by J. R. Ward
“Carter….” he began. But then he pulled back. “Wait. This isn’t right.”
Her heart lurched.
“Get out of the car,” he commanded, wrenching open his door.
Confused and more than a little curious, Carter did the same.
They came together in front of the Porsche and she watched in shock as he got down on one knee.
“Oh my God,” she said breathlessly.
There was only one reason a man got down into that position, she thought with a jolt. And it sure as hell wasn’t to shine her shoes.
“Carter—” Nick paused, his eyes shining up at her. There was amusement in them and far more solemn, warm emotions. “What’s your middle name?”
“Middle name?”
“You know, the extra one between your first and last,” he chided gently.
“Carter is my middle name. My first name is Cordelia.”
He cleared his throat.
“Cordelia Carter Wessex, I love you. I want to build a life with you. I want you to be my partner and the one who challenges me and the one who sleeps by my side. I want you to hold and care for and live with. Will you be my wife?”
With her heart pounding, she choked out a yes as she bent down and put her lips against his. “Yes, yes, yes…”
Still on his knees, Nick embraced her around the waist. They held on to each other for a long time until she felt him laugh. As he looked up at her, she ran her hand through his thick, dark hair.
“What?” she inquired gently.
“Do you realize I’ve been trying to ask you to marry me for about a day now?”
“You have?” She laughed with astonishment.
“I gave it a shot in the car on the way home yesterday but you slept through it. I was going to ask you this morning in bed but Buddy interrupted. I was completely prepared heading into the shower but we got…distracted. Then I was going to get you on the sailboat but with the gold and the journal…”
Carter grinned as Nick got up. He pulled her to him and took her lips in a searing kiss. When they parted, his hand disappeared into his pocket and he took out a small leather box.
“I understand it’s customary to give a ring.” He turned the box to face her and opened the lid.
Carter gasped at the diamond. With rainbow flashes, it twinkled in the sunlight.
As she looked at the ring, she tried to comprehend her luck and good fortune. She’d come to Farrell Mountain to solve a mystery and had found so much more than she could ever have imagined.
She met Nick’s eyes. “It is utterly beautiful.”
“It was my grandmother’s. She was a lot like you. Fiery, independent, smart. And before you turn it down because you spend your days digging in the dirt, you should know that this ring survived fifty years of aggressive gardening and held up just fine. I’d like it to be yours. And I think she’d have approved as well.”
Carter smiled and put out her hand. She felt the weight of the stone settle on her third finger. It fit perfectly.
Nick tenderly brushed her cheek and then kissed her, his lips soft and lingering against hers.
Suddenly, a rumble sounded through the valley, starting low at first and then growing in urgency. They parted and looked to the noise, watching as an eighteen-wheeler came barreling down the highway. As the truck approached, the driver released his air horn, pumping a high, roaring whistle at them. Carter and Nick laughed and waved as the man gave them a thumbs-up while going by.
Their laughter took on a bewildered tone when they saw what was on the side of the truck.
In wide, bold script, the lettering said, Red Hawk Freightlines.
And then the picture of an enormous red-tailed hawk, soaring with wings outstretched, streaked by them.
Read on for a sneak peek of
another contemporary romance by
New York Times bestselling author
J. R. Ward writing as Jessica Bird
LEAPING HEARTS
Available from Signet.
FROM THE fringes of the crowd, Devlin McCloud watched the scene unravel with cynical eyes. He’d known exactly when the horse was going to bolt. The stallion’s massive haunches had tensed hard before the animal sprang forward and he picked the perfect time to make his move. At that exact moment, the groom holding the lead had let his attention lapse, looking in the opposite direction and laughing at someone behind him. Like a flash, the horse took off and, courtesy of his distraction, the young hand had been dragged through the dirt and almost trampled. By the time the kid let go of the lead, he looked like a breaded cutlet.
All around, people started scrambling to get out of the way, but Devlin, with his bad leg, wasn’t able to move as fast as the rest of the crowd. Relying on his cane, he made his way to the edge of the ring in the awkward gait he despised, all the while keeping his eye on the horse.
He didn’t stare just because he wanted to avoid getting run over. He was captivated. The stallion moved with a grace and force Devlin hadn’t seen in a long time. It reminded him of—
He blocked the thought of Mercy. It had been almost a year since the accident, nearly a year since he’d had to put her down, but the pain was still unbearable. Once more, he wondered how long it was going to take to get over his grief, and feared the ache in his chest, like the one in his leg, was never going to go away.
When he finally reached the rail, he ducked out of the ring and then watched as order disintegrated. The crowd was still milling about like lemmings looking for water and he watched with amusement as several men tried to corral the horse.
The stallion’s too smart for that trick, he thought, not at all surprised when the animal bolted at the men.
Devlin shook his head.
If someone could get a handle on that horse and channel all that energy, they’d have a hot ticket on their hands, he decided. It’d be like harnessing nuclear fission but the potential locked in the beast might just make the risk of getting burned worth it.
The stallion flashed by him, head held high, tail cocked and billowing in his wake.
Devlin thought about the horse’s new owners. He hoped Sutherland Stables knew what they’d signed on for but doubted they were up to the task. The stable had a lot of money, great-looking tack and a swimming pool to play in, but he knew more about their toys than their feats of training. He had a feeling the stallion was going to put them to the test.
With an echo of remembered passion for his career, he thought how much he wished he could tackle the beast. As envy burned in his veins, he looked down at his leg with disgust. He was used to being in the ring, not at ringside. The distance between the two was vast and, after a year, he was still an uneasy traveler of the stretch of emptiness that separated where he’d been and where he was.
His gaze shifted back to the chaos and then sharpened as he watched a young woman step into the ring and approach the horse. She was tall and thin but her body was strong and he forgot all about the stallion. He couldn’t see her face so he moved to try to get a better look. He wondered who she was. A groom? One of the auction’s hands? He knew if he’d seen her before, he’d remember. There was something about the way she moved that was unforgettable.
Devlin watched as she walked toward the stallion with confidence, her hips swaying, her long legs carrying her across the ring. He felt like he’d been kneed in the gut as a strange ache settled into his body. He couldn’t look away from the woman and his hand gripped his cane as she stopped in front of the stallion. Unlike the stable hand, her focus on the animal was unwavering and she was calm as she put her hands in her pockets.
Atta girl, Devlin thought with approval. Nice and slow. No big movements.
He watched the horse and the woman size each other up. The contrast between the two was striking. The animal, dark and fierce. The woman, slender and steady. Still, as she talked to the great black beast, it was immediately apparent there was something special happening between them. And then the stallion blew off her h
at, clearly fishing for some sort of reaction, and, when he got none, dropped his head. It wasn’t a surrender, more like an accommodation that was freely revocable. The instant her hand took the lead, Devlin, like the rest of the crowd, let out a sigh of relief.
He was really impressed. Like all daredevil feats, it had taken courage and stupidity for her to get that close to the stallion. Granted, she’d been smart in the way she did it, showing the kind of sense a person gets only after they spend a lifetime around unpredictable animals. The danger had been there all along, however, and Devlin was glad she hadn’t been hurt.
And then the real miracle happened.
The stallion let her lead him. Feigning boredom, so he didn’t appear to be giving in, the giant horse had let her take him from the ring. It was a small pledge of trust.
As the crowd dispersed, Devlin limped out to the center of the ring. Bending down, he picked up the woman’s hat. The stately logo of Sutherland Stables, two Ss intertwined with ivy, was embroidered on the front.
He went in search of the woman.
* * *
“I’m not going to let you bring him back to the stables,” Peter was saying to A.J. as they stood in front of the stallion’s stall.
While her stepbrother continued yelling at her, she was absorbed by Sabbath, who had his head out in the aisle. The stallion seemed to be regarding Peter with the same level of interest she was. Which wasn’t much.
“For heaven’s sake,” she finally broke in. “Sabbath is coming home and everything is going to be fine as soon as you drop this nonsense and get out of my way.”
“That horse is not boarding at the stables.”
“What are you suggesting—I bring him to the house? Your mother will hate the hoofprints all over those Persian carpets she insisted on buying. And besides, I don’t think they make an equine equivalent of a doggie door.”
She and Peter had been back living at her father’s mansion since they’d both graduated from college. It created an awkward situation because of the strain between them but the location was conveniently close to the stables for her and luxurious enough to satisfy Peter. She knew her father wanted them home but his second wife was less magnanimous. Regina Conrad, Peter’s mother and Garrett Sutherland’s wife for the past eighteen years, always wanted her son close by but was less than enthusiastic about A.J.’s presence in the elegant home.
Peter pushed his chin forward. “I’m not going to argue about this. I warned you not to buy him. I’ve tried to be reasonable with you but, as usual, I’m getting nowhere.”
A.J. was beginning to lose composure as frustration got the better of her. Struggling not to lose her temper, she brought a hand to her throat where a diamond solitaire dangled from a slender chain. It was the one thing she had of her own mother’s, and as she rubbed the glittering stone between her thumb and forefinger, she tried to calm down.
“Peter, trust me. I can turn him around. I’m going to work with him, one-on-one.”
“Not if I refuse to pay for him, you won’t.”
She turned her focus on Peter. “You can’t be serious.”
“One phone call to the office here and you’re off the charge account.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Try me.”
“Well, then I’ll just write a check from my personal account.”
Peter paused, weighing his next move. “Your father isn’t going to let you ride that stallion.”
“He never interferes with my training.”
“I’ll bet that changes when I tell him all about your little friend’s reputation for throwing riders. Not to mention his skills at crowd control.”
“Look, you don’t have to blow this out of proportion.” A.J. let the stone fall back against the skin of her throat. “He’ll be one horse out of fifty at the stables. You’ll barely know he’s there.”
“It’s not the ratio that bothers me. This animal is malevolent and dangerous. I don’t want a mass exodus out of the barns. I have to protect my business.”
“Let me remind you: Sutherland Stables is half mine.”
“You do the riding part. I handle the business. And that’s thirty thousand dollars of money I’m in charge of that you just threw out a window.”
“In stud fees alone, this stallion will make thirty grand look like couch change.”
“For what? The dubious pleasure of his company? I doubt it.”
“When he’s a champion, you can bet he’ll be profitable.”
“You don’t know if that horse can compete in anything other than a bowling tournament. Knocking down people seems to be his forte, not jumping fences.”
“He’s been shown before.”
“Only to be a horror in the ring. That’s hardly a recommendation for a stud.”
“It’s in him.”
“She’s right.”
A J. turned to see who had agreed with her and found herself looking at a legend.
Her breath caught in her throat as her body temperature soared. With her cap in one hand, Devlin McCloud was standing close enough for her to see the flecks of green in his hazel eyes. Her heart started to pound as she responded to an electric current that flared when they looked at each other.
Although she knew his face well from all the press he’d received throughout his career, it was the first time she’d ever been up close to the man, and she was stunned. If the champion was devastatingly handsome staring out of the cover of a magazine, he was downright mesmerizing in person. Her body began to tingle.
My God, he’s beautiful, she thought.
The man was just over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, strong arms and a stance that was tough and confident. He looked out on the world from a pair of deep-set, highly intelligent eyes which were at the moment trained on her like searchlights. His hair was dark and brushed off his forehead, thanks to a cowlick that was in just the right place, and his skin was tanned from time in the sun. Unlike Peter, he was dressed as she was, in blue jeans and a work shirt, but with the command he held himself, he could have been wearing a dishrag and he’d have looked like he owned the place.
It really was the Devlin McCloud.
There were few in the equestrian world who didn’t know him. He was a maverick, a national sports presence, the former captain of the Olympic Equestrian Team, a multiple gold medal winner and one of the best show jumpers the country had ever produced. And if he hadn’t been known because of his accomplishments, his tragedy would have sealed the buzz on him. A.J.’s eyes flickered over his legs and she saw his flash of annoyance as he caught the glance.
“I believe this is yours.” He held out her cap.
His voice was deep and sensuous and had a kind of gravel in it that reverberated through her ears and down into her spine. Although he’d been interviewed on national TV and radio numerous times, it was the first time she’d heard him speak live. Even though she knew so much about him, and his private stable was not far from the Sutherland compound, she’d never spoken with him before. That wasn’t unusual. The man let few people get near him.
Aware she was staring, A.J. took the hat and confronted Peter. “You see? If anyone is likely to know a champion, it’s him.”
“I didn’t say he was going to be a champion.”
She turned back around in surprise. “But you agreed with me.”
“I think he’s got jumping in his blood. Being a champion is something else entirely.”
That voice of his sounded delicious and she found herself preoccupied with the way his lips moved over the words. They were perfectly molded lips, she decided, the lower one more full, the upper curling over straight white teeth. She struggled to keep her train of thought.
Read on for a sneak peek of
New York Times bestselling author
J. R. Ward’s Novel of the Fallen Angels
ENVY
Available from Signet.
TWO HOUSES down from Detective Thomas DelVecchio’s, Internal Affairs Off
icer Sophia Reilly was behind the wheel of her unmarked and partially blinded.
“By all that is holy…” She rubbed her eyes. “Do you not believe in curtains?”
As she prayed for the image of a spectacularly naked colleague to fade from her retinas, she seriously rethought her decision to do the stakeout herself. She was exhausted, for one thing—or had been before she’d seen just about everything Veck had to offer.
Take out the just.
One bene was that she was really frickin’ awake now, thank you very much—she might as well have licked two fingers and shoved them into a socket: a full-frontal like that was enough to give her the perm she’d wanted back when she was thirteen.
Muttering to herself, she dropped her hands into her lap again. And gee whiz, as she stared at the dash, all she saw…was everything she’d seen.
Yeah, wow, on some men, no clothes was so much more than just naked.
And to think she’d almost missed the show. She’d parked her sedan and just called in her position when the upstairs lights had gone on and she had gotten a gander at the vista of a bedroom. Easing back into her seat, it hadn’t dawned on her exactly where the unobstructed view was going to take them both—she’d just been interested that it appeared to be nothing but a bald lightbulb on the ceiling of what had to be the master suite.
Then again, bachelor pad decorating tended to be either storage-unit crammed or Death Valley–barren.
Veck’s was obviously the Death Valley variety.
Except suddenly she hadn’t been thinking about interior decorating, because her suspect had stepped into the bathroom and flipped the switch.
Hellllllllo, big boy.
In too many ways to count.
“Stop thinking about it…stop thinking about—”
Closing her eyes again didn’t help: If she’d reluctantly noticed before how well he filled out his clothes, now she knew exactly why. He was heavily muscled, and given that he didn’t have any hair on his chest, there was nothing to obscure those hard pecs and that six-pack and the carved ridges that went over his hips.