“Of course not.” He chuckled. “You know I love seeing you make a piglet of yourself with these ribs.” He opened a second container. “I even got extra sauce for you.”
She stared, glassy eyed at the container filled with the rich, red-brown sauce. “I adore you.”
He answered with another kiss.
She blinked when he stepped away. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“You gave me another chance, Babe. That’s all I needed from you.” He grinned and sat across from her at the small table, flanked by two red tapers burning in her mom’s Christmas candle holders. “Dig in.”
Nobody had to tell Niki twice to tear into one of her favorite foods. Ten minutes later, he stood and approached her side of the table, a self-satisfied grin stretched across his face. She eyed him suspiciously. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, about two sixty-five, but I’m all muscle.”
She laughed at his answer, knowing darn well it was true. “Seriously, what do you have up your slee—” The sight of him taking a knee in front of her cut off the rest of her question. No. Freaking. Way.
He reached for something in his bulging shirt pocket. “Not quite up my sleeve, as you can see.” He pulled out a black velvet box but didn’t open it yet. “Nicole Elise Reeves … from the moment you entered my life, I haven’t been the same. I didn’t notice it at first, but you started to change me from that very first night we were together—transforming me into someone who could never again be satisfied with any other woman. I hate to admit it but it scared the living hell out of me and I ran.”
He dipped his head momentarily before looking up at her again. “Eventually, I realized I couldn’t outrun the feeling, so I stopped. At some point, I started running toward it. You make me a better man, Nik and I am undeniably, head over boots in love with you. I’d planned at first to do this at my folks place during Christmas dinner. Then I got to thinking it wouldn’t be fair to put you on the spot like that. At least here, with just you and me, you have a chance to say no without being embarrassed.”
Niki took a breath and held it as he finally opened the box, revealing a gorgeous square-cut diamond solitaire.
“Would you please agree to be my wife, Nicole?”
Niki’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God! Are you kidding me?”
“No. Is that an answer?”
“Yes! Of course. Of course I will!” Her left hand shook as he slipped the ring on her finger. She stared at it for several seconds before launching herself at him. Somehow, Tex managed to maintain his balance—kept them both from ending up in a heap on the floor. “I love you, Tex, I love you so much.”
He hugged her tight, touched his forehead to hers. “I love you, Nicole. Now hold still for a second.” He pulled out his phone and snapped a quick selfie of them.
Niki burst into laughter when she realized her mouth and face were smeared with sauce from the messy ribs. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“You bet your ass I did. That one’s for me.” He reached for a napkin from the table and gently wiped the sauce from her face before snapping a second photo of them. “That one is for the rest of the world.”
“I adore you.” She kissed each of his eyelids, loving her big, strong, thoughtful Texas Marine.
“Good to know, but this isn’t quite over with.”
“What do you mean?” She rose to her feet and planted a hand over her heart. “I don’t know if I can take much more.”
“You’ll love it … trust me.” He straightened, draped a heavy quilt over her shoulders before leading her outside to the deck. He grabbed a power strip and pointed to a clearing just north of the cabin. “Watch that spot.” He flipped the rocker switch to the on position and a large sign lit up with the words “SHE SAID YES!”
Niki laughed aloud as he took several snapshots of both her and the sign. “Who the heck is that for?”
His mouth twisted in that one-sided grin that told her to expect the unexpected. “You’ll see.” He looked to the north without another word.
“See what?”
“Wait for it, baby—just wait for it.”
She looked to the northern sky and waited in silence. It took several more seconds for an explosion to echo through the cold, quiet December air of the Texas hill country. A split second after that, the northern sky lit up with a fabulous display of crackling fireworks. Open mouthed and still in shock from the extent of planning all this must have taken, she turned to him. “I can’t believe you did all this.” She stared, amazed at the display. “Who’s on the other end of those fireworks?”
“That would be a few of the ranch hands. They were more than happy to be a part of this.” Tex took several more pictures of her, and then the two of them with the fireworks as a backdrop before putting his phone away. He slipped his arms around her, brushed his mouth against her ear. “You see those fireworks?” he said. “That’s how I feel about you. I can promise I’ll try my best to keep those fireworks in our marriage. I’ll be here for you, baby. No matter what.” He reached for a length of red tinsel looped over the deck rail.
Niki watched as he wrapped her mom’s tinsel around them, binding them at their waists, finishing it off by draping it around their shoulders. “Tacky red tinsel and all?” she said, knowing he’d added this extra step for her—a symbolic gesture in honor of her mother, a woman he’d never had the honor of meeting.
He nodded. “I love you, Nik. Tinsel and all.”
~ The End ~
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~The 13 Authors of Romancing the Holidays~
BOOK 11
A Marine’s Christmas Wedding
A Grayce Walters Series Holiday Wedding Novella
By
Jacki Delecki
Their pretend marriage—cover for a top-secret military assignment—turned into something real.
Maddy and Hunter have completed their assignment, but neither wants their roles as husband and wife to end. They’re ready to exchange vows, but their plans for a quickie ceremony at the courthouse unravel when Grayce Walters and company decide the two Marines deserve a real wedding.
Overwhelmed by the generous attention of her new circle of family and friends, loner Maddy realizes falling in love with Hunter comes with big changes. Worried that the next assignment might separate him from the woman he can’t live without, Hunter struggles not to ruin his fiancée’s pleasure at getting her dream wedding.
But it’s Christmas—the season of miracles. Tough-as-nails Major Hunter Hines and fiercely independent Second Lieutenant Maddy Jeffers will soon discover Christmas wishes can come true.
Copyright © 2017 by Jacki Delecki
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, locales, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
First Print Edition
Published by Doe Bay Publishing, Seattle, Washington.
Published in the United States of America.
Prologue
Marine Second Lieutenant Maddy Jeffers rattled off a quick debriefing to the FBI agent, foot tapping impatiently. She and her undercover partner, Major Hunter Hines, had tracked an ISIS tech cell to a basement i
n an apartment complex in South Seattle, but she was still amped up. She didn’t know if it was adrenaline or concern for her fellow Marine.
In the takedown of the three men, Hunter was struck on the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. She was anxious to have her partner evaluated. Of course, the giant macho man was going to deny that he needed any help—Marines never complained. And Hunter was Semper Fi through and through.
The agent walked past her to the FBI van. “Good work, Jeffers. Get Hines some medical care.”
“My next priority, sir.” Maddy pulled herself up to her full height of five feet, tucked her chin, and turned to her partner. Getting Hunter to accept medical care was going to be as hard as passing the exam for her green belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.
Hunter’s face was pale, and his pupils looked equal, but he was good at masking his pain.
“Go sit down and be evaluated before you fall.” Maddy tried to give him a badass stare, but she realized it wasn’t working when he grinned back at her. “If you don’t sit down, I’ll call an ambulance and make a very big deal about your head injury.”
“If I sit down, will you promise to take me home? No hospital.”
“Only if you tell me the truth about when you realized you loved me.” Maddy grinned back.
“What?”
“You heard me. When did you know?”
Hunter rolled his eyes upward. “You want to talk about that now? We just did some intense crazy shit.”
She ran her hand along his smooth, bulging bicep. “Yes. While I have you in my power.” After the terrible day of battling heavily armed fanatics, all she wanted to do was take him home. And for the first time in her life, she could admit that she needed another person’s comfort, a man’s comfort. Not any man. Hunter.
He stepped closer, crowding her. “How unfair to take advantage of an injured man, but damn sexy. I knew I was in trouble the day you sashayed in wearing that tight little black dress for our next assignment at the FBI office.”
“I never sashay. And that isn’t what I asked you. And you know it.”
“Honey, it’s difficult for a man—”
“Hunter.” Maddy stared into his eyes, pouring all the love she felt into her gaze. Today had been downright scary.
“You’re a hard woman, Maddy Jeffers. You’re going to be shocked.” He rubbed his big hand along his sexy day’s growth of beard. “I knew that I was under your spell and always would be when I bought the wedding rings for our assignment. Instead of buying you a matching gold ring, I spent an hour searching for the right opal to match your sparkling eyes.”
Maddy gazed down on her engagement ring. “I love my ring. It really frightened me that you had picked the perfect ring. And when you placed the ring on my finger, I wanted it to be real not for our job.” She stepped closer and soothed her hands along his t-shirt, needing to feel his heat and his steady heartbeat. “I love you, Hunter. Like my opal, you are perfect for me.”
She gave him a brief tender kiss then pointed toward the open FBI van with the waiting medic. “Now, go sit down.”
The usually scowling Hunter gave her the sweetest, most besotted look. “I like a take-charge woman.”
Maddy didn’t believe his nonchalant act for a minute. For Hunter to forego control, he must really be hurting.
Maddy watched as they put the prisoners in the unmarked van and drove away. The FBI had taken over the investigation, and their cyber team would spend hours in the basement apartment filled with computers the terrorists had used to recruit new members on social media.
Hunter and Maddy had done their part as an undercover husband-wife team. Their jobs were over except for the endless reports.
Hunter sat on the back of the van and allowed the FBI medic to assess him. Looking tired and rumpled, her protector and dragon slayer had a few raw wounds. But she would make it up to him.
She had lots of feelings stored up, ready to spend on loving Hunter when they got home.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought of home. At age fourteen, she’d lost all sense of home when her parents were killed in a car accident. She was impatient to take Hunter home. Not just a temporary stop, but home.
She waited until the medic gave her a thumbs-up before she did her own assessment. Standing on tiptoe to reach his injury, she felt for the contusion on the back of his head. It was already egg-sized and swelling. “How is your headache?”
“Not bad.”
“That bad, huh? We’ve got to get ice on that knot to bring the swelling down and get you a CT scan. I know you lied to the medic, but are your symptoms Grade 2 or 3?”
“All of the above, but I’m not going to the hospital. I know exactly what I need, and it isn’t a CT scan.”
“What if you’re bleeding internally? Intracranial hematomas can be deadly.”
“Trust me. I’m not.”
“And how would you know?” She put her hands on her hips. “Are you having memory problems?”
“No. I remember exactly what you looked like when you screamed my name last night.”
Maddy felt heat burning the tops of her ears.
“And the way you—” he continued.
Maddy put her hand over his mouth, looking around. He licked her palm. She pulled her hand back.
“Okay, obviously your headache isn’t that bad.” She took his arm and tried to help him out of the van. “We’ll decide later if you need a CT scan.”
He stood and leaned down near her ear. His hot breath whispered across her face. “Later sounds perfect.”
“Stop it. Seriously, Hunter, what do you need? Don’t be all macho and on the make. They bashed you on the head.”
“I need you, Tylenol, and ice. In that order. Take me home, Maddy.”
“Home?”
“I would like to lie down.” Hunter gave a pretend leer, waggling his eyebrows.
“For a man who suffered a major blow to his head, you’re sure acting energetic.”
“Come on, Maddy. You know I’m fine. All they’d do at the hospital is observe me. You can watch me instead. Take me home.”
Suddenly, it really hit her that their assignment was over. “We’re finished. We don’t have a home any longer. At least, not in any real sense of the word.”
“Yeah, we do.” Not caring whether anyone was watching, Hunter pulled her into his arms. “Wherever you are is home for me.”
“But—”
“We’ll find us a real home and be a real husband and wife.”
Chapter One
Two weeks later
Maddy crossed her legs on the low leather couch and tried to inconspicuously tug her tight, short dress, the only dress she owned, down over her thighs.
Never a guest of honor before, she was more at ease in a hellhole in Afghanistan than in this shining steel-and-glass penthouse, with its fifteen-foot Christmas tree, bouquets of red roses, holiday greens, and burning bayberry candles.
Angie, Hunter’s sister as well as her best friend, didn’t seem overly impressed with the lavish setting, but Maddy had to work not to gawk at the floor-to-ceiling view of Puget Sound and the enormous Christmas tree flocked in silver with poinsettia flowers tucked in amid silver and red balls.
Angie and James, the host of the girls’ only engagement party, were busy in the restaurant-sized stainless steel kitchen, which opened to the living room. A fire, smelling of cedar and pine, crackled in the room’s enormous fireplace. From the way Angie giggled and smacked James on the shoulder, she had become closer to the man during the months Maddy was away, working undercover in an ecoterrorist cell.
If she pretended she was back undercover, she might be able to pull off being the guest of honor at tonight’s party and appear gracious and grateful, which she was in spades, instead of what she really felt—awkward and nervous.
Angie emerged from the kitchen carrying a silver tray and crystal wine glasses. James, dressed in a red shirt and black leather pants, follow
ed with a bottle of sparkling champagne. He poured the pale liquid into each flute and added a raspberry from the bowl on Angie’s tray to each glass before he passed them to his guests.
A black-clad young woman walking behind James and Angie carried a tray of unrecognizable finger foods. She offered Maddy a melty treat. “Goat cheese and roasted pepper.”
“We’ll start the party since Aunt Aideen will arrive later. She’s attending a holiday luncheon for one of her charities.” James took the tray from the caterer and offered them around, pausing in front of a petite woman. “Which charity is Aunt Aideen supporting today?”
“Treehouse Services. The program that supports children in foster care.” Dr. Grayce Walters, a well-known Seattle veterinarian, sat across from Maddy.
The tops of Maddy’s ear burned. Everyone in the room had learned about her past life in foster care and then on the streets with her drug-dealing boyfriend when Angie had thought her missing and enlisted their help in searching for Maddy.
Hollie, Dr. Walter’s assistant, seated next to Maddy on the long couch, scooted closer. “You know I met Doc Walters at Teen Feed, right?” A gamer and Goth, the young woman had holly leaves and berries intertwined with the twisted knot of thick, black hair at the back of her neck.
Maddy tried to mask her shock by taking a sip of her champagne. “You volunteered there?”
Hollie laughed. Her crimson lips matched the bobbing berries. “Do I look as if I volunteered there?”
Maddy took in Hollie’s vintage black lace dress, black tie-up boots, ink on both arms, and short red gloves.
“Doc hired me right out of the program. She and her mother volunteer there. They’ve given a lot of money in honor of the doc’s sister. They try to help street kids like us.”
Maddy bent down to snag a napkin from the coffee table, away from Hollie’s scrutiny. Although she had been a kid on the street running from an abusive foster home, she didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t take care of herself or needed charity. She had taken control of her life when she’d joined the Marines. Hunter understood how becoming a Marine had turned her life around.
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