The Best Man's Bride (10 page)

Colleen’s soft chuckle drew him from his thoughts. “I did it, bored you with insurance talk.”

“You could never bore me,” he insisted. “But I am tired.” Of fighting his feelings for her.

“Josh must be working you hard at the new house.”

He shook his head. “You’re the reason I’m not sleeping. You keep me awake, thinking about you. About how sweet you taste, about how perfectly you fit in my arms.”

Colleen closed her eyes and shivered. “Don’t.”

Don’t tempt her to toss aside all her hard-fought-for caution and common sense.

“I can’t fight how I feel about you, Colleen.”

His fingers skimmed across her cheekbones to tangle themselves in her hair. The weight at the base of her neck eased as he freed her hair from the clip. Metal clattered across the floor, the barrette tossed aside.

She kept her eyes closed, steeling herself to resist his charms. To resist him. But he didn’t play fair. His lips replaced his fingers, skimming across the curve of her cheek. He nipped at her earlobe, then flicked his tongue beneath it, against the hollow in her throat.

“You can’t fight me, either,” he insisted, his voice lowered to a whisper, a sensual threat.

“I’m not fighting you,” she said, although she kept her hands curled into fists against his chest, holding him back. She fought herself, her own traitorous urges.

“Good, because you’d lose.”

Her lips twitched into a smile at his arrogance. Not that he wasn’t entitled to it. Most women probably weren’t strong enough to resist him.

She wished she was.

His fingers touched her blouse, tugging at the buttons. She opened her eyes, shocked at his audacity. But she couldn’t stop him. She couldn’t wrap her hands around his wrists and pull his fingers from her buttons. She could only stand, trembling, while he undid every last one and opened the front of her blouse to reveal her simple bra. The thin white lace betrayed her, showing clearly her hardened nipples. He lowered his head and, through the lace, he closed his mouth around one, gently tugging and teasing.

Her knees weakened at the heat and sensation of his touch. And she stumbled back on her heels. Nick caught her, his arms sliding around her waist, then dropping to her hips. He lifted her and walked back a few short steps, bringing her into the bathroom. Steam warmed the room and heated her face.

He lifted her higher, settling her on the edge of the antique marble-topped vanity. Her skirt rode up, baring her legs. Nick moved closer, the terry cloth of his towel rough against her inner thighs. His hands, his clever healing hands, undid the front clasp of her bra, so that the flimsy garment fell away, baring her breasts to his hungry gaze. Then, his hungry mouth. His lips closed around her nipple once more, his tongue teasing the hard point while his fingers stroked her other breast.

She arched her hips toward the erection evident beneath his towel. He moved closer, pressing into the ache between her legs. Instead of easing, her need intensified. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, then slid them down the rippling muscles of his back, to his hips. She clutched him closer, and he groaned against her breast.

“Colleen, you’re torturing me,” he accused her. “Let me make love to you.”

She opened her mouth to answer him, probably with an unequivocal yes, but then she heard another voice. Her brother’s, through the intercom in the hall. “Colleen, did you find that file? The Frazers are early.”

She slipped from the vanity, her legs trembling. “Oh, my God.” She’d forgotten everything, her job, where they were, just as she had at the park. Nick brought out her recklessness. He wasn’t good for her. “I have to get him that file now.”

Nick nodded. “Why don’t you bring him his file and then come back up here to me?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Clayton might want me to take notes,” she lied.

“Who cares what your brother wants, Colleen? You’re a big girl. Do what you want.”

She closed her eyes and dragged in a deep breath. “I’m not a girl.” Was that how he saw her? Young and immature, malleable? She’d done nothing to prove otherwise. Until now. “I’m a woman, one who knows better than to give in to a man like you, who only wants one thing.”

“Colleen.”

“You want to know where my sister is.”

“I don’t give a damn where your sister is!”

She almost believed him. But then she’d have to accept that he wanted her, only her. Not Molly. Not bragging rights. And that possibility opened her up to the risk of so much more than humiliation. “Then why don’t you just leave Cloverville and me alone?”

“I’m afraid that I can’t.” With the resignation in his voice, the weariness in his eyes, his declaration appeared to unsettle him as much as it did her.

“You find what you want?”

The man’s booming voice startled Nick into fumbling the paint cans. They dropped with a clatter and rolled across the scarred wood floor of the old hardware store. Josh had insisted that Nick buy the remodeling supplies here instead of at the big-box lumber store on the outskirts of town. Something about small-town loyalties or some such nonsense. He hadn’t really been paying attention. Since meeting Colleen McClintock, he’d struggled to focus on anything else but her.

“Yeah, I found what I want,” he assured the gray-haired shopkeeper. But he couldn’t have it. He couldn’t have
her.

A gnarled finger precariously close to Nick’s face, the old man pointed at him. “You’re that guy. The one who’s with the other fella, from the city…”

“What?”

“You were in the wedding-that-wasn’t.”

“I was in the wedding party,” Nick admitted, thinking to himself that there’d been damn little to party about.

The shopkeeper shifted his hand away from Nick’s face and snapped his fingers. “You’re the best man. Sorry shame for your friend,” he commiserated with a shake of his head, “being stood up like that.”

“Yeah.”

“That sure was a kicker, that McClintock girl taking off on your buddy like that.” Despite the commiserating tone, his eyes twinkled with delight. “Word is she went out the window.”

“Word is,” Nick agreed as he retrieved the cans of paint.

Mr. Carpenter, according to the name tag on his tool apron, shook his head again. “That’s just not like our Molly. She was always such a quiet, smart little girl, with her nose forever stuck in a book—unless she was running with that Hamilton girl.” He chuckled. “Now, Abby, she’d go through a window. Whether it was open or not.”

“Really?” No wonder Clayton McClintock was losing sleep over the blonde. She was like Nick, and she was not the type anyone should give his heart to because she couldn’t be trusted with it. It was probably a good thing that Colleen didn’t trust him.

The bell above the door jangled as another customer entered the shop. Afternoon sunshine streamed through the tall windows opening onto Main Street, illuminating all sorts of tools, paint, hardware and other odds and ends. Until the old fellow, whom Nick assumed was the owner, had cornered him, he’d been almost charmed by the place.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Nick said as Mr. Carpenter leaned around the tall shelf to peer toward the storefront. At the hospital, Nick always made a point of avoiding gossip—usually because he was the subject of it. He liked it even less when his best friend was feed for the gossip mill.

“That’s fine.” Mr. Carpenter waved off his concern. He lowered his booming voice to what he must have considered a whisper. “It’s just that old busybody, Mrs. Hild—from down the street.” Then, raising his voice so that the paint cans rattled and his hearing aid screeched, he shouted at her, “Rose, I’m back here with that doctor fella.”

“Doctor?” she called back. “What doctor?”

“You know, one of the doctors building that office on the east side of town.” He snorted his derision. “The doctors that make you pretty.” Whispering now, he continued, “Ain’t enough surgery in the world gonna help Rose with that one.”

Nick nearly choked, stifling his laugh and remembering Josh’s order not to alienate potential customers. When the older woman poked her head around the corner of the shelves, Nick was surprised that her neck was strong enough to hold it up—because of the hat she wore, its wide brim bedecked with flowers.

He nodded a greeting at the woman, then explained, “Josh is the plastic surgeon. But he doesn’t do elective cosmetic procedures anymore.” Not after his first wife, who’d left him once he’d made her beautiful on the outside. To Nick, she’d always be ugly on the inside, since she’d hurt his friend, just as Molly McClintock had. Another reason it was good that Colleen didn’t trust him—he’d never forgive or accept her sister, even if Josh did.

“So what do you do, if you’re not making people ‘pretty’?” Mr. Carpenter pried, leaving Nick to conclude that he was really the bigger busybody.

Be friendly.
Josh’s command echoed in his ears.
We’re going to be working in this town. I’m going to be living here. We want people to accept us.

Nick eased the tension from his jaw and offered a tentative smile. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon.”

The two older people gasped and their eyes widened, as if in awe. “Now that’s what we need around here,” the shop owner said. “Who cares about wrinkles?”

“Really, Josh specializes in burns and scars, but he’s going to do more general medi—”

“My shoulder’s so bad I can hardly wash my windows anymore,” Mr. Carpenter griped. “Before he retired, Dr. Strover said he couldn’t do a thing for me—that you can’t fight old age.”

Mrs. Hild’s head full of flowers bobbed as she nodded. “Told me the same thing.”

The old man pointed at the old woman. “Rose here can barely get up from her flower beds.”

“Bad knees,” the woman explained. “Not much can be done for that. I just wore ’em out.”

“Actually, I can do a lot for both of you,” Nick observed, mentally considering whether physical therapy, injections or surgery would be the best route to follow with these potential patients. He’d need their medical histories, of course. “As soon as the office is ready, I’d like you to make appointments.”

“I wasn’t sure about you guys, opening a fancy office on the other side of town—” Mr. Carpenter patted Nick’s shoulder now “—but I think you’re going to be a great addition to Cloverville, son.”

Son. Only his father had ever called him son, and he’d stopped doing that after he’d lost his other son, his firstborn. But maybe that was for Nick’s sake as much as his own—he hadn’t wanted to remind either of them of their loss.

Mrs. Hild swiped at the storekeeper’s arm. “You make it sound like he’s one of the new shops. He’s a
person,
Horace. What’s your name?” she asked.

“Nick Jameson.” He held out his hand, which she took into her surprisingly strong, callused one.

“Oh, you’re one of those good-looking boys from the wedding party,” she acknowledged.

“The best man,” Mr. Carpenter said. “Before you came in, we were talking about how unlike Molly McClintock it was to take off like that. It’s more like something Abby Hamilton would have done.”

Mrs. Hild’s face creased in an affectionate smile. “Yes, it is. Molly’s the last one of their group I’d have thought would do something like that. Now, her younger sister, Colleen…”

Colleen. Nick’s pulse quickened at the mere mention of her name. He waited for the older woman to say more, but she just sighed.

Mr. Carpenter nodded.

“What about Colleen?” He had to know.

Mrs. Hild’s eyes clouded. “Poor thing. She had the toughest time with her father’s death. I often saw her disappearing with that backpack of hers.”

Mr. Carpenter nodded. “She usually just wound up in the park.”

Mrs. Hild continued the tag-team gossip. “She always went back home, though. Eventually.”

“What are you saying—she used to run away?”

The older people nodded.

“And no one went looking for her?” Nick swallowed hard, struggling with his feelings. “She just went back home on her own?” An image sprang to his mind, of her slipping inside her house, her absence unnoticed, her beautiful face stained with all the tears she’d shed alone.

Mrs. Hild nodded again, then explained, “Mr. McClintock, God rest his soul, died at home.”

“Slowly,”
Mr. Carpenter put in. “It was tough on the whole family.”

“But Colleen was the most sensitive of all of them,” Mrs. Hild insisted. “She took it the hardest. It had to have been awful for her, watching him die.”

Nick’s heart clenched as he understood Colleen’s pain. He imagined her running off by herself, and facing the knowledge that no one was looking for her. No wonder she’d been so surprised when he’d caught her in the woods, if he’d been the first one ever to chase after her. But then he’d let her run away again.

“Poor girl,” the older man said, his voice rough with sympathy.

Mrs. Hild sighed. “Yes, it would have made more sense for
her
to take off and leave a man at the altar.” Her face grew pink. “Not that she would do something like that now. All that running, that was a long time ago.”

And, yet she’d been carrying a backpack in the park the day he’d brought the twins there.

“She’s a good girl,” Mrs. Hild continued, “sweet and beautiful. She’d make some lucky man a fine wife.”

Mr. Carpenter laughed. “You’re getting as bad as Mary McClintock with the matchmaking, Rose. Give the guy a break.”

“But he’s moving here. He’ll want to find a girlfriend,” she insisted.

“He’s a good-looking fellow,” her friend defended Nick.

“I’m sure he’s already got a girl.”

“No.” Nick only managed to squeeze the single word into their back-and-forth conversation. Like a tennis match.

“See, he’s single. And so’s Colleen,” Mrs. Hild volleyed back at the store owner. “He walked her down the aisle when the wedding party left the church. They looked lovely together. Him so blond and tall, and Colleen, so dark and delicate.”

“No, I’m not moving here,” Nick said.

“So the paint’s for your office,” Mr. Carpenter said, gesturing toward the cans. Nick’s arms were beginning to ache from the strain of holding them.

“No. I’m picking them up for Josh.”

“Josh?”

“The groom,” he explained.

Mrs. Hild tsked and shook her head. “Poor man, having to raise those boys alone.”

How did the town already know so much about them? Nick’s doubts about opening an office in Cloverville returned. “He’s doing fine. Really. He’s working on the house he bought and he sent me for the paint. I really need to get back…” He gestured with the cans, but his companions blocked his way out.

“Whose place did he buy?” Mrs. Hild asked. “The Barber house?”

Nick shook his head.

“No, that wouldn’t be big enough for a family,” Mr. Carpenter said. “He probably bought the Manning place.”

“That’s it,” Nick confirmed.

The shopkeeper whistled. “No wonder he’s working on it. The Mannings never did much upkeep on the place.”

“No.”

“The Barber house is nicer,” Mrs. Hild argued.

“Well, Josh already bought a house,” Nick pointed out. Although he still struggled to understand his friend’s determination to move to a town where he’d experienced such humiliation.

“Then, the Barber place is still for sale,” the old woman persisted. “That would make a fine house for you. Not too big for one person, not too small for a couple.”

Not that it was anyone’s business other than his, but Nick found himself stating unequivocally, “I’m a bachelor. Now and forever.”

No matter what he felt for Colleen McClintock, he didn’t intend to act on those feelings. Ever.

“Y
OU SURE YOU GOT IT
?” Clayton asked, his hand on the door.

“It’s not my first time locking up,” Colleen reminded him.

“I lock up every Wednesday, and any other time you coach.”

“But usually Angela’s here, too.”

“She’s sick.” Colleen suspected the receptionist mostly was sick of the two of them, rather than having a viral ailment, as she claimed. Neither Colleen nor Clayton had had the best temperaments since the wedding. Angela blamed the wedding-that-wasn’t for both their bad moods. Colleen blamed Nick Jameson for hers. She suspected Abby was responsible for Clayton’s edginess.

“So you’re sure?”

“Yes,” she said, “don’t worry.” She wasted her breath, knowing that worrying was all he usually did. “Get out of here. You don’t want to be late.” Clayton hated being late.

“Thanks, Col. You’re the best.”

At least someone thought so.

“After you close up, come down to the field and watch the game. Unless you have other plans…”

“No.” No other plans. Except to avoid her older brother’s houseguest. But if she asked if he’d invited Nick to the game, too, Clayton might get the wrong idea. Her mother’s matchmaking was bad enough; she didn’t need Mom enlisting Clayton’s help.

“So you’ll come?” he asked.

“You better get going,” she said.

Before he could try any harder to persuade her to attend the soccer game, the phone rang. With a smile, she waved him off as she answered, “Good afternoon, McClintock Insurance Agency. How may I help you?”

The calls kept her busy until after closing. She forwarded the phone to voice mail, turned over the Closed sign and flipped the dead bolt lock on the front door. She could still get to the soccer field before play got underway. Clayton always left the office early on these days so that he had time to strategize with his team before the game.

But she couldn’t take the chance that Nick might show up, too. She’d heard that he’d been seen around town, hanging out at Mr. Carpenter’s hardware store and stopping by to admire Mrs. Hild’s flowers, which flourished on the corner lot of Main Street. A soccer game could be his next stop, if he was trying to recruit patients. Athletes often broke bones or sprained joints.

The man had entirely messed up her life. She couldn’t go to the hospital for fear he might show up at work, and she couldn’t walk around Cloverville for fear she might run into him at home. “Damn him!”

“Your brother still treating you like a dog?” asked a male voice from the stairwell leading up to Clayton’s apartment.

She lifted her head and met the eyes of the man who was really responsible for her bad mood. “No.”

“So you’re not mad at your brother?”

“No.”

His mouth slid into a grin. “So you’re mad at another man? Me?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure if I’m mad at you, or just…”

“Frustrated?” He arched a blond eyebrow above one of those compelling pale eyes. “I could help you with that, Colleen. If you’d stop running away from me.”

She bit her lip.

“But I heard that’s
your
thing, running.”

Her pulse quickened as nerves rushed through her. “Who’ve you been talking to?” Had her mother betrayed her? Rory? Probably Rory. Maybe Nick had already taken in one of the teen’s soccer practices.