Issued to the Bride One Marine (Brides of Chance Creek Book 4)

by Cora Seton

  “I still don’t see how a Marine can possibly be on a mission in Montana. No, don’t tell me; I know. You can’t talk about that. But I want you to think about your future—hard.”

  Logan wished he’d never placed the call. He didn’t know why he’d thought Anthony could advise him when a woman was involved.

  Lena was going to be furious when she got home in the morning, and he needed to figure out how to calm her down and get her to listen to him. He hadn’t realized he’d said that aloud until Anthony said, “You’re the one who needs to calm down and listen to reason. Take a few deep breaths.”

  “That’s not going to help me find an answer.”

  “Then pray about it.”

  “That’s what you always say.”

  “Because that’s always the answer.”

  Logan hung up on him. It wasn’t the answer this time. He needed to act. Do something—say something. Something to make Lena realize that hurting her was the last thing on his mind. She needed to trust him. When he’d kicked the twins off her property, he’d only been acting in her best interests. She’d have kicked them off the ranch as fast as he had if she’d been there. And despite what she’d said, they weren’t kids. They were grown men. Only a couple of years younger than she was. Lena was the one who’d overreacted and lashed out at him with a crowbar. She’d sent herself to the hospital, to tell the truth.

  Not that he’d ever point that out. He didn’t have a death wish.

  Alice entered the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove. “I’d offer you some,” she told him, “but you need something stronger.”

  “You’re right; I could use a drink,” he said.

  “I meant you need the maze.” She nodded toward the darkness beyond the kitchen windows. “You’ve got a question that needs answering, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.” But he doubted a bunch of shrubbery could help him.

  “Go ask the stone.” Alice pulled out a cup and saucer, then rummaged through a basket of tea bags until she found the one she wanted.

  “You do realize that’s ridiculous, don’t you?”

  “More ridiculous than knocking your intended fiancée out cold with a crowbar?”

  He didn’t bother to correct her. That’s how the story would go from now on, he mused, as he shrugged into his coat and made his way out the back door. Lena would come off totally innocent. He’d be the crazed Marine with the shovel.

  And what would his brothers think if they knew he was about to consult a mystical standing stone about his problems? He crossed Sadie’s garden toward its entrance, figuring the day couldn’t get any stranger than it already had been. He’d never in his life imagined he’d physically injure a woman with a garden implement. Now Alice was right; he’d knocked out the only one he’d ever considered marrying.

  “Ask it about that sword, too. I can’t get it out of my mind, and I need to focus on that drone man,” Alice called after him.

  There was enough moonlight that as his eyes adjusted he could make his way without tripping over any of Sadie’s plants, but when he entered the maze the tall hedges cast deep shadows that made the going difficult. He didn’t have the way memorized, either, so it took him some time to reach the center, and he probably would have given up if he didn’t think it would be just as difficult to find his way back.

  When he finally found the stone, it stood tall and slightly menacing, moonlight making its broad flank glow pale. He approached it and was drawn to touch it, finally placing both hands on it, its rough surface cool below his palms.

  Am I supposed to be a priest?

  Hell, he hadn’t meant to ask that. He was supposed to be finding out how to patch things up with Lena.

  Still, the question had come to mind, and he forced himself to sit with it. He knew to the bottom of his heart he wasn’t meant for the priesthood. So how come it kept coming up? Had his brothers and parents seen something in him he hadn’t? Had he really missed his calling all this time?

  Is that why he kept having those dreams?

  He was sick of wondering.

  “Am I supposed to be a priest?” he asked again out loud.

  He stepped back but kept his gaze on the monolith, not knowing what to do next. Overhead, clouds scudded across the sky, the gibbous moon playing hide-and-seek.

  It was quiet out here.

  Peaceful.

  Was this a kind of praying? And who was listening if it was? He could almost believe in a benevolent deity out here in the darkness—

  “Oh, hell,” a female voice demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  Lena yelped when Logan whipped around and dropped into a defensive stance straight out of hand-to-hand combat practice. He straightened when he spotted her. “Jesus. Lena, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

  He looked like he’d seen a ghost. It would have been funny if her head didn’t still ache so hard she thought she might pass out.

  “I don’t need a hospital. It’s just a little bump.”

  “Looks like a pretty big bump from here.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said sharply. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just… needed some fresh air.” He was still looking at her strangely, and it was making Lena uncomfortable. It was as if he’d read some answer in her arrival there, and she didn’t have any answers for him.

  Although she had a thing or two on her mind. “You were out of line this afternoon,” she began.

  He stepped closer. “First things first. Lena, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. You know that, right?”

  His remorse turned her angry words to ashes in her throat. “I… Yeah, I know.” She’d been the one to attack him, and she should have known better than to swing a crowbar at a Marine. What had she thought he’d do? Let her take his head off? “I overreacted, I guess.” She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Especially around Logan.

  “Maybe we’re both a little hotheaded.” He sighed. “But I mean it, baby girl. I don’t ever want to be the one causing you pain.”

  That baby girl caught her off balance somehow. Before when he’d said it she’d always felt he’d been teasing her. It had been silly, annoying, a little sexy sometimes.

  Now it was soft and… intimate.

  Lena wasn’t ready for intimate. Not with this headache. Not even without it.

  “This is a pretty uncanny spot, isn’t it?” he asked, gesturing at the standing stone.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You don’t know who set the stone here?”

  “No, we don’t. It’s as if it’s always been here, but of course that can’t be true. But even the earliest records we’ve found of the place talk about the monolith.”

  “And you like history, so you’d know.”

  It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. Something he knew about her. He was right; the maze and the stone were downright uncanny in this kind of light. The stone almost looked—alive. Sentient was perhaps a better word.

  Like it knew things.

  “Do you come here a lot to ask it questions?” Logan asked.

  “No. Not since—not since Mom died. I used to come here all the time. I’ve asked it a million questions in my life, but not since then.”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  He seemed genuinely curious, and Lena found herself answering, as if the night—and the stone itself—had cast a spell on her. “I asked it a question that day. After Mom died. I slipped out late—it was a night like this. And I asked—” Her voice thickened. “If she’d come back.” She’d desperately needed her mother to come back. At fourteen she’d been lost without Amelia’s calm and loving presence. She’d had to become so hard—so fast.

  Logan waited, as still as the stone, and she went on. “It said no—in a way that left no room for interpretation. Of course, I already knew that, but—I’ve never asked it a question since.” She forced herself to take a deep breath. Her mother had been gone fo
r eleven years, and she’d accepted her death and moved forward. She was a strong woman now. She was only emotional tonight because she’d nearly put herself into a coma. “Did you ask it a question just now?” Let Logan sit on the hot seat for a while.

  “No,” he said quickly. “I’m a Catholic, remember? We don’t believe in magic stones.”

  Was it his imagination, or did a cold breeze whip up around them after he uttered those patently false words? He couldn’t tell Lena what he’d asked, though. She’d think he was out of his mind. He’d spent the last week coming at her from every direction, flirting with her, telling her he meant to marry her—and now he was consulting a standing stone about whether to be ordained?

  Ridiculous. Proof of his complete inappropriateness for the job if any more was needed.

  When he’d turned and seen Lena, his heart had thumped like a hammer hitting a nail. His whole body had leaped with awareness of her.

  With wanting her.

  Just his bad luck she’d walked in on him after his moment of weakness. If she’d come a second earlier, she would have heard his question.

  His question. Am I supposed to be a priest?

  Was Lena his answer?

  He suddenly felt sure she was. He wasn’t supposed to be a priest. He was supposed to marry this woman. The General had been right; he had sent Logan to the right place.

  “You’re… lying. I can tell,” she said. “You did ask something. Did you get your answer?”

  He took her hand and tugged her closer. “Yes, I got my answer.”

  He was meant to be here after all. Meant to be with Lena.

  Meant to marry her.

  Logan bent down and kissed her.

  Meant to stake a claim to the future he really wanted.

  She had to stop letting Logan kiss her, Lena thought, but somehow she couldn’t back away. She was growing used to his presence throughout her days. He worked by her side, stepped in to help out before she asked him. He saw the sunrise with her, the sunset, did chores with her, ate with her—

  He was becoming a member of the family, like it or not. Getting under her skin.

  “What is with you?” she asked, unable to stop herself when he broke off the kiss. She turned to lead the way out of the maze.

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  The Marine seemed downright cheerful now, walking along beside her with a jaunty step.

  “Why are you—screwing things up for me?”

  Logan stopped, caught her hand and tugged her to a halt, too. “Hey, that’s the last thing I want to do, you know that, right? Maybe you’re the one who needs to answer a question. Why are you always fighting me? Why not let me help you sometimes?”

  “You know the answer to that. I don’t want to lose control of my ranch.”

  “We’ve already become your hired hands. What more can any of us do to set your mind at ease?”

  He let go of her hand and crossed his arms. His biceps bulged against his shirt. He must be a sight in uniform, she thought. Hell, he was a sight no matter what he wore. Not for the first time, she wished circumstances were different. That she’d never met Scott.

  That she’d met Logan instead.

  “You can’t do anything,” she said truthfully. Thanks to Scott, she’d be suspicious of men until her dying day.

  He chuckled again. “Just like I thought. So, if I can’t set your mind at ease, all I can do is follow my conscience.”

  “You have one of those?” she asked pertly.

  “I do,” he assured her. “Works well most of the time.”

  “When you’re not braining helpless women.”

  “Helpless.” He snorted. “Lena Reed, you are a torment to men. But you’re right; your technique with a crowbar leaves something to be desired.”

  She turned around in a huff and strode the rest of the way to the house without looking back.

  Chapter Seven

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  After such a beautiful night, Logan couldn’t believe how gray and oppressive the clouds were the following morning. A wet mist threatened to become rain, and for the first time he wondered if they’d be able to get the barn done before the really bad weather arrived. He’d handed Lena over to Cass reluctantly when they’d returned to the house the night before. He’d have rather stayed up and kept an eye on Lena himself, but Cass was awake, having gotten a call from the hospital when they discovered Lena was gone, and she insisted on sitting up the remainder of the night to watch her sister.

  Still, this morning Lena refused to consider resting. Instead, she arrived at the building site ready to get to work, the bump still prominent on her forehead, and the men hurried to keep up with her. She didn’t even seem to mind when Logan stepped in to offer a suggestion about how to frame in the windows. They all knew they were racing against the clock—with no guarantee of winning.

  As usual, Champ, Isobel and Max wandered around the building site until Lena finally phoned Sadie to come and take them away. Sadie arrived and took charge of them, saying she’d take them on a long hike to tire them out.

  “Last night must have set you back a bunch,” Connor said to Logan in an undertone later that morning. He nodded at Lena, who was deep in conversation with Brian, both bending over plans that riffled in the wind that had been blowing all morning.

  “Yeah. But not as much as you might think.” He’d connected with Lena last night in the maze when he’d kissed her. Lena hadn’t pushed him away. That had to be progress, but he didn’t want to talk about that with Connor. “She can’t resist my hot body,” he joked instead and flexed his arms.

  Connor rolled his eyes. “Are those the same muscles you used to knock her out yesterday?”

  “I didn’t knock her out!” Logan sighed. He didn’t know why he bothered to argue. “Anyway, she’s back today, isn’t she? Working with me? Brian won Cass while fixing the house, right? Why can’t I win Lena while building a stable?”

  “Yeah, but Cass was the first. Lena watched me build Sadie a walled garden. Hunter built Jo a house. Maybe you need to up your game. Build something specifically for her—not the horses.”

  Logan kept thinking about Connor’s suggestion long after they got back to work. It made sense, but there was one problem: he didn’t know what Lena wanted. She wasn’t into gardening, and he’d heard her talking to Sadie about how much work Jo would have to do keeping her home tidy without Cass to do it for her.

  He didn’t think Lena was in any rush to move out of her home. What could he build her that would make a real impression?

  He mulled over that question for the rest of the morning, through lunch and into the afternoon, until Lena called out, “Take a twenty-minute break, everyone. Go clear your heads; we all need to stay sharp today.”

  Logan turned toward the house like everyone else, hoping to grab a snack and a drink before coming back. That mist had hung around all day, and he was damp—and a little cranky. But when he glanced back to check that Lena was following the rest of them, he saw her disappear into the barn—

  And knew exactly what to build for her.

  An escape. Somewhere dry and warm she could slip away to and read for hours at a time. Somewhere no one else knew about—at least at first.

  Not a house—no need to get complicated. Lena wouldn’t want that. A simple structure, easy to maintain—and heat. A place to store her books.

  With comfortable seating and a few other necessities her hideaway in the barn didn’t have.

  Could he build it on the ranch without her knowing about it?

  And where could he tuck it away, hidden from her sisters, but close enough she could easily reach it?

  Logan decided he’d start exploring the ranch and making plans. He’d search online for ideas.

  A reading hideaway.

  The perfect gift for the woman who was going to be his wife.

  Even if she didn’t know it yet.

  “Damn it!” Lena shoved Logan away when he stole a kiss later that
afternoon. That was twice in twenty-four hours he’d gotten past her guard.

  She was losing her touch.

  “Baby girl, you know you love it when I do that,” Logan said and went back to work, whistling.

  “You know I’m going to kick your ass. Just as soon as I’ve built this stable.” She got back to work, too. She was wet and getting cold as the sun sank low in the sky. Her head didn’t hurt as badly as it had earlier, but it still throbbed. The damn mist hadn’t let up all day, and she’d made the mistake of choosing twenty minutes of reading over returning to the house to warm up and dry off at break time.

  “Might want to wait for that bump to heal up before you give yourself a new one…”

  “Watch it!”

  She caught his grin and had to bite back a smile of her own. What a jerk. It was like having a brother—

  Although it wasn’t like that at all. With every kiss Logan got deeper under her skin. She kept catching herself… thinking about him.

  Thinking about being with him.

  It was ridiculous.

  Horrifying.

  It had been too long, she supposed, and her body was rebelling against her self-imposed moratorium on carnal pleasure. She hadn’t been with a man since before the first attack on Two Willows. She’d thought Scott had soured her on men forever, but it seemed like her body had other ideas in mind.

  Being close to Logan seemed to rile her up every which way.

  Which wasn’t good. She still needed to look out for trouble, even if things had remained calm these last few weeks. Somewhere in Tennessee was a group of troublemakers who’d decided to target her ranch. First, they’d sent Bob Finchley and his buddies to try to woo them and trick them into handing over the property. Then they’d stolen Jo’s dogs for a diversion and tried to kidnap Jo. When that didn’t work, they’d set the stable on fire to get revenge.

  Each time she and her sisters—and Brian, Connor and Hunter—had managed to fight them off. So far, they’d won, but who was to say what would happen next? Cab had traced the men back to Tennessee, but he hadn’t uncovered the mastermind behind the attacks, nor a solid reason for them above and beyond the drug connection.