His Lover to Protect - Katee Robert Page 0,63

life working to be a man worthy of you.

I love you, darlin’.

Feelings welled up inside her, nearly too much to contain. He’d come for her. More than that, the words he’d written seemed aimed for her very soul. This wasn’t a lie. It was too raw and vulnerable to be fake. Her hands shook as that truth rolled over her. It’s real. It’s all been real. “You…love me?”

“I do.” His frown deepened. “I know the letter isn’t much, but—”

“Stop.” She took his hands and urged him up onto the bench next to her. “The letter is perfect. It’s everything. I…” There was no denying the truth. Not now, not here, not with him looking at her with a fragile hope in his eyes. “I love you, too. And you weren’t the only one who made mistakes. I never should have said some of those things to you. I’m sorry, too.”

“I deserved every word out of your mouth.” He started to reach for her, and visibly restrained himself. “I know it’s going to take time to re-earn your trust, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Kiss me.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Do you need a written invitation?” She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. “Kiss me like you mean it, Luke Jackson.”

“That’s no hardship.” But he leaned in slowly, as if doubting this was what she really wanted. Alexis hooked the back of his neck and towed him to her, nipping his bottom lip before she teased his mouth open.

This was perfection. Kissing Luke felt a whole lot like coming home. And then his arms were around her and he was pulling her into his lap, and she knew without a doubt that she’d found exactly what she’d come to Europe looking for.

She pulled away. “Come home with me.”

“Only if you promise to come down to Mississippi afterward. My auntie will be wanting to meet the woman who stole my heart.” He grinned, making her heart skip a beat. “But there’s time. I plan on spending the rest of my life with you, darlin’, so if you want to pick up and go see the world, I’m there every step of the way. I’ll always be there.”

Epilogue

Luke touched his pocket for the seventeenth time in the last hour. He knew he was being crazy, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Things were going too damn well—they had been for the last six months. After he and Alexis came back from Europe, there was some hashing out to do with the Flannery brothers and Avery, but it had fallen out okay when all was said and done.

Really, he would have gone through that and worse if it meant Alexis would be by his side at the end of it.

He reached over and took her hand, earning an absentminded smile before she went back to baby-talking at her nephew, Braeden. In the kitchen, her sister was working up some kind of magic for dinner and chatting happily with Drew Flannery. It was the very epitome of domestic bliss.

He never thought he’d make it here. Not in a thousand years. And yet here he was, surrounded by Alexis’s family—minus her grandparents—and creating a life for himself up here alongside her.

She’d fit in just as well down in Mississippi. As expected, Aunt Rose took to her like a pig in mud. Alexis might have been happy settling down there if not for the fact that her sister, father, and nephew were up in Pennsylvania. They hadn’t officially picked a place, but he wouldn’t be the one to ask her to leave them behind, especially now that she’d managed to acquire a modicum of peace here in Wellingford.

“Luke?”

He startled, and glanced up to find Alexis’s dad, Sheng, watching him. From the look on his face, he must have been trying to get his attention for a few minutes. “Sorry?”

Sheng smiled. “I asked if you’d mind helping me bring in the groceries from my car?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” It was the perfect opportunity. He’d been wondering how the hell he was going to get Alexis’s dad alone, and here the man was, offering him the chance on a silver platter. Luke followed him out the front door and down the walkway to where the cars were parked.

Sheng opened his trunk and turned to face him. “I believe you have something you want to ask me.”

Luke blinked. “What?” His hand went to his pocket before he caught himself.

“Either you’ve been hiding the fact that you’re a smoker