How To Be A Blissful Bride. Stacy Connelly

Photojournalist Chance McClaren killed in bomb attack in Kabul.

      * * *

      “How long have you worked here, Rory?” Griffin asked their guide as she led them back to the lobby after showing them the elegant ballroom. The hotel’s old-fashioned feel filled the room from the dark, carved check-in desk, to the wall of small cubbyholes for guest messages, to an actual phone booth and its replica of an early 1900s phone.

      But like any modern hotel, the lobby was a busy spot with families coming and going, bellhops pushing packed luggage carts, and employees offering advice for things to see and do in the nearby Victorian town of Clearville.

      Rory stopped to allow a chatting couple to wheel by with a stroller. And as she had for the past few months, Alexa locked in on the baby strapped inside. Her breath caught at the sight. An infant with her eyes closed, her chubby cheeks pink with sleep, her head slouched to one side. So sweet, so small...

      She wrapped her arms around her waist. Before she’d gotten pregnant, she hadn’t understood that she wouldn’t need to wait for her baby to be born to feel such a deep connection with the new life inside her. She was amazed by how much she already loved the child growing in her womb. How she loved the idea of a little boy or little girl with dark hair and startling blue eyes like—

      No, she wouldn’t think about the baby’s father. She wouldn’t.

      She watched with a combination of anxiety and anticipation as the mother stopped for a moment to adjust the lacy pink sock barely clinging to the toes of the tiniest foot she’d ever seen.

      “Well, I’ve worked here as a wedding coordinator for the past six months or so,” Rory was saying, “but my family has owned the hotel for decades. My Aunt Evelyn runs the place now, but the McClarens have—”

      “What—” Alexa stopped so suddenly, Griffin almost knocked her over. “What did you say your last name was?”

      “McClaren.” Rory’s blue gaze—her familiar blue gaze—swung back and forth between Alexa and Griffin. “Didn’t I say that earlier?”

      “Alexa?” Griffin’s arm tightened around her shoulders as she swayed against him. “What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing.”

       Everything...

      It wasn’t easy to spot the resemblance between masculine, rugged features and this delicately feminine woman, but Alexa must have subconsciously noticed the similarities. The rich, almost black hair, the high, sculpted cheekbones, those blue eyes...

      The thick, patterned carpet swirled beneath her feet as the room spun. “I’m not feeling very well. I think I need to lie down...”

      “Of course. I’ll walk you back to the suite.”

      To the suite. Alexa fought a hysterical laugh. That wasn’t nearly far away enough to escape the dizzying thoughts whipping through her mind.

      The McClaren family hotel... Chance’s family’s hotel?

      And before she could make her escape, the hotel’s carved entry doors opened and in walked the father of her child.

       Chapter Two

      At first he thought he was imagining things.

      It had happened before, after the explosion. The blast that shattered his leg had also left him with a serious concussion—one that had him drifting in and out of consciousness for days. In that confused state, he’d seen Alexa at his side. Heard her voice. Smelled the honey-lilac scent of her skin.

      He hadn’t stopped to think that her presence made no sense. The wealthy granddaughter of one of California’s biggest and most generous philanthropists might raise money for victims of war-torn countries, but she didn’t travel to war-torn countries.

      She certainly wouldn’t have belonged in a crowded field hospital where understaffed doctors and nurses did their best to care for those injured in the series of bombings.

      But he’d been so sure of her presence that he’d nearly gotten in a fight with one of the doctors once he reached semiconsciousness, unable to understand why the man refused to let him see Alexa. Why he was keeping her away when she’d been right there?

      Later, as the uncertainty clouding his mind started to clear, he realized it had all been some kind of delusion. He’d been embarrassed to have been so fooled by his own mind. Unsettled that a woman he barely knew—a woman he’d spent no more than a weekend with and one who wanted nothing more to do with him—had been the person he’d reached for, clung to, even in such a confused state.

      And so even though he’d thought of calling since he’d returned to the States, he’d purposely not picked up the phone.

      Now, as the color drained from her face, he wished he had.

      She looked as beautiful and ethereal now as the night they’d met. That night, she’d been wrapped in gold, her blond hair intricately woven on top of her head, her smooth bangs held in place by the jeweled butterfly hairpin. Today, she was draped in silver, her shoulder-length hair caught more sedately in a ponytail at her nape. As he watched, she hugged her arms around her waist, her blue-gray eyes huge in her gorgeous face.

      “Chance—” his sister’s expression brightened as she caught sight of him “—come meet two of our guests. Alexa Mayhew, Griffin James, this is my brother, Chance McClaren.”

      He didn’t remember moving, but he suddenly stood in front of Alexa, inches away from the woman who’d been on his mind and under his skin for months. “Alexa...”

      “Chance.”

      She reached out, her hand hovering in the air between them as if she wasn’t quite sure that he was truly there, and his heart clenched. The uncertainty in her expression hit hard as he grasped her hand in his. The soft skin, the sweet scent, all of it real this time.

      “Alexa,” he said again, a whisper of sound beneath his breath.

      “Chance. I—It’s...” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “So good to meet you.”

      Meet him? Meet him! She’d done a damn sight more than met him in a hotel room in Santa Barbara almost four months ago.

      Shock held him motionless, Alexa’s hand still in his, until the man at her side spoke. “If you’ll excuse us. Alexa isn’t feeling well.”

      The man—Chance couldn’t even recall what his sister said the guy’s name was—had a protective arm wrapped around Alexa’s shoulders. Chance had barely spared him a glance earlier, but summed him up now with a quick look. Wealthy, sophisticated, handsome. Someone very much a part of Alexa’s world.

      The swift slice cut deep, but Chance had endured worse pain. That was one lesson he could thank Lisette for. Finding his fiancée in bed with another man had cured him of any belief in love, marriage, or even whatever the hell it was he thought he and Alexa had found in a five-star hotel penthouse suite.

      But cured or not, he couldn’t help taking a few shots of his own. “You look so...familiar. Are you sure we haven’t met somewhere before?”

      “I, uh, don’t think so.”

      “No? So we didn’t meet—I don’t know, parasailing along the Waterfront? Or maybe bungee jumping off the Bridge to Nowhere?” Chance wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Alexa turned even paler, and he really started to feel like an ass. He stopped himself before he mentioned her last whispered wish.

       Making love under the stars.

      “Alexa is hardly the type to go bungee jumping,” the golden boy at her side said drily.

      “Maybe someday she’ll have the opportunity to take that chance.”

      Her