Lovers at Heart(48)

The world stood still and her mouth went dry. She couldn’t do anything more than stare at his beautiful face.

“Max?” he asked again. “Will you be my wife?”

“I…wife…? What if I freak out again?”

He stood and looked into her eyes. “Then I’ll be there every step of the freak-out to make sure you’re okay. To make sure we’re okay.”

“You want to marry me? After everything I did? After how angry I was? After I smashed your car?”

“Yes.”

Savannah grabbed Josh’s arm, and that little movement pulled Max from her stupor.

“You’re sure?” she asked again.

“You are one stubborn, beautiful woman. Yes, I’m more than sure.”

Max threw her arms around his neck. Her chest ached with the constriction of her muscles, but she didn’t care. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”

“I cannot wait to design her gown!” Josh exclaimed.

Treat’s laughter filled the air, mixing with the cheers from his family and Savannah’s giddy squeal. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed the ache right out of her body, claiming her in a way she felt through her entire soul.

“Looks like we’re gonna have a wedding!” his father said.

Treat lowered her back down to the ground and slipped a velvet bag out of his pocket. Looking her in the eye, he asked, “Max, just to be clear, will you marry me?”

“Absolutely, one hundred percent yes.”

He slid the most gorgeous canary diamond ring on her finger, stealing the remainder of her breath from her lungs.



TREAT HELD MAX’s trembling, soft hand in his and never wanted to let it go. In all the business dealings he’d ever handled, in all the resorts he’d acquired and the other businessmen he’d put to shame, never once had he felt the way he did at that very moment. It was as if the universe had righted itself, and he and Max were in the perfect place at the perfect time.

Rex pushed past Treat to hug Max. Treat didn’t miss the full-body glance Rex gave her before pulling her into his arms. That was when he first noticed what Max was wearing. His body reacted instantly to seeing her in such a formfitting, sinfully sexy outfit. Unfortunately, with the way Rex was holding on to her, he assumed her figure had his brother reacting in the exact same way.

He tugged him away from Max by his collar. “Okay, back off. Get your own fiancée.” He loved the feel of that word on his lips. Fiancée.

Savannah slid in between them and wrapped her arms around Treat. “Finally! I love her!” she whispered. “She’ll keep you on your toes.” She turned to Max with a wide smile and said, “I’ve wanted a sister for way too long,” then pulled her in close.

Treat couldn’t wait to get Max’s hand back into his own, where it belonged.

“Max.” Hal wrapped his strong arms around her. “That was my wife’s ring,” he said with a nod at her hand.

Max touched the gorgeous stone. “Thank you for the honor of allowing me to wear it and share in the joy of one day being a Braden.”

He nodded. “It was my wife’s doing.”

Savannah shook her head, but her beaming smile remained.

When congratulations had been doled out and they finally came together again, Treat whispered in her ear, “That outfit is going to make me do dirty things to you right here and now.”

Max smiled. “Then it fulfilled its purpose.”





Chapter Thirty-Nine


THE SOUND OF hooves on pavement called everyone’s attention past the crunched vehicles and to the road. A beautiful woman riding a black stallion came to a stop at the end of their driveway. She flipped her long dark hair behind her back and settled her cowgirl boots into the shiny stirrups.

“Is that Jade?” Treat asked.

Rex spun around, practically salivating at the sight of her. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“Looks like someone got the best of your cars!” she hollered. She wore a flowing white dress, hiked up and bundled across her thighs.

“Earl Johnson’s girl?” Treat asked Rex. When Rex was in high school, he’d had an enormous crush on her. The Johnsons and the Bradens had been feuding for years, and Treat had always written that crush off as Rex wanting the forbidden fruit. But from the way Rex was looking at her, he could see that crush was still steaming hot.

Rex mounted Hope and looked over his shoulder at her, then turned away again. “One and the same,” he answered.

Treat didn’t miss the way his eyes narrowed as he drank her in, or the twitching of his biceps as he wrapped tight fists around Hope’s reins.

Hugh looked up from where he was inspecting the damage to the cars and shot an uncomfortable look at Treat. Treat glanced back at the house. Luckily their father had already headed inside to dig up a bottle of champagne to celebrate Treat and Max’s engagement. If their father caught them talking to a Johnson, they’d never hear the end of it, but being rude was not an easy thing to do to a beautiful woman. “Good to see you, Jade,” Hugh said in a low, tethered voice.

“Not quite a Ferrari, is it?” she teased his racecar-driving brother. She looked at Rex and said, “Good thing y’all weren’t on horses, huh?”

Rex’s jaw flexed double-time.

“I think she’s talking to you, Rex,” Max said.

Hugh looked back at his brother and shook his head. “We’ll be sending this wreck to your neighbor’s garage,” he said to Jade. Jimmy Palen owned the best body shop in Weston and owned the property on the other side of the Johnsons’.

“Jimmy’ll be glad to hear that.” Jade smiled, but Treat saw the hurt in her eyes when she looked at Rex again, who had ignored her comment. “See y’all around,” she said with a wave, then galloped down the road.

When she was out of earshot, Treat smacked Rex’s leg. “What the hell? You didn’t have to be such an ass.”

“I’ll talk to a Johnson when hell freezes over.” Rex gave Hope a quick jab with his heels and trotted off toward the barn.

“What was that all about? She was stunning.” Max couldn’t stop touching the ring on her finger.

“Hatfields and McCoys,” Savannah teased. “He loves her.” Savannah took Max’s arm and they headed toward the house. “He just doesn’t know it yet. Braden boys are thick that way.”

Treat watched Savannah drag Max away, swearing that chartering that plane had been the best thing he’d ever done.

The End





Please enjoy a preview of the next Love in Bloom novel





Destined for Love





The Bradens, Book Two





Love in Bloom Series





Melissa Foster





Chapter One

REX BRADEN AWOKE before dawn, just as he had every Sunday morning for the past twenty-six years—since the Sunday after his mother died, when he was eight years old. He didn’t know what had startled him awake on that very first Sunday after she’d passed, but he swore it was her whispering voice that led him down to the barn and had him mounting Hope, the horse his father had bought for his mother when she first became ill. In the years since, Hope had remained strong and healthy; his mother, however, was not as lucky.

In the gray, predawn hours, the air was still downright cold, which wasn’t unusual for May in Colorado. By afternoon they’d see temps in the early seventies. Rex pulled his Stetson down low on his head and rounded his shoulders forward as he headed into the barn.

The other horses itched to be set free the moment he walked by their stalls, but Rex’s focus on Sunday mornings was solely on Hope.

“How are you, girl?” he asked in a deep, soft voice. He saddled Hope with care, running his hand over her thick coat. Her red coat had faded, now boasting white patches along her jaw and shoulders.

Hope nuzzled her nose into his massive chest with a gentle neigh. Most of his T-shirts had worn spots at his solar plexus from that familiar nudge. Rex had helped his father on the ranch ever since he was a boy, and after graduating from college, he’d returned to the ranch full-time. Now he ran the show—well, as much as anyone could run anything under Hal Braden’s strong will.

“Taking our normal ride, okay, Hope?” He looked into her enormous brown eyes, and not for the first time, he swore he saw his mother’s beautiful face smiling back at him. The face he remembered from before her illness had stolen the color from her skin and the sparkle from her eyes. Rex put his hands on Hope’s strong jaw and kissed her on the soft pad of skin between her nostrils. Then he removed his hat and rested his forehead against the same tender spot, closing his eyes just long enough to sear that image into his mind.

They trotted down the well-worn trail in the dense woods that bordered his family’s five-hundred-acre ranch. Rex had grown up playing in those woods with his five siblings. He knew every dip in the landscape and could ride every trail blindfolded. They rode out to the point where the trail abruptly came to an end at the adjacent property. The line between the Braden ranch and the unoccupied property might be invisible to some. The grass melded together, and the trees looked identical on either side. To Rex, the division was clear. On the Braden side, the land had life and breath, while on the unoccupied side, the land seemed to exude a longing for more.