Harlequin Special Edition July 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Marooned with the MaverickHer McKnight in Shining ArmorCelebration's Bride

by Christine Rimmer

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “Hey.” He swiped water off his nose. Not that it did any good. “No problem. Can we move it along? It’s pretty damn wet out here. I’d like to get in that barn.”

  She gripped her arms tighter around herself. “I would like for you to go away and leave me alone.”

  “Oh, you would, would you?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  He raised his arms out wide, indicating all of it—the never-ending storm, the floodwaters surrounding them, the cold wind and the flash of bright lightning that lit up the sky again right at that moment. The thunder rumbled. He waited for the sound to die away. “Exactly where do you suggest I go, Willa?”

  She flung out a hand. “What about your truck?”

  He folded his arms across his chest and simply looked at her.

  Her shoulders sagged and she let out a low cry. “Oh, fine. All right. You can come in the barn. Just...fine. Okay.” And she turned around again and continued walking.

  He fell in behind her.

  The barn loomed ahead. When they reached it, she undid the latch and slipped in. He went in after her, pulling the door to, latching it from within.

  The barn had another door on the far wall. Someone must have left the latch undone, because that door stood wide-open. It was probably not a bad thing in this situation. The Christensen livestock needed more than a run-in shed on a day like today and the animals had found what they needed through that wide-open door.

  The rambling space was wall-to-wall critters. There were cattle, goats, some chickens and several cooing pigeons. Carping blackbirds perched in the rafters. A couple of pigs snorted beneath one of the two windows and somewhere nearby a barn cat hissed and then yowled.

  A dog barked. Collin spotted a muddy white Labrador retriever. The dog was headed for Willa.

  She let out a happy little cry. “Buster! There you are!” She dropped to a crouch and opened her arms. The dog reared up and put his front paws on her shoulders. Whining with excitement, he licked her face with his sloppy pink tongue. “You are such a bad, bad dog,” she crooned in a tone that communicated no criticism whatsoever. “Hey, now. Eww.” She turned her head away from Buster’s slobbery attentions and saw Collin watching her.

  “Nice dog.” He’d had a great dog named Libby who’d died the winter before. She’d been sixteen, with him since he was eleven and she was an ugly pup, the runt of the litter wanted by no one—but him.

  “Down, Buster.” She rose again and tried to brush the mud and water off her soaking wet shirt and muddy jeans. It did zero good. “Technically, he’s my dog,” she explained, “but he’s always loved it here on the ranch, so he lives here more than with me. He was supposed to be staying with me in town, though, while my parents and Gage are in Livingston for the big rodeo.” Gage Christensen, her brother, was the town sheriff. “That dog just will not stay put. He keeps running off to get back here.” A shiver went through her. She wrapped her arms around herself again.

  “You’re freezing,” he said. It came out sounding like an accusation, though he didn’t mean it that way.

  “I am fine.” She shivered some more. Her hair was plastered on her cheeks and down her neck. She swiped at a soggy hunk of it, shoving it back behind her ear. “Just fine.” She scowled at him.

  Whoa. For a minute there, she’d almost seemed friendly—but then she must have remembered that she hated his ass. She turned her back on him and started weaving her way through the crush of horses and cattle. The Lab followed her, panting happily, wagging his muddy tail.

  It should have been warmer in there, with all the steaming, milling livestock. But it really wasn’t. How could it be, with that far door wide-open and both of them soaking wet? He slapped the bony butt of a little red heifer who’d backed in too close. She let out a cranky “moo,” and ambled away—not far, though. There wasn’t really anywhere to go.

  He found a hay bale against the wall and sat on it as he pondered what he ought to do to make things a little more comfortable. He hesitated to go over and shut the other door. The smell of wet livestock and manure would get pretty strong if he did that.

  As he considered what to do next, he watched the dripping brown-haired woman who had spent the past four years avoiding him and now happened to be stuck with him until the rain ended and the floodwaters receded.

  Willa was keeping busy shivering and ignoring him, wandering from steer to goat to barn cat to bay mare, petting them all and talking to them low and soft, as though she had a personal relationship with each and every four-legged creature on her family’s place. And maybe she did.

  She’d always been a fanciful type, even way back when they were kids. He knew this from actual observation.

  Collin had run wild as a kid. He was the youngest, sixth of six boys, and his mom was worn-out by the time he came along. She didn’t have the energy to keep after him. He went where he wanted and came home when he felt like it. He wandered far and wide. Often, he found himself on Christensen land. Now and then, he’d run into Willa. She would be singing little songs to herself, or making crowns out of wildflowers, or reading fairy-tale books.

  She’d never seemed to like him much, even then. Once she’d yelled at him to stop spying on her.

  He hadn’t been spying. A kid wasn’t spying just because he stretched out in the tall grass and watched a neighbor girl talking to herself as she walked her big-haired brunette Barbie doll around in a circle.

  Collin tried to get more comfortable on the hay bale. He scooted to the wall, leaned his head back against the rough boards, closed his eyes and tried not to think how cold he was, tried not to wish he’d grabbed a snack to take with him when he’d run out of the house. His stomach grumbled. He ignored it.

  It would have been nice if he could drop off to sleep for a little and forget everything. But no such luck. He would just start to doze when a fit of shivering would snap him awake and he would realize anew that they were smack-dab in the middle of one hell of a disaster. He hoped that no one in town had drowned, that the hands and the animals on the Triple T were safe. He couldn’t help wondering how much of both the town or his family’s ranch would be left standing when the floodwaters receded.

  And how much of the state was affected? What about Thunder Canyon, where his family had gone? Were they underwater, too?

  Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep and opened his eyes. Willa stood at the window that faced southwest, the one not far from where two spotted pigs were snorting over an upturned bucket of feed. With the white Lab at her feet, she stared out through the endless curtain of the rain. He rubbed his arms to try and warm up a little and knew she must be staring at her parents’ place. The Christensen house was about level with the barn, on high ground, atop the next hill over.

  He knew he was asking for more rejection to try and talk to her, but he was just tired and dejected enough to do it anyway. “The house should be safe,” he said. He didn’t mention her brother Gage’s house, which was down the slope of the hill behind her parents’ place. It wouldn’t be visible from Willa’s vantage point, which was just as well. As Collin remembered, it was a ways down the hill and probably already below the rising waterline.

  She surprised him by replying. “Yes. I can see it. It’s okay, for now....” She sounded strange, he thought. Kind of dreamy and far away. She had a few scratches on her arms. And a bruise on her cheekbone. But like him, no serious injuries. They’d been very fortunate. So far. She added, “It’s all so unbelievable, don’t you think? Like maybe this isn’t even actually happening. Maybe I’m just dreaming it.”

  “Sorry, Willa.” He meant that. He was sorry. “I think it’s really happening.”

  She sent him a glance. For once, her mouth didn’t pinch up at the sight of him. “I lost my phone.” A shiver went through her and her teeth chattered together. “Do you happen to have yours with you?”

  “It’s in my truck, I think. But there must be towers down. I was
getting no signal when I tried using it at a little after two.”

  Willa sighed and turned back to the window. “Life is so...fragile, really, isn’t it? I mean, you go along, doing what you need to do, thinking you’re taking care of business, that you’re in control. But you’re not in control, not really.” Outside, lightning flared. Thunder rolled out. “Anything could happen,” she said. “It could rain and rain and never stop....” Her lips looked kind of blue, he thought.

  He really needed to come up with a way to warm her up a little. Rising, he began to work his way around the barn, looking for a blanket or a tarp or something.

  Willa kept talking. “Oh, Collin. I keep thinking of the children in my class last year. And the ones in our summer school program. I can just close my eyes and see each one of their sweet, smiling faces. I hope they’re all safe and dry. Our school, the elementary school? It’s on the south side of town. That’s not good news. And my house is on the south side, too....”

  He pushed a goat out of the way as he came to a spot where the wall jogged at a ninety-degree angle. Around that corner was a door. He opened it. “Willa, there’s a tack room here.”

  She sighed again. “Yes. That’s right. And a feed room over there.” She put out a hand in the general direction of the other shut door farther down the wall. And then she started in again, about life and the flood and the safety of her friends, her neighbors and her students.

  Collin took a look around the tack room. There were the usual rows of hooks holding ropes and bridles and bits. He was a saddle maker by trade and he grinned at the sight of one of his own saddles racked nice and neat, lined up with several others on the wall. There was a window. And another door, allowing outside access.

  The floor in there was wood, not mixed clay and sand as it was out in the main part of the barn. And the walls were paneled in pine.

  And then he saw the stack of saddle blankets atop a big cedar storage trunk. He went over and grabbed one. Shooing out the goat that had followed him in there, he shut the door and made his way through the milling animals to Willa.

  She didn’t even flinch when he wrapped the blanket around her. “Thank you.”

  He took her by the shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go....” She went where he guided her, back through the cattle and horses and goats, with the dog right behind them. He let the dog in the tack room with them, and then shut the door to keep the rest of the animals out. There were a few hay bales. He sat her down on one and knelt in front of her.

  She frowned down at him. “What are you doing?”

  He held her gaze. “Don’t get freaky on me, okay?”

  She looked at him in that pinched, suspicious way again. “Why not?”

  “You need to get out of those wet clothes. There are plenty of blankets. You can wrap yourself up in them and get dry.”

  “But...my clothes won’t dry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Right now, you need to get dry.”

  She considered that idea—and shook her head. “I’ll take off my boots and socks. I’ll be all right.”

  He decided not to argue with her. “Fine. You need help?”

  “No, thank you.” All prim and proper and so polite. “I’ll manage.”

  “Are you thirsty?”

  She gaped at him. “Thirsty?” And then she let out a wild little laugh. “In this?” She stuck out a hand toward the water streaming down the lone window.

  “Are you?”

  And she frowned again. “Well, yes. Now that you mention it, I suppose I am.”

  He rose. “I’ll see if I can find some clean containers in the barn. We can catch some of the rainwater, so we won’t get dehydrated.”

  She blinked up at him. “Yes. That makes sense. I’ll help.” She started to rise.

  He took her shoulders again and gently pushed her back down. “Get out of your boots and shoes—and wrap this around your feet.” He held out another blanket.

  She took it, her gaze colliding with his. Holding. “What about you?”

  “Let me see about setting out containers for water. Then I’ll grab a few blankets and try and warm up a little, too.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, he had his boots and socks off. They’d pushed four hay bales together and spread a blanket over them. Side by side, wrapped in more blankets, they passed a bucket of water back and forth.

  When they’d both drunk their fill, there was still plenty left in the bucket. He set it on the floor, where Buster promptly stuck his nose in it and started lapping. “You don’t happen to have a nice T-bone handy, do you, Willa?”

  She chuckled. There wasn’t a lot of humor in the sound, but he took heart that at least she wasn’t staring blindly into space anymore. “Plenty on the hoof right outside that door.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the door that led into the barn.

  He scooted back to the wall for something to lean against. “Not that hungry yet.”

  “I didn’t think so.” She scooted back, too, settling alongside him, and then spent a moment readjusting the blanket she’d wrapped around her feet. “There.” She leaned back and let out a long breath. “I believe I am actually beginning to thaw out.”

  “That was the plan.” Outside, the rain kept falling. The sky remained that same dim gray it had been all day. “Got any idea what time it is?”

  “I don’t know. Six, maybe? Seven?” She sounded...softer. A little sleepy. That was good. Rest wouldn’t hurt either of them. “Won’t be dark for hours yet....”

  He was feeling kind of drowsy, too, now that he wasn’t chilled to the bone anymore and most of the adrenaline rush from the various near-death events of the day had faded a little. He let his eyelids droop shut.

  But then she spoke again. “It’s really very strange, Collin, being here with you like this.”

  He grunted. “This whole day has been pretty strange.”

  “Yes, it has. And scary. And awful. But, well, that’s not what I meant.”

  He knew exactly what she meant. And why was it women always had to dig up stuff that was better left alone? He kept nice and quiet and hoped she wasn’t going there.

  But she was. “Maybe this is a good chance to clear the air a little between us.”

  “The air is plenty clear from where I’m sitting.”

  “Well, Collin, for me, it’s just not.”

  “Willa, I—”

  “No. Wait. I would like a chance to say what’s on my mind.”

  He didn’t let out a groan of protest, but he wanted to.

  And she kept right on. “It was very...humiliating for me, that night at the Ace in the Hole.” The Ace was on Sawmill Street. It was the only bar in town. People went there to forget their troubles and usually only ended up creating a whole new set of them. “It was my first time there, did you know? My twenty-first birthday.” She sounded all sad and wistful.

  He’d known. “I think you mentioned that at the time, yeah.”

  “Derek had just dumped me for a Delta Gamma.” Straight-arrow Derek Andrews was her high school sweetheart. They’d graduated the same year and headed off to the University of Idaho together. “Collin, did you hear me?”

  “Every word,” he muttered.

  “Did you know it was over between me and Derek?”

  “Well, Willa, I kinda had a feeling something might have gone wrong with your love life, yeah.”

  “You led me on,” she accused. “You know that you did.” He’d seen her coming a mile away. Good-girl Willa Christensen, out to find a bad boy just for the night. “And then you...” Her voice got all wobbly. “You turned me down flat.”

  “Come on, Willa. It wasn’t a good idea. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Then why did you dance with me all those times? Why did you flirt with me and buy me two beers? You acted like you were interested. More than interested. And then, when I tried to kiss you, you laughed at me. You said I wasn’t your type. You said I should go home and behave myself.”
>
  He’d had some crazy idea at the time that he was doing her a favor, keeping her from doing something she wouldn’t be happy about later. But with Willa, no good deed of his ever went unpunished. And was she going to start crying? He hated it when a woman started crying.

  She sniffled in her blankets, a small, lost little sound. “I still can’t believe I did that—made a pass at you. I mean, you never liked me and I never cared much for you and we both know that.” That wasn’t true—not on his part anyway. Far from it. But he wasn’t in the mood to dispute the point at the moment. He only wanted her not to start crying—and he thought maybe he was getting his wish when she squirmed in her blankets and grumbled, “Everyone knows how you are. You’ll sleep with anyone—except me, apparently.”

  Mad. Now she was getting mad. As far as he was concerned, mad was good. Mad was great. Anything but weepy worked for him.

  She huffed, “I just don’t know what got into me that night.”

  He couldn’t resist. “Well, Willa, we both know it wasn’t me.”

  She made another huffing sound. “Oh, you think you’re so funny. And you’re not. You’re very annoying and you always have been.”

  “Always?” he taunted.

  “Always,” she humphed.

  He scoffed at her. “How would you know a thing about me the last four years? Since that night at the Ace, all I see is the backside of you. I come in a room—and you turn tail and run.”

  “And why shouldn’t I? You are a complete tool and you never cared about anything or anyone in your whole life but yourself.”

  “Which is girl talk for ‘You didn’t sleep with me,’” he said in his slowest, laziest, most insolent tone.

  “You are not the least bit clever, you know that?”

  “You don’t think so, huh?”

  “No, I do not. And it just so happens that I’m glad we never hooked up that night. You’re the last person in the world I should ever be sleeping with.”

  He tried not to grin. “No argument there. Because I’m not having sex with you no matter how hard you beg me.”

  “Oh, please. I mean just, simply, please.” She sat up straight then. Dragging her blankets along with her, she scooted to the edge of the hay bales, as far from him as she could get without swinging her bare feet to the floor. Once there, she snapped, “You do not have worry. I want nothing to do with you.”