Melissa Cutler - Cowboy Justice

“I’m five steps away from meeting your parents for the first time. Do you really think it’s the best idea to discuss our future out here in front of their house?”

He shrugged. “That wasn’t part of my plan, but you seem concerned.”

Rachel strode toward the front door. “I don’t know if concerned is the right word, but I do think we should have our story straight before we have a casual chat about marriage and kids with your parents.”

“That’s a great point.”

When she reached the door, she whipped around to face him. “You’re acting strange.” The top box, filled with chocolate-covered strawberries, toppled off the tower. Vaughn dove for it.

Pushing up to his knees, he handed it to her.

“Nice catch.” She tucked it back inside the ribbon and leveled a worried gaze at him. Now that he’d mentioned it, she realized she didn’t know his take on marriage and kids. The past couple weeks, she’d been too wrapped up with being in love to think about the long-term details. “We are going to get married and have kids, right? I mean, you know, when you’re ready?”

The front door opened to reveal a short woman with curly black hair and a welcoming smile. She shared Vaughn’s nose and chin.

Rachel swallowed and her heart rate sped up. “Hello, Mrs. Cooper.”

“Hey, Ma,” Vaughn said, still kneeling. “We brought you a fruit tower. Would you take it from Rachel?”

Rachel made to move past him but Vaughn grabbed hold of her hand. “You stay right there. Ma, the fruit tower, please?”

“Oh.” She shuffled around Vaughn and eased the boxes from Rachel’s hands. “Goodness me. You remembered I wanted one of these. Thank you.”

“Of course I remembered. That’s why I’m your favorite son,” he said, his eyes still on Rachel, his solid hands holding hers.

“You rascal. You’re my only son.”

Vaughn smiled up at Rachel. “Did my mother just call me a rascal?”

He was still on his knees and the way he was looking at her, his eyes warm and confident, his smile tender, set butterflies of anticipation fluttering to life in her belly.

“Yes, she did,” she said breathlessly.

As if foggy glasses had suddenly been removed from her eyes, the colors and details of her surroundings popped out at her in stark relief. The hedges which had been trimmed flat along the house, the speckles of gray along the part in Vaughn’s hair, the smell of a beef roast wafting through the door blending with the heady smell of a fire. His father’s forge fire, no doubt.

“I hit my head on this front step when I was ten. Fifteen stitches,” Vaughn said quietly. “And I have pictures taken of me standing on this step before my first communion, senior prom, high school and college graduations, and my graduation from the police academy. So I guess it’s as fine a spot as any to ask you to be my wife.”

Oh, wow. Her heart felt so full it was crowding her lungs, impeding her breath. Kneeling before her was the best man she knew, the man she loved and planned to keep on loving for the rest of her life. And he wanted to marry her.

He produced a small, black velvet box from his pocket at the same time his mom yelled, “Greg! Get over here now—and bring the camera!”

Vaughn angled his head around Rachel’s leg to grin at his mom. “Nice touch, Ma. Really adds to the romance of the moment.”

Rachel couldn’t help but laugh, he made her so impossibly happy.

He opened the box. Inside was a gold band, inlaid with a row of sparkling diamonds. The most beautiful piece of jewelry she’d ever seen.

“I was going to wait until dessert, but I didn’t want you going through the whole dinner worrying about my intentions. You wouldn’t have enjoyed Mom’s signature pot roast at all, and that would be a travesty.” He glanced at the ring. “I didn’t think a big diamond was your style, thought it might get in the way with your work. But we can exchange it if you don’t—”

“No, I love it. And I love you.” She pressed her lips together, fighting to contain her blossoming emotions.

“I love you too.” He kissed her hand. “Rachel, will you marry me?”

Pretty sure her legs were about to turn to noodles and wanting to get closer to Vaughn, she dropped to her knees. He swiped her tears away with his thumb. She turned her face in and kissed his wrist.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy lawman’s wife.”

His grin broadened. “Is that so? It was the badge that did it for you, eh?”

She smiled back. “Among other things. I like the way you whistle.”

He waved the box. “Are you going to give me an answer so I can put this ring on your finger, or would you like to continue going over all the ways you and I fit together so perfectly?”

She smoothed her fingertips along his jaw. “Of course I’ll marry you, Vaughn. Nothing else in the whole world makes me as happy as you.”

He slid the ring on her finger and admired her hand. “That’s more like it.” And then he gathered her close and kissed her. She could hear the squeals of joy from his parents, along with the clicking of a camera. She could hardly kiss Vaughn back, she was smiling so big.

For years, she’d fought what her heart was telling her to do. She’d let her mind convince her that happiness was out of her reach. And yet, she’d never stopped dreaming of a future with Vaughn, even when every other fiber of her being told her it was impossible. It turned out that her rebel heart knew what it was doing all along.

Jenna Sorentino was nothing if not self-sufficient. That trait had served her well for twenty-four years, but it was a bitch of a problem tonight. Because Matt Roenick—hard-bodied, bright-smiling Matt—was only interested in people he could save. Try as she might, she couldn’t figure out a palatable way to land herself in that position.

She sat two seats down from the head of the table at the rehearsal dinner for her older sister Amy’s wedding, watching Matt cut up Tommy’s chicken strips like he was the daddy she wanted him to be, all the while trying to dream up a problem Matt could solve for her that wouldn’t make her feel helpless.

It wasn’t that Jenna didn’t have problems. Besides the problem of Matt never giving her more than the time of day in the eight months she’d known him, she had a category 5 hurricane brewing with her two sisters. But there wasn’t another person on earth who could save her from that storm except herself. Not even the noble and dashing Matt Roenick.

That particular problem would have to wait until after Amy’s wedding, though, because she hadn’t damn near killed herself to put on the best wedding in Catcher Creek history only to ruin it with the truth.

A loud, banjo-heavy song exploded from the dance floor speakers. Jenna sipped her diet cola and tried not to wince outwardly. “It’s too early for banjo,” she called to Matt over Tommy’s head.

He met her gaze and one corner of his lips curved into a smile, revealing the very same dimple that had made her go weak in the knees the first time she’d seen it so many months ago. “Is it ever the right time for banjo?”

She swirled the ice in her glass and gave him her best faux-scholarly expression. “There’s a banjo window, but it’s very narrow. Only nine to eleven at night.”

His brows pushed together. “Not eight or seven, but nine?”

“Eight’s too early. You have to get nice and relaxed before banjo sounds good.”

He rewarded her joke with a laugh. “That makes perfect sense to me, even though I’d never heard the banjo rule before tonight.”