Derek took a picture of the wooden sign proclaiming Stoneybrook and mentally compared it to the other towns he’d visited in the last months. This one was vibrant, the contrasting blue and white paint bright and fresh. The others had been missing letters or had peeling paint, most were faded and some were falling down.

This city was lucky.

Nowadays, small-town America was a tough place to make a life.

Kids raced up and down the sidewalk, enjoying one last summer weekend before school started.

Ice cream cones, sandy toes, blooming flowers.

His mind categorized each shot, almost as quickly as the shutter on his camera flickered open and closed.

He’d contrast this town and another he’d visited. Bram, Missouri had boomed when a paper mill opened on the river running through the city and had almost collapsed when that mill eventually closed.

Bram was now going through a revival. With a little luck and some permit fees, it might just be able to complete that comeback.

Derek made a mental checkmark on his to-do list and was tucking his camera away when his cell phone rang.

He was grinning when he lifted it to his ear. Paul O’Brien, his friend and Pepper’s brother.

Never let it be said that the O’Briens weren’t on it with their P names. Even Pepper’s mom was named Poppy, though that was a nickname since her legal name was actually Matilda. Where Poppy had come from, Derek had no clue.

Peter had probably demanded his wife find a suitable P substitute.

Derek winced. Uncharitable thoughts about his investor didn’t bode well for the project.

“Hello?”

Derek blinked, realizing he’d answered the phone without actually saying anything. “Paul! Hey man, what’s up?”

“I’m getting married.”

“That’s great.” It kind of wasn’t, because the woman Paul was with was a former friend of Pepper’s. She was also kind of a bitch. But if Paul was happy, then Derek could tolerate Summer—

Who would probably soon be known as Petunia or something equally horrific that kept up the O’Brien tradition of P’s.

Paul was still talking, prattling on about production schedules and having to hurry things around before—

“Next month?” Derek broke in. “You’re getting married next month?”

“She’s not pregnant,” Paul said. “It’s the schedule. O’Brien Films has four projects about to go, and I need to be there.”

To be fair, with such a rush job on the wedding, Derek would have probably thought that Summer was pregnant. Still, hurrying what was supposed to be one of the most important moments of someone’s life so that Paul could get back to work left a bad taste in Derek’s mouth.

But he couldn’t mention that. Instead, he said, “You tell me when, and I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, man,” Paul said and paused, a note of remorse in his tone. “I don’t want you to think that we’re not—well, I asked Andy to be my best man. I was hoping you’d be a groomsman.”

“Of course. I’d be honored—” Bullshit, his mind hissed. But, more importantly, it was pretty much the only thing to be said when asked to be in a wedding. “There are perks to just being a groomsman. No speech.”

Paul gave a laugh, and it was forced.

Derek got it. They’d been tight in high school and college, but lives changed and since he’d quit the law firm, his old friends just weren’t the same. He couldn’t quite enjoy the Hollywood scene as much, not when so much of it was, well, bullshit.

They’d both pulled back.

“So, no hard feelings?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I’m happy for you, regardless of my bridal party position. Demote me to usher if need be.”

“Thanks, man. Andy thought with Pepper being the maid of honor that things would already be—”

“Pepper’s the maid of honor?”

“Of course, she is. She and Summer are super close, and Dad—” Paul stopped. “Anyway, with such a short lead time, Pepper made sense. Especially since we’re using the date and time that she’d booked for her wedding.”

“What?”

“It made sense,” Paul said, rightly a touch defensive. A rushed marriage was an idiotic idea. A rushed marriage taking place at the same place and time of his sister’s cancelled wedding even more so. “Dad couldn’t get the deposit back, and Pepper had already made all the arrangements.”

They were using Pepper’s discarded wedding for their own.

How did that even make sense? Next Paul would be telling him he’d recycled Pepper’s engagement ring because she didn’t need it any longer.

Anger sat like a heavy ball in his gut.

Pepper was convenient. Not valuable.

He was starting to understand why she looked so sad.

“I’ll email you the details,” Paul told him before saying goodbye and hanging up.

Derek stood for a moment on the sidewalk, people murmuring soft “Excuse me’s” as they moved past him. His emotions were tangled and confused.

Pepper had always been a conundrum, a joke. It was his internal shift that was the confusing part.

Maybe he was experiencing a mid-life crisis. It could be that. He was almost thirty and becoming completely deranged.

Or maybe he’d just never given Pepper enough credit.

Which was perhaps the reason he pocketed his phone and turned in the direction of the beach.

It took less than ten minutes to reach Pepper’s cottage.

And he knew it was her cottage because she was sitting on the back porch, still in her pajamas—a tiny pair of flannel shorts and a tank top that was almost illegally tight.

Derek forced his eyes up from the exposed skin of her thighs, and his gaze caught on a pair of breasts that—

He swallowed, palms itching with the sudden need to touch.

He wrenched his focus higher still. The smooth skin of her throat, the soft plumpness of her lips, the . . . hurt in her eyes.

“Hey,” he said, Lothario in action.

“Hi,” she said and promptly burst into tears.

Women had never been confusing to Derek. He’d understood their needs, their triggers, how to charm his way into their pants.

Of course, that was when charming into pants was still exciting. He’d gone nearly a year without sleeping with a woman. And of course, Pepper wasn’t just a woman.

She was different.

And maybe that wasn’t the bad thing everyone always made it seem.

He’d frozen at her tears, instead of moving in to console her as he would have done any other woman, and in the time it took for him to get his feet moving, she had stifled her sobs and was rubbing an arm across her eyes.

“Excuse me,” she said. “My allergies are acting up.”

Derek took the chair next to hers, a comfy wicker Adirondack that was one of four surrounding a white woven table. Bright blue cushions dotted each seat and back.

The deck was homey and cozy and all sorts of -y’s, but it definitely was not the ornate lines that were typical of an O’Brien. Gold leaf, intricate scrollwork, heavy mahogany wood, those would be more at home in an O’Brien house.

Then again, Peter and Poppy O’Brien didn’t exactly do sand.

It was too messy.

They preferred to live in the hills above, looking gleefully down on their minions, and to just visit the beach.

Less sand in the private jet’s carpets that way.

“Your allergies make you burst into sudden tears?” he asked when she sniffed again.

“At the sight of you?” She glared. “Yes. Sudden and unexplained tears are common.”

A drop of moisture hung on the edge of her lashes.

Derek wanted to reach forward to brush it away.

Stupid.

Pepper jumped to her feet and turned for the house, leaving him standing on the deck feeling incredibly unsure of himself.

“Well?”

She was in the doorway, still glaring, still beautiful as hell.

He raised a brow.

“Well, come inside already.”

He watched her as she whirled around, her bright red hair fanning out behind her like a cape, drawing his gaze down, down . . . too far down.

Derek swallowed, forced his eyes away from the shorts so barely there they were nearly obscene.

This was a terrible idea.