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

  “Has anyone called the police?” Sarah asked quietly after a quick glance toward the kitchen and Kix. “It’s possible they left the resort, you know. Maybe they’re trying to make some sort of statement by running away.”

  “I think Dad’s taking care of all that,” Maggie replied.

  Garrett’s phone rang and everyone froze while he answered it. Standing closest to him, Maggie felt her heart stop at the look in his eyes when he responded with monosyllables, then slowly lowered his phone. She rested a hand on his arm, feeling the muscles as rigid as steel there.

  “What?” she asked in a voice barely over a whisper.

  He looked down at her. “The Alexanders just discovered that their boat is missing from its slip in the marina. Searchers are going out on the lake now looking for the boat.”

  Paulette gave a hard gasp. Maggie grimaced. “I never even thought of looking for a boat,” she admitted.

  Garrett’s jaw was set in a hard line of anger and worry. “I was told the marina and the main building were searched earlier. I didn’t know the Alexanders had a boat there, and I certainly wasn’t told it was missing. They said they didn’t even think to look.”

  Paulette twisted her hands in her lap. “You don’t really think they’ve taken the boat out by themselves?”

  Peering over the bar that separated the kitchen from the main room, Kix piped up. “Trevor knows how to drive his family’s boat. He bragged about it a lot.”

  “Could they really have gotten the boat out of the slip without anyone seeing them?” Esther asked, her face deeply creased with concern.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Maggie conceded reluctantly. “If Uncle C.J. was busy with other customers and no one else happened to be around for a few minutes, they could have gotten away without attracting attention.”

  “Oh, my God,” Paulette moaned. “And now it’s getting dark. What if...?”

  “Don’t start borrowing trouble, Paulette,” her mother ordered. “They’ll be fine.”

  Maggie gave a slight tug at Garrett’s arm. “I realize the search teams are already out, but I know this lake like the back of my hand. I’ve grown up here, after all. We can use one of the resort boats at the marina.”

  Her mother looked toward the big glass door at the back of the cabin. “It’s getting dark.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Maggie promised. Though she preferred boating in the daytime, she’d been out on the lake after dark many times using running lights and spotlights. At least there was little wind this evening and the water was smooth, she thought, desperately hoping the kids were safe in a cove somewhere.

  Garrett moved toward the door. “We’ll keep in touch,” he said over his shoulder to their anxious family members.

  He beat her to the driver’s side of the golf cart, so she climbed into the passenger’s seat. “I can’t believe Payton would do this,” he said as he guided the cart toward the marina. “What was she thinking?”

  “I doubt that she was thinking at all. If she’s gone out in the boat with the boys, it was either to prove something to them or to make a statement to you. And she was angry with me,” Maggie added.

  She’d already told him about her confrontation with Payton and the boys when she’d insisted on looking on the roof of cabin two earlier. They weren’t there, but she’d had to explain to Garrett why she’d thought to look there. She’d downplayed the kids’ rudeness to her, saying merely that they’d been unhappy with her for ordering them down. As she’d expected, he had not been pleased that Payton had attempted such a foolish stunt.

  “I should have been watching her more closely,” he muttered, his hands tight on the cart steering wheel. “I gave her too much freedom too soon. Let myself be distracted by...well, I should have paid more attention.”

  Maggie frowned. “Garrett, this is not your fault.” Or hers, either, she added silently, even though something in his tone made her feel vaguely guilty. “You’ve been very vigilant. Payton simply slipped away from you this time.”

  He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I let down my guard.”

  Twisting her fingers in her lap, she subsided into silent worry and self-blame. Maybe she shouldn’t have distracted Garrett from his parenting, even though she’d thought he needed time for himself. Maybe she should have told him earlier about Payton’s escapade with the ladder. She’d thought she was doing them both a favor by keeping the incident to herself, but maybe if she’d interceded more...

  In the deepening twilight, she spotted a small crowd milling around the marina and she recognized the boys’ mother and stepfather among them. The stepdad appeared to be angrily confronting Maggie’s uncle C.J. Surely he wasn’t blaming C.J. when Trevor and Drake had been allowed to run unsupervised all around the resort for their entire stay?

  She was already mapping her search path of the lake in her head when she and Garrett climbed out of the cart. She’d coordinate with the other search teams, of course, staying in constant touch with their phones. Payton and the boys would be safely returned to their families; she refused to accept any other outcome for this ordeal.

  She and Garrett had just stepped onto the dock behind the marina when Garrett’s phone rang again. He lifted it to his ear to answer. Moments later she saw a deep breath shake his entire body.

  “Thank you,” he said into the phone. “I’ll be waiting at the marina.”

  She heard another phone ring, heard the boys’ mother give a loud gasp followed by a fervent “thank God.”

  Garrett lowered his phone to his side as if it had suddenly become almost too heavy to support. His eyes met Maggie’s. “They’ve been found,” he said, though she’d already reached that conclusion. “They’re safe.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly, her relief almost overwhelming. “I’m so glad.”

  His arms enclosed her so fiercely she could hardly breathe—not that she was complaining. And then he stiffened a bit and set her carefully away from him. She couldn’t read his expression when he said, “That was your dad who called. A couple of fishermen returning to their dock found the Alexanders’ boat adrift in a cove on the far end of the lake. One of the rescuers is a friend of your dad’s, so he called him as soon as the kids identified themselves. They were lost and out of gas, but they’re safe. The boat’s being towed back here.”

  “I’m so glad they’re safe,” Maggie breathed, swiping at a tear that leaked from her left eye. “When I heard the boat was missing...”

  He drew a sharp breath and looked toward the activity on the pier where the people milling around were hugging each other and high-fiving in celebration. “I need to call my mom.”

  “Of course.” Because he seemed to want her to, she moved back a few steps to give him privacy to make that grateful call.

  Ten minutes later the rescue boat chugged into the marina towing the second boat. Wayne and Melanie Alexander surged forward and started yelling at the boys before the boat was even tied up. Staying a couple of steps behind Garrett, Maggie moved toward the boat, noting that Payton looked pale and subdued in the now mostly artificial light. Had the girl been crying? Her face looked a little splotchy.

  C.J. reached down into the boat to lift Payton out and set her on the pier. While the boys’ angry mother and stepfather continued to reprimand them, Payton looked tentatively up at her dad.

  “Are you really mad?” she asked in an unsteady voice.

  “Yes,” he answered simply, then swept her into his arms and buried his face in her tousled auburn hair. Payton promptly burst into tears. Maggie had to swipe both hands across her own damp eyes.

  She realized at that moment that she’d never been so worried in her life. She could hardly imagine what Garrett had been going through since the discovery that his daughter was missing.

  * * *

  It was late that evening when Garrett stood outside Maggie’s door, but he knew she was still awake. He could see lights in several of her windows and could hea
r the faint strains of music through the front door. Lights were on in the neighboring homes, too, but no one stirred outside except Steven’s old yellow Lab, who had already ambled up for an ear rub.

  Hands in his pockets, he stared at Maggie’s door, trying to decide whether to knock. Maybe he’d just head back to the cabin and talk to her tomorrow. He wasn’t sure what he was doing here anyway.

  The door opened and Maggie leaned against the jamb, her arms crossed over her chest as she studied him. “Do you want to come in or did you just come to stand on my porch?” she asked lightly.

  Did she know exactly how long he’d been standing there deliberating? A little abashed by his uncharacteristic indecision, he cleared his throat. “I was just about to knock.”

  She moved back. “Come in, Garrett.”

  After only a momentary hesitation, he stepped inside.

  She closed the door behind him. “How’s Payton?”

  “Asleep. She was worn out after that adventure.”

  “I’m sure she was.”

  Maggie had hung around long enough to know that Payton had been badly shaken by being lost and then stranded on the lake in the boat. Payton swore that she’d only intended to sit in the boat and talk with the boys, but Trevor and Drake had conspired to cast off and take the boat out before Payton could do anything to stop them. Trevor had wanted to show off his rebellious side and his boating skills, both aimed at impressing Payton on their last evening together. Rather than being impressed, she’d been frightened when he first got lost on the big lake and then ran out of gas as darkness began to fall. She’d envisioned either spending a long, dark night adrift on the lake or possibly hitting an unseen obstacle and capsizing.

  Payton had known her family would be worried sick about her and that she would be in trouble with her father, so all in all it had been a miserable ordeal for her. Even though Garrett had let her know he was not happy with her for getting into the boat with the boys in the first place—something she had to have known he would disapprove of—he’d gone relatively easy on her because she had been so upset. She was, of course, forbidden to have anything more to do with the Ferguson brothers, though that wouldn’t be a significant issue because the Alexanders had packed up and pulled out not long after the boat and boys were returned. Garrett had been tempted to do the same, but his mother and grandmother were too tired and drained by the worry of the afternoon to deal with packing and cleanup. They would stick with the plan and leave tomorrow morning. He, for one, would be glad when this vacation was over.

  Though there was one aspect of the holiday he would miss, he thought as he studied Maggie’s somber expression. His palms itched with the urge to cup her face between them. His lips throbbed with a need to be pressed against hers. Every hard inch of him ached with hunger for her.

  He kept his hands in his pockets, a good distance of floor between them.

  “So we’re leaving tomorrow,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes. “Pretty early, I think. The weather service is predicting thunderstorms to roll in late morning, so I’d like to get home ahead of them. I told Jay I’d play for the service, but we’re cutting out almost as soon as it’s over.”

  She nodded as if she’d expected something like this. “I’m sure you’re ready to get back to your usual routines.”

  “Yeah. Maybe a week was too long for a family vacation. I thought it would help me bond a little better with the girls, but it seems to have done the opposite.”

  “Kix has had a great time,” she reminded him. “This was the way she wanted to spend her birthday week.”

  “I should have packed up and headed home when Payton started acting up a couple days ago. I suspected those boys were a bad influence, but I just kept giving her more leeway.”

  Now he wondered if his lenience had been for Payton’s sake—or if he’d been so distracted by his deepening attraction to Maggie that he’d neglected the signs that Payton was pushing too far beyond the limits he’d set. He should have known he couldn’t juggle his family responsibilities with a relationship, even the casual, no-strings affair Maggie seemed to envision for them. And the past week hadn’t even included his job obligations.

  “She looked pretty scared when she came back to the marina. And very happy to see you,” Maggie pointed out. “Maybe she learned a lesson about letting friends lead her into risky situations.”

  “I hope so. I’ll be keeping a close eye on her to be sure.” He drew a deep breath before adding, “That me time you kept talking about? Guess that had better wait for a while longer.”

  Her expression told him she got his message. “You have to do what you think is best for your kids, of course.”

  Even at the cost of his own desires. The words hovered unsaid but understood between them. “That’s what I think is best.”

  She nodded in apparent resignation. Had he hoped she would protest? That she would at least look disappointed? He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but maybe he’d have liked to think he meant enough to her that she’d be just a little saddened by his decision. If she was, she hid it well.

  Maybe this last stunt of Payton’s had convinced Maggie that she was better off staying out of the single-dad drama. She could probably spend her own me time with her choice of footloose, commitment-free men. And while he wouldn’t trade places with any of those guys if it meant giving up his girls, he would miss spending time with Maggie. He knew the heated, intimate images that flitted through his head with that thought would replay in more vivid detail in the weeks of lonely nights to come.

  All of which made his voice gruffer than he intended when he took a step backward toward the door and said, “I’d better go.”

  Again, she made no effort to argue. “All right. I’ll see you at service in the morning. And if you need any help packing up or checking out, just let me know.”

  He nodded shortly. “Yeah. Thanks. For everything.”

  “You’re welcome. Good night, Garrett.”

  It sounded more like goodbye than good night—but maybe that was just his imagination. “Good night, Maggie.”

  Did his sound the same to her? For only a moment, he thought he might have seen regret cross her face, but she schooled it immediately.

  He would have liked to kiss her one last time—but because he feared where that might lead, considering his willpower around her had always been shaky at best, he merely reached for the door and let himself out.

  It was a long, dark walk back to the cabin. Ignoring the various sounds from the campgrounds, he concentrated only on the crunching of his own feet on the pavement and the guttural curses that occasionally escaped him along the way.

  * * *

  The thunderstorm that had been predicted for midmorning hit earlier than expected and with a vengeance, booming across the lake, rattling windows, washing the resort with a torrential downfall of heavy rain. Summer storms weren’t unusual in this part of the state, but they were almost always impressive. It was understood that the sunrise service was canceled in case of bad weather, so Maggie didn’t bother braving the weather to go to the pavilion. She knew her dad and Aaron would be patrolling in slickers and golf carts to make sure their guests were safe in the storm, and she trusted that they would use proper precautions in the wind and lightning.

  She made herself a cup of strong black tea and some toast and ate at her table, watching the trees behind her trailer bowing in the almost horizontally blowing rain. Vague metaphors of supple trees bending but not breaking flitted through her mind; she could probably apply them to herself, but she just wasn’t in the mood for philosophy at the moment. She’d rather indulge in a little pity party this morning. She promised herself she wouldn’t let it last long. Still, falling head over heels for the wrong man did seem to call for at least a brief period of sadness. She didn’t know if her heart was broken, but it was certainly cracked. She could feel the waves of pain radiating from the wound.

  She’d known better, she reminded herself. From the beginning
. Garrett hadn’t had time for a dalliance with her, and she had so little else to offer him. They couldn’t be more wrong for each other—but they had felt so very right together.

  The rain stopped at just before noon, leaving glittering puddles and a clean, fresh scent in its wake. Campers and other guests reemerged from their various shelters, some heading for the water, many packing up and leaving at the end of their holiday weekends. Maggie had a few things to attend to at the motel, which she handled swiftly and efficiently. Only then did she check cabin six.

  The cabin was empty, left spotlessly clean as if her cleaning crew had just been through it. There was no sign left that Garrett’s family had ever stayed there.

  They didn’t live far away, of course. They would be back for Sunday services, if not for play days at the resort. But though she would continue to smile and chat and interact pleasantly with them, nothing between them would ever be quite the same. With that thought, she felt the painful cracks in her heart widen just a bit more deeply.

  Though Sundays were usually light workdays for her, she threw herself into her job that afternoon, very much needing the distraction from her thoughts.

  A busy week followed, the summer season now at its peak. The resort was filled almost to capacity even without the hoopla of the Independence Day events—all of which had been deemed successful, though the family agreed next year’s celebration could use some tweaking. Steven returned to his firefighting job, Hannah and Andrew took the baby back to their home and obligations in Dallas and life went on much like any other hot, busy summer in Maggie’s lifetime here. She did not hear from Garrett during that week—not that she’d expected to, she told herself.

  For the first time in her almost thirty years, she found herself wondering about life outside the resort gate. Should she consider following the example set by Steven and Hannah and Lori, venturing out into the world to explore a new and different life? Was there something out there to fill this sudden emptiness inside her?