Sealed With a Kiss (3 page)

A piece of apple got stuck in the back of his
throat. He coughed and tried not to look as though he was worried
about his eight-year-old daughter knowing about online dating
sites.

He glanced quickly at Bella. “Did you look at
any dating sites?”

Bella shook her head and looked sad. “Mrs.
Daniels said they were only for adults.”’

“You asked her?”

Bella nodded. John breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s good.”

“She told me that she met her husband at a
friend’s wedding. I thought that The Bridesmaids Club might know
someone who’d want to marry you.”

The fork in John’s hand never made it to his
mouth. He put the fruit back in his bowl and pushed the whole thing
away. He watched Bella closely. “I don’t want to marry anyone. I’m
happy living with my favorite girl.”

“Mrs. Daniels said that Mr. Daniels makes her
happy every single day. Sometimes you don’t look happy.”

John didn’t know what to say. He’d worked
hard to provide a stable, happy home for his daughter. But
sometimes, after Bella had gone to bed and the house was quiet, he
felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

His wife, Jacinta, had died six years ago.
He’d been working in the Middle East when he’d been told the news.
He returned home, unsure of what the future held. He didn’t know
Bella, didn’t know how to look after a two-year-old who missed her
mom.

A chance meeting with a senator had set him
on the path he was on now. He’d started his own security company,
quickly moving into high-risk, high-return contracts that catered
to the rich and famous. Over the next five years, he’d bought
companies across America. Moving into international security
operations had seemed like the perfect fit. But with the fit came
danger.

He’d created a successful security operation,
but some days he wondered if it was all worth it. He could afford
to give his daughter anything she wanted, take her anywhere in the
world. But after ignoring his life beyond work and his daughter,
he’d forgotten what it felt like to be happy.

He put his arm around Bella’s shoulders. “I
love you, sweet pea. Sometimes if I don’t look happy, it’s because
I’ve got things on my mind. I promise that it’s not because I’m
sad.”

Bella nodded. “Pinky promise?”

John held his hand out. “Pinky promise.”

Bella grinned and John’s heart swelled with
love. They wrapped their little fingers around each other and
sealed their bargain with a kiss.

“Do you want to see the pretty dresses on The
Bridesmaids Club website?” Bella’s face glowed with excitement.

John couldn’t think of anything worse, but he
smiled at his daughter. Bella loved frilly, flouncy, dresses. He
didn’t know how or why it had happened, but it had. “Sure, I do.
Finish your dessert first, and then we’ll go into my office and use
my computer.”

Bella ate another spoon of fruit, watching
him with eyes that were far too wise. He needed to show her that he
was happy, that she didn’t have to worry about him. And more
importantly, that he didn’t need a wife.

Pretending to be the dad that Bella wanted
wasn’t hard. All he needed to do was work out what made him happy
and stay clear of single women.

CHAPTER TWO

Three days later, John reminded himself that this was
what it felt like to be normal. He was standing in Charlie’s Bar
and Grill, trying to look as though he belonged with the loud,
over-excited crowd of business executives, cowboys, and college
students.

He was thirty-four-years-old, but he might as
well have been one hundred. He felt uncomfortable, so out of his
depth that he was almost ready to leave.

Dylan Bayliss, his friend and business
partner, was getting married tomorrow. The bachelor party was
supposed to be his last chance at freedom. But John knew how badly
Dylan wanted to marry Annie. She’d changed him, helped him find a
new normal in a world that didn’t understand what it felt like to
be different. Dylan had been kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban,
left for dead in the middle of Afghanistan. After what he’d been
through, coming home had been one of the most difficult things he’d
ever done.

“How are you holding out?” Dylan stood beside
John, looking almost as uncomfortable as he did.

“I’m nearly ready to leave.”

“Yeah, me, too. You want to go outside?”

John didn’t need to be asked twice. He
followed Dylan through the crowd of people, scanning the faces
around him for anything out of the ordinary. The only thing out of
the ordinary were the two men heading outside into single digit
weather conditions.

Once they were through the doors, Dylan
headed over to a bench seat in front of a row of larch trees. Their
golden needles glowed from the lights strung around the bar’s
outdoor patio. “We’ll be safe here.”

John sat down beside his friend. “You know
that we’ll probably freeze to death if we stay out here for more
than fifteen minutes?”

“Works for me. I figure by that time, Annie
would have found me and thought of some interesting ways to keep me
warm.”

“She’s coming here? To your bachelor
party?”

Dylan shrugged. “Couldn’t see any way around
it. There aren’t that many options in Bozeman on a Friday
night.”

John took a sip of his soda. Even from the
garden, the noise from the bar was still loud. The music and
laughter mixed together to create something he wasn’t comfortable
around. He pulled his jacket on, zipping the front together before
his fingers went numb.

“You sure you’re warm enough?” Dylan
asked.

“You’re just annoyed that you didn’t grab
your jacket on the way out here.”

Dylan grunted. “Or it could have been that I
saw where you were heading and decided to stop you from leaving. A
jacket didn’t seem important when I was inside.”

John wasn’t going to disagree with his
friend. They’d known each other for too long. They’d been through
too much to worry about what they should or shouldn’t be doing.

John glanced back at the bar. He might be
cold, but at least he could speak to Dylan without having to yell
over the noise from everyone else. “Why did you decide to have a
bachelor party?”

Dylan shook his head. “Damned if I know. It
sounded good at the time. I’m not getting married again, so I
thought I might as well follow the wedding plan in Annie’s book.
Stupid idea. What’s your excuse for being here with me?”

“I figured if you could be here, so could I.
But I’m too old for this,” John said with a grim smile. “I’m
ancient compared to most of the people inside the bar.”

Dylan’s sharp bark of laughter made John
smile. “You and me both.”

John raised his can of soda in Dylan’s
direction. “Here’s to ancient men who should know better.”

Dylan banged his can against John’s. “And to
new beginnings that are scaring the crap out of me.”

John watched his friend. “You’re worried
about getting married?”

Dylan shook his head. “I’m not worried about
getting married. I’m worried that Annie will come to her senses and
decide I’m not the man for her. Once she signs the marriage
license, I figure I’m safe. But until then, it’s anyone’s guess as
to whether she’ll actually turn up at the church.”

“She loves you,” John said with a conviction
that he meant. “She’ll be there, waiting for you.”

Dylan rested his head against the back of his
chair. “I hope so. What did you do with Bella?”

“Mrs. Daniels is on babysitting duties.”

“Doesn’t happen often.” Dylan glanced across
at John. “You looked comfortable in there. If I didn’t know you as
well as I do, I wouldn’t have thought you were ready to leave.”

“I’m good at pretending.”

Dylan nodded. “Works for most of us. You
should come to Pastor Stevens’ support group with me. The guys are
okay, if you ignore Jeremy’s smart ass comments. It might
help.”

“I haven’t got Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder.”

“Are you kidding? With what you were involved
in and your wife’s death, I’d say there’s more going on inside of
you than even you know. When was the last time you dated a
woman?”

“About the same amount of time as you before
you met Annie.”

Dylan looked him in the eye. “Have you been
out on a date since Jacinta died?”

John focused on the can in his hands. “I’ve
been too busy.”

“I can’t argue with that. You never
stop.”

“Bella sent a letter to The Bridesmaids Club.
She wanted them to find a wife for me.”

Dylan smiled. “I heard.”

“Annie told you?”

“Finding the little girl who wrote the
mystery card was the highlight of their year. They’ve been
searching for Bella for ages. If they’d asked me, I could have told
them I knew a little girl called Bella. But then you wouldn’t have
met Rachel.”

“I think she might have preferred that we
didn’t meet.”

Dylan looked at him closely. “She wasn’t
impressed with your sophisticated charm?”

“It was in short supply on the day I met
her.”

“You’d better find it again. The rest of The
Bridesmaids Club are just as excited as Rachel and Annie are. But
you’ve got to watch them. No one’s safe when they’re in the same
room together.”

“I heard that.” Annie walked toward them,
smiling at her fiancé. She stood beside Dylan, keeping her hands
warm in her jacket pockets. “Charlie said you’d come out here.
Aren’t you cold?”

Dylan pulled Annie onto his lap. “You can
warm me up.”

Annie shivered. “You’re as cold as a block of
ice. Charlie’s going to light the outdoor fire and pull the sides
down on the patio. It will be warmer than being out here.”

Dylan held Annie close and kissed the side of
her face. “I’m happy right here.”

She patted his hand and held him close. “Two
minutes of snuggle time and then we’re moving to the patio. I don’t
want either of us getting sick before our wedding.”

John glanced at the patio and frowned. Rachel
and three other women were helping to tie the sides of the screens
into place. Even though he wasn’t looking forward to seeing her
again, he decided it had to be better than watching Dylan and Annie
making out beside him. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you’re
getting up to.”

“It won’t be much,” Dylan said with a
sigh.

John didn’t wait to see what they would be
doing. He walked toward the patio and tried to look as though he
was having a good time. But a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed
woman chose that moment to glance at him.

Her eyes narrowed and her smile dimmed.

He knew, without quite knowing how, that
she’d seen through the mask he’d used to get through most of the
night. He needed to leave. The sooner he went home, the better off
everyone would be.

***

Rachel helped Molly pull the second to last
screen down from the top beam of the patio. Charlie, the owner of
the bar and grill, had almost finished another wall. The plastic
would keep most of the cold night air away from them. The stone
fireplace would warm the patio, create a lovely atmosphere, and if
Rachel was lucky, distract her from thinking about John
Fletcher.

As he’d walked across the backyard, he’d
looked about as happy to see her as she’d been to see him. She was
still embarrassed about the last time they’d met. She didn’t
normally act like a spoiled two-year-old, but there was something
about his cool attitude that had annoyed her.

Molly reached for the last curtain. She
glanced at John and smiled. “If it’s some fine company and a little
heat you’d be wanting, come this way.”

John’s gaze flicked to Rachel. She knew
before he said anything, that he wasn’t going to stay. Dylan was
John’s friend. Once Annie married Dylan, there were bound to be
lots of times when John would be at the same place Rachel was. If
she didn’t fix what they’d started, it would become even more
difficult to apologize and get on with their lives.

Molly held the last plastic screen open. “I’m
Molly O’Donaghue, a friend of Annie’s. And I think you know our
Rachel? Are you coming to join us?”

John stood outside the patio. His eyes rested
on Rachel for a millisecond before returning to Molly. “I’m John
Fletcher. Thank you for your offer, but I’m heading home.”

Rachel stepped outside, blocking his exit.
She was determined not to let him go before she’d tried to make
things right between them. “You’re welcome to stay. Charlie’s going
to bring some food outside. At least stay for dinner.”

Rachel could see him weighing up her words.
“I’m sorry about the other day,” she added. “I don’t usually barge
in where I’m not wanted. I guess I got caught up in the search for
Bella. I didn’t consider that you might have had other things to
do.”

John’s face didn’t exactly soften, but his
eyes lost their frosty glare. “I wasn’t exactly welcoming,
either.”

Molly wiggled the plastic screen that she was
holding. “Now that you’re on speaking terms again, you can help me
tie the last screen in place.” She grabbed hold of John’s arm and
pulled him forward. “I’ve heard Dylan speak highly of you. Would
you tie the top string for us?”

John looked up at the wooden beam. A thick
cord dangled from the edge of the plastic screen. He glanced at
Rachel. “I guess I’m staying. Do you think we could start
over?”

Rachel held her hand out. “We can. It’s a
pleasure meeting you, John Fletcher.” He shook her hand and a
warmth that had nothing to do with the outdoor fire, seeped into
her bones.

“It’s good to meet you, too.”

Another zing of electricity replaced the
first. When John wasn’t in a grumpy mood, Rachel suspected that he
could be charming and incredibly dangerous.

Molly looked beyond the patio and sighed.
“Would you do me a favor, John? Annie and Dylan are going to catch
themselves a cold if they stay outside for much longer. Before you
tie this string, could you unlock their lips and send them inside
before we all freeze?”