Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(82)

“Kitty Fantastic?” she asked, because last she’d heard Mr. Gillis was petitioning to get him back—along with the gift card. She’d also learned that Goldilocks was his neighbor and had been stealing his “food supply,” as he’d called them, for months. Turns out the kittens weren’t her first rescues, they were just the first ones she couldn’t place herself.

“I filled out my application to adopt him this morning, right after I arrested Mr. Gillis for possession of an illegal python.”

“You arrested him?” she asked, shocked that he’d even taken her accusations that the kittens had been mistreated seriously. Then she realized that Jonah had always taken her seriously. And he’d never gone back on his word.

Not once.

Shay looked into his eyes and laid it on the line. “I don’t do returns, Jonah. And Kitty Fantastic, although adorable, can be difficult and temperamental and a whole lot of trouble. And he won’t change. Ever.”

“I like adorable, and I love trouble.” Jonah held up the key. “Take it, Shay. Take it and come home. With me.”

Shay closed her hand around the key and Jonah’s smile started in his eyes, and by the time he captured her lips she could feel the happiness radiating off of him, feel the want and the love.

Being there in his arms, she felt everything, all at once, then felt it fall into place. A place, she realized, that had been made specifically for her. After all of her tries and near misses, Shay had found her forever family.

“This is for keeps,” she said against him.

“Trouble, with you it has always been for keeps.” He lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them, then placed her hand on his heart, the beat sure and steady. “I need you, for keeps.”

And that sounded like the best kind of forever Shay could imagine.





acknowledgments

Thanks to my editors, Maria Gomez and Lindsay Guzzardo, and the rest of the Author Team at Montlake, for all of the amazing work and support throughout this series, and for making my dreams a reality. And to my agent, Jill Marsal, for everything you do, for me, my career, and my family—your dedication and unwavering belief changed our lives.

As always, a special thanks to my husband and daughter for their support and love. And to Awesome Bob, Suki, and all of the furry friends whom I have been blessed enough to have in my life, your unconditional love inspired this book and gave me hope when I needed it most.





Read on for a sneak peek of Marina Adair’s next heartwarming romance from her Heroes of St. Helena series

   need you for mine

   Available October 2015 on Amazon





You need to get laid,” Emerson Blake explained to the line of uniformed soldiers funneling off the party bus and into the St. Helena VFW dance hall.

She’d always had a thing for a man in uniform. It was something about the way they perpetually looked ready—for anything—that had her happy spots singing.

But there was no singing to be had, not today anyway, because these men and these uniforms smelled like mothballs. And the lei in question? That had more to do with the hundreds of flowered necklaces in her hand than belting out a hearty Oh My anthem. Not to mention, her body hadn’t so much as hummed in months and she had no idea why.

Okay, so she had a pretty good idea why, but that would be fodder for thought for another rainy day. This rainy day was to be spent catering to the few hundred seniors who had come out in support of the Veterans of Foreign Wars monthly Wartime Mixer.

With an open bar, live band, and Copacabana theme, the turnout was bigger than Emerson had anticipated, or prepped for. Heroes from every one of the past five wars were present, which meant that every single silver-haired lady over sixty was there, ready to be seen and heard. Including winter herself, who sent Emerson a you-can-suck-it reminder from the universe in the form of an icy blast of wind that blew into the dance hall—and up Emerson’s grass skirt.

“Have you been laid?” she asked the first man to exit the bus.

“Not since I was stationed at Pearl Harbor,” retired Gunnery Sargeant Carl Dabney said, waggling a bushy brow. “So don’t try to give me one of them no-salt-allowed yellow leis. I want a pink one.”

“If I give you a pink one you’ll go home in an ambulance,” Emerson said, handing him a yellow one. The old man refused to take it.

“If I can’t have any salt, what kind of message is that sending to the ladies standing at the salsa bar?”

“That you have high blood pressure?”

“That I’m a pansy, hashtag real men wear pink!” Carl was in his early nineties, carried a cane and a gun at all times, and was a regular customer at Emerson’s food cart in town. He’d also, according to Emerson’s little medical printout, compliments of Valley Vintage Senior Community, survived three wars, two triple bypasses, and a stroke—which made him far from a pansy. It also meant he was stubborn enough to beat death.

Too bad for him, death didn’t have anything on Emerson.

“Yellow means low sodium,” she explained, and Carl snorted as though he could take on sodium and the entire periodic table without even dropping his cane. “I can always give you a white one.”

He looked the white lei over carefully. “What does that one get me?”