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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.”
Chapter Four (#ue929a195-ecdb-5e74-8e48-9d856ff26d37)
“Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.” Even as Alexa spoke the words into her cell phone, she fought a burst of hysterical laughter that would certainly be enough to send her grandmother’s panicked assistant over the edge. Not to mention the state it would leave Alexa in.
Under control? As she listened to Raquel rattle off the dozens of details her grandmother had needed handled in the three days since Alexa left, she couldn’t imagine anything being further from the truth.
Chance was alive.
Chance was here.
She needed to tell Chance he was the father of her baby.
The phrases had circled endlessly through her mind, robbing her of any hope of a good night’s sleep. She’d always been an early riser, part of the strict schedule her grandmother had established and one Alexa couldn’t seem to break no matter how hard she tried. Or no matter how many hours she’d spent tossing and turning the night before.
Her doctor had encouraged exercise and warned her about too much stress, so Alexa had set out on a early morning walk. As she’d breathed in the cool morning fog, a bit of pressure eased from her chest. The breeze rustled through the pines, carrying a hint of salt air, and she was glad she’d thought to grab a thigh-length beige sweater to wear over her tunic-style cream blouse and tan leggings.
But any sense of relaxation had come to an abrupt end as she remembered that Chance wasn’t the only one Alexa needed to tell about her pregnancy. And while she had no idea how Chance was going to react, she had a good idea what her proper, old-fashioned grandmother would have to say.
Tuning back into the conversation and Raquel’s laundry list of concerns, she reassured the younger woman, “You’ll do fine.”
“But the Giving Thanks benefit—”
“Everything is going as scheduled. I confirmed with the vendors this morning.” Alexa could hear Raquel relaying the information back to her grandmother and Virginia’s protests in the background. “Tell my grandmother—”
“You can tell me yourself, Alexa.” Virginia Mayhew’s crisp voice cut across the line.
“Like I was saying to Raquel, everything is under control. I contacted—”
“You should be here working on the benefit. How does it look for you to be off on vacation at the most critical time of the fund-raising season?”
Considering she typically dealt with vendors by phone or email, Alexa knew things didn’t “look” any different. She also knew that wasn’t her grandmother’s point. Alexa was the face of the foundation, and that face was always supposed to be in the public eye.
But Alexa was tired of constantly living behind a public persona. She wanted to live her own life. A life where she could go outside without the perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect makeup. A life where she could be something less than perfect. “It’s only for a few days, Grandmother.”
“This isn’t a good time. I told you that before you left.”
“Yes, you did,” Alexa acknowledged, but it was never a good time. Which was why she hadn’t taken a vacation in...she couldn’t even remember how long. “I’ll be home soon.”
Alexa hung up feeling the familiar weight of expectation pressing on her chest. She had started volunteering for the Mayhew Foundation when she was still in her teens and had dedicated her adult life to helping raise money for those in need.
Taking a deep breath, Alexa pressed the button on the side of her phone. For the first time, she was going to think of her needs. She’d longed for a break from the nonstop schedule for the past year or so, but doubted she would have made the stand if not for her pregnancy.
Growing up in her grandmother’s house, Alexa’s world had been filled with directives as to what a Mayhew did not do. A Mayhew did not slouch, did not sulk, did not argue, did not cry...
Only with Griffin had Alexa ever felt she could let down the walls her grandmother’s rules had built around her and truly be herself. Only with Griffin...and with Chance.
Not that her feelings for the two men were at all the same. With Griffin, she felt safe. With him, she could say and do whatever she wanted.
With Chance, she felt dangerous. With him, she had said and done things she’d never imagined, and now...
Alexa was certain getting pregnant following a weekend fling would fall within the “did not” constraints.
But telling her grandmother would have to wait. First, she needed to tell Chance.
Some wistful part of her hoped that he would be stunned, yet overjoyed by the news. Sweeping her up into his arms the same way he’d swept her off her feet in Santa Barbara.
After confessing she’d never done something so out of character, so impetuous as to sleep with a man she’d just met, they’d teasingly come up with the list of crazy, adrenaline-fueled exploits for her to try next—all with Chance right by her side.
How about rushing headlong into the adventures of parenthood, Chance? How do you feel about holding my hand on that wild ride?
But after seeing him again, it was almost impossible to imagine a happily-ever-after ending. The charmingly seductive man she’d met the night of the charity ball seemed so...different now. Had the injury somehow changed him? Or had she allowed herself to start to fall for a man who didn’t even exist?
Maybe he would even deny the baby was his. She supposed that would serve her right after foolishly pretending not to know him, and after she’d told him not to contact her in the first place, but the idea of Chance turning his back on their child made her heart ache.
I want this baby. A child to care for, to nurture, to love. The baby might have been unexpected, but not unwanted. Never unwanted. At least not by her.
Alexa slid the phone into the pocket of her sweater and glanced back toward the hotel. She’d walked farther than she’d realized, the Victorian turrets silhouetted by the gray autumn sky. She thought she’d taken the path that would lead to the gazebo Rory mentioned during their tour, but instead she caught a glimpse of a small cottage between the trees. She couldn’t help smiling as she recalled Griffin’s comment. If Rory was Snow White, then Alexa could certainly imagine seven dwarves living in the cute stone and wood structure.
She was tempted to take a closer look but stopped short when the front door opened. Her breath caught in her throat as Chance stepped outside, erasing any thoughts of fantasy dwarves and replacing them instead with the reality of six feet of living, breathing male.
Standing on the small porch, he stretched his neck from one side to the other. As his gaze swung in her direction, Alexa automatically ducked. She cringed, imagining what her grandmother would say if she could see her now, crouching behind a row of hedges before he could spot her.
A Mayhew does not skulk in the bushes, Alexa.
As she watched from her leafy vantage point, he ran both hands through his tousled dark hair and arched his back. Her mouth went dry as his faded T-shirt rode up above the loose waistband of his sweatpants, revealing a slice of muscled abs and tanned skin. Heat licked at her cheeks, and she wasn’t sure which flame burned brighter—her arousal or her embarrassment.
Hiding was one thing. Spying was something else entirely!
Really, she needed to stop. And she would...in a minute.
Because beyond arousal and embarrassment, Alexa couldn’t help noticing that his sweatpants weren’t just loose. The elastic band threatened to slip past his hip bones.
Her stomach clutched. How much weight had he lost? As he took a few steps, his limp was more noticeable than the day before. Was his leg worse...or with no one around and no reason to pretend everything was all right, was he allowing himself to give in to the pain?
He would hate for her to witness even a momentary weakness, and she carefully ducked deeper into her hiding spot. She’d wait a moment or two for Chance to go inside before making her way back to the hotel.
She hazarded another glance toward the cottage and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the porch was empty. She needed to tell Chance about the baby, but not yet. Not until she could be calm and in control, and until she was sure she could do that... Well, she’d be hiding in the bushes.
Pushing to her feet, she swore beneath her breath as the branches caught in the loose knit of her sweater. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a deep voice behind her asked, “You lose something?”
She spun around, slipping on the damp ground and stumbling against the solid, masculine wall of his chest. Chance instinctively caught her, his hands warm and roughly seductive against her upper arms. Each individual fingertip struck a pinpoint of sensation, and the back of his thumbs pressed against her overly sensitive breasts.
She jumped back quickly, but the damage had already been done. Her body still tingled from the sudden contact, the air around them still crackled with undeniable intensity, and she knew she’d made a big mistake not leaving when she’d had the chance.
“You scared me half to death!”
He gave her a sardonic grin. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you while you were...?”
His words drifted away, a dark brow winged upward in query, and Alexa wrapped her sweater around her waist. “I was out for a walk,” she sniffed, trying to maintain an air of dignity.
