“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Brianna automatically apologized, stepping back and trying to collect herself.

She felt slightly flustered, but did her best not to show it.

“No, it was totally my fault,” Sebastian said, annoyed with himself. Drawing back, he’d automatically reached out to steady the woman he’d nearly sent sprawling. He caught her by her slender shoulders. The next moment, his vision clearing, enabling him to actually focus on the face of the woman before him, he dropped his hands from her shoulders, stunned.

At the same time, Sebastian’s jaw dropped.

The one person he hadn’t wanted to run into at the reunion was standing less than five inches away from him.

Looking far more radiant than he ever remembered her looking.

About the Author

MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

Ten Years Later…
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To

Patience Bloom

and

her Sam,

who were my inspiration

for this story.

Thank you.

Prologue

“Maizie, may I speak with you?”

Maizie Sommer looked up from her desk and watched the approach of the sweet-faced, heavyset woman who’d just entered her real estate office.

She knew that look. She’d seen it before, more than once. Not in her capacity as a remarkably successful Realtor with her own agency, but in her role as an even more successful matchmaker.

What had begun several years ago as a determined plan to get her own daughter—and the daughters of her two best friends—matched up and married to their soul mates had turned into a calling.

Since the first time she had gone down this path, Maizie, along with Theresa Manetti and Cecilia Parnell, all three best friends since the third grade, had never encountered failure. Strong gut instincts had guided the three women as they played matchmakers for friends and relatives, unerringly pairing up their targets, not for profit but for the sheer love of it.

As they amassed one triumphant pairing after another, their reputations grew. So much so that at times, their businesses were forced to take a temporary backseat to what Maizie liked to refer to as their “true mission.”

“Come in, Barbara,” Maizie said warmly. Rising, she turned the chair in front of her desk so that the visitor could easily take a seat. “So tell me, what can I do for you?”

Barbara Hunter, whose fondness for rich, good food was evident, sank down into the proffered chair. The retired high school English teacher sighed wearily. This was something she’d been wrestling with for a long time. Coming to Maizie for help amounted to a last-ditch effort before she completely gave up.

“You can tell me how to light a fire under my stubborn son.”

Maizie looked at the other woman, puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

Anticipating her friend’s question, Barbara elaborated. “He was supposed to come home for his high school’s ten-year reunion, but now he tells me that he doesn’t have time for that ‘nonsense,’—his word, not mine—and that he wants to save that time and put it toward his Christmas vacation so that when he does come out, we can have a nice, long visit.”

Soft brown eyes shifted imploringly toward Maizie. “Oh, Maizie, I had such hopes for him….” Barbara’s voice trailed off, lost in another deep sigh.

Maizie, meanwhile, was busy cataloging information. “Remind me, where’s your son now?”

“Sebastian is in Japan, teaching Japanese businessmen how to speak English. He’s really very good at it,” she interjected with visible pride. “When he skipped his five-year reunion, he told me that he’d attend the next milestone reunion ‘for sure.’ His words,” she said again, more bleakly this time. She looked like a woman clinging to the last vestiges of hope and trying to make peace with the knowledge that it was slipping through her fingers. “I was hoping he’d go to this one and maybe even get together with Brianna.”

The name seemed to just wistfully hang there. “Brianna?” Maizie prodded.

Barbara nodded. “Brianna MacKenzie, the girl Sebastian went with during his senior year. I have this beautiful prom picture of the two of them,” she confided, then added with feeling, “A lovely, lovely girl. I really thought that they’d wind up getting married, but Sebastian went off to college and Brianna stayed behind to take care of her father. The poor man was involved in a terrible car accident the night of the prom. She literally nursed him back to health and was so good at it, she went on to become an actual nurse.”

Barbara closed her eyes and shook her head as she felt the last nail being hammered into the coffin of her dreams.

“I had hoped…” Her voice trailed off, but it wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. “Now Sebastian’s apparently changed his mind again. I’m beginning to think that I’m never going to see my son get married, much less hold a grandchild in my arms. Sebastian’s my only boy, Maizie. My only child. I’ve tried to be patient. Lord knows I haven’t interfered in his life, but I don’t have forever. Do you have any suggestions?” she asked, clearly counting on a miracle.

The wheels in Maizie’s head were already turning and she was lost in thought. “How’s that again?” she asked, focusing intently.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Barbara Hunter repeated.

But Maizie shook her head. “No, not that. What did you say just before that?” she coaxed.

Barbara paused and thought. “That I don’t want to interfere in his life?” She had no idea what Maizie was after.

Maizie frowned, shaking her head. “No, after that,” she stressed.

Barbara paused again, thinking for a moment longer. “That I don’t have forever?” It was purely a guess at this point.

Maizie smiled broadly. “That’s it.”

Barbara looked at her uncertainly, completely lost. “What’s it?”

The pieces were all coming together. Maizie almost beamed. “That’s how you’re going to get Sebastian to come home—and incidentally, to attend the reunion.”

Barbara struggled to follow what her friend was saying, but it wasn’t easy. “I think that Sebastian already suspects I’m not immortal.”

“To suspect is one thing—we all know no one lives forever—but to suddenly come up against that jarring fact is quite another.” She watched Barbara expectantly, throwing the ball back into her court.

Barbara came to the only conclusion she could. “You want me to tell Sebastian I’m dying?” Even as she said it, it sounded surreal.

“Not dying, Barbara,” Maizie corrected gently. “You’re going to tell your son that you had ‘an episode.’”

It still didn’t make any sense. “An episode? An episode of what?”

“Well, definitely not an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles,” Maizie told her with a patient smile. “If I remember correctly, Bedford High is celebrating a graduating class’s tenth reunion in ten days, right?”

That her friend had this sort of information at her fingertips caught Barbara off guard. She knew that Maizie’s daughter hadn’t gone to that school and knew of no reason why the woman should be aware that the high school was throwing another reunion party.

“How do you know?”

“How do I know that?” Maizie guessed. She loved being on top of things. “It just so happens that Theresa Manetti was talking about landing the catering assignment for that party just the other day. But never mind that for now. You just call that son of yours and tell him that you don’t want to alarm him but that you might have had a minor stroke, and that you’d really rather not put off seeing him, ‘just in case.’”

“But I’ll be lying to Sebastian and that’s a bad lie,” Barbara protested uncomfortably.

Maizie looked at her innocently. “Then you do want to put off seeing him?”

“No, of course not. That part’s true enough, but I haven’t had a stroke, light or otherwise,” Barbara underscored.

Maizie quoted a statistic. “Did you know that, according to a report I recently read, some people actually have strokes and never realize it?”

“No, I didn’t kn—” Barbara held the information highly suspect. “Maizie, are you stretching the truth?”

“No, not stretching, Barbara, but you of all people must know that communication is all about how you use your words. It’s not what you say but how you say it,” she told the other woman with a broad smile. “You have to be ruthless if you want your son to come home.”

Barbara still seemed uncomfortable about the untruth. “I don’t know, Maizie….”

“You don’t know if you want to see your son happily married and starting a family?” Maizie asked.

“No, of course I do,” Barbara said with feeling. And got no further.

Maizie could feel her adrenaline beginning to surge. She loved a challenge—and this had the makings of a really good one.

“Good. Then let me look into a few things and I’ll get right back to you. With the reunion so close, we don’t have that much time. In the meanwhile, you get that son of yours on the phone and tell him that you really want to see him now. That you’d rather not wait until Christmas—just in case. Understood?”

Barbara nodded. “Understood.” She only hoped that, in the long run, Sebastian would find it in his heart to forgive her.

Chapter One

Sebastian Hunter felt exhausted as he and the three hundred and twelve other passengers packed closely around him ended their eleven-and-a-half-hour international flight by finally getting off the plane at LAX.

Concerned ever since he’d gotten off the phone with his mother a scant two days ago, he’d been far too wired even to catnap on the flight, which had covered more than five thousand miles and had taken him from the heart of Tokyo to Los Angeles.

It didn’t help matters any that there was a sixteen-hour time difference between the two cities, not to mention that he felt as if he’d been traveling backward. He’d left Tokyo early on Saturday morning only to arrive in Los Angeles late Friday night, which technically made it the night before.

And he wasn’t done yet.

There was still customs to go through, despite the fact that he had brought nothing with him to declare. He’d packed hastily, informed his employer of the family emergency that necessitated his presence and arranged for a leave of absence. And now, perilously close to fraying his very last nerve—because airport security had the passengers as well as its staff on edge—he was forced to pretend he was cool, calm and collected. Otherwise, if he allowed any of the tension he was feeling to show, he might just find himself detained far longer than it would take to queue up for a random search. Tense passengers were regarded with suspicion.

He struggled to curb his impatience, although he was losing the battle.

C’mon, c’mon, how long are you going to spend going through her underwear? he wondered irritably as the customs agent rifled through a young woman’s suitcase.

The process seemed to take forever. Where were Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers when you needed them, Sebastian thought darkly.

The phrase echoed in his brain, startling him. God, he had to really be punchy if he was thinking about donning the fairy-tale footwear just to get him home.

His mind was going—and that was in part thanks to his lack of sleep.

But he wasn’t in a hurry because of fatigue. He was in a hurry because, for the first time in his life, at the age of twenty-nine, he had become acutely aware of mortality.

Not his own. The thought of not being around someday didn’t bother him in the slightest. What would be would be, as his mother always liked to say.

However, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d grown comfortable with the concept of always having his mother around. His image of her had stabilized somewhere between what she’d looked like when he’d last seen her and a little older than an actress she had always admired, Barbara Stanwyck, playing the matriarch of a large family. To him his mother was—and always had been—proud, determined and incredibly capable.

He knew the image wasn’t eternal and certainly not realistic, but he couldn’t entertain the idea that his mother would someday decline and eventually cease to be. Nor did he want to.

He would have traded in his soul to be able to break into a run, make time stand still and miraculously appear at her side the moment he hung up the phone, ending the unexpected, unnerving call he’d received from her.

And now it seemed as if it had been forever before Sebastian was finally standing outside the terminal where he had deplaned, signaling to the closest taxi driver that he needed a ride to get to his final destination.

He hoped, because the hour was so late, that for once he would be spared having to deal with an infamous Los Angeles traffic jam. But it was also Friday night, which meant that everyone was out on the road.

Being as sprawled out as Los Angeles was, nothing was ever close by and thus necessitated obligatory travel from one point to the next, which in turn, like as not, resulted in gridlock.

“Business or pleasure?” the gypsy cabdriver asked him as they found themselves inching along the San Diego Freeway.

Preoccupied, trying not to worry about his mother, Sebastian barely heard the question. Looking up, his eyes met the driver’s in the rearview mirror. “What?”

“Are you here on business or pleasure?” the man repeated, looking to kill some time by striking up a conversation.

“Neither.”

How did you categorize flying halfway around the world to ascertain whether or not your only living relative, the mother you loved, would be around to welcome in another year? It still felt very surreal to him.

“Oh,” the driver muttered in response, obviously taking the answer to mean that his passenger didn’t want to be communicative.

Sebastian thought of saying something inane to show the driver that he wasn’t trying to be rude, but decided if he did that, it might leave him open to an onslaught of conversation. He allowed the silence within the vehicle to continue by default.

Outside the gypsy cab, the typical sounds of engines, horns and vehicles whose drivers were impatient to reach their destinations echoed through the night air like a bad symphony.

Sebastian tried to relax.

He couldn’t.

Despite the fact that the house in Bedford where he had grown up was located only forty-five miles from the airport, it took him over two hours to reach it. But eventually, Sebastian could finally make out the silhouette of the familiar two-story building.

In his hurry to get out, Sebastian gave the driver a fistful of bills he’d pulled out of his wallet. The man’s pleased grunt in response told him that he had probably well exceeded the amount due, even when taking a generous tip into account.

Pocketing the money, the cabdriver jumped out of the vehicle, quickly removed the carry-on luggage and set it on the sidewalk. In two seconds, he was back behind the wheel and driving swiftly away, as if he was afraid that his fare would suddenly change his mind and take back some of the cash.

Alone, Sebastian stood and looked at the dark house where he’d lived for all his formative years.

The relentless sense of urgency that had dogged his every move throughout the five and a half thousand miles slipped into the background, pushed there by a very real, gnawing fear that once he was in his mother’s company, he would hear something he wasn’t prepared to hear.

He knew he wasn’t being realistic, but as long as the details were not out in the open, he could pretend that they didn’t exist, or at the very least, that they were better than he’d been led to believe.

Sebastian frowned in the dark.

Since when had he become such a coward? he silently demanded. He’d always gone full-steam ahead, hiding from nothing, consequences be damned. His philosophy had always been that it was far better to know than not to know. That way, he felt that he was always prepared for anything.

Yes, but this is your mother, your home port. Your rock. The cornerstone of who and what you are.

He was, he realized, afraid of losing her. His mother had always been the one steadfast thing in his life. She was why he felt free to roam, to explore the depths and extent of the possibilities of his life. As long as she was there to anchor him, to return to, he felt free to fly as high as he wanted.

But if she wasn’t there …

Grow up, Hunter, Sebastian ordered himself.

He left it at that, not wanting to follow his thought to its logical conclusion. Instead, he made up his mind that if his mother needed him, he would be there for her, no matter what it took, just as she had always been there for him.

From the time that he was five years old, it had been just the two of them. It was time that he paid her back for that. For all the support, emotional and otherwise, that she had so willingly, so freely given him.

Exhaling a long breath, he braced himself. Sebastian slipped his hand into his right pocket, feeling around for a moment.

His fingers curled around a very familiar object.

His house key.

He always kept the key on his person—for luck more than anything else. But now he held it in his hand, intending to use it for its true purpose: to get him inside his house.

For a moment, he considered doing just that. Unlocking the door, walking in and surprising his mother. But given the fact that she had suffered a recent, mild—God, he hoped it was truly just that—stroke, surprising her like that might bring on a heart attack—or worse. Most likely not, but he was not about to take a chance on even a remote possibility of that happening.

So he took out his cell phone and pressed the second preprogrammed number on his keypad. A moment later, he heard the phone on the other end ringing.

Two more rings and then a sleepy voice mumbled, “Hello?”

Why was he choking up just at the sound of her voice? He wasn’t going to be a help to anyone if he kept tearing up, he admonished himself.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Sebastian!” Besides instant recognition, there was also an instant smile evident in her voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m right outside your front door, Mom,” he answered.

“My front door?” she echoed, suddenly wide awake. “Here?”

“You have another front door I should know about?” Sebastian joked.

She sounded great. Just the way she always did. Maybe there’d been some mix-up, he thought hopefully. Maybe she hadn’t had a stroke. After all, her blood work had always been good.

So good, in fact, that it had been the source of envy among her friends.

His mother had always been the healthiest woman he’d ever known. Which made this news so much harder for him to accept.

Barbara didn’t answer her son’s question. Instead, she said, “Well, don’t just stand there, Sebastian. Come in, come in,” she urged.

Before Sebastian could pick up his suitcase and cross from the curb to the tall, stained-glass front door, it all but flew open. His mother, wearing the ice-blue robe he’d sent her last Christmas, her salt-and-pepper hair a slightly messy, fluffy halo around her head, was standing in the doorway, her arms outstretched, waiting for her only son to fill them.

Sebastian stepped forward, ready to embrace his mother. But when he reached out to her, he almost wound up stepping on a very indignant gray-and-white-striped cat that was weaving itself in and out between his legs.

The cat was not shy about voicing her displeasure at having to put up with an intruder in her well-organized little world.

Sebastian pretended to take no notice of the feline as he bent over and hugged his mother. Relief surged through him like unleashed adrenaline.

“Come in, come in,” Barbara urged eagerly, stepping back into her living room.

As Sebastian took a step forward, the cat again wove in and out between his legs, narrowly avoiding getting into a collision with him.

When he almost tripped on the furry animal, he frowned more deeply. He looked down at the offending territorial creature with sharp claws.

“When did you get a cat?” he asked. His mother had never been one for pets, and he had grown up without one.

“Don’t you recognize her, Sebastian?” Barbara asked in surprise.

He shrugged. “Sorry. You’ve seen one cat, you’ve seen them all,” he tossed out casually.

“He doesn’t mean that, Marilyn,” she told the cat in a soothing voice. Turning toward her son, she said, “That’s the kitten you gave me before you left for Japan. She’s grown some,” she added needlessly.

“Grown ‘some’?” he questioned incredulously, looking back at the cat. The cat looked as if she could benefit from a week’s stay at a health spa. “She’s as big as a house.”

“Don’t hurt her feelings, Sebastian,” his mother requested. “She can understand everything that we say about her.”

A highly skeptical expression passed over his face. As much as he would have liked to humor his mother, there had to be a line drawn somewhere. He fixed the cat with a look meant to hold her in place for a moment.

“Get out of the way, cat.” The feline didn’t budge. Sebastian grinned as he turned to his mother. “Apparently not everything.”

“Oh, she understands,” Barbara maintained good-naturedly. “She just chooses not to listen, that’s all. Not unlike a little boy I used to know,” his mother concluded with affection.

Sebastian brought in his suitcase, leaving it next to the doorway. He closed the door, then paused and took full measure of his mother, after she’d turned on the lights inside the room.

“Mom,” Sebastian began, partly confused, partly relieved, “you look good. You look very good,” he underscored. “How do you feel?”

It was then that Barbara remembered she was supposed to be playing a part. For a minute, seeing her son standing there on her doorstep, every other thought had fled from her mind. As she considered what she was about to say, the deception threatened to gag her. But then she recalled the afternoon of coaching she’d undergone with Maizie. The matchmaker had seemed so sure of the outcome of all this.

She had to give it a chance.

“I don’t feel as good as I look, I’m afraid. Makeup does wonders.”

Now that was a new one. “Since when do you wear makeup to bed?”

“Since I had to call nine-one-one in the middle of the night,” she answered primly.

“You do realize that when they respond, they’re here to possibly take you to the hospital, not escort you to a party,” he told her.

“I didn’t want them to have to see an ugly old lady,” she said simply.

“You’re not an ugly old lady, Mom. You’re a pretty old lady,” he said, tongue in cheek.

“Remind me to hit you when I get better,” she answered.

That had been the test. Had she taken a swipe at him, the way she had in the past when the teasing between them had escalated, he would have felt that perhaps there’d been a false alarm, that she was really all right.

But her restraint told him the exact opposite. That she wasn’t all right.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. “You’re not an old lady, Mom. You know that. You look younger than women fifteen years younger than you are.”

She smiled at him, grateful for the compliment, even though she knew it was a huge exaggeration.

“Nevertheless, a lady should always look her best,” she maintained.

He shook his head, but unlike the old days, this time it was affection rather than impatience that filled him. That was his mother, determined to look her best no matter what the situation. He had to admire that kind of strong will.

And then he realized what she’d just told him. “You had to call nine-one-one?”

This was just going to be the first of many lies, Barbara thought, even as she reminded herself that it was all for an ultimate greater good.

“Yes. But it wasn’t so bad, dear,” she assured him. “The young men took very good care of me.”

There was genuine regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, Mom.”

She patted his hand, the simple gesture meant to absolve him of any blame. “Don’t give it another thought. You have your own life, Sebastian. And besides, you’re here now and that’s what counts,” she added.

“So tell me everything,” he urged. “What did the doctor say?”

“We can talk about all that tomorrow,” she told him, waving away his request. “Tonight I just want to look at you. You still like coffee?” she asked suddenly, then turning on her heel, she began to lead the way to the kitchen. “Or have you decided to switch to green tea now?”

“I still like coffee,” he answered.

“Nice to know that some things don’t change,” she told him.

Yes, but most things do, he thought, following behind her.

As the thought sank in, he could feel his heart aching. He should have come home a lot more, he upbraided himself. Even if coming home reminded him of all the things he’d given up and all the things he still didn’t have, he should have come home more often.

“Sure you’re up to this?” he asked his mother, concerned.

Barbara turned on the overhead lights, throwing the small, light blue kitchen into daylight.

“Putting water into a coffee urn? I think so,” she deadpanned. “And if for some reason I can’t, as I recall, you can.”

And then she paused to hook both her arms through his for a moment and just squeeze him to her.

“Oh, it’s so good to have you here. You’re just the best medicine I could ask for.”

Her words both gladdened his heart and pierced it with guilt. He switched the topic.

“Marilyn, huh?” The animal in question had followed them to the kitchen and had now positioned herself directly by the refrigerator, like a furry sentry who wanted to be paid in fish scraps. “Why Marilyn?”

“After Marilyn Monroe,” Barbara answered without any hesitation. “Because when she crosses a room, she moves her hips just like Marilyn Monroe did in Some Like It Hot.”

Sebastian pressed his lips together, knowing that his mother wouldn’t appreciate his laughing at her explanation. All he trusted himself to say, almost under his breath, was “If you say so, Mom.”

Turning away to look at the cat, he missed seeing the look of satisfaction that fleetingly passed over his mother’s face.

Chapter Two

“You look pretty, Mama.”

Brianna turned from the full-length mirror in her bedroom and glanced at the slightly prejudiced short person who had just uttered those flattering words. Sweet though it was, it wasn’t the compliment that had warmed her heart; it was what the little girl had called her.

Mama.

She wondered if she would ever get used to hearing that particular word addressed to her.

Certainly she knew that she’d never take it for granted, especially since, biologically speaking, she wasn’t Carrie’s mother.

But there was no denying that presently she was the four-year-old’s only family. She and her father, who, mercifully, had taken to the role of grandfather like the proverbial duck to water. He liked nothing better than doting on the curly-haired small girl and, in effect, being her partner in crime. Not only was Carrie precocious and the personification of energy, she also possessed a very active imagination.

“Least I can do after all you’ve done for me, Bree,” he’d told her when she’d commented on the unusual dynamics their family had taken on.

“You are my dad,” she reminded him, dismissing the need for any gratitude or words of thanks. “What was I supposed to do, just walk away and leave you to fend for yourself?”

He’d smiled at her. Brianna had never been one to take credit for anything. “A lot of other kids would have,” he’d pointed out. “And not many would have postponed their education—and their life,” he emphasized, recalling everything that had been involved that terrible summer when she’d stayed behind to nurse him after his horrific car accident.

An accident that his doctors insisted would leave him totally paralyzed, if not a comatose vegetable. Brianna had been his one-woman cheering section, refusing to allow him to wallow in self-pity or give in to the almost crippling pain. Instead, she’d worked him like a heartless straw boss. He gave up every day, but not Brianna.

She’d kept insisting that he was going to walk away from his wheelchair no matter what his doctors said to the contrary. She took nursing courses and physical therapy courses, all with a single focus in mind: to get him to walk again.

And during whatever downtime she had, between working with him and studying, she’d pitched in to help run his hardware store, working with his partner, J.T., whenever the latter needed to have some slack picked up.

By Jim MacKenzie’s accounting, his daughter hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours a night for close to three years. The day he’d taken those first shaky steps away from his wheelchair, he remembered that she’d looked at him with tears in her eyes, a radiant smile on her lips, and declared, “Looks like I can go to bed now.”

Brianna now looked at the little girl who was sitting on her bed, waving her feet back and forth as if channeling out her energy to the world at large.

“Thank you, baby,” Brianna said to the child she’d come to love as her own.

“She doesn’t look pretty, Carrie,” Jim informed the little girl as he left his post in the doorway and walked into the room to join the two women in his life. “She looks beautiful.”

Brianna’s eyes met her father’s. A knowing smile curved her lips. “I’m onto you, you know. You’re just saying that because you want me to go to this silly reunion.”

In his own way, her father was as stubborn as she was. He didn’t believe in giving an inch. “I’m just saying it because it’s true—and because I want you to go out and have a good time.”

He was up to something and she knew it. “Then let’s go to the movies,” she suggested. “The three of us. My treat,” she added to sweeten the pot.

“Number one—” he ticked off on his fingers “—the movies aren’t going anywhere—they’ll always be there. Number two, even if I said yes to going, I don’t need you paying for my ticket. I’m the dad. I get to take the two of you out.”

Brianna seized the moment. “Great—let’s go.”

His eyes told her he wasn’t about to budge from his position. “But not tonight,” he continued, remaining firm. “Go, catch up with your friends,” he coaxed, then predicted, “It’ll be fun.”

Brianna sighed and shook her head, her light auburn hair swirling about her face like a pale red cloud. “Spoken like a man who has never had to attend any of his high school reunions.”

Carrie puckered her small face, a sure sign that she was trying to absorb the conversation around her. Given a choice, the little girl always preferred the company of adults to that of children her own age. She knew that adults occasionally even forgot that she was there, but she didn’t mind. She was content just to sit there, listening to them talk.

She was truly a sponge. Soaking up everything, her curiosity constantly being aroused.

“What’s a higher reunion?” she asked, looking from her grandfather to the woman she thought of as her mother.

“High school reunion,” Brianna corrected. “That’s when a bunch of people who used to go to the same classes together hold a party every few years so that they can pretend to be successful, making people jealous of them while they’re checking who got fat and who lost their hair.”

Carrie was quiet for a moment, then observed, “Doesn’t sound like much fun.”

Her point eloquently stated, Brianna looked at her father as she gestured toward Carrie. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

Carrie’s lower lip stuck out just a shade as she protested, “I’m not a baby.”

“Maybe not,” Brianna allowed, giving the girl a quick hug, “but you’re my baby.”

“And you’re mine,” Jim informed her firmly, but with the same underlying note of love. “Now, shake a leg and get to this thing before it’s over.”

Brianna grinned, pretending to weigh the thought. “Now, there’s an idea. If I take my time getting ready and move really slowly, this lame reunion will be over by the time I get there.”

“I hereby declare you ready,” Jim announced, taking her by the hand and drawing her to the stairs. Carrie was quick to grab her other hand and follow suit, her blue eyes dancing. “I’m all set to babysit and you look fantastic. You have no excuse,” Jim concluded, his words firmly declaring that the discussion—or argument—was officially over.

Giving in, Brianna allowed herself to be led down the stairs. Once on the ground floor, she raised her hands in semisurrender. She gave her father her compromise.

“I’ll go—but I’ll be home early,” she told him.

He wasn’t through bargaining. “You’ll be home late and like it,” he countered. Putting his wide, hamlike hands to her back, he aimed her at the front door and gave her a little push. “Now go.”

This time, it was an order.

With a sigh, Brianna gave in. In the long run, it was easier that way. Kissing Carrie and then her father goodbye, she left.

Her CR-V, the car that J.T. had left to her upon his incredibly untimely death, was parked in the driveway and she crossed to it.

According to the very short will, J.T. had stated that the vehicle was an inadequate thank-you present. Though it wasn’t spelled out, Brianna knew he was thanking her for saying that she would be Carrie’s guardian in the event that something happened to him.

And then “something” had.

A week before their quickly planned wedding, J.T. had died in what amounted to a freak boating accident.

All throughout the funeral, she couldn’t help thinking of the old adage J.T. had always been fond of quoting: If you wanted to make God laugh, tell Him you’ve started making plans.

She certainly hadn’t planned for it to be this way. She had a daughter—and a CR-V—and no husband, no shot at attaining “happily ever after.”

It was the second time that had happened to her.

Was that it? she wondered suddenly. Was that why she kept attending these damn reunions?

Was that why she’d let her father talk her into attending this one?

Because deep down inside, was she hoping that the first man who had made her yearn for a “happily ever after” before it had all turned to dust might attend this reunion?

As she drove down the brightly lit streets, she reminded herself that Sebastian Hunter hadn’t attended the last reunion. Why in heaven’s name did she think he was going to attend this one?

And even if he did, a little voice in her head mocked her, are you going to rush up to him, throw your arms around him and say, “Let’s pick up where we left off”?

“No, of course not,” Brianna said tersely, defensively, giving voice to her thoughts out loud.

Brianna took in a deep breath and unconsciously squared her shoulders as she came to a stop at a red light. Annoyed at the path her thoughts were taking, she reminded herself that she was made of sterner stuff than that. She hadn’t cracked up when her father had almost died in that car accident—she’d stuck by him and done what had to be done.

And she hadn’t cracked up when the guy she loved more than anything on earth had left her behind to go to college, emotionally stranding her and growing progressively more and more distant until he’d finally just completely disappeared from her life.

She hadn’t even given up and booked a ride on the SS Catatonic when J.T. was killed.

Instead, she’d faced each and every one of her challenges, emerging whole on the other side. Moreover, she knew she would continue to face her challenges, determined to come out the victor no matter what dragon she was forced to battle.

Raising her head up a little higher, Brianna drove on.

Sebastian frowned behind his near-empty wineglass. He still couldn’t believe that he had actually wound up here, despite his determination not to set foot into this sad little affair.

He was here because his mother had begged him to attend. Face-to-face with those incredibly sad eyes of hers, he found that the word no just refused to emerge.

Sebastian was far from happy about this unexpected turn of events.

But it was all his own fault. He couldn’t blame anyone else for his being here right now. The blame rested squarely on his own shoulders. He’d been so desperate to do anything to please his infirm mother, he’d made the mistake of saying as much—and this, this, was the only thing she asked of him. To attend his high school reunion—and then come home and tell her all about it in the morning.

Except that there wasn’t all that much to tell, he thought, slowly looking around and taking in the various little cliques gathered together throughout the large room.

Apparently the “mean kids” were now “mean adults,” and the “nice kids” were still their targets, even though they were now, for the most part, “nice adults.”

And, he noted, the ones who went on to make something of themselves and become successful had skipped the reunion entirely.

Just as he should have done.

Just as he had intended on doing until he’d been informed of his mother’s stroke.

Okay, so he was here now because he’d promised his mother he would attend. However, he hadn’t told her how long he’d be staying, so the duration of this Chinese water torture was strictly up to him.

Sebastian glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. As good a time as any to declare that his stint in hell was officially over.

Draining the last bit of punch from the glass he’d been holding on to for the past hour—at least the food and drink had been excellent—Sebastian put the empty glass down on one of the side tables.

Time for a swift exit.

He looked neither to the left nor to the right, afraid that if he accidentally made eye contact with anyone he might be forced to spend an extra few minutes engaged in stilted, polite conversation with a person he would only pretend to remember.

It was exactly because he was avoiding making any sort of possible eye contact that he didn’t see her.

Not until they had collided.

At that point, they were just two bodies with definite goals in mind and gaits that resembled slightly disoriented gazelles attempting to flee their unwanted location.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Brianna automatically apologized, stepping back and trying to collect herself. She felt slightly flustered, but did her best not to show it.

“No, it was totally my fault,” Sebastian said, annoyed with himself for being so preoccupied that he’d been oblivious of where he was going.

Mercifully, at least there were no small, half-filled glasses of red punch to christen the unplanned collision. He really didn’t want to remain here one more moment than he already had. So far, he hadn’t really run into anyone he knew and for simplicity’s sake, and the sake of a clean getaway, he wanted to keep it that way.

Drawing back, he reached out to steady the woman he’d nearly sent sprawling. He caught her by her slender shoulders. The next moment, his vision clearing, enabling him to actually focus on the face of the woman before him, he dropped his hands from her shoulders, stunned.

At the same time, Sebastian’s jaw dropped.

The one person he hadn’t wanted to run into at the reunion was standing less than five inches away from him.

Looking far more radiant than he ever remembered her looking.

Maybe he was wrong.

Maybe it wasn’t her.

“Bree?” He cleared his throat and this time managed to say her full name. It came out in the form of a question. “Brianna?”

And even as he said her name, he tried to convince himself that he was mistaken. That he had just bumped into someone who merely reminded him of the girl he’d left behind.

The girl who had, in effect, emotionally stranded him, leaving him adrift.

Brianna could feel her stomach sinking—and fervently wished that the rest of her could go, too. Straight down through a hole in the ground.

But the floor remained solid even as her stomach twisted into a knot, making it hard for her even to breathe.

Her chin shot up as she squared her shoulders, looking for all the world like a soldier prepared to face certain death.

“Sebastian?”

The way Brianna said his name had always made him smile. Half lecture, half prayer. That much, he thought, hadn’t changed.

But everything else had, he silently stressed. He’d gone on to make a life for himself abroad. A very good life.

If it, coincidentally, was also a solitary life, well, that had been his choice, right? Had he stayed behind or at least waited for her, instead of beginning to cut ties practically from the start, maybe life would have turned out differently.

But there was no way of really knowing just how things would have gone, and besides, he had no real regrets. He didn’t allow himself to have any. He’d chosen to leave Bedford and grow, rather than to remain here and stagnate.

“You look good,” he heard himself saying to her.

God, talk about inane lines. But his mind had gone blank. Either that, or abruptly missing in action.

But she did look good, he had to admit. Maybe even too good. He didn’t remember her figure being quite this curvy. And he was in a position to know. The last day they had been together, he’d shared the last dance at the prom with her. It had been a slow number and he’d held her to him for what had felt like an eternity.

Maybe you would have held her for far longer if you had actually remained in Bedford.

He blocked out the voice.

“You, too,” Brianna was saying.

Her mouth felt dry, as if it was incapable of sustaining or uttering a single word without her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

She cleared her throat, searching for a graceful way to end this awkward moment. A moment that shouldn’t have been awkward at all.

Sebastian had been her first love, and her first lover.

Her pulse was racing. That couldn’t be good, she thought.

“Were you just leaving?” Brianna finally managed to ask. When at a loss for words, go with the truth, she told herself.

“No.” The denial was purely automatic. Relenting just a little, he murmured, “Maybe.” But that was obviously a lie. So he finally admitted, “Yes.”

The fluctuating answer amused her a little. “I thought multiple choices were only for exams. Am I supposed to pick an answer from the above three?” she asked him.

Sebastian shook his head. He needed to go before he made a complete fool of himself.

“I was leaving,” he confirmed, nodding toward the door behind her. “For some reason, my attending this reunion seemed to mean a great deal to my mother, so I told her that I would go. But I’m really not comfortable here.” He looked around at the sea of mostly unfamiliar faces. “Being here kind of feels like putting on a sweater that used to fit but doesn’t anymore.”

“Because you’ve outgrown it.”

It wasn’t a question. She knew exactly what he was saying, because he’d described exactly the way she felt about attending this reunion.

Rather than nostalgia, what she’d heard in the various conversations she’d either taken in or overheard was the longing of former gridiron stars and ex-cheerleaders talking about the past, the scene of their glory days. For most it had been downhill after that. Hearing them talk just made her sad.

“My father made me come,” she admitted.

“Your father,” he echoed. That was right—he remembered his mother saying something about the old man’s miraculous recovery. His mother insisted the miracle came in the form of Brianna. “How is he? I heard he made a full recovery, thanks to you.”

She could feel color creeping up to her cheeks. Brianna quickly shrugged away his take on the story. “I don’t know how much I really had to do with it, but my father did recover and he’s doing just fine. Thanks for asking.”

There were a thousand things to ask—and nothing left to talk about. He needed to go before the situation grew any more awkward. “Well, tell him I said hi.”

“I will.” She reciprocated and told him, “Say hi to your mom for me.”

She’d always liked his mother a great deal, but after Sebastian had left her life, she couldn’t make herself remain in contact with the woman. Being around Barbara Hunter reminded her far too much of what she had ultimately lost.

“Will do,” he answered. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Bree.” He had no idea why he’d just said that, since he would be leaving for Japan soon.

“See you around,” she echoed with a quick nod of her head.

“Well, what do we have here? Sebastian Hunter and Brianna MacKenzie, the king and queen of prom, together again!” Tiffany Riley, the official reunion coordinator, gushed ecstatically as she came up to them.

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