“It was a pleasure and an experience meeting you. Dr. Fallon will be back in the office tomorrow. If you have any problems before then, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Raina said.
“So what’s the story?” Rick, the middle child no one had ever been able to ignore, barreled through the drawn curtain with Chase on his heels. Rick’s brash nature echoed his mother’s personality. His dark brown hair and hazel eyes resembled Raina’s before her hairdresser had gotten hold and changed her to a honey-blond to obliterate the gray.
In contrast, Roman and Chase were the bookends with jet-black hair and blazing blue eyes. Both her oldest and youngest were the spitting image of their father. Their imposing builds and dark hair never failed to remind her of John. Only their personalities were uniquely their own.
Chase stood in front of his agitated sibling and faced the doctor head-on. “What’s going on?”
“I think your mother’s condition is something she’d like to explain herself,” the doctor said, then slipped beyond the awful multicolored curtain.
Ignoring the tug of guilt in favor of the greater good, and assuring herself they’d thank her in the end, Raina blinked back tears and placed a shaky hand over her heart. Then she explained her frail health and long-standing desire to her sons.
CHAPTER ONE
Roman Chandler glared at his oldest brother, or more accurately he glared at the quarter in Chase’s right hand. After getting the phone call about his mother’s heart problem, Roman had grabbed the first flight out of London. He’d flown into JFK Airport, taken a connecting flight to Albany, and then rented a car so he could drive an hour to his hometown of Yorkshire Falls, just outside of Saratoga Springs, New York. He was so tired even his bones ached from sheer exhaustion.
And now he could add stress to his problems. Thanks to his mother’s heart condition, one of the Chandler brothers would have to sacrifice his freedom in order to provide Raina with a grandchild. A coin toss would decide which brother would shoulder the burden, but only Rick and Roman would be involved. Having already done his family duty by giving up college to run the paper and help his mother raise his younger brothers, Chase wouldn’t take part in the toss—despite his argument to the contrary. He’d wanted things equal. Rick and Roman had insisted Chase opt out.
He’d play executioner instead.
“Call it. Heads or tails,” Chase said.
Roman glanced at the unpainted ceiling, toward the upstairs of his childhood home where his mother was resting, as per doctor’s orders. Meanwhile, he and his brothers stood waiting on the dusty, dirt-smeared floor of the garage that was attached to the family house. The same garage where they’d stored their bikes and balls as kids, and where Roman had snuck beers when he thought his older brothers weren’t around. And the same house they’d been raised in and their mother still held on to, thanks to Chase’s hard work and his success with the newspaper.
“Come on, guys, someone call it,” Chase said in the wake of the surrounding silence.
“You don’t have to sound like you’re enjoying this,” Rick muttered.
“You think I’m enjoying this?” Chase twisted the coin between his fingers, frustration tugging at his lips. “That’s bullshit. I sure as hell don’t want to see either of you lose the life you chose just because of some whim.”
Roman was certain his oldest brother felt so strongly because Chase hadn’t chosen his own life path. Instead he’d been thrust into the dual roles of publisher and parent overnight. At eighteen and the oldest sibling when their father died, Chase had felt a duty to take his father’s place as head of the family. And that was the motivating factor for Roman’s participation in the coin toss now. Roman had been the one to leave Yorkshire Falls and follow his dreams, while Chase had stayed behind and given up his.
Both Roman and Rick looked to Chase as their role model. If Chase thought their mother’s dire health and her deep desire for a grandchild warranted a sacrifice, then Roman had to agree. Not only did he owe his brother, he shared the same sense of devotion to family.
“It’s no whim Mom suffered,” Roman said to his siblings. “She said it’s a weak heart that can’t handle stress.”
“Or disappointment,” Rick said. “Mom didn’t use that word, but you know damn well she meant it. We’ve disappointed her.”
Roman nodded in agreement. “So if grandchildren will make her happy, then it’s up to one of us to give her one to coddle while she’s still around to enjoy being a grandmother.”
“Knowing one of us is happily married will take the edge off that stress she’s supposed to avoid,” Chase said. “And a grandchild will give her life direction.”
“Can’t we just get her a puppy?” Rick asked.
Roman understood the sentiment. At thirty-one, his lifestyle precluded settling down. Marriage and family hadn’t been in the future. Until now. It wasn’t that Roman didn’t like women. He did. Hell, he loved women, how they smelled and how their soft skin felt gliding against his aroused body. But he couldn’t imagine giving up his career in favor of looking at the same female face across the breakfast table every day for the rest of his life. He shuddered, amazed that his life choices had come down to this one moment.
He turned to his middle brother. “Rick, you’ve tied the knot once. No need to do it again.” Though Roman had no desire to announce himself the man for the job, he couldn’t let his sibling repeat his past—marrying to help someone else while sacrificing himself in the process.
Rick shook his head. “Wrong, baby brother. I’ll take part in the coin toss. Last time has nothing to do with this. This is about family.”
Roman understood. The Chandlers were all about family. So he was back to where they left off. Would he return to his job as foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, continue to land in political hot spots and get the untold stories out to the rest of the world, or would he settle down in Yorkshire Falls the way he’d never planned? Though sometimes Roman wasn’t sure whose dream he was actually pursuing—his, Chase’s, or a combination of both—Roman lived in fear of replicating his brother’s life, of being closed in with no options.
But despite his churning stomach, he was ready and nodded in Chase’s direction. “Get it over with.”
“Whatever you say.” Chase flipped the coin high into the air.
Roman inclined his head toward Rick, giving him the choice, and Rick called out, “Heads.”
As if in slow motion, the quarter circled and flew in the air. Roman’s carefree life passed before his eyes the same way: the women he’d met and flirted with, the special ones who’d lasted long enough to constitute a relationship but not a life mate, the occasional hot, steamy encounter, less often now that he was older and more discriminating.
The sound of Chase’s palm slapping against his hand stunned Roman back into reality. He met his oldest brother’s solemn gaze.
A life change.
The death of a dream.
The severity of the situation hit Roman in the gut. He squared his shoulders and waited, while Rick sucked in an exaggerated breath.