The other woman waved gaily and gave her a big thumbs-up. Harper responded with a weak one of her own, and then trudged ahead, refusing to feel humiliated.
She was going to do this. She was going to survive the mud run.
She was going to survive a broken heart.
Now she didn’t look to either side. Her focus was trained straight ahead and her attention solely on the next task. She belly-crawled through metal tubes, she spit hay from her mouth after scaling the top of that hill and sliding down the other side, she slogged through a muddy maze of low wooden structures.
The finish line finally came in sight.
More spectators lined the path and those participants already finished were gathered near tents where she knew volunteers were prepared to hand out juice, coffee, tea, and a variety of healthy and not-so-healthy foodstuffs. Her stomach roiled at the thought of eating and she paused, trying to calm it, which only allowed the muscles in her legs to turn to lead.
Harper closed her eyes. Must. Make. It.
The onlookers were suddenly shouting encouragement and laughing, but she didn’t have the energy to determine what that was all about. Instead she plodded forward, her gaze on the last two obstacles—a series of parallel balance beams set over another long, rectangular tank of mud, and then a final wall. Her heart fell to her belly as she studied that one. While it wasn’t as tall as another she’d managed that day, it had a lip like a skateboarding halfpipe. Watching others ahead of her, she could see it required people to get a running start in order to make it over that curve, or else they’d slide right back to the bottom.
“One challenge at a time,” a voice advised. A familiar voice. Zane. “Don’t get worried about the next until you do the one right in front of you.”
She didn’t dare look at him, even though his very presence gave her the incentive to move. Head down, she hurried to a balance beam. Stepped onto it.
This should be doable, she thought. She had narrow feet. Just walk, heel-to-toe.
Miracle of miracles, she managed, even though she was wholly aware that Zane was traversing a neighboring balance beam, moving at her same speed. Still, she didn’t look at him, even when she wobbled and from the corner of her eye saw his hand shoot out, ready to steady her. Ignoring it, she made it all the way across on her own.
“Way to go, Harper,” he said, warm with praise. “I knew you could do it.”
Could she? Could she really? Spend her life in Eagle’s Ridge bumping up against Zane Tucker on mud runs or in the diner or maybe when he came to check out another Western novel?
Rather than responding, she continued onward, that daunting obstacle up ahead. Zane passed her, she felt the air whoosh by her as the big man moved, but her vision narrowed to a tunnel as she pulled air into her lungs.
She was so tired. Quitting didn’t sound so bad.
She couldn’t believe she would ever get over him anyway.
Someone yelled her name and she turned her head to see Bailey and Gambler keeping stride—slow, deliberate—along with her. “Go, Harper!” the other woman called out. “Just a little bit more!”
Unable to dredge up even a smile, her gaze swung back to the obstacle ahead. And then there was nothing to do but gather her flagging power and make a run for it.
Halfway up, she slid down the slick muddied surface.
The second time, she didn’t even make it that far.
At the bottom, she bent over, her hands on her knees, trying to breathe. A third attempt seemed impossible.
“Harper!” Zane again.
Nearly ready to admit defeat, she raised her eyes in the direction of his voice. He straddled the top of the lipped wall, and his arm reached down in her direction. “Try again, sweets, and I’ll catch you.”
Instead, she backed away. “I have to do it myself,” she whispered.
“What’s that?” His face was smeared with mud and his clothes too. They seemed to be ripped…or something. Her brain was tired like the rest of her and couldn’t figure it out, not even the odd band circling his head.
He bent to stretch his arm farther. “Harper, come on baby, try it again. I’m here for you.”
But he wouldn’t be there for her even if she made it over the stupid thing and it sparked her temper for some absurd reason. She glared at him, and decided it was better than crying. “I need to do it alone,” she yelled up at him. “All by myself.”
An expression crossed his face that she couldn’t interpret. “No, baby. Not ever again. Never by yourself again. Harper, I love you.”
She stared at him in shock.
“I do, baby. I’m in love with you.” His hand beckoned her. “Now let me help you over this last hurdle and we can talk about it.”
Something tickled the back of her neck. Maybe it was drying mud, but she looked around and realized the pair of them were the center of attention, spectators and volunteers alike standing around, apparently riveted by their little drama.
Her anger spiked again, her other emotions so tangled she couldn’t sort through how she felt about his public declaration or even if she could believe in it. If she should believe in it.
It hurt so much to love and to trust.
Pushed now by her renewed temper, she backed up from the curved wooden wall. Do it, Harper, she told herself, and made another run at it. Momentum propelled her forward and her feet scrambled higher than ever before. Her breath caught, elation sang in her blood. Almost there!
Then she felt herself begin to slide.
No, no, no, she thought, tears once again stinging her eyes. But she could see that outstretched hand in front of her. Large, male, strong.
“Take it,” Zane commanded, his tone urgent.
And instinct won out over caution. Her fingers wrapped his and his grip—as solid as the rest of him—hauled her the last crucial distance.
Now they both straddled the top, face-to-face. Dirty and breathing hard, they looked into each other’s eyes.
“You didn’t have to say that, you know,” Harper managed to get out.
“Say what?”
She glanced away. “That ‘I love you’ business.” It had taken her a moment, but now she understood why he’d said such a thing. “I appreciate you thought it was a motivation—”
“I said it because it’s true.”
Her gaze jerked to his. “No…”
“Yes.” Though they were dangling on the top of the wooden wall, he didn’t seem inclined to move. Nor lower his voice. “I don’t want our relationship to be casual either.”
Other participants were attempting the ascent on either side of them, but they might as well be ants as far as Harper was concerned. “I didn’t think you wanted to be serious.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I didn’t. But then a pretty librarian came into my life and made me see things differently. See myself differently. She made me want different things too.”
“Me?” she asked, still disbelieving.
“You.” He fished in his muddy garments and from somewhere withdrew a small scrap of fabric, lifting it for her to see.
“My bookmark.” She reached for it, but he quickly tucked it away again.
“I’ve been carrying it around like a boy with a lock of his sweetheart’s hair,” Zane said with a crooked smile. “I guess it proves I have a soft side after all.”
Her throat tightened as she tried to take this in. “Are you…are you saying you’re the leopard that changed its spots?”
“You changed them, Harper.” His gaze intensified. “Do you believe me?”
She couldn’t think, not when he was looking at her like that. She could only feel a sweet, sweet surge of joy. “I…yes.”
“Then take me,” Zane said, his mesmerizing eyes filling her vision. “Say you’ll be mine.”
Be his? Oh, it was such a tempting, delicious idea, if only she could truly believe in it. To be Zane’s woman, to live life within the protective circle of his arms. Harper swayed toward him
.
Zane reached for her. “Say you’ll be mine and then we’ll complete this damn run together.”
Complete this damn run together. Her spine snapped straight, putting distance between them again, as she remembered she’d come here to Eagle’s Ridge to change her spots too. To not be protected, cocooned, or coddled. To live with more zest.
To prove that she could, she wanted to, no, needed to, cross that finish line alone.
Then they’d see what they might be.
So instead of speaking, she slithered down the other side and started off once more. Her noodle legs didn’t help much, but she kept at it, aware that Zane was right behind her.
Ready to pick her up if she fell, she had no doubt.
Her steps faltered at the thought. She had no doubt.
But that revelation was to be examined later, and she lowered her head and began to jog. People were clapping and calling her name and she felt a new power growing inside her the closer she came to that line.
Almost there.
Why it happened next, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was one of the volunteers, eager to encourage her that last small distance, who picked up the megaphone and let out another earsplitting siren blast. It was followed by an unearthly howl, shouts, Harper thought she heard Bailey’s voice, and then someone was yelling Zane’s name. She turned in time to see the big man bowled over by his dog, the animal shoving his owner flat to his face in mud before fleeing beyond the finish line.
Zane lay there as if stunned, or dead.
Harper’s heart slammed against her ribs. She ran back to bend over him. “Zane!” she choked out his name, alarmed by his stillness and afraid she wouldn’t survive if he did not. “Are you all right?”
His head slowly lifted. He blinked up at her. “Just…just the wind. Knocked. Out of me.”
Relief rushed through her and she clasped her muddy hands beneath her chin. “Are you sure?”
“Go.” He coughed. And she knew he understood how important it was for her to accomplish this on her own. “Go ahead. Finish. I’ll be along.”
But then Harper recalled the fire chief’s speech. The one about “teamwork” and “partnerships” and she hunkered down in the mud beside the man she definitely wanted by her side for the rest of her life.
Take me. Be mine.
“I’ll wait right here for you,” she told him. Because while she wasn’t quite strong enough to pick him up, she’d always be there for him if he fell.
That was the real change that had happened to her in Eagle’s Ridge, she realized now. She’d gained confidence in herself to know that she could be a protector, defender, and partner to Zane too. Stroking his back with muddy fingers, she felt a new thrilling sort of serenity course through her bloodstream—a kind of lover’s high, she thought.
It didn’t take long for Zane to regain his breath and she helped him to his feet. They looked at each other and exchanged smiles. Then, filthy and exhausted, they limped toward the finish and stepped over the line, hand-in-hand.
Together.
Nearby, another volunteer was stationed with a hose to wash down the finishers. They waited their turn, fingers still entwined, while Zane’s people gathered around them, including Adam, Jane, Brenda, Sam, Wyatt, and Bailey.
“I’m so sorry I lost control of Gambler,” his sister said. “We’ve got another item to put on the Terror List.”
Ryder strolled up with the dog then, now back under control. He had the megaphone in his other hand.
“Confiscated,” he said, holding it up. “I’m not taking any chances. And this dog needs to be enrolled in obedience school immediately.”
The hose person beckoned them forward. Harper tried to disentangle their hands, but Zane said, “I’m not taking any chances either,” and they stood together under the spray as layers of mud slid away.
Only then, when they were dripping, but clean, did Harper realize what he was wearing over his athletic shorts and T-shirt.
A red, blue, and gold spangled costume, complete with skirt, bodice, arm bands, and head ornament.
She stared. “What’s this?” Her free hand gestured toward him.
Zane sighed. “The outcome of a little bet.” He shot a fulminating look at Wyatt. “You better be ready to pack your bags and include a big ol’ shovel, friend, if the lady won’t accept that I’m in love with her and says she feels the same.”
Everyone surrounding them appeared to be caught somewhere between laughter and concern.
But she shut them out and looked only at the man who’d made a very public declaration in a town that would talk about this for years to come.
While dressed as Wonder Woman, in fact.
“You do love me,” she said, amazed all over again, but now believing it completely.
“Enough to don this ridiculous costume,” he said promptly. Then he grinned. “Remind me to outfit that John Westbrook statue in something more macho next time.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He pulled her into his arms, either no longer patient, very sure of her, or some of both. “Tell me you’re in love with me too,” he demanded.
“I’m in love with you too.” Why not say it? She was brave enough to take the chance now. The chance to have it all.
“We’re setting a date,” he said firmly. “A wedding date. Today. Tonight. Soonest.”
Her eyes rounded.
“Because a person once told me that a man who wants to marry someone should want to settle on a date right away.”
He’d always heard her, hadn’t he?
“Okay.” Harper thought she might float off the ground, she felt that light. Her hands gripped Wonder Woman’s now-tattered bodice as she looked into the handsome, beloved face of Zane Tucker. Only her guy could look so sexy and not an iota less manly wearing a superheroine’s tiara. “Bet me we’ll be happy?”
“I’ll take that bet.” He kissed her. “And we’ll both end up winners.”
# # #
Dear Reader:
I hope you enjoyed ZANE, my book in the 7 Brides for 7 Soldiers series! I had a blast writing such a sexy and fun hero (not to mention lovable Gambler too—modeled a bit after my own darling yellow Lab) and collaborating with such a talented pool of authors. I know you’ll want to read every soldier’s story—each handsome man has a delicious and satisfying romance of his own.
Interested in sharing your thoughts with other readers? I hope you’ll leave a review for the book here.
Continue on to read an excerpt of Lynne Rae Harris’s WYATT, who is the next ex-military man in Eagle’s Ridge to embark on a romantic adventure. Then find an excerpt to the first book in my Billionaire’s Beach series, TAKE ME TENDER, guaranteed to make your heart sing.
Sign up for my newsletter to be informed of future releases and to receive other information about upcoming books and specials. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or visit my website.
Best wishes!
Christie Ridgway
Book Blurb - WYATT –7 Brides for 7 Soldiers #4
Fall in love with seven sexy and irresistible soldiers who find their courage and heart tested like never before in the battle for love! This multi-author collaborative series of contemporary romance novels is brought to you by bestselling authors Barbara Freethy, Roxanne St. Claire, Christie Ridgway, Lynn Raye Harris, Julia London, Cristin Harber and Samantha Chase. You won't want to miss a single one!
WYATT
Navy SEAL Wyatt Chandler loves the pulse-pounding, adrenaline-spiking tempo of Special Ops. But when a teammate dies in his arms during a mission gone wrong, he decides it's time to hang up his combat boots before he becomes the next casualty. He can't let his grandmother--the woman who raised him after his parents died--go through that kind of pain ever again.
But going home isn't as easy as it sounds, and he has no idea what to do now that he's no longer HALO-jumping into enemy territory. When he gets a chance to use his skills and play bodyguard to an heiress,
he takes the assignment. How hard can it be to babysit one spoiled blonde?
Reality TV star Paige Spencer never expected to find herself bundled off to her dad's fishing retreat in Nowheresville, USA, and put into the care of a hot bodyguard with a chip on his shoulder. But someone is threatening her life--and the threats are escalating. Getting away from Seattle until the police catch her stalker is the only sensible option.
Paige hates all things small-town and charming, but Eagle's Ridge has a way of growing on a person. And then there's Wyatt, the sexy, growly, utterly delicious protector who makes her heart pound and her pulse skip with every hard-eyed look. And when he finally lets down his guard and kisses her? Mercy.
Still, the road to true love has never been easy--especially when a crazed fan has plans of his own.
EXCERPT – ZANE – 7 Brides for 7 Soldiers #3
© Lynn Raye Harris – 2017 – All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Wyatt Chandler straightened his Navy dress uniform collar and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to walk into that church, didn’t want to see the casket of his teammate with the American flag draped on top. Mostly, he didn’t want to see Danny’s wife and baby girl. He didn’t want Lisa to see the guilt in his eyes.
Guilt because he hadn’t been able to save Danny from the sniper’s bullet that had ended his life. Wyatt shoved a hand through his hair, cropped short in proper military style for a change, and sucked in another breath.
“Just get in there, dammit, and do your duty,” he muttered.
He shoved the door open and walked into the church. It was darker inside than he expected. The light coming through the stained glass windows cast a muted glow on everything. It was overcast outside. If it hadn’t been, maybe it would have been brighter inside.