Stranded with the Groom Read online

  Riley gave her a sideways look. “You sure about this?”

  “Riley, he needs to know and, given the circumstances, I think I’m the best one to tell him.”

  Justin was sitting in his study at the front of the house when the doorbell rang.

  His laptop waited, open and ignored, on the desk before him. His mind was far away from the spreadsheet on the screen, stuck on a brown-haired woman and a silver-haired man and why he didn’t feel the sense of triumph and vindication he’d always expected to feel after finally making his move.

  The doorbell chimed and Justin ignored it.

  He wasn’t expecting anyone; he didn’t want to see anyone—and anybody who came ringing his bell at midnight could damn well go away and come back at a decent hour.

  But then, a minute later, the doorbell rang again. “Get lost,” he muttered, and stared blindly at the computer screen in which he had no interest at all.

  But then it rang a third time.

  That did it. He swore, low and crudely, and pushed himself to his feet. Whoever was out there was going to get an earful.

  He strode, fast, through the door to his study and across the hardwood floor of the entry hall. When he got to the door, he flung it wide.

  “Hello, Justin.”

  The breath fled his lungs. He felt as if an iron hand had just punched him a good one square in the solar plexus. He blinked and stepped back. “Katie.”

  “May I come in?”

  “What—?”

  She cut him off, sweetly but firmly. “I said, may I come in?”

  He fell back another step. He just wasn’t getting this. What reason could she possibly have to seek him out now?

  It made no sense. Katie, here. At his door.

  And still, though it gained him nothing but more pain, he couldn’t help drinking in the sight of her, of her shining hair and angel’s face, of the grim set to her soft mouth and the strange, determined gleam in those beautiful brown eyes. The scent of her taunted him—warm and temptingly sweet.

  Katie. All his senses seemed to call out her name.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” She stepped over the threshold. She had a big envelope in one hand. She waved it at him. “I have a few things I need to say to you. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  Quelling the urge to sputter out more exclamations of disbelief that she was standing right there, in front of him, he muttered, “Yeah. All right.”

  She slipped out of her coat, switching the envelope from hand to hand as she shrugged free of the sleeves.

  “Here.” He reached for it.

  But she held on. “No. I’ll keep it. This shouldn’t take long.”

  The more he looked at her, the more certain he was that he didn’t like the strange gleam in her eyes.

  But why should he like it? No way she’d come here to tell him she loved him and couldn’t live without him.

  Any chance he’d had for that, he’d blown Friday night—and doubly, at the meeting fourteen hours before. Which meant it was going to be something he didn’t want to hear.

  Might as well get it over with. “Suit yourself.” He turned on his heel. “This way.”

  He led her to the great room at the back of the house, where the ceiling soared up two stories high and two walls of windows looked out on the night. She perched on a chair in one of the sitting areas and folded her coat in her lap. He hovered a few feet from her.

  “Please,” she said. “Sit down.”

  He wanted to refuse, felt he’d be better off to stay on his feet. But she looked up at him, mouth set, amber eyes afire with a steely sort of purpose. He gave in and dropped into the chair across from her.

  She bit her lip. “I…hardly know where to begin.”

  He said nothing. It was her damn show, after all.

  She sat up straighter and cleared her throat. “Okay. To start, I know about what you did to Caleb this—or rather yesterday—morning. I also know why, at last. I know that you’re his son, that he had an affair with your mother when Addy suffered a serious bout of depression after Riley was born. Caleb couldn’t take it, watching Addy suffer—her continued rejection of him. He met your mother and they had an affair.”

  Impatience curled through Justin, coiling like a spring. He wanted her out of there. Every moment in her presence brought it more clearly home to him that he had lost her.

  Hell, lost her? He’d never had her.

  And he never would.

  He demanded, “Is there some reason you imagined I needed—much less, wanted—to hear all this?”

  Her sweet mouth got a pinched look about it. “Be a little patient. Please. I’m getting to the part you need to know.”

  “Speed it up.”

  She outright glared at him. “Fine,” she said. “It went like this. Caleb and your mother had an affair. When your mother got pregnant, Caleb told her he did care for her, but he still loved Adele. He wouldn’t marry your mother, but he offered to give her a half million dollars. For you.”

  He couldn’t stay in his seat. He shot to a standing position. “That’s ridiculous. It never happened.”

  A hot flush flowed up her neck and over her soft cheeks. “Will you let me finish?”

  He turned from her, stared at his own shadowed reflection in the dark window opposite where she sat. “Make it fast.”

  She picked up the pace, each word emerging clipped and cold. “Caleb offered your mother five hundred thousand dollars if she’d give you up, if she’d give you to him—so he and Adele could raise you. Somehow, he hoped to make Adele understand and accept you into their family. It might even have worked. Addy wanted more children so badly.”

  He whirled on her. “So what? It doesn’t matter. My mother turned him down and then he started threatening her. She had to run away.”

  “No. She didn’t turn him down. And she was the one who made the threats.”

  He refused to believe that. “No.”

  “Yes. She threatened all sorts of wild things—to kill Adele, to kill Riley. To tell the world that she was carrying Caleb’s child and what a rotten bastard he was. But then, in the end, she agreed to Caleb’s terms. She took the check.” He was shaking his head, but Katie just went on talking. “She took the check when she was eight months along. But instead of sticking around to give you to Caleb when you were born, she ran off. She cashed that check. And she raised you on her own—just as you told me she did, always moving from one place to another, keeping ahead of any chance that Caleb might find her—and you.”

  “No.”

  She threw the envelope on the table between them. “It’s all in there. Her threatening letters, what Caleb offered, what she refused—and then eventually accepted. There’s even the cancelled check for a half million dollars, complete with her endorsement on the back.”

  “No. I don’t believe you.” He glared down at her.

  And her face softened, suddenly, with something that might have been pity. “It’s all there. Look it over. Come to grips with the truth.” She stood. “We can all use a little more truth around here, and that’s a plain fact. And the truth is, your mother took Caleb’s money and she ran off. Where do you think she got the start-up funds for those businesses you mentioned to me once—you know, the ones that failed?”

  “No,” he said. Again. He couldn’t say it enough. “No, no…”

  Katie refused to back down. “I’m sorry, Justin. I truly am. Sorry for you, for what you’ve become. I think, if there’s ever going to be any hope for you, you’re going to have face what your mother did. And accept it. You’re going to have to admit how angry you are at her. Because I know, just from the few things you said to me about her, that she made your childhood a living hell.”

  It wasn’t her fault, he thought, as he’d been thinking for his whole life. She did the best she could….

  Too bad his old excuses for the woman who’d raised him rang so hollow now.

  And Katie wasn’t finished. “What Caleb did was
wrong. All wrong. Using your mother, and then trying to buy her off, to cut her out of your life, to take you away from her. He was so wrong. And now he’s paying for it. But don’t imagine he didn’t want you. Don’t even try to tell yourself he walked away from you. He would have claimed you, would have possibly lost Adele for your sake, would have taken the chance of putting Riley’s childhood in jeopardy, if your mother had kept her end of their bargain.”

  Justin couldn’t stay upright. He sank to a chair, muttered, one last time, “No. It can’t be….”

  “Justin. It is.”

  He stared up at her—at the matchless woman he’d lost to his own blindness and pride. Right then, as he began to fully understand the depths to which he’d sunk, his mother’s words came to him.

  When I’m gone, you’ll get your chance to make it all right.

  He saw it all then, in a blinding burst of terrible clarity that had his stomach churning, and acid rising to his throat: the truth Katie spoke of.

  He’d made nothing right. He’d only made a bad situation worse.

  Yes. Katie was right. His anger with his mother went deeper than he’d ever realized.

  But that anger was nothing against how much he was finding he despised himself.

  “Go,” he said. “Please. Go now.”

  Katie looked uncertain. A miracle, that woman. His miracle, lost forever to him now. He saw in her sweet face that, in spite of everything, she was afraid. For him.

  He sat up straighter. “I’m not going to do anything…drastic. I’m going to sit here and read over the stuff in this envelope. I’m going to think about what you’ve said to me. I need to do that alone.”

  She swallowed. “All right, then. You may not believe this. But I do wish you well. And I hope that, somehow, you’ll find a way to make peace. With Caleb. And with your mother’s memory.”

  He forced a twisted smile. “Goodbye, Katie.”

  A shudder went through her. But she lifted her head high. “Yes. All right. Goodbye.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day, Justin Caldwell did something he’d never before done in his adult life. He called his office and said he had personal business to see to and he wouldn’t be in.

  Strange, now he thought of it. He really didn’t have a personal life to speak of. He could think of only one other time when he might have needed a personal day and that was when his mother died.

  But as it turned out, Ramona had died on a Saturday afternoon, so Justin had his “personal” days on the weekend and showed up at the office at nine Monday morning.

  This time, the personal business in question consisted mostly of wandering around in his bathrobe, reading and rereading the letters in the envelope Katie had left with him—reading the letters and staring at the photographs of his father and mother, together.

  And occasionally, picking up that cancelled check with his mother’s signature on the back of it and wondering…

  At his blind, thoughtless and pigheaded father.

  At the selfish vengefulness of his mother.

  Really, when it came down to it, blood did tell. Hadn’t their son turned out to be all those things?

  Blind, thoughtless, pigheaded, selfish—and vengeful.

  Justin Caldwell. Biggest SOB on the planet, bar none.

  The question now was: what the hell could he do about that?

  All day long, wandering around his gorgeous, empty house in his bathrobe, he pondered that question. All day long, and into the evening.

  It was a little after seven and he was starting to think that maybe he should make himself go into the kitchen and microwave something to put in his stomach, when the doorbell rang.

  Katie…

  His pulse started racing and his heart did something acrobatic inside his chest.

  But the thrill quickly faded. It wouldn’t be her. It couldn’t be her. It was over between them. He knew it. At least in his mind. Over time, he hoped the rest of him—body, heart, soul—would learn to accept it.

  Shaking his head at his own foolish yearning, he got up and went to the door.

  “Mr. Caldwell. How are you?” Josiah Green stuck out a hand.

  Baffled, Justin took it. They shook. “Er. What can I do for you?”

  Green took in Justin’s unshaved face and the bathrobe he’d never gotten around to changing out of. “Oh, my. I see I’ve come at an inopportune time.”

  It was the perfect excuse—but for some weird reason, Justin didn’t take it. “Come on in.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Green came through the door and Justin shut it behind him. The tall, somber fellow wore a long black coat over what appeared to be the same ministerial black getup he’d worn the day Justin and Katie exchanged their fake vows. “Well. Can I take your coat?”

  “Thank you.” He had an envelope in his hand—an envelope like the one Katie had brought the night before. Bizarre. “Hold this, please.”

  Justin took the envelope and Green removed his coat and laid it over one of the two entrance hall chairs. When Justin tried to hand the envelope back, Green put up a lean, long-fingered hand. “No. That’s yours.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ahem. Well. We shall get to it.” Weirder by the minute. Green said, “Right now, I’d so enjoy a cup of nice, hot coffee.”

  Justin blinked. “Coffee.”

  “Yes. Please.” Green gave him a tight little smile.

  “Uh. Well, okay. This way.”

  They proceeded to the kitchen, where Justin set the envelope on the table and Green took a seat.

  “I’ll just get the coffee going.”

  “Bless you.”

  While the coffee dripped, they spoke of the weather—the warming trend had ended; snow was predicted for tomorrow—and of how Green admired Justin’s lovely home.

  “And, may I ask,” the older man inquired with some delicacy, “where is your charming bride?”

  Katie.

  Didn’t he have it bad enough, trying not to think of her, without some crazy old guy showing up at his door and asking where she was? He peered more closely at the old guy in question. “I have one question.”

  “Certainly. Ask away.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Green did a little throat-clearing. “Well. Sadly, I must inform you that, while you and your bride are married in the eyes of Our Lord, the state of Montana has its own rules.”

  “Rules?” Justin repeated, for lack of anything better to say. He sincerely was not following.

  Green tapped the envelope. “I’ve brought you your marriage license. I’m afraid I was somewhat remiss when I stepped forward to lead you through your vows a week ago last Saturday.”

  “Uh. Remiss?”

  Green chided, “It appears the two of you never applied for this license. When I attempted to file it, I was told they had no record of your application. Nowadays, I regret to inform you, the blessing of a man of God is simply not enough.”

  Without a doubt. Weirder by the minute. “You mean you actually are…a minister?”

  Green snapped his thin shoulders back. “Well, of course I’m a minister.”

  Justin put up a hand. “Look. Sorry.”

  “Ahem. Well. All right, then. Your apology is graciously accepted.”

  “Thanks. But I thought you understood. That ‘wedding’ was a reenactment. It wasn’t—”

  “There are no reenactments in the eyes of heaven,” Green cut in reprovingly before Justin could finish. “One does. Or one doesn’t. You did. So don’t mistake me, young man, Katherine is your wife in the eyes of the Lord, and those eyes, as you should very well know, are the ones that truly matter. Ahem.” He frowned. “Now, where was I?”

  As if Justin had a clue. “Something about applying for a license, I think….”

  “Yes. Well, and that is the crux of it. You and Katherine must go immediately to the county clerk’s office and apply for a valid license, then the marriage can be resolemnified
and all will be well. I will be pleased to perform the ceremony for you, if you would like me to do so. But any ordained minister will certainly suffice. Legally, you can simply say your vows at the courthouse, if that’s your bent.” Green put a dark emphasis on the word, bent, making it crystal clear that he felt all marriages should be solemnified by a man of God.

  And Justin hadn’t the faintest idea what to say to all this. It seemed to him that the old guy might be a little off in the head—in a harmless sort of way. So he simply announced, “Coffee’s ready.”

  “Wonderful. Two sugars. No cream.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after handing Justin a card, “In case you should wish to request my services for the ceremony,” Green put on his big, black coat and went out the door.

  He left the envelope on the kitchen table.

  Justin tried to ignore it. But it was like his mother’s letters, like the photographs of her and Caleb, like that damn cancelled check.

  The envelope on the kitchen table would not be ignored.

  He microwaved some canned spaghetti and sat at the table to eat it, his gaze tracking to the waiting envelope after every bite.

  Finally, muttering a string of very bad words, he pushed his plate away and grabbed the damn thing.

  He pulled out the license and stared down at it. “Katie…” he whispered to the empty room. With a shaking finger, he traced the letters in her name. “I love you.”

  He said the three impossible words and he knew they were true.

  Out of all the lies, all the dirty tricks, out of everything he’d done so very wrong.

  This one truth remained.

  He loved Katie Fenton.

  He loved her.

  It was all wrong and it was too late.

  But that didn’t change the basic truth.

  He loved Katie.

  And now it was up to him do what he could—though it would never be enough—to make the wrongs he’d done right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  At eight-thirty on Monday morning, Justin entered the Thunder Canyon Ski Resort Project offices through the front door.