The Bachelor Takes a Bride. Brenda Harlen

for a while.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I want some time and space to get to know her better before the family scares her away.”

      “We’re not scary,” she protested.

      “Are you kidding? I was born into this family and I’m terrified by major holiday events with the whole clan.”

      “If she’s going to be the mother of your future children, she’s got to meet us someday.”

      “Someday,” he agreed.

      Nata sighed. “Are you at least going to tell me her name?”

      “No.”

      “Does she really exist?”

      “Of course she exists.”

      “That’s what you said about Tessa Wheeler, your make-believe girlfriend in high school.”

      He glanced away. “She was real.”

      “A real person,” his sister acknowledged. “But she wasn’t really your girlfriend—she didn’t even know you existed.”

      “I was a sophomore,” he pointed out in his defense.

      “And while I would certainly hope you’d outgrown manufacturing fantasy girlfriends, you should appreciate how your refusal to give me a name is cause for concern.”

      “If I’d made her up, don’t you think I would have made up a name for her?”

      “And what name would that be?” she challenged.

      Renata was nothing if not relentless, and he knew she wouldn’t quit badgering until he gave her something. He decided her name was harmless enough.

      “Jordyn,” he finally said.

      Her brows lifted. “Jordyn Garrett?”

      He frowned. “Where did that come from?”

      “Ohmygod—I’m right. It is Jordyn Garrett.”

      “I never said it was Jordyn Garrett.”

      “But you didn’t say it wasn’t.”

      “How do you know her?” he finally asked.

      “Duh. She’s a bartender at O’Reilly’s and Craig plays on the Brew Crew, the team they sponsor.”

      He’d forgotten that his brother-in-law played recreational baseball—but he should have remembered that his sister knew almost everyone in Charisma.

      And the way she was worrying her bottom lip right now made him suspect that she knew something that she wasn’t telling him.

      “What’s your objection to my interest in Jordyn?”

      “I like her,” Renata assured him, though her tone was cautious.

      “But?” he prompted.

      “But she’s always seemed a little...guarded,” she decided. “And I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”

      Again.

      Although she didn’t say the word, they both knew she was thinking it. As he was, too. But this time, he was confident there wouldn’t be a sad ending but a happy beginning, because Jordyn Garrett was the woman he’d been waiting his whole life for.

      Now he just had to help her see that she’d been waiting for him, too.

Chapter Three

      Jordyn dreamed of him—and woke up feeling restless and out of sorts because of it.

      She didn’t remember the details of the dream, except that her heart had been pounding with anticipation and her body aching to feel things that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. And she’d awakened thinking of Marco. The sweet and sexy bartender with the melted-chocolate eyes and the dimple at the corner of his mouth. It might have been her sister’s description, but she couldn’t deny that it was an accurate one.

      She hadn’t dreamed of anyone but Brian in a lot of years. More significantly, she hadn’t even dreamed about her former fiancé in more than a year, which she figured was a sign that her heart was finally healing. But his disappearance from her dreams worried her, too, because she didn’t want to forget about him. She didn’t want to forget how completely in love they’d been or how her heart had been decimated by his death. And she especially didn’t want to be attracted to another man, to even consider moving on with her life with someone else or hope for the future that she’d once believed she would have with Brian.

      She’d told Tristyn that her date with Cody the night before had been a disaster—but the fact that it had been such a disaster was also a relief to Jordyn. Her experience with Cody reassured her that she wasn’t missing out on anything by not dating and reinforced her belief that she’d rather spend her free time alone than with a man who obviously wasn’t right for her. Because no man who wasn’t Brian was right for her.

      Then she’d walked into Valentino’s and come face-to-face with Marco Palermo. And she’d felt...something.

      She wasn’t sure what it was—maybe a spark of awareness or possibly a tingle of desire—she only knew that it was more than she’d expected or wanted to feel.

      She’d pushed it aside, refusing to delve too deeply inside herself. So she’d met a guy and she’d felt a tug of something—so what? It didn’t have to mean anything, because she wasn’t ever going to see him again.

      Except that she instinctively knew that wasn’t true. Whatever she’d felt, she was certain that he’d felt it, too, and she didn’t doubt that their paths would cross again—probably sooner rather than later. And when they did, she’d be ready to let him down easy. There was no other option.

      Tristyn was drinking coffee and reading the news on her tablet when Jordyn finally ventured into the kitchen after her shower. She brewed herself a cup of French vanilla, added two teaspoons of sugar and a generous dollop of cream, then took a seat across from her sister.

      “How much wine did I drink last night?”

      Tristyn looked up from her tablet. “No more than I did. Why?”

      “I feel like crap this morning, and I had some weird dreams.”

      “Any special guests in those dreams?” her sister teased.

      Jordyn scowled at her over the rim of her coffee mug.

      “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

      She sipped her coffee and willed the caffeine to jump-start her system—or at least her brain.

      “It’s a good sign,” Tristyn said gently.

      “What’s a good sign?”

      “That you’re thinking about him.”

      She swallowed another mouthful of java.

      “Brian’s been gone for more than three years.”

      Three years, two months and sixteen days. But of course she didn’t say that aloud, because she knew that Tristyn would get that familiar little line that appeared between her brows whenever she was worried about something. And her family had worried about her enough already.

      Instead she only nodded.

      “It’s time for you to put yourself out there again.”

      “Isn’t that what I was doing with Cody last night?”

      Tristyn shook her head. “Cody was a setup that was never going to work, because you had it in your mind before you even sat down at the restaurant that you weren’t going to let it go any further than dinner.”

      It