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“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.
