Perfect Fit (Serendipity's Finest) - By Carly Phillips Page 0,105

in Serendipity. I want them to know their grandparents. And I want you to know that I will never abandon you again.”

Cara was crying for real now, but they were good tears, tears that told her he’d just given her everything she’d never dared to hope for or dream about. She watched in disbelief as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a ring.

Go big or go home, Mike thought, holding out the diamond engagement ring he’d picked out himself. He’d managed a lot in a short time, including this ring, which had called to him as soon as he’d laid eyes on it.

He presented it to her with shaking hands. “So, Cara Hartley, will you marry me?” he asked, as he gazed into the face of the woman he loved more than life itself.

She stared at him with those big, blue, expressive eyes, then glanced down at the ring and nodded. “Yes. Yes!”

She threw her arms around him, nuzzling her face into his neck, and Mike breathed easy for the first time in over a week. Or maybe ever in his life.

He separated them long enough to clasp her hand and slip the ring onto her finger.

“Look at that,” she murmured. “It’s a perfect fit.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “Just like us.”

He met her gaze, loving that her cheeks now glowed with happiness, a feeling that echoed inside him. “Ready to go check out the house?” he asked.

She nodded.

Hand in hand, they walked up the driveway to the huge Colonial set back on a private street in his small hometown of Serendipity. And Mike thanked his lucky stars that she’d given him a second chance.

Cara was his and he was finally home.

And now a special excerpt from Carly Phillips’s next Serendipity’s Finest novel…

Perfect Fling

Coming soon from Berkley Books!

Erin Marsden had always been Serendipity’s good girl. As assistant district attorney, only daughter of the ex-police chief, youngest sibling of two overprotective brothers, both cops, one of whom was the current police chief, Erin always lived up to expectations. She’d never made a misstep, more afraid of disappointing her family than of stepping out of the stereotypical role she’d always, always fulfilled.

Until last night.

She blinked and took stock of her surroundings: a strange bed, walls she didn’t recognize, and a warm, nude male body beside her very naked one.

Cole Sanders.

She took in his too-long mess of dark hair and the muscles in his upper back, thought about the way her body ached in all the right places, and she shivered. No doubt about it, when she finally stepped out of the mold she’d created, she’d not only done a one-eighty but made the most un-good-girl-like move she could think of. A one-night stand.

A one-night stand.

The thought made her giddy and also slightly nauseous as she silently traced the path that had led her here. She’d started yesterday at her brother Mike’s wedding, surrounded by friends, family, and happy, loving couples everywhere she looked, making Erin the odd woman out. Not wanting to go home alone just yet, she’d stopped by Joe’s Bar on the way home. Misstep number one. She’d let Cole Sanders, the man with whom her sixteen-year-old self had shared a long-remembered kiss the night before he left town for good, interrupt her dance with an old friend. Misstep number two. He’d pulled her close against his hard body. She’d looked into his dark blue eyes and seen a world weariness that tore at her heart, then acknowledged the sexual tension they’d both ignored since his return. Misstep number three. Then she’d gone for gold, agreeing to join him upstairs in his room over the bar for an all-night session of marathon sex.

And, oh my God, sex with Cole had been phenomenal. She didn’t know two people could generate such heat. It had been that fantastic. In fact, Erin thought, she’d stretch and purr in contentment right now if she wasn’t afraid of waking the man snoring lightly beside her.

Although their parents were good friends, Erin didn’t know him well. Nobody did, not anymore. Not even her brother Mike, who had been one of his closest pals. Cole’s father had been her dad’s deputy chief of police until last year, but Jed Sanders never spoke of his son. According to Erin’s brother, Cole had dropped out of the police academy mere days before their graduation. What Cole did after that was anybody’s guess, but rumors ran crazy in their small town. Some said Cole had gotten involved