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"I couldn't imagine being any happier about it than I am right now," he said, and then he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the coat closet just off the church's foyer. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a tiny velvet box and sank to one knee.
"Oh my God," she murmured, and her heart, which had already been beating double time, thudded so fast that she worried it might just beat out of her chest.
"I wanted to wait, too, but I can't imagine a more perfect moment than this. I know you're going to be the perfect mother to my child, and I hope I can be just as good of a husband to you."
She stared at the ring, dumbstruck. The tiny facets of the princess cut glimmered even in the low light of the room, and she plucked the ring from the box without thinking twice. "Of course I'll marry you. I'll marry you right now if you want."
"Then it's settled, we're going to Vegas. Tonight." He grinned, but she could tell he was only half kidding.
In truth, she was, too. Because she would take any chance she had at a life with Matt Archer she could take. She always would have.
They were bound to be together. She was bound to be his.
It just took her a while to realize it.
So she pulled him to his feet and tried to thank him for his love in the only way she knew how. Crushing her mouth to his, she lost herself in his strong, warm embrace and thanked every star in the sky for this. For family.
Their very own family.
The End
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Sneak Peek: Sworn to be His, the final novel in the Archer Family Series
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Jade Lockhart gripped the down pillow and shoved it over her ears. Stupid birds. Didn't they know she'd only just fallen asleep? All she needed was a few more precious moments of beauty rest and then—
She sat up in bed, holding her breath while she stared around for her cell phone.
"I should never fall asleep with that damned thing." She grumbled, then shook out the sheets and tossed all the pillows from the bed. The phone flopped onto the floor with a dull clunk and she snatched it up and pressed the power button.
Nothing happened.
"Shit," she hissed, then pulled on a pair of slacks that had been laying on top of her dresser from the laundry she still hadn't gotten around to putting away. After she shoved on a reasonably work-ready blouse from her closet, she sprinted down the hall, toward the kitchen and—
"Double shit." The neon green numbers on the oven flashed 8:00. She was late. Again.
"Okay, okay, okay," She scurried into the living room, grabbed her sidearm from the hook near the wall, and shoved her cell phone into her pocket. She'd just have to charge it when she got to the station. If she hurried, she'd still be on time to catch the meeting, and once she got there—
The damned speech was on her phone. The reason she'd been up half the night was lost in the ether of her notepad app and she was left with nothing. All those beautifully worded arguments. Poof. Gone.
She slipped on her shoes and pulled her blond hair into a messy knot on top of her head.
"How am I gonna fix this?" She glanced at her cat, Lisa, who rolled over as if to say: "not my problem."
"Very helpful. Right," Jade said, then dropped some cat food into Lisa's bowl before fumbling through her cluttered living room and out her front door.
"Keys," she reminded herself, then grabbed them from the table beside the door and headed out again.
"Okay. Okay. I can totally do this." She squinted in the early morning sunlight then slid into her not-so-glamorous, yet inconspicuous 2010 Camry. That was the one thing people never warned other people about being a detective—the chances of getting a car you'd actually be proud to drive were slim at best. She just counted herself lucky that her car had actually been manufactured within the last ten years.
