ROMANCE: BIKER ROMANCE: Valentine Biker (MC Alpha Male Pregnancy Romance) (New Adult Valentine Romance Short Stories) (157 page)

“What?” she asked, falling against him as her knees buckled as the emotion overtook her.  He gladly supported her, sweeping his arm around her waist and holding her tightly against him.  If he had his way, in fact, she would have spent all the rest of her days held tightly in his arms, where he could know she was safe and keep her that way. 

“The only reason I have been so distant is because I did not think you wanted my love.  I thought you wanted only a safe place where you could mourn Robert.  I did not want to let you even suspect my feelings because I did not want to make you feel like I was pressuring you.  Just having you close was enough,” Liam admitted, using his free hand to cradle her face.  He looked down at her with such love and devotion that she could not believe that it was real.

“Robert was my best friend.  He would have wanted me to be happy,” she said gently, raising her hand and running it though his hair to comfort him.  The thought that he had been going through the same torment that she had been, worrying that he was going to spend a lifetime loving her while she did not love him, brought her a renewed hope for their future.  If he had been willing to love her for a lifetime, while thinking that she would never love him in return, spoke to the depth of his feelings for her.

“If you will let me, I will make you happy all the days of our life together,” Liam promised her.  Though she had regained her composure, he was still holding her tightly.  She suspected that he had a fear that she would vanish from his site the moment that he ceased to touch her.

“As long as you truly love me, I will be the happiest woman on earth,” she said, gently pulling him down to her and kissing him softly to seal their new vow to each other, a vow of love.

“I love you.  I have known it since the moment I woke up and saw you there, fussing over me when I was shot.  Just your presence brought such peace to my mind and to my heart.  Don't ever leave again.  I could not bear it,” he said as he rested his cheek upon the top of her head.  Indeed, his first thought as the shot gun blast had torn through his body had been of her face.  Seeing her there, by his side, when he awoke, exhausted and in pain, the site of her beautiful face had meant the world to him.  She had been the reason he fought so hard to heal, though he had not even admitted it to himself.

“I will never leave you again.  I am so sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head against his chest to listen to the steady, healthy beat of his heart.  Thinking of that awful day when she had almost lost him brought back an echo of the terror she had felt that day.  Listening to his heart was all that kept the fear and sadness at bay.

“Don't be sorry.  If you had not gone, I would never have known that you love me,” he said, laughing at the ridiculous truth of his words.  Their situation was complicated and messy.  They both had hearts that were heavy with sadness from the past, but love had still taken root.  Together, they had begun to heal without even realizing it.

“I should have been braver and told you,” she said, laughing at all that they had suffered because of their unwillingness to be honest with each other.

“And I should have shown you all I felt for you.  We have the rest of our lives together to make it up to each other,” he said as he kissed the top of her head gently. 

Liam gently helped her up on to his horse and swung himself up behind her.  He looped a hand around her waist to keep her steady on the horse and used his free hand to guide the horse back to Vista Roja.  He took his time, enjoying the silence of sitting here with her back pressed against him, the lavender scent of her hair surrounding him. 

Anna was in no hurry either.  These were the first moments of their new life together, bound by love rather than responsibility and duty.  She leaned against him, feeling his heart beating behind her.  It was dark when they finally returned to Vista Roja, but there stood Hank on the porch, smiling. 

THE END

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BONUS STORIES

THE BANDIT’S BRIDE

Standing on
the train station at the foothills of the beautiful, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Eleanor looked around for some sign of the man she had been penning letters with for months. His name had been Danny Turnbull. He had sounded so attractive in print, and so different from the life she had led back home in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her life had been hard up until this point. She did not have much in the world to her name. She was a textile worker, but she had big dreams of moving out west and being married to someone who could save her from the factory life, and give her the love and support that a girl of twenty years craved.

Danny Turnbull had told her that he was a gold miner. That appealed to her greatly, because gold was surely not something she had before. He promised her that, if she paid for her train ticket, he would pay her back as soon as she arrived. He said that he did not trust the mail to handle his money, so he had not sent it to her directly. His letters always contained such kind words, that she agreed to pay for the train with her solace being that he would pay her back upon arrival.

However, when she arrived at the train station that night, he was nowhere to be found. At least, no one fitting his description could be seen.

A sudden snap of twigs on the ground behind her made her turn around. A man came up to her, dressed all in black with a handkerchief covering the bottom of his face. She was all set to holler when he cut her off by speaking gruffly. “You Eleanor Whitman?”

Too frightened to speak, she simply nodded. How did this bandit or highway robber or whatever he was know her name?

“I’m Danny,” he replied, lowering his mask so she could see his sly grin. He had a black mustache and beady eyes that also appeared black to her in the dusk light. He did not look like a trustworthy man at all.

She loosened her hold on her suitcase and it fell to the ground. “No,” she said. “You can’t be. The Danny who was writing to me is a wealthy gold miner!”

He laughed. “I never said I worked in no mines. Let’s see what gold you’ve got in your bag there.” As he moved toward her to grab her suitcase, she screamed loudly. The sound of it echoed through the mountain’s hills, but no one in this strange county of
Tuolumne
came to her rescue. Quickly, she had to make the choice between rescuing her belongings from this horrible bandit or fleeing.

Since he was a great, big man with a gun, and she was a young girl with no defenses of her own, the choice was clear. She ran away, leaving her last personal belongings in his hands. He would find no money there, however. Eleanor had spent the last of her wages from the textile factory on this trip to California.

Luckily, she ran away fast enough that she was out of his range by the time he could notice that there was no money in her bag. As she ran, tears fell from her eyes and she cursed him under her breath. She had risked everything to go there to be with him, and he had lied to her from day one.

Feeling a fool, she slowed down to a walk as she entered the peaceful little town of Grass Valley. She asked God what she should do. Up ahead, she spied a mail order bride advertisement office, the perfect place to find a willing groom to save her. She marched straight into the door of the office and waited. The clerks behind the counter eyed her, confused and suspicious, but they said nothing. They were in the business of selling advertising space in
The Grass Valley Times
, and if this newcomer wanted to advertise, they weren’t going to stop her.

She waited what felt like hours, but was probably more like a soul-crushing fifteen minutes, and was about to turn and head to try her luck at finding shelter somewhere else when a man walked into the office.

He was tall with dark brown, almost black curly hair, green eyes and a scruffy, close beard. He looked to be about twenty-seven years old.

He would do.

Eleanor stood in front of him. “I will marry you!” she blurted, unable to mask her desperation behind more feminine modesty. She was stranded and did not know what else to do.

The young man looked at her like she was clearly insane. Not wanting to be rude, he simply did his best to ignore her and walked past her to speak to one of the clerks at the counter.

Feeling dejected and even more alone in this strange place away from home, Eleanor turned and walked out of the office building. She hugged herself, feeling the bitter chill of the nighttime beneath the mountains. She had longed for so long to live amongst mountains and forests on the west coast, but now she just wanted to go home.

There was no way she would be able to go home, though, because she was now penniless. She could not even sell any of her belongings, because she had lost all of them to that awful bandit Danny Turnbull, if that was even his name.

“Why was I so foolish?” she asked herself as she walked along the path outside. “I should have asked more questions. I could have requested a photograph, some type of verification. Surely this could have been prevented.”

Alexander Montoya came out of the advertisement office and saw Eleanor sitting on the edge of the road. She did not even have a coat on her shoulders. He came over to her and knelt down, looking her in the eyes. She had kind-looking blue eyes, and cinnamon-colored hair that was up in a bun but was starting to tumble out after a very trying day.

“You aren’t planning to spend all night out here, are you?” he asked her.

She looked up at him, frightened at the sound of a man’s voice, but then relieved to see that it was the man she had seen in the office about an hour ago. “I was supposed to be with someone, but he… He lied to me.” Eleanor sniffled and was soon crying again, covering her little face with her even littler hands.

Alexander’s heart went out to the girl. He could not possibly leave her stranded out there on the cold street. “There now,” he said gently, offering her his handkerchief. “Why don’t you come home with me? I can put you up in my barn for the night. If you help me out on my farm, I will let you stay as long as you need to in order to get back on your feet. What do you say?”

She gladly took his handkerchief, blowing her nose and wiping away her tears as best as she could. “That would be very kind of you,” she said. He offered his hand to her, which she also graciously accepted. Once she was standing, he walked with her to his waiting horse and helped her onto it.

They rode together to his farmhouse, with her holding on tightly to his back. She kept her eyes closed for the ride, because she was tired and embarrassed about everything that had happened. She had thrown herself at this man in a very undignified way, and now he was answering her prayers. He was going to keep her safe, at least for the rest of this horrific disaster of a night.

When they arrived at his house, he dismounted carefully and helped her down. She was cold and tired and half starved. The journey had offered her meager meals because she had not been able to pay for much of anything. “Are you hungry?” he asked her. “I can fix you up some soup and then get to work making my barn livable for someone who’s not a sheep or a cow.”

He smiled at her and she softened a little towards him. He clearly was not angry with her, so she should not continue to feel so worried about what he thought of her now. “Thank you,” she said.

The house was warm and had a nice, homey, cottage-like feel to it. As she closed her eyes and took in the wonderful smells that came from the kitchen as he cooked up some soup, she could pretend that she was back home and that nothing bad had happened to her.

“What is your name?” she asked him. “I am Eleanor Whitman, from Massachusetts. I am sorry about before… It’s just that I came all this way at the request of someone from the mail order bride service. Only he turned out to not be who he said he was. He stole my purse and I had to run away.”

Alexander gazed at her in shock. That was awful! The women and men who used the service were usually kind, well-meaning souls who, for one reason or another, were in earnest to find a good match for themselves with someone across the country. He could not believe that someone would have taken advantage of this poor, innocent girl!

“Don’t worry about that now, Eleanor,” he said sweetly to her. He placed a hot bowl of potato soup in front of her at the table. “Be careful – don’t burn your mouth. My name is Alexander Montoya.”

She looked at him, batting her lashes. “And you were hoping to find a bride from across the country?” she asked. “Golly, I wish that I had found a respondent like you, and not that horrible man.”

He smiled a little, blushing cutely. She noticed that he had one dimple that showed on his left cheek when he smiled. She hoped to keep seeing that while she lived with him.

“I don’t know how good of a guy I am, but I will say that I’ve gotta be better than a bandit.” He ate a spoonful of the soup. “Mm, it’s not too hot now. Try it. It’ll warm you up and make you feel better.”

Eleanor ate with him, relieved and happy to have at least found a friend to be with while she was in Grass Valley. She supposed that any money she was able to make would go towards sending herself back home. She did not intend to be a burden on Mr. Montoya for longer than was absolutely necessary.