Operation: Married by Christmas (14 page)

“I'm fine, Will. Really, God was just having a good laugh at us today is all. What are the odds?” She looked shaken despite her words.

“That's it. No more discussion. We're getting out of here.” Taking her hand, he started to lead her back up the hill, but she held back.

“Will, stop!” she exclaimed, pulling her hand out of his grasp.

He spun around at her exclamation. “What?” he yelled, scanning the area, arms outstretched and ready for a fight, expecting the alligator to be charging them.

“Purple berries, there,” she sang like a kid spying cookies. Sidestepping him, she slogged through the six inches of mud to the far hill where a grouping of thin scraggly limbed bushes covered with clusters of purple berries dotted the terrain.

“
Haley,
enough already. Forget the berries. You're covered in mud and it's getting colder, not to mention there could be another alligator in there. Now come on.”

Haley ignored him as she marched right up the hill to the first bush and fingered the ugly clump of purple berries. They looked like red holly berries but were bright purple, and though Will had seen them before he had no idea what their name was nor did he give a hoot. What he cared about was getting Haley safely home before she caught a cold or got her arm bitten off. Something she was completely oblivious to considering. He'd always had to look out for her and now was no different.

“You just wait until I get back to town,” he growled. “Norma Sue should never have asked you to come out here.”

Haley turned toward him. Mud was clinging to one side of her cheek; her hair was wet on one side and her skin was pink with chill. But her eyes were on fire as she pinned them on him, startling him with her intensity.

“You will do no such thing, Will Sutton. Norma Sue asked me to find the berries. She didn't force me or know she was putting me in danger. The odds of me running into an alligator or falling over a log are low. It is not her fault that today was not my day.” She proceeded to reach into the pocket of her coat and pull out the canvas laundry tote Will had watched her carefully fold and place there earlier.

Frustrated, he scrubbed mud off his chin and realized he'd lost his hat in the fall. Deciding he would be better served by calming down, he spun and stalked back across the mud in search of his hat. He spotted it up the hill by the log that had caused this whole fiasco. Stomping toward it, he wondered why he was so upset. It wasn't as if he hadn't grown used to the unexpected happening when Haley Bell was around. That was part of her being her. She attracted, or caused, no one knew what it was for sure, the unexpected. Growing up, she'd always been the little kid that weird things happened to. Sweet little Haley Bell. Everyone had loved her, and loved to tease her, but one day when he'd come home from college he'd realized she wasn't little Haley Bell anymore. That summer he'd fallen in love with the woman she'd become, and part of that love included an overwhelming desire to protect her. Many times that included protecting her from herself.

A hard thing to do when she was always running ahead of him, like tripping over the log before he could get a grasp on her. How did a man protect someone who wouldn't slow down and try to protect herself? Especially a woman who knew that trouble and mishap preceded her?

Will snatched up his hat, wincing when a strained back muscle protested the maneuver. It was a wonder they hadn't broken their necks careening down that hill.

He didn't put the hat on, not wanting to transfer the mud in his hair to the inside of the Stetson. Instead he took the time to reshape it, fighting for calm, then he hung it from a tree limb and marched back toward Haley.

She was happily snapping berry stems from the bush and dropping them into the bag, totally oblivious to the fact that he was in crisis. The woman had been controlling him since he'd been a sophomore in college with this overwhelming need to protect her. He wanted to march down there, grab her and carry her back to town whether she was ready or not. But what he wanted to do more than anything else was hold her and kiss some sense into her.

Or just kiss her.

He'd lost more than his pride when he'd rolled down that hill like Jack after Jill. He'd obviously lost his head…and any brains he'd once had there.

H
aley was well aware that she was making Will mad. But it was better for him to be mad at her; it protected her from herself in a way. And right now she needed protection because she wasn't thinking straight.

Crazy her—she wanted to kiss Will Sutton.

Mud and all, it didn't matter that they were both gooey messes. She wanted what she wanted and that was to feel his arms around her and his lips pressed against hers in a long precious kiss. She'd felt so loved when he'd held her. Always had.
Haley, what are you thinking?

She snapped the berry-laden twigs as if it were their fault she was such an irrational human being.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Will stalking toward her. He'd wiped most of the mud from his face, but he hadn't put his hat on and no wonder. His hair had started to stiffen with mud as if he'd prettied it up with hair gel. But one look in his eyes assured her that Will Sutton wasn't feeling like a pretty boy. He was hot, hopping mad and it showed with every stiff step he took.

Haley geared up for battle. If he thought all he had to do was crook his finger and she'd jump like when they were young, he was wrong.

Dead wrong.

She'd been flirting with this attraction and now knew she'd dived right back into being a fool. Yup, big stupid, glossy-eyed fool. “Don't start, Will,” she snapped. “I'm going to fill this bag up with these berry branches, so just back off. Shoo, go sit over there,” she said, waving a hand toward where his hat hung on a tree limb. “If you think I'm the little girl who used to follow you around like a little lamb, well, you're wrong. I might have had a moment—” She stopped herself before she goofed by admitting she'd been thinking about kissing him. “I mean, well—” she threw her shoulders back so hard she almost threw her back out “—I'm a grown adult who can pick berries and face alligators if I want. You can't control my life—”

She was startled when Will didn't even pause as he reached her. One moment she was laying down the law to him, and the next she was in his arms and he was kissing her.

Huh—Haley's arms dropped to her sides. The bag of berries, forgotten, thudded to the ground at their feet.

She'd always loved Will's strength. His ability to make her feel safe—that was until he tried to take over. But since she had been daydreaming about his kiss and being held in his arms, for this moment she let her defenses slide away as easily as she'd dropped the purple berries. Her hands came around him, felt the power of his muscles through the light layers of his jacket, and she gave in to the wonderful sensation of his lips on hers.

Haley knew she was in dangerous territory. Had been slowly moving toward it all morning, as her emotions had waffled between what had been and what could have been. Somewhere overhead a bird shouted out its glee at being allowed to soar high above the world, and Haley lifted her hand to cup Will's jaw, soaring in her own blue sky.

Will drew back and their gazes locked. His eyes were searching just as she knew hers were. All these years…the thought, the memory of how she'd loved him, overwhelmed her and she closed her eyes, swayed toward him and felt his arms tighten around her again. He whispered her name against her lips then kissed her again.

There was nothing tentative about Will's kiss. He always had put his heart and soul into kissing her. It was one of the things that she'd never been able to forget…and no one had ever matched the feelings that kissing Will always evoked inside of her. His kisses were connected to her heart.

And nothing had changed.

The world seemed to spin around them, as the kiss went on and on. When at last they parted, Will rested his forehead against hers, continuing to hold her close as if he never wanted to let her go. Haley's world had turned on its side, and she wasn't sure she would be able to stand if he let her go.

They were in the shadow of the woods; filtered sunlight sprinkled across the ground at their feet. Haley studied those feet while she struggled to get her bearings. Will's boot, her boot, Will's boot, her boot…alternated, intertwined like the pairing of a man and woman. It was about the most perfect picture Haley had ever seen.

It was as if they were woven together, as one, just the way the Lord had intended. That she'd longed for the love she'd hoped they'd shared. The love that had been nothing but smoke in the end. As if she'd just had a bucket of ice water thrown in her face, Haley suddenly jumped back. “Whoa!” she exclaimed. What was she doing?

What was she thinking? This could never work.

Never!

No. Not just never.

But never,
ever!

Grabbing the bag of berries, blinded by fury and frustrations, Haley stormed up the hill and down the other side. She adjusted the bag on her back and stepped over the log, heading in the direction of the truck.

There she went again, jumping into the middle of something without a plan. Kissing—yes,
kissing
—Will Sutton was not a plan. It had been tempting. There was no doubt about that. The very idea had been floating around in her head from the moment she'd rolled her window down a few short weeks ago and found him looking down at her—but it was not a plan.

The man confused her. The man infuriated her. The man made her heart stop and her pulse race, but that in itself was not a plan. He'd hurt her. He'd let her down. It was not anything except crazy.

Capital letters
CRAZY
!

“Haley, would you wait up?” Will demanded.

He'd caught up with her and was standing right behind her, and the knowledge caused her insides to tremble. But she was done with that. Spinning around to tell him so, she almost collided with him in her haste.

Why was it the man, even caked in mud, could turn her world upside down? It wasn't fair.

What, she wanted to know, was fair about that?

What was fair about a woman loving a man who…? “Look, Will, this, this whatever it is would never work. That kiss should never have happened. Years ago you fell in love with a goofy girl who could barely think for herself. Believe me, I know!” Haley's hands tightened around the tote, her clutch mimicking the band that was tightening around her heart. “And when I finally did start to think, you couldn't accept it. You didn't believe I could ever make anything of myself.” That thought hurt then and it hurt even more now.

He shook his head, his eyes wide. “That isn't true. Do we always have to come back to this? Come on, Haley.” He stepped near her, his voice softening. “We had something. I've realized I messed it up. But I want to start over. Believe me, I've tried to talk myself out of it—”

“Tried to talk yourself out of it?” Haley gasped, the band around her heart so tight she thought she was going to scream. Instead, she spun and slogged through bushes. She was so mad at herself and at him. She would have relished a fight with a stinking gator. She'd told him before when he'd tried to apologize that it was okay, but it wasn't. Not when he couldn't acknowledge what it was that he'd done. “You tried to talk yourself out of admitting that you let me dow—” She stopped herself, stomped her foot and glared back at him. “Yes! We do have to keep going back to this. I thought we didn't, but I was delusional. Because I've suddenly realized something. Something important. Something so very important—you never loved me.” She tossed the fact over her shoulder and kept on walking.

Until Will snagged her by the arm, bringing her to a halt as scalding tears brimmed at the backs of her eyes and threatened to humiliate her. “Haley,” he breathed, gently tugging her around. “I did love you. If you'd have bothered hanging around long enough for our wedding, I'd have been proving my love to you every day since.”

Haley yanked her arm out of his grasp, the lie breaking her. “Get away from me. Get as far away from me as you can get, because if you so much as look at me sideways I'm going to—”

Will dropped his hands and stared at her as if maybe he didn't know her as she yanked open the truck door and climbed inside.

She couldn't blame him. She didn't know herself, either, right now.

They didn't speak all the way back to town. Haley looked straight ahead. She was so mad, so unbelievably angry, that she couldn't think. Much less think straight. She tried. She tried to make her mind work, but it wouldn't happen. Her brain just kept clicking back to furious.

Clicking back to the pain.

The pain she'd tried so hard to keep away. So hard to cover up. So very hard to forget. But it was useless and she knew it.

Will Sutton had let her down in the worst way. She had loved him so much. She could not, would not, let herself fall prey to that kind of hurt again. That kind of hurt made her weak. And she refused ever to be that weak again.

 

Haley was not any happier by the time they pulled into town a few minutes later and she realized that she was going to have an audience watching her as she stepped out of the truck.

Perfect. Just perfect. She was covered in mud and fuming, but she didn't care. Really, it was liberating, actually. This would be the Haley Bell story to last a lifetime and she didn't care.

Why, goodness, it was her Christmas present to the town. Perfect.

Will slammed the truck to a halt in front of the center. As if they'd all been staring out the windows waiting on them to appear down the lane, the sidewalk was packed before she could slouch out of the truck cab.

“Haley Bell, what happened to you?” Esther Mae exclaimed, and she was echoed by Norma Sue and several others.

Haley could only imagine how she must look with her hair plastered in mud-hardened ribbons to her scalp, her clothes stiff with mud. She snapped, crackled and popped with each step as she stalked to the bed of the truck and yanked the half-filled bag of purple berries out of the bed. Slamming the bag over her shoulder, she finally spoke. “
He
happened,” she said, glaring at Will, who'd also limped stiffly to the back of the truck. She ignored the exasperation she saw in his eyes, hiked her nose in the air and walked to the sidewalk. She knew she was acting crazy, but she couldn't stop herself. Feelings were warring inside her that she couldn't face.

Lacy and Sheri came skidding to a halt by the door.

“Haley,” Lacy gasped.

Applegate stepped out of the crowd, his bony chest bowed out and fight in his eyes. “What did he do? Come on, tell us.”

“He, he,” Haley sputtered, faltering with why exactly she was acting like this. “He
kissed
me. That's what he did!” She glared at Will, and he glared back.

“Kissed you,” Applegate said, his face drooping into a frown as he scratched his head and looked from her to Will, then over to Norma Sue, Esther Mae and Adela, who were standing in a huddle looking stunned.

“Did she say he kissed her?” Stanley barked, stepping around Applegate and fiddling with his hearing aid.

“Yes,” Haley snapped again, her ire rising as smiles blossomed across everyone's faces.

“That's what I thought she said,” Stanley mumbled, looking dumbfounded. “Ain't that what was s' posed to happen?”

Haley groaned, dropped the bag of berries, threw up her hands and stormed into the building, intent on getting as far away from Will as she could get.

No such luck. He stomped in behind her, hands on hips, his brown eyes flashing like molten honey when she glared at him.

“You kissed her?” Esther Mae squealed as everyone filed in behind him.

“Yeah, I kissed her,” Will growled.

“Well, Will,” Norma Sue managed to say, suppressing laughter. “Whatever in the world would make you go and do something terrible like that?”

Chuckles rippled through the crowd of people. Haley glared at Lacy and Sheri, who immediately coughed back their laughter and tried to look serious as Esther Mae bumped them out of her way and wiggled farther into the room. She was grinning as bright as a neon sign on a cloudless night.

Will just stood there glaring at Haley, and she glared right back at him.

“Will!” Applegate snapped. Haley realized he was about as happy behind his scowl as a frog in a bug-infested lily pond. “What do ya have to say fer yourself?”

“I think when I rolled down that hill and landed beside that gator I must have hit my head hard,” he answered, his voice low and barely controlled. Then with a last shake of his head, he spun on his heel and stalked out the door, got into his truck and was gone.

“Did he say
gator?
” Stanley asked, breaking the silence as all eyes turned to Haley.