PRESENT DAY
ETERNITY SPRINGS, COLORADO
Lori Murphy sat in a pedicure chair at Angel’s Rest Healing Center and Spa and sank her aching feet into the heated, lavender-scented water. “Oh, that feels good. My feet are killing me.”
Seated in the chair next to her, Caitlin Timberlake looked up from her magazine. “Busy day sticking your hand up a horse’s rump?”
Lori smirked. “No veterinary work for me today. I did something worse. I helped Mom at the bakery. She had so many orders to fill she even dragged Dad into work. I cannot believe that after a month of holiday eating, so many people want her cinnamon rolls to serve at the breakfast buffets of their New Year’s Eve parties.”
“It’s one final sin before starting your diet. And your mom’s cinnamon rolls are as sinful as it gets.” Caitlin pulled a tabloid newspaper from a stack on a small table between the two chairs. “Speaking of sin, get a load of this.”
Lori noted the magazine’s early December date, then read the front-page headline aloud. “‘Man’s Head Explodes in Barber Chair’?”
“Page four.”
Lori flipped to page four and scanned the photographs. Chase. I should have known.
Honestly, Lori would have preferred viewing photos of the exploding head.
She took a moment to reinforce her emotional walls, then spoke in a casual tone. “Monte Carlo. Saint-Tropez. The Amalfi Coast. Glitz and glamour galore. I gotta admit, I’m shocked they’re getting married in little old provincial Eternity Springs.”
“The wedding is six weeks away,” Caitlin said. “A miracle could still happen. Maybe you could talk to him, Lori. You know he’s here in town, don’t you? Skipped coming for Christmas, but shows up two days afterward. A surprise, he’d told Mom. Gonna visit three whole days. Big whoop-de-doo, if you ask me.”
Lori managed to maintain her calm. No, she hadn’t heard that Chase had come to town. Well, she could handle a three-day visit. It wasn’t like he was moving here, after all. “I will talk to him. I’ll wish him much happiness in his marriage.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Caitlin’s expression went glum as her gaze fastened on the photograph of her brother. Movie-star handsome in a black tie and three-day scruff, Chase rolled dice at a craps table, a tall, beautiful blonde resting her hand possessively on his shoulder. “I guess she’s nice enough. She does make an effort with the family, and she seems to genuinely like Chase. But that doesn’t make her the right woman for him. She is so wrong for my brother! Don’t you see it, Lori?”
Lori would sooner kick a puppy than comment on that.
Caitlin didn’t notice her lack of response as she continued her rant. “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that she gets Botox for her wrinkles. Stephen’s wife says she’s already had a face-lift. And of course, everyone knows she’s had a boob job because that was obvious in those old Sports Illustrated swimsuit photos. Which, by the way, is something else I don’t get. Chase was always all about nature. What’s natural about boobs that lie like little Murphy Mountains on top of her chest? What is it about boobs that make men so stupid, anyway?”
Lori’s mouth twisted. “Well, she is an on-air personality so her appearance is important.”
Caitlin sniffed with disdain. “You’d think her wedding would be important to her. She hasn’t bought a dress yet. Can you believe that? And she’s turned almost all of the arrangements over to Mom.”
Lori had already heard that bit of gossip from her own mother. “I’m sure it will be lovely. Your mother does everything with class.”
“True.” Caitlin sighed down at the casino photograph once more. “That’s another reason why it’s hard to believe that Chase is going to marry her. I thought men married women like their mothers. Lana Wilkerson is nothing at all like Mom.”
Lori idly flipped the newsprint to another page and the photograph of a bare-chested Chase rubbing sunscreen on his fiancée’s back. A memory flashed in her mind, accompanied by a twinge of regret she didn’t want to recognize.
Once upon a time, Chase had rubbed sunscreen onto her back, his touch gentle and thrilling. However, the apartment pool deck in College Station, Texas, was a very, very long way from the French Riviera.
“Your mom is the prototypical traditional mom. Chase was never one to be happy with traditional.”
“If that’s true, then more the fool he. Although…” Caitlin cut a sharp gaze toward Lori. “I don’t know that I agree with that. He would have been happy with you.”
“Let it go, Caitlin. That ship sailed long ago.”
Just then the door swept open and Chase’s bride-to-be blew inside. Porcelain skin gone rosy with the cold stretched over high cheekbones that spoke to her Slavic ancestry. The reality TV star wore her thick blond hair piled carelessly high upon her head and diamond studs sparkled in the lobes of her ears. Long dark lashes framed big blue eyes. Her red cashmere sweater clung to her curves like a second skin. A three-carat square-cut diamond glittered on her finger.
Lana Wilkerson was a vibrant force of nature—bold, beautiful, and bigger than life. As Lori buried the tabloid beneath a stack of hairstyle magazines, she felt herself shrinking and shriveling like a raisin left out in the summer sun.
“Hello, ladies,” Lana said, her voice bright, her smile wide and white and perfect.
Lori’s tongue automatically went to that little space between her teeth behind her upper incisor.
“What a glorious day, is it not? Caitlin, I’m so sorry I’m late for our spa date. Chase took me skiing today, and we made one too many runs. Fabulous conditions on the mountain. Simply fabulous.”
She launched into a tale about Chase’s wild and reckless ways speeding down a Black Diamond hill that had Lori cringing while Lana’s gorgeous eyes sparkled with excitement. Lori darted Caitlin a sidelong glance, looking to see if Chase’s sister recognized how well her brother and this woman suited. If Lori had been the woman skiing with him, she’d have done so with her heart in her throat and visions of falls, broken bones, and traumatic brain injuries running through her head. Upon reaching the end of the run, she’d have lit into him like a firecracker rather than hug him with joy.
Neither one of them would have been happy.
Liar, her inner voice proclaimed. His sense of adventure and daring had been one of the things that appealed most to her about Chase.
Her mother still joked that instead of giving Lori the middle name of Elizabeth, she should have gone with “Responsible.” That aspect of Lori’s personality was the result of having grown up with a single mother who worked her fingers to the bone to make ends meet and atone to her parents for her Big Mistake—getting pregnant by the town bad boy before he got sent off to jail.
Then when Lori was seventeen, Chase Timberlake had walked into her grandparents’ grocery store, and over the next few years, taught Lori all about temptation.
Lana snickered at something the nail technician said, and Lori realized that the older woman’s laugh was as lovely as her face. Lori watched her win over the customers in the salon one by one. No wonder Chase had fallen for her. The real question was, why had the Timberlake women not?
She pondered the problem while the nail tech finished her pedicure. Family dynamics were a weird animal. Lori knew that firsthand. Wasn’t her own situation fraught with tension from time to time?
She had wanted nothing to do with her father when he returned to Eternity Springs with an adoptive son in tow after years of living the good life in Australia. She’d been angry at Cam and jealous of Devin. He’d had a relationship with her father—he’d had a father—when she had not. Then when her parents reconciled, she’d been forced to adjust to sharing the mother whom she’d had to herself for her entire life.
Baby Michael’s arrival had added more complexities to the mix. Lori loved her little brother desperately, but that didn’t prevent her from experiencing moments of sibling rivalry that made her feel more like a child than an adult. As Lori Reese, she’d known exactly where she fit in the family of two. Sometimes in Lori Murphy’s expanded family, she didn’t know her role.
Lori’s gaze drifted toward Chase’s sister and she thought about his mother. She’d admired Ali Timberlake ever since she met her. The woman was all class, and according to local gossip, she never said a word against her son’s choice of bride. But anyone who knew her could see she struggled with the idea of being mother-in-law to Lana Wilkerson. The age difference between Lana and Caitlin certainly didn’t make a “sisters” relationship any easier, either. Lori realized she actually felt a little bit sorry for Lana—emphasis on the “little.” Navigating Timberlake family dynamics would be a Black Diamond challenge for Chase’s wife.
With her nails now painted a subtle rose pink, Lori moved to the drying table. A few moments later, Caitlin took the seat on her right. The two friends chatted about their New Year’s plans, and Lori was almost dry and ready to leave when Lana took the seat opposite her. She slipped nails painted a tangerine orange beneath the ultraviolet light and beamed a friendly smile toward Lori. “I need to apologize. Your face is familiar so I’m sure we must have met on one of my previous visits to Eternity Springs, but I don’t remember. May we start over? I’m Lana Wilkerson, soon-to-be Timberlake.”
They had been introduced more than once, but Lori wasn’t going to let the lack of recognition bother her. Celebrities met so many people. “I’m Lori Murphy.”
“Oh. Of course.” The older woman winced prettily. “We have met before. You’re Chase’s Lori. His ‘one that got away.’”
The comment flabbergasted Lori and she fumbled for a response. Lana didn’t seem to notice. She bubbled on about the New Year’s Eve party she and Chase planned to attend at their producer’s vacation home in Aspen the following night. “I’m sorry we’re going to miss the party here, but our producer is bringing in some Hollywood movers and shakers, and he’s demanded our attendance. At least we’re not going to miss the bowl-game-watching party tonight at the community center. Chase is so looking forward to that. He loves watching college football with his dad. Family is so important to him. To us both.”
She flashed her perfect smile toward Caitlin and added, “I’ve always wanted a sister, and now I’ll have Caitlin.”
Caitlin’s smile went tight. Lana didn’t seem to notice.
Lori decided her nails had dried long enough. She stood, saying brightly, “I think I’m dry. It was nice to see you, Lana.”
“You, too, Lori. We will see you tonight at the party, won’t we? I know it’s going to be wonderful because Ali is in charge. She’s fabulous. I don’t know what I would have done without her to oversee wedding arrangements. She has everything organized perfectly. Chase is that way when it comes to work, you know. I depend on him for so much more than still photography.”
Lori’s gaze shifted to the stack of magazines where she’d buried the tabloid. Yeah, like rubbing on sunscreen.
“Yes, I will be there,” Lori said, wondering if it was too late to change her plans. “The guy I’m dating is a serious college-football fan.”
“Wonderful. I know Chase is looking forward to catching up with people whom he hasn’t seen in a while, and I can’t wait to meet more of his friends.”
Lori recalled that comment later that evening as she carried a bowl of guacamole to one of the refreshment tables and saw that Chase had arrived while she’d been in the kitchen helping his mother. It was the first time Lori had seen him in person in months. She watched with a reluctant fascination as he introduced Lana around the room.
They did make a glamorous pair. In keeping with the collegiate theme of the night, they wore CU colors, Chase in black and Lana in a gold lamé dress and black and gold stilettos.
“She’s way overdressed.” A familiar hand swooped in to snag a spoonful of guacamole for a plate piled high with crudités. Lori smiled at her undergrad college roommate, Molly Malone, and her husband, Charlie, who carried a plate filled with chips and sour cream dip.
“Of course, he is, too,” Charlie added, dipping a tortilla chip into the guacamole on his wife’s plate and popping it into his mouth.
Molly nodded. “Never thought I’d see your Chase wear a designer sport coat to a football-watching party and work a room like a politician.”
He’s not my Chase. And Lori realized—a bit to her own surprise—that she was mostly okay with that. The photos Caitlin had shown her earlier had been a graphic demonstration of just how much he’d changed from the young man she’d known and loved. “It’s hard to see the river rat when he’s dressed like a model. You can certainly see her influence.”
Molly shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “I liked the old Chase better. I’ll never forget the Aggies-versus-Colorado game when he yelled himself hoarse during the Buffalos’ goal-line stand. This Chase is way too civilized and sophisticated for that much fun. What do you want to bet that he rides a polo pony? And goes on fox hunts.”
“When he’s not riding an Olympic athlete,” Charlie suggested, his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.
Molly elbowed him in the side. “What?” He arched a brow toward Lori. “Too soon?”
“No,” Lori replied with a fleeting smile. “Actually a little humor is just what I needed. Have I mentioned how glad I am that you two decided to spend your anniversary in Eternity Springs this year? You’re the only people I know who aren’t giving me ‘poor, pitiful Lori’ looks.”
“Always happy to provide moral support,” Charlie said.
“Not that you need it considering who you’re dating.” Molly patted her hand over her heart. “Brick Callahan. Capital Y-U-M in Wranglers and a cowboy hat. If I wasn’t a happily married woman…”
“Hey, now,” Charlie protested.
“You’re so easy to tease.” Molly flashed a grin and leaned over to kiss his cheek. To Lori, she said, “I don’t know why anyone would think that you’re pining away for Chase. It’s been years since the two of you dated. And you were the one who dumped him, not vice versa.”
“I didn’t dump him.” Lori shied away from the memory of the hurt, the mourning, she’d experienced when she’d realized he’d quit visiting. Quit calling. Quit e-mailing. As had she. “It was a mutual decision.”
She guessed that’s what it had been, anyway. She wasn’t all that sure. The months following the trip to Australia and her father’s return to Eternity Springs were a blur. She’d been an emotional wreck and physically and mentally exhausted due to challenges on the academic front. Chase had been … away.
He’d been traveling all over the world with George Overstreet and been nowhere around when she’d needed him the most. It had been all too easy for her to draw the parallel between Chase and Cam. Like she’d wanted anything to do with another man with wanderlust at that point in her life!
The ghost of remembered resentment fluttered through her. She gave her head a little shake to chase it away, then repeated her usual comment whenever asked about Chase. “We were young.”
“Well … apparently young isn’t something Chase worries about, is it?” Charlie observed. “What I want to know is, is he the trophy husband or is she the trophy wife?”
“Doesn’t matter. Chase is yesterday.” Molly motioned toward the door. “Mr. Today just walked in. Is he wearing shoulder pads beneath that maroon and white jersey?”
“No,” Lori said, her heart warming to see that despite his allegiance to another university, Brick wore Aggie gear in what she recognized as a silent show of support. “The man has Callahan shoulders. Broad as the plains of West Texas.”
And he’d come to offer her a little lean time. Broad shoulders, a lady-killer grin, and a heart of gold.
Too bad they’d never be more than good friends.