Mr. Wonderful (4 page)

“Steve, I’ve never seen you so slow on Rider Ridge. You used to be able to run circles around me on the way up here,” he said.

Steve reached across the French bread and took my hand.

“Kristin and I had some things to talk about. And we’ve only begun.” He laughed at the startled expression on his brother’s face. Then he suggested, “How would it be if you all went back ahead of us? Maybe I could talk Kristin into giving me a ride back home.”

“What a good idea,” Susan said. “Shauna is too tired to go any farther.”  She looked as happy as if she had suggested the idea herself. “We were going back after lunch, anyway.”

I ate my lunch in a daze, listening to the good-natured bantering, trying to look relaxed while I was churning inside.

We waved to the others and continued a little farther to a meadow covered with wild flowers. It was Steve’s turn to talk. He told me about his life and how content he’d been after he’d adjusted to his divorce. The tranquility of the small town had healed all the old wounds from his wife’s departure long ago. Meanwhile his life was changing. He and a group of friends, some of whom had been out of work for months because of the depressed lumber business, had formed this woodworking business. To their surprise, the well-made, handcrafted chairs and tables were selling well, and they were thinking of expanding.

I loved hearing Steve talk, watching the expressions change on his face. It was clear he had found his niche and his place in the world and was quite happy with his lot. It’s not everyone who can say that.

We walked back to the car down the long path. When I tripped on a rock, he took my hand and then held it the rest of the way. It seemed so natural yet so thrilling to feel his hand in mine. What had happened to my neat, well-ordered little life in the space of two days? I had fallen in love for the first time in my life. That was the only reasonable answer.

I drove him home, but begged off when he invited me in for dinner. I was beginning to feel emotionally drained, and I had to sort out my feelings and ask myself how far I was willing to let myself go. This had never happened to me before.

Steve was to be off in his van loaded with furniture in the morning to show his samples up and down the state. He would be gone a week. He told me he’d see me when he got back, and he kissed me in the car, a warm kiss that promised much more that I didn’t know how to respond to. Not yet. I was shaking as I started my car.

My dreams that night reflected my confused, excited, and bewildered mind. I saw a woman in a strange town packing her suitcase. Was it me or was it his first wife? I couldn’t tell. But the woman was crying. I saw his face bent over me, kissing me passionately in the dream the way we could have kissed in the car but didn’t.  Too soon, I told myself.  Way too soon.

I woke up feeling as though I’d been awake all night, and the week ahead loomed before me. Even though it was the week before school started, and I had to work like a demon to get my room in shape, the days dragged by.

Fortunately I had the novelty and the challenge of the first week of school to keep me occupied and the parents’ open house to plan for. I did wear my new peach suit that night, and the classroom looked great with samples of every student’s work on the walls. Even though Shauna wasn’t in my class that year, I thought the O’Donnells would stop by my room after they’d seen her first-grade teacher. And just as I was explaining our goals in the early-reading program to a parent, I saw a tall figure come through the door.

Luckily the parent was just leaving because I really couldn’t think of anything to say about reading and writing anymore. In a minute Steve was at my side.

“Kristin, I’ve missed you,” he said.

“How was your trip?” was all I could say, but my eyes must have said more. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

“It was wonderful, but I thought about you all the time. Well, maybe not all the time,” he said with a teasing look in his eyes. “Sometimes I thought about designs, veneers, and stains and how I’m going to change the design of furniture.”

The room was empty now and he took my hands in his.

“When can you leave?” he asked. “I have so much to say. We have so much to talk about.”

We got away shortly, and at my house, which he didn’t seem to find old fashioned like Sophie did, we talked about us and the future. He was convinced I was the right woman for him. He said he’d been waiting for me for years, but his big worry was that I wouldn’t be happy in his town, and he’d thought of an answer to that too. We would live here in the suburbs, a compromise.

But I knew deep down he wouldn’t be happy there, and I was perfectly happy to try life in a small town. After all, they have schools there, don’t they? With kindergartens?

This time I was ready for his kisses. He was in my big reclining chair by the fireplace when he pulled me into his lap and  kissed me with all warmth and passion he’d been saving up. I think he was surprised at the fires he’d kindled deep in me. His hands were in my hair and his lips covered my face. I returned his kisses and then some. We must have stayed in that chair for an hour.

My sister was matron of honor at our garden wedding that spring, and Shauna was the flower girl. Even though it was a small wedding, it was very merry.

We have a good life, the best, in our small town. I found my niche in the community, first by teaching that first year and getting to know people on my own. And guess what? I became famous for my Chinese dinners. Of course it helped that there was no Chinese restaurant around to compete with me. When I quit teaching to have our first child, I was known on my own in town as the Number One kindergarten teacher and not just as Steve’s wife. Steve’s business is flourishing, and allows us to travel around too, showing his latest designs for furniture.

Of course, my sister takes full credit for my getting married. She says it was only because she dragged me out that day to the shopping center that I met Steve at all, and I guess she’s right. Susan, too, thinks she’s the one who’s responsible for getting us together. We let them both think so, if it makes them happy. But no one is as happy as we are.      

THE END

Here are some full-length romance novels by Carol Grace you might like.

Welcome to Paradise

    The day was hot, the trail was long and her suitcase was so heavy she almost regretted packing her portable espresso machine. But a summer without good coffee? Unthinkable. Especially a summer where the days are warm but the nights are cool. Chloe rested her fanny against a pine tree to catch her breath and unfolded a piece of tattered, yellowed paper that she took from her pocket.

Paradise Hot Springs, where the Ute Indians once wintered near warm thermal waters, invites tourists to enjoy warm days and cool nights in the mountains of Colorado. Mineral waters known to cure gout, obesity, broken hearts and old gunshot wounds. Guests will be met by stagecoach. El. 7500 ft. Your genial host and proprietor: Horatio W. Hudson. Est. April 1912.

"Where is the stagecoach?" she muttered. "And where is the genial host?" She knew the answer to that one. Great-Grandpa Horatio Hudson was dead at age ninety-seven. And Paradise Springs was hers now. If she could find it. There had been one hand-carved wooden sign that pointed the way, and then nothing. Just a narrow trail overgrown with blackberry thorns and nettles.

Nobody told her she'd have to leave her car at the entrance. Nobody told her she'd be walking miles uphill in suede chukka boots.

"Buy boots," they'd said. They didn't say what kind.

"Take your camera." It was hanging around her neck like an albatross.

"Have a great vacation." She sighed. Maybe once she got there.

After another two hours of wading through a shallow creek, spanning fallen trees and climbing at least another thousand feet in altitude, Chloe was dripping with perspiration and gasping for breath. For two cents she would have thrown her suitcase over a cliff, coffeemaker and all.

But then she saw it in the distance. Steam rising in the clear blue sky. With one last burst of energy she dragged herself forward to the end of the trail. And there it was: Paradise Hot Springs in all its glory.

A group of dilapidated log cabins at the edge of a clearing.

A huge, empty pool, cracked and stained with orange.

An abandoned wooden bathhouse.

The pungent smell of minerals in the air.

She set her suitcase in the clearing, left her camera on top of it, and walked to the bathhouse. From the looks of the place, this was the end of the road. And the end of her dream.

She pushed and the door swung open on rusty hinges. She gasped. In her bathhouse, in her old enameled bathtub, was a cowboy. He was up to his neck in hot thermal water, wearing only a hat tilted low over his forehead. Shafts of sunlight poured through the cracks in the roof, illuminating his broad shoulders and large feet. The rest she could only imagine.

He turned his head. Electric blue eyes met hers and gave her a long appreciative look.

"Hello, darlin'," he said with a lazy grin. "What can I do for you?"

She swallowed hard. "You can get out of my bathtub."

Obligingly he braced his hands on the edge of the tub and stood.

She should have closed her eyes.

She should have looked away.

She should have run for her life.

But she didn't. She stood there and stared at the lean, hard body of a magnificent man in all his naked splendor. Her face flamed. Her knees wobbled.

He came to his senses first and planted his hat against his muscular thighs. "Have a seat," he said, waving his other hand in the direction of a wooden bench along the wall.

"Who—who do you think you are?" she sputtered.

"Who do you think I am?" he inquired. Tiny drops of water slid down his chest, caught in the damp blond hair there and caused her heart to pound erratically.

"I think you're an intruder and you're trespassing on my property," she said stiffly.

"Your property..." A whole series of emotions— including shock and surprise—crossed his craggy face. But he recovered quickly. "Then you must be..."

"Chloe Hudson."

"Zebulon Bowie," he said extending his hand to grasp hers. "My friends call me Zeb."

"Mr. Bowie," Chloe said, trying to ignore the large callused hand that held hers and didn't let go. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" he said with a mocking smile.

"It looks like you're taking a bath in my tub, and I would appreciate it if you, if you... if you..."

What was wrong with her, allowing the presence of a naked stranger to cause her mind to go blank and her body to hum like a live wire? She was a nurse, for heaven's sake. She'd seen naked bodies before. But not like this one.

"If I would make room for you? No problem," he assured her. "You look like you could use some hot water."

Again the frankly sexual gaze raked her body and caused an instant and unwanted reaction. Her nipples peaked against the damp silk shirt that was pasted to her body.

"And a cold beer," he added.

"I don't drink beer," she said primly while her face burned and her parched throat ached for something cool, anything. But accepting a drink would make it look like he was the host and she was the guest. And make it all the more difficult to kick him off her property.

"Too bad," he said, letting her hand go and reaching behind him to grab a pair of clean jeans and a shirt from a shelf above the tub. "Made it myself. Won second prize last fall at the county fair."

She exhaled slowly. Her mouth was as dry as a cotton swab. "Well, maybe just a sip," she said weakly.

He nodded and brushed past her on his way out the door, causing her to tremble uncontrollably for no reason at all. Except that she'd had a long, hard day. And it wasn't over yet.

Zeb stood in the shade of an evergreen tree and pulled his jeans on over muscled calves and thighs. Then a clean, though wrinkled, shirt went over his damp head of hair. His skin cooled rapidly in the dry air. But his body was hot and buzzing with awareness.

So this was Chloe Hudson. If he'd known she had long gorgeous legs that didn't quit, spectacular breasts clearly outlined by a clingy damp silk shirt, and a face the angels would envy, he would have... What? Given up his plan to buy her property and resell it at a huge profit? Not a chance. Not even if she'd jumped in that tub with him and he'd watched the water bead on her smooth skin, traced its path with his tongue as it trickled down her neck.... What did she need an old hot-springs resort for? He, on the other hand, had a desperate need for cash. Now. And no need for sexual gratification. Not from little Miz Hot-Springs Heiress.

He grabbed a cold bottle of beer from under a rock in the stream, then lifted her suitcase and carried it to the bathhouse. "Got your brew for you," he announced. "And your duds."

No answer. He should have warned her about taking care in the hot tub. Some people, unused to a sudden infusion of hot mineral water, fainted dead away. He yanked the door open.

Her head was tilted back against the porcelain, her red-gold hair cascading in wet ringlets over the edge of the tub. Her eyes were closed.

"Chloe!"

Her eyes flew open and she gave him a look that could have shattered the bottle in his hand.

"I knocked," he explained, his eyes riveted on the slope of her smooth shoulders as she sank deeper into the water. But not so deep he couldn't catch a glimpse of rosebud-tipped breasts floating like strawberries in a glass of champagne. He drew in a ragged breath, set the bottle on the floor and walked out.

So now they were even, he thought as he stomped down the rickety steps to solid ground. She'd seen him and he'd seen her. It wasn't as if he'd never seen a naked woman before. Then why was his heart pounding in time to some distant drum?