The man my stepsister called a “hideous cripple” arrived at our wedding in a wheelchair, and the instant I saw his face, I realized Serena had made the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter 1
I was standing beneath the stone arch of a small Episcopal church outside Asheville, North Carolina, clutching a bouquet so tightly the stems dug into my palms. Ten minutes earlier, Serena had leaned close enough for me to smell her expensive perfume and whispered, “Still time to run, Fiona. Though I’m not sure where you’d go.”
Then she smiled.
Serena had been smiling at my misery for most of our lives.
She was my adoptive parents’ biological daughter, two years older than me, golden-haired, beautiful, and raised with the certainty that anything she wanted would eventually become hers. When she decided she wanted my boyfriend, Nathan, she took him with the same confidence she used when borrowing my clothes without asking.
What made it worse was that Nathan let her.
Three months later, Serena was engaged to him.
Then came Adam Blackwood.
Nathan’s older brother.
The man Serena had originally been expected to marry as part of an arrangement between two wealthy families.
She took one look at his wheelchair, listened to gossip about his accident, and decided she deserved better.
Nathan, however, was handsome, healthy, charming, and far easier for Serena to display beside her at parties.
So she found a solution.
Me.
“You should be grateful,” my stepmother had said when they proposed the arrangement. “Adam Blackwood is wealthy. A girl in your position doesn’t often get an opportunity like this.”
My position.
Those two words had followed me since I was eight years old and the Larsons adopted me after years in foster care.
My position meant I should be thankful.
My position meant I shouldn’t complain.
My position meant Serena got the larger bedroom, the college fund, the new car, and the benefit of every doubt.
I got whatever remained.
So when they told me Adam Blackwood needed a wife and I needed security, everyone acted as if they had solved an unfortunate accounting problem.
Now I stood in white lace waiting to marry a man I had never properly met.
A black sedan stopped at the curb.
The driver stepped out first, then an older gentleman opened the rear door and unfolded a sleek wheelchair.
My stomach dropped.
Serena smirked.
“There he is.”
But the elderly man wasn’t the groom.
He stepped aside.
A younger man emerged.
I forgot how to breathe.
Adam Blackwood was perhaps thirty-four, broad-shouldered despite the wheelchair, with dark brown hair and a face that belonged on a movie screen rather than in Serena’s cruel stories. His features were strong rather than pretty, and his blue eyes were so striking that I felt an inexplicable jolt of recognition.
I had seen those eyes before.
Somewhere.
A very long time ago.
Adam caught me staring.
“You’re blocking the ramp.”
I startled. “I’m sorry.”
I stepped aside, then instinctively reached toward the handle of his chair.
“Let me help.”
His expression turned cold.
“Don’t.”
I pulled my hand back.
“I was only—”
“I can move myself.”
He rolled past me.
Serena covered a laugh with her hand.
“Charming,” she murmured. “Looks like you’ve won the fairy tale after all.”
But she wasn’t looking at me.
She was looking at Adam.
And for the first time that day, Serena wasn’t smiling.
During the ceremony, Adam barely acknowledged me.
When Reverend Miller asked us to face each other, he stared toward the stained-glass windows.
“Adam,” the minister prompted gently.
Adam finally looked at me.
There was resentment in his eyes so raw that I almost stepped backward.
“Can we just finish this?”
Heat rushed into my face.
The minister cleared his throat.
“Fiona Larson, do you take Adam Blackwood to be your lawful husband?”
I swallowed.
“I do.”
Then came Adam’s turn.
Silence.
Five seconds passed.
Then ten.
People shifted in the pews.
Serena looked delighted.
“Adam?” the minister repeated.
His jaw tightened.
“I do.”
When Reverend Miller announced us husband and wife, he smiled uncertainly and said, “You may kiss the bride.”
Adam gave a humorless laugh.
“No.”
A murmur moved through the church.
My eyes burned.
Adam turned his chair toward the aisle and left before the organist had even finished the recessional.
I survived the next twenty minutes by pretending I was somewhere else.
Guests congratulated me.
My stepmother corrected the position of my veil.
My father told me to smile.
Then I walked into the reception room and collided with Serena.
Her red wine spilled directly down the front of my wedding gown.
She stared at the stain.
“Oh, Fiona.”
Her mouth curved.
“You really can ruin anything.”
I looked at her.
Something inside me finally snapped.
“You did that on purpose.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You’ve done everything on purpose.”
She tilted her head.
“Careful. Bitterness doesn’t suit a bride.”
I shoved her away.
Not hard.
But Serena was wearing ridiculous heels.
She stumbled and fell.
Her scream could have summoned paramedics from three counties.
“My ankle!”
Nathan rushed across the room.
“Serena!”
He dropped beside her.
My father followed.
My stepmother turned on me.
“What is wrong with you?”
“She spilled wine on me deliberately.”
“Fiona, enough!”
“She stole Nathan from me, dumped Adam on me, and now—”
“Stop blaming your sister because you’re unhappy with the husband you agreed to marry,” my father snapped.
The words hit like a slap.
Then I heard wheels behind me.
Adam entered.
For one foolish second, I hoped he might defend me.
Instead, he went straight to Serena.
“Are you hurt?”
Serena looked up at him through lowered lashes.
“I’m all right. Fiona just lost her temper.”
Adam’s eyes moved to me.
Something unreadable passed through them.
Then it was gone.
My father stood.
“Fiona, go home with your husband.”
Home.
The Blackwood estate.
A place I had never seen with a man who clearly couldn’t stand me.
The drive there was unbearable.
Adam stared through the window.
I lasted fifteen minutes.
“Why do you hate me?”
He didn’t look at me.
“I don’t.”
“That isn’t what today felt like.”
“To hate someone, I’d have to care enough.”
I turned toward the window before he could see the tears.
“You don’t even know me.”
His voice sharpened.
“Don’t I?”
I faced him again.
“What does that mean?”
Adam’s blue eyes locked onto mine.
“You married me because your family told you the disabled Blackwood brother was the consolation prize nobody else wanted.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Then tell me why you married me.”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came.
Because Serena demanded it.
Because my parents pressured me.
Because I had no degree, little money, and nowhere else to live.
Because saying no had never been something my family trained me to believe I could do.
Adam gave a bitter smile.
“Exactly.”
The Blackwood house stood on forty acres overlooking the mountains, all stone chimneys, old oak trees, and wide verandas. It was beautiful enough to belong in a magazine, yet that night it felt less like a home than another place where I didn’t belong.
The house manager, Charles Mercer, greeted us at the door.
“Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood.”
Adam removed his gloves.
“Fiona will use the east bedroom.”
Charles hesitated.
“Of course, sir.”
Separate rooms.
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
As Charles showed me upstairs, he paused outside my door.
“Mrs. Blackwood?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t judge him entirely by today.”
I almost laughed.
“He told me he’d have to care about me before he could hate me.”
Charles sighed.
“Mr. Blackwood spent a long time believing someone abandoned him when he needed her most.”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Charles immediately looked as though he’d said too much.
“Good night, ma’am.”
I slept badly.
Near dawn, I dreamed of summer.
A lake.
Cabins under pine trees.
A skinny boy with laughing blue eyes passing me a chocolate-chip cookie and saying, “Half. You always steal more than half.”
I woke with my heart pounding.
At breakfast, Adam was alone reading the newspaper.
I sat across from him.
“We have to talk.”
He lowered the paper.
“Do we?”
“Yes.”
I told him the truth.
All of it.
My adoption. Serena. My parents. How every important decision in my life had gradually become something other people made for me.
“I didn’t marry you because I thought you were pathetic,” I said. “I married you because I didn’t know how to say no to anyone.”
Adam’s expression changed slightly.
“That isn’t much better.”
“I know.”
“At least it’s honest.”
“I thought maybe we could become friends.”
He laughed.
“Friends?”
“Yes.”
“With the poor, ugly man in the wheelchair?”
My face tightened.
“Those were Serena’s words.”
“And yours?”
“I never called you ugly.”
“What did you think when you saw me yesterday?”
I hesitated.
“Fiona?”
“I thought you were handsome.”
For once, Adam seemed genuinely speechless.
I looked away.
“And your eyes bothered me.”
“Bothered you?”
“They seem familiar.”
His hand froze around his coffee cup.
“What did you say?”
“Your eyes. I feel like I’ve seen them before.”
He stared at me.
Then he said two words.
“Blue Pine.”
My breath stopped.
Adam leaned forward.
“Blue Pine Summer Camp. Fifteen years ago.”
The room disappeared.
Suddenly I saw the lake from my dream.
The cabins.
The campfire.
A boy who had shared cookies with the quiet orphan girl nobody else wanted on their canoe team.
My voice barely worked.
“Finn?”
Adam went completely still.
That had been my nickname for him.
Because at eleven, I had misheard his last name and decided Adam Blackwood sounded too serious anyway.
His face hardened, but his eyes did not.
“Well,” he said quietly. “You finally remember me.”
