by Taylor Hart
He walked slowly, searching the faces of the rest of them, then moved to her side.
She put her hand on his shoulder and pulled him into her for a brief hug.
Sam saw the ring and reached for it. “I’m okay with it, Mom, if it makes you happy.”
Goosebumps rushed over her arms. “Really?”
Sam turned to Ryan, and his face squished up. “So, I know you’re my real dad, but are you gonna be my really ‘real’ dad?”
Everyone laughed.
Ryan hugged Sam. “Something like that.”
Sam looked back at him then cocked his head to the side. He put his finger on his chin. “And you’re marrying my mom?”
Ryan smiled at him. “Would that be all right with you?”
Sam frowned again. “Would I have to move?”
“What if we lived here?”
Sam turned to his grandma. “Really?”
“Yep.” Ryan winked at him. “Or we could build a house down the lane.”
Sam perked up. “And have a tree house?”
Ryan grinned. “The biggest tree house in four counties.”
Sam gave a final nod and blushed. “You’ve got a deal.” He rushed out of the room and out the back door.
Everyone laughed.
Charlotte took Ryan’s hand. “I guess my dowry isn’t as high as I thought.”
Star and Angela rushed to hug her.
Star pulled her in. “I get to design the dress. That’s my condition to agreeing to this marriage.”
Charlotte frowned. “I don’t know about that.”
Star tugged on a strand of her hair. “You don’t get a say.”
Charlotte laughed.
Angela pulled her into a hug, the scarf from her hair whipping her face. “And I get to do the cake.” She pulled her hands together and did a giddy jump. “The whole town will think I’ve put something magical in it for them.”
Charlotte wagged her finger. “Okay, but no palm reading.”
Angela turned back to the kitchen. “I’m not making that promise.”
Ryan’s brothers, Alan, and Richard were hugging and slapping and starting in with the married jokes.
Her mother swooped her into a hug then pulled her back and lightly pushed the bangs out of her face. “I’m so happy for you.”
Charlotte smiled back at her mother, feeling overwhelmed. “Me, too.”
Star put an arm around her. “See, Charlotte, happily ever after does exist. I told you it did.”
Charlotte caught a glimpse of Ryan staring at her. Everything hard and worrisome and fearful just disappeared. The future—with him at her side and with Sam, her mother, and his brothers—all slipped into a perfect vision before her.
And then she knew that happily ever after . . . just might be possible.
“Holy macaral!” Sean called out, peering down the driveway. “I don’t believe it.”
The uber car’s back door opened and Charlotte recognized Ryan’s other brother, the one who had been in Africa. Kent stepped out, looking around, a grin on his face. “Is someone having a party?”
Ryan laughed and moved to him, opening his arms. “You got here just in time, bro.”
Beau and Sean rushed to him, taking turns hugging him.
Charlotte thought about the fact that Kent had left in a world of hurt and he looked completely different at this moment.
Better.
Kent laughed and then put up a hand. “Hold up, I want to introduce you to someone.”
A beautiful girl got out of the car, holding tightly to Kent’s hand.
Ryan grinned at her, putting his hand out to shake hers. “Well, who is this?”
Kent shook his head. “You’re never going to believe it, this is the girl who saved my life.”
Sean looked shocked, then immediately through his arms around her. “I believe it.”
Beau laughed. “Well, I guess we need to hear about the next Hardman brother love story, now don’t we?”
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Her Second Chance Prodigal Groom by Taylor Hart
DJ drove into Southport, North Carolina, and the first thing he saw was the wind blowing the flags. Growing up in a coastal town meant the wind had just been part of his life. When people asked him what he liked most about San Antonio, he always told them he liked that it wasn’t windy—and compared to Southport, it wasn’t. He drove slowly, keeping his breathing even; this town made him nervous.
Home. The word sounded funny in his brain, like an off-tune key on a piano that a little kid played over and over.
He noted the décor on the houses and the way Christmas mixed with seashells and mermaids and other ocean themes. He slowed as he went past the gas station by the dock that his grandpa, his mother’s dad, used to own. It looked like someone had bought the place and restored it. That was good.
Thinking of his mother and grandpa sent a pang of sadness through him. Even though it’d been a long time since his mother died—he’d been twelve at the time—he still missed her. And he missed his grandpa, who’d been a third parent to him and Travis. Since Dad had been deployed most of the time, DJ couldn’t count how many days he’d spent helping out at that gas station. His grandpa had passed when he and Travis had turned sixteen.
After that, his dad had retired from the military so he could be home more. DJ grunted, remembering all the times he’d gone to the bar to pick his dad up off the floor at two a.m. The old man should have just left him and Travis by themselves—it would have been better.
As he drove on, he cast a critical eye on all the changes to the town. Someone had added a new coat of paint to the Fish Fry. Dang, his mouth was watering. All the homes around this area had been built in the past five years. He noted all the new construction signs and model homes across the street.
He didn’t like it. When he was growing up this place had been authentic, not new and showy.
He turned down the short road to his father’s house. The place still looked like a dump, complete with a foreclosure sign on it. Another sign said it was under contract.
His heart sped up. What? His dad’s house was in foreclosure? Annoyance pricked at him as he parked. He got out and shut the car door, staring at the offending sign. He cursed, and then pulled back on his emotions. What did he care? His father probably couldn’t come back here anyway.
DJ’s annoyance increased when he saw the old garage to the side of the house was open, and it looked like it had been cleaned out. He walked over and called out, “Hey, who’s there?”
Nobody was there. He shut the garage door, even more annoyed that someone had been going through his dad’s stuff.
The wind picked up, and he felt a chill. The temperature was in the mid-fifties here, which was amazing in December, but the wind coming off the ocean made it feel at least another ten degrees cooler. He spotted the dock that led out to the water, and he walked toward it, noting it was in even worse shape than the house. How often had he and Travis literally run down the dock before jumping into the ocean?
When one of them wanted something and the other knew they had to fight to get it, they raced to the ocean. That was the tiebreaker.
Wind rippled the water and the sun sparkled off of the waves. It was almost dinnertime, but the sun was still bright, and the sky shone a brilliant blue. The air tasted of humidity and salt, a far cry from the air in Texas. He grinned to himself. You couldn’t taste the air in Texas; it was too dry.
No one would really get that joke. Except Travis. And Aspen.
Another shot of pain struck his chest. The last time he’d come back was for Travis’s funeral. All of the blackness that he’d stowed away in the deepest recess of his heart threatened to burst forth, but he carefully, patiently waited for it to go back down.
His father loved this boat. Any good memory with his father included this boat. He sucked in a long breath and told himself to stay in check. There were only seven days until he had to report back to Texas and prepare for the game against the Miami Surf. He had to keep his head straight and his crap together.
He thought about his no-regrets pact with his Rebel teammates. Yes, he could do this. With a huff, he headed back down the dock. Seeing the foreclosure sign again, he pulled out his phone, wondering if he could get a room at the Southport Inn.
It would be good to remember this wasn’t his home anymore. He was here to clear the air with his father before resuming his normal life away from Southport.
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Her Protector Billionaire Groom by Taylor Hart
Chapter 1
Parker shivered as he stared at Oceanside Beach from the doorway of his motorcycle shop. How could the beach be so cold? When he’d retired from the FBI six months ago, he hadn’t thought through his decision to call Oceanside home.
He yanked his hoodie from a hook on the wall. He had to get out of here. But he hesitated. Maybe he should get a bit more work done on his current project; he was disassembling a bike for some picky rich guy who kept demanding he use only Harley Davidson original parts and then complaining that it was taking so long.
Parker liked efficiency, order, and deadlines. Since he’d left the Bureau, he’d tried to put aside the OCD part of him. Operative word: tried. Recently, it had been more difficult than ever, after hearing this stupid edict from his father’s will. He would lose his share of his father’s estate—and the charity his father started with each of the boys when they were twelve would go unfunded—if they weren’t married by Christmas.
What the crap? His father couldn’t demand that his sons get married. That was unreasonable! And selfish! And …
The image of his father at Christmas last year—lecturing them about being men of honor and duty and getting off their butts and getting married—actually made him smile. That was Jack Kelly: the man, the myth, the legend.
Pain stabbed the center of his chest, and he tried to ignore it. The funny thing he’d discovered about grief, as of late, was that he never knew when it would throw him off-balance.
He whipped his phone out of his pocket. Fine. If he had to fund the charity without his father’s money, he would do it. He would call the annoying billionaire from Jackson whose bike he was working on.
“Hello?”
“Hunter James!” Parker had met him once on a trip to Jackson Hole with his father. Hunter was a Texas gambling man turned big oil.
“Parker Kelly. Boy, when you going to get that bike of mine finished?”
“Soon. The parts take time to find.”
Hunter sighed. “How’re you doing?” He was, of course, referencing the death of Parker’s father.
“Ah, fine.” Parker hated it when people asked him that. “But I have a situation and need some financing for a charity my father’s been operating.”
After a long, uncomfortable moment of hesitation, Hunter asked, “What’s the charity?”
“A surf and soup on the beach here in Oceanside. I started it with my father when I was twelve.”
“You’re having money problems? Why don’t you take some of your inheritance and fund it?”
Parker cursed in his mind; the will stated that they couldn’t tell anybody about the marriage ultimatum. “It’s a family thing.”
“Hmm. I’ll think about it. Why don’t you write up a proposal and shoot it to my secretary?”
The kiss of death. As a boy, Parker had learned that if someone said “type it up and send it to the secretary,” it wasn’t a good enough idea to bother them with. “Alright. Thank you.”
“No problem. Get my bike done.”
“Yes, sir.” He pressed end, and with great effort he resisted the urge to throw the phone. He wasn’t going to stinking get married so he could fund a charity! How could that be an honest or right or good thing to do?
He pulled open the door for his shop, then closed it behind him. He pressed an app on his phone that activated the high-tech security system he’d recently installed. Oceanside Beach was known to be dangerous at night. He took off, feeling a need to rush across the street even though it wasn’t busy. For eight months of the year, it was a crazy tourist street, but at Christmas, not many tourists came to Oceanside Beach. At least, not the smart ones. If they wanted a great beach at Christmas, they went to Hawaii.
Parker wound his way around the street and through the tunnel that already had accumulated a bunch of street people. As he went past, most of them waved or called out a greeting to him. He’d been working with homeless people since age twelve, when he’d come to Oceanside with his family and only cared about the homeless and surfing. For weeks after the trip, he’d driven his father crazy, asking all kinds of questions about why the people weren’t taken care of and why they didn’t have food. It was the catalyst for the Surf and Soup homeless shelter that he now entered.
“Closed,” Harvey, the manager of the Surf and Soup called out.
Parker grinned and locked the door behind him, tapping a few buttons on his phone to activate the security system he’d personally installed here as well. “It’s me.”
Harvey turned and gestured toward the basement. “You’ve got a crowd tonight.”
Something akin to pleasure passed through Parker’s chest. “Perfect.” He raced down the stairs, hearing the low rumble of rap music that someone had linked to his stereo system. Rap wasn’t his thing, but he’d learned that this crowd usually liked it.
As he walked in, Chuck, his friend on Christmas break from the FBI, nodded to him. Chuck was doubling as his bouncer/MC for the night. He put a mic to his lips. “The cowboy is back in town, folks. Are you ready to rumble?”
Parker glared at Chuck, he’d never liked being called the cowboy, but the crowd that was gathered all shouted out. “Cowboy! Cowboy!”
Chuck grinned at him.
Parker moved to the edge of the rink and pulled off his hoodie and T-shirt.
“Have you found funding for this place yet?” Chuck leaned into him.
Parker shook his head. He’d told Chuck about his father’s will the other night, when he was sparring with him. They weren’t supposed to tell anyone, that’s what his father’s will had said, but if you couldn’t trust a friend from the FBI, then who could you trust?
Chuck cursed. “Can’t close this place.”
Parker nodded and picked up the tape he used to wrap his hands.
“Listen.” Chuck leaned in close. “I have a friend who invited me to this Christmas ball with a bunch of fancy-pants government people. Even a senator who is running for governor.”
“And I care why?”
“There’s always funding for stuff like this; you just have to find it. You have to know the right people. Why don’t you go, flash your name around, and talk to some people?” He winked at him. “Plus women—lots of hot women will be there. All of them looking for a man who can dance.” He air gunned him. “And I have seen you dance, Cowboy.”
Parker grimaced. Flashing his name around felt like blasphemy. Sure, maybe he had issues with his father, but the Kelly name was sacred. His father had worked hard for everything he had. Flashiness wasn’t his style. “Not looking for attention. And not interested in a ‘hot’ woman.”
Chuck’s face scrunched into disgust. “Dude, I know Carol or Kathy or whoever dumped you, but you need to get out there.”
He grunted. That relationship had ended over six months before he’d moved to Oceanside. “Ah, no, I don’t.”
“You’re still stuck on finding that girl from your past. Ari or whatever. Aren’t you?”
Parker froze. Chuck was using privileged information. Privileged in that Parker never
told anyone about her. Outside of his brothers, Chuck was the only one he’d ever shared his relationship with to. “You have all the right things to say tonight, don’t you?”
Chuck put his hands up. “Never mind.”
Parker hesitated, hating how touchy he could be lately. When Chuck offered him a glove, he shoved his hand inside. “Are you attending this ball as part of the Bureau?”
Chuck let out a light laugh. “Hey, I’m on vacay, you know that.”
Parker grunted. “Right.”
Chuck shook his head and laced up the strings for him. “Don’t you know you can’t ever get away from the Bureau? Once you’re in, you’re in.”
Parker held out the other hand for a second glove. “Unless they ask you to leave.”
Chuck met his eyes, then shoved him a bit. “Unless they ask you back.”
Why was Chuck being so cryptic? Was he here to recruit Parker back to the Bureau? Too bad all ex-FBI kept things close to the chest. He should know; he’d been one of them.
“Whatever.” Parker didn’t have time for cloaks and daggers right now, he had a fight. He entered the rink, bouncing from foot to foot. The rink was old school, just the basics. The basement was dank, and even with the fresh coat of paint and the new equipment Parker had installed when he’d first gotten here, it still stank of dampness.
He’d arranged to fight someone through a down-low, black market fight club, and the guy was already in the rink. He looked like a brown-skinned Russian version of the fighter from Rocky IV. Even better.
The crowd had various people. Some were homeless and knew about the fights and insisted on coming. Most of them were from various gangs. That was how Parker had initially found people to fight. He’d taken it up with the playboy gangster punks who had tried to rob his shop. He’d insisted on meeting their bosses, and then fight night was born. It kept some peace among the gangs, which made the cops happy as well, so the cops looked the other way. They didn’t want to deal with any of it, especially considering the cop-unfriendly climate on the streets. It was a win-win situation.
