Unexpected Hero

by Barbara Ankrum

  The five of them lifted their drinks high between them, then took a sip. “To the kid. And to new beginnings,” Mick said. “And to seeing Noah again.”

  “I missed you maniacs,” Noah admitted his eyes suddenly burning. “More than you know.”

  “Hoo-yah!” they all chanted at once, each and every one of them fighting to keep the same moisture from their own eyes.

  Chapter Two

  And the horror continued.

  It wasn’t until Gemma—shaken from her fall and her nerve-jangling encounter with the very sexy Noah Mathis—had her leg fully propped on the sink in the rest room, and was cleaning her knee, that a middle-aged gentleman strode in, froze in his tracks and backed up to check out the little symbol on the door.

  Not until that very moment did she notice the urinals tucked against the wall behind her or the funny little mothball smell that accompanied them.

  She jerked her leg off the sink. Oh damn. “Men’s room?”

  “Last time I checked,” the man said.

  “Right,” she said, slipping past him in the doorway. “Can we just pretend that never happened?”

  “You bet, doll.” He winked at her.

  She shivered. Doll?

  Wishing some hole would swallow her up tonight before anything else went wrong, she pushed into the ladies’ room next door and limped to the sink. Bracing her hands there, she contemplated the nasty scrape on her chin in the mirror while giving herself a mental shake.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Pressing the damp paper towel against her still-bleeding knee, she searched in her bag for the antibiotic ointment she always carried, remembering that look that passed between Noah and her on the dock. That weird, instant connection thing that had rendered her incapable of rational thought for what felt like thirty seconds. Probably just that he was gorgeous and tall and…well, gorgeous, even with that dark scruff on his jaw—or maybe because of it. But no, the way he’d looked at her with those sharp eyes of his. That curious, magnetic, breath-stealing moment that had felt almost…almost like…recognition.

  But of course, she didn’t know him. Or anything about him. Any attributes she’d endowed him with based on a five-minute encounter were purely idiotic. After all, even two years hadn’t been long enough to know Ashton.

  Ugh.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to think of her ex. But the picture leapt to her mind all the same: his back, as he turned away from her, leaving her standing alone in front of all their friends. Him, shaking his head pityingly at her in the elevator yesterday.

  You’re a damned good writer, Wade, Somerhalder had said. But you’re a lousy judge of character.

  She tilted a look in the mirror again. Her boss was right. Her judgment couldn’t be trusted. Which was why she’d taken a big step back from men of all ilks. Even men like Noah. Especially men like him. Men who made her pulse race and throb.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Irrefutable attraction aside, had she not tumbled right in front of him, she’d be calling a cab right now and slinking quietly back to her hotel. Actually, she’d lost her phone, so that was out, too.

  She shook her head. “Perfect. Montana one, Gemma zero,” she muttered.

  “No, no,” she corrected herself aloud in the mirror. “I joyfully embrace new situations.” Dampening a paper towel again, she dabbed her chin. “I feel—ow!—confident in the choices I make. My instincts are focused and wise…about men.”

  She gagged a little on that one as she said the affirmation aloud. But she was of the “fake it ’til you make it” camp of theoretical science. Besides, the alternative just meant Somerhalder was right about more than her poor choice in informants. And while he might have a point, these darned affirmations she’d been doggedly practicing for over a year now had to pay off someday. Didn’t they? “Or are they just so much hokum?” she asked her reflection. “And where the heck did the word hokum come from?”

  From somewhere behind her, came the sound of a toilet flushing.

  She froze.

  The door to a stall behind her opened. A pretty, dark-haired, pregnant woman walked out and stopped at the sink beside her to wash her hands. She smiled up at Gemma.

  “I suppose you—” Gemma winced and waved a vague hand “—heard all that?”

  “Not intentionally,” the woman said with a grin. “I did like that last one though about instincts.”

  Gemma moaned. “Wouldn’t you think there’d be some kind of universal limit to how many times one could embarrass oneself in a single night?”

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed.” Glancing at Gemma’s chin, the woman said, “But ouch! That looks painful.”

  “Yeah. It’s nothing, really. Just massive clumsiness on my part.”

  “I’m the queen of clumsy right now,” the other woman said, touching her belly. “My feet are apparently unaware of what my brain is up to half the time. Hey, I’m sure I could get Beck to find you a Band-Aid if you need one.” The woman pulled some lipstick from her small purse and applied it.

  “Beck?”

  “The owner of this place. He’s a good guy.”

  “Oh, no. That’s okay,” Gemma said, rummaging through her oversized purse. “I have a Band-Aid somewhere here, actually. Antibiotic ointment. The works. I’m just malingering here in the rest room, avoiding.”

  “Avoiding…?”

  “Looking more like an idiot than I already do to a guy I just met in a very, very awkward way. And now I’m about to crash someone’s party that I don’t even know with him and the whole night feels completely…”

  The woman seemed to study her anew. “Exciting?”

  “Well…yes,” Gemma admitted. “And…horrifying at the same time.” Oversharing. Stop.

  “Sometimes, those are the best kinds of nights.” The other woman smiled. “We wouldn’t, by any chance, be talking about Noah Mathis here, would we? That very nice guy you met?”

  She froze. “Yes. That’s him. How did you—?”

  The woman’s expression softened and she stuck out her hand. “I’m Holly. Holly McGuire. Soon to be Mrs. Trey Reyes and it’s…actually our party you’re about to crash.”

  Gemma’s eyes widened and, horrifyingly, leapt to the other woman’s baby bump, then back up again. “Oh, God! There I go again.”

  As if she could almost hear Gemma’s thoughts, Holly laid a hand on her belly and said, “No, I can see why you’d be confused. I don’t exactly look like your typical bride. But, hey, any friend of Noah’s is a friend of ours and I hope you’ll consider yourself his plus-one. We’re thrilled to have you join us.”

  “That’s very kind of you. Really. But I shouldn’t—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer and I suspect neither will he. If…the way he was blushing when the others were interrogating him about you is any indication.”

  “Wait. He was talking about me? He…blushed?”

  “Very unlike him.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.” Gemma looked back in the mirror.

  “I’ve known him a long time,” Holly went on. “He’s a stand-up guy. Really.” She popped her lipstick back in her purse. “So…see you out there?”

  Gemma forced a smile and nodded.

  “Good.” Holly patted her on the arm and left the powder room.

  When she’d gone, just to be safe, Gemma glanced under the remaining stall doors. Empty. She sighed, then fixed a look in the mirror again. “Make that Montana two, Gemma zero.”

  Then again, this was a wedding event. She was here to research the wedding boom. But those were two separate things. Noah and her story.

  Until he googled her and finds out she was a reporter…and if he was anything like the last two guys she’d ‘dated’ since Ash, he’d decide that was a problem and that would be that.

  Just because I work 24/7 and expose people for a living.

  But…this encounter—this blind-ish date?—was such a random thing. Maybe just a ‘tonight’ thing. And
after that, she’d probably never see him again. Maybe she didn’t have to tell him what she did. Maybe she didn’t even have to give him her real name. No harm, no foul. No googling.

  Because, seriously, why blow up a perfectly good evening?

  *

  Noah saw her coming across the room and made eye contact even before she reached him. A shy smile tugged at her mouth as he separated himself from the others and met her halfway.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  In the soft light of the overhead chandeliers, he got his first really good look at her. And his first impressions weren’t wrong. She was beautiful. But the moonlight had masked just how beautiful she was. That hair of hers—a dark brown, streaked naturally with sunlit highlights—fell softly past her shoulders and curled against her back. Her skin was flawless but for the sprinkling of freckles that danced across the bridge of her nose.

  “You okay?” he asked. That scrape on her chin was covered now with a small, transparent Band-Aid.

  “Mostly. Aside from my wounded pride. And my broken shoe.” The ruined pair dangled from her fingertips. “Be advised: I may get kicked out for being barefoot.”

  “Trey won’t let that happen. I think he’s tight with the owner.”

  “Hmm. Just from my short time in town seems to me everybody knows everybody around here. I even met your friend Holly in the restroom.”

  “You did?” He picked Holly out over the heads of the crowd and she winked at him. “How’d that go?”

  “She’s nice. Very nice. She, um, vouched for you.”

  “Did she?” They were talking about him?

  “Mm-hmm. She said you were a good guy.”

  “Shows you how little she knows me.” He guided her over toward the bar.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean…anyone who would offer to wade into a freezing Montana river to find a stranger’s ruined phone is—”

  “Unfamiliar with glacial water temperatures?”

  With an easy laugh, she agreed with him, sending a jolt of awareness through him like an arrow of heat.

  “Maybe I didn’t think that through,” he admitted. “Then again, maybe I’m just crazy.”

  Indeed, his reaction to her standing beside him felt a little crazy. He liked the sound of her laughter. He even liked that she wasn’t afraid to banter with him. Most of all, he liked that she had no idea who he really was.

  “You’re not very good at this, are you?” she said, still watching him with smiling eyes.

  “At what?”

  “Selling yourself,” she said, stopping at the bar.

  “Ah. That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “Trying to figure out why, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you walked into mine?”

  That made her laugh again. “Casablanca. One of my favorites.”

  “Casablanca?” He frowned. “Not familiar.”

  She tsked playfully. “Well, then…at least we’ll always have Paris. Or anyway…Marietta.”

  A slow grin tipped his mouth. He’d like to have Marietta with her. Maybe even Paris. He’d been there a dozen times. Maybe more. But always on his own. For business. The City of Lights was meant for couples and seeing Paris alone—according to his mother—was almost a sacrilege. He had to agree.

  He caught himself, then, wandering into unrecognizable territory, imagining something more with this beauty he’d just met. So unlike him. So was inviting her up to this party. Taking a chance on someone he didn’t know.

  Was it this place? Freeing himself up of the constraints of his real life for this one week? Where no one judged him by his family name or how many companies he’d disassembled and sold to the highest bidder?

  Maybe. Or maybe it was her.

  “Chardonnay?” she was saying to the bartender, pulling out her wallet.

  He blocked her move. “I’ve got this.” He ordered a second Tito’s/rocks for himself.

  She thanked him graciously and they sipped their drinks as they moved toward the party where the future bride and groom were mingling with the others. There were the brothers, of course, but alongside them, more than a few others he didn’t know. Beside him, Gemma gulped her wine.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he told her.

  “I’m not.” She took another swig. “And…that was a lie. In case you couldn’t tell. I never do this.”

  “This? You mean take a header in front of a stranger then make a party appearance with him?”

  “Exactly. And, pretty much any variation, thereof.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m usually more cautious than this.”

  “In your dating life, you mean?”

  “Is this a date?” she asked. “This isn’t really a date.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “A sympathy tagalong?” She ran her finger along the rim of her glass.

  “How about we call tonight a chance meeting that led to free food and some unexpected companionship? Wait. That’s a date, right?”

  She laughed again. “Okay. Fine. We’ll call this whatever you want. For tonight.”

  “Deal. Now, about the party…I only know a few of the people here. But they’re some of the best people I know. I’ll introduce you. I’ve known both Trey and Holly for years. She was widowed about eighteen months ago. Her late husband Tommy was a friend of ours. All of ours. We served together.”

  “In the military?”

  He nodded. “The Navy. All of us are former SEALs. And now, Trey and Holly are—”

  “Pregnant,” Gemma finished with a soft smile. He watched her gaze fall to Holly’s belly, then to the gentle arm Trey had around her back, caressing her ribs with his thumb in a private, intimate way. Funny, of all of them, Trey had always seemed one of the least likely to settle down. Second only to Mick and himself. As private and as inscrutable as Trey was, even after the war, settling had never seemed to be in his DNA. Until Holly, apparently. Then again, maybe they’d say the same about him. In which case, more likely, they’d be right.

  “They say Marietta has that effect on people,” Gemma said. “Apparently there’s a marriage boom in this town. Statistically speaking, that is.”

  “Is that right.” He sipped his vodka. “Who says?”

  “Just a rumor I heard,” she hedged. “Probably an urban myth. Like…river monsters and Bigfoot sightings.”

  “River monsters?” He pulled a horrified look. “Well, you could have warned me about that before I offered to wade into the lake after your phone.”

  “Oh, you look like you could handle a river monster all on your own.” Her hazel eyes twinkled up at him.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said. “I think.”

  “Anytime,” she said, sipping her wine.

  Mick appeared beside Noah, threw his arm around his shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. Noah clapped him on the back. Seeing them again was like coming home. Like…being himself again.

  “We missed you last Christmas. When all this happened.” Mick gestured at Trey and Holly.

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “But,” Mick amended, “you may have just redeemed yourself by bringing Gemma here to the party.” He leaned close to him, but said loud enough for her to hear, “She’s even prettier out of the moonlight.”

  He smiled a slow smile of agreement. “Gemma, Mick Chester. From the patio.”

  She stuck out her hand. “Mick Chester, from the patio, nice to meet you.” As he shook her hand, Gemma leaned close to Noah and said, loud enough for Mick to hear, “He’s even taller than he looked in the moonlight.”

  Mick grinned and got the dig. “My apologies, ma’am. Sometimes I leave my manners behind.”

  “You are forgiven.” She chuckled good-naturedly. “Now, let me guess. You’re from somewhere near…Atlanta?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “The ‘ma’am’ was your
first tell. My grandmother was from Atlanta. The city has a particular cadence you just don’t forget.”

  “Smart, too.” With his arm around Noah’s shoulder, he asked, “Where’d you find this big galoot?”

  She winked at the “Viking” towering over her. “I didn’t find him, exactly. I…more or less fell on my face in front of him.”

  Mick made a tiny gesture at her boo-boo. “Hence the—?”

  Band-Aid. “Horrifyingly, yes.” She chugged the last of her wine.

  “I’ve definitely heard of less interesting ways to meet,” he allowed.

  “And less embarrassing, I’m sure.” A waiter passed an appetizer tray of stuffed mushrooms and they all took one.

  Mick popped the mushroom in his mouth. “Speaking of embarrassing…did he ever tell you about the time he—”

  “No!” Noah interrupted. “I haven’t told her about any time. We just met. Ignore him.” He turned back to her. “I don’t even know her last name.”

  She flicked a look at her bare feet. “Um…it’s…it’s Wayne,” she lied. “Gemma Wayne.”

  “And what brings you to Marietta, Montana, Gemma Wayne?” Mick asked.

  “Business and pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about this place and decided to check Marietta out myself.”

  “And the business part?” he asked, curious.

  “Oh…um, I’m a writer. I write…stories. And this is…a research-slash-getaway trip. It’s quite pretty, Marietta, isn’t it?”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “Oh, just this and that. Short, mostly. You know, the stuff no one reads. Or buys.”

  “Literary fiction, you mean?” Noah asked.

  She stared down into her empty glass. “Some might characterize what I write that way. I would say aspirational. Meaning mostly in search of a publisher. Wow. Would you look at that. My glass is already empty. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll get another.”

  “I can—” he began to offer, but she held up a hand.

  “No, I insist. Can I get you another? Mick?”

  He and Mick both held up their still half-full glasses. “Thanks,” Noah said. “I’m still good.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mick.” As she walked away, Noah watched her, wondering what he was missing.