The Bachelor’s Christmas Bride (9 page)

“But they didn't…”

Why had Dag's tone turned so ominous when he said that?

“Is that because Rumson is hanging on, hoping you'll change your mind?” Dag asked.

“There's a little of that,” Shannon admitted.

“Maybe he has deeper feelings for you than you think.”

“It isn't that I don't think Wes has feelings for me. But I don't believe that's what's really causing the delay. He keeps talking about how much attention the engagement is getting his campaign. He doesn't want to lose that more than he doesn't want to lose me. And he certainly doesn't want to lose any of the votes that a wedding might have gotten him.”

Dag didn't say anything to that, he just looked slightly skeptical.

“But the bottom line is that I am
not
engaged to Wes Rumson,” Shannon said firmly. “You just can't tell anyone.”

“Chase and Logan and Hadley and Meg would keep the secret,” Dag said then.

“I know they probably would, but I said I wouldn't say anything until Wes's people handled it the best way possible and I'm trying to stick to that…”

“Well, I won't tell anyone. But if you decide to, you could. Without worrying about it.”

The power came on then—light from outside could suddenly be seen through the windows and the sound of the refrigerator running again alerted them to it.

Dag got up and turned on the lamp beside the sofa. “Looks like we're back in business,” he said.

But it was so nice sitting here in the fire glow—come back…

Apparently he couldn't hear her thoughts because rather than rejoining her, Dag snatched his coat from the couch and said, “And it's late so I should let you get to bed and turn in myself—if I get an early start shoveling us out tomorrow, we might be able to make it to see Liz Rudolph in the afternoon.”

Disappointed, Shannon stood up to walk him to the door.

It was there that he put his coat on, leaving it unbuttoned but jamming his hands into the pockets.

And out of the blue Shannon wanted to snake her hands inside the fleece-lined suede and snuggle between its open ends, up against that broad chest…

She chased away the urge and the image, and glanced up at Dag's face. But that didn't help much since the man was so heart-stoppingly handsome and he was standing so close in front of her, peering down at her with those piercing black eyes. “
Not
engaged, huh?” he said in a voice that was quiet and deeper than it had been. “
Not
engaged. Not now. Not ever. Never have been.”

“That changes things, doesn't it?” he mused. “That means you're a free agent…”

“I guess I am,” she said.

“And
I
am…”

“Are you? We haven't really talked about that…”

“Oh, I am! Believe me, I am!”

His enthusiasm made her curious. But all she did was smile because quizzing him on his romantic past wasn't what she was really interested in doing at that moment. Not when, once again, thoughts of kissing him were tiptoeing around the edges of her mind. And hope had a new hold on her…

Then Dag took one hand from his coat pocket and raised it to the side of her face. Her cheek, her jaw, fit into the sturdy palm he laid there.

He went on looking into her eyes and even though he still wasn't kissing her, she was at least glad that he hadn't gone for a peck on her hand again.

Then he used a gentle pressure to tip her head slightly back. He came forward, and after what seemed like an eternity of hovering a scant inch from his target, he pressed his mouth to hers.

She couldn't help the tiny sigh that escaped when that finally happened. But if Dag noticed it, it didn't make any difference because he merely went on kissing her.

His lips were tender and adept and parted just slightly. His breath was warm. And there was a sweet sway to his head that Shannon was caught up in as she answered every bit of that kiss, letting it—helping it—grow and deepen and go on long enough for her to savor it and wish with all her might that it would go on and on…

For a little while it did just that. It went on as if Dag didn't want it to end any more than she did. But eventually it had to, and when it did Shannon found herself light-headed.

“Not engaged,” Dag repeated in a husky voice for her ears alone.

“Not engaged,” Shannon echoed.

Then he opened the door and went out into the cold winter night, calling over his shoulder, “I'll see you tomorrow,” and disappearing down the stairs.

But Shannon ignored the chilly air and craned her head out the door so she could watch him go, still feeling the heat he'd left behind on her lips, in her blood.

And thinking that that kiss had just added one more thing that Wes couldn't compare to.

A
s Dag shoveled snow the next day, his mind was in turmoil and not even the quiet of the winter countryside or the rhythmic repetition of the work could stop it.

So Shannon was not engaged, he kept thinking.

But she still wanted a bigger life.

She wasn't engaged.

But she still had Wes Rumson hot on her trail.

She wasn't engaged.

But even if she stuck to her guns about Rumson, she was probably headed for a bigger life with that school in Beverly Hills.

So if anything, he should give her a wider berth now than he had before, he told himself. Because before, he was just struggling with his attraction to someone who was engaged to someone else and completely off-limits to him. But now?

Now what made her off-limits to him was less
concrete. No less valid. But a whole lot more wobbly a barrier to protect him from himself and his own inclinations when it came to Shannon.

Inclinations like the one to kiss her.

He'd managed to control that when he'd believed she was engaged to another guy. But last night? Last night he'd kissed her. And wanted to kiss her again and again and again…

Jeez, he thought he'd learned his lesson about staying away from a woman who had another man on the hook in any way. He thought he knew, inside and out, to avoid women who weren't satisfied with who they were or what they had.

But maybe he didn't know anything, maybe he hadn't learned anything, because what was he doing now?

He was panting after a woman who had her sights set on greater things than a small ranch in a small town—whether it was being a politician's wife or owning a school in Beverly Hills. A woman who might be saying that her relationship with Wes Rumson was over, but who was still having contact with him, still admitting that she cared for him, still not
completely
finished with him.

Dag just didn't seem to be able to stop himself.

Yes, she was beautiful and maybe if that was all there was to it, it would be easier to maintain some control. But he also liked her. A lot. She was nice, she was kind, she was calm, she was good with the kids, she was funny and easy to talk to. She wasn't judgmental, she was sexier than she seemed to know, and more down-to-earth than she might want to be. And every minute he was with her was so good he didn't want it to end.

But it was going to end! One way or another, when Christmas was over, Shannon Duffy was gone.

And if he was in too deep with her, it was going to be his own tough luck, he told himself when he'd finished the path from the front porch out to the drive that ran along the house.

But as he turned the corner to shovel from the side of the house to the garage—where Logan was starting an old tractor he and Chase had bought with a blade attached to the front of it to deal with the driveway snow removal—Dag's perspective suddenly took a turn, too.

Wasn't he getting ahead of himself when it came to Shannon? Wasn't he thinking about things on too large a scale?

There wasn't actually much time at stake. Christmas was in a few days. How deep could he get in just a few days? Especially knowing that that was all the time he was going to have with her? Why was he thinking about her in an all-or-nothing way?

Traveling for hockey—to training camp, to tournaments, on publicity tours—there had been plenty of times when he'd known he was only going to be in a city for a short time. But if he'd met someone he was interested in, attracted to, that hadn't kept him from asking them out.

Brief was better than nothing, and that hadn't meant a string of one-night stands. Sure there had been those, too. But sometimes nothing had come of things but a dinner or two, some clubbing, maybe an afternoon at a museum or a zoo. Just some relaxation, some fun, some entertainment, some company. Why was he thinking this thing with Shannon was any different?

Sure, after the fiasco with Sandra, after the end of hockey, after settling in Northbridge again, he'd been doing more thinking about settling down with one particular woman. But who said Shannon was that one
particular woman? Or that he couldn't have this time with her the way he'd had short-lived times with other women—knowing it would come to an end—before he moved on to looking for that one particular woman?

It was no big deal. He would just do what he'd done on those other occasions—go with the flow. He'd done it in the past, why couldn't he do that now? Shannon
wasn't
engaged so it wouldn't be cheating on her part, or anything sleazy on his. True, he had vowed to steer clear of any situation that even resembled his last one. But the last relationship had gotten serious. And this one wouldn't. So that made it different.

And it was Shannon who was moving on after Christmas, Shannon who would be leaving him behind. If she was willing to see him before that, to let him kiss her, why was he sweating it?

Just don't take it for anything more than it is,
he advised himself.

And he thought he could do that. That he could be okay with a casual holiday hook up—if it went that far. He could be okay with going with the flow as long as he kept in mind that things with Shannon would end.

And he would definitely keep that in mind, he decided. But in the meantime he could have a few days, he could have Christmas, with Shannon.

Then she'd go her way, he'd go his.

And as for kissing her?

He knew he was likely to do that again because he couldn't even stop thinking about it.

As long as he didn't lose sight of the fact that there was an end to whatever it was that was between them, it would keep him from getting too attached and he could just enjoy the ride and be happy for whatever time he got with her and however far it went.

But the end
would
come, he reminded himself.

Time with Shannon was like Christmas cookies—they were around now, he enjoyed them, indulged in them, but when Christmas was over, that was it for the treats.

And after Christmas was over this year, that would be it for his time with Shannon, too.

But at least he'd have had this time with her, and in the same way he wouldn't deny himself the cookies just because they weren't around forever, he couldn't deny himself these few days with her, either…

 

It was midafternoon before the snow-shoveling was complete, before Dag and Chase decided they could probably make it into Northbridge to visit Liz Rudolph.

Shannon was curious about what had happened to her other brothers and eager to get any information. But Monday's snow day had been so nice she wouldn't have minded putting off the visit until Wednesday and having a second snow day today.

Or was it just a second day secluded with Dag that she wouldn't have minded having? she wondered as she sat close beside him on the bench seat of his truck with Chase on the passenger's side.

She decided that it might be wiser not to delve too deeply into that possibility, but she certainly didn't have any complaints about the tight quarters that had her sitting right up next to Dag as he drove.

Unfortunately when he was forced to plow the truck through a mound of snow to get onto Liz Rudolph's driveway, sitting so snugly next to him caused Shannon's shoulder to jab into Dag's rib cage.

“Sorry,” she said.

Dag grinned down at her. “For what, that tiny body
check? I've taken a little worse,” he joked as he turned off the engine.

A well-dressed elderly woman was standing in the open doorway by the time the threesome maneuvered the narrow path of cleared cement to get up to the house. Petite, she stood straight and unbowed by time. Her silver hair was in a perfect bob around her lined face and she looked very much just like an older version of the woman in the picture—unlike Shannon's grandmother who had gathered many pounds over the years and had not aged quite so gracefully.

Liz Rudolph greeted Dag warmly as she ushered them inside and closed the door behind them.

“I don't know if you remember Chase—” Dag said as they all accepted her invitation to take off their coats.

“I do. While I still lived here I was curious to watch you grow, knowing you were the twins' brother,” she said as she draped each coat over a branch of a hall tree. “I was always praying that a nice family would take you but… Well, Alma Pritick was good to you as a foster mother, wasn't she?”

“She was,” Chase assured.

Shannon noted that there was no mention of Chase's foster father, Homer, who Shannon knew hadn't abused Chase but had also not been a loving caregiver by any stretch of the imagination.

Then Liz Rudolph turned her attention to Shannon. “And you're Shannon,” she said affectionately. “I was so, so sorry to hear about your mother and father. And then Carol…she and I were close all the years we both lived in Northbridge, and kept up with each other through Christmas cards when I moved away. I wanted to go to her funeral but I'd just had a pacemaker put in when I
heard and I couldn't travel. I can't tell you how surprised and sorry I was…”

“It was very sudden and unexpected—it took me by surprise, too,” Shannon said.

The older woman offered tea but when they all declined, she led them into her spotless living room where Shannon, Dag and Chase sat on the sofa facing the overstuffed chair Liz took. That was when Chase got to the point, showing her the photograph Shannon had found.

“We wondered if the babies in the picture are our brothers,” he said.

“They are,” the elderly woman answered without hesitation.

She repeated what they already knew about how they'd come to be in need of new homes.

“My sister's son and his wife wanted children and couldn't have them,” she went on from there. “As tragic as the whole situation was—a young couple losing their lives, children orphaned—to Lila and Tony it was…well, it was a blessing. They were willing to take the twins so the twins wouldn't be separated from each other at least, and that went a long way in persuading Human Services to allow them to adopt the boys. And of course, Shannon, your mom and dad took you.”

“Do you know why they—or Gramma—never told me there were other kids?” Shannon asked a question that had been on her mind since Chase had first contacted her.

“Oh, everyone just wanted to make their own little family. They didn't want it all spread out. Your grandmother and I were so close and we imagined that everyone might become one big happy family, but we were naive. Your parents wanted you to just be their little
girl, without outside ties to anyone else. And Lila and Tony felt that way, too. Maybe it was sort of selfish, but in a way I understood—sometimes I think there's some insecurity connected to adoptions. Getting the twins away from here was actually part of why Lila and Tony left town when the babies were just six months old—they wanted to be somewhere where no one knew the twins as anything but their sons.”

The older woman cast a guilty-looking glance at Chase and said, “Plus everyone felt bad about you, Chase. No one thought they could take on more, but being in the same small town with you, knowing you were at the boys' home all alone…”

Shannon saw Chase nod his understanding. But that seemed to be as much as Liz Rudolph wanted to say about the touchy subject because then she went right back to speaking mainly to Shannon as if they had more of a connection than she had with Chase.

“And then Lila and Tony's little family didn't even stay together,” Liz informed her.

“They didn't?” Shannon asked.

The silver head shook. Liz pursed her lips disapprovingly for a moment before she said, “A year after Lila and Tony left, they divorced. Lila got custody of the twins and when my sister died, I lost contact with my nephew—”

“So, are you saying that you don't know what happened to the twins?” Shannon asked.

“I do know that by then my nephew Tony had been persuaded to give up his rights to the boys—they were barely two years old. But Lila had found a new husband and her new husband wanted to officially be their father since he'd be raising them. Tony was a housepainter and
what he could provide for them just couldn't compare, so for their sake, he relinquished his paternity.”

“What do you mean that what he could provide couldn't compare?” Chase asked.

“Lila married Morgan Kincaid,” Liz Rudolph said with some awe in her voice.

“Morgan Kincaid the football player?” Shannon said to verify because while she didn't follow sports of any kind, Morgan Kincaid—and what he'd parlayed his football fame and fortune into—was well known in Montana.

“Morgan Kincaid,” the elderly woman confirmed, “the football player, the owner of The Kincaid Corporation and all those restaurants and buildings and hotels and car dealerships and who knows what else,” the elderly woman confirmed. “Those boys—Ian and Hutch they were called—ended up Kincaids.”