Falling for the Rebound Bride

by Karen Templeton

  He clunked the kettle onto the burner and twisted on the flame before facing her again, one hand curled on the edge of the counter behind him.

  “I didn’t invite you here because of the dog. He was just...convenient.”

  “I see.”

  His laugh, if one could call it that, matched his expression. “I doubt it. Since I sure as hell don’t. But it’s not about...” He blew out another breath. “I’m not trying to get into your pants, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Actually,” she grumbled, “considering my recent past, that would be refreshing.” Then, at his puzzled look, she realized he had no idea what she was talking about. “As it happens, Michael became a lot less...attentive, shall we say, the last year or so we were together. He said it was because of his workload. Yeah, well, it was a load, all right.”

  Colin softly cursed, then crossed his arms over that nice, solid chest. “I’m sorry.”

  “So was I. Then. Now? Not so much.”

  “Even so, I take it you don’t really mean that. That you’d—”

  “Find it refreshing to be wanted? You bet. Even though it’s equally refreshing that you don’t. So figure that one out.”

  The kettle squealed. Colin snatched it off the stove and poured water into two mugs, tea bag strings dangling down their sides. “It’s not that hard, really. You were not only rejected—” he crossed to where she was sitting, setting both mugs on the coffee table next to her before returning to the kitchen “—you were betrayed.” He gathered spoons, a sugar bowl, a carton of half-and-half from the fridge. “So right now—”

  The stuff now set on the table beside the mugs, he lowered himself to the floor in front of her, looking like the world’s largest kindergartner. And he smelled like the wind, damn it. Michael, if she remembered correctly, had never smelled like the wind. Or anything else even remotely...earthy.

  And he still hadn’t answered her question, had he? About why he’d invited her over. Probably wouldn’t, either. Then again, maybe he didn’t really have an answer—

  “So right now,” Mr. Earthy was saying, “part of you wants nothing to do with men. And the other part of you probably wants nothing more than to get even.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. Only to see her own pain reflected in his eyes.

  “Speaking from experience?”

  Nodding, he dumped two teaspoons of sugar into his tea.

  “Recent?”

  “Enough.” He stirred the tea, setting the wet spoon on a napkin before slurping his tea. The dog abandoned her lap for his, only to disappear into the void made by his legs. A second later his little bewhiskered nose appeared over Colin’s calves, then vanished again. “Although,” Colin said, hoisting the pup back onto the floor between them, “the situation wasn’t the same. The dishonesty, however, was.”

  With that, the light dawned that he was answering her question, in his own I’ll-get-there-eventually way. Whether he realized it or not. But the upshot was the guy simply needed someone to talk to. Was it nuts, how flattered she was that he’d picked her?

  That he trusted her enough to do that.

  “She cheated on you?”

  Another dry laugh shoved from his throat. “No. Although in a way it would’ve been easier if she had. At least that would’ve been cut-and-dried. But she wasn’t upfront about how she really felt about my work. Not the work itself, exactly, but the fact that it kept us apart so much.”

  “And I take it she didn’t want to go with you?”

  “Nope. Not that I blamed her. I’m often in not exactly the safest places in the world. But what hurt the most was...” He glanced away, then back at Emily, his forehead crunched. “She never really understood why what I do was—is—so important to me.”

  “Did you ever tell her?”

  “More times than I could count.”

  Emily shifted to relieve her numb butt. “And maybe,” she said gently, “it’s about telling the right person.”

  Colin watched her for a moment with those searing eyes before shoving himself to his feet and going over to an old desk wedged into a corner of the room. He seemed to hesitate, though, before grabbing a compact two-in-one computer/tablet combo and returning, lowering himself to the floor again and flipping the tablet open so the screen faced her. His gaze glanced off hers again before, slowly, he began scrolling through dozens of photos of children, some smiling, some crying, many whose faces radiated such fear and uncertainty Emily’s eyes filled.

  “Where...?” she finally said through a throat so tight she was surprised any sound came out at all.

  “Various places.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. “Greece. Turkey. Jordan.” He paused at one picture, a stunning black-and-white photo of a laughing little boy, the sun shimmering in his dark, straight hair. Emily stared for several moments at the photo, transfixed, before realizing how still Colin had gone beside her. She lifted her eyes to the side of his face—

  Without thinking, she rested her hand on that strong, muscled arm, resisting the urge to stroke away the chill she felt there. “Who is he?”

  “What? Oh.” He seemed to shake himself free, then shook his head. “Just one of the kids in the refugee camp. But this pic...it gets me, every time.”

  “I can see why,” Emily said, removing her hand. And, for that moment, her trust. Because she seriously doubted the child had been just some kid in the camp. Then again, it wasn’t as if Colin was under any obligation to rip open his soul to her. Especially if that soul, like hers, had been recently wounded.

  A second later he shut the tiny laptop and stood to set it back on the desk, his hunched shoulders twisting Emily up inside.

  “Are those going into your book?” she asked after what felt like an appropriate lapse.

  “Some of them.” Colin turned, looking very much like a man asking for understanding. Although—again—why from her, she had no idea. And for what, exactly, she had even less. “The publisher’s going to donate a portion of the profits to The Little Ones’ Rescue Fund.”

  “Put me down for ten copies,” she said, and his grin at least somewhat unwound the tension.

  “So...” She brought the tea to her lips again, only to make a face because it’d already gone cold. “How long ago was...” Her head tilted. “What was her name?”

  “Oh,” he said, as though surprised by her question. “Sarah. A year.”

  Emily got to her feet, shaking out her achy legs as she went to the kitchen to nuke her tea. “And you’re still not over her, are you?”

  * * *

  Colin imagined she could probably feel him staring a hole between her shoulder blades as she set the mug inside a very early-generation microwave, punched in thirty seconds. When he didn’t answer her, though, she turned, the microwave whirring behind her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to overstep—”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s...”

  Uh-huh. Answer that one, big shot.

  Frowning, he cupped the back of his head for a moment, then shifted to lean back against the edge of the coffee table, one wrist propped on his raised knee as he let himself sink into those sweet, kind eyes. But he sensed a steeliness behind the sweetness a smart man would heed. Although how smart he actually was, was open to interpretation.

  Colin looked down at the pup, passed out by his hip, curled up so tight he looked like a little potato. “I think...” He lifted his gaze to hers again—bracing himself against that damned tug of longing. “I think it’s more that I wanted to believe she’d eventually see things my way. That somehow we’d work it out. My mistake was...” He stroked the dog, who groaned in his sleep. “In not realizing she was thinking exactly the same thing. So basically we wasted a couple years of our lives hoping the other person would change.” A breath left his lungs. “Dumb.”

 
; The microwave dinged, after a fashion. Emily retrieved her tea and returned to the living room, then kicked off her flats to settle into Dad’s old beat-up recliner, her feet underneath her, her hair rippling over her shoulders. Across her breasts. “Because you believed she was worth waiting for.”

  Not what he’d expected. Although what that might have been, he had no clue. Still, he pushed out a short laugh. “Sarah was—is—a great person. Funny, smart, gracious—all the boxes ticked. Except the biggie. Well, two biggies.”

  “And what’s the second?”

  Colin went very still for a moment, a little surprised to realize how weird it felt to talk about the woman who’d once taken up so much space in his head. His world. “Kids,” he said on a breath. “As in, she wanted them. After everything I’d seen... I wasn’t so sure.” He paused, waiting out the wave. “I’m still not.”

  It’d taken him a long time to fully admit that to himself. Let alone anyone else. Especially considering how genuinely crazy he was about children. But that was the problem, wasn’t it?

  “For way too long,” he said, “I’d let feelings blind me to logic. To the truth, of who we both were. What we both wanted. Or didn’t. A huge mistake I’m only grateful we realized before things got worse.”

  And wasn’t that a careful expression on Emily’s face? Then again, she’d hardly be the first woman to be repelled by a man saying he didn’t want to be a father. But then she said, with a shrug, “Not everyone’s cut out to be a parent. Different strokes and all that.”

  Of course, his reasons for not wanting children were more complicated than he was about to share with someone who was still more or less a stranger. Sure, he’d learned the hard way that without honesty, no relationship had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. But this wasn’t a relationship. Nor would it become one, for many reasons. In which case he was under no obligation to give this woman total access to what lurked inside his skull.

  Never mind that he’d already given her more of a glimpse than he’d intended.

  So Colin picked up his own tea again and lobbed the conversation back to her.

  “What about you? You want kids?”

  On a half laugh, Emily cupped the mug to her chest, frowning into it. “Yes, but...” On a gusty sigh, she met his gaze again. “That was part of the fantasy, you know?”

  “The fantasy?”

  Emily nodded, then set the mug on the table beside the chair before somehow rearranging her limbs to prop one elbow on her knee and rest her chin in her palm, a frown pinching her forehead. “Between the engagement and the wedding planning and everything...looking back, I have to wonder how much of that, really, was me playing my part in what my parents wanted for me.” Another dry laugh preceded, “Okay, what I’d convinced myself I wanted, too. Because nobody forced me into this engagement, believe me. But...”

  Shifting again, Emily set the mug on the side table to sit cross-legged, then leaned forward with her hands clasped in front of her. “I used to pore over my parents’ wedding album for hours, absolutely fascinated with the whole...spectacle. Lavish doesn’t even begin to cover it. The flowers, the crystal, the doves...the Carolina Herrera wedding gown. Which looked like sparkling whipped cream. Cannot tell you how much I drooled over that thing. Although my taste changed—blessedly—my jonesing for the dream wedding did not. The dream...life. You wanna talk dumb.” Straightening, she jerked both thumbs toward her chest. “This girl, right here.”

  “Daddy’s princess?”

  Another snort preceded, “The definition of, believe me. Which is why...” Her mouth twisted to one side. “Even aside from the obvious, it’s probably a blessing, the way things worked out. Or didn’t. Because I obviously wasn’t going into it with my eyes wide open. Or as a complete person, who knew what she needed. Wanted. Deserved. And I’m not talking about doves and a ten-thousand-dollar wedding gown.”

  Colin’s brows slammed together. “Your gown really cost that much?”

  “It really did. However...over the past few weeks I’ve realized I really, really missed the point. If not the boat. Yes, I want kids. And to be a wife. But I wasn’t as ready to be a wife and mother as I’d wanted to believe. Because I had gotten caught up in the fantasy. In everyone’s expectations. Which in turn blinded me to the simple, if highly embarrassing, fact that I still had some growing up to do.”

  He hesitated, then said, “How old are you, anyway?”

  She smirked. “Twenty-seven in two months. So not a child. Even if—” She stretched her arms up, arching her back, before letting them drop again. “Even if I often still feel like one.”

  Colin averted his gaze from her breasts. “Because you ran away from home.”

  Her eyes crinkled. “Says the man who did the same thing how many years ago? And hadn’t been back in years?”

  Touché.

  Colin scooped up the dog and got to his feet, depositing the pup in Emily’s lap before taking his empty cup to the kitchen to rinse it out. “You hungry? I’ve got popcorn—”

  “No, thanks. I’m good. So you know why I escaped. Your turn.”

  “And there’s such a thing as taking this forthrightness thing too far.”

  “It’s not exactly a secret, Colin. That you left, I mean. Why, however—”

  “And my brother didn’t fill you in?”

  “Actually, I don’t think he really knows. Or if he does, he’s not saying. Fraternal honor, or something.”

  Of course, Josh had been a teenager when Colin bolted from the nest like his tail feathers were on fire. And it wasn’t as if Colin had talked things over with any of his brothers, not even Zach. Still, speaking of things not exactly being secret...

  “I felt like I was about to suffocate here,” he said, shoving a popcorn packet into the microwave and hoping for the best. “What you said, about expectations?” He turned back to see she’d twisted around in the chair to watch him, the puppy nestled in that sweet spot between the tops of her breasts and her chin. Hell. He almost had to literally shake his head loose from his ass. “The family’s been here for generations, working cattle and horses on the Vista. We are all on horses by three or four, rounding up cattle by six. So it was assumed that Zach and I, especially, would follow family tradition in one way or another. And when Zach announced he wanted to become a vet, Dad naturally assumed the ranch foreman mantle would fall to me.”

  Emily frowned. “Without bothering to find out if that’s what you wanted to do?”

  “There was never even a question in his mind. Only around the time I hit puberty, I realized I felt like I was choking. And not only from the dust kicked up by a hundred head of cattle deciding they didn’t want to go where you wanted ’em to. The funny thing is, we traveled a lot when my brothers and I were kids—there were enough hands to fill in so we could do that—because my folks insisted we see there was a world beyond this little corner of New Mexico. What they didn’t realize, however, was that those road trips only whetted my appetite for more. I may not have known what that more was, at that point, but I sure as heck knew I’d never find it if I didn’t leave. And Dad and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye on that.”

  “Because this was his world.”

  “Exactly. And he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see my side of things. Said I’d never be happy looking for something ‘out there’ if I didn’t find it right where I was first.”

  Emily looked down at the puppy for a moment. “Not an unreasonable point.”

  “On the surface? No. Even if at the time I thought he was off his nut. Because all I could think was that I’d die if I had to live out the rest of my life within twenty miles of where I’d been born.”

  “And I take it you still feel that way,” Emily said behind him when he turned to get the scorched popcorn out of the microwave, dumping the mess in the garbage.

 
Colin shoved open the window over the sink to air out the place—not to mention his head—before facing her again, his arms crossed over his chest. Gal had enough of her own crap to sort through without him dragging up his own conflicts. “I wanted to make a difference,” he said at last, deciding keeping things in the past tense was safer, for the moment at least, than messing around in the present. “In the world, I mean. And I couldn’t do that here. Not like I wanted to, anyway.” Then he pushed a short laugh through his nose. “Although all these years later, it’s not like I’m a doctor or anything. I’m not exactly saving lives—”

  “And don’t you dare sell yourself short,” Emily said, almost vehemently. “There’s a lot to be said for simply bearing witness to what’s going on in the world, shining a light on all the stuff a lot of people don’t know about. Or don’t want to know about. Maybe you’re not healing bodies, but...but if your work shakes some people out of their complacency, heals a few souls in the process...” Her cheeks flushed as her mouth clamped shut. Then she shoved out a breath. “We all have our place in the world. If that’s yours, just own it, dude.” Then she pushed out a tired laugh. “Listen to me, sounding like some expert.”

  One side of Colin’s mouth pushed up. “You ask me, most of those experts spend way too much time talking out of their butts. And you look like you’re about to topple over.”

  A short laugh collided with her yawn. “I guess I am. Well, puppydoodle,” she said, pushing herself upright with the pup still nestled under her chin, “guess I better turn you over to Uncle Colin.” Naturally the dog swung around to gnaw on the ends of her hair, making her laugh... And her scent, and that damned laugh, drifted up to Colin, surrounding him like a hug.

  He didn’t want her to leave. Meaning he desperately needed her to do exactly that.

  Especially when they got to his door and she looked up at him, a half smile teasing that full mouth, and said, “Sometimes, all you can do is trust that things will work out exactly the way they’re supposed to.”

  Colin crossed his arms, in no small part to keep from touching her. “Meaning?”