by Elle Casey
Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
About the Author
Other Books by Elle Casey
MacKenzie Fire
Elle Casey
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 2014 Elle Casey, all rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without author permission. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this ebook at the author authorized online outlet that serves your country.
Elle Casey thanks you deeply for your understanding and support.
Chapter One
THE AIR IN BOISE, IDAHO is so cold, when I inhale, it freezes my nostril hairs. I wiggle my nose around and literally feel crackling going on in there. That is just so wrong. I’m from Florida. Nostrils never ever crackle in the tropics.
The air outside looks blue. I attribute that to the coldness. Cold equals blue, warm equals orange. That’s why the sky in Florida always looks orange. It’s a meteorological fact; you can look it up. I’m thinking on the equator, everything is probably more red.
The misty clouds really high up in the grey sky look like they’re in the mood to drop some snow on my head, and that’s going to be a problem because I spent a ton of time making sure my hair would be perfect. The ash blond color with natural-looking highlights on top and lowlights underneath is a hard set-up to get perfect, but I’ve done it. Of course. And the purposely careless look to the wavy style takes me over an hour to get just right with the help of copious amounts of product and a flat iron. A hat would totally ruin the effect. Hair is my business and I am always advertising.
I scan the arrival pick-up area and ask myself for about the tenth time since the plane touched down why I’m here, but then I see my roley poley best friend waddling down the sidewalk outside the airport and I remember; I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the entire world than right here on the frozen tundra that is the Northwest, awaiting the birth of my first godchild.
“Candice!” Andie shouts happily, picking up the pace. “You’re here!” She looks like she’s going to tip over, first to one side and then the other. Her feet are angled out like a duck’s. The snow on the sidewalk squeaks and crunches with the rhythm of her footfalls.
I run over to meet her and her cowboy escort who’s trailing behind, the dingle ball pom-poms on the top of my boots banging around my ankles and calves. I found these babies online and I could not wait to wear them. I never get to wear fur-lined pom-pom boots in Florida, but here, I’m turning out all the northern exposure fashion. I can’t let that degree from UF go completely to waste.
I’m almost to my BFF’s embrace when I hit a patch of ice.
“Whooop!”
My arms fly out in an attempt to create some wind resistance and slow my descent. I’m not sure it works this time, although the theory is sound. The sky turns upside down and switches places with the ground. I can’t see anything but those wispy clouds, and then my butt lands hard on the sidewalk. The cold wetness immediately starts to seep into my Diesel jeans.
Ass? Meet ice. Very cold, very hard, ice.
“Holy crapola,” I grunt out as I try to sit up, “that sidewalk is like concrete or something.” My body is a little too stunned to obey my commands just yet and my gloves are sticking to the ground. I now know how a turtle feels when it gets flipped over. Poor turtles.
A cowboy hat blocks out the grey sky and an emotionless face is there above mine. “That was graceful,” he says.
I frown at him, ignoring the pretty green eyes and chiseled good looks of this Oregon born and bred cowboy. “Of course it was. I’ve been practicing.”
He holds out a gloved hand, which I take under protest. Andie’s brother-in-law Ian is on my list. My doo-doo list. Andie has kept me apprised of his sorry butt via email, text, and telephone calls for the last year, so I have plenty of reason to not like him. Apparently his attitude after his brother’s wedding hasn’t improved a whole lot from when Andie met him for the first time. We’ve analyzed the situation ad nauseum and have come to the conclusion that he’s still blaming Andie’s husband or maybe even Andie for his messed-up life.
“Are you okay? Oh my god, that was a bad one.” Andie is fluttering her hands around me, patting me all over once I’m standing.
“There’s nothing broken but my ass, and that already had a crack in it. I’m fine.” I hold her hands out to her sides so I can see her midsection and distract her from her crazy mother hen program. It’s really weird to see her acting so different. I’m willing to bet Party Girl is never in the hizouse anymore.
“How are you doing?” I ask. “Ready to pop?” Her white, goose down coat is puffed out so much she looks like the Michelin Man or maybe the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. I can’t actually see her belly at all, but it must be huge the way it’s turning my formerly tiny lawyer friend into a giant human snowball.
“You have no idea.” She pulls me into an awkward hug. She has to bend over to keep her belly from hitting me, and I have to fold in half to meet her since she’s shorter than me. “I’ve missed you soooo much!” She sounds almost weepy.
I roll my eyes over to Ian who’s pretending to be bored out of his skull. “Yeah, I know. Nothing to do but stare at cowboys all day. Poor girl.” She has a small legal practice in the town where she lives but she does all her work at home. I’ve learned there are the three MacKenzie men, some friend of the family named Boog, and then a few other ranch hands who are there every day working. “You must really be missing city life. You’ve sacrificed a lot.”
Ian doesn’t look at me, but his face twitches.
Good. Let him suck on that lemon drop for a while. He’s going to get a piece of my mind later for being a butthead to my best friend, after she gave up her whole life to come out to the middle of nowhere and be a rancher’s wife. I narrow my eyes at him, willing him to look over at me and bask in my silent threat.
He ignores me, jingling a set of car keys over and over.
“Come on,” Andie says, “let’s get back to the truck. It’s too damn cold out here.”<
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Ian’s already moving to get my luggage, but I run on tiptoe past him, making sure to hit the salted parts of the sidewalk so I don’t have to test my wind-resistance-fall-breaking theory again.
My boobs are bouncing in my lacey bra and I can’t help but smile when no less than three guys looks over to admire the view. I’m not ashamed to say that I appreciate the attention, which is part of the reason I chose this probably less-than-warm-enough coat. It’s way better for emphasizing curves than goose down. I refuse to be a Pillsbury dough girl on this trip or any other for that matter.
“I can get it,” I say, beating Ian to my bag.
“Nah, I got it,” he says, bending over.
I slap his hand away. “Back off, John Wayne. Don’t touch.”
He stands up straight and frowns at me, his shoulders going back and giving me great perspective for how wide they are. Holy mother of all things muscular. He could probably carry two of my bags on those things.
“You’re gonna carry that all by yourself?” he asks. “What are you … some kind of women’s libber?”
I look at my bag. It is pretty big. And heavy. But he’ll probably throw it around and then think he’s mister big man for helping me. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. He has a lot to learn about women, and I’m just the one to educate him. If I get nothing else accomplished while I’m here in no-woman’s land, I’m going to make sure my best friend has an easier time living with this dude ranch dude. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me. Oh, yeah.
“I got it on the plane, didn’t I?” I grab my bag and drag it by the handle, muttering to him or maybe just myself since he’s probably not even listening. “Women’s libber? Who says that anymore?”
Wrangling my bag into a straight line becomes my biggest challenge since arriving in this arctic hell. The sound of the wheels collecting snow, salt, and slush beneath them makes me want to give myself a mental kick for not allowing Ian to carry it. Less than a minute later and I’m not sure who’s learning what lesson.
Andie comes up next to me and I let go of my bag with one hand so we can link arms. Unfortunately, walking side-by-side like this forces me to pick up her waddling gait. My bag and I have quite the rhythm going now: waddle, waddle, slussshhhhh … waddle, waddle, slussshhh… So much for my tight jacket getting me attention. Now I’m just getting stares of pity.
Ian chuckles as he walks behind us.
I refuse to admit I made a mistake. He doesn’t deserve the satisfaction. Besides, my pride won’t allow it. I blow my long bangs up out of my face so I can see.
“So, what did the doctor say at your appointment today?” I ask, trying to get my mind off my poor choice in luggage transport.
Waddle, waddle, slussshhh…
“I’m almost ready to go. Any day now.”
“Should you even be out here waddling around?” I ask, eyeing the patches of dangerous ice all over the place. Their pavement salting technique leaves a lot to be desired. The guy who did it had to be drunk.
“Excuse me, but I don’t waddle. I glide. And probably not. But I dare anyone to try and stop me from coming to pick up my best friend at the airport.”
Ian hisses out some air, but we both ignore him.
Waddle, waddle, slussshhh…
“Where’s Mack?” I ask, looking ahead, almost expecting to see him pulling up in a truck. He’s not exactly possessive, but he’s definitely in big-time love with Andie. She says he can’t stand to be away from her for longer than a few hours at work, especially now that she’s visibly pregnant.
“He had to help his father with some babies being born. Calves are dropping everywhere at all hours of the day and night.”
“In the snow? That’s awful.”
“I know. Cows have my total respect these days. I’m not having my baby anywhere but in a puffy warm bed inside a heated room with my husband’s gorgeous face hanging over me.”
Ian picks up the pace and goes around us into the parking lot, stopping down the lane of cars at the back of a pickup truck. It’s a monster of a thing, the tailgate sticking out several feet farther than the other cars.
“Do we have an actual birthday date set?” I ask, wiggling out of her grip and dragging the bag up to the back of the truck’s bed. I’m trying to figure out whether it will fit in the back seat or have to go in the bed of the truck when Ian grabs the handle.
“No,” Andie responds. “Doc says I have to just do it the old fashioned way. The baby decides when he’s coming, not us.”
“Oooh, fun.” I watch, cringing at how Ian so easily launches my bag into the back, heedless of its designer tag. So much for using the back seat. I shake my head as he casually tosses a tarp over it. He expects me to complain, I know he does, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction, even though the bag cost me more hours cutting and coloring hair than I care to think about.
“Need help getting in?” Ian asks, lifting an eyebrow at me. This is a challenge, I know it is.
“Please…,” I respond, rolling my eyes, “I’m not handicapped.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he deadpans. Then he looks over at Andie waiting for her response.
“Oh.” My face is on fire. I guess it wasn’t a challenge. How did I read that so wrong? Men are usually my specialty. I am fluent in man-talk, man-expression, and man-think.
“Candice can help me, can’t you, Candice?” Andie waddles over to the passenger door. This truck actually has four doors, not just two. I have no idea how it’s even fitting into this parking space.
“Sure, no prob.” Opening the front passenger door, I gesture for her to go in before me. “Alley-oop, my little roley poley friend.”
She points her finger right up in my face. “Do not call me roley poley.” Then she turns around, grabs the door with one hand and the side of the seat with the other and tries to step up into the truck.
There’s a grunt.
A considerable amount of straining.
And possibly about an inch or two of actual liftoff.
Then Andie’s back on the ground on two feet, her face flushed and her expression annoyed. “Are you going to help me or what?” She glares at me over her shoulder.
I brace myself behind her with my hands on her waist, squatting down to lift this heavy load with my legs and not my back. “Okay, try again.”
As she starts to move up, I push.
Nothing happens. She’s like a ton of bricks. The song Brick House starts playing in my head. She’s a brick … berp berp beeerp berp … house … she’s mighty, mighty …
“Come on!” she yells, her one foot up on the running board and the other a frog’s hair off the ground.
I bend down farther and put my shoulder under her butt. “One, two, three, go!” I heave her up with all my might.
Her whole body lifts off the ground in a big surge of movement and her head bonks the top of the doorway.
“Ow! Not so high, Candice!”
I’m losing my grip on her butt and my foot is slipping. “Go in! Go in!” I’m grunting right along with her, and now I’m sweating too. Dammit! I hate sweating; it totally ruins my makeup.
Suddenly her weight is gone and I’m falling forward. I do a face-plant into the side of the passenger seat, my head bounces off from the impact, and then my feet slip out from under me. My hair whips sideways and gets caught in my lipgloss as gravity takes hold and drags me downward.
I land on my knees and then roll over onto my back to keep from breaking anything. I read that you have to go with the movement of a fall to keep the shock from being absorbed by the body. It’s Newton’s law or something. I’m all about the rolling, rolling, rolling now. Like a stunt girl but not one of those butch ones.
Grey skies.
A cowboy hat.
A barely concealed smile on Ian’s stupid face.
“Need some help?” he asks.
I start pinwheeling my hands above me, slapping at him. “No! Go away, John Wayne!”
He disappears from view, but I can hear his annoying chuckle as his snow-and-salt-crunching feet go around the back of the truck. It’s possible I hear him mutter, “High maintenance,” too.
I lie there for a few seconds contemplating my world. I haven’t even made it across the border into Oregon and my hair is already ruined and my underpants are wet through. This is not a good sign.
I struggle to sit up, wincing as more water seeps into my panties. The only way I can stand is to splay my feet out under me like a duck, and I’m not even pregnant.
I finally make it into the back seat of the truck and spend the next five minutes trying to get my hair back to amazing. It refuses to cooperate. There might not be any snow in the air, but that doesn’t stop the invisible humidity from making me look like a wet dog. I’m doomed to arrive in Baker City looking like a homeless woman Andie and Ian picked up off the street corner. Even my pom-poms are ruined, stained with street goop and soggy wet.
Andie’s gabbing on and on about cows and horses and all kinds of other nonsense, but all I can think about is the bad voodoo going on here. These are all terrible signs, right? Two falls to the ice within five minutes? Ruined hair? Dingey pom-poms?
What else could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Two
BY THE TIME WE ARRIVE in front of Ian’s family homestead, I am beyond recognition. My hair? Flat, wet, and just plain ruined. My makeup? Smudged and missing in spots, probably. My jeans? Soggy. My eyes? Bloodshot. I’m sure they’re bloodshot because they’re burning right now. My hand-mirror is in the back of the truck in my bag, and I didn’t want to be obvious and lean into the front seat to use the rearview mirror, so I’ve had to suffer for over two hours wondering what I look like. My imagination has turned me into Sasquatch with a bad dye job.
The MacKenzies have already met me once at Andie’s wedding, and I was absolutely fabulous then, thank goodness. It was summer and I had a great tan, my hair was highlighted blonde, and my tummy was as tight as it’s ever been. My appearance today is going to be a serious letdown for everyone involved. I always pack on a few pounds during winter, so there’s that … and apparently, my hair products were not made for cold, snowy conditions found in the Arctic Circle. It feels like I have glue in my hair.
