What Were You Expecting? (4 page)

Until last night.

Last night had changed that.

It was impossible to tell himself that she only saw him as a friend now.

We been circlin’ each other for four-ish years, and I’m tellin’ y’ true. That man needs to bed me or wed me.

He took a deep breath of cold mountain air, hating the surge of hope that followed the memory. Little did Maggie know that “bedding” her was his favorite fantasy. He imagined those green eyes rolling back in her head as he thrust his enormous length into her, making her writhe and tremble as he filled her. He imagined her small, pale body arching and quivering beneath him as he braced his weight over her. In his fantasies she cried out in pleasure. In his delusions she welcomed him, wanted him, took pleasure from him. In his desperate dreams she whispered she loved him as he held her against his pounding heart, as he vowed to never, ever let her go.

He growled softly, hating the way his body tightened, and forced the images from his mind as he had a hundred times before. But this time they wouldn’t be banished completely as he recalled the softness of her skin under his fingertips as he caught her. Her hips and belly against his harder, larger frame as he trapped her against the bar. He ground his jaw, clenching his fingers in frustration.

Bed me or wed me…bed me or wed me…
the words circled in a tantalizing loop in his head.

Bed Maggie?
As much as he’d like to, he liked her too much to ever put
that
on the table. She wasn’t some cheap piece of ass passing through. She wasn’t a candidate for a cheap fling; Maggie was his sister’s friend, a loved and respected family friend and since he couldn’t offer her anything serious or respectable, he’d made a promise to himself not to make a move on her.
Wed Maggie?
He snorted. You only married someone if you wanted to build a life with them…a home, a family with children.

He might never forget Maggie’s words to him last night, but as he turned back toward town, he fervently hoped that she would.

There would never, ever be a bedding.

There would certainly never be a wedding.

All they were able to share was friendship, and since Maggie’s friendship was the brightest spot in Nils’s melancholy life, he would protect it until it drained the last ounce of love from his pitiful existence.

***

Maggie fought not to rest her head on the copper bar in front of her. Between the swirling in her stomach, the pounding in her head and the heaviness of her eyes, she actually considered—for the first time in her three years as sole proprietor of the Prairie Dawn Café & Bookstore—closing early. But she couldn’t very well do that. She’d only opened 30 minutes ago, losing all of the early morning traffic by oversleeping. She glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock in the morning. Ten hours of work to go. She rubbed her stomach and groaned.

She hated blacking out from drinking too much. She wasn’t comfortable with missing pieces of a night, although she consoled herself that Paul was the safest possible companion in such cases. Her mother had relentlessly reminded her throughout her somewhat wild adolescence that her father had passed away from cirrhosis at a young age, and though Maggie might not have inherited his genes, she could still have a predisposition for over-imbibing based on his example. It’s true that Maggie liked her drink; since high school, when she’d started sneaking beers with friends, she’d liked how it felt to be drunk. And it was May Day, for goodness sake! She shrugged defensively—she hadn’t hurt anyone, now, had she? Of course not. She was only celebrating. She’d gotten home safely. And she was careful her occasional binges didn’t get in the way of her business or friendships.

“It’s harmless,” she insisted aloud in a whisper, as she added cream to her coffee, her usual conviction missing from her voice.

If it’s so harmless, why is last night sittin’ so funny in yer gut?
nagged the voice in her head that always plagued her on hung-over mornings.

She reviewed the evening in her head. She and Paul had followed the crowd to the Blue Moon and settled in on their favorite bar stools. She’d been cajoled to offer toasts over and over again, chugging her own beer with abandon every time. After the third or fourth, her memories were pretty fuzzy because she’d been good and stottered.

She sipped her coffee, trying to remember more details. They’d drank beers, shouted toasts, danced to the tunes on the jukebox and—bollocks! She grimaced as she recalled what happened next.

“Oh, no…” she groaned, wincing and shaking her head. Nils Lindstrom. Nils was there. Oh, Lord, Nils had saved her from falling flat on her face.

Aye. And there ’tis
, murmured the nagging voice in victory.

She’d acted like an unholy eidgit and Nils had come to her rescue. Resting her cheek in her palm, she felt her face soften as she remembered the feeling of his front pressed against her back, caging her against the bar as she regained her balance. But she gritted her teeth as she recalled his curt warning to Paul to “do a better job looking out for her.” And then he’d left. Walked away from her…like he always did.

Of course he did. Why would he stay wit’ ye actin’ the drunkard fer all t’ town t’ see?

And there it was again, as always. The crushing feeling that despite the way she felt about Nils Lindstrom—despite the way she’d felt about him for years—he simply didn’t feel the same way about her, and the sheer force of her feelings wasn’t enough to make him see her as a woman, to make him see her as more than a friend.

Refreshing her coffee, she leaned her elbows on the bar and looked blearily out at the few patrons sipping coffee and reading books or newspapers as the mid-morning sun filtered in through the windows cheerfully.

Mismatched tile-topped bistro tables—more suited to the Amalfi coast than a small bookstore in Montana—dotted the shiny hard wood floor. Several comfy chairs and two loveseats with cheerful, though worn, slipcovers invited patrons to enjoy their coffee while flipping through one of the bookstore’s many available titles. Soft folk music by a popular new band played softly on the overhead speakers and the rich, warm smell of coffee beans and baked scones greeted every customer who entered the Prairie Dawn.

Maggie had inherited the café from her Aunt Lily, her mother’s eldest sister, three and a half years ago when she passed away. Lily, who read about Yellowstone National Park in a magazine and promptly left Scotland thirty years ago determined to find an adventure, had certainly found one. Upon arriving in Gardiner, Montana, she’d met Jock Henry, a local man who worked as park ranger. Jock was twenty years older than skinny, fire-haired Lily, but he’d fallen in love with her at first sight. And once Lily set her sights on Jock? It was futile to resist. Lily Frazier was used to getting what she wanted, and Jock was on her short list.

When Maggie was fourteen, she’d happened upon a shoebox in her mother’s closet with hundreds of letters from Lily that illustrated, in great detail, her campaign to win the heart of Jock Henry. And Maggie was captivated. Utterly captivated. Not just with the story of how her aunt and uncle found their way to one another, but of the descriptions Lily shared of Montana, of Yellowstone, of Gardiner. And like her adventuresome aunt, young Maggie was determined to find an adventure of her own.

She’d even brought the letters with her when she ventured to Montana, hoping that Lily would help her put them in order—maybe even put them together as a book, a memoir. But by the time Maggie had arrived in Gardiner, Lily was too sick to do much but train Maggie to take over the Prairie Dawn. She was gone a few months later and Maggie had never mustered the nerve to talk to her aunt about her short, sweet love affair. Nor had Maggie looked at the letters since losing her aunt, keeping them carefully in a box in the top, far corner of her closet, unopened and untouched, as if in memorial.

The phone on the counter behind her rang way too loudly, and Maggie jumped then winced as her head pounded in response. She took a bracing sip of coffee before turning around to answer it. As she picked up the old-fashioned receiver, the curly yellow cord brushed against a pile of mail and the top envelope fell between the countertop and the wall. She sighed in frustration. Could absolutely nothing go her way today?

“Prairie Dawn,” she growled into the phone, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.

“Ouch,” said Paul and Maggie grimaced.

“That’s about the size of it, laddie.”

“You hurting bad, Mags?”

“There should be a law that you can only have May Day on a Saturday. It’s cruel and unusual when it falls on a Sunday.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you have to go to work with a scorchin’ hangover for the rest of the week.” She leaned back against the counter as Paul chuckled lightly.

“Masochist,” she growled at him. “Why aren’t you feelin’ worse? You were as drunk as me!”

“Not even close. Nobody on the face of the earth was as drunk as you were last night, Mags. And don’t call me names. I’m the good friend calling to check up on you. Making sure Nils got you home safely last night.”

“Ha! That’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny.”

“Wait. What?” Her green eyes flew open in a panic and her whole body tensed with this information, an uncomfortable feeling unfurling inside her body. She had no memory of Nils walking her home. In fact, she had no memory of getting home, and certainly no memory of seeing Nils after he caught her from falling.

“What’re you on about, Paul?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. “
You
walked me home like you always do.”

“Most of the way. But we ran into Nils at the Prairie and he finished the job. I’d left my wallet at the…”

Paul kept talking, but Maggie didn’t hear a word of it. Nils had walked her home? Nils had somehow gotten her up the stairs and into bed? Her mind scrambled for memories, but came up blank. Suddenly her mouth dropped open and her face flushed hot as she realized:
I wore jeans and a sweater to May Day and I woke up in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear.

“Paul. Paul! Stop talkin’!” Her heart thumped like an ancient ritual drum and she tried not to hyperventilate as she got her mind around this information. “Are you sayin’ that Nils put me…to bed?”

“That’s a safe bet. I doubt you could’ve gotten there on your own. Maybe if you’d crawled—”

“But, I—” She sobbed once aloud, though her eyes were dry and demanded, “Why?”

“I had to go back for my wallet and he offered to give you a hand. Simple as that.”

Her stomach flipped over again, but this time it had less to do with her hangover and more to do with that terrible sinking feeling that came from blacking out. She’d spent enough time with Nils to go from the sidewalk in front of the café into her bed, and yet she couldn’t remember anything
—anything
—she’d said or done the night before. But even though she couldn’t remember, she had that feeling…that sick, panicked feeling that she’d done something wrong or said too much.

The wages of sin, Maggie
, said the mocking voice.

“Listen, the bell’s about to ring. I just wanted to be sure—”

“Wait! Wait.” She hated having to ask the next question, but if she didn’t she’d torment herself all day trying to put together the pieces. Did she owe Nils an apology? Had she ranted and raved at him? Made an ass of herself? “What might I have said to him?”

“I have no idea. You weren’t making any sense on our walk from the Blue Moon. You suggested you could swim home at one point. You insisted you were always fun while almost face-planting over a pothole.” He paused and she held her breath. “You were talking about how it would’ve been easier if you’d fallen in love with me.”

Her heart dropped. Not because of what she’d said to Paul, because of what it implied. It would’ve been easier to fall in love with Paul instead of…

“Mags, are you asking me if you were going on about Nils? Sort of, I guess, but not really. Well, maybe just a little about how he doesn’t see you as anything but a friend.”

“Oh, lord.” Her eyes closed slowly and she cringed. “I was, wasn’t I? I was going on about Nils while you were walkin’ me home. I was talkin’ about him.”

Paul paused before offering a soft, “Really, you weren’t making much sense. I promise.”

She bent her head forward in misery, stopping just short of banging it repeatedly on the bar. What in the hell did she say to Nils in those few minutes? And why did she have the feeling she’d regret it if she knew? Anger and frustration rose up inside of her, and she directed it at Paul.

“How could you let him walk me home? How could you do that!” she demanded, lowering her voice low as a patron turned to look over at her. She hissed, “I have no idea what I might’ve said to him. I could’ve— You know how I…I mean, you know that I—”

“Not to make your head ache any more than it already does, Maggie, but maybe you should think about easing up on the beer-chugging a little? I stopped at four and you were still going strong at six. Listen, third period is starting, I have to go, but don’t worry. I’m sure it’s fine. You were so blitzed, he wouldn’t have taken you seriously anyway, no matter what you said. Chill out and drink a lot of water today.”