From This Moment

by Lexi Buchanan

  LEXI BUCHANAN

  From This Moment First Edition Copyright © 2012 Lexi Buchanan

  From This Moment This Edition Copyright © 2014 Lexi Buchanan

  All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

  Published by HFCA Publishing House

  http://www.lexibuchanan.com

  Editor: Char Chaffin

  Editor: Sirena Van Schaik

  Image Copyright: Photographer Eric Battershell

  Cover Models: Christian Petrovich and Lauren Biran

  This book is a written act of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-0992733575

  Other books by Lexi Buchanan

  Bad Boy Rockers

  Sizzle

  Spicy

  Sultry

  Savor (2015)

  McKenzie Brothers

  Seduce

  The Wedding

  Rapture

  Delight

  Entice

  Cherished (2015)

  Jackson Hole

  From This Moment

  When we Meet

  New Beginning (2015)

  Holiday Season

  Kissing Under the Mistletoe

  Lawful

  Gia 0.5 (Novella)

  Untouchable (2015)

  Renovation of the Heart (2015)

  Relentless (2015)

  Dedication

  To my husband with love.

  Thank you for putting up with my reading addiction.

  To my mother Sylvia and my father Alan, also with love. Thank you for sharing your love of books with me, and for always being there.

  Chapter 1

  Rona

  Chicago’s O’Hare transit lounge is a place that—three days ago—I was looking forward to visiting. It was to be our honeymoon and part of our own personal transit into married life together. As I stand alone, my head bobbing back and forth, trying to decide which way to proceed as I wait for my onward flight to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I feel lost and I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.

  Nick, my fiancé, or rather ex-fiancé, told me he’s too young to get married—an hour before we were supposed to be taking our vows. He’s thirty, and it my book not exactly too young to get married.

  No wedding, no marriage, but the honeymoon is still waiting for us. Well, me. That’s why I’m taking our honeymoon flight to Jackson Hole. Alone. Don’t quite know what I’m going to do when I get there, but I’m going.

  Originally, a friend of Nick’s had given us his cabin for a month as a wedding present. A romantic holiday in a secluded forest isn’t really an option now, and to be honest, I want nothing to do with Nick or his friends.

  Taking a few deep breaths while turning away from the departures board, I notice a coffee shop. Starbucks. Surprisingly—for a bustling airport—it isn’t too busy right now.

  Smiling, I walk over to the counter and purchase a vanilla latte before finding a quiet corner to rest. Taking a few sips of my drink, I reach into my purse for my iPad to read until my flight is called. At least someone will have a happy ending.

  The story pulls me in but I can’t concentrate. My skin pricks with apprehension and I have the disquieting feeling that I’m being watched. Discreetly glancing around as I reach for my coffee, my gaze locks with sparkling green eyes. Hunger flickers in their depths and I suck in my breath at the good-looking guy sitting one table over. He continues to stare as I fumble with my coffee and try to ignore him. It’s so difficult to look away, but I manage, telling myself I’m only imagining the way he’s looking at me. He can’t possibly be interested in me.

  Glancing around to avoid his regard, I finally look back at him. He’s still staring at me. I decide I’m not going to be embarrassed, and return his stare. He’s really hot, and I mean hot . . . like wow. He looks to be considerably older than my twenty-four years, but I’ve always been attracted to older men. He looks older than Nick, maybe between thirty-five and forty. He sure is handsome though.

  I take in a deep breath as my gaze moves over him. Starting from the tip of his tan cowboy boots, my eyes travel up his long, jeans-clad, muscular legs to his chest. By the way his tee shirt molds to his torso, he looks to have a six-pack hidden under there. He wears his dark hair longer at the back with it curling over his ears. Sexy.

  I study his face. It’s a strong, handsome face, partially covered by his five o’clock shadow, which gives him a lazy look, but I doubt there is anything lazy about him. His green eyes are dazzling. A girl could get lost in them and never find her way out.

  Somewhere during my ogling, I’ve lost track of what I’m doing and forgotten he’s watching me. And when my eyes return to his, the hunger visible there has turned ravenous during my exploration of his body.

  Cade

  On entering the coffee shop, my first thought when I spot the dark-haired girl is that she looks so sad. It takes an effort to tear my eyes away from her, but that’s accomplished when the server asks me for my order.

  Grabbing myself a much-needed black coffee, I feel drawn to the girl so I take a seat at the closest empty table—one over from hers.

  I watch her as I slowly drink my coffee. Her dark head down as she reads the iPad in her hands, swiping her finger across the screen. A small furrow plays on her forehead and it’s tempting to smooth those lines with my fingers. Hell. It’s tempting to smooth all her slim lines with my hands, from her long legs to her slender torso with breasts large enough to fill my palms.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Glancing up to make sure she hasn’t spotted me admiring her body, I find I’m unable to stop watching her. I take in her long, dark hair; it looks so soft and I wonder what it smells like. She’s wearing well-worn jeans with pale, leather boots accompanied by a long-sleeved tee shirt, no jewelry that I can see, but her hands are in her lap holding her iPad so I can’t check for rings.

  I glance back up to her face where I’m met by her blue eyes. She seems embarrassed to find me looking her over and looks away quickly, pretending to be interested in her iPad again. It’s in that moment I realize how young she looks, maybe in her early twenties, which makes me cringe. I’m forty-five and old enough to be her father.

  She’s stunning and I can barely control my gaze. She’s the first woman I’ve been really drawn to in close to twenty years, when my wife left our children and me.

  Since then I’ve quit on relationships. Raising three kids doesn’t leave much time for anything else, even with them being fully grown now. I’ve been too set in my ways to consider a more lasting relationship, plus no woman has gotten on my radar, until now. When needs must, I have the occasional hook-up, usually when out of town, but, thinking back, it’s a heck of a long time since the last; over twelve months for sure.

  I look back at where she’s sitting and discover her eyes on me. She seems to have started her own perusal of my body, starting from the tips of my boots if I’m not mistaken.

  As her eyes crawl slowly up my legs, I feel myself stiffen in my jeans. Hell, I haven’t reacted like this to a woman’s look before. You’d think I’d have more control at my age.

  By the time she’s moved up to my chest, she’s licking her lips. I’m not sure if she’s trying to moisten them or if she’s imagining what she wants to do to my chest. Crap. I start calculating sums in my head to calm the growing erection in my jeans, but when I look up and meet her eyes, the num
bers fly out and my erection goes straight back up again.

  Groaning, I look away and try to rearrange myself without being obvious about it. It’s a long time since I’ve been with a woman, and I really don’t think it’s going to get better anytime soon. I don’t ever remember wanting anyone like this before.

  “Hey, Dad. I’m just going to grab a coffee. Back in a minute.” My son, Jake, brings me right back down to earth.

  I’d actually forgotten he was traveling with me. Home for good after serving his country in the Marines for the past few years, shrapnel in his hip, buttock and thigh had put an end to his career. I’d been too impatient to wait for him to arrive in Jackson Hole, so I’d met him here in Chicago. And I thank God everyday that my son has returned home still breathing.

  Jake walks over to get his coffee and I watch the server blush. I roll my eyes knowing he’s laying on the charm he seems to have been born with, even though there is only one woman who has Jake’s heart—no matter what he tells me. I know my son too well to believe his comments about Elise being his past. She’s been his future since the day they met ten years ago.

  After purchasing the coffee, he walks back to me. As he sets his coffee down, he spots the young woman and his attention shifts from me to her. Ignoring me, he sits watching her as he drinks his coffee.

  Jealousy floods through me the longer he watches her. Shaking my head, I take a sip of my drink, finding it difficult to believe that I’m jealous of my own son. He’s maybe a few years older than her. A lot closer to her age than I am.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” I ask him, trying to refocus his attention on me instead of the woman.

  Jake ignores me, still looking across the table.

  I ask again, “Jake, did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Oh yes, fine,” he replies, distracted. “Have you noticed the girl over there? Do you think she’s traveling with anyone?”

  “I don’t think so. She was sitting on her own in here when I arrived.” I glance over to her again with an ache in my chest.

  “I think I’m going to go and find out.” Jake starts to stand.

  Hell no. I want to tell him to stay put; that I saw her first. But she’s too young for me. I need to keep telling myself that.

  “I’ll come over and rescue her in five.” I force a grin for my son.

  Watching her smile up at Jake as he pulls out a chair and drops down into it, my heart aches in my chest causing me to raise my hand and rub against it.

  I haven’t even spoken to her. I’ve only been watching her for maybe twenty minutes, so my reaction to the unknown woman baffles me.

  After five minutes of Jake sitting with her, I realize that I can’t let her leave without at least talking to her as well. Probably looking for punishment, because I know the sound of her voice, along with her looks, will keep me up all night for sure.

  I gather my bag and jacket, grab my coffee and head over to the table to join them.

  Rona

  Oh God, he’s coming over!

  I’ve been talking with this guy named Jake for about five minutes when the object of my earlier ogling starts toward us. He has a slow, lazy walk and he reminds me of the kind of cowboy I envision when reading a western romance novel. Dreamy!

  Dreamy? What the hell is wrong with me? I’m acting like a teenager with a crush on the new boy at school.

  Standing beside me, he holds his hand out, which I take. A bolt of lust shoots straight through me.

  His eyes darken as he clears his throat. “Hi, I’m Cade Matthews, Jake’s father. Do you mind if I join you both? It’s a bit lonely over there.” He smiles as I reluctantly release his hand. With how slowly our hands and then fingers separate, it makes me think he’s having the same reaction as me.

  Then my befuddled brain remembers Cade introducing himself as ‘Jake’s father.’

  What the hell!

  Putting my tongue back in my mouth, and shaking my head to clear the lust running rampant, I finally respond, “No that’s fine, I don’t mind.” I thought he would sit opposite me, but instead he takes the chair next to mine, across from his son. I breathe in, and boy, does he smell good.

  “So, what have you two been talking about?” Cade asks.

  I smile at him, realizing I haven’t given him my name. “I’m Rona Jameson and your son was telling me you’re on your way back home to Jackson Hole. That’s my destination as well, so I guess we’re on the same flight.”

  Jake had also told me he’d just gotten out of the Marines due to an injury. He seemed more resigned to the fact than happy about it. But from what I’ve heard and read about the Marines, once you’re a Marine you’re always a Marine, whether still on active duty or not. When I’d spotted him approaching me earlier, nothing seemed visibly wrong with him. But he’d been telling me about his injury when his father had started to approach us, which had distracted me.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Rona. Are you visiting family in Jackson Hole?”

  Just as I open my mouth to speak, Jake interrupts.

  “Some bastard practically left her at the altar, so she’s taking her honeymoon trip on her own.” He sounds angry at this announcement.

  Cade appears speechless and just looks at me.

  I meet his gaze, unfazed by the look on his face. It isn’t pity, exactly, which is what I’ve been seeing since the news. Instead of allowing myself to feel like the broken girl everyone thought I was, I tell him exactly what I realized during my flight from Ireland to Chicago. “My ex decided, with no prior warning signs, that getting married at thirty was too young for him. I think maybe he’s met someone else, but I don’t really want to know. To be honest, it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Nick doing what he did made me realize my feelings for him were not what they should have been. I was planning to spend the rest of my life with him and all I could muster up for that thought was a lackluster acceptance.”

  I look out toward the hallway of the airport and watch the people rushing by, in a hurry to catch their flight. And there I was, in such a hurry to catch my destiny that I latched on to Nick and the notion of marriage. Taking a deep breath, I continue, “Once I’d calmed down, I realized I was more upset at having to cancel the wedding than him actually leaving me. I think I was more in love with the idea of having a family than I was with Nick.”

  After a few moments of stunned silence, Cade asks, “You said you were more in love with having a family than him. Don’t you have any family?”

  “No, my parents were killed in a plane crash ten years ago. I went to live with my grandmother, who passed away nearly two years ago.”

  I sip my coffee, still finding it difficult to believe that Cade is Jake’s father. They have similar features, and at first I presumed they were brothers, but Cade doesn’t look old enough to have fathered Jake.

  Jake is tall like his father with the same dark hair, except Jake’s hair is cropped shorter to his head. Military style. Jake has a narrow waist, and broad shoulders that make him stand out in a crowd. He’s clean-shaven with dimples that attracted my attention from the moment he sat down at my table. But it’s his father who holds my interest on a more basic level.

  His father!

  I tentatively ask, “You’re really his father?”

  Jake snickers at my comment. “He certainly is. He’s forty-five and a hell of a lot older than me!”

  “Less of the old. Twenty years isn’t that much older.” Cade grins at me.

  “Well, you sure don’t look forty-five. I actually thought you were brothers.”

  Laughing, Jake says, “So you know I’m twenty-five. How old are you? I’m guessing twenty-one.”

  I smile. “Don’t you know it isn’t polite to ask a lady her age?”

  “Never heard that one before.” Jake smirks.

  “Well, as you asked so nicely.” I laugh and realize how good it feels. “I guess I’ll tell you, I’m a year younger than you.”

&nbs
p; He chuckles. “Just the right age.”

  I’m about to ask Jake ‘right age’ for what, when Cade changes the subject.

  “Are you planning on staying in Jackson Hole?”

  “I’m not sure yet. A friend of Nick’s owns a cabin out there, but in no way do I want to spend the next four weeks in debt to a friend of his. Plus, it was supposed to be a wedding present. I’ll find a hotel for a couple of nights and then look around for a short term rental.”

  I sigh, not looking forward to sorting out accommodation.

  “You shouldn’t have any problem finding a room for a few nights as the ski season doesn’t start for another couple of weeks. In fact, a friend of mine and his wife run a bed and breakfast. I could always check with them once we land to see if they have a room available if you’d like,” Jake offers.

  “That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.”

  I look at Cade while taking another sip of my vanilla latte. “Please tell me a bit about where you live in Jackson Hole.”

  He smiles and his green eyes alight with joy. “The house is in the Tetons. We had it built about seventeen years ago now and it’s home. There’s nowhere like it.” He has a wistful expression on his face as he continues, “It has the most amazing views with wildlife that come right up to the back porch. I’ve never seen anywhere like it to compare. When it snows, it looks like it jumped right off a postcard.”

  I smile. “That sounds amazing. I’m hoping to see some of the mountains and lakes around Jackson Hole while I’m there, not to mention the wild life.”

  Fiddling with my cup, I struggle to take my mind off the thoughts that fill it at the mention of Cade and ‘wild’ in the same sentence. I turn back to Jake. “You mentioned you have a sister. Is she your only sibling?”

  “No, I have two sisters who are both married to great guys. My sister Beth is married to Mack. They have a boy, Nathan, he’s two now and they’ve just had a baby girl a few weeks ago. Little Edith. They’re in the process of renovating to make more room for their growing family. My other sister happens to be my twin. Older by five minutes, which she never let me forget when we were growing up. Anna is married to Justin and they have six-year-old twins, Gabe and Gaby. They both have houses built on the family land so they’re pretty close by.”