Prologue
Thirteen-year-old George Stevens sat on the beach next to his sister, Lilly, who was playing quietly in the sand with their cousin Riley. He watched his family enjoy a beautiful spring day and wondered what he wanted to be when he grew up.
One of his teachers had given him an assignment that was due first thing in the morning on the subject. He had less than twelve hours to write a paper, but George wasn’t worried about the time. He was a straight-A student and did some of his best work late at night. Homework just came easily to him. What worried him was that he had no clue what he wanted to be.
He knew he could pick anything to write about and, whatever he chose, he’d get an A on the paper. His worry went beyond his grades. It was much deeper.
His eyes ran over to where his parents were laughing and holding onto one another as they played in the surf, splashing one another. Just seeing the love that they had, that all of the adults around him had, made him realize one thing.
He wanted someone to look at him like that, someone to love him as much as that.
No matter what his future held, he was bound to find the same thing that everyone in his family had. Even if it took him a lifetime.
Chapter One
Robin had heard the story of how her parents had fallen in love more than a hundred times. Why then did it seem almost impossible for her to find the same kind of love that they had?
Robin’s first boyfriend, Drew, had ended up being a jerk-face cheater. Of course, she had not expected to find the love of her life at fifteen.
Her next boyfriend had broken things off with her less than a month after their first date.
She went through four more boyfriends before graduating high school and two more in college before she’d met Chris.
So then, watching what she believed was the man of her dreams walk away from her holding another woman’s hand had completely broken her heart.
Carly, the other woman, was a cheerleader and almost ten pounds skinnier than Robin. That in and of itself wouldn’t have been a big deal if the girl didn’t have a very impressive pair of D-sized breasts, whereas Robin was stuck with her stupid B cups.
She’d given the man a year of her life. She’d done everything to ensure that Chris had been completely happy the entire time they’d been together. She’d attended every college party or game that he’d wanted to go to. She’d even sat by him, completely bored, most Friday nights when he’d sat on the sofa playing games while other couples went out and had fun.
How a full grown twenty-three-year-old man could choose to spend most of his time glued to video games instead of spending it with his girlfriend was beyond her.
But, seeing Carly, one of the college’s most popular cheerleaders, walk off with her man had set Robin’s back teeth to grinding.
Carly had been out for blood since the moment Robin had rejected being her partner for an English project earlier that year.
Robin’s 4.0 grade point average would’ve taken a dive if she’d partnered with the bleached blonde who quite literally didn’t get why the book was called The Color Purple when it had nothing to do with fashion or the singer Prince.
That had just been the first of the woman’s offensively stupid remarks in class. As the school year progressed, her statements grew bolder and, if Robin could believe it, more calculated. It was almost as if she was disrupting class and saying stupid things on purpose.
Robin was too busy and too focused to spend a moment worrying about the woman messing up her grades, which is why, she believed, Carly changed gears and set her sights on Chris.
Even though Chris could be childish at times, he was still one of the most popular men on campus, mainly because everyone knew the family he came from. The wealth. The power and everything else Chris’s money could afford.
When she’d first met Chris, she’d had no idea who he or his family was. Which is why, at least in her mind, Chris had initially shown an interest in her.
After she’d found out about him, she’d tried to convince herself that it didn’t matter. If anything, it was one reason she didn’t want to continue dating him.
She’d known too many people over the years who used their position to get what they wanted.
Chris hadn’t been like that. Well, not at first, anyway.
Robin had been so devoted to the man, she hadn’t seen anything like Carly coming. In her mind, Chris had been the one. Sure, there was the annoyance of his gaming and his absolute love of sports.
Not that Robin didn’t appreciate a good football game every now and then, but Chris had been the kind to strip down to boxer shorts and paint his entire body green and yellow.
Do you know what it does to a woman to be seen having dinner in a restaurant after a game with a man like that? Everyone they bumped into looked at her funny. They had almost all the time anyway, since she’d felt so out of place everywhere that he’d taken her.
It was as if there was a sign on her forehead saying, yes, I’m from the other side of the tracks. She’d been accused of dating him for his money so often that she had started questioning why she was still with him.
Getting over Chris hadn’t turned out to be that hard, after all. It helped that he’d dumped her only a few weeks before she’d graduated.
Then her sister had come up with a crazy idea to start their own wedding business. Robin had spent an entire week crunching numbers to see if the idea was sound.
She’d been happily surprised when, according to her calculations, the business would be a good investment for their inheritance. Less than a month after graduating, she and Kara had packed up and moved to Pride, Oregon, the small town where they had spent most of their childhood vacations.
The town where their parents had been snowed in one Christmas and ended up falling in love.
One of Robin’s favorite places on earth.
For the first year, Sunset Weddings did what she’d projected it would do. It grew. Made them enough money that she no longer had to fear.
Then Kara had started dating Conner Jordan.
Robin had been really happy for her sister. Honest. She liked Conner. Actually, she liked all the Jordans.
There were so many of them and sometimes she’d had a difficult time keeping track of who was who. Especially during the last big wedding they’d held for Suzie Jordan and Aiden Brogan.
Apparently, that’s when Kara and Conner had bumped into one another and had started dating. Shortly after, her sister moved into the apartment above the local grocery store with Conner.
That had left Robin alone in the small two-bedroom cottage they had purchased along with the massive barn that hosted their venue, which sat directly along the beach.
Robin didn’t mind living alone in the small place. She quickly turned the other bedroom into an office, since she needed the space to work.
But then Kara had been shot and it appeared that there was a land developer out to not only harm them but somehow take their land away.
She’d never been more afraid for her sister and her life before. She’d never imagined anything like this would happen in a small town.
Seeing Kara lying in the hospital bed, her left arm tucked close to her body, Robin had been so concerned for her little sister that she’d started questioning her choice to come to Pride in the first place. She grew angrier towards the man who had dared to harm Kara.