Rumor Has It

  Instead she texted Adam. He okay?

  Alive and pissy, came the quick response.

  Good enough. She needed to tell Holly that she’d kissed her brother twice in a row now, but that was a conversation best held for after the wedding. She had no intention of hiding anything from her best friend, but it would be selfish to tell her today.

  That was her story, and she was sticking to it.

  Besides, what if Holly killed Griffin for kissing her? It would rob Adam of a groomsman . . . So really, Kate was doing everyone a favor by keeping it to herself for just a little bit longer. Huffing and puffing, she got to her halfway point. The park concession stand was closed.

  No popcorn this early.

  And no Larry on the bench. It was too cold for even the bum. Hoping he was somewhere warm and safe, she forced herself to keep going and hit the hill to climb to the top of the dam. Gasping for breath, she didn’t take the time to sit on her tree. She stood looking down at the water for a minute, and when she could draw in air again, she turned around to go back down.

  Larry’s bench was still empty. Passing it by, she headed into the woods toward home. A minute later she heard footsteps behind her. Startled, she whirled around. “Hello?”

  No one was there. She shrugged it off and started at pace again, but after a few steps the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up.

  Again she whipped around.

  Still no one.

  Standing still, breathing wildly, her breath crystallizing in front of her face, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. “Anyone there?”

  This time the silence felt . . . loaded, like someone was holding his breath. Every single horror flick she’d ever watched came flying back to her, and she did exactly what she would have advised any woman in her situation not to do.

  She ran in a blind panic.

  She couldn’t help it, and it only got worse when she could hear someone running after her. She forced herself to get out of the woods before looking back.

  There was no one behind her.

  Gasping for breath, she bypassed her townhouse, pulled her keys from her pocket, and slid into her car while hitting Holly’s speed-dial.

  “Hey,” Holly said in a rush before Kate could speak. “I was just going to call you and beg you to come over early. I need ice cream.”

  They were each other’s long-standing ice cream emergency stop. That it was only seven A.M. wouldn’t faze either one of them. “Nerves?” Kate asked, hitting her door locks for the tenth time as she drove.

  “Just a little,” Holly admitted.

  “On my way,” Kate tried to say confidently, but she must have failed.

  “What’s wrong?” Holly asked.

  “I’ll be right there.” Kate got to the ranch in record time and was halfway up the walk on still wobbly legs when she heard her name. Turning, she caught sight of Griffin in one of the horse pens. He ducked beneath the railing and strode toward her.

  She was an independent, strong woman, she reminded herself. All she needed was the ice cream; that was it. Not the tall, built man in sexy jeans with the assessing gaze.

  “What’s wrong?” he immediately wanted to know.

  “You first,” she said. “Your migraine?”

  “Gone.”

  Okay, good. And she walked right into his arms.

  They immediately closed around her, which was a relief. She knew that she was in over her head with him, that even though this game they were playing at was temporary, very temporary, she couldn’t seem to hold back. Burrowing in closer, she closed her eyes.

  “Kate.” He pressed his jaw to her hair. “You’re trembling. Are you hurt?”

  “No. I just needed . . .” This. “Ice cream.”

  “Ice cream?”

  “Holly and I are having ice cream for breakfast.”

  He pulled back, cupped her face, and lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Try again.”

  “I went for a run and got spooked,” she said. “No big deal. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not the easily spooked type.”

  She shrugged.

  “Talk to me, Kate.”

  Maybe it was because his voice was so calm and certain. Authoritative but compassionate. “Someone followed me,” she said. It seemed so silly now. “Look, I watched CSI last night. FYI? Bad idea. But no worries, ice cream will fix it.”

  He wasn’t buying it.

  Neither was Holly, who’d come outside in Hello Kitty pj’s holding a quart of ice cream and a big spoon. “Someone stalked you on your run?” she asked. “Where? At your place or . . . at your place?”

  “Wait,” Griffin said. “What?”

  “She has a place at the top of the dam where she goes to think,” Holly said. “At the far end of the trail. There’s a fallen tree that’s been shaped by the elements. Makes a great little hiding spot where you can look down at the water. It’s Kate’s place.”

  “It was on the way back,” Kate said. “Between the concession stand and my house. In the woods. Forget it; forget me. I’m here; I’m fine. What’s with the ice cream emergency on your wedding day?”

  “Just having a moment.” Holly handed Kate the spoon.

  One big bite later Kate felt better already.

  “You still give that homeless guy breakfast?” Holly asked, taking the spoon back for herself.

  Griffin looked like he was getting another headache. “You feed a homeless guy?”

  “Larry’s broke,” Kate said. “Sometimes I give him food.”

  Griffin and Holly exchanged a long look.

  “He’s harmless,” Kate said.

  “Honey,” Holly said, but before she could go on, Griffin cut in.

  “Not everyone’s as harmless as you think,” he said. “I know you want to see the best in everyone, but that’s not how the world works.”

  It was how her world worked. “Larry’s always been sweet to me,” she said. “He’s not the one who ran after me. He weighs like two hundred and eighty pounds. He doesn’t move very fast.”

  “I saw him run like hell at last year’s three-legged race in the carnival,” Holly said. “The prize was as many hotdogs as you could eat. He took first.”

  “You need to be armed if you’re going to run in the woods by yourself,” Grif said.

  “Armed?” Kate laughed. “Come on.” She gestured at her T-shirt and leggings. “Where would I carry a weapon?”

  Griffin’s gaze ran over her slowly enough to cause quivering knees.

  Holly was dividing a look between them. “Okay,” she said. “I’m missing something.”

  “Yes,” Kate said, looping her arm through Holly’s. “Your wedding day.”

  * * *

  Holly waited until she and Kate were alone in her childhood bedroom to give Kate a look that struck terror in Kate’s heart. “What is it?” Kate asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Holly sank to her bed, which was strewn with the gorgeous white lingerie she would soon put on beneath the gorgeous white wedding dress hanging in the open closet. “I have a secret,” she said softly. “And I need a favor.”

  Kate sat next to her and took her hand. “Anything. You know that. You need a getaway car and driver so you can run away from that horribly ugly man you’re about to marry?”

  Holly smiled. Adam was tall, built, half Native American, and gorgeous, and everyone knew it. “I don’t need a getaway car,” she said. “But . . .” She pulled a little white stick from beneath the lingerie. It had two blue lines on it.

  Kate stared at it. “You’re—”

  “Yep. Knocked up,” Holly said. “Faulty condom.” She grimaced. “Okay, so it was operator error, and I was the operator.”

  Kate grinned, and Holly let out a small smile. “Yeah?” she whispered, clutching Kate’s hand. “It’s good, right?”

  “It’s wonderful!” Kate exclaimed, and hugged her as they both shed a few happy tears.

  “Adam knows, right?”
Kate asked, reaching for the box of tissues on the nightstand.

  “Yeah. He knows.” Holly’s sweet smile assured Kate that Adam had taken the surprise news well. “He’s going to tell his brothers and Grif today, but no one else for now. I wanted to keep it our own little secret for a little bit longer.”

  Kate’s heart swelled, and she set a hand on Holly’s still flat belly. “Wow,” she murmured. “We’re procreating.”

  “I know, it’s crazy, but . . .” Holly covered Kate’s hand with her own. “I’m so happy,” she whispered. “I almost feel guilty about it. I just want everyone around me to have this kind of joy inside. I want it for you, Kate.”

  Kate pulled her hand back with a laugh. She’d just spent the past few years raising her siblings and her father. She wasn’t in a hurry for the walk down the aisle, the white picket fence, or the white stick with the two blue lines. “Let’s just concentrate on you today.”

  “Works for me.” Holly hugged Kate again, tight. “But you’re next.”

  Kate hugged her back, not sure whether that felt like a comfort or a possible nightmare.

  * * *

  An hour later an impatient Griffin stood at the far side of the top of the dam, studying what he assumed was Kate’s “place.”

  It was beautiful, he could admit. Tucked away, off to the side, he could see her sitting here, looking down at the water, needing a minute away from her busy world.

  He backtracked from there, following the route she would have taken earlier, stopping inside the park at the empty bench. He pulled out his phone and called Kel, an old friend and also a local sheriff. “Well?” Griffin asked him.

  From the moment Kate and Holly had vanished into the ranch house to do wedding stuff, he, Adam, and Kel had gone looking for Larry, checking out his usual haunts. They’d made good time, even with Adam stopping to tell Grif about Holly being pregnant.

  He was going to be an uncle.

  “I was just going to call you,” Kel said. “We found him. He was at the animal center. Dell had gone in to feed the horses and found the guy sleeping on the front porch.”

  Dell was Adam’s brother. The two of them, along with a third brother, Brady, ran Belle Haven, the local animal center. “Did you ask him about the park and Kate?”

  “Says he can’t remember if he was at the park today. But he did ask about the ‘cutie-pie second-grade teacher.’ His words,” he said when Grif got ominously silent. “He can’t remember her name.”

  “He’s got a fixation on her?” Grif asked.

  “He’s got a fixation on pretty, shiny things. We found a bag of screws and buttons and loose change on him.”

  “You holding him?”

  “For what, being a bum?” Kel asked. “No, I’m not holding him. And I don’t think he’s dangerous.”

  “You willing to stake Kate’s life on it?”

  Kel was quiet a moment, and it didn’t take a shrink to know that he felt Grif was overreacting.

  But Grif never overreacted. He reacted, and he damn well wanted other people to start reacting along with him, especially as it pertained to Kate’s safety.

  “I called Kate myself,” Kel finally said. “She doesn’t want to pursue this. And when I mentioned your concern, she said . . .”

  “What?” Grif demanded. “She said what?”

  Kel hesitated, and when he spoke, Grif got the feeling that he was fighting amusement. “She said that your concern was misguided and misplaced, and that you should mind your own business.”

  Grif disconnected and headed back to the ranch. He got out of the truck and walked toward the house, still annoyed. He was minding his business. She was his business. And when the fuck he’d decided that, he didn’t have a clue. But he wasn’t going anywhere until he believed she was safe. And if that meant staying in Sunshine a few days longer, sharing her with her grubby, obnoxious second graders, her siblings, her dad, and hell, the whole damn town since everyone loved her, so be it.

  Adam beat him to the front door carrying a wedding banner and a nail gun. “Muttering to yourself is the first sign of mental illness.”

  Grif flipped him off.

  “That’s anatomically impossible and politically incorrect.”

  “I’d mess up that pretty face of yours,” Grif said, “but you’re getting married today.”

  Adam smiled. “You’re afraid of Holly.”

  “Hell yeah.”

  Adam chuckled and rolled out the WELCOME TO THE CONNELLY WEDDING banner. He raised the nail gun and fingered the trigger but nothing happened.

  “Shit,” Dell said, coming up behind them. “You don’t know what you’re doing with that thing.”

  “Sure he does,” Grif said. “It’s a nail gun, not a condom.”

  Dell cracked up, and Adam gave Grif a shove. Then they put up the banner, and Dell went to deal with the caterer.

  Adam looked at Grif. “You okay?”

  Grif let out a low laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Whatever it looks like, yeah.”

  “We’ve all got her back, man. You know that. But if it helps, I don’t think Larry’s dangerous. Nothing’s going on.”

  Grif nodded. Nothing was going on. Nothing at all. Except for whatever the hell he was feeling for Kate. “Don’t you have a wedding to get ready for?” he asked. “A pretty-boy tux to put on?”

  Adam grinned and hooked an arm around Grif’s neck. “What I’m wearing, you’re wearing, pretty boy.”

  * * *

  The wedding preparations were a whirlwind. Kate worked to make sure that the church and reception were set up just as Holly wanted. After the ceremony, they would all move back to the ranch for pictures and the reception.

  Setting up the tables, she caught sight of Adam and Griffin building a gazebo. From across the yard, Griffin met her gaze. He said something to Adam and then came close. He was in jeans and a black sweatshirt with his hood up over his ever-present baseball hat. He pushed the hood off and removed his dark sunglasses.

  “Wow,” she said. “Almost full disclosure.”

  His eyes were so very serious. “Adam says Larry was found sleeping at the animal center this morning,” he said.

  “Oh good.” Kate put a hand to her chest. “I was worried about him.”

  “He asked about the ‘cutie-pie’ teacher.”

  Kate smiled. “Aw. Me?”

  Griffin pulled something from his pocket and set it into her hand.

  Mace.

  “I want you to carry this when you run.”

  She looked down at the small canister and then up into his eyes, which were focused unwaveringly on hers. He was absolutely resolute on this. “I’m okay,” she said to him.

  “And you’ll stay that way. Do you know any self-defense at all?”

  “Yes. Jade once taught me how to poke a guy’s eyes out with a pen. And I’ve got the standard kick to the family jewels move.”

  “Always effective,” he agreed. “You’ll be careful.”

  “It’s my middle name,” she said.

  “Thanks for driving me home last night.” He pulled her sunglasses from his pocket and handed them over. “These were a big hit with Adam.”