Her Bachelor Challenge. Cathy Thacker Gillen

entire East Coast.”

      “That’s not funny, Chase.” Amy scowled.

      “It’s not supposed to be,” Chase retorted bluntly, using this—and every other opportunity that came his way—to shamelessly plug the premise of the notoriously lighthearted and controversy-inspiring magazine he had created just for guys. “Women are here on this earth for one reason and one reason only. To make guys happy.” And as far as he was concerned, guys were only there to make women happy. It was pretending otherwise, in his opinion, that made people so darn miserable.

      “And that tally includes dear old Maggie,” Chase continued, deliberately ignoring the warning glare Gabe gave him. “Which is undoubtedly the reason Gabe rushed out to the beach house.” Chase turned to his brother and proceeded to hit Gabe where he knew it would hurt the most—Gabe’s legendary sense of duty. “Maggie was lonely. She was desperate.” And like the rest of us mortals, in urgent need of some happiness to call her own. “So she dialed the emotional equivalent of 911, and Gabe here, ever the good Samaritan, rushed right out to administer the much-needed and -wanted, obligatory mercy—”

      Chase never had the chance to finish his sentence. But then, he thought, with a certain grim satisfaction as Gabe’s fist came flying up to meet him, he’d known for certain he never would.

      BRIDGETT OWENS parked her Mercedes convertible at the rear of the Deveraux mansion and headed in the servants’ entrance. She paused just long enough to kiss her mother’s flushed cheek and ask, “What’s the emergency?”

      Theresa Owens grabbed a floral-print apron from the drawer and slipped it on over her uniform—a plain navy-blue dress with a white collar. Tying her apron behind her as she moved, Theresa headed swiftly for the ancient subzero refrigerator in the corner. Quickly she pulled out a package of fresh crabmeat and another of cream cheese. “Grace is coming home.” Theresa checked her recipe and collected milk and horseradish from the fridge and an onion from the mesh basket on the counter. “Tom went to the airport to get her. All the children are here. And I’m short-staffed.”

      “Where is everyone else?” Bridgett asked. Tom Deveraux had a chauffeur and a gardener, in addition to her mother, his full-time cook and housekeeper.

      Theresa brushed auburn tendrils off her face with the back of her hand. “It’s their day off.”

      “Mom, you should have a day off,” Bridgett said, wishing her mother would listen to her and give up working as a domestic. Especially now that it was no longer necessary. Theresa could retire and live with Bridgett and never have to worry about money or putting a roof over their heads again.

      Theresa frowned as she measured ingredients into the casserole dish and stirred them together briskly. “Then who would cook for Tom?”

      “Maybe he could order takeout?” Bridgett suggested as her mother slid the crabmeat dip into the oven to bake. “Or eat at a restaurant.”

      Theresa wiped her hands, then restored order to the bun on the top of her head. “I have all the time off I need whenever I need it.”

      Bridgett sighed, knowing she was about as likely to talk her mother into taking early retirement at fifty as she was to get her to change her hairstyle or stop wearing the “uniform” that Tom and Grace Deveraux had both told her years ago she did not have to wear. “Except you never take any time off,” Bridgett reminded her mother gently.

      “Honey, I don’t have time to argue with you.” Theresa went back to the refrigerator for salad fixings. “I’m trying to put together a dinner party for six on thirty minutes’ notice. And Tom said it was crucial that everything be very nice.”

      Bridgett zeroed in on the concern in her mother’s voice, even as she did what she had done for years, as the daughter of a Deveraux domestic—pitched in to lend a hand. “Did something happen?” Bridgett asked as she rolled up her sleeves and helped her mother make a dinner salad on the fly.

      “I’m not sure.” Her expression increasingly worried, Theresa got out the food processor and set it on the counter. “But he said Grace might be upset when she gets here and he wanted all the children to be in attendance so they could talk to them together.”

      A feeling of foreboding came over Bridgett as she watched her mother fit the slicing disk into the machine. Bridgett hadn’t seen much of Grace Deveraux since Grace had gone to New York City to host the Rise and Shine, America! morning news program fifteen years ago, but she cared about her nonetheless. She cared about all the Deveraux, just as her mother did. “Grace isn’t ill, is she?”

      Theresa shrugged. “I’m not sure Tom knows what this is all about, either. But you know how it’s been between the two of them since they divorced.”

      “They can hardly stand to be in the same room with each other.”

      “So if Grace called Tom and asked him to pick her up at the airport and bring her here, of all places…”

      To the home the two of them had shared in happier times.

      “It must be bad,” Bridgett concluded, reading her mother’s mind.

      Theresa nodded.

      And it was then, as she looked at her mother’s face, that Bridgett realized the real reason her mother had called her. Not because she needed help preparing dinner or carrying a tray of canapés. But because she needed moral support in dealing with whatever the fallout of Grace and Tom’s news. Theresa might insist on reminding herself daily in a million little ways that there was a huge class difference between the Owenses and the family Theresa had worked for since before Bridgett was born, but Theresa and Bridgett both loved all the Deveraux like family nevertheless. “How is Chase and everyone taking this?” Bridgett asked, knowing that Chase was likely to have a tough time with any calamity involving his parents. Maybe it was because he was the oldest, but he had taken his parents’ divorce thirteen years ago especially hard.

      “I’m not sure,” Theresa said, jumping and grimacing at the big thud and shouting from the front of the house. Then the sound of glass breaking.

      “Apparently,” Bridgett said, answering her own question, “not so well.”

      There was another crash, even louder. Then the sound of Amy screaming.

      “Oh, dear.” Theresa’s hand flew to her chest and she got a panicked look on her face.

      “Sounds like another fight.” One of many, both before and after Tom and Grace’s divorce. Bridgett sighed. She put up a hand before her mother could exit the kitchen. “I’ll go, Mom.” She had experience breaking up fights. Why should this one be any different?

      “DAMMIT, GABE, I don’t want to hurt you.” Ignoring the pain across his shoulder, where he’d caught the edge of the mantel, Chase staggered to his feet. He pressed one hand to the corner of his mouth, which seemed to be bleeding, and held Gabe at bay with the other palm upraised between them. “So back off!”

      Gabe shook his head, his expression angry, intense, and continued coming, fists knotted at his side. “Not until you take back what you said about Maggie,” he stormed.

      Chase smirked, not above taunting a self-righteous Gabe. “Right. Like you plan to take back sucking face with her?”

      “That does it!” Gabe leaped over the back of the sofa, grabbed Chase by the shirt and swung again, his fist arcing straight for Chase’s jaw.

      Chase ducked the blow and countered with a punch to Gabe’s gut. As he expected, it didn’t do much damage. Gabe had been ready for him, muscles tensed. Just as Chase was ready for the tumble over the upholstered Duncan Phyfe chair to the floor. Gabe landed on top of him, but not for long. Chase forced him over onto his back. He grabbed his brother by the front of his shirt, still seeing red. For the life of him, Chase didn’t understand why Gabe continued to defend—and apparently desire—the woman who had come as close to two-timing Chase as any woman ever would. Especially when Gabe had to know how hurt and humiliated Chase had been,