A Maverick To (Re)Marry. Christine Rimmer
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One
“I can’t believe you’re here at last,” said Eva Rose Armstrong with a tender little smile. “When you pulled up in your fancy car yesterday, I almost wondered if I was seeing things.”
“I’m here and I’m staying,” Amy Wainwright replied. “You won’t get rid of me until the wedding, no matter how hard you try,” she spoke firmly and did her best to ignore the growing sense of dread that had her stomach feeling queasy and her nerves on a thin edge.
“Thirteen years,” Eva scolded fondly, “do you realize that? Thirteen years it’s taken us to get you to come back to town.” Us included Eva and her older sisters, Delphine and Calla. Growing up, the Armstrong sisters had been like family to Amy. In the years since Amy had moved to Colorado, the Armstrong girls had come to visit her often, but Amy had always found some reason she couldn’t make the trip to Rust Creek Falls—and in actual fact, it had been nine years, not thirteen, since Amy had last set foot in Montana. But Eva didn’t know about that other visit and she never would.
“It took you getting married to do the trick.” Amy strove for a light tone. “But I’m here now. And I’m going nowhere until I see you walk down the aisle to the man that you love.”
Eva laughed. “You don’t have to look so grim and determined about it.”
Relax, Amy reminded herself for the umpteenth time. It’s going to be fine. “Grim?” She reached out and took Eva’s hand. “Are you kidding? I’m thrilled to be your maid of honor.” It was coming face-to-face again with the best man that had her belly in knots and her heart stuck in her throat.
They stood near the sunny front window in the living room of the farmhouse where Eva lived with her fiancé, Luke Stockton. The best man would be joining them any minute now. And Amy would get through this meeting with her pride and her dignity intact.
She was going to smile in a cordial sort of way, just smile and say hello and ask him how he’d been. She would treat him as exactly what he was—a guy she knew way back when. An old high school boyfriend, nothing more.
What had really happened between them all those years ago was their secret, his and hers. And Amy could see no reason on earth why it shouldn’t stay that way.
“Now, we just need to find a way to keep you here forever,” Eva said with a definite smirk.
“Highly unlikely.” Amy lived in Boulder. She owned her own home and she worked for a major accounting firm as a digital forensic accountant. Most people’s eyes glazed over when she talked about her work, but Amy had always been a math whiz and a computer nerd. She totally loved stopping hackers and fraudsters dead in their tracks.
“You never know,” Eva teased, “you could finally meet the man of your dreams right here in Rust Creek Falls. This town is magic when it comes to love and romance, you just ask anyone.”
Once, long ago, Amy would have agreed with her friend. Now, though? Not happening. No way, uh-uh. “If you say so...”
Eva tugged on her hand. “Come on.” She led Amy to the sofa and chairs grouped around the coffee table. Eva and Luke had moved to Sunshine Farm last winter. Slowly, they’d been fixing up the old farmhouse, stripping dated wallpaper, installing new countertops and appliances in the kitchen. The furniture was mostly family hand-me-downs and stuff picked up at estate and yard sales, but Eva had a great sense of style and the effect was homey. Welcoming. “Sit down,” Eva said, “and have a cookie.”
Amy took one of the two wing chairs across from the couch—and a lemon-praline macaron. Eva was a baker by profession, her cookies as irresistible as her sunny smile.
The doorbell chimed.
It’s him...
Adrenaline spurted. Amy’s throat locked up tight on a bite of macaron.
Calm down. You’re okay. Breathe. She gulped a sip of iced tea and somehow managed to swallow the bite of cookie without surrendering to a choking fit.
Across the room and through the open arch, in the small foyer, Eva pulled open the door. “Viv!” It was the wedding planner, Vivienne Shuster. Not him, after all. Amy’s heartbeat slowed a little as Eva ushered the other woman into the living room.
Vivienne, a tall, striking blonde in a simple tan skirt and a white shirt, took a seat on the couch. She set down her stack of pastel binders and her tablet, shook hands with Amy and said yes to a glass of iced tea and a butter-pecan sandy.
For a few minutes, the women chatted about nothing in particular. Viv was relatively new to town, just getting started with her wedding-planner business. “Eva, the house looks great.”
“We keep working on it,” said Eva. Luke had grown up at Sunshine Farm, but the place had fallen into disrepair when his parents died and the Stockton family was torn apart.
Viv had obviously heard the whole heartbreaking story, including the current state of affairs. “It’s wonderful,” she said, “that Luke and his brothers and sisters are reunited now—or almost.” Her bright smile dimmed a little. “Any word on Liza?” Liza Stockton was the only one of Luke’s siblings who had yet to be located.
“No. But we’re still looking. We’ll never give up.”
“Well, you’re certainly bringing the family ranch back to life again.” Viv picked up one of her binders and flipped to a tab labeled Barn Weddings. Like Luke’s brother Danny last Christmas, Luke and Eva’s wedding venue would be the big yellow barn right there on Sunshine Farm. “So, we’re still going with holding the ceremony outside, and then the reception dinner in the barn, right?” At Eva’s nod, Viv continued, “Good, then. I have a few new ideas to run by you.”
Amy heard boots out on the front steps. Her mouth went dust-dry and her ears started ringing.
But it was only Luke coming in from the horse pasture. She took slow, deep breaths to settle her absurdly overactive nerves as Luke left his muddy boots by the door and slipped on a pair of soft mocs. “Am I late?”
“Nope.” Eva got up to offer a quick kiss and pull him into the living room. “You’re right on time.” They look so happy together, Amy thought. She was glad for her friend. A born romantic, Eva had survived more than her share of disappointments in love. But she never gave up. And now she’d finally found the perfect man for her.
The doorbell rang again. Amy’s stomach lurched and her heart beat so hard, she knew it would pound its way right out of her chest.
“That’ll be Derek,” Luke said. “I’ll get it.” He returned to the door as Amy practiced slow breathing and prayed she wouldn’t sink to the floor in a dead faint like the heroine of some old-time novel, felled by her own secret past. “Come on in,” said Luke.
And then, there he was.
Derek Dalton. In Wranglers and a soft chambray shirt. He took off his hat and his hair was just as she remembered it, thick and unruly, sable brown. He was just as she remembered—only bigger, broader. A grown man now, not a nineteen-year-old boy.
He hung his hat by the door. Luke signaled him forward and he entered the living room, filling it with his presence, with their past that seemed to suck all the air right out of her lungs. He greeted Eva and Viv. And then he turned to Amy, those leaf-green eyes homing right in on her. “Hey, Amy. Long time, huh?”
She stared up at him, unable to speak. But then he held out his big, blunt-fingered, work-roughened hand. She forced herself to take it and the shock of touching him again after all these years sent a bolt of lightning straight up her arm—and jolted the necessary words out of her.
“Hey, Derek.” She pulled her fingers free of his grip and somehow managed the barest semblance of a smile. “Great to see you again.”
“You, too.” With that, he turned away at last and lowered his big frame into the other wing chair.