The Bachelor's Northbridge Bride

No question about it, he had more than enough to keep him busy with all of that.

And there was also this Hector Tyson guy he had to look up, the guy who had taken unfair advantage of the young Theresa and who now had a lot to answer for, a lot Ry was determined to make him answer for.

Plus, along those same lines, there was the mystery from his grandmother’s past that he and his siblings were trying to solve once and for all—he’d promised to get into that, too, to try to figure out what exactly it was that his grandmother claimed had been taken from her, what exactly it was that she’d come to Northbridge to reclaim. If it might be more than the land Tyson had done her out of. If it might actually be a lost child…

And of course there was his massage tonight….

From Kate Perry.

There hadn’t been any shortage of thoughts about her to occupy him since he’d first set eyes on her yesterday. Even though he wished they would stop coming.

But damn, what a beauty she was! He’d already known that Northbridge had more than its fair share of pretty women from the abundance of them at Wyatt’s wedding. But Kate Perry? He’d hardly been able to believe his eyes when he’d gotten his first glimpse of her. And even though she’d been coming down the aisle between two sections of folding chairs in his grandmother’s old house, his first thought was that she could have been a vision emerging from a mist on an Irish countryside.

Not that he had any idea if she was even Irish. It was just her coloring that made him think Irish lass—that incredible, lush, thick red hair and that pale alabaster skin. Add to it the delicate lines of her nose and apple-colored cheeks, and the pure elegance of her jaw, and she looked more like she was made of porcelain than skin and bone.

Then her compact, posture-perfect, curves-in-all-the-right-places self had reached the makeshift altar where the ceremony was to be held. And in casting her eyes back the way she’d come to watch for the remainder of the bridesmaids and the bride, they’d briefly touched on him where he’d stood with Noah and some of the other groomsmen across the aisle.

But the glance had been just long enough for him to see that her eyes weren’t merely blue, they weren’t merely green; they were a perfect combination of the two—like the mingling of sea and sky. Bright, vibrant, almost electric—they were amazing eyes to complete the picture of a truly, amazingly beautiful woman.

Just the memory was enough to take his breath away a little.

One look at her at that moment and everything else—every other person in the room—including his sister walking down the aisle—every sound, every note of the music being played, every scent of perfume and flowers, everything had faded into a blur as the only clear image he’d had, the only thing he’d been aware of, was Kate Perry.

It was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him.

Of course he’d shaken it off and poured his concentration back into the wedding. But as he sat there at the breakfast table Monday morning, taking another drink of his coffee, he still couldn’t help thinking about it, thinking about her. And how it was slightly unnerving to have had such a powerful first reaction to her.

But regardless of how powerful or weird it had been, it was meaningless, he told himself. She might be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on, but she wasn’t the kind of woman he meshed with and that had been brought home to him as they’d talked at the reception.

The kind of woman he meshed with was full of life, free-spirited, lively and adventurous, outgoing and game for anything—like him. The kind of woman he meshed with would have flirted audaciously with him when Marti had introduced them. She would never have taken seriously his joking about her occupation, and probably would have shot back a few innuendos of her own.

But a prim reverend’s granddaughter? A woman who held herself so stiff and straight she could have had a pole running up the zipper of her bridesmaid’s dress? A woman who not only hadn’t found the fact that he’d been hurt on a skateboard funny, but who had given him the impression that she thought it was just a stupid, childish thing to have done? A woman who was that reserved and subdued and stuffy?

Huh-uh. No thanks.

He’d tried it with a few women like that, and he knew they were not for him. That his personality, the way he liked to live his life, clashed with theirs and their expectations of who he should be and how he should behave.

So even if Kate Perry was a beauty, even if he had gotten a kick out of the verbal back-and-forth with her and the evidence that she was clearly nobody’s fool, he wasn’t interested.

Besides, there was also the fact that she lived in Northbridge and that she was Marti’s sister-in-law.

Northbridge was not a place he wanted to be tethered to any more than he had to be to take care of his grandmother.

And messing with an in-law’s sibling? He’d already been dumb enough to hook up with someone with that kind of family connection—Wyatt’s first wife’s sister. And when it didn’t work out? Backlash and awkwardness to spare. Not to mention strain on his relationship with Wyatt.

So as far as he was concerned, Kate Perry was a no-go all the way around.

Well, except that she was doing his massage tonight.

If he didn’t have to have his shoulder loosened up so it didn’t hurt like hell, he would cancel that appointment—there was no question about it.

But he really needed the massage, no matter who was giving it; otherwise, he was going to have to pop pain pills and he didn’t want to do that.

Still, he was a little worried about what might happen—purely involuntarily—when someone who looked like Kate Perry touched him.

But he just had to suck it up and have the massage.

Maybe if he kept reminding himself over and over again just how not-for-him Kate Perry was, it would help.

But just in case it didn’t, he was keeping his pants on and letting her deal with the shoulder and nothing but the shoulder.

Get in there, get it done, get out.

That was what Kate told herself as she stood outside the door to the treatment room in the office she shared with the local chiropractor.

The receptionist had just taken Ry Grayson to the treatment room, given him his instructions and left for the day. The chiropractor wasn’t in on Mondays. That meant that there were now only two people in the office—Kate and Ry Grayson, who was waiting for his massage.

A massage that would be no different than any massage she’d ever given because he was just a client, she told herself.

So why was she dreading it so much?

Or was she feeling something else?

No, it was dread. It had to be dread. Why would it be anything else? Anything like excitement to see him again?

It wouldn’t be.

And even if it was, she wasn’t having any part of it.

She was husband-hunting. She wanted what she’d always wanted—to find the one man she could build her life with. The one man who would want what she wanted—to get married, to buy a house, to settle down and have a family, to raise that family together. And she was tired of being distracted from that goal by men who ultimately—even if they said it was what they wanted—didn’t want that same thing.

Steady, stable, serious, rock solid—that was the kind of man she was looking for. Someone who was clear in his convictions, who knew himself and what he wanted. Someone like her.

Certainly, someone who wouldn’t mislead her into thinking he did want what she wanted and then just string her along.

And any man who gave her the slightest indication that that wasn’t who he was, absolutely was not a contender. Absolutely was not someone she was putting an ounce of energy or a minute of her time into. Because doing that three—three—times was enough. More than enough—three engagements that ended short of the altar were more than any one person’s limit.

So no more fly-by-nights.

Or, as in the case of Ry Grayson and his arrival for yesterday’s wedding, no more fly-by-days, either.

His own sister had said that he was just a kid at heart, that she didn’t think he would ever grow up. And even if Kate hadn’t had a preconceived belief that that was the kind of man he was, Marti saying it was a glaring warning that Kate was not taking lightly. In fact, she didn’t need any more confirmation than that to cement Ry Grayson on the do-not-touch-with-a-ten-foot-pole list.

So, all right, maybe he had gotten to her a little at the wedding and maybe that was why what she was feeling could possibly be excitement at the prospect of seeing him again. Opening up to her, letting her know he liked her brother, confiding his feelings about his sister’s late fiancé—there was no denying that the man could be charming and appealing.

But she’d learned—three times—that charm and appeal didn’t get her to the altar. And she couldn’t let charm or appeal blind her again. She had a goal, she was unwavering in her pursuit of that goal and that was all there was to it. She absolutely would not allow herself to be waylaid by anyone she honestly didn’t believe was a potential life partner.

And when it came to this massage, she was a professional and she could do this and keep it purely in that arena—business as usual. And no business-as-usual massage excited her.