A Bride's Tangled Vows

“Ah, Master Aiden, we’ve been expecting you,” the older man said.

“Thank you,” Aiden returned with polite sincerity, stepping closer to look into the butler’s faded blue eyes. Lightning cracked nearby and thunder almost immediately boomed with wall-rattling force, the storm a reflection of the upheaval deep in Aiden’s core.

Still studying his face, the older man opened the door wide enough for Aiden and his luggage. “Of course,” Nolen said, shutting out the pouring rain behind them. “It’s been a long time, Master Aiden.”

Aiden searched the other man’s voice for condemnation, but found none. “Please leave your luggage here. I’ll take it up once Marie has your room ready,” Nolen instructed.

So the same housekeeper—the one who’d baked cookies for him and his brothers while they were grieving the loss of their father—was still here, too. They said nothing ever changed in small towns. They were right.

Aiden swept a quick glance around the open foyer, finding it the same as when he’d left, too. The only anomaly was an absent portrait that captured a long-ago moment in time—his parents, himself at about fifteen and his younger twin brothers about a year before his father’s death.

Setting down his duffel and laptop case and shaking off the last drops of rain, he followed Nolen’s silent steps through the shadowy breezeway at the center of the house. The gallery, his mother had always called this space that opened around the central staircase. It granted visitors an unobstructed view of the elaborate rails and landings of the two upper floors. Before air-conditioning, the space had allowed a breeze through the house on hot, humid, South Carolina afternoons. Today the sounds of his steps echoed off the walls as if the place were empty, abandoned.

But his mother was somewhere. Still in her old rooms, probably. Aiden didn’t want to think of her, of how helpless her condition rendered her. And him. It had been so long since he’d last heard her voice on the phone, right before her stroke two years ago. After the car accident made travel difficult for her, Aiden’s mother had called him once a week—always when James left the house. The last time he’d seen Blackstone Manor’s phone number on his caller ID, it had been his brother calling to tell him their mother had suffered a stroke, brought on by complications from her paralysis. Then silence ever since.

To Aiden’s surprise, Nolen went directly to the stairway, oak banister gleaming even in the dim light as if it had just been polished. Most formal meetings in the house were held in his grandfather’s study, where Aiden had assumed he’d be meeting with the lawyer. He’d just as soon get down to business.

“Did the lawyer give up on my arrival?” Aiden asked, curious about why he was being shown to his room first.

“I was told to bring you upstairs,” Nolen replied, not even glancing back. Did he view the prodigal son with suspicion, an unknown entity who would change life as Nolen had lived it for over forty years?

Damn straight. He had every intention of using his grandfather’s money to move his mother closer to her sons and provide her with the best care for her condition, much better than he could give her personally. He’d sell off everything, then hightail it back to his business in New York City. He had nothing more than a hard-won career waiting for him there, but at least it was something he’d built on his own. He wanted nothing to do with Blackstone Manor or the memories hidden within its walls.

Having followed blindly, he abruptly noticed Nolen’s direction. Uneasiness stirred low in Aiden’s gut. His and his brothers’ old rooms took up the third floor. To his knowledge—dated though it was—only two sets of rooms occupied the second floor: his mother’s and his grandfather’s suites. Neither of which was he ready to visit. His mother’s—after he’d had time to prepare himself. His grandfather’s—never.

The lawyer, Canton, had said James died last night. Aiden had been focused on packing and getting here since then. He’d address what the future held after talking with Canton.

He directed his question to Nolen’s back as they neared the double doors to his grandfather’s suite, his tone emerging huskier than he would have liked. “Nolen, what’s going on?”

But the other man didn’t reply; he just took the last few steps to the doors, then twisted the knob and stepped back. “Mr. Canton is inside, Master Aiden.”

The words were so familiar, yet somehow not. Aiden drew a deep breath, his jaw tightening at the repeated use of Nolen’s childhood designation for him.

But it beat being called Master Blackstone. They shouldn’t even have the hated last name, but his mother had given in to old James’s demands. The Blackstone name had to survive, even if his grandfather could only throw girls. So he’d insisted his only daughter give the name to her own sons, shutting out any legacy his father might have wanted.

Aiden shook his head, then pushed through the doorway with a brief nod. He stepped into the room, warm despite the spring chill of the storm raging outside. His eyes strayed to the huge four-poster bed draped in heavy purple velvet.

His whole body recoiled. Watching him from the bed was his grandfather. His dead grandfather.

The rest of the room disappeared, along with the storm pounding against the windows. He could only stare at the man he’d been told had “passed on.” Yet there he was, sitting up in bed, sizing up the adult Aiden with eyes piercing despite his age.

His body was thinner, frailer than Aiden remembered, but no one would mistake his grandfather for dead. The forceful spirit within the body was too potent to miss. Aiden instinctively focused on his adversary—the best defense was a strong offense. That strategy had kept him alive when he was young and broke; it did the same now that he was older and wealthier than he’d ever imagined he’d be when he’d walked away from Blackstone Manor.

“I knew you were a tough old bird, James, but I didn’t think even you could rise from the dead,” Aiden said.

To his surprise, his grandfather cracked a weak smile. “You always were a chip off the old block.”

Aiden suppressed his resentment at the cliché and added a new piece of knowledge to his arsenal. James might not be dead, but his voice wavered, scratchy as if forced from a closed throat. Coupled with the milky paleness of his grandfather’s once-bronze skin, Aiden could only imagine something serious must have occurred. Why wasn’t he in the hospital?

Not that Aiden would have rushed home to provide comfort, even if he’d known his grandfather was sick. When he’d vowed that he wouldn’t set foot in Blackstone Manor until his grandfather was dead, he’d meant it.

Something the old man knew only too well.

Anger blurred Aiden’s surroundings for a moment. He stilled his body, then his brain, with slow, even breaths. His tunnel vision suddenly expanded to take in the woman who approached the bed with a glass of water. James frowned at her, obviously irritated at the interruption.

“You need this,” she said, her voice soft, yet insistent.

Something about that sound threatened to temper Aiden’s reaction. Wavy hair, the color of pecans toasted to perfection, settled in a luxuriant wave to the middle of her back. The thick waves framed classic, elegant features and movie-star creamy skin that added a beauty to the sickroom like a rose in a graveyard. Bright blue-colored scrubs outlined a slender body with curves in all the right places—not that he should be noticing at the moment.

Just as he tried to pull his gaze away, one perfectly arched brow lifted. She stared James down, her hand opening to reveal two white capsules. That’s when it hit him.

“Invader?”

He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until she stiffened.

James glanced between the two of them. “You remember Christina, I see.”

Only too well. And from her ramrod-straight back he gathered she remembered his little nickname for her. That stubborn I will get my way look brought it all back. She used to look at him that very same way when they were teenagers, after he’d brushed her off like an annoying mosquito, dismissed her without a care for her feelings. Just a pesky little kid always hanging around, begging his family for attention. Until that last time. The time he’d taunted her for trying to horn in on a family that didn’t want her. Her tears had imprinted on his conscience, permanently.

“Aiden,” she acknowledged him with a cool nod. Then she turned her attention back to James. “Take these, please.”

She might look elegant and serene, but Aiden could see the steel beneath the silk from across the room. Was there sexy under there, too? Nope, not gonna think about it. His strict, one-night stand policy meant no strings, and that woman had hearth and home written all over her. He wouldn’t be here long enough to find out anything...about anybody.

With a low grumble, James took the pills from her hand and chased them down with the water. “Happy now?”

His attitude didn’t faze her. “Yes, thank you.” Her smile only hinted that she was patronizing him. Her presence as a nurse piqued Aiden’s curiosity.

His gaze lingered on her retreat to the far window, the rain outside a gray backdrop to her scrubs, before returning to the bed that dominated the room. His voice deepened to a growl. “What do you want?”

One corner of his grandfather’s mouth lifted slightly, then fell as if his strength had drained away in a rush. “Straight to the point. I’ve always liked that in you, boy.” His words slurred. “You’re right. Might as well get on with it.”

He straightened a bit in the bed. “I had a heart attack. Serious, but I’m not dead yet. Still, this little episode—”

“Little!” Christina exclaimed.

James ignored her outburst. “—has warned me it’s time to get my affairs in order. Secure the future of the Blackstone legacy.”

He nodded toward the suit standing nearby. “John Canton—my lawyer.”

Aiden gave the man’s shifting stance a good once-over. Ah, the man behind the phone call. “He must pay you well if you’re willing to lie about life and death.”

“He merely indulged me under the circumstances,” James answered for Canton, displaying his usual unrepentant attitude. Whatever it takes to get the job done. The words James had repeated so often in Aiden’s presence replayed through his mind.

“You’re needed at home, Aiden,” his grandfather said. “It’s your responsibility to be here, to take care of the family when I die.”

“Again?” Aiden couldn’t help saying.

Once more his grandfather’s lips lifted in a weak semblance of the smirk Aiden remembered too well. “Sooner than I like to think. Canton—”