Kismet: A Serendipity Novella (10 page)

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me just yet. I agree she
doesn’t need mixed messages. But my message isn’t mixed. Not
anymore.”

Lissa’s expression went from neutral
bordering on stiff to clearly nervous. She looked around, noticing
the people passing by, catching sight of them, some whispering,
some pointing.

Serendipity was a small town, population
approximately 2,500, and yet it seemed like everyone knew everyone
else. In this case, the fact that Trevor and Lissa were breathing
the same air was news. Just as he’d known it would be.

And clearly she was just now realizing it,
too. “We can’t talk in front of all these people,” she said on a
sharp whisper.

“Yes, we can. Because what I have to say can
damn well be said in front of an audience.” He hadn’t planned
things this way, but now he realized it was his one shot at making
her believe in him.

In them.

“I screwed up.”

Her cheeks flushed pink. She folded her arms
across her chest and raised an eyebrow, but she stood still. She
was listening.

“I shouldn’t have walked away two weeks ago.
I thought about you and me and the past ... and I panicked.”

“And now you’re fine? Now you can handle the
fact that the daughter I love more than life itself is also Brad
Banks’s daughter? How does that work, exactly?” she asked, staring
him down even as tears streamed down her face.

He reached out and took her hands. They were
shaking.

“It works because I say it does. Because I
lost you once for ten long years. And because instead of talking to
you about my fears, I left you a second time—and I’ll be damned if
I’m that stupid again.” Trevor’s entire life flashed in front of
his eyes as he laid out his feelings for Lissa—and at this point,
half of Serendipity—to hear.

She pulled one hand back and ran her sleeve
over her damp eyes. “Damn it,” she muttered. “You as much as agreed
you couldn’t look at my daughter and not see a constant reminder of
what went wrong.” Her other hand shook inside his.

“I was an idiot. When I looked into that
little girl’s eyes I saw you and only you.”

“Brad gets Livvy every other weekend,” Lissa
said, her voice trembling. “And when he shows up, he comes to the
door, I let him into the house, and he picks her up. We’re civil
for our daughter’s sake.”

Trevor saw exactly where she was going with
this. “I can do that, too. I’m just wondering if it can be done
from Manhattan instead of from here. Of course, Serendipity is only
an hour from the city, so if you insist on staying, I can also
adjust to the commute.”

“I got a job with the
News
Journal
,” Lissa said, addressing the only thing that seemed
real to her at the moment. “They’re located in Manhattan.”

Trevor’s grin held both excitement and
pride. “We’ll talk,” he assured her, obviously not making snap
decisions for her.

She still wasn’t sure she could take it all
in. She supposed that was due to the fact that she wasn’t sure she
could hear correctly with all the noise. Her vision was blurred
with tears, and she just hadn’t expected him here. As for his
sudden turnaround ... could a girl get that lucky?

“Sweetheart, I said I can be civil to your
ex. As long as we don’t have to invite him for holiday dinners.”
Trevor cocked an eyebrow.

Yet she still didn’t understand and until
she did, she couldn’t accept. “You walked out on me in New York.”
She addressed the thing that kept her up at night and threatened to
choke her during the day.

He held her hands in front of him and
squeezed her tight. “I’m sorry I let you go without a fight the
first time. I’m sorry I didn’t step up and offer to marry you
despite you being pregnant with his child. And I’m really sorry I
walked out in New York. But I’m not going to lose you again.”

Lissa’s throat was full, her heart was
pounding so hard she could hear it over the crowds, and she was
still scared she’d wake up and discover this was all a dream. After
all, the last ten years had been a lonely nightmare. “Trevor—”

“Wait. There’s one more thing I want to say
before you speak, okay?”

She managed a nod, grateful for a few
seconds to pull her thoughts together.

He reached into his pocket and then suddenly
went down on one knee. “Elisabetta Gardelli, will you marry me?
I’ll wait as long as you want, spend all the time in the world
getting to know and love your beautiful daughter and proving myself
to you, but in the meantime ... will you wear this ring? And
promise you’ll marry me eventually?” he asked with the most
endearing grin on his handsome face.

But his expression was more serious than
she’d ever seen it, and his hands weren’t steady as he knelt before
her and the entire town of Serendipity, ring in hand.

And what a ring it was. Though blurred by
her tears, Lissa knew that sucker was huge. But she didn’t care
about the size or the shape or anything more than this man
proclaiming his love for her and promising to love her and her
daughter.

“Till death do us part, Lissa. What do you
say?”

“Yes! Yes.” The words had barely passed her
lips when he grabbed her and swung her around in his arms.

“You’ll never regret it, sweetheart. I’ll
make you happy every damned day for the rest of my life.”

Lissa wiped her happy tears as he put her
down long enough to slip the ring over her finger.

Suddenly she noticed her daughter standing
beside Trevor, looking at him with wide, curious eyes. He bent so
they were eye level. “What is it, pretty girl?” he asked.

Her look was a combination of wariness and
childlike curiosity. “Now do I get to call you Trevor?” she
asked.

Lissa grinned and nodded.

And the crowd around them erupted in
applause that had nothing to do with the score of the game.

Lissa wasn’t sure she deserved such
happiness, but she was definitely going to enjoy each and every
minute. After all, it wasn’t every day a girl got a second chance
with the only man she’d ever loved.

THE END

Don’t miss the The Serendipity
Series

Serendipity
- Faith and Ethan - out now!

Kismet
- a short story - Lissa and Trevor -
out now! (ebook only)

Destiny
- Nash and Kelly - out January 3,
2012

Karma
- Dare and Liza - out May 1, 2012

Read on for an excerpt from
Destiny
, the next book in the Serendipity series

Destiny

Nash Barron might be cynical about life and
more recently about love, but even he normally enjoyed a good
wedding. Today’s affair had been an exception. The invitation had
requested the presence of “close friends and family.” Nash wondered
if he was the only one in the group to notice the irony.

The groom’s two brothers, Nash included,
were a step short of estranged, and they’d only known the flower
girl, their newly discovered half sister, Tess, for six weeks. The
bride’s father was in jail, which left her flamboyant decorator
friend to give her away, while her mother spent the afternoon
downing wine and bemoaning the loss of her beloved home, which just
so happened to be the site of the wedding. The landmark house on
the hill in their hometown of Serendipity, New York, was now owned
by the groom, Nash’s brother Ethan.

Come to think of it, the irony of the
situation might be the only thing Nash had enjoyed about this
day.

That and Kelly Moss, the woman sipping
champagne across the lush green grass of the backyard.

Tess was Nash’s half sister, a product of
his father and Tess’s mother’s affair. Kelly, Tess’s half sister on
her mother’s side, was a sexy woman who by turns frustrated him,
intrigued him, and turned him on. Complicated yet simple enough to
be summed up in one sentence: Kelly Moss was a beautiful woman and
they were in no way blood related.

Which didn’t make his desire for her any
more acceptable. A simple acquaintance-like relationship seemed the
safest route, yet Nash had been unable to find comfortable ground
with either Kelly or Tess in the time since they’d been in
Serendipity. Nash had no idea why he couldn’t connect with his
fourteen-year-old sister, who seemed determined to freeze him
out.

As for Kelly, at first Nash blamed his
frustration with her on the fact that she’d unceremoniously dumped
Tess, a sister the Barron brothers knew nothing about, on Ethan’s
doorstep back in August. She’d demanded he parent the
out-of-control teen. Nash hated to give Ethan credit for anything,
but he had to admit his older brother had turned the wildly
rebellious kid around in a short time. But Nash still had issues
with Kelly’s methods. So when she’d resurfaced and moved to town,
he’d been both understandably wary and shockingly attracted. And
she’d been getting under his skin ever since.

Nash turned away and his gaze fell on Ethan,
his brother whose luck seemed to have done a one eighty since he’d
abandoned his siblings ten years ago. He had chosen the perfect day
for a wedding. Though early October, the temperature had hiked into
the low seventies, enabling him to have the wedding outdoors. Ethan
stood with his arm around his wife, Faith, talking to their
youngest sibling, Dare. Even he had forgiven Ethan for the
past.

Nash couldn’t bring himself to be so
lenient.

He glanced at his watch and decided his time
here was over. The bride and groom were married, cake served,
bouquet thrown. He finished what remained of his Ketel One, placed
the glass on a passing waitress’s tray, and headed toward the
house.

“Leaving so soon?” a familiar female voice
asked.

“The festivities are over.” He turned to
face the woman who’d hijacked his thoughts just moments before.

Kelly, her hair pulled loosely behind her
head, soft waves escaping and grazing her shoulders, stood close
beside him. Her warm, inviting lemony scent enveloped him in
heat.

Nash was a man who valued his personal
space. Kelly was a woman who pushed past boundaries. Yet for a
reason he couldn’t fathom, he lacked his usual desire to find safer
ground.

“The band is still playing,” she pointed
out.

“No one will realize I’m gone.”

Or care. His leaving would probably ease any
tension his presence created.

“I would.” She gazed at him with perceptive
brown eyes.

Intelligent chocolate-colored eyes that
seemed to see beyond the indifferent facade he presented to the
world. One he thought he’d perfected in his late teens, when his
life had been turned upside down by his parents’ deaths followed
quickly by Ethan’s abandonment of both Nash and their younger
brother, Dare.

“Why do you care?” he asked, even though he
knew he’d be smarter to walk away.

She shrugged, a sexy lift of one shoulder
that drew his attention to her soft-looking skin.

“Because you seem as out of place here as I
am.” She paused. “Except you’re not a stranger to town or to this
family.”

Out of place. That one comment summed up his
entire existence lately. How had she figured him out when no one
else ever could?

“I need to leave,” he said, immediately
uncomfortable.

“What you need is to relax,” she countered,
and stopped him with one hand on his shoulder. “Let’s dance.” She
playfully tugged on his tie.

He glanced over to where the rest of the
family gathered next to the dance floor. “I’m not really interested
in making a spectacle.”

“Then we won’t.” She slipped her hand in his
and led him to the far side of the house beneath an old weeping
willow tree.

He could still hear the slow music, but he
could no longer see the dance floor, and whoever was out there
couldn’t see them. She tightened her hold on his hand, and he
realized he’d better take control or she’d be leading him through
this dance. He wrapped an arm around her waist, slid his other hand
into hers, and swayed to the sultry sound of the music coming from
the band.