by Maria Luis
She was crying.
Over him.
“I love you.” The words were torn from his soul, and even though he couldn’t quite see her—his vision was still so bleary—he heard her sharp intake of air. “I love you, Anna Bryce.”
“Wanna wait until the knife is out of your leg before you start confessing?” Brady asked, even as more people entered the kitchen. “EMS is here and they’re ready to make you feel pretty again.”
Luke choked on a laugh. “Fuck you, Brady.”
“We talking about Taylor’s fake snake again?” Danvers piped up, and then Ajax was groaning again. “Good swing, Anna. I think you’ve successfully managed to break his pelvic bone.”
“I was going for his dick.”
“With a baseball bat?” Danvers said, whistling low. “Remind me to never let you alone with Jade again. I have no intention of losing the goods, now or ever.”
Luke grasped Anna’s hand. “The kids are upstairs.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Brady said.
And then Luke was biting back a curse as his body was lifted onto a stretcher. But still, he needed to share what he’d learned. “He admitted to everything,” he ground out. “Grab my phone. Front pocket.”
“Looks like O’Connor wants to get in with the fake snake action.”
“Danvers, shut up.” Luke tried to lift his hand to reach into his pocket himself. “I recorded the whole conversation. Everything. He’s been feeding Mardeaux information about Anna for months now, all so that Mardeaux could blackmail her when the time was right.”
Ajax groaned again.
“Looks like you’ll be going to jail, buddy.” A hand clapped down on Luke’s shoulder, and then Brady added, “If you ever stop managing to get your leg trampled or stabbed, you’d probably do well on the NOPD.”
Luke grimaced. “That’s the plan.”
“Figured so.”
The stretcher jolted into motion, rolling out of the house and down the front lawn. He heard Julian’s voice in the night, calling his name, and then Brady telling the kid that Luke would be all right.
And then he blinked, and his vision cleared as if someone had snapped their fingers, and Anna’s beautiful face was there. Tears stained her cheeks as she glared at him, but then the ruse broke, and she threw her arms around his neck. He inhaled her perfume, the very scent of her.
“I’m okay, Blondie.”
Her hold tightened, even as a few of the EMS technicians tried to pull her off so they could boost him up into the ambulance. She didn’t let go.
“I love you,” she whispered into his ear. “I love you so much, Luke, and if you die, I’m going to personally make sure that I kill you all over again.”
His heart felt ready to burst. “Pretty sure that’s scientifically impossible, sweetheart.”
“If you’re in our career enough, you see some pretty strange stuff,” one of the technicians said. “People coming back to life is one of them.”
“I stand corrected.”
Anna ignored his teasing, choosing instead to cup his face. Luke stilled at her staid expression. “I love you,” she repeated, louder this time. “I don’t know if I’ve loved you since that first night at Tuck’s when you told me that you weren’t interested, but I definitely wanted to jump your bones that night.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Shut up, Danvers,” Anna said, but she did so with a grin and a light laugh. She turned back to Luke. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you’ve become my very best friend, Luke O’Connor. My best friend and my lover and the only man I want to spend the rest of my life with. Seeing you almost die”—she sucked down a moan, and his heart twisted at the sound—“I lost it. I lost it right then and there, and I will never stop fighting for you. You’ve fought alone for so long, but we’re a pack, Luke, we’re a pack, you, Julian, and me, and I will never let you forget it.”
“What am I, then? Yesterday’s chopped liver? Luke, I thought we had something going.”
“DANVERS!”
This time it came from both Anna and Luke, and Danvers doubled over in laughter. “God, it’s too easy.”
“I hate him,” Luke muttered.
“I love you, Lukey!”
“Someone, please take the knife out of my leg and put it straight through his heart.”
“Jade would be upset.”
“Someone has to make a sacrifice. She’s had you for almost a year.”
Chuckling, Danvers patted Luke’s good leg and moved off to the side, allowing Luke the chance to stare up at the woman with hair as soft as moonlight and eyes the color of the Mediterranean Sea. “I know what you were looking for that day, when we first ran into each other.”
Even in the dark, he saw her cheeks turn pink. “Yeah?”
“I sucked it up and asked my mother. Turns out that a lot of women in the area have heard a rumor that lavender promotes love, or the chance to fall in love, anyway.”
She bit her lip. “Um . . .”
“I’m here to tell you that it worked.”
“I never bought the oil.”
Luke reached for her hand, and pulled her close. Her lips closed over his, and he released a sigh. “It brought you to me, Blondie, and for that reason alone, it worked. It brought me my best friend, the one woman who never lets me back out of a dare, who refuses to accept nothing less than a man who loves her.”
She squeaked when he palmed her butt, and made a move to punch him in the arm before letting her hand fall to her side. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. But I’ve got something else to tell you.”
Her lips lifted in a hopeful smile. “Yeah?”
“You got your wish.”
She eyed his body, biting her lower lip seductively. “That I did, knife and all, Luke O’Connor.”
He chuckled. “Nah, sweetheart. It’s just that you’ve been looking for Mr. Right and never found him . . .”
“Because Mr. All Wrong was perfect for me, all he had to do was see that his Miss All Wrong was waiting for him.”
“Mrs.”
“What?”
“Just wanted to test it out,” Luke murmured, enjoying the way Anna’s eyes lit up. “Mr. and Mrs. All Wrong—has a good ring to it, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“Oh, my God, will someone tell them to kiss already?” someone shouted from the back. “We’ve been trying to be patient, but the man is bleeding and I’m missing my favorite TV show right now. Get on with it, already!”
Luke grinned. “Want to give them a show?”
Anna didn’t answer. She bent down, closed her lips over his, and reminded Luke that his life had come full circle.
A game of football had launched him out of the army, and into the arms of a woman who was both his downfall, his weakness, and also his biggest source of strength.
Hooah.
Epilogue
St Andrew’s Castle, along the eastern coast of Scotland
Five months later…
“Something slimy just slithered across my hand.”
“You gonna bail on me, Blondie?” Luke’s voice echoed in the narrow, dark tunnels beneath St. Andrew’s Castle. It’d started out as a joke—get Anna out of her stilettos and down into the winding tunnels beneath the medieval castle. It wasn’t funny, to her anyway. And as much as Anna usually loved to hear her boyfriend’s husky baritone, right now she was heavily considering barring him from their bedroom for at least the next two weeks.
Okay, probably only tonight.
All right, probably not at all.
“Oh, my God! Something just touched me.”
“That was my hand.” Blunt-tipped fingers patted her butt as she slowly made her way up the ladder to the next section of the tunnels. “See?”
“Luke, are you feeling up my mom right now?” Julian was up ahead of them both, his boots echoing off the metal rungs.
Her daredevil of a boyfriend chuckled softly, his hand firmly against her
butt as he kept her steady. “Not a chance, Jules,” he lied, squeezing her bottom, “your mom is definitely just scared of a few critters. Maybe some ghosties.”
“You think this place is haunted?” Julian’s voice pitched with excitement.
“Could be.” Luke’s fingers brushed the outside of her ankle, just above the ridge of her tennis shoe. The man could do nothing but touch her with one finger and she was ready. If the last few months had shown Anna anything, it was that she loved Luke with all of her heart. And she also liked it when her man got dirty. “Think about what the guide told us. Two opposing armies planning to each surprise the other by digging their way to the other side of the castle walls . . . and neither of them expecting to meet in these tunnels? Sounds like the perfect recipe for a haunting.”
“I wonder if they appear during the day. Hey, Mom,” Julian said, “you want to offer yourself as a sacrifice? Take one for the team?”
“You’re mistaken, Jules. Ghosts always go for the youngest in the bunch, which would be you.” As much as Anna loved it when her son and her boyfriend decided to join forces, she so wasn’t in the mood for it right now. Her shoulders scraped the walls of the tunnel. “Are we almost at the top?”
“Yeah, almost. Oh!”
Anna glanced up, her fingers flexing on the rungs, as she watched Julian heft himself out of the narrow space. There was barely any light, not enough to etch out her surroundings other than tight, enclosed spaces, but then her hands were resting on earthy, rocky terrain. Luke boosted her up, and she landed on hands and knees in the soil.
When she’d first mentioned wanting to go on an adventure across Europe, she hadn’t expected Luke to agree so readily. But like in every other aspect of their life since Anna had gone all Superwoman and picked up bat-swinging for a living, the man encouraging her never let her forget to live.
He spent weekends luring her into the world of Louisiana, bringing her fishing and down to the Cajun Riviera (in other words, a strip of beach along the Gulf of Mexico). After she spent long hours at the boutique, he enticed her with trips to the local frozen yogurt place, knowing that the dessert managed to make even her worst days better. Every night, he dared her to love him as they closed their bedroom door and he settled his hard body over hers, always promising that he would be the last man to mess up her pristine white sheets.
Mr. All Wrong felt suspiciously like Mr. Forever most days, and she knew Julian felt the same way about the man who’d one day become his stepfather.
But next month Luke started the New Orleans Police Academy, and so he was fulfilling yet another promise: taking her out of the country and showing her the world.
A large hand settled on her lower back as an equally big body kneeled beside hers. “You good, Blondie?”
“I’m out of breath.”
Luke laughed. “Didn’t I say that you should come running with me in the mornings? You know, I’m pretty sure I can recall saying just—”
Anna shut him up the only way she knew how, with a kiss that she stamped over his lips after she’d dragged his face down to meet hers. “What were you saying again?”
Though the tunnels had little light, she saw his lips turn up in a grin. “How amazing you are?”
“Y’all need to get a room,” Julian said from up ahead. “Remind me again why I’m on this vacation?”
“Because you love us.” Anna pushed herself to her feet. “And because I secretly love to torture you. Knowing that you can’t touch a video game for two weeks has officially become the highlight of my life.”
“Must be living a boring life,” Luke teased, as they followed Julian. The tunnels had opened up, but there was still the quiet ping-ping of water hitting puddles and their tennis shoes squishing against the wet soil. “Good thing I convinced you to come to Europe. Go on a little adventure with me.”
Every day with Luke O’Connor was an adventure, and Anna slipped her hand into his. “Name the day and time, babe, and you know I’m there. Always.”
“That’s good.”
She lifted a brow. “All you have to say?”
“Well, I have a lot to say, but we’ve got to . . . wait, hold on.” He released her hand, lengthening his stride to catch up with her son. “Jules, that good?”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
What in the world were they talking about?
Anna picked up her pace, careful to not sink her foot into a hidden puddle. They’d arrived at St. Andrew’s Castle so early in the morning that there hadn’t been another soul in sight, except for the guides. As she put one foot in front of the other now, she listened to the subtle sounds of the tunnel.
The whooshing of the ocean crashing against the steep cliffs. The plunk of a pebble falling into a pool of water. The pop of bones—wait, hold on. She’d recognize the sound of his hip popping anywhere. No matter how much physical therapy he’d done in the last few months, especially after being stabbed by the now-imprisoned Sumner Ajax, his hip remained a cacophony of noises.
“Luke?” she called out, hating that her voice wavered.
Pull yourself together, he’s fine.
Totally fine.
“Mom, don’t move.”
Anna froze, her heart rate picking up tempo as her fingers clutched at the hem of her sweatshirt. “What is it? Is it a rat?”
“No.” A flashlight flicked on, illuminating Julian’s features in a totally creepy way, and Anna clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a surprised yelp. “It’s a ghost,” he added, dropping his voice theatrically. “A clown.”
“Every word and you’re getting closer to spending time with Grandma Dorothy when we get back to New Orleans, Jules.”
Laughing at her empty threat, he rolled his eyes. Thanks to the flashlight, there was no mistaking the way he sucked in his breath and whispered, “I’m scared. Quick, Luke, save me!”
And then the flashlight’s aim changed, scanning across the tunnel’s walls before landing on Luke.
On his knee.
A velvet box in his right hand.
And a twinkling diamond ring seated in the center of the plush cushion.
“Oh.”
That was all she said. Oh. Like a total idiot—or perhaps just like a woman who had no idea what to say but yes, yes, yes when the questions hadn’t been asked yet.
Her gaze flitted to Julian, who had positioned himself against the wall of the tunnel, flashlight aimed to spotlight them, as he held his phone with the other hand. He must have caught her stare because he shrugged, and said, “Gotta capture it forever, Mom. You’re only going to be proposed to once.”
She nearly burst into tears right then and there, because Luke was perfect for their family. Julian loved Luke in a way that his affection for Brady and Shaelyn couldn’t even compare. It was in the way he rose early every morning to walk Sassy the Dane with Luke, no matter if it rained or was deathly hot outside. It was in the way that all Jules had to do was ask if Luke wanted to throw the football, and her sexy boyfriend was off the couch in a heartbeat, planting a kiss on her lips, and clapping his arm around the teenager’s shoulder. It was in the way that Julian liked to call the four of them “a pack,” with Sassy as the leader.
Anna didn’t know what she’d done in her life to earn Luke’s love, but she refused to ever let him go.
“Blondie.” Luke cleared his throat, and it was then that she saw the velvet box shook, ever so slightly. “The day I met you, I swore I’d throw you out of my mother’s shop for good.”
“Dude, Luke,” Julian whispered, “stick to the script.”
Green eyes glimmered with laughter as Luke met her gaze. “You both know I never like to stick to the script. Where was I again? Oh, yeah. I met you, Anna Blondie Bryce, and I swore right then and there that I’d never have anything to do with you again. Then I witnessed one of the worst dates to ever exist, and you were dead in the center of it all. And you dared me—you dared me, a man that can never turn down a dare, to find you the man of your
dreams. Who knew that man was sitting at the booth with you in that exact moment?”
“I did.”
“Jules,” Anna muttered out of the corner of her mouth, though she wasn’t upset at all. These were her two guys, her two favorite people. Unable to keep her hands to herself, she threaded her fingers through Luke’s messy brown hair. His eyes fluttered shut as he nuzzled her palm, and her heart caught in her throat.
Love.
This man never failed to show her each day how much he trusted her, how much he loved her.
“Keep going,” she whispered, “don’t stop.”
The grin he sent her was naughty and pure sex. “I know this tunnel is not your idea of fun, but I chose it for a reason. You crave adventure, you crave the unknown, just as much as you love the familiarity of our home. This tunnel has that, the unknown.”
The light flicked off, leaving them to the darkness. But as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she finally noticed that behind Julian was a hollowed-out hole in the wall, and it gave sight to the medieval castle ruins and the sapphire ocean beyond.
Anna swallowed. Her palm curved over Luke’s face, tracing the familiar lines of his nose and cheekbones, enjoying the way the shadows played on his masculine features. “And the familiar,” she said, completing his sentence. “I have you both.”
“You do, Blondie, always.” Luke stood, his hip pop-popping! as he rose to his feet. “Life is always filled with things we know, Anna, and things that we don’t. But I do know that I want to tackle everything with you by my side, now and forever.”
“Oh, Luke.” She gripped his hand, bringing his palm to her face so she could kiss the center of his calloused flesh. “I love you so much.”
“You stole the words right out of my mouth.” His lips curled in a small smile, even as his voice dropped to a husky purr. “I dare you to love me, Anna. I dare you to kiss me every day for the rest of your life. I dare you to put up with me when you’re PMSing and threatening to dismember me when you realize in two weeks that I’ve brought home another dog—”