Stranded with the Groom Read online

  She hugged herself harder. “I rarely saw them. They enjoyed traveling. They had a flat in London, the family brownstone in Philadelphia, villas in France and Italy. And where they didn’t have a flat or a villa, they had friends who had one. You know the words. ‘Globe-trotting.’ ‘Jet-setting.’ My parents were the beautiful people. They came from fine families and the money was always there. They never had to work. So they didn’t. They didn’t even have to take care of their child. There were nannies and governesses, plenty of hired help for that.”

  “So you weren’t left alone,” Justin said, his eyes direct. Knowing.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “But you were lonely.”

  “Exactly.” She looked down. Her arms were wrapped so tightly around her middle, they made her rib cage ache. With a slow, deep breath, she let go of herself and folded her hands on the tabletop. “I never knew a real family—’til Addy and Caleb.” She smiled to herself. “And Riley. He was all grown up by the time I came to them, twenty-three, when I moved to the ranch. How many young guys in their twenties have time for a gawky fourteen-year-old girl? Not many. But Riley did. He was so good to me, you know?” Justin made a sound of understanding low in his throat. “What the Douglases gave me was something so important. The two big things I’d never had. Their time. Their attention. Riley taught me to ride—”

  “On Buttercup.” He grinned.

  “That’s right.” She glanced toward the door to the back porch, thinking she should get out there and check on the old mare. Soon.

  But it was so…comfortable. Sitting here with Justin, talking about the things that had made them who they were. “So you don’t blame your mother for leaving you alone in that cabin?”

  He shook his head. “It’s tough for a woman on her own, with a kid. She’d been left high and dry, pregnant with me by the no-good bastard who used her and then walked away from her when she told him she was having his baby. She was…a good mother and she took damn good care of me. But there was no getting around that she had to make a living and that meant when the storm blew in, I was at the cabin, and she wasn’t. It’s the kind of thing that can happen to anyone.”

  “It’s the kind of thing that could scar a child for life, that’s what it is.”

  He pressed a fist to his chest right over the row of reindeer prancing across the front of his sweater. “That’s me. Deeply damaged.”

  She tipped her head to the side, considering. “Well. I guess it’s good that you can joke about it.”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It happened. I survived. And I’ve done just fine for myself, though I never had a father, never had much formal education and started, literally, from scratch.”

  “In…development?” She laughed. “What does that mean, exactly, to be a ‘developer.’”

  “Well, a developer ‘develops.’”

  “Sheesh. It’s all clear to me now.”

  He grinned. “Property, in my case. We start with several viable acres and we develop a project to build tract homes. Or say I got hold of just the right business-district lot. I’d start putting the people and financing together to build an office complex. A developer is someone who gets the money and the people and the plans—and most important, the right property—and puts it all together.”

  He hadn’t told her anything she couldn’t have figured out herself, but she was discovering she enjoyed listening to him talk. She liked the way he looked at her. As if he never wanted to look away.

  She said, “Like Caleb’s ski resort? He’s got the property and you’ll work with him to ‘develop’ it.”

  “That’s right. But don’t misunderstand. It’s his project, his baby. He’ll be in charge, though I’ll be involved every step of the way.”

  She looked down at her folded hands. She was just about to tell him how much the project meant to Caleb. Caleb was getting older and Katie knew that sometimes he worried he was losing his edge—but no.

  Katie kept her mouth shut. Yes, she was finding she liked Justin. A lot. However, the last thing Caleb would want was for her to go blabbing his secret doubts to a business associate.

  She glanced up and found Justin studying her again, his dark head tipped to the side. “Question.”

  “Ask.”

  “Yesterday. Didn’t you mention that you went to college in Colorado?”

  “That’s right. CU.”

  “I’ll bet you had straight A’s in high school.”

  She gave him a pert little nod. “You would win that bet.”

  “High scores on the SAT?”

  “Very.”

  “Then why not Bryn Mawr, like your mother, and Adele Douglas? You’d have been a legacy, right—pretty much guaranteed to get in—even if your grades and test scores hadn’t been outstanding?”

  “I liked CU. They have a fine curriculum. Plus, it was closer to home.”

  “Home being here, in Thunder Canyon.”

  “That’s right—and you? Where did you go to college?”

  “I told you. No real formal education. I went to real estate school and then got my broker’s license a couple of years later.”

  “You started in real estate because of your mother’s connections?”

  He chuckled at that, though there wasn’t a lot of humor in the sound. “My mother had no connections. She’d been out of the real estate business for years when I started. It didn’t work out for her. Like a lot of things…”

  She might have asked, What things? But he wore a closed-in, private kind of look at that moment and she didn’t want to pry. She coaxed, “So you started in real estate…”

  He blinked and the brooding shadows left his eyes. “Yeah. By the time I was twenty-five, I’d branched into property development.”

  “A self-made man.”

  “Smile when you say that.”

  She was smiling. But to make sure he noticed, she smiled even wider. And then her conscience reminded her that she had Buttercup to think of. She stood.

  He put on a hurt look. “Just like that. You’re leaving. Was it something I said?”

  “What you said was fascinating. Honestly. And I’ll be back soon.”

  “The question is, where do you think you’re going?” He tipped his head toward the window and the still-falling snow outside. “I hate to break it to you, but I doubt you could get beyond the front porch.”

  “I want to check on Buttercup.”

  He rose. “I’ll come with you.”

  She started to argue—that it was cold out there and she could take care of the job herself and he didn’t really need to go. But then again, it wasn’t as if he had a full schedule or anything.

  He ushered her out to the back porch, where they put on their antique outerwear. Then they pushed open the door to the breezeway.

  The snow had piled four feet or so on either side, sloping to the icy ground, leaving a path maybe a foot wide. “After you,” Justin said. “Watch your step. It looks pretty slick.”

  In the shed, Buttercup snorted in greeting and came right to Katie. She stroked the old mare’s forehead and blew in her nostrils. “How’re you doing, sweetie? Kind of lonely out here?” The horse whickered in response. “And I’ll bet you wish I had some oats. Sorry. That hay’ll have to do you for a while.” She patted Buttercup’s smooth golden neck and pulled out one of the brushes she’d brought from inside. It was hardly a grooming brush, but nothing else was available.

  She brushed the old mare’s knotted mane and spoke to her in low whispers for a while. Then she and Justin broke open another bale of hay.

  “Watch out,” he warned when they were spreading it around a little. “It’s damned amazing how much manure one horse can produce in a sixteen-hour period.”

  “It is at that.”

  “Just don’t step backward without looking behind you first.”

  She found a shovel in the corner and took it to him. “Get to work.”

  “Shoveling horse manure?”
r />   “That’s right.”

  “But where am I going to put it?” The gleam in his eyes said he already had a pretty good idea.

  “Just shovel it up, carry it out those open main doors there and toss it as far as you can into the snow.”

  “That snow’s piling up pretty high out there. This could be dangerous.”

  “So pay attention when you throw it. Wouldn’t want it to come flying right back at you.”

  He pretended to grumble, but he started right in. She looked around and found another shovel. With both of them scooping and tossing, they had the mess cleared away in no time at all.

  As they went to put the shovels up, Justin remarked that if the snow got much higher, swamping out the shed was going to be a real challenge.

  “We’ll manage,” she told him. “Somehow…” She set her shovel against the wall and turned so fast, she almost ran into him.

  “Watch it.” He laughed down low in his throat, the sound emerging on a cloud of mist.

  She laughed, too.

  And then, all at once, she wasn’t laughing and neither was he. They were just looking at each other—staring, really. And the cold air seemed to shimmer between them.

  Oh, my goodness. Those lips of his…

  Too full, for a man’s lips. Really. Too full and yet…

  Exactly perfect.

  If only she didn’t already know how delicious those lips felt pressed against her own. Maybe, if she didn’t know what a great kisser he was, she wouldn’t be standing here, sighing out a big breath of misty air and lifting her mouth to him.

  He said her name, on a fog of breath. “Katie…”

  She was so busy imagining what it was going to feel like when his lips met hers, that she didn’t register how close Buttercup was behind him—not until the mare let out a low whinny and head-butted Justin a good one.

  “Hey!” He surged forward, right into Katie. She went over backward and down they went into the newly spread hay. He ended up on top of her.

  Katie blinked up at him and he looked down at her and there was a lovely, strange, breath-held kind of moment. He was so…warm and solid, pressed all along the length of her—and heavy, too, but in a good way. He looked deep in her eyes and he said her name again and she held up her lips to welcome his kiss.

  But Buttercup wasn’t finished. She bent her head and started nipping the back of Justin’s baggy old coat.

  He rolled away from Katie to glare up at the mare. “Knock it off.”

  Buttercup whinnied again and clopped off toward the double doors. A moment later, she was outside beneath the overhang, lipping up snow.

  Justin canted up on an elbow and looked down at Katie. “That animal has it in for me.”

  Katie was thinking that she really ought to sit up. Her hat had come off when Justin landed on top of her. She knew she had hay in her hair. But she felt kind of…lax. Lax and lazy and oh-so-comfortable, lying there in the hay on the frozen dirt floor.

  “Hmm,” she said, and the sound was every bit as low and lazy as she was feeling. “Maybe Buttercup thinks you’re up to no good.”

  He leaned in closer. She gazed up at his thick black lashes and his red nose and that wonderful, soft, oh-so-kissable mouth. “I’m perfectly harmless.”

  “Perfect?” she heard herself answer, her tone as husky and intimate as his. “Maybe. Harmless? Oh, I don’t think so….”

  There was a silence, a quiet so intense she could hear the soft sound of the snow falling outside and the faint rustling noises Buttercup made beyond the shed doors. Slowly, his mouth curved into a smile. And his eyes…

  Oh, it was just like right before he kissed her, in front of everyone, back in the hall. His eyes kind of sucked on her. They drew her down.

  “I don’t think that mare wants me to kiss you.”

  And she probably shouldn’t kiss him. “Well, Justin. Okay, then. Let me up and we’ll—”

  He cut her off by placing a gloved finger against her lips. “Not yet.” She probably should have protested, told him firmly to let her up.

  But she didn’t. She watched, entranced, as he lifted his hand, took the tip of the glove’s finger between his white teeth and pulled it off. He dropped the glove beside her and then he touched her lips again—skin to skin this time. That brush of a caress made her mouth tingle, made her whole body yearn.

  He let his hand drift over until it lay against the side of her face. “Soft,” he whispered. “So pretty and soft…” He lowered his mouth.

  She expected a hot, soul-shattering kiss. But he only brushed his lips sweetly, one time, across hers—and then he lifted away again and she was looking in those haunting eyes once more. “What’s another kiss? Between a man and his wife.”

  Now she felt truly torn. She longed to kiss him—yet she knew it was probably a bad idea. “We shouldn’t…get anything started, you know? We hardly know each other and—”

  “But that’s just it. I want to know you better. What about you, Katie? Do you want to know me?”

  She did! And that seemed…dangerous, somehow. That seemed foolish and scary and simply not right. “I—I don’t really want to start anything casual, you know?” She found her throat had gone desert-dry. She paused to swallow and then rushed to continue before he could do anything that would make her thoughts scatter and fly away. “I know it’s probably every guy’s fantasy to get stranded with a woman who, uh, knows what she wants and knows how to get it—not that I don’t know what I want. It’s just, well, I don’t want…that.”

  He only smiled. “That, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “That…what?”

  Oh, this wasn’t going well. “Look. I just don’t want to start anything I know I’m not going to finish. Okay?”

  “Katie?”

  She glared at him. “What?”

  “It’s only a kiss.”

  “Oh, I just don’t—”

  “Katie. Do you want to kiss me?”

  “We’ve just about talked this to death, don’t you think?”

  “But do you want to kiss me?”

  “Oh, all right, damn it.” Katie rarely swore. But right then, damn it seemed the only thing to say.

  “But do you?”

  “Yes.” The word came out breathless-sounding. “I do.”

  “Good.” He lowered his mouth to hers.

  Katie sighed once and she sighed again.

  Her hands slipped up to encircle his neck and she held on for dear life as he played with her mouth. With that clever tongue of his, he traced the seam where her lips met, teasingly at first and then with a more insistent pressure. She couldn’t resist him—didn’t want to resist him. Shyly, she let her lips relax and he swept that tongue of his inside.

  It was a shocking, thrilling thing, the way Justin Caldwell could use that mouth of his. And it was a truly wonderful thing, the way his body felt, so warm and close, pressed against her side, the way he smelled of soap and shaving cream.

  His cold nose touched hers and his hot breath burned her icy cheek. As he kissed her, he stroked her with his hands. That was wonderful, too. Each separate caress left a burning trail of longing in its wake. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled a little, so they were both on their sides, and his hand moved lower, to the small of her back. He rubbed there, a sweet, firm pressure, soothing muscles cramped from sleeping on that lumpy ancient mattress last night.

  She moaned and pressed herself all the tighter against him. His hand swept lower. He cupped her bottom and tucked her up into him.

  That was when she felt the hard ridge in his jeans.

  Oh, my.

  Time to stop.

  Time to stop right now.

  She braced her hands on his shoulders and tore her mouth away from his. “That’s enough.” She looked at his face and she feared…

  What?

  She realized she didn’t know. Her fear was formless, and yet she did feel it.

  Remember the others, she reminded herself
. They were after your money. They hurt you. He could so easily do the same….

  But even as she thought of that, she didn’t believe it. Oh, he might hurt her, yes. But in her heart, she simply didn’t believe it would be for her money.

  Which probably made her the biggest fool in Montana.

  He loosened his hold on her. With a deep sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re right,” he said. “Enough.”

  She slid her hands down to his hard chest. Beneath her palms, she could feel his heat, and his heart racing. His breath came out in ragged puffs—just like hers.

  She whispered, “We’d better go in.”

  He touched her hair. She thought that she’d never felt anything quite so lovely in her whole life as that—the tender caress of his hand on her hair. He threaded his chilled bare fingers up under the tangled strands and cupped the back of her neck. She took his cue and tipped her head up to look at him.

  “Yeah,” he said. His mouth was swollen from what he’d been doing to her, his eyes twin blue flames. “We’ll go in. Now.” He pressed one more quick, hard kiss on her lips—as if he realized he shouldn’t, but couldn’t resist. Her mouth burned at the contact.

  Then he reached across her to grab his discarded glove. Rolling away from her, he rose. She scuttled to a sitting position.

  “Here,” he said.

  She stared at his outstretched hand. It seemed…too dangerous to take it.

  Her gaze tracked upward, to his face. She knew by the heated look in his eyes that if she reached out, he would only pull her close and start kissing her again—and the thrumming of her blood through her body left her no doubt that she would end up kissing him right back.

  No. Not going to happen. She’d known this man less than twenty-four hours. And she refused to end up rolling around naked with him on a bed of hay in a freezing old shed.

  “I can manage, thanks.” She pulled off a glove and felt in her hair. It was just as she’d suspected: threaded through with bits of hay. “Oh, just look at me….”

  Justin let his hand drop to his side. “I am.” His voice was husky and low. And in his eyes she saw desire—real desire. For her.