Prologue
Previously at the end of Billionaire Cowboy’s Runaway Bride…
Levi Tanner watched his brother Cole dancing with his soulmate, Tulip. The wedding had been attended by a large number of friends and family here at the main ranch, among the beautiful landscaping that Tulip had done. Levi stood near the outer edge of the dance floor, observing, like he liked to do. And at the table on the other side of the huge turquoise ceramic pot of flowers was the table where Tulip’s mother and some of her friends were sitting and enjoying themselves.
“That Tulip Michelle is just the most beautiful bride I have ever seen, Mira.”
“Why, thank you, Beulah Anne. I was thinking the very same thing. If any of those horrible tabloid people are here, she will take all their readers’ breath away in that dress. And my new son-in-law isn’t shabby himself. Those Tanner men do have the looks, don’t they?”
“You are right about that. You are going to have some gorgeous grandbabies.” Beulah Anne cocked her blue-haired head and met Levi’s gaze that had momentarily drifted to the ladies’ table. She smiled. “That Levi is a showstopper, that one.”
She winked at him; he tipped his head and then immediately put his gaze somewhere else.
Tabloids. The mere mention of the creepy reporters who liked to stalk them had him surveying the wedding-goers. They’d backed off Tulip and Cole after the flashy show Tulip had put on for them that night she’d said to heck with them and proposed to Cole at the gate, in full view of God and everyone. The videos had trended online as the Runaway Bride Gets Her Man and she had succeeded in turning the tide on the bad news that Shelly had tried to bury them under. Tulip’s business had flourished after the proposal went viral. And, all in all, the world was all rosy for them, though she swore that soon they would be able to settle down and have a normal life because she and Cole were going to be blissfully happy and to tabloids that was really boring.
He thought she was living in a dream world, because the tabloids weren’t known for letting go of a good thing. And Tulip had turned out to be a reader magnet. She and Cole together, being all smoochy, smoochy gave them heart palpitations. Levi was happy for his brother, he really was, but the media was not something he would ever embrace.
His thoughts hit a snag as his gaze landed on a beautiful brunette with a shapely figure and her startlingly blue eyes slammed into him. He felt as if he’d been burned by a blue flame. Their gazes collided, tangled, and then she turned and mixed into the crowd on the other side of the dance floor. He just stood there, stunned, feeling as though his world had just collided with a meteorite.
He moved from his position on the outskirts of the party into the throng as the music to the bride and groom’s dance neared the end. He searched, feeling almost frantic to catch a glimpse of her before something happened and she disappeared out of his life forever. Several people called his name; he nodded but kept moving.
Beck McCoy from Stonewall, another happily married man of recent days, called his name and tipped his hat. They often used Beck’s Learjet charter service to travel these days as commercial flights were harder and harder to deal with. Bret had flown in from his bull-riding event using McCoy Charters just so he could get to the wedding on time, and he’d fly out later tonight in order to be back for tomorrow’s nationally televised event.
“You look like you’re looking for a woman,” Beck said, not holding him up.
“Yeah, about five foot four or five, brunette, with amazing eyes. Did you see her pass by here?”
Beck’s lip hitched upward. “Can’t say that I did. But then, I had my eyes on that sweet little blue-eyed blonde.” He nodded toward his wife, who danced on the edge of the floor with a small girl. They were laughing and happy, and he could see why Beck didn’t see anyone in the room but his wife.
Just then, he saw her. A camera lifted in her hand as she snapped several shots of Cole dipping Tulip to the end of the wedding song and then planting a long, deeply involved kiss on his bride.
The blue-eyed beauty kept snapping photos—not like a normal partygoer would take a few; this woman was taking them consecutively, wanting the perfect shot. The money shot.
And then he knew, without doubt, that this was no guest. This was one of them, the photo jerks who crashed weddings of the wealthy, famous, or otherwise sought-after by the media for pictures to post. Paparazzi, photo opportunist looking for their money shot to make a paycheck. He and his brothers called them Paparats most of the time, like the rats they were.
This wedding list had been meticulously cleaned to make certain no paparats would get in.
But here she was, and he planned to take those photographs off her hands. Striding forward, he neared her just as she spotted him. Looking guilty as sin, she backed up, pocketed the small camera, and took off through the crowd.
And he was in hot pursuit. She was not getting off the property with that camera.
Chapter One
Levi was in a hurry to catch the beautiful woman he had spotted taking pictures, not just any pictures, but what he had suspected were pictures of his brother’s wedding that she planned to sell. People who were selling photos just had a look about them, and though this woman was beautiful, she had been taking too many pictures of Cole and Tulip to be for her own personal use and she was not the official photographer.
“Hold up, Levi,” Cole called as he was preparing to toss the garter he had just removed from Tulip’s leg.
Levi didn’t need to be in the lineup for the garter catching because he had no plans to be marrying anytime soon, so he’d leave that to all those guys standing there waiting.
But Cole pointed to the lineup. “Get in line.”
“That’s okay. I’ve got to get somewhere.”
Cole laughed, the joy in his expression completely filling the entire room. “Yeah, in the lineup to catch this garter. Now get in line. You can go wherever you’ve got to go after this but come on, bro—line up.”
Better get it over with; the sooner he could do that, the sooner he could maybe catch the brunette. “Fine, throw that thing.”
Cole laughed and the guys standing around Levi nudged him, acting as if they didn’t want him to be in the front of the line and they certainly didn’t want him to get the garter.
He backed up a little bit. “Have at it, fellas. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
His older brother Austin, the doctor in the family, gave him a sidelong look. “I’m not particularly happy about being in this lineup either, but it’s for Cole.”
“Yeah, and he swears by that old wives’ tale that if you catch the garter, you’re next in line to get married since he got hit in the face with the garter at the last wedding he went to and then met Tulip.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s real.”
“You’ve got that right. Whether I caught a garter or didn’t, I’m not getting married. But no sense tempting fate.” He grinned at Austin.
Cole turned his back to them and flung the garter over his head. It flew through the air and all the guys rushed for it like linebackers headed toward a quarterback. Only problem was one of them was overzealous and tripped. And they all went down right in front of Levi and Austin in a major pileup.