Her Bachelor Challenge

Bridgett smiled at Tom respectfully. “Someone had to. And since I have…I think I should excuse myself.”

“No reason for that,” Grace said, putting up a staying hand before Bridgett could so much as take a step out of the drawing room. “You’re family, Bridgett, you know that. Besides, I have something to tell you all,” Grace added, just as Theresa came into the room, a silver serving tray of hot crabmeat dip and crackers in hand. “Sit down, everyone.” Grace waited until one and all complied, including Theresa, before she continued reluctantly, “I wanted you to hear this from me before it hits the airwaves.” Grace paused, took a deep breath. “I’ve been fired.”

Chapter Two

Chase stared at his mother, barely able to believe what he was hearing. “What do you mean, you’ve been fired!”

“They can’t fire you!” Mitch cried, incensed, as the entire Deveraux family closed rank around Grace. “You’re the a.m. Sweetheart!”

Looking even more upset than their mother, Amy argued emotionally, “The American public loves you! They said so at last year’s Favorite Celebrity awards!”

Grace sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Since when?” Chase asked, incredulous, unable to understand how his mother could remain so resigned in the face of such a professional catastrophe. For the past fifteen years, her whole world had revolved around that job. She had given up her life in Charleston, sacrificed her marriage and what little happy family life they’d had, at that point, for that job. “Amy’s right, Mom. The morning news shows sink or swim on the personality of their cohosts.”

Grace sat down, looking unbearably weary. Her skin was pale against her cheerful yellow tunic and matching trousers. “The show’s ratings have been sinking for some time now.”

Gabe picked up an overturned chair and set it to rights. He looked their mother square in the eye. “You’re sure you can’t do anything to change the network’s decision?”

Again, Grace shook her head. “It’s not just me,” she said softly. “They’re replacing my cohost, too. And going with a younger couple.”

The family gave a collective sigh as Tom went over to the bar and fixed a tall glass of diet soda and ice. He brought it back to Grace and sat down next to her.

“When is all this going to happen?” Chase asked. He caught Bridgett’s gaze and saw she was just as concerned about his mother as he was. That was no surprise. He knew Bridgett loved his mother, too.

Grace cupped the glass in both her hands and ducked her head. “The network is going to announce my replacement later today. It’ll probably be on the evening news tonight. It may make the Internet before then.”

“You’re not going to hold a press conference?” Mitch, ever the businessman, asked.

Grace shook her head. “I’m letting my publicist handle it. We crafted a statement together before I left New York. She’ll release it.”

“And then what?” Gabe asked. “Will you be going back to finish up?”

“Surely the network is going to give you a big send-off,” Amy said.

Grace sipped her soda. “The network wanted to make a big deal about my leaving, but I told them I didn’t want it. Those things are always maudlin. I’d rather viewers remember me just as I was this morning, when I taped my last show. Besides, it’s not the last time I’ll ever be on television. My agent is already fielding offers. They began coming in last month when there were rumors a change was going to be made.”

Silence fell. Chase noted with no small amount of admiration that his mother seemed to be handling this catastrophe better than the rest of them. “So what are you going to do now?” he asked casually after a moment.

“Your mother is going to be staying here at the mansion,” Tom said. “I’ll be staying at a hotel.”

Chase wasn’t surprised. That had been the case ever since his parents’ divorce. Whenever his mother came to Charleston, she stayed at the family mansion, and his father moved—temporarily—to the Mills House Hotel. It was the only way his mother could get any privacy, she was so well-known. She was besieged by autograph hounds if she checked into a hotel. And staying at the mansion made it easier for her to see all four of her children.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” Grace said, suddenly looking as if she was going to burst into tears, after all, “it’s been a very long day and I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down. That is, if you boys think you can stop fighting long enough to give us all some peace.”

“They had better—” Tom Deveraux cast a warning look at his sons “—or they aren’t half the men I thought they were.”

“WELL, I GUESS he told us,” Chase murmured after his father and mother had disappeared up the wide sweeping staircase.

Bridget looked at Chase. “It’s not as if you didn’t deserve it,” she said, clearly exasperated. “You and Gabe are far too old to be rolling around on the floor.”

“I’ll certainly second that!” Theresa Owens fumed, like the second mother she was to them all. “Chase, you’re bleeding. And Gabe, you need some ice on that eye.”

“You take care of Gabe. I’ll take care of Chase,” Bridgett told her mother. Before Chase could reply, Bridgett had him by the sleeve of his loose fitting linen shirt and was tugging him toward the powder room tucked beneath the stairs. She shut the door behind them, pushed him down on the closed commode and began rummaging through the medicine cabinet for supplies.

“Just like old times, huh?” Chase said. Glad Bridgett had volunteered to act as his nurse, but sorry she had witnessed his humiliation and juvenile behavior, he began unbuttoning his ripped shirt to get a look at the stinging skin underneath.

Bridgett set the antiseptic, antibiotic cream and bandages on the rim of the pedestal sink. She turned back to him, pushed up her cardigan sleeves and prepared to get to work. “You haven’t punched out Gabe since the wedding that wasn’t, have you?”

“No.” Chase peeled off his shirt and stared at the nasty-looking scrape that ran from his left shoulder to midchest and down his arm. He was pretty sure it had happened when he slammed into the mantel and slid to the floor. “Although maybe I should have,” Chase added as he touched his lip and found that it, too, was still bleeding, just a little bit. “Gabe still doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson about stealing someone else’s woman.” Chase grimaced as he checked out a rug burn beneath his right elbow.

“He stole another of your girlfriends?” Bridgett frowned at the scrape on his forearm.

Chase scowled, recalling. “I saw him and Maggie at her beach house a few hours ago. They were kissing.”

Bridgett wet a sterile pad with warm water, doused it liberally with soap, and began washing the scraped skin. “You and Maggie are back together?”

“Hell, no!” Chase clamped his teeth together. Damn, that stung! And damned if Bridgett didn’t seem to enjoy making it sting, too!

“Then why does it matter if Gabe kisses her?” Bridgett added more soap and moved on to his shoulder.

Chase tried not to think about how good it felt to have her hands moving across his skin in such a gentle, womanly way. Bridgett was and had always been his friend, not an object of lust. “Because she was my woman and I was there first!” Chase hissed again as Bridgett dampened another sterile pad and rinsed away the soap on his skin.

Bridgett shrugged. “If that’s your only objection, she was right not to marry you.”

Chase shot her a look. He didn’t care if the two of them had been as telepathic as twins since the moment they were born. He didn’t like the censure in Bridgett’s low tone. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, turning toward her.

“I mean,” Bridgett enunciated as if speaking to a total dunce, “I understand your not wanting him to kiss her if you were in love with her, but if you’re not—”

“I’m not,” Chase interrupted firmly.

“Then it shouldn’t matter to you. Period.”

“Well, it does.” Chase bristled under her watchful gaze.

“Why?” Bridgett dabbed antibiotic cream across his shoulder.

“Because it’s like pouring salt in a wound,” Chase explained in frustration, wishing she would hurry up and get this over with.

“One that obviously has yet to heal,” Bridgett countered, moving close enough to Chase that he could see the barest hint of cleavage revealed by the décolletage of her form-fitting sweater set. He swallowed around the knowledge that Bridgett’s breasts were fuller and rounder than he had ever realized. Or wanted to realize.

“I’m over her,” Chase said, struggling to keep his mind on Maggie, instead of Bridgett and what her closeness, her sheer femininity, were doing to him.

“Just not over the humiliation of being dumped by her,” Bridget guessed, apparently oblivious to the discomfort she was causing him.

Chase shifted his weight to relieve the unexpected pressure at the front of his khaki beach shorts. “You got it.”

Bridgett unrolled sterile gauze across his shoulder. “Well, then, I suggest you get over it,” she advised, her warm hands brushing across his even warmer skin as she taped the bandage into place.