by Fiona Lowe
Everything’s changed.
He glanced up to see the moon rising and casting its silvery glow over the pasture and the guests. With the flickering flames of the tiki torches and the white light of the stars starting to pierce the canopy of inky darkness, the night had a magical quality to it. He loved the outdoors, but Charlie loved it just that little bit more.
Just like at home in the outback of Australia, Montana offered Will the great outdoors in spades, only here there were even more opportunities for extreme sports. The mountains offered hiking, biking, rafting, snowboarding, rock climbing—the list was endless. It was also part of the reason he’d stayed longer in the States than he’d intended, but just recently, the call of home had started to deafen him. For some inexplicable feeling he felt farther away from Charlie here, which was crazy, because no matter where he lived or worked, Charlie was unreachable.
Recognizing exactly where his train of thought was heading and fast, he knew he needed to cut it off at the pass with some company. He glanced around at the clusters of people—some standing, some sitting—looking for someone he knew. A group of giggling nurses from the Bear Paw Hospital waved at him, and he automatically gave them a wave in return. They immediately advanced on him, wobbling on high heels that sank into the soft earth with every step they took.
Idiot! Why did you wave? He’d left the tent because he’d had enough of being superficially charming and keeping women at bay. Find someone, ideally a bloke you know, and avoid this gaggle of women.
He turned his head quickly and the ground tilted again. He swayed, and as he steadied, he spied Josh’s nurse practitioner, Millie, and his fellow groom’s person. What was her surname? Doesn’t matter. She was sitting alone at a table with an empty chair opposite her, and she had her head down looking at something in her hand. He assumed it was her phone. He loved social media as much as the next person, but it bothered him how many people spent their time at social functions live tweeting them rather than talking to the people present. It probably answered the question as to why she was sitting alone. Still, she was his save from the attentions of the hammered and giggly nurses. “Mind if I join you?”
Her head shot up so fast that her kamikaze curls bounced across her eyes, which, although mostly green, had an unusual ring of coppery brown around each iris. She quickly slid the device she was holding into her pocket, and he caught a flash of pink in the glow from the cluster of tea lights on the center of the table. Funny. He’d never have picked Millie for a pink girl. Come to think of it, he’d never thought about her in terms of femininity at all. Millie was just . . . Millie. Unprepossessing. Ordinary, even.
A flash of a memory from last year flared. Not totally ordinary. She’s got a dimple-cute smile.
Only, she wasn’t smiling now. In fact she looked slightly taken aback. “Really? You want to sit?”
The nurses were bearing down on him fast. “Really.”
“Okay, I guess.”
It wasn’t the most welcoming invitation he’d ever received, but he took it anyway. As his bum hit the chair, he heard a loud and collective sigh behind him.
“Doctor Bartlett, you tease,” Cassidy Blund cooed.
“We thought you were coming to talk to us,” said another nurse who Will thought might be called Marissa. Or it could be Larissa—he really didn’t remember nor did he really care, but he’d never let her know that.
He pulled his mouth into a broad smile and turned his face toward the buzzed group. “And I was coming straight over to you until Millie, here, reminded me that we have official secret wedding business to attend to before Katrina and Josh leave.”
Millie made a definite snorting sound.
He ignored her, choosing instead to press on with the nurses and appease them. “Sorry, ladies. Rain check?”
“I guess.” Cassidy squeezed his shoulder. “But only ’cause you’re cute.”
“So very cute.” A woman he’d never met before gave him a dreamy smile.
“We’ll be on the dance floor,” ’Issa instructed firmly. “Come find us.”
They smiled and giggled before wobbling their way back toward the tent, and he turned back to face Millie.
Her previous wide-eyed surprise had morphed into a narrow gaze. “Secret wedding business?”
“Incredibly secret.” He grinned at her, expecting his smile to soften the critical look she was currently spearing through him. He leaned in conspiratorially and dropped his voice to a low burr that had gotten him places with women in the past. “So secret that if either of us speak of it, weddings as we know it will never be the same again.” He tapped his nose with his finger. “It’s just not worth the risk.”
Instead of laughing, she leaned back slightly, reestablishing the previous space between them. If she’d wanted to smile at what he’d just said, she was doing a great job of hiding it. “Just so you know, Will,” she said matter-of-factly, “the Bear Paw nursing department is known to hold a grudge.”
“No worries. I’ll bring cake and chocolates next time I’m in town.”
She blinked and then shot him an irritated look. “I should turn you in.”
He broadened his smile. “But you won’t. We’re brothers-in-arms.”
Something flickered in her eyes. “How do you figure that?”
“Well, we’re Josh’s groomsmen, or in your case, groom’s person.”
She lifted her chin. “Actually, I’m the best man.”
He laughed. “I don’t think so. I’m the best man.”
She shook her head so hard that her dark auburn curls brushed her creamy cheeks. “I arranged the bachelor party.”
With a jolt of surprise, he realized she was pissed off at him. “And I appreciate that,” he said, starting to regret his decision to avoid the tipsy nurses.
Her spearing look sharpened. “Exactly what did you do apart from arrive at the last moment and look better in a suit than me?”
Ouch. What had he done to make her so snarky? And why the hell was she wearing a suit anyway? He really didn’t know Millie very well. Sure, they’d done a few emergency retrievals together last summer, and she’d always been easy to work with—she seemed to know what she was doing and she just got on with the job. She’d always been competent and friendly but without crossing the professional line, and for that he’d been grateful. No matter how great his male colleagues thought it was to have women openly coming on to him at work, it got old fast. Millie had never shown any interest in him, not even the time she’d lost her balance and face-planted in his lap.
He’d helped her up and she’d just laughed, called herself a klutz and gone back to work. Every other woman he knew either would have been massively embarrassed and apologetic or would have used the situation to make a double entendre with a promise of what could happen at a different time and place. Her lack of sexual subtext was both refreshing and a relief. He found it a constant juggle to keep up the status quo at work, because some women got really upset if he refused their invitations, and could go on to make a shift hell. As a result, he was charming to everyone and he’d developed some strategies that avoided a straight-out no and disappointed no one.
Millie had always been friendly, but right now she looked anything but. Why was she so insistent she was the best man and what was with the crack about him looking better than her in a suit? His head spun from fatigue and ached with the task of trying to work out what was going on. Women always had an agenda that came with a bewildering number of emotional items that he usually found as clear as mud. Give him a medical emergency any day—at least it had a logical process.
Before tonight, he’d only ever seen Millie in baggy, shapeless scrubs, and now she was attending a wedding wearing a tuxedo. In the months since he’d last seen her had she come out as a man? In the yellow glow of the tea lights he could make out the gloss of lipstick on her surprisingly pretty lips. Although he was no expert on transgendered people, he was almost certain that if she was now living as a man, s
he wouldn’t be wearing lipstick. Still, he supposed that didn’t exclude her from being a butch lesbian. Not that he knew much about the lesbian community, either, except from the dissertation he’d been served once by a lesbian feminist patient. His takeaway from that had been that as a heterosexual male he was automatically in the wrong. He’d found the attitude bewildering, because wasn’t it equally as prejudiced?
He’d always considered himself open-minded, and he wanted to try and understand, especially as he liked Millie and, unlike right now, she was usually fun to be around. He added up the evidence in front of him and came to the conclusion that butch or not, she obviously still liked pink and lipstick, and why not? Sexuality was a complicated beast, and in a town this size, her coming-out must have taken a huge amount of courage. He wanted to acknowledge that. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Mils. With your height, you can carry a suit well and you look pretty good.”
Her plump lips pursed. “I don’t need you to flatter me, Will.”
Yup. Automatically in the wrong. “I wasn’t trying to flatter you, Millie. You’ve probably got a girlfriend for that, right?”
His left eye chose that moment to twitch with exhaustion, and Millie’s eyes rounded as wide as an owl’s. Shit. She probably thought he’d just winked at her. He swallowed a groan. So much for trying to be totally PC and showing support.
He tried to cover the faux pas by raising his glass to her. “Sorry. Girlfriend or not, good for you for being out and proud.”
OH. My. God. Will Bartlett thought she was gay.
Millie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, be shocked and offended or, in some perverse way, relieved. Irrespective of her scattered emotions, it was without doubt the frosting on the cake of an evening that had gone downhill from the moment she’d inadvertently thrown herself at Will. Josh had been understandably thrilled at Will’s unexpected and last-minute arrival, and he’d kept slapping Will on the back, saying over and over how great it was and didn’t Millie think it was great, too.
So great . . . not. She’d felt more than a twinge of jealousy at Will being here, and she hated that. It made her feel needy—like she’d fallen well short of the mark of being a good best man for Josh. In her rational moments, she knew she was being silly. Of course Josh valued her and of course he’d want one of his male friends to stand next to him if they were available. Only all her insecurities screamed louder than her logic and, damn it, while she was left feeling like chopped liver, the only thing missing from Will’s arrival was the white charger and a hero’s welcome.
When she’d left home this afternoon wearing the tux, she’d felt happy and just a little bit smug. She looked good—she knew she did, and it wasn’t often she felt that way. Usually at formal occasions she was stressing about her insulin pump—could it be seen, was it ruining the line of the dress—but the suit gave her a freedom she’d embraced. With Will’s arrival, that feeling had faded fast, and by the time she was standing at the front of the church, she’d just felt plain silly and was berating herself for not wearing a dress.
It was one thing to be Josh’s only attendant and have some fun with the whole the best man’s a woman and wear a penguin suit. It was another thing entirely to stand next to Josh and Will in the suit. Of course, they both looked devastatingly handsome in their starched white shirts and black bow ties. She’d just felt lumpy and ridiculous and had longed to swap sides and be a bridesmaid.
The lovely wedding service had passed in a blur because her mind had been totally taken up with Will, and her thoughts and emotions had ricocheted wildly like a racquetball. First there was fury—how dare he turn up without notice. Then acute embarrassment—good grief, she’d body slammed him with a huge hug. Followed by blissful memories—he’d felt so solid and amazing pressed up against her, and finally humiliation when she’d stuttered like a total fangirl.
The stuttering bothered her the most, because she’d been convinced she was over her crush. For goodness’ sake, she had to be over it. She was twenty-six years old, an experienced RN and one quarter of the way toward becoming a doctor. People expected her to be sensible, mature and upstanding. Crushing on Will was as far removed from sensible as sticking a fork into a toaster.
The guy might be the poster-boy of every woman’s fantasy, but he barely noticed her. She’d accepted that, or at least she thought she had, because, hell, a lot of guys didn’t notice her, but this was the first time anyone had thought she was gay. She felt a hysterical laugh rise in her throat. Will had the wrong Switkowski. Granted, her brother hadn’t announced he was gay, but there were some fairly strong indicators that he might be. Millie had been waiting for Evan to say something ever since he’d moved to California, but a year and a half had passed without a murmur.
Set Will straight.
Sure! Like that won’t be embarrassing. At. All. She could just imagine the confusion flaring in his eyes when she said, Actually, I’m not gay. It would immediately be followed by pity. The whole episode would be right up there with the time a couple of years back when she’d been carrying some extra weight and a pregnant patient had touched her arm, excitedly asking her if she was pregnant, too.
No, it was just easier to let the whole thing slide. What did it matter, anyway? The wedding was almost over—there was only the throwing of the bouquet and the waving off of Katrina and Josh as they left for their honeymoon. After that, she’d say good night, and if there was any justice in the world, the good folk of Bear Paw would be healthy, not require an emergency evacuation to a bigger hospital, and she’d not have to run into Will Bartlett all summer. And even if she did, she’d be androgynous in scrubs like she always was at work, and he’d never think twice about his assumption.
Decision made, she gave a silent apology to all the lesbians in the world, picked up her glass of sparkling water and clinked his already-raised champagne glass. “Oh yeah, totally out and proud, but can we please not talk about it?”
“Are you sure?”
“Believe me, I’m very sure.”
Two worry lines appeared between his eyes. “It’s just, I don’t want you to think I’m uncomfortable about it or judging you in any way, because I’m not.”
Shoot me now. She swallowed a sigh. “No, I get it. You’re an ally.”
A look of relief slipped across his model-worthy face. “So we’re good, then?”
“We’re totally good.” At that moment she wished she had vodka in her glass.
He smiled that devastating, toe-curling smile of his and then casually reclined in the chair, all loose limbed, relaxed and totally gorgeous. Every muscle in her body slackened, and her mouth opened slightly, emitting a tiny pant.
Stop that. Right now.
She immediately jerked her head back and gazed up into the night sky, desperate to look anywhere other than at Will. Her body moaned in disappointment at the loss of the tantalizing visuals, and her befuddled, lust-filled mind staged a revolt, emptying on the spot of all conversation starters. All it could offer up was moon, star, star, black sky, star.
It suddenly occurred to her that as an Australian, he’d be used to a different night sky, so she started pointing out the constellations that she knew—all three of them. “That’s Polaris, the North Star, and that’s the Big Dipper, which the Blackfeet call the Bear.”
Will didn’t say anything, so she swung her arm wide and kept talking. “And somehow those faint stars are supposed to look like a giraffe.” She gave a tight laugh. “And now I’ve totally maxed out my astronomy knowledge.”
Still, Will didn’t comment, so she glanced at him. His head had fallen forward, his eyes were closed and he looked to be fast asleep.
Fan-freakin’-tastic. Not only did he think she was she gay, but extremely boring, too. Hurt and frustration collided in a hot, hard mass in her chest, and she pushed her foot forward, intending to nudge him awake. Unfortunately, the toe of her boot connected with his shin.
“Bloody hell.” His eyes flew open—dazed and
unfocused. “What was that?”
“What was what?” she asked innocently, squashing down her guilt.
He rubbed his now shadow-stubbled jaw. “It felt sharp, like something just bit me.”
“Probably a mosquito. They’re big out here with a vicious bite,” she said airily, despite the fact the wind usually kept them far, far away. An idea hit her that might just make Doctor Charming feel ill at ease and go some way to matching how’d she’d felt most of the evening. “Then again, it might have been a scorpion.”
His now focused eyes gave her a long and assessing look. “I thought the only scorpions in Montana were in the southeast.”
Damn, how did he know that?
“Millie, there you are. Your dad and I have been look—” Her mom’s voice trailed off as she caught sight of Will, who was now bending forward, rubbing his leg. She supposed it exposed the curve of his behind, which she knew was impressive and capable of rendering a woman speechless. She really needed to start searching hard for flaws on his body.
Her cheeks burned at the thought. “Hi, Mom. Have you met Will, Josh’s groomsman?”
In a fluid movement—one Millie begrudgingly conceded was impressive—Will rose to his feet, his height dwarfing her mother. He extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. . . . ?”
“Call me Susie,” her mother almost purred. “How special for Josh that you were able to take a break from saving lives and be here tonight.”