Page 19 of Guarded By the Mountain Man

“No,” I whisper, already smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

Six nudges my knee.

“You traitor.”

His tail thumps harder.

My fingers shake as I open the little pouch and find a ring inside. It’s a sapphire, deep blue, the color of the lake when the sun disappears behind the ridge. It sits in an old-fashioned setting, delicate and beautiful and nothing like anything my father would have chosen for me.

I love it instantly. Then I look at Holt and forget about the ring.

Because Holt is on one knee.

My Holt. My enormous mountain man who once stared down Corbin Vance without so much as raising his voice is kneeling in the dirt, and his hands are shaking.

“Holt.”

His silver eyes meet mine, and everything inside me melts.

“Come here,” I whisper.

A rough laugh escapes him. “Not how this works, sweetheart.”

“I don’t care.”

“I know.” His voice goes softer. “Let me do this.”

So I stand still. Barely.

His jaw works once, then twice. “Twenty years, I stood outside other people’s lives. Doors. Hallways. Parking garages. Hotel rooms. Airports. Watching other men come home to somebody. Told myself the outside was where I belonged.”

My eyes burn.

“And then you walked into my headlights wearing a ruined wedding dress.” A laugh catches in my throat, and his mouth lifts. “And you looked at me like I could be something other than the man standing outside the door.”

“Holt.”

“You walked straight into my house and started rearranging things.”

“I bought some cushions.”

“You bought ten cushions.”

“The place was a cry for help.”

His laugh breaks out, low and rough. Then he looks at me again, and the humor disappears.

“You changed me, Juliette.”

My breath catches.

“I knew that first night I wasn’t letting anything happen to you. By morning, I knew sending you away was going to hurt.” His voice roughens. “And somewhere in there, before I had any business feeling it, I knew.”

Tears spill over before I can stop them. Holt reaches up and catches one with his thumb.

“I love you,” he says. “Not because you need me. You don’t. You proved that before I ever met you. I love you because every room is better when you’re in it. Because you talk to Six like he’s a person and steal my shirts even though you have an entire closet. Because you fill my house with things I didn’t know it was missing.”

He takes a breath. “Because you filled me with things I didn’t know I was missing.”