Page 25 of Protected By the Mountain Man

“It was smart of you to call me,” Graham says to Mac as he moves to stand beside the officer, both of them staring down at Ryan. Graham says to the sniveling excuse for a man, “You just made this case really easy for us to win.”

“Good,” comes Mariah’s voice from over my shoulder, trembling even in just that single syllable.

I turn just as she begins to sway on the spot. I catch her and, holding her so close, I sink slowly to the ground. She turns, wrapping her arms around my neck. Burying her face in my chest, she begins to weep.

“You were so brave,” I murmur into her hair, tears of my own blurring my vision. “So damn brave. But you don’t have to be, not anymore. You’re safe.”

She pulls away for a moment to gaze up at me. “You made me safe. You saved me.”

I shake my head. “You made yourself safe. I just helped a little. But I’ll always be here for you, a safe haven for whenever you need it.”

My belly twists painfully at the thought that Mariah might leave now that the threat of Ryan is neutralized.

But she allays my fear without hesitation. “For whenever I need it?” she says, eyes dancing through her tears.

I nod. “Any time, for as long as you like.”

“How about we start with forever? Or at least the foreseeable future.”

My jaw drops as my heart soars. “You…mean it?”

Now it’s her turn to nod. “For as long as you’ll have me.” I see my own fear reflected in her eyes for a moment.

“Then forever it is,” I say, holding her tighter.

Mariah buries her face in my chest again, and I breathe in her scent, fresh tears of my own gathering at the fact that this woman is giving herself to me so willingly after being given so many reasons not to trust any man ever again.

I’m so damn grateful.

Epilogue

Mariah

Three Years Later

Ismooth my skirt over my thighs as I sit on the bench outside the courtroom and try not to let my hands shake.

I’m only moderately successful.

The husky man sitting next to me takes one of my trembling hands in his big one. “Nervous?” Ace asks, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looks at me.

I brush my free hand over his beard once. There’s a little more gray in it than there used to be, but I think it’s made my husband even more handsome. “I am…although I’m not sure why.”

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” he reassures me. “But itisa big deal, so it makes sense that you’ve got the jitters.” He leans his head to one side and his eyes dance. “You’re not going to run on me, though, are you?”

His teasing works. I laugh, Ace’s words having driven a wedge through my worries. “Not in a million years.”

And why would I run now, after everything? I didn’t run when I had to face down Ryan and argue my case for sole custody of Billy. I won, no contest, with Ace by my side cheering me on.

I didn’t run when I found myself suddenly, surprisingly pregnant with Ace’s child, our daughter, Bethany, just a couple of months after me and Billy arrived on his doorstep. Both Billy and Bethany are with my brother and sister-in-law while we take care of business here at the courthouse.

And Idefinitelydidn’t run when Ace got down on one knee before me at my baby shower, asking me with my massively pregnant belly and in front of all our friends and family to marry him. I did the next week, a month before Bethany made her debut.

There’s no reason for me to run now, not after Ace has proven himself to me again and again.

But still, my stomach is tied up in knots over today. I guess Ace is right, itisa big deal, both in reality as well as symbolically.

I clutch onto my husband’s hand and, when he squeezes it, my nerves untangle a little more.

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