A Match for Morgan

by Marie Ferrarella

  Summoning every last bit of dignity she could, she pulled her hands free of his and held them up, a rodeo rider who’d tied her calf up in record time waiting for the crowd to cheer. She had no idea how she forced the smug smile to her lips, but she did. Hurt pride could be a powerful thing.

  “You’re right, I don’t.” Morgan swept her eyes over him, all the while listening to her heart cracking. How could she have expected less? “I just wanted to see how far I could push you. Pretty far, apparently.”

  Turning her head away from him, she caught her lip, afraid if she didn’t, the damning tears would flow freely on their own. Tears that belonged to a woman who knew when she’d been rejected. She might know, but she’d be damned if she’d let him know how she felt.

  Cloaking herself in the bravado that was never far out of her reach, she raised her chin. “All right, now that I’ve had my fun for the evening, let’s go back in.”

  He didn’t want it to end like this. She’d reached him. Heaven help him, somehow she’d managed to reach him even after he’d been so sure that there was nothing left inside of him to touch. Not after Judith and her conniving ways.

  Wyatt put his hand on her shoulder to draw her back. “Morgan, I—”

  She shrugged him off as if he’d burned her. The smile, when it came, took effort and was in contrast to the frost in her eyes.

  “You can stand out here and talk to yourself if you want, but I’m going back in.” Stepping back, she kept a space between them. A large space. “Hank and Fiona are going to be leaving for their honeymoon, such as it is, at any minute and I don’t want to miss seeing them off.”

  It really wasn’t going to be much of a honeymoon. Three days at a bed-and-breakfast inn in Monterey was all the time they could spare. The next weekend they had to return for Kent and Brianne’s wedding. But Morgan knew that labels and places didn’t matter. What mattered was being with the one you loved.

  Something, she figured, she was never going to find out about. It seemed like a cruel twist of fate that the only one who could actually make her feel something for more than a moment was a man who would rather be with anyone else than her.

  Not waiting for a comment, Morgan turned on her heels, a regal princess returning to her castle. She left Wyatt staring at her back.

  Had he just imagined all this? One second she was hot enough to burst into flame, the next moment she could have been the iceberg that had broadsided the Titanic. Just what had gone on out here? It was for damn sure he didn’t know.

  With a sigh Wyatt began to. walk back toward the house, keeping a good distance between himself and Morgan. It was safer that way. Up until now he’d always prided himself on being able to understand women, but it was a cinch that there was no understanding Morgan. There never had been. Like it or not, Morgan Cutler was in a category all her own.

  He had a hunch she liked it that way.

  As for him, he no longer knew what it was he liked, other than his sanity. Keeping it meant staying clear of Morgan from now on. He figured that wouldn’t be all that difficult to do, not when she acted as if the plague was more desirable to be around than he was.

  Looked like having a conscience was going to cost him, he mused, but maybe, in the long run, it was for the best. Morgan Cutler was more woman than he felt he could safely handle.

  5

  Wyatt had no idea why he couldn’t listen to his own advice.

  It was certainly simple enough—at least on the surface. He needed and intended to stay completely clear of Morgan. For all intents and purposes it seemed the only sensible thing to do. After all, she’d scrambled his brain, evaporated his resolve to keep from getting involved and then acted as if he had been the one who’d done something terrible.

  Staying clear of her was the only option.

  Following his own advice from Sunday through Thursday had been a piece of cake. Friday, however, was more like a pie in the face.

  Still, Wyatt reasoned as he walked into St. Anne’s Church for Kent and Brianne’s wedding rehearsal, if he was serious about maintaining his sanity and not making a complete idiot of himself, it could be done.

  At least in theory.

  His body might be held captive by this uncalledfor onslaught of feelings and desires, but his mind could rise above all that and be elsewhere even at the most tempting of times.

  His eyes slid toward Morgan.

  Like that was possible.

  She’d walked in a minute and a half after he had. As if she were hanging back the way he’d been trying to do, hoping to have everyone else already at the church so that there was a crowd to lose herself in.

  Wyatt watched as Morgan moved down the aisle toward his pew, like a sleek jaguar out for the kill and scenting its prey.

  First time he’d ever thought of himself in those terms, he realized. Prey equalled victim. He’d be damned if he was going to become hers.

  Or worse, become one of Morgan’s discards. Though he’d been gone for almost two years, he knew all about the men who sought her out. The men she dated and then disregarded as if they were some sort of batteries with an incredibly short shelf life.

  He wasn’t about to number among those.

  Wyatt nodded at her as she took her place in the pew. He noticed that she sat down a little closer to the end than was necessary, given that they were the only two people in the row. The others had all filed in ahead of them, taking up the pews between theirs and the altar.

  There didn’t seem anywhere to go.

  He could have had the entire expanse of Notre Dame Cathedral to move around in and still felt her presence. It was like being infected with a lowgrade fever. It went with you no matter where you turned.

  Morgan barely acknowledged his existence. Normally, that would have rolled off his back. He had no idea why tonight it stuck in his craw instead.

  Maybe because she’d stuck in his mind all week, no matter what he’d done to blot thoughts of her out.

  Wyatt turned his face toward the front of the church. He wasn’t here to think about Morgan, he was here to rehearse another wedding. They were all here again, the same faces, but now the focus was on Kent and Brianne. Hank and Fiona had become the old married couple of the group.

  And what had he become?

  Damn frustrated, that’s what.

  What else could he be, not three feet away from Morgan and feeling that unscratchable itch taking hold of him? The itch that had very nearly gotten out of hand last Saturday.

  The one he was paying dearly for not heeding. Served him right for trying to be noble. It was wasted on someone like Morgan.

  Will turned

  around and glanced at his sister and Wyatt as Father Gannon was searching for a way to make his words sound fresh and meaningful as he spoke to Kent and Brianne. Will would’ve had to have been dead not to notice that something was up. The tension coming from their pew was thick enough to strangle anyone with even the most minor of respiratory difficulties.

  At any moment, Will fully expected someone in the choir loft to launch into a chorus of “Dueling Banjos.”

  He began to rise, and Audra, Denise’s six-yearold daughter, caught his sleeve and looked at him questioningly. “Are you leaving?”

  “I just want to see if everything’s okay with Aunt Morgan,” he whispered to her.

  His own wedding wasn’t for another week yet, but Will had already easily slipped into the habit of referring to his siblings as Audra’s aunt and uncles. He was looking forward to being her stepfather.

  Almost as much as he was looking forward to being Denise’s husband.

  “Oh.” Audra released his sleeve. “Okay.”

  He brushed a kiss over her head. “I love an understanding woman.”

  Audra covered her mouth with her hands as she giggled.

  Making his way to Morgan’s pew, Will motioned for her to slide over.

  Morgan remained rigidly where she was. To move would mean having to sit that much closer to Wyatt, and
she was already as close as she intended to be. The man had insulted her, really insulted her, not once but twice. This last time was far more than she was willing to put up with. Never mind that she hadn’t been in her right mind last Saturday. She had all but hurled herself at him, and he had neatly sidestepped her, allowing her to fall face first on the ground, humiliation draping over her like a dark, soul-staining shroud.

  A woman didn’t forget or forgive something like that easily.

  Or ever, as far as Morgan was concerned.

  “You can either sit down between us or talk standing up. I have no intentions of moving.” Looking up at Will, Morgan’s lips barely moved as she spoke.

  Whatever this was, it was bad, Will thought.

  “Something wrong between you two?” Will tried to keep his voice light. There was no use adding to the drama. “I mean, more than usual?”

  She wasn’t about to go pouring out her heart to anyone. Her brothers would probably laugh at the whole thing, anyway. Share a good joke with Wyatt. It wasn’t as if this was something new. Only the hurt was.

  “We’re fine,” Morgan ground out.

  “Fine,” Wyatt echoed after slanting a cursory look in her direction.

  He was a hell of a long way off from feeling fine, but he wasn’t about to say anything. The last thing he wanted was to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she’d been on his mind all week, resolutions to the contrary notwithstanding.

  Will shrugged. It was useless to try to get either one of them to talk once they were in this mode. Even if he could, he knew it would be easier to get it out of Wyatt than Morgan, and for that he needed privacy. Maybe at the bachelor party tonight…

  For a woman who was exceptionally vocal about her feelings, Morgan could still be exceedingly closemouthed when it came to something that was bothering her. Any way you cut it, Will thought, Morgan was a frustrating piece of goods.

  A smile curved his lips. Having her in his life had prepared him for Denise, so he supposed he couldn’t exactly be annoyed with his sister. If it weren’t for Morgan, he would have said Denise was the most headstrong female in the world. It had taken some fancy talking on his part to get her to not only sell her carnival rides to Serendipity’s town council but to stay on to help run the amusement park for which he’d drawn up the architectural plans.

  Holding up his hands in mock surrender, Will began to back away. He’d find it all out in due time, he promised himself.

  “As long as I know.”

  Wyatt waited until Will had left before turning toward Morgan. Maybe it would be smarter to keep his mouth shut and just muddle through this rehearsal and the wedding, but he’d never been much of a muddler. He wasn’t one to just drift through life. He needed to take charge. Now was no different.

  Inclining his head, he whispered, “Morgan, we have to talk,” into her ear.

  Shivers, delicious and hot, raced up and down her spine with no other goal in sight other than undermining her. She locked her shoulders rigidly.

  “No we don’t,” she retorted crisply.

  What was she doing, sitting here beside him? she wondered. She was just asking for trouble. She’d get one of the others to scoot over and make room for her.

  Rising, she instantly felt his hand on her wrist. He’d touched her a thousand times before, yet this time, this time there was something different. She was different.

  Morgan struggled not to make that obvious to him and shot him a warning look.

  “Manhandling the groom’s sister, particularly in church,” she warned tersely, “is frowned on. You could get an extra century in hell for that.”

  He wasn’t about to get beaten off by her sharp tongue. “I’d chance it if I thought it would do any good. About last Saturday—”

  Oh, no, they weren’t walking over that ground. Not when he’d made his disinterest so plainly known. Morgan looked right through him. “It was a lovely wedding, wasn’t it?”

  There was no way she hadn’t been as affected by what had happened as he was. She hadn’t been that out of her head. “You know what I mean.”

  Her eyes were steely as they regarded him. “Simple though you are, McCall, at times I do have trouble knowing what you mean. And this is one of those times.”

  With a jerk of her hand, she pulled free and moved into the aisle as her brothers and the others rose to begin the rehearsal. Morgan was counting on memory to get her through, because she hadn’t heard a word Father Gannon had said since she’d walked in. Even if Will and Wyatt hadn’t been talking to her, the pounding of her own heart would have blotted out the priest’s words.

  Kent placed the brimming pitcher of dark stout on the table in front of Wyatt in the booth. “Okay, what’s going on with you and Morgan?”

  Lost in thought, Wyatt looked up from his beer. For a moment he’d all but forgotten where he was. Serendipity’s only bar had closed its doors to its walk-in clientele early this Friday night in order to give Kent the kind of royal send-off befitting a man of his previously confirmed bachelor state. The place was brimming to overflowing with cowboys, trail hands from the Shady Lady, which Kent managed, as well as men they had grown up with.

  Normally the din and smoke, mingling with rousing music coming from the jukebox, would have been soothing to Wyatt.

  But not tonight.

  Nothing had been soothing to him, he thought darkly, taking another sip of his warm beer, since he’d kissed Morgan. The little witch had upended his world, and now she wouldn’t even spare him two words. Telling himself it was better this way didn’t do a damn thing for his disposition. It only agitated him further.

  Because he didn’t feel like talking about it, Wyatt shrugged in response. “Same-old same-old.”

  The hell it was. Kent found Wyatt’s glib answer far from satisfying. There was nothing same about this. Even if Will hadn’t pointed it out to him, he would have noticed that there was something going on between his sister and his friend, something different, more serious than usual.

  As a rule, Kent didn’t believe in meddling in other people’s affairs. He didn’t like having his own delved into, and he felt it only fair to return the favor. But life at home, and especially loving Brianne, had taught him that if you cared about people, you had unspoken permission to meddle in their lives. Even if they didn’t like it.

  Especially when you thought they were going down for the third time. If Quint hadn’t meddled in his, he might have done the dumbest thing of his life and let Brianne walk out of it.

  Not waiting for an invitation to join him, Kent made himself comfortable in the booth. “If that was the case, you wouldn’t look as if you’d just eaten a barrel of rotten apples.”

  “What my inarticulate little brother is trying to say is that you’re not your usual, easygoing self,” Quint said as he slid in opposite Wyatt. He sensed rather than saw Kent nod his head.

  “As a matter of fact,” Will said, adding his two cents into the conversation and his body to the booth, “you look a lot like you did when you told us you were marrying Judith.”

  Will and his brothers were of the same opinion. They had all thought that was a black time in Wyatt’s life, though they had all stood by him. Will had always suspected there was more to the union than Wyatt had told any of them.

  “And how’s that?”

  The question came out of Wyatt’s mouth in a sharp snap. He hadn’t meant it to sound that way. Maybe they were right, Wyatt thought. Maybe he was too edgy. He drained his mug, then pulled the pitcher over and helped himself to more.

  “Like you’d just taken part in your own execution,” Hank elaborated. Because the booth was full, he pulled up a chair and straddled it. He planted himself directly in Wyatt’s face. Something was bothering his best friend, and he wanted to know what. “So give, what’s up?”

  Confronted by all four Cutler brothers, Wyatt felt a little overwhelmed. Having downed four beers didn’t help, either. “Hey, what is this, an interrogation?”

/>   “Nope.” Quint eased his hat back with the tip of his thumb, studying Wyatt’s face. The light hit his sheriff’s badge and made it gleam. “If this were an interrogation, you’d know it, boy. This is just a little friendly interest coming from your friends.” He raised a brow. “Anything going on between you and Morgan we should know about?”

  Quint had a feeling he already had the answer to that, but he wanted to hear it from one of the two parties involved. It was easier trying to corner Wyatt on the subject than Morgan.

  A shadow fell over the table. “Any of you boys ever consider the fact that Morgan’s a big girl now, entitled to her privacy? And that she doesn’t need her big brothers pushing their even bigger noses into things that don’t concern them?”

  “Uh-oh, this doesn’t sound good.” Quint didn’t have to turn around to know that Morgan had crashed the party and was standing behind them. Talk about timing. “Who let you in, squirt? This is a private party.”

  It took effort on Morgan’s part not to wince at the nickname he’d used when she was little. She knew that there was nothing but affection behind it, as well as behind her brothers ganging up on Wyatt to pump him. But affection or not, some things about her life were not up for public display.

  Her accusing glance swept over all of them. “Not that it matters, but I bribed the bartender. And don’t change the subject—”

  But changing the subject was exactly what Quint aimed to do. He was in no mood for a burst of temper from his little sister.

  “This is a bachelor party, Morgan.” He deliberately slid his thumb along his badge, silently reminding her that he was the sheriff as well as her brother. “There’re no women allowed.”

  Morgan hated when Quint started being a stickler. She knew he was just trying to tease her, but her tolerance had done a vanishing act in the past week.

  Annoyed, Morgan waved a disparaging hand at the woman who had popped out of an oversize cake in an undersize bathing suit less than an hour earlier. “She’s here.”