The Runaway Bridesmaid

A gravelly voice drifted out from the back as soon as Trevor walked through the door. “You’re late.”

“Oh, I know. I stopped to help some woman out on the county road.”

“Car trouble?” Sam appeared in his office doorway, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Just hopelessly lost in some rattletrap car.” Trevor’s eyes were glued to Sam’s cup. “Any of that left?”

When Sam nodded, Trevor crossed to Darla’s work area to pour himself some. He took a sip and winced. Sam might be a master at mixing protein meal for his cattle, but he couldn’t remember how many scoops of coffee to put in a pot. Today he’d overshot by about two.

“Problem?” Sam scanned Trevor’s face.

“This is fine.”

Sam leaned his gaunt frame against the door sill. “You are really, really late. What’d you have to do, draw the woman a detailed map of the entire state?”

“No, I showed her the way on her map. That’s all.”

Sam held his gaze, then one side of his mouth lifted. “Must’ve been a looker.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re surly.”

Trevor lifted his cup. “Nah, caffeine just hasn’t had time to take effect.”

“This is more than a normal morning grump. If you hadn’t been interested in this woman, you’d be telling me all about what happened on that highway.” Sam narrowed his gaze, studying him. “I’m thinking she was a red-hot redhead.”

Ignoring him, Trevor took another sip of coffee and repressed the grimace when it went down.

“Exotic looking? Black hair?”

He didn’t bat an eyelash.

“A blond princess?”

“More like a sleeping beauty,” Trevor blurted. “She spoke openly to me, as if I were her brother or husband, and she was almost abnormally naive.”

“And you liked her.”

Trevor rolled his eyes. “Lord, Sam. Is this junior high?”

“Was that a yes, my cynical friend?” Sam’s tanned cheeks formed two deep crevices when he smiled.

Trevor scowled. Sam had been the world’s biggest cynic until he’d fallen for Darla. Now he’d decided he had some obligation to pull Trevor into romantic bliss alongside him. The guy had been nudging him toward women constantly, and he’d been way too interested in Trevor’s weekends.

“Did you get her number, bud?”

Sighing, Trevor strode into his office.

“What about her name?” Sam asked from beyond the wall.

“Just settle yourself down, Sam. She was a tourist. I’ll never see her again.”

Sam fell silent, thank God.

Trevor set the cup on top of his file cabinet and pulled out a topographic map, refusing to think about the woman another second.

He’d never been the type to start up with anyone he couldn’t afford to know well. His parents had been expert at that—between the two of them they’d been married six times. Several of those marriages had lasted less than a year, and several had produced children.

Trevor had eight stepsiblings between the ages of two and his own thirty-two. Except for the toddler, they all had commitment issues.

Not him, though. He stuck with long-term, noncontractual relationships with women who appreciated his realistic view of marriage. He’d been with Martie for four years and Christina for three. Chris had moved on five months ago, and Trevor hadn’t found his next serious girlfriend, yet.

But he would. And they’d have fun and no regrets.

Clearing a spot on his desk, Trevor moved his cup there, then carried the map around to sit and study it. Five college-age counselors would be arriving in three days, requiring a week of intensive training. The following Monday, twenty-six younger boys would arrive, and those were merely the first-session campers. By the end of the next seven weeks, ninety-six boys in various stages of adolescence would have rotated in and out of here. As director of the camp, Trevor needed to be ready.

He lifted the map, forcing himself to think about day hikes and climbing excursions.

“Hey, Trev?”

“Yeah.”

“What color was that rattletrap?”

He froze in his seat for a moment. Then he got up and walked out to the front office, where Sam stood gazing out the screen door. A tan car was pulling into the drive. Trevor watched it slow to a stop behind his Jeep.

When that shoe hit the ground beneath the car door, he knew it was her. Maybe she was lost again.

“Sam, I’ll give you twenty bucks to go out there and give her directions to Longmont. I’m behind on work.”

Sam didn’t answer immediately. Probably because he was preoccupied, watching the leggy brunette get out of the car. “Your sleeping beauty?” he asked.

“She’s not mine, but yeah.”

“She doesn’t look lost now.” Sam’s chuckle got on Trevor’s nerves.

“She said she was going to Longmont,” Trevor said.

“Darla’s friend is arriving this weekend sometime,” Sam reminded him. “Isabel Blume? From Kansas?”

Isabel Blume, from…Kansas.

The lost woman was Darla’s good friend? Trevor would never have suspected. Darla wore leather boots, sturdy jeans and a short haircut that’d require little fuss while she worked around the ranch. She was as good as Trevor and Sam at following a trail and better at fires and fishing.

Trevor couldn’t imagine the lost woman doing any of those things. Hadn’t Darla said her friend was coming to help wherever she was needed, so Sam and Darla’s dadgum July wedding could be saved?

“Your fiancée didn’t tell me her friend was so…”