by Marie Force
“You hit Fred,” the would-be axe murderer said.
Without taking her eyes off the front end of her once-pristine car, she said, “Who’s Fred?”
“The town moose.”
She stared at him, agog. “The town has a moose?”
“That’s right,” he said as if such things were perfectly normal, and she was the crazy one for asking the question.
“What about my car? Look at what he did to my car!”
“Didn’t you see the moose-crossing sign a mile or so back?”
“I saw it and a thousand others, but I didn’t think it meant a moose would be stupid enough to stand in the middle of the road where it could get hit by a car.”
“Are you calling Fred stupid?”
As cold, wet muck seeped into her lovely boots, Cameron wanted to shriek. This whole thing was beyond stupid! She wished she could close her eyes and be back in her SoHo apartment, in a world where everything made sense to her. A “town moose” standing in the middle of a road definitely did not make sense.
If she could manage to extract her feet from the goop, the first thing she’d do was click her heels together three times and hope for instant transport home. Hey, it had worked for Dorothy, right? Thinking about her favorite movie of all time buoyed her flagging spirits.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, almost sounding concerned.
“I don’t think so.”
“Where you heading?”
“Butler.”
“You’re close.”
“I know. The GPS said I was minutes away before Fred got in my way.”
“Looks to me like you hit him, not the other way around.”
“Tell it to the insurance company,” she said, wondering if her insurance covered mooseastrophies. This really couldn’t be happening. Maybe she’d fallen into a dream the way Dorothy had, and when she woke up she’d laugh about the guy who’d been more concerned about a moose than he was about the smashed-in front of her brand-new car.
“Fred definitely got the better end of the deal,” she muttered.
“If you want to grab your stuff, I can give you a ride into town.”
Cameron, who’d spent a lifetime avoiding dangerous situations, who never left home without a can of mace, who rarely talked to strangers or made eye contact with people on the street, had no idea whether she should get into a car with a perfect stranger who could very well be an axe murderer. Then she remembered the can of mace in her purse.
“What about my car?”
“I’ll have Nolan bring it in for you.”
“Who’s Nolan?”
“He runs the garage in town.”
“Oh.”
Cameron pondered her limited options and decided she really had no choice but to take her chances with him—as long as her mace was close at hand.
“No worries, I have all night to stand here and wait on you.”
“I, um, my feet seem to be stuck.”
“Stuck?”
“What is this crap all over the road?”
“That’d be mud,” he said with the first hint of humor in his deep voice. She had to admit it was a nice voice. Too bad it belonged to someone who cared more about a moose than he did about her poor car. “Welcome to mud season in Vermont.”
“Mud has a season. This just gets better and better all the time.”
He turned back to his truck, and for a heart-stopping second she thought he might be planning to leave her there. Instead, he fetched a long black object that resembled the billy clubs carried by New York’s finest and started toward her.
As the menacing music from Texas Chainsaw Massacre played in her head, Cameron’s heart began to pound. If she hadn’t been stuck in the muck, she would’ve been tempted to run into the far less threatening forest.
The axe murderer turned on a powerful flashlight, aimed it at her feet and let out a lusty belly laugh.
“What the hell is so funny?” In the residual glow from the flashlight she caught a glimpse of what might’ve been an arresting face if he hadn’t been so sanctimonious. Chiseled was the first word that came to mind. Rugged was the second. She hated herself for wanting a better look at him when she had much bigger problems at the moment.
The quicksand episode from Gilligan’s Island chose that moment to pop into her head as she realized she could no longer feel her feet.
“Are those suede boots?” he asked when he finally quit laughing.
“Yeah, so?”
“Um, just FYI, suede boots usually don’t fare too well in Vermont mud season.”
“Thanks for the advice, Cliff Clavin. Now maybe you could tell me how I’m supposed to get free of this crap?”
“Quickest way would be to step out of the boots and leave them.”
“Leave them? They’re five-hundred-dollar boots!”
“Ouch,” he said, wincing. “I hate to break it to you, but they’re probably a total loss.”
Cameron refused to believe that. Her dry cleaner in the city could get anything out of anything. “Where’s it coming from?”
He directed the flashlight beam to her left, the light scaling an imposing hill, tracing the path of mud flowing like a river down the slope and across the highway. “When the snow melts it makes mud.”
“How charming.”
“After months of hip-deep snow, the mud is a welcome harbinger of spring around here.” He brought the flashlight back to her feet. “So what’s it going to be, princess? Save the boots or save yourself?”
“God, what a choice.”
The flashlight provided just enough illumination for her to catch his eye roll.
Annoyed, cold and furious over the loss of her favorite boots—not to mention the carnage that was her new car—she bent to unzip the first one. “Where do I, um, step when I take them off?”
“I’ll give you a lift to my truck.”
“But I need to get my stuff.”
“I’ll come back for it.”
Even though she wanted to dislike him for defending the moose over her car, she had to admit he was being sort of helpful—and condescendingly sanctimonious. She couldn’t forget that.
“Fine.” She unzipped the second boot and tried not to think about abandoning their soft loveliness to the Vermont mud bath.
“Ready?” He squatted before her, and Cameron stepped out of the boots and slid onto him piggyback style. A whoosh of air escaped her lungs as he lifted her effortlessly, as if she were a bag of flour rather than a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound woman. He deposited her into the front seat of his toasty warm truck with the finesse of a flour bag landing on the floor of a bakery. “Sorry,” he muttered after the hard landing.
“No problem.” Like heat-seeking missiles, her feet headed for the warm air coming from under the dashboard of the relatively new truck. It still had that smell. How would he feel if Fred crushed in the front of it?
Before she could pose the question, he said, “What do you need from the car?”
She looked up at him, lit by the overhead light in the truck’s cab, and her breath caught in her lungs. Arresting hadn’t been the right word to describe his face. He was beautiful. Prominent cheekbones and lush lashes and full lips that made her want to drool, even though they were flat with annoyance directed at her. His strong jaw was sprinkled with the perfect amount of stubble, just the way a male jaw should look. Since he was wearing a knitted cap, she couldn’t tell what color his hair was but she was picturing light brown based on the color of his brows. Releasing a long leisurely sigh, she realized she was staring at him.
“Any day now,” he said, snapping her out of the dream state she’d slipped into.
Clearing her throat, she said, “I need my purse, phone, GPS and both suitcases from the trunk.”
“Anything else, Your Highness?”
“What? You asked.”
“Stay put.” He stalked off into the darkness, leaving Cameron to fume at his surly disposition. Of course it was just her luck t
hat he had the face of an angel and the personality of Ralph Kramden. Looking around the neat interior of the truck, she was relieved to find no sign of an axe or chain saw.
Her suitcases landed with a loud thud in the back of the truck a few minutes later. He got in and thrust her purse and electronics at her.
Cameron caught the items with an awkward juggle, and automatically clicked on her phone to check her messages. Still no service. She moaned. “Come on!”
“That thing won’t do you much good up here,” he said with that disdainful tone she was coming to expect from him.
“So I’ve discovered.” The flashing blink coming from the back of her car indicated he’d turned on the hazard lights so approaching cars wouldn’t hit it. At least the back end wouldn’t look like the front by morning. Propped up by the deepening mud, her abandoned boots resembled toy soldiers standing watch over the wrecked car.
Welcome to Vermont.
• • •
The short ride into town was full of awkward silence. Sensing his irritation with her, Cameron chose to stay quiet instead of peppering him with questions about the town, the state and what he might know about the Green Mountain Country Store.
“You got a name?” he asked.
“Cameron.”
“What kind of name is that for a girl?”
Instantly on the offensive, Cameron glared at him. “It’s the kind of name my parents gave me—and I had it long before Cameron Diaz was famous.”
“Who?”
Astounded, Cameron swiveled in her seat. “Tell me the truth—have I been abducted by aliens? It’s okay. You can give it to me straight. I can take it.”
“I don’t know about aliens, but I may as well tell you I have no idea who Cliff Clavin is either.”
Cameron’s mouth fell open. “The know-it-all mailman from Cheers? One of the top-rated shows of the eighties and nineties?”
“So you think I’m a know-it-all, huh?”
“You sound rather proud of that.”
“Well, you don’t have to be a know-it-all to get that wearing suede boots to Vermont in March isn’t the brightest idea you’ll ever have.”
“Pardon my ignorance, but I’ve never been here before.”
“All that technology laying in your lap, and you never got the 411 on the mud.” He snorted out a laugh.
“Anyone ever tell you that you can be somewhat insufferable?”
Arching an eyebrow, he smirked at her. “Only somewhat? I’ve fallen short of my goal.”
Exasperated, Cameron shifted to look out the passenger window.
“Was it something I said?”
She shook her head in disbelief. The guy was too much. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Will Abbott.”
That got her attention. “Any relation to Lincoln Abbott?”
“That’d be my dad. How do you know him?”
“I don’t actually know him. Yet. I’m due to meet him tomorrow.”
“For what purpose?”
“To build a website for his store.”
“Damn it!” Will slammed the heel of his hand on the wheel. “I can’t believe him! We told him we didn’t want it!”
“We?” Cameron made an effort to keep the waver out of her voice. Would this interminable day ever end?
“My siblings and I. We’re his partners.”
“Oh.” Since the company had no website, she’d found precious little information about it online and had planned to start from scratch once she got to town.
“Let me guess—when he hired you he never mentioned that his children voted against a website.”
“Um, no, that didn’t come up.”
“This is so typical. He brings one of his big ideas to us, we tell him we aren’t interested, and then he does it anyway.”
“If you’re partners, how does he get away with that?”
“Because he owns the majority—fifty percent. The other fifty percent is split between the ten of us. Five of us help him run the store and vote proxy for the others. The other five provide a variety of products to the store.”
“Ten of you?”
“I’m one of ten.”
“You have ten kids in your family?”
“Yeah, so?”
“I’ve never known anyone who had more than four kids in their family.”
“Well, now you know someone who has ten.”
As an only child, Cameron tried to wrap her head around what it might’ve been like to grow up with nine siblings. “What are their names?”
“You want to know the names of my siblings?” he asked, as if that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard.
“Yeah, I guess I do. If I’m going to be stuck in the middle of your family feud it would be good to know the people I’m dealing with.”
“Feud is kind of a strong word, but we do argue. A lot.” He sighed and tightened his grip on the wheel. “Hunter and Hannah are the oldest. They’re twins.”
“Ten kids and twins too?”
“Two sets of twins. Lucas and Landon are second from the youngest. They’re identical twins.”
“That’s so cool.”
He glanced over at her, seeming confounded by her interest in his family. But to Cameron, who’d grown up painfully alone, families like his only existed on the TV shows she’d glommed on to, looking for a family anywhere she could find one.
“I’m after Hunter and Hannah. Then comes Ella, Charlotte, Wade, Colton, Lucas and Landon and then Max.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of kids.”
“Yep.”
“Is your mom in an asylum?”
His bark of laughter took her by surprise. “Nah. She rolls with it all. I’ve never met anyone as quietly efficient as she is. She always made it look easy.”
“How do you make ten kids look easy?”
“I don’t know, but somehow she did.”
“So which five are involved in the business?”
“That’d be me, Hunter, Ella, Charlotte and Wade. Several of the others are involved in businesses that feed products to the store. Colton runs the family sugaring facility that makes maple syrup, and Max helps him out when he’s able to between classes. He’s a senior at UVM. Landon has a woodworking business and oversees the volunteer firefighting department in town. Hannah makes jewelry. Lucas manages the family’s Christmas tree farm and helps Landon with the fire department. I think that’s everyone accounted for.”
“Just out of curiosity—why don’t you and your siblings want a website?”
“Because we don’t need one. We have a very nice business just the way it is. A website will bring a bunch of issues we aren’t interested in dealing with.”
“Such as?”
“We’ll have to hire people to fulfill orders, set up a distribution center, figure out shipping. So many headaches.”
“But it could grow your business exponentially.”
“We don’t want to grow our business. It’s fine the way it is.” He drove into a quaint little New England town with a signature white-steeple church, a volunteer fire department, a combination café and gallery, and there, in the middle of everything, the Green Mountain Country Store.
In the dark, it was hard to see much, but it seemed small next to some of the other buildings and boasted a quaint front porch. They were past it before she could ascertain much of anything else.
Will pulled into a parking lot behind a large white Victorian house.
“Where are we?”
“I assume you’re staying at the inn since it’s the only place in town that takes guests.”
Cameron pulled out the confirmation message she had printed at home. “The Admiral Frances Butler Inn?”
“That’s it.” He cut the engine and got out of the truck.
By the time she emerged onto thankfully dry pavement, he’d fetched her luggage from the back. “Can you hand me the black bag? My running shoes are in there.”
He retrieved the bag she poin
ted to and dropped it in front of her.
“You don’t have to shoot the messenger, you know,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“Just because you’re mad at your dad for hiring me doesn’t mean you have to be cranky with me.”
“You were irritating me long before I knew my dad had hired you.”
“You’re just full of charm, aren’t you?” she asked as she pulled on sneakers.
“So I’m told.”
“By who?”
He waggled his brows at her. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Actually, I really wouldn’t.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug as he led her into the back door of the inn. He seemed to know his way around, so she followed him through a series of hallways to the front desk where he rang the bell on the counter. The place smelled like potpourri and lemon-scented furniture polish.
An older woman came through the door wearing a housecoat, pin curlers in her hair and a warm, welcoming smile on her plump face.
“Hi, Will. What a nice surprise. What brings you in tonight?”
“Hi there, Mrs. Hendricks. I’ve brought you a guest. Cameron . . .”
“Oh,” the older woman said, resting a hand on her head as if she just remembered her curlers. “I look a sight.”
“You’re pretty as a picture, just like always,” Will said.
“Will Abbott,” Mrs. Hendricks said as her face turned bright red, “you could charm a bird out of a tree.”
Will sent Cameron a smug smile, as if to say “Told ya so.”
Cameron cleared her throat, hoping to remind Mrs. Hendricks that a paying customer was waiting to check in. “Cameron Murphy. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hendricks.”
The other woman finally looked at her and gasped. “Oh my! What happened to your face?”
Cameron raised her hands to her face, remembering the moment of impact and how her nose had hurt afterward. “What?”
“You have two black eyes,” Mrs. Hendricks said. “And your nose . . .”
Alarmed, Cameron looked around for a mirror. “What about my nose?” She walked across the small lobby to a framed mirror and shrieked at what she saw. Her nose was swollen and sure enough, dark bruises were forming under her eyes. “Oh my God!”