AWOL Bride, page 3
Hard to tell whether that was from her physical condition or her mental state, she thought.
She slumped back against the soft cushions, studying her surroundings in the dim firelight.
She’d never been to this cabin before. Rickie had brought friends out for camping or hunting, but never for parties—and now she could see why. Built by Rickie’s great-great-grandfather, the place provided shelter but it was hardly a showpiece.
The living room she was in featured rough-hewn log walls and a wood-planked floor, the old couch she was on and a scarred coffee table. Off to one side, the kitchen section was made up of a small utility table acting as an island counter and a few cupboards. There was also an old black-and-silver wood-burning stove in the corner, but that was it—no refrigerator, no other appliances at all.
A doorway off the kitchen led somewhere she couldn’t see into, and another to Maicy’s left appeared to be a bedroom with a four-poster bed that looked old enough to have arrived by covered wagon.
If there was a bathroom, she couldn’t see it from the sofa and she worried that the only facilities might be an outhouse.
All in all, it was nothing like the cozy, quaint bridal suite at the Northbridge Bed-and-Breakfast, where she’d planned to spend tonight.
Instead she was here. A runaway bride.
What a mess this had all become...
Rather than being at her wedding reception tonight, dancing and celebrating as Mrs. Gary Stern, she and Gary were over. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she was stranded in a log cabin with yet another, earlier example of her lousy taste in men.
“I keep thinking I’m making better choices than you did, Mom, but maybe I inherited some kind of faulty man-reader from you,” she muttered.
There was no question that her mother had chosen poorly in Maicy’s father. At the first sign of any problem—big or small—John Clark had taken off. Disappeared, sometimes for a year or two at a time.
Her mother had excused him, saying their shotgun marriage after her mother had discovered she was pregnant with Maicy had not been easy for him. Maicy hadn’t had much sympathy.
To her, her father had been a drop-in houseguest whom her mother waited—and waited and waited—for. A man who never stayed long before he was gone again.
And every time he left, her mother had sunk into dark depressions that lasted for months.
Once, Maicy had asked why her mother didn’t divorce him and find someone who would be there for her. For them both.
Her mother’s only answer had been that she loved the man.
That had seemed silly to twelve-year-old Maicy.
Until she’d fallen in love herself.
With Conor.
Sitting sideways on the sofa, she pulled her knees to her chest and huddled under the blanket, staring into the fire now, wondering where he’d gone.
Conor was as unreliable as her father, she reminded herself. As untrustworthy.
But Gary? She’d thought there was no risk with him.
Steady, conservative, hometown Gary.
Gary, who had been hurt as badly by love as she had.
Gary, who she’d been convinced was predictable and safe...
Oh yeah, she definitely had a faulty man-reader.
She wasn’t sure if it made things better or worse that she hadn’t been wholeheartedly in love with Gary, the way she’d been with Conor. When she’d caught him today, she’d still been angry. Hurt. Embarrassed.
But she was also secretly relieved.
And now, sitting alone in the aftermath, she couldn’t help wondering why that was—because relieved was still how she felt.
“I really need to talk to you, Rach,” she muttered, wishing she had her cell phone to call her friend.
Everything was just such a mess...
Pain shot through her gashed forehead just then, forcing her eyes closed until it passed.
If the bleeding had stopped or at least slowed down, maybe she could finally take something for the pain.
“Conor?” she called, hoping maybe he’d hear her from wherever he was—maybe there was a basement or a cellar or something...
But still there was no answer.
Where was he?
It occurred to her suddenly that if he was outside in this storm, maybe something had happened to him.
That sent a strong wave of alarm through her and she got up.
Too fast.
Her head went into such a spin that she fell back onto the sofa.
“Okay, that wasn’t great,” she said out loud.
She waited, took some deep breaths, tried to relax.
The dizziness began to pass.
But the worry that something might have happened to Conor didn’t. She had to see if he was okay.
She got up again, this time much more carefully. She was definitely weak. Her knees felt as if they might give out.
But she wasn’t going to let that happen. She did what she’d been doing since the day Conor had left her on her own—she willed herself to push through. Pain, weakness, fear, depression, whatever—she stood on her own two feet regardless!
And now that she was on those two feet all she needed to do was go to the other side of the room. That was nothing, she told herself.
She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders like a cape and clutched it in front with one hand. Keeping her other hand against the wall for support, she took careful steps, aiming for the other side of the room and the window over the kitchen sink. Hoping as she did that she wouldn’t discover Conor outside, hurt or incapacitated in some way. Because she was in no shape to rescue him.
Along the way she reached the doorway off the kitchen and found that there was another small room with a door leading outside.
The room appeared to be a catchall—a pantry stocked with food and a supply room where she saw snowshoes and a shovel and an ax among other things.
Other things that didn’t include Conor.
So she bypassed the room and finished the trip to the kitchen sink.
When she got there she maintained her grip on the blanket with one hand and held on to the edge of the sink with the other.
“Wow,” she said as she peered out the window at the storm. She’d seen some bad ones, but this topped the list.
Just then the snow swirled away from the cabin and she caught sight of something moving to the left.
She craned forward, looking hard through the window. There was definitely someone out there. Someone big. It had to be him. Maybe at a woodpile? Getting firewood made sense.
Feeling relieved, she turned and slowly retraced her steps back to the couch as a slight shiver shook her. Even with her blanket cape, the blood-soaked wedding dress was not the warmest of attires.
The sofa was a welcome respite when she got there again. Sitting at one end she pulled her knees up to her chest, tightened the blanket around herself so every inch was covered and returned to staring into the fire that was the only source of heat.
Her short venture had used up the little oomph she’d had and she rested her head to the back of the sofa cushion, thinking that it was a good thing Conor didn’t need her help.
And what kind of a weird practical joke was fate playing on her today, anyway? First Gary’s old flame dropped into his lap and now hers?
She closed her eyes at that thought and made a face.
She did not like the way things had gone with Conor so far. Most of all, she didn’t like that she’d lost control over her emotions. She hadn’t even realized she was still that angry with him. What had happened with him was ancient history. She’d come to grips with it long ago, chalking it up to experience. It had taken her some time—well into adulthood, actually—but she’d even come to think that he’d probably made the right decision. How many teenage marriages actually worked out?
So, if it was all water under the bridge—which it was—why hadn’t she just been indifferent, detached, completely unemotional toward him?
She should have been. Instead, she’d been anything but. The only explanation she had for it was that today had just thrown too much at her. Seeing Conor again had been the straw that broke the camel’s back...even if he happened to be the person who had kept her from dying today.
The person she should have been grateful to.
She chafed at that thought.
Grateful to Conor Madison?
This really was a practical joke on fate’s part—now she had to be grateful to the guy who had dumped her?
Fabulous, she thought facetiously.
But she also wasn’t happy to have behaved so poorly toward Conor.
Not that he didn’t deserve her scorn and contempt. But showing it put her in a position she didn’t want to be in. She didn’t want to be the smaller person. The grudge-bearer.
And she didn’t want him thinking she cared.
So that lashing-out thing wasn’t going to happen from here on, she vowed. Not when it might make him think she hadn’t gotten over him. That their childhood romance had been so important to her that she was still hurt or mad or something. Anything.
Because she wasn’t.
It wasn’t as if she would ever choose to be stuck in a snowstorm, in a small space with him, but since she apparently couldn’t alter that, she wasn’t going to let it be a big deal. She was just going to make the best of it until this all passed.
Then they would part ways again.
But in the meantime he was not going to get to her. He was basically a stranger to her now. A stranger whose company she would have to endure for a little while whether she liked it or not.
A stranger who had grown into one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen...
That didn’t matter, either.
Even if it was the truth.
He’d always been handsome, only somehow time and a few years had done wonders for him. It had taken chiseled features and added some hardcore masculinity and a ruggedness that screamed raw sensuality. It had built even more muscle mass onto his body and turned him into a hunk-and-a-half.
But it really didn’t matter. Not to her. It didn’t have any effect on her. He didn’t have any effect on her.
So move on, storm, she commanded.
Because as soon as it did, she could get out of this place and put Conor Madison back in the past, where he belonged.
When the back door opened she knew it. The sound of the screeching wind wasn’t muffled and a frigid blast of air whipped through the cabin.
Maicy didn’t budge. She just went from looking at the fire to watching for Conor to appear through that door.
Finally, he came into view. Snow and droplets of water dotted dark hair that was in unfairly attractive disarray. The collar of his navy blue peacoat was turned up to frame his sexy jawline, and the coat accentuated shoulders a mile wide now.
But none of it was going to have an impact on her, she told herself.
“You’re awake,” he said when his eyes met hers.
“I am,” she confirmed, forcing her tone to be completely dispassionate and neutral. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten. How do you feel?”
“I’m okay,” she insisted, unwilling to confide more in him.
“I need to know, Maicy,” he reprimanded, so she told him the details, still assuring him she was fine, but adding that she wouldn’t mind a little pain reliever for her headache.
“And I don’t suppose you brought my suitcase from my car when you got me out, did you?” she asked, huddling in the blanket.
“I didn’t,” he said, leaving his coat in place as he brought firewood around the utility table. “I was only paying attention to you—I didn’t even notice anything else in the car. I have my duffel, though. You can wear something of mine when you’re up to changing—something warm.”
“I’d appreciate that,” she said even though she wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of wearing his clothes. And while she was at it, she said, “And I also appreciate what you did getting me here. You saved me. Thank you for that.”
“Any time—” he said before cutting himself off as if he only just remembered that their past made that promise into a lie.
He turned from her to arrange the firewood, and Maicy’s gaze went to his thighs stretching the denim of his jeans to capacity—thick and solid.
“If you’re up to it,” he said as he loaded the bucket, “there are some logistics we should discuss.”
“Okay,” Maicy agreed.
“We’re pretty socked in by this storm,” he began. “Cell service is spotty—at best. I get service one minute, lose it the next. And until this storm quits, I don’t know when we’ll be able to get out of here.”
“Tomorrow—”
“I think that may be optimistic and we have to plan for a little longer than that.”
“How long?” she asked, trying to keep her distaste for that idea out of her tone.
“I don’t know. I just know that we have to conserve supplies, just in case. It’s impossible to tell at this point how long we’ll be here, but better safe than sorry.”
Maicy clenched her teeth to keep from making a snide comment about that being his guiding rule.
“Here’s how it is up here,” he continued. “We’re off the grid. That means no electricity, limited water. The water in the storage tank downstairs is the only non-drinking water, and the only power we have comes from a solar-powered generator. Both of those are at about half capacity. I can get us by for a while with what we have, but only if we’re careful. The water in the tank isn’t for eating or drinking but there’s plenty of bottled water for that. We have a pretty good stock of dried and canned food. The woodpile is high—that’s good. But, for instance, something like taking a shower—”
“No showers?” Maicy said in horror, thinking of how sticky she felt with the blood in her hair and down her neck.
“Yes, showers, but here’s how they happen—there’s a propane tank hooked to the water heater in the basement. I can turn on the gas and heat the water but every time I do that, we’re using up propane and water. So to shower it’ll take half an hour to heat the water. Then, in the shower, there’s a chain to pull to turn the pump on and off. You pull the chain, get wet, stop the water. Lather up. Pull the chain to rinse off. All as quick as possible so you use as little water as you can.”
“Okay...” she said, already missing the long, steamy showers she ordinarily took. But trying to look on the bright side, she said, “So this must mean that there is a bathroom?”
“There’s a room,” he hedged. “Off the bedroom. That’s where the shower is, along with a composting toilet.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a john that’ll take some explanation, too. But it looks like a regular one, if that helps,” he joked, giving her that familiar one-sided smile that had made her feel better about most anything when she’d liked him.
It still worked, damn him.
“I also stocked the bathroom with candles and some kerosene lanterns, so you’ll have light in there, anyway,” he said.
He was so confident, so sure of himself. No wonder she’d believed in him when she’d been at her most distressed...
“I’ve been in worse,” he concluded. “We’ll be fine, we just need to conserve what resources we have.” He’d finished with the firewood and he stood up, unbuttoning his coat and taking it off. “Let me get a lantern and check your head,” he said next. “Any nausea or are you getting hungry?”
Food was the last thing on her mind. But she said, “I’m not nauseous.”
“Good. For tonight I just want to get some food and water in you, and get you to bed.”
There wasn’t any insinuation in that but still it set off a tiny titillation in her that she tried to tell herself was just the chill.
“Where are you sleeping?” she heard herself ask.
He laughed.
No, no, no, not his laugh. She’d always had a weakness for his laugh, too...
“I’ll take the couch,” he assured her. “But we’re playing hospital tonight so I’ll be in every couple of hours to check on you.”
And crawl into bed with her and hold her and keep her warm with those massively muscled arms wrapped around her?
Ohhh, that was some weird flashback to the teenage Maicy’s fantasies...
A blow to the head... I’ve suffered a severe blow to the head. It must have knocked something loose...
Something she would make sure was tightened up again.
“We’ll deal with everything else tomorrow,” she heard him say into the chaos of her thoughts.
“So I can’t shower tonight?” she said when that sank in.
“Nope. I’ll heat enough on the stove for you to clean up a little better, but I want you down until tomorrow. We’ll see then if you can shower,” he decreed, before heading to get the lantern.
And as much as she didn’t want to, Maicy couldn’t help checking out his walk-away.
That had gotten better, too.
But it’s what’s inside that counts, she lectured herself.
And she didn’t mean what was inside those jeans.
It was what was inside the man that counted.
The man whom she had—once upon a time—asked to marry her.
Only to have him turn her down.
Chapter Three
Maicy would have slept much better on Sunday night had Conor not come in every two hours to check on her—the way he’d warned her he would.
The four-poster bed was the most comfortable thing she’d ever slept on. Conor had given her a brand new T-shirt and sweatpants straight out of the packages to use as pajamas, the sheets were clean, and with two downy quilts covering her and the slowly burning fire in the shared fireplace—that Conor also kept watch over all night—it would have been heavenly if not for her headache, and the interruptions.
