The Bachelor’s Christmas Bride (2 page)

“And I'm staying at Logan's place until I finish remodeling your grandmother's house. You're set to stay in the apartment above Logan's garage, right? So that must be where you're headed.”

“Right.”

“So we can call Roy and have him take a look at your car while you just go home with me.”

Oh.

He made that sound as if everything had worked out perfectly. But Shannon still couldn't help being uncomfortable with the thought of taking everything this man said at face value and totally trusting him. “Uhh…thanks, but—”

“Come on, it's fine. I even have candy….” he cajoled, taking a tiny candy cane from his pocket.

“You're a stranger masquerading as Santa Claus trying to lure me into a car with candy?” she said.

He laughed and while it wasn't a Santa-like
ho-ho-ho,
it was a great laugh.

“I guess that does sound bad, doesn't it?” he admitted. “Okay, how about this…”

He reached into one of the skates that he'd again slung over his shoulder and pulled out a wallet.

“Look—I'll prove who I am,” he said, showing her his driver's license.

Shannon took a close look at it, particularly at the picture. For the kind of photograph that had a reputation for being notoriously bad, his was the exception. Not only were those eyes remarkable, but so was the rest of his face.

Roller-coaster-shaped lips. A slightly long, not-too-thin, not-too-thick nose that suited him. The shadow of a beard even though he was clean shaven, accentuating a sharp jawline and a squarish chin that dented upward in the center ever so alluringly.

And his hair—like the full eyebrows she could see for herself—was the color of espresso. It was so dark a brown it was just one shade shy of black, and he wore it short on the sides, a little long on top and disheveled to perfection.

And yes, the name on the license was, indeed, Daegal Pierson McKendrick.

“Daegal?” Shannon said as she read the unusual name.

“My mother had visions of glory. She thought it sounded European and sophisticated. My sisters are Isadora, Theodora and Zeli. But you can see that I am who I say I am. And in an hour and a half we'll be sitting across a table at the bank for the closing on your grandmother's property. Plus, tonight we're having a family dinner together, and we'll actually be living
within spitting distance of each other even when we aren't together. I think you can risk a five-minute ride in my car.”

Shannon had no idea why, but she couldn't resist giving him a hard time despite the abundance of reasons why she could trust him.

“How do I know that the person behind that beard is the person on this driver's license?”

He looked to his right, to his left, over his shoulder, making sure none of the children he'd been teaching to skate were around to see. Then he eased the beard down just enough for her to realize that in reality he was even better looking than in the photograph.

It was only a split-second glimpse, however, before he released the fluffy white disguise that must have been held on by elastic because it snapped back into place.

Then he waved a finger between the driver's license in her hand and himself and said, “Him, me, same guy. Not somebody who's gonna drive you out into the woods and ravage you.” Why did
that
make her smile? And maybe sound a little tantalizing?

She again had no answer to her own question but she did finally concede. “Okay. Let's call the mechanic and then I guess I'll
have
to trust you.”

Dag McKendrick took a turn at smiling at her—a great smile that flashed flawlessly white teeth. “You don't
have
to trust me. You can walk—it's about four miles straight down South Street—five minutes by car, maybe an hour or more on foot, your choice…”

“I'll take the ride. But remember, the mechanic will know who I left with.”

“And the possible future-Governor of Montana will
track me down and have me shot if anything happens to his soon-to-be wife.”

So the news had even reached Northbridge. Shannon had been hoping that somehow the media coverage might have bypassed the small, secluded town during the two weeks since Wes's on-camera proposal.

But while she
wasn't
Wes Rumson's soon-to-be anything, she'd agreed not to refute it in public. She'd agreed to let Wes's press people handle it in a way that saved face for him, that didn't harm his bid for governor. And she couldn't blurt out the truth now, on the street, to someone she didn't know.

Even if she suddenly wanted to more than she had at any moment in the last two weeks.

Because, as she looked into Dag McKendrick's coal-black eyes, she hated the idea that he thought she was engaged when she wasn't.

And she didn't understand
that
any more than she'd understood any of the rest of her response to this man.

But that was what she'd agreed to and she had to stick to it.

She had to.

So she bit her tongue on the subject and merely said, “I'll get my suitcase out of the trunk while you call the mechanic. If you would, please.”

“Already sounding gubernatorial,” he teased.

Shannon merely rolled her eyes at him and reached beside the driver's seat to release the lever that opened the sedan's trunk.

“Just leave your suitcase, I'll get it,” Dag McKendrick commanded as she headed for the rear of the car. “We can't have the future First Lady toting her own luggage.”

Shannon ignored him and went for her suitcase anyway.

But as she was standing behind the car, she couldn't keep herself from peeking around the raised trunk cover at him, telling herself it was to make sure he was using the cell phone he'd taken from the inside of that same skate his wallet had been in, and not just to get another look at him.

Dag McKendrick.

Why on earth would she care if he thought she was engaged? she asked herself.

She still didn't have an answer.

But what she did have about five minutes later was a ride in a truck with Santa Claus behind the wheel, honking his horn and boisterously hollering
ho-ho-hos
to every child he drove by.

O
n Thursday evening, in the upstairs guest room of his half brother's home, Dag set the packet of papers for the property he now owned in the top dresser drawer. As he did, the sounds of more and more voices began to rise up to him from the kitchen.

A family dinner to welcome Shannon Duffy and celebrate his new path in life as a land-and homeowner—that was what tonight was, what was beginning to happen downstairs.

It was a nice sound and he sat on the edge of the bed to give himself a minute to just listen to it from a distance.

And to stretch his knee and rub some of the ache out of it.

He should have used the elastic support brace on the ice today but he hadn't thought that teaching preschoolers to skate would put as much strain on his knee as it
had. Plus he knew he was sloughing off when it came to things like that because on the whole, the knee was fine and didn't need any bracing. It had been that quick rush to the kid who had fallen—that's when he'd jimmied things up a little.

But just a little. The pain lotion he'd rubbed into it after his shower this afternoon had helped, the massage was helping, too, and he thought it would be fine by tomorrow. Every now and then it just liked to let him know that the doctors, the trainers, the coaches, the physical therapists had all been right—there was no way he could have gone on to play hockey again.

And he wasn't going to. After returning to Northbridge in late September he'd done some house-hunting, and he was now the owner of his own forty-seven acres of farm and ranch land, of a house that was going to be really nice once he was finished remodeling and updating it. He was on that new path that was being celebrated tonight and he'd be damned if he was going to do any more mourning of what wasn't to be.

He'd had a decent run in professional hockey. Hockey and the endorsements that went with a successful career had set him up financially. And even if it hadn't been his choice to move on, even if moving on had happened a lot earlier than he'd hoped it would, a lot earlier than he'd expected it would, he was still glad to be back in Northbridge.

The positives were the things he was going to concentrate on—the new path, getting back to his hometown and the fact that it was Christmastime. The fact that this was the first Christmas in years that he was home well in advance of the holiday, with family. The fact that he didn't have to rush in after a Christmas Eve game or rush out for a December twenty-sixth game. The fact that he
wasn't in a hospital or a physical therapy rehab center the way he had been the last two Christmases.

So things might not be exactly the way he'd planned, but they were still good. And he still considered himself a pretty lucky guy. A little older, a little wiser, but still pretty lucky. Lucky enough to have been able to go on.

The sound of a woman's laughter drifted up to him then and he listened more intently.

Had Shannon Duffy come across the backyard from the garage apartment?

And why should he care whether she had or not?

He shouldn't.

He didn't.

But when he heard the laugh again and recognized it as his half sister Hadley's laugh, he stayed put, continuing to rub his knee rather than go down the way he might have otherwise.

It was just good manners, he told himself. They were sort of the co-guests-of-honor. If Shannon was here, he should go down. If she wasn't here yet, there was no rush.

Yeah, right, it's just manners…

Okay, maybe he didn't hate the idea that he was going to get to see her again. But only because she made for a pleasant view.

Dark, thick, silky, walnut-colored hair around that pale peaches-and-cream skin. A thin, straight nose that came to a slight point on the end that turned up just a touch. Lips that were soft and shiny and too damn kissable to bear. Rosy cheeks that made her look healthy and glowing from the inside out. Eyes that at first had seemed blue—a pale, luminous blue—and then had somehow taken on a green hue, too, to blend them into the color
of sea and sky together. And a compact little body that was just tight enough, just round enough, just right…

A beauty—that's what Shannon Duffy was. No doubt about it. So much of a beauty that he hadn't been able to get the image of her out of his head even after he'd left her to her brother this afternoon when he'd come up here to shower.

So much of a beauty that he'd had to rein in the urge to stare at her every time he'd had the opportunity to see her today.

No wonder she'd snagged herself a Rumson….

Wes Rumson, the newest Golden Boy of the Montana clan that had forever been the biggest name in politics in the state. It had been all over the news a couple weeks ago that not only was he going to run for governor, he was also engaged to Shannon Duffy. When Dag had heard that, he'd figured that was the reason she was selling her grandmother's property.

It was also one of the reasons that no matter how great-looking she was, he would be keeping his distance from her.

Engaged, dating, separated—even flirting with someone else—any woman with the faintest hint of involvement or connection or ties to another guy and there was no way Dag would get anywhere near her. And not only because he wasn't a woman-poacher—which he wasn't.

He'd learned painfully and at the wrong end of a crowbar that if a woman wasn't completely and totally free and available, having anything whatsoever to do with her could be disastrous.

So, beautiful, not beautiful, he wouldn't go anywhere near Shannon Duffy.

At least not anywhere nearer than anyone else who
was about to share the holiday with her as part of a larger group.

Nope, Shannon Duffy was absolutely the same as the decorations on the Christmas tree, as the lights and holly and pine boughs and ribbons all over this house, all over town—she was something pretty to look at and nothing more.

But damn, no one could say she wasn't pretty to look at….

 

“A neckruss goes on your neck, a brace-a-let goes on your wristle.”

“Right,” Shannon confirmed with a smile at three-year-old Tia McKendrick's pronunciation of things.

After a lovely dinner of game hen, wild rice, roasted vegetables and salad, followed by a dessert of fruit cobbler and ice cream, everyone was still sitting around the table in the dining room of Logan and Meg McKendrick's home.

Wine had also been in abundance and had left Shannon more relaxed than when she'd arrived this evening. She assumed the same was true for her dinner companions because no one seemed in any hurry to get up and clear the remainder of the dishes.

Tia, on the other hand, had ventured from her seat to sit on Shannon's lap and explore the simple circle bracelet and plain gold chain necklace that Shannon had worn with her sweater set and slacks tonight.

“Can I see the brace-a-let?” Tia requested.

“You can,” Shannon granted, taking it off and handing it to the small curly-haired girl.

Looking on from Shannon's right were Meg and Logan—Tia's stepmother and father.

To Shannon's left were Chase and his soon-to-be bride, Hadley—who also happened to be Logan's sister.

On Hadley's lap was fifteen-month-old Cody, and directly across from Shannon was Dag.

Which made it difficult for her not to look at him in all his glory dressed in jeans and a fisherman's knit sweater, his well-defined jaw clean shaven and yet still slightly shadowed with the heaviness of his beard.

Their positioning at the table apparently made it difficult for him not to look at her, too, because his dark eyes seemed to have been on her most of the night.

“I think that brace-a-let is kind of big for you, Miss Tia,” Dag said then. “You can get both of your wristles in it.”

Tia tried that, putting her tiny hands through the hoop from opposite directions as if it were a muff. Then, giggling and holding up her arms for everyone to see, she said, “Look it, I can!”

That caught Cody's interest and the infant leaned far forward to try to take the bracelet for himself. Luckily Shannon had worn two, so she took off the other one and handed it to the baby. Who promptly put it in his mouth.

“So, Shannon, you're pretty much a stranger to Northbridge even though your grandmother lived here?” Logan asked then.

“I am. I only visited here a few times growing up and that was all before I was twelve. Between my parents' business and their health, there was just no getting away.”

“What was their business?” Hadley asked.

“They owned a small shoe repair and leather shop, and the building it was in. We lived above the shop and they couldn't afford help—they worked the shop themselves
six days a week—so in order to leave town, they had to close down and that was too costly for them. Gramma would come to visit us—even for holidays. Plus with my parents' health problems they were both sort of doing the best they could just to get downstairs, put in a day's work and go back up to the apartment.”

“Did they have serious health problems long before they died?” Chase asked.

“My mom and dad's health problems were definitely serious and started
long
before they died,” Shannon confirmed. “As a young man, my dad was in an accident that cost him one kidney and damaged his other—the damaged one continued to deteriorate from the injury, though, and he eventually had to go on dialysis. My mom had had rheumatic fever as a kid and it took a toll on her heart, which also made her lungs weak and caused her to be just generally unwell.”

“I'm a little surprised that people in that kind of physical shape were allowed to adopt a child,” Meg observed.

“The situation at the time helped that,” Shannon said. “What I was told was that my birth parents were killed in a car accident—”

“True,” Chase confirmed.

“There wasn't anything about other kids in the story,” Shannon continued. “I didn't know there was an older sister who had a different father to take her, or that there was an older brother and twin younger brothers, that's for sure. What my parents said was just that there wasn't any family to take me, that the reverend here had put out feelers for someone else to. When my parents asked if that could be them, the reverend helped persuade the authorities to let them have me despite their health issues—which weren't as bad at the time, anyway.”

“I don't know if you know or not, but that reverend is my grandfather,” Meg said.

“Really? No, I didn't know that.”

“And sick or not, your folks must have wanted a child a lot,” Hadley concluded.

“A lot,” Shannon confirmed. “But having one of their own just wasn't possible.”

“Did you have a good life with them?” Chase asked.

Despite the two occasions when she and Chase had met in Billings and the few phone calls and emails they'd exchanged, they'd barely scratched the surface of getting to know each other. And while she was aware that Chase's upbringing in foster care had been somewhat dour, Shannon hadn't gotten into what her own growing-up years had been like.

“I didn't have a lot of material things,” she told him now. “But no one was more loved than I was. My parents were wonderful people who adored each other and who thought I was just a gift from heaven,” she said with a small laugh to hide the tears that the memory brought to her eyes. She also glanced downward at Tia still playing with the bracelet in her lap and smoothed the little girl's hair.

When the tears were under control and she glanced up again, she once more found Dag watching her, this time with a warmth that inexplicably wrapped around her and comforted her before she told herself that she had to be imagining it.

“It must have been so hard for you to lose them,” Meg said, interrupting that split-second moment.

“It was,” Shannon answered, forcing herself to look away from Dag. “But at the same time, they had both gotten so sick. That's why my grandmother left Northbridge
a few years ago—to help me take care of them when it was just more than I could do on my own—”

“You took care of them?” Dag asked in a voice that sounded almost as if it was for her ears only.

“I did—happily, and they made it as easy as they could, but I still had to work, too, and do what I could to help the man I'd hired to keep the business running. Plus my parents needed someone with them during the day, as well, so Gramma came to stay. By the time my dad died last January I couldn't wish him another day of suffering just so I could go on having him with me. And he and my mom were so close that she just couldn't go on without him. I think her heart really did break then, so it was no shock when she died just months later. And to tell you the truth, after spending every day of their adult lives together—working together, going up to the apartment together, never being without each other—it sort of seemed as if they belonged together in whatever afterlife there might be, too.”

“And then there was just you and your grandmother?” Dag asked, his eyes still on her in that penetrating gaze.

“Right, Gramma was still with me. And she seemed healthy as ever. She helped me go through all my parents' things—personal and financial and business. She helped me find an apartment so we could sell the business and the building it was in. She helped me move. She was just about to come back to Northbridge—which was what she really wanted to do for herself—when she had a heart attack in August. She didn't make it through that….”

This time Shannon shrugged her shoulders to draw attention away from the moisture gathering in her eyes. When she could, she said, “Strange as it may sound, my grandmother's death was actually the shock.”

“And just like that—within a matter of eight months—you lost your whole family?” Hadley marveled sadly. “Chase said you had taken some time off from teaching kindergarten then, and it's no wonder!”