Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Pike shook his head, but he couldn’t keep from grinning. She was too wickedly cute to keep a straight face. “How about I help you cover it up with some makeup tomorrow morning and we keep your dark, forbidden desires between you and me, wild thing?”
Tulsi rolled her eyes with a dramatic sigh. “Okay, party pooper. I guess that’ll work, too, if you think it’s best.”
Pike laughed. “I think Clem came by the ornery streak honestly is what I think.” He drew Tulsi back onto his chest and kissed the top of her head. “But I’m glad I’m the only one who knows you’re trouble.”
“Me too” Tulsi whispered. “I love you, Pike.”
“I love you, too,” Pike said, his eyes sliding closed. He was out like a light, moments later.
He slept hard, dreaming of a future with Tulsi and another sweet little girl with her blond curls and his eyes. By the next day, he had nearly forgotten about the strained moment when he offered to adopt Clem or his brief suspicion that Tulsi was keeping something important from him.
He would only remember when the truth finally came out at five thirty the following evening and his entire world was turned upside down.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tulsi
It was Mia’s big day, but Tulsi couldn’t help feeling like the luckiest woman in Texas.
As she walked down the aisle, with the afternoon sun warm on her face and a gentle breeze setting the wind chimes in the trees to tinkling, filling the air with fairy music, she felt so full of joy, hope, and gratitude she wouldn’t have been surprised to find her boots floating off the lavender carpet spread out on top of the trail. The weather was beautiful, the chairs on either side of the aisle were filled with friends and family, and the love of her life was starting down the aisle behind her.
Pretty soon she and Pike would be standing side by side as Mia’s maid and man of honor, watching two people they loved promise their lives and hearts to each other. And someday, not too far from now, she and Pike would be doing the same. They were going to have their happily ever after, with enough love in it to make up for all the hard years apart. Tulsi could see the beautiful years stretching out in front of them, filled with more sweet babies, trail rides on Pike’s ranch, family holidays and celebrations, and long nights together spent learning how to drive each other even more wild than they did already.
Tulsi reached the end of the aisle and took her place next to her friend Bubba—Mia’s other “bridesmaid”—and turned around, meeting Pike’s gaze as he walked slowly down the aisle, her heart skipping a beat as memories of last night danced through her head.
Making love with Pike was even better than it had been when they were younger, but she’d enjoyed this morning—crowding into the bathroom with him as they got ready for the day, feeling Pike’s fingertips linger on her shoulders as he zipped her into her strapless dress with the lavender bow at the waist—almost as much. Every simple intimacy was a miracle, every shared experience a memory she knew she would treasure forever. And as Pike took his place beside her and looked down at her with a loving smile so transparent she knew they must be giving themselves away, Tulsi couldn’t bring herself to care.
Let the whole world think they were crazy for jumping back into love head first, all she knew was that she was where she was supposed to be. She was by Pike’s side and she didn’t plan to leave it until death did them part. They would get around to saying their wedding vows, but in all the ways that mattered, she already belonged to him. She’d promised herself to Pike Sherman a long time ago, during that spring when loving him had changed the landscape of her heart forever.
She reached out, capturing his hand and holding tight as the bluegrass quartet began to play and Clementine appeared at the end of the aisle, drawing a collective “aw” from the witnesses. In her white flower girl dress with the lavender flowers spilling down the front and more lavender flowers in her blond curls, Clem looked like an angel. And the solemn expression on her face, as she set a slow, deliberate pace down the aisle, tossing equal handfuls of white rose petals with every other step, was so sweet Tulsi couldn’t keep tears from filling her eyes.
“I told you you’d need this before the vows,” Pike whispered, fetching his handkerchief from the pocket of his tuxedo shirt and pressing it into her hand. “That’s one beautiful little girl.”
“She is,” Tulsi said, smiling through her tears as she dabbed discreetly at her eyes.