When the little plane touched down in the small coastal town on Alaska’s panhandle that served as home base for the Living Wild crew, a lightness Stone hadn’t felt in months infused his soul. Exiting right onto the runway, he stopped and took a big, deep breath, filling his lungs with clean, crisp Alaskan air. It was colder than Los Angeles, but May in Alaska was gorgeous.

He turned to help Gina down the steps. The rest of the production crew filed out behind her.

“You all right there?” he asked.

“I like planes.” She sent Jordy a side-eyed glare. “Not seaplanes.”

Jordy threw up his hands. “We’re taking the helicopter this time. Relax.”

A bunch of the Living Wild crew waited to escort them to the Glacier Valley Inn, and then to Nielson HQ, where Gina would finally meet Stone’s family to film clips for the semi-finals episode.

As much as he loved his family, he didn’t want Gina to meet them. Not there, not on camera, not as these personas they’d crafted for television. He didn’t even know who they really were anymore.

Miguel, one of the producers from Living Wild, pulled Stone aside. “Do any of them know?”

Stone shook his head.

“Good.” Miguel clapped him on the back. “Keep it that way.”

A sense of unease descended like a cloud. It was a mistake to bring Gina here. It had been a mistake the first time, but he hadn’t any say in it then. This time, he should have insisted. Maybe a couple of his siblings could have flown to LA for the semi-finals footage instead. Then Living Wild could have done a special episode with it, too. Living Wild in Los Angeles, or something.

Perhaps his own selfishness had made him think this was a good idea. He’d missed Alaska, and he wanted Gina to see it the way he saw it, without the surprises or gimmicks from her last trip. He’d wanted to show her the place he loved, like when she’d taken him for a tour of Central Park.

Now that they were here, those desires seemed naïve. Gina was gorgeous and spirited, strong and determined. But she wasn’t made for Alaska. She wanted things he’d never be able to give her, and the kind of life that was impossible here. He could never ask her to move here with him, and all he wanted was to come back home.

And Gina. Yes, he wanted Gina, too. There was no way he could have both.

She looked up like she felt her eyes on him, and smiled. So sweet. But not for him.

What the hell was wrong with him? He should be able to give up on his stupid dream of living here on his own terms. But Alaska was in his blood, had invaded him to the point where he was hooked on it. Even now, after being back for only a matter of minutes, he soaked in the air, the scenery, the sense of calm. He’d known LA had depleted him, he just hadn’t realized how much.

The Dance Off gave him his own room at the Glacier Valley Inn. It was weird, since a different room already had the rest of his belongings in it, but he couldn’t tell them that. Barry, one of the inn’s owners, caught Stone coming out of his new room and gave a friendly wave. Stone froze, then checked to make sure no one from The Dance Off was around.

“Hey, Stone,” Barry said, coming over. “Welcome back. Marnie and I have been voting for you. Glad to see you doing so well.”

“Thanks, Barry. Means a lot.” He shook the other man’s hand.

At that moment, Gina exited her room down the hall. She stopped when she saw them.

Barry’s gaze lit up. “Oh, there’s Gina. I hope you two won’t mind posing for a picture later. Marnie’s down at the store, but I know she’ll be real happy to see you both.”

“It would be our pleasure.” Gina gave Barry a brilliant smile, but when he wasn’t looking, she raised an eyebrow at Stone.

Stone rushed to make introductions before Barry could blow his cover. “Barry and his wife Marnie own the inn. My family has known them a long time, and they’re fans of The Dance Off.”

“We vote for you two every week,” Barry said again, a note of pride in his voice.

“Oh, thank you.” Gina gave Barry a one-armed hug. “I’d love to meet your wife when she’s back.”

“We’ll do that. Bye now.” Barry waved and left.

Gina gave Stone a curious look. “Why do you look so tense?”

“Do I?” He stretched his shoulders. He hadn’t even noticed the tension that had settled into his upper back and neck. As much as he loved Alaska, worrying about spilling the beans in front of Gina or the rest of The Dance Off’s crew had him on edge. “Weird to be back.”

“You must be excited to see your family again.”

“I am.”

“Then why are you scowling?” She pressed her fingers between his eyebrows and rubbed the crease.

“It will be good to see them, of course. It was strange being away.” Shit. He was back to sounding like a robot, like he did every time someone asked about his family.

“But . . . ?”

He worked his jaw back and forth. What was it? “It feels different. I don’t know how to explain.”

“Well, when you figure it out, I’m all ears.” She tugged on her earlobes and gave him a silly, adorable grin. “You’ve listened to me blather on about my family often enough. The least I can do is return the favor.”

Film crews be damned. The producers in the lounge could wait. He pulled her in for a long kiss. The melding of two worlds—his life in Alaska, and his routine with Gina and their crew—was throwing him off-kilter, but when he kissed Gina, the ground steadied beneath his feet. His heart settled into a comfortable, familiar rhythm, like they were in synch.

She broke the kiss first, wagging her finger at him like he’d been naughty. “Nowhere we might get caught,” she said, reminding him of one of her rules.

She had so many rules. He liked that about her, but he also wanted to tempt her to break them.

She swiped a thumb over his mouth to wipe off her lipstick. “Come on. The crew is waiting.”

They headed down the hallway, but Gina stopped before they reached the end.

“Stone?”

He paused. “Yeah?”

“Does your family know about us?”

Her eyebrows were drawn together, and she looked like she’d be pissed if the answer was yes. “No. I haven’t told any of them.”

“Oh, good.” The relief that infused her features made his chest hurt. The secrets were piling up. Don’t tell Gina and The Dance Off that Living Wild was a fraud. Don’t tell the other dancers or his family that he and Gina were an item. Don’t let the media find out anything, even when people were constantly sticking microphones in his face and asking questions purposely designed to throw him off-guard. It was all getting mixed up in his head and being here, back in the place that could blow it all, was making him jumpy.

Then Gina smiled, and the tension eased. Sometimes he thought her smile was the only real thing in his life.

“Come on,” she said, “Let’s go meet them.”

* * *

Stone’s anxiety deepened as they approached Nielson HQ. Gina wore hiking boots this time, and they took the clearer path, but he still stayed close.

“It would suck if you busted an ankle,” he pointed out.

She gave him a half-smile. “Jordy said the same thing the first time I came here.”

Jordy stopped them before they entered the clearing.

“Gina, we’re going to introduce you to the Nielsons in groups. There are too many of them for the cameras to catch everything. Make sure the cameras can get your reactions. Stone, you’ll handle introductions. Act like we aren’t here, and you don’t know your parents are waiting.”

The cameras panned out, and Jordy gave them the go ahead.

Stone’s stomach clenched as it finally hit that he was bringing the woman he loved to meet his parents. On camera. God, could his life get any weirder? He forced a smile onto his face and put an arm around Gina, leading her forward.

A chill raced down his spine as he spotted Jimmy and Pepper standing in front of the big house they’d built in season two. Shit. All this time he’d only thought about hiding the truth about the Nielsons from Gina and The Dance Off’s producers. Keeping his relationship with Gina hidden from their castmates was hard, but hiding it from his mom? The woman read him like an open book. She’d know, and she’d have questions, and then Gina was going to kill him.

Each step amplified his terror. His parents waited, beaming big smiles. Gina returned their smiles with a wide, toothy grin of her own.

Stone’s teeth were bared, but he was positive the footage would show more of a grimace than a grin. He caught Jordy’s hand signal. Crap, he was supposed to say his lines. He hated this shit.

“Mom, Pop, I’d like you to meet my dance partner, Gina. Gina, my mom, Pepper, and my father, Jimmy.”

His mother spoke first. “Gina, we’re so happy to meet you.”

“Likewise, Mrs. Nielson.” Gina took Pepper’s hands and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “You’ve raised quite the dancer.”

Pepper giggled. “Please, call me Pepper. We’ve gone into town every Monday to watch you two dance, and it’s been such a treat.”

Jimmy reached out to shake Gina’s hand, but she gave him a kiss, too. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Nielson.”

“Oh, Gina, I know we’re just meeting for the first time, but I hope you’ll call me Jimmy. As you can see, we don’t stand on ceremony around here. Besides, we feel like we know you, thanks to the show and the few times Stone has called home.”

Stone ducked his head. It was true. He hadn’t called as much as he’d planned. With his family’s filming schedule and his own rehearsal schedule, it was hard to find times to connect when they could all be at computers.

His mother squeezed his hands, and his father gave him a slap on the back.

“Real proud of you son,” Jimmy said in a gruff voice. “Never knew you had those moves in you.”

“Thanks, Pop.” Stone made a show of looking around. “Where are the others?”

“Oh, they went off in the boat.”

Off in the boat meant they were hiding off-camera somewhere until they could be brought in for filming.

Jimmy continued. “They should be back soon. Gina, would you like a tour of Nielson HQ? It ain’t much, but it’s our humble little slice of freedom.”

“I’d love to.”

Pepper led Gina toward the main house, which held beds for Pepper, Jimmy, and the girls. Stone followed along with his father. They stayed quiet, so as not to create crosstalk and interfere in the audio recording while Pepper took Gina through each of the rooms, telling her how they’d built it, and some of the setbacks they’d run into. Most of it had been filmed, so it would give the editors opportunities to insert past footage.

Miguel beckoned Stone and Jimmy outside. They followed him over to the little house Stone shared with Reed, waiting while Miguel organized the cameras.

Jimmy pulled out a cigarette and lit up. He took a long drag, then tipped his head back and blew a smoke ring. “How’s it really going, son?”

Stone shrugged. He and his father didn’t talk much. Aside from being “the quiet one,” Stone just didn’t see eye to eye with Jimmy on a lot of things. And being one of seven kids, they hadn’t spent a ton of time together that wasn’t focused on shit like hunting or building. Man stuff.

Jimmy put on a good show for the cameras, but he wasn’t about talking out his feelings.

“I didn’t think you’d last so long.” Jimmy dragged on the cig. “Thought you’d be back here within the month.”

Nice to know his father had confidence in him. “Yeah, who knew?”

“My son, a dancer.” Jimmy shook his head. “Your sisters are thrilled. Your brothers are jealous. Reed and Wolf want to go on next season.”

“Maybe Living Wild and The Dance Off can do a crossover. Hell, all nine of us can fill out the cast on our own.” The joke was out before Stone even thought about it, and strange, because he and his father didn’t have that kind of rapport.

Jimmy let out a bark of laughter. “Wouldn’t that be something? We could all compete to see who’s the best dancer in the family.”

Stone gave a half-smile. “It’s me.”

“Miguel is gonna be pissed he missed this. We should say it all again on camera.”

Biting back a sigh, Stone nodded. This was his life. Finally have a real moment of connection with his father, then repeat it back like a parrot for the cameras.

“Let’s get some footage of you two talking about the past couple months,” Miguel said, coming back.

Stone shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “Like what, specifically?”

“Talk about the challenges,” Miguel suggested.

“We just made a great joke about all the Nielsons going on the dancing show,” Jimmy said, dropping his cigarette and stubbing it out with his heel. “We’ll tell it again.”

Miguel rolled his eyes at the cigarette but gave them the go-ahead.

Jimmy turned to Stone, immediately “on.” He’d taken to acting better than any of them. Better than Stone had, certainly.

“Son, I can’t tell you how much you’ve been missed,” Jimmy said, patting Stone’s shoulder. “You are a sight for sore eyes, I’ll tell you that.”

“I’ve missed this place,” Stone admitted. As he said the words, though, they rang false. He had missed home, but it was less true now than it had been in March. The more time he spent with Gina, the more at home he felt, even though LA was still an odd fit for him. It might have been different if he hadn’t had the show to occupy his time, though.

Besides, Nielson HQ wasn’t technically “home.”

“Can’t imagine Los Angeles can hold a candle to what we’ve got here in Alaska.” Jimmy spread his arms wide and took a deep breath. “Smell the free—”

A racking cough interrupted his catchphrase. Years of smoking had left Jimmy with a smoker’s cough that often ruined takes. When it didn’t appear inclined to subside, Stone thumped his father on the back. Jimmy spat on the ground, Miguel rolled his eyes again, and they continued.

Jimmy picked right back up where he left off, though he threw his arms out with less vigor than before. “Smell the freedom!”

Stone’s shoulder muscles tensed in annoyance.

This. Sucked. If he could just get through the next few hours, he could get back to what now passed for normal in his life: learning to dance.

Jimmy went off to charm Gina, and Pepper came over to stand at Stone’s side.

“So, Stone, what’s going on with you and Gina?” his mother asked, crossing her arms.

Shit. No, his mother had not just said that on camera. Except he turned to see her smiling at him, with no less than three cameras surrounding them.

Gina was going to flip.

“We’re dance partners.” His voice came out a low rumble, edging toward a growl.

Pepper waved a hand at him, dismissing his quick excuse. “Stone, I’m not stupid. I know there’s something between you two. You can tell me.”

He shrugged. “Nothing to tell.”

God, he was such a terrible liar.

Miguel stepped in. “The girls are on their way for the next scene.”

Stone took the opportunity to get away from his mother, but this exchange was going to end up in the behind-the-scenes package, he just knew it.

Maybe it wouldn’t, though. Maybe there would be enough other useful footage. Maybe one of his brothers would do something so outrageous and embarrassing, that would be the focus, instead.

He could hope. And in the meantime, he wasn’t going to tell Gina until he knew it was a problem.