feel the way you do. I watched you fight to save our lives. Now I’m fighting for your heart. You’re my son’s father, and I won’t let you go. Not again.”
She held his face in her hands. “Do you truly love me?”
Hunter couldn’t stop the indescribable joy welling inside of him. His heart burst from within. He wouldn’t let his dream slip through his fingers, not again.
“I fell in love with you the moment I saw you on that beach in Santorini and you started lecturing me about that shell. You were so alive. So excited. I’d never known what hope was until I found you. I love you, Erin.”
“Marina,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him. “No matter what our names, our hearts will always know each other.”
“Da!” Brandon called out.
“Good thing that name still works.” Hunter released Erin, and looked down at his son. He picked him up and cuddled the boy.
“Da...da...da.”
With a sigh, he pulled Erin close into his arms. “I’ll do everything in my power to protect you both. I promise.”
She laid her head against his shoulder. “No. This time, my love, we’ll protect each other.”
He tugged her dark hair. “It’s the same color as Brandon’s now. Do I need a disguise? Do you think I’d look good as a blond? Or I could shave my head?”
“Or, Mr. Grainger—” she kissed Hunter “—you could take me up to the cabin and make love to me all night long.”
He could feel the passion and the love through every caress of her lips. Hunter held her close, relishing the feel of her body against his. These curves, he remembered. He spun her around. “I like your ideas so much better than mine, Marina. You are a genius. Now
let’s go be a family.”
Her eyes shining, she gazed up at him. “Does this mean we have to get remarried, Mr. Grainger?”
Her tear-filled eyes held such hope and such love, he couldn’t breathe. He hugged his family close and closed his eyes, sending a prayer to heaven. He would never let them go.
“It most assuredly does, Mrs. Grainger. And I know the perfect beach in Santorini for a honeymoon.”
* * * * *
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, but it played over and over in his head. But it wasn’t the Forte family’s cries he heard; it was his own family’s.
His father who’d blamed him from the get-go.
Because it was