To Love And Honour

By Terry Towers

It has been a long, hard road with many obstacles for Grant and Nikki to overcome, but the day has finally arrived... The day Nikki gets to marry her hero, Grant Rivers, and she quickly finds out that it was worth the wait. Not only does she experience the wedding of her dreams, but Grant is determined to give her a honeymoon that she won't soon forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Soft & Hard Romantic Publishing
• Release date: Feb 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507008768

Book preview

Chapter 1

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No! Grant! Nooooooo!

Grant Rivers was jolted awake for the second time that night by his bride-to-be, Nikki, who was screaming in the bed next to him, in the throes of yet another nightmare. Turning a little too quickly to gather her into his arms and comfort her, he grimaced as a sharp pain surged through him. His wounds from the surgery were healing nicely, but quick movements still smarted.

Flipping over to his side, facing her thrashing body, he took hold of her and pulled her tightly to his chest, stroking her long, dark locks. I'm here honey. It's okay. It's all over now, he soothed.

Her body trembled against him, but she seemed to calm as she snuggled against him, taking comfort in his embrace and murmuring something incoherent as she drifted back into a deep slumber.

Ahhh shit. He sighed as he kissed her temple. He had no idea what to do. For the first time in his life he felt helpless and out of control. It wasn't a feeling he was accustomed to or particularly liked, especially considering it involved the one thing he loved more than anything else in the world.

She'd been having horrid night terrors every night since the incident where he'd nearly died at the hands of his ex-partner/ex-lover from the CIA. Nikki kept reliving that moment in her dreams. But in those dreams he always died. If it wasn't that dream, she'd relive the time they'd been held captive and he'd been tortured. Her body would jerk and she'd wake up screaming, and then check his body for fresh gashes and bullet wounds.

The wounds on his back from the whipping had long since healed, leaving long angry scars to match the previous set. But the dreams she was having would have her convinced it had all just happened, instead of it being a month in the past.

Being that she was three months' pregnant, her night terrors worried him even more than they normally would. The stress couldn't be good for the baby. There was also the wedding to contend with. They'd rescheduled. It was now planned for a month from tomorrow. The problem was that they were both so drained, emotionally and physically, that getting everything prepared seemed overwhelming.

He was currently on leave from his position with the agency, for an undefined length of time. Grant simply didn't know where to go from here. In a month he'd be a husband. In six months, a father. His family needed to be his priority, but he still had the itch to go back into the field. He fought that itch each day. If the truth be known, he would have returned to work last week - despite the fact he was still sore - had it not been for his concern over Nikki, the postponement of the wedding, and his small promise to leave the agency.

A soft snore escaped her lips and she loosened her hold on him, her muscles and expression relaxing. Grant gently laid her back onto the bed and as carefully as he could, slid out from under the blankets and made his way out of the bedroom, heading for the bathroom.

One thing he was grateful for was that he'd finally gotten her out of that rat hole of an apartment of hers and into a nice house on the outskirts of Boston. A nice, quiet suburban neighbourhood. The house wasn't much; it was a three bedroom, single floor home with a nice little back yard and a paved driveway. It was quaint. Perfect to start a family in and she'd fallen in love with it the moment she'd set eyes on it.

Not bothering to flip on the light, using the combination of moonlight and the single street lamp in front of their house peeping in through the curtains to guide him, Grant entered the bathroom. Flipping open the medicine cabinet he grabbed the bottle of prescription painkillers, opened it and shook two out into the palm of his hand.

Without bothering with water, he swallowed the two white tablets down. In his haste to comfort Nikki he'd hurt his side again and a sharp throbbing had begun as a result. Who am I kidding, he grumbled as he tossed the bottle back into the cabinet and closed it.

Looking into the mirror, grey eyes stared back at him and his expression was grim. In two days he was going to be thirty-six years old and tonight he was feeling much older than that. In his lifetime he'd experienced war first hand, been shot, stabbed, tortured, thrown from moving vehicles, broken more bones than he cared to count and been pumped full of so many drugs over the years, for various reasons, it was nothing short of a miracle that he was still alive.

The eyes that looked back at him in the mirror had seen acts committed that would turn a normal person's stomach. His own hands had done things in the name of his country that he feared one day he'd have to answer for, if not in this lifetime then in the next.

He groaned as he ran a hand through his dark hair. Perhaps he was getting too old for all that spy shit anyhow. But if he wasn't Grant Rivers, secret agent for the CIA, then who was he? Grant Rivers: loyal husband, loving father, perhaps? Even though he loved the sound of that, he felt that he was losing a part of himself, a very important part, by leaving the agency.

You promised her you'd leave and get a normal job, a voice in the back of his mind chided. He sighed in resignation. Yes, he did.

A loud, ear piercing scream sounded throughout the house and tore at his heart. Without wasting a moment he rushed out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom where Nikki was once consumed with terror as she slept.

****

Nikki groaned out her frustration as she tugged at the zipper of a dress identical to the one that had gotten destroyed when she'd been kidnapped. It won't fit!

Grant lowered his gaze, stifling a smirk.

Glaring at him in the mirror as he stood reclining against the wall of the dressing room she huffed. Can you help me get this on?

With all due respect honey, maybe you should try a larger size.

A larger size! A growl rose up in the back of her throat. Yes, she was pregnant and she knew that with pregnancy came weight gain, but she'd been hoping that the weight would stay off long enough to walk down the aisle!

Was he grinning? Yes, the dirty bugger was grinning. Spinning around she wagged her finger at him. "I