“Yeah?”
He got serious and cupped her hand gently. “Promise me you’ll never put yourself in the path of a bullet ever again. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never get that image of you crumpling to the ground out of my head.”
Her eyes watered and she nodded, then whispered, “I promise.”
And that’s all he needed.
Well, that and CoCo by his side for the rest of their lives.
He’d fallen hard for the Italian heiress—not bad for a country boy from Kentucky.
Both Dalton boys had done good. Damn good. Bet no one saw that one coming!
Epilogue
“NO TURNING BACK NOW,” his brother said, helping him adjust his tie because his own hands were shaking so hard. “You look great, little brother.”
Rian looked to Kane and gripped his arm gratefully. “Thanks for everything. You’re the reason I turned into anyone halfway decent. You made sure I was fed, safe, even got me my first job.”
Kane’s eyes watered but he covered with a gruff “Don’t be going all mushy on me now.” But then he added, “You didn’t need me to be who you were meant to be. You were always a good kid and you’re an even better man.”
The wedding march started and he knew this was the moment he’d always been waiting for, even if he’d never known it. The woman of his dreams was going to marry him today. He could hardly believe it. A lot had happened in the year since Barto Calvino had taken his shot at CoCo and it was dizzying to try to put it all in a timeline but the highlights were simple and profound.
CoCo was now a full-fledged partner in the Abelli shoe empire, making waves with her beautiful, feminine heels that everyone seemed to want to have—helped in no small part by Laci wearing Abelli heels exclusively on her newest tour—and CoCo had realized that she’d been hiding behind a party lifestyle to keep from admitting that she was afraid of failing. Now it was hard to remember when CoCo had been a hard-core party animal because today, she was a businesswoman and artist. Except behind closed doors, then she returned to her wild roots and did things that made Rian worship at her feet.
Enzo, determined to make things right as best he could, named the newest line the Calvino and donated every cent of the sales to a scholarship fund in Vincent’s name for aspiring designers with Italian ancestry and humble beginnings. It’d made Enzo feel good to associate something positive with Vincent instead of the unfortunate stain his son had caused, all because of something Enzo had done when he’d been young and too ambitious to see beyond his actions.
“You ready to do this?” Kane asked.
Rian met his brother’s inquisitive look with a resolute one of his own. “I’m more than ready, brother. Let’s do this.”
“All right, then. Let’s go.”
Today was the start of the rest of his life, and Rian, for one, couldn’t wait to get things rolling.
He and CoCo had a lifetime of lovin’, fightin’ and baby-makin’ to do and he didn’t want to waste another minute.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from A COWBOY RETURNS by Kelli Ireland.
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A Cowboy Returns
Kelli Ireland
1
ELIJAH COVINGTON NEVER thought he’d find religion on a commuter flight, but when the tiny plane plummeted the last fifty feet to the runway, he prayed. Little more than a closed-cockpit crop duster, the little plane skipped down the cracked asphalt runway hard enough to compress his spine. He would have given anything for the firm’s corporate jet and his chiropractor right about then.
Of course, he should probably just be grateful they weren’t landing on a dirt strip. They’d had to circle several times while the neighboring rancher retrieved his cows from the runway. That had been bad enough.