His Secret Son. Stacy Connelly

thing—if not the right thing—in breaking things off with Lindsay. Though he and Brittany had broken up during that brief period when he slept with Lindsay, his girlfriend would have made Lindsay’s life a living hell had she found out about the two of them.

      “That’s right. And then—” Bryce cut off, and he made a face as he put down the knife. “When did we turn into a couple of women gossiping in the kitchen?”

      “Probably about the same time you put on that apron,” Ryder said with a tip of his beer bottle in his brother’s direction.

      Bryce looked down before defensively saying, “Hey, these tomatoes are juicy.”

      Ryder’s grin faded away as he thought of what his brother hadn’t said.

       And then Lindsay got pregnant.

      He and Brittany had already moved into their dorms by then, but the Clearville grapevine traveled long-distance. When he first heard the news, for a panicked, “what the hell am I going to do?” moment, he’d wondered even as his brain rejected the very idea.

       Couldn’t be mine.

       It was just one time.

       We used protection.

       No way. There’s no way...

      And then Brittany had quickly filled him in on the details—how everyone knew Tony Pirelli was the father, how his family was in an uproar because Tony refused to marry Lindsay, how Lindsay’s family had left town in disgrace. All of it as juicy as Bryce’s vine-ripe tomatoes.

      “Why the trip down memory lane anyway?”

      “I heard she’s in town for a few weeks to help out her grandmother, and I thought I might have seen her when I was picking up the pizzas. She looked...good.”

      “Her grandmother?” Bryce asked, an incredulous note filling his voice.

      “No, not—” Ryder caught sight of the smirk his brother was trying to hide a split second too late and tossed a nearby towel into Bryce’s grinning face. “Very funny.”

      Catching the towel with ease, he draped it over one shoulder. “I’d say Lindsay’d have to look spectacular to catch your eye. Haven’t you sworn off all women since the divorce?”

      “I didn’t mean it like that.” Although the hell of it was, Lindsay had looked spectacular. But more than that, she’d had an air of confidence, of success. A woman who’d found her place out in the big wide world and a far cry from the girl who’d struggled to fit in at tiny Clearville High. “I was glad to see that she’s doing well.”

      In a small way, it eased the burden of that old guilt he’d been carrying around. Sure, he’d been a stupid, horny teenager, but that was no excuse for treating Lindsay the way he had. He owed her an apology and an explanation at the least and, maybe if he was lucky, a way to make up for his behavior at best.

      Thanks to the phone call he’d received earlier that day, he knew he’d get his chance soon enough.

       Chapter Two

      She’d survived.

      Her first run-in with Ryder Kincaid on only her second day back in town, and she’d survived.

      Lindsay blew out a breath, still more shaken by the split-second encounter than she liked to admit. Ten years. Ten years! She was supposed to be over him. She was over him. Just not quite over the shock of seeing him, that was all.

      Glancing around the pizza parlor play area, she felt her heartbeat settling as her gaze landed on Robbie. She’d quickly agreed to his request to play the video games while they waited for their order. She needed a moment to herself, and she’d hoped he might have a chance to talk with some of the other kids racing between newer video games and older throwbacks from when she was a kid—foosball, air hockey, even a tiny basketball hoop and net. But Robbie had locked in on conquering alien invaders and had barely done more than lift a skinny shoulder in a halfhearted shrug when one of the other boys stopped to talk to him. Within a few seconds, the boy wandered off and Robbie hunkered down over the joystick, his bangs falling over the frames of his glasses.

      Her heart ached for her son. For the all-too-familiar shyness that made something inside him shut down when he tried to talk to kids his own age. Lindsay remembered the feeling so well. The fear, the panic of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing. And the self-consciousness that made it seem that no matter what she did or what she said, it was always wrong.

      She knew she couldn’t expect too much. She and Robbie would be in town for a few weeks—just long enough for her to convince her grandmother that it was time to sell the house and move to Phoenix to be closer to Lindsay and her parents. But during that short time, she hoped Robbie would find some kids to hang out with. Clearville was a tourist town, always filled with summer visitors—most of them families with children. It would do him so much good to make new friends, and maybe the short time frame would help him be more open to the possibility. It was something she’d encouraged on the trip up from Phoenix, not that her suggestion was well received.

      “I already have a best friend,” Robbie had insisted stubbornly.

      “I know, but would it be so bad to meet some new friends?” she’d asked, careful not to bring up the reminder that his best friend had recently moved across the country.

      Scott Wilcott and his family had been their next-door neighbors for the past three years—a lifetime for little boys. The two had bonded instantly, and Lindsay had been so grateful, not only for Robbie’s friendship with Scott, but also for the time her son got to spend with Scott’s father. She knew how important it was for her son to have a male role model in his life. Gary Wilcott had helped fill that void by including Robbie in their family outings and making the boy feel as welcome in their home as he was in his own.

      With the Wilcotts moving away, Lindsay worried as much about Robbie missing Gary as she did about him missing Scott.

      “Lindsay? Lindsay Brookes?”

      Starting at the sound of her name being called out amid kids laughing and bells and whistling going off in the gaming area, she turned in the small booth to see a short, curvy blonde woman heading in her direction.

      “Cherrie... Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

      “Ten years!” the other woman agreed.

      And yet not nearly long enough, Lindsay thought as she kept her smile firmly locked in place. Along with Brittany Baines, Cherrie Macintosh and a handful of other girls had ruled the school back in the day. The popular kids who could make life hell for anyone not in their small circle. As a shy bookworm, Lindsay had mostly escaped their noticed.

      Mostly.

       “Did you hear Lindsay Brookes got herself knocked up?”

       “I’d have thought that girl would die a virgin!”

       “They always say it’s the quiet ones who surprise you.”

       “She must have done it on purpose to trap Tony Pirelli.”

       “Well, it’s not like a guy that hot is hanging out with her for her brain!”

      “Goodness,” Cherrie remarked, “if I hadn’t heard you were coming to town, I don’t think I would have even recognized you. I mean, you were such a mousy little thing back then, weren’t you?”

      Yes, she had been. But that was a long time ago, and she wasn’t that girl anymore. She had five years under her belt working for a high-profile PR firm in Phoenix. She could put on a smile and spin the truth with the best of them. Reminding herself of that, she slid from the booth.

      In high school,