A Weaver Wedding

Biting back the pinch of envy she felt watching the couple, Tara focused on her young customer. She picked up the wad of cash and began unfolding it. “These earrings are for pierced ears, you know.”

“I know. I got my ears pierced last month.” The girl held up the dangling earrings that she’d chosen, eyeing them with fervent delight. “These are going to be my first real pair when I can take out the studs. Finally.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought my dad was never gonna let me pierce my ears.”

Tara could identify. Despite his frequent absences, her father had still managed to implacably rule his roost with an iron fist. “Dads can be like that.” She gave the girl her change, deftly wrapped the earrings in tissue and popped them into a small box. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” Holding the box like a treasure, the girl turned on her heel and fairly floated across the gymnasium floor. She didn’t even stop at any of the other booths.

Tara sat back down on her stool, glancing at her watch. An hour longer, she told herself, and she could reasonably begin packing up.

Unfortunately, the hour seemed to drag by as customer traffic began to slow.

Her water bottle was long empty, her bladder was long full, and the only thing of interest to watch was the line of eager customers at Courtney Clay’s Kissing Booth sitting smackdab in the center of the gymnasium. Considering the young nurse was strikingly beautiful—and eligible—the line wasn’t that surprising.

After a while, Tara turned away, hiding a yawn behind her palm, and reached beneath her table for one of the boxes she’d used to bring in her load that morning. Not quite an hour had passed, but it was close enough for her.

She set the box on her stool and began taking down the unsold garments hanging on the display rack. Slipping them off their hangers, she folded them neatly between tissue paper before placing them in the box. The more careful she was, the less steaming she’d have to do when she hung the clothing back up in her shop.

She filled the first box and put it on the floor, then bent below the table again to hunt down the next box.

“Did you bury a bone down there?” The voice was low. Husky. Amused.

Painfully familiar.

Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest as she warily peered above the table.

She would have welcomed a nonstop procession of Clays, if this one would just disappear.

It was, after all, what he was good at.

Looking away from Axel, she dragged another box out.

Don’t look at the guy. That’s what got you into trouble last time.

Trouble.

It was almost laughable, if it weren’t so clichéd.

“What are you doing here?” She didn’t sound welcoming and wished she didn’t care. She would have far preferred to sound breezily unconcerned about his unexpected presence.

“We need to talk.”

“After four months of silence? I don’t think so.” Darnit. That didn’t sound breezy, either. She grabbed the rest of the hangers from the rack, clothing and all, and shoved the bundle into the box.

If she had to steam out wrinkles until the cows came home, she suddenly didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of there. She slapped the lid onto the box and dropped it atop the first.

“Tara—”

But she’d already crouched down to fish out another box. Beneath the cover of the table, she exhaled shakily.

He’s just a guy, she told herself for about the millionth time since that night in Braden that had turned into an entire weekend. More than forty-eight hours spent with each other in that little motel room, during which time she’d stupidly started thinking things she’d had no business thinking. Crazy things. Forever things.

All of which had come to a screeching halt when he’d been gone from their bed before she’d woken up that last morning.

The only thing he’d left behind was a note that he’d “call.” He’d scrawled the message on the flattened pink bakery box that had held the small chocolate cake he’d managed to track down after searching three different stores.

The cake that—after she’d made a wish and blown out the candles, all of which he’d insisted upon—they’d managed to share over those two days in shockingly creative ways that still haunted her dreams.

But call?

Right.

Not only had he been gone from her bed, but he hadn’t shown his face in Weaver afterward. Not the next day. Not the next week. Not the next month.

The thoughts they’d shared. The laughter they’d had. The love they’d made. None of it mattered.

One weekend was all they had in common.

Well, she was a big girl. She would live with the consequences.

She grabbed the storage box and drew it out, squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine in the same motion.

Axel, unfortunately, was still leaning atop the display case, his shoulders seemingly wider than ever beneath the nubby, gray turtleneck sweater he wore.

The last time she’d seen those shoulders, they’d been bare and golden and glistening with sweat while he’d made love to her as if he’d never wanted to stop.

She banished the painfully vivid thought and looked pointedly at the case. “Do you mind?”

He backed away slightly. Ignoring his solid chest only inches away, she flipped open the case and drew out one of the sliding trays from beneath.

“I can explain the four months.” His voice was quiet beneath the laughter coming from the nearby kissing booth.

“No explanation needed,” she assured him. “It was what it was.” There. That was breezy. She even managed to top it off with a careless shrug and a small smile. “When did you get back into town?”

“This morning. I intended to call.”

Too little, too late. Four months too late.

“No big deal,” she said, still breezy.

She was an adult. They’d had a “one-night stand” that happened to last an entire weekend, and the aftereffects were her business and hers alone.

The only thing that bothered her now was that she was bothered by his four months’ worth of silence.

Liar. Tell him.

She ignored the insistent whisper inside her head and with no regard for her usual order, dumped the contents of the jewelry tray into the box. She’d sort it out when she got back to the shop.

“Something important came up,” he said. She made the mistake of glancing at him and caught the grimace that crossed his unreasonably handsome face. “I know how that sounds.”

“It doesn’t matter how it sounds. It was months ago. No big deal. I hardly—” she said as her tongue nearly tripped “—hardly remember much about it.”

The corners of his lips lifted ever so slightly. “D’you know that there are five little freckles on your nose that only show up when you lie?”

She shoved the empty tray back in its slot and grabbed the second one. “You’ve offered the obligatory explanation, but as you can see, I’m busy.”

“I don’t think I explained anything.”

He hadn’t, and they both knew it.

What she didn’t understand, though, was why he bothered pressing the matter. “Let’s just save our breath and say that you did.” They’d spent a weekend together and she’d come close to losing her heart. He, on the other hand, had just taken a powder when he’d decided it was time to go.

He grabbed the tray before she could shake its contents into the box. “Tara.”

She wasn’t going to engage in a tug-of-war over a jewelry tray. Nor was she going to get into any sort of conversation about what had occurred between them when there were still too many people around who could overhear.

Gossip was going to be rife enough about her soon without anyone overhearing that.

She let go of the tray and reached for the last one, pulling it out and tipping it into the box.

He muttered an oath and set down the tray. “Tara—”

“Axel Clay, is that you?” A bright, female voice accosted them from across the gymnasium.

“We will talk,” he told Tara before turning to greet the curly-haired blonde aiming for him. “Hey, Dee. How’s it going?”

The young woman unabashedly threw her arms around him, giving him an exuberant hug. “I’m going to have to give Sarah a lashing. She didn’t tell me you were coming home. We all thought you were still in Europe trying to buy up some fancy horse. Hi, Tara,” she added absently.

Under other circumstances, Tara would probably have been amused by Deirdre Crowder’s actions. Dee was a teacher at the elementary school. She and Sarah Scalise—another teacher and Axel’s cousin—were frequent visitors to Classic Charms.

But it wasn’t “other circumstances,” and the day had taken its toll on Tara’s humor.

She was fresh out.

She nevertheless managed a casual response for Dee and took advantage of Axel’s diverted attention to quickly finish unloading the jewelry case. She couldn’t help but overhear Axel telling Dee that his cousin hadn’t known about his arrival. She also couldn’t help but notice the way Dee kept her slender fingers latched onto Axel’s arm.

“Excuse me,” she told Dee, whose other hand was near the display case.

“Sorry.” Dee moved her hand, but didn’t take her attention away from Axel. “So, how long are you going to be around? We ought to all get together.”

Tara hefted the acrylic display unit off the table and perched it on the boxes, then slid out from behind the booth. She still needed to disassemble the clothing rack but she wasn’t going to listen to Dee, avowed man-hunter that she was, set up a date with Axel.

Without looking at them, she made her way to the storage room to retrieve her handcart that she’d left there after unloading her wares earlier that day. She pulled it out, struggling with the recalcitrant folding mechanism.

“Let me help you with that.”

Her shoulders drooped. Dee hadn’t kept Axel’s attention nearly long enough to suit her. That fact was probably as displeasing to Dee as it was to Tara.

“I don’t need help.” She jerked on the cart handles and it sprang into place. Her fingers narrowly avoided being pinched, but she gave Axel a smooth smile. “See?”

She wheeled the cart smartly around his tall form and headed back toward her booth. Her legs were no match for his, though, and he beat her there, only to block the boxes as if it would take dynamite to dislodge him.

Her lips tightened and she turned to the clothing rack, deftly dismantling the rods to fit into the last box. Still ignoring him, she pulled on her coat—a new one since she’d lost hers completely that night at the Suds-n-Grill—and wrapped her scarf around her neck. Pulling the loaded cart, she headed toward the gymnasium exit.

She hadn’t reached it yet when Joe Gage, the tall, balding elementary school principal, stepped through it. “Shutting down shop, Tara?” He held the glass door wide for her.

“I am. Thanks, Joe.” She maneuvered the cart through the doorway.

“We’ll see you at the dance tonight, right? This old guy expects to share a dance with you.” He grinned, a perfectly appealing man who’d been nothing but friendly to Tara in all the time she’d lived there.

She smiled and hoped he didn’t realize she hadn’t answered.

Behind Joe’s shoulder she could see Axel, purpose in his stride.

“Hey, Ax,” she heard Joe greet him as she hurried along the sidewalk. “Didn’t know you were back in town.”

She walked faster, not listening for Axel’s response. Her breath was hitching in her chest when she finally made it to her white SUV.

She set the cart upright and fished her keys out of her pocket to unlock the rear gate. It hadn’t even completely swung open when Axel arrived.

Her lips tightened but she stepped out of the way when he plucked the top box off the stack and slid it into the rear of her vehicle. He followed it up with the rest of her boxes, then with annoying ease, folded up the cart, turned it sideways, and slid it alongside the boxes.

He slammed the gate shut and turned his penetrating eyes her way. His sharply angled jaw was set. “You can either talk to me now, or talk to me later. But we will talk, Tara. There are things you need to know.”

And one gigantic thing she wasn’t ready for him—or anyone else in town, for that matter—to know.

But her time on that score was rapidly diminishing.

Not for the first time, she wondered why she didn’t just leave Weaver altogether. Her shop was a modest success there, but that was the only thing keeping her in the small town. That and the fact that it was the only place her brother knew where to reach her.

She bunched the key chain inside her fist. “I want to get these things returned to the store before the dance tonight.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“No!” The word came out more sharply than she intended, particularly when she could see people just a few rows away. “I—I’ll be at the dance,” she lied as she headed to the driver’s side door.

“That’s not the best place.”

It was the perfect place since she had no intention of being there.

She yanked open the door and climbed inside. “Take it or leave it,” she said and shut the door between them.

Then she pretended that her hands weren’t shaking as she shoved the key in the ignition and drove away like the bats of hell were hard on her heels.

Only Axel Clay was no bat.

He was the only man she’d slept with since her marriage of a minute when she’d been eighteen.

He was the man who’d left her flat after a weekend she couldn’t seem to get out of her heart or her head.

But worst of all, he was the father of the baby she was carrying.

Chapter Two

Axel stifled an oath as he watched the white SUV roar out of the school parking lot. He looked up at the pale winter sky and blew out a breath that made rings around his head.

No matter what Tara had said, he doubted that she’d be back for the dance that evening. What had he expected? That she’d welcome him back with open arms?

He’d had plenty of female encounters in his life; all with women who had played by exactly the same rules as he had. That weekend in Braden with Tara, though, had been different. She was different. She always had been. Right from the first time he’d met her, five years earlier.

His pocket buzzed slightly, and he pulled out his vibrating cell phone, flipping it open. “Axel here.”

“Have you talked to her?” His uncle’s voice greeted him.

Axel stared after her but the SUV was already out of sight. “Not exactly.”

“This situation isn’t open for inexactly. Sloan McCray is a valuable contact for us and I’ve given him my word that we’ll continue taking care of his sister. I want daily reports.”

Tristan Clay wasn’t only Axel’s uncle. He was his boss and he’d made his points plain already. Not that Axel could blame him after the mess he’d made of his last assignment for Hollins-Winword.

The primary concern of the highly secretive agency was security, whether on a personal scale or an international one. At times, they even worked—to use the term loosely—along with governmental agencies, handling matters that couldn’t be handled through normal channels. Such was Axel’s last assignment, which had been a monumental failure.

He hadn’t kept anyone safe, particularly Sloan McCray’s lover.

As a result, Tristan had done exactly what he should have done. He’d put Axel on suspension. Which was where Axel had remained until earlier that day when he’d met with his uncle, fully intending to tender the resignation from Hollins-Winword that he’d been holding off on ever since he’d earned that suspension.

Ironically, Axel hadn’t resigned.

Instead, he’d found himself nearly begging his uncle for this latest assignment. Not because of his record with Sloan McCray. But because of the assignment, herself.

Tara Browning.

The fact that she was McCray’s sister only made the situation that much more complicated for Axel.

Considering everything, it was a wonder that Tristan had agreed. After all, Sloan must have discovered that Tristan had sent Axel to the Suds-n-Grill that night four months ago and kept right on moving, despite the fact that he’d arranged to meet his sister there, too. But Tristan had agreed to give Axel the assignment and though McCray had pitched a mighty fit about it, he wasn’t in a position to demand someone else.

“Daily reports,” Axel assured him, disconnecting before Tristan could decide to change his mind.

He strode through the crowded parking lot until he reached his truck, parked blatantly in a No Parking zone.

The parking ticket tucked beneath his windshield wiper waved gaily in the biting breeze.

He yanked the paper out and climbed in the truck. He shoved the ticket into the glove box where it joined a couple dozen others, a tire gauge and his holstered GLOCK.

He’d barely gotten his key in the ignition when the phone buzzed again. “Yeah?”

“Is that how you always answer your phone?”

He grimaced at his mother’s familiar voice and started up the truck. “I guess you’ve heard.” There was nothing like the Weaver grapevine when it came to spreading news, whether you wanted it spread or not.

“That you’re back in town?” Emily Clay’s voice was tart, but beneath it he could still hear the love that had always been a constant. “Imagine my pleasure hearing it from someone other than you. I’ve gotten three different calls from people reporting that they’ve seen your truck driving down Main Street.”

“Sorry. I had some business to take care of.”

“With Evan, I imagine,” Emily concluded, making Axel feel that much guiltier.

“I haven’t talked to Evan, yet,” he admitted, knowing perfectly well that she was probably already aware of that fact. Evan Taggart was the local vet and his brother-in-law, but they’d thrown in together to breed horses even before Evan had married Axel’s sister, Leandra.

The business partnership was real and increasingly profitable. It also provided a highly convenient cover for Axel’s other activities. Activities of which Evan had always been aware, even before Axel’s own immediate family had been.

“Hmm,” Emily was saying. “And when will you be making your way out to the farm?”

The “farm” was Clay Farm, the larger and considerably more significant horse farm owned by his parents outside of town. It was where he’d grown up and where he always returned. Never before, however, had he returned with the weight on his conscience that he had now, and there was no denying his reluctance.

It was the same reluctance that had dogged him when it came to returning to Weaver at all.

“Soon,” he said. “I still have things to take care of in town.”

“There’s a Valentine’s dance at the high school tonight. Your father and I will be there.”

“I stopped at the gym already. Looked in.”

“Did you see Courtney, then? She’s doing the kissing booth this year, if you can believe it.”

The last time he’d seen his cousin Courtney, she’d been inconsolable at the memorial service that her parents, Rebecca and Sawyer, had finally held for their missing son, Ryan.

“She had a line stretching around the gym,” Axel said. “I didn’t want to get in the way of the moneymaking.”

“It’s just good to see her having some fun again. Since Ryan’s service last year, she’s had a tough time.”

There was nothing Axel could say to that. Not now. He couldn’t exactly tell his mother the real reason he’d avoided Ryan’s little sister, now could he?

Ryan had made him promise.

“Did you run into Hope or Tristan?” his mother continued.

“Not at the festival.” At least that was the truth. He’d met with Tristan at his office over at Cee Vid.

“Then if you’re still in town, come by the dance.”

If he believed that Tara had any intention of going to the dance, he’d be there all right. As it was, from here on out, he was going to be where Tara was. “We’ll see.”

His mother just “hmmed” again as if reading his mind. She’d always known when he was up to something.

“You do realize that tomorrow is Sunday, right?” Emily said after a moment. “If I don’t see you tonight, I’m certainly going to expect to see you tomorrow.”

Axel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who’s got Sunday dinner this week?” His mom and his aunts all rotated the duty. Sometimes it was just a handful of family members who were there. Sometimes it was the entire freaking family.

All two hundred of them.

It was an exaggeration, but sometimes it felt as if it were only a slight one.

“Jaimie’s cooking,” his mother answered. “We’ll be at the big house.”

At the Double-C Ranch then, where his father and uncles had been raised and where his grandfather, Squire, and his wife Gloria, still lived with Axel’s aunt and uncle—Matthew and Jaimie. Going there felt no less of a betrayal, though, than it did going to his own home. “Is everyone going to be there?”

“It’s been over a year since you’ve been home, honey. What do you think?”

Way too many family members is what he thought. “If you don’t see me until tomorrow afternoon, don’t worry.”

“I always worry about you. It’s what mothers do.”

He caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror after they hung up, and he looked away. He didn’t want to think about mothers and sons just now.

Which spoke directly to the reason why he’d been reluctant to come back to Weaver at all. He had a good family. To the last one, they were all good.

None of them deserved the secret he was keeping from them about Ryan.

But if he didn’t keep Ryan’s secret, Axel was more afraid that his cousin would go even deeper underground and it had taken Axel too long to find him in the first place.

Maybe he couldn’t do anything about his own family. But he could definitely do something about McCray’s family.

He pulled away from the curb and headed back toward Main Street where Classic Charms was located. He trolled past, drumming his thumb on the steering wheel as he studied the light he could see burning inside her eclectic little shop.

He could either sit in the warmth of his truck and watch the shop, or he could brave the frost—both from the weather and from her—and go talk with her.

Make her understand the gravity of the situation.

It would have been a helluva lot easier to do that if he hadn’t already done the unforgivable by getting involved with her that weekend in Braden.

He’d been ordered to that bar by Tristan for a quick “meet” with McCray. The last person Axel had expected to see there was the man’s sister.

But there she’d been.

From his corner in the bar, he’d watched her sit by herself for more than an hour. Watched the way her gleaming, dark hair would slip from behind her ear where she kept tucking it. Watched her debate with herself each time the cocktail waitress came by to replenish her drink. Watched the way half the men in the place watched her, and the way she’d seemed oblivious to them all.

Most particularly, he’d watched the fading of animation from her lovely face the longer she sat there alone, leaving her enormous brown eyes looking darker and more haunting than ever.

He shouldn’t have stepped in her way when she was leaving. But he had.

And damned if he could make himself regret it even if Tristan could now yank him from his assignment to protect her if he found out about that night.

She was a petite package of feminine curves who didn’t even reach his shoulder. He’d been halfway beyond crazy over her from the first time he’d seen her when she’d moved to Weaver, five years earlier.

The fact that she’d been placed there for her own safety by none other than his uncle Tristan had kept Axel from acting on his feelings.

That night in Braden, though, his attraction had been more alive than ever. And he’d been on the verge of giving Tristan his resignation.