Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

And she was back on the sidewalk, passing her house across the street, continuing on down the road.

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t just move away and never look back like she could. It was easy for her to say she’d live anywhere. She had no one else who really needed her. No one else she loved.

“I do.”

His words stopped her in their tracks. Pulling something out of his pocket, he held it out. A ring, with the biggest diamond she’d ever seen. And then, kneeling in front of her, he looked up to the sky. To the mothers. And back at her. “Kerry Ann Wilder, will you marry me?”

She blinked. Felt her heart pounding. Needed to cry. Couldn’t move. “Rafe...” He was sweet and dear, and hers, she got that now, but...

“Stand up,” she said. And while she was disappointed when he did, she knew it was the right thing.

“We need to talk about this,” she said. “You need to talk to Payne—” she remembered, of course, that he couldn’t do that, and quickly changed it “—your family...”

“I am a Colton,” he told her, shaking his head. “And Coltons do what they need to do. I need to do this, Kerry.”

“But...how would it work? Where would we live? And, my job...”

“We’re both going to have to make sacrifices,” he told her. “I’m expecting it’s not going to be easy sometimes. We might even have our first fight...”

“Oh, not our first one,” she said, shaking all over. “Remember the time you tripped me so you could grab the Easter egg I’d found first?” They couldn’t have been more than five. His dad had still been alive.

“What I remember most is that I’ve loved you my whole life, Ker. I’d like us to live at my house, but if you can’t bear to be back at the ranch, we’ll figure out something. Ace has a place in town. So do some of the others...”

She looked at the ring he still held. Wanted it so badly she ached. “But what about your family? What about Payne?”

“The rest of the Colton siblings aren’t likely to blink more than once or twice and then welcome you in. Genevieve might take some convincing, but she always comes around. And Dad, the worst he can do is disown me, and then our lives will change again. Like I said, it isn’t going to be easy, but a smart woman I know pointed out that nothing else matters if we can be together.” He kissed her. She wanted to hold on to those lips as she kept hearing the word Dad. Breaking away, she looked up at him.

Half-afraid he’d lost his mind. Or she had.

“We have to try to make it work, Kerry. Frankly, a love that stays alive over twenty-three years of stupidity and stubbornness, and then pulls us back together so completely, isn’t something I’m willing to turn my back on. How about you?”

She knew now he had opened his heart to Payne Colton. Because he couldn’t open fully to her unless he did so. No more hiding away. No more blocking the things he felt.

“Yes, Rafe Colton, I’ll marry you,” she said, ignoring the enormous diamond in his hand to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him. Hard. Deep.

Just like their journey to find each other again had been.

And when he finally pulled back to slide the ring on her finger, she heard the soft hailing of the small crowd of neighbors who’d been gathering a short distance away, to cheer on the cop who’d spent so many years keeping them all safe.

She wasn’t alone anymore.

Because she’d finally dared to fully open her own heart to the town and to the man who’d always, in their own ways, had her back—and loved her in return.

* * *

Don’t miss book one in

The Coltons of Mustang Valley series,

Colton Baby Conspiracy by Marie Ferrarella.

Available now wherever

Harlequin Romantic Suspense books are sold.

And check out the next two volumes,

Colton Family Bodyguard by Jennifer Morey