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Her chin lifted defiantly. “One, you wouldn’t get lost because I’m betting you know this entire mountain like the back of your hand. And two, I’m not scared of Texas wildlife—I grew up with it.” She wiggled restlessly in his arms, prompting an even fiercer rush of blood to his lower body. “So forget trying to scare me into behaving the way you want me to behave...’cause I am not going with you!”
Not without a fight, anyway, he amended silently. Seething with an aggravation paramount to hers, he set her down. Trapping her slender frame between his big body and the broad, rough trunk of a century-old tree. “Okay, then we’ll wait.”
She studied him with glittering sea blue eyes. “For what?”
“You. To calm down.”
Her glare deepened.
“And convince me that indulging in your diva drama is the right thing.” When he was pretty damned sure, even without knowing all the details, that it wasn’t.
She ripped off her tiara and veil. A scattering of pins followed, unleashing a riot of chocolate-brown curls that looked every bit as silky and delectable as the rest of her. “It is not diva drama!”
Aware this would have been amusing under any other circumstances, he took in the erotic disarray of her shoulder-length mane and tried not to think about what it would be like to kiss her. “Then what was it?” he asked, resisting the urge to reach out and restore some order to the unleashed strands.
Her lower lip trembled, and she offered a tight, officious smile. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, finally.
And suddenly, he wanted to do just that. Which was odd, given he usually had little to no interest in other people’s private business. Warning himself to get it together, Hart turned his attention away from her lusciously soft lips to the gradually slowing pulse in her throat. “I might. We’ll never know unless you try me.”
Another silence fell, this one more fraught with tension than the last.
Maggie pressed her lips together, took another deep breath and folded her arms across her chest. “I just can’t get married,” she confessed with another slow shake of her pretty head. She looked at him again, almost beseechingly this time. “I thought I could...but I can’t.”
Hart had seen that kind of unease before...in his own ex-fiancée. As he recalled, Alicia had been just as confused then as Maggie was now. “Why can’t you?” he prodded, pushing away his own unhappy memories of a breakup he hadn’t seen coming.
“Because I don’t have it in me to promise to do one thing—like marry Gus—for the rest of my life.”
On the surface, her excuse sounded shallow.
Going a little deeper...
Hart thought about the relief he’d eventually felt when his own nuptials had been cancelled. The knowledge that what he had initially interpreted as disaster was really a very good thing in the end. “So what if you don’t?” he countered, not about to judge her for that.
She peered at him curiously. “You’re telling me that you don’t believe in marriage, either...?”
Like her, he’d initially thought he did. Only to be saved by his bride-to-be, who’d had the good sense to call off a relationship that never would have lasted over the long haul, given their very different natures.
“No,” he admitted abruptly, aware his ex had been right about one thing. He was too restless to ever settle down in one place for very long. “I don’t.”
Maggie blinked. She leaned closer in a drift of intoxicating perfume. “But your family owns a wedding business! How can you not believe in happily-ever-afters?”
Good question, Hart thought. And one his parents repeatedly asked him. Aware this wasn’t the time to be discussing his issues, however, he moved the conversation back to her dilemma.
“Look, I don’t know what happened to cause all this craziness. But I do know you can’t keep running. Your family will forgive you...” They were, after all, part of the Texas McCabe clan, a family known for their devotion to one another.
Maggie scoffed “I don’t think so. Don’t forget. I didn’t just ruin my wedding, I ruined my twin sister’s nuptials, too.”
“Not necessarily.” At her astonished look, he continued, “I think Callie and Seth went on with it.” At least he hoped they had. “And you have to go back.”
“I agree,” a low male voice said.
Maggie and Hart turned.
Gus Radcliffe stood at the top of the ravine. He looked the way Hart had felt the moment he got the “I Can’t Do This After All” speech from his fiancée. Like he’d had the stuffing kicked out of him.
The dark-haired groom made his way down to where they were standing. “Come on, Maggie. I know you’re mad at me for what I said after the rehearsal dinner, but you can’t end a seven-year relationship over one difference of opinion.”
They’d been together that long? Hart thought in shock. He tried to imagine it. Couldn’t.
Maggie scowled. “I’m not.”
Gus harrumphed in frustration. “Running out in the middle of the ceremony says you are. So, Magnolia, if your aim was to put me on notice for not being enthusiastic enough about your plans for our future, consider it done.”
Ouch, Hart thought.
Maggie recoiled in shock, but fought back, just as fast. “Contrary to the way you seem to be remembering things, Gus, I never forced you into this. Or anything else, for that matter.”
Her beau regarded Maggie skeptically. “Actually, you and your twin kind of did. Not that I’m protesting.” Gus lifted a hand. “It never hurts to be practical, financially. And the truth is, you and I were destined to get married anyway. Might as well save your parents the cost of yet another wedding—when they still have four more ahead of them. While,” he added importantly, “simultaneously letting you and Callie continue your tradition of doing everything together, as twins. Before that, too, comes to an end.”
Hart watched as Maggie hauled in a deep breath. “Except I no longer want to do this,” she pointed out.
Gus snorted and stood his ground. “I think you do. I think you’re scared about the enormity of the commitment, same as me.” His voice dropped consolingly. “But the thing is, Maggie, even if we disagree about a few of the fundamentals—”
“A few very important fundamentals.”
“—we have to get married if we’re going to start having kids together, the way we planned.”
Maggie’s slender shoulders lifted in another careless shrug. “You and I don’t have to be married for either of us to have kids, Gus.”
“Meaning what?” Gus asked, clearly hurt. “You still want them, just not with me?”
A telltale silence fell. Maggie shivered, despite the heat of the late June day. “All I’m asserting is that it would be a huge error to bring children into an uncertain situation or an ill-fated marriage. Everyone knows that.”
“That’s the thing, Maggie,” Gus returned quietly. “I don’t think—despite our disagreement last night—that the two of us are making a mistake, getting hitched. And I certainly don’t think we should let all the hard work and money we put into our nuptials be for naught. I think we owe everyone, especially our families, more than that.”
There was another beat of silence. Finally, she lifted her hands guiltily. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be letting everyone down. And I should have realized how you felt long before now.” She paused to work off her diamond engagement ring and forced it into Gus’s hand. “Because if I had, I never would have said yes to your proposal. And if you had known how I felt about what our future should look like, you never would have asked me to marry you, either.”
Gus palmed the ring she had given him. Finally, he seemed to recognize the truth of that. He sighed, slid the diamond in the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket, then paused to look Maggie in the eye. “So you really don’t want to go through with it?”
“I just can’t,” Maggie said softly. “Surely you understand that.”
Even though Hart disagreed with the reckless, hurtful way Maggie McCabe was breaking her engagement, he had to admire her resolve. He had always liked a woman who was strong enough to stand up for what she wanted.
Squaring his shoulders, Gus looked at Maggie in grim resignation. “Then I’ll go tell everyone.” He headed off in the direction of the music from the string quartet.
Maggie turned back to Hart. Her elegant features were taut with a mixture of relief, guilt and grief. But mostly relief, Hart noted.
“Now, will you please take me back to the Double Knot ranch house?” Maggie asked.
It was Hart’s turn to hesitate. “You’re sure you don’t want to go with Gus and make the announcement with him?” he prompted. “If we hurry, we could still catch up.”
Maggie shook her head, abruptly an ice princess through and through. To the point Hart wondered what it would take to break down the impervious shield around her heart and find the real, unguarded woman underneath.
“Gus can handle it,” she claimed with an indignant huff, thrusting out her kissably-soft, pink lower lip.
“True. But should he have to?” Maggie gave him another long, debilitating look that only made him want to kiss her even more.
With effort, Hart ignored the man-woman tension suddenly shimmering between them. Since when had he started thinking about what it would be like to chase some other guy’s runaway bride? But here he was, wondering what it would be like to haul her close enough to feel her soft, sexy body pressed up against his and make that pout of hers disappear...
Maggie appeared to tense. “Look, Hart, I don’t expect you to understand where I’m coming from here...but the fact is, I don’t want to deal with our families when they’re this upset with me.” She folded her arms, gave him another pointed glance. “I’d rather face them after we’ve all had time to cool off—that way there’s less of a chance of anyone saying something they can’t take back.”
That much, Hart did understand.
He had some air-clearing of his own to do with his parents, at evening’s end. Worse, the news he’d come there to tell them would not be received happily. Which meant, like Maggie, he would likely be parting company with his folks tomorrow morning on less than ideal terms.
In the clearing above them, the music stopped abruptly, mid-tune.
Aware that his job—when he was at the ranch, helping out his parents—was to assist in seeing that every celebration held there went as flawlessly as possible, Hart tried to comfort Maggie. “I get wanting to run from unpleasant confrontations.” He took another step closer. “But you’re going to have to face the consequences sometime.” He gave her a chance to ponder that notion. “Sooner rather than later might be easier.” Ignoring his outstretched hand and offer of escort back to the party, Maggie flattened her palm across the center of his chest, and gave him a decisive push back, not stopping until he was well out of the bubble of her personal space.
“And I will offer my heartfelt apologies eventually,” she vowed. “But I am not going to do it until I figure out how I’m going to honor my own obligations and reimburse everyone for their time, trouble and expense.”
Accepting financial responsibility was a good first step to moving on from a pretty big mistake.
The sight of her in full, glorious temper—about to be a single lady again—was even better.
Appearing oblivious to the undeniable desire welling deep within Hart, she lifted a finger. Her gesture drew his attention to the lush fullness of her breasts, pressing against the tight, beaded bodice of her wedding dress.
“Because Gus was correct about one thing. We can’t let our families pay for a wedding that never actually happened. And since I’m the one who called it off at the very last moment, I’m the one who’s got to figure out a way to make things right. Not just for me,” she murmured softly, looking long and deep into Hart’s eyes, “but for everyone.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_1f73855c-1c04-5e52-97b2-d57c1e32b76d)
Two years later...
“The prodigal son of Sanders Mountain is coming home. Today?” Callie Grimes asked.
Maggie settled into her desk chair at the Double Knot ranch house and pressed the phone to her ear. She and her twin sister might live two hundred miles apart, but they were still as close as ever. Whether she needed a sympathetic ear or someone to roll ideas off of, Callie was who she called. And when the widowed Callie needed a shoulder to lean on, Maggie was there for her, too. “That’s what the message on the office voice mail said.”
Just to be sure, she’d played it back several times, listening to the deep, husky timbre of Hart Sanders’s voice while tremors of awareness went up and down her spine.
Deliberately, Maggie pushed away the memory of the last time she and Hart had seen each other. Although that momentous encounter would forever be emblazoned in her mind, she was no longer just considered a runaway bride around here. In fact, she was a valued employee-slash-Jill-of-all-trades who had also managed to work off her portion of the botched wedding. It had been important to her that her parents not be left saddled with that. Almost as important as finding a place where she could heal, away from the inquiring eyes and minds of her family. And the fact that she had helped out Fiona and Frank Sanders, in turn, after Hart had departed for a job in Los Angeles, was of comfort to her, too.
Clueless to Maggie’s musing, Callie continued her inquisition. “And you’re there alone?”
“Temporarily.” She bit her lip. “I mean, I have prospective clients coming in later.” But not until after Hart had indicated he would be arriving.
Callie’s momentary silence indicated she was not fooled. “You’re not going to bare your soul to him again...are you?” her sister persisted above the happy babbling of her one-year-old son, Brian.
Maggie barely stifled a groan. “Callie!”
“The last time you were alone with Hart Sanders was on your wedding day. And you poured your heart out to him then.”
Don’t remind me. I can’t stop thinking about that day as it is. How kind he was. How sexy, how male. How personable, despite all the drama...
Never had she felt such pure animal attraction to another human being.
“I told you that was a mistake.” Maggie pressed a palm to her flushed skin. “I was overwrought.”
Callie laughed. “Don’t you mean turned-on?”
Maggie drew a deep breath. Leave it to her twin to intuit her deepest, darkest fantasies. She massaged the tension from her temples. “I am not having this conversation with you.”
“Mmm-hmm. Methinks my sister doth protest too much.”
“Oh, please,” Maggie huffed. “Stop conjuring up romance for me and go back to your adorable baby boy—”
Maggie heard the back door to the office complex open and shut. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and spoke quietly into the phone. “And here he is.”
“You call me later! I want a full report!”
Her pulse racing, Maggie quickly put the phone down. She sat forward in her chair and went back to tackling yet another prenuptial task for a client. And not a second too soon, either, as firm male footsteps and the sound of something being rolled—maybe a cart?— followed. Seconds later, a familiar face appeared in the portal.
Maggie blinked at the sight of the ruggedly handsome ex-soldier. Although she and Hart had talked—or was it flirted?—from time to time on the phone when he “accidentally” called her extension, she’d never imagined what it might be like for them to actually come face-to-face again.
“Hey.” Ignoring the jolt of excitement coursing through her, Maggie rushed to fill the awkward silence. “What are you doing here?” she asked cheerfully.
Message or not, it wasn’t like Hart to just drop in. Particularly since he and his parents had barely been on speaking terms the last couple of years.
In fact, things had been so tense between Hart and his folks since he had taken a job in Los Angeles that the two times Hart had returned to the ranch, Maggie’d taken advantage of the prior notice and arranged to visit her own family until Hart was gone.
No such luck now, though, Maggie thought, still feeling a little embarrassed to square off with the man who had chased her down on what admittedly had been the worst day of her life. Not that Hart seemed to be thinking about that, Maggie noted cautiously. Or anything else remotely connected to her, thank heaven.
Apparently oblivious to the conflicted feelings welling up within her, Hart faced her across the cluttered surface of her desk. Clad in an expensive olive green button-up, nice-fitting khaki pants and boots, he looked handsome and sexy. His sandy brown hair was still cut short enough to require little in the way of maintenance, although it was more stylish now. The taut, masculine angles of his face had been left unshaven. He also appeared unusually contained and exceptionally tired around the eyes, like he’d been travelling for what seemed forever to get there. Which, given the fact he accompanied his famous boss, Hollywood movie actress Monica Day, wherever her work took her, could certainly be the case.
“I came to see my folks,” he said. Every taut inch of his tall, imposing frame was poised and ready in a way she’d never seen before. “Are they around?”
Maggie studied the sticky-sweet smear of what looked like apple juice on the shoulder of his expensive shirt, and lower still, what looked like ground-in-cracker debris. Maybe it had been a long flight. Maybe he’d sat next to...well, what did it matter.
Aware he was still in need of an answer, she said, “Ah—actually, no. Your mom and dad are on a cruise to New Zealand and Australia.”
Briefly, Hart appeared stunned. “When will they be back?”
Maggie shifted her gaze upward, over the strong suntanned neck, to his intense sable brown eyes. He had the same devastating impact on her that he’d had the first time they’d met. “Ten days.”
His brow furrowed in a way that said he was anything but pleased about that.
Maggie fought back her attraction and pushed on, “I gather you’ve got some time off, too?”
“A little over two weeks, yeah.” He shrugged his broad shoulders restively. “I had something important—” He sighed. “I wanted to surprise them.”
