“Elsie, watch out!” Wyatt yelled, but this time Travis didn’t go for Elsie. He just ran, attempting to evade them and escape. Wyatt ran after him.

Willow barked, joined the chase, grabbed the man by the leg. He jumped backward, away from her. Willow lowered her head. Growled and stepped toward him. He took another step back.

Too close to the cliff. Wyatt yelled, “Don’t! Stop!”

But Willow lunged and Travis stumbled back and started to yell as he fell over the cliff, toward the rocks and ocean waves, and Wyatt made it to the edge just in time to see him go under and be swept out with the current.

Unlike the plane crash, this couldn’t be faked. There was no coming back from this. He was gone.

Adrenaline pumping, he turned to see Elsie running toward him. He caught her in his arms.

“He’s gone,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Elsie said nothing, just cried. He held her tighter. What else was there to do, to say?

“I can’t believe he hated me that much,” she finally said and pulled back from him, searching his eyes.

“You weren’t the problem. It was him. How anyone could care about their ambitions like that over other human beings...” Sure, people were selfish, but this was an extreme example. He had been a murderer, with seemingly no remorse. But now he was gone.

“He was my biological father,” she said, still looking at him.

“I know.”

“Does this change...? I mean, I know I messed up, Wyatt. I’m sorry about last night. If you ever forgive me for that, does it change how you feel, knowing...?” She trailed off and he put his hands on either side of her face, gently angled her to look at him.

“I love you, Elsie Montgomery. I know you. I know who you are, and that man does not define you.”

“But knowing all of this...”

“It’s only part of who you are in that it made you who you are. Let the past go, Elsie.” He smiled a little. “Let’s explore the future together.”

“Are you going to propose again?” Her smile wavered a little.

“Only if you wouldn’t turn me down this time,” he teased back. “But you’re right. I will wait. Let’s get to know each other a little more.”

“What if you change your mind and decide you don’t love me as much as you thought when you get to know me?”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and would have spoken, but a noise behind him caught their attention.

A helicopter was coming toward them, heading for the clearing in the woods. When it landed, troopers came out, guns at the ready.

Elsie and Wyatt put their hands up and Wyatt pointed at the unconscious man. “He’s the only one left. Travis Cattleman threw himself off the cliff.”

The next few minutes were spent sorting out taking the other man off to jail. He started to wake up as they loaded him in the helicopter and had to be restrained. He’d get plenty of years in prison for whatever role he had played in this, Wyatt was sure of it. Elsie would be really and truly free.

They could both face their future, together.

“You ready?” he asked Elsie before they stepped into the helicopter, Willow at their sides.

“If you’re coming with me.” She smiled at him, took his hand.

Wyatt knew he could promise that he would for the rest of his life. But that would wait. Today he would just keep getting to know her. Let her know him.

And they could keep falling a little more in love every day.

EPILOGUE

Six months later, Elsie was standing in the woods, Lindsay beside her.

“I can’t believe you’re marrying my brother,” her friend teased. “And didn’t tell me when it all happened.”

Elsie laughed, reached down to pet Willow. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re both fantastic people and it’s about time you both found someone special enough to deserve you.”

At her words, Elsie felt herself glow even more with love than she had a few minutes before. Lindsay’s approval meant so much to her, not just because she was Elsie’s best friend but because she was Wyatt’s family. Reverend and Mrs. Chandler had made her feel the same way when they’d found out first about her relationship with Wyatt and then about their engagement. Elsie was part of their family, they’d said, and now it would be official.

She wasn’t alone anymore. And better yet, she was with Wyatt, the only man who had ever made her feel like all her dreams were coming true. The man who knew the worst about her and loved her anyway.

The man who had led her to Jesus, who was changing her life a little more every day.

The man who’d stood by her through the scariest time in her life, when the man who had been her biological father fell off the cliff to his death. When she learned he’d killed her mother. When the troopers had told her they’d concluded their investigation and believed Travis had murdered Rebecca Reyes and indeed used the two women as bait to get Elsie somewhere where she was vulnerable, after his hired man failed to get her.

Music wafted through the spruce trees from the beach in front of her cabin, where she and Wyatt had chosen to get married. It was, after all, where everything had started between them, and it seemed fitting this should be where they made their vows to each other.

She could see them, Wyatt and Sven, both standing on the beach, waiting for her. Wyatt’s dad was the pastor who would perform the ceremony. Willow would walk Elsie down the aisle.

As the music played, she walked toward the one she loved. They’d gone through some of the darkest times Elsie could imagine together. Now they were stepping into the future, as Wyatt liked to remind her, and as the sun shone on the rocky beach, dancing in glimmers of light off the waves, Elsie thought the future looked bright indeed.

“I love you,” he whispered when she reached him and he took her hands in his.

“I love you, too.” Elsie smiled back.

Elsie didn’t register much of Wyatt’s dad’s words. She had eyes only for Wyatt, and it seemed he also had eyes only for her.

It was amazing to her that God had brought them together, through all they’d both experienced.

And when Wyatt’s dad finally told them to seal their love and vows with a kiss...

Elsie was only too happy to do so. Beside her, Willow barked. In the front row, Sven howled.

Wyatt and Elsie laughed. And then their lips met again as their happily-ever-after officially came true.

Keep reading for an excerpt from Dangerous Texas Hideout by Virginia Vaughan.

Dear Reader,

Thanks for reading Elsie and Wyatt’s story! I had a fun time brainstorming and playing with ideas about Elsie’s background. She fascinated me, this character who was so fiercely independent and yet vulnerable. She wants to know details about her own past, and to be understood by another person, even though it scares her. She wants to be known.