Two Nights with His Bride (10 page)

Wyatt pushed the raft into the river, and they all climbed in and paddled
into the current. He sat behind her, while Jared took up all the room to her right.

The river narrowed as they approached Yankee Jim Canyon, and Wyatt shouted over the sudden rush, “There’s the boulder up ahead. What do you want to do?”

“Oh my God,” Ruby said, her whole body visibly stiffening. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

“All right, we’re going around it.” Wyatt pointed to the left of the boulder.
“That way. Paddle!”

“No way, dude! We can totally take that thing.” Jared dug his paddle in so the boat stopped mid-turn.

“Oh my God!” The current carried them faster and faster toward the boulder, and Ruby’s panic ramped up Nancy’s.

“Paddle around it, Jared!” Wyatt yelled.

“No! We’re going over it!”

“Pad—” Nancy’s shout was cut off as they slammed into the wave sideways. It flipped them
straight over. She tumbled out of the raft head-first, the first slap of the frigid water making the breath whoosh from her lungs. She hit the water hard.

But she hit the rock even harder.

Her helmet took a direct hit. Pain exploded in her head. The current spun her around, and she had no idea which way was up. Terror made her kick and stroke desperately for the surface, but something had caught
her vest and pulled her down, down, down.

Noooo.

She struggled harder, flailing her arms behind her, trying to find whatever she was caught on. Something hard hit her leg, and agony shot through it as it went dead. Her lungs burned, her chest collapsing inward with the need for air. Her body lost strength and the fight seeped from her.

The thing holding her vest yanked her downward and all
she was aware of was her hair floating around her face and the sense of flying toward a bright light.

Heaven. Who would’ve thought it?

She broke the surface of the water with a desperate gasp and stared in shock at Wyatt’s face, only an inch from hers. Not Heaven. Daylight. She’d been dragged upward, not down. She hadn’t been caught on something below the surface. Wyatt had caught her and tried
to pull her up, and she’d fought him, thinking he was tugging her farther under.

She dragged in lungfuls of air, coughing and gagging as the river current swept them along. Wyatt’s arms wrapped around her and he was saying something. She shook her head, unable to hear anything but the roar of the water around her. He leaned closer, his mouth next to her ear.

“You okay?” he shouted.

Her head
jerked in a nod, but the movement made stars dance in front of her eyes. He crushed her to himself, his helmet tapping hers. She wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t let me go.”

“Never.” He breathed hard. His legs brushed Nancy’s and the throbbing in her dead leg made it difficult to move, the soft contact sending pinpricks of agony through her leg, as if it were just waking after being cut off
from its blood supply. He kept his arm wrapped around her as he kicked toward the raft.

“You saved me.” She didn’t have the breath to say it loudly enough for him to hear, but it didn’t matter. He’d grabbed her instead of the raft and saved her life. “Is everyone else okay?”

He glanced around. “One, two, three…yeah. All alive and swimming.” He shouted and gestured toward one of the girls, who
floated past so quickly Nancy couldn’t identify her. “Swim toward the raft!”

She couldn’t see Jared anywhere, and panic crept up her chest again. The ache in her head grew worse as she desperately scanned the water.

“He’s fine,” Wyatt bit out. “He swam past me to get to the raft while I was searching for you.”

“Oh.” A chill went through her whole body as Wyatt’s words sank in. She couldn’t
wrap her mind around what he was telling her. “He…he didn’t look for me?”

Wyatt’s only answer was a hardening of his jaw as he kicked harder toward the slow-moving current at the edge of the river.

“Oh.” Her brain seized on that word since it seemed to start all the phrases going through her head right now.

Oh God.

Oh shit.

Jared had not only cavalierly caused their accident but then he’d
saved himself instead of helping her. The thought was so sickening she almost wanted to go back under.

She tried to blink away the stinging tears. “I…I can’t believe…”

“Bunny!” A splash behind her was the only warning she got before she was wrenched from Wyatt’s arms so hard she swallowed a mouthful of the Yellowstone. Gagging, she spat it back out and fought to free herself before realizing
Jared had her in his embrace. “Oh, my God. I was so worried.”

His voice shook with emotion, and so did she.

“I couldn’t find you,” he said, pressing his face against her neck. “I thought you might be caught under the raft.”

She met Wyatt’s eyes over Jared’s shoulder, and fury blossomed in her agonized heart.
You were wrong
.
He
did
try to find me.

Wyatt shook his head, silently denying her
accusation before swimming away and grabbing the raft. Ruby doggy paddled toward them, looking like a drenched, pissed-off wild cat. Polly was floating down the river just as Wyatt had instructed, on her back, feet first, clutching her paddle.

“I’m going to flip the raft. You guys back off a little way but stay out of the main current, okay?”

He hoisted himself onto the overturned raft, water
sluicing off him as he crawled across it. Nancy watched his every movement through blurry eyes as the shock of the past few minutes slowly dissipated. He unwrapped what looked to be a thin rope and a caribiner from his vest and hooked it onto a rope tied around the edge of the raft. Walking backward to the opposite edge, he dug his heels in and leaned his shoulders back, using his body weight to
pull the raft over. He fell back into the river and the raft landed in front of him, right side up.

So calm. So quick. So sure-footed.

Her heart beat as fast as a hummingbird’s wings, and the water’s chill raked her body with shivers despite her wetsuit.

He lifted himself over the edge of the raft and waved her closer. “C’mere.”

“I can pull her in,” Jared said, letting her go and climbing
into the raft.

She blinked hard at the two men, both reaching out for her. She reached the raft, and they grabbed the back of her life vest, hauling her in. She landed face-first on the floor of the raft in an unladylike heap, her tangled legs in the air.

Worst bachelorette party ever.

‡

“Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.”

—Zig Ziglar

W
yatt took a
long sip of the brew Jason Grey kept on tap at his bar and tried not to look at the time. Austin and their dad should’ve been there by now for their weekly catch-up. He refused to think of it as a date,
though one of his exes had called his relationship with Austin a bromance. He’d dumped her soon after. If a woman couldn’t figure out the difference between a bromance and an actual brother, he didn’t want his kids to inherit her genetic material.

When his beer was half gone, the saloon’s door swung open and Austin strode in, still wearing his forest ranger uniform. Wyatt waved him over, and,
when he slid into the booth across from him, said, “Didn’t have time to change?”

“I meant to but we had a big group on a tour bus visit today. When they were getting ready to leave, they discovered one of their passengers had gone missing, so we called the sheriff, who called out SAR, and the whole bus tour got involved in searching…” Austin blew out a long breath. “Come to find out, the missing
guy was there all along, searching for himself.”

Wyatt hooted with laughter. “You’re making this up.”

Holding up his right hand, Austin said, “Kid you not. He’d just spilled some wine on his horrible Hawaiian shirt so he changed it, and no one recognized him when he wasn’t wearing the eyesore. All day they’d been thinking of him as the guy in the tacky shirt, and he didn’t recognize that description
of himself. Tour leader didn’t remember his name or even have a full list of passengers. Total chaos. I know I should be glad the guy’s not stranded and bleeding somewhere—”

“But a little part of you wishes he was.”

“I’m not going to say that.”

“But it’s true.”

Humor sparked in Austin’s eyes. “Maybe. Anyway, how about you? Good trip this weekend?”

Wyatt winced. “Don’t want to think about
it.”

“That bad, huh? Wait…wasn’t it a bachelorette party?”

Wyatt’s wince deepened. “Yeah.”

With a hoot of laughter, Austin crossed his arms and relaxed back into the booth. “Am I going to regret having to work this weekend so I couldn’t take over for you as the guide?”

“Depends. How would you feel about spending a weekend alone in the woods with Polly Parker and Ruby Cole?”

Austin’s jaw dropped
so hard it nearly hit the table. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nope.” He took a sip of beer.

“So it was Nancylynn’s bachelorette party?”

“Yep.”

“Holy crap. How’s she doing?”

Wyatt cocked his brow, and Austin grinned. “Star of the biggest prime-time soap ever and engaged to the prince of Hollywood. Yeah, of course she’s doing well. Stupid question.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure he’s a prince of anything
but darkness.”

Austin sobered immediately. “Meaning?”

“He crashed the party, then crashed the raft, and she hit her head on a rock. Fortunately she was wearing a helmet, but she looked so dazed I cut the weekend short and insisted she get her head checked.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Asshole fiancé of hers wanted to put it off so he could do some more rafting.”

Austin’s face had
gradually lost its usual humor as he listened. “I want to hurt him.”

So did Wyatt, and that was the problem. Before he could ask his brother for advice on how to get Nancy to see the danger she was in, the bar’s door opened and their dad walked in…with their younger half brother a step behind him. Wyatt froze, and so did Gabriel when he noticed Wyatt sitting there. Shame rode on a heat wave through
Wyatt as Gabriel’s eyes flickered with anger.

Swallowing his pride, Wyatt pushed himself out of the booth and closed the distance between them. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Gabriel’s gaze stayed hard and unforgiving. He turned to Wyatt’s dad and said, “I thought we were just having a beer together. I didn’t realize this was a family reunion.”

Aaron clasped Gabriel’s shoulder, then did the same to Wyatt, connecting
the two in an unmistakable message. “We
are
having a beer together. I wanted you to tell Wyatt and Austin what you told me the other day about your plans for the camp. If anyone can help, it’s these two.”

He didn’t say
It’s my boys
, the way he usually referred to Wyatt and Austin. Typical of his dad not to make Gabriel feel left out. Gabriel wasn’t one of his boys. He and his twin sister, Camila,
had been conceived when their mother had an affair with a ranch hand. Their parents had split up, never divorcing but living separately for nearly thirty-five years.

Throughout Wyatt’s childhood, he’d split his time between his ranch and the crappy apartments in town that his mom could afford. At the ranch, his grandmother had constantly blamed the twin babies for breaking up his parents’ marriage.
Stupid, now that Wyatt was old enough to understand that Gabriel and Camila hadn’t asked to be born, and certainly hadn’t asked to be born into the circumstances they had been. But as a young, impressionable child, his grandmother’s words had been truth to Wyatt; his parents had separated when the twins had been born, so the twins must’ve been the culprits.

He’d mostly ignored Camila—she was
a girl, and even he knew not to mistreat girls—but he’d been a complete asshole to Gabriel. Every time he looked at his half brother now, decades of regret cramped his gut and made him realize he’d acted like a shit.

“I’m happy to do anything you need,” Wyatt told him. “Let me get you guys a beer.”

“I can get my own beers, thanks.” Gabriel’s voice took on a mocking edge, something Wyatt used
to respond to in kind. Now he kept his mouth shut. Gabriel had every right to despise and distrust him.

Wyatt followed him to the bar where Jason Grey, never known for his affability, pulled four pints without saying a word. He slid them across the bar and Gabriel said, “Thanks, Jason. I’ll get these.”

Gabriel started to get his wallet out, but Jason stopped him. “You don’t pay for drinks in
my bar. Always on the house.”

A dark flush stained Gabriel’s cheeks, the only outward sign he was uncomfortable with his status as a local hero. About nine months earlier, he’d saved a boy’s life up on Copper Mountain. Young Josh had ended up in a wheelchair, but he was alive and still as mischievous as ever. Gabriel and Josh’s mom were now seeing each other, and judging by how frequently he’d
been seen around town, it seemed like things were pretty serious between the two.

“Thanks, Jason,” Gabriel said as he picked up two of the glasses. Wyatt paid and picked up the other two, and they walked in disturbing silence back to the table. Wyatt squeezed in next to Austin, and Gabriel sat next to Aaron.