If Shoshauna wasnât a princess, if she was just an ordinary girlâ¦Jake cut off the train of his thought. It didnât matter if she was a wandering gypsy. It was still his mission to protect her.
The truth was, it would be way too easy to forget she was a princess, especially with her standing there in a badly rumpled and ill-fitting dress.
But that was exactly what he had to remember to keep his boundaries clear, his professionalism unsullied, his duty foremost in his mind. She was a princess, a real one. He was a soldier. Their stations in life were millions of miles apart. And they were going to stay that way.
Youâre invited to a royal wedding!
From turreted castles to picturesque palacesâthese kingdoms may be steeped in tradition, but romance always rules!
So donât miss your VIP invite to the most extravagant weddings of the year!
Your royal carriage awaitsâ¦.
Donât miss future books in this wonderful miniseries!
In August
Marion Lennox
brings us the final story in her royal quartet
of Alpine principalities
Wanted: Royal Wife and Mother
Prince Rafael is heir to the throne
and looking for a family of his ownâ¦.
Dear Reader,
A terrible thing happened as I was writing this story. My cat, Hunterâbossy, beautiful, one of my greatest inspirationsâdied unexpectedly. It might be easy to dismiss him as just a cat, but to me it seems he was a spark of the universal life force wrapped in a funny, furry, delightful package.
Love finds us in so many different ways. It comes when we least expect it, when itâs inconvenient; it comes as cats and dogs; its message comes through songs and movies and books. All of life pulses with this undercurrent of something so magnificent it makes us pause in our busy lives and whisper âahhh,â in awed recognition and gratitude.
There is a sense in this story of the exquisite tenderness of love wiggling its way into Jakeâs reluctant-warrior heart, and of love giving a princess her first real understanding of how rich life can be. That is the epitome of Hunter. If you pause for just a moment right now, I hope youâll hear the rich vibration of purringâ¦and of love.
Best wishes,
Cara Colter
www.cara-colter.com
JAKE Ronan took a deep, steadying breath, the same kind he would take and hold right before the shot or the assault or the jump.
No relief. His heart was beating like a deer three steps ahead of a wolf pack. His palms were slick with sweat.
He was a man notorious for keeping his cool. And in the past three years that notoriety had served him well. Heâd taken a hijacked plane back from the bad guys, jumped from ten thousand feet in the dead of night into territory controlled by hostiles, rescued fourteen school-children from a hostage taking.
But in the danger-zone department nothing did him in like a wedding. He shrugged, rolled his shoulders, took another deep breath.
His old friend, Colonel Gray Peterson, recently retired, the reason Ronan was here on the tiny tropical-island paradise of BâRanasha, shifted uneasily beside him. Under his breath he said a word that probably had never been said in a church before. âYou donât have your sideways feeling, do you?â Gray asked.
Ronan was famous among this tough group of men, his comrades-in-arms, for the feeling, a sixth sense that warned him things were about to go wrong, in a big way.
âI just donât like weddings,â he said, keeping his voice deliberately hushed. âThey make me feel uptight.â
Gray contemplated that as an oddity. âJake,â he finally said reassuringly, his use of Ronanâs first name an oddity in itself, âitâs not as if youâre the one getting married. Youâre part of the security team. You donât even know these people.â
Ronan had never been the one getting married, but his childhood had been littered with his motherâs latest attempt to land the perfect man. His own longing for a normal family, hidden under layers of adolescent belligerence, had usually ended in disillusionment long before the day of yet another elaborate wedding ceremony, his mother exchanging starry-eyed âI doâsâ with yet another temporary stepfather.
Ronan had found a family he enjoyed very much when heâd followed in his deceased fatherâs footsteps, over his motherâs strenuous and tear-filled protests, and joined the Australian military right out of high school. Finally, there had been structure, predictability and genuine camaraderie in his life.
And then heâd been recruited for a multinational military unit that was a first-response team to world crises. The unit, headquartered in England, was comprised of men from the most elite special forces units around the world. They had members from the British Forces SAS, from the French Foreign Legion, from the U.S. SEALs and Delta Force.