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Authors: Cindy Gerard

BOOK: A Bride For Crimson Falls
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And later, with the picnic blanket again and a bottle of wine, they shared the last night they’d have alone together on the widow’s walk overlooking the lake.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sky so crowded with stars.” Colin lay on his back, staring with the awe of discovery.
Beside him, Scarlett shared his wonder with a smile. “If I’m reading that faint hint of color edging in on the horizon correctly, I don’t think the light show’s over yet.”
“Light show?”
“Aurora borealis.”
He turned his head to look at her, before averting his gaze back to the sky. “Northern lights? No kidding. I didn’t think we were far enough north. Or in the right season.”
“Up here you never know. We catch glimpses of them on and off all winter and occasionally in summer, too, if the conditions are right.”
As they lay there, the sky gradually transformed from inky black to shades of pearly gray, then ascending hues of blue and lavender with streaks of red and green flashing across the whole like bold brush strokes over canvas.
“What makes it happen?”
“Depends on who you ask. Mackenzie insists they’re the work of an ancient Chippewa magic man.”
“First, ghosts. Now, magic.”
“As I said, that’s Mackenzie’s version, not mine.”
“And Maggie—does she have an explanation too? And don’t say ghosts.”
She returned his lazy smile. “Nope. She says J.D. has convinced her that something as romantic as the northern lights shouldn’t be questioned. They should simply be enjoyed for the miracle they are.”
“What about Scarlett Morgan,” he asked softly. “What does she believe?”
She turned to him. The tenderness in his eyes touched her so deeply she had to look away. She’d like to believe in the magic of the Chippewa legend and call on it to find a way to keep Colin at her side through a thousand more nights filled with northern lights. She’d like to believe in romance as the means to the end she wanted, but knew it would never be enough.
Blinking back the tears that were trying to escape, she purposely broke the spell. “I believe it’s the walrus,” she said matter of factly.
“Walrus?” He practically laughed the word.
“Yup,” she confirmed, reacting to the grin in his voice, grateful her little bit of silliness had ended the mood. “According to Geezer—”
He snorted. “Makes sense this would come from Geezer.”
“According to Geezer,” she persisted, ignoring his skepticism, “an old legend in some Eskimo tribes is that the colored bands are spirits of the dead, playing ball with a walrus skull—or, vice versa—that the walrus spirits are playing with a human skull.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Walrus just don’t do it for me. I think I’ll have to go along with J.D. on this one and opt for romance.”
The moment he’d said it, they both realized the implication of his words. He was a man who didn’t look for, or want, love in his life. He was a man who had priorities, and romance wasn’t one of them.
Yet as he lay beside her, watching the sky dance with color and clarity, Colin questioned again the validity of his life choices to date. Just as he questioned if he really had it in him to leave her here and walk away.
Suddenly he had a need to know more about her—and no inclination to stop himself from asking.
He turned on his side, propping his cheek in his palm. The curve of her waist was slender and supple as he caressed her there, satisfying his need to touch her. “What happened to your marriage, Scarlett?”
He knew he had no right to ask. And for a moment, as she took the time to react to his unexpected question, he thought she’d tell him as much.
Instead, with a softly reflective tone and carefully chosen words, she answered with a dismissive shrug.
“The same thing that happens to many marriages, I guess. We were too young. Too focused on individual needs. Too stupid to know what to do about it. The stress finally got the best of us and we parted ways.”
Well. That was neat and tidy. Too neat. Too tidy. And she was too tense. There was more to the story. He knew he shouldn’t, but he pressed. “That’s it?”
She let out a deep breath, gave another one of those evasive shrugs. “Pretty much.”
“Do you ever hear from him?”
For the first time her control slipped. The smile that tipped up her lips was bitter. “Once ... maybe twice a year he calls to talk to Casey. Usually to apologize for missing her birthday or to explain why her Christmas gifts were late or why he didn’t make it to his parents when she was there visiting. He’s always got some deal going. Some big venture, simmering on the back burner, that’s turned out to be more important than her.”
“Casey’s a sweet kid,” he said, unable to curb the anger in his voice. “She deserves better. You deserved better, too.”
She said nothing.
“Do you still love him?”
Silence bad never been so loud as he waited, denying that a negative reply was as important as his next breath.
“I’m not sure I ever loved him,” she said at last, and he told himself the regret he heard was due more to circumstance than sorrow.
“I was infatuated with him in the beginning. Charmed by him even. But it never developed into love. If it had, I would have fought harder to keep the marriage intact. In the end, though, I gave up trying even for Casey’s sake.”
“You left him.”
She nodded. Not pleased. Not proud. Just resigned.
“And he didn’t try to stop you?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.”
“Then he wasn’t a total fool.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say that a man would have to be a fool not to fight for her. A bigger fool to walk away.
Just as he was planning to do.
“John fought everything,” she said, breaking into his regrets but not destroying them. “His problem was, he fought for all the wrong reasons.”
She turned to him then, her dark eyes concealing secrets he knew she was withholding, even as she searched his for answers. “Why are we talking about this? Casey comes home tomorrow. Geezer, too, along with a number of reservations. This is our last night together, Colin. I don’t want to spend any more of it talking about what’s past.”
He didn’t want to let it go. He didn’t want to let her go, either. But he had no hold on her past and no rights in her future.
What he had was tonight and half a dozen tomorrows, when he would share her company but not her bed before he left her life and went back to his.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, drawing her against him, the promise implicit in his embrace that whatever she wanted he would deliver.
She didn’t tell him. She showed him. With the passion of her kiss and the desperation of her lovemaking. There on the widow’s walk, beneath the vastness of the Minnesota sky and the exotic dance of the northern lights, she took him inside her and gave him everything she was as a woman. She made love to him as if it were the first time, as if it were the last time...as if she were saying goodbye.
 
“You been up t’ no good, ain’t ya?”
It was the night after Casey and Geezer had returned to Crimson Falls. It was the night after he’d made love with Scarlett on the widow’s walk and felt her come apart in his arms.
Colin was standing on the dock, contemplating the night, trying to void the memories the two of them had made together.
Geezer’s voice was a jarring reminder of those things he was trying to forget.
He turned toward the sound of the old man’s shuffling gate, squinted through the darkness and saw him standing at the base of the dock.
“While I was gone,” he continued, his tone accusatory, “and you was alone here with her. You couldn’t keep them hands t’ yerself. I knew I shouldn’a left her by herself with the likes a’ you.”
Colin figured he deserved the dressing down, though Geezer couldn’t add anything to what he’d already told himself a thousand times.
He turned back to his study of the lake, letting the night sounds and the water sounds drown out Geezer’s mutterings and the guilt he was already heaping on himself.
 
Scarlett hadn’t told Colin the public hearing on the condo issue was being held in the hotel. Had he thought about it, he would have seen the logic. What better place to plead for the preservation of the past and the land than in the midst of it?
The dining room was as full as he’d seen it since he’d been here. Several locals had boated over to show support for one side or the other. Some of the hotel’s new arrivals had even wandered in to see what was going on.
The Greenes had been among the first to arrive and, in a show of solidarity for Scarlett’s cause, were sharing a table with Colin and Casey and Geezer. The Hazzards arrived late. When Colin saw J.D. and Maggie slip inside, he sent J.D. a look across the room.
J.D., undaunted by Colin’s “I’ve got a bone to pick with you” glare, gave Colin a huge grin and a thumbs-up.
Colin just shook his head. James Dean Hazzard was a difficult man to dislike—let alone hold a grudge against. Still, Colin was about to give him a dressing down, when Scarlett took the floor.
The crowd stilled as she eloquently and passionately stated her case. Everyone listened, but it was to a handful of government officials and a contingent of Dreamscape attorneys and company reps that she spoke.
“She’s on a roll now.”
This from Casey who had returned from the Greenes yesterday morning early enough that Colin and Scarlett had had to scramble out of bed and hustle around to look presentable—and platonic.
On that issue Scarlett was adamant. “Casey is not to know or suspect what went on here while she was gone. She’s missed having a male influence in her life. don’t want her to get the wrong idea about us.”
As the day progressed, he spent it regretting the end of their intimacy and the lost chance to make lazy morning love to her one more time, and he wondered just what idea Casey might get if she knew.
Would she get the idea that he was in love with her mother? Would she see, as he sat there this very moment with his hands suddenly wrapped around his coffee cup in a white-knuckled grip, that he’d just figured out
that
was exactly the case?
He was in love. For the first time in his life he was in love. The impact of that unthinkable truth hit him like a lead pipe.
Stunned, he sat there, watching the woman who’d breached a barrier he’d thought impenetrable, and accepted that he’d been in love with her from the beginning. He couldn’t imagine that there was a drug made, legal or otherwise, as potent as the feelings she evoked in him—or as mind-bending. Hell of a pill to swallow for a man who had an aversion to something even as benign as aspirin.
After only one day of generic smiles, forced, distant courtesy, and one long, empty night without her in his arms, he already felt the loss. He just hadn’t realized it was love he was losing. Hadn’t realized, as he’d lain awake half the night coming up with and then tearing apart ideas to stretch their time together, that it was love he was trying to keep intact.
Well, he knew it now.
He was still struggling with the newness and the disbelief when the room erupted into an enthusiastic round of applause. Only then did he realize she’d spoken her piece. And only when she made her way through the crowd to take a seat beside him at the table did he realize that walking away from her was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
Nine
“W
ell, now we wait.” Mackenzie took a sip of iced tea and, with an encouraging smile for Scarlett, fell as silent as everyone else in the room.
They were in the dining room: the Greenes, the Hazzards, Colin and Scarlett. It was late afternoon. The crowd had slowly disbursed after the round-robin session of open-mike comments and arguments that J.D. and Mackenzie had added to Scarlett’s. Some of the others had spoken, too—both for and against the advent of the condos. The county officials had listened patiently to all. Only when the representatives from Dreamscape spoke, however, with their graphs and charts and carefully illustrated drawings and dollar signs, did they show any reaction. That reaction had been
greed.
Everyone at the table knew the power of the dollar and its ability to win over sentiment and ideals.
‘“A tree hugger,”’ Scarlett sputtered, staring glumly out the window toward the falls. “That pompous, placating opportunist actually called me a tree hugger. Tried to make me out as some militant environmental activist who was more wrapped up in cause than purpose.”
“Well, there’s one thing about it,” Maggie added, sympathetic with Scarlett’s disgust, “he didn’t make any points taking that tack. Everyone who knows you knows how ridiculous that label is.”
“Regardless,” J.D. added, playing devil’s advocate. “He planted the seed in the minds of the decision makers, and now that it’s planted it’ll grow.”
“Just like the tax revenues, if the project proceeds. Hey, don’t glare at me,” Colin protested, when all three women shot daggers in his direction. “I’m just stating the obvious. Money is the lowest common denominator. I’m sorry, but the way I see it, money is going to decide the issue.”
“Unfortunately, Colin is probably right.” Typically, Abel had been silent up until this point. Also typically, when he spoke people listened to what he said. “You did what you could, Scarlett. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will be enough.”
But they all feared it wouldn’t be.
 
“You think she’s going to be okay?” J.D. asked, as Colin walked with him and Abel to the lakeshore. Maggie and Mackenzie strolled along behind with Scarlett. Casey and Mark, along with Nashata and Hershey and the puppies, were far ahead of them as the strung-out procession made its way to the dock where the Hazzards’ float plane and the Greenes’ boat were moored.
Colin shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and shrugged. “With the probable decision? No. Can she handle it? Yeah. She’s a survivor.”
“Didn’t I tell you she was one special lady?”
Colin made sure the women were out of earshot. “You know, Hazzard, I ought to rearrange that pretty face of yours for the meddling you’ve done in our lives.”
Beside them, Abel chuckled. “Sorry. I was just remembering having some thoughts of my own in that direction at one point.”
“I am wounded. Truly wounded that either of you would think I’d meddl—”
“Stow it,” both Colin and Abel said in unison, which prompted an involuntary grin from all three of them.
“So...what’s the plan, Stan?” J.D. asked, cutting right to the heart of the issue.
Colin angled him a look.
“Oh, come on. I see the way you two look at each other. What I want to know is what are you going to do about it?”
It was useless to deny it, pointless to protest.
“There’s nothing I can do,” Colin said honestly.
“What are you talking about? One look at you together and anyone can see you two were made for each other.”
Colin avoided J.D.’s probing stare. “It’s complicated.”
“And your point is?” J.D. prompted, his tone implying
Life is complicated deal with it.
“My point is, we’re compatible, but our lives aren’t.”
“So find a way to compromise. Figure it out, man. She’d make a beautiful bride.”
Colin snorted. “And here I gave you some credit for subtlety.”
“Think about it,” J.D. advised sagely, all nonsense gone from his tone. “Think about what you’d be giving up if you let her go.
“Besides,” he added, when the tension threatened to take over. “I want to be able to come back again without living in fear of Scarlett taking after me with one of her kitchen knives.”
“Her knives are the least of your worries, pal. The lady has far-less-civilized plans for dealing with you. The only reason she didn’t carry them out today was her preoccupation with the condo issue.”
While he’d been silent during their discourse, Abel’s mouth twisted into that fleeting facsimile of a smile that Colin now equated to amusement.
“She’ll mellow out,” J.D. said with confidence. “In the meantime, there’s got to be a solution for the two of you. My money’s on you to figure it out.”
 
Colin wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist and took one final swing with the ax. With a cracking sound, the dead birch fell. The thud of the trunk and the splintering of limbs as it hit the ground were at odds with the stillness of the morning, but in complete harmony with the way he felt.
He’d spent the night thinking about what J.D. had said. He was right. There ought to be a way for him and Scarlett to be together. But he’d be damned if he could come up with it.
“I don’t know why you don’t use the chain saw,” Casey said from her perch on a boulder beside him. “Sure would be a lot easier. Faster, too.”
Colin didn’t want
easy.
He didn’t want
fast
, either. What he wanted was to work himself into a state of fatigue so complete he’d sleep tonight from exhaustion.
He couldn’t blame his lack of rest on Belinda’s room anymore. Since the night he and Scarlett had made love, the room had been as quiet as a tomb. No shaking bed. No restless windows. No shadows dancing on the wall. And no problem getting out of the room. No more dreams.
He wasn’t sure what Casey’s reasons for that turn of events would be, but he knew his. He’d fixed the room with hammer and nails and a plane. He didn’t need to dream because he’d lived out his fantasy.
If only he could fix his other problem as easily.
“Hello-o-o,” Casey singsonged, a playful reminder that she was still there and waiting for his response. “The chain saw? Do you want me to get it?”
He shook his head. “I need the workout.”
“You and my mom,” she said in that way teenagers have of letting adults know that the teens would never understand what motivated them. “She can’t keep busy enough. Always running. Baking this. Cleaning that. What’s with you two, anyway?”
Thwack
. He buried the ax in the trunk and tried to ignore her.
“I kind of had the idea you liked her,” Casey persisted, hiking her knees to her chest and propping her chin on them.
Thwack.
“I was...I don’t know. I guess I was wishing you liked her a lot. She gets lonesome sometimes. She doesn’t say it. But I can tell.”
He stalled his swing midair then let the ax head hit the ground. “Your mom’s a very special woman, Casey. And I like her just fine.”
“But not enough to...you know. Make her someone important in your life.”
Leave it to a child to reduce
convoluted
to
plain and simple.
“Your mom is important to me.”
“So how come you always go the other way when you see her coming?”
Giving it up, he dropped to the ground beside the boulder. He leaned back on his elbows, stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. Letting the lake breeze cool his brow, he stared at the toe of his shoe. “Is that how it looks?”
“That’s how it looks.” A long pause followed. “Is that how it is?”
Reluctantly he looked up at her, squinting against the sunlight. He saw her need to know and decided to level with her. “We have feelings for each other, Casey, but we both know they can’t go anywhere.”
Her face scrunched up in thought. “Because she’s not a sophisticated lady?”
“No. No,” he was quick to assure her. “Because we live different lives. Her life is you and the hotel. Mine is my business.”
“I bet it would be different if I wasn’t in the way.”
Her summation was so quick, her expression so vulnerable, he was just as quick to set her straight.
“Don’t even think it. You’re just as special as your mother, Casey. The two of you together are a pair any man would find hard to resist.”
She gave a little sniff then fussed with the frayed hem of her cutoffs. “My dad didn’t find it so hard.”
It took all of his control to curb his disgust with the man who ignored a child as unique as Casey. For her sake, though, he gave her father the benefit of the doubt. “Your dad probably knows by now that he made a very big mistake when he let you and your mother go.”
She slipped down from the boulder and gave him a quelling look. “So how come you haven’t figured out yet that you’re going to do the very same thing?”
With that insightful little indictment, and a last, soulful look from her big, brown eyes, she walked away.
It was that look that made him sit up and take notice. That look and her straightforward assessment. Why
was
he going to walk away? Because he was so sure Scarlett wouldn’t go with him? Or because he was afraid to find out that she would?
He’d never thought of permanency with a woman. Never contemplated commitment of the forever kind.
But then, he’d never been in love. And he’d never had a woman like Scarlett at stake. Maybe it was time he listened to what Hazzard and Casey and his heart were trying to tell him.
 
“Come with me.”
Startled, Scarlett jumped at the sound of Colin’s voice. She startled at just about everything these past few days. Shadows. Memories. Regrets.
How long had it been since she’d had a full night’s sleep? Since making love with him. Since the hearing.
It felt like a month instead of just a few days.
Putting on her best face, she turned away from the stove and the bread she was baking to see him standing just inside the doorway. His arms were crossed over his chest One shoulder was propped oh so casually against the doorjamb. Only his expression, serious and pensive, betrayed the intensity he’d brought with him into the room.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked, and fought her heart’s reaction to go to him. He looked so beautiful, so serious, so much the man she loved and had worked so hard to avoid.
“Come with me, Scarlett,” he said again, his face somber, his eyes searching.
She tried for a throwaway smile. “I’m in the middle of preparing dinner. I can’t go anywhere right now.”
His jaw clenched with impatience. “I’m not talking about right now, this very minute. I’m talking about five days from now when I leave.” A long, thick silence passed. “I want you to come with me.”
Stunned, her forced smile collapsed. She searched his face, her heart running haywire, her mind spinning a hundred revolutions a second, and struggled to comprehend the significance of the request he was making.
Before she could catch her breath, or gather her thoughts, he was beside her, his hands on her shoulders, staring deep into her eyes.
“Come with me. You and Casey.”
She covered shock with panic. “Colin...we can’t go anywhere right now. The hotel—I’ve got guests. I’ve got several bookings coming in next week. I’ve got—”
“Forget about the hotel. We’ll find someone to take care of it. Think about yourself for a change. Think about what you want. What you need.”
What she wanted was Colin. What she needed was to remember that she couldn’t have him. “Colin, I don’t know what to say. This...this is really special that you’d invite us to...to visit, but I can’t leave my business.”
He pulled her closer. “I’m not asking you to come to visit,” he growled. Import laced through every word.
With the same passion that he’d held her, he let her go. He paced to the back kitchen door, dragged a hand through his hair, then whirled on her again.
“Do you need to hear the words? Can you possibly not know what I’m asking?”
She blinked once...twice. Then, in defense against an avalanche of emotions, she answered his questions with denial. “No. I don’t know what you’re asking. I’m not sure you do, either,” she added, softly challenging him.
When he swore under his breath and didn’t deny it, she sensed she’d hit on the truth.
Her already battered heart broke a little more—this time for him. How she loved this kind, caring man who was trying to do the right thing, but wasn’t yet sure of his reasons.
“Scarlett...I’ve never asked a woman to share my life. I’ve never even come close.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, but with such urgency he stopped and listened. She couldn’t bear to hear him say any more. Couldn’t bear to live with the knowledge once he went away. “Don’t say something you’ll be sorry for. Don’t start something else we can’t finish.”

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