Only Mine

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author

SUSAN MALLERY

“Mallery’s prose is luscious and provocative.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Susan Mallery’s gift for writing humor and tenderness

make all her books true gems.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Romance novels don’t get much better than Mallery’s expert blend of

emotional nuance, humor and superb storytelling.”

—Booklist

“Mallery sets up some very tough choices for her heroine,

making this book compelling and intense.”

—RT Book Reviews on Finding Perfect

“[A]n emotional story with a beautiful happy ending!

Another must read by Susan Mallery.”

—Good Choice Reading on Almost Perfect

“Warm, funny, and sexy, this lighthearted yet touching page-turner

is a satisfying, rewarding read and the ‘perfect’ beginning

for Mallery’s Fool’s Gold series.”

—Library Journal on Chasing Perfect

“As demonstrated in this compelling story, family doesn’t have to share

blood, just emotions. Filled with emotional drama, devastating treachery

and the power of love, this finale will delight fans.”

—RT Book Reviews on Hot on Her Heels

“One of the Top 10 Romance Novels of 2009!”

—Booklist on Straight from the Hip

Only Mine

Susan

Mallery

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Marilyn, my sister of the heart.

You are sweet and generous and funny, just like Dakota. This one’s for you.

“WHAT’S IT GOING TO take to get you to cooperate? Money? Threats? Either works for me.”

Dakota Hendrix looked up from her laptop to find a very tall, stern-looking man standing over her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. What’s it going to take?”

She’d been warned there would be plenty of crazies hanging around, but she hadn’t actually believed it. Apparently she’d been wrong.

“You have a lot of attitude for someone wearing a plaid flannel shirt,” she said, standing so she was at least something close to eye-level with the guy. If he hadn’t been so obviously annoyed, she would have thought he was pretty decent-looking, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes.

He glanced down at himself, then back at her. “What does my shirt have to do with anything?”

“It’s plaid.”

“So?”

“It’s hard to be intimidated by a man wearing plaid. I’m just saying. And flannel is a friendly fabric. A little down-home for most people. Now if you were in all black, with a leather jacket, I’d be a lot more nervous.”

His expression tightened, as did a muscle in his jaw. His gaze sharpened, and she had a feeling that if he were just a little less civilized, he would throw something.

“Having a bad day?” she asked cheerfully.

“Something like that.” He spoke between clenched teeth.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I believe that’s how I started this conversation.”

“No. You started by threatening me.” She smiled. “At the risk of sending your annoyance level from an eight to a ten, sometimes being nice is more effective. At least it is with me.” She held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Dakota Hendrix.”

The man looked as if he would rather rip off her head than be polite, but after a couple of deep breaths, he shook hands with her and muttered, “Finn Andersson.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Andersson.”

“Finn.”

“Finn,” she repeated, being more perky than usual, simply because she thought it would bug him. “How can I help you?”

“I want to get my brothers off the show.”

“Hence the threats.”

He frowned. “Hence? Who says that?”

“It’s a perfectly good word.”

“Not where I come from.”

She glanced down at the worn work boots he wore, then back to his shirt. “I’m almost afraid to ask where that is.”

“South Salmon, Alaska.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Worse, I’m in California.”

“Hey, you’re in my hometown. I’ll thank you to be polite.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Whatever. You win. Can you help me with my brothers or not?”

“It depends. What’s the problem?”

She motioned to the seat across from her small desk. Finn hesitated for a second, then folded his long body into a seated position. She took her chair and waited.

“They’re here,” he said at last, as if that explained everything.

“Here instead of back in South Salmon?”

“Here instead of finishing their last semester of college. They’re twins. They go to UA. University of Alaska,” he added.

“But if they’re on the show, then they’re over eighteen,” she said gently, feeling his pain, but knowing there was very little she could do about it.

“Meaning I don’t have any legal authority?” he asked, sounding both resigned and bitter. “Tell me about it.” He leaned toward her, his gaze intense. “I need your help. Like I said, they’re one semester from graduating, and they walked away from that to come here.”

Dakota had grown up in the town of Fool’s Gold and had chosen to return after she’d finished her schooling, >so she didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to live in town. But she would guess Finn was a lot more worried about his brothers’ future than their location.

He stood. “Why am I even talking to you? You’re one of those Hollywood types. You’re probably happy they’ve given up everything to be on your stupid show.”

She rose as well, then shook her head. “First of all, it’s not my stupid show. I’m with the town, not the production company. Second, if you’ll give me a moment to think instead of instantly getting angry, maybe I can come up with something that will help. If you’re like this with your brothers, I’m not surprised they want to get a couple thousand miles away from you.”

Given the little she knew about Finn from their thirty-second relationship, she half expected him to snarl at her, then disappear. Instead he surprised her by grinning.

The curve of his lips, the flash of teeth, wasn’t anything unique, but it hit her in the stomach all the same. She felt as if all the air had rushed out of her lungs and she couldn’t breathe. Seconds later, she managed to recover and told herself it was a momentary blip on her otherwise emotionally smooth radar. Nothing more than an anomaly. Like a sunspot.

“That’s what they said,” he admitted, returning to his seat with a sigh. “That they’d hoped being at college would be far enough away, but it wasn’t.” The grin faded. “Damn, this is hard.”

She sat down and rested her hands on the table between them. “What do your parents say about all this?”

“I’m their parents.”

“Oh.” She swallowed, not sure what tragedy had brought that about. She would guess Finn was all of thirty, maybe thirty-two. “How long ago …?”

“Eight years.”

“You’ve been raising your brothers since they were what? Twelve?”

“They were thirteen, but yes.”

“Congratulations. You’ve done a good job.”

The smile faded as he scowled at her. “How would you know that?”

“They made it into college, were successful enough to get to their final semester and now they’re emotionally tough enough to stand up to you.”

The scowl turned into a sneer. “Let me guess. You’re one of those people who calls rain ‘liquid sunshine.’ If I’d done my job with my brothers, they would still be in college, instead of here, trying to get on some idiotic reality show.”

There was that, Dakota thought. From Finn’s perspective, nothing about this was good.

He shook his head. “I can’t figure out where I went wrong. All I wanted was to get them through college. Three more months. They only needed to stay in school three more months. But could they do that? No. They even sent me an email, telling me where they were—like I’d be happy for them.”

She reached for the files on her desk. “What are their names?”

“Sasha and Stephen.” His expression cleared. “Is there something you can do to help?”

“I don’t know. As I said, I’m here representing the town. The producers came to us with the reality show idea. Believe me, Fool’s Gold wasn’t looking for this kind of publicity. We wanted to say no, but were concerned they would go ahead and do it anyway. This way, we’re involved and hope to have some kind of control over the outcome.”

She glanced at him and smiled. “Or at least the illusion of control.”

“Trust me. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’m getting that. All the potential contestants were vetted thoroughly, background checks on everyone. We insisted on that.”

“Trying to avoid the truly insane?”

“Yes, and criminals. Reality television puts a lot of pressure on people.”

“How did the TV people hear about Fool’s Gold if the town wasn’t courting them?” he asked.

“It was just plain bad luck. A year ago a grad student writing her thesis on human geography discovered we had a chronic man shortage in town. The hows and whys became a chapter in her project. In an effort to bring attention to her work, she shopped her thesis around various media outlets, where the part about Fool’s Gold was picked up.”

He frowned. “I think I remember hearing about that. Didn’t you get busloads of guys coming in from all over?”

“Unfortunately. Most of the reports made us sound like a town of desperate spinsters, which isn’t true at all. A few weeks later, Hollywood came calling in the form of the reality show.”

She flipped through the stack of applications of those who had made it to final selection. When she saw Sasha Andersson’s picture, she winced. “Identical twins?” she asked.

“Yes, why?”

She pulled out Sasha’s application and passed it to Finn. “He’s adorable.” The head shot showed a happy, smiling, younger version of Finn. “If he has a personality more exciting than that of a shoe, he’s going to get on the show. What’s not to like? Plus, if there are two of them …” She set down the folder. “Let me put it another way. If you were the producer, would you want them on the show?”

Finn dropped the paper. The woman—Dakota—had a point. His brothers were charming, funny and young enough to believe they were immortal. Irresistible to someone looking to pull in ratings.

“I’m not going to let them ruin their lives,” he said flatly.

“The show is ten weeks of filming. College will still be there.” Her voice was gentle and hinted at compassion. Her dark gaze was steady. She was pretty enough—had he been looking for that kind of thing. All he cared about right now was getting his brothers back to college.

“You think they’ll want to go back after all this?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. Have you asked them?”

“No.” To date he’d only lectured and issued orders—both of which his brothers had ignored.

“Did they say why they wanted to be on this show?”

“Not specifically,” he admitted. But he had a theory or two about their thinking. They wanted to be out of Alaska and away from him. Plus, Sasha had been dreaming of fame for a long time.

“Have they done this sort of thing before? Run off against your wishes, given up on school?”

“No. That’s what I don’t get. They’re so close to being finished. Why couldn’t they suck it up for one more semester?” It was the responsible thing to do.

Until now, Sasha and Stephen hadn’t given him much grief. There’d been the usual driving too fast, a few parties with friends and plenty of girls. He’d sweated bullets waiting to hear one of his brothers had gotten a girl pregnant. But so far that hadn’t happened. Maybe his thousands of lectures about using birth control had gotten through. So them wanting to leave college for a reality show had stunned him. He’d always figured they would at least finish school.

“They sound like great kids,” Dakota said. “Maybe you should trust them.”

“Maybe I should tie them up and throw them in the back of a plane headed for Alaska.”

“You wouldn’t like jail.”

“They’d have to catch me first.” He stood again. “Thanks for your time.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help.”

“Me, too.”

She rose and circled the table so she was standing in front of him. “To repeat a cliché, if you love something, set it free.”

He stared into her dark eyes. They were an interesting contrast to her wavy blond hair. “If it comes back, it was meant to?” He managed a smile. “No, thanks. I fall into the ‘if it doesn’t, hunt it down and shoot it’ category.”

“Should I warn your brothers?”

“They already know.”

“Sometimes you have to let people mess up.”

“This is too important,” he told her. “It’s their future.”

“The key word being theirs, not yours. Whatever happens here isn’t unrecoverable.”

“You don’t know that.”

She looked as if she wanted to argue more. She wasn’t a yeller, and he appreciated that. Her points were well thought out. But there was no way she could change his mind on this. Come hell or high water, he was getting his brothers out of Fool’s Gold and back to college, where they belonged.

“Thanks for your time,” he told her.

“You’re welcome. I hope the three of you can come to terms.” One corner of her mouth twitched. “Please remember we have a very efficient police force in town. Chief Barns doesn’t take kindly to people breaking the law.”

“I appreciate the warning.”

Finn walked out of the small trailer. Filming or shooting or whatever they called it was due to start in two days. Which gave him less than forty-eight hours to come up with a plan to either convince his brothers to return to Alaska on their own or physically force them to do what he wanted.

“I OWE YOU,” Marsha Tilson said over lunch.

Dakota picked up a French fry. “Yes, you do. I’m a highly trained professional.”

“Something Geoff doesn’t appreciate?” Marsha, the town’s sixty-something mayor, asked, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement.

“He does not. I have a Ph.D.,” Dakota muttered. “I should make him call me doctor.”

“From what I know of Geoff, I’m not sure that would help.”

Dakota bit into her fry. She hated to admit it, but Mayor Marsha had a point. Geoff was the producer of the reality show that had invaded the town—True Love or Fool’s Gold. After randomly sorting twenty people into couples, the pairs would be sent on romantic dates, which would be filmed, edited and then shown on television with a one-week delay. America would vote off the couple least likely to make it.

At the end, the last couple standing would receive $250,000 to share and a free wedding, if they were really in love.

From what Dakota could tell, Geoff didn’t care about anything except getting good ratings. The fact that the town didn’t want the show around hadn’t bothered him at all. In the end, the mayor had agreed to cooperate on the condition that there be someone on his staff who was looking out for the interests of the good citizens of Fool’s Gold.

All that made sense to Dakota, though she still didn’t know why she’d gotten the job. She wasn’t a public relations specialist or even a city employee. She was a psychologist who specialized in childhood development. Unfortunately, her boss had offered her services, even agreeing to pay her salary while she worked with the production company. Dakota still wasn’t speaking to him.

She would have turned down the assignment, except Mayor Marsha had pleaded. Dakota had grown up here. When the Mayor needed a favor, the good citizens agreed. Until the production company had shown up, Dakota would have sworn she would happily do anything for her town. And, as she’d told Finn a couple of hours before, it was only for ten weeks. She could survive nearly anything that long.

“Have the contestants been picked?” Marsha asked.

“Yes, but they’re keeping it a secret until the big announcement.”

“Anyone we need to worry about?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve looked over the files and everyone seems fairly normal.” She thought about Finn. “We do have a family member who isn’t happy.” She explained about the twenty-one-year-old twins. “If they’re half as good-looking in person as they are in their pictures, they’re going to be on the show.”

“Do you think their brother will make trouble?”

“No. If the boys were still underage, I would worry that he would try to ground them. As it is, he can only worry and threaten.”

Marsha nodded sympathetically. Dakota knew the mayor’s only daughter had been something of a wild child, then had gotten pregnant and run away. It couldn’t be easy, raising a child. Or in Finn’s case, two brothers. Not that she knew about being a mother.

“We can help,” Marsha said. “Look out for the boys. Let me know if, or maybe when, they’re chosen for the show. We don’t have to like that Geoff brought us this mess, but we can make sure to keep it contained.”

“I’m sure the twins’ brother will appreciate that,” she murmured, suspecting Finn might be grateful but wouldn’t have much expectation for the town helping.

“You’re doing a good thing,” Marsha told her. “Keeping an eye on the show.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

The mayor smiled. “That’s the secret to my success. I box people into a corner and force them to agree.”

“You’re very good at it.” Dakota sipped her diet soda. “The worst part is I actually like reality TV. Or I did until I met Geoff. I wish he’d do something illegal so Chief Barns would arrest him.”

“We can always hope.” Marsha sighed. “You’ve given up a lot, Dakota. I do want to thank you for taking on the show and protecting the town.”

Dakota shifted in her seat. “I haven’t done all that. I’m on set and making sure they don’t plan anything truly insane.”

“I feel better knowing you’re around.”

She was good, Dakota thought, eyeing the older woman. Years of experience. Marsha was the longest-serving mayor in the state. Over thirty years. She thought of all the money the town had saved on letterhead. It never had to change.

While this was far from Dakota’s dream job, working for Geoff had the potential to be interesting. She knew nothing about making a television show, and she told herself she would enjoy the opportunity to learn about the business. At least it was a distraction. Something she wanted these days—anything to avoid feeling so … broken.

She reminded herself not to go there. Not everything could be fixed, and the sooner she accepted that, the better. She could still make a good life for herself. Acceptance would be the first step in moving on. She was a trained professional, after all. A psychologist who understood how the human mind worked.

But knowing and believing were two different things. Right now it seemed as if she would never feel whole.

“THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT,” Sasha Andersson said as he leaned against the battered headboard. He glanced down at the copy of Variety he’d bought from the old guy at the bookstore. Someday, he would be making thousands, or even millions, and he would subscribe and have it delivered to his phone, as the real stars did. Until then, he bought a copy every few days, to keep costs down.

Stephen, his twin brother, lay across the other bed in the small motel room they shared. A worn Car and Driver sat open on the floor. Stephen dangled his head and shoulders off the mattress as he flipped through an issue he’d probably read fifty times.

“Did you hear me?” Sasha asked impatiently.

Stephen looked up, his dark hair falling over his eyes. “What?”

“The show. It’s going to be great.”

Stephen shrugged. “If we get picked.”

Sasha tossed the paper to the foot of the bed and grinned. “Hey. It’s us. How could they resist?”

“I heard there were over five hundred applicants.”

“They narrowed that number down to sixty and we’re going to make the final cut, too. Come on. We’re twins. TV audiences love that. We should make it seem like we don’t get along. Fight and stuff. Then we’ll get more camera time.”

Stephen shifted on the bed, then rolled onto his back. “I don’t want more camera time.”

A fact that was both irritating and true, Sasha thought grimly. Stephen wasn’t interested in the business.

“Then why are you here?”

Stephen drew in a deep breath. “It beats being back home.”

Something they agreed on. Home was a tiny town of eighty people. South Salmon, Alaska. In the summer, they were flooded with tourists wanting to see the “real” Alaska. For nearly five months, every waking moment was spent working impossible hours, struggling to keep up with the crowds, to get the job done and get paid before moving on to the next job. In winter, there was darkness, snow and crushing boredom.

The other residents of South Salmon claimed to love everything about their lives. Despite being direct descendants of Russian, Swedish and Irish immigrants who had settled in Alaska nearly a hundred years before, Sasha and Stephen wanted to be anywhere but there. Something their older brother, Finn, had never understood.

“This is my chance,” Sasha said firmly. “My shot. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get noticed.”

Without even closing his eyes, he could see himself being interviewed on Entertainment Tonight, talking about the blockbuster movie he was starring in. In his mind, he’d walked a million red carpets, celebrated at Hollywood parties, had women show up naked in his hotel room, begging him to sleep with them. Which he graciously agreed to do, he thought with a grin. Because that’s the kind of guy he was.

For the past eight years, he’d wanted to be on TV and in movies. But the industry never made it to South Salmon, and Finn had always dismissed his dreams as something he would outgrow.

Finally old enough to be able to do what he wanted without his brother’s permission, Sasha had been waiting for the right opportunity. A casting notice for True Love or Fool’s Gold had been it. The only surprise had been when Stephen had wanted to come with him on the interview.

“When I get to Hollywood,” he began, playing a familiar game, “I’m going to buy a house in the hills. Or at the beach.”

“Malibu,” Stephen said, rolling onto his back. “Girls in bikinis.”

“Right. Malibu. And I’ll meet with producers and go to parties and make millions.” He glanced at his brother. “What are you going to do?”

Stephen was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Not go to Hollywood.”

“You’d like it.”

Stephen shook his head. “No. I want something different. I want …”

He didn’t complete the sentence, but then he didn’t have to. Sasha already knew. He and his twin might not share the same dreams, but they still knew everything about each other. Stephen wanted to find a place to belong, whatever the hell that meant.

“It’s Finn’s fault you’re not excited about this,” Sasha grumbled.

Stephen looked at him and grinned. “You mean because he’s so hell-bent on us finishing college and having a good life? What a jerk.”

Sasha chuckled. “Yeah. Where does he get off demanding we’re successful?” His humor faded. “Except it’s not about us. It’s about him. He just wants to say he’s done a good job.”

Sasha knew it was more than that, but he wasn’t willing to admit it. Not out loud, anyway.