by B. J Daniels
“What are you two up to?” she demanded.
“You should get that,” TJ said.
Getting up she went to the door and blinked in surprise. Justin stood on the porch dressed in a tux complete with top hat and cane.
“I went for vintage Hollywood for the dance,” he said. “What do you think?”
She thought he couldn’t look more handsome and said as much. He smiled and reached for her hand. “Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled her outside. The day was bright and clear and cold. Snow crystals hung in the air.
“Remember our first kiss?” he asked.
Chloe laughed. “You mean our only kiss?”
“It was on a day like this.”
“It was.”
He drew her close. “I’m not letting another day go by.”
She looked up into his handsome face as he leaned toward her. She held her breath suddenly afraid. She’d been dreaming about this moment for years.
His lips brushed over hers. She breathed in the frosty air as he pulled her against him, wrapping her in his arms and kissed her.
She’d thought she’d had the perfect winter kiss, but this one proved her wrong. This kiss surpassed even the first one. The icy cold air around them. Puffs of frosty white breaths intermingling. Warm lips touching, tingling as they met.
Justin lifted her up off her feet as the kiss deepened. She lost herself in him and the snowy morning. He set her down slowly, but she swore her feet were still not touching the ground. She felt as if she was floating.
“It seems the magic is still there,” he said with a chuckle.
She laughed, ice crystals sparkling all around her. The sky overhead was a deep dark blue that seemed filled with endless possibilities.
He looked so serious. “I love you, Chloe. I know this seems sudden but at the same time, it seems as if I’ve been waiting to say that for years.” His blue gaze locked with hers. “Chloe, I came back to Whitehorse because of you.”
* * *
THE DAYS THAT followed were a blur. It all came out about the mining deal and who was involved and why Drew Calhoun was killed. Monte Decker’s body was cremated and a distant aunt came to collect his ashes. Kelly Locke was buried at the cemetery. The turnout was sparse.
But it was Blaine Simpson who had everyone shaking their heads. “He was such a likeable cowboy,” they said. “And his poor wife.” Everyone felt bad for Patsy. They would have taken her casseroles and flowers and held her hand, but she left the day after she was given the news about her husband.
“What happens to the ranch?” Chloe asked.
“Blaine’s father is putting it on the market,” Justin said. “Ironic, huh? He was so determined to keep it in the family when all the time Blaine just wanted out from under it.”
“Is that how you feel about your family ranch?” she asked.
He laughed. “Not at all. I always wanted to ranch it. Drew was the one who felt tied down.” Justin had sobered. “How do you feel about living on a ranch in Montana?”
“I would love it.”
“You wouldn’t miss the newspaper business?”
“That business is dying. But thanks to computers and the internet I can work anywhere. I would imagine I’ll always find stories I want to do...”
Justin had smiled. “I could live with that.”
They’d spent every moment together since that kiss. It had been incredible. She would lie in his arms at night and wonder how she’d gotten so lucky.
Justin was easygoing. He laughed a lot and got her sense of humor. He’d often break into song and she would join him. They found out that they liked the same food, the same kind of houses, the same kind of furniture. Neither of them was a morning person. It was almost as if they were made for each other.
Epilogue
“A triple wedding? Whose insane idea was this?” Chloe demanded and then laughed as she looked at her sisters. Their wedding gowns were so beautiful. Each of them had chosen their dream dress. The dresses couldn’t have been more different.
“You two look amazing,” she said as tears blurred her eyes.
“Do not cry. You’ll ruin your makeup,” TJ ordered, looking a little misty-eyed herself.
“Are we really doing this?” Annabelle asked looking so excited she seemed to vibrate.
“We’re doing this,” Chloe said. “Three sisters.”
“Three sisters in love,” Annabelle said grinning.
Even TJ smiled at that. Chloe had never seen her looking happier. It was true what they said about pregnant women, she practically glowed. It had been TJ’s and Annabelle’s idea to move the wedding to February fourteenth.
“Valentine’s Day?” Chloe had cried. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s a day of love,” Annabelle had said.
“You will be celebrating your anniversary with the world,” she’d pointed out.
“Nothing wrong with that,” TJ had said with a laugh. “It will give Silas time to finish our cabin so when we come back from our honeymoon, we can move in.” She’d patted her stomach even though she was far from showing. “We have a nursery to get ready. Silas is beside himself with excitement.”
“Unlike you,” Chloe had laughed. TJ was going to make such a good mother.
“It will give Dawson time to finish the addition out on the ranch,” Annabelle had said, then looked sad for a moment. “Originally it was going to be for the two of you to have a nice place to stay when you visited. But now...” Suddenly her face had lit up. “But now at least one of the rooms is going to be a nursery.”
“Are you—”
“Not yet,” she’d said. “But we’re not planning to wait. Fingers crossed. I can’t wait to be pregnant.”
Now Annabelle turned to look in the mirror. “I’m not showing yet, am I?” she asked and then giggled. “Like I care. I know I’m only a few weeks along but I’m so excited I want to tell everyone. It’s funny, all those years of being a model I always felt fat. Now I’m plump and I never felt better or looked more beautiful.”
“It is a mystery,” TJ joked and laughed. “You’re both beautiful.” She smiled at Chloe. “I’m so happy for all of us.”
Chloe nodded. It still felt like a dream.
“Sometimes you just know when something is right,” Justin had said a few weeks after their second winter kiss. He was back out at the family ranch now running it along with his father. She’d been so glad to see how well they were getting along. They’d gotten a second chance and they both knew it.
“I know we’re right together,” he’d said.
She hadn’t argued that. She’d never felt anything more strongly.
“Marry me.” He’d gotten down on one knee. “Marry me, Chloe Clementine, and make me the happiest man alive.”
What could she say? She smiled down into his handsome face. She loved this cowboy. “Yes. Oh yes.”
When he’d slipped the ring on her finger, she’d begun to cry. They’d been through so much. Nothing could ever keep them apart again.
“How soon can we be married?” Justin had asked. “Maybe it’s what we’ve been through, but I want to live every day to its fullest and not wait for anything I want this badly.”
And here she was about to walk down the aisle with her sisters. Justin had loved the idea and so had she. It seemed right the three of them getting married together. Chloe just wished Grandma Frannie were here to see this.
She smiled at the thought. Frannie would have loved it. Chloe had the feeling that she knew and was pleased by how her girls had turned out.
A lot of things seemed right. Including the news that she was also pregnant. She wasn’t ready to tell just yet. Justin was over the moon happy and his father was delighted he would be a grandfather.
Nici had stopped by the other day
to tell her and Justin that she was going to community college in Miles City. “I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I just know it’s time I did something. Invite me to the wedding.”
And they had.
Chloe took one last look in the mirror thinking she would wait to tell her sisters the good news she had to share about the baby. Just then Willie stuck her head in to fuss over her soon to be daughter-in-law, Annabelle, and to tell them that it was time. Her sisters crowded around her, all three of them smiling at each other in the mirror. TJ caught her eye and winked. There was no keeping anything a secret from sisters.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Girl Who Wouldn't Stay Dead by Cassie Miles.
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The Girl Who Wouldn't Stay Dead
by Cassie Miles
Chapter One
She had to wake up. Someone was trying to kill her.
Her eyelids snapped open. Her vision was blurred. Every part of her body hurt.
Emily Benton-Riggs inhaled a sharp gasp. The chilly night air pierced her lungs like a knife between the ribs. Slowly, she exhaled, then drew a breath again and tried to focus. She was still in the car but not sitting upright. Her little Hyundai had flipped, rolled and smacked into the granite side of a mountain at least twice on the way down, maybe more. The car had landed on the driver’s side.
Likewise, her brain was jumbled. Nothing was clear.
Even in her dazed state, she was glad to be alive—grateful and also a little bit surprised. The past few years of her life had moments of such flat-out misery that she’d come to expect the worst. And yet, recently, things seemed to be turning around. She liked her rented bungalow in Denver, and her work was satisfying. Plus, she’d just learned that she might be a very wealthy woman. I can’t give up. It’d take more than crashing through the guardrail on a narrow mountain road near Aspen and plummeting down a sheer cliff to kill her.
Her forehead felt damp. When she pushed her bangs back and touched the wet spot above her hairline, her pain shot into high gear. Every twitch, every movement set off a fresh agony. Her hand came away bloody.
Her long-dead mother—an angry woman who didn’t believe in luck or spontaneous adventure or love, especially not love—burst into her imagination. Her mom, with her wild, platinum hair and her clothes askew, took a swig from her vodka bottle and grumbled in harsh words only Emily could hear, “You don’t deserve that vast fortune. That’s why you’re dead.”
“But I’m not,” Emily protested aloud. “And I deserve this inheritance. I loved Jamison. I did everything I could to stay married to him. It’s not my fault that he slept with...practically everybody.”
Her voice trailed off. She never wanted to relive the humiliating final chapter of her marriage. It was over.
“You failed,” her mother said with a sneer.
“Go away. I’m not going to argue with a ghost.”
“You’ll be joining me soon enough.” Unearthly, eerie laughter poisoned her ears. “Look around, little girl. You’re not out of the woods. Not yet.”
Mom was right. Emily was still breathing, but her survival was not a sure thing.
With her right hand, she batted the airbag. The chemical dust that had exploded from the bag rose up in a cloud and choked her. She coughed, and her lungs ached. When she peered through what was left of the windshield, which was a spiderweb of shattered safety glass, she saw boulders and the trunks of pine trees. Literally, she wasn’t out of the woods.
With the car lying on the driver’s side, her perspective was off. She couldn’t tell if her Hyundai had careened all the way to the bottom of the cliff or was hanging against a tree halfway down. The headlights flickered and went dark. She saw steam rising from around the edges of the crumpled hood.
In the movies, standard procedure dictated that when a car flew off the road, it would crash and burn. The idea of dying in a fire terrified her. Her gut clenched. I have to get out of this damn car. Or she could call for help. Desperately, she felt around for her purse. Her phone was inside. She remembered tossing her shoulder bag onto the seat beside her.
She twisted her neck, setting off another wave of pain, and looked up. The passenger side had been badly battered. The door had been torn from its hinges. Her purse must have fallen out somewhere between the road and here. Through the opening where the door should have been, she saw hazy stars and a September crescent moon that reminded her of the van Gogh painting.
Trying to grasp the edge of the roof on the door hole, she stretched her right hand as far as possible. Not far enough. She couldn’t reach. When she turned her shoulders, her left arm flopped clumsily inside the black blazer she’d worn to look professional at the will reading. The muscles and joints from shoulder to wrist screamed. Blood was smeared across her white shirt; she didn’t know if the gore came from her arm or the head wound matting her blond hair.
A masculine voice called out, “Hey, down there.”
She froze. The monster who had forced her off the road was coming to finish the job. Fear spread through her, eclipsing her pain. She said nothing.
“Emily, is that you?”
He knew her name. Nobody she’d met with in Aspen counted as a friend. She didn’t trust any of them. Somehow, she had to get out of the car. She had to hide.
Carefully avoiding pain, she used her right hand to manipulate the left. The problem was in her forearm. It felt broken. If she’d known first aid, she might have fashioned a splint from a tree branch. Her mind skipped down an irrelevant path, wishing she’d been a Girl Scout. If she’d been a better person, she wouldn’t be in this mess. No, this isn’t my fault.
She cursed herself for wasting precious moments by being distracted. Right now, she had to get away from this ticking time bomb of a car and flee from the man who wanted her dead. Holding her arm against her chest, she wiggled her hips, struggling to get free. When she unfastened the latch on the seat belt, the lower half of her body shifted position. The car jolted.
With her right knee bent, she planted her bare foot on the edge of her bucket seat and pushed herself upward toward the space where the passenger door had been. The left leg dragged. Her thigh muscles and knee seemed to work, but her ankle hurt too much to put weight on it. Inch by inch, she maneuvered herself. Using her right arm, she pulled her head and shoulders up and out. The cold wind slapped her awake. She was halfway out, halfway to safety.
Her car hadn’t crashed all the
way down the cliff. Three-quarters of the way down, an arm of the forest reached out and caught her little car. Two giant pine trees halted the descent. The hood crumpled against the tree trunks. The back end of the car balanced precariously.
“Emily? Are you down here?”
The voice sounded closer. She had to hurry, to find a place to hide.
She hauled herself through the opening and tumbled over the edge onto the ground. Her left leg crumpled beneath her. Behind her was the greasy undercarriage. The pungent stink of gasoline reminded her that she wasn’t out of danger.
Unable to support herself on her knees, she crawled on her belly through the dirt and underbrush toward the security of the forest where she could disappear into the trees. Breathing hard, she reached a cluster of heavy boulders—a good place to pause and get her bearings. With her right arm, the only body part that seemed relatively unharmed, she pulled herself into a sitting posture, looking down at her car.
Exhaustion and pain nearly overwhelmed her. She fought to stay conscious, clinging to the rocks as though these chunks of granite formed a life raft on the high seas. She heard a small noise. Not the fiery explosion she’d been expecting, it was only the snap of a dry twig. The sound filled her with dread.
He was close.
She had to run. No matter how much it hurt, she had to get to her feet. She struggled to stand but her injured leg was unable to support her. She sat down hard on the rock. A fresh stab of pain cut through her. Before she could stop herself, she whimpered.
A silhouette of the man separated from the surrounding trees. He turned toward her. Please don’t see me. Please, please.
“Emily, is that you?”
Quickly, he came toward her. She hoped he’d kill her fast. She couldn’t take any more pain.
He sat on the rock beside her. Starlight shone on his handsome face. She knew him. “Connor.”
Gently and carefully, he maneuvered his arm around her. She should have put up a fight, but she didn’t have the strength, and she couldn’t believe Connor wanted to hurt her.