Starting Over (Nugget Romance 4) (29 page)

She gazed over at him in the passenger seat. It was too dark in the car to make out his features. “You mean to negotiate a better salary? Benefits? That sort of thing?” God, she knew nothing about the business world. To her, the money didn’t mean much, but watching Nate at the meeting today, cool, confident. and in command, made her wonder what his game was. Was he trying to torture her? Make her want him even more than she already did?

“That . . . and anything else you want.” George said it kind of funny, and somehow she could sense him smiling.

The Lowery clan flooded the dining room the next morning for breakfast. Today they planned to take the gold-train tour, which would give Sam a few hours to breathe. Nate decided to show up at ten, which was two hours later than his usual time. For the life of her, she didn’t know what was going on with him.

Yesterday, after making his big announcement, he’d disappeared. Just vanished.

“We need to talk,” she told him as she hefted an egg soufflé to bring out to the dining room.

He put down his coffee mug, grabbed the soufflé from her and said, “No need. I saw your dad this morning. He told me you’ve decided to go back to Connecticut.”

What? Sam had no idea what her meddling father was up to. But he was certainly up to something. “I’d like to talk with you about it.”

“What’s the point?” He left with the dish and didn’t return for his coffee. Sam suspected that he’d locked himself in his office.

With a slew of chores still on her list to get the Lowerys off on their field trip, she didn’t have time to deal with Nate. But as soon as the guests were gone she planned to have a long, in-depth conversation with him.

As Sam set up rows of brown-bag lunches on a table in the lobby for team Lowery to take on their train ride, she tried her father on the phone. No answer at her house, but he finally picked up on his cell.

“Daddy, what did you tell Nate?”

“What? It’s a bad connection.”

It sounded perfectly fine to Sam. “What are you up to, George Dunsbury the Fourth?”

“Can’t hear you,” came his muffled voice. “I’ll try to call you when I get to a landline.” He clicked off, and Sam wondered where he could be where there wasn’t a landline.

She returned to Brady for the vegetarian lunches. On her way back to the lobby, she noticed that Nate’s office door was open and he was gone.
Damn him
. In the dining room, she cleared the dirty dishes and brought them back to the kitchen.

“Brady, did Nate say where he was going?”

Nope.” Brady went back to rolling his pie dough.

She returned calls in her office and organized her calendar. Before she knew it the Lowerys were back from their train ride. The entire group had a reservation for dinner at the Ponderosa. Sam just had to make sure that everyone knew where to go and what time to be there. A few of the guests wanted to go on a short bike ride before supper. Sam opened the shed and showed them where the bikes were stored and gave them directions to a nice flat trail along the Feather River. A few of the older guests wanted to relax in their rooms. Landon stopped by Sam’s office to tell her how pleased he was with the reunion so far.

For a nerdy guy, he could be fairly charming. After Landon left to join the bike ride, Sam popped her head in Nate’s office. He still wasn’t back. After dinnertime, she’d given up on him altogether. Perhaps he’d gone to San Francisco.

With the Lowerys handled for the evening, she started to pack up to go home. She hadn’t heard back from her dad and was starting to worry.

Then the Lumber Baron door opened and Nate came in.

“You okay?” Sam asked because he didn’t look quite right. All that cockiness he usually carried around with him seemed to have dissipated.

“I didn’t expect you to be here so late. I just came back to finish up some paperwork.”

“Okay,” she said, deciding that they could talk another day. He seemed tired and disjointed. Not at all like himself. “I’ll let you get to it then.”

He shoved his hands in his pocket and rocked back on his heels. “Good night.”

“See you.”

She was reaching for the door when he said, “Don’t go back to Connecticut, Sam.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” She stepped out into the July evening. The sun hadn’t yet set and the Nugget sky burned a fiery red. Summer in the Sierra was the way the locals described their colorful twilight hours.

“I’m sorry I told Fifi Reinhardt who you are.” He’d followed her outside. “I never intended to trade on your name, but when I mentioned you, she obviously recognized Dunsbury and got excited. Never in a million years did I think there was anything wrong with it, but I’ll never do it again.”

“I know,” she said as she started for her car. “Thank you for apologizing. It means a lot.”

“I love you, Sam.”

She stopped dead in her tracks, her heart pounding like a herd of wild horses running through her chest.

“I love you so much I ache with it,” he said. “And if you leave . . . You can’t leave.”

“I thought you wanted to go back to just being my boss?”

“I was an idiot, Sam. I was just being defensive because I was afraid of getting hurt.” He came down the stairs and joined her in the parking lot. “I don’t want to be your boss anymore.”

“You don’t?” she asked, confused. Just yesterday he’d offered her a vice president position in his company.

“I want us to be partners. Before you say no, hear me out, okay? I think we’re perfect for each other. You soften my rough edges, mostly because you don’t take my crap. And I trust your judgment one hundred percent. You want to build a barn at the Lumber Baron or on Gold Mountain, we’ll build a barn. You want to fire Richard, we’ll fire Richard and bring in Brady. Whatever you want to do.”

“And my title will still be vice president?” Because this sounded like a much bigger job to Sam . . .

“Your title will be Mrs. Nathaniel Breyer and anything else you want tacked on to it.”

She stared at him, stunned. “What are you saying?” And then she held her breath.

“I’m saying”—he reached into his shirt pocket for a little velvet box and dropped to one knee on the hot, sticky pavement—“you’re everything I ever dreamed of and more, Samantha Dunsbury. Give me another chance and I’ll spend my life making you happy. Marry me?”

She exhaled and saw stars, maybe from holding her breath so long. But Nate Breyer had just proposed.

“Yes,” she whispered as he slipped the ring on her finger.

“I got it in Reno today. The best jewelry store I could find on short notice. If you don’t like it, I could exchange it for something else. But when your dad said you were leaving, I panicked. I can’t imagine this place without you . . . without you in my life.”

“You can’t?” She was dazzled by him. And she’d never seen a ring more beautiful, more sparkly or more perfect. She held it up to him. “I love it . . . not too big, not too small, just right. Because you know me, Nate. I love you . . . I love . . .” Oh God, she was rambling like a lunatic. But Nate, who had gotten to his feet, was too busy kissing her to notice.

“You won’t change your mind, will you?” he said against her lips.

“Never.”

“Promise? Because you’ve been known to—”

“I promise.” She wouldn’t let him say it.

“We’ll have to talk to your dad.” He stopped kissing her to look into her eyes. “He’s counting on you going back with him to Connecticut.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about him.” She planted her lips back on his and felt him smiling against her mouth.

“You sure?” he whispered. “Because you kind of have a reputation, you know?”

“It depends,” she teased. “Is your love for me for real or for show?”

“I’ll let you decide.” And when he kissed her into sheer oblivion there was no doubt left in her mind.

“Y
ou think she’ll actually show up this time?” Owen whispered to Darla, who told him to keep his yap shut.

Nate overheard the entire exchange, even over the din of the string quartet and stragglers still looking for seats. Not for one minute did he think Sam would stand him up, but for insurance he’d put Maddy on the case. She wasn’t to leave the bride’s side, not even for a bathroom run.

And just to hedge his bets, Nate had asked for a short engagement—he didn’t want to give the bride too much time to change her mind. A person couldn’t be too careful. Fortunately for him, Sam didn’t want to plan another extravagant wedding. She’d just finished Harlee and Colin’s and did enough of them for her clients. So here they stood at the Lumber Baron, ready to tie the knot on one of those perfect Northern California September days when the sun shone and the temperature registered a balmy seventy-eight degrees. Afterward, the wedding party and one hundred of their closest friends and family would move to Lucky’s barn for barbecue and dancing. The next day, they had flights to Nantucket for a week-long honeymoon at Sam’s summerhouse.

Initially, George had balked at the informality of his only daughter’s wedding, but Sam had persuaded him to go with the flow.

“Daddy, you’re in Nugget now. Get over yourself.”

Since becoming a part-time resident of the town, George had gotten much more laid-back, trading in his large collection of red pants and loafers for jeans and boots. Coincidentally enough, he’d bought a house in Sierra Heights the very day Nate and Sam had gotten engaged. George had said it was a good investment.

Nate, however, suspected that he’d been hoodwinked by the scheming old man, that Sam had never intended to move back to Connecticut, and that George had been playing matchmaker.

Thank goodness. Sam was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

And of course Lilly, who Sophie shoved into his arms. “We want a picture of you two on your wedding day,” she said, snapping various shots with her smartphone.

“Get into the picture,” Donna told Sophie and Mariah. “I’ll get all four of you.”

“I want one of Sam, Lilly, and me after the ceremony,” Nate told them.

“We’ll take it in front of the Lumber Baron,” Mariah said. “It’ll be beautiful.”

Although Sam had enthusiastically agreed to take the top event-planning job, she’d persuaded Nate to let her make the Lumber Baron her main base of operation. Like him, she’d travel back and forth. But with Gold Mountain in the works, and plenty of barn weddings on the horizon at Lucky’s cowboy camp, they needed their focus to be in Nugget for now. So they’d agreed to live in Nate’s house and maybe buy a second place in San Francisco later.

The processional music started up, signaling that the ceremony was about to begin. Nate took his place under the arbor Colin had built. The minister stood stiffly at the lectern. Brady came out the back door, near the kitchen, and grabbed a chair at the end of the front row.

As the quartet launched into the “Wedding March,” it seemed that the entire audience held its collective breath. Harlee had discreetly positioned herself to get the photo op if the bride decided to make a run for it. And Owen kept turning around to see where she was. Lucky, on the other hand, seemed to have more faith than the rest. He sat with his mom, scanning the crowd in front of him. Nate could only presume he was looking for Raylene Rosser, who if rumor had it right was seeing the champion bull rider.

As the music continued to play, the guests waited a beat before getting to their feet, still uncertain. Then Sam appeared in a white strapless gown and a long veil. Coming down the aisle on her father’s arm, Sam took Nate’s breath away. Like an angel, she smiled at him, her big blue eyes so beguiling and full of love that for a moment Nate was suspended in time and eternally grateful that of all the country inns in all the small towns in the world, Samantha Dunsbury, soon to be Breyer, had walked into his and decided to start over.