ROMeANTICALLY CHALLENGED. Marina Adair

choose her back. To discover how she’d gone from blushing bride to Hartford’s resident PPF.

      More important, it was critical for her to understand what major life lesson she still had to learn to avoid ever finding herself in this situation again.

      She thought back to her grandparents’ house. To the wedding picture that hung above the fireplace in the living room.

      As a child, Annie would wait until everyone was asleep before sneaking into the living room to stare at the photo in wonder. She used to believe it was her grandmother’s dress that captivated her. As she grew older, Annie realized it was the way her grandparents looked at each other that made the risk of getting caught out of bed worth it.

      Even through the photograph’s patina of age, the unbreakable connection between the two had been visible. The love, mind-boggling. They were each other’s person.

      Clark had never looked at her that way. And, if she were being honest, she hadn’t looked at him that way either. Annie feared she’d fallen victim to the fantasy of what marriage and happily ever after would mean for her.

      She was too old to put stock in fantasy and fairy tales.

      Especially after she’d accidentally come across Clark’s Insta feed where he was looking at Molly-Leigh with the same adoration as her grandparents in that photo. It proved that a picture could be worth a thousand words.

      Or at least as many as Annie needed to close all doors leading to Clark.

      She’d closed a lot of doors over her lifetime. Just once, she wanted to be standing on the other side with someone holding her hand when the door slammed shut. Looking at her the way Grandpa Cleve always looked at Grandma Hannah.

      Neither of them said anything for a long moment, just listened to the other breathe. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable or weighted down with tension as Annie had imagined it would be. And the ache that was always wrapped around her like a leash, yanking her around at will, was gone. In fact, this was the lightest she’d felt since Clark had dropped to a knee and she’d said yes.

      “Can you give me that?” she asked.

      “Time? I can give you all the time you need,” he said with sudden pep in his tone. “Just don’t take too long. The wedding is right around the corner and—”

      “I already said no.”

      “—the invite’s already in the mail.”

      “Doesn’t matter. You said you were waiting for my answer. Which, unless there’s ten grand in that invite, is absolutely not.”

      “I’ll see you at the wedding, Anh-Bon.”

      “It’s not happening.” Silence. “Clark?” But he’d hung up.

      “Damn it!” She hung up, too, then immediately redialed his number. It went directly to voice mail. By the time his greeting ended she was fuming.

      “Friends don’t ask friends to go to stolen weddings, Clark. So, no, I’m not going to your wedding. And I need that deposit back now. Not next month, not at my stolen wedding, not even when the sun hits at the right moment and the hall looks like it’s illuminated by a thousand candles. I need it back this week or—”

      Her phone chimed that she had a new event on her calendar. She glanced down at the phone’s screen and swore.

      Pursing her lips, she opened tomorrow’s calendar and her fingers punched a new event into the screen.

      Only moments after adding Clark to the event, it disappeared. Only to reappear on the day of the wedding—with her as the recipient. She didn’t even have time to scream before a text appeared.

      “She’s not my mom and stop calling me Anh-Bon!”

      Chapter 7

      Emmitt strolled through the leaded glass doors of Tanner and Tanner Family Practice, and the cool air chilled the sweat beaded on his forehead.

      He wasn’t sure whether it was walking ten blocks when the thermometer registered in the high eighties, with matching humidity, that had his chest spasming as if he was having a heart attack or if it was simply his body’s reaction to the pain slicing through his head.

      Bottom line, Emmitt needed a comfortable place out of the direct sun to sit—preferably with AC—before he embarrassed himself on the main strip in town.

      Christ. What would his climbing friends say if they saw him now?

      Two years ago, he’d climbed Everest with nothing but a rucksack, his camera bag, and ten days at base camp. Today, he’d made it a whole half a mile before oxygen deprivation made it feel as if his chest was about to explode.

      If it exploded in Gray’s clinic, Emmitt was SOL and would likely spend the next six weeks playing invalid on his couch. Then another scenario came to mind, one involving a sexy nurse-not-nurse who was—lucky him—into cheeky cut lace and possessed the softest hands he’d ever had the pleasure of being shoved with.

      Would you look at that. Emmitt was suddenly all smiles. Teasing her last night had been fun. Better than fun, amusing. It was also one hell of a diversion from his other problems. Now, though, he needed to focus, get back into fighting shape. At least appear as if he wouldn’t buckle under the force of a gentle summer’s breeze.

      Emmitt had one goal here: Convince Gray to clear him so he could get back to work.

      Because, while Gray didn’t approve of doctors who fudged on medical forms, Carmen made it clear that she wasn’t going to risk sending an injured journalist on any kind of assignment, even the editorial variety—which was total bullshit—until a doctor cleared him. Neither his charm nor his Fear Nothing style of journalism was going to help him this time.

      Emmitt had searched for a loophole that would allow him to keep working, without any luck. Carmen seemed fine being down one—take any assignment no matter how insane—journalist, and Emmitt was slowly going nuts being forced to sit stationary while stories were breaking somewhere in the world.

      Maybe it was the thrill-seeker in him, or maybe it was that ten-year-old boy who needed answers to impossible questions, but photojournalism was in his blood. He didn’t want to be so pretentious as to say it was his calling, but no matter how difficult the topic or how dangerous the landscape, something inside him refused to let it go.

      Everyone deserved to have their story told. Emmitt sought out stories from the silenced, the ignored, and the so completely marginalized the rest of humanity was unaware of their struggles.

      There wasn’t enough time in the world to tell every person’s story, but Emmitt was committed to shining the light on as many as possible. So every day he rode the bench over a stupid doctor’s note was another missed opportunity to share someone’s story.

      There was no way Gray would clear Emmitt for work if he knew the extent of the accident and injuries. His co-parent wasn’t the kind of guy who could be bribed, bought, or charmed into looking the other way. Something that shouldn’t piss off Emmitt the way it did.

      When it came to his work, Emmitt had implemented his own strict code of ethics—and had never wavered. Didn’t mean he was above misleading or manipulating a situation if it kept him from the truth. Unfortunately, the good doctor had but one kryptonite—and she was off limits.

      Emmitt would bathe in BBQ chip dust and play punch-tag with a rabid grizzly before ever bringing Paisley into this. Which left him with just one option. He wasn’t particularly proud of his game plan, but he was desperate. And desperate men did desperate things. Like lie to