love you, too.”
She grinned. “You love me?”
A nod. “I never stood a chance otherwise.” He picked up her hand, placed it on his chest so she could feel his heart thundering beneath her palm. “I love you, Shannon Torres.”
“You know,” she said softly, “I grew up watching fairy tales and princess stories but never seeing myself reflected in them. I never saw the brown girl get the blond, white hero. She was always the funny friend or the smart girl in school or the one with the strict parents who never let her do anything.” She touched his jaw with one finger. “No one ever told my story, and I certainly never saw anything close, and a part of me never believed I could find what I needed and deserved. I never believed I could find you.”
He covered her hand with his, pressing it flat to his jaw. “Yours is a story that deserves to be told. Little girls who look like you, who look like Rylie, should believe they can get the hero, or better yet, that they can be the hero.”
“And that’s why I love you.”
He kissed her briefly. “Not because I have the money and connections to get those types of stories told?”
A shrug. “Okay, only partly.”
Finn laughed and tugged her even closer. “You sign the divorce papers. I’ll sign the house papers,” he said. “And then we’ll keep building this between us. We’ll go slow—”
“What if I don’t want to go slow?”
His mouth fell open again.
She laughed. “I found my gorgeous hero,” she said. “Why would I possibly want to go slow?”
“Because I’m still missing those thirty pounds of muscle.”
Her mouth dropped open, and then they were both laughing, pressed so tightly together, she forgot, for a moment, where she ended and he began. Or maybe, that was because the laughter abruptly stopped, and Finn slanted his lips across hers, kissing her until her lungs threatened to burst.
A commotion behind them as Rylie burst out the front door and onto the deck. “You’re kissing my mom again, Mr. Finn!”
Finn pulled away on a chuckle. “I am kissing her,” he said. “But I’m also loving her.” He squatted down next to Rylie and tucked a strand of her messy bedhead hair behind her ear. “Would it be okay if I love you, too?”
Wide eyes.
Trembling lips.
Then Rylie launched herself into his arms, knocking him back onto his butt on the deck. But Finn had her, his arms wrapped tightly around Ry so she didn’t fall.
And Shan knew then that Finn would always have them.
Just as she and Ry had him right back.
“I love you, too, Finn,” Ry said, squeezing with all of her little might.
“Got room for one more?” Shan asked after a few moments.
Finn’s warm, honey eyes met hers, his face soft, his arm lifting automatically, just as she’d known it would because she was already sinking down next to the two people she loved most in the world.
Holding tight.
Being held right back.
Now that was the best part of getting the hero.
Well, that, the happy ending, and the thirty pounds of muscle.
Epilogue
Blue Eyes, Wide Eyes
Finn, Six Months Later
The noise was almost deafening inside the small kitchen.
But then again, it was Sunday, and this was his family—no, this was their family. Because, of course, his parents had loved Shannon and Rylie from their first meeting almost six months before. His sister had dished on Finn being head over heels, and his parents had taken the next plane out, and Finn had found himself temporarily transplanted from the rental into Shannon’s house. Of course, it was a temporary he’d finagled his way into making a permanent after his parents had gone home the first time, and it was one he certainly didn’t begrudge.
Him and his girls.
Who were wonderful and loving and sweet and just made his life so much more.
So, no, it wasn’t a surprise they had fit right in with his family.
All of his family. All of whom had decided to come visit at the same time, and all of whom were currently creating the nearly deafening noise in Shannon’s kitchen.
Add in his mom being a mother hen, who liked to have all of her little chicks close—biologically related to her or not—and his dad having fulfilled a fatherly role to more than a number of his and his siblings’ friends and spouses over the years, and Shannon and Rylie were tucked right into the Stoneman fold.
“Sandcastles!” Rylie yelled, running through the fray, his two nieces, Stephanie and