Ten Years Later... Read online

  The one who got away…and came back

  What was he doing back here, disrupting Brianna McKenzie’s cozy world? Sebastian Hunter, heartbreaker extraordinaire, had actually shown up to their high school reunion. All at once, she felt that unshakable chemistry again, the life that might have been if he’d stayed in Bedford. Broken promises and regret. Why would she even consider getting involved with him again?

  If it weren’t for his mother’s suspicious encouragement, Sebastian would never have attended the school function. But then he saw Brianna, the woman he’d blocked from his thoughts for years as he threw himself into his work. The past—those feelings he never quite forgot—came rushing back. This was his chance—to walk away again or face the person who’d captivated him, body and soul.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Brianna automatically apologized, stepping back and trying to collect herself.

  She felt slightly flustered, but did her best not to show it.

  “No, it was totally my fault,” Sebastian said, annoyed with himself. Drawing back, he’d automatically reached out to steady the woman he’d nearly sent sprawling. He caught her by her slender shoulders. The next moment, his vision clearing, enabling him to actually focus on the face of the woman before him, he dropped his hands from her shoulders, stunned.

  At the same time, Sebastian’s jaw dropped.

  The one person he hadn’t wanted to run into at the reunion was standing less than five inches away from him.

  Looking far more radiant than he ever remembered her looking.

  Dear Reader,

  Matchmaking Mamas was supposed to be a three-book series with three lifelong friends joining forces to get their three daughters married. Since I am never one to let something go (just ask my husband), I decided to keep the series going for another book or two—or six.

  This time, what came to mind was my own beloved editor’s fairy-tale romance. The young man she danced with at a prom contacted her twenty-six years later just to see how she was doing. Life had taken them on separate paths, literally halfway around the world from one another. “Catching up” led to lengthy phone calls, to a visit, to a relocation and then, best of all, to “happily ever after.” How could I not write about that?

  Patience and Sam became my inspiration for this book. I am forever grateful that they shared this story with me and, most important of all, that they came back into one another’s lives and proved that second chances are possible and that optimism is not baseless. Happy Forever, Patience and Sam.

  As always, I thank you for reading, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  All the best,

  Marie Ferrarella

  Ten Years Later…

  Marie Ferrarella

  Selected books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Special Edition

  ¶A Match for the Doctor #2117

  ¶What the Single Dad Wants… #2122

  **The Baby Wore a Badge #2131

  ¶¶Fortune’s Valentine Bride #2167

  ¶Once Upon a Matchmaker #2192

  §§Real Vintage Maverick #2210

  ¶A Perfectly Imperfect Match #2240

  ~~A Small Fortune #2246

  ¶Ten Years Later… #2252

  Silhouette Special Edition

  ~Diamond in the Rough #1910

  ~The Bride with No Name #1917

  ~Mistletoe and Miracles #1941

  ††Plain Jane and the Playboy #1946

  ~Travis’s Appeal #1958

  Loving the Right Brother #1977

  The 39-Year-Old Virgin #1983

  ~A Lawman for Christmas #2006

  ¤¤Prescription for Romance #2017

  ¶Doctoring the Single Dad #2031

  ¶Fixed Up with Mr. Right? #2041

  ¶Finding Happily-Ever-After #2060

  ¶Unwrapping the Playboy #2084

  °Fortune’s Just Desserts #2107

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Private Justice #1664

  †The Doctor’s Guardian #1675

  *A Cavanaugh Christmas #1683

  Special Agent’s Perfect Cover #1688

  *Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard #1699

  *Cavanaugh Rules #1715

  *Cavanaugh’s Surrender #1725

  Colton Showdown #1732

  A Widow’s Guilty Secret #1736

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  †A Doctor’s Secret #1503

  †Secret Agent Affair #1511

  *Protecting His Witness #1515

  Colton’s Secret Service #1528

  The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair #1556

  *Cavanaugh Pride #1571

  *Becoming a Cavanaugh #1575

  The Agent’s Secret Baby #1580

  *The Cavanaugh Code #1587

  *In Bed with the Badge #1596

  *Cavanaugh Judgment #1612

  Colton by Marriage #1616

  *Cavanaugh Reunion #1623

  †In His Protective Custody #1644

  Harlequin American Romance

  Pocketful of Rainbows #145

  °°The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise #1329

  °°Ramona and the Renegade #1338

  °°The Doctor’s Forever Family #1346

  Montana Sheriff #1369

  Holiday in a Stetson #1378

  “The Sheriff Who Found Christmas”

  °°Lassoing the Deputy #1402

  °°A Baby on the Ranch #1410

  °°Forever Christmas #1426

  *Cavanaugh Justice

  †The Doctors Pulaski

  ~Kate’s Boys

  ††The Fortunes of Texas: Return to Red Rock

  ¤¤The Baby Chase

  ¶Matchmaking Mamas

  °The Fortunes of Texas: Lost…and Found

  °°Forever, Texas

  **Montana Mavericks: The Texans Are Coming!

  ¶¶The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  §Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle

  ~~The Fortunes of Texas: Southern Invasion

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Harlequin Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

  To Patience Bloom and her Sam,

  who were my inspiration

  for this story.

  Thank you.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Prologue

  “Maizie, may I speak with you?”

  Maizie Sommer looked up from her desk and watched the approach of the sweet-faced, heavyset woman who’d just entered her real estate office.

  She knew that look. She’d seen it before, more t
han once. Not in her capacity as a remarkably successful Realtor with her own agency, but in her role as an even more successful matchmaker.

  What had begun several years ago as a determined plan to get her own daughter—and the daughters of her two best friends—matched up and married to their soul mates had turned into a calling.

  Since the first time she had gone down this path, Maizie, along with Theresa Manetti and Cecilia Parnell, all three best friends since the third grade, had never encountered failure. Strong gut instincts had guided the three women as they played matchmakers for friends and relatives, unerringly pairing up their targets, not for profit but for the sheer love of it.

  As they amassed one triumphant pairing after another, their reputations grew. So much so that at times, their businesses were forced to take a temporary backseat to what Maizie liked to refer to as their “true mission.”

  “Come in, Barbara,” Maizie said warmly. Rising, she turned the chair in front of her desk so that the visitor could easily take a seat. “So tell me, what can I do for you?”

  Barbara Hunter, whose fondness for rich, good food was evident, sank down into the proffered chair. The retired high school English teacher sighed wearily. This was something she’d been wrestling with for a long time. Coming to Maizie for help amounted to a last-ditch effort before she completely gave up.

  “You can tell me how to light a fire under my stubborn son.”

  Maizie looked at the other woman, puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  Anticipating her friend’s question, Barbara elaborated. “He was supposed to come home for his high school’s ten-year reunion, but now he tells me that he doesn’t have time for that ‘nonsense,’—his word, not mine—and that he wants to save that time and put it toward his Christmas vacation so that when he does come out, we can have a nice, long visit.”

  Soft brown eyes shifted imploringly toward Maizie. “Oh, Maizie, I had such hopes for him....” Barbara’s voice trailed off, lost in another deep sigh.

  Maizie, meanwhile, was busy cataloging information. “Remind me, where’s your son now?”

  “Sebastian is in Japan, teaching Japanese businessmen how to speak English. He’s really very good at it,” she interjected with visible pride. “When he skipped his five-year reunion, he told me that he’d attend the next milestone reunion ‘for sure.’ His words,” she said again, more bleakly this time. She looked like a woman clinging to the last vestiges of hope and trying to make peace with the knowledge that it was slipping through her fingers. “I was hoping he’d go to this one and maybe even get together with Brianna.”

  The name seemed to just wistfully hang there. “Brianna?” Maizie prodded.

  Barbara nodded. “Brianna MacKenzie, the girl Sebastian went with during his senior year. I have this beautiful prom picture of the two of them,” she confided, then added with feeling, “A lovely, lovely girl. I really thought that they’d wind up getting married, but Sebastian went off to college and Brianna stayed behind to take care of her father. The poor man was involved in a terrible car accident the night of the prom. She literally nursed him back to health and was so good at it, she went on to become an actual nurse.”

  Barbara closed her eyes and shook her head as she felt the last nail being hammered into the coffin of her dreams.

  “I had hoped...” Her voice trailed off, but it wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. “Now Sebastian’s apparently changed his mind again. I’m beginning to think that I’m never going to see my son get married, much less hold a grandchild in my arms. Sebastian’s my only boy, Maizie. My only child. I’ve tried to be patient. Lord knows I haven’t interfered in his life, but I don’t have forever. Do you have any suggestions?” she asked, clearly counting on a miracle.

  The wheels in Maizie’s head were already turning and she was lost in thought. “How’s that again?” she asked, focusing intently.

  “Do you have any suggestions?” Barbara Hunter repeated.

  But Maizie shook her head. “No, not that. What did you say just before that?” she coaxed.

  Barbara paused and thought. “That I don’t want to interfere in his life?” She had no idea what Maizie was after.

  Maizie frowned, shaking her head. “No, after that,” she stressed.

  Barbara paused again, thinking for a moment longer. “That I don’t have forever?” It was purely a guess at this point.

  Maizie smiled broadly. “That’s it.”

  Barbara looked at her uncertainly, completely lost. “What’s it?”

  The pieces were all coming together. Maizie almost beamed. “That’s how you’re going to get Sebastian to come home—and incidentally, to attend the reunion.”

  Barbara struggled to follow what her friend was saying, but it wasn’t easy. “I think that Sebastian already suspects I’m not immortal.”

  “To suspect is one thing—we all know no one lives forever—but to suddenly come up against that jarring fact is quite another.” She watched Barbara expectantly, throwing the ball back into her court.

  Barbara came to the only conclusion she could. “You want me to tell Sebastian I’m dying?” Even as she said it, it sounded surreal.

  “Not dying, Barbara,” Maizie corrected gently. “You’re going to tell your son that you had ‘an episode.’”

  It still didn’t make any sense. “An episode? An episode of what?”

  “Well, definitely not an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles,” Maizie told her with a patient smile. “If I remember correctly, Bedford High is celebrating a graduating class’s tenth reunion in ten days, right?”

  That her friend had this sort of information at her fingertips caught Barbara off guard. She knew that Maizie’s daughter hadn’t gone to that school and knew of no reason why the woman should be aware that the high school was throwing another reunion party.

  “How do you know?”

  “How do I know that?” Maizie guessed. She loved being on top of things. “It just so happens that Theresa Manetti was talking about landing the catering assignment for that party just the other day. But never mind that for now. You just call that son of yours and tell him that you don’t want to alarm him but that you might have had a minor stroke, and that you’d really rather not put off seeing him, ‘just in case.’”

  “But I’ll be lying to Sebastian and that’s a bad lie,” Barbara protested uncomfortably.

  Maizie looked at her innocently. “Then you do want to put off seeing him?”

  “No, of course not. That part’s true enough, but I haven’t had a stroke, light or otherwise,” Barbara underscored.

  Maizie quoted a statistic. “Did you know that, according to a report I recently read, some people actually have strokes and never realize it?”

  “No, I didn’t kn—” Barbara held the information highly suspect. “Maizie, are you stretching the truth?”

  “No, not stretching, Barbara, but you of all people must know that communication is all about how you use your words. It’s not what you say but how you say it,” she told the other woman with a broad smile. “You have to be ruthless if you want your son to come home.”

  Barbara still seemed uncomfortable about the untruth. “I don’t know, Maizie....”

  “You don’t know if you want to see your son happily married and starting a family?” Maizie asked.

  “No, of course I do,” Barbara said with feeling. And got no further.

  Maizie could feel her adrenaline beginning to surge. She loved a challenge—and this had the makings of a really good one.

  “Good. Then let me look into a few things and I’ll get right back to you. With the reunion so close, we don’t have that much time. In the meanwhile, you get that son of yours on the phone and tell him that you really want to see him now. That you’d rather not wait until Christmas—just in case. Understood?”
<
br />   Barbara nodded. “Understood.” She only hoped that, in the long run, Sebastian would find it in his heart to forgive her.

  Chapter One

  Sebastian Hunter felt exhausted as he and the three hundred and twelve other passengers packed closely around him ended their eleven-and-a-half-hour international flight by finally getting off the plane at LAX.

  Concerned ever since he’d gotten off the phone with his mother a scant two days ago, he’d been far too wired even to catnap on the flight, which had covered more than five thousand miles and had taken him from the heart of Tokyo to Los Angeles.

  It didn’t help matters any that there was a sixteen-hour time difference between the two cities, not to mention that he felt as if he’d been traveling backward. He’d left Tokyo early on Saturday morning only to arrive in Los Angeles late Friday night, which technically made it the night before.

  And he wasn’t done yet.

  There was still customs to go through, despite the fact that he had brought nothing with him to declare. He’d packed hastily, informed his employer of the family emergency that necessitated his presence and arranged for a leave of absence. And now, perilously close to fraying his very last nerve—because airport security had the passengers as well as its staff on edge—he was forced to pretend he was cool, calm and collected. Otherwise, if he allowed any of the tension he was feeling to show, he might just find himself detained far longer than it would take to queue up for a random search. Tense passengers were regarded with suspicion.

  He struggled to curb his impatience, although he was losing the battle.

  C’mon, c’mon, how long are you going to spend going through her underwear? he wondered irritably as the customs agent rifled through a young woman’s suitcase.

  The process seemed to take forever. Where were Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers when you needed them, Sebastian thought darkly.

  The phrase echoed in his brain, startling him. God, he had to really be punchy if he was thinking about donning the fairy-tale footwear just to get him home.

  His mind was going—and that was in part thanks to his lack of sleep.