Love Gone Wild: A Contemporary Romantic Comedy (13 page)
Read Love Gone Wild: A Contemporary Romantic Comedy Online
Authors: Michele Bardsley
M
ARISSA SAT ON the porch
, Shadow in her lap and DJ by her side, and watched her sister chase the frenetic puppy Gillie had renamed Pete. Brent had called volunteers from the TeenCenter, who gathered the animals, taking them to the TeenCenter until Marissa found a home of her own.
Just a couple of weeks after the fire that destroyed Brent's house, Gillie found the perfect place for them to live. A one-story, four-bedroom monstrosity with a wraparound porch—a leftover from a time long past.
Her parents, still clueless about why she wanted to leave the mansion but somehow willing to indulge her, visited her and Gillie every Sunday. They ate dinner together and talked—really talked. Without the fear, the secrets, the guilt, the manipulations...she shook her head. It was nice to be on the road to having a real family.
Gillie had already quit the U.S. Marshal service, and now that she was home for good, she taught self-defense courses at the TeenCenter. She and Kade were getting married. He'd left the Marshal service, too, and had procured a job as a homicide detective in town.
Gillie would share the house with Marissa, on its twenty acres, until she married Kade.
The only thing...person...missing from her life was Dane Sinclair. He helped them move into the house and sometimes he called, but he hadn't kissed her, touched her, or asked her out. He wouldn't accept the $10,000 so she gave it to the TeenCenter.
Why didn't he want her?
"Brooding again?" Gillie climbed the porch steps and scratched DJ's head.
"What else is there to do?"
"Let's go to the zoo."
Marissa blinked. "Are you serious?"
Her silly desire to go to the zoo had started the whole journey. It seemed appropriate that it should end there, too.
After Dane left her, she'd torn the list into tiny pieces and burned them in the fireplace. She felt sad, but at peace, too.
"Yeah,” she said. “Let's go to the zoo."
D
ANE'S HEART POUNDED
furiously when he saw Marissa near the elephant pen—in the exact spot Gillie promised to put her.
Would Marissa forgive him for being so blind, so foolish? He'd feared that he'd lost her that night...first by bullet then by fire. He'd known then she wasn't a spoiled princess like his first wife or selfish socialite like his mother. She was Marissa. Beautiful and sweet and courageous and, if he was lucky, forgiving. It had taken him too long to realize the reason he'd felt as if he'd been ripped in two was because he loved her.
He approached her, the ring in his pocket, the list in his hand, and said, "I was wondering if you could help me."
She turned, shock in her eyes, then she backed up and looked away.
Damn. Not a good beginning.
He swallowed the knot in his throat. "Item one. Ask forgiveness."
"I forgive you." Her voice was stilted, unsure.
"Item two. Tell the woman of my dreams that I love her." Dane looked at her. "I love you, Marissa."
Her mouth dropped open. She blinked.
"Item three. Ask the woman I love to marry me." He cleared his throat. "Will you marry me?" He fumbled for the ring box in his jacket. It flipped out of the pocket and onto the pavement. "Oh, hell." He reached for it at the same time she did and they bonked heads.
She laughed as they rose and the constriction in his chest loosened.
"Item four?" she asked, holding the black velvet box.
"It's starred." He pointed to the list, she read it, and smiled. "A forever-night stand?"
"Yes." He took the box and opened it. "What do you say, sweetheart? Will you help me with my list?"
She gasped. A gold cat and a gold dog met in the middle of the ring, each with paws on the sides of a two-carat pear-shaped diamond. "Dane..."
He waited, never more uncertain, more afraid, more in love than he'd ever been in his life.
"Yes," she whispered, slipping on the ring. "I'll forgive you, love you, and marry you." She leaned against his ear. "And on our wedding night, I'm going to..."
Dane grinned.
D
ear Reader
,
Thank you for reading
LOVE GONE WILD
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Warmly,
Michele Bardsley
M
ichele Bardsley is
a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of paranormal romance. When she’s not writing sexy tales of otherworldly love, she watches “Supernatural,” consumes chocolate, crochets hats, reads books, and spends time with her husband and their fur babies.
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