Taken With You (3 page)

That guy wasn’t in Whitford, or if he was, he was hiding from Hailey. She’d joked a few times about moving to the city to find her Prince Charming, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually do it. She loved her job and her house. And the people of Whitford. She loved her life.

She just wanted somebody to share it with and, no matter how good Matt looked from the back, he had no chance of being that guy.

Hailey almost cried when they broke out of the tree line and she saw Tori’s car in the parking lot. Padded seats, climate control and no blackflies.

“Thank you for making sure we got back okay,” Tori said, shaking Matt’s hand.

“It was my pleasure.” Hailey wasn’t so sure, but she smiled anyway when he turned to shake her hand. “Make sure you put something on those blisters when you get home.”

“I thought I hid the limping better than that.” His hand felt huge and hard, but the firm squeeze had just the right amount of pressure.

“I was starting to wonder if I’d have to give you a piggyback ride out of the woods.”

Shaking his hand was one thing, but jumping on this man’s back and wrapping her legs around his waist? Strangely heat-inducing but was never going to happen. “Well we’re out now. Thanks.”

It didn’t escape Hailey’s attention that Matt stood at the edge of the parking lot, where the dirt met the trees, and watched them until the car was started and they were on their way. Probably because she was watching him in the mirror.

“You should have asked for his satellite phone number,” Tori said, nudging Hailey with her elbow.

She groaned. “No.”

“If you got laid, this day wouldn’t have been a waste.”

“I’m not going to talk about my sex life.” There wasn’t anything to talk about. “At least the gossips in Whitford will have something to talk about for a while.”

Tori’s mouth turned down at the corners. “We don’t
have
to tell them.”

“We skipped out on movie night for this, so they’ll ask about it.”

On the first Saturday of every month, some of the women gathered without men or kids to watch a movie and, since it had been Hailey’s turn to host, she hadn’t been able to simply skip it. She’d had to explain about the adventure tour and how the first weekend in May was the only opening they had, thanks to a cancellation.

“We don’t have to tell them every single detail,” Tori said.

“The fact you believe that is proof enough you weren’t born and raised in Whitford. Trust me. We’re going to be famous.”

TWO

B
Y
THE
TIME
Matt got back to the family’s cabin on the river, the light was starting to change. His dad would probably be tracking the time, wondering if it was time to worry yet.

Bear met him at the edge of the porch and he leaned down to give his black Lab a good neck scratch. “Be glad you stayed behind, buddy. It was a
long
walk.”

Bear’s tail thumped against the wooden planks for a few seconds before he walked back to his favorite spot under the double swing. Dogs were a man’s best friend until a long nap in the shade was on the flip side of the coin.

“Was thinking about starting up a search party.” His dad held up a can. “Just as soon as I finished this beer.”

Matt grabbed one of his own and plopped down in the other chair. “Had to rescue a couple of damsels in distress.”

“Only you would find women in need of help out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s a gift.” He drained a quarter of the can, fighting the grimace. He was thirsty, but he wasn’t a big fan of beer. It was a tradition tied up with the camp and fishing and his old man, but at the moment he would have swapped it for a tall glass of lemonade in a heartbeat.

“Tourists?”

“I don’t think so.” He realized now he’d never asked the women where they were from, other than where they’d parked their car. “Based on the accents, I’d say they’re both from Maine, though I can’t pinpoint where exactly. Got separated from their adventure tour.”

“Which one?”

“The Dagneau boys.”

That garnered a throaty sound of derision that, in Matt’s experience, only old men from New England could master. “Those two morons would be lucky to find a hooker in a whorehouse.”

“I think I’ll stop in and have a talk with them next week.”

“Somebody needs to.”

Policing local business practices wasn’t necessarily part of his job as a game warden, but he’d always found if a man looked and sounded official enough, nobody would question him. And since it was guys like Matt who’d get called out to find the people jerks like the Dagneaus lost, he figured that gave him the right to speak up.

“I got the house,” he told his dad after a few minutes. “Called the owner while I was out for a walk. Good price and they don’t have a problem with Bear.”

The dog raised his head at the sound of his name, his expression full of joyful expectation. When Matt just smiled at him without getting out of his chair, Bear sighed and dropped his head back onto his paws.

His dad shook his head. “Why rent a house when you can stay here? It’s only forty minutes to Whitford.”

This was ground they’d only covered half a dozen times already. “No, it’s forty minutes from the main road. From here to the main road, if it hasn’t rained and you don’t mind your coffee bouncing right up out of your travel mug, is a good twenty minutes.”

“Lots of people commute an hour to work. No sense in wasting money.”

“You know I get called out at all hours. It can’t take me almost half an hour just to get on the road. And this isn’t a home, Dad. It’s a camp. I’d have to find a house in a few months, anyway. Moving twice would also be a waste of money.”

On the list of traits Charlie Barnett liked in a person, frugality ranked right up there with patriotism and being able to drive a stick shift. Even his old man had to admit Matt couldn’t winter in a cabin that had no indoor plumbing after Columbus Day.

“Your mother’s hoping this is temporary. That there won’t be enough going on to merit a full-time warden in the area, after all, and you’ll go back to your usual area.”

Which was close enough to his parents’ house on the outskirts of Augusta, Maine, so he could pop in for supper a couple nights per week. “We’re close enough to the big lake here so I’ll be kept busy even if everybody on the ATV trails behaves. And it makes sense that it’s me. I don’t know Whitford or the new trails, but I’m familiar with most of the area since we’ve been coming here my whole life.”

“She says it’s too far away.”

“Did Mom write this down for you, or are you winging it?”

“You spend almost forty years with the same woman and tell me if you need a script.”

Matt wasn’t even capable of spending two years with the same woman, though not for a lack of trying. “It’s not like I’m an only child. She has two daughters, a son-in-law and grandchildren to fuss over.”

“You know your mother. Until you find a wife, she’s terrified you’re going to starve to death wearing dirty clothes.”

“Maybe Whitford’s where I’ll find a woman who won’t spend our entire relationship trying to change me into the version of me she wants.”

His dad’s chair creaked as he shifted sideways to get a better look at him. “They’re not all like Ciara, son. And, to be honest, there were warning signs right from the beginning. You just didn’t want to see them.”

That was probably the truth. It had been easy to ignore the jabs at his wardrobe and the way she’d steered him toward doing activities she wanted to do. But over the nearly two years they’d been together, Ciara’s hints about things she wanted changed had gone from subtle to big neon signs flashing her dissatisfaction with him.

They’d been arguing about his job a lot toward the end. At the beginning, Ciara hadn’t minded a boyfriend who wore a uniform, carried a gun, made decent money and—according to her—was hotter than any of her friends’ boyfriends—but it wasn’t enough. The long and erratic hours made her unhappy. The questionable odors that often accompanied him home made her face screw up in a way he found really unattractive. And stripping to his boxer briefs in the yard and spraying himself off with the garden hose before he could go into his own home had made
him
unhappy.

Still, he’d clung to the relationship. When things were good between him and Ciara, they were really good. Until the company Christmas party for the bank where she was a teller. He’d put on the suit she told him to wear and did his best to make his tie straight, but he could feel the judgment rolling off her like toxic waves.

He was getting her a glass of punch when he overheard her talking to a couple of her coworkers about the engagement ring she was sure he’d bought her for Christmas. “Knowing Matt, he’ll hide it in a pile of moose poop and make me hunt for it. I just hope he’s wearing a decent shirt for once so I won’t be embarrassed to put a picture of us on Facebook.”

Breaking it off with her two weeks before Christmas wasn’t something he was proud of, but he couldn’t look at her without feeling a burn of shame that really pissed him off. And he couldn’t stomach the thought of her spending another holiday with his family.

“I’ve dated a few times since Ciara, Dad. I know they’re not all like her.”

“We liked Wendy.”

“She wasn’t cut out to be a game warden’s wife.”

His dad snorted again. “We heard about that and don’t think we’re too stupid to see you’re testing these poor women.”

“It’s not testing. It’s making sure we’re right for each other.”

“Really? So you just happened to, during the course of one shift, roll around in mud, get bear shit on you
and
get sprayed by a skunk?”

Okay, so that might have been a test. And Wendy had failed. “I bet when you were dating mom, she never looked at you like you were something she needed to scrape off her shoe.”

“You’d lose that bet.”

Matt seriously doubted that. His mom gave her husband some good-natured ribbing after a day of fishing or a trip to camp like the one they were on now, but Connie Barnett was never ashamed of the man she’d married.

Someday he’d find a woman who didn’t wrinkle her nose at him or nag him because he’d rather wear a T-shirt that came free with a case of beef jerky than a fancy button-up shirt from the mall.

Whether or not he’d find her in Whitford remained to be seen.

* * *

B
Y
THE
TIME
Tori pulled onto Hailey’s street, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get out of the car. The new hiking boots had been tossed onto the floor of the backseat, but her muscles were already protesting the day’s adventure by stiffening up on her.

“You going to make it?” Tori put the car in park and grinned at her. “I’d offer a piggyback ride, but you’re a lot taller than me, so it would just be awkward.”

“The test will be getting out of the car. After that, I can crawl if I have to.”

“We should have invited our rescuer home with us. I bet he could have carried you inside without even breaking a sweat.”

With a body like that, he probably could. Unfortunately, the package as a whole didn’t do much for her. “What is it with you and trying to hook me up with that guy? He probably collects roadkill in his freezer.”

Tori frowned. “Who would do that?”

“Exactly.”

“Hailey, just because a guy is hairy, smells a little bad and has a hat so gross even a ten-year-old boy wouldn’t touch it doesn’t mean he’s not marriage material.”

She actually shuddered. “Then you marry him.”

“Oh, no. I’m never getting married. You’re the one who’s on the hunt for Prince Charming.”

“And that guy wasn’t him.” She reached into the backseat for her boots, wincing. “Next time, let’s go to a nightclub.”

“Whitford doesn’t have a nightclub.”

“Katie and I went to a great club on the Valentine’s Day before last. We’d have to spend the night at a motel, but we wouldn’t be in the woods.”

“Nice places?”

“Of course.” Hailey paused halfway out of the car. “Okay, not really. But they meet the minimum requirements of being a nightclub and motel.”

“Gee, I can hardly wait.”

Hailey managed to get out of the car without falling on her face. “I’ll call you tomorrow if I don’t drown in the tub.”

Boots in hand, she walked to her front door in her stocking feet. She’d never been so glad to see her house, and that was saying something. She was crazy about the little Cape and coming home at the end of the day was one of her greatest pleasures. It was also one of the reasons, besides loving her job, that kept her from leaving Whitford and moving someplace with a little more variety in its men.

There was a ranch-style house to her left and a young family lived there, but she couldn’t really see or hear them thanks to a strip of woods along the property line. On the other side was a smaller version of her own house. It was closer than she would have liked, but a couple whose only child had already moved out had lived there when Hailey bought her house. A few months ago, the couple had moved away in search of work.

The house hadn’t sold, though. Fran Benoit, who owned the Whitford General Store and was ground zero for all things gossip related, told her they never even got a nibble, so they were trying to rent it instead. While Hailey didn’t mind the lack of interest because new neighbors were always a crap shoot, she was starting to have reservations about it sitting empty. It would start going downhill and she didn’t want it dragging her property value down with it.

Ignoring the front door, with its sidelights and hanging pots, she let herself into the door she usually used, which opened into a mudroom between the garage and kitchen. After tossing the boots into the corner, knowing there was a good chance she’d never wear them again, she went into the kitchen. A bright room, with lemon walls and white cabinets and woodwork, it was devoid of clutter while still being warm and welcoming. It usually cheered her up after a long day at the library which, despite her best efforts, still had a lot of dark-stained oak going on, but right now she just wanted to grab a glass of iced tea and collapse.