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

by Christine Rimmer

  And there he was. “Willa.” He wore clean jeans and a blue chambray shirt rolled to the elbows and her heart just ached at the sight of him. “Come here....” He held out his hands.

  She hesitated. She couldn’t...read him, had no idea what was going on with him. He seemed to be looking at her so seriously, with such determined intention. “I...” Words simply failed her.

  And then he was right there, so close. In front of her. He smelled of mountain air, of pine trees. He took her hand. “Come on...” And he pulled her with him, around the jut of the counter, into the main living area, over to a fat brown chair by the window. “Sit down.”

  She did what he told her to do.

  And then he was kneeling at her feet, looking up at her, his jaw set, his full mouth a determined line. He had something in his hand.

  And then he was sliding it on her finger.

  A ring. A beautiful diamond solitaire on a platinum band. Exactly the kind of ring she would have chosen for herself. She stared at it, gaping. “Collin, what...?”

  And then he said, “Marry me, Willa. Be my wife.”

  It was just what she’d hoped to hear him say someday. And for a moment, she knew the purest, most wonderful spiking of absolute joy.

  It was all going to work out, after all. She would have her life with him. They would be married, have children. Be happy forever, just as she’d almost stopped dreaming they might be....

  She opened her mouth to tell him how glad she was, to say how much she loved him and how scared she had been that it was all unraveling, all going wrong.

  But then, before a single sound got out, she saw that it wasn’t right, after all. She realized what he hadn’t said. It was the part about how he loved her. He’d left that out.

  And instead of saying Yes, or Oh, Collin, I do love you, what came out of her mouth was, “Why?”

  He blinked.

  He actually blinked.

  And that was when she knew that it wasn’t going to work.

  To his credit, he managed to pull it together. Sort of. “It’s the right thing. And I’m nuts for you. That’s not going away anytime soon. It’s the right thing and...”

  She stopped him by reaching out and pressing a finger to his lips. “The right thing, why?”

  He swallowed. “Well, we are living together. And I want to keep on living with you and I...” He paused, tried again. “Okay. I love you, all right? I love you and I want to marry you and all you have to do is say yes.”

  She laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. The laugh caught in her throat and ended on something very much like a sob. “Oh, Collin. You’re not telling me the truth. I know it. You know it. Can’t you just say it? Just tell me what’s going on with you, whatever it is.”

  He gazed up at her. He looked absolutely miserable. “You’re not going to say yes to me, are you?”

  She took off the beautiful ring. “I can’t say yes to you. Not like this. I just can’t.” She reached for his hand. Reluctantly, he gave it to her. She put the ring in his palm and folded his warm, strong fingers over it. “You don’t really want to get married, do you?”

  He rose then. He gazed down at her, dark eyes so deep, full of turmoil and frustration.

  She stared up at him and asked him again, “Do you?”

  His mouth curved downward; his big body stiffened. And then he turned from her to the wide windows that overlooked their town. He stared out, showing her his broad, proud back. “What I want is you. What I want is for you to be happy, for you to have what you want. I don’t want folks in town saying crappy things about you. I want you to have the best of everything. I don’t really think I’m it, but you’ve told me over and over you won’t marry that other guy, so it kind of seems to me that you’d better marry me.”

  “You want me to marry Dane?”

  “No.” On that, he didn’t hesitate. “But you deserve the best. Is he the best? The way you talked about him the night of the flood, I guess so.”

  “I was stupid and small and petty the night of the flood. I wanted to get to you, to hurt you. I’m sorry I did that. It was wrong. Now, how many times do I have to tell you, Dane is not the guy for me?”

  He didn’t say anything. He only shook his head.

  She tried again. “Who said crappy things about me?”

  He still wouldn’t look at her. “No one. I don’t know. I just... I don’t want them to, okay? And as long as you’re living up here with me without my ring on your finger, well, they could, all right? In a small town like ours, they might. Especially the damn Crawfords. They’d do it just because I’m a Traub—the troublemaking, skirt-chasing Traub—and you’re with me.”

  She got up then. And she went to him. When she stood at his shoulder, she said, “But they haven’t.”

  He faced her at last. “Not that I know of.” It was a grudging admission.

  She wanted to touch him, to clasp his muscled shoulder, to lay her palm against his cheek. To lift up and press her lips to his, to kiss him until he pulled her close and kissed her back, until she forgot everything but the taste of him, the heat and wonder of him in her arms.

  But no. Better not.

  She said, “You keep evading the basic question. So I’ll tell you what I think. I think you are a wonderful man—a much better man than you’re willing to give yourself credit for. But I don’t think that you want to get married. And you know what? I want you to have what you want. What you need.”

  He scowled down at her. “I don’t like the sound of this, Willa.”

  Her throat clutched. The hot tears were pushing at the back of it. She refused to let them fall. “I love you,” she got out on a bare husk of sound. “With all of my heart. And that’s why I’m going to pack up my things and go.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was five minutes to eight when Willa arrived at the ranch that night. Buster leading the way, she came in the door carrying two big boxes full of her things. Her parents, settled into their recliners for a quiet evening at home, glanced over at her with matching expressions of surprise.

  Her mom jumped up. “Willa. What in the world...?”

  The tears broke free then. They streamed down her cheeks. “Collin asked me to marry him. He bought me the most beautiful ring. The perfect ring. And I said no.”

  Her dad got up, too, then. He came and put his big, rough, rancher’s hand on her hair, pressed a kiss to her forehead. And then he took the boxes from her and carried them down the hall to her old room.

  “Oh, honey...” Her mom held out her arms.

  Willa went into them, into the kind of a comfort only a mom can give. “Oh, Mom. I love him.”

  “I know, I know....”

  “But it’s not... Oh, Mom. It’s just...not...”

  “Shh. Shh, now. It’s okay. It’s all right.”

  She was openly sobbing by then. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “It’s not. No, it’s just not...”

  And her mom held her and stroked her hair and patted her back and kept saying how everything was going to work out. Her dad came back up the hall. Buster followed him out as he went to get the rest of her things.

  * * *

  After Willa left him, Collin went down to his shop and he went to work. He worked straight through Friday night. When the sun came up Saturday morning, he climbed the stairs, plodded down the hall and fell into bed.

  He slept for a couple of hours, his dreams full of Willa. It was still morning when he woke up, by himself, in the bed that he’d gotten way too damn used to sharing with her.

  In those first few seconds when consciousness found him, he forgot she wasn’t there. He reached for her, but there was only emptiness on the other side of the bed.

  That was when it all came flooding back. She was gone.

  He got up and went back down to work.

  * * *

  Willa woke up early that Saturday. There was no summer school, but she went to town anyway. She wanted to talk to her brother before somebody
else told him that she and Collin were through.

  Gage was in his office.

  She went in, closed the door and said, “I broke up with Collin. It’s not what you think, so please don’t try any big-brother heroics.”

  He was already looking thunderous. “What do you mean, it’s not what I think?”

  “He asked me to marry him. I turned him down. I made the decision to move out, not him. He wanted me to stay—and do not ask me why I left, because I’m not explaining myself. All I’m saying is that he only wanted to do the right thing.”

  Gage got up from behind his desk then. He came around and he took her by the shoulders. For several seconds, he simply held her gaze. And then he pulled her close and gave her a hug. When he stepped back, he said, “So what you’re saying is, you want me to stay out of it. You don’t want me to bust his face in. And you want me to keep him on the Recovery Committee, to treat him like nothing has changed.”

  “Yes,” she answered softly. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

  * * *

  Around five in the afternoon that day, Collin trudged back upstairs. He drank a quart of milk and ate a tuna sandwich standing up at the counter. Then he went down the hall and fell across the bed. When he woke up a few hours later, he returned to the lower floor and worked some more.

  That was kind of the tone for the whole weekend. He didn’t bother to shower or shave or even use a toothbrush. He worked. When he started to feel like he might fall over or hurt himself with his own tools, he went upstairs, grabbed something to eat, fell across his bed for an hour or two—and then woke up, remembered all over again that Willa was gone and staggered back down to his shop.

  On Sunday, his mother called twice. He let the calls go to voice mail.

  He might have stayed on the mountain indefinitely, but on Monday morning as he stood at the counter, staring blankly into space, downing a mug of coffee, he heard a scratching noise. And then a whine.

  He went to the front door and opened it.

  Buster.

  The dog whined again and wagged his tail. When Collin only stared down at him, he plunked his butt on the porch boards and whined some more.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Tongue lolling, the dog stared up at him hopefully.

  “Fine.” Collin stepped back and Buster came in. He went right to his water bowl and lapped up what was left in it. Then he sniffed the food bowl. “Oh, pardon me. I had no clue you were coming.” Collin laid on the sarcasm. Unfortunately, it was wasted on Buster. “Okay, okay.” He went and got the bag of kibble. Buster sat and waited as he filled the bowl. “Go for it.” And Buster did exactly that.

  Willa was probably worried about the mutt. He would have to call her....

  His heart lurched into overdrive and his throat felt tight, his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth as he autodialed her cell.

  She answered on the second ring. “Collin.” A small voice, so soft. And then she must have realized why he’d called. “You have Buster?”

  “Yeah. He just now showed up at the door.”

  “Oh. I’m glad. We were worried....”

  “I’ll bring him down today.”

  “You don’t have to. I can drive up after—”

  “I said I’ll bring him. I have a meeting anyway.” A meeting he hadn’t planned to go to, but hey. He couldn’t hide in his shop forever. Life went on. Such as it was.

  “I have summer school.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He was aching for the smell of lemons, for that soft place in the curve of her throat. He loved to kiss her there.

  “I’ll call Thelma. She never minds watching him.”

  “But she’s going to the meeting.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll ask her to wait for you. He’s fine in the house without her. I’ll pick him up there after school.”

  So, then. He wouldn’t see her. That was good. Or so he tried to make himself believe. “All right, then.”

  “Thank you for bringing him....”

  He tried to think of what to say next.

  But then it didn’t matter. She was gone.

  Off the phone. Not in his house. Out of his life.

  I love you, she’d told him. With all of my heart.

  The bleak numbness of the weekend was fading. He’d started getting the feeling that he’d messed up bad, that he’d gotten stuck somewhere in his mind, stuck being some guy he really wasn’t anymore. He’d thrown away what he wanted most because he didn’t have the sense to say the things Willa needed to hear. It was all doubly discouraging because the things she needed to hear really were there, inside him, even though he’d gone and pretended they weren’t.

  He’d pretty much told her to go marry that other guy. The more he thought about that, the more disgusted he got with himself. It would serve him right if she took his advice.

  Thinking about it all made his head spin. A spinning head and a broken heart were a real unpleasant combination.

  He told himself that now, to be fair, he had to wait. He had to let her work it out with Dane Everhart one way or another. If she turned down the guy from Colorado, then maybe...

  Maybe what? Seriously, what was the matter with him? What he needed to do was leave her alone. If there’d ever been any hope for him with her, he’d pretty much blown that by the way he’d treated her.

  He scrambled some eggs and ate them, took a shower, loaded Buster into his pickup and drove down the mountain. He dropped off the dog and went to the meeting.

  Gage was there. Once or twice, Collin caught the other man watching him. But Gage didn’t say a word about Willa. They discussed the donations that were coming in—and how to get more. They talked about the volunteers who’d come in from Thunder Canyon and elsewhere and how best to put them all to work rebuilding Rust Creek Falls. The meeting lasted three hours and they were still only two-thirds down the agenda. They agreed to meet Wednesday, same time, and finish up.

  Collin drove to Kalispell and stocked up on groceries. He went home and went back to work—and deleted, unheard, all the messages his mom had left him over the weekend and that day.

  The next morning, there was Buster, big as life, waiting at his front door. That time he texted Willa instead of calling. It just seemed wiser not to talk to her. Not to put his overworked heart under that kind of pressure, not to give himself any opportunity to make an idiot of himself all over again by begging for another chance. He took the dog to Thelma’s and went back up the mountain.

  On Wednesday morning, he couldn’t help expecting Buster to show up again. But he didn’t. They must be keeping a closer eye on him.

  Which was good. For the best.

  He was standing at the counter drinking his coffee, staring into the middle distance, wondering what Willa might be doing at that moment, when someone knocked at the door.

  Willa?

  He choked in midsip and his pulse started racing. Hot coffee sloshed across his knuckles as he set the mug down too hard. He wiped the coffee off on his Wranglers and made for the door.

  It couldn’t be her....

  And it wasn’t.

  It was his mom, wearing tan pants, riding boots and an old plaid shirt, her straw Resistol in her gloved hands. She’d come on horseback, ridden her favorite mare, Sweetie, who was hobbled at the foot of the steps, nipping at the sparse grass.

  “You deleted my phone messages, didn’t you?” She asked the question softly. Kind of sadly. And that, somehow, was a thousand times worse than if she’d just started lecturing him as usual, if she’d called him her Last Straw and threatened to hit him upside the head to knock some sense into him.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I deleted them.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.”

  “Sometimes you can be your own worst enemy.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “Not so much now as when you were younger, though.” She almost smiled, but not quite. “I’ll call that progress.”


  “You want to come in?”

  She shook her head. “I’m just checkin’ on you. I didn’t check on you enough when you were little. Too late to make up for all that now, I guess.”

  “You’re doing all right.”

  She put her hat back on. “You keeping fed?”

  “Mostly.”

  “There’s no law says you can’t try again, and do a better job than you did before. Messing up is just practice for the next time, when you get it right.” She turned and started down the steps.

  “I love you, Mom,” he said softly to her retreating back. The words felt strange in his mouth. He knew he hadn’t said them to her enough. And this time she probably hadn’t even heard him.

  Gathering the reins, she mounted. “Love you, too.” She clicked her tongue and the horse turned and started back down the road. He stayed in front of the open door, watching her, until she disappeared from sight.

  About then, he heard a whine. He glanced over and saw Buster sitting in the scrub grass beside the porch.

  For the first time in days, Collin smiled. He slapped his thigh.

  The dog barked, jumped to his feet and came running.

  * * *

  That morning, Willa got the call she’d been dreading.

  The one from Dane. “Willa. My God. I just came from the airport, just heard how bad the flooding was in Rust Creek Falls. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Really.” Except for the little matter of my shattered heart. “I lost my house and my car, though.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

  “Dane. Listen. I need to see you. I’m coming to Boulder, right away.” Shelby could fill in for her. And Buster had taken off again, but it was no mystery where he’d gone. Maybe she would just call Collin and ask him if he could look after the dog until she got back.

  “Coming to Boulder?” Dane boomed. “Not on your life.”

  “But, Dane, I—”

  “I’m coming to you.”

  “No. Really, I’ll find a flight and—”

  He interrupted her. Again. “Sit tight, honey. I’ve got a plan.”

  Lord. She blew out a long breath. “Don’t you always?”