The Wedding Gift. Sandra Steffen

normal.

      “Something tells me you haven’t seen the last of him,” Ruby said quietly after he’d disappeared around the corner at the end of the block.

      She was still making up her mind about that.

      Madeline left Red’s Garage an hour later with a preliminary quote for the repair of her car, simple walking directions to the Gale Motel six blocks away, and more O’Toole family history—red hair wasn’t the only thing that ran in that family. She set off at a fast clip, her tote over one shoulder, her purse over the other, her wheeled suitcase bumping along behind her.

      Red O’Toole had cautioned her to keep an eye on the sky. She was more concerned about the Land Rover that was following her. She stepped up her pace and reached into her purse for her cell phone.

      “You don’t need to call 911,” a man with shaggy blond hair said, rather sharply in her opinion, as he pulled up beside her. “Riley sent me.”

      She tried to recall where she’d seen him. “Why would he do that?” she asked as she considered flagging down the car approaching from the opposite direction.

      “You’ll have to ask him.”

      The approaching car passed while she was foolishly still deciding. Great. Now it was just her and this stranger and her cell phone.

      The houses in this part of town sat close together. Their graying porches and brown lawns looked forlorn despite the daffodils blooming along their foundations. Not a single curtain moved, which meant there would be no witnesses. She could practically hear their grumbles if her brothers had to drive all the way up here to identify her body. That lovely thought finally brought her to her senses.

      Again, the man spoke before she completed the 911 call. “Riley told me your car broke down and that you could use a ride.”

      “Like I said,” she repeated, “why would Riley do that?”

      “Like I said, you’ll have to ask him.” The guy wasn’t going to win any awards for charm. For some reason that made her feel less threatened.

      “My name’s Kipp Dawson. I’m six-one and go a buck seventy soaking wet. See for yourself.” He fumbled through the glove box then held his license toward her. When she failed to move closer, he tossed it to her, wallet and all.

      She read his ID while keeping an eye on her surroundings. “What are you doing here, Mr. Dawson?”

      “I’m giving you a ride. Unless there’s somebody else who can come and get you.”

      “I have three older brothers. Three protective older brothers. Accomplished hunters, all of them.”

      “If you were going to call them, you would have by now.”

      In other words, she’d wasted her breath on the implied threat.

      “Riley has two brothers,” he said as if it had relevance to this conversation. “Half brothers, technically, one older, one younger. Pains in the ass, both of them. They come through for him when it counts, though.”

      A fat raindrop landed on her forehead while she was wondering why this stranger was sharing Riley’s personal information with her. Within seconds the sky opened up, just as Red O’Toole had predicted.

      Kipp got out of his vehicle and wrestled her suitcase from her. After tossing it into the back of his aging Land Rover, he said, “Riley has friends, too, who have his back. We’re worried about him.”

      She stood ten feet away in the pouring rain, uncertain what to do about Kipp Dawson and his offer.

      “Riley thinks his mother sent you,” he said, getting soaked, too. “I talked to Chloe a few minutes ago. She didn’t mention you.”

      Madeline could have blurted the truth, but if she told anyone the reason she was here, it had to be Riley. And she had no right to tell him unless he asked. What had she gotten herself into?

      “Maybe having a nurse around isn’t such a bad idea,” Kipp said.

      “Are you saying you think he needs a nurse?” she asked.

      “I’m not saying anything. I’m just offering you a ride to the motel because Riley asked me to. Do you want it or don’t you?”

      Kipp Dawson looked as rough and unkempt as his dented old Land Rover. He was probably right about weighing one-seventy. Men didn’t often lie about their weight. His hair appeared darker now that it was wet and his whisker stubble was too straggly to be a fashion statement. Beneath his exterior was a vein of something earnest.

      That didn’t make him her friend.

      She tossed his wallet back to him and continued on her way. Walking faster now that she wasn’t weighted down by her cumbersome suitcase, she heard him swear and close his door. Then he was following her again in his car.

      The little motel was exactly where Ruby had said it would be. Kipp parked under the portico beneath a lighted vacancy sign that was missing the C, then hauled her bulky suitcase out of the backseat. After setting it heavily on the pavement next to her, he got back in the driver’s seat without uttering a word.

      For some reason she felt compelled to say, “Riley made it clear he doesn’t need a nursemaid, as he put it.”

      Kipp lit a cigarette before replying. “Riley doesn’t talk about what he needs. You ask me, a good roll between the sheets with a pretty nurse might be just what the doctor ordered.”

      Madeline was left staring at his taillights as he drove away, wondering how many more times she would have to consciously close her gaping mouth today.

      Sully’s Pub began its existence as a boarding-house for lumberjacks in the mid-1800s. The ax and saw marks on the rough-hewn beams over the bar were as evident today as they were in the black-and-white photograph that immortalized Ernest Hemingway having a beer here in 1948. The waitress was a brown-eyed young woman named Sissy. She wore her dark hair short and her T-shirt tight, the words Yale is for thinkers—Gale is for drinkers stretched across her chest. According to her, the fine folks of Gale have been hoping to lure someone famous to town ever since. Other celebrities had reportedly purchased property in the area, but if they drank, it wasn’t at Sully’s.

      Madeline hadn’t come to Sully’s to meet anybody famous. She came because she was starving and the desk clerk at the motel said it was the only place within walking distance that served food this late during the off-season.

      The bar was surprisingly crowded on this Friday evening in April. It had a simple menu, small tables, mismatched chairs, paneled walls and one pool table in the back where Madeline and Ruby were losing to a petite brunette named Amanda and her clean-cut accountant boyfriend, Todd.

      “You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?” Ruby sputtered to Amanda after scratching on an easy shot.

      Amanda didn’t let the fact that she was nearly a head shorter than Ruby intimidate her. Crossing her arms stubbornly, she said, “You’ve been my best friend my entire life and I’m not attending our ten-year high school reunion without you.”

      Without her ball cap to subdue it, Ruby’s wavy red hair fell halfway down her back. Even in flat shoes, her legs looked a mile long. In fact, everything about her was long—her eyelashes, her silences, her sigh before she said, “Pete’s going to be there.” “So?” Amanda asked.

      “Pete,” Ruby said with obvious disdain. “You know. Peter. As in Cheater Peter?”

      “You guys finished here?” somebody asked.

      After relinquishing the pool table to a group celebrating a twenty-first birthday, Todd said, “Just take a date.”

      As if it was that easy. “Ugh,” was all Ruby said.

      Obviously accustomed to these conversations, Todd excused himself and ambled over to talk to someone on the other side of the room. Now that it was just women,