The Runaway Bridesmaid

“I’d think they could. She’s their daughter.”

“I know. I feel kind of bad for Angie, though,” Isabel said. “Hopefully they won’t argue in front of her, about who has to have her when.”

“They’d do that?”

“They have before.”

Darla hesitated, then said, “Things are awfully hectic around here once the camp is in session, but of course she’d be welcome, too, if it came to that.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that you catered to adult visitors only, during the camp weeks?” Isabel asked.

“Yes. And usually we limit ourselves to repeat guests who know the place well and don’t mind the chaos. Teenage boys tend to be loud, hungry and surprisingly needy.”

“Then Angie would be in the way.”

“I want you to come, so we’d work something out,” Darla said. “There’s just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“How can Roger realize all you do for him if you help him long distance, my dear?”

“I’m hoping I won’t have to,” Isabel said. “Besides, the idea is for him to miss me more than my child care skills.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Darla said. “We’ll just keep you locked away in our comfortable lodge until he charges out here on his trusty steed to demand your hand, your heart and your body for all time. Sound good?”

Isabel tried to imagine her even-tempered Roger doing anything so wildly romantic. Her mother would have laughed at the very thought.

But her mother had been wrong to suggest that men in general were lazy. Roger was anything but. Maybe he would come whisk her away, if he missed her enough. “Sounds wonderful,” she murmured.

“It sure does. How soon can you get here?”

Chapter Two

Trevor Kincaid backed his foot off the gas pedal when he noticed the tan four-door pulled over on the shoulder, fifty yards ahead. What a rotten break, to have car trouble on this remote mountain road. Few cars traveled up here this early in the morning. Most of the tourists wouldn’t be out and about quite yet, and the natives would be headed down to the cities to work. But someone else would see the car—maybe a county sheriff. Trevor was running late.

That car looked ancient. Small wonder it had broken down. The driver was probably another kid, arriving in the Colorado Rockies to live out his dream. They arrived in droves out here, with a few dollars in their pockets and no clue about where they would sleep at night.

All kinds of colorful characters lived off these less-traveled roads, too—mostly dreamers from the past who’d found the means to stay. Hell, some stayed without the means. Vagrancy was a real problem in the area.

Lord knew what kind of person might stop if Trevor didn’t. He slowed further. He didn’t have time to check a neglected engine, but he could give the kid a lift to the Lyons garage, along with a lecture about clean living and safe travel.

After he parked his Jeep behind the car, the driver of the sedan opened the door and got out. It wasn’t a kid, though. It was a woman, mid- to late-twenties and pretty, with long dark hair.

The woman waved at him, and a gust of wind lifted her already-short skirt.

Those legs were long and sexy.

And those frou-frou shoes would have been worthless if Trevor hadn’t stopped and she’d needed to hike a few miles to get help. What genius designer had decided to put high heels on flip-flops? Trevor’s female students wore the dang things all the time, too, but at least their treks were across the groomed grounds of the Boulder campus.

He got out of his vehicle and met the woman between their bumpers.

“I’m so glad you stopped,” the woman said as she pressed a palm to her heart. “I wasn’t sure if what people said about strangers was true.”

“Depends on what you’ve heard people say.”

She studied his face for a moment, her expression pensive. She must have decided he was okay then, because she dropped her hand. “Guess that’s true.”

Another half second, then she chuckled. “There’s not much up here, is there?”

Trevor gazed around at the scenery. They were standing in a canyon a few dozen miles east of Rocky Mountain National Park. Massive rocks towered to the sky on their left. A brook flowed by thirty feet down on their right. The spruce and pines were especially fragrant this time of year, making the earth smell clean.

He loved this area. He’d grown up exploring this wilderness. The woman’s idea of not much was a far cry from his.

Apparently, she’d understood his thoughtful perusal of the land, because she opened her eyes wide and said, “Oh, it’s beautiful out here. I meant there isn’t much civilization. I was hunting for landmarks, but I kept seeing that rock wall on one side and the river on the other. I’m trying to find Longmont. Do you know it?”

Oh. So she was lost, not stranded. Great, he’d give her directions and get on his way. “I traveled through there a few minutes ago, which means you’re headed away from it. Turn around, and you’ll see a sign fairly soon. Take a left toward town. Then you can’t miss it.”

She frowned. “I’m not so sure. I must be lousy at directions. I stopped a half hour ago to ask at a convenience store, and look what happened. Would you mind showing me on my map?”

That would mean he wouldn’t get to the lodge as early as he’d hoped. But the woman acted so…innocent. He’d feel like a brute if he got home tonight and heard a news story about some female traveler who’d run into bad luck.

“Sure.” As soon as he’d said it, the wind whirled down the canyon and picked up the bottom of that skirt again. “Maybe we’d better do this in your car,” he added.

She frowned. Perhaps she was reconsidering the wisdom of trusting a stranger. Atta girl.

“I meant that you could sit in your car with the map, and I could stand outside and point out the way. I wouldn’t want your map to blow off down the road.”

“I figured that was what you meant,” she said. “But I have a little girl napping in my car. We might wake her.”

She had a child in the car? Trevor was oddly disappointed to hear it, but even more glad he’d stopped.

The woman bit her bottom lip, her brows lowering. “I could take the map to your car,” she said after a moment.

“That’d work.”

The woman teetered in her shoes as she crossed the gravel. She opened her car door, and Trevor tried not to watch those legs as she leaned in to grab the map. Gently she closed her car door again, then went around to the Jeep’s passenger side.

She wanted to get in?

Man, she was gullible. Trevor considered giving the woman a safe-travel lecture, but instead simply opened his door and slid into the driver’s seat.

“I can’t believe Angie conked out this early in the day,” the woman said after they’d closed themselves inside. “We had a long drive yesterday, and she resisted my wake-up call this morning.”

Trevor studied the woman’s face again, wondering if she could be sleeping through the reports of kidnappings, molestations and robberies that dominated the news every day. He could think of several things this woman had done wrong this morning. She’d left her little girl alone in an unlocked car, for one.

Maybe she was from some quiet little burg where nothing bad ever happened. “Where’re you coming from?” he asked.

“Augusta, Kansas, about twenty miles east of Wichita.” She shrugged. “It’s a small town, but it was in the news last year when a good portion of the town flooded. The president declared our county a national-disaster area.”

A national disaster sounded bad enough.

“Were you and your husband affected?” he asked.

“I’m not married.” Briefly she lifted her ringless hand. “But yes, my house was damaged. I had to move out for a few months, until my family and I finished repairs.”

Not married. That explained some of it. Most husbands would have coached this reckless optimist about highway safety.

Ignoring the twitch in his libido at the new knowledge of her single status, Trevor took the map from the woman to study it.

Single or not, she was merely traveling through.

“You are so considerate to help me,” she said. “Roger told me I should stay home. He actually said I was too naive to travel alone. I told him to bug off.”

This Roger sounded sharp. Trevor knew he had no business asking, but he was curious. “Who’s Roger?”

The woman appeared to be startled by the question.

“Roger’s my, uh, neighbor. And Angie’s father.” She nodded. “He lives down the road a couple of miles. Anyway, Angie’s mother remarried recently, which surprised everyone since she’d known the guy all of a month. She’d taken time off to spend the summer with her kids, and suddenly that plan changed. Angie was heartbroken, so of course I brought her with me.”

Trevor knew that story. Too many people had kids and discovered later that it would take eighteen years to raise them. After murmuring his agreement that bringing the child was the right thing to do, he started detailing the best return route to Longmont.

“I truly appreciate this,” she said as she took her map from him moments later.

“It was nothing.”

“You’re a gentleman. Thanks.” She reached across the seat to pat his shoulder. But the touch was too soft. Trevor’s body responded as if it were a caress.

She must have felt that zing of attraction, too. She stared at the point of contact, then frowned and snatched back her hand.

Trevor met her gaze as an awareness flowed between them. He’d noticed her, sure enough.

Legs. Eyes. Warmth.

Now he knew she’d noticed him, too.

He tensed, willing away his body’s immediate and senseless response. It’d been a while, and she was sexy.

And a complete stranger, headed down the road in the opposite direction. Their paths had crossed for a few minutes. That was all. He hid his crazy regret behind a grin. “No problem.”

He was already too late to worry about the time, so Trevor decided to maintain his gallant image. He jumped out of the Jeep to run around and open her door for her. “Have fun in Longmont, doing whatever,” he said as she stepped onto the gravel shoulder.

“Thanks. And you have—” she gazed up the highway with a thoughtful frown, then refocused on him and shrugged “—a good life, I guess.”

Trevor watched to make sure she got in her car and turned around, then started his Jeep and drove away to do exactly as she’d suggested.

Less than ten minutes later, he sped up the drive that led to the Burch ranch. Although Sam’s parents had run a small-scale cattle operation here when he was growing up, their more enterprising son had added the lodge and guest cabins soon after taking over.

For the past three years Trevor had used part of his summer hiatus to come up here and direct a summer wilderness experience for teenage boys. He loved it, even if the precamp organization was a chore.

As he parked in front of the main lodge, he was pleased to see the front door open. That had to be Sam inside. Darla should be returning from Greeley this morning, after spending several days with her sick mother.

A gravelly voice drifted out from the back as soon as Trevor walked through the door. “You’re late.”

“Oh, I know. I stopped to help some woman out on the county road.”

“Car trouble?” Sam appeared in his office doorway, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Just hopelessly lost in some rattletrap car.” Trevor’s eyes were glued to Sam’s cup. “Any of that left?”

When Sam nodded, Trevor crossed to Darla’s work area to pour himself some. He took a sip and winced. Sam might be a master at mixing protein meal for his cattle, but he couldn’t remember how many scoops of coffee to put in a pot. Today he’d overshot by about two.

“Problem?” Sam scanned Trevor’s face.

“This is fine.”

Sam leaned his gaunt frame against the door sill. “You are really, really late. What’d you have to do, draw the woman a detailed map of the entire state?”

“No, I showed her the way on her map. That’s all.”

Sam held his gaze, then one side of his mouth lifted. “Must’ve been a looker.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re surly.”

Trevor lifted his cup. “Nah, caffeine just hasn’t had time to take effect.”

“This is more than a normal morning grump. If you hadn’t been interested in this woman, you’d be telling me all about what happened on that highway.” Sam narrowed his gaze, studying him. “I’m thinking she was a red-hot redhead.”

Ignoring him, Trevor took another sip of coffee and repressed the grimace when it went down.

“Exotic looking? Black hair?”

He didn’t bat an eyelash.

“A blond princess?”

“More like a sleeping beauty,” Trevor blurted. “She spoke openly to me, as if I were her brother or husband, and she was almost abnormally naive.”

“And you liked her.”

Trevor rolled his eyes. “Lord, Sam. Is this junior high?”

“Was that a yes, my cynical friend?” Sam’s tanned cheeks formed two deep crevices when he smiled.

Trevor scowled. Sam had been the world’s biggest cynic until he’d fallen for Darla. Now he’d decided he had some obligation to pull Trevor into romantic bliss alongside him. The guy had been nudging him toward women constantly, and he’d been way too interested in Trevor’s weekends.

“Did you get her number, bud?”

Sighing, Trevor strode into his office.

“What about her name?” Sam asked from beyond the wall.

“Just settle yourself down, Sam. She was a tourist. I’ll never see her again.”

Sam fell silent, thank God.

Trevor set the cup on top of his file cabinet and pulled out a topographic map, refusing to think about the woman another second.

He’d never been the type to start up with anyone he couldn’t afford to know well. His parents had been expert at that—between the two of them they’d been married six times. Several of those marriages had lasted less than a year, and several had produced children.

Trevor had eight stepsiblings between the ages of two and his own thirty-two. Except for the toddler, they all had commitment issues.

Not him, though. He stuck with long-term, noncontractual relationships with women who appreciated his realistic view of marriage. He’d been with Martie for four years and Christina for three. Chris had moved on five months ago, and Trevor hadn’t found his next serious girlfriend, yet.

But he would. And they’d have fun and no regrets.

Clearing a spot on his desk, Trevor moved his cup there, then carried the map around to sit and study it. Five college-age counselors would be arriving in three days, requiring a week of intensive training. The following Monday, twenty-six younger boys would arrive, and those were merely the first-session campers. By the end of the next seven weeks, ninety-six boys in various stages of adolescence would have rotated in and out of here. As director of the camp, Trevor needed to be ready.

He lifted the map, forcing himself to think about day hikes and climbing excursions.

“Hey, Trev?”

“Yeah.”

“What color was that rattletrap?”

He froze in his seat for a moment. Then he got up and walked out to the front office, where Sam stood gazing out the screen door. A tan car was pulling into the drive. Trevor watched it slow to a stop behind his Jeep.

When that shoe hit the ground beneath the car door, he knew it was her. Maybe she was lost again.

“Sam, I’ll give you twenty bucks to go out there and give her directions to Longmont. I’m behind on work.”

Sam didn’t answer immediately. Probably because he was preoccupied, watching the leggy brunette get out of the car. “Your sleeping beauty?” he asked.

“She’s not mine, but yeah.”

“She doesn’t look lost now.” Sam’s chuckle got on Trevor’s nerves.

“She said she was going to Longmont,” Trevor said.

“Darla’s friend is arriving this weekend sometime,” Sam reminded him. “Isabel Blume? From Kansas?”

Isabel Blume, from…Kansas.

The lost woman was Darla’s good friend? Trevor would never have suspected. Darla wore leather boots, sturdy jeans and a short haircut that’d require little fuss while she worked around the ranch. She was as good as Trevor and Sam at following a trail and better at fires and fishing.

Trevor couldn’t imagine the lost woman doing any of those things. Hadn’t Darla said her friend was coming to help wherever she was needed, so Sam and Darla’s dadgum July wedding could be saved?

“Your fiancée didn’t tell me her friend was so…”

So, what? Friendly? Sexy?

Distracting?

“…green.”

Sam had already headed outside. Trevor watched him step off the porch to shake the woman’s hand. He watched her smile that same, openly friendly smile. Then he watched her skirt flutter up again.

He’d have to be careful to keep his thoughts off those legs and on the safety of the camp kids.

He’d also have to discourage any more electrified touches or lingering looks. It might be all right to entertain sexual thoughts about a woman he knew he’d never see again, but in the real world, this one wasn’t his type.

Too dewy-eyed. She’d want the white picket fence, the scruffy dog and two children—a boy and a girl if it worked out, but of course she’d adore whichever she got.

Trevor knew that story, too. It had always read like pure fiction to him.

Besides, he had other things to worry about. The ninety-six boys whose parents had paid for this camp deserved his undivided attention. Those kids would learn nothing good from watching their camp director engage in a dalliance with some sexy tourist.

In fact, he’d love to teach them the opposite: that a man should be strong enough to wait for a healthy relationship with a woman he admired.

There went her skirt again.

Okay, so he did admire her legs.

“What in blazes is she doing wearing a skirt to a Colorado mountain lodge, anyway?” he complained to himself just before he shoved his way out the screen door.

“IT IS YOU!” Isabel said as soon as she saw her highway rescuer appear outside. “I knew that Jeep was familiar.”

“Thought you were headed to Longmont.”

“I was. I mean, I did go through there.” She glanced out toward the road. Hadn’t Darla told her she would pass through Longmont? “I was told I had to, to get here.”

The trill of a cell phone interrupted.

“That’s mine,” Sam said, digging it out of his shirt pocket. “Could you help her with her bags, bud? We’re putting her in the Ripple River room, up at the house.”

Isabel watched him put the phone to his ear and walk toward the far end of the porch.

“You were past Longmont when I saw you, only a few miles from here,” the younger man said, returning to the conversation Isabel would have been happy to forget.

She felt silly about getting lost, but this had been her first time to travel so far without her sisters to help navigate. Considering the non-map-reading child she’d had for company, she’d done all right to lose her way only once in almost six hundred miles.

“You must have made a loop back around.”

“Must have.” She stuck her hand out. “Isabel Blume, from Kansas.” She paused, then said, “Well, I guess you know quite a bit about me already. But we didn’t trade names.”

He pressed his hand into hers, his grip firm and warm.

“Trevor Kincaid.” He broke the clasp immediately.

“You’re Trevor?” She might have recognized his voice if she’d been expecting to meet someone she knew out on that highway. But who’d have dreamed that a law professor would be so strong and rugged looking?

But then, Darla had told her that Trevor was also an avid outdoorsman. And that he was deadly serious at times and a load of fun at others.

Come to think of it, Isabel knew a lot about him already, too. And judging from the things that Darla had said, she was going to like him. “I don’t know if you remember, but we spoke on the phone once. It’s great to meet you in person!”

“Mmm-hmm.” He backed up a step. “If you’ll pop the trunk, we can unload.”

Whoa! What had just happened? Isabel’s enthusiastic greeting had been met with a distinct coolness.

She would disregard the snub. Perhaps she’d imagined it. “Old-fashioned car, old-fashioned opener,” she said, handing Trevor her trunk key.

“If you’ll help me grab some bags, we can probably do this in one trip.” Trevor opened the trunk, stared inside and added, “Or maybe not.”

She had brought a lot. In addition to her own luggage, there were Angie’s smaller suitcases and two boxes of toys. Isabel had designed a quilt to give Sam and Darla as a wedding gift. That was in another box.

Everything inside this trunk was necessary. Isabel ignored Trevor’s attitude and helped him unload. They set the garment bag and suitcases on the ground, then stacked the boxes beside them.

When they got down to Angie’s pink floral suitcases, Trevor took them out, his expression puzzled, and slammed the trunk lid.

Did he think those cases belonged to her? “The Barbie cases aren’t mine,” Isabel said. “They belong to Ang—”

“Shh! Did you hear that?”

She had. It had been a soft, high-pitched sound.

“Could be one of the calves.” He peered toward the east.

Isabel listened again, then glanced at the car window. “No, that’s Angie. The slam of the trunk lid must have awakened her.”

Sure enough, the little girl’s head poked up in the seat, and her face soon appeared in the window. “Izzabell, can I come out now?” she bellowed.

“I can’t wait until she sees how gorgeous this place is,” Isabel said as she walked around the car. “She missed seeing the mountains as we approached Denver.”

Opening the door, Isabel grinned when Angie emerged. With tangled red hair and sleep creases pressed into one cheek, she was still adorable. “Come here, hon.” Isabel took the little girl by the hand and led her to where Trevor waited.

He bent down to speak to the child. “Hi, Angie. I’m Professor Kincaid,” he said. “Would you like to see some hummingbirds?”

Angie nodded.

He turned to point at a massive pine tree, off near a footpath into a wooded area. “See those feeders hanging from the limbs? There are usually several birds hovering around them. You can see them better from the path. Go take a look, if you’d like.”

Angie headed in that direction. When Isabel started to follow her, Trevor caught her eye. “She’ll be within sight. Let her go.”

After Angie had skipped away, he asked, “Why is she here?”

“I told you about that on the highway. Remember?”

“Not really.”

Isabel squinted at him, thinking he’d changed since their first meeting. She explained again in more detail, about Angie’s mother’s surprise announcement that she was remarrying, and the argument that had followed between Roger and his ex about what to do with Angie while all of the adults in her life followed other pursuits.

“I didn’t want Angie to feel as if she was nothing but a bother, so I brought her with me,” Isabel finished, shrugging. “Darla knew I might have to bring her. She suggested it, actually.”

“And you said Roger was…who?”

“My neighbor,” Isabel said, feeling deceptive. But her status with Roger confused even her. Her sisters had convinced her to break up with him for the summer. Josie had advised her to talk to every man she met so she could find out exactly how wrong their mother had been about the entire male population.

Flexing her flirt muscles, she’d called it.

Big sister Callie had said almost the opposite—that Isabel should discover what it felt like to be on her own for a while.

Recognizing the wisdom in both of her sisters’ advice, Isabel had declared a summer of independence from Roger.

His response? “Do what you have to do. I’ll be here when you get home.”

So she wasn’t with Roger, exactly, even though she still hoped he’d propose when she returned from this trip.