Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

L IEUTENANT C OLONEL C AL D ONN ELLY had flown dangerous missions in his F-22 Raptor. Missions where his own life and the lives of others had been on the line. Missions that hadn't cranked up as much adrenaline and concern as this visit was causing.

Ironic, since this visit wasn't to some hot zone where he could be shot down by enemy fire but rather to an office on Main Street in his hometown of Emerald Creek, Texas.

Cal pulled into the parking lot of the town's Old West–style saloon, Saddle and Sip, and he stopped the rental truck he'd picked up at the airport. Since it was barely ten in the morning, he had the lot to himself, which suited him just fine. He didn't want anyone to see him as he definitely wasn't in the mood for any meet and greets.

It was usually nice to feel welcomed back home when he was on leave, but he wanted to delay those welcomes—and other things —until he'd gotten his footing.

Whenever the heck that might be.

Cal dreaded the gut-punching one-month anniversary that he'd have to face tomorrow. He cursed Dear John letters, especially living, breathing ones when he was the messenger and deliverer of such a letter. And he especially cursed sneaking off to the creek and falling off a broken tree limb there when he'd been eight.

Without that fall, Cal wouldn't have smacked his head on a protruding limestone rock, plummeted into the water and nearly drowned. Then, his best friend, Noah Granger, wouldn't have had to save him.

Cal was thankful for the saving. Thankful to Noah for dragging his semiconscious body out of the water, but at age eight, the act had become a life-pact. An agreement that Cal would always owe Noah, well, pretty much anything Noah wanted. That was dramatic stuff for kids who hadn't yet learned how to add fractions or write compound sentences, but they'd both embraced it as the only way to mark such an event.

Over the years, that life-pact had meant favors. Lots and lots of them. With Noah being the favor requester and Cal being the favor provider. It had shaped their friendship, bonded them, and very often had made Noah a pain in the ass.

Like now, for instance.

At a time when Cal's mind was already weighed down even more than pulling nine Gs in his F-22, here he was going to deliver that Dear John in person to Charlotte Wilson, a woman who deserved better. She at least deserved to hear it not from him but from the source.

That source being Noah.

But Noah was thousands of miles away, heading to another deployment, and had decided he couldn't squeeze in a leave home to spill the bad news to Charlotte. That he was ending their on-again, off-again relationship that'd started in eighth grade.

Since Noah, Charlotte and Cal were all now thirty-six, that on-ing and off-ing had been happening for twenty-three years. Still, Charlotte hadn't moved on in all that time, so that told Cal she was all for the relationship continuing.

Yeah, this visit was a ballbuster, all right.

Cal checked his surroundings in the parking lot, and when he didn't see anyone nearby, he got out of the truck. He'd purposely not worn his uniform, something that worked better than a flashing, pointing neon sign to draw attention to him. Instead, he'd opted for jeans, boots and a Stetson, which hopefully would allow him to blend into this cowboy town where that clothing combo was standard wear.

Once, during some evasion training maneuvers, Cal had had to practice running and sneaking around, and he put that training to use now. Ducking in and out of alleys, he threaded his way to his destination on the south end of Main Street.

Despite the fairly early hour and the fact that it was only early April and not even summer yet, it was blisteringly hot. That was the norm for this part of Texas that really only had two seasons. Eleven months of heat and maybe a month of cooler temps. Clearly, the cooler temps weren't prevailing today because he'd worked up a sweat by the time he spotted the law office.

Such that it was.

It was a converted Victorian cottage that had to be the worst shade of yellow in the history of that particular color. Not sunshine, not mustard, not lemon. More like baby puke. The office was the polar opposite of the law firm of Carson, Elder and Carson housed in the shiny silver granite building just up the street. Heck, Charlotte's law office didn't even have a fancy lawyerly name. The old shingle sign above the bay window just said Attorney .

There was a blue Ford Fusion and a rust-scabbed Chevy truck parked right outside the office, and Cal hoped that meant Charlotte didn't have a client. When he'd texted her an hour earlier from the airport to say he needed to see her, she'd said she would be in her office and that she didn't have any appointments. He was hoping that was still true because he didn't want to delay this Dear John. Best to deliver it, help Charlotte cope in any way he could and then move on to his next chore.

Going home.

That'd be ballbuster two of the morning.

Since there were several people on the opposite side of the street, Cal quickly glanced inside the large bay window of the law office, and he immediately spotted his target. Charlotte. Not at one of the two desks in the open floor plan but rather standing in the small foyer with her back to him.

She wasn't alone. There was an elderly man across from her, and even though it'd been a while since Cal had seen him, this was Emerald Creek with little to no degrees of separation. The guy was Clark Gable Becker, who bore absolutely no resemblance to his namesake. He was more of a Scrooge, a crotchety rancher who owned the property to the west of Cal's family ranch, Saddlebrook.

At the sound of the bell jingling over the door that Cal opened, Charlotte whirled around to face him, her long dark brown hair swishing with the movement, and her blue eyes going wide. Not exactly wide with surprise, but Cal couldn't figure out the meaning behind the look she was giving him.

"Cal," she greeted, her tone overly enthusiastic and breathy, and she hurried to him.

Not that she had to hurry far. Only a few steps. Then, she threw her arms around him, pulling him to her.

Definitely some overenthusiasm.

Charlotte and he had always been friendly toward each other, friendly in a sort of way of her being his best friend's woman, but Cal had never remembered her greeting him like this. Maybe because she sensed he was there to deliver the bad news about the breakup?

Maybe.

But it seemed more than that. Charlotte looked at him as if he were the answer to her prayers.

"Cal," she repeated in a rather loud voice. Then she put her mouth directly against his ear and whispered, "Pretend you're my fiancé. Please. "

Of all the things Cal had thought she might say, that wasn't one of them. "Huh?" he managed.

"Please," she muttered again. She kept her arms around him but pulled back enough to meet him eye to eye. "And forgive me for this."

She kissed him. A full-on-the-mouth kiss. The kind of scorching, welcome-home kiss a person might indeed give a fiancé. She tasted like tea and gingerbread. Smelled like Ivory soap and sex.

Well, maybe not actual sex.

But a certain part of him went straight in that bad direction.

Even though this kiss was obviously some kind of pretense, Cal felt the heat from her mouth on his. Didn't want to. But he felt it anyway. And that's why he was buzzing a little when she finally pulled back.

Looping her arm around his waist, she turned back to face Mr. Becker. "This is my fiancé I was just telling you about," Charlotte gushed, and the gushing was apparently meant for the man.

Mr. Becker didn't have a no-possible-way reaction, something that plenty of people would have had. Many folks knew that Charlotte and Noah had been together forever, but Becker wasn't exactly the social, gossiping type. More like a mean-as-a-snake recluse who probably wouldn't have paid any attention to the romances in the town. Or anything else happening in town for that matter.

Becker squinted his watery left eye that was the color of pond scum. "You're one of those Donnelly boys," he grumbled to Cal.

The man hadn't exactly used a flattering tone for Cal's surname and siblings. Probably because of the squabbles that'd gone on between the man and Cal's dad, Derek, over the past four decades or so. Cal was betting the squabbles had continued even though his brothers, Egan and Blue, now had the reins of the ranch.

"I am," he verified. "I'm Cal, the second-oldest one."

"You're the one who's not around much," he muttered, and that seemed to inject a smidge of pleasantness in the man's sourpuss mood. "You're home on leave or something?"

Cal nearly divulged the or something , but that could possibly open up a conversation he wasn't ready to have. Not before he spoke to his family first, anyway. So he settled for a nod.

Charlotte tightened her grip on his waist. "Cal's stationed at Eglin AFB, Florida, where he flies fighter jets. He's a superstar in the Air Force and on a fast track to become a general. He's a real hometown hero."

Cal silently did a lot of groaning at her recap of his career. The first part of that was true. The second had once been true. The third was a big-assed lie. He wasn't a hero. He was an asshole who'd put his career ahead of...everything.

Especially ahead of Harper.

At the thought of her name, her image popped into his head. Of course it did. Her image was always there, and once just the sight of her face had fired up every competitive fiber in his body. Now, it avalanched him into grief. Bone-deep, soul-crushing grief.

"Cal came home to help me finalize this deal with you," Charlotte added to Becker. That yanked Cal's attention back to her.

Deal?

Cal tried not to look too surprised especially since Becker had his eyes trained on him as if looking for some kind of proof that he was being scammed. Cal truly hoped it wasn't an actual scam, but clearly there was something that wasn't aboveboard here or Charlotte wouldn't have asked him to pretend he was her fiancé.

Becker made a sound that could have meant anything, and his steely gaze slid to Charlotte's left hand. "Engaged, but you didn't give your intended a ring," the man pointed out.

"We're going ring shopping soon," Charlotte was quick to say. "Then, I'll post pictures of it all over social media."

Becker's mouth tightened even more, something Cal hadn't thought possible. If it went any tighter, he might crack some teeth. "Social media," he repeated, using that "unidentified fungus" tone. "That's for people with too much time on their hands. I don't even own a computer or one of those so-called phones people carry with them everywhere they go."

That info surprised exactly no one. Cal was reasonably sure the ranch had electricity and indoor plumbing, but those were probably the only modern luxuries that Becker allowed.

"So, is it a deal?" Charlotte asked Becker, snuggling up to Cal even closer, apparently to remind the man that she had a fiancé present.

The silence crawled by. And crawled. And crawled. "Maybe," Becker finally said. "I'll do some more thinking on it and will let you know in a day or two."

Charlotte made a soft groan of disappointment and seemed ready to launch into some kind of argument that would prompt Becker to make a decision here and now, not in a day or two. But the man didn't give her the chance. Becker stepped around them and headed out of the office.

This time her groan wasn't quite so soft, and she muttered some profanity under her breath. "The old coot keeps putting me off," she grumbled, but then looked up at Cal. "By the way, you're a lifesaver. If you hadn't arrived when you did, I'm pretty sure the geezer would have been about to tell me no . So thank you for doing this."

"For doing what exactly?" Cal had to ask.

She pulled in a long breath. "I'm trying to buy Becker's ranch, but he has this old-fashioned notion that a single woman shouldn't be owning a ranch or a farm because that's man's work." Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Yes, I could sue him for discrimination, but he'd sell the place to someone—anyone—else out of spite, and his place is perfect for me."

Cal was still confused. Not the part about Becker being a misogynistic jerk. He'd already known that. He was confused about the rest of it. "I didn't know you wanted to own a ranch."

"Oh, I don't," Charlotte was quick to say. "I want the house, barn and the land."

Gone were the groans of disappointment, and there was excitement on her face when she took hold of his hand and practically dragged him toward the desk in the corner.

"My office is in there," she said, tipping her head to one of the two other rooms, "but I prefer being out here." She unrolled a large piece of paper. "I didn't want Mr. Becker to see this because then he'd probably never sell me the ranch. My guess is this sort of thing is also man's work, in his eyes. Added to that, he probably believes the land is sacred or something and should only be used to raise cattle, even though he hasn't raised livestock of any kind in years."

Cal looked at the paper and realized it was some kind of architectural drawing, and while he hadn't been to Becker's ranch since he was a kid, he thought he recognized the layout. The large three-story house that Becker's ancestors had built over a hundred years ago and the equally large barn. In this design plan, both the barn and the house had updated exteriors, and the person who'd drawn this had added what appeared to be walking trails, sitting areas under trees and even a pond.

The name at the top of the drawing was Port in a Storm .

"What is this?" he had to ask.

Her eyes lit up. Heck, so did her whole face. "A sanctuary for veterans. Not just those with physical injuries but those just needing a place of respite. Or just a vacation. It'll be a Care B and B with a spa," she added, tapping the barn. "I've already got a physical therapist, a masseuse and a counselor on board in case their services are needed. A personal trainer, too, for those wanting to stay in or get back in shape."

Charlotte was talking so fast that it took Cal's mind a moment to catch up with all she was saying. And why she was saying it.

Or rather why she wanted to do this.

"This is about Noah's brother," Cal muttered.

"It is," she was quick to verify.

Sergeant Alden Granger had been on his first special ops deployment when he'd been injured in a bombing three years ago. He'd broken nearly every bone in his body and had required many surgeries to fix all that and reconstruct his face. That meant he'd been in and out of the hospital and various recovery centers all this time.

"Alden is within a month or less of being discharged from his current facility, and he doesn't want to move back home. Between you and me, he doesn't want to be a burden to his dad, but he told his father that he needed a place, even if only a room, that he could call his own."

Cal could understand that. He enjoyed staying at his family's ranch, but he had a cabin on the grounds in case his family got to be a bit too much.

"I'm guessing Alden didn't want to just get a place in town on his own?" Cal asked.

She shook her head. "He wanted the camaraderie of being around other vets. Plus, this will become a job for him. The plan is for Alden to eventually become a peer counselor and caretaker of the place," Charlotte explained. "His dad is fully on board with that."

Cal had to mentally pause again to absorb all of what she was saying. Of course, Alden and Noah's widower dad, Taggert, would want his wounded son nearby. Taggert was a good man who loved his kids and had to be hopeful that Alden could rebuild his life here.

"This project is about your Uncle Rob, too," Cal muttered. He slid his gaze from the plans to her.

She verified that with a nod, and Cal saw the swirl of emotions in her eyes. Her paternal uncle had been a pseudodad to Charlotte after her own father walked out on his family, and it'd crushed Charlotte, again, when Rob, a military veteran, had been injured in a car accident. He'd never recovered and, like Alden, had been moved from one facility to another—none of them stellar—before finally passing away from pneumonia. He'd been just thirty-six, the same age Charlotte was now.

"I don't need funding," Charlotte went on after she cleared her throat. "I've gotten a lot of investors already, including Taggert and my mother. Especially my mother, who thinks this will be a great addition to the town. There's also some staggering amounts of money from a couple of foundations, and I'm using the trust fund my grandmother left me. Because of the terms of her will, I'm just now getting it."

Noah had mentioned that trust fund. Sizable, Noah had claimed, and it obviously was if it would help pay for something like this.

"Instead of pretending I'm your fiancé, Becker might have sold you the place if Taggert asked him," Cal remarked.

She was quick to shake her head. "Taggert said there's bad blood between Becker and him. Something to do with Becker accusing Taggert of lowballing him on the sale of some cattle. Mind you, that was before either of us were born, but Taggert warned me that Becker could hold a grudge."

"He can," Cal had to agree.

"Apparently, Becker dislikes my mother as well. That has to do with her being the wrong political party."

Cal frowned. "Isn't she an Independent?"

"Yes, but Becker says that's a cop-out way of trying to please everybody and not pleasing anyone. I'm one of the few people in the county Becker isn't pissed at." She paused. "He will be, once he sells me the place and I create Port in a Storm. That's why it has to stay hush-hush until he agrees to sell. Thankfully, he needs the money since he's behind in the taxes."

Again, not a surprise since the ranch wasn't exactly operational. "Any idea where Becker will go?"

She shrugged, then frowned. "I'm not sure. And yes, part of me feels guilty for displacing a former rancher from his family land, but like I said, this place is perfect for Port in a Storm, and it'll put Alden close to his dad."

It would, but that led Cal to another thought. "Noah doesn't know anything about this."

"No." Charlotte smiled again. "He's going to be so excited. He's coming home this week, and I plan on telling him then."

Crap. It was time for him to do his messenger duties. But before he could get a word out, Charlotte continued.

"Of course, I hope by the time Noah gets here, Becker will have already sold me the place. Then we can celebrate...and deal with my mother."

That put Cal's messenger on hold. "Deal with Izzie? What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing. Well, nothing except a starry-eyed notion." She paused a heartbeat. "She and Taggert are dating, and I guess things have gotten serious. My mother is convinced Taggert's going to ask her to marry him."

Cal was sure he blinked. Charlotte's mom had been divorced for over twenty years, and this was the first Cal was hearing about Izzie dating Taggert, much less marrying him. Obviously, the gossip mill wasn't as efficient as it usually was because his Grammy Effie and the ranch's cook, Maybell, normally emailed him about such things.

"Anyway," she went on, "my mom wants to marry Taggert, and she wants to make it a double wedding with Noah and me."

Cal mentally repeated his crap , adding some much stronger profanity. "Are they engaged? Does Taggert want to marry your mother?" Because he was having a hard time seeing them as a couple. Izzie was more into fashion and status, and Taggert, well, wasn't. He was as cowboy as they came.

Charlotte shrugged. "Taggert and my mom got close when we were all working to get the investors for Port in a Storm."

Ah, that would do it. Taggert would be ever so thankful to anyone trying to help Alden. Still, if Taggert hadn't actually proposed, then it was possible a wedding between the two wasn't on the horizon.

Especially a double wedding that included Noah and Charlotte.

That was Cal's cue to spill what he'd come to spill, but again when he opened his mouth, Charlotte interrupted him.

"Again, keep all of this quiet for now," she reminded him. "Then, all can be blabbed from the rooftops, et cetera." She paused, not long enough for him to speak, though, and her eyes met his. "By the way, I'm so sorry about Harper."

That stopped him in his verbal tracks. Of course, he should have expected Harper's name to come up since, like him, Charlotte had known Harper her whole life. Again, no degrees of separation since Charlotte, Harper, Noah and he had started preschool together and had graduated from high school together. Charlotte's path had diverged after that when she'd stayed in Texas and attended law school. Harper, Noah and he had all gone into the military.

And that had set up the god-awful competition.

Always do more. Do better. Outbest each other. It'd been even more fierce between him and Harper since they were both fighter pilots. Or rather had been fighter pilots.

Harper had ended the competition in a really bad way. She was alive, but her injuries were so serious that she might never recover from them.

"It's just awful what happened to her," Charlotte went on, and with their gazes still locked, she asked a question he was dreading. "Do you know why she did it?"

Cal had plenty of answers as to the why , but he couldn't manage to voice any of them. He settled for shaking his head.

Charlotte nodded, sighed and then touched her finger to his arm to rub gently. "Well, I'm sorry." She paused again, sucked in a quick breath. "So, you haven't said. Why did you want to see me?"

That was yet another question he'd been dreading, and there was even more dread now that Charlotte had brought up the m-word.

Marriage.

Cal didn't think he should sugarcoat this. So he opened his mouth and got ready to send Charlotte's life into a serious tailspin.