Undercover Groom

by Lovelace, Merline

  Chloe stared at him. Ripples of excitement darted down her spine. She knew him! She knew him from somewhere! Maybe the blasted door blocking her mind had finally started to swing open.

  Almost immediately, she recognized him as the solitary diner from the café. Her excitement fluttered into intense disappointment. Masking it with some effort, she pinned a smile on her face.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m out of cigarette makings. Could you point me to them?”

  “They’re on the shelf over there, by the beer.”

  “Thank you.”

  While he searched among the varieties of papers and tobacco for his favorite brands, Chloe went back behind the counter. A few moments later he dropped his choices on the wood surface and gave her the yellow-toothed smile of a heavy smoker.

  “Didn’t I see you down at the café a while ago?” he asked while she rang up the sale.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “With your young fellow?”

  “He’s not really—Well, he’s...”

  She searched for the right words to describe her feelings for the man she’d just kissed. With a sense of the inevitable, she finally admitted the truth.

  “I guess that description fits Mase as well as anything else.”

  Her customer pocketed his change and his purchases. “That’s his name? Mase? Don’t think I’ve ever heard that name ‘round these parts.”

  “He’s not from around here.” Anxious to finish closing and curl up with her still-whirling emotions, Chloe rounded the end of the counter. “If you don’t need anything else, I’ll lock up as you leave.”

  His lips pulled back over his stained teeth.

  “No, thank you, ma’am. I don’t need anything else. I got what I came for.”

  For the life of her, Chloe couldn’t say why that smile made her uneasy. The man spoke and acted politely enough. His slacks and plaid shirt had seen a few washings, but they were clean and neat, as were his sturdy work boots.

  Maybe it was the gleam in his brown eyes. Or those yellowed teeth that gave him an almost wolfish appearance. Whatever the reason for Chloe’s prickle of unease, it disappeared when the lock snicked into place behind her late customer.

  She dismissed it, and him, and went about the small tasks associated with closing up the Crockett General Store. The beer sign above the cooler clicked off. The floorboards creaked as she checked the windows. Metal clanged against metal when she used the poker to break apart the glowing ash in the potbellied stove.

  The now-familiar routine occupied only a small part of her conscious thought. An unfamiliar, steadily mounting anticipation occupied the rest.

  Tomorrow, Chloe thought, her heart thumping as she switched off the lights and plunged the store into darkness.

  Tomorrow.

  Eight

  “Thanks so much for volunteering to stay with Hannah for a few hours, Charlie.”

  Chloe sent the retired postal worker a warm smile, which raised a flush on his fleshy face and a disgruntled harrumph from Hannah.

  “The way you wet nurse me, girl, you’d think I had all of six years tucked under my belt instead of sixty and then some.”

  Chloe ignored her employer’s grumbling. She barked often, but rarely bit.

  “Really, Hannah, I don’t mind,” Charlie put in. “In fact, I wanted to talk to you about handheld scanners. I called my former boss at the post office. He said we could get one of the older models at the next government surplus auction.”

  “What the devil do I want with a handheld scanner? That herd of buffalo over at Custer State Park will learn to fly before I learn how to use something like that.”

  “I’ll help you,” her visitor offered.

  “You will?” Surprise, then understanding dawned on Hannah’s sun-weathered face. “I’ve got your game, Charlie Thomas. You just want to spend more time sniffin’ around Chloe, don’t you?”

  The postal worker flushed, but he answered with a simple dignity that tugged at both women’s hearts.

  “To tell the truth, trout fishing doesn’t fill up as much of my time as I thought it would. I’d be happy to help out more at the store, if you’d let me.”

  “Hmmmm ” Folding her arms across her chest, Hannah regarded him skeptically for long moments. “Tell me again about those handheld thingamabobs.”

  Chloe took that grudging request as her exit cue. With a promise to return within a few hours, she hurried through the storeroom and snatched up a plastic cooler off the counter. The excitement she’d held at bay all morning sizzled and spit along her nerves as she stepped through the door and into the flood of noon sunshine.

  Mase was waiting for her—all long, lithe male and lazy patience. A fanciful little breeze ruffled his black hair. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his blue denim shirt in concession to the unexpected October warmth. His jeans rode low on his lean waist. Arms folded across his broad chest, hips propped against the fender of the black-and-tan Blazer, eyes shielded by mirrored sunglasses, he looked as tough and as rugged as the granite mountains surrounding Crockett.

  Her pulse skipped, skittered, then careened all over the place when he straightened, peeled off the sunglasses and reached for the cooler she’d brought with her.

  “Here, let me take that.” His brows lifted at its weight. “Good Lord, what did you pack in here?”

  “Half the contents of the Crockett General Store. Hannah insisted that the air up at the lake would do a serious number on our appetites.”

  Actually, her employer had predicted that Chloe’s bottom-hugging jeans and snug, long-sleeved turquoise top would do more for Mase’s appetite than anything packed in the cooler. From the way his gray eyes roamed hungrily over her curves, the prediction appeared right on target.

  Like mountain wildflowers unfurling their petals to the sun, Chloe’s body responded to the hunger Mase didn’t even try to disguise. Her heart fluttered. Her stomach tightened. Tiny pinpricks of sensation budded her nipples under the turquoise cotton. She had to fight for each breath as he opened the back of the Blazer and deposited the cooler amid a tangle of equipment.

  “What’s all that?” she asked.

  “Rods and reels. I thought you might like to try your hand at casting a few flies. Unless,” he added with a wicked grin, “you’d prefer to reach into the bait box and grab a dozen or so night crawlers.”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Are you sure? We could stretch out on the bank and just veg out while the worms do all the work.”

  “Worms or no worms, I fully intend to stretch out on the bank,” Chloe informed him loftily. “I can’t remember the last time I just vegged for a whole afternoon.”

  The irony of her words didn’t strike her until Mase closed the passenger door. She couldn’t remember a lot more than the last time she’d lazed in the sun. Staunchly, she refused to let panic and confusion creep over her. She wouldn’t allow them to spoil her mood or dim the bright sunshine.

  She had a name. Chloe Fortune. She had a father and two brothers in Minneapolis. She was engaged to the man who slid into the seat beside her...or so he claimed. That was enough to hold back the shadows. For now.

  As if sensing her mood, Mase kept the conversation light and easy during the short drive up to the lake. Chloe put in an occasional comment, but for the most part she was content to simply breathe in the pine-scented air and absorb the rich baritone of his voice. Alternating patterns of light and dark played across his face as he wheeled the Blazer around hairpin turns studded on both sides by stands of tall, lodgepole pine. Fifteen minutes later he turned off the blacktop.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Chloe asked, bracing a hand against the dash as the vehicle jounced along a dirt track.

  “I’m sure.”

  She eyed the narrow track doubtfully as it led them deeper into the forest. Sunlight struggled to knife through the canopy formed by thick stands of pine and curly barked aspens. Low-hanging b
oughs swished against the Blazer’s roof. A squirrel scolded loudly as the vehicle passed too close to its nest.

  Just when Chloe was wondering if the forest had swallowed them completely, she caught a glimpse of indigo amid the endless green. Seconds later the Blazer bounced out of the trees and rolled to a stop scant yards from the shore of a tiny, perfect lake.

  “Oh!” Enchanted, Chloe climbed out of the vehicle. “Oh, Mase, it’s beautiful!”

  “I thought so, too,” he replied with a touch of proprietary smugness, as if he was the first human to discover the lake’s serene beauty.

  Like polished glass, the water reflected the surrounding peaks and pines. Only upon closer examination did Chloe discover that it was as crystalline clear below the surface as it was above. She clambered atop one of the boulders that lined the shore and peered down at the rocks and pebbles on the bottom.

  “It looks like I could reach right down and touch the bottom. How deep do you think it is?”

  “Deep enough to wet you down if you fall in.” Opening the Blazer’s back hatch, Mase started to unload. “Do you want to eat first or try your hand at casting?”

  “You’re serious about this fishing business?”

  “Absolutely. It’s one of the purer pleasures in life.”

  “Not for the fish,” Chloe retorted, scrambling off her boulder to help him unload. “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”

  They spread the blanket Mase had shamelessly purloined from his room beside a huge boulder. A thick layer of pine needles provided a springy cushion under the blanket. While Mase lazed back against the boulder, resting an arm on a drawn-up knee, Chloe unpacked the cooler.

  “Beer for you, wine spritzers for me.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Sourdough rolls, sliced ham, roast beef and smoked turkey breast.”

  “Sounds even better.”

  “Cheddar, provolone and lemon-peppered brie.”

  “Lemon-peppered brie?” A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I bet you don’t get a lot of demand for that at the Crockett General Store.”

  “No, we don’t,” she admitted, uncurling the foil wrapper. “But the distributor offered me some samples and I couldn’t resist.”

  She dug in the cooler for the plates and plastic utensils, then spread a crust of roll with the soft, creamy cheese. “Here, try a bite. Tell me what you think.”

  Leaning forward, Mase took the morsel in his mouth. He also took the tips of Chloe’s fingers. Startled, she felt the tender scrape of his teeth all the way from her wrist to her elbow. She jerked a little, but didn’t pull her hand away.

  “Mmmm.” He leaned back, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “Good. Very good. What else have you got?”

  “What? Oh.”

  Recalled to her duties as hostess, she pulled out fruit, foil containers of baked beans and potato salad, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise and a giant-size bag of chocolate chip cookies. When she finished, the spread took up most of the blanket.

  “We got enough here to feed six people,” she said ruefully, eyeing the lavish display.

  “If you’re half as hungry as I am, we’ll polish it off,” Mase predicted confidently.

  To her surprise, they did. Or a good portion of it, anyway. Lazy and replete, Chloe leaned back against the boulder while Mase performed cleanup duty. That done, he stretched out beside her and slid an arm around her shoulders to cushion her from the rock.

  She had to admit he made an excellent cushion. Muscles smooth and warmed by the sun shifted to nest her comfortably against him. A faint hint of starch from his shirt mingled with the scent of aftershave and clean, healthy male. Chloe felt his heart beating strong and sure against her side.

  For long, quiet moments, she savored the peace, the warmth, the sheer beauty of the placid lake. If only she could bottle this serenity and carry it around in her pocket to unstopper whenever the uncertainty and shadows started to close in on her.

  She couldn’t, of course, but she could do the next best thing—push the shadows away once and for all. Here, in the comfort of Mase’s warmth, Chloe almost believed she could do just that.

  “Tell me about my father.”

  “He’s a good man,” Mase said quietly. “One of the best. Your mother died of an embolism when you and your twin, Chad, were only a week old. Emmet and your older brother, Mac, raised the two of you with so much love that you once told me you never missed your mother.”

  Some of the brightness went out of the sun. How could she not remember a father and brother who loved her like that?

  “What’s he like? My father, I mean.”

  Mase smiled. “Big. Bluff. As blond as you until he went gray.”

  The description caused an ache in Chloe’s chest. This was hard. Far harder than last night, when all she had to deal with were names. Now she struggled to visualize gray-streaked blond hair. A smile.

  “And...and my brothers? How well do you know them?”

  He caught the catch in her voice. His arm slid down to curl around her waist. In a tender, gentle move, he brought her into his lap.

  “Mac—Mackenzie—and I went to school together. He was hell on wheels when he wanted to be, but he always took his family responsibilities seriously, even as a boy. He recently married. You now have a brand-new niece named Annie.”

  “Annie. Annie Fortune.”

  Oh, God! Why couldn’t she remember Mac or his wife or little Annie? The tranquility of the lake seemed to shimmer, then slowly evaporate. A numbness spread through Chloe’s chest as she listened while Mase gave her more names, descriptions, details.

  When he paused, she swallowed to clear a throat growing tighter by the moment. “What about us? How did we meet? When did we get engaged?”

  “I probably first saw you when you were still in diapers, but you didn’t really make much of an impression until Mac brought you and Chad over to my folks’ house one afternoon after school. You must have been about four or five then. You scarfed down a gallon and a half of rocky road ice cream, then threw up all over my sneakers.”

  “Charming.”

  His chuckle reverberated under her ear. “We saw each other off and on while you were growing up, and even dated a few times when you returned from Paris last year.”

  She angled her head back to stare up at him. “A few times? We got engaged after dating only a few times?”

  Mase’s stomach tightened. For a moment he was tempted to shade the truth. To take advantage of the confusion clouding Chloe’s eyes and tell her that those casual dates plunged them headlong into passion, which in turn led to love.

  A few weeks ago, even a few days ago, he might have done just that. He’d lived a life colored by deceptions and half-truths for so long, he was a master at making even the most dangerous lies seem real. He couldn’t do that to Chloe now, though. He couldn’t do it to himself.

  “Our engagement started off as more of a business deal,” he told her softly. “You worked up the marketing strategy for Chandler Industries’ new twin-engine jet. In return, I agreed to run interference for you with your father.”

  He thought she might ask about the marketing strategy, or why she needed him to run interference with her father. Instead, she picked up on a subtle inflection in his explanation.

  “Our engagement began as a business deal? How...how was it supposed to end?”

  Mase didn’t have to think about an answer to that one. Smiling, he bent his head. “Like this, sweetheart. Just like this.”

  She tasted of strawberry spritzer and chocolate chip cookies and sweet, sweet Chloe. Mase savored each flavor, each swirl of delight. Her lips parted under his, and the sweetness grew richer, warmer, darker.

  Then she was clinging to him, her arms tight, her mouth urgent with a need that started a slow, pulsing ache in his groin. When Chloe moaned softly and flattened herself against him, that slow ache vaulted straight into supercharged. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine. His arms trembled with the urge to
tumble her back, to strip off her shirt and bare her to the sun and his mouth.

  Mase fought the urge with everything in him. She had to set the pace, he reminded himself fiercely. He’d take no more than she wanted to give. Even with that savage warning, he wasn’t ready for the emotion that hit him like a fist when she pulled back.

  “Why don’t I remember this?” she cried. “What if I never remember?”

  The tears shimmering in her violet eyes destroyed what was left of Mase’s control. He could no more have held back at that point than he could’ve stopped breathing.

  “It doesn’t matter.” He speared his fingers through her hair and turned her face up to his. “We’ll make a whole new set of memories. Enough to last a lifetime.”

  “But . . .”

  “Right now. Right here. Like this, my darling. And this. And this.”

  Gasping, Chloe arched as he nipped at her lips, her throat, the slope of her breast. His mouth set off tiny explosions all through her body. His raw hunger raised an answering fervor. Her nails dug into his neck, holding him, encouraging him. Not that he needed encouragement. Her nipples peaked at his caress. Her belly tightened with each stroke, each kiss, each scrape of his teeth against the cotton shirt covering her skin.

  It might have been mere moments or long hours before Chloe scrambled off his lap and up on her knees. Hip to hip, chest to chest, mouth to mouth, she ground against him, as if trying to anchor herself to the reality he represented.

  “Mase. Please. I want you to love me. I need...I need you to love me.”

  “I do. I will.”

  Her fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons, wanting, needing the feel of his flesh against hers. She tugged the shirt down, glided her hands up his arms, dropped kisses everywhere her fingers touched. His skin was so warm, tasted so wonderful. Her tongue trailed across his collarbone, traced a puckered scar in his shoulder. She pulled back, hurting for his hurt.

  “How did you get this? And this,” she added, tracing the hard ridge of flesh on one rib with an unsteady fingertip.

  “I guess I dodged when I should have ducked,” he said with a grin, lowering his head to do a little tasting himself. His lips and his tongue worked such magic that Chloe soon forgot the scar, forgot the odd ridge of flesh across his rib, almost forgot to breathe.