She crept into the showroom without turning on any of the lights and peeked out between the window blinds in the corner farthest from the door, and there stood … one, two, three hysterical-looking brides already, bridal garment bags in hand, no doubt the much-feared, supposedly cursed wedding dresses inside, ready to be returned.

“Oh, my God!” Addie cried, then crept away from the window, for fear that they would see her.

They weren’t even supposed to open the store until noon. This was the day they stayed open until 8:00 p.m., for brides-to-be who worked all day, and it was barely 9:00 a.m. now. They were about to be overrun, all because of that stupid Bride Blog woman!

James wasn’t surprised later that morning to see Adam looking a little uncomfortable across the breakfast table, saying he was sorry, but he just couldn’t put any more money into Chloe’s business right now. Another friend had already clued James in to the fact that Adam himself was not in the best financial shape at the moment. Hardly anyone was.

“I’ll take care of it.” James held out a checkbook for his personal account.

“If that’s what you want.” Adam looked like he was dying to ask what James was doing, bailing out a woman who’d dumped him a year and a half ago.

Fair question, and not one James cared to answer for anyone, not even to himself. He shrugged, tried to play it off and said, “She’s great in bed.”

Adam looked like he didn’t believe that reason at all, but volunteered, “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Good,” James said, ridiculously happy to hear it.

“I mean, she’s adorable, funny, seems very sweet, obviously unusually talented and driven when it comes to her work.”

James nodded. She was. What could he say? He hated the idea of her being hurt, of her losing her business, losing her dream. Other than that … he just didn’t know.

As James handed his check to Adam, Marcy burst in, looking absolutely petrified. “There’s a riot at Chloe’s!”

James gaped at her. “Riot!”

Marcy nodded frantically. “That Bridal Blog lady? She said there’s a riot breaking out at Chloe’s store right now. Disgruntled brides storming the place, wanting their money back for the cursed dresses. It’s all over Twitter. I thought you’d want to know right away.”

He did. He’d ordered Marcy to keep him updated on the Chloe situation. But now that he knew this, he should probably run in the opposite direction. His life had gotten weird from the moment she came back into it. Not that she was truly in his life again. It just felt like it. From the distance of cyberspace, his favorite corner newsstand and that one night on the street corner across from her house, she was having her strange effect.

And he was afraid he liked it. He’d liked it the first time. Life had been interesting, surprising, even felt a little … fun. He could have that again. She was in trouble, and he was going to help her. Crazy as it was, it was what he’d wanted from the moment he’d looked up and seen her face on those stupid tabloid covers.

“I’m going over there,” he said, feeling better than he had in ages.

Now that James had given in, he couldn’t get to Chloe fast enough.

“She makes me a little crazy,” he confessed to Adam, who’d gotten into the taxi with James, probably to see just how crazy James was. Over a woman.

“Chloe’s a very interesting person,” Adam said carefully.

“She is. I just need to make sure she’s okay,” James claimed, which was so obviously a lie. He was acting like a madman over her.

“Hey, I like Chloe. She’s great,” Adam began.

“You swear you never slept with her?” James just couldn’t help but ask.

“I swear. My life is screwed up enough—”

He broke off as James scowled at him.

“I mean, complicated. My life is really complicated. The last thing I need is to get involved with any woman. Even one as interesting and cute as Chloe.”

“Okay,” James said, satisfied for the moment on that count.

After about twenty minutes, he looked out the car window, and there, a block away, was Chloe’s shop, that huge, old Victorian where she lived with her two cousins and Addie. He saw some kind of commotion out front and two, no, three camera crews and some of those big, tall lights the TV people used when they filmed things.

James charged into the mass of crazy, garment-bag-wielding brides, just as one of them drew back to take a swing at Chloe, who looked like a waif in her pajama bottoms and one of those stretchy little spaghetti-strap tops she liked to sleep in.

He thought those were the sexiest things he’d ever seen.

Especially when she wore one of those tops and nothing else except a little scrap of lacy panties. Chloe at her softest, most inviting, rumpled best.

God, he’d missed her!

Just then, another bride took a swing at her with her garment bag. The blow sent her stumbling backward. James stepped in and caught her hard against him, feeling a huge surge of relief, just having his arms around her. She went limp like she suddenly didn’t have any bones and looked absolutely stunned, either from the blow or seeing him, he couldn’t be sure. He lifted her up into his arms, glaring at the garment-bag-slinging woman, daring her or anyone else to come close to Chloe now that he had her.

Chloe reached out a hand to ever so lightly touch the side of his face, like she needed to know he was real. “James?”

“It’s okay,” he said, tucking her face against his chest, trying to reassure himself that she was truly okay. “I’ve got you.”

When he lifted his head, he realized the crowd had quieted, finally.

They were all staring at him and her, and he realized there were a few still photographers there and that they were clicking away at the scene.

He didn’t care.

“What the hell is going on here?” he asked, spotting Chloe’s half sister, who’d always been the sanest one of the family.

“They want their money back for their dresses,” she said, glaring at him.

“Write them checks, if that’s what it takes to get them to leave,” he said.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Adam, who’d fought his way to James’s side. Adam, who had a check James had just written in the car, a check with lots of zeroes on it. Let everyone think Adam was covering the new debts, too. James would find a way to explain exactly what was going on to Chloe later.

His first thought was to get her away from this crowd, inside, maybe even carry her upstairs to her cute, quirky attic apartment, where he’d bumped his head on the low, sloped ceilings more than once. To the big cream-colored iron bed he used to share with her.

He hesitated, wondering if he was making a mistake by not taking her to his apartment in the city. Here she could kick him out whenever she pleased. When she got her second wind, she’d start her whole I-don’t-need-anyone routine. But he couldn’t risk giving this mob a second chance at her. That settled it. He took her inside.

Reluctantly, he set Chloe on her feet just inside the doorway. She seemed so slight standing there in front of him, so sad and defeated. He put his hand to the side of her face, tilting it up toward the light.

“Is it just this?” he asked, finding a slight swelling at her cheekbone. “Or are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

But her face was pale as could be, a few tiny, light brown freckles that he knew she hated spread across her nose and cheeks. He used to tease her that her freckles looked like fairy dust and kiss each one. God, he’d lost his head completely over this woman the first time and was clearly in danger of doing the same thing again.

He couldn’t help it.

He leaned down, his face lingering against hers, the tip of his nose pressed against her skin, soaking in the sweet, wild essence of Chloe, drawing his other hand through her pretty blond hair. It was even longer than it used to be and hanging loose and messy, the way he remembered it from rare mornings when she’d arisen from her bed before he left.