All They Ever Wanted Read online

  Praise for

  BACK TO BEFORE

  “Funny and flirty . . . As refreshing as the North Carolina surf, and just as rewarding.”

  —Book Page

  “A brisk and heartfelt read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A perfect read if you love romance.”

  —The Reading Cafe

  “I’m a fan of small-town contemporary romance and second chances. Tracy Solheim combines the two with heartwarming effect . . . I’m already anticipating my next visit to Chances Inlet.”

  —The Romance Dish

  “A knockout feel-good read.”

  —Talking Books Blog

  “I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in the series!”

  —Love Between the Sheets

  “Everything I look for in a romance.”

  —Smexy Books

  Praise for the Out of Bounds Novels

  “[An] emotion-driven story.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The sexual tension was off the charts.”

  —The Book Pushers

  “A beautiful, fun love story.”

  —Insightful Minds Reviews

  “Solid storytelling, sharp dialogue, and genuine, sympathetic characters . . . [An] enjoyable and very entertaining read.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Purchase this book ASAP!”

  —Dark Faerie Tales

  “Tracy Solheim will have you laughing and cheering and crying.”

  —Rendezvous Books

  “Refreshing contemporary . . . A surprisingly deep romance.”

  —Bookaholics

  “Game On is a novel that has a lot going for it.”

  —Book Binge

  Berkley Sensation Titles by Tracy Solheim

  Second Chances

  BACK TO BEFORE

  ALL THEY EVER WANTED

  Out of Bounds

  GAME ON

  FOOLISH GAMES

  RISKY GAME

  A NUMBERS GAME

  (A Berkley Sensation Special)

  SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  ALL THEY EVER WANTED

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with Sun Home Productions, LLC.

  Copyright © 2016 by Sun Home Productions, LLC.

  Excerpt from Sleeping with the Enemy by Tracy Solheim copyright © 2015 by Sun Home Productions, LLC.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® and the “B” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19461-8

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / March 2016

  Cover photo Couple on beach walkway © Image Source / Getty Images.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Karen and Howard.

  Thanks for raising an awesome son.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It goes without saying that I couldn’t do this without the love and support of my family, particularly my husband, Greg, and our two works-in-progress, Austin and Meredith. Love you guys.

  As always, thanks to Cindy Hwang at Berkley for your insights and comments—they made this a much better book.

  To Melanie Lanham, thank you for always answering the phone and reading what I write.

  Thank you to Melissa Jeglinski for your patience.

  Thanks to all the wonderful bloggers who’ve taken the time to promote my books and introduce me to new readers. Many of you have become friends whose kindness I value immensely.

  Most of all, I’d like to thank all of you who’ve taken the time to read one of my books. It’s you the readers who make this the best job in the world!

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Tracy Solheim

  Berkley Sensation Titles by Tracy Solheim

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  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

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  Special Excerpt from Sleeping with the Enemy

  About the Author

  ONE

  When he was ten years old, Miles McAlister meticulously and very thoughtfully planned out the remainder of his life. Sitting in the tree house his father had built for him and his four siblings, Miles had put pen to paper and scratched out his future as he saw it: Eagle Scout, All-State track star, high school valedictorian, Duke University, Rhodes Scholar, law school, politics, and most important, President of the United States. Twenty-three years later, he’d revised that list a time or two to include a few things a fifth grader might not have envisioned—like losing his virginity at the national high school debate conference or delaying law school while he backpacked through Europe with his girlfriend. But overall, he was well on his way to executing his carefully mapped out existence nearly verbatim.

  Until life had thrown him a curveball. More than one actually.

  His two brothers and two sisters—as well as the majority of the people in his hometown of Chances Inlet, North Carolina—hadn’t dubbed him “The Ambitious McAlister” without good reason, however. Miles was determined that nothing was going to interfere with the goals he’d set all those years ago. And that’s how he found himself on the expansive wraparound porch of his mother’s popular bed-and-breakfast stoically enduring the June heat. With its railings draped in red, white, and blue bunting, a dewy pitcher of lemonade on the wicker side table, and his brother’s golden retriever snoring at his feet, the Tide Me Over Inn afforded Miles the perfect backdrop for wrestling back control of what he perceived to be his destiny.

  The inn had been his mother’s pride and joy for four years now. She and Miles’ father had painstakingly restored the 1894 Victorian to all its original splendor, turning it into one of the premiere B and B’s on the Atlantic coast. Situated among lush gardens and centuries-old trees, the sprawling twenty-room home was also walking distance to the ocean and the
historical town of Chances Inlet. The B and B’s picturesque location, along with a bevy of championship golf courses in the area, guaranteed that the Tide Me Over Inn’s guest suites were booked nearly year-round. Today being no exception. A crowd milled about on the veranda, scrutinizing Miles’ every move.

  The late day breeze blowing inland off the ocean felt refreshing amidst the wilting humidity so typical of the coast. Miles resisted the urge to tug at his shirt collar as the wind gently lifted the skirt of the woman seated in front of him. Rather than fix her hemline, though, she shifted her long legs suggestively, affording him an unobstructed view of a nicely toned thigh, her skin shimmering with perspiration. The smile she gave him lacked even a trace of innocence, however; instead it was outright daring. But then, she wasn’t the one with the television cameras trained on her.

  “Just a few more questions, Miles. They’ll be painless. I promise.” Tanya Sheppard, a blue-eyed, blond former beauty queen who masqueraded as the political reporter from one of Raleigh’s affiliate stations, was clearly enjoying her position of dominance in their interview. Miles was sure her antagonistic demeanor was payback for his ignoring the hotel keycard she’d slipped into his tuxedo pocket during last year’s Governor’s Ball. But he refused to let her rile him up.

  Pushing out a breath, he forced himself to relax against the old-fashioned glider he sat in. The guests always raved that the damn things were so comfortable, but to Miles the chair felt like he was contorting his six-foot-one, muscular body into the shape of a paper clip. His dress shirt stuck to his back where it was pressed up against the metal chair. He ignored the discomfort, though, bracing himself for whatever questions Tanya decided to throw at him next. They both knew she had been lobbing softballs for the past fifteen minutes.

  His campaign for a vacated U.S. congressional seat certainly wasn’t sexy enough to warrant the seven-minute segment on the affiliate’s weekly political show. Especially since he was running unopposed in a district located in the county where he’d grown up and where his family was still very much a presence. If Miles was reading the situation correctly, Tanya was here for a bigger sound bite. She wanted revenge with all the trimmings. And that meant discussing the sins of Miles’ deceased father.

  “How can you expect voters to trust you?” Tanya went right for the most salacious sound bite. “You’ve repeatedly stated that you weren’t aware of your father’s efforts to defraud the bank that financed the three-million-dollar loan for this very inn. Even if you didn’t know firsthand of your father’s thievery, why shouldn’t voters assume that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak?”

  The ice inside the pitcher of lemonade popped, startling the dog at his feet. Brushing a reassuring hand over its head, Miles drew in his own calming breath before launching into the speech he’d been rehearsing in front of the mirror since the mess with his father had been made public the week before. He needed to get ahead of this issue before it compromised his entire campaign.

  “Thievery is a bit misleading, Tanya.” He held up a hand when she began to speak, shushing her before looking directly into the camera lens. “McAlister Construction and Engineering is a privately owned company. If my father moved funds from one account to another, he was misappropriating his own money. I don’t know what dictionary you use, Tanya, but that’s not thievery in my book.”

  Tanya bristled, uncrossing her thighs and sitting up a little straighter. “There’s no if about it, Miles. The bank examiner had an airtight case against your father.”

  And the stress from staying one step ahead of the bank examiner most likely brought on the heart attack that killed Dad.

  Miles had to work to unclench his hands and appear relaxed. Donald McAlister had been a larger-than-life role model—a dedicated family man who was also a semipro athlete, an engineer, a small business owner, and a fixture in the community. Apparently, he’d been so devoted to his wife that he’d bought and refurbished the inn for her while playing fast and loose with the books. Miles had no doubt his father would have made good on the loan if the economy hadn’t taken a nosedive right when the balloon payment was due. The enormous weight of the financial burden, along with his attempts to conceal it from his wife and children, certainly put Donald McAlister into an early grave.

  The emptiness Miles felt in his chest was still raw. All those years ago when he had carefully crafted his life’s roadmap, Miles had never taken into account achieving the goals without his father by his side. It was yet another indication of the shortsightedness of a ten-year-old.

  Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Miles launched into the rest of his stump speech. “The fact of the matter is this, Tanya, my father isn’t campaigning for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. I am. He died tragically before any of this could get resolved. But I do know this . . .” Miles looked into the camera lens again. “Whatever my father did, it was out of love for his family. Times have been tough financially for many of us these past several years. Washington has forgotten about small businesses and the middle class who are living paycheck to paycheck. When I take my seat in Congress, I plan to be the voice for those people. The same people who would do whatever it takes to ensure their family is provided for and that their dreams can become reality. Just as my father did for his own family.”

  Tanya covered up an indelicate snort before it could be picked up by the microphone. “And the governor? He obviously wasn’t too comfortable with having the stigma that now surrounds you tainting his own reelection bid. Isn’t it true that rather than keep you as his chief counsel, he put you on leave without pay?”

  It was a chore for Miles to appear unfazed by Tanya’s goading question despite the anger that was fueling up inside him, but he miraculously kept his composure. “Governor Rossi’s statement was pretty clear on the matter, Tanya. I requested the leave of absence. Not the other way around. The leave is so that I can deal with a family emergency here in Chances Inlet. The issue involving my father had nothing to do with it.”

  At least not in the way she was implying.

  She made a show of rustling her notes on her lap. “Of course. Your mother.” Tanya brilliantly modulated her voice to sound softer, more serene. Too bad the viewers couldn’t see the hard lines still bracketing her mouth. “How is she doing?”

  Patricia McAlister had been struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle through town ten days earlier. She’d fractured her hip and sustained a concussion along with other minor injuries. But the larger trauma was to her psyche after the secret of Donald McAlister’s creative accounting had been revealed on national television.

  “She’s wonderful.” Miles chose to categorize his statement not as a lie exactly, but more as maintaining his mother’s privacy. It was partially the truth anyway. Her hip would fully heal. “But it’s the summer tourist season, the busiest time of the year in Chances Inlet, and until she’s back on her feet, she’ll need help running the inn. Since my campaign headquarters is located here in town, it made sense to my family that I be the one to move into the B and B and help her out.”

  Again, a partial truth. His younger brother Ryan was a professional baseball player whose contract barely allowed for him to visit their injured mother much less take three months off during the season. Their youngest sibling, Elle, had two months left in her Peace Corps service. Kate, the oldest of the five McAlister children, was spending the summer in Chances Inlet. But she and her husband, Alden, were both physicians who operated the beach town’s seasonal urgent care clinic. The clinic’s hours left them little time to help nurse his mother much less help with the day-to-day operations of the inn. And then there was Gavin.

  Miles covertly glanced past the cameras and scanned the sea of townspeople assembled on the inn’s sprawling lawn. With their niece perched on his shoulders, his brother was easy to spot standing near the towering black walnut tree similar to the one that had housed t
heir tree house all those years ago. Judging from the deep creases forming in his forehead, Gavin didn’t like Tanya’s line of questioning any more than Miles did. Guilt, mixed with anger, churned in Miles’ gut.

  Gavin had single-handedly carried his father’s secret for the two years since Donald’s death, mollifying the bank examiner with the charm that had everyone in Chances Inlet eating out of the palm of his hand. The middle of the McAlister children, Gavin was a natural peacemaker. He’d devised a plan to pay off the debt and preserve their late father’s name with no one in the community—or the family—being the wiser. Miles had to concede that it was a pretty damn good plan given the situation. Too bad Gavin had failed to grasp that people always stab you in the back. Always. The past eight years working in politics had taught Miles that.

  What peeved Miles the most was that his brother had never thought to confide in him. Born sixteen months apart, they’d grown up in the small town practically in each other’s pockets, playing on the same teams, sharing the same bedroom, the same circle of friends. Yet when push came to shove, Gavin hadn’t trusted his older brother to help shoulder the burden their father left behind. To help guard the family name and its legacy. He’d made some lame excuse that he’d kept Miles in the dark to protect his political future, but it felt to Miles as though his brother believed he was so blinded by ambition that he couldn’t pull his own weight during a family crisis. And that stung. A lot. So, while his mother had still been in the hospital, Miles had taken control of the situation and appointed himself in charge of operating the inn until she was fully recovered. Miles sat taller in his chair. He would take the lead in preserving the McAlister name now.

  He refocused his gaze on Tanya. “While I’m in town, I’ll have ample time to meet with constituents and take their pulse about which issues are most important to them.”

  A murmur of approval rose from the crowd and Miles allowed himself to relax slightly. He could do this. Considering the circumstances that brought him back to Chances Inlet, the situation really had worked to his benefit. Not only that, but it afforded him the opportunity to keep an eye on the cast of characters his mother continued to shelter within the walls of the B and B, particularly the stealthy woman his mother had been harboring for the past several months.