Only A Chance - Kasper Ridge book 5, Steamy, small town romance! (Ebook)

I'm in love with the enemy and he's falling for me too. The problem? He can never know who I really am...

When a writing conference and the promise of a career-making cover story send me to Kasper Ridge, I find myself face to face with Archie Kasper—the man my family blames for my brother's death. Worse? I'm falling for him--the one man my family can never accept... or forgive.

Archie Kasper, AKA Ghost, with those haunted eyes and a burden of guilt that slouches his broad shoulders, is nothing like the villain my father reviles. The former fighter pilot, now resort owner, carries the weight of the world, believing he doesn't deserve love or happiness. And as much as I want to hate him, I can't.

The more time I spend with Archie, helping him with the mysterious treasure hunt that could save his resort, the more I see the man behind the guilt. He's kind, he's broken, and he's beautiful. And to my utter shock, he's slowly making me forget why I came here in the first place.

But I'm living a lie.

I'm the sister of the man Archie believes he killed, and every moment I spend with him, every laugh we share, and every look that passes between us, feels like a betrayal. A betrayal that will surely break us when the truth comes out.

Because it will come out. Secrets this big always do. And when Archie finds out who I am, I'll lose not only the story that could make my career but the man who's slowly becoming my reason to stay.

Get the final book in the steamy, small town Kasper Ridge series!

CHAPTER ONE
EMILY

When I was a little girl, my mom watched reruns of this show called Leave it to Beaver. (When I was eight, I understood nothing about the potential innuendo such a title might carry. But now I was willing to put good money on there being several adult films made off the back of that singular name.)

Anyway, Mom said she liked watching it because it let her live vicariously through someone else’s perfect childhood, seeing how her own hadn’t been ideal.

“That’s why your dad and I will do everything in our power to make sure you and your brother grow up in the happiest way possible.” She’d said it all the time.

And we had been happy. For a lot of years.

My brother was a star student, got an engineering degree at UCLA, and went on to become a pilot.

I followed him to college and started my writing career soon after graduation. Less illustrious, sure—Dad didn’t have a sweatshirt that proclaimed he was a proud writer dad the way he had one for the navy. But whatever. They were proud all the same. Of both of us. And that had felt good.

Even once we were adults, there had been family dinners, group texts, and weekend trips when we could, when Jake was around . . . we were happy. We were perfect. Just like Beaver and his family.
Until we weren’t.

The last memory I have of us being that picture-perfect family was right before Jake died. We had dinner at a restaurant in San Diego just before his squadron deployed on the boat. I had crab legs.
Now just the mention of crab turns my stomach.

***

“You’re coming for dinner, right?” My mother’s voice over the phone now sounded urgent, pressurized.

“I always come for dinner on Sundays, Mom.”

She sighed on the other end of the phone. With relief? Frustration? It was hard to tell.

Sometimes I felt like she lived for these dinners together because it was the only time all week that she got to share some of the pressure of being in my father’s presence. I understood how bearing it alone would be exhausting.

Dad had become something of a shadow in my life. Less stressful a figure than he was in Mom’s, but no less upsetting. Where there had once been the hearty laugh and legitimate interest in my latest assignment or book idea, now there was the stern silent man with haunted eyes that looked past me. He wore a vacant grimace most of the time, as if he preferred to live the news of my brother’s death over and over in his head to interacting with those of us still living and breathing around him.

The accident hadn’t been easy for any of us to accept, but Jake had known the risks when he’d taken orders and accepted his assignment to fly jets. Nothing in life was without risk, anyway. It could as easily have been a freak accident that killed me. Or Mom. But it wasn’t.

And now the golden boy was gone, and Dad couldn’t get past it. So none of us had.
The worst nights were the ones when he came back to life like someone had suddenly plugged him into the outlet, and the vitriol and hate spewed from him, fresh as the days after the accident had occurred. A “mishap,” the navy called it, a word that felt purposeful in its minimalization of reality. A crash was what it had really been. A horrible accident. Two multi-million-dollar jets destroyed, and a young life lost in the process.
***

The San Diego sunshine was exuberant as I drove from my apartment in Mission Bay to Mom and Dad’s place in Encinitas. They lived near the coast, the home I’d loved growing up, perched on a hill that afforded a partial view of the sweeping Pacific Ocean beyond. As I pulled into the driveway, I stopped for a moment out front to turn and face that wide expanse of bottomless dark blue and take a deep breath.

It was gorgeous. And I was lucky to get to be here, to breathe the salt-tinged air and see this vista whenever I wanted to.

“There she is,” Mom called from just inside the front screen. “Tom, Emily’s here.”

I turned and headed inside, leaving the glow of late afternoon for the perpetual gloom of my parents’ living room. It faced the wrong side of the house, which kept it dark in the afternoons anyway, but it was also the spot where Dad kept vigil, and it seemed he couldn’t achieve just the right level of self-pity and anger if we kept too many lights on.

As I stepped in, letting my eyes adjust, Dad rose from the leather armchair where he could usually be found, a newspaper in his lap and a pencil tucked behind his ear.
“Hey Dad, Mom.”

My mother gave me a quick hug and then headed off into the kitchen. Dad rose, waiting for me to cross the room so he could give me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Honey.”

I waited a moment, just in case this would be one of those occasions where Dad asked about me, about my life, where he showed a little interest in the kid who was still breathing. But this didn’t seem to be one of those nights.

I sighed, giving a quick wink to my brother, who was staring down from a photo on the wall, that little smirk on his face that he used to give me to remind me that he was older and wiser, and naturally much smarter than me. I missed him too. But unlike my father, I was trying to move on.

“What are you making?” I asked my mother, relieved to step into the kitchen with its sweeping window facing out over the back patio and the ocean beyond. Light spilled in around us, immediately lifting the shroud that fell across my shoulders whenever I crossed through the living room.
“Salmon and green beans. Nothing special.”

“Everything you cook is special,” I reminded her. Mom was a classically trained chef, and when she and Dad got married, she’d been running one of the most revered fine dining restaurants in La Jolla. She’d given it up for us. I guess raising kids and running a top-notch restaurant weren’t compatible. “Wow, that smells amazing. How do you make green beans smell so good? When I do them it smells like I’m boiling a wet sock.”
Mom laughed and guilt shot through me at the sound. Mom didn’t laugh much. And I bet when I wasn’t here, she didn’t laugh at all.

She needed me. And I was hardly ever here.

Alone with Dad, she was forced to relive and rehash the worst events of our lives over and over, mired down in his fixation over things none of us could change. My bright, vivacious mother was trapped here. And even though I watched her lighten and shine when I was here, my presence alone enough to lift the curtain for a couple hours, I didn’t come often. Not often enough.
It was too hard.

“Tell me what you’re working on while you set the table, Em.” Mom handed me a bundle of silverware, and I headed down the back steps to the table on the patio. I was just below the enormous kitchen window, which was always open, so Mom and I could continue chatting easily while I worked.

“A couple things,” I told her, happy for her interest. “The editor I’ve worked for a few times at the travel magazine wants a roundup of San Diego hotels. Kind of an off-the-beaten path thing where we focus on activities not everyone would expect, like this little place that offers pie-baking lessons out in Julian while you’re there.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting. It’s so nice that you can write travel pieces without actually traveling.”
I blew out a laugh. “I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t mind traveling now and then. But you’re right. I’m lucky to be in a place most people want to visit.” The assignments came regularly, thanks to my location and my insider knowledge of my hometown.

“What about the book?” Mom had been encouraging me to follow my passion and explore longer-form work. I wanted to write a novel. I just wasn’t quite sure where to begin with the effort. I had multiple abandoned drafts on my laptop, and still hadn’t come upon the thing I really wanted to write.

“It’s still churning in the back of my head,” I told her, pausing to look up at her through the window. The warmth in her eyes encouraged me to tell her more. “There’s actually this conference I kind of want to go to. It’s a week of craft talks and workshops, and some really amazing writers will be presenting there.”

“Em, that sounds amazing. Is it here in town?”

I shook my head. This was the thing I hadn’t really wanted to get into. But now, with Mom looking so eager for me, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I could tell her the barest details. “It’s in Colorado.”

“Oh, how exciting,” she said. “Tell us all about it over dinner. Come get a plate and I’ll get your dad to pour some wine.” Trepidation shot through me. Dad would not be fond of the idea. Dad would revile the idea, actually. Once he found out where exactly the conference was.
Mom disappeared and I headed inside to get the plates.
When we were all settled, the Pacific creating an idyllic backdrop beyond the quasi-tropical foliage on the patio, Mom brought it up again. “Tom, Emily’s thinking of going to a big writers’ conference out of state. Isn’t that exciting?”
Dad chewed for a moment, and then lifted his eyes to me. The barest hint of interest flickered there. “That’s great, honey.”
He dropped his gaze again to his food, and I could feel Mom’s frustration like a buzz of energy around us, begging him to engage.

“She’s still toying with the idea of writing a novel,” Mom tried again.

“Mm-hmm.” Dad didn’t look up.

“I’ve been taking an online course on plotting, but I think this kind of in-person instruction could be really helpful. Plus, there should be a ton of other writers there who I could learn from. Remember my friend Christine? The one with all the romance novels? She’s going too. It would be a whole week, so hopefully I could absorb some writerly wisdom or something,” I laughed, trying to get my father to engage, if not for me, than because I feel my mother’s need for it.

“It’s in Colorado,” Mom added, a tinge of desperation in her voice.

That got Dad’s attention, and dread pooled in my stomach as he looked up at her, and then turned his attention to me.
“What part of Colorado, Em?” His tone was light, but I already knew what he was thinking about.

“A few hours from Denver.”
“Which direction from Denver?”

“Southwest,” I said, the unease in me multiplying with every word.

Dad squinted at me, then turned to Mom. “That’s where he is.”

There was emphasis on the word “he.” Because “he” was the villain in our family’s story. He was the enemy.

“Yeah, actually, the conference is at the resort,” I said, trying to keep my tone nonchalant. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off all at once.

Dad dropped his fork and Mom stared at me.

“Dad—” I began, but he was already talking.

“You’re going to Kasper Ridge? You know he’s there. He runs the place. He’s up there, building his empire like nothing even happened, and you’re going to go there? Pay for a room? Help him go on like he’s not culpable for your brother’s death? How could you even imagine being in the same town as him?”

And there it was.

I swallowed hard but pushed down the misplaced guilt trying to swamp me. There were no right answers here, but I searched for something anyway.

“They decided it was an accident, Dad.” My voice wasn’t as strong as I’d have liked.

There’d been an investigation. The crash that killed my brother had been determined to be attributable to human error, but the other pilot hadn’t been held accountable because the error was partly Jake’s. It was bad luck, bad weather, bad decision making—a horrible combination of factors that had led to one man dying and another spending the rest of his life playing the devil in every one of my father’s waking moments.

“If it weren’t for him, your brother would be sitting here with us now.” Dad spit these words out.

There were no answers that would mollify Dad, so I didn’t offer any. Instead I ate my mother’s delicious salmon while both my parents pretended to eat, each of them drowning in their own sorrow and sadness.

As a family, we were stuck, mired in the moment none of us had actually lived, but which had changed everything. I was tired of it. I was tired of living every second in memory of my brother. It wasn’t what Jake would have wanted for us. Why couldn’t my parents see that?

“Maybe if I meet him, talk to him, it will help,” I said, my voice gaining strength.

“Help with what, honey?” Mom asked, her eyes shining with years of grief.

“Help me move on,” I said, dropping my own fork. “Maybe it can help us all move on.” I looked between them. I’d never said these words to them, but maybe it was time. “Jake is gone, and we can’t bring him back. Living every day in his memory is one thing, but living every day in grief and sadness is not what he would have wanted for us.” I shook my head, looking back and forth between my parents. Neither of them looked at me, or at each other. It was like they were locked in plexiglass isolation booths, each of them suffering alone. Needlessly.

“Maybe if I meet this man, maybe if he becomes a real person in my head instead of some evil villain . . . maybe I’ll be able to forgive him and get past this. Maybe we all can.”
Dad’s head snapped up.

“Forgive him? For killing your brother?”

“Tom,” Mom said, her voice a plea.

“There is no forgiveness. He took a life, Emily!”

“It was an accident, Dad. It could just as easily have been Jake who survived, and this guy, Archie Kasper, who died.”
“If only it had been,” Dad said. His pain had gotten in the way of his humanity since the moment he’d learned the details of the accident.

“Don’t say that, Tom. We wouldn’t wish this on any other family . . .”

“He has no family.” Dad had read every detail he could find about Archie Kasper’s life. He knew that he’d inherited an old resort in the mountains of Colorado with his sister, and that against all odds, they’d managed to rejuvenate it and turn it into a sought-after destination.

I’d pitched my editor a feature to help pay for my travel to the conference: A Down-to-Earth Alternative to Aspen. He’d suggested something a little different, but had still been enthusiastic. In fact, he’d told me if I could dig up the story he wanted, he’d put it on the cover, and that would be a career-maker.

“Your brother’s at the bottom of the sea somewhere, and that guy’s living in the lap of luxury, swimming in his inherited fortune, going on like nothing ever happened,” Dad said, his plate forgotten in front of him now.

I did wonder about Archie Kasper. Had he been able to move on so easily? “Maybe I can go up there and find out if that’s true,” I suggested. “I’m sure it’s not.”

“I made a lovely almond torte,” Mom said, clearly desperate to move on from this conversation.

“None for me,” Dad said, standing. He turned and shuffled back into the house, no doubt to pick up where he left off in his ongoing mourning of my brother’s short life.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” I sank back against the chair back, exhausted. My mother sat perfectly still, staring at the spot my father had left. But where I expected to see her crumple, maybe even begin to cry, she straightened.

“No,” she said, and then her gaze snapped to mine. “You go there. I think it’s a good idea. Meet this boy. Find out the truth.”

“The truth? Mom, there was an investigation. What am I going to find out that the navy didn’t already?”

“Not about the crash. Find out the truth about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Emily, your father’s life ended the day Jake’s did. Our lives together ended that day. All because there is a man running free who your father’s been able to point all his anger at. He has someone to blame, but he can do nothing about it. Find out if that blame is deserved.”

“And if it is? If he’s a horrible person and he’s just blithely going on with his life and never thinks of Jake at all?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But at least we’ll be certain that these years we’ve spent on hating him haven’t been wasted.”

I shook my head as tears threatened, exasperated. “Of course they’ve been wasted, Mom.”

Now she slumped. “I know.”

“What could I possibly find out? Would it make you guys happy if I discover that he’s a shell of a person like Dad? How would that help us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Her voice was a spindly thread.

“Or what if I find that he’s somehow managed to move forward and make a real life for himself? Would that be any better?”

“I just don’t know.”

I stood and collected my father’s plate and my own. “I’m going to Colorado. But not because of him. I’m going because the best conference I could find to help me achieve my dream is going to be there. It’s a coincidence that it happens to be at his resort.”

“Or maybe it’s some kind of fate,” Mom said, standing and collecting her own plate.

“I don’t believe in fate.”

I turned and went inside, the lie sitting heavy on my tongue.
Of course it had felt like fate intervening when I’d learned where the conference was being held. I just wasn’t sure what fate intended by sending me there.

But it didn’t matter. I had a good reason for going. And if fate was kind, maybe my going to Kasper Ridge would be the thing to win me the cover story the editor had proposed, and maybe it would be the thing my family needed to break free from the chains we’d worn all these years.

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