Blind-Date Bride Read online

  Why couldn’t she have met him before the robbery? As she retreated into the store’s cozy warmth, her every flaw felt enormous. No matter how she fought it, her nose was too big, her legs were too short, she wasn’t pretty enough, she was dealing with problems. Her hair was a mess, tangled from the driving wind and blotchy with melting snow.

  Standing alone in the store’s foyer with displays on either side of her, she was acutely aware of her consignment-store jeans and coat and outlet-store boots. Aware of the fears she hadn’t been able to defeat since the night she’d been shot by a man on meth.

  Her heart might be whispering, “He’s The One,” but her brain was definitely shouting, “Be realistic.” For the second time, she would be saying goodbye to him, just like after the blind-date fiasco, and he would walk away for good. There would be no more chance encounters to bring them together, especially since she should be getting her insurance check soon. Which meant she would be a car owner again. If they did happen to meet on the road, they would both just keep driving, right?

  When Max retreated into the storm, the shroud of snow stole him from her sight, and it was as if he had taken something from her. Something she couldn’t name. She had never felt like this before with any guy.

  Then again, she had never spent much time with a man like Max.

  “Who is Mr. Handsome?” Colbie appeared between the rows of polished wood bookshelves. Curiosity animated her dear features—a heart-shaped face, to-die-for cheekbones, a perfect slope of a nose and big navy-blue eyes. She tucked a lock of light brown hair behind her ear. “Now I get why you suddenly decided to stop for dinner. Are you dating him?”

  Bree held up one finger to her lips, wincing. The store was quiet, and there was no way Marcus could miss hearing everything, wherever he was in the store. “Max just gave me a ride. I met him when my car was stolen.”

  “Still, he’s promising. I’m going to put him on my prayer list.”

  “Don’t torture me like that.” She gave her sister a quick hug, careful not to get her all snowy.

  “Look at you. You’re a mess!” No truer words had been spoken. “Now come here. Sit down where it’s warm. This chair gets the breeze from the heater vent. I’ll pour you some tea.”

  “You’re not waiting on me.” She dropped her backpack on the floor by one of the chairs and followed her sister to the beverage cart. Canisters towered neatly above a colorful arrangement of decorated cookies from the bakery. She grabbed two paper cups before Colbie could and filled both with steamy water.

  “Did you get an e-mail from Luke about Dad?” Colbie’s voice dropped low. Unhappiness pinched her pretty face. She busily chose two tea bags and dropped them in the cups of water.

  “Yes. I thought we were through with all that.” Bree’s stomach bunched up. See? This was probably a sign from above. As much as she didn’t want to look back and let her past dictate her future, she was forced to. After years of silence, the letters and phone calls were starting again. “He probably just wants money.”

  “Like we’re all so flush.” Colbie rolled her eyes, as if trying to make light of something that hadn’t been funny at all. Colbie hadn’t been able to afford college, something she had wanted very much. She had other responsibilities, a mom who wasn’t well. Medicine and home care were expensive, even with the state’s help. “Oh, here he comes. You have to introduce him.”

  “Sure, but you’ve got to stop gushing like that.”

  “He’s just so gorgeous. Like an action-film dude.”

  “Tell me about it.” It didn’t help that he waded into the store with his wide shoulders braced, his hands fisted and snow clinging to every powerful line. The impression was one of a capable man tested by time and hardship. Hard for a girl like her to resist, a girl who wanted the kind of man she could believe in, one who would never let her down. He definitely looked like that guy.

  “If your sister’s car is the one with the bike rack, then it has a flat tire. Hand over the keys, and I’ll swap it out with the spare. That is, if you have a spare.”

  “Yes, I do.” Leave it to Colbie to walk right up to him with her welcoming smile. She pulled her keys out of her trouser’s pocket. “Brianna and I would be deeply indebted to you. If you hadn’t noticed, we would have been stranded when we went to leave. At night. In the snow.”

  “No problem.” Max didn’t smile but he did take the keys.

  When he glanced up, his gaze focused on Brianna with startling impact. The connection returned, although they hadn’t touched. A forceful jolt of emotion left her trembling. Time froze. She felt stripped away of her defenses, of all protection. Utterly vulnerable, as if he could see right into her. No one had ever been so close to her before. Panic unfurled within her and she dropped a sugar packet, distantly aware that it was spilling.

  “I’ll be back.” Max turned his back, strode to the door and called over his shoulder. “I’m counting to three, kid. You had better come help me. Or else.”

  His wink belied his words as the bells overhead jingled joyfully.

  Chapter Six

  “I think she really likes you.”

  Marcus’s declaration startled him. What did a kid know about it? Mad, he whipped around to get a good look at the boy, and pain cracked across his skull. How had he forgotten he was halfway under a car?

  Just went to show how far gone he was over the woman.

  “That had to hurt, bro.” Marcus sympathized. “I’ve never seen you hit your head before. You must really like her, too.”

  “Mind your own business, Romeo.” What did a man have to do for a little privacy? He rubbed the bruise forming on his noggin—good thing he had a hard head—and gave the chains another check. Yep, good and tight. That ought to see the women home safely. This time he crawled out from beneath the car before he lifted his head. “Make yourself useful and take those keys to the ladies.”

  “Don’t you want to do it?”

  There was a loaded question. Yes, he did. He would give just about anything to see Brianna again. But looking would lead to talking and talking to liking her even more. What good would come from that?

  He wasn’t that guy—the one she was looking for. One thing was for sure. Whoever that dude turned out to be, the one who won her heart one day, he would be one blessed guy. Max swept the snow off his clothes, for all the good it did. He was wet through from being belly down in the snow. So was his wallet. He handed a snow-speckled twenty to the kid. “Go on. I’m right behind you.”

  “Sweet.” Marcus snatched the greenback and jammed it into his pocket. He took off at a good clip.

  “I want the change back!” It didn’t hurt to keep the kid on his toes. Max shook his head, and made sure the economy sedan’s trunk was closed up tight. Might as well rack up the bike while he was standing here. It would give him something to do instead of stand around in the snow, trying to avoid going back in that store.

  Brianna McKaslin. He couldn’t stop thinking about her as he hiked her bike into place and tied it down with the chain and lock. The bike had seen better days about a decade ago. Something told him she wasn’t a woman who’d had a lot of good breaks in her life.

  He didn’t like what he’d felt when he’d seen her in the store, snow twinkling in her hair like a tiara, looking wind-blown and wholesome and vulnerable all at once. He felt the same way now, overwhelmed with a steely need to take care of her. To be the one she turned to. To be the man who would keep her safe and happy.

  You’re not that guy, Max. He would remind himself of it as many times as it took to sink in. He’d learned the hard way as much as a man might want to be a different kind of guy, he could only wind up being himself in the end. Thinking of the past made him wince. Just went to show how much a woman’s love—and loss of that love—could affect a man a decade later.

  “Max? I thought I was going to do that.” Brianna’s voice rose above the storm like a gentle melody. She appeared through the curtain of snow with a covered cup in
hand. “This will warm you up. You look like you’ve been laying down in the snow.”

  “I hope your sister doesn’t mind that I put the chains on. I spotted the box in the trunk when I got out the jack and the spare. The roads are going to be tough going. The snow plows aren’t out yet.” He took the cup she offered, noticing steam rising up through the drink spout. His hands were too numb to feel any of its heat. “Are you two going to be heading out soon?”

  “Colbie’s closing the store early. She’s the assistant manager, so she can make the call. She’s the only employee here tonight anyway.”

  “She won’t get any customers in this weather.”

  “Exactly, which means I don’t have to sit around waiting for her to close up, thereby tempting to break my book-budget money.”

  This is where the guy says, what are you doing on Friday? Want to go out and grab a bite? Max shifted his weight from one foot to the next. Awkward, that’s what this was, the moment when you realized you couldn’t ask that question. And you suspected she might be waiting for you to.

  Just doing you a favor, pretty lady. He gestured toward the building. “You strike me as a budgeting type.”

  “And what does that mean? Obsessive-compulsive?” She laughed, a musical sound that drove the cold from the snow and the mean from the wind. “You would be right.”

  “No, no.” He noticed a spot of ice outside the back door, where she was heading, so he put his free hand on her shoulder, just to steady her. Just in case. And if a trickle of tenderness lit up the depths of his sorry soul, well, that was something he was just going to have to ignore. Completely. “You’re the neat type, aren’t you? Everything in its place. Every check recorded in the check register.”

  “Nothing wrong with being tidy. I like to keep track of things. And it has nothing to do with trying to control my environment.”

  “’Course not.” He could joke, too. It was easier that way. He did it with his brother all the time. Safer to bark and bite and not mean it, than to say what he did mean. He wasn’t comfortable with that. He wasn’t good at it.

  He saw the moment her boot slipped on the ice, she lost her balance and dismay crossed her face. He gripped her harder, holding her upright. Two more steps and they were safely past the ice and beneath the spill of light over the back door.

  “You did that and didn’t even spill your tea. I’m impressed.” She swiped snow from her face with a gloved hand, revealing the luminous emotion in her gorgeous violet eyes. “And I’m grateful.”

  “No problem.” He searched his mind for another quip, something light and funny, something to keep her at a distance. But his brain froze and words failed him. She was small, a petite slip of a woman dressed in blue. The way she gazed up at him, with caring, made him feel ten feet tall. Made him want to reach out and caress the snow from her rosebud mouth. Made him wonder if a kiss from her would be as sweet as the sugary snow gracing her.

  As if she realized it, too, her gaze deepened, as if her guards went down again. Vulnerable, he could feel the first notch of her heart falling.

  And his.

  “Guess we’d better go in.” He shook himself back to awareness, back to himself, and pulled open the back door for her. If he was disappointed, he didn’t register it. But he did feel hers, a fall of rejection that darkened her eyes and closed her up like a bank vault.

  That, he felt. Regret weighed down his steps as he watched her head bow down, presumably against the gusting wind, but maybe also to keep him from reading more of the emotions on her face. He’d let her down. He’d made sure he didn’t have a chance with her.

  I’m saving you a lot of grief, Beautiful. He followed her into the warmth and when the door slammed shut behind him, it might as well have been the door to his heart. He didn’t know what he was thinking, starting to fall for the fairy-tale princess. She just might be for real, but he wasn’t going to stick around and find out. Look at her, sugar-sweet and one hundred percent wrong for him.

  And, he hated to admit, one hundred percent the kind of woman he would trade his life for.

  That didn’t mean that he was right for her. He knew a lost cause when he saw it. She might be looking at him with stars in her eyes, but that was because she didn’t know him. She didn’t know what a failure he was when he came to relationships. He was more like his dad than he wanted to admit. Than he wanted her—a woman he could fall in love with—to know. A woman like Brianna wanted something he knew he didn’t have to give. Best to walk away while they were both still whole.

  It wasn’t what he wanted to do.

  He followed her beyond an employee lunch room and down a short hall to the back of the store. The security lights were on, the shelves silent. Only the hush of the heater moving through the vents overhead drew his attention away from the gentle pad of her gait on the industrial carpet. He fought to keep his gaze from trailing after her like his heart wanted to do.

  “It’s not fair,” she said as the cash register and front counter came into sight. “You have to go back out in that cold and put chains on your truck.”

  “I’ve got four-wheel drive, so I might not need to. But if I do, the kid will put ’em on. It’ll be good for him. Build character.”

  “I heard that.” Marcus stuffed the change back from the twenty into his pocket. “I’ve got enough character, if you ask me. But you could use some more, old man.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out.” He was twenty-nine to her twenty-two, but those seven years felt like miles. “Where did my change go?”

  “I’m keeping it safe for you.” The teenager took his purchase from Colbie with a wink and a grin. He loped toward the door. “Guess I’m ready to blow this joint. See you chicks later.”

  “Bye, Marcus.” She kept to the shadows near the shelves. The door jangled closed. “Thanks for everything, Max. I’m glad you took mercy on me and offered to help me out. That’s twice now.”

  “It’s my duty to rescue pretty ladies, whether they are in distress or not.” He quipped again, the cup of tea still in hand, snow flocking him. “You two be safe driving home. I hope you don’t have far to go.”

  “Not too far.” She felt his retreat although he hadn’t moved a muscle. Remembering how he had gazed at her for a moment outside, it was as if he were interested in her. But he had turned away. She had the same feeling now. It didn’t surprise her. She had reasons why he wasn’t the right man for her. He probably had a similar list. It simply wasn’t meant to be.

  That’s a dream for you, she thought as Max opened the door, letting in a current of snow. They aren’t substantial. They melt like snow to sunshine. At least that’s what she told herself.

  “Goodbye, Brianna.” Max’s gaze held hers for a heartbeat, waiting as if he had something to say. But maybe that was her imagination as he turned and disappeared into the storm and the night.

  “He sure was nice.” Colbie circled around the edge of the counter with a bank deposit bag. “I can’t believe he put chains on my car and changed the tire for me. He’s a keeper.”

  “True, but he’s not my keeper.” She could tell herself that dreams didn’t come true for girls like her, girls who had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, without love and even less hope. But she would rather believe that, because the truth was harder to face.

  She waited while Colbie locked the front doors and shut off the last of the lights, leaving the security ones on to light their way to the back.

  “Bree, are you all right?” Colbie looked concerned, the half light accenting her tall, lean frame as she hesitated beside the alarm console. “You look so sad.”

  “I’m just tired.” That was the truth she could admit to. It had been a long day. But her heart and her worries were off-limits. It was easier holding her hurt inside, because she wasn’t the only one with problems.

  “Colbie, did you need help tonight? I got most of my studying done in the library between classes.” She held the back door open, waiting while her sister p
unched in a few numbers. The alarm began to beep.

  “You just said you were tired.” Colbie followed her out the door and made sure the lock caught. “You have enough on your mind. Don’t you have to meet with the attorney people this week?”

  “It’s nothing.” Or at least, nothing she wanted to burden Colbie with. “You’re going out of your way to drive me home. Let me help you.”

  “Well, you could keep Mom company so I could get some housecleaning done.”

  “I would be happy to.” The storm might be battering her, and the night felt forlorn with spring so far away, but she had faith and she knew what was important. And if her thoughts drifted to Max and how chivalrous he’d looked in the snow, it wasn’t only sadness she felt.

  She had no experience crushing on someone like that. She hadn’t realized before how frightening it was to look a dream in the face. To realize how much it could change your life, and how much it could demand of you.

  Glad her heart was covered and safe, and her vulnerability buried, she climbed into the freezing car and dug around for the extra ice scraper. She wasn’t going to let her sister do all the work.

  “You like her, too. Don’t you?” Marcus seemed pretty pleased with himself on that observation.

  “No comment.” Max killed the engine and yanked the keys from the ignition. The drive home had been dicey, but he was getting used to driving in snow after a winter in Montana. He wondered about the girls, though. No doubt they made it home safely. They didn’t have far to go and plenty of experience driving in the white stuff—more than he had—but still. Wondering about Brianna seemed as if it would be a permanent situation for him. “Get inside and tackle your homework. You hear me?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Marcus popped out of the passenger seat, making as much noise as an entire basketball team. He grabbed his gear from the back, humming under his breath to the iPod in his pocket, as he went. He slammed the door. “I still think you should call her. Not many chicks would want to go out with you.”