The Unlikely Groom. Wendy Douglas

Candy extended the word to two syllables “—to keep an eye out for him. If I find him…”

      “Go on back to the table,” said Templeton.

      “But, sugar—”

      “Go on.” He indicated the room behind him with a jerk of his head but otherwise didn’t move. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

      Candy cast a frown of pure frustration in Ashlynne’s direction, then flounced away with a sharp rustle of her skirts.

      Could she ever achieve that same effect, both feminine and dramatic at the same time? The question stunned Ashlynne with its secret jealousy. She lowered her lashes in shame as the now familiar breathlessness began to fill her chest again. Oh, God, this night, this place…

      “It doesn’t look like I can help you.” Templeton’s voice, low and rough, didn’t disguise his impatience. “Nobody named Ian Mackenzie has been in here tonight.”

      She swallowed a tired sigh and nodded with the same weariness. “Yes, of course. It’s as I expected. Thank you.”

      And then, before any other foolishness—or Lucas Templeton’s handsome face—got the better of her, she turned away. Gathering her determination—and whatever composure was left to her—Ashlynne stepped out into the cold night air and started for the next saloon.

      Things continued to go from bad to worse!

      Left to his own devices, Lucas discovered with some disgust that he’d lost any real taste for whiskey or women. He frowned. He’d been content enough to relax and sip his whiskey, with or without Candy’s company. So why had that changed? He refused to believe it had been because of Ashlynne Mackenzie’s very temporary interruption.

      But that thought did bring up another question. What the hell did she think she was doing, going from saloon to saloon looking for her wastrel husband? Lucas could hardly berate her for her choice of mates; he didn’t know enough about her situation to do so. But her reckless actions would be risky enough in most civilized parts of the world. To do so here, in Skagway? She must have been out of her mind—or as naive as she looked.

      Recalling his first sight of Ashlynne, Lucas might have smiled if he hadn’t sensed such…trouble about her. She’d stood by the door, so clearly out of place and with her arms crossed protectively over her chest. Her dark blue cloak had wrapped around her like a suit of armor. She was of average height, though the rest of her shape had been far less apparent. She’d peered around the room with obvious unease, as though she’d just stumbled into a nest of vipers.

      That thought, finally, gave Lucas a crooked twist of a smile. Some might well say that she had—and she hardly looked the part for such a task.

      She couldn’t have been older than twenty, or just past the age. Her hair was the color of mink and she’d scraped it back from her face in a severe hairstyle that should have done nothing to make her look attractive. It had, in fact, accented each of her features at their most elemental: high forehead, arched cheekbones, painfully straight nose and full, finely shaped lips. Her eyes had provided the most surprise; they’d flickered with a golden light that was nothing if not the color of whiskey.

      Lucas settled back in his chair at the same table where he always sat and thought about Ashlynne Mackenzie’s eyes. He hadn’t seen anything quite like them, expressive and yet guarded at the same time. But then, that described nearly everything about her. She was nothing like the working girls who made their ways north. Aside from that, she was worlds different from Emily.

      His stomach knotted and he signaled for another drink. Maybe he hadn’t been in the mood moments ago, but now, suddenly, he needed the alcohol. The last thing he could tolerate were comparisons between Emily and a woman he didn’t even know. There could be no comparison. Emily had been…special. Unique. A woman not quite of this earth. And Ashlynne Mackenzie was…not. She was simply one more woman who had most likely made a questionable match and now had to live with the consequences.

      It was none of his concern.

      “You thirsty, sugar?”

      Candy sidled up from behind him, scattering his thoughts as she delivered whiskey in a fresh glass. She bent low, hesitating long enough to draw considerable attention to the thrust of her breasts. Balancing herself with one hand on his shoulder, she offered him a seductive smile and leaned close, running her fingers down his chest and toying with the buttons of his vest beneath the suit jacket. Instinct urged him to pull away, but something else—some latent sense of self-preservation—stopped him. He needed to put behind him these unnerving memories of Emily, these unwelcome thoughts of Ashlynne Mackenzie. There could be no better way to do it than with another—and most certainly available—woman.

      He lifted one corner of his mouth in a smile. “Where have you been, Candy? Looking for a better man?”

      She gave him a wide smile of her own, made up of equal parts knowing seduction and wicked invitation. “There isn’t a better man in all of Skagway, sugar. I was just giving you some time to remember there’s no better woman than me.”

      Lucas couldn’t help himself. He laughed at Candy’s audacity and took a moment to remind himself of just how much a man he was. Not only that, but Candy was most definitely a woman. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a man worth wanting—at least not in the traditional sense. Anything between Candy and him had nothing to do with that.

      It was only sex and nothing permanent.

      He reached up to tangle his fingers with hers. “Just what did you have in mind?” he asked in a voice pitched low enough to sound deliberately suggestive.

      Candy smiled, a familiar expression that spoke of both seduction and attraction—and generated little response within Lucas. Uneasy, he searched for another smile, a real one this time, and parted his lips when she leaned farther down.

      Her mouth settled over his with unerring precision and Lucas waited for his body to awaken. Of the few girls with whom he’d spent any time, Candy had always been one of his favorites. Tonight, though, when she sent her tongue forward to twine around his, he knew only a mild aversion for her kiss. Neither the taste of her nor the cloying scent of rosewater enticed him to want anything more. Certainly he had no urge to take her to his bed—or anything else. Rather, some deep, elemental part of him wanted to pull away, to rub his hand across his mouth and wipe away the taste of her.

      Don’t be crazy, he told himself impatiently, and opened his mouth to deepen the kiss. He’d let his emotions, his thoughts, become too stirred up tonight—and not in a good way. He needed to find a release for the tension that coursed through him.

      Not just any release, but a sexual one. He made the point for himself deliberately.

      Lucas reached up to shove his fingers into Candy’s carefully styled hair and anchored her mouth against his. She made a deep, guttural noise that he took to mean approval—or agreement, at the very least—and her tongue picked up the dance, swirling through the cavern of his mouth. It plunged deeper, darted away, then plunged again before she finally wrenched her mouth free.

      “You want to go someplace, sugar?” Her whisper sounded like more of a pant and she arched her breasts toward him with brazen disregard for others in the room. “We can go in the back. Or we can go to my place. It’s—”

      A sharp sound cut off her invitation. It came strange and unexpected and not immediately identifiable. The others in the Star fell silent, as well, all listening. Lucas paused to catch his breath, more labored than he might have expected after Candy’s kiss, and the sound echoed in his mind. Scuffling noises from outside gave him another clue, and then it hit him.

      Gunfire.

      The sound had been a pistol shot, and in Skagway, that could mean only one thing.

      Trouble.

       Chapter Two

       T he Star of the North went abruptly silent and the air grew thick with tension.