Page 68 of Holding Out For A Holiday Hero

True kept heading toward him.

He’d told her that he’d taken the case because he wanted her. Not because he was some noble hero. If only. I wish I could be a hero for her.

But he wasn’t. He was just a rough bounty hunter. A former soldier who knew how to hunt and how to hurt and he wanted True more than he wanted breath.

She stopped right in front of him.

His very own Ghost of Christmas Past.

The woman he wanted to be his Christmas Present. His Christmas Future. His everything.

Her hand rose. Pressed over his heart. “Jake.”

Was this the part where she told him it was over? That she was safe and that she didn’t?—

“I need you,” she told him.

Words from a fantasy he’d had long ago. Maybe he was hallucinating. Dreaming. Because she was his dream. A life with True would be his dream.

“And I think that I’m in love with you,” she added softly.

He shook his head.

She nodded.

Then True threw her arms around him. She hauled him down to her. And she kissed him.

No dream. No fantasy. True was the real deal. His arms wrapped around her, and he kissed her back with every bit of love and passion he had. Every. Single. Bit.

Sometimes, Christmas miracles could happen.

Even to a former Scrooge like him.

Epilogue - Number One

“I don’t need a tree. I don’t need decorations. I only need Jake. He’s the only present I’ll ever want.” – True Blakely

* * *

“Yeah, sweets, that’s nice of you to say, but where the hell do you want me to put this big-ass tree?”

– Jake Hale, new official fan of Christmas trees

* * *

The bad guy had been locked away. Braden Wallace wasn’t going to be causing trouble for anyone else, not for a very long time. Perry had managed to retrieve the data on the battered hard drive, and True and Aliyah had been able to give the cops an inventory of all the items that were missing from the museum.

True was safe. She didn’t have to fear what waited in the shadows. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder any longer. A good thing because she was very, very much focused on the future.

With Jake.

Her ex-husband had sobered up and left town. He knew they were done. When she thought of Richard and how she’d felt about him, those emotions paled in comparison to how her body and heart just seemed to belong to Jake.

When the gun had swung toward him…when Braden had taken aim at him…

“True? You ready?”

I don’t want to think about that time again. But in that one, terrible instant, she’d realized something very important.

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