Christmas in a Small Town Read online

  For that matter, Aiden didn’t seem to mind being away from Julia, and that was just weird. For the past couple of weeks, the two of them had been inseparable. Maybe Aiden was getting itchy feet again. He’d only been in Slippery Rock for a couple of months, but that was several weeks longer than any visit he’d made since leaving town after high school.

  And why did Levi care what was going on in Aiden’s love life? Or, for that matter, the love lives of any of the guys he’d grown up with? It wasn’t like he wanted what they had. Maybe someday, but not right now. He had enough going on in his life without dealing with a woman, too. This winter, he wanted to work on new organic lines for the dairy. They had milk and cream and cheeses, but he wanted to add ice cream and other dairy products. That would take time to develop.

  He still had to figure out what to do with the older dairy cows, those his father had used before the dairy went organic. Right now, the cows were on land rented from a neighbor, but that wasn’t a permanent solution.

  And his parents weren’t getting any younger. Sooner or later, they were going to have to downsize, and that would mean moving them into town from the farmhouse where they’d lived for the past thirty-five years of their marriage. That would also take time, not just with the move, but with the convincing. He didn’t want Bennett and Mama Hazel to be overwhelmed with a big house, like their neighbors Calvin and Bonita Harris.

  No, he had too much going on to be worried about a relationship, too. So why was he getting all maudlin when he should just be shooting darts?

  Collin wrote down his scores on the little sheet of paper on the table, and Aiden grabbed the third set of darts to begin throwing. No bull’s-eyes for Collin, but he was still hanging in. Aiden would drop out after this round, no matter what he shot. He had no chance of catching Collin, much less Levi.

  “What’s going on with you?” Collin asked and then finished off his bottle of beer. He signaled Juanita, the bar’s waitress, and she started in their direction.

  “Shooting darts,” Levi said and finished his own beer. Maybe he had a brain tumor, pressing on whatever part of the brain that was in charge of impulse control. Because the idea of starting up a relationship, just because every person he knew was now coupled off, was definitely impulsive, illogical. Maybe the fog was some kind of early-onset seasonal affective disorder. Not that the changing weather had ever affected him before. He considered the empty bottle in his hand. Maybe it was just time to switch to water. It wasn’t even nine, but it was a Wednesday, and he had work tomorrow.

  “Anything else?” Aiden asked.

  Levi rolled his shoulders. Would his two friends back off? He was fine. Nothing was wrong. He wasn’t jealous; he didn’t want what his friends had. Not right this second, at any rate. “Would the two of you just shoot darts? Since when is darts night also psychoanalysis night, anyway?”

  Collin and Aiden exchanged a look. “Since its inception?” Collin asked. “Since you blew out your knee? Since Adam got messed up in the tornado?”

  Okay, so he’d led a few interventions–slash–drinking nights. That didn’t mean he was in need of one himself. “No therapy needed, just the check. Unless you guys want another?” he asked, indicating the empty bottles on the table.

  “Another round, boys?” Juanita arrived at the table, and began clearing the empty bottles.

  “Nah, I’m headed back to the orchard soon,” Collin said.

  Aiden tossed his last dart at the board and hit ten. “Nothing here.” He pulled the darts from the board and put them into the holder to the side. “Julia should be finished up with Savannah by now, and I promised I’d measure for the new cabinets out at the Point.”

  The Point was what locals called the Victorian home, set on a low cliff, overlooking Slippery Rock Lake. It was one of the oldest structures to have survived the building of the lake fifty or so years before and had been vacant until Julia came to town in September and bought it, and partnered with Shanna’s, the original owner of the dress shop. Her plan was to turn the old house into a destination wedding venue, although Levi couldn’t see many people intentionally choosing Slippery Rock as their wedding event location. He loved his small town, but it wasn’t touristy like Branson or Lake of the Ozarks. The first wedding set at the old place would be Collin and Savannah’s, on New Year’s Eve.

  “Same, just the bill, and a water if you’ve got time,” Levi added.

  “If I’ve got time.” Juanita chuckled and looked around the nearly empty bar. “Nope, just can’t fit the water into my busy night.”

  “So what’s up?” Collin asked again after Juanita had left. Aiden gathered the other darts, putting them in the holder on the wall. He joined them at the table.

  “Where were we?” Aiden asked.

  “Headed back to the orchard as soon as Levi here spills on whatever it is that’s eating him.”

  “Nothing’s bothering me.” He had a new product line to develop—that meant new vendors to contact and new contracts. Aging parents. A sister getting married in a few more weeks. He didn’t have time for a relationship. And he wasn’t jealous of the relationships his friends were building with their women. Nothing was wrong.

  “Sure, you always try to kill the dartboard when you throw.”

  “And you always get that look in your eye when you’re taking aim,” Aiden added.

  “What look?”

  “The look like we’re on the fifteen, fourth down, and need one more touchdown to win state,” Collin offered.

  “The look like you’re about to unload on the running back across the line, hoping for a first down,” Aiden offered.

  “You guys didn’t play with me when I went to defense. How would you know what I looked like?”

  Collin blinked. “High-definition TV. Replay shows. And, you know, we did play with you all through junior high and high school. Doesn’t matter if you’re quarterbacking or playing the defensive line, like you did in college and the pros—the Levi Walters focus is the same.”

  “Also, and I don’t think we can emphasize this enough, at least three of your throws pushed the dart through the board and into the wall. So what’s up?” Aiden rolled his bottle of beer through his hands, making it scrape against the table.

  It grated on Levi’s nerves.

  Just because he had a few strong throws didn’t mean something was bothering him. He certainly wasn’t upset. Levi Walters didn’t get upset. He focused on the job at hand until it was done. Then he focused on the next job. He didn’t get upset. He didn’t get bothered. He didn’t wonder why good things happened to other people.

  Which made it all the more weird that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the guys and their new relationships.

  But he definitely wasn’t bothered.

  “What do you guys think about the bike trail they’re talking about? The one that will follow the old railroad tracks?”

  Collin and Aiden exchanged a look. Neither said anything.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. That land is undeveloped, but it’s adjacent to the ranch, and to the Harris property, too. Could lead to mischievousness, especially during the summer months.”

  “He broke out a twenty-five-cent word,” Aiden said.

  “Still avoiding the actual conversation, too,” Collin replied. As if Levi weren’t sitting right there with them. As if he weren’t trying to hold a legitimate conversation instead of whatever it was the two of them were trying to get him to admit to.

  “Nothing’s bugging me.” He settled his shoulders against the back of the booth. “Just here to throw darts.” The guys stared at him. “And that bike trail could lead to all kinds of other prob—”

  The door to the bar opened, and Levi stopped talking. He couldn’t breathe, and that didn’t make any sense at all. It was just a woman. Pretty brown hair pinned up on
her head. Pale, creamy skin. He couldn’t see her eyes from this distance, but her lips were red and turned up at the corners. She twirled a set of car keys on her finger, and gathered the train of her dress—a wedding dress, and that was weird—in her other hand, saving it from the closing of the door.

  “You were saying?” Collin prodded him, but Levi couldn’t remember what the three of them had been talking about. He’d been a little annoyed with them. Something about the bike trail that still hadn’t been decided on by the county commissioners.

  His mouth went a little dry, and he forced himself to take a long breath. Tried to make his heart stop galloping in his chest. She was...the most beautiful figment his imagination had ever created.

  “Something’s definitely wrong with him,” Aiden said. And Levi realized his friend was right.

  There was something very, very wrong with a man who hallucinated a beautiful woman in a wedding dress. Something really wrong.

  Maybe it was a brain tumor, only instead of giving him migraines, the tumor was causing him to imagine beautiful women. Or maybe Adam’s epilepsy was catching. Airborne or something. Didn’t he say that things went fuzzy and stopped looking normal when a seizure was starting?

  A beautiful woman, in a wedding dress, in his favorite bar was definitely not normal.

  Levi blinked. The woman was still there, standing just inside the door of the bar, looking a little lost. She wasn’t fuzzy around the edges or anything.

  So she wasn’t a hallucination, then. He could cross brain tumor off the list of things that were wrong with him. That left the epilepsy. Except that couldn’t be it, because a person didn’t catch epilepsy because he hung out with someone who had the disease. That left...jealousy.

  Was he jealous of the relationships his friends were in?

  Levi Walters didn’t get jealous. He had everything he needed at the ranch. More than he needed when he thought about the plans he had for the business that had been in his family for three generations. He didn’t need a girlfriend. Definitely didn’t need a woman in his life who walked into a bar in a wedding dress. That was a little too desperate, even for a guy who hadn’t had sex in...more months than he cared to recall.

  She focused in on Merle, the bartender, and crossed the room, the heels of her shoes click-clacking across the hardwood floor.

  “I’m lost,” she said, and Levi found himself leaving the booth and crossing the bar.

  He wasn’t looking for anything. He knew who he was, knew where he was going. He had good friends, and he was happy for those friends.

  But there was something about the woman who’d just walked into the bar that was different.

  Maybe, just this once, he should let himself consider something different.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CAMDEN CROSSED THE hardwood floor to the bar, wishing she’d at least grabbed the ballet flats she’d worn to the wedding venue that afternoon. The ballet flats wouldn’t echo so much in the cavernous space. At least there weren’t hundreds of people crowding the dance floor, staring at the strange woman in the wedding dress. She really should have thought this whole thing through. Should have taken five minutes at her mother’s house to shed this ridiculous gown.

  She couldn’t stop now, though. She was probably the only person in the world to get lost in such a small town. And she wasn’t even really lost. She knew she needed to get on the highway—it was those stupid one-way streets that were causing the problem.

  The older man at the bar wore a faded Kansas City Royals T-shirt and was wiping down a mahogany bar that already looked pristinely clean.

  “I’m a little lost,” she said, trying to keep her voice low. The only full table was in the back of the bar. What appeared to be three locals were sitting there, and they probably couldn’t overhear her. Still, she didn’t want to advertise her predicament to the whole town. “I’m trying to get on the highway, but every time I hit the intersection, the one-ways make me go the wrong direction.”

  “You want a beer?” The older man’s voice was gruff, but he didn’t seem annoyed.

  “No, just the directions, please.” He looked at her for a long moment. “Okay, and the beer.”

  He grabbed a bottle from below the bar and slid it across the shiny surface. The mountains on the label were icy blue. She eyed the amber bottle for a long time, hearing her mother’s voice in her head. Telling her wine was a lady’s drink, but that a lady never had more than half a glass. As if she were living in the 1800s and not the twenty-first century. Real women drank. And she was tired of living by rules that were not her own.

  What the heck? She was in a bar, in a strange town, wearing her wedding dress. “Do you have a bottle opener?”

  “Twist-off cap,” the bartender said. He put the cleaning rag away.

  Camden twisted the cold cap and grinned when it popped off in her hand. She put the bottle to her lips and grimaced as the beer hit her tastebuds. Maybe her mother had been right about this one thing; wine was very definitely preferable to the contents of this bottle, pretty amber color or not. She pushed the bottle away. “About those directions?”

  “Sure. The mayor ordered new signs after the tornado. Only the crew working that area were supposed to put them just past that intersection. You go one more street past the light, then hang your right and follow the signs from there.”

  That seemed simple enough. “Great. Thank you.”

  “No problem.” He seemed to consider his answer. “Course, you could also just take this street out to the bridge and catch the highway there.”

  Even better, she wouldn’t have to make her way around the one-ways again. “Thank you, again. How much for the beer?”

  “Three dollars. You taking it with you?”

  Camden eyed the bottle. “No. No, I’ve had enough. You wouldn’t have a white wine?”

  The older man narrowed his eyes and snatched the still-full bottle from the counter. “This is a bar, lady, not a nightclub. We serve beer, whiskey and tequila.”

  “Don’t you let this old geezer bother you, honey.” A Hispanic woman came up to the bar, holding a round serving tray. “I’m Juanita, and this is Merle. He’s harmless, but he has definite ideas about the differences in bars, nightclubs and bar-and-grill-type places. We have a nice boxed blush—”

  “You said I only had to keep those frou-frou drinks on hand during the summer.”

  “Summer ended about a week ago—”

  “A month and a half ago, woman, it’ll be Thanksgiving tomorrow,” Merle put in, but Juanita kept talking.

  “We’re still working through the supply. Don’t worry, you’ll be disappointing your customers with the limited menu in another few days.” She turned back to Camden. “So you want that glass, honey?”

  “Sure.” As much as she wanted to get out of this dress, she still hadn’t figured out what she was going to say to Calvin and Bonita when she showed up on their doorstep.

  Hi, how’ve you been? seemed a little too breezy, especially as she hadn’t seen them in more than a decade. She wasn’t up to spilling the whole sordid tale about her mother’s expectations, the life she’d hated and the colossal mistake she’d made when she accepted Grant’s proposal. Not yet.

  Juanita delivered the glass of wine, and Camden took a sip. It glided down her throat, tasting sweet and soothing. So much better than the beer. She hooked her heel around the rung of one of the bar stools and settled herself at the bar.

  Calling her grandparents was probably the best next step, but what if they were already asleep? Or didn’t want to see her? She’d sent Christmas and birthday cards, had invited them to her graduations, but other than that, her grandparents were strangers to her over these past few long years. All she knew about them was that they were far away from Kansas City. And that there was no love lost between her father’s pa
rents and his former wife.

  This was childish, wasn’t it? Running away from her problems instead of facing up to them wouldn’t solve anything. But what was done was done, and she was too exhausted to drive all the way back to Kansas City tonight. Maybe she should get a hotel room and wait until the morning to see her grandparents.

  “You seem a little lost,” a man suddenly said beside her.

  Camden took another sip of her wine, weighing her options. “No, I have the directions. Thanks, though.”

  If she went to a hotel, chances were she would talk herself out of visiting Calvin and Bonita at all.

  If she drove back to Kansas City, chances were her mother would convince her Grant would change his ways once they were married.

  She didn’t want to be married to Grant. Not because it would cement her stepfather’s place at the firm, and not because Grant wanted a former beauty queen on his arm at political events. She didn’t want to be married to Grant. At all.

  For the first time since she found Grant and Heather in the closet, Camden felt as if she could breathe. She didn’t want to be married to Grant. That was settled.

  “A woman doesn’t walk into a bar wearing a designer wedding gown, alone, without being a little lost,” the man said, and there was a teasing note in his deep voice.

  “I don’t want to be married,” Camden said, testing how the words sounded when spoken aloud. No twinge of anxiety. No guilt. She didn’t want to be married. “I didn’t pick out this monstrosity of a dress, and I didn’t pick the groom, but I am picking where I’m going from here. And I’m not going down the aisle.”