The Runaway Bridesmaid

by Kaitlyn Rice

  How did a person know if her feelings for someone were more than attraction or curiosity?

  Scratch that. Isabel knew. What she didn’t know was how to handle it. Did she tell Trevor? How?

  Isabel glanced at the clock and tried not to panic. Trevor had called her three times today. Once, they’d spoken about where she’d like to go for dinner tonight. A half hour later he’d phoned to say that he’d heard Sam and Darla wouldn’t be at home tonight after all. They were heading to Greeley to help Darla’s mother choose a mother-of-the-bride dress, then they would bring her back to the ranch.

  Since Trevor’s stated reason for going was to give Sam and Darla a night alone, he’d wondered if Isabel still wanted to go. She’d said yes, of course. Then he’d said okay and he’d hung up. Moments ago he’d called again to say he was on his way.

  With twenty minutes to spare, she was dressed and ready and the butterflies were loose again. Isabel yanked the receiver to her ear and dialed her own Augusta number.

  “Yo, this is Josie.”

  “Hi, it’s me.”

  “Hey!” her sister said. “Have you seen the e-mail I sent you a while ago?”

  “No. What was in it?”

  “You got an order for some baskets. I went ahead and gave the buyer a delivery date, since you’ll be home soon. And the woman who bought the baby quilt called to say she loved it. She wants three more for her pregnant nieces.”

  “Good,” Isabel said, grateful to know she’d be very busy at home for a while.

  “I noticed Angie in her yard when I drove past earlier,” Josie said. “She’s back before you, huh? I’m glad you finally insisted on some time to yourself.”

  “Roger asked me to send Angie home. I didn’t insist.”

  “Whatever,” Josie said, unconcerned, as usual, with other people’s motives. “What’s up?”

  “Ever been in love?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “A serious one. Things are happening here.”

  Her sister hooted. “It’s that professor again, isn’t it? He’s being decent, then?”

  “Guess you could say that.”

  “Oh, good. You needed a summer fling.”

  Did she and Trevor qualify as a fling? She thought about him every moment, and had begun to dream of babies with greenish gray eyes.

  Life had been simpler before this trip. Her dream babies had had Roger’s brown eyes and siblings Isabel already loved. Her dream life had been in Kansas, near her beloved nephew, Luke, her brother-in-law, Ethan, and her two best friends, Callie and Josie.

  She kept wishing Darla’s wedding day wouldn’t arrive. A selfish wish, surely.

  “I’ve seen you get involved with lots of guys,” Isabel told Josie now. “You have fun and say goodbye. Don’t you ever fall for one?”

  “Come on. In love? Hardly.”

  “How do you avoid it?”

  Josie gasped. “Whoa! Are you serious about this guy?”

  “What’s serious?”

  “Okay, back up. Have you slept with him?”

  Lord, she wanted to. In about sixteen minutes. “No. But we’ve gone beyond kissing.”

  “Do you want to sleep with him?”

  In fifteen minutes and forty-eight seconds. “Think I should?”

  Her sister chuckled, which was good because it knocked some of the seriousness out of the idea.

  “If you want to, big sis,” she said. “But here are a few ground rules. If you go to bed with him, remember that those three little words don’t mean anything if either of you is naked or touching the bed.”

  Josie made it all sound fun. Manageable.

  “Lust can fool you,” Josie warned. “Happens to everyone.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you say those words either. You hear me, Isabel? Think about everything Mother told us about men.”

  Ella Blume couldn’t have known much about men or romantic love. Isabel had felt something akin to love several times today. When Trevor had hugged Angie at the terminal gate, she’d felt proud of him. When he’d warmed up to Isabel on the drive home, she’d respected his fair-mindedness. When he’d asked her out for tonight, she’d been excited. Every time, she’d heard a whisper in her soul that said her deep feelings for him would never falter.

  “Say something, big sis,” Josie prompted. “Say, ‘I won’t profess my undying love to a guy I’ll be leaving in a week.’ Promise you won’t.”

  Isabel knew what Josie was telling her. She would return home soon, so why create problems? Except that she wanted Trevor to know that he’d meant something to her. “I can’t promise.”

  “Then at least let him say it first, somewhere in public when you aren’t naked. That’s the only way to know if a guy means it. You know they think with their Johnsons.”

  “Josie!”

  “Sorry. I’m around guys a lot,” Josie said. “If he says it in a believable place, call me. I’ll talk you through it.”

  “Sounds like an intervention.”

  “Oh, it is, sweetums.”

  Isabel glanced at the clock. She had only minutes left before Trevor’s arrival. If she hung up, she’d get nervous again. She stalled. “How are you, Jo? Any news?”

  “Got a new guy,” Josie answered. “He’s so cute—a finish carpenter who can actually swing dance. He has great big puppy-dog eyes, and he brought me flowers last night.”

  “I thought you didn’t like to get flowers.”

  “I don’t—too many expectations. But at least this guy only brought irises.”

  “Irises don’t imply expectations?”

  “Not really. Maybe that he wants a roll in the garden.” Josie laughed at her own joke. “Anyway, I think he cut these from plants in his sister’s yard.”

  Isabel listened as her sister continued talking about her date last night. After they hung up, she stepped across to the mirror to check her hair one last time. When she heard the doorbell, every one of those butterflies danced. Something lively. Maybe a swing dance.

  She left the bedroom and jogged down the hall to the front door to greet Trevor, telling him that Sam and Darla had already left for Greeley.

  Later, Isabel would try to remember if he had responded to her greeting. He’d had a grin and a bouquet of sunflowers. “Kansas flowers for a Kansas girl,” he’d said, while Isabel considered calling Josie again, to ask about their meaning.

  And he’d stepped inside before she’d invited him in.

  He pressed the thick stems into her hand and kissed her, right there in the foyer. His ready desire made Isabel feel good. Sexy. Pretty. Wanted. She returned the compliment by looping her empty hand around his neck and shoving the door closed behind him with her foot.

  She should at least put the flowers in water, she thought even while she kissed.

  But Trevor’s hands had moved to the small of her back, tugging her close. His kiss deepened, then she felt his arousal and forgot the flowers until she tried to slide her hands up his chest. The stems were heavy and cumbersome.

  She dropped the flowers onto the nearest chair and focused. She undid a button on his shirt and slipped her finger inside the opening. Pulling her lips from his, she said, “I’ve wanted to touch you here ever since the first time I saw your chest.”

  “You have touched me there.”

  “I want to do it again.”

  He unfastened a single button of her gingham jacket and slipped a finger inside, caressing her breast above her lacy bra. “I’ve wanted to touch you here,” he murmured, his voice husky.

  “You have.”

  “I want to do it again.”

  Funny, how neither of them laughed at their jokes. She kissed him as she unbuttoned another small white button, making an opening large enough for her hand.

  She kissed him as she felt him work more of the black buttons loose, until he could lay her jacket open.

  She might have been disappointed when he broke the kiss to gaze at her, except she l
oved the heat in his eyes. And she adored that devilish look when he moved his thumbs across her lace-clad breasts.

  She grabbed his hands and tugged him backward, toward the hall that led to the guest bedroom she now had to herself. She wanted to be in his arms, naked.

  They slowed in the entry to the hallway, where a shared smile started a whole new series of kisses, but neither of them stopped moving toward that bed.

  Trevor closed the bedroom door behind them. They were alone in the house, but Isabel knew why he’d shut them inside. Even if Darla and Sam found cause to turn around and return home, they wouldn’t knock on a closed door.

  No one would need to rush around dressing or stop or regret a single moment of this special night.

  Trevor’s intense expression was heartbreakingly sexy as he finished unbuttoning his shirt. He shrugged out of it, then raised an eyebrow and dropped his gaze to her open jacket—an “I dare you” look if Isabel had ever seen one. She slipped out of her jacket.

  Trevor unbuckled his belt; Isabel unfastened her bra.

  He yanked off his shoes; she slid out of her sandals.

  After he’d dropped his socks on the floor, he broke the pattern. “You sure you’re okay with this?” he asked.

  Isabel wasn’t Josie-bold, but this evening was part of her memory bank and she wouldn’t ruin it with false modesty. She wanted to see him. Wanted him to see her. Wanted the entire experience to be red-hot and unforgettable.

  “More than okay,” she said, glancing toward his pants.

  The fire in his eyes was enough to cause a sharp spasm of want to surprise Isabel. He slid off his pants, tossed them to the side and without even waiting for his next turn, removed his boxer shorts, too.

  He was gorgeous. Ridged and smooth and ready.

  She stepped toward him as she removed her skirt.

  Met him as she began to slide her panties downward.

  Kissed him with everything she had as they fell naked onto the bed.

  He gripped her hands, pulling them above her head as he settled his body atop hers. She expected him to push inside her immediately, but he rested his hardness between her thighs, then kissed down her neck to her breasts. The sensation of his kisses was intense.

  Her body felt like a party.

  Her desire grew to a deep, hard want.

  She knew what Josie had meant when she’d said lust could fool a person. Trevor’s hands and eyes and mouth made her feel so good and desired, turning that whispery feeling into a shout.

  She felt so loved.

  He returned his mouth to hers in an openmouthed, hungry kiss, then abruptly he left her. He rolled right off her and the bed, and bent down to pick up his pants. He pulled a packet from a pocket and took care of protection.

  He returned his hot body to hers and pushed inside her, filling her so perfectly she didn’t want him to move, ever.

  This felt like love.

  But he did move.

  She did, too, slowing and quickening and deepening her movements alongside him, searching for that high feeling she’d never quite captured before.

  She was almost there, she thought.

  A tingling. A reaching—almost.

  Oh! He kissed her breasts again. And looked at them and ran his hands to her waist and gazed into her eyes.

  “Relax, Isabel.” He trailed his hands along her tummy, brushing his fingers against her curls. Then he moved them deeper. Touching her.

  She forgot to try.

  “Let go, baby,” he whispered. “I love you.”

  He deepened and slowed his movements, urgency evident on his furrowed brow, until he let out a long, low moan and Isabel felt herself soar and soar and soar.

  She’d had ideas about what she’d been missing. She couldn’t have imagined this.

  She made love to Trevor four times that night. In between sessions, they put the sunflowers into water and scrounged dinner from the kitchen and laughed about everything from Angie’s Grinch drawings to dumb, traded jokes.

  Isabel was glad she had spoken to Josie rather than Callie this evening. She might have taken his impassioned words seriously. As in, “I love you forever, in and out of bed.” As in, “Let’s do something about this six-hundred-mile separation between your house and mine.”

  But a man who hated weddings because he didn’t believe in forever relationships wouldn’t be asking for forever. He’d been saying that she pleased him there in bed and for the moment.

  Perhaps everyone had been wrong. Perhaps Isabel wasn’t destined for motherhood and marriage. Perhaps she was meant to become a mysterious spinster who got a faraway look in her eyes when she remembered that certain man from her youth.

  Maybe the memories would be enough.

  HE MANAGED FOUR DAYS. When he finally dialed the number for the Burch Lodge, he got Darla and asked for Sam.

  “You checked your messages, bud?” Sam asked, his voice terse.

  “Why do you think I’m calling?”

  “Lord only knows, Trevor. I started thinking you’d been abducted on your way home the other night.”

  Trevor stared out the screened window of his back porch. “I was busy.”

  “Your house slide down the damn hill?”

  “No.” At Sam’s silence, Trevor added, “You know I have catch-up to do after the camp weeks. The real world beckons.”

  “I think you left a part of your world here, and she’s pretty upset.”

  Ah! But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Isabel wasn’t a part of his world. “She talk to you and Darla?” Trevor asked, wishing he could ask about her but thinking he had no right. No reason that made sense.

  “She didn’t have to,” Sam said. “It’s pretty obvious this is tough for her.”

  It was tough for Trevor, too. And he’d been the one to confess true feelings. Not her.

  He didn’t even know what he wanted, or why he woke up every day feeling madder than a bear within claws’ reach of a tree-hung food pack. Would a promise that she’d send a damn Christmas card every year help? Another wild night or two?

  “Yeah, well. What would you suggest I do, Sam?”

  “Talk to her.”

  “All the talk in the world won’t change the circumstances. She’s on her way home.”

  “You should’ve thought of that before.”

  Sam wasn’t usually this slow. Trevor had thought of this before, right at the start, and he’d been raked over the coals for being rude. “She there?” he asked.

  “Yeeaah.” Sam’s tone said, “And what of it? If you talk to her, you say the right things.”

  Protecting her again.

  What right things, though?

  Hi, babe. I still love you. Do you want to get together tonight and make me love you more, so I’ll be more upset when you go home?

  “Never mind,” he said to Sam. “I called to see if there’s anything you need for Saturday.”

  “Saturday.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “You mean my wedding day?”

  Trevor nearly clicked off the phone. He didn’t need Sam’s harassment. “That’s what I mean.”

  “You can’t hurt yourself by saying the word, you know.”

  “Just answer the damn question. What do you need, when and where?”

  “That’s not my department,” Sam said. “Hold on.”

  Sam murmured something, and Darla came on the line instantly. Which meant she must have been standing there listening to every word.

  Isabel could be there, too. Trevor wondered if she was. How she’d been. If their night together had messed up her head as much as it had his.

  “I’m glad you asked to help, Trevor,” Darla said. “We’re getting down to the wire, here.”

  No kidding.

  “Of course we’re keeping things low-key, but we could use a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “Our dresses and suits are at Lynn’s Boutique, there in Boulder. You know the place?”

  “
My mother used Lynn’s for two of her weddings,” he said. “I know it.”

  “Could you be a dear and pick up our things?”

  Good. An easy job, and he’d fulfill part of his duty as best man. He’d never forgotten Isabel’s disbelief that he could be so cynical about his best friend’s wedding. “Sure I can,” he said. “In fact, I can leave in a few minutes.”

  “Wonderful! Isabel will be waiting at the lodge for you, say, in about a hour?”

  She expected him to take Isabel? “Darla, what?”

  “She’ll have the receipt, and she may need to have someone at Lynn’s adjust her headpiece. You have time to wait?”

  “You want me to come get Isabel?” Dumb question, he knew. But he’d told himself he’d see Isabel twice more. At the wedding rehearsal dinner and at the wedding. He’d told himself they’d be smart to cut things off now, before any more damage was done.

  This idea was senseless.

  He lived just outside Boulder. He’d be driving all the way to the lodge, getting Isabel and returning to his home city, then looping back around.

  This was just…more love matching.

  “I know what you’re doing, Darla,” he said.

  “What?” Her voice was high, innocent. “Making sure that your best friend and I have a wonderful wedding experience?”

  Again Trevor considered clicking off the phone. Maybe he could pack up and go on a month-long hike, until the wedding was over and Isabel was gone.

  He wanted to see her. He knew weddings, and he knew as the main attendants he and Isabel would be busy. Perhaps one more private meeting would be good. He could say a better goodbye and try not to leap on her in the doorway as he had the other night.

  He’d stay in public. Keep things friendly but sane.

  “I’ll be there within an hour,” he said.

  He drove fast and arrived in forty-three minutes. Isabel met him outside the lodge, purse tucked under her elbow and eyes full of emotion. She came out to the Jeep and slid into the passenger side before he’d figured out what to say to her in greeting.

  Something like, Sorry I didn’t call you. I realized I was in love.

  She made the greeting easy. Smiled. Said, “Hi, Trevor.”

  “Hi.”

  “You okay?”

  Are you kidding?

  “Fine. Busy.” He started the Jeep and backed out, then headed south toward Boulder. “Isabel, the other night was incredible,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to—”