FBI Agent Brendan O’Hannigan.
“I’m glad,” Brendan said. “But right now I don’t want to talk about your dad or my mom.” He stepped closer to her, as if closing in on a suspect. “I don’t want to talk at all.”
Her tears quickly dried as she smiled in anticipation. “Oh, what would you rather do?”
“Get you the hell out of this dress,” he said as he stared down at the yards of white lace and satin.
With its sweetheart neckline, long sleeves and flowing train, it was a gown fit for a princess—or so his mother had convinced her. Josie was glad, though, because she had wanted something special for this special day. A gown that she could one day pass down to a daughter.
“Your mom told the seamstress to put in a zipper,” she told him. “She said her son was too impatient for buttons.”
He grinned and reached for the tab. The zipper gave a metallic sigh as he released it, and the weight of the fabric pulled down the gown. She stood before her husband in nothing but a white lace bra and panties.
“You’re the one wearing too many clothes now,” she complained and reached for his bow tie.
He shrugged off his jacket, and for once he wore no holsters beneath it. He carried no guns. When their honeymoon was over, he would, but as a supervising agent, he wouldn’t often have occasion to use them. He wasn’t going undercover anymore—except with her.
She pulled back the blankets on the bed as he quickly discarded the rest of his clothes. “In a hurry?” she teased.
“I don’t know how much time we’ll have before CJ shows up,” he admitted.
“His grandparents promised to keep him busy for the next couple of days,” she reminded him. “And he’s more fascinated with the royal babies right now than he is with us.”
Brendan grinned and reached for her.
“He wants one, you know,” Josie warned.
Brendan kissed her softly, tenderly, and admitted in a whisper, “So do I.”
She regretted all that her unfounded suspicions had cost him—seeing her pregnant, feeling their son kick, seeing him born, holding him as a sweet-smelling infant...
But she would make it up to him with more babies—and with all her love. She tugged her naked husband down onto the bed with her. “Then we better get busy...”
Building their family and their lives together.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of Ultimate Cowboy by Rita Herron!
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Chapter One
“This special news report just in—an amber alert has been issued for six-year-old Hank Forte. Hank was last seen at the county fair in Amarillo.”
Brody Bloodworth’s heart clenched as a photo of the boy appeared on screen. The little boy had blond hair, was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He could be one of the kids on the BBL, the Bucking Bronc Lodge he had started for needy children.
But he reminded him more of his own little brother, Will, and launched him back seven years ago to the day Will had gone missing.
Not from a county fair but from the rodeo where he was supposed to be watching him.
Self-loathing and guilt suffused him, once again robbing his lungs of air. He understood what the family of that little boy was going through now. The panic. The fear.
The guilt.
If only they’d kept a better eye on him. If only they hadn’t turned their head for a minute.
What was happening to him? Had he just wandered off? Would they find him hiding out or playing somewhere at the fair? Maybe he had fallen asleep in a stall housing one of the animals...
Or had someone taken him? Maybe a desperate woman who’d lost a child and was out of her mind? A child predator who’d do God knows what?
A killer?
The reporter turned the microphone to Hank’s parents, a couple who were huddled together, teary-eyed and frightened. A second later, they began to plead for their son’s return, and the mother broke down into sobs.
Brody hit the remote, silencing the heart-wrenching scene,