Can't Help Falling

  The more you resist,

  the deeper you’ll fall

  Serafine St. Romain doesn’t need her psychic powers to know she’s no longer in Tyler Leshuski’s good graces. True, she did tear him to pieces when he asked her out, accusing him of being shallow and selfish. Despite the energy crackling between them, the gorgeous sports writer is a no-strings, no-kids kind of guy. And Serafine, raised in the foster system, intends to be a foster parent herself. She won’t compromise that dream, even for a man as annoyingly appealing as Tyler.

  In a simpler world, Tyler would already have gotten Serafine out of his system. For him, women equal fun. Not this kind of bone-deep, disconcerting desire. Life gets even more complicated when he becomes the guardian of his much younger sister. Suddenly, he’s way out of his depth. Serafine’s the only person who can connect with Kylie. He can’t jeopardize that for a fling.

  But maybe...just maybe...he’s finally ready to risk everything on forever.

  Praise for Cara Bastone and

  Just a Heartbeat Away

  “An utterly satisfying and delicious read. One for the keeper shelf!”

  —Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

  “Emotionally intense and real, Just a Heartbeat Away touches the soft place in your soul. Cara Bastone’s debut novel will warm you from the inside out and stay with you long after you finish the book.”

  —Christie Craig, New York Times bestselling author

  “Gorgeous, brilliant, with characters so unique and real they leap right off the page. It’s a master class in achy breaky yearning. Don’t start this one late at night unless you don’t need to do anything the next day except for pre-ordering the next one.”

  —Sarina Bowen, USA TODAY bestselling author of the True North series

  “Just a Heartbeat Away is a beautiful slow-burn romance. The chemistry between Sebastian and Via absolutely stole my heart!”

  —Molly O’Keefe, award-winning author of the Riverview Inn series

  Also by Cara Bastone

  Forever Yours

  When We First Met (prequel ebook novella)

  Just a Heartbeat Away

  Can’t Help Falling

  Look for Cara Bastone’s next novel

  Flirting with Forever

  available soon from HQN.

  CARA BASTONE

  Can’t Help Falling

  For C A-S.

  Thanks for sharing.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EXCERPT FROM FLIRTING WITH FOREVER BY CARA BASTONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “STALE POPCORN, LUKEWARM hot dogs and flat beer. What more could a man want from life?” Tyler Leshuski flung an arm around the back of Matty’s seat and tilted his face up toward the cheerful squint of the early-June sun that was belatedly trying to make up its mind between spring and summer.

  Matty Dorner, freshly seven years old as of this morning, peered dubiously into Tyler’s cup. “I dunno, Uncle Ty. I think I like orange soda better than beer.”

  “That’s because you’ve never had beer,” Tyler replied, knowing he was about to receive—yup, there was the sharp flick to the back of his head smartly administered by his best friend. Tyler, grinning, tipped his head backward and viewed Sebastian upside down, sitting in the row behind him. “You rang?”

  “Will you kindly quit talking to my seven-year-old about beer?” Sebastian asked.

  Tyler opened his mouth to respond, but the slight, pretty woman tucked under Sebastian’s arm beat him to it. “Matty knows beer is a grown-up’s drink. There’s no harm in learning about it from Uncle Tyler.”

  “See? Listen to the woman.” Tyler quickly sat back up, feeling strangely deflated even though Sebastian’s girlfriend had sided with him, as she often did. Via DeRosa was sweet and thoughtful and loving. There was no arguing with the fact that she was downright good for Sebastian and Matty, who’d both endured enough loss to tide anyone over for a lifetime. After Sebastian had lost Matty’s mother, Cora, in a car accident almost five years ago, Tyler had wondered if his best friend would ever be himself again. The old Sebastian. The one who laughed easily, played rec basketball and every once in a while, hired a babysitter so that he could go out and have a beer with his oldest friend Tyler.

  In the half a year since Seb and Via had gotten together, Tyler had seen more glimpses of the relaxed, open, fun-loving man Sebastian used to be than in the previous five years combined. This was a good thing, Tyler knew. He just wished that he was around for more of it.

  Hell. Matty’s birthday party today was the first time he’d seen the kid in almost ten days. There used to be a time when Tyler hadn’t gone more than twenty-four hours without shoving the kid’s wiggling toes into a pair of tiny socks or cramming a waffle down his throat while they bolted out the door, late for Matty’s school.

  There used to be a reason for Tyler to be around. Now? Not so much. There was more than enough supervision for Matty these days. Via was officially moving into Sebastian and Matty’s house in three weeks, when her lease ran out. And then Seb’s house, practically Tyler’s second home, would officially become a place where Tyler rang the doorbell while he waited outside on the porch for someone to answer.

  “Did I miss anything, Matty?” Joy Choi asked anxiously in that high, clear voice of hers as she slid into her seat, her pigtails tucked under the Coney Island Cyclones cap that matched the one on Matty’s head.

  “You’re back!” Matty practically shouted in his best friend’s face. “I was worried you’d miss the seventh-inning stretch. That’s the best part.”

  “Matty, Matty, Matty.” Tyler shook his head in mock disappointment. “The best part is obviously the actual baseball. Besides, it’s only the fourth inning.”

  “Right, Uncle Ty,” Matty agreed, nodding his head sagely before turning back to Joy. “Did you get any snacks?”

  Tyler chuckled to himself. The kid obviously knew the best way to shut up an adult. Agree with what they say and move on.

  “Thanks for taking her, Fin,” Seb said from behind Tyler. “Was it any trouble?”

  “None at all,” replied the woman whose voice never failed to make Tyler’s pulse trip over its own feet. Facing away from her, toward the ball game, Tyler tried not to pay attention to the hairs rising on the back of his neck as she settled next to Sebastian. Tyler couldn’t figure out if it was better or worse that she sat behind him.

  If she was in front of him, he could at least keep an eye on her, though he knew it would mean he wouldn’t watch a second of the game. But behind him, she became a disembodied voice, the sound of which practically haunted him, if he’d believed in that sort of thing. Behind him, she became all sultry Louisiana drawl—smoky cloves, lavender and sage. The woman had the kind of voice that
told a man exactly how her mouth tasted.

  Tyler shifted in his seat and did not turn around. The only thing more potent than her voice was her face, and he didn’t need to turn around to call it up, perfectly, in his mind. Moon-pale skin, eerily light eyes and plush lips. Gah. Baseball, baseball, baseball, he reprimanded himself.

  He wasn’t here to swan around about a woman, no matter how painfully beautiful she was. No matter if it made his feet sweat in his perfectly matched Nike socks to know she sat behind him, gorgeous and dangerous, like a gemstone tiger come to life. He was here because it was his quasi-nephew’s seventh birthday and because a minor league baseball game was the second-best way to pass a warm day, preceded in Tyler’s mind only by the bike ride down Ocean Parkway that led to said baseball game. Well, he amended internally, maybe the absolute best way to pass a warm, sunny day was indoors, tussling under the covers with some warm, sunny woman.

  The hairs on the back of his neck rose yet again, this time forcefully, and he wondered, uncomfortably, if the woman sitting behind him somehow knew that his thoughts had turned to sex. Serafine St. Romain claimed she was psychic, which Tyler wholeheartedly rolled his eyes at. He didn’t believe in that kind of thing, and was naturally skeptical of people who did. But every once in a while, like right now, with the bright sun warming his baseball cap, when his skin gathered into goose bumps, Tyler just sort of...wondered if parts of her claims could be true. Could she read his thoughts?

  “Yes,” her voice said from behind him, low but clear and just as sexy as always.

  “What?” he asked, jolting and spinning around to face her. “What did you say?”

  And then he was facing her and there was no looking away from the unabashed attractiveness of that high-cheekboned, clear-eyed, plush-mouthed face. He felt like he was suddenly staring into a solar eclipse.

  “Via asked if I’d texted with Mary today. I said yes,” Fin responded dryly, though she smirked as if she knew exactly the reason his stupid heart had just fallen down the stairs. But she couldn’t read minds, he reminded himself. That was ridiculous. It was just coincidence that her voice had broken through his thoughts at that particular moment.

  “Right,” he said gruffly, before turning back around. Then he quickly turned to her again. “Why were you texting with Mary?”

  One of Serafine’s dark eyebrows rose up her forehead, further framing her large, light eyes. “Because she’s my friend.”

  “Right,” Tyler said again, just as dumbly as the first time. He turned back around and put his eyes on the game, feeling all sorts of bothered. He hadn’t known that Serafine and Mary texted each other. It was stupid that it bothered him. It was stupid to feel like Mary was his and Seb’s friend, not Via and Serafine’s friend. But, dammit! It was he and Mary who’d dragged Sebastian back to life after Cora died. It was Sebastian and Tyler and Mary who’d laughed until they’d cried and then just plain cried together all those nights. It was Tyler and Mary who’d coordinated meals for Sebastian and done the grocery shopping and traded off babysitting without Sebastian even having to ask them.

  This time last year and it had just been Sebastian, Mary and Tyler at the annual Cyclones game they always went to for Matty’s birthday, riding bikes down the parkway to get there and scarfing processed meat and snow cones until the sun threatened to go down and they had to bike home.

  But Tyler had to admit that things were changing. This year Matty had even ridden his own bicycle, instead of in a seat on the back of Seb’s. Mary hadn’t been able to make it, busy as she was at her shop these days, and the extra ticket had fallen to Joy. But the biggest change of all? Last fall, Via had tumbled into Sebastian’s life, and she’d plunked her best friend and foster sister, Serafine, down along with her.

  Thus began the new era. Dawn of the Age of Serafine. Jurassic, Triassic, Serafinaceous. Tyler pictured mist gathering at the opening of a cave, a man discovering fire. But then the man looked up, saw Serafine St. Romain in a bikini made of mastodon fur and promptly burned the shit out of his hand.

  He shook his head at himself. This was the new era where Tyler went ten days without seeing Matty or Sebastian and when he did, there was a sexy psychic making ants crawl over his skin.

  Tyler attempted to relax, smiling at the coaster car of screaming Brooklynites that whirlwinded alongside one end of the outfield. The field was right on the edge of all the Coney Island roller coasters and every three minutes or so, thrill-seekers swirled over the far outfield wall on a bendy, bright red track. Beyond that was the silvery ocean with its whitecaps and thin stretch of yellow sand.

  An airplane painted a skinny line of bright exhaust over the water, cutting the sky in two. As he watched, a pop fly momentarily made it into the frame of Tyler’s vision. There was nothing more New York than that view. A baseball, an airplane, a roller coaster filled with screamers, the scent of caramel corn mixing with the briny ocean.

  God, he loved Brooklyn.

  “We’d like to thank everyone for their attendance this fine June day,” the smarmy announcer said over the loudspeaker, slightly slurring with what was most likely one beer too many. “But as today is our yearly Parent Appreciation Game, we’d like to particularly honor all the mothers and fathers in the crowd right now.”

  The crowd clapped and cheered as tepidly as they had for everything else that had happened so far.

  “Stand up, Dad!” Matty said, twirling on his knees on his seat so that he could see Sebastian.

  Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll just wave at the crowd.”

  “Come on, Daddy!”

  Sebastian pursed his lips and stood up reluctantly, jamming his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Tyler grinned down at Matty. The kid knew the exact power of the word Daddy. He used it rarely, as if appreciating the raw wattage of it, knowing it would get his dad to pretty much agree to anything these days.

  “Let’s hear it for the parents! You’ll notice behind the dugout we’ve got the parents of the players. And here, we get to see the players’ appreciation.”

  At that, many of the players climbed the fence between the field and the crowd, blowing kisses to their parents and tossing balls and stuffed animals to the crowd.

  “Tyler...” Matty said, a question apparent in every squished-up line of his face, so much like Sebastian’s.

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t have kids, right?”

  “Matty!” Sebastian said in surprise from behind them. “I can’t believe you don’t know the answer to that!”

  Tyler laughed. “Matty, don’t you think that if I had a kid you’d have met him by now?”

  Matty turned to Joy and the two of them shared a serious look. “But sometimes parents don’t ever see their kids. Especially dads.”

  “That’s true...” Tyler responded carefully. He knew better than most just how true that was. And he suddenly had the baked-potato-sized stone in his stomach to prove it.

  “So, you might have a kid I’ve never met.”

  He couldn’t argue with Matty’s logic. “I guess I see what you’re saying. But I don’t have any kids, Matty.” And if I did have a kid, I’d never pretend like he didn’t exist.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why don’t you have any kids?”

  Because Leshuskis aren’t meant to procreate, he thought, almost matter-of-factly. Being a good father, you had to have genes like Sebastian. Patient, selfless, willing to put up with the mess and disorder of a still-developing human. Tyler was comfortable enough in his own skin to know that that wasn’t him. It hadn’t been his father either. Arthur Leshuski had been impatient and exasperated and, on the rare occasions that he actually bothered to see Tyler, apparently always right about everything. Tyler didn’t care to have a kid and find out just how like his father he really was. He preferred to leave that particular skeleton strung up in the fa
mily closet.

  “What is this, a therapy session?” he joked. “I thought we were supposed to be watching baseball.” He pushed Matty’s cap down his face again, very aware of the three adults sitting behind him, likely listening to this entire conversation. He would have had this conversation in front of Sebastian no problem, but he barely knew Via and, in his mind, Fin was still in her fur bikini, sucking his awareness into the black hole of her hotness.

  “Can you have kids?” Matty asked, fixing his hat and staring doggedly up at Tyler.

  “Matty!” Sebastian leaned forward and took his kid by the chin. “That is a very rude question to ask someone!”

  But Sebastian’s reprimand was offset by the fact that Tyler was laughing his ass off.

  “Uncle Tyler always says I can ask him anything!” Matty protested indignantly.

  Tyler waved his hand at Seb. “It’s fine. He’s right. The kid can ask me anything.” He focused his attention back on Matty. “But for the record, your dad is right. That’s not something you should go around asking people. And also for the record, yes, as far as I know, I’m perfectly able to have kids if I wanted. I just don’t want to.”

  Matty narrowed his eyes at Tyler. “But why not?”

  Tyler sighed. Matty could be like a puppy with a slice of dropped bologna. He knew it was best to just answer. “To tell you the truth, I don’t like kids very much.”

  Matty’s lips pushed out indignantly. “You like me.”

  “That’s true. I like you. Also, I love you. But you don’t count.”

  “I don’t count? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Because you’re cool. And because I knew you when you were the size of that chihuahua over there. You were just a tiny, whiny baby and so helpless that I just had to love you. It wasn’t my fault that I loved you.”

  “So...you’re not ever gonna be a dad?”

  “Not if I can help it, kid.” There was a beat of silence and Tyler felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and dance the hula. Dammit. He was too aware of her. He resisted the urge to smooth them down.