The Lawman Meets His Bride (25 page)

Smiling through glistening eyes, she said, “At one time I had all the reason in the world to be down on myself and men. Still, I…well, I guess I found out I’m a lot braver than I thought I was. I let down my guard but good. And I don’t regret it, even as much as this—this—” With a supreme effort she forced down a sob. She didn’t finish.

He put his arms around her. It was a fortress. One
she longed to remain in. For perhaps twenty seconds her tears dampened the front of his—Doug’s—shirt.

But summoning an iron will she hadn’t known she possessed, she stepped back from his embrace and quickly dried her eyes with a tissue from a box on Mumford’s desk.

“Connie—”

This time it was her turn to put up her hand and silence him.

She choked back a grim laugh. “We’ve both had a couple of insane days. Should we make decisions that might affect the rest of our lives on three days of running from the law? That would be stupid.”

“So we take our time. We think about it,” he offered.

She glanced at him. He was giving her the Back-away Words. The “Can’t We Just Be Friends,” line.

But they would never be friends. She loved him. He’d brought out a passion within her that she didn’t know existed. She would never be the same woman ever again.

Never.

She didn’t want that to be the final word between them. But she knew that she was on the verge of losing control completely.

“I have to get back to Mystery. I’ve missed work. Everyone’s looking for me.”

He said nothing. He just stared at her, frozen.

In that awful moment, she realized that heartache was not a metaphor—the hurt inside her chest felt like a stab wound. Barely restraining tears, she brushed his lips lightly with hers. Whispering, she mouthed the word,
Goodbye
in his ear. Then she escaped into the hallway.

Constance was so despondent that she felt numb. Emotionally Novacained, she quickly set out on the return drive to Mystery alone, still shattered by the prophetic word:
Never.

She knew from experience, it took a long time to accept the word
Never.
“Possibly,” was something that kept coming up in the human heart.
Possibly Doug was going to come back to her and tell her it was all a mistake. Possibly Doug was going to clear up her credit card problems and tell her the hotel rooms were for someone else, not his other lovers.

The possiblys took a long time to work through. Years sometimes. A lifetime even.

But once she hit the brick wall of
never,
as broken and hurting as she would be, she knew she could finally accept it.

As she would have to force herself to accept it now.

She and Quinn were different people with different lives. They never would have even met if not for fate and circumstance—and it was a bad fate and bad circumstances that had driven them together.

It was not the beginning of a hopeful relationship.

Besides, she still knew very little about Quinn Loudon. She might know what was inside his heart and his soul, but the practical things were non-existent. She didn’t even know if he was engaged or dating someone. For all she knew, he was ready to tie the knot when he got shot.

A relationship between them was absurd. They were strangers, really. They knew nothing useful about each other.

Except what was inside each other’s heart and soul.

She steeled herself against the hopefulness.

Merging onto the interstate, she upbraided herself with brutal clarity of mind.

She and Quinn were just one of those things, and she’d just have to accept it. She would probably never see Quinn Loudon again, not even in court—her deposition was all they would need with a confession, not her appearance.

It was now over, and it had truly been nothing more than a fling fraught with danger—indeed, she admonished herself, maybe it was even the “danger sex” she craved most, some strange psychological compensation for her staid, “good girl” existence.

But it would never work between them.

Never,
she told herself again and again, praying the hope would die with every beat of her heart.

Still emotionally propping herself up, Connie stopped, only one hour west of Billings. She was still out of clear cell phone range thanks to the mountains, so she had to use a pay phone at a truck plaza. Dutifully she placed three calls, to her mother, Hazel, and Ginny, assuring all of them she was fine and on her way home.

She offered no details, promising more to come, but her duty done, the inevitable happened. Only five minutes after she returned to the swirling snow haze of the interstate, hot tears abruptly began spilling from her eyes.

She needed a good cry, but she knew this wasn’t the best weather for tear-blurred vision. Still, the sadness that welled up inside her each time she recalled the grim finality of their parting only forced more teardrops to roll down her cheeks.

As if life hadn’t dumped on her enough lately, a flashing blue gumball appeared in the rearview mirror and dogged her.

It’s the crunched-up rear end of the Jeep,
she guessed, hurriedly trying to wipe her eyes. Probably a brakelight was out. Now she would get a ticket in addition to everything else.

Depressed and resigned, she flipped on the right-turn signal and slowed, pulling off as wide as she could on the snow-clogged shoulder of the highway. A big rig whooshed by, rocking the Jeep. She parked and rolled down her window, waiting for the trooper.

A form, indiscernible in the blowing whiteness, stepped out of the passenger’s side of the cruiser.

A second later she almost cried out when her own passenger’s door flew open.

Before she could even recover from her fright, Quinn was sitting beside her. He cupped her face with warm hands.

“After you left,” he told her, “I asked Todd to leave me alone some more. I did nothing but think about us. You know what? I think you
did
reprogram my heart. All I know is, I don’t want to be without you.”

Not sure if his words were still welcome to her ears, he added in a more joking tone, “Think there are any jobs in Mystery suitable for an Assistant U.S. Attorney?”

She couldn’t speak. It seemed like a dream. His coming out of the whiteout seemed like she had somehow conjured him from the cold storm of her hope. She touched his face to be sure that it was real. He was. Warm and strong. The man she remembered. The man she knew.

A tumult of emotions closed her throat. She let the ardor of a kiss answer for her, even as she realized: she was still a little afraid that the adventure of true love might be even more harrowing than the one she’d just experienced.

But she was determined to go along for the ride. As she had the last one. On belief alone.

As for a job suitable for Quinn—in her mind she could already hear Hazel declaring they’d
make
a job for him if one didn’t exist. The Matriarch of Mystery had already made it clear that Quinn rated aces high with her. And Constance knew part of the old girl’s motivation was quite personal—the secret glee of a successful matchmaker.

When he pulled back to study her face, she was startled by the intense seriousness of those smoke-tinted eyes.

“I have to ask this right now,” he told her, “and no matter what, I want the truth. Promise?”

She nodded, her heart racing with fearful suspense.

“Can you really love me after all I put you through? Not just now in the flush of emotions. I mean—later, when all this sinks in?”

“I can, I do, and I will,” she assured him without a moment’s hesitation. “After your initial deception to lure me into the cabin, when you were bleeding and desperate, you were always right up front with me. Every single detail you told me turned out to be true.”

She paused and flashed him a rueful smile through tears that were now welcome—tears of joy.

“What?” he demanded.

“It’s just awfully ironic,” she explained as their
lips drew ineluctably closer and closer together, “that the first honest man I ever found—” their lips met…and both felt the current of pleasure “—kidnapped me,” she finished breathlessly.

Epilogue

H
azel McCallum looked down at the telegram in her hand. It was from Paris. A sly smile tipped the corner of her lips as she moved them to read it in silence.

Dear Hazel,

Quinn and I were married today here. We wished you were here but we had to leave quickly to get away from the publicity. I never knew the press would be so excited about our romance on the run! We are thinking of you. You were our matron of honor in spirit. We’ll see you as soon as we return to Mystery. Quinn is excited about our new log home by the river. He told me today to name our baby Hazel—but what if it’s a boy? Jake, then?

With love,
Connie and Quinn

As she was now in the habit of doing, Hazel went to Jake McCallum’s portrait and put another notch in the walnut frame. Number two match was made. Jacquelyn and A.J. were first. Third was coming up.

She mused on all the possibilities. There were so many fine folks in Mystery who needed pairing up. But it wasn’t always the obvious ones. Sometimes they just appeared on the doorstep, needing her help or sometimes they—

The phone rang, interrupting her thoughts.

She picked it up and said automatically in her no-nonsense voice, “McCallum Ranch.”

“Hazel?”

“As right as rain.”

The laugh was familiar at the other end. “And don’t I know it. I’m your doctor, remember?”

Hazel narrowed her eyes. “Doctor? Is that what you call yourself?” She gave a hrrumph. “A doctor goes out in a snowstorm and births babies. A doctor dispenses wisdom with his prescriptions. When was the last time you did that, you wet-behind-the-ears geriatric specialist?”

“Give me some time, Hazel, and I promise to do all that and more. Just give me some time.”

“Time? You’re in your thirties and you haven’t even started a family. You’re running out of time, if I set my watch correctly—”

Hazel looked at the phone in amazement.

She didn’t even hear Dr. Saville mumble, “Maybe I could get to that if all my patients weren’t so difficult. Now are you taking the blood pressure medicine I prescribed or do I have to come out there for myself to see you take it…”

A big gorgeous smile creased her face.

Sometimes the needy folk just appeared on the doorstep, and then sometimes they called you up on the phone to annoy you about your medications.

She took a look at Jake McCallum’s portrait with the two notches on the frame. She smiled and thought:
Yep, I think I’ll put the next notch right over there.

ISBN: 978-1-4592-4105-3

THE LAWMAN MEETS HIS BRIDE

Copyright © 2000 by Ruth Goodman

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Matched in Montana