Awol Bride
Victoria Pade
This is one bride that doesn’t want to be found!After a car accident leaves runaway bride Maicy Clark unconscious, she's rescued by the last man on earth she ever wanted to see again: Conor Madison, her school sweetheart. He rejected her eighteen years ago, but when she's stranded in a log cabin with him, in the middle of a raging blizzard, Maicy can’t help remembering just how good they were together.
Running into the Past
After Maicy Clark’s high school sweetheart breaks her fragile heart, she vows to cut him out of her life forever. But when Maicy dashes out of her own wedding decades later, she runs pell-mell back into Conor Madison’s healing arms...and his life!
Navy doctor Conor’s shocked to discover that his mysterious new patient is his never-forgotten childhood love. Now sweet Maicy’s all grown up—and a woman to be reckoned with. With a blizzard looming, a snowed-in Conor’s about to get up close and personal with the girl he’d never stopped wondering about. But are the scars of the past too deep to mend...or is it time for Conor and Maicy to finally come home?
“Can you raise your legs? One at a time?”
She did that, feeling satin around them. The wedding dress. From the wedding that hadn’t been. Because she’d run away from it...
“Okay, very carefully, I want you to try to move your head—can you do that?”
She could do that, too.
“Any pain with that? Any tingling in your shoulders, arms or legs?”
“No.”
“Nothing? No pain—shooting or otherwise?” the man asked.
“No,” she said softly as she went on assessing his face and finding more and more to it that made him seem like the boy she’d known. And loved.
And learned to wish she hadn’t...
Those full lips.
Those eyebrows that were a little thick and as dark a brown as his hair.
Then her neck was free and he raised his eyes to her face.
And that was when she knew for sure.
No one except the Madison brothers and their sister, Kinsey, had eyes like that. Cobalt blue that was bluer than blue.
“Oh, my God!” she said in alarm.
“What? Pain? Numbness?” he asked with more urgency.
“You’re Conor Madison,” she accused scornfully.
He relaxed and nodded. “Hi, Maicy,” he said calmly.
“I get it—I’ve died and gone to hell,” she muttered.
* * *
Camden Family Secrets:
Finding family and love in Colorado!
Awol Bride
Victoria Pade
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.
For information about her latest and upcoming releases, visit Victoria Pade on Facebook—she would love to hear from you.
Contents
Cover (#ueb324b23-b958-5eb0-925f-985abf954598)
Back Cover Text (#ub121a7c1-4dec-51a3-83e2-8fd4657c2250)
Introduction (#ud21d6b9e-d341-5e15-b856-3fe73c82573d)
Title Page (#u673623b0-0e35-55cf-9f82-6bac6c92cc70)
About the Author (#u5526b445-49c2-5a8d-8c08-8d04d4e2e71c)
Chapter One (#u376e893e-f16d-533e-a12d-a8d1d2b70a54)
Chapter Two (#u1d8db308-159c-5a3d-bff7-242d1cc01db1)
Chapter Three (#u59b08c66-3b35-5857-9f00-eed090d47ee0)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ueb723fff-1f40-5264-b3b8-0a3f2883755e)
“This is not turning into a good time.”
There was no one else in the rented SUV to hear Conor Madison’s observation as he drove through a Montana snowstorm that was getting worse by the minute.
When his plane had landed in Billings on that mid-January Sunday, snow had been falling. As promised, he’d called his sister Kinsey to tell her he’d arrived safely. But when he did, he’d discovered that Kinsey wasn’t in their small hometown of Northbridge, where she and Conor were slated to meet. Instead, she was snowed in inside her Denver home.
And by now, the snow was in his path, piling up fast. Conor could barely see two feet in front of him on this mountain road.
And on top of that, he was worried about his brother and thinking this whole idea might have been a mistake.
When he’d left the veterans’ hospital in Maryland, his younger brother Declan’s condition had been stable. In fact, Declan—who had been severely wounded in Afghanistan—had been doing so well he’d pushed Conor to make this trip. But when Conor had talked to Declan from the Billings airport, Declan hadn’t sounded very well, though he’d insisted that Conor stay.
But an hour and a half into the drive, when he’d called to check in with Declan again, Declan had been even more sluggish and lethargic, and had informed Conor that he’d spiked a fever—which could herald a dangerous complication that Conor wouldn’t be there to monitor.
As a doctor Conor couldn’t treat family, but he could follow what was being done closely. Monitoring his brother’s condition was the reason he was on leave from his own duties from the navy. Now he wasn’t where he felt he should be—by his brother’s side. If he hadn’t learned that all flights in and out had been canceled due to the storm, he might have headed back.
But there was no going back either to Billings or to Maryland, so all Conor could do was get somewhere safe—and get back to worrying about his brother once he arrived.
He’d grown up around here so he recognized where he was—about fifteen miles outside of Northbridge. But visibility was getting worse by the minute, and he was having more and more trouble plowing through the deepest of the drifts. There was no way he was going to make those last fifteen miles.
Luckily he wasn’t far from a cabin owned by the family of an old friend. When he noticed his patchy cell service was working for the moment, he’d called Rickie Dale to find out if the cabin was still standing and if he could use it.
Thankfully, the answer to both of those questions had been yes.
Just before he reached the turnoff, he saw the first car he’d seen in the last hour—nose-first in a ditch.
The sedan’s horn was blaring and the driver’s side door was ajar so the dome light was on. In the dim glow he could see that the driver was still in the car, slumped over the steering wheel.
As a doctor, his duty was clear. He came to a slippery stop and ran against the wind to the other vehicle.
The driver was a woman. In a sleeveless wedding dress without so much as a coat on over it. There was an abundance of blood from a head wound, likely the result of hitting the windshield since—for some unknown reason—the airbag hadn’t activated.
She didn’t react to him opening her door. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. So the first thing he did was check for a pulse, grateful to note that it was strong. She might be unconscious, but she was alive.
“Miss!” he shouted to be heard over the howling wind. “Can you hear me?”
She didn’t so much as moan.
But Conor was a doctor of emergency and trauma medicine and a commander in the United States Navy, trained to work in the field. He knew what to do.
He took off his jacket and wrapped it firmly around her neck to stabilize it. Then, keeping her head and neck aligned, he eased her back against the seat.
She had a massive amount of hair and much of it had fallen forward into her face, heavily coated in blood. Still, something about her struck him as familiar. But nothing concrete clicked for him, with his focus on her condition. Right now, all that mattered was getting her out of this cold.
He dashed back to his SUV and opened the passenger door, lowering that seat so it was as flat as it would go. Then he ran back to the sedan. With special care to keep her head and neck supported, he eased her from behind the steering wheel into his arms, took her to the SUV and laid her on the passenger seat.
Conor reached across her to crank up the heat, closed that door, ran back to the sedan to turn it off, lock it and pocket the keys before he rushed back behind the wheel of his own vehicle and put it into gear again.
It was a little less than a mile to the cabin. But already the dirt drive was covered in snow and drifts. The only thing Conor could do was go slow enough to feel that his tires were in the wheel ruts, letting them guide him. And hoping like hell that he’d opted for the right road and was headed toward shelter.
Just as he was beginning to doubt it, he caught sight of the small log cabin in the clearing of trees.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he drove the SUV up to the cabin’s front porch and stopped. Leaving the engine—and the heat—running for his passenger, he made his way onto the porch and found the key in Rickie’s hiding spot. He unlocked the door and entered with a mental thank-you to whoever had used the cabin last and left wood and tinder in the fireplace, ready to be lit.
If only he could find matches.
Matches. Matches. Matches...
After a moment of searching, he finally found a box of stick matches near a bucket of wood to the side of the hearth.
With a fire going, he returned to the SUV and carefully removed his passenger.
Inside with her, he laid her on the floor in front of the fire, letting the hard wooden surface act as the backboard he would have used had he had one.
She was breathing without any problems—that was good.
As he covered her with a blanket from the worn sofa nearby, the woman groaned.
“Good girl,” he praised. “Come on, come to...”
But when she didn’t stir again, he ran outside to turn off the SUV and then returned to survey the territory.
With the exception of shelter, the cabin didn’t likely offer much in terms of medical tools or supplies. Rickie had assured him that there was plenty of bottled water so Conor went in search of that, a cloth of some sort to clean the wound as best he could and a first-aid kit.
Returning to his patient—who was moaning again—he saw that bleeding from her head wound was increasing as she warmed up.
Working fast, he dampened the cloth with the bottled water and cleaned the wound.
“Can you wake up for me?” he urged. “Come on, open your eyes...”
More moaning but her eyes remained closed.
The wound was a clean cut free of debris. It could have used a couple of stitches but he had to settle for three butterfly bandages covered with a compression wrap.
Then he wet the cloth again to clean her face and get the hair away from it. The more he saw of her, the more he was struck by that sense of familiarity.
Her hair was thick and lush and the color of a new penny—he hadn’t registered that before but now he did.
Red hair.
Maicy had had hair like that...
Just as that thought struck him, the woman opened her emerald green eyes.
Conor reared back and froze.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
No, it couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible for the woman coming to on the floor in front of him to be the girl he’d left behind.
And yet the more closely he looked at her, the more he knew it was...
* * *
Everything was hazy. Maicy’s mind, her senses, were slowly fading in from darkness. She could hear a voice but she couldn’t quite make out words. And she felt too heavy to move.
Her head hurt. And she was lying on something hard.
Why would that be?
She remembered that she’d been in her car...
And it had been cold. So cold.
And then, too, there was that voice. A man.
She faded in a little more and blinked open her eyes. Her vision was blurry, and the light seemed dim. There was a man there...
“Good girl! Come on, wake up.”
This time she heard the words.
But she still couldn’t quite focus her eyes. And she was so disoriented that for a minute the sound of the man’s voice actually made her think of Conor Madison. As if that made any sense...
“Can you tell me your name?” the man asked.
Definitely not Conor Madison, then—he would know her.
“Maicy,” she managed.
“How about your last name, Maicy?”
“Clark,” she muttered.
She heard him say, “Holy...” under his breath before shifting back into a calm, professional tone to ask, “Can you tell me what year it is?”
“A new year. January...” The date rolled off her tongue.
But maybe that wasn’t the right date. Maybe she only said it out of habit. She’d given that particular date a million times in the last few months while planning the wedding.
The wedding...
“How old are you?” the man asked.
These questions were dumb. “Old enough,” she said peevishly.
She pinched her eyes closed against the pain in her head and reached up to feel the source. She discovered that her hair was damp and that there were bandages of some sort on her forehead, just below her hairline.
“Good, you can move your right arm. How about this side?” the man asked, taking her other hand. “Can you squeeze my hand?”
She did that. He had a big hand.
“Strength is good,” he decreed. “How about your feet? Can you flex those for me?”
She did as he asked and felt that her feet were bare.
Bare feet? She didn’t leave home in her bare feet.
Her wedding shoes...
“Where are my shoes—I love those shoes!”
He didn’t answer her question. Instead he asked, “Can you tell me what happened to you?”
She opened her eyes again. Her vision was a bit clearer this time, and the fuzzy image of the man on his knees beside her looked even more like her old boyfriend.
This really was bizarre.
“There was a deer. I swerved to miss hitting him,” she said, remembering. She also recalled that it was her wedding she’d come from.
And Gary...
“What’s around my neck?” she asked when she also became aware that there was something there.
“My coat,” the man answered. “Are you experiencing pain anywhere?”
“My head.”
“Anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Any pain in your neck? Your shoulders? Your back or arms?”
“No.”
“I’m going to pinch you a little bit—tell me if you can feel it.”
He did, pinching different spots on her arms and legs. She could feel it so she told him so.
Then he said, “Can you raise your legs? One at a time?”
She did that, feeling satin around them. The wedding dress. From the wedding that hadn’t been. Because she’d run away from it...
“Okay, very carefully, I want you to try to move your head—can you do that?”
She could do that, too.
“Any pain with that? Any tingling in your shoulders, arms or legs?”
“No.”
“Good. I’m going to unwrap your neck but I’m going to do it slowly, if you feel anything out of the ordinary, you tell me right away, okay?”
He came closer to unwrap his coat and her vision cleared more so she could take a better look at him.
He had dark hair the color of a double espresso—short on the sides, longer on top—and a handsome face even at that odd angle.
In spite of it she could still tell that his nose was slightly long and flat across the bridge but worked well with the sharp lines of a great bone structure—high cheekbones and a strong jawline and chin.
All refined and tougher versions of what she remembered of the young Conor...
Why did he keep coming to mind?
“Nothing? No pain—shooting or otherwise?” the man asked.
“No,” she said softly as she went on assessing his face and finding more and more that reminded her of the boy she’d loved.
And learned to wish she hadn’t...
Those full lips.
Those thick eyebrows, the same dark brown as his hair.
Even his ears...
Conor had had really nice ears...
Then her neck was free and he raised his eyes to her face.
And that was when she knew for sure.
No one she’d ever met except the Madison siblings had eyes like that. Bluer than blue, with silver streaks in them.
“Oh my God!” she said in alarm.
“What? Pain? Numbness?” he asked with more urgency.
“You’re Conor Madison,” she accused.
He relaxed and nodded. “Hi, Maicy,” he said calmly.
“I get it—I’ve died and gone to hell,” she muttered.
As much as she’d wanted to escape her own wedding today, she wanted to get away from Conor even more. So she started to sit up.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” He held her down by the shoulders. “I don’t want you moving at all yet, let alone like that!”
“And we know that what you want is all that counts.”
He didn’t address that. He only said, “It’s important that I make sure you don’t aggravate any injuries. So please, just let me check you out?”
“I guess that means you did become a doctor?” she said, curious but trying to hide it.
“I did. So let me do my job,” he reiterated.
Begrudgingly, she conceded to that, doing some checking out of her own as he continued his examination.
Conor Madison. How, on this day of all days, could she open her eyes and find herself with him?
Maybe she was hallucinating. That would be so much better...
But if she was hallucinating, wouldn’t she see him as the boy he’d been when they were last together rather than this solid, muscular, all-grown-up version of him?
The man who was fully developed—broad of chest and shoulders, with biceps that filled and tested the sleeves of the gray sweatshirt he had on.
He’d aged from youthful good looks into a striking handsomeness.
That aggravated Maicy all the more...
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a uniform?” she asked with some impudence.
“I’m on leave,” he answered curtly as he took her pulse.
His voice was the same. It had been deep then and it was deep now. But now it held more confidence, more certainty, more authority, as he told her what to do.
“I’m fine,” she insisted when his examination seemed finished.
“You aren’t completely fine,” he said. “You were in a car accident, you have a gash in your head and were unconscious for some amount of time. If I had you in a hospital I’d send you for X-rays and a CT scan. But since we aren’t in a hospital—”
“Where are we?” she said.
“The Dale family’s hunting cabin.”
“Rickie Dale?” She hadn’t thought of him in years.
“Right—glad to see that you seem to be firing on all burners. That’s a good sign when there’s the potential for a brain injury.”
“And how is it that I’m here with you?” she asked derisively, thinking that she’d answered enough of his questions and followed enough of his instructions to have earned some reciprocity.
“I was headed for Northbridge when the storm hit, and I knew I wouldn’t make it. I called Rickie and asked if I could use the place now, to wait out this weather. I came across your car on my way here.”
“My car...” Maicy said. “Did I wreck it?”
“You were nose-first in a ditch.”
Maicy closed her eyes again, overwhelmed for a moment by all this day had brought with it.
“Hey! You aren’t passing out on me again, are you?” Conor said in a louder voice.
She opened her eyes. “No,” she said, hating that there was gloom in her own tone for him to hear. “It’s just been a bad day,” she added, hoping he’d leave it at that.
No such luck.
“Yeah, I’d say so... Were you on your way to your wedding or coming from it?”
“Neither.” She just wasn’t sure how to qualify it. “I got to the church but left before the wedding happened.”
“Without a coat?”
“I took my coat—it’s in the back seat with my suitcase. I just didn’t put it on. I was in a hurry.”
He didn’t push it. Instead he said, “Do you feel like you can sit up?”
“Sure,” she answered, not revealing that she felt unsteady and drained because she didn’t want him to know there was any weakness in her at all. Not now or ever again.
“I want you to take it slow,” he told her. “Let me help you, and tell me immediately if you feel any hint of pain or tingling or numbness.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she clipped out.
He helped her sit up, and she made it there without saying anything, containing the groan that almost escaped when her head throbbed with the movement. Her expression must have shown her pain, though, because he said, “There’s some pain reliever in the first-aid kit but I don’t want to give you that until I know that the bleeding is under control. Can you stand to wait?”
“Yes.” And even if she hadn’t been able to, she wouldn’t have told him. “Now can I get off this floor?”
“Give it a minute. Let’s see what sitting here does first.”
Maicy sighed, feeling impatient. Methodical and cautious. That was Conor Madison. To a fault.
And she had faulted him for it. With good reason.
Glancing down, Maicy noticed her dress.
“Oh, I’m a mess...” she lamented. And it had been such a beautiful dress—white satin, scooped neck with cowl-like draping to the hem that ended at her ankles in front and gracefully expanded into a short train in back. Now it was wrinkled, soiled and stained with blood.
“Actually, you look pretty damn good...” Conor said. She might have been flattered if she’d been willing to accept a compliment from the likes of him.
But as it was she ignored the remark and announced once more, “I feel fine. Now can I get up?”
“How’s the dizziness?”
“Good. Gone,” she lied. “I’m sure I can drive. All I have to do is get to my car and back it out of the ditch and—”
He looked at her as if she was crazy. “In the first place,” he said, “you’re not fine—you’re doing well, but you are not unscathed. You’re nowhere near ready to go outside into the snow without shoes or a coat, much less to hike a mile to your car—because that’s where it is, at the end of the drive up to this cabin. It’s not drivable even if you could get to it—it’s going to need a tow truck. Then there’s the fact that if you were in an emergency room where you belong, they’d admit you to keep an eye on you overnight, and there is no way in hell I’d let you drive even if this was a balmy summer day. So no matter how you want to cut it, you, Maicy Clark, are stuck here. With me.”
Oh...it was worse than she thought. Not only had she encountered the one person she’d hoped never to see again in her life, she was stranded with him?
“You look sick—what’s going on?” he said.
“What’s going on is that I don’t want to be here.” With you! she added in her head.
But what she said was, “I don’t see mine, but surely you have a cell phone—call for help! Maybe somebody could come and get me—an ambulance, or the fire department.” She refused to believe that things were as impossible as he claimed.
“If I couldn’t get in to town, no one can get out,” he reasoned.
“I don’t want to be here with you!” she blurted, unable to stop herself this time.
“I get that,” he said. “But right now we have to do what we have to do. And arguing about it will only waste time we don’t have to spare. This place is not a four-star hotel and we’re going to have to work to stay warm and fed. So if you think you’re doing okay enough for me to get you onto the couch, there are some things I need to do to get this place up and running—as much as it runs—in order to get us through tonight.”
Tonight? They’d be spending the whole night together in this cabin?
Could this day possibly get any worse?
First her wedding had become a disaster.
And now here she was, isolated and alone with the guy who had broken her heart and abandoned her in her most desperate time of need.
Oh yeah, it definitely would have been better if she were just hallucinating.
Maicy took a deep breath, rallied the strength she’d had to find in herself years before and said, “I can get to the couch myself.”
He ignored that.
Which was good because once he’d helped her to her feet her knees buckled and she nearly collapsed.
He caught her in strong, powerful arms that—if she’d had even an iota of strength herself—she would have slapped away.
As it was she had no choice but to let him help her to the sofa.
Once she was there, she shrugged out of his grip and swore to herself that if she couldn’t get back up again without his help, she would stay rooted to that spot.
Because the last thing she would ever do again was lean on Conor Madison.
Chapter Two (#ueb723fff-1f40-5264-b3b8-0a3f2883755e)
“Dammit!” Conor shouted into the wind.
After trying several different locations outside, he’d found a spot where he had cell phone reception...temporarily. It lasted long enough to reach his brother’s doctor and learn that Declan’s fever was rising. Then he’d lost service again. And no matter where he went now, the phone showed no signal.
Meanwhile, the storm was worsening. Now that it was dark the temperature had plummeted, and the wind was howling and making the snow a whirling dervish that was even more impossible to see through.
So Conor turned his attention to the other reason he’d bundled up to come outside—firewood.
He circled to the back of the cabin where the woodpile was, staying close to the log structure so as not to risk losing his bearings. But he was far less worried for himself than he was for his brother.
He’d heard the stories about the shoddy, outdated conditions of some stateside veterans’ hospitals, constantly understaffed and undersupplied. And since he’d been back with Declan, he’d seen it for himself. Doctors and nurses were stretched thinner than Conor knew they should be, and he had to put pressure on them to make sure his brother had what he needed.
Was Declan’s care suffering now that he wasn’t there to keep an eye on things?
Why the hell had he thought it was a good idea to leave Declan’s side in the first place?
But Declan had been doing so well and they’d both known that one of them had to get to Kinsey to talk some sense into her before she shook up their lives with her quest to build a relationship with the family they hadn’t known they had.
For cripes sake, Kinsey, why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone? Who cares if Mitchum Camden was our biological father? We were just his dirty secret, hidden away from his high-society wife and family while he carried on with Mom behind their backs all those years.
They’d barely even seen the man while he was still alive. And after he died—in a plane crash with various other members of his family—their mom had eventually moved on. She’d married their stepdad, the man who truly raised them. And she’d never told any of her children about their father...until her deathbed confession to Kinsey.
Now Kinsey was determined to build a relationship with Mitchum Camden’s other children. And neither Conor, Declan nor Declan’s twin, Liam, were on board with that. She was determined to build a relationship the Camdens didn’t seem to want, either.
With Declan laid up and Liam on special assignment overseas with his own marine unit, the job of dissuading their sister had fallen to Conor. But since the weather was keeping him from meeting Kinsey, this trip was a complete waste.
Well, maybe not a complete waste since it did put him here to save Maicy.
But still, thinking about what he should be doing for his brother made frustration hit him all over again. Frustration that piled on top of the uneasiness that had been dogging him for a while.
Initially in his career he’d liked the excitement, the speed, the exhilaration of emergency and trauma medicine, of being the first person to treat injured military men and women, to safeguard their lives just as they safeguarded the world with their service. But the longer it went on, the more it had begun to eat at him that it wasn’t up to him to give extended care, to see his patients through and make sure their ongoing treatment was successful. Declan was the first patient he’d been able to stay with—and now he was letting his brother down.
Conor reached the woodpile and, with a vengeance born out of those frustrations, threw back the tarp covering it.
There’s nothing you can do about it! he told himself firmly. Nothing he could do about Declan or about any of the hundreds of military men and women whose treatment it was his job only to begin.
Nothing he could do other than continuing to look for a phone signal at any rate, so he could stay on top of Declan’s care from here, no matter what it took.
It didn’t ease his anxiousness a lot, but at least having a plan, setting a course of any kind, helped a little.
And in the meantime he had to deal with the situation he was currently in.
Which was also one hell of a situation.
The cabin was stocked for the winter with plenty of already-cut wood, bottled water and nonperishable food. Nothing luxurious, but enough to keep them safe.
Maicy was more of a problem.
So far it appeared that she didn’t have a serious brain injury, that she had a minor concussion that a little rest would cure. But if she took a turn for the worse like Declan and the storm, they were going to have bigger problems.
Bigger even than the fact that it was Maicy Clark he was stranded with—the one person in the world who had every reason to hate his guts. And apparently did.
Sometimes it just sucked to do what he thought was right, what he thought was best for everyone involved.
And when it came to Maicy it had left him with guilt he could never dislodge.
Not even now, when it didn’t seem as if she had done too badly for herself.
After all, the car she’d crashed into the ditch had been a high-end sedan, and looking at her...
Despite her injury, she looked great—certainly not world-weary or worn or as if life had gotten the better of her.
She’d always had that amazing head of hair—thick and wavy and shiny. It used to feel like heavy silk whenever he’d gotten his hands into it, and it was no less lush now.
And that face? Time had not taken a toll on that, either. Instead it had only improved on perfection, removing the girlish immaturity and leaving her an incredibly beautiful woman.
Her skin was like porcelain and her features were delicate and refined, with elegant, high cheekbones, a thin, graceful nose, and soft ruby lips that he’d never been able to get his fill of.
And if that wasn’t enough—along with the lush way her compact little body had blossomed—there were those eyes.
Sparkling, vibrant, emerald green.
One look from those eyes in days gone by and he would have moved mountains for her...
Though he had managed to stand his ground that one time. And from what she said, it was clear she had not forgiven or forgotten. Never mind that the choice he’d made all those years ago had been every bit as much about what he’d thought was best for her as what he’d known he had to do himself. He’d still hurt her.
And now he had to contend with the fallout.
All these years later.
Alone in a small space with her and all of her anger.
The young Maicy had been a sweetheart. Uncomplicated and good-natured, agreeable and soft-hearted. But now? Somewhere along the way some spunk and feistiness had been added. And a touch of temper to go with that red hair. Cut and bloodied and reeling and barely conscious again, she’d still shot barbs at him and had seemed very prepared to make his life miserable until they could get out of here.
But like having unreliable cell phone service, when it came to Maicy he was just going to have to do what he could and cope, he told himself as he picked up the canvas sling that he’d filled with as much wood as it would hold.
And maybe he needed to use this strange opportunity to see if he could finally explain why he had denied her request—an explanation she hadn’t listened to eighteen years ago.
It might not make any difference, he thought as he inched along the rear of the cabin to get to the back door again, but he’d like to try.
Because along with the other things that were eating at him lately there had also come some wondering, some questioning, about his own course, his own choices. And if he’d made the right ones.
First and foremost, about Maicy.
* * *
Maicy had dozed off, and when she woke up daylight was gone, darkness had fallen, and the only sounds were of the raging storm outside and the fire crackling inside.
“Conor?” she called out. There was no answer.
She sat up on the worn plaid sofa where she’d fallen asleep, keeping the blanket around her and wondering if Conor had deserted her. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time.
The couch was under the cabin’s front window. Peering through it, beyond the snow blowing like a white sheet in the wind, she thought she could see flashes of his silver SUV. So he had to be around somewhere.
Her head hurt and she reached up to feel the bandaging. The blood had begun to dry. She assumed that meant the gash must have stopped bleeding. But her whole body was more stiff and sore than it had been before. And she felt weak. Drained.
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 (#ueb723fff-1f40-5264-b3b8-0a3f2883755e)
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.
She awoke Monday morning to the sound of wood being split outside. Using the blanket that had covered her on the sofa the night before as a robe, she tested her strength and balance rather than bounding out of the bed.
She was still weak and sore in spots, but much better than the night before. So she left the bedroom and went into the kitchen.
Looking out the window over the sink she could see that the wind had calmed slightly, but snow was still falling heavily on top of what looked to be more than two feet already on the ground.
Conor had shoveled a path to the woodpile and was there, splitting logs with the swing of an ax.
That was a sight to wake up to!
One she was leery of standing there to watch.
She was not going to be sucked into admiring the fine specimen of a man he’d become. There was nothing personal between them at all anymore, and that was the way it would stay. Their former connection had died an ugly death. And even before it had, it clearly hadn’t been as meaningful to him as it was to her. So what he was doing for her now was merely being a good Samaritan, there wasn’t anything else to it.
She just had to stop cataloging—and yeah, okay, admiring—his physical improvements, and make certain that she didn’t read anything into his behavior. He was a doctor—taking care of injured women who fell in his path was just part of his job. It didn’t mean anything. She didn’t want it to mean anything. She was indifferent to him now. So she didn’t let herself stay at the sink and watch him splitting logs. Instead, she moved across the room to the front window to survey that side of the cabin.
He’d shoveled off the front porch and cleared the snow from his SUV but she wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. There was no driving on the road with all that snow.
“Come on, snow, just stop,” she beseeched the weather to no avail, plopping down onto the couch dejectedly.
Conor came in not long after and made powdered eggs that weren’t too unpalatable, and then removed the dressing from her head.
As he did she said, “So you did become a doctor, but what about career military?”
“Yes, that too—so far,” he answered as if there was some question to that. But she didn’t explore it. Something seemed to be on his mind today, troubling him. He was checking for cell service obsessively and with every failed attempt the frown lines between his eyebrows dug in a little deeper.
But the days of feeling free to just ask him anything, the days of confiding in each other, were long gone.
Once he’d checked her wound and judged that it was healing properly, he cleaned around it, redressed it and sealed it in a makeshift wrapping that allowed her to take a shower and very carefully wash her hair.
It wasn’t the best shower or shampoo she’d ever had but it still made her feel worlds better.
Then she put on another pair of Conor’s gray sweatpants and a matching gray sweatshirt that were many sizes too big for her but were warm and soft inside.
The trouble was—despite the fact that they were clean—the sweats smelled like Conor.
Not that it was a bad scent. The opposite of that, actually. They carried a scent she remembered vividly, a scent that was somehow clean and soapy yet still all him. A scent she hadn’t been able to get enough of when she had feelings for him. A scent that brought back memories that she had to fight like mad to escape.
But fight them she did. And mostly failed.
After a lunch of potato soup made from dried potatoes—and making sure that Maicy was well enough to be left alone for a while—Conor decided to snowshoe down the road that led to the cabin in hopes of finding a cell signal.
He left her with orders to rest but because Maicy felt well enough to look around a bit, she spent the afternoon getting the lay of the land, for her own peace of mind.
It wasn’t as if she thought Conor wouldn’t come back this time. It was just that her past had taught her to always make sure she could take care of herself in any eventuality.
So she explored the supplies in the mudroom, counting bottles of water and calculating how long they would last, and learning what types and quantities of foodstuff were available.
She located flashlights, lanterns and kerosene, an abundance of candles, boxes of matches, more snowshoes, heavy gloves she hoped she never had to put her hands into because they were pretty gross-looking, and a second ax.
She even opened the back door and stuck her head out so she could get an idea of how to reach the woodpile from there.
Then she found the stairs that went from the mudroom to the basement and she made her way down.
She checked everything out, read the instructions attached to the generator so she could feel as if she had a working knowledge of its operation. She located the two extra propane tanks and studied how the one that was currently attached to the water heater could be replaced if necessary. She also discovered where Conor had come up with the additional blankets and pillows that he’d used to sleep on the couch.
Then she returned upstairs and opened every cupboard door to see what was inside, figured out how to work the wood-burning stove, and decided she was going to make the evening meal—canned chili and cornbread from a mix.
The only thing she didn’t go through was Conor’s duffel bag. But as daylight was waning and he still hadn’t come back, she began to plan what she would do if he didn’t return. How she could use a pair of the snowshoes that were in the mudroom and layer on more of the clothes he must have in his duffel, if she needed to go in search of him.
But then she heard stomping on the porch just before the front door opened and in came Conor.
He was so covered in snow that he barely looked human, bringing with him her suitcase, purse and the pink cake box she’d snatched from her wedding when she’d run out of the church basement.
“You went to my car?” she exclaimed, thrilled to have access to her own things—especially to clothes that didn’t smell like him.
“I was almost there before I got cell reception, figured I might as well go the rest of the way to get your stuff.” He set everything down, took off his gloves and coat and opened the front door again to shake the snow from them before laying them near the fire to dry.
“You kept the fire going—that’s good. I didn’t think I’d be out this long. And what are you doing over there? You’re supposed to be resting,” he said, surveying things.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I’m cooking. And you brought dessert.”
“I did?”
“That pink box. It’s the top tier to the wedding cake. My friend Rachel Walsh made it. We met in college.”
“I wondered what that was. I just figured I’d bring everything I found. I have to make a confession and ask a favor, though,” he added.
“What?”
“I, uh... I got into your purse to find your cell phone.”
Maicy did not like the idea that he’d gone through her purse. But there was something grim in his attitude as he removed his boots and put those by the fire, too, so she curbed her own reaction to that and gave him an excuse. “Were you thinking that mine might work better up here than yours?”
“I already tried that on the way back. It doesn’t. But the favor I need is for your phone to be a backup so when my battery is drained, I can use yours while I recharge in the car—which we shouldn’t do often because we don’t want the car battery and the gas depleted, either.”
“Bottom line,” Maicy said, “is that even if I can get service on mine at some point, you don’t want me to use it.”
He bent over so his head was toward the fire and ran his hands through his hair to rub the water out of it with a punishing force.
Maicy couldn’t help the glance at his rear end—until she realized that was what she was doing. Then she put a stop to it by putting the cornbread in the oven.
When she turned back to the utility table Conor was standing with his back to the fire, apparently to get warm.
“I’m sort of sitting on a powder keg,” he told her. “And the phones—for what little good they’re doing—are my only hope.”
A single explanation occurred to Maicy and it hit her hard enough to make her blurt out, “You have a pregnant wife somewhere who could deliver any minute.”
And why had there been a note of horror in her voice?
Or, for that matter, horror at the thought. She’d been about to get married. She would be married right now had things gone differently. Why was it unthinkable that he might be?
But it didn’t matter. She still hated the idea.
“No. I’m not married and nobody is pregnant,” he said as if he didn’t know why she would even suggest such a thing.
“Do you have kids?” Another burst she couldn’t stop.
“No,” he repeated, adding a challenging, “Do you?”
“No.”
“This is about Declan,” he said then, getting back to the issue.
“Your brother,” Maicy said, trying to follow what he was saying while gathering her scattered thoughts.
“Declan was hurt in Afghanistan a few months back. In an IED explosion,” Conor explained.
“That’s a bomb, right? An IED?”
“Right. It stands for improvised explosive device.”
“And he lived?”
“He did, thank God. But he’s been critical for a long time—”
“I’m so sorry. Is he going to be all right?”
“I thought so. I took leave time to follow him from hospital to hospital to make sure everything was done right—he was so messed up that I worried something minor might be overlooked while his major injuries were being dealt with.”
Some things about Conor clearly hadn’t changed—like his need to control any potential problems.
“I wasn’t going to let that happen,” he added.
She’d heard that from him before.
“I can’t treat family,” he was saying, “but I could damn sure be with him through it all and get everything that needed to be done, done.”
The right way—it wasn’t what he said but for Maicy it was an echo from the past.
The right way according to Conor.
He definitely hadn’t changed, which left Maicy with no doubt that he’d been vigilant on his brother’s behalf.
“We’ve been stateside for two weeks and he was doing well enough that he wanted me to make this trip to meet Kinsey in Northbridge. Yesterday I checked with him the minute the plane landed. He sounded a little off to me, but he said he was okay. On the way up here—before I lost service—I called again and discovered that he’d developed a fever.”
“Not good,” Maicy said, interpreting his dire tone.
“Really not good,” he confirmed. “A fever that comes on that fast is a red flag on its own. But then I couldn’t get through again until today and when I did, the news was what I was afraid of—he has sepsis.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You’ve heard of blood poisoning?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that’s sepsis. An infection has gotten into his blood stream, and depending on how his body fights it and how it’s treated, it could kill him. He hasn’t gone into septic shock but he’s back in intensive care, and he could go into shock in the blink of an eye and—”
“You’re trying to keep tabs on what’s going on with him.”
He nodded. “I have to stay on top of it. VA hospitals here are overcrowded—the staff doesn’t have enough time for sufficient individual care. I can’t let Declan go down because something gets missed or mishandled. Plus he’s allergic to a lot of the antibiotics it would be best to use and I need to make sure he gets the combination he can tolerate that’s still strong enough to give him a chance.”
“I’m so sorry,” Maicy repeated because she didn’t know what else to say.
“I should have gone with my gut and stayed with him,” Conor said, more to himself than to her. “But there’s been stuff with Kinsey and...” He sighed disgustedly. “And then I was up here, stuck in this damn storm.”
Ooo. Maicy had never heard him curse the way he did following that statement. He was really upset.
Collecting himself, he shook his head, drawing back those broad shoulders and stiffening up as if it helped contain some of his stress. “I also got through to Rickie while I had service to see if he could get up here, if he could get me to somewhere I could fly out of.”
“Could he?” Maicy asked hopefully.
“Not any chance in hell,” he said with disgust. “The Billings airport is still closed—along with most of Billings—and now so is the highway between here and there. And there’s been an avalanche and rockslide just outside of Northbridge, on the only road in or out. That’ll keep everybody stuck there until the storm passes. Then they’ll have to bulldoze through the slide before anybody will be able to get to us from that direction. That’s why I went the rest of the way for your things—we’re looking at being here longer than I thought.”
And he was irritated and more shaken up than she’d ever seen him. More like she’d been yesterday when she’d realized what was going on and with whom she was stranded.
Maybe it was her turn to have the cooler head that prevailed, Maicy thought, because Conor looked like he could put a fist through a wall at any moment. And it didn’t seem like he’d be deterred by the fact that these weren’t just walls, they were tree trunks.
“I’m not a medical person,” she said calmly. “I don’t know anything about that kind of thing, so help me understand... Do you feel like Declan’s doctors are incompetent?”
“No, they’re good. They’re just overworked. His primary is actually a guy I was with for a while on a tour on an aircraft carrier—Vince Collier. I’d let him treat me.”
“So his doctor is competent and conscientious,” she said, then, “I know I’m always asked if I’m allergic to anything when I see a doctor, so you must have told everyone about Declan’s allergies, right?”
“I made sure it was noted in big letters everywhere, and yeah, I’ve said it to everyone who’s come near him.”
“Plus Declan knows his allergies and he hasn’t gone into shock, so double-checking his antibiotics is something he can make sure of himself.”
“I don’t know about that—a fever like he has could leave him confused.”
“Okay, but you’ve been there with Declan, so everyone knows you, too—that you’re a navy doctor, that you’re keeping an eye on them and everything they do, yes?”
“Yes, but I’m not there to do that now,” he said impatiently, as if he didn’t see the point of any of what she was asking.
“But the groundwork is laid,” she said. “And you’ve got two brotherhoods working for you—the brotherhood of doctors, and the whole military brotherhood. It seems to me that whether you’re there or not, everyone is going to try that much harder not to drop the ball with Declan.”
That gave him pause for just a moment before he conceded. “I don’t know...maybe... This is just really serious...”
“But you said Declan was doing pretty well before this—it would be worse if this had hit him when he was even weaker, wouldn’t it? Now he’s in good enough shape for you to feel like you could leave him, so he must have a little bit to fight this with.”
“Sepsis is dangerous no matter what,” he insisted.
“And if you were there with him, what would you be doing?”
“Keeping watch!” he said, again as if she was clueless.
“And you’d see a lot of people doing their jobs—which is what’s still happening. Sitting in a chair in his room would make you feel better, but it wouldn’t necessarily change anything,” she reasoned. “So yes, we’ll keep my phone as backup and you’ll still keep trying to get through so you can put your two cents’ worth in, but maybe you can trust—at least a little—that you’ve gotten Declan this far and put him in the best position, and whatever he needs will be done now with or without you being there?”
Conor drew his hands through his hair again, pulling so hard on his scalp that he yanked his head back and glared at the ceiling.
From her vantage point Maicy saw his upturned jaw clench and she wondered if she’d pushed too far, if reason wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear.
Then he took a deep breath and sighed hard as he dropped his hands and brought his head down again to look at her.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he admitted. “About all of that. And I did talk to Collier for a few minutes before the phone cut out again. I think—think—he’s doing what he should. It’s just that this is really bad,” he said in a tone that was thick with fear and worry. “And I should be there...” His voice dwindled off, letting Maicy see just how much this bothered him.
But before she could think of anything more to say he let out a mirthless chuckle. “I guess this must be what Kinsey feels like with us all in active service—afraid for us and helpless as all hell.”
Knowing nothing about what that might be like, Maicy agreed with that observation only with a raise of her eyebrows.
That inspired a shock of pain that reminded her that she was injured. She thought that they were quite a pair stuck here snowbound—her with a head injury and him climbing out of his skin with worry about his brother.
Then Conor drew himself up as if coming to grips with some of his demons and said, “I’m gonna heat the water and take a quick shower.”
“Sure. Good idea,” Maicy said.
Conor disappeared downstairs. In the meantime Maicy retrieved her suitcase and purse, feeling as joyful as a kid at Christmas to have them with her again, and took them into the bedroom.
Then she relocated the pink cake box to the kitchen, setting it aside for later.
By the time Conor’s shower was finished the cornbread was cooked, the can of chili she’d opened was simmering on the stovetop, she had plates, bowls and bottles of water waiting, and she’d lit some of the candles she’d found in the mudroom to add a little light.
Not in any romantic way, she made sure to tell herself. Just so they could see what they were eating.
What she wasn’t prepared for was the impact of looking up from her tasks to find the freshly showered and shaved Conor rejoining her in that candlelight.
He was wearing navy blue sweatpants and a matching hoodie with NAVY emblazoned across his expansive chest.
His dark hair was shower-damp. His face was bare of whiskers and even more handsome with all the sculpted lines and planes revealed. And that soapy scent that had tormented her from his clothes wafted out from him and went right to her head.
But only for a minute before she got a hold of herself. She focused on stirring the chili so she didn’t have to look at him, thinking that this was a dirty trick on fate’s part. If Conor had aged into a troll of a man it would have been bad enough to be in this situation with him. But as it was, his appeal had doubled from what it had been when he was eighteen and this was turning into a constant test of her resistance that she didn’t appreciate.
“I’ll shut off the propane on the water heater but we should still have enough warm water in the tank to do the dishes,” he said as he headed for the basement again.
Maicy didn’t respond to that, working to remind herself not to let the way he looked have any effect on her.
She thought she had it under control until he came back. But one glimpse of him rattled her all over again.
It doesn’t matter how hot he is, she lectured herself, think about who he is and what he did.
Holding fast to memories of old injuries, she ladled out the chili and cut the cornbread, then he took his plate and she took hers to the coffee table to eat, sitting side by side on the sofa, facing the kitchen rather than each other.
After a few bites, Conor said, “Now that you’ve talked me off the ledge—thanks for that by the way—tell me about this wedding of yours so I can think about something else and stop obsessing over Declan and things I can’t do.”
Maicy wondered if it had rocked him at all to think of her with someone else—the way it had rocked her earlier when she’d thought he might want cell service to keep up with a pregnant wife. But there were no indications of it.
Before she’d said anything he said, “I know you didn’t stay in Northbridge—my mom said you left a year after I did and never came back—but you were getting married there?”
“I got a scholarship to the University of Colorado in Boulder, I went there for undergrad. Then I got my masters at CU Denver campus and stayed,” she explained.
“What did you get your degrees in?”
“Career counseling and development. I own my own career counseling service in Denver.”
“So you went to Colorado, live in Denver, but went back to Northbridge to get married?” he said, returning to the original subject.
“A little over a year ago I ran into Gary Stern on the street—”
“That little dorky guy from your graduating class?”
“He evolved out of the dorkiness,” she defended even though she didn’t feel particularly inclined to support her cheating former fiancé. Granted, she couldn’t argue that he wasn’t little—only two inches taller than Maicy’s own five feet four inches and slight enough that if she’d been wearing Gary’s sweatsuit now it would have fit her perfectly.
Then she went on. “He’d just moved away from Northbridge after Candace Jackson turned down his proposal.”
Okay, there might have been a touch of snideness to that last part, but if Conor had heard it he didn’t say anything. He only said, “Candace Jackson... She started out my year, got thrown from a horse and had to be held back into your class because she missed so much school.”
“Right. But she’s perfectly healthy now...” Maicy said sardonically.
“And she turned down Stern’s proposal and he moved to Denver, where you met up with him again and...what? Hit it off?”
Commiserated as two people dumped by high school sweethearts, was more like it.
But that wasn’t how Maicy framed it. “At first we were only old friends meeting again after a long time. But then yes, we hit it off, started to date—”
“You and Stern...” he mused, glancing at her in disbelief. “I can’t see it.”
“We were good together,” she said, defensively again. “At least I thought we were. Gary’s transition from small town to big city was a little rough, though. He worked as an account manager at a brokerage house but six months in, the company let him go.”
“That’s not good. How come?”
“They said he just didn’t fit in—it was kind of a high-profile firm and it seemed like Gary just didn’t have the... I don’t know...the panache for their big clients. Anyway, about that time his apartment lease expired and his rent almost doubled from the move-in rate—”
“And being newly unemployed, he couldn’t afford it,” Conor said for her.
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