Page 1 of Homecoming Heartbreaker

One

Well, he was back.

Mack Holloway raked his hand through his black hair and rubbed his stubbled jaw, steering his Benz into the turnoff to the old logging road, a mile or so from the stone gates of Moonlight Ridge, the exclusive inn and resort owned by his adopted father, Jameson Holloway. This time he wasn’t home for a one-night stay or a flying visit on his way to another city; he was here for a couple of months. And yeah, the thought made him grind his teeth and his throat tighten.

Mack cut the engine and pushed open his door, exiting his low-slung, stupidly expensive sports car. Slapping the door closed, he forced himself to look over the roof of the Benz to the thick forest of yellow pines. He swallowed, panic crawling up his throat. He didn’t want to make the short walk up the road, to look at the place where his life had changed. He’d lost so much that night, his family, stability,Molly...everything that mattered.

Jamming his hands into the pockets of his pants, he forced his feet to move, feeling the cold fingers of a light mist touching his face. He didn’t want to look at the scene of the accident but if he was going to be living here for the foreseeable future, then confront it he must.

Mack walked on and the mild spring wind lifted his hair and plastered his shirt against his chest and stomach. After a few minutes he stopped and looked around, realizing he was standing at the exact spot where the truck had left the road, and he swallowed, trying to ease his suddenly tight throat.

But instead of reliving that night from start to finish, as he expected to, he only recalled the screams, heard the high whine of the engine as the truck rolled.

He’d lost control of the truck and his temper. He’d failed to look after his brothers, Grey and Travis. He was the oldest and they had been his responsibility.

It was one night, fifteen years ago, but it had had enormous ramifications. He’d thought himself invincible, they all had, but that night taught him that actions sometimes had massive consequences. As a result, he was rarely spontaneous and never made quick decisions. And keeping calm, rational and controlled was vitally important to Mack. It was his guiding principle, his compass point.

He couldn’t change the past and the stupid decisions he made but he could control the present and plan for the future. To do that he needed to push the past aside and focus on the here and now...

On what he could control...

He was back in Asheville, temporarily returning to Moonlight Ridge because Jameson—the man who’d rescued him from the system shortly before his eighth birthday—recently spent a week in the critical care unit in Asheville’s premier hospital after experiencing a brain episode.

They’d operated, Jameson was home, but the next few months would be critical to his long-term health. His adopted father’s recovery was contingent on keeping his stress levels at a manageable level.

And Moonlight Ridge was the source of most of his stress...

On his way back to where he’d parked his car, Mack glanced to his right, knowing the boundary to Jameson’s super luxurious resort, a smaller and more exclusive version of their neighbor, the famous Biltmore, was just a few miles to the north. Both properties were institutions in Asheville, North Carolina, and over the past seventy-five years Moonlight Ridge had been the retreat of kings and politicians, ultra-reclusive Hollywood celebrities and international billionaires.

And Jameson, as the owner and operator of the stunning stone-and-wood inn, had been the face of Moonlight Ridge for decades. He lived to work, and the luxurious resort where he’d raised them was his world. People energized him and he knew every guest by name.

But Jameson’s individual attention to their guests was going to be, for the next six months at least, impossible.

After many tense and terse arguments with his brothers, and with Jameson himself, they’d finally come to a compromise: each of Jameson’s sons would temporarily relocate to Moonlight Ridge. Mack, because he was the oldest—and despite knowing how hard it would be face Molly again—volunteered to take the first shift. It was the least he could do to try to atone for the devastation he’d caused...

Mack knew that complete atonement was impossible, but he had to make the effort.

But God, how he wished Molly wasn’t still working as Moonlight Ridge’s manager and living on site.

Mack placed his butt against the side panel of his car and stretched out his long legs, rolling his head to relieve the knots in his neck.

He met Molly even before he met Grey and Travis, his adopted brothers. He’d been eight and she, the daughter of Jameson’s accountant, seven. He’d been entranced by her corkscrew blond curls, olive complexion and her fascinating light green-blue eyes.

Molly’s complete lack of fear of Jameson, a big, burly, dark-skinned man—so different from his slightly built, mean-as-hell Korean biological father—helped him become accustomed to his new dad and his many rules and regs. With Molly’s help, he soon realized that Jameson was all bark and no bite. Over the next few months, he started to relax and then to thrive.

He had Jameson, he had Molly and he felt,finally, loved and secure.

Six months later Grey joined their little family and two months after him, Travis. They might not look the same, Jameson told them—Jameson and Travis were African American, Grey was white and Mack’s father was of South Korean descent—but taking his name made them his, they were Holloways and they were a family. Diversity was strength, Jameson had told them; differences were to be celebrated and skin color was irrelevant.

Jameson, as he’d found out later, always wanted kids but never found the right woman to give him any. On hearing how difficult it was for older kids to find a forever home, Jameson scooped up Mack, a kid who lost his mother at childbirth and was abandoned by his dad when he was seven.

Mack knew how lucky he was. And, he figured, he couldn’t have been that bad because Jameson went on to adopt two more boys close to his age.

That first year, with all three boys trying to find their feet and their place in their new family, was unbelievably tough. They all had trust issues, a fear of being disappointed, preferring to keep themselves to themselves. But Jameson kept a firm hand on the wheel and steered them through the storm, frequently reminding them that they were a family, and they’d better get used to the idea.

They listened and, despite not sharing a drop of blood nor a strand of DNA, became brothers in every sense of the word. For almost a decade he had a father and two brothers who, he believed, would go to war for him.

And he had Molly, his north star.

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