by Marie Force
“You want to know the names of my siblings?” he asked, as if that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard.
“Yeah, I guess I do. If I’m going to be stuck in the middle of your family feud it would be good to know the people I’m dealing with.”
“Feud is kind of a strong word, but we do argue. A lot.” He sighed and tightened his grip on the wheel. “Hunter and Hannah are the oldest. They’re twins.”
“Ten kids and twins too?”
“Two sets of twins. Lucas and Landon are second from the youngest. They’re identical twins.”
“That’s so cool.”
He glanced over at her, seeming confounded by her interest in his family. But to Cameron, who’d grown up painfully alone, families like his only existed on the TV shows she’d glommed on to, looking for a family anywhere she could find one.
“I’m after Hunter and Hannah. Then comes Ella, Charlotte, Wade, Colton, Lucas and Landon and then Max.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of kids.”
“Yep.”
“Is your mom in an asylum?”
His bark of laughter took her by surprise. “Nah. She rolls with it all. I’ve never met anyone as quietly efficient as she is. She always made it look easy.”
“How do you make ten kids look easy?”
“I don’t know, but somehow she did.”
“So which five are involved in the business?”
“That’d be me, Hunter, Ella, Charlotte and Wade. Several of the others are involved in businesses that feed products to the store. Colton runs the family sugaring facility that makes maple syrup, and Max helps him out when he’s able to between classes. He’s a senior at UVM. Landon has a woodworking business and oversees the volunteer firefighting department in town. Hannah makes jewelry. Lucas manages the family’s Christmas tree farm and helps Landon with the fire department. I think that’s everyone accounted for.”
“Just out of curiosity—why don’t you and your siblings want a website?”
“Because we don’t need one. We have a very nice business just the way it is. A website will bring a bunch of issues we aren’t interested in dealing with.”
“Such as?”
“We’ll have to hire people to fulfill orders, set up a distribution center, figure out shipping. So many headaches.”
“But it could grow your business exponentially.”
“We don’t want to grow our business. It’s fine the way it is.” He drove into a quaint little New England town with a signature white-steeple church, a volunteer fire department, a combination café and gallery, and there, in the middle of everything, the Green Mountain Country Store.
In the dark, it was hard to see much, but it seemed small next to some of the other buildings and boasted a quaint front porch. They were past it before she could ascertain much of anything else.
Will pulled into a parking lot behind a large white Victorian house.
“Where are we?”
“I assume you’re staying at the inn since it’s the only place in town that takes guests.”
Cameron pulled out the confirmation message she had printed at home. “The Admiral Frances Butler Inn?”
“That’s it.” He cut the engine and got out of the truck.
By the time she emerged onto thankfully dry pavement, he’d fetched her luggage from the back. “Can you hand me the black bag? My running shoes are in there.”
He retrieved the bag she pointed to and dropped it in front of her.
“You don’t have to shoot the messenger, you know,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“Just because you’re mad at your dad for hiring me doesn’t mean you have to be cranky with me.”
“You were irritating me long before I knew my dad had hired you.”
“You’re just full of charm, aren’t you?” she asked as she pulled on sneakers.
“So I’m told.”
“By who?”
He waggled his brows at her. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Actually, I really wouldn’t.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug as he led her into the back door of the inn. He seemed to know his way around, so she followed him through a series of hallways to the front desk where he rang the bell on the counter. The place smelled like potpourri and lemon-scented furniture polish.
An older woman came through the door wearing a housecoat, pin curlers in her hair and a warm, welcoming smile on her plump face.
“Hi, Will. What a nice surprise. What brings you in tonight?”
“Hi there, Mrs. Hendricks. I’ve brought you a guest. Cameron …”
“Oh,” the older woman said, resting a hand on her head as if she just remembered her curlers. “I look a sight.”
“You’re pretty as a picture, just like always,” Will said.
“Will Abbott,” Mrs. Hendricks said as her face turned bright red, “you could charm a bird out of a tree.”
Will sent Cameron a smug smile, as if to say “Told ya so.”
Cameron cleared her throat, hoping to remind Mrs. Hendricks that a paying customer was waiting to check in. “Cameron Murphy. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hendricks.”
The other woman finally looked at her and gasped. “Oh my! What happened to your face?”
Cameron raised her hands to her face, remembering the moment of impact and how her nose had hurt afterward. “What?”
“You have two black eyes,” Mrs. Hendricks said. “And your nose …”
Alarmed, Cameron looked around for a mirror. “What about my nose?” She walked across the small lobby to a framed mirror and shrieked at what she saw. Her nose was swollen and sure enough, dark bruises were forming under her eyes. “Oh my God!”
Turning back to find Will leaning against the counter and Mrs. Hendricks looking on with concern, Cameron marched back over to confront him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That my face was all banged up!”
“Um, maybe because I figured you’d hardly need me to tell you that something had smacked you in the face.”
“It must’ve been the airbag,” she said, remembering that moment of utter blackness. Had she passed out? She’d been ignoring the pain in her face as she tried to get her bearings with Will, but now that they mentioned it, her nose was throbbing rather insistently.
“The airbag would also explain the burn on your neck,” Will added.
“Burn?” Her voice was a shrill squeak. “What burn?”
He leaned in closer to her, and she swore her heart skipped a beat as she caught a whiff of his outdoorsy scent. The touch of his finger on her neck sent a shocking bolt of heat straight through her, landing in a tingle between her legs. What in the name of hell was that about?
“There.” As if he’d touched something hot, Will pulled back his hand and straightened out of that insolent slouch he did so well.
The two of them stared at each other for a long heated moment.
“Was there an accident?” Mrs. Hendricks asked, interrupting the intense interlude.
“She hit Fred,” Will said gravely.
Mrs. Hendricks brought a hand to her ample chest. “Oh! Is he okay?”
“He seemed no worse for the wear,” Will said. “Good thing it was a small car.”
“It was a new car!” Cameron said, wondering if anyone in this godforsaken town would care that her adorable little car was no longer adorable.
“Well, as long as he’s okay,” Mrs. Hendricks said as if Cameron hadn’t spoken. Then she turned to Cameron. “I can call Doc Edwards for you, if you’d like.”
“Thank you, but that’s not necessary.” All Cameron wanted was a warm bath and an ice pack for her throbbing nose.
“Could I borrow the phone to call Nolan about her car?” Will asked.
“Of course.” Mrs. Hendricks handed him the portable phone, and he dialed a number from memory.
While Cameron completed the check-in p
aperwork and handed over her credit card, Will filled Nolan in on the accident.
“Yep, she ran smack into poor old Fred.” A pause. “He seemed fine, but we might want to send the doc after him in the morning to make sure.”
Glowering at him, Cameron whispered, “The car. Remember the car?”
He met her glower with a scowl. “Now, about the car.”
Finally, Cameron thought, signing on the dotted line for Mrs. Hendricks and accepting the key to her third-floor room.
Will handed the phone back to Mrs. Hendricks. “Nolan’s going to fetch the car tonight so no one hits it out on the road. He said to check in with him in the morning. The garage is across the street.” Pointing toward the front door. “That way.”
“Thank you.” Cameron forced herself to look up at him and all his beauty. “I appreciate your help.” His eyes, she realized were light brown, almost gold. Why did he have to be so spectacularly gorgeous and so outrageously cranky?
“You need help getting your stuff upstairs?”
The idea of him following her to a hotel room sent more tingling awareness rippling through her. “I can do it.”
But before the words were out of her mouth, he was already heading to the stairs with her bags. Uttering a quick thank-you to Mrs. Hendricks, Cameron scurried after him.
On the third floor, he deposited her suitcases outside Room 18. He stopped so suddenly that Cameron nearly ran into his broad back.
Turning, he caught her inches from his chest, and the awareness that had sizzled between them downstairs chose that moment to reappear. Cameron had never experienced such an overpowering need to touch another person. She rolled her hands into fists to keep from acting on the impulse.
“Listen,” he said, haltingly, “you seem like a nice enough person.”
“Wow, thanks.” Charming? Whatever.
His expression turned stormy. “What I was going to say is that things are apt to get a little heated tomorrow at the meeting. Don’t take it personally, okay? Our beef is with him, not you.”
“I’m here to do a job. Nothing about this is personal.”
“Good,” he said, apparently picking up on her double meaning as she’d hoped he would. “Let’s keep it that way.”
“Fine by me.”
“You might want to put some ice on your nose,” he said as he headed down the stairs.
Too bad he missed the gesture she made at his retreating back.
CHAPTER 2
Don’t let the door hit you where the Lord split you.
—The gospel according to Elmer Stillman
She’d left her scent in his truck. All the way home to his cabin in the woods outside of town Will was stuck with the reminder of his encounter with the city girl. Meeting her had brought back memories of women he’d known in college, who’d come to the University of Vermont from the city and spent four years poking fun at the mountain lifestyle he treasured.
Actually, she reminded him of Lisa, who’d arrived at UVM from Boston. Will had made the monumental mistake of falling in love with her and of thinking he could convince her to stay after they graduated. Ignoring the signals she was sending that she couldn’t wait to go home to the city, Will had proposed, hoping he was enough to convince her to stay.
He wasn’t.
He hadn’t thought of that disaster in a long time, and it was no coincidence that the encounter with Cameron had brought it all back to remind him to steer clear of women like her who didn’t belong in his world and never would. From the tips of those extravagant suede boots to the ridiculous fur-trimmed vest to the cultured way she spoke, she was a city girl through and through. Even her silly little car was so out of place in the mountains it was laughable.
Just because everything male in him had stood up and taken notice of her didn’t mean he had to do anything about it. In fact, he’d be wise to continue pretending that nothing about her appealed to him. Tomorrow, she’d get a good dose of the Abbott family dynamics, and if she was smart, she’d hightail it back to the city the minute her toy car was drivable again.
Speaking of her car, Nolan already had it hitched to the tow truck.
On the way by, Will slowed down and opened the window. “Thanks, Nolan.”
“Hey, Will, no problem. Fred did a number on the car, huh?”
“Sure did,” Will said. “The owner is a woman named Cameron.”
“Is that a girl’s name?”
“So I’m told. She’ll be by to talk to you in the morning. Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
A few miles past the scene of the accident, Will turned on to the muddy road that led to his cabin, and his truck switched automatically into four-wheel drive. This time of year, mud rather than snow made the roads impassable. Bumping over the chuckholes in the road, he made his way—slowly—to the end and cut the engine.
As he approached the front door, the scurry of paws on wood met him as they did on evenings when the dogs didn’t accompany him to work. He opened the door to an enthusiastic greeting from his two yellow labs, Trevor and Tanner. “Hi, guys. Sorry I’m late tonight. Had to help a damsel in distress.”
Will fed the dogs and cracked open a beer before he reached for the phone to call Hunter.
“Hey, man,” Hunter said. “What’s up?”
“Dad’s done it again.”
“What now?”
Will told his brother about his encounter with the web designer from New York City.
“Are you serious? What part of ‘we don’t want a website’ didn’t he get?”
“Apparently the part where we said no.”
“Goddamn it. When is he going to retire anyway?”
“Who knows?”
“This is great,” Hunter said with a long sigh. “I’m so not up for another big showdown with him.”
“Neither am I.” Will took a drink of his beer. “So what’s the plan?”
“Damned if I know. I guess we’ll hear what she has to say and then figure out how to give her the polite brush-off.”
“Why does he want to take our perfectly nice local business and turn it into a big national production? We all make plenty of money. Why isn’t that enough for him?”
“You know how he is. Always thinking bigger and better.”
“While we’re thinking smaller is good—and manageable.”
“Right. So what’s she like? The web designer?”
“Typical city girl. You know the type. Get this—she smacked her car into Fred on the way into town.”
“No shit?” Hunter let out a bark of laughter. “That’s a hell of a welcome. Is Fred okay?”
“He seemed fine, but her car—not so much. She got a bruised nose and a coupla shiners from the airbag.”
“Ouch. Well, hopefully she’ll get the gist that we aren’t buying what she’s selling and we’ll be rid of her.”
“Let’s hope so.” Will didn’t want to ponder the alternative. If she stuck around, he already sensed she’d challenge his pledge to avoid women like her. It would be just as well if she left before resisting temptation became a problem.
Cameron woke up the next morning feeling like she’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. With her face throbbing, she tried to remember if she’d been in an actual fistfight the night before. As images from the mooseastrophy ran through her mind, she realized even her lips seemed swollen. Moaning, she forced herself out of the incredibly comfortable bed and into the bathroom to view the damage.
She let out a scream at what greeted her in the mirror. Her features were black, blue and swollen almost beyond recognition. Sure enough, her lips had exploded overnight. No amount of makeup would cover this mess. Tears filled her eyes as she went looking for her phone. “Please have a signal. Please.” The phone lit up with three strong bars. “Thank you, Jesus.”
Cameron found her best friend and business partner Lucy’s number on her list of favorites and pressed Send.
“Buenos dias,” Lucy said, endlessly che
erful in the morning, which had long ago stopped irritating Cameron, who was anything but a morning person. “Did you make it there in one piece?”
“Luce,” Cameron said, trying not to fall apart completely.
“What is it, hon?”
“I smashed into the town moose, my whole face is swollen, I lost my suede boots and the car is demolished.”
“You lost the new suede boots?”
Leave it to Lucy to focus on the boots. “Lucy! My face is a wreck, and I have the meeting at the store in just over an hour. What am I going to do?”
“I, um, what about cover-up?”
“Hang on.” Cameron went into the bathroom, snapped a photo of her face in the mirror and texted it to Lucy. A second later her friend’s scream came through the phone line loud and clear. “Thanks. That helps.”
“Holy hell,” Lucy said. “How did that happen?”
“Have you heard anything I said? I smashed into the town’s moose, the airbags deployed and did this to my face.”
“The town has a moose?”
“Lucy, have you taken your ADD meds today?”
“Oh, shit, I forgot.”
Spurred by the reminder, Cameron took the tiny pill that kept her focused during the day and chased it with a drink of water. “I can’t do the meeting. Not looking like this.”
“You have to do it. We need the retainer, Cam. The payroll for next week is a bit tight.”
Since Lucy often sugarcoated bad news, Cameron knew “a bit tight” meant nonexistent. “Don’t pay me.”
“The tightness includes not paying you.”
“Crap.”
“Land this new client, and we’ll be saved.”
“How can I go in there looking like this?”
“Do they know about the accident with the moose?”
“One of the sons does. He sort of rescued me and infuriated me at the same time.”
“Oh, do tell. Sounds like there’s a story.”
“He’s hot but cranky. Definitely not my type.” As she said the words, a tingle of sensation attacked her backbone, making her squirm on the bed. No matter what her backbone might be trying to tell her, she was not attracted to Will Abbott. She hadn’t even liked him.
