The Brides of Bliss County

“I don’t need a key card,” she told the clerk in a more abrupt tone than she’d intended. She immediately felt bad because he’d been accommodating, this young, apologetic local. More graciously, she added, “Thanks for trying, though.”

“I didn’t help much. I’m afraid there’s no place else to stay.”

He was probably right about that. Despite its relatively close proximity to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, not to mention the ski slopes that attracted winter-sport enthusiasts from all over the world, Mustang Creek was still a small town. Other than this hotel, there were a few modest motels and B and Bs, of course, but on a night like this one, and so close to the holidays, those places would fill up fast.

Jax stepped past Charlotte to slap his credit card down on the counter. Was that a smirk she saw, that faint twitch at one corner of his mouth?

“There are two beds, Charlie,” he reminded her with a brief, sidelong glance. “Count ’em, two. Trust me, I drove here all the way from Idaho, and I’m so tired I might forget my own name. Your virtue is safe, for tonight, anyhow.” He paused—he was smirking, damn it—and then brought the whole matter in for a landing. “Besides, what other option do you have? Sleeping in your car? Sounds chilly to me.”

The clerk swiped the card with a cheerful flourish of resignation and said helpfully, “The temperature is supposed to drop like a rock falling off a mountain.”

Great analogy. Maybe Mrs. Klozz was still awake...

She doubted it.

It was pushing midnight. Aunt Geneva would’ve been in bed hours ago. And what if Millicent Klozz was hard of hearing and Charlotte stood there knocking on the door, shivering?

Ending up here—with Jax—was an unexpected twist to a long, long day.

“Key card?”

Jax offered it.

After a moment she took it. “Don’t look so smug.”

“This isn’t smug,” he said, grabbing her suitcase and his. “I feel confident that my normal expression of wry triumph would be considerably better than anything I can summon up at the moment. Let’s go find our room so I can collapse. It might be the holiday season, but there’s no cheer in my spirit right now. I’m damned tired.”

And no room at the inn.

Ironic.

She followed him. This was definitely going to be awkward, and not just because she hadn’t planned on having a roommate. Jax Locke might not be an ax murderer, but he wasn’t precisely harmless, either, like a favorite cousin or an old friend or a trusted business colleague.

Oh, no.

She and Jax had a history. The last time she’d seen him was in New York, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he was in Mustang Creek?

What exactly was going on?

Something weird, that was what.

With a sense of the world being off its axis, Charlotte followed him down a hallway to the appropriate door and watched him open it. He waited for her. “After you,” he said with the slightest bow.

This was such a bad idea. But so were her only other choices: waking up an elderly lady in the middle of the night, risking hypothermia by bedding down in her rental car or crashing in the lobby, which would be embarrassing.

The room was okay, she decided. It was generic, but what would anyone expect? There were the requisite furnishings—two beds facing a long, narrow dresser with a TV on top, a round table with a chair on either side and a hanging lamp suspended above it. The decor also included heavy draperies with plastic pull rods and colorful but highly forgettable art on the walls.

The place looked and smelled clean, thank heaven.

And it was blessedly warm. No small consideration, with the wind howling outside the window.

“I hope they have a generator,” Jax remarked, probably in an effort to make conversation. “This storm is amping up into a full-scale blizzard.” He sighed and added, “I’m going to take a hot shower and then sleep for about a hundred years. If you want the bathroom first, go ahead.”

The window rattled under a fresh assault of ice-barbed wind.

Charlotte was just as tired as he was, and it was too much effort to argue, even though she had a question—or two—about what he was doing there. He’d had his reasons for leaving New York and settling in Idaho, but what could possibly have brought him to Mustang Creek? A job offer, he’d said. How...coincidental. Or was it? “Just give me a moment to brush my teeth.”

“Help yourself.” Jax sank down on the edge of the bed closest to the window and started hauling off his boots.

She hurried into the bathroom, clutching her cosmetic bag and the flannel pajamas from her suitcase. After closing the door with a firm click, she brushed her teeth, changed and emerged to find Jax wearing only his jeans, brows raised as he took in her less-than-sexy garb.

What had he expected? A little number from Victoria’s Secret, maybe?

Since his bare, muscular chest reminded her of other times, better times, she looked away.

“Pink kitty cats?” he teased.

Charlotte took a deep breath. “My aunt gave me these pajamas,” she said tersely, “so I wear them. They’re comfortable. Not to mention warm.”

“I believe that. Finished with the bathroom?”

She flounced toward her bed. No one ever flounced that she knew of—besides maybe a few select romance-novel heroines who did not do it in kitty-patterned flannel pajamas—but she tried anyway. She waved toward the bathroom door. “Yep. It’s all yours.” With that, she threw back the covers and scrambled beneath them.

“Thanks.” He disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door, and she finally relaxed a little, settling in and staring up at the ceiling.

Then she heard the water running.

He was naked in there, she realized, with sudden, visceral clarity. She imagined water streaming in rivulets over the chiseled landscape of his body, a terrain she knew all too well...

You’re hopeless, she told herself. Then, with tired resolution, she jerked the blankets up to her chin and once again came to terms with the baffling fact that that was then and this was now. And despite the bizarrely coincidental It Happened One Night situation she found herself in, things would return to normal in the morning. All she had to do now was close her eyes and let sleep take her under, enfold her in blissful oblivion.

Exhausted as she was, however, her brain remained busy, chewing and fretting, gnawing at a single thought.

Jaxon Locke was in Mustang Creek.

While she was in New York and he was in Idaho, she’d managed to ignore his existence. Mostly. She’d gotten on with her life, learned to live, even thrive, without him.

Mostly.

Now, all of a sudden, she was sharing a hotel room with him in a tiny Wyoming town.

Where was the logic?

And how was she supposed to survive this?

Simple question.

But no answers in sight, simple or otherwise.

She squeezed her eyes shut, determined to lose herself in sleep.

But she was still awake when Jax emerged from the bathroom long minutes later; through her lashes, she noted that he was naked, except for the towel wrapped around his lean waist. He seemed to know she was awake, although she was pretending she’d already drifted off.

“Listen to that wind,” he said. “Sounds like a pack of hungry wolves. It’s brutal out there.”

She gave up on the sleeping-beauty act. He’d always been able to read her energy in some mysterious way, and fooling him was usually too much work. “Nice of you to share the room.” There. She’d said something civil. Even cordial.

But distant, as well. She certainly didn’t want to send the wrong message.

No way was she going to sleep with him.

Not that he seemed to expect it.

The problem was that a part of her wanted to leap from her bed to his—talk about sending messages—to open her arms to him, brazen as could be, and abandon herself to his lovemaking, to him. To the singular combination of them.

Even after all this time, and all the deliberate forgetting, her body remembered.

They’d certainly never had any problems in bed. Their troubles had stemmed from other things, like his old-fashioned attitudes. He hadn’t wanted a professional woman who could go toe-to-toe with some of the most intimidating people in the advertising world. Some of the bitterness flooded back, sobering and hurtful. No, as far as she could tell, Jax had wanted a carpooling, cookie-baking wife and mother for his children, someone who loved small-town life to the exclusion of all else. Or, at any rate, to the exclusion of any other kind of place. Someone who sewed gingham curtains for the kitchen windows and taught Sunday school and fussed over her flower beds.

All right, maybe he hadn’t mentioned those things specifically, but they went with the territory, didn’t they?

To Jax’s credit, he’d never pretended to like New York City as much as she did. For him, it was a mere stopping place along the way to someplace else, third base in some metaphoric baseball game. Next stop, home plate.

Translation: wide-open spaces, pickup trucks, mixed-breed dogs.

The country.

Well, at least he’d been honest. That was more than she could say for a lot of the guys she’d dated, before and after him.

He’d been considerate, polite, intelligent...and sexy.

Very, very sexy.

Once again, Charlotte was stricken with quiet astonishment. One moment she’d been firmly planted in a reality she knew and understood. The next...

Well, the next moment Jax was here. She still didn’t quite believe it.

“Of course I’d share the room,” he said.

Charlotte was confused. Share the room?

Oh, yes. She’d thanked him earlier, and now he was responding.

Keep up, she chided herself silently.

It occurred to her then that Jax’s voice had sounded a little too gruff. Maybe he’d picked up on her thoughts. Maybe he was going to drop that towel any second now.

She flipped over onto her side, facing away from him.

“Thanks,” she murmured. For some reason, her throat seemed to swell, and her eyes burned.

“You’re welcome.” He hadn’t moved. She would’ve known it, felt it, if he had. And his voice was still low, still hoarse. “I really want you, by the way.”

There went that honesty of his, kicking in at exactly the wrong moment.

Charlotte tensed. “Not gonna happen.” Was she warning him off—or reminding herself not to let yesterday’s memories overwhelm today’s good sense?

“Your choice, of course,” Jax told her quietly.

She rolled back to face him again and said the worst thing possible. “It would be a bad idea, you know.”

Great. She’d just admitted she’d been thinking about how good it would be to lie in Jax’s arms, to let him awaken her body just one more time.

Jax grinned, and he had the single most appealing boyish smile of any man she’d ever met. “But not out of the realm of possibility?”

She might as well be honest with him, too. “Unless you happen to have a condom, yes, way out.”

She was happy—and yet somewhat disappointed—that he seemed dismayed. “Yeah, good point. I don’t.”

“Then, go to sleep.” Charlotte closed her eyes again.

She heard the whispery rustle as he pulled on whatever he was going to wear to bed. He must’ve let the towel drop to the carpet... This whole thing was entirely too intimate, too familiar. If she could just fall asleep...

“Charlie...” Jax’s voice was soft, and she wanted to scream, because she was trying so hard to distance herself. She was, wasn’t she? Despite that dumb remark about the condom. But it wasn’t working at all. “I really have missed you,” he said.

Now he wasn’t playing fair.

Charlotte wouldn’t, couldn’t, look at him. “Am I the reason you’re here in Mustang Creek?” The question tumbled right out of her mouth, going straight from her subconscious mind to the tip of her tongue and neatly bypassing her normally competent brain. “I mean, I know you had a job offer, but...” She fumbled to extricate herself.

Must have been the exhaustion, she reflected, frantic to find an explanation for herself.

“Could be,” he said.

Then he sighed, and she heard his mattress give way as he got into his own bed.

And that was it. Two seconds later he began to snore gently.

She, on the other hand, was wide-awake.

Momentarily, she considered homicide. A pillow over his face might do the trick.

It was certainly tempting.

* * *

Jax woke, blinking, confused at first, having slept like the proverbial rock, but then it all came back to him.

The long drive.

The blizzard.

And Charlotte, sharing his hotel room but not his bed.

Right.

The storm must have eased up a little; the wind was no longer buffeting the window like a whole tribe of banshees trying to get inside. Intricate patterns of frost, stars and whorls covered the glass.

Water ran in the nearby bathroom, and he pictured billows of steam rolling out when the door opened.

Charlotte was in the shower. It felt good to lie there and imagine her gloriously naked, and so close by. He had an excellent memory, and she had the kind of body that did it for him: slender, nicely proportioned breasts, not big but not small, either, long legs that looked sexy when she wore a business skirt, but in his opinion would look even better bared by some cutoff shorts and tanned by the Wyoming sun.

He was definitely a leg man.

He enjoyed the fantasy he had going. A while later the shower was turned off and then, subsequently, the hair dryer. She appeared, wearing a pair of jeans and a light blue sweater, still barefoot, her dark hair shining and brushing her shoulders. She’d never worn much makeup; she didn’t need it, in his opinion. Other than a touch of lip gloss and maybe some mascara to accentuate those green eyes, she personified the small-town girl she’d tried so hard to leave behind.

“Good morning.” He said it cheerfully because he was feeling pretty cheerful, especially when her gaze dropped briefly to his bare chest before she realized it and looked him in the eyes.

“Uh, yeah, good morning.”

“How much snow did we get?” He was just making conversation, not actually expecting her to know, since she probably hadn’t been up long enough to check the weather.

She surprised him, though. “About a foot, I think, but it’s hard to tell with the window iced over.” She rummaged through her suitcase, produced some socks and sat down on her rumpled bed to put them on. “My rental car is sporty—I’m not sure it has studded snow tires.” A reflective pause. “I hope they have the streets cleared.”

Jax felt the need to keep things on an even keel. “I have a breakfast meeting next door at eight. If you want to join us, I can take you anywhere you want to go afterward. My truck can handle it.”

She hesitated, visibly preoccupied. There were tiny candy canes on her socks. Another gift from her aunt? He guessed that was the case, since the sophisticated woman he’d known in New York would not wear candy canes. He preferred the small-town candy-cane girl; he’d always known she was there.

Charlotte said, “I might call you if I have problems but I need to go home and make sure everything’s fine so that when I see Aunt Geneva, I can tell her Can-Can and Mutley are okay. That’s the first thing she’ll want to know.”

“Dog and cat?” It was an educated guess, based on previous conversations.

She nodded, and actually ripped loose with a tiny smile. “A friend of my aunt’s is taking care of them. My aunt might be too...vague to have animals. Her doctors seem to think so anyway. The whole idea breaks my heart. She loves those critters so much. They’re wonderful company, and she’d be lonely without them. I can’t stand the thought.”

He might have fallen more in love with her right then, if that was possible. “So you came back for Christmas,” he said carefully.

She meant to stay in Mustang Creek for good, but he didn’t want to let on that he knew, didn’t want to confess that he’d been paying attention to her social media posts. He’d watched to see if she was dating anyone else while he was back in Idaho, and there’d been no hint of anything serious, not even one picture or perky post. There’d been images of her and friends here and there, but either she was just more private than most of his friends, or she hadn’t really dated.

He figured it was the latter, and that gave him hope.

“I’m not going back to New York,” she told him flatly, pulling on a pair of short boots. She stood and shook back her hair. “Aunt Geneva needs me, so this is where I’ll be.”

“What a coincidence,” he said. That word again. “This is where I’ll be, too.”

“Coincidence, huh?” Charlotte seemed skeptical and a little intrigued. “I guess we’ll just have to agree that this town is big enough for both of us.” It was difficult to look innocent if you were wearing only a pair of boxers while the woman of your dreams stood in the same room. He adjusted the sheet. “I knew Nate in college. Now that he’s gone into partnership with Tate Calder in the horse-breeding business, he needs an associate for the practice. So, yes, maybe it’s a coincidence—that my friend from vet school happens to live in your hometown. I remembered how you’d described the place, and when he suggested I might want to join his practice, I jumped at the chance.”

Her reply made Jax wonder if she’d heard his explanation at all. “We’ll both be in Mustang Creek,” she said. She sounded resigned, but he couldn’t quite interpret her expression.

“We sure will. Maybe we can go out for dinner sometime. You can buy.”

“Dream on, cowboy.” Charlotte fished out a small knitted cap from her suitcase and slipped it on.

Her aunt had crocheted it, he figured. It looked homemade, and she looked delectable.

The woman he’d known in New York, always wearing designer outfits and pricey shoes, the woman he’d called Charlie, probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in that hat, not in the city anyway.

Cute was the only word he could come up with, and it made him laugh. Charlie, the original uptown girl—cute? What a concept. “We spent the night together, so maybe you do owe me dinner. Just sayin’.”

She pointed at her bed, but he could swear there was a gleam in her eye. “I slept here, and you slept there. Which means we didn’t ‘spend the night together,’ not in the strictest sense of the term, anyhow.”

“You’re right,” he said, with a twinkle.

“Jax, could you stop messing with my head for a second, please?”

He did his best cowboy imitation. “I’ll try, but, darlin’, you make it difficult.”

Some nuance in his tone or manner must have gotten to her, because she blushed. Despite all the big-city polish, Charlotte was still a small-town girl. She said hurriedly, “I need to go. I haven’t met this Mrs. Klozz who’s been helping Aunt Geneva, but apparently, she doesn’t have a cell phone, so I doubt she even knows I’m in town. I also need to check on the house and the animals, and then visit Aunt Geneva.”

“Don’t get stuck in the snow.”

She muttered as she wheeled her suitcase toward the door, “I’ll do my best.”

3

The old house was covered in snow, but it looked warm and inviting. A decorated Christmas tree stood framed in the big front window, and Charlotte could have described every single one of those beloved ornaments in detail.

She smiled at the blue one with the image of a small town that had “Silent Night” printed on it in lacy white letters. The twisty ones with frosted glass in various colors. The sparkly red reindeer she’d bought with babysitting money and hung on the tree when she was twelve, so delighted to contribute. It really didn’t match the antique decorations, but Aunt Geneva had loved it, hugged her tightly, and the memory of her warm acceptance left Charlotte sitting in the car for a few minutes, teary eyed. This was hard.

Very hard.

Geneva should be coming out on the porch right now, wearing an apron like she always did and waving hello, her eyes alight.

Okay, put that aside. Life changed, Charlotte knew it did. Her aunt was in her eighties, and she’d seen a lot of Christmases over the years. The two of them had shared so many good memories; Charlotte refused to spoil them with regrets. She got out and shut the car door, noting that someone, no doubt Mr. Simpson next door, had plowed the driveway.

She didn’t need a key after all.

The faceted glass front door opened easily. The smell of cinnamon and allspice immediately hit her, and Charlotte realized someone was inside, baking cookies.

It was very much like coming home—even without Aunt Geneva.

“Hello,” she called out cautiously, not wanting to startle anyone.

Mutley came running, leaping all over her, barking with excitement. His breed certainly wasn’t a known pedigree—more like a combination of half a dozen or so—hence his name. She appreciated being greeted with all that unbridled enthusiasm. Can-Can was curled up on the sofa on her special blanket, and she raised her head and gave a feline yawn, followed by her version of a smile before she settled back into her nap.

Both animals were fine. That was a relief anyway. Charlotte assured Mutley she loved him, too, fended off a few more dog kisses, then set down her suitcase and tried again. “Um, hello?”

“Hello, dear.” The woman who bustled out of the kitchen was short and a little stout, white-haired, her eyes bright and her smile infectious. “I’ve been expecting you. That was quite a storm, wasn’t it? I made coffee and there’s a warm crumb cake, sweet rolls, too. It’s a new recipe, and I need an opinion.”

She tried for a semiformal introduction. “I’m Charlotte.”

“Of course you are, child.”

“Did Aunt Geneva tell you I was coming?” She hadn’t even told her aunt she was on her way, in case any of her flights were delayed or canceled. At least, she hadn’t mentioned a specific day; it was a given that she’d be in Mustang Creek for Christmas.

“No, dear, she didn’t. But there are pictures of you everywhere, so it was no trick to recognize you. You’re just as pretty in person.” The older woman smiled. “The cake is still warm. Are you hungry?”

Slightly bemused, Charlotte trailed her into the familiar kitchen. She was hungry, actually. She’d eaten her last meal, a prepackaged sandwich at the airport, yesterday afternoon. And the spice-scented air promised something special enough to make her salivate. “Yes, I am. It smells great in here.”

The outdated kitchen was as immaculate as ever, with the same ruffled curtains at the window, the familiar wooden table and the ancient refrigerator humming away.

“I’m fairly sure the cake is fine, but I’m trying to perfect my cinnamon rolls.” Millicent Klozz breezed over to the old oven, and the door creaked in its usual way as she opened it and took out a pan. “You’d think at my age I’d have the process down cold, but I believe life requires us to continually ask more of ourselves, wouldn’t you agree?” She moved energetically between the oven and the table, setting out two plates. “I want an honest opinion. Too much vanilla in the icing? That’s my biggest fear.” She sat down. “Now, what’s your young man doing today?”

Her what?

“I’m sorry?”

Mrs. Klozz handed her a plate with a roll and a fork as she tilted her head. “You know, the young man. The tall one. Good-looking.”

Charlotte nearly choked on a bite of her pastry. Once she recovered, she managed to say, “I don’t really have a young man.”

“Oh, yes, you do. The one with the blue eyes.” Millicent Klozz waved a hand. “He’s a veterinarian, isn’t he? Yes. That’s right, I remember now. I don’t want to seem old-fashioned, but you stayed with him last night, young lady. This is Mustang Creek.”