Rust Creek Falls Cinderella

by Melissa Senate

  It was a little out of her price range, but she could cut back in other areas. She’d hang out her shingle, and have her customers come to her for meal kits or to place catering orders. With her loan, she could renovate the kitchen to her specifications, but considering she wouldn’t have four hungry Hunts constantly in the kitchen and eating up her good ingredients and leftovers, she might not even need such a huge work space. She circled the ad for the house, then grabbed her phone, pressing in the telephone number for the real estate agent.

  But the doorbell rang then, so she put the phone down and got up to answer it.

  Xander. In a suit and tie and a Stetson.

  He took off the hat and held it against his chest. “Lily, I have so much to say to you.”

  She tilted her head and waited. “I’m listening.”

  “I didn’t come to Rust Creek Falls expecting to fall for anyone. You know I’ve been burned before.”

  Please don’t be here to apologize for not loving me. I couldn’t take that.

  “But then out of nowhere,” he continued, his dark eyes intense on hers, “a smart, focused, talented, passionate, honest, funny, dachshund-loving, hoodie-wearing gorgeous redhead with sparkling green eyes captured my heart before I even knew she had it in her possession.”

  Lily gasped and her knees wobbled. She could barely breathe—or speak.

  “I didn’t think anything scared me, Lily. But all this time, I’ve been so damned afraid of how I feel about you. And you know what?”

  “What?” she managed to whisper.

  “You taught me a lot about courage. And let’s face it, I just love you too much to let you go.”

  He loved her!

  “Lily, I want to start over with you. Can we?”

  She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move.

  Finally she found her voice. “Nope, we can’t start over. But we can pick up where we left off,” she added with a grin. “So where were we?”

  “On a chair. Naked. In a Kalispell hotel room.”

  “Maybe we can go back this weekend,” she said. “And re-create that moment—changing what happens next.”

  “Done,” he said. “I do want to change what happens next. But now. Not a minute later.” He got down on one knee, opening up a black velvet box. A beautiful diamond ring glittered. “Lily Hunt, will you make me the happiest guy alive by becoming my wife?”

  “Yes!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  He stood up and slid the ring on her finger, then picked her up and whirled her around, smothering her with kisses.

  “Yes,” he repeated. “Forever.”

  “Forever,” she said.

  * * *

  They delivered Viv’s beef bourguignon—and the big news that Viv was two down, four to go on the Crawford bachelors. Lily held up her left hand, the emerald-cut diamond, surrounded by diamond baguettes on a gold band, twinkling.

  Viv yelled so loudly her husband came running. The four of them cracked open the champagne Lily had brought, then she and Xander left them to make their romantic meal for two. With leftovers, of course.

  Then Xander suggested they book a room at the Maverick Manor for a little privacy, so after surprising the heck out of their families with their big news—Knox wasn’t the least bit surprised—he booked the honeymoon suite at the Manor.

  More champagne. Chocolate-covered strawberries.

  And the love of her life, her fiancé, her soon-to-be husband, beside her in the enormous four-poster bed.

  Xander held up a chocolate-covered strawberry and dangled it in front of her mouth. “Want to know a secret? The first night I met you, I went home and thought of feeding you strawberries. Now here I am doing it.”

  “Ha! I knew you liked me from that first not-a-date.” She accepted half the strawberry while he ate the other half, then their lips met in a kiss.

  “We’ll live happily—and hungrily—ever after,” she said.

  He kissed her again, wrapping her in his arms. “You know that little house you mentioned you saw in the paper?” he asked. “What do you think of us buying our own ranch close to town and I’ll build you your own cooking studio and make you the Lily’s Home Cookin’ sign for it? State-of-the-art kitchen, display cases, reception counter, waiting area—the works.”

  “Told you I believed in Prince Charming. Here he is,” she said with a smile, then burst into tears.

  “I hope those are happy tears,” he said.

  “My cup runneth over, Xander. Thank you. Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes. Maybe while you’re at it, you can build a doghouse for Dobby and Harry.”

  “Definitely,” he said. “I love those furry little beasts.”

  “And I love you.”

  He kissed her, and they lay together for a moment. “Oh, I just remembered I brought something with me I wanted to show you.” He reached into his overnight bag and pulled out an old jewel-encrusted book.

  “It’s that diary you and your brothers found in your bedroom!” she said, sitting up.

  “Yup. I jimmied it open with a screwdriver. I figure it’s the only way to find out who it belongs to so that I can try to get it back to its owner.”

  “Any clues?”

  He opened it up to a middle page, and Lily leaned closer to glance at the yellowed pages. “I read through some of it and whoever kept this diary was seriously in love. He or she was involved in a passionate love affair with someone referred to as only ‘W.’”

  “Ooh, that looks like a love poem,” she said, pointing to the right-hand page.

  “‘My fair W,’” Xander read, “‘I cannot stop thinking of you, dreaming of you, wishing we were together. Soon, I hope. Forever yours.’”

  “Aww,” Lily said. “So romantic!”

  He smiled. “I’ll go through it and see if I can find some names. It’s probably someone from the Abernathy family, so if I come across a first name, maybe someone with history here in town will recognize it.”

  “Are you going to write me a love poem?” she asked, kissing the side of his neck.

  “I’m not much of a writer, but I promise to cherish you just as much as our surprise diary writer cherished the fair W.”

  “Me, too,” she said, and they snuggled in to start the diary from the beginning.

  Epilogue

  A week later, Lily, in a white satin wedding gown she’d found in a Kalispell bridal boutique and had altered in record time, walked down a red carpet aisle in the Rust Creek Falls Community Center on the arm of her father, who was crying the entire way. She and Xander had chosen this venue over the swanky Maverick Manor because the center could hold the entire town—and the entire town had been invited to their wedding. Between the Hunts going back generations in Rust Creek Falls, and the Crawfords becoming famous for the million-dollar wager on their bachelorhood, everyone wanted to come. The more, the merrier.

  Lily now stood with her gorgeous tuxedo-clad groom in front of the minister, so happy she thought she might burst. Xander’s brothers were his groomsmen, and his father his best man. Lily’s matron of honor was Sarah, and five of her dear friends who’d scattered after high school had come back for the wedding, even on short notice, all managing to find a pale pink dress and silver shoes.

  She thought of herself in that pale pink dress and silver ballet flats at the Summer Sunset Dance the night she and Xander had made love for the first time. To her, that color scheme would always represent new beginnings. So she’d chosen it for her bridal party.

  In a rush of words and with shimmering eyes, they were pronounced husband and wife, and Xander kissed her so passionately that there wolf whistles, and she even heard Dobby and Harry, guests of course, giving two short barks each.

  The reception was held outside under a beautiful open-air tent. Lily had called for a potluck, and everyone had brought somet
hing. Food equaled love, and Lily wanted everyone’s love at the wedding.

  After the first dance, Max Crawford asked to give a toast, and spoke for quite a while about how love kept surprising him. First, Logan had found it with Sarah. Then Xander with Lily. “Watch out, Knox, Hunter, Finn and Wilder. It’s gonna come at you hard when you least expect it, with the woman you least expect it with.” He winked at Viv, who smiled back, then they all raised their glasses and drank to true love. Surprising love.

  Lily smiled at Viv, too. If her wedding planning business was in trouble, at least Lily had helped by taking down one more Crawford brother—and hiring Viv to plan this shindig.

  Everyone was crowding around the buffet tables, where champagne and heaps of food waited for the guests. Lily had decided to make her own chili—not the recipe that hadn’t won her the cooking contest, but her mother’s recipe, a chili to die for. She’d added a little of everything under the sun so that as many people as possible would be reminded of home.

  “Brings me back to Texas,” Xander said after taking a bite. “There go those crazy memories again. Hunter putting a frog down my shirt. Me beating Logan for the first time in a race.” A look of surprise crossed his face. “Hey—strangest thing,” he said. “The next memory that flashed at me was you in your T-shirt and jeans, a hoodie wrapped around your waist in the doorway of the Maverick Manor kitchen.”

  Lily gasped. “That was here. In Montana. The night you showed up as my date.”

  “Because this is home now. Home is always going to be where you are, Lily Crawford.”

  There were clinks on glasses, which meant the new husband had to kiss his new bride. Under the Big Sky Country’s brilliant late-August sun, Xander dipped Lily for the kiss of all kisses, and Lily knew they had indeed found home in each other forever.

  * * *

  Look for the next book in the new

  Harlequin Special Edition continuity

  Montana Mavericks:

  Six Brides for Six Brothers

  The Maverick’s Wedding Wager

  by Joanna Sims

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  One Night with the Cowboy

  by Brenda Harlen

  Prologue

  Brielle Channing slid out of bed in the darkness before dawn, dressing quickly in a plain T-shirt, a pair of well-worn jeans and her favorite cowboy boots. She didn’t need any light to make her way down the stairs, out the back door and toward the stables—she’d traveled the familiar route more times than she could count.

  She saddled up Domino, the black gelding with white markings, and tried not to think about the fact that this would be their last ride before Brie piled her bags into the back of her father’s truck and headed to the airport. She would miss her equine companion as much as she’d miss her parents and sister and brothers, but the hardest goodbye would be the one she said this morning, by the stand of ponderosa pines on top of the rocky ridge that formed part of the northern boundary of the Crooked Creek Ranch.

  By the time she led Domino out of the barn, the sun had begun to rise, painting streaks of orange, pink and purple across the early morning sky. She lifted herself into the saddle, then let her horse take the lead, bending low over Domino’s back as the gelding galloped across the field, hooves biting chunks out of the tired, dry soil. The wind whipped through Brie’s hair and made her eyes sting, but she kept them open and focused to absorb all the sights and scents and sounds of the world around her—as if to lock them into her memory forever.

  The sky was more light than dark now, and she could see the outline of the simple cabin that had been built as a shelter for cowboys caught by unexpected severe weather. The first time she’d given herself to Caleb Gilmore had been in that cabin, and the primitive shelter had become their private refuge from everything that wanted to tear them apart.

  She was thinking about Caleb as she dismounted and led Domino to the narrow stream to drink. The boy she’d known for most of her life had always been serious and intense, and when he’d focused that intensity in her direction, she hadn’t stood a chance.

  Not that she’d resisted. Not even for a minute. Because she’d loved Caleb Gilmore with every beat of her heart—and loving him had nearly destroyed her family.

  The thundering hooves of Indigo, his prized stallion, crashed through her reverie moments before horse and rider came into view. As always, the sight of him made her body quiver and her heart sigh. Though barely twenty, he was already so much more man than boy: over six feet tall with a solid build that attested to years of work on his family’s cattle ranch. He controlled the powerful animal beneath him with a light hand on the reins and subtle signals from the strong thighs that gripped its flank. Indigo pulled up and Caleb slid off the stallion’s back, releasing the reins so the animal could dip its head to drink from the stream beside Domino.

  Though Caleb’s face was shaded by the brim of his hat, Brie felt the intensity of his gaze on her. After a long minute, he finally said, “I hear you’ve decided on Columbia.”

  She nodded. “It’s a really good school,” she said, because it was true, though not even a fraction of the whole truth.

  “So’s UC Berkeley,” he pointed out, naming the college she’d originally planned to attend.

  She nodded again.

  “But California wasn’t far enough from Haven,” he guessed.

  “I just think it’s best, for everyone, if we put some distance between us,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Do you really believe that?” he challenged. “Because I can guarantee it’s not best for me, and I don’t think it’s what you want, either.”

  She’d known this wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t imagined it could be this hard. After everything they’d been through over the past few weeks, her heart should be numb. But it wasn’t—it was torn open and bleeding, and she knew that going away from here, away from Caleb, was the only way to make the hurting stop.

  She had to swallow before she could speak. “I’ve always wanted to get out of this town,” she told him, her voice breaking just a little. “And you’ve never wanted to be anywhere else.”

  “You didn’t always want to get out of this town,” he contradicted. “There was a time when you wanted to be my wife and help me build our home on the Circ
le G.”

  “That was before I knew that the idea of a Blake married to a Gilmore would give my grandfather a heart attack.”

  “Your grandfather is a grumpy old man whose heart is kicking along just fine with his new pacemaker. And you’re a Channing, not a Blake.”

  “My mother was a Blake,” she reminded him, as she retrieved a manila envelope from her saddlebag. “And her blood runs through my veins.”

  He had no choice but to take the envelope she thrust into his hands. “There’s nothing I can say that will change your mind, is there?”

  She shook her head. “This is a great opportunity for me.”

  “And when you’re finished with school—what will you do then?” he asked. “Will you come home?”

  She looked away. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he said, his tone resigned as he hoisted himself into the saddle again. “Good luck in New York, Brie.”

  Then he rode away, Indigo’s hooves trampling the already broken pieces of her heart.

  Copyright © 2019 by Brenda Harlen

  Astrophysicist Olivia Romano has never sought accolades for her work, content to stay close to her family in Brooklyn. Thrust into the spotlight after her latest project draws national attention, she’s on the verge of something incredible...

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Love and the Laws of Motion, a new contemporary romance from Amanda Weaver.

  Love and the Laws of Motion

  by Amanda Weaver

  There was only one thing about Brooklyn that Livie Romano didn’t love: there were never any stars out at night. Most of the time, when you looked up, you saw...nothing. Just a flat rust-colored glow as the streetlights reflected off the clouds. The light pollution was so powerful that it managed to blot out the entirety of the universe overhead, which was saying something.

  The first time she’d seen stars—actual stars, not the random sighting of Venus that managed to puncture New York’s omnipresent glow—she’d been six. Vacations had been nearly nonexistent when they were kids. There was always too much work at the family bar and too little money. But one year Uncle Vincent had rented a cabin upstate on Lake George and invited them up for the weekend. Her parents—that was back when her mother was still alive—had piled the kids into the family car and off they went.