Hero's Heart (A Second Chance Romance Book 1) Read online

  I slumped against the tree and for a moment enjoyed the peace it afforded me. I wondered if Garrison had felt that peace too. I wanted to believe it. That he was either in some kind of near-death euphoria or the medicine kept him at a distance from it.

  Either way, I hoped he was happy to die next to the girl I loved.

  The tears fell as the lightning bugs buzzed, showing off to the night. She could have all the money. I didn’t even want it anymore. She deserved to have everything Garrison had to give and more. She deserved a life.

  She deserved the life we had once planned together.

  “I’m sorry for everything, Garrison. I’m sorry for not writing you more. I’m sorry for not being here when you needed us the most. I’m sorry for not being the kind of brother you thought you could rely on to die with or to take care of you. I’m sorry for being a jerk. I’m sorry for never teaching you how to fix my truck. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

  I pulled my jean jacket around me a little tighter as the wind turned colder and my breaths became clouds in front of my face.

  “I’m so sorry, Garrison,” I whispered it one more time.

  After that, the night wind lulled me to sleep, under that faithful tree.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hero

  I COULDN’T BELIEVE what had happened in such a short amount of time. I’d just become okay with him being a jerk and leaving my life. Okay might be a loosely used term, but I’d accepted it. Now, holding his backpack, I was scared to see what was in there. Grammy had fallen asleep. I would be yelling at her later for her little stunt. However, I wasn’t going to be bothered by anyone.

  I put my earbuds in as George Strait’s “I Cross My Heart” floated through the wires. It was fitting for that particular song to come on. It reminded me of Ranger every time I heard it. I opened the bag and there were two shoeboxes. I carefully removed the lid from the first and inside seated in a row were letters. My hands trembled as I thumbed through them. They’re addressed to me. From Ranger.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to read them, but this was Ranger. My first and only love. The man I thought I would marry and have children with. Deep down, I knew he was still the one but could my heart and mind handle what was written on these pages? I opened it, and his horrendous handwriting was scrawled across the pages.

  He talked about his love for me, how much he missed me, a possible ranch in Texas, and our future. Page after page, letter after letter, it was all the same until the last one. He questioned why I hadn’t written him. He wanted to know why Garrison was living on the ranch. I could feel his hurt and pain through the pages and my tears flowed faster. I pulled my earbuds out and went into the bathroom to compose myself.

  “Child, why are you crying?” Grammy’s soft voice interrupted my sob through the door.

  I opened the door and hugged her. He loved me. He never stopped. He was right when he said we wasted a decade apart.

  Grammy guided me over to the hospital bed and we sat on the side of it. “Hero, talk to me.”

  I wiped my cheeks free of the tears and took a couple deep breaths. I told her about Ranger taking me to get something to eat, what he told me, and the letters.

  “That Jacob has always been a stubborn weed in a beautiful garden.”

  I agreed with her.

  “Now, I hate to say I told you so, but I love telling you I told you so.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head at her. “Hey, old lady, don’t you realize ten years have passed?”

  “But you’re both still alive and in love. Sometimes you have to be apart to realize how strong the bond of love is.”

  “Having you been memorizing Hallmark cards?” I joked with her.

  “Not recently.” She quipped back. “Hero.” Her voice turned serious. “You and Ranger are two halves of one soul. He needs you as much as you need him. Don’t go through life with any regrets, especially one involving your soulmate.” She kissed my forehead. “Go find him.”

  “It’s almost dawn and I’m not sure what his room number is at the hotel.”

  “Go find him, child. You know exactly where to look.” She pushed on my shoulder. “Go now.”

  I wanted to argue with her, but at the same time, I had to tell Ranger my feelings. I kiss Grammy on the cheek and tell her I’ll be back later. I grab my phone and my purse and raced out to my truck.

  First, I go to the hotel, but I don’t see his truck anywhere. Then I drove by all the restaurants that were still open but still nothing. I even went passed Jacob’s house, but I couldn’t find Ranger anywhere. Then it hit me to check our ranch. I quickly drove down our dirt road until I reached the house.

  His truck was parked close to the house, and it caused my heart to pound out of my chest. I ran to the barn, but he wasn’t there. I checked the house and there wasn’t any sign of him.

  I gasped. “The pond.”

  I bolted out of the house and raced to the back of the property to find him. The night sky began to fade as the pinks, reds, and oranges began to peek through. The soft sky lit the path and as the pond came into view, I could see Ranger’s legs stretched out as he rested against the tree.

  I stopped and studied him. He looked peaceful with his legs crossed at the ankles. I approached slowly as not to startle him. I bent down and brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. He jerked awake.

  “It’s me, Ranger.” I quickly calmed him. “It’s just me.”

  “Hero.” He seemed confused by his surroundings and scrubbed his face for a second. “What time is it?”

  “It’s either super late or really early.” I teased.

  He chuckled.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had to talk to Garrison.” He nodded to the pond.

  I sat down next to him as we both looked at the pond. I had spread Garrison’s ashes out here because I knew how much he loved the outdoors. “Did you two have a good conversation?”

  “We did. I apologized for being a crappy brother.”

  “You weren’t and he knew that. He looked up to you a lot, Ranger. He was so proud of all your accomplishments.”

  “But we weren’t as close as we should have been.”

  “He loved you and you were close.”

  We fell into silence as the music of crickets, birds, and the ranch animals began to wake up with the rising sun.

  “Did you read them?” His voice cracked.

  “I did.”

  “I never stopped loving you.”

  I let his words sink deeply into my heart and soul. Those are words I had dreamt of hearing many times and now he said them. In real life.

  “I like Texas.” I turned and faced him.

  “Huh?”

  “You talked about getting a ranch. I like Texas.”

  His green eyes grew brighter. He moved faster than I could blink, and his lips were on mine. I fell back from the force of him covering my body with his and for the first time in a long time, I felt complete.

  “I love you, Hero.” He stroked my face with the back of his hand.

  “I love you, Ranger.” I smiled brightly as he kissed me again.

  Ten years may have passed with sadness and heartache, but our future would be bright and full of love.

  Epilogue One

  Ranger

  I STRAIGHTENED MY shirt for the third time while Wallace and Bryson laughed at me.

  “Straightening your shirt ain’t gonna make her come out any faster.”

  Hero was making me wait at the altar.

  I guessed I deserved it a little.

  There was still a tiny part of me that felt like it would serve me right if she didn’t show up at all.

  “There.” Wallace pointed to the far side of the pond where Hero and Gramps were slowly but surely making it toward me. Torture – that’s what she was doing to me – torturing me. Well, her and Gramps and his slow walk.

  Plus, she refused to look at me. In that moment, I would’ve given anything
for her to simply look at me.

  She didn’t want me to wear a tux or a suit. Instead, she preferred me in my best cowboy attire.

  Jeans and a button up shirt. That’s how she wanted to say ‘I do’.

  Let’s be honest, I would’ve agreed to marry Hero in my birthday suit if she asked.

  “Lookin’ good, cowboy,” she said, finally getting close enough for us to speak. Gramps still had a firm hold on her arm and he wasn’t letting go until he absolutely had to.

  “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

  Gramps squared off his shoulders and looked proud. “I do.”

  Grammy chimed in from behind. “We do.”

  A collective laugh was heard from the crowd, but I didn’t join. There was nothing funny about what was about to happen to us. How we were finally going to bind ourselves together, heart and soul.

  Well, legally. We were already bound in so many ways that I swore we shared the same blood and heartbeat.

  All throughout the vows, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her dress was something out of a magazine and yet she made me wear Wranglers.

  Figures.

  “Ranger?” I hear Hero, pulling me from my daydreams.

  “I do?”

  “Is that a question?” she asked, reaching out and pulling on my belt loop.

  “No. It’s definitely not a question. I do to being your husband. And I do to loving you for the rest of my life.”

  We said our vows and exchanged rings. I got to dance with my wife for the first dance and every dance thereafter.

  “Any regrets?” She could see my thoughts were elsewhere.

  “I wish Garrison could’ve seen this,” I said, bending to kiss her. I’d been kissing her every minute since she officially became mine.

  “Me too. This was his doing.”

  “It was. He brought me back to you – where I belong.”

  “I’ve loved you all my life, Ranger.”

  “And I will love you for the rest of mine, Mrs. Bronson.”

  Epilogue Two

  Ranger

  Two years later

  “YOU’RE JUST FAKING again.” Grammy had her hands on her hips and the stink eye she was giving Hero was too much to handle.

  Hero and Grammy were going at it again. My wife had taken to faking all sorts of illnesses of late to get revenge on Grammy for that one time she faked an episode that landed her in the hospital. Deep down, she wasn’t really mad though because it also landed Hero in my arms again.

  “I’m not faking.”

  Grammy zeroed in on her even more. “Prove it.”

  Hero threw up her hands and grabbed the bag she had packed for this very occasion. “Prove it? Are you kidding me right now? Fine. I’ll prove it. Just give me a few hours and I’ll pop the sucker out so you’ll believe I’m not faking. Good grief.”

  That was when Grammy finally believed her.

  “Ranger, can you put this in the truck?” She handed me the bag like I was the chauffeur.

  I handed the bag over to Grammy, who was now in transition from sassy to worried. “I’m going to put you in charge of this while I handle this woman. And she’s going to hush her mouth about what I’m about to do.”

  Hero started to protest but I was having none of it.

  “You know how much it’s been raining lately and that dirt out there is slick as all heck. I’m doing this and like I said, you’re going to hush. We’ve got precious cargo in that belly.”

  I swung her up into my arms and kicked the door open. I’d gained some muscle since coming back to the farm to work and it was coming in handy now. Hero ate like she was eating for six.

  I didn’t know where she was putting it though because other than the belly, she looked the same to me.

  “Let me down so you can open the door. For goodness sake, Ranger.”

  She wiggled free of my hold. I opened the door and she slapped my hand away when I tried to get her into the car.

  “Haven’t you done enough?” She teased me. We hadn’t waited too long to start getting pregnant. We had waited long enough.

  “One of many, sweetheart, one of many.”

  We piled into the truck and as fast as the law would allow me, I got her to the hospital just in time. Well, almost just in time. Hero had our first baby, our daughter Mindy, right there in the parking lot. I caught the little spitfire while Grammy helped balance Hero.

  It was just like her to do the opposite of what everyone told her she should do.

  “Told you.”

  She had said during the entire pregnancy that she wasn’t going to make it to the hospital.

  She was right.

  Hero was always right.

  Nurses filed out of the hospital to scoop Hero up into a wheelchair and insist she come inside for a stay and an exam, just in case. She didn’t say anything, just got into the chair and did what they said.

  Stubborn woman.

  She never did what I asked her to do.

  Wallace was taking over the farm for the next few weeks. Hero texted him while we were on our way. The farm was back to its former glory again. We had triple the head of cows and pigs, chickens, and two acres of vegetable gardens to boot. I’d even planted a few apple trees just for the heck of it.

  I hoped our little girl liked apples.

  We weren’t in the hospital room three seconds before my wife had everything under her control. She had our baby feeding in one arm while she wrote me a to-do list with the other.

  “Give me that.” Grammy snapped the hospital notepad from her hand.

  “Hey! Don’t make me chase you down with a baby on my boob, old lady.”

  “Hero, stop. Look at what you’ve got there. You’ve got what you’ve always waited for, probably all your life. Just stop thinking and look.”

  I sat down next to Hero on the bed while Grammy snuck out, using coffee as her excuse.

  “Look what we did,” I whispered, bending down to kiss our little one’s cheek.

  “Took us long enough.”

  Preview of Vivian’s Ring (A Second Chance Romance Book 2) from Lila Felix and Elle Kimberly. To be released on 08/28/2017

  Prologue

  Ten years ago

  Brent

  “I DON’T KNOW.” If Viv said those words one more time, I was going to implode. She didn’t know a lot of things lately. She didn’t know why she needed to leave – she just did. She didn’t know why I couldn’t come with her – I just couldn’t. She didn’t understand the need to go so far away – she simply had to go.

  Without me.

  Leaving me and my dreams of making a life together obsolete.

  “Viv, tell me what I did. I’ll make up for it. I’ll apologize. Just tell me what I did to make you love me one day and the next day you’re up and leaving me to go to Texas. Or have you been planning this all along? You’ve known you were going to leave me, so you kept me on a leash? Is that it? Which one is it?”

  I wasn’t pissed as much as I was hurt. The girl with the eyes that could move mountains was mine, and I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do without her in my life.

  “I applied to some schools last semester. I was going to tell you but…”

  “But what? You wouldn’t have a convenience boyfriend for prom and graduation? No one to spend the summer with? After all we’ve been through, Viv, am I some kind of fling to you.”

  “You’re not a fling to me and you know it, Brent. I love you. I always have.

  “Don’t you dare say ‘I always will’ because if you do, I’m going to lose it. Anyway, when you love someone, you don’t leave them to chase your dreams. You chase your dreams with the person you love.”

  “I just can’t, Brent. I have to do this on my own. It’s nothing I can share with you or anyone. I have to do it for me.”

  I could see it in her eyes. She was sincere. Tears were streaming down her face. I wished there was something I could do to make her stay. Either that or let me g
o with her.

  “Let me come with you.”

  “No, Brent. I have to do this alone.”

  “We can make it work long distance. I swear I’ll be faithful to you.

  More tears fell. “If there was anyone in the history of faithful boyfriends to take the trophy, it would be you, Brent Rush. It’s not that. I know you would. I can’t explain it. And I’m tired of trying. I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I thought the right thing to do was to tell you to your face. You deserved the truth.”

  “The truth sucks.” We both chuckled – a little – but there was no humor. “Let me take you to the airport at least.”

  She thought it over. “Okay. As long as there is no more begging me to stay.”

  “No more begging you to stay. But…can you stay a little longer with me tonight?”

  “Of course. I wanted to spend time with you tonight.”

  We cuddled up on my couch like she wasn’t leaving tomorrow and my stomach and mind weren’t churning in a thousand different directions.

  This girl in my arms was everything to me. Each night, I go to bed thinking about seeing her the next day and would wake in the morning with a smile knowing she was mine.

  Tomorrow that smile would be gone.

  “Brent?”

  “Yeah, Viv?”

  “Hold me tighter. I feel like I’m falling apart.”

  “Anything for you.”

  THE NEXT MORNING we were both solemn. I placed her suitcases into the trunk of my car. We held hands on the drive to the airport. I kissed her palm at every stoplight.

  “Here.” I handed her a lunch-size brown paper bag at one of the red lights.

  “What’s this?”

  “Peanut butter and grape jelly. What else? Besides, this will be the last time I get to spoil you.”

  “I’m sorry, Brent. Not for what I’m doing but what it’s doing to you – for what it’s doing to me.”

  It seemed like if this was something she was so willing to do, it wouldn’t be this hard.

  She used a whole box of Kleenex.

  I watched her eat her sandwich in silence.

  We arrived at the airport, and I walked with her toward the security gate. As we got closer, we stopped and I reached out and touched the side of her face, taking it all in. In those few moments, I memorized the way she talked to me. I made my mind remember the way her hands fit into mine.