Undercover Groom

by Lovelace, Merline

  Chloe’s laughter tinkled through the store. “Poor baby. Did they pucker you up?”

  “Permanently.” His smile spread into a teasing grin. “Lean across the counter and I’ll show you.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She met his friendly, hopeful blue eyes and told herself she could do this. She could lean forward and kiss Ted. She should do it, if only to prove that Mase Chandler’s mind-numbing kiss earlier this afternoon wasn’t all that special. He’d simply reawakened feminine instincts that had gone dormant for some reason. She was sure she’d feel the same spark, the same tug with nice, safe Ted Johnson if she just let herself. Slowly she leaned forward.

  “What the hell! . . .”

  The exclamation froze Chloe in mid-bend. She slewed her head sideways and met Mase’s thunderous gaze.

  A door edged open in her mind an inch, maybe two. Not enough for her to see behind it. Only enough for her to turn forward again and calmly brush her lips across Ted’s.

  Five

  It was a pleasant kiss. A friendly, casual contact. Chloe might even have enjoyed it if she hadn’t been so conscious of Mase’s thunderous scowl...and of the difference between this kiss and the one she’d shared with him earlier that afternoon.

  She broke the contact, more than a little ashamed of using Ted Johnson as an experiment. She compensated for her pinprick of guilt by giving him a bright smile.

  “Yep, that’s some pucker. And to think you owe it all to Hannah.”

  He answered with a shy smile of his own, but his face held a hint of wariness when he turned toward the man standing in the doorway. Chloe could understand his nervousness. Mase no longer appeared thunderous, merely menacing. He practically bristled, reminding her of a sleek black bear with its fur up, its shoulders hunched and its dinner in imminent danger of scampering away.

  His fierce scowl made her nervous, too, but not, she noted with a tingle of surprise, afraid. Tucking that interesting bit of information away in the back of her mind to think about later, she set out to defuse what could fast become an awkward situation. She’d gained enough experience handling the love-hungry cowboys who came into the store to inject just the right mix of casualness and cool into her voice.

  “Doc, this is Mase Chandler. He’s come up to do some fishing from...?”

  Realizing that she had no idea where he called home, she arched an inquiring brow.

  “Down,” he corrected, his gray eyes tight on her face. “I’ve come down from Minneapolis.”

  “Down from Minneapolis,” she finished, her smile firmly in place. “Mase, this is Ted Johnson, Dr. Ted Johnson.”

  Their handshake was a civilized enough ritual, one that men performed every day. Still, Chloe couldn’t erase the sensation that a dangerous, untamed animal had reached out to enfold Ted’s paw. The young doc was obviously thinking along similar lines. Beneath the short, curly beard, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  “Chandler.”

  “Johnson.”

  The brief handshake over, Ted made a valiant effort at conversation. “So you’re here to fish?”

  “And hunt.”

  “That’s right. Elk season starts in a few days. Have you scouted out your stand?”

  “Not yet.”

  Ted ran on for a few minutes about the excellent stands available to rent in the area. Chloe could tell the exact second Mase decided he didn’t pose a serious threat. His eyes lost their flinty edge. Imperceptibly his powerful shoulders relaxed.

  “You’re making late rounds,” he commented when the young doc finished.

  “Oh, I’m not—That is, I didn’t come by to see Hannah. Well, I did, but not...”

  Chloe took pity on him. “Doc Johnson’s a vet, Mase, not a physician. We sell some of the products that his patients need here in the store.”

  “So you stopped by to check stock levels, Doc?”

  “Well, I—That is—” He pulled his gaze from Mase and screwed up his courage. “Actually, Chloe, I came by to see if you wanted to drive over to Custer State Park tomorrow for the annual buffalo roundup. They’re bringing the summer crop of calves down from the hills for shots and ear tagging.”

  “Thanks, Ted, but I can’t leave Hannah.”

  Actually, she could. Her employer had barked at her often enough to get out in the sun and the mountain air. Hannah insisted she could hear the store bell from her sofa. She had enough lung left in her to yell out to any customers who might come in and instruct them to bring their business back to her.

  Chloe didn’t trust the woman to keep to her sofa, though. Nor did she want to encourage the young vet any more than she already had. She shouldn’t have kissed Ted. Shouldn’t have hoped for another taste of the desire Mase Chandler had unexpectedly stirred in her this afternoon. Her life was complicated enough right now. She’d be crazy to let her emotions run wild when her memory had come to a complete and total standstill.

  Despite her best intentions to nip Ted’s interest in the bud, his crestfallen expression tugged at her conscience. That and the fact that he’d driven so many miles out of his way.

  “I was just about to make some sandwiches for supper,” she told him. “Why don’t you join us?”

  His blue eyes lit up. “Is that Mayor Dobbins’s latest batch of smoked venison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great! Count me in.”

  She turned to Mase, keeping her friendly smile firmly in place. “How about you? Venison or ham and cheese?”

  “I’ll try the local specialty.”

  “Good. Ted, you get the drinks. Hannah will have coffee...decaf, but don’t tell her! Me, too. Mase, you’re in charge of pickles and potato chips.”

  As he scavenged among the crowded shelves, Mase buried the last remnants of his urge to wipe the pine floorboards with the young vet. The kid didn’t constitute any kind of a threat, to him or to Chloe.

  Still, it shook Mase to realize how close he’d come to losing his composure, not once, but twice tonight. Charging across the porch to rescue his fiancée from night crawlers had put a serious enough dent in his customary cool. Seeing her lean forward to kiss the curly bearded vet had just about cracked it wide-open.

  For a moment there, when Chloe had slewed her head around to meet his stunned gaze, then calmly proceeded to kiss the doc, he’d almost convinced himself that she’d decided on a little payback for the scene with Pam in his office.

  On reflection, he shrugged the thought aside. Chloe couldn’t stare at him with such wary confusion in her eyes one moment, and deliberately put him through the hoops the next. She wasn’t that good an actress.

  Was she?

  Without being obvious about it, Mase studied her for the next hour or so with the hooded interest of a hawk circling its prey. She said little as they ate, letting the others carry the conversation. Nor did she send so much as a flicker of anything other than polite friendliness his way. If Mase hadn’t caught a glimpse of the bleak torment that clouded her eyes for a few seconds at Johnson’s offhand reference to his family in Sioux City, his doubts might have taken root.

  No, he decided with a twist of his heart. No way she was faking this. Once more he battled an almost-overwhelming urge to gather her in his arms and soothe her fears. Maybe the neurosurgeon had it wrong. Maybe Mase ought to take Chloe home, or at the very least, bombard her with names and images from her past.

  Each time he came close to doing just that, though, Hannah’s drawled observation echoed in his mind. His druthers didn’t matter in this particular situation. Only Chloe’s. Even with that constant reminder, he had to force himself to his feet when she rose, gathering the remnants of their picnic supper.

  “You’ve got a long drive yet tonight, Doc,” she said in cheerful dismissal. Her glance slid to Mase. “And I expect you’ll want to get up with the sun. One of the regulars who came in yesterday said the trout were rising up at Sylvan Lake.”

  Mase would get up with the sun, all right, but not to fish. His fir
st priority was to familiarize himself with the town and the surrounding terrain.

  “Sylvan Lake?” he replied with a smile of thanks. “I’ll check it out.”

  He left a few moments later, a newly issued permit tucked in his wallet. Declining the doc’s offer of a lift to the café, he lingered in the shadows as the store lights flickered out one by one. Finally only the glow from the coolers and the red-and-black neon beer sign in the window cast their glow into the night.

  Turning his back on the darkened store, Mase walked away from the woman calling herself Chloe Smith. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life.

  Dawn brought with it the kind of fall morning that Mayor Dobbins insisted only the Black Hills of Dakota could produce. Mist lay soft and hazy in the valley, while the granite peaks surrounding Crockett thrust into a sky so blue it seemed to sing. Mase carried a steaming container of coffee out to the Blazer, almost burning himself when the call of a bull moose split the morning stillness. The long, raucous cry came from the treeline that climbed the hills just behind the café/pool hall/taxidermy studio. From the sound of it, the animal was in full rut.

  He wasn’t the only one, Mase thought grimly as he belted himself into the Blazer. Chloe had hit the nail on the head yesterday when she’d accused Mase of the same rampaging urges. A night’s reflection hadn’t improved the situation, either. During the agonizing weeks he’d searched for Chloe, Mase had been so damned sure that once he found his missing fiancée the phony engagement could be turned into a real marriage. If only Chloe would forgive his deception.

  Well, he’d found her. And now the desire that had left him hard and aching the past few months had gained an added spur. The fierce need drove him to hover over her, to protect her and comfort her when the bleakness he’d glimpsed so briefly last night darkened her eyes to a deep, bruised purple. Mixed up in there as well was the atavistic male urge to stake his claim in a way that overeager puppies like the young vet couldn’t miss.

  It took some swallowing to digest the fact that Chloe didn’t want his protection or his comfort. That disconcerting fact lingered in his mind as he keyed the ignition and shoved the Blazer into gear, then drove up into the hills. It stayed with him while he surveyed the town from the turns along the narrow, twisting road. It dragged at his concentration when he spied lakes and streams that shouted to the angler in him, and brought him back down from the hills when the sun was at its noon brightest.

  He parked in front of the general store this time, beside a dented Chevy truck with more mud on its side panels than paint. The scent of freshly brewed coffee pulled him into the store...along with the silvery shimmer of Chloe’s laughter. She smiled a welcome when he stepped inside, then returned her attention to the lanky ranch hand standing with stubby pencil and clipboard in hand.

  “No, Buck, feminine companionship is not one of the survey choices.”

  “Well, shoot, Chloe, it ought to be.”

  Great, Mase thought in wry resignation. Another admirer. Hannah certainly hadn’t exaggerated the crowd her helper was drawing into the store. To his relief, his fiancée didn’t encourage this one to lean across the counter, much less kiss her.

  “Just mark those items you think you might need in the next three months,” she instructed firmly.

  “I need you, darlin’.” Her customer hung a lonesome look on his face. “I’ve already waited most of my life for someone like you to come along. Don’t think I can wait another three months.”

  “Sure you can. Finish the survey, Buck.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Taking his clipboard and his long look with him, Buck settled in one of the chairs pulled up to the potbellied stove. He propped a worn boot heel on the stove fender, caught his tongue between his teeth and went to work with the stubby pencil.

  When Mase strolled over to the counter, Chloe greeted him with another clipboard and the casual observation that he hadn’t fished very long.

  “Long enough,” he replied easily, skimming the long, handwritten list of products that appeared to include everything from cough drops to motor oil. “What’s this?”

  “A customer survey.”

  “A survey, huh?”

  Judging from the exchange he’d just overheard, he could only imagine the results she’d get.

  “You gave me the idea,” she informed him.

  “I did?”

  “Last night, when you asked if the residents of Crockett ever needed anything that the store didn’t carry. I thought about that after I went to bed.”

  That put him squarely in his place, Mase thought dryly. He’d lain awake worrying about Chloe all night. She’d lain awake worrying about the store.

  “I think Hannah’s stocked up on every item her customers have ever asked for,” she said, her brow knitting. “We’ve got dozens of items that haven’t moved at all in the weeks I’ve been here. Those onesies and twosies of items eat up valuable shelf space. Hannah hates change, but I’m hoping this survey will convince her to stock more of what sells, instead of what might sell.”

  “By asking the customers what they really need, as opposed to what they want?”

  “Exactly!”

  Mase couldn’t hold back a grin. As CEO of Chandler Industries, he’d heard far more sophisticated market analyses in his time, but none that cut to the heart of the matter as precisely as Chloe’s onesies and twosies.

  She chewed on her lower lip, obviously not as impressed with her marketing insights as Mase.

  “I just wish I had a better customer base to work with. I mean, I’m not sure what percentage of the population I’m going to reach with this survey...or even what the population is around here.”

  “That’s easy enough to find out. The government dumps all the data it collects in the census every ten years into computers.”

  “That’s great for the government, but how does it help me?”

  “You can request information on the population of any given area, sorted by city or township or county or Indian reservation or land grant or whatever. The data includes not just the number of people, but also the total number of housing units, average household income, number in the labor force, how much rent they pay...just about anything a business owner might want to know about her customer base.”

  “No kidding!”

  Her violet eyes sparkled as she mulled over the possible uses for that kind of information. No doubt about it, Chloe Fortune was her father’s daughter. Even tucked away in a town with fewer residents than Emmet Fortune’s well-staffed estate, the same fire to succeed burned in her as in her father and brother, Mac.

  Mase was only too happy to feed that fire. If he hadn’t already believed in her talents, the marketing strategy she’d outlined for the new Chandler Industries prototype jet in exchange for Mase’s agreement to act as her pseudo-fiancé would have convinced him.

  “The State Tourist Bureau could give you statistics on the transient population,” he told her, fanning the flames. “Or the Parks and Recreation Division. You’ll be amazed at the consumer information that’s available if you know where to look for it”

  She tilted her head back, studying him with those remarkable eyes. “You sound like a man who’s looked for it.”

  “I have.”

  “What do you do, Mase? Back in Minneapolis?”

  “I own a company that manufactures small aircraft. We sell primarily to the military, although a number of ranchers around these parts are flying Jetstars. Maybe you’ve flown in one of our planes?”

  She had. Frequently. The last time was only a month ago, when Mase had piloted them on a visit to her cousin’s ranch in Wyoming. He held his breath, waiting for a flicker of awareness.

  Instead, the bright sparkle in her eyes dimmed by noticeable degrees. He caught confusion, despair, even a hint of panic, but no awareness.

  “Maybe . . maybe I have.”

  Cursing himself for pushing her, Mase tried to recover. “I have a friend who works
for the government. Do you want me to make a call and get that data for you?”

  “I...well—” She pulled herself together with an effort that hurt him to watch. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with all that information, but, yes. Thank you.”

  “No problem. I’ll help you sort through it. How about tonight, over dinner?”

  Startled out of her moment of near panic, she blinked up at him. “You can get all that information by dinner?”

  “Sure, I’ll have it faxed in.” He stopped, struck by a sudden thought. “There is a fax machine in Crockett, isn’t there?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask Hannah.”

  Chloe returned a few moments later with a crease in her brow. “Mayor Dobbins has the town’s only fax machine.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Chloe?”

  Sighing, she palmed her feathery bangs off her forehead. “Hannah’s feeling...rambunctious today. She says I’m welcome to do all the surveys and read all the census reports I want, but not to bother her with them. Not until I’ve made sense out of them, anyway.”

  “We’ll make sense out of them,” Mase assured her. “Over dinner. The mayor says he puts together a mean hamburger-and-home-fry combo. I’ll bring enough for all of us.”

  After placing the order for dinner and obtaining the fax number from the helpful taxidermist cum mayor, Mase made a call to Pam Hawkins from the privacy of his room. He could almost hear the questions forming as he outlined his request. Pam had operated in the shadowy underworld too long to accept anything at face value. Sure enough, she churned out the questions as soon as he finished.

  “Why do you need census data? And Parks and Recreation information, for heaven’s sake? What’s going on, Mase?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t give me that crap. I know you. You’re up to something. Come on, tell Pam. What are you going to do with this data?”

  “All right, all right! If you must know, I’m going to use it to court my fiancée.”