I raise my free hand and press my fingers to his lips, silencing him. “Fresh start, remember?” I hate that I’m trembling slightly, and I hate that he can probably feel it. But I make myself say, “I would love to go on a date with you … Landon.”

The smile he sends me could light up the world.

But then the sound of someone clearing their throat has us both turning around. Riley is standing behind us, his hands crossed over his chest as he glares at Ward.

“You hurt her, and I’ll kill you.”

My mouth drops open at Riley’s threat, but I’m saved from having to respond when Cami snorts and bounds over to us, linking her arm with mine. I half expect her to offer me a similar warning about Ward, but as she tugs me away from her brother, she looks toward my brother and tells him, “If he hurts her, you’ll have to get in line.”

I’m stunned into silence as Riley chuckles quietly before slapping Ward—Landon—heartily on the back and starting up a conversation as if they’re old friends. Enzo joins them, the wink he sends me enough to have me fighting off another blush.

I’m not sure what’s happening here, but I know that it feels good. Really, really good. And that feeling only grows when I’m halfway across the deck with Cami and I hear Ward call out to me. I turn back and catch his dancing eyes.

“Better get as much sleep as you can tonight, Chip. Training starts first thing tomorrow.”

This time it’s me who snorts. “Keep dreaming, Landon.”

His green—so green—eyes soften as he whispers, the words carrying to me on an invisible breeze, “I already am.”

And as I turn from him and see Cami’s knowing, delighted smile, as I think about my family and friends and the future awaiting us, I can’t help thinking that just maybe, I am, too.

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

And so another series comes to an end! Wow, what a wild ride this one has been! Huge thanks, as always, go to God, my family, and my friends, for sticking with me through the highs and lows of all this authoring craziness. (And boy, what craziness there has been!)

Also big thanks to the entire team at Pantera Press for all your hard work on this book (and all my books), and also for all the fun times that are one hundred percent most definitely related to publishing. I mean, manicures and movies, ghost tours and tunneling expeditions … and of course the quokka stalking … it’s all ‘research’, right?

Right?