LITMIR.BIZ

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just sinking in.

      “Come on, let’s get your stuff out to the loft,” Logan suggested. “Then maybe you can watch that DVD.”

      Chase nodded, still looking stunned. He headed for the kitchen, catching sight of Hadley as he did and coming up short all over again.

      “Wow, and you, Hadley … You’ve blown me away, too.”

      Hadley laughed. “It’s still just me. With a little less packaging.”

      “Yeah, I can see that it’s still you,” he assured. “But that’s good, too—it’s good to see … you,” he added.

      Hadley merely smiled at him, at his confusion over her transformation. But she was pleased that he recognized that not everything about her had changed.

      “Later, I guess,” he added with a sigh as he again aimed for the kitchen.

      “Sure. I’ll see you later,” she confirmed, watching him go and trying not to register that his backside was almost as impressive as his front.

      Then her brother distracted her by whispering as he went by, “I’m gonna need your help big-time!”

      Hadley wasn’t quite sure what her brother was going to need her help with, but that wasn’t uppermost in her mind.

      Chase was.

      Chase and the news that had just been sprung on him and his instant agreement to accept the responsibility of his half nephew.

      But then Hadley heard the back door open and close and it struck her just like that—her first encounter with Chase Mackey in seventeen years was over …

      She’d successfully jumped that hurdle.

      And she breathed a sigh of relief.

      Granted, their reunion had taken a backseat to Neily’s news, but still, Hadley thought she’d done okay before that. No, she hadn’t been smooth or glib or clever—the way she’d imagined herself in one of the many scenarios she’d played out in anticipation of this—but she hadn’t embarrassed herself, either. She was relatively sure she’d hidden her tension, that she’d appeared reasonably normal.

      And the first hurdle was the highest, she told herself. From here on every time she saw Chase it would get easier. She would feel less awkward, she would be able to relax more. Eventually she would forget all about that crush she’d had on him so many years ago and forge a plain and simple working relationship with him.

      And that was all she was looking forward to, she told herself.

      Even if the image of those blue eyes of his was mysteriously lingering in her mind and making it seem as if she might be looking forward to something more than that …

      Chapter Two

      “You want me to stick around?”

      Chase couldn’t help smiling at his friend’s offer. He knew Logan was swamped with last-minute wedding details.

      “Do you think I need a babysitter?”

      “That is one of the things you’ll need after Monday,” Logan goaded wryly.

      “Or maybe a pretty little nanny …” Chase volleyed good-naturedly, referring to the fact that Logan was about to marry his daughter’s caregiver.

      “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll run through plenty of those,” Logan countered with a laugh.

      All kidding aside, Chase let his friend off the hook. “It’s weird to find out I might have brothers and a sister, and that in a day and a half I’ll be taking on a kid who’s supposed to be my nephew. But the earth hasn’t stopped turning because of any of it. Get going on that honey-do list you told me you have in your pocket. I’m fine.”

      “You’re sure?”

      “Yeah, go on.”

      It didn’t take more than that for Logan to head for the door. “Meg stocked a few groceries in your fridge, but for anything other than snacking you can hit ours. Come over whenever you’re ready,”

      “Thanks,” Chase said to his partner’s back as Logan left him alone in the loft Chase had designed and Logan had built.

      With all Chase had had to do back in New York, he hadn’t made it to Northbridge since late May. At that point the space he’d taken for himself in the top half of what had formerly been a barn had been in the final stages of construction.

      A quick glance around at the large, open area and Chase knew that Logan had made sure the contractor met his specifications.

      His furniture had been sent ahead last week. He’d trusted his own belongings to professional movers while he’d manned the truck—that was now stalled just outside of town—filled with the Mackey and McKendrick Designs pieces that were slated for the Northbridge showroom. The movers had set his things around the place haphazardly—the furniture was usable but still needed to be arranged the way he wanted it.

      But Chase had more important things on his mind. Despite what he’d led his friend to think, he was a little shaken to suddenly find out he hadn’t been an only child.

      How the hell could he have blanked on something like brothers and sisters? he asked himself as he went to the chrome-and-glass kitchen table and tossed the social worker’s file folder onto it.

      Okay, yes, he had been barely more than a baby when his parents were killed—six months younger than Tia was now, and she was just a tiny, tiny kid.

      And yes, there had been dreams. Disjointed dreams that had never seemed like anything but dreams—that he had a family, that his parents were alive. But he’d always figured it was just wishful thinking. It had never felt real enough to be anything else, or been clear enough to make him believe there had ever actually been other kids, especially when he honestly had no waking memory of them.

      But apparently there had been. Older and younger kids …

      Trying now to think back as far as he could, Chase still couldn’t recall anything that led up to his going to the boys’ home where his first memories began—and even those were vague. He just remembered being at the boys’ home, being scared and lonely most of the time there.

      Nowhere in that could he remember the slightest indication that there were siblings he’d been separated from.

      Not that he recalled ever asking.

      He did remember asking about his parents—though he didn’t remember exactly when. He only knew that the answer to his question had been, “They’re no longer with us …” He’d thought that that meant they’d gone off somewhere and just left him behind for some reason, maybe because he had done something wrong.

      The fact that his parents had died hadn’t been openly discussed with him until he’d gone from the boys’ home to his foster home.

      He’d been eight then. When Alma Pritick had taken the time to talk to him about his mother and father, about what had happened to them.

      Alma Pritick had been one of the few positive aspects of his childhood.

      It had been Alma who had located an old newspaper clipping of his parents’ wedding picture for him and framed it. Alma who had finally given him the sense that at one point he had belonged to someone who cared about him.

      But nowhere in any of what Alma had said, either, had there been a mention of other kids who had been orphaned alongside him.

      He had never had a clue.

      But now that he knew it, he had other things to deal with.

      Things like an eleven-month-old nephew …

      That still didn’t seem real.

      But with that baby in mind, he sat on one of the director’s chairs that went with the table and opened the file.

      The

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