Dad's E-Mail Order Bride

by Candy Halliday - Alaska Bound 01 - Dad's E-Mail Order Bride

  “But, Rachel, that’s wonderful. Think about it. I’m sure you can find a great high school in either of those cities.”

  “Dad only said he’d think about it,” Rachel grumbled. “He has the rest of the summer to change his mind.”

  He has the rest of the summer to change his mind.

  Courtney pushed the significance of those words aside. “Speaking of the rest of the summer, I’ve decided I’m going to start hosting a party here at The Wooden Nickel on Friday nights and invite everyone in town. What do you think about that idea?”

  Rachel hopped down from the counter. “Are you kidding? That would be awesome.”

  “Then we have a lot of planning to do. Think we could get Tiki and Hanya to help us?”

  Rachel immediately ran for the wall phone. While she talked to Tiki, Courtney’s thoughts went back to what Yanoo said about not giving up on Graham too soon.

  It was the glimmer of hope she’d been looking for. If anyone knew Graham, it was Yanoo.

  And that’s when she remembered the rescue squad meeting Graham and Yanoo would be attending tonight. That meant Graham would be at the town hall center only a few buildings away from the store. It also meant he would leave his skiff at the dock below the store that everyone used when they came into town.

  She could wait and see if Graham would stop by the store on his own, which was highly doubtful. Or she could watch for him after the meeting and make the first move toward getting past the argument.

  The decision should have been easy.

  But it wasn’t.

  Yanoo describing Graham as complicated was an understatement. Maybe she should give him time to cool down before she tried to approach him. But every day that passed was one day closer to the end of her stay.

  “Tiki and Hanya would love to help,” Rachel called out when she hung up the phone. “They’re going to stop by after we close the store. And since our guests are finally gone at the lodge, Tiki wants me to spend the night with her. That means we’ll have all night to plan the party.”

  “Great.” It was the only thing Courtney could say. The decision about Graham had been made for her.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AFTER THE MEETING, Graham stayed to talk with the group of guys who always hung around to swap a few lies before they went home. It was something Graham usually didn’t do. But Rachel wasn’t home alone waiting for him tonight.

  She’d called earlier, excited about the party Courtney was planning and begging to spend the night with Tiki since their lodge guests were gone.Rachel had earned some time off.

  She’d surprised him. She’d kept up with all of her chores despite the fact that she’d worked at the store for Courtney every day.

  Graham was proud of her.

  Maybe that’s why he’d been so knocked over when Courtney told him what Rachel had threatened. Rachel’s emotions had been all over the place for over a year now. Up one day. Down the next.

  It made Graham crazy.

  Even Rachel didn’t know what she wanted. She’d proved that this morning when she’d refused to go to New York when he’d finally had enough and offered to send her to live with his parents.

  He should have called Rachel’s bluff the first time she mentioned going back to New York. If he had, maybe the Courtney situation wouldn’t have happened. And he wouldn’t be standing here now, pretending to follow the conversation and pretending that he didn’t care Courtney was in close proximity only a few buildings away.

  “What about you, Graham?”

  Graham looked up to find one of his fellow fisherman staring at him. “Sorry, Bill. I missed the question.”

  “Are you booked up for the Fourth?”

  “Yeah,” Graham said. “My guests are arriving on Wednesday.”

  “Same here,” Bill said. “It’s going to be a busy week.”

  “I hear there’s going to be a big party at The Wooden Nickel Friday night,” one of the guys said. “Whole town’s invited.”

  Graham didn’t comment on that subject. And not because he opposed Courtney’s party. He’d be tied up with his guests all weekend.

  “Is anyone going to enter the Woodsman contest this year?” Bill asked, looking over at Graham again.

  Graham laughed. “Don’t look at me.”

  The contest was a local charity fundraiser with the typical events—wood splitting, ax-throwing and pole climbing. The final event was what people really paid to see. The freestyle wrestling match that decided the winner provided enough blood and guts to give people their money’s worth.

  Bill said, “I hope someone takes Gil Hargraves’s title away from him this year. The bastard. I’ve been waiting to see someone kick his ass for four years.”

  Graham could sympathize with the way Bill felt about Gil. Gil had once dated Bill’s daughter, and as usual, Gil hadn’t kept many of the details to himself. Someone was going to shut Gil’s mouth for him one day. And like Bill, Graham hoped he was around to see it happen.

  He’d already decided he was going to have a talk with Gil on Wednesday when he brought Graham’s guests to the lodge. He intended to tell Gil that Courtney was off-limits before Courtney found herself in a situation she couldn’t handle.

  The group started breaking up and Graham headed for the door with everyone else, but Yanoo signaled for him to wait a minute. Yanoo walked to the far side of the meeting room and picked up a paper sack sitting on a table in the corner. When he returned, he handed the sack to Graham.

  Graham looked at him, puzzled. “What’s this for?”

  “Incentive,” Yanoo said. “That’s an expensive bottle of wine and the moon’s full tonight. Don’t waste it.”

  “Don’t you push it,” Graham warned, following Yanoo to the door.

  “I have to pick up Hanya and Tiki at the store, so I can take Rachel, too,” Yanoo said as they walked through the center of town.

  “Thanks,” Graham said. “That means I can get home even sooner than I expected.”

  When Yanoo stopped at the store, Graham kept walking. He’d call and say good-night to Rachel later. Two minutes more and he was pulling away from the dock below the store.

  To hell with Yanoo and his wine and the damn full moon.

  Graham was going home.

  WHEN GRAHAM DIDN’T stop at the store with Yanoo, Courtney was thankful she hadn’t had the opportunity to make a fool of herself by waylaying Graham after his meeting. Evidently, he was still too angry to talk to her. With the way her luck had been running, he’d stay angry with her for the remainder of the summer.

  But she wasn’t going to worry about it tonight. It wasn’t worth losing sleep over.She finished putting away the last of the food. She wiped the lunch counter down. And she had just turned out the light above the grill when Broadway whined and trotted to the door.

  “You just went out when Rachel left, silly,” Courtney told him, but she headed to the door anyway.

  When she opened it, Graham was standing there.

  He held up a bottle of wine. “This is a great Merlot. There’s an amazing full moon tonight. And all I need are two wineglasses, a corkscrew and someone willing to sit outside and enjoy it with a guy who’s sorry for being such a jerk this morning.”

  “Tonight’s your lucky night,” Courtney told him. “You came to the right place.”

  She grabbed the glasses and the corkscrew. The full moon had little to do with Graham’s preference to sit outside. He was offering a truce, but he still intended to keep his distance from her. Courtney would take that.

  It was better than not seeing Graham at all.

  She found him sitting on the top step of the landing leading down to the dock, Broadway stretched out behind him. Courtney stepped over Broadway and sat beside Graham. When she handed over the corkscrew, he opened the bottle, filled both glasses and placed the bottle on the step between them.

  They sat in silence, sipping wine and watching the moonlight dance across the water. Courtney decided to let G
raham take the lead when it came to the conversation. He’d shown up on her doorstep to apologize. But Courtney could tell Graham had more than wine and moonlight on his mind tonight.

  They sat in silence a little longer.

  He finally looked over at her. “What were you like in high school?”

  Courtney laughed out of sheer relief. She’d been so sure Graham intended to ask her to go home again.

  “What made you think of that?”

  “Rachel,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about my high school years. All the memories. They were some of the best times of my life. So thanks for encouraging Rachel to talk to me about a compromise, even if she isn’t thrilled about Anchorage or Ketchikan. Rachel needs the opportunity to have good high school memories of her own. I was being selfish not to realize that.”

  “You and Rachel would have eventually reached the same conclusion without my help,” Courtney said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Our problem has been not talking. Until you came, all we were doing was yelling at each other. So thank you for that, too. You’ve acted as the buffer we needed between us to make us look at the situation from the other person’s point of view.”

  “Thanks for saying that, Graham. I’m glad I’ve been able to help.”

  He refilled his glass and leaned over to refill hers. Their shoulders only touched for a second. But it was long enough to make Courtney gulp down half her glass. She had to get her mind off how close they were sitting before she took him by the hand and led him straight to bed.

  “Let me guess what you were like in high school. Total football jock, of course. Cheerleader girlfriend. Most popular guy. Prom king.” She grinned at him. “Close?”

  “Embarrassing, but yes,” he said. “Now it’s my turn. Homecoming queen. Captain of the football team for a boyfriend. Most beautiful. Prom queen. How am I doing so far?”

  “Batting zero,” Courtney said. “I was beanpole thin in high school, two inches taller than any guy in school and I had braces until my second year in college. I was a total geekette. Chess club president. Captain of the debate club. Editor of the school newspaper and the yearbook.”

  “No wonder you always kick my butt every time we have an argument.”

  He was only teasing and Courtney knew it.

  But it gave her the opportunity to say, “About that. I like it much better when we don’t argue, Graham. Like now, just sitting here talking. It’s nice. Don’t you think?”

  GRAHAM ALMOST MISSED the question. She was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her long hair over one shoulder, staring at him with eyes so blue he could see the depth of the color in the moonlight. One more second and he’d have her in his arms.

  He couldn’t do that to her again.He wouldn’t do that to her again.

  He shouldn’t even be here now. He’d been almost at the lodge when he’d turned the skiff around, knowing if he didn’t clear the air with Courtney, he wouldn’t sleep at all.

  But sitting in the moonlight together had been a bad idea. Looking at her made him want her so bad right now Graham ached all over. But the key words were right now.

  Courtney deserved forever.

  Graham wasn’t sure he’d ever have forever to give.

  He picked up the wine bottle between them, glad to see there was only enough left to add a splash in each glass.

  “This has been nice,” Graham said, finally answering her question. He polished off his wine and stood. “We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

  She stood, as well. “I hope you’ll come to the party Friday night.”

  “Sorry,” Graham told her, “but I’ll have a lodge full of guests starting on Wednesday. And when men pay to come here, believe me, all they want to do is fish.”

  He started down the steps.

  “Thanks for the wine,” she called out.

  Graham stopped walking and turned around. “I can’t come to your party, but I could make coffee for you again in the morning before I pick Rachel up at Yanoo’s. Are you up for that?”

  “At six o’clock?” She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “How about seven?”

  “Make it eight and we have a deal.”

  “Eight it is.”

  “Good night, Graham.”

  Graham threw his hand up in a wave as he headed to the skiff.

  But he did glance over his shoulder as he pulled away from the dock. He could see her silhouette in the moonlight, still standing on the landing, Broadway beside her.

  She waved.

  For a second, Graham felt a little less empty inside.

  COURTNEY FELT SILLY lying in bed in the dark grinning from ear to ear. But she couldn’t help it. Maybe Graham had only stopped by to apologize. She’d even detected the exact minute he got nervous and decided to leave—she’d seen the desire in his eyes before he got his emotions under control.

  It didn’t matter.Graham was coming back for coffee in the morning.

  That meant, whether he realized it or not, she was slowly breaking through some of that stone wall he’d built around himself for protection. And that told Courtney she’d done the right thing by hanging back and letting Graham come to her.

  Is that what Yanoo meant by not giving up too soon?

  Courtney could only wonder.

  She’d told Yanoo she was crazy about Graham. But her feelings went much deeper than that. She’d been infatuated with Graham—or at least the idea of Graham—before she arrived in Port Protection. But she’d fallen in love with Graham that day at the gazebo.

  She loved him.

  Graham could learn to love her back.

  Or Graham could decide to let her go.

  But Courtney would love him still.

  ON WEDNESDAY, GRAHAM sent his guests up to the lodge to help themselves to the refreshments he had waiting for them and stayed to help Gil unload the luggage. He intended to use the opportunity to have a little conversation about Courtney.

  Gil beat Graham to it.“Just to put you on notice,” Gil said, “I’m asking Courtney out at her party Friday night.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What’s the problem?” Gil jeered. “You aren’t interested in her. If you were, she’d be in your bed instead of minding the general store.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Graham said. “Courtney’s off-limits.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll leave that up to Courtney to decide, won’t we? And we both know who has the best track record when it comes to being persuasive with women.”

  “Do the smart thing and back off, Gil.”

  Gil’s smirk vanished. “Is that a threat, Graham?”

  “If you have to ask that question,” Graham said, “you haven’t been listening.”

  For a second Graham thought Gil was going to hit him.

  Instead, Gil walked past him and climbed into the cockpit of the plane. Graham stayed where he was, staring directly at Gil, but Gil refused to make eye contact.

  Graham was still standing on the dock when the floatplane disappeared around the cove. He hoped Gil would take him at his word and make the wise decision to leave Courtney alone.

  Courtney going out with Gil wasn’t the problem.

  The problem was Courtney turning Gil down.

  If she did turn Gil down—and Graham had enough faith in Courtney to think that she would—Gil wouldn’t be happy about it and things could turn ugly quick. And that’s when Graham would have to step in and back up his threat.

  He hadn’t kept Julia safe when he should have.

  He wouldn’t make that same mistake with Courtney.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “CAN I ASK you something?”

  Courtney looked up from her sweeping to Rachel, who was wiping the counter at the grill. The usual lunch crew had finally left, their busiest part of the day was over, and now they were alone in the store.“You know you can ask me anything, sweetie,” Courtney said, smiling at her.

&nbs
p; “Are you in love with my dad?”

  Hmm, except maybe that. “Why?”

  “Still hoping, I guess,” Rachel said with a sigh. “And Dad does have coffee with you when we don’t have guests. I was hoping that meant you both had finally figured out that you’re perfect for each other.”

  Rachel went back to wiping the counter.

  Courtney continued sweeping.

  Graham had been stopping by for coffee whenever he could, and though Courtney looked forward to those small slices of time she had with him, he hadn’t offered her anything more. Nor had he shown up at the Friday night gatherings, even though they were a huge success.

  It was the middle of July, and time was running out fast. Each day that passed led Courtney steadily toward accepting the fact that Graham never would change his mind about letting himself love anyone again.

  That meant she had to get serious about what she wanted to do. Her wish-list future would be marrying the man she loved and becoming an official mother to Rachel. She loved them both. And she wouldn’t care if they lived in Port Protection, or Ketchikan, or Anchorage or Timbuktu.

  Home was where the heart is. And Graham and Rachel had stolen her heart completely.

  Courtney glanced at Rachel again.

  She was so proud of Rachel, and she told Rachel that on a daily basis. Rachel was quick and assertive and didn’t have to be told what to do before she took the initiative to do it. Courtney had made it a point to work Rachel’s butt off, yet never once had Rachel complained.

  But today something was bothering Rachel. Deciding to find out what that something was, Courtney propped her broom against the counter and slid onto the stool in front of Rachel.

  “Let’s take a break,” Courtney said. “And you can tell me what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours.”

  Rachel walked around the counter to plop on the stool beside Courtney. “What makes you think something’s going on?”