Chance of a Lifetime (Anderson Brothers) (3 page)

After that, Walter launched into a tirade about how careless Chance was and how he was always doing crazy shit. That he was a terrible influence. Her parents told the boys to take the discussion out of the room, probably because she was shaking at that point.

And then Chance left with Walter, muttering the only words he’d said directly to her since he arrived at the hospital, and the last words she’d heard from him in a decade. “I’m sorry, Genny.”

Until tonight. That one word—“Genny”—was all it had taken to rip her heart wide open again. She bet he hadn’t even looked back since he’d left her at the hospital. Never once felt the pain of her absence.

As if of its own accord, her palm pressed to her sternum where the old, familiar ache pounded.

“So, are Chance and your brother still friends?”

“They drifted apart for a while after that, but reconnected in law school. I’m not sure how close they are. Chance is a taboo topic with my brother—with my whole family, really. I kept track of him through news articles about his family or high school friends, though. He was always doing cool stuff. Climbing mountains, white-water rafting, skydiving. Even as early as sixth grade, he loved danger—which drove my family crazy.” It drove her crazy, too, only in a different way.

For weeks after the hospital, she’d called and texted his number multiple times a day with no answer. Then, her attempts got further apart until she stopped calling altogether when she finally got his silent message loud and clear.
Leave me alone.

Sherry touched her shoulder. “Sorry, Gen.”

Not nearly as sorry as she was. Her entire life had been ripped out from under her that night. From that point forward, her family had helicopter hovered, never letting her go anywhere unchaperoned until two months ago, once she’d scraped enough money together from her job to rent her own apartment. Even then, she had to be sneaky and move out when Walter was out of town. But that wasn’t going to be the end of her quest for independence.

“I’m taking the rest of the week off from work. I already turned in my vacation leave notice,” she said, reaching for her cane propped against the table.

“Whoa. Vacation? That doesn’t sound like you.”

It didn’t, but Sally’s death was a game changer. “I’m on a mission. I’m going to knock out the bucket list.”

The door opened, and she turned her head to listen but the outrageously loud family leaving drowned out whoever had entered.

“What else is on your bucket list?”

“Stuff I should have done a long time ago, but played it safe instead. Not anymore. Over the next week, I’m going to do all those things I’ve been wanting to do since high school.”

“Like what? Oh my God! Tell me getting laid is on that list!”

She laughed. “The list is secret, but you’d approve. Daring and dangerous—at least it seemed to be when I was fifteen. Can you take some time off work to help me work through it?”

“I wish. I used up all my vacay days for that trip to Costa Rica, and I’m helping my sister move this weekend.”

Her bubble of determination and enthusiasm deflated like a punctured balloon. She had figured Sherry would be her sidekick for this adventure. Clearly, she hadn’t thought this out well enough. She’d acted impulsively, which always got her in trouble. Still, she was going to make this happen. “Well, I’ll just have to do it alone.” Which was next to impossible. She was savvy and totally able to navigate the city, but some of the things required a sighted person. Maybe she could hire someone… No. Sadly, she didn’t make that kind of money working at Decibels, and since Walter watched her modest trust account like a hawk, he’d know she was up to something if she made a withdrawal. He’d swoop in to tell her that what she was doing was dangerous and put a stop to it.

Her friend sat back down. “I don’t think I like the sound of this.”

She inhaled to respond and froze when the scent of Gain and mint met her nose.

She sniffed twice, loudly for show. “Hey, Sher. Do you smell something?” She turned her face toward the door and wrinkled her nose dramatically. “I smell bullshit.”

Her friend cleared her throat.

Rude wasn’t her norm, but dammit, she was pissed. First the bar, now here. “It’s hard to be full of something and not smell like it. Am I right?”

Chance laughed, which threw her a little because her entire body tightened and buzzed at the sound. It was like being a smitten fifteen-year-old all over again.

As he pulled back the chair next to her, across from Sherry, she put her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t fidget—or worse, touch him. At this point, she wasn’t sure whether she’d slap him or kiss him again.
I am so screwed.

“What do you want, Chance?”

“To talk.”

Sherry’s chair scraped the floor as she stood. “Well, that’s my cue to go, kids.”

Gen grabbed her friend by the arm and yanked hard, forcing her back into her seat. “Please stay. This won’t take long. Chance has a habit of taking off all of a sudden without a word.”

“Genny, I—”

“Don’t call me that. I go by Gen. Genny was someone else. Someone stupid.”

There was a long, awkward silence before he spoke. “Gen. It’s good to see you.”

“Afraid I can’t say the same. Can’t see at all…but wait. You know that. You and Walter discussed that at length at the hospital. I’m disabled and helpless.”

“I never said that.”

“You never refuted it, either.”
Jerk.
She took a shaky breath through her nose
. Delicious-smelling jerk.

There was an excruciatingly long pause until Sherry cleared her throat again, then more silence followed. Gen pretended to be interested in finishing her ice cream, which was a melty mess—just like her insides. She had to get away from him before she couldn’t. All those old feelings came back so hard and fast. It was as if her body didn’t know he had betrayed her.

“Walter tells me you work at a sound studio. That’s cool. It’s the perfect job for you,” he said, voice conversational and in complete opposition to how she was feeling at the moment.

“Yeah. Blind people hear well,” she snapped. “When we’re not busy being helpless, we hear stuff.”

Sherry shifted in her chair, and for a moment she felt like the bitch she was playing out.

“I’m working for my family’s business as the company lawyer.”

“I know that. I overheard Walter telling my mom and dad a few years ago.” She dropped the spoon in her cup and wiped her fingers with a napkin, then retrieved her cane and stood. “You’re old news, Chance Anderson.” Everything in her wanted to spend more time with him, but she’d imagined this meeting for a decade and it always ended the same way in her mind. She took a deep breath and uttered the words she’d imagined saying over and over. “See ya…or not.”

As she gathered her trash from the table, cane propped against her side, a flush of disappointment washed through her. In her imagination, that line was always a triumphant blow delivered to her enemy. Instead, it just felt…lame—like her life in general. After pitching her cup, spoon, and napkin in the trash, she tapped her cane around the edge of the can, across the slick vinyl floor, and contacted the metal door threshold, but was stopped short by his next words.

“I need your help, Gen.”

Now that wasn’t in any of her imagined scenarios. Chance asking for assistance was nowhere on her radar.

She faced him, but said nothing.

“I understand you’re mad at me for what happened on New Year’s all those years ago. It still makes me sick to think of you in that water…”

Holy crap.
He thought she was mad about the fall. It was all she could do to not laugh. The discomfort of the cold and stitches was nothing compared to his ripping her heart out.
Clutching her cane in a death grip, she kept her voice low and controlled. “What do you want, Chance?”

“For you to not tell Walter we…that… Please don’t tell him about the bar.”

As if.
Walter would never let her out of his sight if he knew she’d kissed a guy in a bar. “Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to tell your best friend from high school, who just happens to be my big brother, that you stuck your tongue in my mouth and groped my ass?”

His breath audibly hitched. “You mean the part where you walked up and practically jumped me—or rather jumped whomever you thought I was.”

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t think it was you.”

“Clearly not.”

“Now, kids. Let’s play nice,” Sherry said.

“He started it,” Gen snapped, sounding just like the little girl he most certainly believed her to be.

“And I want to end it,” he replied. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t tell him about the kiss, but I’d rather he not know I was at the bar at all. He wouldn’t like it.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Big brother was a controlling jerk, and he was going to have a shit if he found out she was setting off on the adventure of living her bucket list.

“Yeah, Walter would be pissed knowing you’ve been at that bar every Tuesday, which, coincidentally, is the exact same day I’m always there. And the bartender says you’ve been doing it for a couple of months. Why is that, Chance?”

“We won’t cross paths again,” he continued. “You can go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine, with Walter none the wiser.”

Like hell she was going back to her boring, safe life. She was living life to the fullest from now on, with or without Sherry. Again, her determination wavered as she lamented that her friend wasn’t going to help her out.

And then it hit her—an idea so brilliant and perfect she couldn’t help grinning. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. Show Chance Anderson exactly what he’d missed when he walked out of her life a decade ago while ticking off her bucket list items. Win-win.

She crossed back to the table and lowered into her seat, turning her face to him. “I won’t tell Walter you’ve been lurking at the bar, but there’s a price.”

Chapter Five

“I
need the rest of the week off.” Chance lifted his chin and waited.

His big brother Michael pulled his attention from his computer screen, narrowed his eyes, and leveled his gaze on Chance from across the vast, polished mahogany desk that was once their father’s before Michael took over as CEO of Anderson Enterprises.

“Absolutely not.” Clearly expecting no further discussion, he returned his focus to his computer.

“Wait. No?”

Eyes still on his screen, his brother used his most practiced I’m-in-charge voice. “We’re shutting down all next week. You have vacation days then.”

“So, we’ll close the entire office when you get married—”

“And Will. He’s getting married, too.”

“But I can’t ask for a few days off?”

“Are
you
getting married?”

“No.”

“Then, no.”

He’d expected a negative reaction because of the upcoming wedding and resulting loss of office hours, and Michael always met expectations. Every. Single. Time. But he’d hoped that maybe, just this once, his brother would surprise him. He’d changed since hooking up with his fiancée, Mia, and now he even laughed at times.

Chance stared past Michael to the bright morning sunlight streaming in through the windows and engaged his nuclear option. “Then I quit.”

Ha!
That ranked him higher than whatever was on Michael’s screen. His brother’s blue eyes met his. “The fuck you say.”

“The fuck I do.”

“Look, Chance, I’ve given you vacation time for your private X Games every time you asked for it. To hike, to ski, to jump out of planes, to fucking sled across Alaska, but I’m not giving you the rest of the week off. Not when I’m closing the office for the first time since I became president.”

“Hey!” Will, the middle Anderson brother, called out as he strolled into Michael’s office wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. Chance relaxed a bit. Will’s good-natured, even personality was the perfect counterbalance to Michael’s controlling one.

Rubbing a hand over his short military cut, a reminder of his recent Marine tours, Will looked back and forth from Chance, who stood fists at his side, to Michael, who was red in the face, still glaring from behind his computer screen, then dropped into a wing chair facing the desk. “What’s going on?”

“Chance is being an idiot.”

“Michael’s being an asshole.”

Will leaned back and grinned, flashing trademark Anderson brother dimples. “Business as usual, then.” Clancy, Michael’s little Shih Tzu, climbed out from his favorite spot under his master’s desk and launched into Will’s lap.

“Did Claire get with Mia on the flowers?” Michael asked as if Chance hadn’t just pushed the red self-destruct button. “Mia was supposed to coordinate with Claire as to when to pick them up to bring them to the island.”

“Dunno,” Will answered, fiddling with the blue bow in the dog’s hair. “I’m just trying to stay out of the way.”

“So food… The chef is coming the day before to begin prep work.”

For a moment, Chance thought they were just yanking his chain, but then he realized these two were honestly doing wedding planner shit. He shook his head to clear it, like a bad dream, but still, they jabbered about guests and cakes and…
Holy fuck
, the world was going mad.

His brothers were geeking out over a wedding, and his high school friend’s little sister was hell-bent on a harebrained suicide mission.

Bucket list.
Who on earth made bucket lists?

Genny did. And she wouldn’t let him see it. He had to agree blind… He almost laughed at the irony. She had him by the balls. If he didn’t help her do whatever ridiculous things were on that list, she’d tell Walter he’d been following her…and worse, maybe let slip he’d laid his hands on her. God. Walter would kill him. Genny was to be protected at all costs—and he was going to pay the price…again. All because he couldn’t stay away. He’d never been able to stay away. She was like a drug. He needed more. He always had. He was addicted, but had been able to control it and hide it… Until last night when she’d kissed him. He’d fallen off the wagon. Hell, the whole fucking wagon had fallen off a cliff with him on it. One taste of Genny and he was gone. The next week would be hell.

He looked back and forth between his brothers, who were completely engrossed in an animated discussion of a tent for the reception, and shook his head.
Hopeless
. The entire world made no sense and was getting worse by the second.

Shit.

Before he could make the door, the wedding planning paused. “Where are you going?” Michael asked.

“To box up my office.” Of course he wasn’t really quitting, but he needed an okay from Michael, and he’d get it any way he could. Even by bluffing. His triple whammy of contract lawyer mixed with appraisal expert on top of his ability to put up with Michael’s bullshit made him irreplaceable, and all three of them knew it.

“Wait. What?” Well, he’d gotten Will’s attention anyway.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Big bro wouldn’t give me the rest of the week off, so I’m out of here. It’s been real. Later, guys.” He extended his thumb and pinkie to flash a hang-loose sign.

Faster than seemed possible, Will blocked his way from the office, dog cradled against his chest. All that military training made his brother formidable. Even with Chance’s decade of martial arts training, Will gave him pause. “Hold up. Let’s talk about this.”

“I tried, but flowers and cakes were more important.”

Will shifted his hold on the dog and gestured to the chair facing Michael’s desk. “Nothing’s more important than family. Talk.” His brother’s sincere expression made him feel like a prick. The bluff of quitting was low, but he’d get time off one way or another, and asking permission from his big brother was irksome.

He took a deep, relaxing breath and slumped down into one of the wing chairs facing the desk. How many times had he sat here in his life? Thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe. He used to make paper airplanes here while his dad mentored Michael on the business. And his dad had chosen his successor well. His oldest brother had taken Anderson Enterprises to the top, especially the pet branch of the business, Anderson Auctions, which was world-renowned for its acquisition, representation, and placement of rare antiquities in private collections and museums.

Chance loved it here. Being the in-house counsel for Anderson Auctions fueled his fascination with history and put his law degree to good use. And he loved his brothers, even when they were jackasses, like Michael was now—and succeeded in being most of the time. What used to amount to idol worship had grown into a mutual respect. He’d never leave.

Michael might be a workaholic, but Chance wasn’t, and neither was Will, who was drumming his fingers on the arm of his own chair, waiting for an explanation while Michael organized the items on his desk to be perfectly in line with the ninety-degree angles of polished mahogany surface.

“I have to take some time off. It’s not optional. All documents for this week’s transactions are complete and in the system. I’ll have my phone. You don’t need me here.”

Michael paused his desk tidying and leaned back in his leather chair. “Why? Have you found some uncharted mountain pass to ski down? Or maybe you’re heading to Hawaii to hang glide again. Forget it, little brother. You can break your neck
after
the wedding.”

The back of Chance’s scalp prickled. Ordinarily, he could maintain his calm in any circumstance. Why not now?
Genny. That’s why
. She got to him every time. She always had. He’d taken punches for her. Gotten stitches for her. Even gone to jail for her… And she didn’t even know.

“I have some personal business.”

“What personal business?”

His muscles tightened, and it took all he had not to shoot to his feet. He was a private person, and this bordered on over-sharing. “I need to help a friend out.”

“I didn’t think you had any,” Will kidded.

“Who?” ever-direct Michael asked.

“None of your fucking business.” Well, that came out far harsher than intended.

To his surprise, Michael shut his laptop. “I’m not asking as your boss, I’m asking as your brother. The same brother you called in the past for help. You’re acting odd. Are you in trouble?”

He held his breath. This was a rare side of his brother. A side he hadn’t seen in a decade or so. “No.” Unless being thrown together with his greatest temptation was trouble. “It’s nothing like that. I’m not in trouble, and neither is she.” Not if he could help it…which was why he needed the week off. Genny on her own with a bucket list had trouble written all over it, especially if the kiss last night was any indication of the rest of the list. No way was he unleashing her on the unsuspecting world.

His brothers exchanged glances. “She?” Will’s eyebrows rose, and Michael grinned.

Fucking gossipy hens. Both of them.

“Just a friend.”

“Who?” his brothers asked in unison.

Would the inquisition never end? He groaned in frustration. “Genny Richards. I’m going to help her with some tasks. Personal things. Totally legal and okay.”

“She’s that little blind girl. Walter’s sister, right?”

She was far from a little girl, and Michael’s “blind” descriptor caused his fists to curl. She was so much more than that. More than they’d ever understand.

“I’m playing racquetball with Walter tomorrow,” Will said.

Chance’s stomach dropped. “With Walter?”

“His dad talked to our dad, and well, you know how that goes, so his law firm is representing one of our smaller interests in a security installation deal. We meet up for racquetball every other week to talk about it.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck
. “You can’t tell him about this.”

Another glance between his brothers. He wasn’t sure if they were surprised, amused, or both. Whatever they were, it pissed him off. He closed his eyes and centered his mood. “I’m serious. He can’t know I’m helping his sister.”

As if rehearsed, both brothers arched one eyebrow.

Heart racing, his desperation bordered on panic. “I never ask anything of you guys, but I’m asking now. Keep this among us.”

Michael leaned forward and folded his arms on his desk. “On one condition.”

Oh, shit.
The consummate negotiator, always. “What?”

“You tell us everything. Now.”

Surely not.
He looked at Will for backup. His brother simply shrugged and said, “He’s the boss.”