Daddy’s Broken Bride (Forbidden Pleasures Mountain #2)

Prologue

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Standing in the middle of the unusually busy candy shop down in Forbidden Pines, I scan the selection of candy in front of me. Despite having bought a giant candy heart for my niece just a few weeks ago, I’m feeling sentimental.

Besides, she needs a treat after having been grounded and punished so thoroughly by my brother Axel this past week.

Not that she didn’t deserve it, she certainly did after the fright she gave us, trying to run away on a snowmobile and almost getting herself killed.

But I, like the rest of my siblings, have a soft spot where sweet Little Lanie is concerned and I did promise to bring her something back from my trip into town.

Chocolate or an assortment, though, that I’m not sure of. The girl has a sweet tooth to rival my brother Eli’s, so she’ll probably be happy with either option. And as long as it’s a ridiculous amount of candy, Axel will be as pissed as she is delighted, which is certainly a bonus.

There. An assortment of dozens of different candies with little cartoon characters on the packaging. The perfect present for a Little girl.

I’m just reaching for the bag when a laugh reaches my ears and I freeze. Even though I haven’t heard it in nearly twenty years, I would know that laugh anywhere.

But it’s not possible. There is no possible way she could be here.

Gripping the bag of candy, I turn away from the display, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest.

And I see her. Somehow, she looks exactly the same all these years later. Just like that I’m a senior in college again, listening to her talk excitedly about some fascinating new book she’s read or the new philosophy she’s discussing in class.

Her gaze latches onto me and for a moment her brow knits with confusion. Like she knows me, but she can’t quite place me.

I see it the second realization hits. All the blood drains from her face, leaving her pale, as though she’s seen a ghost.

In a way, I guess she has.

As if in a trance, she moves toward me, her gaze darting back and forth, drinking in my features.

“Bennett?”

My name, but not my name. The name I haven’t heard, haven’t used since the night my family fled for our lives in the middle of the night. And with that single word, she’s sealed her fate.

“Hello, Josie.”