Page 1 of Wanting a Family Man

Chapter One

Of the manymistakes Cloe Vance had made in her twenty-three years, showing up in Raven’s Cove unannounced was arguably one of the worst.

She’d been scared, though. Scared someone would tell her she wasn’t allowed to come. Scared no one would tell her where her niece was. Scared that her phone would be tapped and tracked. Heck, she was even scared that she was becoming paranoid, which said everything about the state of her life these days.

She was a mess, which was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid when she’d aged out of foster care and started adulting. She had been determined to make smart, practical choices. She hadn’t wanted to end up like her mother, yet here she was—broke, homeless, and fleeing a dangerous relationship with a Very Bad Man. She wasn’t doing drugs to numb the pain, but she saw how alluring that type of escape could become.

She saw clearly howallthe rotten stuff happened. When you felt like you were utterly alone in this world, it took only a little misplaced trust and allowing hope to override your gut. The next thing you knew, you had no job, no home, no friends. She had even lost her sister, which wasn’t directly connected to her actions, but it felt as though it was.

This new perspective humbled her. It made her hate herself for judging her mother all those years ago. Being frightened and lonely wasn’t a crime.

Being an accessory to money laundering was, though.

Somehow, Cloe had avoided being charged with that. She had cooperated and was still in a daze that she had walked out of the courthouse with her freedom.

Within days, she had liquidated her few remaining possessions and bought a bus ticket north. It was strange to be so untethered. As she had sat on the ferry from Port Angeles, Washington, into Victoria, Canada, she had felt like a castaway bobbing on an open sea.

She still felt adrift, even though she’d since left that ferry for a second bus that had taken her to the top of Vancouver Island, where she had climbed aboard a second ferry that took her even farther up the coast and into the night.

She didn’t stop for a proper sleep anywhere, just dozed in her seat, waking disoriented from confusing dreams.

When she walked off that last ferry, she found herself two miles from town. At midnight. The landing crew must have thought she was waiting for someone because they got in their car and disappeared, leaving her alone on the slip.

If she’d had a phone, maybe she could have hired a rideshare or found a room. Instead, she studied the brochure she’d picked up off the ferry, waiting until there was enough light to see the road since there were no streetlights, then walked into Bella Bella.

It was terrifying and exhausting, yet peaceful. It felt good to be moving instead of sitting, breathing fresh air instead of stale AC. It was midsummer so the breeze wasn’t too cold. She could hear the steady hiss of waves and concentrated on that, trying to ignore the creaks and snaps in the brush that stopped her heart every few steps.

The town was barely coming awake. It was only a couple of streets in each direction, increasing her sense of having arrived at the edge of the earth. She was the coffee shop’s first customer. She took her paper cup to the wharf, where she sipped while waiting for the water taxi that would take her into Raven’s Cove.

Her brain was numb, forming no thoughts beyondGet to Raven’s Cove. That had been the only imperative in her head for months. Even before April, when she’d been told her sister had passed unexpectedly in a small plane crash.

After that terrible news, Cloe’s urgency had intensified, fueled by urgent questions.What will happen to Tiffany’s baby? Who will look after Storm?

The baby is with familyhad been the message relayed through her lawyers. What family? Tiffany’s almost-husband, Wilf, had three grown sons. Had one of them taken guardianship? Which one?

The need for answers, and to see for herself that Storm was safe and well-cared for, had kept Cloe alive through the twists and delays in the court case. If she hadn’t been driven to survive for Storm, she might have given up entirely by now.

The water taxi growled into place against the wharf, releasing a handful of children wearing backpacks and babbling with excitement for whatever their day promised.

Cloe boarded and would have fallen asleep as the taxi rocked its way to Raven’s Cove, but the coffee and the rush of finally arriving had her sitting up with anticipation as she came into—

Is this it?

She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but definitely something grander. All she could see was a marina with a T-shaped wharf holding a variety of boats in their slips, some fishing boats, others for leisure.

On shore, there were a dozen houses peeking from the forest on the hills above the collection of commercial buildings. A pub on the left was dwarfed by a huge industrial building behind it that wore a sign declaring itRaven’s Cove Marina and Shipyard. Between that and the two lodges on the right stood what looked like the shortest strip mall in history. It held maybe three shops and what might be a couple of apartments above it.

As the taxi closed in on the wharf, the land rose too high to reveal anything except the pub’s patio, which jutted out to overlook the cove.

“Is this…it?” she asked the water taxi captain as she disembarked. Perhaps she’d been dropped off on the outskirts again.Please don’t make me walk another two miles.

“Sure is,” he said with a nod, as though he heard that a lot.

As she stepped onto the wharf, she hung back, letting the handful of fellow passengers go ahead while she shrugged into her backpack and brushed back her hoodie, trying to get her bearings.

Her ears were immediately accosted by the chill of her new pixie haircut. Along with so many other parts of her old life, she had also left behind the chemical blond she had saturated into her dark brown curls all these years. She wore no makeup, jewelry, or even a bra.

Slowly, she started toward the ramp, passing a man who was casting off a speedboat of some kind. She didn’t know boats. This one looked like a convertible sportscar with a low, angled, wraparound windshield and white seats in the bow.