Stranded with the Groom Read online

  Damn. He was gone. Gone, gone, gone. He kept trying to remember why he’d come here, what he needed to say to her. He should say it.

  And go.

  But he said nothing as she gestured toward a door at the back, past the foot of that impressive staircase. “This way…” He fell in behind her and she led him to a big kitchen with acres of granite-topped counters and cherrywood cabinets fronted in beveled glass. “Have a seat.” She nodded toward the cherry table in the breakfast area. “I’ll get the dinner started.”

  He didn’t want to sit there at the table while she bustled around across a jut of counter fifteen feet away. “Let me help.”

  “Well, sure.” She was already at the sink, washing her hands. “If you want to…”

  He followed her lead at the sink and then turned to watch her as she tied on an apron, set the oven and began assembling the stuff she needed. He scrubbed the potatoes for her. She cut them into quarters and shook spices on them, then drizzled them with olive oil and stirred them with a wooden spoon.

  In spite of the constant, burning ache to grab her and hold her, to kiss her and feel her body go soft and warm and achingly willing against his, in spite of the nagging awareness that he had a grim purpose here and once he accomplished it, he’d have to walk out the door.

  And never see her again.

  In spite of all of it, a strange sort of peace settled on him, just to be there, with her, in the big, well-appointed kitchen, handing her a spoon or an oven mitt when she asked for it, watching as she prepared their meal.

  She battered the chicken, her soft mouth curved in a happy smile. “So. What have you been up to since we broke out of the museum Tuesday?”

  He told her how busy he’d been, catching up, getting back on top of the job again. As he talked, she put the chicken on to fry and checked the potatoes.

  As she shut the oven door, she asked, “How about some wine?”

  “Sounds good.”

  She went to the chef-quality fridge and brought out a bottle of Pinot Grigio. “Do the honors?”

  He opened the wine and poured them each a glass. Then she started on the salad, keeping an eye on the chicken as she worked, and chattering away about the happenings at the library, about the Historical Society meeting she’d held on Wednesday.

  “There was much concern over how the storm had ruined our ‘wedding reception.’ The society members were hoping the event would generate a few generous donations.”

  “Understandable. Did you tell them how grateful we were that they left all those sandwiches—and what they’re collecting for a rummage sale?”

  “I didn’t,” she confessed. “But I guess I should have.”

  He knocked back a big slug of the excellent wine to keep himself from flinging the glass to the hardwood floor and hauling her into his arms. “Speaking of the rummage sale, I should have brought back that reindeer sweater—not to mention the ugly coat, the jeans and those beat-up sneakers. Sorry. I completely forgot.” His mind had been filled with her, with the shining central fact that he’d see her face again. One more time.

  Before the end.

  “No one’s even going to notice that stuff is missing, believe me.” She sipped from her own glass—much more daintily than he had. “But if you’re feeling really guilty, you could make a donation.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be much. And you’ll have the society’s undying gratitude.”

  “Never hurts to build goodwill.” He knew he should have choked on those words. After next Tuesday, he’d be the lowest of the low in her eyes. No amount of goodwill would help him then.

  She nodded. “Never hurts.”

  Never.

  The word got stuck in his mind.

  Never to hold her again…

  Never to see her smile at him…

  Never to look into those wide brown eyes…

  He set his wineglass on the counter—a stupid move, and he knew it. With both hands empty, the urge to fill them with her softness was nearly overpowering.

  She watched him, her eyes tracking from his face, to his glass and back to his face again. After an endless few seconds of that, she set down her glass, too.

  Behind her at the stove, the chicken sizzled in the pan, giving off a mouthwatering, savory smell. The salad sat, half-made, beside her glass.

  And he couldn’t stop himself from thinking…

  If she were someone different, or if he was.

  If those vows they’d exchanged Saturday in the town hall had been the real thing.

  If she were truly his wife.

  This would be their life, here, in this graceful old house, her in her apron, the chicken on the stove, the salad on the counter and the potatoes in the oven.

  The two of them, talking about what had happened at work, sharing the little details of their separate days, before they sat down to dinner.

  Together.

  And later, he’d take her to bed—their bed.

  He’d hold her and kiss her—kiss every last inch of her. Until she was pliant and heated and ready to have him. He’d enter her slowly, by aching degrees….

  “Oh,” she said quietly, the word like a yearning sigh between them. “Oh, I did miss you.”

  It was too much. More than he could bear. His need to touch her took over. He reached out.

  With a cry, she swayed toward him. And he wrapped his arms around a miracle.

  Katie. Right here. In his hungry arms.

  He rained kisses on her soft, flushed cheeks. “I missed you, too. So damn much.”

  “Oh, me, too. I missed you.” She let out a giggle and a sweet blush stained her cheeks. “But I already said that, I know I did. I— Oh, Justin. You should kiss me.” She tipped up that plump mouth. “You should kiss me right now.”

  “You’re right.”

  He took her lifted mouth. And she gave it, eagerly, sending a blast of heat exploding through him. She opened for him, so he could plunge his tongue inside and taste her—so sweet, so eager, flavored with wine.

  She wore a kitten-soft sweater over a skinny wool skirt. It wasn’t enough, to feel her through that fluffy sweater. He eased it up—just a little. He wasn’t going to go too far.

  He put his hands on the velvety, warm flesh at the small of her back. She moaned into his mouth. He sucked in the sound, breathing in her breath, letting it back out so she could take breath from him.

  He muttered her name, between deep kisses on her open lips. “Katie, Katie, Katie…” And his hands…

  He couldn’t stop them. They wandered up her back, found the place where her bra hooked and eased those tiny hooks apart.

  Yes! He brought his hands around, both of them, between them, and he cradled her small, round breasts, groaning at the feel of them, the soft, slight weight against his palms. He scraped her nipples with his thumbs and then caught them, each one, between thumb and forefinger, rolling, pinching a little, just enough to make her push her hips against him, just enough to make her moan.

  More.

  He had to have more of her.

  He had to have all of her. Stark need pounded through him as his blood spurted, thick and hot and hungry, through his veins.

  He raked that sweater up, losing her mouth so he could kiss her chin, scrape his teeth along her throat, nipping and licking as he went. He nuzzled the fluffy sweater, but only briefly. And then he found her breast.

  He latched on and she cried out, clutching his head. He drew on the sweet peak, working his teeth against it, making her cry out again.

  As he suckled her, he let his hands slide downward, over the glorious inward curve of her waist and out, along the warm shape of her hips beneath the nubby wool of her skirt.

  The skirt was in his way and he wanted it gone.

  He grabbed two handfuls of it and eased it upward, over those warm, slim, waiting thighs.

  Her panty hose stopped him. His fingers brushed them, and sheer as they were, the slight bar
rier of nylon reminded him.

  He shouldn’t be doing this.

  He had no damn right to do this.

  It took every last ounce of determination he possessed, but he lifted his head. She tried, at first—raising her body to his, pleading sounds rising from her throat—to pull him back to her.

  But no.

  He couldn’t. He had no right to give in to her tender urging.

  He lifted his head and her soft hands fell away.

  Gently, he smoothed down her skirt as she looked at him, dazed, flushed and dreamy-eyed. “Justin?” She whispered his name on a yearning, slow breath.

  He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. He took her by the waist and carefully turned her around, taking the loose ends of her bra straps and hooking them together again.

  He smoothed the sweater back down.

  Only then, when those tempting bare inches of skin were safely covered, did he guide her back around.

  Lazily, she raised her arms and rested them on his shoulders. “Oh, my.” She let out a long, sweet sigh. “I think the chicken’s burning.”

  He gritted his teeth to keep from taking her kiss-swollen mouth again. “Better see to it.”

  “Yes.” She looked adorably regretful. “I suppose I’d better.”

  He let go of her—yet another impossible task somehow accomplished—and she turned for the stove.

  The wine was right there and his glass was empty. He needed more. A river of it, to wash the tempting taste of her from his mouth—to numb the reality of what he was here to do. He filled his glass and topped off hers, too.

  I could…just drop the whole thing with Caleb, he found himself thinking as he stood a few feet behind her, sipping more wine, his gaze tracking the length of her. From her gleaming, thick brown hair that curled sweetly at her shoulders, down to her trim waist, and lower still, over the smooth swell of her hips, along the shape of her thighs outlined beneath the slim skirt, and lower, to the backs of her slim calves. She sent him a smile over her shoulder as she moved from the stove to the oven again. From there, she came closer and set to work finishing the salad.

  He watched her hands, narrow and smooth, clear polish on her short-trimmed nails.

  I could just never make my move, he thought. Let it all go ahead as Caleb believes it will. Give it up. At this point, no one would even have to know what I had meant to do.

  But then what?

  Try to make his dream of a life with Katie come true?

  And if he tried for that—what? Tell her the truth about himself? That basic fact that he’d lied—a whopping lie—in the first place, could ruin it between them.

  So if not the truth, then what?

  To hold forever within himself the central lie of his very existence? Seeing Caleb and his wife and their son all the time, becoming, in a sense, a part of the family?

  No.

  It was impossible.

  He had to remember his mother. Remember Ramona Lovett, who called herself Ramona Caldwell. Remember the life they’d had. Barely holding on too much of the time. He had to remember, all of it.

  Like that night when he was twelve. The night she’d locked herself in the bathroom. Remember breaking down the door to find her limp in the bathtub, her forearms slit, bleeding out on the white tiles of the bathroom floor.

  He’d slipped in her blood as he plowed through the medicine cabinet looking for something to staunch the flow.

  After that, the Child Protective Services people had come sniffing around, so they’d moved. Again.

  And then, always, he would have to live with the night she died.

  She’d come to find him in Bozeman when she learned she wouldn’t make it, come and let him take care of her for those final months. Once or twice, in the last weeks, she’d remarked that it was strange—maybe even meant to be. That he’d ended up here, in Western Montana, when she’d never once so much as brought him here the whole time he was growing up.

  “I thought I raised you to live anywhere but here. And look. Here you are. Must be fate. Oh, yeah. Must be fate. When I’m gone you’ll get your chance to make it all right.”

  He would ask her what she was getting at. What did Montana have to do with anything? And she would turn her head away.

  Until the last. Until the night she died in the hospital, where he’d taken her once she couldn’t get along without round-the-clock care.

  “I know I never told you, who he was…your father. Maybe I should have.” Her skeletal hand, tubes running from the back of it, weakly clutched his fingers. “Caleb. That’s his name. Caleb Douglas. Wife, Adele. They had one son. All they could have. Riley. In Thunder Canyon.”

  “Thunder Canyon. That’s right here. In Montana.”

  She’d swallowed, sucked in another breath that wheezed like she was dragging it in through a flattened straw. Even the oxygen didn’t help her by then. Nothing helped. “Yes. Twenty miles from here. In Montana. Caleb…” she’d whispered, her eyes closing on a final sigh. “Caleb…”

  And with that name on her lips, she was gone.

  “Justin? Are you in there?” Katie laughed, a light, happy sound. A sound from another world, a world of possibilities he couldn’t let himself explore. “You should see your face. A million miles away.”

  He shook himself. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.” She handed him the big wooden salad bowl. “Put this on the table? We’ll just eat right here, in the breakfast nook, if that’s okay?” She handed him the salad tongs.

  “Sounds good.” He carried the bowl and tongs to the table, then helped her set it for two.

  A few minutes later, she took out the potatoes, spooned them into a bowl, and transferred the chicken to a serving platter.

  They sat down to eat. He looked at the food, and wondered if he’d be able to get anything down, though the chicken was crispy-brown and the potatoes perfectly cooked. The salad was crisp and green.

  No. It wasn’t the food.

  It was the wrongness of being here, of holding her, of touching her soft body, kissing her lips, of drinking her wine and letting her cook for him.

  Yeah. It was all wrong, to steal these last perfect moments with her, when in the end he could do nothing but continue on the course he’d set two years ago, on the day of his mother’s death. In the end, his choice wouldn’t change. He would get his payback—for Ramona Lovett Caldwell’s sake, above all.

  And that meant he had no right to sit here with Katie, in her house, at her table, pretending that there was some hope for the two of them.

  There wasn’t.

  There never could be.

  Katie set down her fork with a bite of potato still on the end of it. Justin had been much too quiet for several minutes now—ever since that kiss, as a matter of fact, a kiss that had almost ended with the two of them rushing to the bedroom.

  But he had stopped it.

  And ever since then…

  “Justin, what is it?” She forced a joking laugh. “The food can’t be that bad.”

  He pushed his plate away. “It’s not the food.” He really didn’t look right.

  Alarm skittered through her. His face was set. Kind of…closed against her. Why? “Was it something I said?” She tried to make the question light and playful, but didn’t fully succeed. There was an edge to her voice. She couldn’t help it.

  She had the most powerful feeling that something had gone wrong.

  Something major.

  Something she had a sinking feeling she wasn’t going to be able to make right.

  Which was crazy. What could have gone wrong in the space of a few minutes? Hardly anything had been said.

  “Justin, was it that you kissed me? But no. I don’t see how it could be that.” She raised both hands, palms up. “Did I do something to upset you? I just don’t get it. I don’t underst—”

  He grabbed her hand. “Listen.” He stood, pulling her up with him.

  “Justin, I don’t—”

 
; “No. Hear me out. It’s nothing you did.” His eyes gleamed at her with a strange, wild kind of light.

  “But if you—”

  “No.” He squeezed her fingers. Hard. “Wait. Listen.”

  She pulled her hand free of his, dread moving through her, dragging at her body, like an awful gravity from within. “All right.” She folded her hands in front of herself, twining them together to keep from reaching out for him. He wouldn’t like it if she tried to touch him now, she knew it, knew it in a deep and undeniable way.

  Oh, what was up with him? How could something so right suddenly veer off into something so strange and wrong? It made no sense. And he still wasn’t talking, in spite of telling her twice to listen. How could she listen if he had nothing to say?

  “Justin, you’re acting so strangely. Is something wrong? I’d appreciate it if you’d just tell me what’s bothering—”

  He interrupted. “Nothing.” The single word was far too curt. Not to mention a whopping lie.

  “But if you’d only—”

  “Listen.” He reached out as if he would grab her, then jerked his hand back as though he’d been burned.

  “But I’ve been listening. You’re not talking.”

  “It’s only…I couldn’t stay away. I missed you. I missed you like hell.”

  She would have smiled in relief and delight, if only he hadn’t sounded so angry about it. She made another feeble attempt at lightness. “And this is a problem?”

  He stared at her for a long, sizzling moment. She had the sense that he was going to spin on his heel and slam out the door. Why?

  The word screamed in her mind.

  Why, why, why?

  “I shouldn’t have come here. It was wrong.”

  This was making no sense. No sense at all. “Wrong? I don’t see how. I invited you here. I wanted to make our dinner. I wanted to…be with you. I’m so glad you came.”

  He stepped back abruptly, knocking over his chair, catching it at the last minute, righting it—and then turning, backing away from her, toward the door to the foyer. “I should never have come. I only…”

  She waited for him to finish, to say something that made sense. When he didn’t, she prodded, “You only, what?”