Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  Alison looked from Ike to Luc. “Powder man?”

  Ike resumed his place amid the rubble and began removing rocks. “The man who knows just what kind of a charge to use and where to put it.”

  “There’s nobody else?” She couldn’t believe they’d have only one man who was knowledgeable about the process.

  Luc stopped, considering. There were plenty of explosives on hand, there just wasn’t anyone to put them to use. He wiped his hands on his jeans, looking at Ike. “I might be able to do it, but I’d still need to get inside first.” He was aware of the stunned way Alison was looking at him. He couldn’t help the grin that came to his lips. “Told you I did a lot of reading.”

  “Reading what?” she demanded, her heart beginning to constrict. “How to blow things up?”

  “Books on how to operate a mine,” he answered.

  Luc saw the worry in her eyes. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her what he’d been thinking, what he’d felt this morning, waking up and not finding her there. He wanted to tell her that all he wanted out of this world was to find her there every morning for the rest of his life. But this wasn’t the time or the place. There were men’s lives to think of first.

  Later he could pour out his heart.

  Ike stared at the rubble, doing a little quick calculating. “If we all work together, we can probably clear away enough rocks to get you in at least part of the way.”

  Luc nodded. “That might be all it’ll take.”

  What were they saying? A salvo of panic went straight to her belly. Alison grabbed Luc’s arm, commandeering his attention. “You’re not going in there?”

  His eyes met hers, silently asking her to understand. “I’ve got no choice.”

  She didn’t want to hear that. “Yes, you do. You’ve always got a choice.”

  His voice was low, calm. The calm within the center of the storm. “Alison, what if those were your brothers trapped in there?”

  She couldn’t argue with him. His point was taken. She knew she had no right to ask him not to do this. Even if their relationship was more binding, even if he was her husband and not just the man she suddenly knew she belonged with, she still had no right to have him turn his back on his conscience.

  Dropping her hand, she nodded and stepped back. “If there’s a chance, you have to go,” she agreed quietly.

  The next second, she felt him grab her by the shoulders and kiss her hard on the mouth.

  “For luck,” he told her, already hurrying away to get the explosives he was going to need.

  It was only after she’d caught her breath that she realized he’d called her Alison in front of Jacob. The latter hadn’t blinked an eye.

  “You know?” she asked.

  Jacob nodded. “Since this morning. He told me. Luc hates lying, always has.” There was nothing but admiration in his voice. “Great guy.”

  There was no need to tell her that.

  And then there was no time to say anything at all as more volunteers arrived to diligently try to clear away the rocks from where the mouth of the cave had once been.

  Knowing she could be more help elsewhere, Alison turned away and hurried to find Shayne.

  For the next hour, Alison moved from man to man in Shayne’s wake, doing what she could to help. There were wounds to clean and bandage, broken limbs to temporarily set and judgment calls to make as to who was going to have to be airlifted to the hospital at Anchorage and who was just going to be sent home.

  She worked tirelessly, not allowing herself to focus on anything except the injured man beneath her hands. She certainly couldn’t allow herself to think about what could happen once Luc finally had clear access to the mine’s interior.

  “He’s going in,” someone called.

  Alison slipped and poured too much alcohol onto the cotton swab, turning it into a soggy sponge. Dropping it to the ground, she hurried away from the miner whose wound she’d been cleaning. He’d been one of the lucky ones. Three cuts and a bruise, none of which required much attention.

  “I’ll be right back,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  “I’ll be here.” But the miner was saying it to her back.

  Oblivious, Alison flew to where all of the commotion was originating.

  The men had managed to clear away enough of an opening for Luc, a flashlight and the explosives he was bringing to squeeze through. Two feet by two feet.

  It didn’t seem nearly enough room to squeeze in her whole world, she thought.

  Tears of panic filled her eyes. She blinked them back, determined not to cry. That was for later, when he came back to her. Without thinking, Alison clutched at Ike’s arm.

  Moving it, he silently slipped his arm around her shoulders in mute encouragement.

  There had to be another way, there just had to. “I’m smaller,” she heard herself saying to Ike. “I could crawl in there and—”

  He knew that desperation rather than logic was goading her to make the offer. “That’s just the point. You are smaller,” Ike told her. “Too small to drag out a man, especially if he’s injured. And unless you know your way around explosives—” Defeated, she shook her head. Ike gave her shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze. “He’s going to be all right.”

  “Sure he is,” she murmured. She only wished she could believe it herself.

  It was as if time stood still. Certainly her breath had, lodging itself in her lungs as she stared at the mine’s opening, willing Luc to emerge again.

  Every noise, every faint rumble whether from the vicinity of the mine or not, had her heart stopping, as well. Stopping and then beating wildly. Hard enough so that she felt as if her head was spinning.

  Damn it, where was he? Why hadn’t he come out by now? What if—?

  She wouldn’t let herself go there.

  When she finally saw someone coming out of the opening, she felt like crying out for joy. But a moment later, the joy faded. It wasn’t Luc.

  “Hey, it’s Riley,” someone shouted.

  The man, no more than twenty, looked visibly shaken and shaky. A woman cried out with relief as she came running toward him. Alison assumed it was his mother.

  “Luc got me out,” Thomas Riley told the man who took his arm to help support him. “I was pinned under this beam. Thought I was dead for sure.”

  Alison pushed forward through the clustered throng. “Where is he?”

  “Back there,” Riley answered weakly. “There’re two more guys down there. Sawyer and Crenshaw. Behind some rock. Luc said he was going to give me five minutes to find my way out and then try to set a charge so that he can get to them.”

  Everyone knew the risk that was implied. Unless set exactly right, there was a very good chance that none of them would be coming out. Any miscalculation could be fatal.

  A fresh wave of panic clutched at her throat.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” Alison pleaded with Ike.

  Frustration clawed at him, as well. “Praying comes to mind.”

  She felt so stymied, so frustrated she could scream.

  She needed to be doing something, making something happen. Digging her way to him with her bare hands, not just standing and staring at the cave, not knowing if she was standing on top of Luc’s tomb.

  Ike could see the turmoil in her eyes. “Why don’t you go back and help Shayne? It’ll take your mind off this.”

  It was too late for that. She shook her head. “Nothing’s going to take my mind off this,” she whispered quietly.

  She stayed where she was, hoping that Shayne would understand. She couldn’t wrap her mind around anything else, except for what was happening right now beneath the ground.

  Ike held her hand tightly and felt her nails sink into his flesh when the blast came. He heard her stifled cry.

  Smoke belched out of the opening the miners and volunteers had cleared and they felt the ground beneath them shudder and tremble. It felt like another earthquake, a localized one.

  As i
f possessed of a single thought, the men converged around the mouth again and began trying to clear away the remaining rocks. Alison was right there with them, taking her place beside Ike, working as fast as she could.

  Drenched in fear, Alison began praying.

  She prayed that that hadn’t been an earthquake and that Luc would come back to her so she could tell him what was in her heart.

  Keep him safe, God, and bring him back to me.

  She’d never prayed so hard in her life.

  More than five minutes went by. Five minutes in which everyone was digging and no one was talking, afraid of blotting out even the smallest of sounds coming from inside the mine. Afraid of somehow missing the one telltale noise that might signal a rescue.

  And then a hand pushed through the newly created opening.

  Men scrambled to grasp it, while others continued dragging rocks aside.

  Alison was afraid to hope. Afraid not to hope.

  A minute later, covered with dust from head to foot, Luc came stumbling out half dragging one man while another followed in his wake. All three were gasping for air and coughing.

  The moment he surrendered the man he was supporting to someone else, Alison launched herself at Luc. Wrapping her arms around him, she kissed his mouth hard, ignoring the dust that covered his body and the grinning stares of the men around them.

  Ignoring everything except that Luc was alive and had come back to her.

  “Oh, God, Luc, are you hurt?” Worried now that she might have been squeezing an injured rib, she quickly ran her hands along his body as Shayne came forward.

  Trying to catch his breath, Luc managed to look at her. His stare was blank. “Luc? Who’s Luc? And who are you? Do I know you?”

  For one horrible moment, she thought he had amnesia again. But then she saw the gleam in his eye as he said, “I’m going to have to kiss you again. Maybe that’ll jar something in my memory.”

  “I’ll jar your memory all right.” Laughing, she slipped her arms around his neck again. Her heart felt as if it was brimming over. “I’m so glad to see you, I’m not even going to kill you for putting me through that. I’ll wait until later.”

  The wobbly feeling that had draped over his body was beginning to recede. It had been touch-and-go for a few minutes in the mine. A few minutes in which he thought he wasn’t getting out. Entertaining thoughts of his own mortality; what he regretted most was not having told her he loved her.

  “Couldn’t you kill me after the wedding?”

  Her eyes widened. “What wedding?”

  “Our wedding?”

  It was in the form of a question because even now he wasn’t sure of the outcome, of her answer. He’d made up his mind this morning after making his confession to Jacob that he was going to ask Alison to marry him. He was going to ask, but what if she said no?

  After his experience in the mine, he knew he wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  Alison stared at him, stunned. This seemed to come out of nowhere. She was afraid to let her heart absorb the words. Afraid because she wanted this so much.

  She cocked her head, studying him. “Are you sure you’re not experiencing amnesia?”

  “I’m sure.” He wiped his hand against his jeans before touching her cheek. “But if you say yes, I’m bound to experience a little euphoria. What do you say, Alison? You want to make an honest man out of me?”

  “C’mon, Alison, say yes!” someone in the crowd coached. “Don’t leave him hanging.”

  She laughed at Luc’s play on words. “It’s usually the woman who needs to be made honest.”

  “In my case, it’s me,” he told her.

  She grew serious. He’d made a lovely gesture, owning up to the truth. She knew what that had to have cost him. Nobody likes looking foolish. “Jacob told me you made a clean breast of it. He knows we’re not married.”

  “Yet,” Luc stipulated. His eyes made an eloquent plea.

  Temptation hovered over her, urging her to accept. But this was said in the heat of the moment and she didn’t want him regretting it once the dust had settled. It cost her, but she gave him every opportunity to recant.

  “Luc, you just had a harrowing life-and-death experience. Don’t say anything hasty you might regret.”

  “If you don’t marry him, you want to marry me?” another one of the volunteers asked, only to have Ike shove him aside good-naturedly.

  “Shut up and let them work this out,” he ordered.

  “I’ve never said anything hasty in my life,” Luc told her. “And I’m not going to regret it, now or ever. I made up my mind to ask you this morning, before I heard about the cave-in.” He took her hands into his, holding them to his chest. “I want you to stay here with me after your internship is over. I don’t want you to go back to Seattle, Alison. If you go, what will I do with my heart?”

  Her own heart caught in her throat, this time held there with happiness.

  “Say yes already, darlin’,” Ike urged her, unable to take this any longer. “You know you want to.”

  The smile in her heart rose into her eyes. “Yes, I know I want to.”

  Catching her up in his arms, Luc raised her up high before enveloping her in a warm, if dusty, embrace.

  “You’re all invited to the wedding,” he announced to the crowd. And then he smiled down into her face. “But not to the honeymoon.”

  A chorus of moans echoed around them as he kissed her, but neither of them heard.

  Epilogue

  The butterflies that sailed by above her head just as she entered the tent where she was to dress had nothing on the ones that were breeding in her stomach. With wings that were at least a yard wide, they were flapping for all they were worth.

  She’d been here before, on the threshold of marriage. But the last time had been riddled with fear and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was making a huge, horrible mistake.

  That feeling was absent now. Instead, there was an excitement, an eagerness and yes, a colossal case of nerves.

  What if she wasn’t—?

  But she would be, Alison silently swore to herself. She would be a good wife. Luc’s wife. It had a lovely ring to it.

  She glanced down at her hand. The antique band she’d grown so accustomed to wearing in such a short time was gone from her finger. Luc would be giving it to her officially in just a little while.

  Her finger might have felt as if there were something missing, but her heart didn’t. For the first time since she could remember, her heart felt…fearless. She felt fearless. And so happy she could burst.

  “You beam any harder and those people waiting out there are going to think they’ve got two suns instead of one,” Sydney told her.

  “Let ’em.” Alison couldn’t keep the sparkle out of her eyes. “This has been a long time in coming.”

  After a while, Kevin popped his head into the camping tent that Ike and Shayne had put up for her less than an hour ago. “Almost time, Aly.”

  And then he saw her, really saw her. His little sister looked radiant. All the secret fears he’d had about this whirlwind courtship and wedding vanished. He knew now what a proud father of the bride felt. “Oh, baby, you look beautiful.”

  Alison smoothed down the skirt of her mother’s wedding gown. Lily had brought it in her suitcase. The first time she married, Alison had worn her own. A simple little thing she’d bought herself, a dress that could be reused. Looking back, it was as if she’d known the marriage was doomed from the start and that at least the dress could be salvaged out of the fiasco.

  But this time she’d known she would get married in her mother’s wedding gown. For luck. Forever.

  She looked down at it now. “It does look pretty, doesn’t it?”

  “I wasn’t talking about the dress.” Kevin felt a tightness in his throat. “Does Luc know how damn lucky he is?”

  With Sydney’s help, Marta spread out the train behind Alison. “If incessant talking and bragging about
Alison is any indication, I think he might suspect.” She cocked her head, listening. “Uh-oh, I think I hear your husband starting his fancy fingering at the keyboard.” She winked at Sydney. Kevin and Ike had brought Sydney’s beloved piano out into the field so that Alison and Luc could have music when they said the fateful words that pledged them to each other.

  Sydney paused to listen. She winked at Alison. “Sounds like ‘The Wedding March’ to me.”

  Kevin presented his arm to the bride. He told himself he wasn’t going to cry. It would only embarrass Alison. But his eyes were smarting. “Ready?”

  She took a deep breath. “Yes, I am.”

  They left the tent slowly, with Marta, Sydney and Lily marching down the makeshift aisle before her in the wildflower-strewn field. It was the only place large enough to accommodate all the people Luc had invited.

  And then it was Alison’s turn. Alison’s turn to grab the brass ring.

  Luc turned from the altar and watched her approach. He knew she was beautiful, had thought so from the moment he had looked up at her in that alley and thought she was an angel. But the sight of her now, holding herself like a queen and coming toward him, left his mouth dry. And his heart brimming.

  And then she was beside him, with the reverend saying the words that would seal him to her in the eyes of the state, the church and all their friends and family. Putting into reality what had been true from the first moment they had been together.

  “…And I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may—” The reverend stopped and laughed. Not waiting for the man’s instruction, Luc had taken Alison into his arms and was kissing her. In the background, Shayne began playing “Moon River,” just as Luc had instructed him to. “I see you’re already moving on ahead.”

  And they intended to keep right on doing just that. For the rest of their lives.

  Arizona Heat

  by Jennifer Greene

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four