A Bride For Saint Nick

by Carole Buck

  Braking at an intersection, he glanced around, still oddly affected by what he was seeing. He could easily envision Suzanne settling down in a place like this. Despite her involvement with the fast-living Saint Nick Marchand, she hadn’t been a bright-lights, big-city kind of girl. Her tastes had been simple. Her values, traditional.

  Could he envision himself settling down in a place like this? John wondered uncomfortably, checking the rearview-mirror. Not bloody likely. Maybe there’d been a period, a long time ago, when he might have had the grace to fit into this pristine peacefulness. But not now. Not…anymore.

  After a moment or two, he shifted his foot from the brake to the gas and drove on. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. If the information Marcy-Anne Gregg had given him was correct, Suzanne’s bookshop should be coming up in just a few—

  John sucked in his breath. Yes. Oh, God. Yes. There it was. On the right.

  Don’t stop, he told himself.

  He did.

  All right. He backpedaled, his heart starting to race. Stop and look. Just don’t get out of the car.

  He did that, too.

  Okay! Okay! He acquiesced, narrowing his eyes against the bright sunlight and filling his lungs with cold, crisp air. Get out of the car. There’s no harm in that. There’s no harm in standing around like a tourist for a minute or so. But you cannot go into that store….

  The silvery jingle of a pair of bells announced John Gulliver’s entrance into Suzanne’s small-business establishment. He knew the sound was meant to be welcoming, but something inside him heard it as a warning to turn on his heel and go.

  He couldn’t.

  He could recite chapter and verse why he should leave, but he simply could not make himself walk out. Not yet.

  He had to see her again.

  To hear her speak, one more time.

  To touch—

  ”Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

  The voice was female but unfamiliar. John pivoted away from the rack of regional guidebooks he’d been pretending to peruse and came face-to-face with a bone-thin redhead in her early twenties. She was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt, a long, drooping skirt and clunky brown boots.

  John Gulliver had spent a lot of years making split-second assessments of people. He was good at it. He’d had to be. He never would have survived his time undercover otherwise.

  His split-second assessment of the redhead was that she was trouble. What kind, how much and exactly for whom, he couldn’t tell. But there was something…off… about her and his instincts warned him to tread carefully because of it.

  It was more than the fact that she was a naturally pretty female working very hard at being plain, he decided, trying to analyze the reasons for his negative gut reaction. The key was that her eyes were way too old for her milk-pale face. This was a woman who had lost her illusions about life a long, long time ago, and lost them hard.

  Whoever she was, whatever she’d done or had done to her in the past, she definitely was out of place in this quiet little town.

  And she sensed the same incongruity about him, he realized with an inward jolt, picking up a slight stiffening of her posture as their gazes met. She sensed it…and it unnerved her.

  The man who had lived and nearly died as Saint Nick Marchand had become accustomed to making people uneasy. He knew that the burn marks on the left side of his neck, the scarring on his left temple and the disfigurement of his right hand hinted at an unpleasant personal history. They tended to make others wary or worse. But in this case…

  Whatever it was about him that the redhead was reacting to, John thought grimly, it ran more than skin-deep.

  “Sir?” she asked again, her eyes flicking back and forth. There was an edgy quality to her gaze, which suggested that she, too, was used to making snap judgments about people.

  John moderated his stance, reminding himself that he apparently was dealing with someone employed by Suzanne. The last thing he wanted was to have her badmouthing him to her boss. If truth be told, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to have her mentioning him to her boss at all.

  “I’m just looking, thank you,” he said. “Is that all right? My browsing?”

  “All right?” The redhead gestured nervously. “Oh, uh, of course. I mean, that’s what we’re here for. The shop, that is. For…browsing.”

  “And buying.” He ventured a carefully calibrated smile. You can trust me, it was intended to communicate. I’m a harmless out-of-towner who just happened to stop by.

  The woman blinked several times, obviously affected by his shift in manner. “Well, yeah,” she affirmed after a moment, some of the tension seeping out of her skinny body. The corners of her thin lips curved upward a couple of centimeters. “That, too.”

  John made a show of glancing around the shop. It had a cozy, old-fashioned feel. In addition to shelf upon shelf of books, there was a colorful selection of postcards and stationery supplies, plus a display of what looked like local handicrafts.

  A poster tacked to the wall behind the cash register announced that Story Hour was scheduled for 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Thursday. A small footnote alerted prospective attendees that refreshments would be served.

  There were a few reminders of the coming holiday season scattered around—a ribboned holly wreath on the door; a whimsical papier-mâché Santa Claus sitting on a table stacked with books marked Good for Giving. The effect was charming, not commercialized Christmas overkill.

  “Great place you have here,” he commented, catching the tempting scent of freshly brewed coffee drifting out from somewhere in the back. While his admiration was sincere, it was not without calculation. Experience had taught him that there were few things more effective than using a compliment for bait when angling for information.

  “Don’t I wish.”

  John glanced back at the redhead, startled by the fervor of her response. He’d expected some pro forma correction of his assumption about the ownership of the store, which he could then use as an opening to ask a few questions about Suzanne. Instead he’d gotten…what?

  An admission of envy? he speculated, replaying the remark in his mind. Yes. Maybe. But the covetousness had been tempered by something he couldn’t quite get a line on. It had sounded a lot like sadness.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked after a second or two.

  His companion hunched her shoulders and dipped her head, apparently regretting her previous reply. “The store doesn’t belong to me,” she told him hastily, plucking at her skirt. “The woman who owns it isn’t here right now. She’s in Brattleboro on business.”

  What John Gulliver felt then was impossible to describe. It was too powerful. Too painful. It was so excruciatingly far beyond disappointment that it wasn’t even in the same emotional universe.

  “So…you’re in charge,” he finally managed to remark.

  It was an innocuous, throwaway line, uttered only because he felt he had to offer some reaction to the information he’d been given. But even in the midst of his own tumult, John could tell that it had struck a nerve in the redhead. She drew herself up, plainly construing his words as a challenge to her competence and/or character.

  “Yes, sir,” she stated, cocking her chin. “I’m in charge. My name’s Deirdre Bleeker and I’ve been working for Ms.—”

  The bells on the front door jingled. John stiffened at the sound and pivoted, conscious that he’d left himself very exposed. Nicholas Marchand would never, ever, have stood with his back to an unlocked door.

  A wiry man clad in grease-stained jeans and a well-worn khaki parka entered the shop on a blast of wintry air. He appeared to be in his early thirties and exuded an air of Norman Rockwell-esque solidity.

  “Mornin’, Dee,” he said, his Yankee accent turning the or in morning into an elongated aww. “Came by to see if that book I ordered got in yet.”

  The redhead flushed. The sudden rush of color into her cheeks could have been anger. Or embarrassment. Or a combinat
ion of the two.

  “W-Wes,” she stammered, meeting the newcomer’s gaze for a moment, then glancing away. “The b-book you ordered?” She moistened her lips. “I…uh…yes. I think it’s here. But I’m not sure. If you’ll just, uh, give me a minute to look in the back…” She paused, slanting an uneasy glance up at John.

  “No problem, Ms. Bleeker,” he said courteously. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Oh…sure.” The formality of his manner seemed to discomfort her. Or perhaps she’d just realized that although she’d been forthcoming with her name, he’d refrained from offering his.

  “Dee?”

  Deirdre darted another look at the parka-clad man, the color in her face still feverishly high. “I’ll check about the book, Wes,” she said tightly, then scurried away.

  After surveying the shop one more time, John headed toward the door.

  “New here?” Wes questioned, pronouncing the second word hee-yuh. “Haven’t seen you ‘round before.”

  John checked his step and met the other man’s eyes. He saw a combination of assessment and uncertainty in their hazel depths. And a hint of masculine territoriality, too. Somewhere in the back of his mind John recognized that Wes—unlike himself, unlike Deirdre Bleeker—seemed to “fit” in this postcard-perfect New England town. The notion did nothing for his mood.

  “Maybe you haven’t been looking,” he suggested evenly, then exited to the ting-a-ling of bells.

  He drove around for a time after that, considering his next move. Although he had the address, he decided against cruising by Suzanne’s house. Scoping out her business was one thing. Not a wise thing, to be sure, but he could justify it to himself to a certain degree. The bookshop was open to the public, after all. Suzanne’s home, on the other hand, was private. A supposed sanctuary. As much as he might want to do so, he could not bring himself to go snooping around there. It smacked of…violation.

  Besides, he had no way of knowing how tight a watch the people who administered the Witness Security Program were keeping on Suzanne. Had this been early in her relocation process, he would have figured that the inspector assigned to the case was maintaining close and regular contact. More than five years in? Some easing in the level of vigilance seemed likely. But he couldn’t be sure.

  The bottom line: he wasn’t about to run the risk of attracting the attention of the U.S. Marshals Service. If that agency thought a protected witness’s past was intruding on his or her new life, that witness was likely to be uprooted and resettled in a new place with another new identity. And if that happened with Suzanne…

  He was going to have to find a place to stay, John decided. Concerns about tipping off some federal law-enforcement officer notwithstanding, he couldn’t—all right, wouldn’t—leave until he’d had a chance to see his former lover again.

  He also felt compelled to do some discreet digging about Deirdre Bleeker. And Wes Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was, the book-orderer, too. This wasn’t to imply a lack of confidence in the Marshals Service’s competence. Indeed, as far as he was aware, no witness who’d adhered to the agency’s security guidelines had ever been harmed. Still. Even the most professional of professionals occasionally slipped up.

  John brought his rental car to a halt across from what appeared to be a school playground. A dozen or so bundled-up little kids were romping around in the snow under the supervision of a pair of women. It was a charmingly bucolic scene except for what appeared to be the beginning of an argument over a swing.

  He set the brake, turned off the engine and released his seat belt. Reaching to the right, he popped open the sedan’s glove compartment and extracted a guidebook he’d picked up at the Burlington airport. He could hear the children yelping exuberantly and calling back and forth to each other.

  He wasn’t going to stick around long, he told himself firmly as he thumbed through the book’s index. He simply wanted to find out whether Suzanne was okay. Whether she was…happy.

  And he would know—one way or the other—as soon as he laid eyes on her. He truly believed that. Because while he’d lied to her about nearly everything and had essentially gotten away with it, she’d been transparent as glass to him. What she’d said, she’d meant. What she’d felt, she’d.showed.

  John Gulliver closed his eyes for a moment, conjuring up the image of the woman in the photograph Lucy Falco had sent him.

  “Suzanne…”

  Did her mouth still taste like wild strawberries? he wondered, his blood beginning to thrum. Did her skin still feel like sun-warmed silk? Was she still shy about her body and slow to be stirred, yet unstintingly generous at the peak of—

  A child screamed.

  John opened his eyes, his gaze slewing toward the playground. A moment later, he was out of the car and dashing across the street.

  The incipient argument at the swing set had erupted into something serious. As John drew near, he saw a little boy in a bulky, electric-blue jacket sprawled in the snow. The child wasn’t moving. Crimson blood flowed from a gash on the right side of his head.

  “T.J. and M-Mark were f-f-fighting!” one little girl stammered at him, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  “Mark swinged the swing at T.J.!” another sobbed.

  “Only Andy got hitted instead!” a pasty-faced boy concluded shrilly.

  One of the women John had noted earlier was kneeling by the injured youngster, apparently trying to determine how badly he was hurt. The other was standing a few feet away, wringing her hands, clearly overwhelmed. She looked as though she might pass out at any second.

  “Is Andy dead?” one of the children demanded. “Did the swing kill him?”

  “No!” John raised his voice and infused it with every ounce of authority he possessed. He maneuvered his way through the mob of semihysterical munchkins and hunkered down beside the kneeling woman. “Andy’s not dead,” he stressed, sliding his hand inside the turned-up collar of the unconscious boy’s jacket and checking for a pulse. After several hideous seconds—God, the kid was so pale, so still!—he found what he was seeking. Relief washed through him like a cleansing tide. “Andy’s alive.”

  “But he’s bweeding!” a little girl wailed.

  “His brains are coming out!” It was the same child who’d inquired about the possibility of Andy’s demise.

  “Brains are gray,” John snapped. “Do you see anything gray?”

  “Are you a doctor?” the kneeling woman asked shakily, looking at him with a pleadingly hopeful expression.

  “No.” He shook his head. “But I’ve got a car right across the street and I’m ready to drive you and this little guy to the nearest ER.”

  “M-Mommy,” Andy whimpered, tears clouding his blue-gray eyes. Although he’d regained some color in his face, the light sprinkling of freckles on his cheeks and nose was starkly evident. “I w-want…my mommy.”

  “I know, buddy,” John answered, masking his anger at the woman under discussion. Where the hell was she? he asked himself. Didn’t she care that her son had nearly had his skull cracked open? “She’s going to be here any minute.”

  “I want her—” the child gave a choky sob “—n-now.”

  They were in an examining room in a small medical clinic not far from the playground where Andy had been injured. John was seated in a straight-backed chair, the little boy was in his lap. The doctor who’d departed about ten minutes ago had suggested that his young patient might be more comfortable lying down while he awaited his mother’s arrival. Andy had cried out against the idea, clutching at John, seemingly terrified of losing contact with him. The physician had quickly backed off, but warned of the need to keep things calm and quiet.

  John stroked a hand down Andy’s back, shaken by the sense of protectiveness he was experiencing. Was there something about this specific child that had triggered it? he wondered. Or was it a by-product of the emotional roller coaster he’d been riding since he’d seen the photograph of Suzanne?

  He had no idea.

&
nbsp; Neither did he know how long it had been since the kneeling woman—Thalia Jenkins, her name had turned out to be—had assented to his offer to transport her and Andy to the nearest medical facility. He was too jacked up on adrenaline to have a reliable sense of the passage of time.

  The drive to the clinic had been nightmarish. Despite Thalia Jenkins’s efforts to stanch the flow, there’d been blood all over the place. The coppery smell of it brought back some of the worst of John’s postaccident memories.

  A few minutes into the trip, Andy had regained full consciousness and started crying wildly. He’d obviously been frightened out of his wits. His teacher’s frantic efforts to comfort him had only increased his agitation. Astonishingly, he’d responded when John had spoken his name several times in quick succession and told him—in no uncertain terms—that he was going to be “all right.”

  It had been John who’d carried Andy into the clinic. It had been John who’d stayed with him through all that followed, including a lengthy stitching-up process. At one point, he’d tried to step back and let Thalia Jenkins take over. She was better equipped to dispense TLC than he was, he’d reasoned, acutely aware that displays of compassion had never been one of his strong points. Besides, the little boy knew her.

  This “knowing” argument had cut no ice with Andy. Against all reason, he’d wanted John—a stranger—and only John. So John had remained by his side. Thalia Jenkins had been relegated to filling out paperwork and trying to locate Andy’s errant mother.

  “You should be really proud of yourself, you know,” he commented softly. “You’ve been very, very brave.”

  Andy shifted, snuffled pathetically and muttered something under his breath. Only one word—”cried”—was intelligible.

  John grimaced. Shortly after their arrival, one of the clinic staffers had attempted to get Andy to stop sobbing by admonishing him to act like a “big boy” rather than a “baby.” Infuriated, John had come perilously close to slugging the guy. He’d settled for telling him to shut the hell up and behave like an adult rather than an idiot.