My Kind of Wonderful Read online

  Hand to her heart, she stared at it. “I thought you just said—”

  “I wanted to give you an optional ending.”

  “Okay,” Gray whispered to Penny. “That’s a good one. I’ll give him that.”

  Bailey stared at the box and surprised Hud when her eyes filled. “But seriously, what if?” she whispered softly, her hand over the port scar on her chest.

  He tipped her chin up to look into his eyes. “Listen to me carefully, Bay. You’re so incredibly strong, and I love that about you. I love you.”

  Her eyes filled. “I love you too.”

  “So you get that the best part about being one-of-two is that if something happens and your strength fails you, I’ll be strong for you. I’ll never let you down again.”

  She stared at him for a long time and he waited, trusting her to come to the same conclusion, that together they could face anything. “I signed up for the duration,” he said. “For the good, the bad, the ugly, everything. I’m in this, all the way in, Bailey. The question is, are you?”

  She shifted, a barely there movement, but it brought her even closer to him and she smiled, letting him see what he meant to her. Holding his gaze, she finally took the box and opened it—and gasped again at the diamond ring.

  “Options,” he murmured. “That’s all it is.”

  She nodded and then shook her head. “I don’t need options,” she whispered. She slid the ring onto her finger and then tilted her head up to his. “I just need you.”

  Epilogue

  Three months later…

  Bailey stood on the bow of the boat, toes over the edge, arms out, head back, eyes wide open on the huge, unbroken sky, having her Titanic moment.

  She’d passed another round of tests with flying colors. The words cancer and free were starting to really take root, the reality being that the future she’d spent so many years never daring to hope for was really hers for the taking.

  Her heart felt so full it might burst at any second.

  She and Hud hadn’t set a date. They’d made no wedding plans at all, or further discussed it. She was very, very happy with that, happy and content to just be for a while—with the man she loved.

  He’d taken her to the glaciers in Canada last month. They’d climbed them and she’d stood on the top of the world and had grinned from ear to ear. They’d gone dogsledding—the thrill of a lifetime.

  And then they’d made love in the hot springs beneath gently falling snow.

  They were working their way down her list. This month was the Greek Islands.

  “Good?” rumbled a sexy low voice in her ear.

  “So good.” She sighed, utterly content. Hard not to be with Hud standing just behind her, bracing her body safely in the haven of his, his arms wrapped firmly around her. He wouldn’t let her fall.

  Not ever.

  Of course it also helped that there was no wind and… the boat was moored. They’d been in the islands for a week, since the day after the resort’s ski season had ended.

  Before they’d left, Carrie was good, Jacob reportedly was still on tour and safe for the time being, and all was as good as could be.

  Penny had been making noises about adding a baby to their insanity, and Gray had brought her home a puppy to practice on.

  Aidan and Lily were looking at dates for a wedding.

  Kenna hadn’t gone off the rails.

  And best yet, Bailey had never felt better.

  Knock on wood. Everything was okay in their world. Hence the long, lazy days at the beach spent snorkeling with colorful fish that poked her face mask and made her gasp and laugh and nearly drown herself. Luckily, she had her own personal rescue squad in the form of one tall, dark, and relaxed Hudson Kincaid.

  He nuzzled his face at the back of her neck and made her squirm in the very best of ways. When she snuggled her butt into his crotch, she felt him smile against her—he hadn’t shaved all week and the delicious scruff he had going, along with a dark, perfect tan, damn him, made him her very own pirate, and he had pillaged and taken and conquered her, heart and soul.

  “Again?” he murmured, his hands sliding up from her hips to her breasts, barely contained in the itty-bitty bikini she wore.

  “Yes.” Knowing that their captain and staff had discreetly vanished to give them a private picnic dinner at sunset, she only gasped when his fingers slid beneath the triangles covering her breasts. Gasped and then moaned. “Here?” she whispered hopefully, turning in the circle of his arms, moaning again because the sight of him in nothing but low-slung board shorts stopped her heart.

  “The Greek Islands,” he murmured, cupping her ass, lifting her up so that she could wrap herself around him. “That’s on your list, and never let it be said that I’m not a thorough man.” He turned them and laid her out on their towel.

  “I do love a thorough man,” she managed breathlessly, and reached up for him.

  Towering over her, he smiled. Lowering himself to her, he stroked back the wispy and completely uncontrollable hair that had grown in. She was a little self-conscious about it but Hud seemed to love it, always sifting his fingers through the wayward strands. “We’re going to do this,” he said. “And it’s going to be good.”

  She smiled and welcomed him into her arms. “It’s going to be wonderful.”

  Please turn the page for a preview of the next book in Jill Shalvis’s Cedar Ridge series,

  Nobody But You!

  Available Spring 2016

  Chapter 1

  Sophie Marren parked her ex-husband’s boat, tied it up to the deck with knots she copied off a YouTube video on her phone, and flopped to her back on the fancy sundeck that she couldn’t afford, willing the seasickness away.

  And yes, she was well aware that “parked” wasn’t the correct boating term, but then again, neither was the word husband, at least not as it had pertained to her marriage.

  She’d made vows and kept them, but her ex? Not so much…

  Old news, she reminded herself and let out a long breath. That was something she was working on, new choices—such as living without the fist of tension in a vise around her heart, the constant fear and pressure to try and be something, someone, she wasn’t.

  Her glass was going to be half-full from now on, dammit, even if it killed her. And it might.

  “And yet you now live on a damn boat.” She shook her head at herself. Day one of the new digs and it looked like she wasn’t going to make it to day two.

  The early morning was quiet, the only sound being the water rhythmically slapping up against the hull of the boat, and then the dock. Boat… dock… boat… dock—“Dammit!” she cried, quickly sitting up before she got even more seasick. She had to get ready for work. But the air was cold, she was cold, and with the boat rocking as it was, she hadn’t yet risked losing an eye to put on mascara.

  From somewhere nearby came the song of the morning birds, all chipper and happy, and it made her wish for a shotgun. She put a hand to her stomach, but it kept on doing somersaults. This was because she could get seasick in a bathtub.

  She groaned, hoping death came quickly. Cedar Ridge Lake was one of the larger high-altitude Colorado lakes, and it didn’t help that the winds had kicked up this morning, causing rolling waves across the entire surface.

  When yet another gust hit, brushing the strands of hair from her damp face, she risked cracking open an eye. From her vantage point, she could see the impressive Rocky Mountains shooting straight up to the limitless, shocking azure sky. A single white fluffy cloud resembled a pile of marshmallows.

  Her stomach, normally in love with marshmallows, turned over again. “Gah,” she managed and quickly squeezed her eyes shut just as from the depths of her pocket, her cell phone buzzed. She pulled it out and hit answer without looking, because looking would mean opening her eyes again and facing that this all wasn’t just a bad dream but her life. “Hello?”

  “I just wanted you to know I had your car towed to the scrap yard.�€