A Family Under the Stars Read online

  He’d touched that skin, felt those muscles move as she’d risen above him, and his fingers itched to experience it one more time. Again he thought about making his way to the bar, just to have a drink to keep his hands occupied so he could string together a sentence and talk to her. But before he could decide, Charlotte turned back around and her violet-blue eyes landed on him.

  * * *

  She’d been counting down the minutes until the cocktail hour was over so she could excuse herself and leave the gala. She’d helped plan the event, along with Neal and the creative director for Fine Tastes, and she’d normally be right at home in her role as hostess if she wasn’t so emotionally drained. For the first time in her life, she cursed her organizational party-planning skills because there was nothing left for her to do but put on a happy face while standing around with various acquaintances, answering questions about her wilderness adventure, her hands nervously toying with the stem of her champagne flute. In fact, she wished she had something more important to do, a last-minute centerpiece crisis or an appetizer catastrophe to see to. Anything that would keep her mind from thinking about how she’d much rather be in the Idaho wilderness than in the middle of a San Francisco landmark.

  A cramp formed between her left check and jaw from her forced smile, and her professionally applied makeup was stiff under her swollen eyes—the ones that had spent the previous night crying after Elsa asked if she could read a bedtime story over FaceTime to her grandpas, and Audrey refused to sleep in anything but a makeshift tent in the living room. Charlotte had just told Debra Braxton with the Food Network that she would love to fly into New York to meet with their producers when she turned around and saw the subject of her tears. She blinked several times before downing the bubbly contents of her glass.

  Alex Russell in a tuxedo was indeed a sight to behold. She remembered one of her nannies taking her to the lion house once at the San Francisco Zoo. Her seven-year-old heart had broken for the wild and noble animals pacing around their caged habitat, but not as much as her thirty-year-old heart was breaking now. Like those majestic lions, there was something about Alex Russell that couldn’t be tamed. That shouldn’t be tamed.

  Her body heated up just by looking at him. What was he doing here?

  As he walked toward her, her eyes refused to look away, afraid to find out that she was only seeing what she wanted to see. By the time he was inches away, her knees trembled, her mouth had grown dry and her arms ached to reach out and prove that it was truly him standing before her.

  “Hi,” he said, as if they’d happened to sit down next to each other at the counter of the Cowgirl Up Café.

  “Hi.” She tipped the crystal flute up to her lips again, only to realize that she’d finished her champagne already.

  “Hi,” he said again, before looking around at the crowded ballroom, doubt filling his normally confident green eyes. Suddenly, Charlotte didn’t feel like the one in need of rescue this time.

  “How’s your grandfather?” she asked.

  “Ornery,” he nodded. “But better.”

  “Kylie said they released him from the hospital the day after we left.” Actually, her friend had used the term “snuck away” but Charlotte wasn’t going get into semantics when she was attempting to put him at ease. She waited for him to accuse her of not saying goodbye. But he just stood there, rocking back and forth on his black ostrich cowboy boots. And, while she was relieved to see that, despite the tux, he’d retained a small piece of himself, she couldn’t stand his silence. “I had no idea you were coming to San Francisco.”

  “Neither did I until a few days ago.”

  “I wish Neal would’ve told me he sent you an invitation. I would’ve made sure your name was on the guest list.”

  Alex glanced over his shoulder at the upstairs security guard standing by the elevators. “Neal didn’t invite me. Kylie did.”

  “Kylie’s here?” Charlotte looked behind him for her friend.

  “No. She told me I should come. She made me rent this stupid tux and my dad booked me a room at the Omni and Freckles asked me to bring her back some sourdough bread and Com told me to give you this.”

  Alex was quicker than a pouncing lion when he grabbed Charlotte around the waist and pulled her to him. His mouth claimed hers right there in the center of the Julia Morgan Ballroom in downtown San Francisco and it was just as spectacular as it had been on that mountain in Sugar Falls. Her lips eagerly opened up to him and she decided she liked kissing him hello much better than kissing him goodbye.

  When he eventually drew back, his hands still toyed with the low opening on the back of her dress, his fingers splaying possessively across her skin.

  He said nothing, and yet, he’d said everything. He still hadn’t said what he was doing here, and as much as she wanted to tell herself not to expect anything, every piece of her already crumbled heart prayed that he’d really come all this way just to see her.

  “So, how long will you be staying?”

  “For as long as it takes you to realize that we belong together.”

  “You and me?” Her chest expanded with hope and her smile was no longer forced.

  But before he could answer, they heard the band leader introduce Neal. Charlotte, not wanting to make a scene during the editor’s speech and not willing to let the opportunity to hear Alex express his feelings pass her by, grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the coat check room, where the wraps and coats could muffle their long overdue conversation.

  When she turned to face him, he still looked like a caged lion and her need to soothe him warred with her need to make sure she wouldn’t be let down again. “Like we belong together as something more than an occasional hook up?”

  He cringed at her reminder of what he’d told her the night he’d kissed her in the forest and she knew her words found their mark. “I never should have said that, but I was too afraid to hope for more.”

  “So if we were together, it wouldn’t just be a hook-up?”

  “No way. And it’d be a helluva lot more often than occasionally, if I had my way,” Alex said before pulling her for another kiss.

  “What about Elsa and Audrey?” she asked when she finally came up for a breath.

  “I’d want to see them a lot more than occasionally, as well. I know I may seem like the quintessential bachelor, living out in the woods with my dad and grandpa, but that’s only because I’ve held on to my mother’s abandonment as a shield against getting too close to another woman. I’ve always wanted kids. I just needed to the find the right person to have a family with.” He kept his arms around her as he studied her face. “Growing up without a mom, I knew that when I decided to become a parent myself, I’d take it as seriously as my own father did. It’s why I was so hesitant to get involved with someone unless I knew she was the real deal.”

  “And how do you know if I’m the real deal?” After the naïve assumptions she’d made about her first husband, she needed Alex to lay everything out for her. She wanted to know his genuine feelings.

  “Because I don’t need a fancy lifestyle expert to tell me what’s missing in my life. The day you and the girls left was the realest heartache I’ve ever felt.”

  “I make you feel real?”

  “Lord, woman, you ask a lot of questions. Is there a rule book I’m supposed to be following for the best way to win you and your daughters over?”

  The champagne she’d gulped down minutes ago suddenly floated to life inside her, making her all bubbly and tingly. “You already won me over. Way before you even met the girls, who have been moping around the house missing you and Vic and Commodore.”

  She felt the tension leave his shoulders as his lips turned up at the corners. “Good. Now I just need to convince you that I’m not going anywhere, even if it means moving here and supporting you in your career.”

&
nbsp; Charlotte lifted a hand to her throat as if she could help herself swallow her excitement and confusion. “You want to move here?”

  “Yes.”

  “To the city?” she clarified.

  “If that’s where you are, then that’s where I’m going to be.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you, dammit. Why else would someone like me be willing to give up the only life I’ve known to follow you here?”

  Her heart gave a little dance and her toes tingled inside her high heels. “You love me?”

  He cupped her cheek and touched the corner of his mouth to her lips. “I love you more than I would’ve ever thought possible. But if you still want no strings attached, tell me now before Commodore loads up the Jeep with all my belongings and drives it out here to visit his dumplings.”

  “Oh, those stupid strings. That’s been the first rule I’ve ever wanted to break.” She ran her hands through his styled brown hair, hating the gel that was holding it into place. “I love you, Alex Russell. I love who you are and where you live. I could never ask you to uproot your entire life and live somewhere you hate.”

  “I wouldn’t hate it as long as I was with you. It took you leaving for me to realize that my home is wherever you and the girls are. And your job is here. What about the home you made?”

  “My magazine is here, Alex, but my job can be anywhere I want it to be. I can write and cook and take pictures from anywhere—even over a campfire by the Sugar River.”

  “Are you serious? You’d leave all this?” He pointed out of the dim coat room toward the crowded ballroom filled with people she barely knew.

  “This was all I’d ever known until I came to Sugar Falls. But then I fell in love with you and with the town and I had to tell myself not to wish for a life I couldn’t have. My biggest concern has always been providing my daughters with a warm and loving home. That home can be anywhere as long as it’s full of love. I want their childhoods to be happy and consistent and filled with lots of family and friends.”

  “Well, I can certainly provide the family and friends back in Sugar Falls, if you’d be willing to live there.”

  “With you?”

  “Of course with me!” he said.

  Thirty minutes ago, the thought of never seeing Alex Russell again had been nothing but an empty longing in the pit of her stomach. And now they were talking about moving in together.

  “Well there is a certain retro kitchen in a cabin in the mountains that I’ve been dying to update and write about...” She looked up at him expectantly.

  “Nope.” He chuckled before kissing her again. “No way are we living with my dad and Com.”

  Epilogue

  Two months later, Alex was holding firm to his promise about not living with his family and had even offered Kylie’s brother, Kane Chatterson, a bonus if he finished building his and Charlotte’s house—which was actually only a few hundred feet away from the cabin on Russell property—before Thanksgiving. Luckily, the condo Kylie had owned before she and Drew got married was available, and Charlotte had been renting it for the summer.

  Charlotte was in her element, designing the house and planning their fall nuptials, posting pictures of both on her blog. After sneaking into the Black and White Gala and witnessing firsthand the types of parties she was capable of throwing, Alex had been a bit nervous about seeing eye-to-eye with his bride on their wedding details. But he’d been humbled when he’d seen Charlotte’s ideas for a simple ceremony beneath the twin birch trees behind his family’s home and a reception in the rustic old barn on their neighbor’s property.

  In fact, yesterday, the Food Network called to offer her a three-part series on do-it-yourself wedding menus and Alex decided she needed a break from the tiny condo kitchen to properly celebrate.

  After picking his three favorite ladies up this morning, Alex had hoped for a low key breakfast at the Cowgirl Up Café before the girls’ soccer game in town. But when he held open the door for Charlotte, Elsa, and Audrey, he wasn’t surprised to find his dad and Commodore sitting at the bigger booth waiting for them.

  When they saw their grandpas, the girls squealed as if they hadn’t just seen them yesterday when Vic and Com picked them up after school.

  “Shouldn’t you two be manning the store and booking reservations for the upcoming snow season?” Alex asked them.

  They’d had an influx of rafting and camping reservations pouring in since the August issue of Fine Tastes came out. Com had been happy to turn people away until Vic had decided to start offering snowmobile tours. While he was glad that all their work for the family business was paying off, Alex’s weekends were threatening to fill up again and he was relieved Wilson and some of their new hires had agreed to stay on for the rest of the year.

  “And miss our granddaughters’ big soccer game?” Commodore huffed. “No way.”

  As the volunteer coach for Elsa’s and Audrey’s team, Alex prayed for patience. “Listen, Com, you can come to the game today, but if you yell at the referee again, I’ll ban you from the field myself.”

  “Are bats really blind?” Elsa asked, referencing the last time Commodore had been ejected from their soccer match.

  Audrey whispered to Vic, who answered, “Of course we can go to Patrelli’s for pizza afterward if you score another goal.”

  Charlotte smiled at Alex and murmured. “So much for our plans to have a quiet afternoon together.”

  But his fiancé couldn’t fool him. Alex knew that deep down she wouldn’t trade their hectic schedules and his nosy, interfering family members for the world. He brushed a loose curl behind her headband as he spoke into her ear. “If we take our own Jeep and give them enough quarters for the arcade afterward, maybe you and I can sneak away for a little hike in the woods behind our new house.”

  Soft pink color stole up her cheeks and she whispered back, “Don’t forget to bring along our little orange tent.”

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss the previous books in SUGAR FALLS, IDAHO, Christy Jeffries’s miniseries for Harlequin Special Edition!

  A MARINE FOR HIS MOM

  WAKING UP WED

  FROM DARE TO DUE DATE

  THE MATCHMAKING TWINS

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  Fortune's Second-Chance Cowboy

  by Marie Ferrarella

  Prologue

  “Hello, Chloe, are you still there?”

  Chloe Elliott’s hand tightened around her landline’s receiver as she heard the caller’s deep male voice asking her the same question again.

  Was she still there?

  Part of Chloe felt like answering the question by simply hanging up. She’d had enough disappointments in her twenty-six years to last a lifetime, why would she set herself up for yet another one?

  But there was this other part of Chloe, the part that needed to believe that good things could happen, that they still did happen. That was the part that had been instrumental in making her get out of bed every morning even after Donnie, the husband she’d adored, had been killed while serving in Afghanistan after they had been married for only an incredibly short two years. That was also the part that had decided to make her gather her courage together and to try to get to know her father’s family.

  The father who had, up until just recently, been a complete mystery in her life.

  Ever since she could remember—until she’d gotten married—it had been just her mother and her. There had been no other family members to speak of, and that had been just fine with her. Filling in the blanks for herself, Chloe assumed that her father had been her mother’s high school sweetheart who’d been killed in a car accident before he could marry her nineteen-year-old mother.