Finding Forever

by Nika Rhone

  No matter what she’d done, though, Amelia never seemed to measure up. She’d never been quite pretty enough, accomplished enough, or graceful enough to garner the prize of her mother’s approval. It wasn’t until Amelia had gotten engaged to Charles she’d finally seen a glimmer of pride in her mother’s gaze.

  Too bad it turned out that pride had all been for Charles.

  Charles was smart. Charles was ambitious. Charles was going high places in politics, maybe even as far as the White House. He was the answer to all her parents’ dreams, while Amelia was merely the means to that end. Once they were married, her parents would finally have the son they’d never been able to conceive themselves.

  She might have been willing to live with that—had been willing to live with it—if only she could have gotten the one thing she craved the most from Charles. Not love, although she wanted that, too. No, what she wanted was just as important and so much harder to come by, at least in her experience.

  Respect.

  If she had a husband who respected her, maybe she could block her mother’s voice out of her head every time she tried to think for herself. Maybe she could mend the gaping wounds on her self-confidence and pride that sometimes managed to scab over but never really healed. Maybe she could get through a day without scarfing down two rolls of antacids just to keep her stomach from going Chernobyl on her.

  If she had a husband who respected her, then maybe she could finally respect herself. Just a little. Because when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t like who she saw. Hell, lately she barely even recognized who she saw. And that was what scared her the most. Every day she faded just a little bit more. How much longer would it be before one day she was gone entirely, leaving behind only the pretty shell her parents constructed?

  God, she was a psychiatrist’s wet dream. Her mommy issues alone could put his kids through grad school.

  From her surprisingly comfy seat, Amelia glanced out her window, but the view was the same as it had been for the past several hours. Interstate-25 was crowded with cars and eighteen-wheelers and getting more crowded by the minute as rush hour crept ever nearer.

  About forty minutes later, Daryl eased the truck through the now bumper-to-bumper traffic to the exit ramp and zipped off the interstate. When the little gold Subaru that had cut them off twice already darted down the off-ramp in front of them, Amelia flinched, certain they were going to hit it, but Daryl’s driving skills were up to the task, and the smaller car skimmed in front of the truck with what couldn’t have been more than a sneeze’s clearance between their bumpers.

  “Dumbass!” Amelia curled one hand around her seatbelt as the brakes chirped in protest. Daryl made a noise, and she looked over. The amusement on his face made her realize what she’d said out loud. “Sorry,” she mumbled, feeling the telltale heat of a blush starting to toast her cheeks.

  “Don’t be,” Daryl replied with a quick grin. “That’s actually tame compared to what I was thinking.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Well, since traffic stinks, I figured we could make a quick trip to a store to get whatever you still need, then get some food and gas before we hit the road again. The worst of the traffic should be over by then.”

  “I don’t need much.” She’d raided Thea’s bedroom during a flying stop at the Fordhams’ while Daryl had gone to his apartment to pack a bag for himself. But he was right. She did need to pick up a few things. Best friends or not, there were just some things a girl didn’t borrow. As for getting something to eat, she was surprised to realize she was hungry. Never one to look the gift unicorn of appetite in the mouth when it made one of its rare appearances, she hoped it lasted long enough for them to get to whatever restaurant they ended up at.

  It wasn’t long before Daryl located a strip mall anchored by a supersized Walmart, where she made the mistake of trying to get out of the truck on her own. She’d forgotten about the huge step down. While she was searching with her foot for the elusive running board, two large hands steadied her around the waist and helped her to the ground. Trying hard not to blush again, she mumbled a thank you and did her best to ignore the odd zing of warmth that came again from his touch. What on earth was wrong with her?

  Thea’s closet had provided enough clothes to last a week or more, so the only things she had to supplement were toiletries, shoes, and underwear. She zipped through the first two without issue, although it did take longer than expected to pick from the unfamiliar brands lining the shelves. Who knew there could be forty different types of deodorant?

  It wasn’t until she got to the last item on her list that she balked.

  There was no way she was shopping for underwear with Daryl hanging over her shoulder. The mere thought made her insides squirm. But unless she wanted to be rinsing out her panties and bra in the bathroom sink every night, she needed to buy more, and that meant finding a way to get Daryl to step away for a few minutes.

  “No,” was his simple answer when she finally worked up the courage to tell him what she wanted, leaving her nonplussed.

  “But…I just need five minutes.”

  “Not even for one.”

  “Daryl…” The heat burning her face meant she was probably turning one of her unpleasant shades of red. The curse of the fair-skinned. “I can’t shop for”—her voice dropped to a strangled whisper—“underwear with you standing right next to me.”

  “Just pretend I’m not there.”

  Right. Just pretend the six-four man with the shoulders of a god wasn’t watching her choose between bikini briefs and boy shorts. She considered her imagination pretty good—hell, she’d managed to convince herself that she was in love with Charles for the past year, hadn’t she?—but somehow she didn’t think she’d be able to pull that one off.

  Okay. Fine. She could do this. She was nothing if not skilled at the art of doing things that made her uncomfortable.

  Taking a steadying breath, she squared her shoulders and turned toward the lingerie department. “Okay, then. Let’s get this over with.” Because really, in the grand scheme of embarrassing things that were happening in her life, how bad could this one be?

  ****

  I am an idiot.

  Shifting his position to better keep his temporary charge in sight as she drifted down the racks of packaged underwear, Daryl kicked himself for dragging Amelia to this store to shop. Watching her compare the plastic-wrapped panties, a small frown puckering her forehead, he realized too late she’d probably never bought prepackaged underwear in her life. She came from money, and money shopped in boutiques, not big-box stores.

  He’d had several reasons for coming here, the anonymity of being just two more faces in a sea of hundreds one of the biggest. It was doubtful anyone would be tracking them, but he wasn’t about to leave an easy trail to follow, just in case. Going to a smaller, more exclusive store might be more in keeping with Amelia’s comfort zone, but salespeople in those places tended to remember their customers.

  Especially people who looked like Amelia Westlake.

  She might not be his type, but he could still appreciate that she was attractive. Even when personality-wise she was fading into the woodwork like a timid little mouse, she still had the kind of looks that caught a man’s eye with all that curly blonde hair, and those wide green eyes, and that almost translucent skin that showed every emotion she was feeling better than a mood ring. He’d never known anyone who could blush so many different shades of red.

  She was also much too thin for her height, which gave her a fragile, almost ethereal air, as if she was a fairy princess trapped in the mortal realm, just like in one of the stories his mother read to him when he was little. Amelia’s face was all sharp edges and shadows, and he could swear his hands touched when he’d put them around her waist earlier.

  The girl was in definite need of a cheeseburger.

  Not that she was purposely starving herself like some women did. He knew all about the extra-large bottle of antacids
Amelia buried at the bottom of the shopping cart under the pair of bright white sneakers she’d gotten a little giddy over in the shoe department. She just had a very delicate constitution. Hence her tendency to revert to timid mouse status when faced with any type of conflict.

  Most of the time.

  Daryl couldn’t help but smile when he thought about the silent “screw you” she’d laid on her mother two nights before by changing gowns. Add that to the fact she’d broken her engagement a little more than a week out from what was being touted as the wedding of the century, and he had to wonder if the little princess finally found her backbone.

  Glancing at his watch, he pushed down his rising unease. Not about getting entangled in the messy tug of war brewing between Amelia and her parents. He just didn’t relish the thought of spending the next week sequestered on his family’s ranch with a runaway bride. Hell, he didn’t relish the thought of spending the next week on his family’s ranch, period.

  There were reasons he hadn’t been home in almost two years. But none of them were enough to trump Amelia’s immediate safety.

  Doing another visual sweep of the area, he nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw she had moved on from the packages of panties to the racks of bras in the center of the lingerie department. She fingered one that was dark blue with black lace, and for one intense, insane moment, his mind flashed him a picture of her wearing it, the deep cobalt contrasting her pale skin like a jewel against satin, before rational thought snapped back into place and wiped the too-vivid image away.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  Not only had it been the most inappropriate thing to think about someone who was under his care and protection, but to think it about someone like Amelia Westlake, who was so far removed from the type of woman that attracted him she was all but in another time zone?

  Ridiculous.

  Wrong.

  A mistake.

  And yet, he couldn’t deny it had happened. It just couldn’t happen again.

  It wouldn’t happen again.

  When Amelia approached a few minutes later and dumped her choices into the cart, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief there was nothing blue or black in the mix. If she didn’t buy it, then he didn’t have to worry about wondering whether she was wearing it.

  After a quick detour to add bottled water, some snacks, and a cheap burner phone to their haul—he’d already removed the batteries from both his and Amelia’s phones, just in case—they found the shortest checkout line. As Amelia transferred her purchases to the belt, Daryl surreptitiously added a few rolls of the antacid tablets her friends always kept on hand.

  It wasn’t until Amelia opened her purse to pay that the trouble started.

  “No, I’ve got it.” Daryl took out his wallet. The way her back snapped straight warned Daryl he was going to have a fight on his hands. That, he couldn’t allow. Anything that would make them memorable to the cashier was something to be avoided.

  “That’s not necessary.” If he were prone to frostbite, her tone would have had him counting his fingers and toes.

  “Actually, it is.” Handing cash to the teen who was thankfully more engrossed in texting on her phone than in her bickering customers, he raised a meaningful brow at the credit card in Amelia’s hand. She grimaced and pushed it back into her wallet, realizing her mistake. There would be no plastic used on this trip for either of them. They would be living off the grid. Which was why Doyle had known the Raintrees’ South Dakota ranch would be the perfect hiding spot, since it wasn’t just off the grid, it was still in the Stone Age.

  Okay, that wasn’t entirely fair. Or true. But his father’s adherence to the motto “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was just one of the many things they’d butted heads over for most of Daryl’s life.

  Gathering up the bags, he led a somewhat subdued Amelia out of the store. After stowing everything in the backseat, Daryl helped boost her into the front and got them on their way. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t stop thinking about just how delicate her tiny waist had felt in his hands, how fragile she seemed. He’d almost been afraid of breaking her.

  This was why he always avoided women built like her. He always felt a little like the character Sloth in the eighties’ movie The Goonies when he was around them. An oversized freak, awkward and clumsy in his own skin. Granted, six-four wasn’t exactly giant height, but when you were around women a good eight to ten inches shorter than you, it could certainly feel that way. So he avoided them whenever possible.

  Only avoiding Amelia wasn’t an option. Like it or not, he was as stuck with her for the next week as she was with him. But what he could avoid was touching her any more than necessary. Once they got to the ranch that would be a lot easier. Until then, he just had to suck it up and make sure he didn’t hurt her.

  Although after the past twenty-four hours, he was beginning to think that it would take a lot more than his clumsy hands to make her break.

  Chapter Eight

  “I don’t think I’ve ever actually thanked you for helping me.”

  Daryl glanced at his passenger, who had been quiet ever since they’d gotten back on the interstate. She was curled sideways in the bucket seat so she was looking at him, left hand playing along the strap of the seatbelt where it crossed her chest. Her voice was soft and a little sleepy, as though she started talking as a way to keep herself awake.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay, then you’re welcome.”

  She huffed out a small laugh. “I’m serious. I know you think you’re just doing your job, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t what you had in mind when you first agreed to do it. Taking me away from Boulder, bringing me to your parents’ home—that’s totally above and beyond, and I wanted you to know I really do appreciate it, Daryl. Thank you.”

  There was a level of sincerity in her voice that told him that she wasn’t just mouthing the expected platitudes. In that, Amelia was very like Thea. He’d never seen either of the women treat their parents’ staff with anything other than genuine warmth and friendliness. Unlike Amelia’s parents, who were some of the biggest snobs he’d ever met. As someone else’s hired help, he’d been so far below their notice as to be all but invisible.

  Which could only serve to aid their cause now.

  “I’m happy to help, but I would have done it even if it wasn’t my job.” And he would have. Even if Doyle hadn’t sanctioned this little game of hide-the-bride, he would have taken some of the time off he had coming and done it on his own. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have chosen to go to his parents’ place, but in that, Doyle had been right on the money. Damn him.

  “Really?”

  Daryl wasn’t sure if it was the surprise or the hint of doubt in her voice that bothered him more. He tried not to take it personally. Then he remembered everything she’d been through in the past few days, and having trust issues suddenly wasn’t too hard to understand.

  “Really.” He glanced over at her again and was pleased to see a small smile teasing at her lips even as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

  “You’re a very nice man, Daryl Raintree.” She raised a hand to cover a yawn. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so tired all of a sudden.”

  It might have something to do with the chicken sandwich and fries she’d all but inhaled at the diner where they stopped to eat, although he didn’t say that out loud. From what he knew of her usual eating habits—which was to say, she didn’t eat nearly enough—he wasn’t surprised that her body had put itself into a food coma to start the digestive process. If she were an anaconda, she’d hibernate for a week.

  She’d popped one of the antacids from her jumbo bottle once they got back to the truck, but it had seemed more of a precautionary act than anything. Regardless of what else turned to crap in her life, distance between Amelia and her parents seemed to be good for her nerves.

  “Go ahead and get some rest,” he said. �
��It’ll be a few hours yet before we get to the ranch.”

  “Your parents live on a ranch?”

  He swallowed a curse. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t think to mention it before.” She’d probably been expecting to stay in a nice, Middle American house with air conditioning and reliable hot water. Unless things had changed a whole lot at the Circle R since his last visit, she wasn’t getting either. “It’s not big or fancy.” In fact, it was pretty small and the complete opposite of the kind of luxury Amelia was accustomed to. “If I had someplace else to take you—”

  “Don’t!”

  He threw her a quick look, not used to hearing that tone from her. “Sorry?”

  “I don’t need big or fancy, Daryl. Just because they call me Princess doesn’t mean I am one.” She shifted in her seat so she was facing forward again, her head turned away toward the door so that he couldn’t see her face. Even so, he got the feeling he’d somehow hurt her feelings.

  He should just let it drop. But the longer the silence stretched on, the more it bothered him. Finally, he said in a tone more grudging than conciliatory, “I didn’t think you’d turn your nose up at the place. I was just…embarrassed.” The admission stung because it was true. His reluctance had been about his discomfort, not hers.

  There was a long silence. Just when he decided she must have fallen asleep, she asked, “What kind of ranch is it?”

  “Horses, mostly.” And some chickens, cows, and the last time he’d been back a couple of piglets that had most likely been turned into bacon by now. His stepmother might love animals as much as her husband and children, but she was also a very practical woman. Any animal on the ranch had a purpose, and for some of them, that purpose was being breakfast.

  Just one more reason he didn’t miss living there.

  “Training or breeding?”

  “Both, although Dad’s more interested in the bloodline aspect of the operation.” Training had been Daryl’s forte. But that was a bone of contention best left alone. “Do you know how to ride?”

  Amelia shifted in her seat again, and a quick glance from the corner of his eye showed her curled back around to face him. Evidently, his apology had been accepted. Why that made him feel so good he didn’t understand, but it did.