Stranded with the Groom

by Christine Rimmer

Sy laughed, too. “And anyone with a box of Alka-Seltzer could have gotten a fortune for it.”

  Adele and Caleb agreed that Sy wasn’t exaggerating.

  Caleb asked, a little too meaningfully as far as Katie was concerned, “And what about you and Justin? Stuck there in that musty old museum with nothing but mining equipment and Indian artifacts for company.”

  Adele was shaking her head. “What did you do for all that time?”

  We kissed, Katie thought. Forever. We spooned. All night. And I dropped in at State Street Drugs this afternoon and bought myself a box of condoms. Mr. Dodson hadn’t even batted an eye when she plunked it down on the counter.

  She said, offhand as she could make it, “Oh, we found some books and board games in the storage room. We managed to occupy ourselves.”

  Addy clucked her tongue and sent Katie a sly look. “A handsome guy, that Justin.”

  Katie put on her sweetest smile. “Yes. He is. Very.”

  Adele added, “I do wish he’d been able to stay and join us tonight.”

  “He had to get back,” Katie said. “Business, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Caleb agreed. “That man’s a real go-getter. Started from nothing and now he’s the biggest developer in western Montana—and not even thirty-five yet.” Those devilish green eyes of his were twinkling. “And our Katie’s gone and married him.”

  Addy and Riley shared a glance and Sy Goodwin looked confused.

  Adele had to explain to him about the mail-order bride reenactment they’d missed when they went down to the ski resort office.

  “We heard after we got back to the hall that it was quite an event, that marriage of yours,” said Caleb. “Heard some old character named Green stepped up to play the preacher. Got right into the part. Even called himself ‘Reverend.’”

  “Yep,” Katie agreed, keeping it light, but thinking of Justin. Of his low, teasing voice through the darkness that night they’d talked and talked. Of his kiss. Of his hands on her body. She should have gotten his number. But no. He’d said he’d call. And of course he would. “That ‘wedding’ was…really something.”

  Maybe tonight, she thought. At least by tomorrow…

  The talk moved on to other subjects. After coffee and dessert, Caleb and Addy urged her to stay. They didn’t want her driving home on the icy roads in the dark.

  She said she really had to get back. The roads to town had been cleared and salted and the snow hadn’t started up again. She’d be just fine.

  It was after eleven when she let herself into her two-story farmhouse-style Victorian on Cedar Street.

  She’d been home earlier, after Justin left her in the town hall parking lot, and she’d turned up the thermostat then, so the house was cozy-warm and welcoming. Switching on lamps as she went, she headed for the phone in the kitchen in back, where she found the message light on her machine glowing a steady red.

  No one had called.

  He didn’t call Wednesday morning, either. Katie went to the library at nine and jumped every time the phone rang, though there was really no reason he’d call her at work when all he had to do was look up her home number in the book.

  Still, whenever the phone rang, her heart would race and the clerk would answer.

  And it wouldn’t be him.

  Emelda, who put in a lot of volunteer hours at the library, arrived at two. “It’s going to be fifty degrees today, can you believe it?” she marveled as she peeled off her muffler and hung up her heavy coat. “Snow’s already melting. It’ll be gone in no time if this keeps up.” She clucked her tongue and got to work shelving some new novels Katie had waiting.

  At three, Emelda took over the check-out desk so the clerk, Lindy Peters, could have a break. The phone rang just as Lindy left the desk. Katie raced over and grabbed it on the second ring, though Emelda was moving down the counter toward it.

  “Thunder Canyon Public Library,” Katie answered, absurdly breathless. “May I help you?”

  It was only someone wanting the library hours for the week. Katie repeated them and said goodbye.

  Emelda shook her silver-gray head. “I swear you are jumpy as a frog on a hot rock today. I would have gotten that.”

  Katie hardly heard her. Her mind was full of Justin. What was he doing now? Had he gotten back to Bozeman safely? Well, of course he had. And it had barely been twenty-four hours since he left her at the town hall—well, okay, twenty-six hours, thirty-plus minutes, to be more exact. Not that long, not really. No doubt he had a mountain of work to catch up on. He probably wouldn’t be able to get away to see her until the weekend. He’d be calling—soon—to set something up.

  “Katie? Did you hear a single word I said?”

  “Oh. Emelda. Sorry, I…” She was saved from having to make some lame excuse for her distracted behavior when a little girl with a towering stack of picture books, her mother right behind her, stepped up to the counter.

  After that, Katie managed to keep herself from rushing to grab the phone every time it rang.

  Besides, by then she was feeling more and more certain that Justin would be calling her house, not the library. There was probably a message waiting for her at home right now.

  When she got home at five-fifteen there were two messages, but neither was from Justin.

  She simply had to stop obsessing over this. He’d said he’d call and he would. Justin was an honest man.

  That night she hosted the Historical Society meeting at her house. As she served up the coffee and cookies and listened to everyone bemoan the storm that had ruined their museum reception, and trade news on Ben Saunders’s rapidly improving health, she couldn’t help expecting the phone to ring.

  It didn’t. Not that night, not Thursday morning, not during her prelunch hours at the library, either.

  She met Addy for their usual Thursday lunch date at the Hitching Post. Addy mentioned that she thought Katie seemed distracted.

  Katie met Addy’s eyes across the table and longed to tell her everything—of the magic time she’d known with Justin when they were marooned in the museum, of the shattering beauty of the one night she’d spent in his arms.

  Of how she couldn’t stop longing, every second of the day, for his call.

  But no. It was all too new. She didn’t want to share what she was feeling with anyone. Not yet. Not until…

  Well, soon. But not now.

  She reassured Addy that she was fine.

  And then Justin didn’t call the rest of the day, or in the evening, either.

  By Friday morning she was beginning to wonder if something really might have happened to him, if he’d had some kind of accident on the way home to Bozeman. Whatever had kept him from calling her, she prayed he was all right.

  She pored over the special edition of the Thunder Canyon Nugget that had come out Wednesday. It was chock-full of great stories of how folks had weathered the big storm. Two storm-related accidents were reported. One had occurred after the roads were cleared, when a pickup going too fast rolled on Thunder Canyon Road. The other concerned a high-schooler who’d driven his snowmobile into a tree while the snow was still falling on Sunday afternoon. Injuries were surprisingly minor in both cases. She found no mention of any accident on the road to Bozeman, nothing about a black Escalade or an out-of-towner named Caldwell.

  Before she left for the library, she called Bozeman information. His home phone wasn’t listed. But they did have a number for Red Rock Developers. She dialed it and a service picked up. The offices opened at nine. She could leave her number and Mr. Caldwell’s secretary would get back to her during business hours.

  “Uh, no thanks. I’ll call later.”

  She hung up and considered calling Caleb, asking him if maybe he had Justin’s home number. But she found herself hesitating to do that. Caleb would be curious. He’d tease her about her “groom,” and ask her why she thought she needed his number. And then Caleb would tell Adele that Katie was trying to get ahold of Justin—and Addy would tell Cal
eb how distracted Katie had been at lunch the day before…

  Oh, not right now, she thought. She wanted to find out how Justin was, wanted to talk to him, wanted to be reassured that everything was all right, with him and between the two of them, before she said anything to Caleb or Addy.

  She went to work and tried to keep her mind on her job, a difficult task when every thought kept tracking right back around to Justin. Where was he? Was he okay? Why hadn’t he called?

  By lunchtime, after Lindy had asked her twice what was wrong with her and Emelda had expressed concern over whether she might be coming down with something, Katie realized she had to snap out of it.

  Worrying about Justin wasn’t going to do anybody any good. She’d track him down that evening, one way or another. Until then, she was keeping her thoughts strictly on her work.

  At four-fifteen, the kids started arriving for Emelda’s story hour, which started at four-thirty. They all gathered around the low round table in the center of the children’s section, where Emelda would keep them spellbound with fairy tales and stories by the best contemporary children’s authors—and sometimes true-life accounts from Montana history.

  Cameron Stevenson, one of the two men Katie and Justin had found shoveling out the town hall parking lot on Tuesday, brought his seven-year-old, Erik, as always. Often the parents would leave their kids and come back at five-thirty to collect them.

  Not Cam. The tall, athletic auburn-haired teacher was a single dad and he took fatherhood seriously. He stuck around, even though he coached at the high school and would have to rush back there the minute the story hour ended to get his team ready for the evening’s home game. As he waited, he read sports magazines from the periodicals section and browsed the fiction stacks.

  After five, as Katie was wrapping things up for the day, Cam wandered over to her workstation at the central reference counter and he and Katie chatted about nothing in particular: how good the varsity basketball team was looking this year and how Cam and Erik had barely made it home Saturday before the snow shut them in.

  Cam joked that he’d heard how she and her “groom” had been stuck at the museum alone for the duration. “Some honeymoon, huh?” he asked with an easy grin.

  “It was…quite an experience,” she replied in a library-level whisper, mentally congratulating herself on how offhand she sounded. “Poor Buttercup.”

  “That old mare of Caleb’s, you mean?”

  She nodded. “The old sweetheart was stuck out in the shed all that time, no exercise and nothing but hay to…” She didn’t finish.

  How could she? Her throat had clamped tight. Joy and relief went exploding through her.

  Justin!

  He must have just come in. He stood over by the check-out counter, wearing a sweater that matched his eyes and a gorgeous coffee-brown suede jacket. He was scanning the room.

  He spotted her. Her heart froze in midbeat and then started galloping. Somehow, she managed to lift a hand and wave.

  He headed toward her, long strides eating up the all-weather gray carpet under his boots. She was vaguely aware that Cam had turned to see what—or who—had stolen the words right out of her mouth.

  “I had a feeling I might find you here,” Justin said.

  Good gravy, he really was the best-looking man in the whole of Montana! She had to swallow to make her throat relax before she could speak. “Uh. Good guess. And, um, great to see you.”

  It was the understatement of the decade.

  She collected her scattered wits enough to introduce him to Cam. The two men exchanged greetings and then Cam left them alone.

  The second the coach was out of earshot, Justin asked low, “When do you finish here?”

  She ordered her crazy heart to stop racing. “Give me a minute. I’m almost ready to go.”

  As they passed the check-out desk, Lindy called out, “Have a nice night.” Plump and pretty and very curious, the clerk gave them a big grin and wiggled her eyebrows at Katie.

  Katie, getting the message, stopped to introduce them.

  “Terrific to meet you!” Lindy enthused. Sheesh. She was practically drooling.

  Then again, who could blame her?

  Justin made a few cordial noises and at last they were out of there.

  They walked down the library steps into a winter sunset. The cloudless sky was shades of salmon above the white-topped mountains and the melting snow at their feet sent rivulets trickling, down the steps, along the parking lot. A hundred miniature streams gleamed in the gathering dark.

  She sent a quick glance toward the silent man at her side. He hadn’t touched her—hadn’t taken her arm. She longed to take his, but didn’t feel comfortable enough with him at that moment, with the way he’d popped up out of nowhere, with the strange, shadowed look in his eyes and the hard set to his square jaw.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked flatly when they reached the big, black Escalade.

  “I walked. It’s only a few blocks and it was nice to get out.” She almost said more. Meaningless chatter. About the warming trend. About how she liked to walk whenever the weather permitted. But she didn’t. His eyes didn’t invite chitchat. “Justin, what—?”

  He cut in before she finished. “Who was that guy you were talking to inside?”

  Her heart warmed. So that was the problem. He was jealous. “Cam? He’s only a friend. Honestly. A friend…”

  His mouth twisted into something meant to look like a smile. “Not that I had any damn right to ask.”

  She looked at him levelly. “If you were wondering, then I’m glad you asked. It’s important that we both feel we can say whatever’s on our minds.”

  “Is it?” He lifted a dark brow at her.

  She blinked. “Now what is that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  Untrue and she knew it. It was very much something. She could see it in his eyes.

  But before she could open her mouth to pursue the issue, he spoke again. “Will you have dinner with me?”

  There was only one answer to that one. “I’d love to.”

  “Where would you like to go?”

  He sounded so…formal. As if she was some stranger.

  It came to her that she didn’t want to go and sit in a restaurant with him. Surrounded by other people, she wouldn’t feel she could really talk to him. And she needed that, to feel free to talk. This new distance between them scared her a little. She wanted, with all her heart, to bridge it.

  And then again, was this feeling of distance really all that surprising? They’d found a rare and thrilling intimacy, just the two of them, in the museum. But she had to remember that they’d known each other less than a week. The attraction had been immediate and the forced proximity had made it possible for them to grow close very fast.

  And then he’d returned to his life and she’d gone back to hers.

  No. She had to expect that things would be a little awkward, now they found themselves face-to-face again at last.

  She intended to eliminate the awkwardness, to break down any and all barriers between them. That would be easier if they were alone.

  “Tell you what? Let’s just go to my place. How about fried chicken and oven-browned red potatoes, would that be all right?”

  He frowned. “You’re sure?”

  She stepped back, a half laugh escaping her. “Justin. What’s not to be sure of?”

  He hesitated a moment longer. But finally, he agreed. “Well, all right, then. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Big place,” Justin said, when Katie ushered him into a high-ceilinged foyer, where a walnut staircase rose gracefully from the far end, curving upward toward the second floor.

  She set her purse on the long marble table by the door and turned to knock the breath out of him with a glowing smile. “It was in bad shape when I bought it, but I’ve had a lot of work done. It was built in 1910, by the owner of the town dry goods store. Cedar Street used t
o be where all the town merchants lived. A lot of them were well-to-do.”

  “Clearly.” Beneath his boots, the fine, old wood of the parquet floor gave off a polished shine in the glow from the antique light fixture overhead. Carved walnut moldings crowned the walls.

  She teased, “Take a good look around. Just in case you’re thinking of making me an offer.” He met those brown eyes again and a shock of sensual awareness ricocheted through him.

  He wanted to grab her and carry her up the curving staircase, to find a nice, big bed up there and never let her out of it. “I’m tempted,” he muttered, and they both knew damn well he wasn’t talking about her house.

  He ached. All over. His damn skin felt too tight. He had only himself to blame for the state he was in. Not only for starting up with her in the first place, but for not taking care of his physical needs since he’d left her on Tuesday.

  There were a couple of women he knew: willing, bright, beautiful women, who didn’t expect—or even want—anything beyond a nice evening and a good time in bed. But he hadn’t been able to make himself pick up the phone and call one of them.

  His body burned for the satisfaction he hadn’t allowed himself to take four nights ago in that big, old bed in the museum. But he’d done nothing to ease the ache. The thought of touching some other woman for the sake of a much-needed release…

  It made him feel vaguely ill.

  His mistake. To add to all the others. He should have at least taken a few minutes in the shower to get the edge off, but he hadn’t even had sense enough to do that.

  Somehow, he couldn’t. He wanted Katie. His body wanted Katie. Only Katie.

  Though he knew damn well he was never going to have her.

  “Oh, Justin…” Her voice was so soft, like the rest of her. His arms itched to hold her. With monumental effort, he kept his hands at his sides. She seemed to shake herself and then, shyly, she offered, “May I take your jacket?”

  He shrugged out of it and handed it over. She hung it on the antique claw-footed rack by the door, along with her heavy coat. Then she turned to him again, those amber eyes alight, her smile so bright it could chase away the darkness of the blackest night.