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.
Chapter Two
On 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 kiss-able 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,
