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  PRAISE FOR NICOLE HELM’S PREVIOUS NOVELS

  “Credible dialogue and deft, deliberate pacing.... The building romantic aspect of this story would be alluring enough on its own, but Helm adds bonus elements of mystery and suspense . . . Delightfully intriguing and enticing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Sharp, funny, and sinfully sexy—Nicole Helm is my favorite new author!”—Maisey Yates, New York Times bestselling author

  “If you like books where the nerdy girl grows up and the hot guy likes her or books where sexual tension sizzles . . . this is your bag. It’s a quick read, [and] an enjoyable one.”—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (“A” rating)

  “A good combination of sexy moments, humorous moments and emotionally tender ones . . . A perfect story for cozying up to a fire.”—RT Book Reviews

  “[Helm] has the knack of writing entertaining, heartwarming and sexy romances with an emotional undertone that makes the reader alternately want to laugh or cry (and usually a little bit of both).”—Harlequinjunkie

  “I read this book in almost one sitting—it’s fun, made me smile and takes place over Christmas, which I enjoyed. Definitely watching for more from this author.”

  —Smexy Books

  “Well, darn! This book was so good, I will have to read the first two.... I do enjoy well-developed characters and a story line that reads like a roller-coaster ride.”

  —The Good, the Bad, and the Unread

  Books by Nicole Helm

  Mile High Romances

  Need You Now

  Mess With Me

  Want You More

  Gallagher & Ivy Romances

  So Wrong It Must Be Right

  So Bad It Must Be Good

  Want You More

  NICOLE

  HELM

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE FOR NICOLE HELM’S PREVIOUS NOVELS

  Books by Nicole Helm

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  About the Author

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Nicole Helm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U. S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-4280-8

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4281-5

  eISBN-10: 1-4201-4281-X

  To all the trails I’ve hiked

  that led me to my happily ever after

  with my very own hero

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every book I write gets done because of a group of amazing women who help me every step of the way: Maisey and Megan, my cheerleaders as I write; my hardworking agent, Helen Breitwieser; and my supportive editor, Wendy McCurdy. They all make writing a joy and I couldn’t do it without them.

  Chapter One

  Tori Appleby had fallen in love with Gracely, Colorado, almost the moment her Jeep had driven over the boundary. It was gorgeous, for starters. Settled into a valley where mountains bracketed either side, craggy, snow-peaked sentries that seemed to look out over the tiny Colorado town.

  She’d felt . . . protected. Which was overly fanciful and unlike her, but she’d liked it just the same. She’d lived in a lot of beautiful places, and they all held different pieces of her heart. From a never-ending wheat field in Kansas, to the poshest resort in Vail or Telluride, she’d always found ways to appreciate the land around her.

  When you were alone, it was all you had.

  But Gracely was special. Back in college, when the Evans brothers and Sam Goodall had been her best friends, when they’d planned a future business endeavor together, Brandon and Will had spoken of Gracely like it was the center of the universe. They’d given it a reverence Tori hadn’t believed, even back then when she’d been a little softer, a little more naïve.

  But they were right. Some seven years later, separated from the little family she’d built after leaving her own, she’d come to Gracely and found it could be the center of the world.

  If only that center didn’t include Will Evans, the biggest mistake of her entire life. Which was saying a lot.

  Today, Tori had parked at the east end of town, taking a meandering walk around Gracely in an effort to find a place to live so she could get out of Sam’s hair. More because Sam’s hermit cabin in the woods didn’t offer the amenities she would have preferred. Like a microwave.

  Parking on the east end meant quite a walk to the one and only apartment complex, but she needed that kind of movement, that expending of energy. Because she’d decided to stay, which meant somehow, some way she had to forget about everything with Will and a past she’d let dictate her life for far too long.

  Sarge obediently trotted at her side as she walked at a brisk pace, her German shepherd keeping up with her easily despite his age. Her pet the one constant of the past decade.

  Before she reached the apartment complex that had been her destination, Tori got distracted by a row of shoved-together houses, many with FOR SALE or FOR RENT signs.

  The morning Brandon had gotten back from his honeymoon, he’d handed her a check and called it a signing bonus for agreeing to work at Mile High Adventures. She knew it was bullshit and charity, but she hadn’t had a choice.

  She needed a place to live that wasn’t Sam’s, and she needed to feed herself and her dog. It required money, and she was about out. Two months of unemployment had completely depleted her savings, meager as it had been since she’d been focused on sending money home to her parents before Toby had ruined her.

  Still, no matter how damn weird it was to be here, with Brandon and Sam offering her a job with Mile High Adventures no questions asked, and Will acting like he wished she’d never been born, she’d come to a realization in the past few weeks of haunting Gracely.

  She belonged here. Gracely was perfect. Mile High was exactly what she’d dreamed it could be when she’d been in college with the boys.

  She stood at the corner of two streets, one that would lead to the apartme
nt complexes once she walked past the row of houses.

  The first house was a cute little green structure. It was one of the few houses without a sign in the yard. It struck Tori as sad that so many people were giving up on this pretty little mountain town. Clearly, this was something of a mass exodus with so many signs.

  Of course, if there were this many houses for sale or lease maybe a house was financially feasible? She’d never had a house before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to buy one right this very second, but it would be nice to have somewhere kind of isolated and her own instead of another bland apartment where she had to listen to people stomp around all day or complain about her having a dog.

  She walked down the street. The house next to the green one on the corner was a pretty buttery yellow. Normally, Tori would’ve had no interest in it. Girly, sunshiny colorful stuff just wasn’t in her wheelhouse. But something about this house had her stopping and staring.

  Maybe sunny cheerfulness was out of character, but what if it was exactly the kind of thing she needed? Even though joining Mile High had been the plan all those years ago, returning to that plan didn’t mean this wasn’t a fresh start. Far away from Toby and his lies and his reputation-ruining scandal.

  She could start over in Gracely. Yes, it would mean dealing with some of her past, a past she really had begun to think would never have to be dealt with, but the minute she’d been fired and turned down for every ski instructing job in the area, she’d known that she had to come here. Facing the past was pretty much the only road to take.

  As a teenager, she’d run away from one family. It had been necessary as her brother’s violence had started to center on her, and so she’d always known she couldn’t go back. She tried to pay off her parents’ debts, but that was all it was ever going to be.

  But she’d created a family with Brandon, Will, and Sam all those years ago, and this was a family rift she could fix. She could deal with it now that time had matured her and completely eradicated her problematic feelings for Will. Completely.

  “Hello!”

  Tori turned toward the cheery feminine voice that rang out. A young blond woman was coming out of the green house next door.

  “Hi,” Tori offered carefully, wondering if the woman thought she was a burglar or something. “I was looking at the ‘for lease’ sign there in the yard.” She pointed at it.

  “It’s a great house. At least I think it is. Ours is great and we’ve been here quite a few months now, and the people who were living there were like this cute little couple who took such good care of everything.”

  “Oh, well, thanks,” Tori returned as the woman approached. “I . . . guess I’ll check it out.”

  The woman stuck her hand out between them. “I’m Cora.”

  There was something a little familiar about the woman, but Tori couldn’t place it. She took the woman’s outstretched hand and shook it. “Hi, I’m Tori.”

  Cora cocked her head. “Oh. Tori. I know you!”

  “You do?”

  “You were at the wedding. My sister is Lilly. You know, she married Brandon and you were there. An old friend of the Mile High boys, right?”

  Tori tried to smile, though she was uncomfortable with the connection. She’d only met Lilly briefly, and she’d seemed nice enough, the perfect woman to stand up to Brandon’s bulldozer tendencies, but leasing a house was supposed to give her a break from all those old connections.

  “Anyway, this is a great house and I’m a great neighbor. You can even ask Lilly.” The woman’s wide smile faded a little. “Well, don’t ask her too many questions. Lilly has very high standards.”

  Tori usually found overexuberance obnoxious, but something about the honesty in Cora’s retraction was endearing.

  A boy, probably not quite a teenager, flew out of the house Cora had come out of. Tori remembered him from the wedding. A blur of edgy energy combined with a kind of surly exterior that reminded Tori a lot of herself when she was a kid.

  “Mom! Where’s my Xbox controller?”

  Cora rolled her eyes, looking far too young to have a son that old. “Duty calls,” she said brightly. “But if you do end up leasing it, stop by and let me know. It’s hard to find friends around my age here.” She started walking back toward her house. “And now that Lilly’s married to Brandon, it’s just me and Micah.”

  Tori had never been very good at making female friendships. She tended to be too abrasive and suspicious of women who knew how to dress or fix their hair. Growing up with brothers and a poverty-stricken mother on a farm and then in a trailer park, she’d never quite acquired the art of femininity. But something about Cora and her cheerful prettiness wasn’t off-putting at all.

  “Yeah, I’ll look into it. It was nice to meet you.”

  Cora waved and disappeared inside with her son. Tori took a step back to examine the house. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and typed the address into her notes.

  It would be nice to have friends. It would be nice to have a connection and a house and all the good things a new start could be made out of.

  For nearly the first time since she’d stepped foot into Gracely knowing a showdown with Will was imminent, she smiled without an ounce of sarcastic gleam behind it.

  * * *

  Will Evans knew that getting drunk didn’t solve problems, but it certainly diffused the messy tangle of emotions currently existing in his chest.

  Tori was here to stay. To stay.

  Will squinted out into the thick pine forest that lined the back of Mile High Adventures. The dusky green, murky and thick, reflected his mood.

  He’d much rather be in his own cabin, but hell if he could swallow Brandon and Lilly’s lovefest. He was happy for them. More power to them. In his current mood, he’d rather gouge his eyeballs out than have to witness them.

  Damn, but he had to get himself together. He had convinced everyone he was a good-time guy, and he’d barely been cognizant of doing it. Until the past few weeks, when everything seemed to be unraveling, including his usual façade.

  He’d been an ass. To just about everyone. His brother, his new sister-in-law, his best friend, his half sister. Hell, he’d been a prick to Skeet, Mile High’s grizzled, old secretary.

  Will was in bad shape, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

  The door to the porch opened, and Will didn’t have to guess it was his brother. Brandon was too quick to speak for it to be anyone else.

  “I won’t let you turn into an alcoholic, if that’s your plan.”

  Will took a deep breath. He didn’t want to be an asshole to Brandon. Or anyone. “Don’t you have a pregnant wife to flutter around?” Oops.

  “I do, and I’d much prefer to be doing just that, but everyone is worried about you.”

  It was new. People being worried about him. It was uncomfortable, all in all. He much preferred everyone thinking he was fine. He liked people coming to him for a laugh or a joke or a fun night on the town.

  “And you drew the short stick, eh? Pull up a chair. I’ll drink to your—”

  “Will.”

  Will stopped, if only because he hadn’t heard that kind of grave note to his brother’s voice since Brandon had delivered the news Dad had died.

  “I need you,” Brandon said simply. Baldly. In a way that had Will squirming in his seat. “I need you healthy and whole. A lot of changes are happening, and Gracely is still dying, and we are, in fact, its only hope that I can see. Mile High needs all of you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Will you be? Because you seem to be hitting the bottom of those bottles a little too much for anyone’s comfort lately.”

  “You want me to stop drinking? Fine, I will.” He held out the bottle, and when Brandon took it, Will did his best to shrug. Yeah, he’d been drinking too much lately, though he was an adult and that was his choice to make, but if Brandon wanted to play moral police, Will would let him. No skin off his nose.

  “I know you don’t wan
t to talk about it, but if this is all about Tori, you need to tell me.”

  All of Will’s attempts to be unaffected fluttered away like ash in the wind. That’s what he felt like, actually. His marriage was over. His brother was happily married and procreating. Mile High was doing well, and maybe that hadn’t trickled down to Gracely yet, but it would.

  And Tori was back.

  “Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about . . . her.”

  “You’re not hearing me. If it’s about her, you need to tell me.”

  “Why?” Will demanded, all that edginess leaking into his tone no matter how much he tried to bury it.

  “Because I will tell her to leave.”

  Will whipped his gaze to his twin brother. “You outvoted me,” he said, pushing down the clawing temper trying to free itself. Brandon and Sam had decided they wanted Tori back and Will had been outvoted.

  “I will change my vote if it brings my brother back.”

  Will swallowed. Hell, wasn’t that tempting? Say the word and she’d be gone. He could go back to pretending that night seven years ago had never happened. That Tori had never happened.

  But somehow it wasn’t a relief, in the least. It settled all wrong in his gut. “You don’t want to do that,” he managed to say, though it sounded far more strangled than he wanted it to.

  “I don’t, no. But I can get her a job somewhere else. I can give her money to leave. If you simply cannot coexist with her, then I will fix it.”

  “You can’t fix everything, Brandon.”