by Jacie Floyd
“I’ll raid the bakery too,” Marty offered. “Zach loves my cherry tarts.”
Harper beamed as everyone crowded around, congratulating her and expressing their support. A stellar moment and a triumph she’d always remember, but through it all, she kept her eyes on the four people who meant the most to her, the ones huddled together in the corner talking to Mick.
Although some people approached Zach to say hello or welcome him back, others gave the luminous quartet a wide berth, as if leery of getting too close to so much beauty.
Mr. Novak, Rachel, Kate, Josh, and Susannah made their way to Harper’s side. “I was wrong about you in the beginning,” Zach’s sister said. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Harper was thrilled to receive this show of approval from Zach’s family. “You’ve more than made up for it with your friendship and support since then.”
Josh’s eyes held a twinkle when he said, “I told Zach what was happening, but I didn’t think he’d show up. Were you surprised?”
“To say the least.” Her head still reeled. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again.”
“Give the guy a break, will you?” Josh suggested. “It must be hell to always have to wear that halo.”
“I owe you an apology, too.” Kate grimaced as she made the admission. “I was wrong to hold Zach to our agreement when I could see he’d fallen for you. It’s about time I figured out some things about my own life, and I hope the town will support me the way have you.”
“They already love you,” Harper reminded her. “It won’t be too hard.”
“I try to stay out of all the drama that goes on around here,” Zach’s dad said. “But it sounds like you’re the kind of new blood this town needs. Thank you for not letting small minds run you off.”
“I have a job to do. I intend to do it.”
“Good for you.” His eyes crinkled at the corner, reminding her of Zach. “And if you being here keeps my son back home, all the better.”
“I can’t guarantee that. He’ll make his own decision.”
He tipped his head in Zach’s direction. “I hope he already has.”
Mr. Novak went to greet his son, sending Harper’s family in her direction. India and Fiona swooped in for giant hugs. “Thank God, that’s over,” India muttered.
“I guess we showed them,” Fiona whispered.
Wexley hung back until the two women let her go.
Harper went on tiptoe to give him a peck on the cheek. “Thank you for being here. It means the world to me.”
“Now, where else would I be?” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “You’re my baby girl, same as Fiona, and don’t you forget it.”
“I never will again.”
“This here doctor wants to have a chat with you, but if he gives you any trouble, you just holler. We’re going to stick around until tomorrow, and I can put him on a plane to someplace nobody will ever find him if you want me to.”
“Thanks, Wex, but I can handle him on my own.”
India hooked arms with her husband and Fiona. “We’ve been invited to the party at the mayor’s office. We’ll see you over there, yes?”
“Yes. I’ll be along in a second. And plan on staying at my house tonight.”
India flicked an amused look toward Zach. “We’ll see.”
The people gathered around faded away and, in the space that cleared, there stood Zach.
Tired and gaunt, in desperate need of a haircut, rumpled, and unshaven, but handsome and smiling. The look in his eyes said it all. “I like your mother and stepfather.”
She swallowed. “I’m glad you finally got to meet them.”
“Me, too.” He shuffled his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets. Gone was the self-assured Dr. Novak. “I don’t know what to say.” He spread his arms as if he was at a loss but then spread them wider, inviting her into them. She took a gigantic leap forward. Another cheer went up, and the crowd started a chant. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
“They want us to kiss,” he said in her ear. “I want that, too.”
Harper didn’t wait. They kissed with all the passion and longing Zach had put on hold for the past months. With all the relief and joy she felt at being vindicated by the town. Accepted by them. But most of all, the moment was about homecoming and love.
“You look so tired. So hungry.”
“Hungry for you.” He held her close. “You are more beautiful than I remember.”
His words were flattering, but she was still sort of confused by his presence. “Why are you back?”
“I heard you could use some help, but I guess I heard wrong.” He leaned in for another kiss. “Your family showed up in spades, and everyone here loves you. Just like I do.”
“You do?” Dazed by the admission, she thought she’d never hear those words from the man who guarded his heart so savagely. “Since when?”
“Since the first moment I saw you. It just took me a while to realize it. And I’m sorry I left you.” He stroked his fingers through her hair. “But I needed to leave to get my head on straight and find my way back. Now there’s no doubt. I need this town. And I need you. I want you, and I love you, Harper. Will you marry me and live with me in Sunnyside and stay with me always?”
The word yes sprang to her lips, but her heart said, not so fast. “Are you going back to Syria or some other faraway place where the people need you more than we do?”
“I’ll work out something with Josh where I can practice here with him, and I can go on humanitarian missions one or two months a year. But my life is here. My home is here. My heart is here. What do you say, Harper? Will you marry me?”
Of course, she would. Never any doubt about it. He was the one who’d returned to Sunnyside, but she was the one who’d found a home.
Thank you!
Thank you for reading Everybody Knows, the first book in the Sunnyside Series!
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Books by Jacie Floyd
The Good Riders Series
MEET YOUR MATE
CURSED BY LOVE
MEANT FOR ME
HAPPY THIS YEAR
Anthology: CHRISTMAS WITH YOU
Six Heartwarming Novellas by Best-Selling Authors, including HAPPY THIS YEAR
The Billionaire Brotherhood
WINNING WYATT
DARING DYLAN
REMAKING RYAN
The Sunnyside Series
EVERYBODY KNOWS
Winning Wyatt
Excerpt
Book 1 of the Billionaire Brotherhood
Chapter One
Connecticut, present day
The sudden vibration of Kara Enderley’s cell against her desktop interrupted her concentration. Frowning, she clicked to save next week’s art review column before snatching up the phone. “Hello!”
“Hello yourself, Kara mia.” The deep, Southern drawl that haunted her dreams reached out to her like a caress from two thousand miles away. “Is this a bad time?”
Wyatt freaking Maitland. Damn, she really should remember to check the caller display before answering, or get in the habit of letting more of her calls roll into voicemail.
Unwanted, unexpected memories crashed through her as her gaze shifted from the computer screen to the crooked smile and mischievous amber eyes in the fram
ed photo on the shelf above her desk. One of the few mementos she’d saved from the spring they’d spent together three and a half years ago. The spring that had reassembled the fractured pieces of her life. Before she knew the truth about Wyatt freaking Maitland… and about his family.
Equal parts thrill and panic fluttered in the pit of her stomach—just as they always did when he called. “Hi, Wyatt! I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you back?”
“You’re always so busy, Kara.” His chiding tone pricked her guilty conscience. “Can’t you take a minute to talk to an old friend?”
An old friend? She pondered the phrase. They were friends, but not friends. Lovers, but not lovers.
Still, she owed him much more than a minute of her time.
“Of course.” Clutching the phone tightly, she prepared to follow the long-established rules of their long-distance relationship. Keep things light. Surface topics only. “Have you been to Atlanta to see your family lately? How are they?”
“Allie and Xander are both fine.” He followed the news about his sister and nephew with the inevitable pause. “Mother, too.”
Shivering, Kara envisioned the reigning Georgia Ice Queen at her chilling best. “That’s great. And how’re things at Southern Cal? Are you drowning in mid-terms?”
“I’m ass-deep in a stack of essays, waiting to be graded.”
Silence settled between them, stretching into awkwardness. After a glance at the clock, she stole a moment to listen to him breathe. Probably not much time before she really would have to go.
“What can I do for you?” She winced at the abrupt question.
“So much for small talk. I guess I’ll get right to it. I’d like to see you.”
Her heart pirouetted with joy, but her ever-present fear reached out and stomped all over the emotion. “Why?”
“There’s something important we need to discuss.”
She hesitated. “I doubt that. We agreed a long time ago that we wouldn’t—”
“Would you be willing to meet with me Friday night?” The interruption marked a rare breach of his perfect Southern manners.
“This Friday?” Kara bit the inside of her cheek. Their periodic conversations always required her to perform a careful balancing act between desire and deceit. Seeing him in person would render that trick impossible. She hadn’t been dodging him for three years just to let him stroll back into her life now. Tapping the eraser-end of a pencil on her desk, she attempted to maintain a breezy tone. “How will that work? I leave Connecticut and you leave California at a designated time and hope we bump into one another somewhere in the middle of the country. Kansas, perhaps?”
“That’s one possibility.” She pictured him smiling before continuing. “But I’m willing to go the distance.”
She pulled in several deep breaths, her thoughts racing. “You plan to come here? Friday, huh? Great. Just let me check my schedule.” Randomly flipping the pages of her desk calendar, she groped for inspiration. “Oh, no! I’m sorry. I almost forgot. I’ll be out of town this Friday.”
“What, again?” He made a clicking noise with his tongue against his teeth. “I hate to hear it.” He didn’t sound disappointed. He sounded skeptical. “It’s amazing how you’re always out of town when I have business in New York. Is this a trip you can postpone? I really need to see you.”
“I’d postpone it if I could, but I can’t. I have plane tickets. And reservations. I’m going—” Desperately, she flipped through the stack of mail she’d brought in earlier. Electric bill, nope. Invitation to join a health club, no help. Offer for a free cruise. Yes! “—on a cruise. To the Caribbean. With a friend. I’m sorry.”
Her guilty conscience finally strangled her disjointed ramblings and brought them to a halt. The fabrication must be stone-cold obvious to someone with Wyatt’s razor-sharp acuity. God, how many times had she imagined meeting him face to face and revealing the truth? Too many to count, but she could never make herself go through with it. She had too much to lose.
“That sounds like fun.” His framed likeness on the wall mocked her. “I’m sorry I won’t get to see you, Kara mia.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Sorry, sorry, sorry. How many times had he used that word since they’d last been together? How many times had she used it?
“Then I’ll see you the next time I’m in town?”
“Absolutely! I’ll look forward to it.”
“No, I think you should count on it.”
The heir to the Maitland fortune could charm the pants off a nun if he tried, and he was accustomed to getting his way in most situations. The pointed comment sounded very much like a threat. Or maybe that was her overburdened conscience talking again. “I sure will.”
“I have a couple of reasons for coming to New York this week, but one of them is that I want to talk to you about your son.”
Kara’s vision clouded. Stretching out a hand to steady herself, she switched the phone from one ear to the other and wiped a sweaty palm against her jeans. Her heart thudded sickeningly against her ribs. “My son?” She managed to squeeze out those two small words from a throat constricted like a vise.
“You said once that Adam’s death had seemed so pointless.” Wyatt’s delivery was quiet and careful as he tiptoed into one of their many off-limit topics. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to change that.”
Bitterness honed Kara’s pain with a sharp edge. “Nothing you do or say can change it. Discussing it again serves no purpose.”
He may have cursed under his breath before speaking more diplomatically. “You don’t know that if you won’t listen.”
Before she could reply, another voice, one located much closer than California, beckoned her from the baby monitor on her desk. “Mo-om. Mom-mee.”
“I can’t listen to anything you have to say about my son. I won’t listen.” There. She’d admitted it. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.” She covered the phone’s mouthpiece to muffle the sound of Sean sneezing in the background.
“You can’t keep avoiding me, Kara. I’ve been patient long enough.” Wyatt’s words arrived with more steel than he normally he needed to employ.
“We’ll talk again soon. As soon as I get back from the cruise.” Her son’s voice through the speaker became more demanding. Raspier. She leaned forward and strained to hear, frantic now to get off the damned phone. Did he sound congested? Had he seemed feverish before his nap? She needed to check his temperature. Immediately.
“Have a good trip.”
“Thanks. You, too.” She opened her mouth to apologize yet again, but closed it. Words wouldn’t comfort either one of them unless they included her full confession. And forgiveness on both sides. And that was out of the question.
She’d made her choices long ago. Too late to second-guess those decisions now.
“Wanta get up.” Sean followed the announcement with a cough.
“Thanks for calling.” Kara’s hand clutched the phone for one more regretful moment before she cut the connection.
She hurried to her son, but memories of another set of amber eyes accompanied by a whisky-smooth voice under a starlit sky haunted her thoughts.
In his university office, Wyatt Maitland shoved his chair away from his desk and tossed his phone aside.
“Damn.” He moved to stand in front of the window overlooking the annoyingly sunny California campus. The calendar said it was October, but he couldn’t tell by looking. Fall… winter… spring… it didn’t matter. All the seasons looked the same here in the land of perpetual sunshine.
He should have followed his original inclination and shown up on Kara’s doorstep unannounced. But that would have violated the terms of their agreement. The stupid agreement he’d insisted upon when they met. The stupidest agreement he’d ever constructed in his life. “When it’s over between us, it’s over,” he’d said, presumably for his own protection. No regrets and no recriminations. They’d agreed to the stipulations with a handshake, a kiss, and a w
eekend of sizzling sex, the memory of which still managed to heat his skin from the inside out.
Of course, that had been before she knew his family owned the company responsible for the deaths of her husband and child. Hell, he hadn’t even known it himself at the time.
During the past three years he’d deluded himself into thinking he could win her over again. If he could recapture her trust, she’d eventually forgive him. But she’d proven as elusive to pin down as bipartisan politics or a simultaneous orgasm.
But things were about to change.
He’d devised a new strategy to overcome the past and right old wrongs. He intended to tell her about the plan face-to-face. But could any reparation ever be enough to mend the damage his family had done?
Kara was the only woman he’d ever known who hadn’t wanted anything from him. Before and after she learned the awful truth, she hadn’t tried to take advantage of his name, his money, or his family’s far-ranging influence. And deep down, her increasing emotional distance during their phone conversations made him worry that she needed his support more than anyone else ever had.
Her continued evasions raised concerns that she’d reverted to the wounded-sparrow persona he’d first known. That she’d once again cut herself off from life, friends, and love, even though she assured him that she hadn’t. And if that were true, then his other worry—that she was seriously involved with someone else—chilled him to the bone.
He wished it hadn’t taken him so long to admit she meant more to him than some pleasant memories he could store away for the winter like patio furniture.
If she still wanted to have a baby, he could at least consider it, and not reject the idea with some off-the-cuff comment like he had when she’d suggested it before. Not that he wanted to have a child anytime soon, of course, but eventually...
