The Bachelor's Christmas Bride

Which was when Shannon stepped into the warmth of the apartment and closed the door.

And realized that she was suddenly eager to get to bed, to get to sleep, to get tomorrow to come.

Chapter Three

“Yes, I got here, I did the closing on Gramma’s farm yesterday, and it’s nice to be spending time with Chase and Cody—I had breakfast and lunch with them and Hadley, and then Hadley took me to have my bridesmaid’s dress fitted so it will be ready for the wedding tomorrow. And tonight is the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner,” Shannon said into the phone.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re missing me at all,” Wes Rumson said on the other end.

“Wes…”

“I know, there’s no reason you should be missing me—even if we were engaged you were used to not having me around for most things. It’s the curse of the Rumson men.”

And of his own parents’ marriage and one of the reasons Shannon had turned down his proposal.

But she didn’t say that.

Instead she said, “I appreciate that you called, though.” Which was true. She honestly did hope they could remain friends.

“It feels a little weird to be so included in this wedding,” she admitted then. “Hadley told me it was important to her and to Chase that the family he’s found be a part of everything. But as nice as they all are—and they all are wonderfully nice people—they’re still basically strangers to me.”

Wes made no comment and she had the sense that he was at least half occupied with something other than their conversation.

Still, she felt the need to fill the silence he’d left and she said, “How are things going on your end?”

“Great!” Wes said in his most enthusiastic politician’s voice. “We’re looking good in the polls, we’ll likely have the endorsements we need, even the President has promised to stop here sometime in the spring to throw his weight behind me.”

“So maybe this would be a good time to make the announcement that there isn’t any engagement….”

“I keep hoping we might not have to make that announcement.”

“Wes—”

“The voters love you, Shannon. They love the idea of a little romance in the wings, of a wedding. And you know how I feel….”

That what the voters loved was of first and foremost importance to him? That how he felt about her was merely an afterthought?

But Shannon didn’t say what ran through her mind. Instead she said, “You have to make the announcement, Wes.”

“The First Lady of Montana—that would be the Bigger Life you’ve always wanted,” he said as if he were dangling a carrot in front of a donkey’s nose. Bigger Life was the way he’d come to refer to her desire—as if it were an entity of its own. “No tiny apartment above a shoe repair shop—you’d live in the Governor’s mansion. And this is only the start—you know we’re shooting for the White House. You can’t get a Bigger Life than that.”

“I couldn’t marry you just to have a bigger life, Wes. Any more than you should marry me to win votes.”

“That’s not fair—we talked about getting married before—”

And even then Shannon had had doubts about it. Yes, she’d always wanted a life that was bigger than the very small, limited life her parents had lived and Wes knew that. But when it came to a relationship, to marriage, she wanted exactly what her parents had had. And that wasn’t the way she felt about Wes. She knew that wasn’t the way Wes felt about her. Which was the real reason she’d said no.

“You don’t really want to go over this again, do you?” she cajoled.

This time rather than silence giving away the fact that Wes’s attention was split, he proved it by saying something away from the phone to someone else.

And since he never did answer her question, Shannon let it drop so she could persist with what she needed to get through to him. “I’m sorry, Wes, but you need to break the news publicly. And isn’t sooner better than later? Don’t you want to get it out there and get it over with so it will be genuinely old news and forgotten by election day?”

“Rumsons aren’t quitters, Shannon. If there’s any chance—”

“But there isn’t,” she said as kindly as she could. “I’m not an undecided voter who needs to be swayed, Wes. This really is just a no.”

“Because of that Beverly Hills deal,” he accused. “When it comes to a Bigger Life, Shannon, wiping the noses of movie stars’ and moguls’ kids can’t compare to being—”

The hanger-on to Wes’s Bigger Life?

Shannon thought that but she didn’t say it. What she said was, “The Beverly Hills deal was also not the reason I said no—I told you that, too. It’s just a new avenue I may take. But no matter what, Wes, you need to have your public relations group get on the announcement that there isn’t any engagement. Even people in the boonies of Northbridge think I’m going to marry you.”

“Then let’s not disappoint them.”

Shannon closed her eyes, dropped her face forward and shook her head. “Wes…”

“All right, I have to hang up, too,” he said as if their exchange had involved something different than it had. “I’ll check with you in a couple of days to make sure you’re still okay. But if you need anything—anything at all, day or night—”

“I know I can call you. I appreciate that.” Even though she also knew that rather than reach him, her call would automatically be rerouted to his voice mail or his secretary or his campaign manager—depending on how many numbers she tried—and that there would never be an immediate callback. Like when her grandmother had died so suddenly…

They said their goodbyes and Shannon hung up.

With a quick glance at the time, she grabbed her car keys and went out the apartment’s door and down the steps to her car—freshly back from the local garage where it had required a new starter.

Wes’s call was making her late. Dag had said she could come by her grandmother’s house anytime to see what he was doing with the place and to pick up what remained of her grandmother’s things, but it was already after four and she was afraid he would give up on her. And she didn’t want that.

Behind the wheel, she turned the key in the ignition and was pleased to see that the repair had been a good one—the engine started on the first try.

On her way to what was formerly her grandmother’s place, she kept an eye out for Dag’s big electric-blue truck coming in the opposite direction, just in case, and that was all it took to replace thoughts of Wes with thoughts of Dag.

Until she turned onto the road that led to her grandmother’s house and it came into view.

The two-story wedding cake–shaped farmhouse was the home her grandmother had come to as a bride. Shannon’s eyes filled with tears when she suddenly pictured her grandmother sitting on the big front porch, snapping green beans fresh from the garden.

She missed her so much….

She missed them all so much….

But even though the memories of being at that house brought on some pain as Shannon parked in front of it, she wasn’t sorry she’d come. To her this was still her grandmother’s house no matter who owned it on paper and she did want to touch base with it one last time.

Then the front door opened and Dag McKendrick appeared behind the screen. And somehow seeing him bolstered her and made it easier for her to actually go through with it.

As she turned off the engine, Dag shouldered his way out onto the porch. He was wearing jeans that Wes wouldn’t have considered owning—low-slung and faded. Wes also would have had no use for the equally antique chambray shirt that Dag wore over a white T-shirt peeking above the unfastened top two buttons.

Shannon wasn’t sure why she was mentally comparing the two men but she couldn’t seem to stop herself as she took in the sight of Dag’s shirtsleeves rolled midway up his massive forearms. Drying his hands on a small towel, he tossed her a smile that wasn’t at all the kind of practiced-in-case-a-photographer-might-be-nearby smile she knew she would have received from Wes.

Both men were handsome, she admitted, but in different ways. There was never a hair out of place on Wes’s dusty blond head while disarray was part of the style for Dag’s dark locks. Wes was lean and wiry and stiff backed where Dag was muscular and powerful looking, his posture relaxed—as if his confidence came from knowing he could handle himself rather than from the entitlement that came with being a Rumson.

Rugged versus refined—that’s what Shannon concluded. Dag’s good looks were rough and earthy, while Wes’s were polished and sophisticated.

“Hey there! I was beginning to give up on you,” Dag called to her as he came down off the porch.

And that was when it struck Shannon that it wasn’t only their looks that were different.

Wes would have waited for her within the shelter of the house. He wouldn’t have come out into the cold December afternoon to greet her. But that was what Dag did. Because their styles were entirely different. While Wes was known for his charisma, what she’d already seen from Dag just in the brief time since they’d met was a special brand of charm that—while equally as smooth—was more natural than slick.

And when it came to sex appeal?

When it came to sex appeal, Shannon had no idea why anything like that had even popped into her mind as Dag opened her door.

She recalled belatedly that he’d said something a split second earlier that she’d heard through her closed window.

What was it…?

Ah, that he’d just about given up on her….

“I’m sorry I’m so late. It took longer with the seamstress than I expected it to and then I had a phone call I had to take. I kept an eye out for your truck the whole way here in case I passed you on the road.”

“Another ten minutes or so and you would have.”

And the sound of his voice—there was absolutely no reason why she liked the deeper timbres of Dag McKendrick’s voice better than the slightly higher octave of Wes’s but in that instant it struck her that she did.

Then she told herself to stop this right now! She had no interest in this man. He was nothing but a friend of her brother’s and the buyer of her grandmother’s house and someone she just happened to be acquainted with for the time being. Her relationship with Wes was barely cold—not even cold enough for anyone else to know about. Her entire life had changed in the last year, she could very well be headed to a new life in Beverly Hills, and in all of that there was no room, no time, no reason, for her to be even remotely interested in this man.

And she wasn’t.

She wasn’t…

“Is it too late? Do you need to get home?” she asked then, stiffening her spine a bit to resist his appeal.

“Nah. We can have a little time here and still get back for a shower before the rehearsal.”

Had he meant to say that as if they’d be showering together? Or was this just another of those crazy blips that made her mind wander into territory where it had no business going?

“Not that we’ll be showering. What I meant was that I’ll still be able to get back to take a shower,” he amended then, letting her know that she hadn’t misheard him. But the cocky grin that went with the amendment told her that the slip of tongue didn’t embarrass him at all.

Mischief and teasing—two more things Wes never indulged in. Not even with her, let alone with someone he barely knew.

“Yeah, I think I’ll leave you alone to shower,” Shannon answered the way she would have addressed a kindergartner who had said something inappropriate, even if she couldn’t help smiling at their exchange.

“Probably for the best,” he said, undaunted by her tone.

“I didn’t realize the outside of the house needed painting so badly,” Shannon said as she got out of the car, staring at the farmhouse in order to avoid looking at Dag and obviously changing the subject.

“Yep. I don’t know when your grandmother had it done last but it has to have been decades ago. It’ll all have to be scraped and power-washed then re-primed. What do you think about the color when I get around to painting? Back to the yellow or shall I go with white?”

“I know I don’t really get a vote, but I always liked it yellow—it looked warm and homey and sunny to me that way.”

“Trimmed in white?”

“I would, but it’s your house now.”

Dag motioned for her to go ahead of him up the porch steps and when they reached the house, he held the screen door open for her.

There were no signs of her grandmother in what Shannon stepped into. The inside of the house was empty of furniture and all the rooms she could see from the entry were in various stages of repair, remodel or renovation with the necessary tools and supplies littering them.

“Wow, you’re really gutting the place,” Shannon observed. “I know the appraiser said it needed work—that was why I reduced the price—but I had no idea it was this extensive.”

“How long has it been since you were here?”

“The summer just before I turned twelve, so almost eighteen years….”

“Things were pretty run-down.”

“My grandfather died the year before I was here last, I guess Gramma must not have kept up with things as well on her own. I didn’t realize.”

“From what you said about your folks last night, it sounded like you had enough to deal with.”

“And it wasn’t as if my dad could come here and help her out, or send money for her to hire someone,” Shannon added as they pieced together why her grandmother must have let the place fall into such disrepair. “But I’m sorry if you came in on a big mess—I had no idea….”

“It was just an old house. I would have wanted to update it anyway. No big deal. And there are some pluses to the place—the crown molding everywhere, the hardwood floors and just the way the whole house is built makes it more sound and sturdy than newer construction. It gives me a good foundation to work from. Come on, I’ll walk you through what I have planned.”

They spent the next half hour going room to room, with Dag explaining a complete plumbing overhaul that would leave all three bathrooms like new, a kitchen that sounded like it would be a chef’s dream come true, and even ideas for accent colors of paint here and there that left Shannon surprised by his good taste.

When they reached the upstairs bedroom where she’d stayed on her visits here, Shannon said, “Have you found the secret cubby?”

Dag’s eyebrows shot up in curiosity. “There’s a secret cubby? Whatever that is…”

“I’ll show you.”

Shannon knelt down in front of a section of flowered wallpaper a few feet to the right of the closet. It didn’t look any different than the rest of the loud pink tea-rose print but when she pressed inward and then did a quick release, that particular section popped open to reveal a two-foot-by-two-foot hole in the wall.

Dag laughed. “I’m sure I would have found that when I stripped off the wallpaper, but I had no idea it was there.”

“It makes a great hiding place,” Shannon said, peering inside to see if the things she’d hidden in it long, long ago could still be there.

They were.

“Let’s see,” she said as she began pulling them out.

Dag hunkered down on his haunches beside her to have a closer look.

“This is the notebook I brought with me on my last trip—I was going to write a novel in it. An entire novel that I would write in secret and then surprise everyone with when I was finished.”

“At eleven?”

“Uh-huh. I believe I wrote about two paragraphs…” she said as she turned the notebook upright and unveiled the first page. “Yep, two paragraphs. That was as far as my career as a great American novelist went. And I think it’s for the best,” she added with a laugh after glancing at what she’d written.

Then she set the notebook down and reached back into the cubby.

“Let me guess—those were from your great American artist period?” Dag teased when she pulled out several pages cut from a coloring book.

Shannon flipped through the sheets. “Not a single stroke outside the lines—I was proud of being so meticulous. I think I was six.”

“And this? You were going to be a chess master?” Dag said, picking up a carved horse’s head chess piece that had come out with the coloring book pages.

Shannon grimaced. “That was me being a brat.”

“You were a brat?” he said as if the idea delighted him.

“I was five,” she said. “You have to understand, my parents were so close, so devoted to each other, so happy just to be together, that sometimes I felt a little left out. Not that I actually was,” she defended them in a hurry. “I was actually about as spoiled as I could be with their limited resources. But at five, when they were talking and laughing over a chess game…” Shannon shrugged. “One of those times I tried to interfere by—”

“Stealing one of their chessmen so they couldn’t play?”

“And hiding it,” Shannon confessed. “I was leaving to come here the next day and I stuck it in my suitcase, so I ended up bringing it with me. By the time I was supposed to go home, I didn’t want to bring it back and admit I’d taken it and get into trouble, so I put it in the cubby.”

“Shame on you,” Dag pretended to reprimand, but it came with a laugh.

“I know. Of course as I got older, the kind of relationship my parents had was what I realized I wanted for myself, but as a very little kid, there were times when I resented it because they were just so content being together no matter what they were doing—watching their favorite TV show or movie, or doing puzzles, or just talking or—”

“Playing chess?”

“Or playing chess. I wanted to be the center of their universe—and I was—but they were also the center of each other’s universe, if that makes any sense…” Another shrug. “I think maybe I was a little jealous—it wasn’t rational, I was a kid.”

“And now have you found that kind of relationship for yourself with the potential future-Governor?”

There was no way she could answer that and luckily at about that same moment, she spotted one more thing in the cubby and reached in to retrieve a very ragged stuffed dog.

“Oh, Poppy! I’d forgotten all about you,” she said as if she hadn’t heard Dag’s question.

She didn’t know if he recognized that she didn’t want to answer him or just went with the flow, but he didn’t push it. Instead he said, “That is one ratty-looking toy.”

“I know. I carried him around with me, slept with him, played with him—he was my constant companion. When I got too old for that I couldn’t stand the thought that he might get thrown away, so I brought him here with me and put him in the cubby for safekeeping.”

She checked out the old toy, saying as she did, “Poor Poppy, I never sucked my thumb, but I chewed off both of his ears, he lost an eye and his nose, and my mom had to sew the holes. His tail is gone, and his seams split and had to be fixed more times than I can remember—he’s kind of a mess.”

“He looks well loved,” Dag decreed, and Shannon appreciated that that was the perspective he took when she knew that Wes would have been impatient with her sentimentality over it.

But Dag even waited while she hugged it for a moment before she set it down and took the last few items out of the cubby.

“Love notes,” she confided as if they were a deep, dark secret. “This was from the summer I was ten—I was at camp just before I came to see Gramma and I had a sizzling romance with one of the boys there….”

“How sizzling could it have been at ten?”

“Hot, hot, hot!” Shannon said with a laugh. “He sat next to me on movie night and held my hand when the lights went out. And look at these notes—he thought I had nice teeth. And my woven pot holder was the best in the whole class. And he liked my eyes because they match! How much more sizzling do you want it?”

“Oh, yeah, it doesn’t get better than that!” Dag agreed facetiously. “This cubby-thing is a treasure trove.”

“Ah, but it looks like that’s it,” Shannon complained after poking her head into the cubby to make sure. “Now the place is all yours.”

Which struck her with a sudden, unexpected sadness that made her think that maybe she had a few more attachments to her grandmother’s house than she’d originally thought.

But it was done and she knew from the way Dag had talked about his plans for the remodel that he loved the place, so she comforted herself with that—and by petting her old stuffed dog the way she had when she’d needed solace as a kid.

“I’ll get a box for this stuff,” Dag suggested then, as if he knew she could use a minute alone with her things, with the cubby, with the house. She was grateful for that, and once he’d gotten to his feet and left the room, she swiveled around to take one last glance at it.

The wallpaper was gaudy and overwhelming but she still had fond memories of being here with her grandmother on those few visits, of the fact that despite not spending much time here, it had still felt like an extension of home.

“I think he’ll take good care of your house, though, Gramma,” she whispered as if her grandmother might be listening.

Then Dag came back with a cardboard box.

“It must be late—it’s starting to get dark,” Shannon said with a glance out the window as she accepted the box from Dag. “We should probably be going.”

“Probably,” Dag confirmed, holding out a hand to help her to her feet once everything was in the box.

She could have stood without aid but she didn’t want to offend him by refusing, so she accepted the hand up.

“Thanks,” she said, wishing she wasn’t quite so aware of how big and strong and warm his hand was. And how well hers fit into it.

But wishing didn’t make that awareness go away and as soon as she could, she took her hand back. Somehow regretting it when she had—another of those crazy blips, she decided.

Dag seemed completely oblivious to the odd effects he could have on her and once she was on her own again, he bent over and picked up the box. He tucked it neatly under one arm and motioned for her to lead the way out.

“I have a favor to ask you,” Shannon said as they went back downstairs.

“Sure,” Dag responded without hesitation as he set the box from upstairs on top of the two boxes of things he’d been keeping for her in the entryway and picked up all three as if they weighed nothing.

“I can take one of those,” she said before saying more about the favor.

“They aren’t heavy. Just lock the door and pull it closed behind us.”

Shannon did, returning to the subject of the favor as they went toward her car.

“What if the favor I have to ask is something you’ll hate? Shouldn’t you hear what it is before you say sure?” she teased him, having no idea where the flirtatious tone in her voice had come from.

“I think I can handle whatever you dish out,” he flirted back. “What is it?”

As Shannon unlocked the trunk of her car, she said, “When the wedding is over, could you spare some time to go Christmas shopping with me? I bought Chase and Hadley’s wedding gift at a store in Billings where they’d registered, but Christmas gifts are different. I thought I might get an idea what to buy after being with them, and then it occurred to me that since you’re here and you know everyone better than I do, you’d also know what they might like.”

“I could probably do that,” Dag said as he put the boxes in the trunk. “We can go on Sunday—ordinarily not all the shops in town are open on Sundays, but this close to Christmas everything is.”

“I would be eternally grateful.”

“No problem.”

And there would be no scheduling conflicts or meetings or public appearances or other obligations that prevented him from accommodating her request—the things that would have kept Wes from doing it at all. Shannon had become so accustomed to Wes putting her off if she did ask something of him that Dag’s ready agreement seemed unusual to her.

But she didn’t say that. Instead she closed the trunk and headed for the driver’s side of the car. Dag managed to reach it at the same time and leaned around her to open her door.