Silver Bella by Lucy Monroe Page B

it, afraid to pick it up.
    What if it wasn’t what she thought it was?
    What if it was?
    “Aren’t you going to open it?” he asked.
    She licked her lips and nodded. She flipped open the box and tears filled her eyes.
    The ring was a knuckleduster of diamonds and deep red rubies. “It’s beautiful.”
    “But not nearly as beautiful as the woman I hope will wear it for the rest of my life and hers.” He sat up and took her with him. He pulled the ring from the box and then slid it onto the tip of her ring finger. “I love you. Will you marry me, Bella?”
    She opened her mouth to say yes, but nothing would come out so she nodded so hard her hair flew around her face.
    He slid the ring onto her finger the rest of the way, started kissing and touching her. She told him she loved him as his body took possession of hers.
    Afterward, they got ready to go to her family’s for Christmas, but something was still niggling at her.
    She sat down on the vanity chair to watch him pull on his boots. He was a very sexy man and she liked his cowboy ways.
    “Jake.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I fell in love with you at first sight.”
    He straightened up and smiled, the expression in his eyes so warm she needed to fan herself. “I did too.”
    “I mean the first time I saw you in the audience.”
    “I know. That’s when I lost it over you too.”
    “But you came to the shows because of Lise, not me.”
    “Honey, you said it yourself. Lise went to Paris alone. I knew she’d be okay after the first show and she got the lay of the land. I didn’t think for a minute she’d hold me to my promise to attend five fashion shows with her.”
    “But you kept coming.”
    “You were there. The truth is…Lise missed one of the shows…but I didn’t.”
    She went to him and he pulled her into his body, right next to his heart.
    “I didn’t know it could happen like that,” she whispered.
    “Me either, but I’m glad it did, Bella. I’ll love you for a lifetime and beyond.”
    She twined her arms around his neck and pulled his head down for a kiss. “I love you too, cowboy. I always will.”
    Their kiss sealed more than that promise. It sealed their future.

Look for these titles by Lucy Monroe
    Now Available:
     
    Annabelle’s Courtship
     
    Meagan’s Chance
    Miss Fix-it
    (written as L.C. Monroe)

An inconvenient proposal.
     
    Annabelle’s Courtship
    © 2007 Lucy Monroe
     
    Ian MacKay, Laird of Graenfrae, has no use for love or marriage. However, his stepfather’s will mandates that marriage is what he must have…to an Englishwoman.
    A sensible man, Ian develops a list of requirements in a wife: Plain, moderately dowered, older and practical. He thinks he has found the perfect candidate in Lady Annabelle.
    Labeled The Ordinary her first season, Annabelle longs for a man who will see her as beautiful and love her as her father loved her mother. When she meets Ian, she thinks she has at last found that man. Until his proposal, in which he has the audacity to list his “requirements”.
    She refuses his proposal. He informs her that she will marry him at the end of the season.
    The battle of wills is on.
     
    Enjoy the following excerpt for Annabelle’s Courtship:
    Annabelle watched the glittering crowd at Almack’s and tried to ignore the leap of her heart every time a new arrival entered. She must stop acting like a silly schoolgirl. The Scottish laird most likely would not come. For the past two weeks, he had singled her out for attention whenever they attended the same affair and on one such occasion, he had told her that he no more cared for this bastion of the ton ’s doings than she did. Since her first Season when she had been labeled the Ordinary, Annabelle had detested the midweek soirees.
    The unimposing building and less than stellar décor served as a backdrop to the ton ’s most initiated hunt—that for the advantageous marriage. Her aunt insisted they come each week. Although the rest of the ton considered