The Runaway Bridesmaid

by Kaitlyn Rice

  Darla said she enjoyed it, but the extra distractions and responsibilities couldn’t help.

  Isabel sighed. “That’s right. Listen, I might occasionally let my good intentions get in the way of my judgment, but this arrangement will be fine, too, I promise. Angie will be going home soon.”

  “I was teasing.” Trevor held her gaze.

  Lord, those eyes were sexy.

  And if Isabel didn’t know better, she’d think the man was trying to…woo her.

  But…why?

  “Angie hasn’t been a problem so far,” he said.

  “Not a problem?” she repeated, scowling as she returned to her work. Or tried to.

  “Not really.”

  Before she yanked the needle right through her flesh, Isabel stopped sewing and let the torn corner of the tent fall to the ground. Then she met his stare and held it.

  “What are you doing, Trevor?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have a twin or a look-alike cousin?”

  “No.”

  “Then you must be messing with my head.” She shrugged, frowning. “First you’re polite. That I understood because we were strangers on the highway. But after you learned who I was, you were cross. Rude, even. A week later and you’re full of compliments?”

  He peered out at the thickness of trees for a moment, then nodded. “I know I’m sending mixed signals,” he said, his voice low and personal. “On the highway I was charmed by a beautiful stranger, but one I didn’t think I’d ever see again. Polite behavior fit the situation.”

  She felt herself blush. “And when I showed up here?”

  “I was still charmed.”

  “You were not!”

  “Yes, I was. But I had a lot to do and worried that you’d be a distraction,” he said. “I was probably searching for reasons to dislike you.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m realizing it can’t hurt to get to know you. We had a nice talk before dinner the other night.” He held her gaze for an impossibly long time.

  Green. She’d just figured it out. Trevor’s eyes were a sexy, grayish green.

  Isabel broke their stare and frowned down at her stitching again. She stabbed the needle into the cloth. Yanked it out. Fretted.

  He wanted to get to know her, how?

  And she wished she knew what he’d meant by charmed.

  Anyone could be charmed by a person they’d recently met who was intriguing or cute or full of personality.

  Or did Trevor mean charmed as in attracted to her, specifically?

  Damn, she’d just pricked her thumb. She slowed her movements, sighing. Thinking.

  Surely, Trevor wasn’t suggesting that they engage in a summertime fling? She had Angie to worry about. And hadn’t she mentioned Roger, back home in Kansas?

  No. She hadn’t. When the subject of Angie’s identity had come up, she’d claimed that Angie’s father was a neighbor. Not a boyfriend and certainly not a possible future husband.

  She sighed again and kept sewing, thinking it was a good thing she was working with a tent. Her stitching was awful. Uneven, loose.

  Trevor hadn’t been the only one charmed by a stranger out there on that highway. She should tell him about Roger, here and now.

  And she would have, if not for the technicality that she wasn’t dating Roger, here and now.

  She should tell Trevor that she wasn’t the type to engage in a summertime romance. They could get past this tension-filled moment and direct their attention elsewhere. Except, well, dammit, she didn’t know if he was suggesting a summertime romance.

  Besides, she’d had thoughts of kissing him. Maybe she was the fling type after all. As Josie would say, how would she know unless she exercised those flirt muscles?

  She glanced his way and discovered him still watching her. “Okay. Well, thanks for explaining,” she said, sounding and feeling lame.

  “What did you think I was doing?” he asked.

  The question startled her. She put needle to cloth again, avoiding his gaze. “Lord, I don’t know,” she said. “I thought maybe Darla had clobbered you, after that first day.”

  “She did.”

  Isabel peered at him and laughed.

  “She threatened to, anyway,” he said. “I hadn’t realized I was being such a chump.”

  Again, Isabel had no idea what to say, so she resumed her sewing while Trevor folded the other tents and carried them into a cabin.

  When Isabel finished, she carried the last tent into the same cabin, and at his direction slid it onto a shelf inside the entryway. Then she helped him count lanterns, sleeping bags and camp dishes.

  With each tick she made on the printed inventory sheet, Trevor smiled or made a joke or brushed a hand against her hand or arm or leg.

  Then, he walked her to the lodge and said another warm goodbye before he disappeared into the laundry room, at the opposite end of the building from Darla’s office.

  Isabel found Darla and Angie outside on the porch. The little girl was jumping rope while Darla sat in a rocker nearby, punching numbers into a calculator and scribbling the results into a book that she’d opened over her lap.

  “Hi, Izza-bell,” Angie said, speaking in time to her jumps.

  “Hi, Ange. Did you finish your movie?”

  “Yep. Did you finish helping the grinch?”

  Isabel put her finger to her lips. “Yes, I did,” she said. “But please don’t call him that anymore, hon.”

  “Okay. That grouchy-face.”

  Isabel shook her head. “Not that either.”

  Angie landed flat on her feet and stood gaping at Isabel while the rope slapped down hard against the concrete porch. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s trying to be friendly now, I guess. And because everyone deserves a second chance.”

  “Oh.” Angie started skipping rope again. “What should I call him, then?” she asked. “Professor?”

  “No one up here calls him by his title. Maybe you could call him Mr. Kincaid or perhaps Mr. Trevor. Or Professor. Next time we see him, we can ask which he’d prefer.”

  “Okay.” The little girl began to chant a counting rhyme, effectively ending the conversation.

  “Things went okay, then?” Darla asked, glancing up.

  “They did.” Isabel claimed the chair next to Darla. “If your little talk had this much effect on Trevor, I’m impressed.”

  “Oh, but he’s usually friendly enough,” Darla said. “I think he probably just needed to get to know you. For some reason, your chance meeting on that highway threw him off.” Her gaze drifted down to her numbers, and she become immersed in them again.

  Darla was right. Trevor had been friendly this afternoon. Not overly attentive. He’d confessed that he was charmed by her, but he hadn’t suggested a torrid affair.

  Not at all.

  Isabel watched Angie play and chastised herself for being so silly. Trevor had only been making amends this afternoon—not moves. A more experienced woman would have recognized that. She’d be foolish to give the idea another thought.

  Or his muscled torso, with the shirt or without it.

  Lord. Those ripples had been perfect. They’d made her wonder what it would feel like to touch them. His skin would be hot and firm and—

  “Hey, Izza-bell!” Angie paused in her rhyme but continued to jump. “Did you rip his socks off?”

  The shedded clothes in Isabel’s mind were definitely not socks. “Huh?”

  “The grinch!” Angie said in a stage whisper. “Did you teach him you can count higher than him?”

  “Oh. You mean, did I knock Mr. Kincaid’s socks off.”

  Isabel watched Darla’s hand still over her bookkeeping.

  Obviously, she was interested in this answer, too.

  “Maybe in a way,” she said, realizing as she spoke that it had been the other way around.

  If anyone’s socks had been knocked off this afternoon, they were hers. Trevor had needed onl
y to offer normal friendliness and a glimpse of his tanned flesh, and she’d been swayed.

  Developing a crush on a complicated man like Trevor Kincaid would be a mistake. Whether they were on a break or not, Isabel shouldn’t give up on Roger.

  He might be reluctant to marry a second time, but she thought he’d eventually settle down again.

  And that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Marriage to a man who would stick around. And happy children. She thought she could achieve that with Roger. If she counted Angie and R.J., she was halfway there.

  Darla had told her recently that Trevor was thirty-two. Actually, he was a year older than Roger, and he’d never been married. Isabel thought it was safe to assume that he didn’t have kids. He was a committed bachelor, she had no doubt, and she could see why.

  An enigmatic, sexy man like Trevor could very well die a bachelor.

  Chapter Six

  Three hours later, Isabel sat dangling her feet in the pool while Darla taught Angie to float at the opposite end. With Sam’s cell phone pressed to her ear, Isabel listened as Roger told her that he was surprised his son could be so much help around the farm.

  She felt for a moment as if she was at home in her own kitchen, checking in with Roger after his workday. “And how is R.J.?” she asked. “Is he enjoying Angie’s absence as much as he thought he would?”

  “So far.”

  Isabel heard a click and a whir, and knew her ex-boyfriend and possible future husband was putting bacon in the microwave, cooking it for his standard Friday night dinner. She also knew that, without prompting, Roger wouldn’t elaborate much about R.J.’s well-being. The only son of a reticent farmer whose wife had died young, Roger had never been a talker.

  That was another reason he and Isabel got along so well. In a world where people couldn’t drive their cars or go to a movie without feeling a need to talk on the phone, they both understood how to be alone.

  Another sound, and Isabel knew Roger was opening the utensil drawer, grabbing his good utility knife to slice a couple of tomatoes. He’d make four sandwiches, cutting each one corner to corner and putting the resulting triangles on paper plates, corners inward so the sandwiches would fit. He and his son would eat with the kitchen television tuned to the Weather Channel.

  “What else has been happening?” Isabel asked.

  “Oh, you know. R.J. hops between his computer games and the TV. He’s trying to top a buddy’s high score on some game. Snicker? Snooker?”

  “Snood. He plays Snood.”

  “Oh.” Roger paused, then said, “Iz, are you ready to come home, yet?”

  Could he already miss her, Isabel wondered. “Darla’s wedding is on the third Saturday in July. I’m here until then,” she said.

  “There’s a dance out in Leon later this month.” Roger said this as if it was big news, but for the past five or six years, folks from the town about ten miles east of Augusta had held that same, monthly dance.

  Maybe he did miss her. “I know about the Leon dances,” she reminded him. “You used to take me.”

  “You don’t want to go this month? I can get tickets.”

  “I can’t, Roger. I’m here.”

  He was quiet, and Isabel felt guilty, and she had an idea. Roger’s wife had been his high school sweetheart, so he’d been involved with only two women—Isabel and Barbara.

  Maybe he should check out the competition this summer, too. He’d either learn to appreciate Isabel or he’d become interested in someone else.

  It was a risk, but a real breakup would be better than this sort-of-dating-but-sort-of-bored status they’d been stuck in.

  “Maybe you should ask someone else,” she said.

  “Someone else?”

  “We’re taking a break, remember? That leaves you free to take someone else to the dance.”

  “You’d want me to do that, Iz?”

  Lord, she didn’t know. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d mind that much if it’d drive their relationship forward.

  “I’d understand if you did.”

  A flash of tanned skin caught Isabel’s eye, and she glanced up in time to watch Trevor streak across the space at the opposite end of the pool. He entered the water with a tidy splash and traversed the space in a straight line that would end where Isabel was sitting.

  She lifted her feet from the water, crossing them beneath her. As she watched those strong arms propel across the water, she tried to concentrate on Roger’s voice.

  Even though she’d just told her boyfriend to date someone else, she was noticing Trevor.

  She closed her eyes to make focusing easier.

  Roger seemed to be suggesting that they attend next month’s dance. Before she could comment, she heard a splash at her feet. She opened her eyes to see Trevor’s head emerge through the water’s surface right in front of her. He dragged a hand across his eyes, flinging water droplets onto her legs. Then he grinned at her.

  She held the phone out to indicate that she was busy, so he nodded and swam away. For several more minutes Isabel continued talking to Roger. Sort of.

  She listened. She responded in the appropriate places. But Trevor’s antics in the pool held her attention. Finally she made excuses to hang up and got up to set the phone on a stack of dry towels on the chaise longue behind her.

  When she’d returned to her place at the side of the pool, Trevor appeared in front of her again. He gripped the pool ledge very near her thigh, and looked up at her. His hand and face—his entire person—was close enough to make Isabel wish she could run into the lodge and escape this overwhelming mixture of confusing feelings.

  Maybe her older sister, Callie, had been right. Maybe she should have used this vacation to stay away from men entirely. Get her head straight.

  “Angie said you were talking to her dad,” Trevor said.

  Great. He’d mentioned Roger and presented an opportunity for Isabel to tell the truth about that relationship. Trevor had been honest with her about things and deserved the same from her.

  “Yes, I was,” she said.

  “I presume all is well in Augusta, Kansas?”

  All was the same in Augusta, it seemed. Isabel figured she hadn’t been away long enough to miss it as much as she’d thought she would. “Sure. Things are fine.”

  She frowned at Trevor, wondering why being wet would make him look so different. She’d never thought of him as handsome, exactly—not in the way Roger was handsome—but something about Trevor’s looks turned her stomach to jelly.

  That had never happened with Roger.

  Trevor was bigger in her thoughts, somehow. His very life seemed bigger. But Isabel wasn’t sure she was being fair to Roger. She watched Trevor’s gaze move down her pale-pink swimsuit. The one-piece covered more skin than any of the other suits she’d found in the Boulder shops, but it hugged her curves. She felt exposed.

  And tense and guilty and excited.

  Trevor flattened his palms on the concrete beside her, then pulled his body out of the water, flipping around at the same time so she caught a glimpse of his wet, muscled backside before he sat down.

  Jeez. She could actually hear her heart pounding. Perhaps it was time to head inside. Angie and Darla had been out here an hour and should be quitting soon.

  “Do you have something against swimming?” he asked, eyeing the dry, flimsy material of her suit again in a way that wasn’t at all gentlemanly.

  She had thought about jumping into the shallow end with Darla and Angie. Playing in the pool sounded like fun. Now that she had a suit, nothing was stopping her.

  Except for the thought of Trevor being in there with her. With her luck Angie and Darla would leave and she’d be alone with him, trying to convince herself that he wasn’t making moves on her, even though a part of her wanted him to be making big moves on her.

  Big. Bold. Unmistakable. Unforgettable. Moves.

  If he wasn’t flirting, then why had he sat down there beside her? Why was he ogling her like that? An
d why on earth was he leaning so close that she could feel his body heat?

  “Where are the counselors?” she asked.

  His intent look sent a spasm of erotic heat straight down her center. “They’re gone.”

  She frowned.

  “I always give the counselors twenty-four hours off before the camp kids arrive,” he explained. “That means I get twenty-four hours off, too, to do whatever I want.”

  Had he just waggled his brows at her?

  “Oh. That’s nice.”

  God. What an inane comment!

  Isabel felt like a boring, inexperienced woman who couldn’t even tell if a man was attracted to her. If she stayed a moment longer, Trevor would surely discover that that was exactly who she was.

  Not a temptress at all.

  Lord help her, she’d rather be a temptress.

  Once again, she thought about getting up to leave, but Trevor chose that moment to slip into the pool. Instead of swimming away, however, he treaded water in front of her. “Come on in,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll be right here with you.” He glanced at Darla and Angie, mere yards away. “I can teach you to swim while Darla works with your sidekick.”

  “Trevor, she’s a little girl. I’m a grown woman.”

  His raised eyebrows told her he’d noticed.

  The man was coming on to her. Definitely.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you learned?” he asked. “You don’t seem to be afraid of the water.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What do you have to lose?”

  Her dignity.

  Her composure.

  Her very life, if she jumped in, landed on top of the guy and knocked both of them out. “I don’t know.”

  His hands and eyes summoned. “Come on. I won’t bite.”

  Not even a nibble?

  That was Isabel’s immediate thought, and she couldn’t believe it. Lust controlled her brain right now. If her mother was watching from the other side, she must be shocked.

  Hey! She would be shocked, wouldn’t she? Ella Blume wouldn’t have listened to this guy for a minute. She’d have headed inside a long time ago.