Northern Renegade

by Jennifer Labrecque

  Right. Tansy said, “Did you see the way she was looking at Liam?”

  “I sure did. She was watching him from the bar like a hungry cat eyeing a canary.”

  Logan looked from Jenna to Tansy and back to Jenna. “I think I missed something.”

  Jenna rubbed his shoulders. “Of course you did, sweetie. You’re a man. But if there’s one thing women don’t miss, it’s when another woman is interested in a man. And Mallory Kincaid is interested in Liam.”

  He shook his head. “If you say so.”

  Jenna laughed. “I know so.”

  Tansy felt kind of queasy inside. She must’ve eaten too much of Lucky’s delicious bison burger and fries. Mallory Kincaid was everything Tansy wasn’t—tall, thin, blonde—and Liam hadn’t pulled his hostile act with her. “Yeah, she was definitely putting out signals.”

  “It won’t do her any good.”

  “Why?” Obviously Jenna knew something Tansy didn’t.

  “Because he’s not interested in her.”

  “He didn’t seem not interested in her,” Tansy said.

  Jenna cocked her head to one side and looked at Tansy as if she’d just climbed off of a spaceship. “How could he be interested in her when he was busy watching you all night?”

  “No, he wasn’t.” He’d looked at her when he’d walked in and then ignored her all night.

  “Tansy Patrice Wellington, the man couldn’t stop looking at you all evening. Of course, you didn’t see because you were so busy trying to ignore him.” Jenna looked at Logan. “Am I right?”

  Logan held up his hands in mock surrender. “I have no clue. You know I’m not good at that stuff. In fact, I’m going to go over and check with Leo on a new stock offering.”

  “You do that, honey, but don’t talk business too long. We’ll wrap up our girl business soon.”

  Jenna’s husband was all about finance and had found a kindred spirit in retired insurance salesman turned general store owner Leo Perkins. Logan simply shook his head as if he didn’t quite know what to make of his wife and headed to the other table. Jenna scootched her chair closer to Tansy’s.

  “Now, while Logan’s gone, tell me what’s going on with Liam.”

  “I told you last night when I called about the sand, he’s got some issue with me being out at Shadow Lake. He thinks I’m going to compromise his privacy. He’s a jerk.”

  “Really? I think he’s the best thing that could’ve possibly happened.”

  Jenna was a smart lady, but she seemed off the mark this time. “I’m obviously missing a piece of some puzzle here. How’s that?”

  “You got a lot of work done today, even with the sand being delivered, didn’t you? You haven’t been thinking about Bradley nearly as much, have you?”

  That was all true. “How’d you know?”

  “You haven’t mentioned either work or Bradley tonight. If you’re not mentioning work, it means it’s good. If you haven’t mentioned Bradley, it means you’re not thinking about him. And I think you’re not thinking about him because you’re distracted by Liam.” Jenna beamed. “I think he’s just what you need to get you over Bradley and finish your book.”

  A delicious shiver ran through her at the remembered heat in Liam’s eyes and the fire he stoked in her. Trepidation followed fast on the heels of anticipation. “You mean, like a rebound?”

  “Sure. It’s the way things work. You throw a basketball against something and what happens? It bounces back. It rebounds. Sooner or later you’ve got to rebound. Liam could fit that bill.”

  “I don’t know if I want to rebound yet or if I’m ready.”

  “Don’t sweat it. You’ll know when the time is right.” Jenna smiled and waggled her eyebrows à la Groucho Marx. “But there is that saying that there’s no time like the present.”

  Before Tansy could comment, and quite frankly she didn’t know what to say to that, Merilee slipped into the chair next to Tansy. “Nelson says Liam doesn’t need stitches, just a butterfly bandage, but he really whacked the back of his head. He doesn’t think Liam should drive. That, of course, has made Liam act like a bear with a sore paw. Can you haul him home since he’s right next door?”

  Oh, joy. He’d definitely be difficult now, but she could hardly say no. “Sure. No problem.”

  “Well, not to cut your evening short, but Nelson’s almost done with him. I think if he’s left to cool his jets too long, he’ll just get on his motorcycle and go.”

  Tansy gathered her purse. “I was just about to leave anyway. I need to let Jenna and Logan get on with their date night.”

  Jenna laughed, looking around the crowded room. “Oh, yeah, ’cause you were keeping us from being alone. Go take the wounded soldier home. Why put off to tomorrow what you can do today?”

  Merilee looked a little confused but pretty much everyone was used to not fully following Jenna conversationally at some point or another.

  Tansy, however, knew exactly what her stepsister meant.

  * * *

  THE LIGHTS OF GOOD Riddance faded in the side view mirror as Wellington headed out to Shadow Lake. Neither of them had said a word since she’d met him at the door outside of the airstrip/bed-and-breakfast.

  Her perfume, her very presence, seemed to wrap around him in the confines of the SUV and the night.

  “Go ahead and say it, Wellington,” Liam said, his injured cheek throbbing.

  Her profile was etched darker than the dark of the night. “What is it I’m supposed to say, Reinhardt?”

  “Don’t you want to know why he hit me? Don’t you want to crow that I’ve dogged you about you being next door and now you’re taking me home?”

  “I don’t do smug.” Her voice sounded huskier than usual in the dark.

  “Right.” She’d been so smug about her line in the sand she could hardly stand herself.

  “As to why your cousin knocked you out—” she would have to phrase it that way “—that’s between you and him. I don’t want to interject myself in your business. I know how you feel about your privacy.”

  “I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing here.” The gossip would be all over Good Riddance before sunrise.

  “It didn’t help that he did it in front of everyone in Gus’s on a crowded night. Since there’ll be all kinds of speculation and your privacy’s already shot to heck, I’ll bite. Why’d he hit you?”

  “He thinks I stole his girl.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not knowingly. I didn’t know at the time he was interested in Natalie. Dirk’s not the best communicator.”

  “It must run in the family,” she said with a note of teasing. Touché. She followed it with a laugh. “He expressed himself pretty clearly tonight.” She glanced at him and then looked back to the road. “What happened to Natalie?”

  “We got a divorce.”

  “Oh, wow. You didn’t just steal his girl for a date, you married her and then it still didn’t work out.”

  Wellington didn’t sugarcoat it, but that was fine, he didn’t need sugarcoating. But he would set the record straight on one point. “I didn’t steal her. I don’t poach on other men’s territory.”

  “No, you don’t seem like the type of man who would,” she said quietly. Her hands were small and dainty against the steering wheel. Her bare arms were graceful.

  “By the way, you look nice tonight.”

  Was that faint sound an indrawn breath?

  “Thank you. He must’ve hit you harder than I thought. You actually said something nice to me.”

  “But I like you better with your glasses on.”

  “That’s more like it, Reinhardt.”

  It was the truth so why’d she sound as if her nose was suddenly out of joint? “So, did you have a date tonight who didn’t show?”

  “No. I did not get stood up, thank you very much. I did not have a date.”

  “Why else would you get all dolled up?”

  “Maybe because I wanted to and I can.
I don’t have to ‘doll up,’ as you call it, for anyone but me.”

  Natalie had had some book about men being from one planet and women from another. He’d thought it was a bunch of crap at the time she’d run around quoting from it, but honestly women just didn’t make sense sometimes. “So, you didn’t have a date tonight?”

  She turned onto the private road leading to the cabins.

  “I’m going to cut you some slack because you suffered a concussion.” Actually, Wellington was proving to be good entertainment. “No, I did not have a date tonight. And what business is it of yours?”

  She threw the vehicle in Park and killed the engine.

  “None. Just passing time.” He opened the door and got out while she did the same. She rounded the back end of the SUV and he headed to his cabin as she mounted the stairs. He paused to make sure she got in without mishap. She opened the door.

  “Thanks for the ride,” he said, his foot on the bottom stair of his cabin. “Oh, and feel free to undress in front of the window again tonight. I enjoy the view.”

  “Wait up for it,” she responded with a sweetness he didn’t trust. The door closed behind her.

  Half an hour later he lay in bed, in the dark, his blind up and window cracked, doing just that. He waited to see what Wellington would do, because she would do something.

  Five minutes later she snapped on the bedside lamp, her blinds drawn, throwing her into relief the same as last night. However, unlike last night, this time she climbed on the bed on her knees. He swallowed hard. Damn.

  The intercom next to his bed rang, the one that looked like an old-fashioned phone and ran between the two cabins, and he picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Are you watching? Are you up?”

  He was both. “Yes.”

  “I just wanted to make sure.” The intercom clicked in his ear. She’d hung up.

  He watched, waiting, unblinking.

  Slowly, languidly, her movements heavy with deliberateness, she raised her right arm and his breath stuck in his chest.

  Her movements still seductive, she presented her hand...and then her middle finger.

  He blinked and burst out laughing as she extinguished her light. Damn. Laughing hurt his head.

  Wellington had flipped him off.

  It had been better than another striptease.

  He settled against his pillow. Well, almost better than a striptease.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON Tansy dropped by the airstrip office to say hello to Merilee after her lunch at Gus’s. Alberta was parked in the chair next to Merilee’s desk, while Dwight and Jefferson, Lord Byron on the floor between them, contemplated life and the chessboard.

  “How’s it shaking, sugar?” Alberta quipped as Tansy crossed the room.

  Tansy laughed, feeling more carefree than she had in some time. “It’s shaking just fine. And you?”

  “The sun rose this morning and me and Dwight lived to see it. Can’t ask for much more than that at our age, except for a good roll in the sack now and then.” She winked. “How’s that man of yours after his beat down last night?”

  Tansy felt the heat of a blush creeping up her face. “He’s not my man,” she said, “but he was fine on the way back last night. I heard Sven stop by this morning and pick him up for work.”

  He’d been out for his run before that. Apparently a knockout didn’t stop Liam Reinhardt, even if it had kept him from driving the previous evening.

  Merilee shook her head. “Men. Liam and Dirk were just fine afterwards.”

  Tansy laughed. “It gave the town something to talk about. Gus’s was buzzing just now.” Jenna hadn’t been available for lunch but Tansy had just listened to all the chatter around her. No one was malicious, but the place had been rife with speculation. Tansy had simply kept her mouth shut. Reinhardt’s news wasn’t hers to tell.

  Her days were beginning to take on a nice rhythm. This morning she’d actually made more headway rather than floundering on her work. Coming in for lunch at Gus’s had been a nice break rather than the escape from writer’s block that it had previously been. She’d found some measure of hope that she might actually make her deadline with some decent material to boot. And on a larger level, she had the sense that she was reorienting herself in her life.

  Alberta was about to say something when Mallory Kincaid came down the stairs from the bed-and-

  breakfast upstairs. Merilee introduced them.

  Tansy shook the other woman’s hand, her stomach knotting. That little measure of Zen she’d come in with dissipated in the other woman’s presence.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” the blonde said.

  “Nice to meet you, as well.” Tansy did not find it nice to meet the other woman, but she’d been reared too well not to be polite. Something about Mallory bugged her. There was just something that didn’t quite sit right with her.

  Mallory was even worse in person. She possessed a lilting musical voice, arresting green eyes and at least five inches, maybe six, on Tansy’s meager five-foot-four stature.

  “So, are you off to Jenna’s for your spa date?” Merilee said.

  “I am.” Mallory smoothed her hand over the edge of her shirt. She looked casual but put-together. “I’m

  really looking forward to it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll love it,” Merilee said. She added, “Tansy and Jenna are sisters.”

  “Oh.” Mallory’s green eyes widened in surprise. “I would’ve never guessed.”

  The other woman wasn’t being bitchy, but somehow her genuine surprise stung more than if it had contained an element of cattiness. “We’re technically stepsisters, which is why there’s no resemblance.”

  “Ah.” Mallory nodded. “I have a stepsister, as well, and her mom is Asian so Dina and I seriously don’t resemble each other. Do you live here?”

  “Just visiting for a bit.”

  “She’s staying in one of the cabins out at Shadow Lake along with Liam,” Alberta said with a mischievous gleam in her eye.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize...”

  That caught Mallory even more off guard than the Jenna situation. Tansy cleared up the misunderstanding. “She means he’s in the cabin next to mine.”

  “Oh, I see.” Tansy so did not imagine the flicker of relief in Mallory’s eyes and the faint shadow of hostility. “Shadow Lake sounds interesting. Perhaps I could stop by one afternoon to check it out.”

  Ha. More like check Liam out...and Tansy considered it pretty darn pushy. Not that Liam was any of Tansy’s business, but she wasn’t about to have her work interrupted, especially when she was finally cranking on it again, just so some strange woman could put herself in the man’s path. No, thanks. “Sorry, I work long hours. If I’m not here in town, then I’m working.”

  “Well, perhaps we can work something out on a day you won’t be too busy. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Good grief. Was she going to have to tattoo no on her forehead? The woman was relentless. “Sorry, but I really need to stick with it. I’m avoiding distractions.” And pushy strangers she didn’t care for. Settled. Done. She didn’t like this woman.

  “Well, better run. I don’t want to be late for my pampering.”

  “Enjoy,” Merilee said as Mallory was walking out.

  Juliette came through the door, her pup, Baby, by her side, passing Mallory on her way out.

  “She’s definitely not shy,” Alberta said with a snort as the door closed behind Mallory.

  Juliette looked bewildered. “Did I miss something?”

  “Just a little woman-to-woman standoff,” Alberta said with a smirk.

  “It was nothing,” Tansy said. She had yet to see Juliette without the pup. She and Sven were funny. Baby was with her today and Sven’s dog, Bruiser, went to work with him every day. Tansy had run into the couple and their canines twice last week when she’d gone for a late evening hike along the lake. Juliette and Tansy had sort of clicked and Tansy enjoyed chatting with the couple w
hile the dogs cavorted. It was cute, but then again, Sven and Juliette made a cute couple. They obviously adored each other. Come to think of it, there was a lot of that going around in Good Riddance.

  She bit back a sigh. It had been rather painful a week ago but now it was just nice. She supposed she was getting used to being split with Bradley and rethinking her life without him.

  “Oh, okay,” Juliette said, her gaze encompassing the room. She looked at Tansy with a quiet smile. “I just popped by Gus’s looking for you, since I missed you at the cabin. I know it’s last minute but Sven and I decided to cook out tonight and we thought you might want to come over for dinner.” The last time she’d ran into them Sven had mentioned she ought to come over for a cookout before she left. “Would you care to join us?”

  She’d be more than happy to get to know them better. “That sounds nice. What can I bring?”

  Juliette shook her head. “Don’t worry about bringing anything. I know you’re not particularly in cook mode while you’re here. And we’re just doing simple.”

  “I can make brownies. I picked up a mix at the dry goods store when I first got here just in case a chocolate craving struck in the middle of the night.” Or she needed to drown her sorrows in chocolate. However, Jenna had kept her stocked in cookies thus far.

  Juliette laughed. “Okay. Sure. Bring brownies. Around seven? That gives Sven time to clean up after work.”

  Tansy was dying to know if they’d also invited her next-door neighbor but she could hardly ask. Part of her hoped he was there, part of her hoped he wasn’t. And what she hoped didn’t matter—if he was, he was. If he wasn’t, well, then, he wasn’t. Either way, she was going.

  “Seven sounds perfect. I’ll be there.”

  7

  LIAM WALKED OUT his front door, a bottle of sparkling water that the dry goods store stocked specifically for Juliette tucked beneath his arm. Merilee had given him the heads-up on that one.

  Wellington was just walking down her front steps, looking as pretty as she had the previous evening. She had on a purple dress that hit her right above her knees—Wellington had some nice, shapely legs. The dress flared out from the waist and sort of flowed over her hips. The color looked nice with her dark hair and olive-tinted skin.