“Well, it was kind of scary when Mom started in on me, I’ll admit.”
“Started in on you about being with me?”
“She was surprised, that’s all.”
“Your mother knows you’re too good for me,” he said in that voice that seemed to be joking—but really wasn’t.
She set down her fork. “No. She doesn’t think that. She doesn’t think that at all.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And neither do I, which you really ought to know by now.”
He grabbed the big glass of milk he’d poured himself and guzzled about half of it. “This is a dumb thing to argue about.”
“I agree. As soon as you admit what a great guy you are, we can stop arguing about this.”
He actually rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. I’m great. I’m terrific.”
She raised her own glass of milk in a toast. “Yes, you are.” She drank. When she set the glass down, she asked, “Would you mind if we had my parents up here for dinner? Maybe Friday or Saturday night? I was thinking we could have your folks, too. And maybe Gage and any of your brothers who wanted to come.”
He was silent. A definite hesitation. “I have a lot of work I need to be doing, Willa.”
“I understand. But I would do the dinner. You only have to come upstairs when everyone gets here.”
“The road is still iffy.”
“I go up and down it every day. As long as you know the spots to watch for, it’s fine. I’ll just tell them all where to be extra careful.” She waited. He said nothing. Finally, she said, “If you don’t want to have the family here, I think you ought to just say so.”
He looked away. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
He pushed his plate away. “Come on, Willa. People get...expectations. Especially in this town. You saw how my mom was last night, dragging us all over the yard, making sure everyone got that you and me are together.”
She had a sad, sinking feeling—at the same time as she told herself not to be in such a hurry about everything. She needed to let him adjust to what they shared in his own way, in his own time. She reminded herself that it had only been six days since they became more than friends, and that only a few minutes ago, he’d told her how happy he was just to be with her.
“So.” She made an effort to keep her voice calm and reasonable. “You don’t want to have the family up here for dinner this weekend. Am I right?”
He gave it to her straight, at least. “That’s right.”
Something shifted within her. Something died just a little. For the first time since they became lovers, she found herself thinking that it was simply not going to work out with them.
And then she told herself to stop. Just stop.
Maybe it was pushing it a little, to have the whole family over for dinner so soon. He did have a lot of work to do. And he was also unaccustomed to being half of a couple.
In fact, from things he’d said in the past, she had a sense that he’d never planned to be part of a couple. She needed to let him deal, give him the time and the space to start to see himself in a new light.
“You’re mad,” he said softly. Sadly.
She swallowed and shook her head. “No. It’s okay. Really. It’s fine.”
* * *
The rest of the evening was lovely, Willa thought.
Collin was tender and attentive. He was passionate in bed. They talked for over an hour before they fell asleep. There was laughter. He held her close.
He honestly did seem happy just to be with her. More than happy.
Still, Willa couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d drawn a line between them when he told her he didn’t want the family over. An invisible but uncrossable line, a line that cut them off from a future together.
For him, they were lovers. The best of friends.
But no more than that.
Never more than that.
On Monday, Willa told her mother that she would have to put the family dinner on hold for a bit. Her mom didn’t push. She said she understood. Everyone was scrambling since the flood, trying to catch up with their lives, to get things back to normal. Of course, Collin needed to focus on his work. They would all get together for an evening soon enough.
Willa smiled and nodded. But she was thinking, I love him. I love him so much.
And she was starting to get the feeling that loving him wasn’t enough, that he would never want to hear her say what was in her heart for him.
That she would never wear his ring.
* * *
Collin knew that he’d hurt Willa when he’d dug in his heels about having the family over.
He was trying not to think about that, about how he’d hurt her. He was trying to keep her with him, even though he knew that in the end, what she wanted and what he wanted were two different things.
Tuesday afternoon he sat through a second endless meeting with Gage, Nathan, Thelma and the rest of the group of community leaders they’d put together to come up with ways to speed flood recovery. When he finally left the town hall, he spotted Dallas, his oldest brother, coming toward him on the sidewalk, looking bleak.
But then, who wouldn’t be bleak in Dallas’s position? His wife, Laurel, had left him and their children last year. He was a single dad raising three boys on his own.
The brothers shook hands and clapped each other on the back. Dallas said he’d driven into town to pick the boys up from summer school.
“You got a little time to kill?” Collin asked him. “We could grab a beer at the Ace....” It was one of those invitations made only for form’s sake. Collin had work waiting on the mountain and didn’t really expect Dallas to say yes.
But his glum-faced brother surprised him. “Sure. I got about a half an hour until they turn the boys loose. Let’s go.”
They sat at the bar and ordered a couple of longnecks.
Collin asked how things were going and his brother said, “I’m proud of my boys and I’m getting by—and what’s going on with you and Willa Christensen?”
Great. Getting grilled about Willa by his gloomy big brother. That hadn’t really been in the plan. Collin sipped his beer and tried to decide how to answer.
Dallas kept after him. “You’ve made Mom happy for once. I’ll say that. But come on. Everyone knows Willa’s living up at your place. Yeah, you’re the hero of the day and all. You definitely manned up when the flood hit. But do you really think moving Willa in with you was such a great idea?”
By then, Collin just wanted to cut through the crap. “Dallas. What are you getting at?”
“Willa’s a great person. And you’re not so bad yourself. But she’s the marrying kind and we both know it. The big question is, are you?”
Collin wanted to tell his brother to mind his own business. Unfortunately, Dallas had a point. “I’m nuts over her,” he said low, so only his brother would hear him. “I’ve got it bad.”
“I kind of noticed that. But let me point out the obvious. You don’t move a nice girl like Willa into your place unless you’re putting a ring on her finger real soon. Especially not when she’s the kindergarten teacher. That’s not a thing a man should do—well, maybe in New York City. But not in Rust Creek Falls.”
* * *
Collin thought about what his brother had said. He thought about it a lot—constantly, as a matter of fact.
He felt bad. Rotten. Low.
He never should have let Willa move in with him. It wasn’t good for her. He should have thought of her first, instead of how much he wanted to be with her, instead of indulging himself just because he couldn’t shake the hold of needing her so bad.
Wednesday night, she asked him if something was bothering him.
He didn’t know how
to answer. If he told her that he was feeling like a low-down loser for living with her when he never intended to marry her, well, where would that lead?
To her moving out.
He knew her. There was no way she was going to hang around if he told her to her face that it was going nowhere between them.
And he couldn’t let her move out. Everyone would say that he’d dumped her. She would be shamed in front of the whole town. He couldn’t ever let that happen to her.
Plus, he didn’t want her to move out. He just wanted to be with her. And not to have to think about what was going to happen next.
But then, he did think. He thought way too much. His mind was like a hamster on a wheel. A hamster on speed, thoughts going nowhere fast, endlessly chasing themselves in a circle.
He thought about that other guy, that guy from Colorado, the one who’d asked her to marry him. The other guy was a stand-up guy, she’d said.
She’d also said she was telling him no.
But should she be telling him no?
It made Collin feel sick in the pit of his stomach to think of her with that other guy. But what if the other guy was the better guy?
Collin wanted her. A lot. But he also wanted the best for her. And if the best for her was that other guy, well, Collin ought to step aside and give her some space to make the right decision.
He could do that much for her, at least.
But he did nothing.
Every day, every hour, his thoughts got more and more tangled up and confused. He didn’t know how to talk to her about all of it. So he didn’t talk to her.
He lied and acted oblivious and said there was nothing wrong—and that only made him more disgusted with himself. He started thinking how he really had a problem with seeing ahead to the consequences of his own actions. He had a part missing, emotionwise. He’d always been that way, chasing the thrill, hungry for excitement. Not thinking who would be hurt or damaged by his doing exactly what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it.
All day Thursday and half of Friday, as he worked in his shop to catch up on his orders, he tried to figure out what he was going to do to make things right with Willa. By three in the afternoon on Friday, he finally came to an actual decision. He realized there was only one choice for him now, only one thing to do.
He took a quick shower, put Buster in the pickup and headed for Kalispell.
* * *
It was no good lately with Collin, and Willa knew it.
Things had only gotten worse with every day that passed since Sunday, the day he’d told her he didn’t want the family over. Every day since then, he’d become more distant, more uncommunicative. And she wasn’t sleeping well at night now. She kept waking up and staring at the ceiling and trying to lie very still so that Collin wouldn’t notice she wasn’t asleep.
Wednesday, she’d asked him about it, about what might be on his mind. He’d looked right in her face and told her there was nothing.
She’d wanted to believe him. But she didn’t believe him.
There was a falseness now between them. And it was growing. She needed to break through it.
But how?
It was starting to seem to her that there was only one way to get through to him. She needed to put herself out there, tell him the hardest thing.
She’d wanted to wait a while, to simply be with him and let the closeness between them grow. But the only way they were growing since Sunday was further apart.
Yes, opening her heart to him was a big risk. She could end up without him. From the way he’d been behaving lately, she probably would end up without him as soon as she uttered those three oh-so-dangerous words.
But who was she kidding? In the deep ways, the ways that mattered, she was already without him.
So why keep lying to herself? She might as well go for it, might as well pull out the stops, put her heart on the line and accept the consequences. At least then she would know she’d given it her best shot.
On the way up the mountain Friday afternoon, she decided she would tell him as soon as he came upstairs from his workshop.
But when she got there, the house was empty. He’d left a note on the table: Quick trip to Kalispell. Took Buster. Back by six.
All right, she thought. She would tell him when he got back.
She could start dinner....
But no. Dinner could wait. She was much too on edge to think about food right then. She had lesson planning she could do, so she went to the spare room, where she’d set up a desk and computer, and she got to work firming up her choices for activities for the following week, making lists of materials she hadn’t pulled together yet.
An hour dragged by. She finished at the computer and went back out to the kitchen to face the prospect of cooking something.
Anything to keep busy until he returned.
She was standing at the refrigerator with the door wide-open, staring blankly inside, when she heard the crunch of tries on gravel outside.
Her heart gave a sick lurch inside her chest and then started beating so fast she felt dizzy. She shut the refrigerator door and turned toward the hall and the short entry area.
The door opened. She heard his boots on the wide planks of the hardwood floor, heard the door close, knew he would be pausing at the coatrack to hang up his hat.
Buster came bounding in ahead of him. She knelt and pressed her face to the warm, sweet scruff of his neck. He wiggled and made happy whining sounds—and then left her to lap water from his bowl.
Slowly, her knees feeling absurdly shaky, she rose.
And there he was. “Willa.” He wore clean jeans and a blue chambray shirt rolled to the elbows and her heart just ached at the sight of him. “Come here....” He held out his hands.
She hesitated. She couldn’t...read him, had no idea what was going on with him. He seemed to be looking at her so seriously, with such determined intention. “I...” Words simply failed her.
And then he was right there, so close. In front of her. He smelled of mountain air, of pine trees. He took her hand. “Come on...” And he pulled her with him, around the jut of the counter, into the main living area, over to a fat brown chair by the window. “Sit down.”
She did what he told her to do.
And then he was kneeling at her feet, looking up at her, his jaw set, his full mouth a determined line. He had something in his hand.
And then he was sliding it on her finger.
A ring. A beautiful diamond solitaire on a platinum band. Exactly the kind of ring she would have chosen for herself. She stared at it, gaping. “Collin, what...?”
And then he said, “Marry me, Willa. Be my wife.”
It was just what she’d hoped to hear him say someday. And for a moment, she knew the purest, most wonderful spiking of absolute joy.
It was all going to work out, after all. She would have her life with him. They would be married, have children. Be happy forever, just as she’d almost stopped dreaming they might be....
She opened her mouth to tell him how glad she was, to say how much she loved him and how scared she had been that it was all unraveling, all going wrong.
But then, before a single sound got out, she saw that it wasn’t right, after all. She realized what he hadn’t said. It was the part about how he loved her. He’d left that out.
And instead of saying Yes, or Oh, Collin, I do love you, what came out of her mouth was, “Why?”
He blinked.
He actually blinked.
And that was when she knew that it wasn’t going to work.
To his credit, he managed to pull it together. Sort of. “It’s the right thing. And I’m nuts for you. That’s not going away anytime soon. It’s the right thing and...”
She stopped him by reaching out and
pressing a finger to his lips. “The right thing, why?”
He swallowed. “Well, we are living together. And I want to keep on living with you and I...” He paused, tried again. “Okay. I love you, all right? I love you and I want to marry you and all you have to do is say yes.”
She laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. The laugh caught in her throat and ended on something very much like a sob. “Oh, Collin. You’re not telling me the truth. I know it. You know it. Can’t you just say it? Just tell me what’s going on with you, whatever it is.”
He gazed up at her. He looked absolutely miserable. “You’re not going to say yes to me, are you?”
She took off the beautiful ring. “I can’t say yes to you. Not like this. I just can’t.” She reached for his hand. Reluctantly, he gave it to her. She put the ring in his palm and folded his warm, strong fingers over it. “You don’t really want to get married, do you?”
He rose then. He gazed down at her, dark eyes so deep, full of turmoil and frustration.
She stared up at him and asked him again, “Do you?”
His mouth curved downward; his big body stiffened. And then he turned from her to the wide windows that overlooked their town. He stared out, showing her his broad, proud back. “What I want is you. What I want is for you to be happy, for you to have what you want. I don’t want folks in town saying crappy things about you. I want you to have the best of everything. I don’t really think I’m it, but you’ve told me over and over you won’t marry that other guy, so it kind of seems to me that you’d better marry me.”
“You want me to marry Dane?”
“No.” On that, he didn’t hesitate. “But you deserve the best. Is he the best? The way you talked about him the night of the flood, I guess so.”
“I was stupid and small and petty the night of the flood. I wanted to get to you, to hurt you. I’m sorry I did that. It was wrong. Now, how many times do I have to tell you, Dane is not the guy for me?”
He didn’t say anything. He only shook his head.
She tried again. “Who said crappy things about me?”
He still wouldn’t look at her. “No one. I don’t know. I just... I don’t want them to, okay? And as long as you’re living up here with me without my ring on your finger, well, they could, all right? In a small town like ours, they might. Especially the damn Crawfords. They’d do it just because I’m a Traub—the troublemaking, skirt-chasing Traub—and you’re with me.”
Marooned with the Maverick Page 18