Harlequin Special Edition July 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Widow of Conard CountyA Match for the Single DadThe Medic's Homecoming

by Rachel Lee

  “Kix is bouncing again,” Maggie said, leaning closer to Garrett so he could hear her over the music and surrounding chatter.

  He followed the direction of her gaze and chuckled. “I should have named her Tigger.”

  “I love how excited she gets about things.”

  “Me, too,” he admitted. “Even though she does wear me out at times.”

  She bumped his shoulder intentionally with hers as she dug into the offered bag for more popcorn. “Hence my suggestion that you take the occasional me day,” she reminded him.

  “Still willing to give a few more lessons in me time?” he asked, his eyes more serious than his tone as he looked at her in the glow of the decorative pavilion lights.

  “Of course. We’re seeing a movie soon, right?”

  “Sounds good to me. I just wasn’t sure if you’d changed your mind.”

  Leaning back on her arms on the blanket, she cocked her head to study him. “Why would I do that?”

  He started to answer, but was interrupted by the first whooshing pop of a firework being shot into the sky. “Never mind,” he said, and leaned back beside her, propping the half-emptied bag of popcorn between them.

  The next twenty minutes were filled with colorful explosions, choruses of oohs and aahs, the acrid smell of gunpowder and drifting clouds of smoke. Maggie leaned closer to Garrett so he could hear her comments about her favorite displays of colors and patterns. Late in the show, she gasped in delight when one particularly impressive shell threw glittering gold and silver stars across the black sky. The crowd around them cheered in approval. She turned her head to see if Garrett was as impressed as she, only to find him looking back at her, his mouth curved into a smile that ignited a series of little explosions deep inside her.

  The sounds around her faded, all the other people becoming no more than background to the sight of Garrett sprawled casually on the blanket, his blue-gray eyes reflecting the colored lights, his hand resting only an inch or so from her own. His fingers moved, brushed against hers, and she shivered a little even in the July heat.

  She’d let down her guard that evening. Forgotten for the past hour to lock up her emotions around him. Her intention had been to appreciate his appeal, to savor the time she had with him, to enjoy his company without getting emotionally involved. Like her other past relationships. But those other men hadn’t made her shiver in the heat of a summer night with only a brush of their fingers.

  Could be problematic.

  “May I walk you home tonight?” Garrett asked, his breath warm against her cheek as he leaned closer to be heard over the noise. “We’ll have to go the long way, of course, to drop off the girls at the cabin first.”

  All things considered, she should probably make an excuse. Yet even as that thought crossed her mind, she heard herself saying, “It’s a nice night for a long walk.”

  Another sexy smile from him made her swallow hard, then look hastily toward the sky again. “Here’s the big finale. Should be spectacular.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” she thought she heard him murmur. She didn’t quite have the nerve to look at him to see if he was watching the show.

  * * *

  The fireworks show ended to thunderous applause from the audience. It wasn’t the largest or most elaborate display most of them had probably seen, but Maggie thought everyone around her looked quite satisfied, which would especially please the older generations of Bells. She offered to help with cleanup afterward, but her dad and Aaron assured her it was all taken care of.

  “You’re in charge of indoor cleanup,” her dad reminded her with a laconic grin. “Outdoors is mine. Go enjoy the rest of your evening. You’ll be starting early tomorrow.”

  She rose on tiptoes to kiss his sun-weathered cheek. “Happy Fourth, Dad.”

  He patted her arm with a callused hand. “You, too, hon.”

  She turned to find Garrett again, her gaze meeting Shelby’s as she did so. The knowing look on Shelby’s face made Maggie wrinkle her nose as she remembered their conversation from earlier. Nothing had changed, she reminded herself. She had her defenses firmly back in place now. Shelby could tease all she wanted later, but Maggie wouldn’t let it get to her.

  “Ready?” Garrett asked when she stepped up beside him.

  She tossed back her hair and lifted her chin. “I’m ready.”

  One of his eyebrows rose a bit in response to something he must have heard in her voice, but he merely stepped back and motioned in the direction of his daughters. She moved toward them, aware of him following closely behind her, carrying the cooler and the neatly refolded blanket.

  “Let’s go, girls. Time to head back to the cabin,” he said, giving the boys a nod. Maggie thought he must have made an effort to sound congenial, probably for Payton’s sake, but the boys still looked a little intimidated by him, she noted in amusement.

  Payton just never seemed to know when to quit when she was ahead. “Trevor said he and Drake will walk me back later,” she said airily. “They’ll make sure I get back okay. I won’t be much longer.”

  Garrett sighed and gave Maggie a look of exasperation. She had to admit he’d tried to end the evening pleasantly. This one was on Payton. “You’ll come now,” he said. “Maggie’s going to walk with us. Tell your friends good-night.”

  “Dad—”

  “C’mon, Payton,” Kix said with a groan. “Can’t you just let it go for once?”

  “We’ll see you tomorrow, Payton,” Trevor said, moving quickly backward. “If your dad lets you, of course.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure if that was merely a comment or another little dig about Garrett’s close supervision, but Payton flushed, obviously taking it as the latter. She turned with a huff and headed in the direction of the cabin.

  Kix skipped along at Maggie’s side. The gunpowder smell still hung in the warm air and streams of resort guests moved toward the motel, cabins and campgrounds, while others who’d come just for the day’s festivities piled into cars to leave the grounds. Even the cacophony of conversation, laughter and car engines seemed rather quiet compared to the noise of the fireworks. An occasional bang and eruption of twinkling color came from other parts of the lake, but private fireworks were banned within the resort. Stars had appeared overhead, dimmed by the yellowish security lighting but still visible, as was the sliver of the last-quarter moon.

  “Weren’t the fireworks beautiful, Maggie? Which ones did you like best? I liked the red ones that filled up the whole sky. Or maybe those silver ones that whistled and shot around all over the place like they were in a big pinball machine or something. Payton likes the blue ones, don’t you, Payton? Which ones did you like, Maggie?”

  Maggie rested a hand lightly on Kix’s shoulder. “I like all of them. Every time I think I see my favorite, the next one is even better.”

  “Me, too. They were all so pretty. Are you coming in with us when we get to the cabin?”

  “No, your dad offered to walk me home after we drop off you and Payton.”

  “Oh, that was nice of him,” Kix said artlessly. “That way you won’t have to walk by yourself. Wasn’t that nice, Payton?”

  Payton sniffed. “At least her dad didn’t say she couldn’t walk with whoever she wanted.”

  “We are not having this conversation again, Payton,” Garrett snapped. “You can pout all you want, but I decide what rules are appropriate for a thirteen-year-old.”

  Kix hurried to Payton’s side and whispered something rather urgently. Maggie figured the younger girl was asking her sister not to ruin the nice evening. Whatever words she’d used, they seemed to have an effect. Payton hesitated, then nodded grumpily. “Okay. Sorry, Maggie. I didn’t mean to sound so grumpy. And, uh, sorry, Dad.”

  He sounded just a little surprised when he replied, “Yeah, okay.”

  He and Maggie exchanged quizzical looks. She smiled and shrugged slightly. Just because she’d once been a thirteen-year-old girl didn’t mean she fully understood their
thought processes now.

  “It’s getting late,” Garrett said to the girls when they reached the cabin. “You should go ahead and take your baths and get ready for bed. Tomorrow is another busy day.”

  “You don’t have to hurry back, Daddy,” Kix assured him. “We’ll get ourselves to bed. If you and Maggie want to have coffee or something, that’s okay.”

  Payton cleared her throat loudly, giving her sister a look Maggie couldn’t interpret.

  “Just go to bed and let Maggie and me decide whether we want coffee,” Garrett growled with a shake of his head.

  Kix gave him a big hug. “Good night, Daddy.”

  Maggie watched as he leaned down to kiss his younger daughter’s cheek. “Good night, sweetheart.”

  Payton stepped up to lean briefly against him. “’Night, Dad. Don’t forget to tell Maggie what a nice guy uncle Jay is.”

  After a pause on her father’s part, as if he was trying to decide what she meant by that, Payton, too, got a kiss on the cheek.

  Kix almost tackled Maggie with a hug then. Laughing, Maggie embraced her in return, dropping a light kiss on the girl’s disheveled hair. Her parting with Payton was somewhat more restrained, but just as affectionate.

  She and Garrett watched as the girls ran inside the cabin to join their grandmother and great-grandmother. Only then did she turn to Garrett. “What on earth was that about you telling me about what a nice guy Jay is?”

  Pushing a hand through his short hair, Garrett gave a short grunt. “Beats the hell out of me. Sometimes I think my kids make an effort to keep me confused.”

  Chuckling, she wrapped a hand around his arm. “Poor Garrett. You really are overwhelmed by the women in your family, aren’t you?”

  “You can say that again.” Matching their steps, they began to move toward the family compound and her mobile home.

  The day’s heat had eased now, leaving the air still warm but more comfortable. Settling down for the night, guests sat around low-banked campfires, talking and laughing, the drone of voices carrying through the night without intelligible words. The resort’s official quiet hours began at ten, so anyone being too loud or disruptive would be asked to tone it down. With the exception of the occasional drunken disturbance, there was rarely cause for any official action on the part of her family in their role as owners and managers.

  She and Garrett cut across the road through the tent campgrounds. He slid his hand down her arm to lace his fingers with hers, seemingly with all the time in the world just to walk her home. “This is more my type of camping,” he commented, nodding toward a small group gathered around a campfire with a simple lantern lighting the pad on which their tents rested. “The fancy RVs are nice, but I always kind of liked sleeping in a bag on a canvas tent floor with a rock digging into my butt.”

  “Sounds like a military man.”

  “Guess that explains it. My family, now, they either want a nice cabin or one of those fancy RVs. With bathrooms, showers and electrical outlets, and preferably a TV and a microwave.”

  “I would think the girls would enjoy tent camping.”

  He shrugged. “They did when they were younger. I took them hiking and camping a few times on my custody weekends. Kix might still enjoy it, but Payton wants the luxuries now.”

  “A phase,” she assured him. “She probably still likes hiking and camping, she just doesn’t want to risk being uncool by admitting it.”

  He groaned. “I’m doing my best to teach her not to measure her self-worth by what other people think of her. To be herself without giving a damn whether others think she’s cool. I wish she wasn’t so concerned about her image these days.”

  “It’s so much a part of being a teenager. But I think it’s vital that you continue to reassure her it’s important to be herself. I had that sort of grounding from my parents, and it made a difference in keeping me out of what we call ‘the game.’”

  “The game?”

  She nodded. “The one where you try to have newer cars or more expensive clothes or shoes or flashier electronics or bigger houses than everyone else. My dad told us repeatedly that it’s a game you can never win because there’s always someone prettier, richer, flashier, more popular just waiting in the wings. He said we could destroy our health and happiness and ruin our credit and empty our bank accounts trying to get ahead, but the only way to be truly happy and content is not to play in the first place. He said we should follow our own bliss and count our blessings.

  “Obviously he hoped our bliss would keep us here at the resort with the family,” she added, “but my parents didn’t try to stop Hannah from making a home in Dallas and they wouldn’t interfere if I suddenly announced that I want to spend a year in Europe or some other wild dream.”

  “You want to spend a year in Europe?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “No. It was an example.”

  “Ah.”

  “You’re a good dad, Garrett.”

  He kept his eyes on the road ahead. “I try.”

  “I know.”

  Reaching the end of the road through the tent-camping area, they crossed the main road to reach the drive to the family compound. On the other side of the Private Drive sign, pools of yellow light illuminated the asphalt road from overhead security lamps. The lamps were fairly new, having been installed last summer after Shelby was kidnapped in deep shadows while walking this same road alone late at night. Growing up in the resort, they’d had no concerns about walking anywhere at any hour, but her ordeal had given the family reason to initiate a few new precautions. They refused still to live in fear, but because Andrew was in the security and investigation business, they now followed his advice on some basic safety practices.

  She had no concerns about walking in the dark with her current companion—not physically, anyway. Her only vulnerability where Garrett was involved was letting herself forget that she wanted to keep any developments between them relaxed and superficial. When it came to this intriguing man, she was definitely conflicted. As much as she wanted to be with him, as deeply as she craved to touch and be touched by him, she was still convinced that any affair between them—if that was where this led—had to stay casual. Private. Thinking of his daughters again, she frowned. “Seriously, Garrett, what did Kix mean when she told you to tell me about Jay? Why would that occur to her just then?”

  He made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a grumble. For a moment, she thought that was the only reply she was going to get, but then he said reluctantly, “I think the girls may be considering a fix-up.”

  “Between Jay and me?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “They might have mentioned something about it.”

  She laughed softly. “Not going to happen.”

  “That’s what I told them. Wait, why did you reject it so fast? You like Jay, don’t you?”

  “I like him very much. But me and a preacher? No way.”

  He half turned to look at her as they walked. “Philosophical objection?”

  “No. After all, I choose to attend his services almost every week and I enjoy them. It’s just too much responsibility for me. All those members of his congregation and their expectations. All the duties inherent in being a pastor’s wife. You know how I feel about being free to do my own thing—Jay doesn’t have that advantage.”

  “I see.” Garrett left it at that.

  Deciding to change the subject, she motioned toward the row of three redbrick ranch-style houses on her left. “That’s my uncle C.J. and aunt Sarah’s house. The one in the center is the original, the one my grandparents live in. On the right is the house where my sister and I grew up.”

  “Nice. One big backyard.”

  “The whole resort was our backyard,” she said. She pointed ahead. “There are the trailers my generation moved into, much to Pop’s disapproval. Steven and Shelby own the ones on the left, while mine and Hannah’s are on the right. Mine’s the last one on the right.”

  Just bey
ond the trailers, the road dead-ended in a cul-de-sac. Lights burned in all the trailers, but no one was outside, giving them a semblance of privacy as they approached her front door. Something moved in the shadows, and a large, aging yellow Lab ambled up to them. Maggie rested a hand on the broad, flat head. “This is Pax. Officially, he’s Steven’s dog, but we all take care of him now that Steven’s away most of the time. He’s sort of the family mascot.”

  “Hey, Pax.” Garrett offered a hand for the dog to sniff, then rubbed his floppy ears. “How’s it going?”

  The dog grinned and lazily wagged his tail, enjoying the ear massage.

  Maggie pulled her keys out of her pocket. “Would you like to come in for that coffee Kix offered?” she asked lightly. “I can make decaf. Or tea, if you prefer.”

  “I’m not sure if I should.”

  She tilted her head to look up at him. “Why not?”

  After glancing around the compound, he tugged her against him in the shadow of her home. “This is why,” he murmured, and pressed his mouth to hers.

  She melted into him, her arms going around his neck, her lips parting eagerly for him. She could tell him—and herself—as often as she wanted that they could keep this casual, but that didn’t change the fact that all he had to do was touch her and her entire body went on high alert. As closely as he held her, it was very obvious that she wasn’t the only one to react that way, which didn’t make it any easier to resist him.

  Drawing her mouth from his, she looked up at him. His face was heavily shadowed, but she could make out the feverish glitter in his eyes, the tense line of his cheek and jaw. She brought a hand around to his face and felt the jump of muscle beneath her fingertips. “You don’t have to hurry back to the cabin, do you? Why don’t you come in?”

  “You’re sure?”

  Stepping back, she took his hand. “Let’s just go inside, Garrett.”

  He made no further effort to resist.

  Chapter Seven

  She had decorated her mobile home in sage and cream—soothing colors chosen for quiet relaxation. Yet she wasn’t at all relaxed when she led Garrett into her home. Every nerve ending still buzzed with awareness of him. He closed the door behind him with a solid click that she echoed with a hard swallow. She felt her fingers tremble—not with apprehension, but with anticipation. Despite her determination not to let things get out of hand with Garrett, not to complicate either his life or her own, they could have this, she assured herself. A little private time to enjoy each other, to savor their mutual attraction, to explore the chemistry between them. It didn’t have to lead to anything awkward or binding, might never happen again, for that matter, but they had tonight. It would be a shame if they wasted this rare, fleeting opportunity.