The Groom's Stand-In

Chloe couldn’t believe Donovan was standing there on her parents’ walkway, looking at her as though she had materialized from thin air in front of him. Her first instinct was to run toward him, to throw herself into his arms. But he looked so stern and stiff that she wasn’t entirely sure he would catch her if she did.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again when he didn’t answer the first time.

“I was just about to ask you the same question.”

She tilted her head curiously. “You didn’t know I was here?”

“I had no idea.”

He looked wonderful, she couldn’t help noticing as she tried to process his words. His hair looked freshly cut—though that recalcitrant lock still fell forward on his forehead—and the dark hollows of pain were gone from his clean-shaven face. His left foot was encased in a leather slip-on shoe, and his right foot was wrapped in a cast designed for walking. He wore a designer shirt and crisply tailored chinos, but he had looked just as good to her in the ill-fitting garments he’d borrowed from that trailer. “I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

“I came with Bryan. He’s thinking about buying this place.”

That made her frown deepen. “This place isn’t for sale. It belongs to my parents.”

“Your parents?” Donovan looked as confused as she was now. “Are you sure they don’t want to sell it?”

“I’m positive. They would have told me if they were. They knew Grace and I were coming here today—they certainly would have mentioned if it was for sale.”

“Grace is here, too?” Donovan looked around as if he expected to see her twin lurking behind a tree nearby.

“She’s in the house. Didn’t you see her?”

“No. Bryan and I were just in the house. Bryan let us in with a key. No one was there.”

“Bryan has a key to my parents’ vacation house?” This situation was getting stranger by the minute. “I think we’d better go find out what’s going on.”

Donovan nodded. “I think you’re right.”

She bent to pick up her fly rod. She hadn’t been in the mood to fish, anyway. She’d spent the time since she’d walked down here gazing at the water and thinking about Donovan. And then to turn and see him standing there—as if her thoughts had conjured him—well, she was still half in shock.

He waited for her to pass him. She noticed as he followed her that he was walking well, hardly limping at all despite the cast. She couldn’t stop look

ing at him, though she tried to be subtle about it. Yet every time she shot a glance at him, she found him looking back at her as if he was also having trouble looking away.

Reaching the back deck of the house, she propped her rod against the railing, then unlaced and removed her waterproof boots. She unbuckled the belt and suspenders of her stocking-foot waders, and peeled off the shapeless garment to reveal the pink tank top and denim shorts. She was entirely too aware of Donovan watching her every move. She felt as self-conscious as if she were doing a striptease for him, though fishing waders and denim shorts hardly qualified as sexy clothing.

She’d left a pair of pink flip-flops lying beside a chair on the deck; she slipped her feet into them and opened the French doors that led into the house. “Grace?” she called out as she entered with Donovan on her heels.

The house was eerily quiet. Obviously empty. She frowned. “That’s odd. Maybe they’re on the front porch.”

She crossed the main room rapidly and opened the front door. Not only were there no people on the porch, but there were no cars in the driveway. No sign of Grace’s two-seater. “Where in the world—?”

“Does Grace drive a red sports car, by any chance?” Donovan asked as she slowly closed the front door and turned to face him.

“Yes. Why?”

“Damn. That’s who called him.”

“Called who?”

“Bryan.” Placing a hand to the back of his neck, he rested his other hand on his hip and gave her a faint, wry smile. “I hate to tell you this, Chloe, but I think we’ve been kidnapped again.”

She gaped at him for a moment, then ran a hand through her disheveled hair, dislodging the fishing hat she was still wearing. She hardly even noticed as it fell to the floor at her feet. “Either my brain isn’t working very well today, or everyone is behaving very strangely. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“You’ve cut your hair.”

She dropped her hand in response to his unexpected comment. “Yes. Grace says I chopped it off.”