Chapter One
‡
“If I have to marry a stranger in order to save the world, I’ll do it,” Kai Green told Boone Rudman as the sun broke over the horizon. “But I don’t want Jericho’s leavings. I want a woman who wants me.”
The two men stood by a campfire near the bunkhouse that formed the headquarters of Base Camp, the sustainable community they were helping to build in Chance Creek, Montana, on an old ranch named Westfield. They both had served their country for years as Navy SEALs, but they couldn’t be more different, Kai thought as he watched Boone consider his request. Boone’s upright bearing and short clipped hair announced his military background wherever he went. Kai’s blond hair had already grown until he once more looked like the California surfer he’d been growing up. Boone was just back from his morning run. Kai had already done his traditional 45-minute yoga routine, plus a half hour of meditation.
He’d almost got his head screwed back on after the unwelcome surprise he’d received the previous day.
Almost—but not quite.
It should have been a happy occasion—the wedding between his good friend Jericho Cook and Savannah Edwards, one of the women who helped run the Jane Austen–style bed-and-breakfast in the “manor” at the top of the hill—a large three-story stone building that looked straight out of Regency England. He’d been all set to celebrate—until he and the rest of the unmarried men had drawn straws to see who had to marry next.
And he’d pulled the short one.
Kai prided himself on the calm personality he’d worked so hard to attain. His adoptive family had practiced meditation every morning and night, and taught him and his sister to do so as well. It had been an antidote to the chaos of their younger years, and his ability to stay focused while everyone else was panicking had served him time and time again during his years as a Navy SEAL. It allowed him to see details others missed—and make good decisions about what to do next. It was what had held him together when his friends and family had protested his choice to join the military at age nineteen. Those had been difficult years, but he’d kept his course. Stayed true to who he was—and his need to protect those around him.
Back then he’d thought becoming a SEAL would confer on him a kind of superpower, one that would enable him to prevent suffering around the world. He was proud of his time in the service and of the missions he’d helped bring to fruition, but now he wanted something different. Not just to save others from suffering; but to prevent it in the first place. Base Camp was giving him that opportunity.
Still, the second he’d pulled that short straw, all that Zen serenity he’d worked for years to build came crashing down around his feet. He’d barely held his shit together during the ceremony and reception last night, struggling when the ever-present cameras focused on him. Kai and the others at Base Camp had made a devil’s bargain with a billionaire named Martin Fulsom to be filmed night and day as part of the reality television show that documented their progress building their sustainable community, and there was nothing the show’s director, Renata, liked better than to hound the poor schmuck whose turn it was next to take a trip to the altar.
She’d sure hounded him—all night long—until he’d finally gone to bed early just to get the cameras out of his face.
Marriage.
To someone he hadn’t even met yet—
In the next forty days.
Now that it was his turn, he didn’t think he could do it. Just thinking about it made his palms sweaty, his stomach tight. But he had to go through with it. There was no way out. If he didn’t beat that deadline, Base Camp would be toast. And Base Camp was too important to lose. All around the world people struggled with food insecurity, and his new mission was to teach them how to make the most of whatever they had. He was participating in experiments with gardening techniques aimed at producing the most food for the least effort under all kinds of circumstances. More to the point, he was developing food preparation techniques that cut down on waste and used the least energy. He was building toward a future where he could share his message on his own cooking show.
And he was prepared to do whatever it took, he told himself sternly.
“Finding a bunch of new women for you to choose from is a waste of time,” Boone said, bringing him back to the present. “I’ve got tons of eligible women who answered the wife wanted ad for Jericho. Why not just—”
“I said, I want someone who wants me.” Kai winced. Now he sounded like an entitled teenager. He prided himself in taking what came his way, going with the flow—accepting what the Universe offered. Like his adopted parents had always told him—you could fight what life handed you, or you could take it and transform it into a future worth living. That philosophy had gotten him through all kinds of rough spots—even when the shit really hit the fan.
What was different now?
Why couldn’t he see this twist of fate as just another step on the path to where he was meant to be? He’d been practicing acceptance for years, but today he was struggling to accept anything about this situation. He’d marry. He had to, or risk destroying everything he and his friends had worked so hard to build. But he didn’t want Jericho’s leavings. It was just good sense, he told himself. Those women had answered a call to marry Jericho, not him. Choosing one of them wouldn’t work—the wavelength of her desire wouldn’t match his.
Boone rubbed his stubbled jaw, but like a good leader, he kept his cool. Kai had no doubt the man wanted to throttle him. Boone was right; this was a total waste of time.
It was a stall tactic.
The truth was, Kai was panicking. He didn’t trust the Universe to provide when it came to women. Or rather, he couldn’t reconcile such a belief with his past experiences with them. When it came to women, he was—
What the hell was he?
Kai held out his hands over the flames in the fire pit. The nights were getting cool in Montana, and since many of Base Camp’s residents still slept in tents, for the first time in months Boone had deemed it prudent to start a fire to warm everyone up that morning. Soon enough, hungry men and women would come looking for their breakfast. Kai needed to hop to it and get cooking, but he didn’t feel much like hopping today.
When it came to women, he was—
Well, he had a bad habit of picking the wrong ones.
“If women were stray dogs,” his adoptive mother, Wanda, had once remarked, “you’d be the guy choosing the crazy-ass mutt in the corner. The animal who refuses to come to the door of the cage to be pet. The one that bites you when you try to feed it.”
At the time Kai had thought she was being unfair, but he was older now. Wiser.
And he knew she was right.
There’d been Kelsie, the one who sold pinecone collages at the local swap meet and lived with a family of gypsies in Cerritos. There’d been Holly, the exotic dancer he’d convinced himself was ready to settle down. There’d been Rachel, who wrote post-feminist poetry under the nom-de-plume Guerrilla Pistol. And India, who’d decided to become a superhero for cats and paced the dark underbelly of Long Beach at night in a tabby-colored leotard and cape, collecting strays until her family had her admitted to a cushy hospital for a good long rest.
All interesting in their own way, but as his mother pointed out—
“Far too skinny. Far too insubstantial. Far more interested in navel-gazing than in you. Kai,” she’d added, with more than a touch of exasperation. “Do you think you chase these women because they remind you of your mother?”
“You’re my mother.”
“You know what I mean.”
She was probably right, Kai had to admit. His birth mother, whom he hadn’t seen since he was seven, had been as fly-by-night as the women he’d dated. What did that say about his intelligence? He kept finding new people to leave him high and dry, when he’d been saved from that pain by the Ledbetters.
“All right. Fine. What do you want in your ad? Describe your perfect woman,” Boone said, cutting into his thoughts again.
What did he want? An image popped into his head. The kind of image that always got him into trouble. A barefoot, waifish, gypsy-clothed, elfin-faced wild child with a tortured past and an intriguing way of making it through the world.
“Sensible,” he said out loud.
Boone raised an eyebrow. “Sensible?”
Kai pictured Kelsie—the way she drifted from idea to idea. “Grounded.”
“O-kay,” Boone drawled. He pulled out his phone and started tapping the keys.
Kai thought about Holly, who was late to almost everything—including the job where she took off her clothes. “Competent.”
Boone kept tapping, and Kai thought about Rachel’s bitter, acid observations about life and love—and the people around them. “Optimistic.”
He thought about India and her superhero costume. “Sane,” he added. Although he had to admit, he had a soft spot for stray animals, too. In fact, wanting to save cats wasn’t all that odd if you asked—
“Looking for a sensible, grounded, competent, optimistic, sane woman for a lifetime commitment,” Boone read back.
“That ought to do it.” But Kai was cringing. Accept what life brings you, he reminded himself. It was the only way.
“I’ll just polish that up and submit it to some dating sites. Renata will make sure to show it during the next episode, too,” Boone told him.
“I’ll get breakfast going.” Kai was grateful to escape to his kitchen, off to one side of the bunkhouse’s main room. When it came to food, he knew exactly what he was doing. In fact, he had it down to a science.
“Save me some coffee,” Boone called as he headed for his desk.
“Will do.” Find me the right wife, he wanted to add but didn’t.
Even Boone couldn’t pull that off.
Back in his kitchen, Kai tried to get himself together. At least here he was in control. He had his ingredients, his appliances, and the knowledge he’d gathered through years of study and practice. Throw him scraps, and he’d transform them into a feast.
As he chopped and diced fresh ingredients for an omelet, Kai found a semblance of calm. The sky outside was brightening by the moment. A new day was a new beginning, and maybe Boone would surprise him and actually find a woman who—
Angus McBride burst into the kitchen and shut the door behind him with a click, turning the old-fashioned key in the lock. He was a large man with red hair and hazel eyes. Normally cheerful, he’d been quiet since his girlfriend, Win Lisle, had left Base Camp to return home a few weeks ago.
Kai stopped what he was doing. He’d forgotten the kitchen even had a door; they never closed it, let alone used the lock.
“We’ve got a problem,” Angus said. “A big one.”
Kai had never seen the man so upset, except when Win had left. “What problem?” He tried to recapture a little of the calm he’d felt just moments ago, but it was like grasping at smoke.
“The root cellar. It’s…” Angus threw his hands up in a defeated gesture. “It’s… empty.”
“Empty? What do you mean, empty?” Kai dropped his knife onto the cutting board and wiped his hands on his apron. Without those food stores, they were in trouble. The reality television show Martin Fulsom had forced them to participate in included a series of difficult tasks they needed to accomplish in order to keep their land. One of them was to produce all the food they needed over the winter. Since they’d only started last spring, he’d given them a grace period during which they could purchase food, but that grace period was over as of the beginning of October. Fulsom had allowed them to stock up on coffee, chocolate, salt and pepper. Otherwise they were on their own. They had a huge vegetable garden, two heated greenhouses in which they would grow greens over the winter, several old fruit trees someone had planted on the ranch years ago, chickens, pigs, several beehives, a field of wheat, a herd of bison and a milk cow.
Kai had been so proud of the progress they’d made toward producing their own food. Their meals would be plain over the next seven months, but filling and delicious nonetheless. They had plenty of honey stored up for sweetener, and while they hadn’t harvested and ground their wheat, they’d picked bushels of starchy vegetables for the interim. He wouldn’t be able to make any more breakfast burritos until they had flour again, but he could still fry up a mess of potatoes and keep his people happy.
One of his triumphs had been the cheeses he’d produced. He’d learned to make mozzarella-style and other soft cheeses that took little time to prepare—and cheddar varieties that would need to cure for months, but that they’d enjoy next year. He’d learned to churn butter, a daily chore that was time-consuming and took more skill than he’d expected. One by one, he’d learned to make most things he needed from scratch.
Still, without those vegetables they’d harvested and stored in the root cellar, their meals were going to be nothing but meat, eggs and cheese, whatever greens they could grow in the dead of winter… and an apple now and then.
Angus shushed him. “We can’t let anyone else know. Definitely not Renata.”
Kai scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Thank goodness they weren’t being filmed right now; Renata had so much footage of him cooking she’d stopped sending cameras into the kitchen. “What happened?” he asked in a lower tone, struggling to calm himself again. There was a way out of this. All he had to do was listen, think things over and make rational decisions.
“Someone must have broken in. I’m not kidding, Kai. It’s all gone. Every last potato.”
Kai knew why he was emphasizing potatoes. Until they could harvest the wheat and make flour, they’d be low on carbohydrates without potatoes, winter squashes and other root vegetables. That’s why they’d planted so many of them. If they were all gone…
“That’s a hell of a lot of food. How could someone get it without our seeing?”
Angus shrugged. “They must have come at night. The cellar isn’t locked. It’s far enough away from the houses that someone could sneak in if they were quiet. We never thought to guard it. We keep making that mistake; thinking there’s safety in numbers or that we’re not in danger because we’re home in the United States rather than abroad in some war zone.”
Kai knew what he meant; a stalker had already penetrated their encampment once and nearly killed Nora, Clay Pickett’s wife.
“Hell.” Kai thought fast, but he could barely process the information. Someone had stolen their entire harvest? Bushels and bushels of potatoes, onions, carrots and more? That would take a lot of people a lot of time.
“Could someone really get a truck near the root cellar without us hearing?”
“They must have,” Angus said. “It’s the only explanation.”
“During the wedding,” Kai said, comprehension dawning on him. “They waited until all of us were up at the manor. When was the last time someone checked the stores?” He hadn’t been in the root cellar for several days. He was still making use of fresh produce right out of the garden, although that would need to change soon. He shook his head, the magnitude of the loss washing over him again.
“As far as I can figure it’s been two days. Last week we focused on harvesting. Since then we’ve been working on the greenhouses and the hydroponics setup.”
“Whoever it was has been watching us. They knew where we’d be yesterday.”
“Who the hell could it be?”
Kai counted his breaths in and out, trying once more to settle his thoughts. “Montague. Who else? He wants this land, right? Maybe he’s not above playing dirty to get it.” The developer was part of the reality show, too. The bad guy waiting in the wings to steal their land if they didn’t reach all their goals. He already had plans drawn up for a subdivision of seventy homes he wanted to build on this property, and Martin Fulsom had pledged to hand Westfield over to him if Kai and the others didn’t meet the requirements on the reality television show.
Kai hated to think about a housing development swallowing this beautiful ranch.
“You really think Fulsom would let him have it?” Angus asked.
Kai regarded him in surprise. “You think he wouldn’t?”
Angus looked away. “I guess I hoped that a man supposedly dedicated to furthering sustainable living wouldn’t play fast and loose with a bit of heaven like Westfield. That maybe it was all a gimmick, and no matter what, he wouldn’t let it be developed.”
“He can’t go back on his word. If the show ends, we lose and this land isn’t developed, no one would ever take him seriously again,” Kai pointed out.
“Then this contest just got ugly,” Angus said. “We’re being filmed; Montague’s people aren’t. They can keep picking off our resources any time they want to.”
“Unless we get more serious about security. We’ve got to tell Boone.”
Angus nodded. “You know, I wouldn’t put it past Renata to do something along these lines to make the show more interesting.”
Kai thought that over. “You’re right, but I don’t think it’s her this time. If she pulls something like this, it will be near the end, when it doesn’t matter so much if we catch her at it. If she tried it now, and we found out, the show would go off the rails.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“We increase security. And then what? We need more greens—and starchy foods. How much can we grow in the greenhouses?”
“I don’t know. We might be fucked.”
Kai refused to believe it. “We’ve still got food,” he pointed out. “They didn’t steal our bison herd, right? We’ve got lots of meat. Plenty of people have survived with less.”
He and his sister Grace certainly had.
Kai shook that thought away. “We already planned to harvest a bison this fall,” he went on. “We’ve got chickens and pigs, so we’ll have eggs and pork. We’ve got whatever we can grow in the greenhouses through the remainder of the fall and winter—”
“Which none of us has ever done before,” Angus said.
“We’ll figure it out.” They’d have to. Kai knew why Angus was worried, though. It was one thing to build a greenhouse, and another thing altogether to manage succession growing in a way that kept the correct amount of food coming to the table. The seedlings they’d managed to grow hydroponically were struggling so far. Kai, Angus, Boone and Samantha Wentworth, the other member of the team devoted to growing their food, had been trying to get the nutrient mix right for the indoor plants. It was still an imperfect science for them.
Plus, the greenhouses were vulnerable. The main one had already been destroyed once. A heavy snowfall or a high wind could destroy it again. Or a man like Montague. Then what?
“We’ll have to plant more potatoes. Inside.” Kai could easily interpret the look Angus sent him. Neither of them knew if that was possible. It should work, but—
“We’d better plant them today,” Angus said. “It’ll be months before they’re ready. What do we do until then?”
“There are still carrots in the garden, cabbages and some potatoes, right?”
“Some.”
“I’ll do an inventory today and figure out a plan to stretch them out. Meanwhile we need a lock on the root cellar.”
“I’m on it,” Angus said. “We’d better post a guard there at night, too.”
“How do we let people know what’s going on without letting Renata in on our secret?”
“We can’t hold a meeting,” Angus mused. “We’ll have to pass the information on to people one at a time.”
“If it is Montague or Renata who stole the vegetables, then we’ll need to watch everything at night—the bison herd, the chickens and pigs… There are only ten of us men,” Kai said. “If half of us are up all night, that means we’ll need more sleep during the day. Renata’s going to notice.”
“We’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, you can distract her.”
“Me? How?”
“You’re next up for getting married. Keep the drama high. Keep her focused on you, not the patrols. Or the root cellar. Okay?”
“Okay,” Kai said reluctantly. High drama?
Wasn’t he supposed to look for the opposite of that when he chose a wife?
“What’s this?”
“Nothing!” Addison Reynolds snatched the paperback out of her sister Felicity’s hands and shoved it back into her faux-leather oversize purse. She’d been rummaging around for her water bottle to refill before she accompanied Felicity to sunrise yoga. She’d arrived in Manhattan late last night, but that hadn’t stopped Felicity from waking her up at 5:00 a.m. Addison lived miles away in Hartford, Connecticut, but she traveled to New York City every chance she got and camped out in Felicity’s fabulous guest room. The price she paid was being at the mercy of her sister’s constant campaign to improve her life.
“The Freedom of Yes? You’re actually reading that book?”
“It’s for my book club,” Addison lied, wishing she’d never dumped out the contents of her damn bag on the impeccable kitchen counter of her sister’s penthouse. As usual, ever since she’d arrived, the more Felicity flitted around like a gorgeous butterfly, the more she careened around like a drunken moth. It wasn’t fair the way Felicity glided through life like she’d been given some secret elixir of knowledge at birth. How did she manage to always look perfect, be perfect, do the perfect thing at the perfect moment? The fact that she was younger than Addison only made it worse.
But that was nothing new. Felicity had been outshining her since she was three years old.
“You’re not in a book club.” Felicity grabbed for the book again. Addison snatched her purse away, glad for the distraction. She refused to let her memories drive a wedge between her and her sister. She’d accepted the reality of their situation. Felicity was beautiful, and she was merely pretty. And Felicity’s kind of beauty lifted her high above anything Addison could attain.
“How do you know?”
“I know everything about you. Besides, you work all the time. When would you read books?” Felicity grabbed for the paperback again and this time succeeded in pulling it free. “I can’t believe you’re reading this.”
“Why not?” Addison read books—as often as she could. She lived vicariously through other people’s adventures. She couldn’t help that she hadn’t been handed an exciting modeling career like Felicity had.
Or a husband worth millions.
Addison stuffed down her jealousy and tried—unsuccessfully—to pull the paperback out of Felicity’s hands.
“For one thing, you never say yes to anything.” Felicity turned the book over and began to read the blurb on the back. “‘Worried? Stressed? Driven to distraction by your to-do list? What if you’ve got it all wrong? I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to work so hard.’ Hmm, I think this woman’s on to something, Addison.” Felicity read on. “‘Just say yes to the universe and see what adventures unfold.’” Felicity lowered the book and fixed her green eyes on Addison. The same green eyes that had helped win her first beauty pageant at three, her first modeling gig at five and left her at the top of her career at twenty-six. “Are you actually thinking about trying this?”
“Of course not.” Addison snatched the book back. It had been stupid of her to ever pick it up. It had caught her eye in the window of the bookstore she passed every day on her way to work at Kelson, Kelson and Klein back in Connecticut, and the ridiculous premise of its title worked on her until she finally had to go in and see what it was all about.
It sounded lovely letting the universe decide your fate—until you realized what a crap job it did most of the time. Halfway through with the book, Addison was carrying it around only until she passed a thrift shop, although donating it was probably cruel. It would only fall into the hands of someone more gullible than she was.
“No, of course not,” Felicity echoed, “because God forbid you let anything happen by chance. What was it your last boyfriend called you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She was sick and tired of having endless variations of this same conversation with her sister.
Felicity came and went like a will ’o wisp on the wind. If she had an impulse, she followed it. If a thought crossed her mind, she expressed it. That was all well and good if you were five foot ten and weighed 114 pounds—and had inherited their mother’s luminous skin and emerald-green eyes. And had been cosseted and fussed over by that same mother since you took your first steps down the beauty pageant catwalk. Unfortunately, Addison took after her father—brown hair, gray eyes and an unremarkable body.
Unlike Felicity, she had to work for her living—
Well, that wasn’t exactly fair. Felicity worked, too—often under uncomfortable circumstances, and she was constantly watching her weight, while Addison could grab an ice cream sundae now and then without being afraid she’d lose her actuarial job at the insurance company.
As for Felicity’s relationship with their mother… Addison wasn’t sure whether to envy it or run away screaming. Marjorie Reynolds had peaked at sixteen, when she won the Miss Connecticut pageant, and had never succeeded in making the leap to a modeling career. She was a force to be reckoned with in Felicity’s life. Determined to take part in every minute of her daughter’s success.
Addison had experienced her mother’s intense focus once upon a time, when it had been her on that beauty pageant stage—before Felicity was old enough to compete in the bigger pageants. It had been a heady time. She still remembered the rush of fear and excitement when she’d stepped out before the judges. She’d loved to perform. Had won a competition or two. When she received a crown, her mother’s love was as sweet as cotton candy. When she lost—
Well.
That was long past. No sense worrying about it now.
She worried about Felicity, though. Still caught up in the game—
But Felicity was always a winner. And when Addison looked out at the skyline from Felicity’s penthouse, she had a hard time keeping her jealousy under control. She wanted this. The view, the beautiful furniture and appliances. The Manhattan address… And not just the beautiful trappings. She wanted to feel like Felicity felt. Like she was someone who mattered.
“I want to talk about it.” Felicity snatched the book out of her hand again. “You’re twenty-nine. Single.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“Beautiful and talented—and wasting your life playing it safe. Isn’t it time you took a chance?” She waved the book in Felicity’s face. “Say yes.”
“I don’t want to say yes.” She’d long since learned smart choices and hard work were the way to get ahead for someone like her.
“Uptight. That’s what Kevin called you when he dumped you. Uptight. Rigid. A twenty-nine-year-old stick in the mud.”
“Why are you being so mean?” Sometimes Addison felt that her sister’s life was so unerringly successful she jumped on Addison’s failures because she got bored.
“Because its true!” Felicity exploded. “All you do is go to that damn job and work overtime.”
“So I can save up for a down payment—”
“In New Jersey, which is as close to the City as you’ll ever be able to afford to buy a house. And where you’ll be bored for the rest of your life, like you are in Connecticut. You could rent a place here.”
“I could rent a closet here,” Addison corrected her. “I’m not going to live in New Jersey. I have lots of fun. When I’m not working, I go to parties all the time.”
“You throw parties all the time, you mean.”
“What’s the difference?” Addison loved to throw parties. Had since she was a teenager. It was like being onstage in a way—like throwing a performance for your guests in which they could participate rather than sitting in the audience. “You should have come to the last one. You would have loved it. The theme was—”
“The theme was, the theme was, the theme was—when are you going to stop playacting at life and start living it? Have you ever realized you always throw parties for someone else and you never celebrate yourself?”
Stung, Addison turned away. Her parties were the best part of her life, and everyone said they were wonderful. So inventive. Always something new. What was wrong with that? If she couldn’t afford to go everywhere and do everything, she recreated it as best she could in her little apartment in Hartford. She didn’t need to be the center of attention. Not like Felicity. She loved celebrating her friends. None of them were rich, either. They appreciated the way she brought some glamour to their lives. It might be different if she was living in the City, but New York was so expensive she’d never be able to own her own—
“Addy, what do you want more than anything?” Felicity demanded.
“Your penthouse,” Addison said without thinking, then bit her lip. Shit. The last thing she wanted was for Felicity to know how much she envied her. “I mean—” She was going to say she wanted to open her own event planning business, but that was a secret she’d held close for years, and she found she couldn’t voice it. Somehow Felicity’s penthouse encompassed that desire: it had been Felicity’s reward for achieving her modeling goals. Addison wanted to achieve her goals, too.
Felicity blinked. “Done,” she said after a beat.
“Yeah, right.” She wasn’t anywhere near close to becoming an event planner, certainly not in New York City. She didn’t deserve a place like Felicity’s penthouse, and even if she did—
“No, I’m serious. I invited you here this weekend to tell you something.” Felicity took a breath. “It’s kind of big, Addy. Please don’t throw a wobbly.”
“You’re scaring me,” Addison said. “What is it?”
“Evan and I are moving to Rome. It makes sense for my career, and his company is opening up a division there, and—”
“Rome?” Addison gripped the counter when the floor seemed to drop out from under her. “You’re moving to Rome?”
Figured.
Another adventure for Felicity. More same old, same old for her. She pictured her drive back to Connecticut Sunday night, imagining all the fun and excitement Felicity would have in her new life. Meanwhile, her existence would become that much narrower. No more trips to New York with free accommodations at Felicity’s place. No more riding the coattails of Felicity’s glamorous life.
“Addison, did you hear me?”
She made herself smile. “Of course. That’s amazing for you, sweetie. I’ll come visit, and you’ll show me all around.”
“You weren’t paying attention.”
Addison tried to play back the conversation in her mind. “Your career. Evan’s company.”
“Mom,” Felicity said quietly.
“What about Mom?”
“She won’t be there.”
Addison’s breath caught in her throat as the implications became clear to her. Felicity was making a break for it.
“Oh, Felicity.”
Her sister put up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about it. Evan’s insisting. I know he’s right, but… it isn’t easy. She’s going to be so angry.”
Addison could only nod. Her mother would be furious at Felicity’s defection.
“It’s just… she keeps saying…”
Addison moved to hug her when Felicity’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Felicity broke free and wiped the back of her arm over her cheeks. “She keeps talking about the end of my career. How I’d better live it up now because it’s all almost over for me.”
“Jesus.” Addison wanted to throttle her mother. “You know that’s not true.”
“Sure, it is. I’m twenty-six. She’s right; I won’t be a model forever. I need to figure out what comes next—before I’m forced to. I can’t do that with her around.”
“Evan’s pretty smart to bring you somewhere you can have space to do that,” Addison admitted. “I’m going to miss you, though.”
“No, you’re not.” Felicity lifted her chin and forced a smile to her face. “Because you’re going to be too busy having your own adventure.”
“Right. An actuarial adventure. In Connecticut. Whoop-de-doo!”
“Not an actuarial adventure,” Felicity corrected. “A crazy, wonderful, New York City adventure. I’m giving you my penthouse.” She braced Addison’s shoulders with her hands. “I want you to take it.”
Addison stilled. Was she for real?
“If—and only if—you do this,” Felicity added, reaching for The Freedom of Yes and shaking it at Addison.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you have to say yes—to everything—for one month. If you do, I’ll give you my penthouse mortgage-free for one year.”
“Evan won’t—”
“Evan will throw in the property taxes. He does whatever I tell him.” Felicity held her gaze. “You know it’s true. Come on. Take this chance, Addy. Do it.”
Evan did do everything Felicity asked him, but this was crazy. “What do you mean say yes to everything?”
“I mean say yes to everything.” Felicity smiled her trademark devilish smile, the one she’d had since grade school.
Addison thought fast. That was far too open-ended. She was liable to get hurt. “There would have to be some ground rules. What if someone asks me to kill someone. Or smuggle drugs?”
“You don’t have to kill anyone. Or smuggle drugs. Or drive drunk. Or have unprotected sex—or sex with anyone you don’t want to, for that matter.”
“But—”
“Addison, are you going to say yes to this chance to live here, at the top of the world, in Manhattan? Your favorite place in the universe? Or are you going to say no, crawl back to your safe little hole and hate yourself forever?”
Damn it, her sister knew all her buttons. She’d learned from the best. Addison took a deep breath and hoped like hell she wouldn’t regret this.
“Yes.”
Kai pulled containers of vegetables he’d presliced last night out of the refrigerator and put them on the counter. He’d halved the amount of greens he’d normally add to the omelet, conscious of how far he needed to make them go. He’d added a few extra eggs to make up for it. They had eggs in spades, thanks to their flock of chickens. The sun was far too low on this late fall morning to cook with the solar ovens he liked to use, so the key to making this meal as sustainable as possible was to keep the cooking time to a minimum. That meant veggies sliced razor thin, a single burner heated until the butter he bought locally sizzled when dropped in and then a quick sauté of the vegetables, followed by the pour of the eggs collected minutes ago from the community’s free-range chickens. Swirl the pan around. Let the eggs set. Add some shredded homemade cheese, fold them over and voilà, a huge omelet to be shared among several of the inhabitants of Base Camp.
He looked at the potatoes already frying in a second pan. Nothing to do but serve them now.
The loss of the root cellar hit him all over again.
There was nothing he could do about it right now, though, so to distract himself, Kai focused on his long-term goal. He kept cooking, and even though the cameras weren’t around, he acted as if every motion he made was being scrutinized by people all over the country.
Kai had a plan—and it didn’t involve obscurity. He was a SEAL who liked to make meals. There was a cooking show title in there somewhere, and he was going to find it—and find a producer interested in making him a star. Not because he was high on himself. Because he was high on teaching people about what he was doing—sustainable cooking. Sustainable food preparation. Sustainable feasts. And learning how to balance food, gardening and cash flow to make sure your family never went hungry, no matter what your circumstances.
He had already made some moves in the direction of securing his own show, but first he had to make sure Base Camp survived. He’d given his word to Boone and the others to see this through, and he meant to keep it—despite disasters like stolen food.
When the meal was ready, Kai brought it to a folding table in the main room, where he laid it out buffet-style. He ducked back into the kitchen and brought out homemade salsa as an accompaniment, and soon he was dishing out food to a line of hungry men and women. There were fifteen of them now that Win had taken off for California; ten men and five women. Four couples had already married, which meant six more to go before they met the conditions set by Fulsom.
Now it was his turn.
The loss of their food stores had knocked that little detail out of his mind for the last half hour, but as everyone left the bunkhouse to sit around the campfire to eat, Kai couldn’t help thinking about it.
What would it be like to marry a woman and commit to making their relationship last forever? Could he handle that?
Kai wasn’t sure.
He returned to the kitchen, made some notations about the meal in the thick notebook he kept full of recipes and ideas, loaded up his own plate and headed outside, hoping to forget his troubles for a few minutes, but as soon as he sat down on one of the logs around the fire, Nora, a serious woman with dark brown hair and eyes, leaned forward and said, “I heard Boone’s finding you a wife.”
Instantly, one of the camera men filming the proceedings edged closer, and Kai wondered if Nora had been prompted to ask him that. Sometimes Renata liked to push the show in a certain direction, especially when it came to the next man who had to marry.
He took in the smile quirking Nora’s lips and bit back a groan. If Nora thought the situation was funny, he was doomed. “That’s right.”
“You shouldn’t sound like a man who’s on his way to his own funeral,” Harris Wentworth said. A sniper, he’d recently married Samantha, who’d originally come to marry Curtis but had fallen for Harris instead. “Boone’s good at finding women.”
“He’d better be. He’s got my future in his hands,” Kai said sourly.
“I know what I’m doing,” Boone said complacently from where he sat on a log next to his wife, Riley.
“He does,” Riley agreed. “Although I’m probably biased.”
“Have you put up Kai’s ad yet, Boone?” Avery asked. A petite redhead, Avery had made it clear she meant to pursue a film career. She liked to act, but she also took turns behind the camera when she could and was busy writing a screenplay.
“Thinking of answering it?” Clay teased. Another Navy SEAL, Clay had married Nora after killing her stalker. He and Nora stuck close together most of the time. Kai wondered if he’d ever have a relationship like that.
“No,” Avery said shortly. “No offense, Kai.”
“None taken.” Kai was ready to go back inside. He knew what Avery meant—she had an unmistakable crush on Walker Norton, the large Native American man eating his breakfast several feet away. He knew, too, that Walker had heard every word she’d said, even if he hadn’t reacted. And that the SEAL would be pissed if Avery did answer the ad. Those two needed to stop mooning over each other and get together, for everyone’s sake.
“What kind of woman are you after?” Angus asked. “Let me guess; a gymnast.” Kai wondered how he could joke after their conversation in the kitchen, then decided the man wanted Renata focused on Kai’s impending marriage, like he’d said before.
“I bet he asked for a prep cook,” Nora said.
“Or a sous chef, maybe,” Riley hazarded.
“He asked for someone sensible,” Boone told them.
Hoots of laughter came from all around.
“Sensible?” Curtis Lloyd said. A big, burly man, he was still single, too, after Harris had stolen his bride, but he didn’t seem as bitter about it as he once had been. “Man, someone needs to have a talk with you, Kai.”
“I might have doctored up his ad a little bit,” Boone admitted. “Made it a little more interesting.”
“Good,” Angus pronounced, then fell silent when everyone turned to look at him. “Uh… I mean… interesting how?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
Kai didn’t like the sound of that.
When his phone buzzed in his pocket, he got up and returned to the bunkhouse gratefully. It was Grace, his biological sister, who lived in Long Beach near their adopted family and worked for Child Protective Services.
“Hey,” he said when he accepted the call.
“Hey, yourself. It’s your turn, huh? Going to get hitched?”
He’d texted her about drawing the short straw. “Going to try.”
“Kai—do you think this is a good idea?”
He knew why she was asking. His track record with women wasn’t great, and they’d long ago promised themselves that when they got serious about a partner, they’d make sure they were with the right person before marrying. Their biological mother had made no commitments at all to anyone. Neither of them wanted to inflict that kind of mayhem on the world.
“I have to try. It was part of the deal to join Base Camp.”
“I thought you’d find someone before your turn came up.”
“This is a pretty small place, and I’ve been pretty busy. I haven’t had that many chances to meet a woman.”
“So now what? Boone finds you one? Like he did for Harris?”
It was a little strange to know his family watched Base Camp so closely. Kai tried not to think about it most of the time. “Yeah,” he said shortly. There wasn’t any point in pretending otherwise.
“Maybe he’ll be better at it than you are,” she mused.
Kai laughed. “He couldn’t be worse, I guess.”
“Take care of yourself, though. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I know.” Neither of them needed any more pain in their lives. “What about you? How are things with Tom?” Her sister had been dating a police officer for nearly six months. Something of a record for her, too. She got so wrapped up in her work, her boyfriends often felt neglected, but Tom seemed something of a workaholic, too.
“Good. Really good.” She hesitated. “Kai—we got engaged yesterday.”
“Wow.” He hadn’t expected that, and his stomach did a kind of flip. He was as protective of Grace’s happiness as she was of his. “Congratulations.” He began to stack up dishes and utensils near the sink to prepare for the washing up when the meal was done.
“Thanks. We’ll have a nice long engagement,” she added. “We’re thinking about next June for the wedding.”
“That’s really great.” Kai tried to take it in. His little sister—married. “I mean it, Grace. I’m happy for you.”
“Find someone good. I want you to have your person, too.”
“Is that what Tom is? Your person?” He turned on the faucet and ran a sinkful of soapy water.
“Yeah, I think so.”
Grace sounded happy, and something shifted in Kai’s chest. It was like he’d been holding his breath for a long time and the air had whooshed out of his lungs, creating space to take a new breath. Grace could be all right.
Maybe he could, too.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “But keep me updated. I want to know what happens.”
“You can always watch the episode next week.”
“Jerk.”
Kai laughed. “I’ll keep you updated.”
“Good.” Grace cut the call, and Kai looked at the dishes waiting to be washed, happy to have a minute alone. Maybe things were changing in his life. If Grace could find a husband, why couldn’t he find a wife?
Kai supposed he’d have to wait and see if anyone answered Boone’s ad.
“Are you serious? Ombre hair dye? Is that still a thing?” Addison asked as they sat in the waiting area of a very expensive salon.
“Yes, it’s still a thing,” Felicity said. “And you would look fabulous with it. Silver-white from the roots down, fading out to your natural color. With your eyes, you’ll look otherworldly.”
The stylist, who was sweeping up from her last customer, nodded her agreement.
“I don’t want to look otherworldly. I work for an insurance company.”
“Do you want my penthouse or not?”
“Yes.” Addison bit back a groan. All morning, Felicity had been torturing her. Making her try hot yoga, a chia smoothie that nearly made her vomit, a manicure with sparkly nails.
Now she was going to butcher her hair.
It was worth it for a shot at Felicity’s penthouse, though. She’d have to change jobs anyway if she moved here, and she’d re-dye her hair and ditch the nails as soon as she was out of Felicity’s sight. She figured Felicity wouldn’t be able to do much from Rome.
Addison squirmed through the hair appointment, doing her best to keep up with Felicity and the stylist’s chatter, dreading the outcome. Usually she regarded her trips to the salon as a welcome reprieve from her busy life. When she could, she went with Felicity, who made everything fun and sometimes sprung for expensive treatments Addison wouldn’t buy otherwise. Addison felt guilty about accepting them, but the difference in their bank accounts meant sometimes she had to accept charity or never get to do anything Felicity liked to do. Besides, when she managed to escape their mother’s hovering, Felicity liked to hover herself. Addison let her, understanding the impulse.
“Take a look,” the stylist finally said after what seemed like hours of fuss and bother.
Addison cringed, hoping it wasn’t too awful. But when the stylist turned her around in the chair and showed her the result, she was pleasantly surprised. Felicity was right—she looked… different.
Like the kind of woman things happen to.
Addison bent nearer the mirror to get a better look. It was like she’d taken on a whole new identity in the last few hours, and the idea appealed to her in a way she wouldn’t have guessed. She’d thought she’d come to grips with her role in her family and in the world.
Maybe she hadn’t.
Catching Felicity’s gaze in the mirror, Addison repressed a twist of sadness. She was going to miss her sister so much.
She closed her eyes at the thought of it.
“Addison?”
Focus on the present, Addison instructed herself. It wouldn’t do to get teary now. Her sister needed space to find her way. She was grateful to Evan for realizing that and encouraging her to move to Europe.
If only it wasn’t so far away.
But that was the whole point, wasn’t it?
“It’s great,” she said, waving off Felicity’s concern. She couldn’t let her sister know how much this was affecting her.
After all, she’d get to enjoy her new penthouse. If she could change where she lived, maybe she could change who she was, too. She’d be starting over. New town, new home, new job.
She didn’t have to be boring old Addison anymore.
“Let’s see: hair, nails, breakfast. What’s next?” Felicity considered her. “Clothes.”
“Felicity—” Dollar signs racked up in her mind. Felicity had already spent a small fortune on her, and despite how exciting it felt to think about changing herself when she moved, she knew that wasn’t really possible. She’d still be Addison. Still be an actuary.
Still be boring.
“Was that a no?”
“No. I mean—yes, clothes. But I can’t afford them.”
“I can.”
“You’ve spent too much—”
“Yes or no?”
Evan was going to have a heart attack when he saw this month’s bills, but with what the two of them earned, maybe it wasn’t any big deal. Besides, she knew that look in Felicity’s eyes. She wasn’t going to give up until she got her way.
“Yes.”
By the end of the day, Addison was exhausted. Felicity hadn’t bought her a couple of new items; she’d insisted on purchasing Addison a whole new wardrobe and made her promise to wear her new clothes for the rest of the month. In fact, she’d forced Addison to keep on one of the outfits for the rest of the day. She kept dragging her around to shops owned by friends, showing Addison off in a way she’d never done before. The friends seemed to find her intriguing, a heady experience for someone who usually got ignored at the parties she sometimes attended with her sister.
Maybe this month was exactly what she needed. A chance to try something new. To break out of the mold. Have a few adventures.
If it didn’t take, she’d go back to her usual way of being.
She still needed to make sensible choices or spend the rest of her life broke.
“Live a little,” Felicity kept telling her. “Have you been paying attention to all the people I’ve introduced you to today? They’re not waiting to pursue their dreams.”
Maybe not; but they weren’t necessarily getting ahead, either. Most of the little boutiques they’d been to probably had razor-thin profit margins, Addison thought. Most of them would be gone in a few years. Where would that leave their owners?
Back at the penthouse, take-out containers in hand from a darling little Eritrean restaurant Felicity insisted she try, Addison collapsed into one of her sister’s beautiful leather chairs and flipped on the television.
Base Camp. One of her favorite reality television shows. She could happily watch that for the next hour. A bunch of crazy Navy SEALs and women running around in Jane Austen gowns. What wasn’t to like?
Felicity came in with two plates and passed one to Addison. “I was thinking. After dinner we could go—”
“Oh my god, give me a break,” Addison cried. “I’ve said yes a million times. I need to r—”
“Shh!” Felicity hissed, her gaze arrested by the television screen, where the show had blinked off and an ad popped up. It showed the face of one of Base Camp’s stars—a handsome Navy SEAL with bleach-blond hair and a square jaw.
“It’s Kai—the cute surfer!” Felicity watched the show as assiduously as Addison did.
Bold block letters across the photograph on the screen read, “Wife Wanted.”
Felicity smiled. “Well, would you look at that.”
Addison’s heart flipped. She’d marry Kai in a second. He was so handsome. As buff as a bodybuilder, broad-shouldered and blond. And he was a man who cared so deeply about what he did; he cooked like an artist creating art—like the masters at the Cordon Bleu, which she’d briefly attended before settling down to real life. She always found herself watching him whenever he was on-screen, even when someone else was the focus of the scene. She’d never met a man like that. Or, rather, if she had, he hadn’t even noticed her. Men like Kai went for women like Felicity.
Felicity grabbed a pen and paper from a nearby table and began to scribble down the URL splashed on the screen.
“What are you doing?” Addison asked.
“Sending you on an adventure.”
Addison stared at her, horror dawning. Felicity was going to make her apply—so she could be humiliated and rejected. Kai was her fantasy man. Base Camp was her favorite escape from her mundane life. And Felicity was going to ruin it. “No,” she sharply. “No, no, no, no, no.”
“Oh, yes,” Felicity countered, her grin growing wider. “I think it’s high time we really shook up your life.”