Alexa’s always played it safe.

Until one wild weekend changed her world!

After a romantic fling left her breathless—and pregnant—heiress Alexa Mayhew never expects to see Chance McClaren again. But when she bumps into him while on vacation, the truth comes out. Instant daddy Chance wants to do the right thing for his baby—and Alexa. But is the globe-trotting adventure junkie ready to give up his career to be the family man Lexi craves?

STACY CONNELLY has dreamed of publishing books since she was a kid, writing stories about a girl and her horse. Eventually, boys made it onto the pages as she discovered a love of romance and the promise of happily-ever-after. When she is not lost in the land of make-believe, Stacy lives in Arizona with her three spoiled dogs. She loves to hear from readers at stacyconnelly@cox.net or stacyconnelly.com.

Also by Stacy Connelly

The Best Man Takes a Bride

His Secret Son

Romancing the Rancher

Small-Town Cinderella

Daddy Says, “I Do!”

Darcy and the Single Dad

Her Fill-In Fiancé

Temporary Boss…Forever Husband

The Wedding She Always Wanted

Once Upon a Wedding

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

How to Be a Blissful Bride

Stacy Connelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07814-6

HOW TO BE A BLISSFUL BRIDE

© 2018 Stacy Cornell

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To Cindy—

So glad our love of romance

(and especially of Special Edition)

has brought us together as friends and fellow writers!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Chance McClaren took a deep breath of cool, ocean-scented air and willed his body to relax. Closing his eyes, he let the sound of the waves rushing against the rocky shoreline wash over him. Faint sunlight barely broke through the November haze, but he focused on the warmth against his skin. Gradually, his muscles started to relax. Neck, shoulders, arms. Not his right leg, but that tightness was due to more than tension.

He could do this. He could smile, he could play along. He could pretend...for as long as it took for his body to heal. For as long as it took to get the hell out of Clearville.

Opening his eyes, he hazarded a glance over his shoulder and scowled. The old lady was still there. Hovering over him. Staring down at him. Watching him.

Turning at the waist until the joints in his back popped, Chance muttered, “You’re losin’ it, man.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, the skin there feeling bare without the weight of the familiar camera strap. As a photojournalist, Chance had the gift of capturing a moment for everyone to see. Of making still images come alive for people half a world away.

But bringing life to a photo was one thing. Imagining that his family’s Victorian hotel, the old lady behind him, was living, breathing, watching him... That was something else.

“Please come, Chance,” his younger sister, Rory, had pleaded. “You haven’t been to Hillcrest House in years. Being here will be good for you.”

His sister had always loved the old gal. Chance’s lips twitched in a smile. The hotel and their Aunt Evelyn, who ran the place and would slay him with a killer glare for even thinking of her as old.

Rory and their cousin, Evie, had moved to Clearville months earlier to take over while their aunt went through cancer treatments. Aunt Evelyn was splitting time between staying with his parents and staying with Evie’s parents as she recovered from surgeries and chemotherapy.

Even if they hadn’t had their hands full, Chance couldn’t have stayed at his parents’ house for another minute. He loved them, he did. But the worry and the lingering sorrow in their gazes, even now that they knew he was safe—knew he was alive—weighed down on him. Suffocated him.

They’d never understood his desire to see the world, to live his life with his backpack and camera gear the only baggage allowed. He was free to come and go as he pleased, to live his life the way he wanted, and his work made a difference! He had contacts around the globe. He could go into places other journalists couldn’t go and tell the stories that might otherwise remain unheard.

His parents had always had a straighter, safer path in mind for him. One that included following in his father’s footsteps and taking over the small photography studio Matthew McClaren owned, buying a house and settling down with a wife and kids.

Chance had jumped the curb and taken his life off-road when he left home at eighteen and had never come close to veering anywhere near that white-picket-fence neighborhood again. He wasn’t the settling kind, and while his parents might not understand that, Chance always believed they respected what he’d accomplished, respected the heights he’d achieved in his career...

Or at least he had until that whispered conversation he’d overheard, the one that made it clear he couldn’t stay under his parents’ roof any longer than necessary.

We’re your family, Chance. We love you.

His mother’s words, the confusion on her face when he walked out—first as a hotheaded kid and then again, just a few weeks ago—cut deep. But he’d known if he didn’t leave, he would only end up saying something he would regret.

His parents hadn’t wanted him to be alone while he was recovering, and he’d thought staying with Rory and Evie might be enough to ease their concern while still giving him space to breathe.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Oh, Chance, this will be so perfect!” his sister had gushed the moment he set foot inside the family hotel. “Our current photographer is moving away soon.”

He’d forgotten about the whole all-inclusive wedding destination business that had been his aunt’s brainchild about a year ago. He didn’t know how considering, as the hotel’s wedding coordinator, the ceremonies were all Rory talked about. Especially now that she’d found a groom-to-be of her own.

“You can fill in while you’re here!”

Wedding photographer? Yeah, that was right up there with fashion photographer as a worst nightmare. “Not exactly my thing, Rory.”

He felt like he’d kicked a puppy as he watched the excitement in his little sister’s eyes dim. Jamison Porter, Rory’s fiancé, had studied him carefully during that first meeting and suggested, “Why don’t you let your brother get settled before offering him a job, sweetheart?”

At that, Rory had recovered quickly, wrapping her arms around him in a far more cautious version of her usual exuberant hug. “Of course! What was I thinking? We have the cottage house set up for you.”

The caretaker’s cottage was a small wood and stone structure on the grounds, but well away from the hotel itself. Chance welcomed the privacy even if staying there felt like living in a very girlie dollhouse thanks to Rory’s decorating skills.

But he’d take the dollhouse over his childhood bedroom. And it was only for a month—maybe two. His leg was getting stronger every day, and Chance refused to think he wouldn’t make it back to 100 percent.

And after a few days of consideration, he’d even agreed to fill in as wedding photographer—which he still couldn’t quite believe. But he needed something to keep his mind active, to keep moving.

He’d traveled to some of the most desperate, poverty-stricken, war-torn areas in the world and yet nothing—nothing—was quite as scary as walking into a room filled with marriage-minded women riding high on romance.

Shuddering, he shifted his weight to his right side, testing his leg without the help of the crutches he’d only recently left behind. Sharp shards of pain sliced through muscle and bone. He’d pushed himself too hard, the packed sand more of a challenge than he’d expected. He had a long walk back to the hotel in front of him.

He pulled in a breath before taking that first step, beads of sweat popping up along his hairline and instantly cooling in the ocean breeze. The stormy blue-gray water was nearly the same color as the stormy blue-gray sky. Nearly the same color as a pair of stormy blue-gray eyes that had haunted him for months.

Alexa Mayhew had been draped in gold the night they met. Beneath a sparkling crystal chandelier, she’d glittered with the grace and elegance of a goddess. She was tall and slender, with a poise and prestige that allowed her to move in elite circles where most mortals wouldn’t be welcomed. And yet he’d sensed a restlessness inside her the moment their gazes met across the ballroom, a need to throw aside the fake smiles and polite facade and grab hold of something real...

Or so he’d thought until she made herself clear. She’d been slumming their weekend together. Different worlds, different lives...different bank accounts.

Reaching into the pocket of his baggy khakis, he fingered the small jeweled hairpin he’d been carrying with him since that weekend. In his line of work, he’d learned to travel light. No extra baggage allowed. And yet, he hadn’t been able to leave the small reminder behind any more than he could convince himself to return it to the woman it belonged to. Such a small thing, he hadn’t thought carrying it with him could hurt.

He’d certainly never imagined it would save his life.

He wasn’t superstitious and he wasn’t sentimental. He certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight, so why was he having such a hard time letting Alexa go?

* * *

“Welcome to Hillcrest. And I understand congratulations are in order?”

Standing in the elegant lobby of the Victorian hotel, Alexa Mayhew hoped she managed a smile to fool the bright-eyed wedding coordinator.

“It’s not official yet,” she murmured, trying to somewhat inconspicuously hide her left hand in the folds of her wide-legged gray trousers. Her naked left hand, unlike the woman in front of her who sported a sparkling rock on her own third finger.

“But we’d still like a tour of the grounds while we’re staying here if that’s possible.” Griffin James wrapped an arm around Alexa’s shoulders and pulled her tight to his side. “Isn’t that right, sweetie?”

Alexa stumbled slightly at the sudden move before regaining her balance. She and Griffin had checked in earlier that day after a long drive from Los Angeles. Worn out from hours in the car and feeling more than a little nauseous from the twists and turns on the mountain roads leading into the small Northern California town, she had lain down for a short rest while Griffin had—

Alexa tried to withhold a sigh. Who knows what Griffin had done? Announced their impending engagement from the top turret of the towering Victorian mansion, for all she knew.

She shot her could-be fiancé a glare he returned with a wink and a grin, knowing she could never stay mad at him. He’d been her best friend since childhood, the one person she could turn to when times got tough. The one person who could always make her laugh—which was pretty much what she’d done when he proposed.

“Griffin,” she started to protest.

“Come on. It’ll be fun. A good chance to take a look around.” His eyebrows rose pointedly, reminding her why he had chosen this particular hotel.

Alexa hadn’t really cared where they stayed, too eager to accept his offer of a break away from the demands of her grandmother’s charity foundation. And from the demands of her grandmother.

From the time she’d gone to live with Virginia Mayhew, the wealthy philanthropist had instilled in Alexa a sense of responsibility. In the past decade or so, she had become the face of the foundation. She spent countless hours fund-raising, overseeing charity events, speaking with the media, all in an effort to give back.

But for the first time in her life, Alexa had something she wanted to hold on to...just for herself. She needed to get away, and though she was aware of the faint and almost constant vibrations coming from the cell phone tucked in her purse, she refused to check the barrage of emails and text messages.

Understanding Griffin’s unspoken professional interest in looking around the hotel, she said, “We’d love a tour.”

“I have some time free now if you’re not too tired from traveling,” the woman offered. “And I’m Rory, by the way. Rory Mc—”

A high-pitched whistle sounded, and she glanced at the phone in her own hand. A dreamy smile lit her already beautiful face at the text flashing across the screen. The moment lasted only a split second before she appeared to snap back to reality. A slight blush rose to her cheeks as she slipped the phone into a hidden pocket in the folds of her full skirt. “Sorry about that. That was my fiancé and... Well—” she shot a woman-to-woman look at Alexa “—you know how it is, right?”

“Of course.” Even as happy as the other woman looked, Alexa would bet Rory hadn’t laughed out loud when her fiancé proposed.

“Let’s start inside, and then I can show you around the grounds. We remodeled the gazebo over the summer, and it’s always a popular spot—depending on the time of year for the ceremony. Have the two of you picked a date yet?” Rory asked.

Griffin shot Alexa a questioning look, calling her out on dragging her feet—literally across the richly patterned carpet and in giving a definitive answer to the question he’d asked.

Fall decorations highlighted the elegant lobby—a cornucopia on the concierge desk; red, yellow and orange leaf garland wrapped the deep walnut carved columns, and a huge grapevine wreath dotted with tiny pumpkins and squash hung above the river-stone fireplace in the sitting area. Scents of cinnamon and cloves filled the air.

All signs of how quickly time was flying by. Hard to believe Thanksgiving was only three weeks away. Especially when every time Alexa closed her eyes, her thoughts drifted back to the end of summer.

“Sometime before April, I’m thinking,” Griffin answered wryly when Alexa stayed silent.

“Hmm, that’s not much time,” the wedding coordinator warned before holding up a hand. “Not that we couldn’t pull it off.”

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of a...predetermined time frame.”

As Rory started talking about the history of the hotel, Alexa jabbed an elbow into Griffin’s side. “Would you stop?” she muttered from behind her smile, voice low enough for only Griffin to hear.

“What? It’s true. By April, you’ll be—”

“I know. I know. But don’t you feel at least a little bit guilty going through with this tour when it’s doubtful we’d get married here anyway?”

“Naw, it’s kinda fun.” Griffin tipped his golden blond head toward the wedding coordinator. “It’s like getting a tour from Snow White...”

“Behave,” she warned him, though past experience told her it would do little good. Besides, he was right. Their guide did resemble the Disney princess, but beyond that... Alexa frowned, a memory tugging at her mind like an elusive song lyric she could almost but not quite capture.

“As much as I love this place’s history,” Rory was saying, “it’s the air of romance that brought me back here.” Leaning closer, she confided, “My cousin, Evie, wouldn’t like hearing me say this, but I have to tell you that Hillcrest is, well, special. People have a way of finding their own happily-ever-after here.”

Griffin made a sound Alexa hoped the wedding coordinator would believe to be an indulgent laugh. “Hear that, sweetheart, our own happily-ever-after.”

Alexa didn’t want to think about romance in the air or happily-ever-after. For almost as long as she could remember, she had been one to play it safe. Her jet-setting parents had loved action and adventure—skiing in St. Moritz one day and sunbathing in the Bahamas the next. They’d let life take them wherever the wind had blown, sweeping in and out of her childhood like a hurricane.

After they died, her grandmother had provided Alexa with the stability she craved. No more wondering. No more worrying. No more whirlwind.

Not until that night almost four months ago when she’d hosted a fund-raiser for one of the many charities her grandmother supported. When she’d met the striking blue-eyed gaze of the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Her heart had stopped, her breath had caught and she’d been swept up in something beyond her control.

Even in that first electric connection, she’d known. There would be consequences. She couldn’t cast aside years of living each day with a carefully laid out plan and then expect to pick up where she left off like nothing had happened. Not when Chance McClaren had happened.

In those first few weeks following the charity auction, he’d played constantly on her mind. Laughing and teasing her thoughts as if he’d stood right beside her, whispering in her ear. After all, he had promised he’d be in touch, and Alexa had jumped at every call, scrambled for her cell phone at every text, scoured her email every few minutes over calls and texts and emails that weren’t from Chance.

By the time he did call, some five weeks later, she’d already come to a decision. What they’d had was a fling. Nothing more, and it was over. She’d sensed his surprise. No doubt there were dozens of women who would be thrilled to hear from him no matter how long it had been since he’d called. But in the end he’d agreed and abided by her wishes.

She hadn’t heard from him again and did her best not to think of him.

Alexa told herself the mental roadblock would eventually work...right up until the moment she realized she’d missed her period. She was pregnant, the father of her child a man she barely knew. A whirlwind who’d stormed in—and out—of her life with a recklessness that left her head and heart spinning.

How was she supposed to tell a man who lived out of a backpack that he was going to be a father? Alexa had rehearsed what she would say dozens of times as she made dozens of calls, trying to reach him.

And then fate seemed to take the decision out of her hands as she woke one morning to see the headline scrolling across a national news channel.

Photojournalist Chance McClaren killed in bomb attack in Kabul.

* * *

“How long have you worked here, Rory?” Griffin asked their guide as she led them back to the lobby after showing them the elegant ballroom. The hotel’s old-fashioned feel filled the room from the dark, carved check-in desk, to the wall of small cubbyholes for guest messages, to an actual phone booth and its replica of an early 1900s phone.

But like any modern hotel, the lobby was a busy spot with families coming and going, bellhops pushing packed luggage carts, and employees offering advice for things to see and do in the nearby Victorian town of Clearville.

Rory stopped to allow a chatting couple to wheel by with a stroller. And as she had for the past few months, Alexa locked in on the baby strapped inside. Her breath caught at the sight. An infant with her eyes closed, her chubby cheeks pink with sleep, her head slouched to one side. So sweet, so small...

She wrapped her arms around her waist. Before she’d gotten pregnant, she hadn’t understood that she wouldn’t need to wait for her baby to be born to feel such a deep connection with the new life inside her. She was amazed by how much she already loved the child growing in her womb. How she loved the idea of a little boy or little girl with dark hair and startling blue eyes like—

No, she wouldn’t think about the baby’s father. She wouldn’t.

She watched with a combination of anxiety and anticipation as the mother stopped for a moment to adjust the lacy pink sock barely clinging to the toes of the tiniest foot she’d ever seen.

“Well, I’ve worked here as a wedding coordinator for the past six months or so,” Rory was saying, “but my family has owned the hotel for decades. My Aunt Evelyn runs the place now, but the McClarens have—”

“What—” Alexa stopped so suddenly, Griffin almost knocked her over. “What did you say your last name was?”

“McClaren.” Rory’s blue gaze—her familiar blue gaze—swung back and forth between Alexa and Griffin. “Didn’t I say that earlier?”

“Alexa?” Griffin’s arm tightened around her shoulders as she swayed against him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Everything...

It wasn’t easy to spot the resemblance between masculine, rugged features and this delicately feminine woman, but Alexa must have subconsciously noticed the similarities. The rich, almost black hair, the high, sculpted cheekbones, those blue eyes...

The thick, patterned carpet swirled beneath her feet as the room spun. “I’m not feeling very well. I think I need to lie down...”

“Of course. I’ll walk you back to the suite.”

To the suite. Alexa fought a hysterical laugh. That wasn’t nearly far away enough to escape the dizzying thoughts whipping through her mind.

The McClaren family hotel... Chance’s family’s hotel?

And before she could make her escape, the hotel’s carved entry doors opened and in walked the father of her child.

Chapter Two

At first he thought he was imagining things.

It had happened before, after the explosion. The blast that shattered his leg had also left him with a serious concussion—one that had him drifting in and out of consciousness for days. In that confused state, he’d seen Alexa at his side. Heard her voice. Smelled the honey-lilac scent of her skin.

He hadn’t stopped to think that her presence made no sense. The wealthy granddaughter of one of California’s biggest and most generous philanthropists might raise money for victims of war-torn countries, but she didn’t travel to war-torn countries.

She certainly wouldn’t have belonged in a crowded field hospital where understaffed doctors and nurses did their best to care for those injured in the series of bombings.

But he’d been so sure of her presence that he’d nearly gotten in a fight with one of the doctors once he reached semiconsciousness, unable to understand why the man refused to let him see Alexa. Why he was keeping her away when she’d been right there?

Later, as the uncertainty clouding his mind started to clear, he realized it had all been some kind of delusion. He’d been embarrassed to have been so fooled by his own mind. Unsettled that a woman he barely knew—a woman he’d spent no more than a weekend with and one who wanted nothing more to do with him—had been the person he’d reached for, clung to, even in such a confused state.

And so even though he’d thought of calling since he’d returned to the States, he’d purposely not picked up the phone.

Now, as the color drained from her face, he wished he had.

She looked as beautiful and ethereal now as the night they’d met. That night, she’d been wrapped in gold, her blond hair intricately woven on top of her head, her smooth bangs held in place by the jeweled butterfly hairpin. Today, she was draped in silver, her shoulder-length hair caught more sedately in a ponytail at her nape. As he watched, she hugged her arms around her waist, her blue-gray eyes huge in her gorgeous face.

“Chance—” his sister’s expression brightened as she caught sight of him “—come meet two of our guests. Alexa Mayhew, Griffin James, this is my brother, Chance McClaren.”

He didn’t remember moving, but he suddenly stood in front of Alexa, inches away from the woman who’d been on his mind and under his skin for months. “Alexa...”

“Chance.”

She reached out, her hand hovering in the air between them as if she wasn’t quite sure that he was truly there, and his heart clenched. The uncertainty in her expression hit hard as he grasped her hand in his. The soft skin, the sweet scent, all of it real this time.

“Alexa,” he said again, a whisper of sound beneath his breath.

“Chance. I—It’s...” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “So good to meet you.”

Meet him? Meet him! She’d done a damn sight more than met him in a hotel room in Santa Barbara almost four months ago.

Shock held him motionless, Alexa’s hand still in his, until the man at her side spoke. “If you’ll excuse us. Alexa isn’t feeling well.”

The man—Chance couldn’t even recall what his sister said the guy’s name was—had a protective arm wrapped around Alexa’s shoulders. Chance had barely spared him a glance earlier, but summed him up now with a quick look. Wealthy, sophisticated, handsome. Someone very much a part of Alexa’s world.

The swift slice cut deep, but Chance had endured worse pain. That was one lesson he could thank Lisette for. Finding his fiancée in bed with another man had cured him of any belief in love, marriage, or even whatever the hell it was he thought he and Alexa had found in a five-star hotel penthouse suite.

But cured or not, he couldn’t help taking a few shots of his own. “You look so...familiar. Are you sure we haven’t met somewhere before?”

“I, uh, don’t think so.”

“No? So we didn’t meet—I don’t know, parasailing along the Waterfront? Or maybe bungee jumping off the Bridge to Nowhere?” Chance wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Alexa turned even paler, and he really started to feel like an ass. He stopped himself before he mentioned her last whispered wish.

Making love under the stars.

“Alexa is hardly the type to go bungee jumping,” the golden boy at her side said drily.

“Maybe someday she’ll have the opportunity to take that chance.”

Her turbulent blue-gray eyes met his. Their gazes lingered, clung, like they had that night in Santa Barbara.

Come on, Lexi, he’d whispered, take a chance.

And she had. For a weekend. And no, they hadn’t had time to fulfill her wild and thoroughly facetious bucket list wishes of parasailing or bungee jumping. But he’d flown high enough and fallen hard enough that for a moment he thought he could have died happily in her arms...

But it was just a moment. One weekend, and Chance had never met a woman that he couldn’t forget once he moved on. Maybe that was the problem. Ever since the explosion, he hadn’t been moving. Not on to a new job, not on to a new assignment, not on to a new country across the world. He was stuck. And like some kind of shark, if he didn’t keep in constant motion, he couldn’t breathe.

That was the only reason why his chest hurt as he gazed at Alexa.

The man by her side glanced between them before murmuring, “Something tells me that’s not happening anytime soon.”

Chance opened his mouth to argue like the fool he was when his cousin, Evie McClaren, spotted the group from across the lobby. “Chance, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

“If you’ll excuse us,” Alexa murmured to Rory.

“Oh, of course. We can finish the tour later.”

“Thank you for taking your time with us this afternoon.”

Always so polite, always so damn proper, Chance thought with a twist of a smile that had Alexa’s elegant head lifting to an even higher angle when she caught sight of it. “Mr. McClaren.”

“Ms. Mayhew... It’s been a pleasure.”

He drew out the word long enough for a riot of color to storm her cheeks before she turned away. Her golden boy kept his arm around her shoulders as he turned her toward the hallway leading to... Her room? His room? Theirs?

Chance shoved his hands in his pockets, fists clenched tight enough that the hairpin gouged into his palm. He didn’t care about women—any one woman—enough to be jealous. Not anymore.

“Chance? Hello, Chance?”

His cousin waved a hand in front of his face to capture his attention. “Your doctor’s office called about moving your therapy appointment.” She gave him a stern look. “They said they tried your cell, but you weren’t answering.”

“Oh, Chance.” Rory frowned at him, her blue eyes so similar to his own darkening in concern. “You really should have your phone with you especially when you go out by yourself.”

Chance sighed. “Yes, Mom.”

His cousin’s arch expression wasn’t nearly as concerned as his sister’s. “Not your mom. Also not your secretary. Answer your own darn phone calls.”

“Yes, Evie.”

At the moment, the very thought of therapy exhausted him. Dammit! He used to run for miles, and now just a twenty-minute walk on the beach left him weak, winded...and in a hell of a lot of pain.

Something that must have been more obvious than he wanted to consider as Rory said, “Speaking of Mom... She says she hasn’t heard from you lately and is talking about making a trip down to check on you.”

Chance’s jaw tightened. “You can tell her I’m fine, Ror.”

“You can tell her yourself,” his sister chided. “And are you so sure about that? You look...” She hesitated, biting her lower lip, her soft heart clearly worried about hurting his feelings.

“Scary,” Evie interjected.

“Evie!”

“What?” His sharp-witted, sharp-tongued cousin flicked a slender hand in his direction. “He’s frightening the guests. I thought that poor woman was going to faint at the sight of him.”

“Oh, I don’t think that was about Chance,” Rory argued. “It’s a big decision, you know. Choosing where to get married.”

When he first woke after the explosion, a dull roar had filled his head, the pain making it almost impossible to think. With that bomb his sister dropped, a second wave hit like an aftershock.

Alexa. Married. At Hillcrest.

* * *

“Chance...are you sure you’re okay?”

He ran a hand down his face, several day’s growth of stubble scraping against his palm. “When?” he asked, his voice sounding just as rough.

“What?”

“When’s the wedding?”

“Oh... Well, they haven’t picked a date yet either. Why?”

“I was just wondering if I’d still be here when it happens.” Hell, he needed something to make him forget about the woman. Maybe seeing Alexa marry another man would do the trick. So far nothing else had worked.

“Don’t they make the cutest couple?” Rory sighed.

“Adorable.” And watching them exchange vows, promising to love each other until death did them part and sealing the words with a kiss... Chance’s jaw locked tight. He’d just as soon stick that hairpin into his eye.

“Seriously, Chance,” Evie interjected, tucking a strand of straight, chin-length hair behind one ear, “we both know I’m nowhere near as love-stupid as this one—”

“Hey!” Rory protested as their cousin waved a hand her way.

“—but if you’re going to photograph the weddings around here, you need to get on board with this whole happily-ever-after crap.”

“Oh, lovely,” his sister muttered. “We’ll be sure to put that in one of our brochures.”

“I’m on board, Evie.”

Her pointed gaze raked him from the tip of his too-long hair, to his faded to gray T-shirt, to his rumpled khakis. “Frightening the guests,” she repeated.

“I’ll get a haircut. And shave,” he added when her look didn’t change. He all but groaned, “And go shopping.”

“Before this weekend?” Rory asked, catching her lower lip between her teeth once more.

“This—” He choked back a curse. This weekend was his first official Hillcrest House event.

Chance McClaren—wedding photographer.

“All right. All right. Before this weekend. You know, the two of you really should be nicer to me,” he said without thinking. “After all, I almost—”

He cut himself off before he could finish the old joke, one going back to a serious injury when he was a kid. A skateboarding accident had left him in a coma followed by months of physical and occupational therapy.

Rehab had been hell, not so different from what faced him now, and he’d pushed himself as hard as he could, determined to get back to the reckless, daredevil kid he’d been before the accident. Not that he hadn’t pulled out the sympathy card every chance he got.

Work his tail off to get back on a skateboard? Sure thing.

Pick up his dirty socks? Come on! Didn’t everyone know he was, like, seriously injured?

But unlike in the past when Rory would meet his melodramatic statement with a give-me-a-break eye roll, this time her blue eyes filled with emotion as she said the word he hadn’t. “Died, Chance.” Her voice broke on his name. “You almost died.”

A wave of guilt crashed over him when he thought of what his sister, his parents, his family had been through. Not my fault, he reminded himself, but the words didn’t erase the lingering shadows from his sister’s eyes whenever she looked at him.

“I’m fine, Rory. I’ll be back to my old self in no time.”

Reaching out, his sister squeezed his arm and gave him a sad smile. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Rory...” His voice trailed off as she walked away, and Chance knew better than to go after her. She needed time by herself, and he wasn’t sure he could catch her if he tried.

“You really are a jerk sometimes.” Disdain, not sorrow, filled his cousin’s icy gaze, and it was almost a relief to have Evie glaring at him. Anger he could handle, and he wondered if she was, in her own prickly way, trying to make things easier on him.

“You do realize that I had no idea what some overeager journalist was reporting. I was stuck in the hospital—”

“You were unconscious in a makeshift first-aid station half a world away.”

And that is your fault, Chance. Evie didn’t say the words, but he read the accusation.

“It’s my job, Evie.” A job he loved despite the dangers.

“And you know your sister and your parents. As far as they are concerned, their job is to love you. You shouldn’t make it so hard.”

And then she, too, walked away, leaving him standing in the middle of the lobby with chatting guests and employees passing him on all sides. A harried businessman barked orders into his phone, jarring Chance’s leg with his briefcase as he hurried by. White-hot pain seared through him, and he clenched his jaw to keep from crying out. Sweat broke out on his upper lip, and he sucked in a deep breath.

Despite what his family thought, he was not typically foolish or reckless. His job required calculated risks, but he always weighed his options before making a decision—even if he had only a split second to do so.

The smart thing to do would be to walk away. There was no payoff to be had here. No final shot to wrap up the story. No reason to slowly, painfully make his way over to the reception desk—except for one foolish, reckless urge.

He wanted to remind Alexa Mayhew that they had, indeed, met before.

* * *

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

Griffin had asked the same question half a dozen times since they left—escaped—the lobby for their hotel suite. He’d led her through the tiny living area with its small shades-of-blue love seat and coffee table straight to the whitewashed dining room, where he fixed her a cup of herbal tea.

She hadn’t taken a sip until she was sure she could lift the mug without her hands shaking and then had to swallow a burst of hysterical laughter along with the brew. Chamomile. Did Griffin really think the soothing benefits would help in this situation?

Chance. Here. At Hillcrest.

The last fifteen minutes were such a blur, the moments so surreal, she could almost believe she’d had some kind of out-of-body experience. The second she saw him, her brain had shut down even as her limbs kept going, her mouth kept moving.

Nice to meet you?

What had she been thinking? She’d been stunned, yes, but to look him in the eye and pretend they’d never met? Alexa didn’t know Chance McClaren well—other than in the biblical sense—but even she had to realize a man so macho would take that kind of flat-out dismissal like a challenge. She didn’t remember? Well, then, he would just have to remind her, wouldn’t he?

Take a chance.

The play on words had been the phrase he’d used to get her out onto the dance floor, into his arms and, by the end of the evening, into his bed.

Take a chance.

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who’d ended up pregnant!

“Alexa?”

Jarred from her thoughts, she cupped her hands around the warm white ceramic mug and met Griffin’s worried gaze. “I’m fine now. Really. I think I was just—overwhelmed for a minute back there.”

He seemed to think she was referring to the tour and the wedding coordinator’s ideas for their perfect wedding. He had no reason to think anything else since Alexa had never told him the name of the man she’d had that weekend fling with.

“I meant what I said, you know. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal—”

“Griff—”

“But the two of us—the three of us—we make sense, Allie.”

His offer and the sincerity in his golden gaze wrapped around her like one of his exuberant hugs. They’d met when she was eight years old—the day of her parents’ funeral. Her grandmother’s estate had been filled with people—inside and out. Mourners draped in black inside and paparazzi with long-lens cameras outside. She had spent most of her childhood feeling lost and alone, but she’d never felt as invisible as she had in that crowd. Neither her parents’ jet-setting friends nor her grandmother’s old guard seemed to have any idea what to say to a young orphan. Though she had overheard plenty of what they had to say about her...

Poor thing. What on earth do you think Virginia will do with her?

I’m sure she’ll be sent to boarding school. I’m surprised Stefan and Bree hadn’t enrolled her already.

To say she had slipped away unnoticed would have been a huge understatement. No one had paid attention to her when she was there; why would anyone notice when she was gone?

Alexa hadn’t given much thought to where she was going. Slipping out the back entrance, she ran. For miles it had seemed, traveling that much distance before ever leaving her grandmother’s property and stumbling onto the neighbor’s vast estate next door.

Though the grounds were as sculpted as her grandmother’s with high hedges, flower gardens and fountains, this yard had a swing set, and that was where Griffin found her.

And as if he’d come across a homeless kitten, he’d taken her back to his house, fixed her a glass of milk and a bowl of cereal. And when his mother found the two of them sometime later, Griffin had announced, “This is Alexa. Her mom and dad died, so she’s gonna live with us.”

She felt the same way now as she had then. Like Griffin was the one person she could count on. And she loved him. She really did. She just wished—

Alexa shook her head. Maybe that was her problem. Always wanting more than she had. The oh-so-typical poor little rich girl.

“You’re my best friend, Griffin.” Setting aside the mug, Alexa rounded the table to take his hands. “You have been since we were kids, and if I ever lost that, if I ever lost your friendship—”

“Not gonna happen. I promise you that. Scout’s honor.”

“You were so never a Boy Scout.” After giving his hands a final squeeze, Alexa pushed him toward the door of their suite. “Go! You know you don’t want to be stuck in this room with me.”

Recently, Griffin’s father had expressed an interest in Hillcrest House. Evidently, he had heard that a competing national chain had made an offer on the Victorian hotel, and he’d asked Griffin to go see whether the property was worthy enough to make a counteroffer.

Alexa was more than a little surprised Griffin had agreed. He had his own dreams that had nothing to do with becoming a hotel magnate. Dreams that could come true—if he found a way to prove himself responsible to his father.

“Just so you know, I’d never think of myself as being stuck with you.” He paused with a hand on the doorknob. “Only lucky that you were by my side.”

“Go! Before you make a ridiculously hormonal woman start to cry!”

He left with a wink and a wave, and the reality of the past few minutes hit like a hurricane, practically knocking Alexa off her feet. She sank into the blue love seat, the strength all but sapped from her muscles, and pulled a matching pillow against her chest.

Chance McClaren...

Seeing him had been like—seeing a ghost.

A living, breathing ghost.

Because despite that initial news report, Chance McClaren had not died in the bomb attack.

Two days later, every news channel in the country was scrambling to revise their headlines. Chance was injured but alive in a hospital in some foreign city Alexa had never heard of.

But for those two days between, shock had left Alexa blessedly numb after the roller-coaster ride of emotions she’d experienced since the night they met.

She’d spent her childhood waiting for her parents to call, watching out windows for them to show up out of the blue. Waiting, wondering, hoping, only to have that hope dashed time and time again when one nanny or another would tell her that her parents weren’t coming.

Until the day when her grandmother arrived and put an end to all of it. To the waiting, to the wondering, to the hoping. Her parents weren’t coming. Not ever again.

She’d relived every twist and turn, every jolt and jerk, every stomach-in-her-throat loop-the-loop after Chance left, and when she read that first news report, a small, desperate part of her had been—relieved.

This child—a child she already loved, a child who would love and need her—would be all hers, and she wouldn’t have to share. She wouldn’t have to tell Chance he was going to be a father. Wouldn’t have to worry that he would wreak havoc crashing in and out of their lives. She wouldn’t have to face the pain of knowing she’d cursed her baby with a childhood destined to be so similar to her own.

She wouldn’t.

Because Chance was dead.

Only then he wasn’t. But it was almost easier to pretend he was.

Alexa barely had a chance to take a breath, forget to take the time she needed to recover from seeing him again, when a knock sounded at the door. She gave a small laugh as she pushed off the love seat cushions. Typical Griffin. “Forget your key?” she asked as she pulled open the door.

Only it wasn’t Griffin standing on the other side. A living, breathing Chance McClaren arched a dark brow and said, “I don’t recall you giving me a key...yet.”

Chapter Three

Heat licked a path from her chest all the way to her cheeks, and she was tempted—seriously tempted—to slam the door in his face. But she’d been Virginia Mayhew’s granddaughter too long to react in such a way. Though, really, what etiquette book had a chapter on something like this?

How to greet a weekend fling father of your unborn child. Or better yet, What to say to a man who figuratively, if not literally, had come back from the dead.

“Come on, Lexi, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

One hand gripped the edge of the doorframe in a casual pose, but she wasn’t fooled. His blue eyes were shadowed, his unshaven jaw clenched, the muscles in his arm standing out in stark relief. He looked like he’d fall over if he let go. And the heart she’d tried so hard to harden ached for him.

“Please don’t call me that,” she murmured even as she stepped back and allowed him into the suite and, she feared, back into her life.

She kept her back turned as she led the way toward the suite’s living area. The space had felt cozy when Griffin had been there with her. Now, with Chance, she felt the walls closing in.

“What should I call you? After all, that is how you introduced yourself that night, isn’t it?”

Alexa nearly groaned at the reminder. She’d been calling herself a fool ever since. What had she been thinking? One look into Chance’s startling blue eyes back in the lobby, and she’d remembered. Even now a rush of energy, awareness, attraction arced between them, and Alexa knew she hadn’t been thinking much at all.

For one weekend, with this one man, she’d let herself feel. She’d known there would be a price to pay for abandoning the tight control that had shaped her life for the past twenty-plus years. She just hadn’t realized until she found out she was pregnant that her child would be the one to pay it. But only if she told Chance the truth...

“What do you want, Chance?” She picked up the pillow that had fallen from the love seat and carefully tucked it back against the armrest, smoothing a ruffled corner as if nothing mattered more.

“Oh, I don’t know.” His eyes glowed like superheated flame as she straightened to meet his gaze. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

So she was right, Alexa thought. She had wounded some sense of macho pride when she pretended not to know him. Throw in an almost-engagement, and the man she’d last spoken to months ago was suddenly at her door.

She took a step backward, needing some space from the heat coming off his body in waves, only to bump up against the white wicker coffee table. He countered her move, trapping her there unless she wanted to start scrambling over furniture to try to get away. “Chance—”

“For someone who claims not to take risks, you sure move fast when you want to.”

Alexa wasn’t sure her skin could get much hotter without setting her hair on fire. He knew just how fast she had moved, falling into bed with him the very night they met. Looking back, the entire weekend seemed like some kind of dream, a magical moment out of time. One that, even with the pregnancy, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to regret—until now. Until Chance made her feel ashamed. “I—”

“Four months, and now you’re suddenly engaged?”

“Engaged? You mean Griffin?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have another fiancé I don’t know about?”

“No, of course not.” She didn’t even have the one he did know about. Not really.

“Unless...” His gaze narrowed dangerously. “Were you engaged when we met?”

“What? No! I certainly wouldn’t have slept with you,” she hissed beneath her breath as if the entire hotel might have been listening in, “if I’d been engaged to another man at the time.”

He searched her expression, his stance easing ever so slightly at what he saw there. She caught a hint of the ocean mixed with his own masculine scent, and her focus drifted toward his lips even as she wondered if she would taste the salt on his skin...

He’s here. I can’t believe he’s really here.

Sucking in a quick breath, Alexa snapped herself out of the dangerous direction her thoughts had taken. Chance might have just come from a walk on the beach, but she was the one who needed to throw herself into the frigid waves!

What had he been saying? Oh, right. He’d just accused her of cheating on her fiancé. “Griffin James and I have known each other since we were children, but he only recently asked me to marry him.”

“Just like that?”

“What?”

“You’ve known each other for years and then what? You woke up one day and decided to get married?”

“We’re well suited.” Alexa cringed, hearing her grandmother’s words coming out of her mouth. Her grandmother would be thrilled if she accepted Griffin’s proposal. Virginia had been pushing the two of them together since high school.

“Right. Whereas you and I were only well suited in bed.”

Alexa stared at him. “What are you doing here, Chance?”

He opened his mouth but no sound escaped. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, looking at a loss, out of sorts and so completely different from the man she’d met four months ago. “Hell if I know,” he finally sighed.

Alexa fought it, she really did, but her heart cried out at the unexpected vulnerability in his expression. He looked...awful. At the charity auction, he’d fit in with the sophisticated crowd—breathtaking in a tuxedo that outlined his six-foot-something frame with a perfection that would bring any red-blooded woman to her knees. His dark hair had been brushed back from his wide forehead, revealing his classic bone structure, gorgeous blue eyes and a pair of dimples to die for.

Today his hair fell across that forehead in disarray. His face looked gaunt. The spark was missing from those sapphire blues, the dimples nowhere to be seen beneath the rough stubble.

Four months wasn’t much time, but so much had happened. She had a new life growing inside her, and Chance—Chance had almost died. “I heard the news reports.”

Cringing, he asked, “Which one?”

“The one that said you’d been killed in a suicide bomb attack.”

“Bad reporting.”

“It doesn’t look that far off.” She hadn’t noticed earlier, but he stood off-center, resting the majority of his weight on his left side. How close had he come to dying?

“I’m fine. I’ll be back in the field in no time.”

Right, Alexa thought bitterly, because who would let nearly getting blown up make them rethink their life choices?

A few years before her parents were killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Italian Alps, they had survived a plane crash. The small jet had experienced engine failure, and the pilot had made a miracle landing on a middle of nowhere country road. But instead of making her parents rethink their high-flying, jet-setting lifestyle, surviving the near-death incident had only made them feel that much more invincible.

Alexa could only imagine Chance would react the same—taking more risks, accepting more challenges until his luck ran out way too soon.

At the moment, though, it was hard to think about him being thousands of miles away, putting his life in danger, when he was right there, close enough to touch. And it was all Alexa could do not to erase the mere inches between them, to throw her arms around him, to see, smell, touch, taste that he was really and truly alive and well—

Hormones, she thought desperately. She’d read how pregnancy could lead to a skyrocketing of emotions, but the rationale failed to erase the dizzying rush of desire flooding her veins. Nothing more than a momentary lapse.

Unfortunately, her lapses were all too common at least where Chance McClaren was concerned. But just because she’d made a mistake didn’t mean she would keep making them. From now on, she would make no more impulsive decisions; she would do her thinking with her head, not her heart.

And certainly not with her hormones.

Taking a sanity-saving step back from the hold Chance had over her, she whispered, “You should go before...”

His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile as he came to his own conclusion as to what she was afraid might happen. “Right. Wouldn’t want your fiancé catching you alone in a hotel room with a guy you slept with.”

Alexa opened her mouth to argue only to stop. What would be the point? Maybe it was better for Chance to think she and Griffin were engaged.

“But don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time to see each other around.”

She shivered slightly at the promise—warning—in his expression. “Why is that?”

“Didn’t my sister tell you? I’m your wedding photographer.”

* * *

Alexa smiled at the waitress who topped off her glass of water before looking across the small table to find Griffin staring at her. “What?”

“You’re not eating.”

After the confrontation with Chance, Alexa had wanted nothing more than to escape the hotel. When Griffin returned to their suite and suggested a trip into town, she’d instantly agreed. They’d spent the afternoon browsing through the charming stores along Main Street. She would normally have loved taking in the Victorian architecture—the turrets, the wraparound porches, the elegantly detailed trim work and bright colors of the painted ladies—but she couldn’t concentrate.

She sighed as she picked through her salad. Couldn’t eat.

After surviving bouts of morning sickness her first trimester, her appetite had come back with a vengeance. So much so that when she’d reminded Griffin she was eating for two, he’d asked, “Are they both linebackers in the NFL?”

But now, with her nerves so frazzled from the confrontation with Chance, she could barely swallow a bite. “If you want, we can go somewhere else,” Griffin offered.

He’d spotted the old-fashioned diner with its black-and-white floors, stainless-steel eat-in counter and red-vinyl-covered booths. Despite—or perhaps because of—the five-star restaurants boasted by many of his family’s hotels, he’d always enjoyed a basic burger and fries.

They were seated toward the back of the diner, and Alexa had a view of the entire place. The booths and barstools were crowded with a mix of tourists and locals. Pink-uniformed waitresses called out orders to a cook behind the counter, and fifties music bounced through the speakers. The smell of grilled meat and fried food would have been mouthwatering if she’d had any kind of appetite.

“No, this is fine.” She stabbed at a piece of chicken in her Cobb salad.

Dunking a fry in a pool of ketchup on the corner of his plate, Griffin casually asked, “That was him, wasn’t it?”

Alexa froze, midchew, convinced he couldn’t be asking what she thought he was asking. But his gaze was so certain, reminding her that she’d never been able to pull anything over on him. Still, she swallowed and reached for her glass.

“I’m sorry...” After taking a sip of slightly tart apple juice, she asked, “Who’s ‘him’?” Childish of her to play dumb when Griffin knew her so well. She might as well close her eyes and pretend the world—pretend Chance McClaren—couldn’t see her.

“You know.” He nodded to the spot hidden beneath the opposite end of the table. “Your baby daddy.”

Alexa set her glass back on the white-fleck Formica table with a thunk. “Have I told you how much I loathe that term?”

“Do you have a better expression in mind?”

Weekend fling...

Sperm donor...

Father of her child...

None of them did anything to settle the nerves spiraling through her stomach.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter what I call him. I’m still right, aren’t I? He’s the one.”

The one. Somehow that sounded even worse than all the others. Yes, Chance McClaren was the one man who’d made her forget herself for a long weekend. The one man who’d gotten her to take a chance, to risk stepping outside her comfort zone. The one man who’d made her feel free.

A flutter of movement in her belly seemed to mock that thinking. Not so free now.

But Chance was not the one when it came to the man Alexa might have picked to father her child. Not the one when it came to a man she would choose for a stable, long-term relationship.

She knew that in her head, in her heart. So why didn’t her stupid body get with the program and settle down? Why were chills still racing down her spine and gooseflesh rising along her skin after seeing him again?

“How did you figure it out?” Alexa had told Griffin she was pregnant, keeping most of the details, including Chance’s name, to herself. She wasn’t sure why, other than saying his name would have brought back even more memories. And she’d been trying so hard to forget.

“Other than the sparks you two were striking off each other?” Griffin downed a fourth of his cheeseburger with one bite before adding, “After seeing the way you reacted, I did some quick online research on the guy. Turns out he was at that benefit in Santa Barbara, the same one where you met your mystery man.”

Alexa sighed, knowing Griffin had her cornered. “I still can’t believe he’s here. A part of me thought I’d never see him again.”

“Because you thought he’d been killed?” A hint of chiding filled Griffin’s voice that she hadn’t told him the whole story.

“You read the reports?”

“It was hard not to. Plug McClaren’s name into a search engine, and every headline touts how the guy came back from the dead.”

Alexa pushed the chopped tomatoes in her salad into a small pile. “I know. And I would have told you, but you were in the middle of those meetings with your father.” Meetings over Griffin’s trust and the stipulations that, so far, had kept him from obtaining the money. “And by the time you were home...”

“Chance was alive.”

“Yes.”

“Safe to say the two of you aren’t as finished as you made it seem.”

Alexa shook her head. “You’re wrong. It’s over.” She gave a half laugh. “It never really started. It was a weekend fling. Nothing more.”

“You don’t have weekend flings, Alexa.”

“I know!” She longed to cover her face with her hands at what had been such an out-of-character thing for her to do. She feared it wasn’t so out of character for Chance, yet another reason why things could never work out between them.

“So don’t you think that means something?”

“That I’ve become a desperate, lonely woman?”

“Okay, first, that’s not true. And second, there had to be something about Chance McClaren for you to sleep with him that first night.” His expression was wry as he pointed out, “I’ve seen you take longer before deciding on a pair of shoes.”

She refused to meet his gaze as she added a dash of pepper before spearing a quarter slice of hard-boiled egg. “Shoes are important.”

“Allie. Come on.”

Alexa swallowed. “It wouldn’t work between the two of us. We’re too different. We want such polar opposite things out of life. I told him that when he called. And that was before I even knew I was pregnant!”

“Wait.” Griffin pointed a thick-cut fry in accusation. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“What?”

“That he called...or that you were the one to call things off.”

“I didn’t. Not really.” Leaning forward, she stressed, “I hadn’t heard from him in five weeks, Griffin.”

“And what was Chance doing during those five weeks?”

“He—” Alexa cut herself off, realizing she hadn’t asked where Chance had been or what he’d been doing. “He was probably off in some desert or jungle or swamp, God knows where.”

“Which probably made it hard to make contact,” Griffin chimed in with a logic that had Alexa feeling very illogical.

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours. Always.” He leaned back in the booth before saying, “I found something else when I was looking around online. Something I should have remembered. It was the twenty-year anniversary of your parents’ deaths, wasn’t it? Not long after you and Chance met?”

The exact anniversary had been the very day he’d called. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Oh, come on, Allie. You can’t tell me you don’t see the similarities. But whatever your parents’ faults were, they were their own. Don’t hold Chance responsible for them.”

“What are you saying, Griffin?”

“What you already know. He has a right to know that he’s going to be a father.”

* * *

The last thing Chance wanted to do that evening was head into Clearville for dinner. The Victorian town held a certain appeal for visitors and for locals who made their money off those tourists, but the place had always struck Chance as too cute. And now, as smiling pumpkins and pilgrims battled with Santa and Rudolph for prime window display real estate, it was worse than he remembered.

Rory, of course, loved it.

“I can’t wait to start decorating Hillcrest for Christmas!” Wearing a thigh-length red coat, his sister already looked in the holiday spirit. She waved a hand at the glowing storefronts along Main Street. “I wanted to start putting up a few small touches here and there—just a wreath or two—but Evie insisted we wait until after Thanksgiving.”

“For once, Evie and I agree,” he said wryly.

“I’m so glad you’ll be here for the holidays. I don’t remember the last time we were all together at Christmas.”

Home for the holidays? Oh, hell, no. Christmas was several weeks away, which might as well be an eternity. He wouldn’t still be in Clearville then. He couldn’t be. But even as he opened his mouth to argue, he swallowed a curse as the toe of his shoe caught on an uneven spot on the sidewalk, and his full weight landed on his right leg.

Six months, his doctors and therapists had warned him, before he could expect full range of motion. Before he could walk without limping, without pain.

“Chance—”

“I’m fine.” He cut Rory off before she could ask the question he was already so sick of hearing.

“Are you sure you should be off your crutches so soon?” she pressed.

Pushing yourself won’t make your body heal any faster, his doctor had warned. You aren’t building up muscle. You’re regrowing bone, and that takes time.

Chance didn’t have time. He’d been riding a wave of success with recent recognition from the World Press along with nominations for international photography awards. While on the sidelines, several key assignments had been given to other photographers. He had to keep his name and his pictures out there. Whatever it took.

As they stepped inside Rolly’s diner, Chance came face-to-face with another reason why he needed to get out of there. Anywhere but Clearville.

“Oh, look, there’s Alexa and Griffin!” Rory announced as she sent the couple a quick wave.

Seated at a booth toward the back of the restaurant, Alexa lifted a weak hand in response while her golden boy fiancé was all smiles. As Chance’s gaze caught Alexa’s, as the distance between them—the crowded tables, the chattering waitresses, as the whole damn diner—disappeared in that powerful moment of memory, of connection, he could almost feel sorry for the poor SOB.

If Griffin James hadn’t been the one seated across from Alexa. If he hadn’t been the one holding her hand, hearing her voice, smelling the honey-lilac scent of her skin.

Sharing her hotel room...

Yeah, who was the poor SOB now?

“I didn’t expect to see them here,” Rory was saying as she slid into an empty booth.

Chance had had plenty of time to curse the limitations of his injury but rarely more so than in that moment. Unable to fully bend his knee, he had to take the seat on his left, to keep his right leg stretched out. A seat that faced the back of the restaurant and gave him a perfect view of Alexa and her fiancé.

“Yeah, this is hardly Alexa’s kind of place.”

Rory frowned as she lifted the laminated menu that probably hadn’t changed since the last time Chance had eaten there. “How would you know?”

“I know...women like her,” he finished. “Wealthy, spoiled, too good for everyone around her.”

Not that Alexa had seemed like any of those things the night they met.

Setting the menu aside, his sister took a deep breath. “You know how much I hate admitting Evie’s right, but you really do need to get on board if you’re going to be our photographer.”

If? If? She’d all but begged him to fill in! “I told you I’d get a haircut and all that.”

“I’m not talking about how you look. I’m talking about your attitude about love and marriage...and women.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know Lisette did a number on you—”

Now it was his turn to toss the menu aside. “This has nothing to do with Lisette,” he stated flatly.

“Then what?”

“It’s—”

We come from different worlds, Chance.

He watched as Griffin James, a man very much a part of Alexa’s world, reached over and cupped her cheek in his palm.

“Nothing,” he told Rory finally. “It’s nothing.”

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