Risky Love (Dirty Hacker 2)

She screamed and then picked up the rock closest to her and threw it at Rowan’s shoe. “Jesus. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” She glanced around for Ryder. “I thought you two were on your way up the east side of the mountain?”

Rowan didn’t move. Just stared at her warmly. “No, I’m not trying to give you a heart attack. But, as you know, it’s near impossible to get you to go on a vacation.”

“Maybe because the last vacation I took, I ended up working a serial killer case,” she pointed out, suddenly realizing she’d been tricked into coming here.

His mouth twitched. “True, but I really wanted to bring you here, so I had to get clever about how to do it.”

She frowned and said, “Ryder, you are dead meat for tricking me.”

Ryder made a whistling noise through the earpiece then said, “You’re cutting out.” A pause. Then, “Enjoy the time away, you two.”

Alex noted a softness in his voice, one she’d never really heard from him. A sweetness, even.

Before she could even make sense that they’d tricked her into a vacation, Rowan took a step closer, slowly making his way onto the cliff. “I asked you once to take me to the most important place you’d ever been.” He gestured out at the forest. “This is mine.”

She scanned the tops of trees before looking back to him. “Why this place?”

“My mother would bring Mia and me here every summer,” he said. Alex had finally met his parents two months after Mia was found. The night she met them was also the night that Mia told them the truth about what happened. All Alex saw between the family was love. So much love. Rowan took another step forward and went on. “We’d do the t

wo-day drive out here to a cottage that has been in my mother’s family for generations.”

Alex’s heart warmed and squeezed. “The cottage I was just in?”

He nodded. “Those summers were the best memories of my life. The good memories.” He offered his hand, and when she rose, he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her forehead. “The memories I went to after dark times when those moments could have drowned me.”

“Rowan,” she whispered, understanding all that herself. Now, the darkness wasn’t so scary anymore because of all the good there too.

“This place is me,” Rowan said, glancing out to the mountain before addressing her again. “But I want it to be about us now.” He released her and reached into his pocket before dropping to one knee. Alex felt the world fade away as he said, “We began in Paris. We reunited in New York City. We fell in love in San Francisco. But Mount Rainer, for one month out of the year as negotiated with Ryder, we get this…our forever.” He held up the pear-shaped diamond ring. “Marry me, McCoy?”

Alex couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Shock and happiness and love overwhelmed her in waves until she exploded, charging at Rowan and sending him flying on his back, hugging him tight.

“I take that as a yes?” He laughed beneath her.

She leaned away with tears in her eyes. “Yes. A thousand times yes. I love you.”

And the blinding smile he gave in the seconds before his mouth touched hers told her that Mount Rainer might just be her favorite time of all.

Read on for an excerpt from the first book in the Dangerous Love series:

NAUGHTY STRANGER

CHAPTER 1

The loud rumble of the baby blue Volkswagen Beetle quieted as Peyton Kerr pressed against the brake pedal. Stoney Creek’s Main Street was cute and quaint, with boutique shops lining the skinny road where cars were parked without much space in between them. Through her open window, she tasted the salt in the air coming off the Atlantic Ocean and drove by a young man packing large containers with live lobsters into the back of his old Chevy pickup. On the next corner was a ticket booth for the lighthouse boat tours. Stoney Creek was a far cry from the bright lights, skyscrapers, and pungent busy city aroma that Seattle carried, but it was also a most welcome change.

People came to Stoney Creek for the picturesque views of the coastline on the bay. They climbed the mountain that overlooked the town and the ocean. They ate fresh fish at the restaurants near the marina, walked the beaches, and sailed the open waters. Peyton came for those reasons too. Well, and a laundry list of others, including that Stoney Creek was the last vacation spot she visited with her late husband, Adam, just over a year ago. She’d been her happiest here. They swam the waters, ate too much, laughed hard enough to cry. That’s what brought her back to the small Maine town. She’d left Seattle a heartbroken twenty-six-year-old widow, and she returned to Stoney Creek determined to find happiness here again.

Her heart clenched at the reminder of all she’d lost, threatening to expose all the weak spots. She forced the emotion back with a deep swallow, refusing to go to the dark place again. The past was behind her. That’s where it’d stay.

Up ahead, Peyton recognized the dark-haired, slender woman waiting beneath a withered store sign as Isabella, her real estate agent. Peyton squeezed her used—but new to her—car into one of the parking spots.

Before she could even get out, Isabella was already at the passenger-side door. “You made it.”

“I’m so glad to finally be here.” Peyton smiled, turning off the car and exiting. She’d done a nine-hour flight with a layover in Philadelphia, then landed at the Portland International Jetport. That’s where she found her new car, which she thought suited small-town living. After a good night’s sleep in Portland, she drove three hours, taking the scenic drive along the coast to her fresh start. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“It’s no problem. I’ve got your keys here for both your house and your shop.” Isabella reached into her purse, then handed Peyton two sets of keys. “You’re all set to move in and open shop.” She handed her a slew of business cards. “I’ve given you some names of handymen around town if you want to give the store a makeover.”

Peyton glanced up at the old sign again and took in the cracked windowpane and peeling white paint on the exterior. Both the shop and her new lake house needed work, but so did she. “Great,” Peyton said, feeling like a fish out of water. “Thank you so much for everything. You’ve been so helpful.”