A Bride For Abel Greene (7 page)
Read A Bride For Abel Greene Online
Authors: Cindy Gerard
He fought it, but as he watched her from this small distance, he was forced to admit that he liked seeing her here, in his home. He liked the way her eyes danced when she laughed. The way her breath caught on a sharp little hitch when she looked toward the kitchen and saw him staring.
And he liked—far too much—the fire that rolled through his blood when he thought of her slight, sexy little body pressed against his.
He clenched his jaw. The damn woman struck too many chords, played on too many weaknesses.
She wasn’t the only one. Before he left, J. D. Hazzard played on a few of them, too.
“So,” J.D. said, feeling his way carefully when he and Abel had left the women in the living room and Mark and Casey in the loft with the puppies. “Things are going well?”
Abel shut the door to his office behind them. “Things aren’t going anywhere.”
J.D. eased a hip onto Abel’s drafting chair. “Right. And next you’re going to tell me you don’t find her attractive.”
“Attraction has nothing to do with it.”
J.D. quirked a brow and tucked his tongue in his cheek.
“Stop gloating, Hazzard. I’m sending her back to L.A.”
At that J.D. studied the can of soda dangling between his fingers. “Does she know that?”
“She knows. She just doesn’t want to accept it.”
“I guess I’m having a little trouble accepting it, too. What’s the problem?”
Abel glared at him.
“Okay.” J.D. held up a hand, conceding the point. “So in theory, soliciting a bride isn’t exactly a politically correct way to start a relationship. And in reality, if we hadn’t been buzzed that night I never would have talked you into placing the ad.” He grinned again. “But hey, it’s done. She’s here. She seems like a nice woman. So why not at least give yourself a chance to get to know her?”
Abel walked to the window, wishing he hadn’t been asking himself the same question ever since they’d sat in his kitchen and she’d laid into him about bargains and choices and risks—and then kissed him like she was trying to reinvent sin.
“You want to,” J.D. stated, daring him to dispute it. “It’s obvious she wants to. Why fight it?”
“Even if I did want to, it couldn’t go anywhere. I can’t ask her to stay. Not now.”
J.D. cocked a brow. “Not now? Not now, what?”
His friend knew him well. Well enough to wait until he decided to talk.
In the end Abel did just that. “I’ve got a problem at the logging site,” he said, turning back to face J.D.
His relaxed slouch was gone. His lazy grin had been replaced with an alert scowl. “What kind of problem?”
. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have been able to place his trust in any man. Or woman. That had been before he’d met Maggie and J.D. It was a measure of how much stock he placed in their friendship that he confided in him now.
Methodically and concisely, Abel told him about the fire, about the problem with his machinery that had preceded it and about his suspicions that neither incident had been accidental.
“Who?” J.D. simply said, not questioning why Abel suspected foul play.
His ready acceptance was another reason Abel valued J.D.’s friendship. He’d spent a lifetime justifying his existence and his motives. J.D. accepted his statement on blind faith.
“I can’t prove anything. But I have my suspicions. Grunewald,” he added, providing J.D. with the name of the owner of Grunewald-Casteele, the largest paper mill in the state.
“Why Grunewald?”
The question was not one of doubt but of curiosity.
“He wants my land.”
J.D. snorted. “He owns three fourths of the timber in the state. Why would he want yours? You’ve got what—a couple hundred acres? Granted, it’s choice, but it’s like a grain of sand compared to Grunewald’s beachful.”
“It’s not that he wants the land for the timber. It’s more that he wants me off it.”
“Why?”
Again, there was no doubt in his question, just more curiosity.
Unknowingly, Abel touched a hand to the scar that ran the length of his face. “We had a run-in once. Years ago. When I was a kid. A stupid kid,” he amended, thinking back to a time when he’d strutted his pride like an invitation for someone to try to take it away from him. “He’s still holding a grudge.”
J.D. stared at Abel’s scar and made the connection. “Grunewald did that to you?” Clearly shocked, J.D.’s eyes widened. “We always figured you’d had a run-in with a bear.”
“No bear. Grunewald and a bunch of his buddies.”
“He knifed you?” Disbelief colored each word.
Abel nodded. “Wanted to teach me a lesson. Put me in my place.”
“Let me get this straight. He cuts you and you figure he’s the one holding the grudge?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s holding a grudge,” Abel stated, picking up a glass paperweight from his desk and palming it.
“Why do I get the feeling there might have been a woman involved?”
A grim smile tipped up one corner of Abel’s mouth. Absently he set aside the paperweight and resettled a hip against the edge of his desk. “I was eighteen. I was the ‘breed’ from the wrong side of the blanket. And I stepped across a line when I let a ‘respectable’ girl take her walk on the wild side with me.”
“Let me guess. Grunewald considered her his property.”
The smile, this time, was the smile of a cynic. “And now he considers her his wife.”
J.D. let out a long, speculative breath. “That was a long time ago.”
“It would have been... if she hadn’t decided she wanted to pick up where she left off, when I came back to the lake.”
Abel remembered clearly the night that Trisha Grunewald had shown up at his cabin looking for him. She’d had seduction on her mind and gin on her breath.
“I take it Grunewald found out.”
Restless, Abel moved back to the window. “There was nothing to find out Unless you count the fact that I turned her down flat.”
“Then why...” Realization dawned before J.D. finished his question. “Never mind. I think I got it. A woman scorned and all that.”
He shrugged. “That’s my guess. She was pretty hot. She left here spitting like a cat and promising she’d make me pay. It was a couple of years ago, but I figure she’s been working on Grunewald ever since, and he’s finally decided that since he couldn’t buy me out, he’d force me out.”
“So he’s tried to buy you out?”
“Several times. Just like he’s already bought out everyone else.” He paused as J.D. stared in thoughtful silence, then downed the last of his soda in one swallow.
“This was all Chippewa land at one time,” Abel went on, sharing with J.D. what others had only speculated about. “When a Frenchman from Quebec married my great-great-grandmother, he bought this tract of timber for her as a wedding gift so she would never have to leave her home. When she passed it down, it was with the stipulation that it would never be sold out of the family. My mother honored her wishes.” What he couldn’t bring himself to confide—what he’d never confided to anyone—was that her determination to pass the land on to Abel had probably cost her her life.
“Grunewald will never get this land.”
If J.D. was aware of the anger that twisted in Abel’s gut, he wisely let it alone.
“So what do you want to do about it?” he asked instead.
Abel shook off the memories. “Nothing. Not yet. So far nothing has been damaged too badly. I’ll wait him out a little longer. Either he’ll tire of his little game or he’ll tip his hand. Then I’ll confront him.”
“We’ll confront him,” J.D. amended. “I’ve got no time for a back-stabbing s.o.b.”
“It could get ugly.”
“It’s already ugly,” J.D. said, prepared to back him all the way.
Abel didn’t verbalize his appreciation. He knew he didn’t have to. Instead, he reinforced his argument about Mackenzie. “And that’s why she can’t stay. Even if I wanted her to, I don’t want her or the kid getting into the middle, if it blows up.”
J.D. considered him for a long moment. “I’m not going to pretend that if Grunewald is behind this that he’ll stop short of violence. I’ve heard stories of his extreme methods of making deals to get what he wants. But I think you’re selling Mackenzie short. A woman who would give up everything she knows to marry a man sight unseen strikes me as someone who can hold her own. Besides, Grunewald’s quarrel is with you, not her.”
It was the same argument he’d been having with himself every time he’d come close to reconsidering his decision to send her away.
“And I know you,” JD. continued. “You won’t let Grunewald get near her or her brother.”
That much was true. He protected what was his.
That thought stopped him cold. Mackenzie Kincaid wasn’t his to protect. No matter how badly everyone else seemed to want her to be.
A soft rap on the door sent both their heads around.
Maggie poked her head inside. “When did this turn into a private party?”
J.D. grinned and tucked her under his arm when she walked into the room. “Men stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Stow it, Hazzard,” she said with a smile warm enough to melt ice. “Why don’t you scoot? It’s my turn to have a shot at him.”
“You’re in trouble now, Greene,” J.D. warned. After planting a kiss on his wife’s brow. “And you’re on your own with this one.” He stopped, one hand cupping the open door. “Just remember what I said.” Then he planted a kiss on Maggie’s cheek.
“The man’s insufferable,” she said on a sigh, as J.D. shut the door behind him.
Abel studied her face and saw what he wanted to see. “And you love him for it.”
“Yes. I love him. For that and for much, much more.”
She hesitated then, just long enough for Abel to sense what was coming.
“Is this going to be another lecture on how I can have that, too, if I just give it a chance?”
She smiled. “We’ve been working you over pretty good, huh?”
He grunted.
“It’s because we care about you. And after today, it’s because we care about Mackenzie and Mark.”
He turned his back to her, fighting to maintain his resolve.
“I’m not going to push, Abel. I’m just going to ask you to think about the possibilities. I never thought I’d find what I have with Blue. Now I can’t imagine life without him.”
She walked up behind him, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
Then she left him alone.
“All in all, Mackenzie Kincaid,” she told herself brightly, “it’s been quite a day.”
Hah! That was like saying the Concord was just a plane. “Or that Abel Greene is just a man,” she murmured, looking out the kitchen window, watching for his snowmobile with him and Mark on board to come back home.
Home. She closed her eyes and backed away from the window. She’d have to be careful about that. She’d been here less than twenty-four hours—an eventful twenty-four hours, granted—and she was already thinking of this cabin as home.
“You’ve got a ways to go before you’ll be solid on that count,” she reminded herself, as she slipped through the living room and climbed the loft steps to check on Nashata and the pups.
“How’s it going, girl?” she whispered, as the new mother nuzzled her babes protectively, then laid her head back down in a gesture of trust.
The sun was low on the horizon now. Almost two hours had passed since the Hazzards had loaded up Hershey and headed for their cabin, which she now knew was just a few miles up the shoreline of the lake. Almost two hours since Abel, with Mark on board—pretending he wasn’t excited—left on Abel’s big, black machine to accompany Scarlett and Casey back to the hotel nestled deep in the north woods.
“We’re going to ride with them back to the hotel,” Abel had said, then paused and added gruffly, “so I don’t have to worry about them running into trouble.” Then he and Mark had headed out the door.
“I figure he went with them so he could get away from me for a while. What do you think, Nashata?”
Nashata. She’d heard Abel tell Mark it meant little chief. He’d named her that because he’d found her beside the body of her mother who’d been killed by a poacher’s bullet. As hungry and as frightened as she’d been, she’d still scrapped and snarled when Abel had picked her up and brought her home.
“Like a little chief,” he’d said.
“He’s taken good care of you, huh, girl?” She stroked Nashata’s coarse gray coat. “Think we can convince him he can take good care of me, too?”
The thought came unbidden. She’d always taken care of herself, always stood on her own two feet. But, oh, just once, it would be nice to know that if she stumbled, if she had a need, that someone like Abel would be there to lighten the load.
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