Page 122 of Mistletoe and Malice
“What are you doing out here?” He still held her clutched to his chest, despite all the activity taking place around them.
“I had to see. Had to know you were okay. It wasn’t Nowell’s fault.”
Nowell cleared his throat. “One hundred percent my fault. Caught me off guard. Never had a principal run from me before. And she can sprint like a jaguar.”
“No. He trusted me to do as instructed, but I couldn’t leave with you out here facing what I didn’t know.”
Colton lowered her to the concrete, chilling her bare feet. His hands held tight to hers. “Scared me to death when I heard you.”
“I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at these guys. They’ve done everything for me.”
“I’m not mad. Just relieved to know you’re okay. Oh. Almost forgot. Jamison, you can leave the SUV. Everett’s in custody.” After Paul’s response, he reached behind him and turned off the mic before taking her hand again.
Trevor pulled Nowell away by the arm, grinning back at them. “Our work here is done. You two take your time.”
Colton’s brows drew together. “Did you shrink?”
She lifted the skirt of her soiled dress, wiggling her toes with their magenta-painted nails. “Couldn’t run in those heels. The guys didn’t notice I took them off. That’s how I gave them the slip. They tried, Cole. But there was no way they were making me leave with you still here.”
She peered up at the face she loved with her whole heart, a wayward tear slipping down her cheek. “I didn’t want to lose you. I had to know you were all right.”
He studied her, his blue gaze penetrating. “Do you really believe you’re in love with me? Withmeand not”—he waved his arm around at the controlled chaos, red and blue lights flashing, cops and Petersen personnel swarming around the parking lot—“all this?”
“Yes. I know I’m in love with you, Colton Blankenship. I’m yours whether you want me or not.”
“I do want you. I always wanted you. I just couldn’t imagine that you could want me.”
“Heart and soul.”
Placing a hand along her face, his eyes lingered on hers before he bent to kiss her. Gently at first, then with more fervor as he wrapped her in his arms.
Finally.Back where she felt the safest. The most at home. With this man. She wanted nothing more than to stay here for a while.
But he instead pulled back and chuckled. “We’re not exactly alone.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the crowd gathered inside the glass doors, where the cop-valets had stopped them. Including her girls, her parents, and the Blankenships. Even in the cold, her cheeks heated as she turned back to him.
He ran the backs of his fingers down her face. “I’m in love with you, too, Riley Hudson.”
Her heart grew with her smile. “I knew you were.”
“I don’t know what I have to offer you, but I’ll give you all I can.”
She grabbed the lapels of his jacket in her fists. “I just want you.”
“That much I can give you. All of me, Riley. Everything I am is yours.” When she shivered, he shrugged out of his jacket and laid it around her shoulders. “Let’s get you inside. Your feet must be ice by now.”
Fireworks burst in the sky overhead from a nearby park.
“It’s midnight,” she whispered.
“So it is.” He leaned down and kissed her again, the past giving way to the future. A future she couldn’t wait to live. With this man who’d put himself in the line of fire to ensure she would have one.
She drew back and smiled up at him. “Best. New Year. Ever.”
Chapter Fifty-One
If there were ever any question that evil existed in the world, Jacob Warren Everett would put those doubts to rest.
