Must-Have Husband (Summer Grooms Series) (2 page)

“No, thanks.”

“No? Just like that?”

“Let me guess. She’s a brunette and beautiful, with a teeny
little…” He gripped his bottom, then cupped his hands in front of his chest. “And
great big…”

Hank stared at him in disbelief. “You’ve got a problem with
that?”

“I’ve got a problem with all your setups, Hank.”

“Why?”

“Because the girls you pick out for me are the ones you want
for yourself.” He walked away, whistling brightly.

“Hey!” Hank called after him. “She’s a redhead! Scottish
background just like you!”

“Not interested,” Mac continued in a singsongy voice, making
his way toward the door.

“You’re going to wind up a bachelor if it kills you.”

Mac stopped walking and turned slowly on his heels. “I’m not
going out on a limb for just any woman,” he said, meeting his friend’s gaze. “She’s
got to be special. You know,
have it
.”

“What’s
it
?” Hank
asked with dismay. “You aching to hear angels sing or something?”

Mac considered this. “Maybe.” He removed his pack, set it
down, and pulled a rain poncho from a forward zipper. Hank glanced out the
broad picture window framing the mountains and valley.

“What makes you so sure it’s going to rain? Sky’s as clear
as a bell.”

Mac slipped on his poncho. “Any man’s been hiking these
hills as long as I have tends to develop a sense of things. Foreknowledge, some
might say. Others call it intuition.” He shifted the pack back onto his
shoulders and a satellite phone slid from his jeans pocket, smacking against
the redwood floor.

“Foreknowledge?” Hank loudly cleared his throat. “Looks more
like weather.com to me.”

Rain beat down harder as Connie and Linda cowered beneath the
canopy of an incense cedar. Connie steadied the soggy trail map in her hands
but couldn’t make heads or tails of it in the drowning rain. “I think we go…
No, wait a minute.”

“Might help if you turned it right-side up. Here, let me see
that.” Linda snatched away the map, and it tore in a jagged line down the
middle.

“Great, Linda! Really super.” Connie shook out her dripping
half of the page. “Look what you’ve done now.”

Lightning split the sky, and the girls huddled closer
together.

“Sorry,” Linda said with a grimace.

“Try your cell again,” Connie urged.

Linda took it from her jacket pocket, sheltering its face
with her hand.

“Still nothing doing?”

Linda’s eyes registered worry. “Not a bar.”

Thunder boomed as darkness shrouded the forest, settling between
towering redwoods and ponderosa pines.

“Night’s falling.”

Linda swallowed hard, panning the dense landscape. In their
effort to take shelter from the storm, they’d wandered off the trail. Now that
everything was covered in a deep sludge, they couldn’t find it at all. “Uh-huh.”

“Don’t panic.” Connie wrapped an arm around her little
sister. “This is one of those summer things. It will blow over.”

“Sure, and then what?”

“Then… Well, I don’t know! We’ll think of something. It’s
not like we’ll be stuck out here forever.”

Linda’s chin trembled as she shook her head. Connie met her
sister’s panicked gaze, knowing just what she was thinking. They
were
going to be stuck out here forever.
Eventually, nothing would be found of them…except for a few scattered bones
that had been picked over by grizzly bears.

“Linda?” Connie asked, her voice warbling.

Linda’s voice trembled in return. “Huh?”

“Oh my Gawd!”
they
shouted in unison, gripping one another.

Mac shimmied up a spreading oak, his hiking boots slipping on
the damp trunk. The rain had stopped an hour ago, leaving everything in the
forest soaked. He steadied himself and climbed higher, his food bag on a rope
and pulley secured around his waist. He wouldn’t have any bears stealing his
grub this time. He damn well couldn’t afford it. Not with his business, as well
as his dreams of financial security, having gone up in smoke. His feet slid
again, and he paused, glancing down below. He’d been lucky to get his tent pitched
before the downpour. Thankfully, he’d been able to keep everything dry,
including some wood and kindling sticks he’d collected and covered over with a
tarp. Wasn’t easy to build a campfire when the logs were as soaked as this towering
tree. Mac gritted his teeth and clambered up another few feet. He spotted the
perfect branch overhead. Once he had this in place, he’d head back down and cozy
up by the fire. Even in summertime, the nights here got pretty chilly. But Mac
knew how to handle that. He was good with the outdoors and never missed a beat.
Yessirree. He was a fellow who always knew just what he was doing.

Connie forged ahead as Linda clung to her arm. “Remind me to
kill you if we live through this.”

“Oh, we’ll live, all right. Then you’re going to be the one
who needs protection
—
from
our entire family.”

“Thanks.”

Linda stumbled, but Connie shored her up. “We’ll need to
watch our step.”

“No kidding. Thank goodness that was just a stick and not a
snake.”

“Snake?” Connie stared at her in panic. If there was one
thing Connie couldn’t stand, it was anything that slithered. Fact was, she didn’t
care much for creepy-crawlies either.
A
weekend in the wild. How in the world did I let Linda talk me into this?

“You blame me, don’t you?” Linda asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you were getting all mysteriously quiet, like you
do when you think I’ve come up with a bad idea.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t your idea for us to get lost.”

“No, but—”

Connie held up her hand, scanning the woods ahead. She
thought she spied a glimmer of light beyond a stand of pines. “Linda, look!”

“Where?”

“Over there. I think I see something.”

Linda shivered, seizing her by the elbow. “You mean like
something big, with long, sharp teeth?”

“Stop being such a chicken,” Connie scolded. Night noises
sounded all around them, and Connie gripped her sister’s hand.

“Now who’s being the baby?” Linda whispered.

“Shh!” She pulled Linda forward. “Come on, I think it’s a campfire.”

“Are you sure we should go through that thicket? Could be
loaded with scary things.”

“There’ll be less of those around the fire,” she said,
giving Linda’s hand a tug. “Let’s go.”

As they made their way through the thick brush, Connie saw
she’d been right. It was a campfire for sure. Neatly ringed by large stones and
blazing in its glory. There was a tent set up nearby. A tin coffeepot sat on a
flat rock by the fire, beside a single mug.

“Where are the campers?” Linda asked under her breath.

Connie whispered, her voice trembling. “Maybe the bears got
them.”

“Very funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

Just then, the two heard rustling overhead. The girls looked
up with a start, spotting a dark figure shimmying down the tree and moving
toward them.

This was it. Connie knew it. She and her baby sister were
about to become something’s dinner. How she wanted to run. Bolt like a streak
of light straight to that fire and beyond. Pick up a club, weapon, coffeepot…
Huh? Well, anything! Maybe one of those very big stones over there. Yeah, that
would work. If only she could get her feet to move. But they were stuck like
lead in quicksand.

“Connie!” Linda said softly. “Let’s go!” She yanked on Connie’s
arm. But Connie just stood there, mesmerized, transfixed by the fact that she
was living out her final moments. Destiny had a way of catching up with
everybody, so maybe it was time she met her fate. She’d deceived her family
into thinking she was still getting married, letting them go to a lot of
unnecessary trouble and expense. And now she was going, to pay…in spades. Maybe
if the beast filled up on her, he’d be too full to gobble up her sister. “
Connie!
”
Linda wrapped two hands around Connie’s wrist and tugged with all
her might, yanking her up and off her feet.

“Ahh!” Connie screeched as something loud bellowed from
above.

A split second later, heaven and earth came crashing down in
a heap, landing in a huge mass in the very spot where Connie had just stood.
She stared at Linda agape. “You saved my life!”

“Yeah, but from what?”

They stared down at the pile of branches and leaves
shielding a groaning form. “Oohhh. Aahh.”

Linda cupped her mouth with a hand.

“What is it?” Connie asked.

“A bear?” Linda offered uncertainly.

“Since when do bears make those kinds of noises?”

“I don’t know. I don’t speak bear.”

Connie squinted through the darkness as rays of light from
the campfire cast a sporadic glow on their subject. She cautiously inched
forward and gingerly lifted a branch.

“Don’t get too close,” Linda warned.

Connie stared in disbelief at two slightly worn hiking boots
protruding from under the mass. “Oh my goodness.”

“I knew it! It’s a bear!”

Connie lifted another branch, then sucked in a breath. “It’s
a
man
.”

“A
what
? What was
he doing up there?”

As if in answer, a long coil of rope spiraled down from the
trees, dropping in a heap on top of the leafy pile. Linda reached forward and
picked up the rope, which dangled in something like a hangman’s noose.

“Oh my God,” Connie gasped.

“Yeah. Totally.”

Mac thought he’d heard talking beneath him, but that was
unlikely in this part of the woods. Maybe he’d had such a long day he was
hearing things. He had the rope almost set, but decided to prop it in the crook
of a branch and leave it a sec to check out the noises below. Maybe some
wildlife was searching for kibbles around the fire. He’d need to scoot down and
shoo it away before finishing his work.

He was halfway down the tree when his darned boots slipped
again, causing him to skid. Maybe if he grabbed that branch over there to
steady himself, he’d be able to ease down slowly. But no! The branch snapped
unexpectedly, hurtling him into the darkness below.

The next thing Mac knew, his back ached and his head was
killing him. To make matters worse, there appeared to be whispering around him,
as prickly prongs poked at him from every which way.
Is it my imagination, or did something just kick my boot?

This is one hell of a
hangover
, he thought before passing out again.

Chapter Two

“Don’t kick him!” Connie yelped.

“I’m just trying to see if he’s, um…with us.”

“Alive, you mean? Good God, Linda. Let’s unbury him.”

“Bad choice of words.”

“Sorry.”

They got to work quickly, casting aside the branches and
leaves.

“Wow, he’s a man all right,” Linda said as firelight from
the campfire illuminated his handsome face. “A darned good-looking one at that.”

“Linda! Now’s not the time to think about good-looking!”
Although she had to admit her sister had a point. He was pretty hot. Even in
that position.

“Come on,” Linda said, “help me get him over to the fire so
we can examine his wounds.”

“You don’t move a man who’s fallen.”

“You’re right.”

Connie set her chin in one hand while resting her elbow in
the other. “Maybe we should try talking to him? Getting him to come around?”

A soft voice carried on the night wind, calling Mac out of
his slumber. “Um, sir? Are you all right?” He awakened to find lovely blue eyes
peering into his own. They were set in the face of an angel with short blonde
hair and lovely pale skin. She radiated heaven’s glow, a soft ring of light
from beyond framing her head.

“You’re an angel?” he asked, scarcely able to believe it. He
thanked the heavens for sending one approximately his age. That was what they
called divine providence. Or so he thought. He couldn’t remember that far back
in church school, not that he’d be mentioning this to St. Peter.

She pursed her lips a beat and stared at him. “Um, no. Not
really.”

He got it. She was one of those messenger types. An angel
wannabe, waiting to earn her wings. And, boy, how he wanted to help her, do any
little thing she wanted… If only his head didn’t smart so much. He tried lifting
it, then set it back down with a thunk, grimacing at the pain.

“Do you think you can move?” she asked in a voice so sweet
Mac thought he heard a chorus of harp strings.

“I’m not sure,” he answered hoarsely.

“Ask him if anything’s broken,” another voice said from
nearby.

Mac rolled his eyes toward the clearing, spying another
angel, a bit smaller than this one… Wait a minute. Wearing a Los Angeles
Dodgers baseball cap? Mac sat up with a start, and little birds began chirping
all around him, darting through flecks of light. “I think I need to lie back
down.”

As his eyelids fluttered shut, Mac thought he spied flames
lapping the darkness in the distance. He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. He didn’t
seem to be thinking too straight at the moment.
The Dodgers. Well, I’ll be. I never knew God played favorites.

Connie stared at her sister as the man passed out again.
Thunder rumbled above and little flecks of rain began to strike the surrounding
foliage.

“Oh no. Not again.”

“What are we going to do?” Connie asked with despair.

Linda adjusted her cap against the rain that was streaming
down harder. “We need to get him to shelter.”

Connie agreed. Though she couldn’t see for the life of her
how she and her petite little sister were going to move this bear of a man. “I
know, but we certainly can’t carry him.”