“You okay?”
“I, uh…” Priscilla pressed her lips together, a frown appearing between her brows.
“What?” Priscilla was always unflappable.
“It’s only…” Her assistant’s gaze flicked to her computer screen.
Priscilla rounded the desk and stood behind her.
The Daily Intelligence. A total misnomer, but it was the most powerful political blog in the country. For a second, Pen was confused.
Then she spotted the item where her assistant’s cursor had landed.
What Peach State presidential prospect is rumored to be having a romance that could render his White House ambitions DOA?
Pen only barely stemmed the gasp. Quickly she gathered herself and stepped into the murky waters of denial. “Reading the rags, Priscilla?” She carefully kept her tone disdainful.
“No, but I—” Her assistant’s glance flicked to hers, scanning for a hint of vulnerability.
She would not find it here. Pen hadn’t made it through Brown and Harvard Law only to give away the terror and dread that invaded her. “But?” She arched a brow. “Nothing better to do?”
Just then Pen’s cell chimed with a text tone.
From Hugh.
Instantly she clicked.
Family emergency. Meeting canceled.
No I love you. No I can’t wait, as he so often said.
With care she composed her features while her heart sank like a stone.
But no one would see that. She smiled at Priscilla. “I’ll need the Mixson file before you head for lunch.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Pen turned and somehow managed to make it to her office door, closing it behind her. Then leaned her head back against it, her stomach a mess, her knees shaky.
She clicked on Hugh’s number and called. Needed to hear his voice. They were careful. They were in love. The blog post could be about anyone.
The call went to voicemail.
She started to leave a message, but who might hear it? Might intercept it? Self-preservation reared its head.
She switched to a text window. Tomorrow night?
No answer.
She waited. He was a busy man.
But he always answered her texts. Immediately.
She flicked on the television in her office.
On the screen was a Breaking News banner.
Then there he was.
With his wife. Nearly ex-wife.
She bit her lip. They were holding hands, and he was stepping up to the microphones arrayed in front of their house.
His wife spoke first. “Despite the absurd rumors, my husband and I are very much in love.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “In fact—” She cast a glance at him, and he smiled down at her “—We weren’t ready to announce this yet, but we’re expecting another child.” She gestured into the camera lens as if speaking directly to Pen. “Our fourth baby and so very precious to us.” Triumph bled into her tone. “We are just thrilled, aren’t we, my love?”
Hugh bent and kissed her, then faced the cameras. “I couldn’t be a happier man than I am now.”
Then he placed his own hand over her belly and cradled his child softly.
Pen remained standing, but she wasn’t sure how.
A few minutes later, her cell phone rang, and Hugh’s name popped on the screen. She snatched it to her ear. “Hugh, are you all right?”
But it was not Hugh’s voice she heard. “You will leave town immediately, you slut,” said the mother-to-be whose voice had been cooing pure sugar earlier, pure vitriol now. “Or I promise you I will ruin you. If you ever contact my husband again, if the press ever figures out who you are, you will have a difficult time getting a job as a waitress. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Before Pen could summon a response, the future First Lady disconnected.
Chapter Two
Once again Bridger Calhoun was driving to Texas from Tennessee, heading to a tiny town called Sweetgrass Springs, to be exact. The first time he’d been there he’d been driving a refurbished brush truck for the town’s volunteer fire department, one bought by his former SEAL teammate Randall Mackey. Mackey had wanted to help out the place he considered his hometown before he returned to his post-SEAL career as a Hollywood stuntman and his busy life in L.A.
Funny how Sweetgrass wasn’t that easy to leave behind. Instead, Mackey had wound up falling in love with Rissa Gallagher, the kid sister of his childhood friend Jackson. He’d gone on to promote Rissa’s wizardry at training horses to the jaded wealthy of LaLaLand, and now they both worked in California sometimes—or did until recently, that is. They were in the process of adopting Eric, a boy who’d lost his mother to an abusive boyfriend—the same creep who’d also nearly killed Rissa—and they spent most of their time in Sweetgrass these days.
Bridger was making a second trip to the little town, hauling a BBQ grill trailer. He’d been strong-armed by Mackey into coming for a community work day where the town would band together to finish renovations on the first floor of the old decommissioned courthouse. The work day was also a cover, he’d learned, to allow friends and family to assemble for a surprise wedding. The town’s beloved matriarch, Ruby Gallagher, had planned it for her newly-discovered granddaughter Scarlett and Ian McLaren, Mackey’s longtime friend and the town’s unofficial mayor.
Except Scarlett had her own surprise in store—she’d been planning her Nana’s wedding in secret, unaware of her grandmother’s plans for her.
Bridger chuckled. Crazy-ass little burg. But damn, it grew on you.
Sweetgrass Springs 5 said the sign up ahead.
Five miles to Sweetgrass Springs, the only place he’d found where the voices went quiet, the shouts and screams couldn’t bore their way into his skull. He needed this dose of old-fashioned goodness, of Mayberry and apple pie.
Sweetgrass gave him hope after a lifetime of seeing the world’s brutality, first at home with his father beating the hell out of his whole family, killing his mom, going after his younger sisters and brother—
A horn blared, and Bridger swerved back inside the lines. Damn it all.
“You okay, man?” asked his fellow fireman Larry Paulsen.
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
Sweetgrass was also the complete opposite of his time at war. That last op where Mackey had been injured, where six on their team had lost their lives, still screwed with his head in the wee hours when he couldn’t figure out how to flash-fry memories from his brain.
The orphanage in Afghanistan… terrorists shouting their insane delight as they torched the place…
Sweetgrass Springs made him believe that life could be different. That he could find that sweet, soft woman who’d love him for life, who’d bear him a passel of babies he’d protect with his last breath. Babies he wouldn’t lose as he’d lost his whole family, parents dead, a brother and two sisters scattered to the winds but damn sure better off now.
Bridger often thought about searching for them, but what could he say when he found them? I tried to keep us together, but I was busy being a suspect? I love you, but I don’t have any money and I’m a bad bet for a family and…
Hell.
“What?” asked Kyle Graison, his other buddy.
“Nothing.”
“Not much to this place, is there?”
Bridger shot him a glare. “It’s a great place.”
“Whatever. Anyway, we get to meet your stuntman buddy Mackey, right? A sweet gig, stuntman. Bet he’s filthy rich.”
If he is, more power to him. Mackey had earned it with sweat and blood, the man who’d saved Bridger’s life.
Then the courthouse came into view. Soon he spotted Ruby’s Cafe.
And Bridger took his first deep breath in months. Home, the town seemed to say, a gong reverberating deep inside him.
Nowhere was home, and he couldn’t make a living in this place.
But he could sure as hell soak it all up for a couple of days.
As she strode down the jetway in her chic wool pantsuit, Pen had never wished more for her mother. Mary Gallagher would cradle her cheeks between those slender, work-worn hands, and such love would pour from her eyes…
Her steps faltered as hot tears crowded. She fumbled for her purse and dragged out her sunglasses, ignoring the muttering of passengers eager to disembark.
Keep moving. One step in front of the other. No one knows. You left D.C., and it will all go away now.
Because she’d run away, like a whipped dog. She’d used a family emergency as her excuse, and everyone was well aware that she had tons of time off piled up, but she wondered how long she could get by with extending her time away, since being gone was unlike her in the extreme.
She’d been such a fool. Love was a mirage. No one stayed—not her mother, not her twin, not the man who’d promised her a dream.
She was hollowed out by grief and fear.
She could not lose her career. She’d fought hard to make it to the top. Her career was all she could count on. She was all she could count on.
Pen yanked her spine straight. She’d figure this out. She just needed a few days to think. To plan the next step.
Once in the Austin terminal, she didn’t head for the escalators to baggage claim yet. Clary—called Rissa now—would be below, and Pen had always been the elder sister who knew everything, who suffered no doubts. The twelve-year-old Clary was no more—now she was married to Big, Bad Randall Mackey, and her life had been transformed. Her very talented horse trainer baby sister was building a business caring for the horses no one else could save, and her fierce former SEAL husband hovered over her like an avenging angel.
Pen was the one who was a mess, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Aunt Ruby would sniff out the weakness in a heartbeat, so she’d better get her act together.
Fortunately, there was a wedding tomorrow. Aunt Ruby was surely too busy obsessing over her granddaughter Scarlett’s marriage—surprise to Scarlett though it was—to Ian McLaren.
Aunt Ruby didn’t know she was getting married, too. A tiny chuckle broke from Pen’s lips.
It was easy to forget that Sweetgrass was unique, the town that her Aunt Ruby had kept alive on sheer will for years now. It was full of eccentric characters she’d been eager to leave behind. Right now, though? She’d love to have breakfast with Harley Sykes and his gang, who showed up first thing every morning of the world to breakfast at Ruby’s. To gossip like a bunch of old women. To dissect the state of the world—
Her stomach seized before she started to reason with herself.
No one knows. Even if Hugh’s team didn’t manage to keep a lid on her identity, not a one of Aunt Ruby’s breakfast crowd owned a computer, and they sure weren’t reading political blogs. The story wouldn’t make it to Sweetgrass.
Please. Oh, please.
The plane was already starting pre-boarding for the next flight. Rissa would be wondering where she was. Pen drew a deep breath and for good measure, left on her sunglasses. Straightened her shoulders and remembered who she was.
Pen Gallagher kicked ass. She was tough. She needed no one.
And if she just kept papering over the cavern of doubt and hurt inside her, no one here would ever know.
She closed her eyes and breathed in. Breathed out. Focused only on that much for now.
She stepped onto the escalator and immediately spotted her redheaded sister below, as tall as Pen now, strong and curvy, clad in ancient jeans and dusty worn boots. Rissa had her hands on the shoulders of the blond boy who must be Eric, the son she and Mackey planned to adopt, while beside Rissa stood the man himself. That Wild Mackey Boy, as he’d been known—handsome as seven kinds of sin and full of mischief.
Her baby sister had a family.
Pen had…no one.
Pen reminded herself that she was smart and sharp and savvy. She didn’t have to work in D.C. She’d been recruited by the top firms on the East Coast. She could go anywhere.
And she absolutely didn’t need Hugh Rutherford, whose love had been a mirage that evaporated under the harsh sun of his ambitions.
Her sister waved, smiling like crazy, obviously glad to see her. Rissa had nearly died not that long ago at the hands of the man who’d killed Eric’s mother, and Pen hadn’t been able to get away to see her.
Why not? Why on earth had she thought what she was doing was too important to leave? Sure she’d called daily to be sure Rissa would make it, but—
“I missed you so much!” Rissa grabbed her in a hard hug.
Oh, Clary…
Pen let go of her suitcase and clasped her sister right back. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t—” Tears choked her, and she held on. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Rissa squeezed her again, then stepped back. “I’m fine.” She positively glowed. “I want you to meet our son. Eric, this is your Aunt Penny.”
He wasn’t officially adopted, but Pen saw that none of that mattered to these three. “Hi, Eric. I’m so glad to meet you at last.”
Skeptical eyes studied her, but given what she’d been told of the abuse and neglect in his background, she imagined she’d have to prove herself. Still, he stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Aunt Penny.”
Maybe he wasn’t ready for hugs. She clasped his hand in hers. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.” She cocked her head. “I might have even brought you a souvenir. Have you ever been to Washington?”
“No, ma’am.”
Wow. Such manners.
“I know that in most instances, a Texas boy would never want a Washington football souvenir, right?”
“Any present is real nice, ma’am.”
She barely resisted the shriek. “Ma’am makes me feel ancient, buddy.” She smiled to ease her stern tone.
“Sorry, ma—uh, Aunt Penny.”
A squeeze of Mackey’s big hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Nice save, son.”
Son. The boy’s face glowed at the word, and he looked up at Mackey.
“Well, I figure that since the current owner of our rightful team, the Dallas Cowboys, has just about ruined them, all bets are off. I have a signed jersey in my suitcase, but I wanted to give you this first.” She extracted a cap from her carryon. “Since your dad is a war hero, I thought maybe this would suit.”
“He’s not my dad yet legally,” Eric said softly.
“But I’m a shark lawyer, and if your mom and dad’s attorneys aren’t getting the job done, you can bet I will. You’re family, Eric, and that’s that.” She handed him the cap that said SEAL in Training.
“Wow!” Eric put it on his head and looked up first at Mackey, then Rissa. “How does it look?”
Rissa’s eyes swam with tears, and Mackey’s were warm as he nodded at Pen. “Looks real good, son.”
“I’m gonna be a horse trainer and a SEAL,” Eric declared. “Stupid Samantha thinks she’s gonna be a SEAL, too, but she can’t ’cause she’s a girl.”
“Now, son…”
“Who’s Samantha?”
“Our housekeeper’s daughter,” Rissa replied. “Eric’s best friend—most of the time.”
“When she’s not being bossy.”
“Huh. Imagine that.” Mackey grinned at Rissa. “I don’t know any women like that.”
Eric missed the byplay. “Dad says girls will be SEALs someday.” His eyes rolled.
“Um, you do know there are two girls standing here, right?” Pen grinned. “Your mom and I are proof that girls can do anything we set our minds to.”
Mackey laughed and squeezed Eric’s shoulder again. “That’s an argument a wise man doesn’t try to win, son. Especially not with the Princess or your mom.”
“Are you a real princess?”
Pen tucked away the heartache that rose. “Of course I am.” She grinned, then stuck out her tongue at Mackey. “But your mom is the queen, right?” She tucked her sister’s arm into hers. “So let’s grab my bag, and you all start tell
ing me about this surprise wedding. Aunt Ruby still doesn’t know?”
Rissa laughed. “City Girl, either. And Maddie is up to her eyeballs in the conspiracy.”
Their cousin by marriage, Maddie Rose Gallagher, was a force of nature herself, as was their new cousin Scarlett aka City Girl, Aunt Ruby’s long-lost granddaughter. “So you’re telling me that the entire town is keeping this secret?” She shook her head and submerged the rest of her life into the background. “How can I get in on the action?”
Rissa chuckled. “Well, I was thinking…”
As they walked and plotted, Pen felt herself relaxing.
Sweetgrass was not home anymore and she couldn’t stay long, but right now there was nowhere else she wanted to be.
Ruby Gallagher peered over the pass-through on tiptoe and scanned the packed dining room of her cafe.
She glanced around the kitchen at her granddaughter Scarlett juggling orders with impressive ease, at her great-niece Maddie Gallagher working at the prep table while chatting with her sister-in-law Perrie. Perrie was rolling out pie crust as Maddie’s sister Lacey Marlowe stirred a batch of potato salad for tonight. The entire Morning Star branch of Gallaghers was in Sweetgrass for the big weekend.
So far she and Scarlett were managing—with a lot of help—juggling cooking for the lunch crowd with getting ready for the family dinner tonight, the eve of a very big day. First would be the community workday to finish renovations on the first floor of the former courthouse Ruby had bought years ago, hoping to somehow revive the dying town of Sweetgrass. When the granddaughter she’d never known she had arrived in town several months back, Ruby would never have imagined the future she had now. Her Paris-trained chef granddaughter planned to open a destination restaurant in the renovated courthouse as part of a larger scheme to bring Sweetgrass back to life.
And after the workday would come a key part of Ruby’s dream: the wedding of her adored Scarlett and Scarlett’s beloved Ian, one more tie to keep her granddaughter in Sweetgrass.
Scarlett knew all about the workday.
She had no clue the wedding was slated.
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