Free Chance of a Lifetime (Anderson Brothers) by Marissa Clarke

for her sons. He’d vowed to never be like that. “I promised your family I’d stay away from you.”
    “Why?” The hurt in her voice turned the air in his lungs to ice. “Why would you do something like that when we were so close? You were my best friend, Chance. My only friend. The only person who would help me do cool stuff.”
    He stared over her shoulder at the bag of mountain-climbing equipment on top of the cabinet housing his swords. His gaze slid over to the corner where his skis were bagged for his heli-skiing trip next month, and leaning at the ready was his favorite snowboard. To the left, his scuba gear was organized and prepped for when the whim hit—which could be any time. His body craved adrenaline. Walter was right. He loved danger and didn’t appreciate its lure for Genny, and because of that, leaving had been the right thing to do. It would be the right thing to do right now.
    “Because I’m bad for you.” He heard Walter’s voice saying it in his head as he spoke. “Your getting hurt was inevitable. I’m just relieved you didn’t die.”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “Regardless of how you feel about it, I gave him my word.”
    “And you gave me your word that you’d help me accomplish all ten items on my list.”
    “Nine. You said you had the last one taken care of.”
    “Nine. There are only five left then. Four after tonight. Why does your promise to him mean more than your promise to me?”
    “It doesn’t.”
    “Then you’ll help me.”
    “It’s a terrible idea.”
    “Yet earlier today, you said that it was one of the best things you’d ever done.”
    He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, resigning himself to keeping the promise he should never have made to her. It would have been better to confess to Walter he’d kissed his little sister and let the fists fly as they may. This was just prolonging the inevitable and probably making it worse for all of them.

    G en waited while Chance made up his mind. His behavior made no sense to her. The stupid promise was made ten years ago. Bad for her? No. What was bad for her was living her life inside safety cones, and she was sick of it. Chance wanted her. She was certain of it now, yet he pushed her away again and again.
    For years, she thought it was something about her that had driven him away. Now she suspected it was something inside himself, and there was a lot more to it than a lame promise to her big brother. That kiss at the fountain was the real deal. Passion like that couldn’t be faked.
    Her agenda since this whole thing began had done a one-eighty. She no longer wanted to hurt him and show him what he’d missed when he left all those years ago; she wanted to make up for lost time. She wanted to kiss and touch and hold him like she had in her dreams—and in her imagination when she was alone. She wanted him to see her for the woman she had become. She wanted him to help her scratch number ten off her list, finally, after a decade of waiting.
    “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go through with it, but I want to see the list. Keeping me in the dark is counterproductive.”
    “Kinda like being me, huh?”
    “You know what’s on the list, so, no.”
    He wanted to see the list. Fine. She’d show it to him. She pulled it out of the back of her phone case and handed it to him, waiting for his reaction with a smirk.
    To her shock, he didn’t ask what to make of it. Instead, she heard him running his fingers across the surface. Shit. He could read braille. When had that happened?
    “So… Speedboat, slow dance in the rain…”
    “Give it back!” She swept her arms in the direction of his voice and made contact with his chest. Grabbing his T-shirt in her fist, she reached for his right arm.
    “Play spin the bottle?”
    “I was fifteen! Please give it back.”
    She had to get it away from him before he read number ten.
    “Sleep under the stars…”
    That was number nine. She lunged and made a mad grab for the