Kitabı oku: «The Bachelor's Perfect Match»

Chapter One

At nine o’clock on Monday morning, Maddie Montgomery brewed a cup of Earl Gray tea and opened the Castle Falls Library, ready for another quiet, ordinary day.

And then someone dropped a pirate off at her door.

A slightly disheveled pirate in flannel and faded denim, wearing a rakish patch over one eye and brandishing an aluminum crutch instead of a cutlass.

Although Aiden Kane, the youngest of the three Kane brothers, somehow managed to make the slightly disheveled part look good.

Through the narrow, two-inch gap that separated the poetry section from the biographies, Maddie watched Aiden limp past the circulation desk, each strike of his crutch against the hardwood floor fracturing the peaceful silence in the room. He lurched to a stop a few feet from where she stood and lifted his head to look around.

Fortunately, the bookcases that shielded Maddie from view also muffled the gasp that slipped from her lips.

Mottled bruises ranging in color from pale ochre to deep mauve bloomed on his jaw, reminding Maddie of the abstract painting above the fireplace in the conference room. A sling cradled the cast on Aiden’s left arm, and the bulky outline of a bandage distorted one leg of his jeans, making his knee appear double its normal size.

Maddie knew he’d been injured in an accident, but she hadn’t actually seen the extent of those injuries until now.

In a community the size of Castle Falls, which didn’t bother with a Neighborhood Watch program because everyone kept a close watch on their neighbors anyway, Aiden had been the main topic of conversation over the past week. According to the rumors, his pickup truck had left the road, sailed over the ditch and rolled several times before landing upside down—a hair’s breadth away from a towering white pine that had planted its roots in the soil of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula long before the town founders.

Aiden had a reputation for being a bit of a daredevil, so no one seemed surprised the accident had happened. Actually, based on the whispered comments Maddie had overheard in the reading nook, people were more surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.

Maddie studied the marks on Aiden’s handsome face, her stomach turning a slow cartwheel when she considered what the outcome might have been if his pickup had actually connected with that tree.

Aiden and his two older brothers, along with their adoptive mom, Sunni Mason, ran Castle Falls Outfitters a few miles outside town. When Aiden wasn’t testing the canoes the family built and sold, he hired out his services as an instructor and guide. From what Maddie heard, the man spent more time on the river than he did on land.

And it showed.

He was healthy and outgoing and strong...and, to be honest, more than a little intimidating to a girl who would have happily laid claim to even one of those three things.

Aiden reached up to bat at a swatch of black hair that had slipped over his eye, and Maddie heard an audible thunk when the cast connected with his forehead. For some reason that small but sweetly vulnerable gesture, coupled with Aiden’s quiet huff of frustration, made Maddie forget her own insecurities.

She straightened the collar of her black-and-white houndstooth dress and stepped out from behind the bookcase.

“Good morning.”

Aiden pivoted toward her, and the tip of his crutch caught the edge of the rug that divided the aisle from the children’s area. Maddie had never regarded it as a potential hazard until Aiden began to teeter. He tried to steady himself, and Maddie automatically reached out to do the same.

The muscles in Aiden’s biceps, sculpted from hours spent paddling canoes and doing other outdoorsy things, contracted beneath her fingertips.

Suddenly, he didn’t look so vulnerable anymore. He didn’t look like the Aiden whom Maddie saw at New Life Fellowship on Sunday mornings, either. The one with the mischievous blue eyes and a smile that charmed every female between the ages of one and one hundred as he sauntered into the sanctuary.

Maybe because he wasn’t smiling at all.

Maddie let go.

“Can I help you find something?” She tried not to stare at the jagged red scratches that fanned out from the gauze bandage over Aiden’s left eye like cracks on a windowpane.

“No. I’m...waiting for someone.”

Well, that explained a lot. His presence, for starters. In the five years since Maddie had taken Mrs. Whitman’s place as head librarian, she couldn’t remember Aiden ever once setting foot through the door of the library.

“The chairs by the window are pretty comfortable.” Maddie pointed to the reading nook in the corner. “And it happens to be prime real estate because it’s located right next to the coffeepot.”

Maddie had purposely set up the area to resemble a living room. Leather chairs with wide arms and generous laps circled the glass-topped coffee table. An oak buffet that had once belonged to Maddie’s maternal grandmother had been converted into a beverage station, the drawers containing everything from packages of tea to colorful, hand-stamped bookmarks.

All the regular patrons gravitated there, and the tourists who popped in during the summer months seemed impressed that a small-town library offered a quiet retreat as well as a wide variety of books.

Aiden didn’t look impressed.

“Do you work here...?” He stopped, clearly struggling, and his brows dipped together in a frown.

For a moment, Maddie wondered if Aiden had suffered a mild concussion in addition to the bruises and broken bones. And then she realized he was trying to remember her name.

“Maddie. Maddie Montgomery.” I was a year behind you in school. We see each other almost every Sunday at church.

Well, she saw him anyway. It was pretty clear Aiden hadn’t noticed her. But then, why would he? They shared the same zip code but were worlds apart when it came to everything else.

“Maddie.” There it was. A tiny glimmer of recognition. Very tiny. “I’ve seen your name on donation receipts for the animal shelter.”

While Maddie was trying to decide if she should be amused or offended that her signature was more memorable than her face, Aiden pivoted away from her and shuffled toward the reading nook without a backward glance.

He lowered himself into one of the leather chairs and then proceeded to ignore both the coffee and the magazines.

Okay, then.

Time to get back to work.

Fifteen minutes later, Maddie decided that was easier said than done. Aiden was proving more irresistible to the people who wandered into the library than the pot of freshly brewed pumpkin spice coffee.

Maddie, whose first order of business was straightening the shelves after Mr. Elliott’s sixth-graders had invaded the poetry section the day before, would hear the door open and start a countdown in her head. There would be five seconds of silence and then a cheerful, “Aiden! How are you doing?”

To which Aiden would respond with an equally cheerful, “Great.”

Maddie wondered if she was the only one who knew he was lying.

* * *

If one more person asked Aiden how he was doing, he was going to run screaming from the building.

Except...he couldn’t run. At the moment, the only thing he’d be able to manage was a fast limp. Maybe.

But that would also draw the kind of attention Aiden had been hoping to avoid while waiting for his ride to physical therapy. He’d figured the clinic’s central pick-up point—the local library—wouldn’t exactly be a hotbed of activity this time of day.

He’d figured wrong. Over the past half hour, a steady stream of people had invaded his space, clucking over his injuries, their eyes filled with sympathy.

Aiden hated being the focus of anyone’s sympathy. So he’d scraped up a smile, even though the med van driver was twenty minutes late and the thought of another round of PT was making his leg throb more than usual. Not to mention the itch he couldn’t scratch without ripping off the cast on his arm first.

Six. Weeks. That’s how long he had to wear the stupid thing. With good behavior, Aiden hoped he could talk the doctor into reducing his sentence to three.

You really caught a break, the surgeon who’d pinned Aiden’s wrist back together had told him.

Yeah, well, Aiden didn’t feel as if he’d caught a break. He felt, as a matter of fact, broken.

Scratch that. He was broken.

He was angry, too, although the anger wasn’t visible, like the rest of the cuts and bruises. It wasn’t healing as quickly, either.

The telephone began to ring, and the librarian emerged from behind a wall of bookcases. She didn’t so much as glance in Aiden’s direction as she glided toward the desk, the soles of her ballet-style slippers barely making a sound against the gleaming hardwood floor.

Guilt, not pain, had Aiden shifting in his chair.

He’d gotten into a lot of trouble when he was growing up, but quickly learned there was something about his smile that always got him out of it. That he hadn’t been able to instantly produce one of those smiles in the presence of a pretty girl was further proof that some injuries didn’t show up on an X-ray.

And the librarian was pretty, a detail Aiden hadn’t noticed during their first encounter. Acute humiliation could have that effect on a guy. A month ago, he’d beaten his older brothers to the top of Eagle Rock without breaking a sweat, and now a rug, one in the shape of a ladybug, no less, had had the power to throw him off balance.

Aiden gave Maddie Montgomery another covert glance as she picked up the phone.

Champagne-blond hair was bundled into a tidy little knot at the base of Maddie’s neck, but the oversize, rectangular glasses perched on her nose didn’t detract from a heart-shaped face and porcelain skin. Coupled with a slender frame and diminutive height, the overall effect made her look like a studious woodland pixie.

A studious woodland pixie whom Aiden had been rude to.

The lack of physical activity was making him cranky, and it hadn’t helped knowing Maddie must have seen him conk himself in the head with his cast.

Aiden was used to being in control, but now he felt like a marionette with a couple of broken strings. And the fact that a woman whose head barely reached the top of his shoulder had felt the need to come to his rescue when he’d tripped on the rug...well, that made Aiden cranky, too.

“Aiden!”

Aiden stifled a groan as a woman with a helmet of iron-gray curls marched up to him. When he’d chosen the library as a hiding place, he hadn’t considered it might be the stomping grounds for retired elementary school teachers.

“Mrs. Hammond.” Aiden pushed himself up in the chair and tried not to wince when pain rocketed down his leg and funneled into all five toes. “How are you?”

Mrs. Hammond peered down at him, eyes narrowed. Aiden’s former teacher might have lost an inch or two in height over the years, but her power to intimidate hadn’t diminished at all.

“It’s sweet of you to ask, but I’m not the one with the broken bones, now, am I?” she countered. “How are you?”

“Great.” A noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort came from the direction of the circulation desk.

Aiden glanced at Maddie, but she had her back to him as she tapped away on her keyboard. It must have been his imagination. Aiden didn’t know much about librarians, but he figured she wouldn’t deliberately break the number one rule—Quiet, Please—printed on the poster above her desk.

Mrs. Hammond clucked her tongue. “That bump on your head looks bigger than the one you got when you fell off the top of the slide at recess.”

He’d jumped, actually, but Aiden decided not to mention that. Half the population of Castle Falls already thought he was reckless. “It looks worse than it feels.”

Way worse. Every time Aiden looked in the mirror, the bruises seemed to have shifted in position and color. There was no getting around it. He was a walking, talking human kaleidoscope.

“I’ve been out of town, visiting my grandchildren for a few weeks,” Mrs. Hammond went on. “I just heard about your accident at choir practice last night.”

Accident.

The word boiled inside Aiden. He struggled to clamp down the lid on his emotions, but it didn’t stop the memories from rushing back.

He’d been on his way home just after dusk. Window rolled down. Radio cranked up. Tired but exhilarated from a day spent clearing brush for River Quest, an event that Castle Falls Outfitters would be hosting for the first time during the Fall Festival in October.

Aiden’s event. His baby.

He’d spent hours plotting the course and planning a variety of land and water challenges guaranteed to stir up some friendly competition. Brendan and Liam, who’d been cautious when Aiden had approached them with the idea, were surprised at the number of teams that had already registered after Lily posted the information to their website.

That was another reason he wanted the event to succeed. The money from the entry fees would bump up the numbers in Castle Falls Outfitters’ bank account, proving he was a valuable asset to the family business.

The chance to say “I told you so” was always a bonus, too.

The thought had made Aiden grin. And he’d been grinning when a set of headlights rounded the corner up ahead. In his lane...

Aiden had regained consciousness in a sterile hospital room connected to more wires and plastic tubing than a car battery, fire streaking through his veins instead of blood. And his head. It had taken every ounce of Aiden’s energy to focus on the shadowy silhouettes of the people in the room.

His mother, Sunni, had been sitting in the chair closest to Aiden, head bowed, lips moving in silent prayer. She’d been praying for him for sixteen years, and Aiden doubted that would ever change. His brother Brendan and his wife, Lily, were engaged in quiet conversation at the foot of the bed, and his brother Liam stood near the window, his hands knotted at his sides. The only ones unaccounted for were Anna Leighton, Liam’s fiancée, and her eight-year-old daughters, Cassie and Chloe.

An image of the twins’ bright smiles had dredged up a wave of fresh pain. What if he wasn’t the only one who’d been injured that night?

“Is everybody...okay?”

Aiden’s voice—barely more than a croak—had brought everyone to his side in an instant.

“We will be, bro, now that you’re awake.” Brendan had changed since he’d met the former Lily Michaels, but he still wasn’t what you’d call a touchy-feely kind of guy. So the husky rattle in his oldest brother’s voice was as unexpected—and unsettling—as the tears glistening in his eyes.

“I meant the people—” Aiden had swallowed and tried again “—in the other car.”

Brendan and Liam had exchanged a look.

“Aiden...according to the county deputy, your vehicle was the only one involved,” Liam had finally said. “A trucker spotted your pickup in the ditch and called 911. You were unconscious, so he sat with you until the ambulance arrived.”

“The deputy thought the load of lumber in the bed of the truck must have shifted when you rounded the corner,” Brendan added. “You tried to overcorrect and ended up in the ditch.”

“That’s not what happened.” Aiden’s vehicle had ended up in the ditch because he’d swerved to avoid a head-on collision with the one barreling toward him. “I saw...lights.”

Sunni had leaned forward and squeezed his hand. “You have a mild concussion, sweetheart. The doctor warned us that things might be a little fuzzy for a few weeks.”

“No—” Aiden had struggled to sit up, but Liam’s palm, rimmed with calluses from the hours he spent in the shop, had gently pressed him into the mattress again.

“We can talk about it later. Right now you need to rest.”

As if on cue, a nurse had slipped into the room and put something in Aiden’s IV that made sure he took his brother’s advice.

Over the next forty-eight hours, the fuzziness subsided, but Aiden could still see those lights coming toward him...

“I’m sure Sunni has been worried sick about you.”

Aiden blinked and the lights disappeared. Regrettably, Mrs. Hammond was still there, glowering down at him.

“I would think you’ve caused that poor woman enough sleepless nights.”

The meaning was clear. His former teacher, like everyone else in Castle Falls, assumed the accident was Aiden’s fault. Because apparently it was easier for people to believe he’d taken the corner too fast than it was to believe someone in their close-knit community had forced him off the road and kept on going.

But the worst part?

Aiden was pretty sure his family believed it, too.