Her Bachelor Challenge

“Darn it, Bridgett. You know how much I care about you.”

Cared, Bridgett thought, but didn’t love. Would never love. At least not in the way she had once wanted desperately for Chase to love her. Now she knew better, of course. Chase might have once considered her his very best buddy and partner in mischief, but when it had come to dating, he had always chosen others. At first she had thought—wrongly—it was just because he was romancing women from his own social class. That theory had been blown out of the water when he became engaged to Maggie Callaway, who was from the same working class background as Bridgett. Then she had known that social status was not the reason Chase didn’t pursue her. He simply wasn’t attracted to her. Not in that way. So she had put any lingering hope of a romance between them aside and kept her distance from Chase as much as possible. She had known then what she had to remind herself of now. Chase protected her and watched out for her in a familial sort of way. There was nothing the least bit romantic in his feelings toward her—and never would be.

Silence fell between them. “Your mother didn’t tell me you were engaged,” Chase said finally when she didn’t respond to him.

“That’s because I’m not yet,” Bridgett explained with a great deal more patience than she felt.

He dropped his arm, stepped back until he was once again leaning against the opposite wall of the first-floor powder room, his six-foot-two-inch frame dwarfing her own five-foot-seven one a little less. “But you’re close,” Chase asserted unhappily, still studying her face.

“I think we’re definitely headed that way. Yes.”

Abruptly Chase looked as if he had received a sucker punch to the gut. Again Bridgett warned herself not to take his reaction personally. Chase was probably just suffering the pangs any “brother” would have about seeing his “sister” married off.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Chase asked finally in a rusty-sounding voice.

Bridgett tried not to notice how handsome Chase looked in the soft lighting of the room. After all, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to his stunning good looks. She had grown up looking into those long-lashed, slate-blue eyes of his and knew full well they were the color of the ocean on a stormy day. She had committed to heart the rugged planes of his face, the square jaw, the high cheekbones and wickedly sexy smile. Okay, maybe his shoulders did look a little broader and stronger, his abdomen a little flatter, since the last time she had seen him. Maybe he was a little more tan and rough around the edges. But the ensemble of pleated khaki shorts, loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt and sneakers was the same. Chase wanted people to see him as a slacker when she knew full well he was anything but. Deep down he was as ambitious and determined to succeed in business as she was, if not more so.

“The guy?” Chase prodded again when Bridgett failed to answer his query. “The ring giver does have a name, doesn’t he?”

Bridgett flushed. “Martin Morganstern.”

Chase shook his head and looked all the more disappointed and distressed. “Not the art-gallery guy over on King Street,” he said, groaning.

“One and the same,” Bridgett confirmed, unable to help the haughty edge that came into her voice. “And you needn’t speak of him with such derision.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “Man, Bridgett! That guy is old enough to be your father!”

Bridgett forced a droll smile as she allowed, “Only if I were sired when he was thirteen.”

“Which makes him…?”

Bridgett pushed aside her own lingering uneasiness that there was something just not right about her and Martin, despite the fact that on paper, anyway, when it came to all the relevant facts, they looked very good as a couple. “He’s forty-five.”

“To your thirty-two.” Chase blew out a gusty breath and slammed his hands on his hips. “The guy’s too old for you. Way too old.”

Bridgett shrugged. She didn’t know why, exactly, but Chase was making her want to punch him. “You’re welcome to your opinion,” she told him icily. “Fortunately,” she said as she tried to step past him once again, “I don’t have to abide by it.”

Chase smiled as if he had an ace up his sleeve and once again stepped to block her way. “What does your mother think about that ring?” he asked smugly.

Another alarm bell went off in Bridgett’s head. Ignoring the probing nature of Chase’s gaze, she said stiffly, “She hasn’t noticed it yet.” She’d been too busy in the kitchen.

Chase immediately had an “Aha!” look on his face.

Bridgett grimaced all the more. “I was about to show her when you and Gabe started brawling.”

Chase smirked. “Likely story.”

Not for the first time in her life, Bridgett wished Chase didn’t know her so well. “I’ll do it later,” she said.

Chase ran a hand along the light stubble on his jaw and continued to regard her smugly. “I think you’re stalling.”

Bridgett squared her shoulders as if for battle. “I am not.”

Chase lifted his dark brow in silent dissension. “Your mom won’t approve of you accepting such a lavish gift from him,” he predicted matter-of-factly.

Unfortunately Bridgett was pretty sure Chase was right about that, since to date Theresa hadn’t approved of much of anything Martin had done.

“In fact,” Chase predicted, leaning even closer, “I bet she doesn’t like you dating Martin any more than I do, does she?”

“Fortunately for me,” Bridgett parried, ignoring the warmth emanating from Chase’s tall strong body, “it’s not up to my mother whom I should or should not spend time with.”

Chase’s brows drew together like twin thunder-clouds. “You should listen to her, Bridgett. Your mother has always had a lot of sense.”

“In most matters.” Bridgett felt her hackles go up as she delineated precisely, “Not this.”

“You need to give that ring back, Bridgett.”

“Really.” Taking exception to the tone of his voice, Bridgett folded her arms beneath her breasts contentiously and glared at him. “And why would that be?”

Because that ring is the kind of gift a man gives to announce a woman is his. And his alone. And I just can’t see you with a smooth talker like Morganstern, Chase thought. Aware she was waiting for an answer and fuming while she did so, Chase did his best to conjure up an answer. “Because you’re too young to get that serious about someone,” he said finally.

“I’m thirty-two,” Bridgett shot back, temper sparking her beautiful brown eyes. “If I want to have a family of my own—”

“You’ve got plenty of time for that.”

Again she looked down her nose at him, as if he just didn’t get it. “I’m ready to get married and settle down now,” she explained as if to a moron.

Chase frowned, and unable to help himself, blurted out in frustration, “At least find someone who can make you happy while you do it!”

Bridgett propped her hands on her hips. “What makes you think Martin won’t make me happy?”

Because I just know, Chase thought, uneasiness sifting through him. Aware how lame that would sound, he remained silent.

Bridgett stared at him as if she had never seen him before and had no clue who he was. “Like I said, I’ve got to go.” She ducked around behind him and exited the powder room without another word.

CHASE WAS DISAPPOINTED he hadn’t been able to make Bridgett see what a mistake she was making even dating Mr. Wrong. But that didn’t mean he was giving up. He figured it would take time—and persistence—to make Bridgett see the error of her ways. But he figured she’d be grateful to him in the end. He didn’t want her suffering the way he had when he’d been betrothed to the wrong person.

In the meantime he needed to check on his mother. He found Grace upstairs in the guest room where she always stayed. She had changed out of her travel clothes and into a slim apple-green dress that only seemed to emphasize her recent weight loss. The strain lines on her face seemed all the more pronounced in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. “Are you going to be okay?” He didn’t know why, but she seemed more vulnerable now than when she had first arrived and told them she’d been fired. He wasn’t used to his take-charge, kick-butt mother being weak.

“Of course I’ll be all right,” Grace said in the firm parental voice she had used on him and his siblings. She looked at him sternly. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“Can’t help it.” Chase sauntered into the bedroom and shut the door behind him, so they could talk privately. “In the first place, I’m the oldest son.”

“Which does not make you responsible for me.”

Maybe that would’ve been true had there been someone else—like a husband around all the time—to protect her. But there wasn’t. “Even so, in your place, I’d be reeling,” Chase told her frankly.

Grace opened the first of several suitcases with a beleaguered sigh. “I’ve suffered setbacks before, Chase.”