Free Blue by You by Rachel Gibson Page B

pulled back and cupped her face. “I look at you, and I see something I haven’t seen in a very long time. I see a woman I love. I look at you, and I see a future. When I look at you, I see something I’ve never seen before. I see forever.”
    “With a Toussaint?”
    “With you.”
    She smiled. “I love you, Kasper.”
    “Are you sure that’s not your Purple Jesus talking?”
    She shook her head and laughed. “No. I love you, and I’m sure generations of Penningtons and Toussaints are rolling in their graves.”
    He pointed his flashlight at a limb in the tree. “Not Abigail and Thomas.”
    Beneath the old initials, someone had carved a new set. A set much lighter than the first. K. H. P loves B. D. L. B.
    “Twenty-two years too late,” he said.
    “No.” She shook her head. “It’s perfect.” Except he’d transposed two of her initials. But after twenty-two years, the fact that he’d recalled all her names, no matter what order, was impressive.
    “When you see our future, what does it look like?” What was she going to tell Billy? Would he be okay? Maybe they should all go to Hawaii. She’d always wanted to go to Hawaii.
    “Kids.”
    “What?” Kids? She’d been thinking of vacation destinations. She looked down, and her hands covered her stomach over her white nightgown. “I’m forty.”
    “Young enough to have a passel of kids.” He laughed at her shock.
    “A passel? I already have a teenager!”
    “Well, we’ll have to talk to him about that. But I think we need some Toussaint-Pennington babies running around.”
    She was forty. “What if it isn’t possible?”
    He pushed her hair from her face and looked at her for several heartbeats. “You love me. I didn’t think that was possible. Now, anything is possible. I want to spend my life loving you and you loving me. You’re it for me, Blue. You’re all I need. Anything else is lagniappe.”
    A nice surprise, like finding love again after twenty-two years. A gift, like finding love with a man who loved like Kasper Pennington.

 
     
    New York Times bestselling author
    RACHEL GIBSON
    returns with another deliciously sexy Marine in her latest novel
    RUN TO YOU
    Available September 24 from Avon Books!
    Read on for an excerpt . . .

Prologue
    “Her name is Estella Immaculata Leon-Hollowell and she lives in Miami.”
    Vince Haven handed his good buddy, Blake Junger, a cold Lone Star, then took a seat behind his battered desk at the Gas and Go. “That’s some name.”
    Blake took a drink and sat across from Vince. “According to Beau, she goes by Stella Leon.”
    Vince and Blake went back a long way. Blake had graduated BUD/S a year before Vince and they’d been deployed at the same time in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Vince had been forced to retire for medical reasons, Blake had served his full twenty.
    Vince opened the folder on his desk and scanned the information that Blake’s twin brother, Beau, had compiled for him. Beau had his own personal security business and had his fingers in a lot of different pies. He was one stealth dude and knew how to gather information that your average Joe couldn’t access. He could also be trusted to keep all information strictly confidential.
    Vince looked at a copy of a birth certificate, and there it was in black and white. His fiancée, Sadie Hollowell, had a sister she hadn’t even known about until her father’s death, two months ago. A twenty-eight-year-old sister born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The mother and father listed: Marisol Jacinta Leon and Clive J. Hollowell.
    “So, we think she knows Clive is dead.” He moved the birth certificate aside to look over a color copy of a Florida driver’s license.
    “Yeah. She’s been told. Told and didn’t care.”
    That was cold but understandable. According to her license, Stella Leon was five feet, one inch and weighted one-fifteen. Which, knowing women as he did, Vince figured meant she was probably closer to one-twenty. She had black hair