Last-Chance Marriage Rescue

by Catherine Mann

  City girl.

  No doubt about it.

  He’d met a few of them over the years. And they weren’t his type. Although Joss wasn’t even sure he had a type anymore. Since Lara’s death he kept his dating life simple—nothing serious. No commitment. No strings. No risk.

  He saw the woman’s arms gesticulate again and then she turned, facing him and his brother. Even though it was dark, there was enough light from the ambulance, his brother’s patrol car and the flashlight in his hand to see her face. With her hat, glasses and scarf, all he could really see were her cold-reddened cheeks and mouth. She was average height, but the shapeless coat didn’t give away any sense of her physique. Joss noticed the way her head was angled, and how her gaze flicked from him to his brother. He knew exactly what she was thinking. People always did a quick double take when they saw them together for the first time.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re twins.”

  Although they were considered identical, Hank was broader in the shoulders and Joss leaner through the waist and hips. They had the same dark blond hair, but Hank sported a short crew and for years Joss had worn his hair longer and tied in a low ponytail. Recently, though, he’d cut it slightly shorter, even if it was still shaggier than his brother’s. Joss also had several tattoos—whereas Hank was way too straitlaced for ink. And of course, there was the jagged scar that ran down his brother’s left cheek, the legacy of a car accident when he was fourteen.

  The accident that tore their family apart.

  Joss shook off the ghost of memory and focused his attention on the situation at hand.

  “Miss,” Hank said in his usual polite tone, “my officer told me that your license and registration are in order, and your PBT came back with a zero reading.”

  “Just as I said it would,” she said as she passed a quick glance to the young rookie cop now heading back to his patrol car. “Since you’re obviously in charge here, can I go now?”

  Her mouth moved motor-fast—like she was used to speaking a lot. It made Joss want to grin for some reason, but he bit back the action and waited for his brother to respond.

  “Of course,” Hank said. “As long as the EMTs give you the all clear.” His brother turned to him. “Will you need me to stay and help with the tow?”

  Joss shook his head. “Nah, looks pretty straightforward.”

  “Great,” Hank said just as a message crackled through the walkie-talkie hitched to his belt. “Talk to you later. Take care of yourself, miss,” his brother said and tilted his hat politely before he headed to his vehicle.

  Joss ignored the staring woman and turned, quickly heading down the embankment. As he’d suspected, the small vehicle had turned on its descent and was at a reachable angle. By the time he hiked back up the embankment, the ambulance was gone, and so was his brother’s SUV. The other patrol car was still parked with its lights flashing and the young police officer was standing on the edge of the road, talking on his cell.

  And the woman in the shapeless coat was standing by his truck, hands on hips.

  “So, what now?” she asked.

  Joss hiked a thumb in the direction of her car. “I’ll tow your vehicle back to my workshop and check it out in the morning.”

  She didn’t look happy. “Is there a taxi service I can call to get into town?”

  “Sure,” Joss replied and then shrugged. “But I can give you a ride if you like, since I’ll be heading that way anyway.”

  She glanced at his truck. “In that?”

  “Or I can swing by my castle and grab the Maserati,” he replied and looked at her. “It’s up to you.”

  “Oh,” she said, scowling a little. “You’re really a comedian?”

  “Sweetheart,” he said with absolutely no affection as he opened the truck door, “I’m whatever I need to be. I just thought you might not want to wait for a cab in a snowstorm, but whatever makes you happy.” He glanced down. “And you might want to stand aside while I get this done—don’t want anything ruining those million-dollar shoes of yours.”

  She glanced down to her feet for a second and then stepped aside, still glaring at him, and moved around the rear of the truck, using the flashlight on her phone to guide her steps. Joss called out to the rookie cop still talking on his cell, told him to stand by the edge of the gravel, and then got into his truck. It took half an hour to get the car up from the embankment and hitched on the truck, and by the time he was done, Joss was all out of patience. For one, it had started snowing again, and for another, the woman with the unsuitable shoes was walking up and down along the edge of the road, her thin coat clearly not doing the job of protecting her from the elements. Typical city girl, he thought irritably, grabbing an oversize anorak from the truck.

  “Here,” he said as he approached her and noticed that she was shivering. “Put this on.”

  She looked at the jacket, then him, and snatched the coat without protest. “I’ve been trying to call a taxi, but the cell reception keeps cutting out.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Happens around here, and the weather isn’t helping. I said I’d drop you in town. Unless you’d prefer to hitch a ride with the officer and sit in the back seat of the patrol car?”

  Even in the dark, with only the flashlight and streetlight about thirty feet away, Joss could still make out her scowl as she dropped her bag and put on the anorak. “A ride would be great, Mr...?”

  “Joss Culhane,” he replied.

  He could swear she sucked in a sharp breath, then figured he’d imagined it.

  “Culhane?”

  Joss’s gaze narrowed. “That’s right. And you are?”

  “Marnie Jackson,” she replied, thrusting out her hand.

  Joss’s gut took a steep dive when he instantly recognized her name. “You’re the new teacher renting the house on Mustang Street?”

  She stilled, her head tilting sideways. “Yes, I’m going to be teaching the fifth grade at the elementary school.” Realization was dawning on her expression. “So, you’re...”

  “I own the house,” he said flatly. “I’m your landlord.”

  * * *

  Marnie Jackson had come to Cedar River for two reasons—one, to work as a teacher at the local school on a six-month contract. And two, to connect with her grandmother.

  But Cedar River, South Dakota, was a long way from Bakersfield, California.

  And she was a long way from everything she’d ever called home. From her family, her friends, the job she’d loved and worked hard for. But she’d promised her mother she would find Patience Reed. And she had. The older woman had married, had a family and was living her life in Cedar River—unaware that the daughter she’d given up over fifty years earlier had died, never knowing why she was put up for adoption.

  Abandoned...that was how her mother had felt all her life. Why she’d never found peace. Why she’d never gotten along with her foster parents. And then her adoptive parents. And of course, why she’d given up on her own family and her husband without a fight. Marnie knew her dad had tried to make the marriage work, but in the end he’d walked out. He’d gotten married again, to a woman who had two kids, and lived his own life. Marnie still managed to have a relationship with him, but it was strained, with the shadow of her mother’s problems hovering between them.

  Now Marnie was in Cedar River, trying to reconnect the dots to her mother’s family tree.

  And the annoying man in front of her was part of that connection.

  He was a Culhane. And Patience Reed’s other granddaughter had married a Culhane. But not this one. Abby Reed-Perkins had married Jake Culhane—perhaps a cousin or brother of the man who’d towed her car and who was regarding her with obvious impatience. A man who was her new landlord.

  Since she’d decided to move to Cedar River, the dots, it seemed, kept connecting organically.

  Back in
Bakersfield she’d hired a private detective to find out about her mother’s family. And once she knew where Patience Reed lived, she’d planned her next steps and within weeks applied for the job at the school. It was a huge leap from her job as a college professor of history—but a necessary one if she was going to pull off a little subterfuge. She needed to go undercover for a while and what better camouflage than being a teacher at the local elementary school? Of course, she was way overqualified for the position, but she figured she’d be able to pull it off for a few months. She’d called the local Realtor a couple of weeks earlier, looking for a house to rent, and once she knew she had a place to live, accepted the teaching job.

  The school principal had asked her straight out why she was applying for a position clearly below her usual status and salary, and Marnie had replied with an off-the-cuff comment about wanting to relocate to the Midwest for “family reasons,” and left the explanation at that. Because really, it was the truth. What she wanted was to finish her mother’s journey...to give her mom the closure she’d been denied. To find out why Patience Reed had given her up over half a century earlier.

  And now, in town with a new job and facing the man who was going to be her landlord, she was neck-deep in her own deceit. Marnie inhaled, pushed back her shivering shoulders, raised her chin and met his gaze—no mean feat since he was well over six feet tall and she was barely five foot five. True, her shoes added some height, but the heels were digging into the ground, and standing straight was a challenge. Not that she’d let him see that, particularly after his sarcastic comment about her footwear. It was dark, but she had enough light to register the fact he was attractive and carried himself with a kind of loose-limbed, sexy self-assurance she would expect from a man with a very large truck and a bad attitude.

  Seriously, girl, she thought, scolding herself for being such a cliché.

  “You’re five days early.”

  Marnie didn’t miss the disapproval in his voice. “My plans changed, and I didn’t get a chance to contact the Realtor.”

  “The house isn’t ready,” he said. “And probably won’t be until Wednesday.”

  Her hopes sank. There had been a mix-up with the B and B where she’d reserved a room and she’d hoped the house might be available earlier. “Oh, well, I have no intention of causing any problems. Obviously I’ll have to make other arrangements until the house is ready for me to move in.”

  His head tilted fractionally. “Let’s get going.”

  He really was obnoxious, she thought as she trudged toward his truck, following in his footsteps and picking up the scent of some woodsy cologne that registered on some internal radar as adding to his picture of blatant masculinity. His hair was longish, she noticed, hanging below his Stetson. She bet herself a million bucks that he had tattoos covering bulging muscles, all hidden beneath the long coat he wore.

  “My bags are in the trunk,” she said a little more breathlessly than she would have liked. “I’ll... I’ll need them.”

  “Obviously. Get in the truck.”

  She ignored his terse tone, clutched her handbag tightly to her hip and opened the passenger door, noticing that the young police officer who’d helped get the car onto the tow truck was now driving off. The inside of the truck was messy and she grimaced as she hauled herself up. She held her bag in her lap once she’d buckled up and waited for him to start the engine.

  “What were you doing on this road?” he asked. “You would have had to drive straight through town to get here.”

  Marnie sighed, her irritation rising. “I had a booking at a B and B a couple of miles from here.”

  “Had?”

  She nodded. “Yes. But there was a mix-up apparently and the place was double-booked. Since mine was the second reservation, I missed out. So, what’s the best hotel in town?” she asked as they began to drive off.

  “O’Sullivan’s,” he replied. “But unless you have a reservation I think you’ll be out of luck. There’s a rock hound convention in town this weekend.”

  “Which probably explains the mix-up at the B and B,” she said and sighed again.

  “Probably,” he repeated.

  Marnie was sure he was smiling beneath his flat tone, as though he found her and the entire situation amusing. “Well, perhaps we can stop by the hotel so I can check anyway?”

  “Sure,” he said. “My time is yours.”

  She jerked her gaze sideways. “It is?”

  “I get paid by the hour,” he remarked. “Double time on the weekend. And since it’s after nine o’clock on a Friday night, we’re officially into weekend rates.”

  His words were drenched in sarcasm—and she knew immediately that he wasn’t happy about being out on a Friday night. He probably had a family—a wife or significant other waiting for him at home. Whereas, she, on the other hand, didn’t have anyone waiting for her.

  Marnie tried to keep her voice friendly, but the man had a way of pushing her buttons. Perhaps him being her landlord wasn’t such a great idea? “I’m sorry to be an inconvenience. Like I said, I hadn’t planned on arriving until next week, but I thought it would be good to spend a few days in town getting to know the place before I settled in. I probably should have stayed another night in Wyoming, but I thought I had enough daylight left to make the trip, and then the weather turned bad and I got stuck behind this really slow RV and couldn’t safely overtake for miles, and then I missed the Cedar River turnoff, and once it got dark I didn’t have enough cell reception on my phone to follow the map, and the road was slippery and I—”

  “Okay,” he said, wincing as though the sound of her voice hurt his ears. “I get it, you apologize. Are you cold? I can turn the heat up.”

  She nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  “You’ll need a better coat for the winter.”

  She wondered if everything he said was a criticism, or whether she was simply cold and tired and feeling oversensitive. Whatever. Marnie held on to her temper. Normally, she was calm and controlled and measured in her response to things—a reaction she’d learned from an early age dealing with her parents’ often volatile relationship. Once they had divorced, things settled down, but the cast had been set by then. Marnie was the peacemaker. Reliable and compassionate, a person who could be called upon to act as an envoy. Miss Dependable, her dad used to call her. The kind of person who could handle things.

  But she didn’t know if she could handle this.

  She’d never ventured too far from California before. Never been too far from her extended family—her aunt Val and cousins, whom she had a close relationship with. Even her father, who she only spoke to every few weeks, had voiced his concern about her plans. But she had to keep her promise to her mother. For Marnie, it was about healing. To know that all the hard times hadn’t been in vain. She’d loved her mom more than anyone, but she wasn’t blind to how much loving her had cost. The memory of her mother’s unpredictable highs, and then equally volatile lows, had left her yearning for inner peace and in a way, closure. And she hoped, with all her heart, that she’d find both of those things in Cedar River.

  Marnie stayed silent as he drove into town, finding the loud hum of the engine oddly relaxing. He smelled good, too, she noticed once they were settled in the vehicle and on their way. Not of axle grease or anything like that, as she might have expected from a man who was so ruggedly attractive and blatantly masculine—but of that woodsy cologne she suspected lingered on his clothes. His wife probably picked it out, she thought idly, glancing at his left hand for a moment, but she didn’t spot a ring. She turned her head to look out the window, noticing that it had started snowing again. The trip had been her first real experience with snow, and she’d had a harder time driving than she’d anticipated. Skidding on black ice, losing control of her car and plunging down the embankment was definitely a dramatic way to arrive at her destination. Thankfully, the vehicle
didn’t look as though it had sustained too much damage, and she was fully insured. It was inconvenient, more than anything, and she figured she’d just have to rent a car until hers was repaired.

  And Mr. Grumpy Pants beside her looked like he could fix pretty much anything.

  “So, you’re a twin, huh?” she asked.

  “That’s right,” he replied.

  “Do you have any more siblings?”

  He took a moment to reply. “Ah...yeah. Three other brothers and a sister.”

  “I’m an only child,” she said, not having any idea why she was telling him. “I have a few cousins, but a large family sounds so wonderful. Sometimes I wish I—”

  “Do you always talk so much?”

  Marnie stilled. “I’ve been driving alone for nearly three days, just stopping to sleep at motels along the way... Sorry if I’m chattering on.”

  He made an indifferent, grunting sound and she figured he was all out of conversation. But she was interested. He was a Culhane—and since the private investigator had informed her that she had a cousin who had married a Culhane, it was a link, a starting point, a place to begin.

  “So, you’ve lived in Cedar River all your life?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “When I applied for the teaching position I did a little research,” she remarked, twisting the handle on her tote to allay her nerves. “It seems like a really lovely town. And when I was speaking with the school principal, Mrs. Santino, she said the town had a lot of interesting history and was something of a tourist attraction. Once I settle in, I’m looking forward to looking around and investigating the—”

  “So, you do?” he asked, cutting her off.

  “I do what?”