Snowbound Bride

Kimberlee Whittaker gasped as Sam stepped back slightly to allow Nora to pass.

“All the more reason to delay the nuptials, then,” Kimberlee said indignantly.

“Really,” another woman added fervently, in support. “Gus should get you a ring, and we—his friends and neighbors—will make sure he does.”

Nora groaned, and shot a glance at Sam, who was still regarding her with an interest that had little, if anything, to do with local law enforcement. With an effort, she tore her eyes from his and turned back to the crowd gathered round her. “Trust me. If Gus shows up before I leave Clover Creek, and that in itself is doubtful, given the fact Gus’s still in New York City as we speak, Gus is not going to ask me to marry him. Not in a million years,” she promised them all firmly.

Sam Whittaker continued to contemplate her—and her current predicament. “The breakup was that harsh?” Sam asked, in a low, sexy voice that sent shivers down Nora’s spine.

“There was no breakup,” Nora said, looking straight at Sam, before finishing in utter exasperation, “We were never together.”

SAM KNEW no one else in the store did, but he believed Nora, for a variety of reasons. He also thought, from the guilty way she was flushing and the slightly nervous way she was behaving, that she was hiding a lot more than she was telling, and that she might need help. His help. In any case, it was almost certain that there were a lot of people worried about her.

Unlike Nora, however, he did not believe in running from problems; he knew predicaments were best dealt with directly. He hoped, before she left Clover Creek, to convince her of that, too. And perhaps reunite her with her friends and family, as well.

“Then who were you engaged to?” Sam asked Nora, aware that he really wanted to know not just that, but everything about her. Furthermore, he hoped she’d tell him more about herself, now that she’d seen firsthand how insatiably curious the small, friendly West Virginia community could be.

“I’d rather not say, Sam.”

“How about your last name, then?”

She glared at him for a moment. “I don’t see what that matters—”

“It does if you’re going to be staying here. Unless there’s a reason you don’t want any of us to know who you really are.” He was baiting her, anxious to see her reaction to that.

Nora’s mouth opened in a round O of surprise then snapped shut. She paused, looking as reluctant as any runaway would, but in the end, as he’d figured she would, came through.

“It’s Hart-Kingsley. Nora Hart-Kingsley. My mother’s name was Hart, my father’s Kingsley. I ended up with both family names. Satisfied?”

Sam grinned. “It’s a start,” he said. Although he would need a lot more than that, if he was going to be able to help her.

Dr. Ellen Maxwell stepped between Sam and Nora, swiftly introducing herself as the town physician before saying, “If you want me to put my two cents in, I think it’s just as well the nuptials get delayed awhile, anyway. The weather would not make it easy for any out-of-town guests—never mind the groom—to get here.”

“And besides, if you’re going to be a part of the Whittaker clan, you need time to get to know the rest of us, too,” Kimberlee said.

Nora regarded the people gathered around her. “Isn’t anyone going to listen to me?” she demanded, in obvious exasperation. Though they obviously meant well.

The group replied in unison. “No.”

Harold patted Nora’s shoulder in a comforting manner. “It’s okay, honey. We all know how to act stunned and amazed. We can do that for Gus. We won’t ruin his surprise for us.”

Clara smiled. “In the meantime, maybe you’d like to get out of that dress, and see about doing something to dry the hem and train—it looks a little damp, from where I’m standing.”

Good idea, Nora thought, if only because it’d stop all the wedding talk.

“The only problem is, there’s something wrong with the zipper,” Nora confided. “We may have to cut me out of it. So if I could borrow some scissors and enlist a little help, after I dash out to my car to get a change of clothes, I’ll—”

Clara patted her arm. “Now, now, I’m sure we can fix it without making any cuts in this beautiful fabric. Kim, darling, help Nora get her clothes out of her car and then show Nora to a dressing room and help her out of that gown.”

“Right, Gran,” Kimberlee said, giving a thumbs-up sign before leading the way.

“YOU’RE just going to have to ignore Sam,” Kimberlee told Nora as she worked on the jammed zipper in the back of Nora’s dress.

Nora turned, the trailing satin hem of her wedding gown swishing softly across the parquet floor of the large, old-fashioned fitting room. “What do you mean?”

Kimberlee tossed the length of her golden-brown hair off her shoulders. She paused and took a tiny drop of liquid soap and ever so delicately worked it into the teeth of the zipper. “I saw those looks he was giving you,” Kimberlee said, catching Nora’s glance in the three-way mirror before peering down at the zipper seam. “The way he questioned you.”

Nora flushed. “I think he’s just curious.”

Kimberlee shook her head. In an electric-purple jumper and ribbed white turtleneck, purple tights and cute leather ankle boots, she looked pretty enough to be on the cover of a teen magazine. “It’s more than that. He thinks it’s his job to take care of everyone!”

Alarm bells went off in Nora’s head. Perspiration broke her skin. “Because he’s the sheriff?” Nora asked warily—aware that she was flushing again, an even brighter pink.

“Because he’s Sam.”

“You’re saying he’s controlling?” Nora asked, as casually as possible.

“To the max,” Kimberlee affirmed emotionally. “It’s because of Mom and Dad and the way they—” At the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside the fitting room, Kimberlee stopped short and stuck her head out into the hall to see who was there. Almost immediately, she flushed a bright red. “Sam!”

Sam looked at his younger sister grimly as he stepped inside the spacious fitting room. Obviously, Nora thought, Sam did not appreciate whatever it was his younger sister had been about to reveal. Which was too bad, because Nora found herself wanting to know everything there was to know about Sam that Sam didn’t want revealed.

“You’re needed out front to help ring up the purchases,” Sam told Kimberlee firmly.

Kimberlee gave her older brother a pouty look. “Can’t you help out? After all, you used to work in the store, too, when you were my age. You know how to do it.”

Sam leaned against the door frame, clearly in no hurry to go anywhere. “I’m not disputing that, but Gran wants you.”

“Ha!” Kimberlee said. “I think you just want to be back here with Nora.” Kimberlee gave Nora a commiserating look as she flounced out. “Good luck. You’re going to need it with Mr. Impossible here!”

“Mr. Impossible?” Nora echoed when Kimberlee had left.

“It’s one of the nicer things she’s called me lately,” Sam said dryly as Nora surreptitiously measured the dwindling distance between them as he advanced all the way into the room.

He had dispensed with the Stetson and shearling coat and brushed the snow from his pants and shoes. And though Nora should’ve expected that—if Sam Whittaker were spending any time at all inside the heated building—she hadn’t expected the way he would look in the snug-fitting khaki uniform. He had an all-business stance that suggested he didn’t take trouble from anyone, but it was more than just that, and the come-hither look in his eyes, that had her pulse racing. It was his commanding height, the dwarfing width of his shoulders. The muscular tightness of his lean hips and long legs. And, most of all, the way he was looking at her now that made her tingle from head to toe.

“Still stuck, hmm?” he drawled, looking over at her almost insolently.

In this town, in her dress, in her whole life, Nora thought. “Maybe we should just give up and cut me out of this dress,” Nora suggested.

Sam continued to look her up and down as Nora grew ever warmer. “Oh, I think we can do better than that,” he quipped. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Nora barely had time to draw a brush through the wind-mussed layers of her dark hair before he returned with a button hook and a pair of tweezers.

“Don’t look so worried,” Sam said cheerfully as he stepped behind Nora. His eyes met and held hers in the mirror. “I’m an experienced hand at this. I’m sure I can free you from this dress.”

Something about the utterly male way he was looking at her made Nora sure he could, too. And that might be even more dangerous. “You didn’t have much luck earlier, back at the tourist station,” she said breathlessly as he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders.

“Ah, but I didn’t have the right tools then,” he told her. “Now I do.”

Nora raised a skeptical brow as the back of his hand brushed the bare skin at the nape of her neck. She froze beneath the onslaught of his touch, the warmth and gentleness of his skin pressed against hers. He had just come close to her, and she was ablaze already. She could barely breathe.

Aware that her heart was beating wildly in her chest, she forced herself to concentrate not on what they shouldn’t be doing—ever—but on what he was actually doing now. Aloud, she asked, “A button hook and tweezers are the right tools for an occasion such as this?”

Sam’s gaze met hers, and his handsome golden-brown eyes lit enthusiastically. “You’d be surprised what can be accomplished with these two items, under the right circumstances,” he said with mock grave ness, as he bent his head and once again concentrated on his task.

Nora hitched in a breath, realizing that, friend or foe, it didn’t seem to matter. With every second that passed, she became even more extraordinarily aware of him.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she told him defiantly, as she noticed that her knees were trembling, and that the shiver ghosting down her spine had nothing to do with the cold weather outside and everything to do with the heat generated by Sam.

“Actually,” Sam drawled, as he ever-so-carefully grasped the jammed fabric with the tweezers and slid the end of the button hook between the fabric and the teeth of the zipper to gently move them in tandem. “I do.”

Nora’s brow lifted as he continued to labor over the back of her dress with delicate finesse. What did he know that she didn’t?

“I came in here on a mission,” he explained.

Nora waited until he’d finished whatever it was he was doing to her zipper, then spun around to confront him face-to-face. “That mission being?”

“To find out if you need help of some sort. Because if you do,” Sam vowed, setting both button hook and tweezers aside, “I’m here to give it.”

EVEN KNOWING what Nora did about the error of her ways, she was tempted to let herself be rescued. But letting a man jump in to save her from all life’s hard ships was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. It was high time she stood on her own two feet and said adios to all well-meaning, overbearing men. Her chin took on a challenging tilt. “And if I don’t need help?” she asserted calmly, her heart pounding.

Sam shrugged. “Then you don’t,” he retorted mildly, though it was clear he did not think that was the case.

Nora sighed. She could see Sam was not going to be an easy man to dissuade. No doubt he would shadow her as long as she remained in Clover Creek. “You know,” she said, stepping back to lean against the far wall, her hands pressed flat behind her, “since we’re alone, I have a bone to pick with you.”

Sam took up a post against the opposite wall, only a few feet away. He folded his arms in front of him and kept his eyes trained on her face. “That bone being?”

Nora tilted her face up to his and drew a deep breath. “So far, this has been one of the worst days of my life. And you are not making things any easier on me with all your prying questions.”

He nodded, accepting that. Then said, with a devilish gleam in his eyes, “It was never my intention to make it easy on you.”

Her heartbeating all the harder, Nora met his eyes.

“Why not?”

Sam dropped his hands to his sides and continued regarding her steadily. “’Cause my gut instinct tells me it’s the fact you’ve been way too sheltered in the past that has you running away now.”

Nora struggled to hold her rising temper in check. She hated it when a man presumed to know—via ESP or, worse, experience with other women!—what was on her mind. “How do you know I’m running away?” she demanded.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sam straightened and pushed away from the wall. “You’ve been acting like you had something to hide since the first moment we met. Now, I don’t know what hurt you so. And don’t bother to deny it. You have been hurt. I can see it in your eyes whenever the subject of your wedding comes up. But I’d like to find out,” he told her as he slowly stepped toward her.

“So I’ve been hurt,” Nora retorted nervously, straightening as he neared. “Everyone has.”

“That’s true.” Sam planted a hand against the wall on either side of her. “But not everyone takes off in their wedding dress in the midst of what will soon be a blizzard—”

Nora interrupted hotly, in self-defense. “I didn’t know it was going to snow!”

Sam looked down at her as if he found that very hard to swallow. He shook his head wordlessly and leaned in even closer. “How could you not have known that?” he asked, very, very softly, the heat of his body emanating to hers.

Nora flushed and responded wryly, “Because, Mr. I-Gotta-Have-All-the-Answers, I wasn’t listening to the weather reports this morning, or last night, for that matter!”

“Why not?” His voice was hushed, seductive, his breath warm on her skin, as he placed his hands on the bare curves of her shoulders and forced her to look up at him.

Nora ignored the sensual feeling of his palms on her bare skin. They were slightly chapped and callused, as though he knew firsthand the value of hard physical work, but tender, too, as if he knew how to love. Irritated with herself—after all, she had no business thinking like that!—Nora shook off the sensual image of her body, in his hands.

“Because I had a ton of other important things to do!” she answered, with a regal toss of her head. “I had to get up early and shower and go to the hairdresser, and then over to the church, to dress and get my official wedding portrait done.” She stopped and bit her lip, aware that he was suddenly looking very much as though he wanted to do a whole lot more than simply hold her in front of him. He wanted to kiss her! Not just once, but probably again and again and again!

Sam grinned and lifted a skeptical golden-brown brow. “Are you saying the rest of your wedding party didn’t know it was going to snow, either?”

“Maybe not.” Nora swallowed around the sudden tightness of her throat. Looking deep into Sam’s eyes, she could almost believe he wanted only to help her. “After all, the snowstorm is not supposed to hit Pi—uh…” She made a strangled sound, as she realized she’d inadvertently said far too much, and cut herself off in midsentence.

“Pittsburgh?” Sam supplied, his hands following the curve of her shoulders and caressing her bare arms.

Nora glared at him defiantly and tried to ignore the enticing scent that was him. “What makes you think the wedding was supposed to take place in Pittsburgh?”

“The license plates on your car,” Sam replied, looking so abruptly earnest and helpful and forth right, it was all she could do not to melt into the warmth of his embrace.

“Also,” he said frankly, “the geography fits. If the wedding was supposed to take place sometime this morning, as I am guessing it was, you had time to drive from Pittsburgh down to West Virginia. You did not have time to drive from, say, New York City to West Virginia since this morning.”

She stared at him, the concern on his face unnerving her more than she wanted to admit. “You noticed the plates on my car?” she asked, feeling the color drain from her face. That meant he could trace her origins quicker than she could say “One-two-three.” And from there go directly to her father and Geoff!

Sam shrugged and, dropping his hands from her shoulders, stepped back slightly. “I’m a lawman,” he explained matter-of-factly. “I’m trained to notice everything.”

And that seemed to go triple where she was concerned, Nora thought, her insides in explicably heating all the more.

Nora sighed. Maybe this initial mix-up wasn’t as bad as she’d thought—especially if it kept her from being traced back to her father and Geoff. She studied Sam. “You don’t think I’m engaged to your brother,” she stated, rather than asked.

“You know I don’t,” Sam replied with a seductive half grin.

“Why not?” Nora demanded, shocked to find things suddenly going her way. Or were they? “Everyone else does.”

Sam shrugged his impossibly broad shoulders and kept his eyes on hers. “You’re not his type,” Sam said, in a very low, very definite tone of voice.

His confidence in his ability to analyze and understand her was supremely irritating, as was the way she melted at his slightest touch or look. Nora cautioned herself to keep her defenses up or suffer the consequences.

“Oh, really.” Nora bristled at the sexy stranger who was fast proving to be her nemesis. “Then whose type am I?” she demanded archly.

Sam hooked an arm about her waist and pulled her into the tantalizing warmth of his embrace. “Mine.”

Chapter Three

“YOU’RE NOT JUST NOSY,” Nora sputtered. “You’re nuts!”

Sam grinned victoriously, his hot glance skimming her from head to toe. “Can I help it if I know what I want?”

“You also know I was supposed to get married today.”

“And yet, when you talk about not getting married,” he scoffed, using the arm anchored around her waist to bring her even closer, “you look nothing but relieved.”

“So maybe my fiancé was not my Mr. Right,” Nora theorized hotly.

He grinned at her display of temper, his glance taking in the bare curves of her shoulders before returning with sensual deliberation to her eyes. He stared at her with taunting intensity. “And maybe in running away the way you did, even if it was at the very last minute, you stopped yourself from making the biggest mistake of your life.”

Suffused with heat everywhere Sam’s eyes had gazed, as well as everywhere they had not, Nora swallowed. She wished she was wearing anything but this beaded white satin wedding dress, with its flirtatiously full skirt and long, closely fitted drop sleeves and bosom-revealing neckline.

Determined not to let Sam get the better of her, in conversation or anything else, she made herself take a tranquilizing breath.

“As it happens,” Nora told Sam, glad at last that someone understood she’d prevented a mistake in running away, not made one, “that’s precisely what I did.”

Slowly he lowered his face to hers. His golden-brown eyes glittered rapaciously. “Then I’ve got nothing to worry about, even if your groom does show up here to reclaim you, do I?” he asked in a soft, silken voice.

Fighting the electric heat Sam’s touch elicited, Nora relaxed slightly in the comforting cradle of his arms. “I don’t think he’ll come after me,” Nora replied sadly. “And even if he did, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Good.” Satisfaction filled his eyes as he dropped one hand from around her back and lifted her chin to his.

“Why do you say that?”

Still gazing deep into her eyes, he curved his hand around her cheek and chin. “Because I’m old enough to know that chemistry like this comes but once in a lifetime, and I want my own chance with you,” he said softly.

Nora threw up her hands. She’d never met anyone more persistent. Furthermore, she knew by the confident, controlled way Sam held himself that he would never be satisfied unless he held the upper hand. And wasn’t that what she was trying to get away from? Men who would rule her life?

“Don’t you care that I’m on the rebound?” She pushed the words through clenched teeth, finding it hard to hang on to her cool.

Sam merely grinned from ear to ear. “Are you?” Sam asked, leaning forward. As he did so, his lips touched her temple. “’Cause I could’ve sworn by the way you’ve been acting today that you never really loved this Mr. Wrong of yours in the first place.” He paused and looked deep into her eyes.

He hadn’t even tried to kiss her lips, though he could have, and he was merely touching her face, yet Nora’s nipples tightened painfully beneath her lacy bridal corset. Lower still, there was a definite pressure building, and a new weakness in her knees. And the startling desire to feel his lips on hers—not just in a momentary experiment, but in a passionate explosion of feeling that went on…well, indefinitely.

And that, Nora thought, was crazy. She didn’t even know this man! Furthermore, she was not the kind of woman who could be swept off her feet. Not ever. And yet it appeared, she thought as she drew a shaky breath, that Sam Whittaker was doing just that.

“You didn’t love him, did you?” Sam probed.

Nora’s eyes widened at the low, masculine promise in his voice. “N-no,” she said as color poured into the high, sculpted planes of her face.

“Good,” Sam replied in a low, gravelly voice. “Then that’s all I need to know,” he said, pulling her against him. He threaded one hand through her hair. His lips grazed hers, tenderly at first, then with building passion. Nora was engulfed by so many sensations and feelings at once. The woodsy scent of him, the minty taste of his mouth. His lips were sure and sensual, his body was hard and warm. The man knew how to kiss! Knew how to draw a thrilling, incredibly sensual response from her, the kind she had read about but never really dreamed existed. And it was only then, when Nora realized what Sam had done to her, in getting her to respond that way to him, that he slowly drew back.

Not sure she could stand unassisted, Nora wreathed her arms about his shoulders and held on tight. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she could barely catch her breath as she stared up at him.

He looked down at her, breathing just as erratically, appearing just as stunned, just as pleased. He smiled at her then, ever so softly and reluctantly, released his grip on her. “You’re free now.”

Nora blinked up at him dizzily, aware that she’d never felt more lovestruck than she did at that moment. “To love again?” she asked.

Sam ran his fingertips down the open wedge of the back of her gown, eliciting another series of tingles—and the realization that her trouble some zipper was no longer jammed. “To get out of the dress.”

“Oh.” Embarrassed at the unspeakably ardent direction of her thoughts, Nora started to step away from the dressing room wall.

Sam planted a hand on either side of her and leaned in close. “But don’t give up on the other,” he told her softly. “You’re free to do that, too.”

Looking deep into Sam’s eyes, Nora could almost believe that it was all that simple. She wanted Sam—at least for now; she should have him. But common sense prevailed, telling her this was not the type of diversion she should be allowing herself, not when she still had so much about her life to sort out. Like where she was going to live, and how she was going to get her father to listen to her and stop meddling in her life. And she had to do all that without completely destroying the only familial relationship she had left in her life in the process.

Determined to put first things first, Nora flattened a hand across Sam’s chest and pressed against the solid male warmth. But before she could speak, the pager attached to his belt began a steady, insistent beep.

The edges of Sam’s mouth tightened into a frown. As he reached down to turn off the pager, his eyes met hers. “Guess I’ll see you later,” he drawled.

Nora sighed. Whether it was wise or not, she had been afraid that would be the case.