine running the business, even though I’m not a boy.”
Josh inserted his arm between his sister and his father. “Okay, you two. It’s my wedding, so try to behave.”
The spread of food drew their guests’ attention for a while so Lily took advantage of the distraction and tugged Josh over to the side. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. A sweet kiss. A passionate kiss. A married kiss. A kiss that promised forever.
The End
About the Author
AUTHOR BIO
USA Today bestselling author Ciara Knight Fights for Love One Book at a Time with her heartwarming, sweet contemporary romance stories and her adventurous historical western romance stories. Ciara is the author of the Sweetwater County series, the Gone with the Brides Series, the Riverbend Series, the McKinnie Mail Order Brides series, a Christmas Spark, and an upcoming series set in Cape Hope. She invites you to visit her website and connect with her on social media. http://www.ciaraknight.com/
BEACH BRIDES THANK YOU
Thanks for reading Lily’s story!
Faith’s book is next.
You’ll find a Sneak Peek in the Excerpt.
Find all of the Beach Brides at Amazon!
MEG (Julie Jarnagin)
TARA (Ginny Baird)
NINA (Stacy Joy Netzel)
CLAIR (Grace Greene)
JENNY (Melissa McClone)
LISA (Denise Devine)
HOPE (Aileen Fish)
KIM (Magdalena Scott)
ROSE (Shanna Hatfield)
LILY (Ciara Knight)
FAITH (Helen Scott Taylor)
AMY (Raine English)
Faith
by
Helen Scott Taylor
Prologue
Faith’s message in a bottle.
Greetings from Enchanted Island in the Caribbean.
I’m Faith, a twenty-nine-year-old army veterinarian from England.
Applications are now open for the position of my dream hero!
If you are blond, charming, and wealthy, please toss the bottle back in the ocean as you are not my type. Ha-ha. (Previous bad experience!)
Joking aside, whoever you are, it would be great if you could message me on my Facebook page. I’d love to know where this bottle ends up.
Chapter One
On some level, Fergus Mackenzie had always known there was something wrong with his dad, yet it was only recently he’d realized what the quiet sadness in his father’s eyes meant—he was lonely.
How was this possible? He and his dad lived in a fantastic place on the edge of a Scottish loch with his aunts, uncles, and cousins just down the road.
When Fergus asked his aunt Meg if his dad might be lonely, she went quiet and stared off towards the snow-capped mountains on the other side of the loch, sadness in her eyes.
“Aye, lad,” she said. “Your dad needs a girlfriend, but he thinks he doesn’t want one. I’d love to see him happily married, but there’s nothing like a Mackenzie man for being stubborn and bullheaded.”
Fergus pledged to himself he would make his dad happy. Together, they went kayaking, climbing, bird watching, and skiing, and his dad often laughed. Yet in quiet moments, the sadness always crept back into his eyes.
Finally out of ideas, Fergus decided that maybe his aunt Meg had it right and there was only one thing that would cure his dad’s loneliness—Fergus must find him a wife.
“Dad, open the present from me first,” Fergus shouted over the happy chatter in the drawing room at Kindrogan Castle on Christmas Day. His eager brown eyes sparkled with mischief beneath his unruly thatch of dark hair.
Relaxing back in the leather sofa by the roaring fire, Hew Mackenzie nodded to his son. After the wonderful Christmas lunch his sister-in-law Naomi had cooked, he was ready for a wee dram of local whiskey. From the bottle-shaped gift in his son’s hands, things looked promising.
“Did you choose this yourself, lad, or did you have some help?” It concerned him a little that someone in Kinder Vale might have sold a bottle of spirits to a ten-year-old.
“Sort of.” Fergus shared a conspiratorial glance with Hew’s sister, Megan, suggesting she’d had a hand in choosing the bottle, which laid Hew’s conce
rns to rest. Megan knew her whiskey, so it would be a good brand.
The log fire cracked in the huge fireplace. The smell of pine needles and wet dogs drying after a game in the snow filled the room with the reassuringly familiar smell of a Mackenzie Christmas Day.
Hew’s two seven-year-old nieces, Heather and Holly, skipped in front of him wearing sparkly pink dresses and tiaras while waving star-tipped wands in time to a Christmas song playing on Holly’s new iPad.
Carefully holding the bottle-shaped present, Fergus sat on the sofa beside Hew and passed the gift to him. Then he flapped his hands for quiet.
“Shush, everyone. Dad’s going to unwrap my present.”
The room fell silent as others paused in unwrapping gifts and looked their way. Hew lifted his eyebrows as he glanced at his son. This must be a darn good bottle of whiskey to deserve such a fuss. He cast Megan a questioning glance, and she motioned for him to hurry up.
“Come on, Hew. Don’t keep us waiting.”
There was something he was missing here. Come to think of it, the gift felt a little light to be a bottle full of whiskey. Curious, he tugged away the shiny holly-patterned paper and slid the bottle free. Stoppered with a discolored old cork, the bottle was weathered, a faint smell of the ocean coming from it.
With a quick mystified glance at Fergus’s grinning face, he held the opaque bottle up to the firelight and squinted. There was something inside, not liquid but a folded piece of paper.
“What is this?”
Fergus bounced on the sofa beside him. “A message in a bottle, Dad. Read the note.”
“What does it say?” Hew could sense his sister’s hand in this, some new matchmaking trick of hers. She was always trying to pair him off with some woman or another.
“You have to read it to find out. I found the bottle myself on the school trip to Stonehaven. It was just lying among the seaweed on the beach.”
Hew turned the bottle over in his hands, assessing its condition. The erosion of the glass suggested it could have been in the water a long time. On closer inspection, the cork was damaged at the side, as though it had been levered out and put back in recently.
“Did Auntie Meg put the note in here?” he asked his son.
“No, Dad.” Fergus rolled his eyes. “The note was in the bottle when I found it.”
“So you’ve already read it?”
“Of course we have,” Megan said. “Stop procrastinating and read the blessed note, Hew. You’re driving me crazy with anticipation.”
Hew’s eldest brother, Duncan, chuckled, and Hew gave in and tugged out the cork. He upended the bottle and a tightly rolled piece of paper tumbled onto his lap. It appeared to be cream-colored card tied with a length of discolored white ribbon.
When he pulled on one end of the ribbon, it came undone, allowing the roll of paper to loosen. He spread it out. Beneath a small watercolor print of an idyllic sandy beach fringed with palm trees, it said, “Courtesy of Hideaway Cove Resort, the most romantic place in the world.”
“That’s in the Caribbean,” Fergus said. “Auntie Meg and I looked it up on the Internet.”
Hew nodded mutely. He was starting to think this might be genuine, and that seemed worse than Megan faking it. His lips pressed tightly together, he turned the piece of card and read the small, neat handwriting on the back.
Greetings from Enchanted Island in the Caribbean.
I’m Faith, a twenty-nine-year-old army veterinarian from England.
Applications are now open for the position of my dream hero!
If you are blond, charming, and wealthy, please toss the bottle back in the ocean as you are not my type. Ha-ha. (Previous bad experience!)
Joking aside, whoever you are, it would be great if you could message me on my Facebook page. I’d love to know where this bottle ends up.
At the top of the note were a date and the woman’s Facebook page address.
“This bottle has been in the ocean for nearly three years.” Hew mentally traced the journey it must have taken across the North Atlantic, from just above South America to the British Isles. “It’s had an impressive journey. I reckon it must have come about four and a half thousand miles.”
Fergus tapped the Facebook profile name on the paper. “Get out your phone, Dad, and send her a message.”
Hew nodded, although he had already decided he wouldn’t bother. He had no interest in striking up a chat with some woman he’d never met, especially one who was looking for a dream hero. His brothers were the heroes in this family, and they were both married.
“It’s a fun gift. Thanks, Gus.” He ruffled his son’s hair affectionately.
“Send her a message now, Dad. Look.” Fergus pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and showed him the screen. “This is the woman who wrote the message.” He flashed an image of a smiling woman with long blond hair, her arms around a black spaniel. She was certainly attractive, no denying that.
Hew gazed at the photo for a few moments until he became aware his family was still watching him. “I’m not going to message her now. It’s Christmas Day.”
“Excuses,” Megan jeered.
“I can message her for you, Dad. Shall I give her your phone number so she can call you?”
“No!” The word came out more harshly than Hew intended, and he tried to soften the impact by putting an arm around his son’s shoulders. “Just leave it be, lad. Don’t message her. I’ll do it in my own time.”
Megan folded her arms and gave him a knowing look. “Hew Mackenzie, you can’t stay single forever.”
Oh yes, he jolly well could.
End of Excerpt
Faith
Beach Brides Series
by
Helen Scott Taylor
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