Breaking Emily's Rules

by Heatherly Bell

  “Nope.”

  Rachel was right. It was okay to be a nice girl. And this nice girl loved Stone. Loved how he cared about her little town, even though he was leaving, cared about his father’s wishes and even cared for Winston. Mostly, she loved the way he looked out for her. He wanted to make sure she’d be okay when he was gone. But she had to stay in Fortune, and Stone had to go to Germany. End of sad story.

  She glanced up and her gaze slid to the customer who’d just walked in.

  Stone.

  He walked over to her and Rachel’s booth.

  He looked so good and so terrible all at the same time. His hair was mussed up, and he had what looked like several days of beard growth. Bags under those beautiful blue eyes. On the other hand, he wore low-slung jeans, a tool belt and a Henley shirt with the sleeves pushed up, showing off the cords of muscles in his arms. He looked like he’d just jumped off the pages of Home Depot magazine, Stud Edition. A magazine which existed, of course, only in her imagination.

  She went for stating the obvious. “You look tired.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping. I need to talk to you. If we could, uh, talk privately.”

  “Dude, I wouldn’t if I were you,” a young man in the booth next to them said. “Chick has a mean right hook.”

  Stone glared at him.

  The guy threw up his hands. “Just saying, man.”

  “Emily—” Stone said.

  “No! We already said goodbye, and I’m not going to say it twice.” Damn it, she was so not going through that again. She stood up and walked past Stone and out the café, but Stone followed.

  “You’re not getting away from me.”

  “What is it you want now, Stone Mcallister? A pint of my blood?”

  Another parking lot. Different location, same town. Morning now, instead of afternoon. And all she could hear right now was the sound of her own heartbeat thudding in her ears triple time.

  “I hurt you.”

  “Yes,” she breathed out. “You did.”

  “It’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  He looked at his hands “Damn. I’m no good at this.”

  “At what?”

  “Expressing my...feelings.” He said the last word like it was salt on his lips.

  But suddenly Emily considered that maybe this was about more than saying goodbye again.

  “Feelings is not a four-letter word.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “I asked you to forgive me for being an idiot. Now I want you to forgive me for something else.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. No paint chips today. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

  “True enough. This time I want you to forgive me for forgetting something. Something pretty big.”

  “You. Forgot something.” Strange. He never forgot anything.

  “I forgot to tell you that I love you.”

  “W-what?”

  He closed his eyes for a second, raked a hand through his hair and sighed deeply. “Here’s the thing. I’m not great with words, and you know that. Not good with the touchy-feely stuff. But I’m trying. How am I doing so far?”

  “Um, I’m sorry. Did you say you love me?”

  He cracked a smile and took her hand in his large one.

  “I didn’t think it would be this hard to go. When I first came here, Fortune felt like a place I would leave soon enough. I could just bide my time here. I’d go back home to the air force and whatever part of the world they’d send me next. But when I wasn’t looking, you became my home. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think I can ever get you out of my system.”

  “Really?”

  “As long as you’re with me, I already feel like I’m home no matter where I go.” That made her heart jump in her chest and her body and feet followed as she went into his arms.

  “I love you, too.”

  “You make me feel everything, even when I’m trying hard not to feel a thing. You woke me up.”

  “And you’re doing so good with the talking.” Emily buried her face in his neck. When she glanced up at him again, he was smiling widely, his rare double dimples showing. He didn’t smile like that nearly enough. Something she’d have to fix.

  “I don’t have all the answers yet. But I do know I want you with me wherever I go, whether it’s in Germany or right here in Fortune. Are you on board?”

  “I’m so on board with that, Sergeant Mcallister.” Then she kissed him in the parking lot of The Drip, simply because she was a woman in love.

  “That went well. I didn’t know I had so many sweet words in me.”

  “You have a lot more in there.” She pointed at his hard chest. “I’ll just have to slowly tease them out of you over the years.”

  “Sounds sexy.” He traced the curve of her jaw, and then her lips. Then he kissed her again, like there was no one else. Like they were the only two people in the world.

  Because in a way, at that moment they were.

  EPILOGUE

  Two months later

  “DON’T WORRY MR. EDISON, we’ll be there soon.” With two minutes left to her ETA, Emily went through her mental checklist as she prepared for landing, eyeing the county airport strip below her.

  Today the skyline was a heartbreaking rush of aqua blue on this beautiful May morning. She lowered the landing gear. Mr. Edison sat strapped in and rock still behind her as he’d been throughout the entire forty-minute flight, not making a sound or false move. She turned to briefly look over her shoulder and found puddles of drool gathering on his seat.

  “Uh-oh. My boyfriend won’t be too crazy about that, Mr. Edison. He’s pretty anal about his planes.”

  Mr. Edison didn’t care much, judging by his grim expression. Then again, the Rottweiler-Boxer mix had just been rescued by the San Martin Shelter and Pilots and Paws. His forever family would be waiting for him when they landed in Fortune. Maybe he was nervous, hoping for a good fit. That was the important thing, not whether or not he’d drooled a little bit.

  The Hughes family, she’d heard. They were coming from Palo Alto to pick up Mr. Edison. “Great name, by the way. I hope they don’t change it.” Emily landed, possibly her smoothest one to date. She taxied to the hangar named Mcallister’s Charters.

  Her heart swelled as it had every day, seeing Stone on the tarmac, waiting for her. It had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in her piloting ability, she understood, but only his protective instincts that sometimes worked overtime.

  Something she’d learned to live with.

  She wasn’t going to see Germany after all, at least not anytime soon. After much discussion, it had become obvious to both her and Stone that they both wanted to be closer to family. She to hers—Grammy and George, Dad, Molly, Dylan and Sierra—and Stone to his sister, Sarah, and his best friend, Matt.

  Stone and Sarah had reconciled and it was a sight to see. Emily had listened in on some of the talks about their father, and noticed Stone used telling stories about his father to ease some of his grief. He didn’t seem to be aware he was doing it, but every day his eyes were less edgy and strained.

  Or maybe that was love.

  Two months ago, he’d decided to separate from the air force and pulled out from the sale of Magnum Aviation. He’d started the flight charter business, too. It was an idea he said had been brewing the entire time he’d run Magnum. He’d seen a need and filled it. Now, the charter was available for skydiving trips, small vacation hops and pulling banners every now and then. Now Emily split her time between working for Fortune Family Ranch events and flying as a pilot for her boyfriend’s company.

  And spending long and warm nights with Stone, who had moved into her duplex. Even Pookie and Winston were get
ting along after the initial territorial bark-fests, and were learning how to coexist.

  It turned out that while searching for her past Emily had found her future.

  That future was with Stone. She felt sure of it, even if they’d never talked about making forever official and on paper. She, Emily Parker, self-confessed control freak, had learned to take life one day at a time. No more self-imposed rules, either for living as a wild woman or just plain-old Emily. That girl had wanted a man to provide safety and security. A solid and unshakable future, even if it lacked the passion she might have hoped for at one time.

  She no longer sought safety and security from a man. That she had found within herself. At long last.

  Emily took off her headset and leaned back to snap the leash on Mr. Edison, easing him out of the plane.

  Stone walked to meet the plane, took the leash from her and pulled Emily into his arms. “The family got caught in traffic on 101, but they’re on their way.”

  She lifted up to her tiptoes to brush a quick kiss on his lips. “Did you miss me?”

  As usual, he yanked her back to deepen the kiss. “Always.”

  Their private joke. Sometimes Emily would walk out of the room and back again two minutes later, asking Stone whether or not he’d missed her. The answer was always yes, even if it was occasionally accompanied by a quirked eyebrow and a sideways smirk.

  “I have some bad news,” she said as they walked hand in hand from the tarmac to the hangar. “We had another drooler.”

  She waited for the tension to hit Stone’s stride but it didn’t. He appeared to be slightly distracted which was unusual. Was his palm sweaty?

  He shook the bad news off. “Ah, it’s okay. It happens.”

  Something was off. Different. “It—happens? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He stopped walking, and drew her in for a long, deep sensual kiss.

  At their feet, Mr. Edison moaned.

  I hear ya, buddy.

  Stone broke the kiss and grinned. “Everything’s right. Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Everything in that kiss told her that nothing was wrong at all, in fact everything was damn near perfect. Just as it had been for the past two months. Almost too right, too good, and Emily kept wondering when she was going to see a side of Stone that she couldn’t live with.

  But so far she’d found that she could handle his minimalist approach to talking, as long as he continued to show her how he felt.

  He was ever so good about showing.

  She could also live with his anal attitudes about the planes. Doing the bookkeeping for his business made her hyperaware of the cost and upkeep of those planes and she had newfound sympathy.

  But if nothing was wrong, why was her former air force pilot–adrenaline junkie–cool-as-steel boyfriend’s hand sweaty?

  Stone opened the door to the hangar for her and she walked through it.

  Someone had decorated their office in airplane-and heart-shaped balloons. Red, white and blue confetti lay on every available flat space. Cutout cardboard cupids hung from the ceiling. But it was way past Valentine’s Day.

  The first two people she noticed were Grammy and George sitting nearby. Cassie and Jedd, still working for Magnum, were standing in the hallway of the hangar which led to their office. Molly and Dylan, Sierra on his shoulders, were to the right. Stone’s sister, Sarah, and their mother, who was visiting, were next to them. And to her left—Dad, sporting a wide grin.

  What was almost everyone she knew doing in Stone’s little chartered flights’ office?

  “I decorated,” Molly said. “Hope you like it.”

  “Are we having a party I don’t know about?” Emily asked.

  “I hope,” Stone’s deep voice came from behind her.

  She turned to see vulnerability in his blue eyes that she hadn’t ever seen there before. He didn’t say another word, but dropped to one knee.

  Emily’s heart hop-skipped into her throat.

  “Everyone is here today because I couldn’t do this without their support. Sorry, I’m a little nervous.”

  She put a hand over her mouth, and then lowered it. “You? Nervous?”

  “Yeah. Never thought I’d do this, but when it’s right, it’s right. I love you, Emily. Would you marry me?” He fished inside his pocket and drew out a beautiful solitaire diamond ring.

  Emily couldn’t breathe. Nearby, Molly squealed and so did Sierra, since she imitated everything Molly said and did these days.

  “Yes!” Emily said, tugging him back up to his feet.

  That brought on a whine from Mr. Edison, followed by another squeal in stereo sound from Molly and Sierra. Claps and shouts from everyone else.

  “Thank God!” Grammy said.

  As if there were any chance Emily would say no.

  Dad clapped a hand on Stone’s back. “Good on ya, son. Good on ya.”

  Emily went into Stone’s arms and, fingers running through his hair, kissed him with everything she had.

  Because he was everything to her, from the moment she’d discovered that sometimes the right man is the one you’d least expect.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this book, you’ll also love these Superromance stories with heroes and heroines who get an education in more than just love:

  TEMPTING THE SHERIFF by Kathy Altman,

  MOLLY’S MR. WRONG by Jeannie Watt and

  THROUGH A MAGNOLIA FILTER by Nan Dixon.

  And watch for Heatherly Bell’s second book

  in the Heroes of Fortune Valley,

  coming June 2017!

  All available at Harlequin.com.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE SEAL’S RETURN by Patricia Potter.

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  The SEAL’s Return

  by Patricia Potter

  PROLOGUE

  Nigeria

  JUBAL PIERCE KNEW he probably wouldn’t live to see the next dawn. It wasn’t that he had seen many dawns in...what was it? One year, two years? Maybe longer since he’d been taken prisoner by a band of terrorist rebels?

  He knew his time was limited because his most frequent guard had brought him something more than a small dish of insect-filled rice.

  “Gift,” the tall, thin figure said in the limited English he’d picked up while guarding Jubal.

  Jub
al grabbed the bowl with his chained hands. The usual rice, but this time there was also some kind of meat. There was no spoon. He was expected to eat with his fingers. He was allowed nothing that could be turned into a weapon. His sole possessions were the filthy pants and remnants of a shirt he was captured in.

  “Why a gift?” he asked, using his hands to help the guard understand.

  The man simply shrugged.

  Jubal bowed his head in thanks. The guard left, closing the door to the tiny windowless hut that was home. There were enough cracks that he could hear activity outside. Excited chatter. A lot of movement.

  Jubal ate the food, licked the sides of the tin bowl, then struggled to get to his feet and walked the length of the chain attached to the wall. He was so damn weak from lack of food. He figured he had lost nearly half of his two hundred and thirty pounds. With pure strength of will, he finally stood and peered through a crack.

  His eyes slowly adjusted to daylight. Most of the fifty-some members of this particular group were scurrying around like ants. Tents were being loaded in an ancient truck. Three men, including his keeper, gestured wildly.

  They were leaving. Something had happened and it didn’t bode well for him. The terrorists didn’t know who he was. If they did, Jubal knew he would be dead. All they knew—or thought they knew—was that he was a doctor.

  His SEAL team had been sent to rescue a medical unit caught between warring tribes in Nigeria. They were too late. The medical civilians and their patients had been killed, and enemy soldiers were waiting for them.

  His fellow team members had been killed as well, and Jubal was badly wounded. But so was one of the rebel leaders. When Jubal claimed to be a doctor instead of a soldier, he was tasked with saving the life of the wounded leader. He had enough medic training to stop the bleeding and was taken along to care for the leader.

  When the man recovered, Jubal was kept prisoner to provide care for others in the tribe. After several escape attempts, he was kept chained.

  Jubal was quite sure that he, like his teammates, was believed dead. There had undoubtedly been a search, but the clinic had been burned with the bodies of his team and medical unit members inside. All identifying objects had been stolen as souvenirs.