“I certainly hope so,” he muttered.

  She detected an unusual tone, one she couldn’t quite identify. But he was already getting out the cards so she didn’t question him.

  The first hand she won, but before she could feel too confident, Gunner beat her on the next three.

  “You’re not saying much now,” he teased as he raked in the heap of candy bars.

  “The game’s not over yet.”

  “No, it’s not.” He set something small, round and shiny in the middle of the bed. “But the stakes are changing.”

  “What’s that?” April asked, even though she could see quite clearly that it was a ring.

  “Pick it up and see.”

  Tearing her eyes away from Gunner’s face, she lifted the ring and held it to the light. A huge baguette diamond glittered in a white-gold setting with two emerald-cut diamonds on either side.

  “It looks like an engagement ring,” she said.

  “It is an engagement ring,” he replied, and it had to be the first time she’d ever heard any insecurity in his voice.

  “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. Where did you get it?”

  “In town.”

  “Tonight?”

  “That’s why I missed dinner.” He touched her cheek. “What do you think, April? Do you want it?”

  Of course she wanted it. But this was crazy. They were so different. “This is what you’re betting?”

  He nodded and, taking her hands, kissed her fingertips. “That’s not all.”

  “What else?” she breathed.

  “My heart.”

  She must have heard him wrong. He was one of the most eligible bachelors in America. He couldn’t be offering his heart to her. “Is this a joke?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re not—I mean, we’ve known each other only a short time. And what about all those other women?” Women who were so much better suited to him!

  He scowled. “I haven’t been a saint, April. But I haven’t been as bad as you seem to believe. I was kidding about the fifteen hundred notches in my bedpost. You know that, right? And I’ll always be true to you, I swear.”

  She swallowed hard at the sincerity in his voice. “But…what’s the hurry? Shouldn’t we get to know each other better?”

  “I already know you well enough.” He rose up on his knees, kissed her temple, her forehead, her mouth. “Come on, April. Take a risk,” he murmured. “Take a risk on me.”

  She couldn’t find any words.

  “Well?”

  “I’m thinking. At least, I’m trying to think. My brain isn’t really cooperating.”

  “I don’t want you to analyze this. Some decisions have to be based on pure gut instinct. This is one of them.”

  “You know more about instinct than I do,” she admitted. “Just tell me one thing, Gunner. Because…I have to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you love me?” She held her breath as she waited for his reply.

  “I’ve never proposed to a woman before, April. Does that answer your question?”

  April closed her eyes as she felt the most powerful emotion she’d ever experienced. “Okay,” she whispered, letting her lips curve in a smile. “I see your ring, and your heart, and will match it with my own.”

  He grinned. “What kind of wedding do you want?”

  “A family-only church affair in California, okay?”

  “Perfect. You plan the wedding. I’ll plan the honeymoon.”

  “What about my father’s business?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you. We can buy it if you want. But I should probably warn you that I’m going to be busy for the next few years.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Oh, different things. Buying you a vacation house down here, since you like it so well. Helping out with the kids, giving them racing lessons—”

  “Did you say racing lessons?” she broke in. “As in car racing lessons?”

  “Um, I meant I’ll be coaching their soccer teams.”

  She laughed. “And to think I wanted out of my staid existence. Something tells me I just landed in the fast lane.”

  “Maybe. But it’s going to be the ride of your life, sweet April,” he said, and slid the ring onto her finger.

  EPILOGUE

  CLAIRE ASHTON FELT as nervous as a new bride. There’d been times over the past decade when she’d worried that her bright, serious daughter would never step out of her lab long enough to find a man and get married. Yet here April was, on her wedding day, looking beautiful in her simple but elegant white satin gown and stylish veil. Part of her dark hair was pinned up with tiny pearls for accent and curls cascaded down her back. She was walking up the aisle on Walt’s arm, carrying a bouquet of pink roses that matched the healthy blush in her cheeks.

  Gunner stood at the altar, wearing a traditional black tux. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Which was perfectly understandable to Claire—April was special.

  They make a good couple, Claire thought as Gunner took April’s hands and they began to exchange vows.

  “I, April Ashton, promise to love, honor and cherish…”

  Feeling an overwhelming sense of pride, Claire glanced up at Walt, who’d come to sit next to her after leaving April’s side, and found him staring at her. He’d had his surgery nearly a month ago and had lost a good deal of weight. But the color was coming back into his face, and she could tell he was starting to feel better.

  When their eyes met, he took her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles, and she knew she was back where she belonged, at the side of the man she’d married for better or worse thirty-three years ago. Somehow, despite everything, they’d found new, common ground and deeper commitment.

  Turning her attention back to the ceremony, Claire watched Gunner kiss her daughter sweetly once the pastor had pronounced them husband and wife. She sniffed as tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t even try to hold them back. Today, happy tears went with the territory.

  As April and Gunner broke apart, Claire stood so she could approach them. But Walt stopped her.

  April threw her father a conspiratorial smile and guided Gunner to the left, where they sat in the front pew.

  “What’s happening?” Claire whispered, confused. No wedding she’d ever attended had the bride and groom taking a seat in the audience. The ceremony was over. It was time for the organ music to swell and the young couple to rush out of the church while being pelted with rice. “Why aren’t they leaving?”

  “Because there’s still one thing left to do,” he said. Then he stood and led her to the altar.

  “Most of you know that Claire and I have had some trouble this past year,” he announced to their small audience of family and friends. “We almost divorced, mostly because of my own foolishness. But because of Claire, and her ability to forgive, that’s behind us now. To show her how much she means to me, I’d like to exchange vows with her again, if she’ll speak them with me.”

  As Claire glanced into the audience, more tears slipped down her cheeks. Her widowed mother, who was nearly eight-five, sat in the second row. Her sister and brother-in-law and their large, rambunctious family sat there, too. Gina Roper, April’s next-door neighbor, who’d been a friend to Claire throughout her darkest hour, was perched on the pew behind them, beaming at her. Gunner’s father and a couple of dozen relatives filled the pews on the other side.

  “Will you marry me again, Claire?” Walt asked, his voice trembling with emotion.

  Claire smiled at April and Gunner, then returned her gaze to her husband of thirty-three years. He was watching her with a hopeful expression, his sincerity shining in his eyes. She’d almost lost him. But he was back, and the nightmare was over. “What else can I do?” she said simply. “I love you.”

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, don’t miss Brenda Novak’s upcoming novel,

  UNFORGETTABLE YOU,

  Available soon from MIRA Books. Keep reading for a sneak peek!

  CHAPTER 1

  Jada Brooks was pushing her brother in his wheelchair at the farmer’s market on the second weekend in June, a Saturday morning that inspired the cliché “picture perfect,” with nothing but blue skies and the usual mild, Southern California weather, when she caught a glimpse of something that made her stop dead in her tracks.

  “What’s wrong?” Atticus twisted around in his seat to look up at her. It’d been thirteen years since he’d been shot, so he was accustomed to the paralysis in his lower body and could propel himself with his arms—he was adept at doing almost everything, including driving now that his truck was properly equipped—but it was more relaxing and easier to stick together in a crowd if she took over. Visiting the market while Maya, Jada’s twelve-year-old daughter, helped her grandmother at the cookie store, was something they’d become accustomed to doing every now and then since Jada had divorced her husband and moved back to town three months ago.

  “I just…” Jada shook her head to clear it of the image that stubbornly remained. Surely, she was wrong about who she thought she’d seen. Maddox Richardson had left town right after she’d gotten pregnant, and there was nothing to draw him back. It wasn’t as if he had family in the area, like she did. The only reason he’d moved to Silver Springs in the first place was because he’d been sent by the courts to attend New Horizons Boys Ranch, a boarding school for troubled teens. And when he left, it was because he’d been enrolled at a different school somewhere else, somewhere she was never even told. After that terrible night, Maddox had essentially been banished at the request and expense of her parents, which hadn’t been an easy thing to accomplish given all the red tape his mother had had to go through in order to accommodate them.

  Whether forcing Maddox to go somewhere else was fair to him was another subject entirely. Jada tried not to think about that. She tried not to think about Maddox at all.

  Too bad she wasn’t more successful at it. So many little things brought him to mind, especially now that she was living where she’d gotten to know him. Someone who slightly resembled him or laughed like him or had the same cerulean blue eyes. Even a particular song or smell could bring him back to her. His life had intersected with hers in a way she would never forget—both for good and bad.

  “Jada?” Atticus prompted.

  She blinked, realizing she’d let her words trail off, but continued to study the crowd around her. Maddox wasn’t there. It must’ve been someone of his general size and shape with the same jet-black hair, but she couldn’t see anyone who resembled him now. Whoever it was had melted back into the crowd jostling around them.

  “It’s nothing.” She forced a smile and started pushing again. She couldn’t mention Maddox’s name to Atticus, regardless.

  “Should we get some kale for our morning smoothies?” Atticus asked.

  He still lived with their mother, had never even been in a serious relationship and talked as though he had no plans for that sort of thing. Although Jada had spent all the years since she’d had Maya in LA, she hadn’t rented a place of her own since returning to Silver Springs, so she and Maya were currently living with her mother, too. She’d been trying to find the right situation to be able to move out, but there weren’t a lot of homes for rent in this artsy, outdoorsy, spiritually focused community, and with her mother sick so often these days, Jada was needed at home.

  It’d be different if her father was still around, but…

  She steered her mind away from Jeremiah. Losing him last year to a stroke when he was only fifty-five had not been easy, especially because she felt she’d let him down so terribly and never had the chance to make it up to him, as she was trying to do with her mother and brother.

  “Sure,” she said about the kale. “Maybe it’ll boost Mom’s immune system. It’s supposed to be really good for you.”

  Pausing in front of the closest stand, she chose a particularly healthy-looking bunch of leafy greens and was just handing the vendor her money when she heard her name.

  She turned to see Tiffany Martinez, a friend she’d gone to school with from fifth grade on, hurrying toward her in a short-sleeved, button-down blouse, sandals and shorts, similar to what she was wearing herself. Because Jada had had a baby just as everyone else was going off to college, her life had taken a completely different course, one that had put her out of sync with the group of friends she’d grown up with. For the first several years after moving to LA, she’d felt overlooked, abandoned, left behind while everyone else went away to college and documented all the fun they had on social media. Watching them on her computer while struggling to raise a child when she was barely more than a child herself had only made that period of her life harder. But Tiffany had always been supportive and remained in touch. And everything was changing now that so many of their other friends were getting married and having children. Jada had been able to reconnect with several who still lived in the area.

  Tiffany would always be her favorite, though. She was also the only one who knew Jada’s most guarded secret.

  “Hey, Tiff.” She put the kale into her reusable tote and hung it on the back of Atticus’s wheelchair. Jada had told Tiffany she was going to the farmer’s market when they spoke on the phone last night, which was what had prompted Tiffany to come, too. Like Jada, she was recently divorced, only she didn’t have any kids, so she was always looking for things to do when she wasn’t working at the regional hospital as a nurse. They would’ve come together—they did a lot together—but Tiffany hadn’t wanted to change the chemistry of Jada’s morning with Atticus. “Glad you made it.”

  “I’ve been here for a while. I was just leaving when…” She tucked her curly red hair behind her ears as her eyes—so green and clear they were almost startling—darted to Atticus, a captive audience in his chair. “When I saw something that… Well, that reminded me of you and made me wonder if you were still here.”

  So Tiffany hadn’t accidentally spotted her and come over to say hello? She’d come looking for her? “What was it?”

  Again, Tiffany glanced uncomfortably at Atticus. “A person actually. Someone we knew a…a while ago.”

  Jada’s heart began to pound as her friend’s behavior connected with the scare she’d had only a few minutes earlier. With the way Tiffany was acting, so flustered and overly aware of Atticus listening in… “Atticus, would you mind grabbing some purple onions while I talk to Tiffany?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Seemingly relieved to escape the girl talk, he rolled away as Jada led Tiffany a few feet in the other direction, just to be safe.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “Why do you look as though the world’s about to come to an end?”

  Tiffany grabbed her forearms. “You don’t know? You haven’t seen him?”

  Suspicion turned to outright fear. “Him? You don’t mean Maddox…”

  “That’s exactly who I mean!”

  Shit. She had seen him. The question was…had he seen her? And why was he in Silver Springs?

  Jada swallowed hard. Had he returned because he’d learned about Maya?

  That couldn’t be, could it? Her family had kept her pregnancy so quiet. She had easily been able to hide her rounding stomach beneath baggy clothes as school came to an end. Her parents had kept her home throughout the summer, her final trimester, so almost no one saw her looking unmistakably pregnant. And then she moved to LA with her newborn. Other than Tiffany, the few friends she’d kept in contact with over the years, and loosely at that, knew she’d married almost right out of high school, that she had a child and had recently divorced. But they didn’t know exactly when she’d met her husband or had Maya. Most assumed Maya belonged to her ex.

  But if anyone really pressed for details—when and where Maya was born—they could possibly put two and two together…and Jada was afraid Maddox might do exactly that.

  “Are you okay?” Tiffany asked.

  Jada felt dizzy, faint. “Why?” she asked instead of answering. “Why is he back?”

  “I don’t know. But he is. I just saw him.”

  “You’re sure it was him.”

  “Positive. There could be no mistaking Maddox Richardson.”

  Maddox had always stood out, been unique, charismatic, appealing—and sexy as hell. She’d never met a man who could make a woman feel warm and tingly simply by looking at her.

  Tiffany had also known him in school, and she clearly remembered what he was like, as well. She’d been interested in Maddox’s brother, Tobias, who wasn’t as enigmatic and appealing as Maddox but came awfully damn close, despite his terrible reputation and the behavior that had earned it. She’d been at the party that fateful night, too.

  “Did he see you?” Jada asked.

  “He did, but I don’t know if he recognized me. Our eyes connected for a second. Then he looked away and kept moving.”

  He had to have recognized Tiffany. Not many people had her shade of hair and unique, slanted green eyes. So…what did that mean?

  Tiffany bent to adjust her sandal. “Do you think Tobias is out of prison?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “He should be. He only got eight years, and it’s been thirteen.”

  “But my father told me he did something on the inside—got in a fight or found some other trouble—and they extended his sentence. I’m not sure by how much.” That was the last thing her father told her on the subject before he died, and she wasn’t willing to ask her mother, wasn’t willing to go anywhere near the subject with her.

  Tiffany looked as conflicted as Jada felt. “I wonder what he’s like now…”

  “I can’t imagine prison has improved him. I have no idea what the past twelve years have done to Maddox, either.”

  “You two have had no contact?”

  “None whatsoever. You know that. But I thought I saw him, too, a few minutes ago. I’d just talked myself out of it when you came up.”

  Tiffany looked back over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. You can’t be happy about this.”