Christmas In A Small Town. Kristina Knight

had to be another gas station or some business where she could ask for directions to get out of the endless loop she’d found herself in. Camden began following the signs again, this time focusing on the businesses—all with closed signs in their windows—along the route. The only place that appeared to be open at—she checked her watch—eight o’clock on a Wednesday evening was what appeared to be a bar. The Slippery Slope.

      Camden blew out a breath, contemplating her options. Go into a bar in what would have been her wedding dress. Keep driving around in circles until the other businesses opened the next day. She’d already decided that she wouldn’t call her grandparents, for two reasons. First, they didn’t know she was coming. And second, as sleepy as this part of the state was, it was still dangerous at night. She didn’t hunt, but she knew it was deer season. She wouldn’t risk her grandparents trying to drive into town at night when deer would be out.

      Yet driving in circles seemed pointless.

      Decided, Camden parked the Porsche outside the bar and stepped out, shivering at the chill in the air. Camden gathered as much of the skirt of the dress in her hands as she could. This street seemed marginally cleaner than the gas station lot, but neither could be confused with the clean flooring of a church. She had no intention of wearing this dress again, no intention of getting married at all, but she didn’t want to ruin it.

      Until five hours ago, she’d been ready to become Mrs. Grant Wentworth, the debutante, beauty-queen wife of the next partner of Wentworth, Carlson and Wentworth, the best law firm in Kansas City, Missouri. Grant, a future mayor of Kansas City, would become governor one day, and probably president of the United States eventually. But instead of marrying him, she was running away because while she’d been prepared to marry a man she didn’t quite love, she wasn’t prepared to marry a man who’d had so little regard for Camden that he’d been banging her maid of honor. Yep, in the closet just down the hall from the room where her mother and several friends waited for the society wedding of the season to begin. She’d wanted Heather’s opinion on the dress and hair combination before walking down the aisle, and thank God she had. If she hadn’t gone looking for her maid of honor, if she hadn’t heard the noises in the closet, she might have married that stupid son of a bitch. Might have truly thrown her life away.

      When she saw Grant bent over Heather in the closet, though, it was as if a Camden she barely remembered had woken up. That Camden didn’t scream or yell—she simply turned around, grabbed her bag from the chaise in the dressing room and walked out. She’d walked out of the historic mansion where the wedding was to be held, gotten into her car, driven to her mother’s house and thrown some clothes into a suitcase, and driven out of their suburb, out of Kansas City. Out of a life she’d never wanted to live, and away from the rut her life had been in since joining the Junior League after that last pageant five years ago.

      Camden caught a glimpse of herself in a picture window. Not a single lock of hair out of place, but there was a crease where the seat belt had lain across the bodice of the dress. She smoothed her hand over her hip and felt a few errant threads along the tulle roses. She should have left it at her mother’s house, where it could have been returned and become some other bride’s perfect dress, but she had been afraid if she took the time to change, someone might have found her. Convinced her to go back.

      Now this dress would never see the inside of a church. Camden sighed. It wasn’t her choice for a dress but it was pretty. And she’d ruined it. After an hours-long car ride in the cramped front seat of a Porsche, it would never be the same; she might as well stop pretending she could box it up and send it back.

      Camden released the skirt of the designer gown, letting it trail along the pavement as she continued toward the bar.

      If she were to consider marriage one day, it would be on her terms. No formal society wedding. No fiancé her parents liked more than she did. And no wedding that would seal a partnership or a merger, like the one she’d barely escaped a few hours before.

      Her life had suddenly become an adult version of the game Clue. Only instead of the groom murdering the bride in the study with a candlestick, he was doing the maid of honor in the closet of the historic Kansas City mansion.

      It wasn’t that she’d expected Grant to vow his undying love, but she’d assumed—at the very least—those vows would have included fidelity. And that his fidelity would have been in effect since his proposal over the Fourth of July weekend.

      Camden sighed. Obviously, she’d been wrong. On so very many levels.

      And now, wearing what would have been her wedding dress, she had to face however many strangers were in this small-town bar and ask directions to the only place she’d ever felt was home.

      * * *

      LEVI WALTERS TOSSED a dart toward the board on the wall, liking the sound the sharp tip made as it sank into the rubber bull’s-eye area. “That’s three. You’re toast,” he said as Collin Tyler, his best friend, picked up three darts from the booth the two of them shared with Aiden Buchanan, another of their group.

      It was Wednesday night, and usually there would be five of them here. Shooting darts, drinking a few beers. But James had his hands full with Collin’s sister, Mara, and their two-year-old, Zeke. Adam was spending more time with his wife, Jenny, and while Aiden had been doing a good impression of a man about to propose ever since Julia Colson blew into Slippery Rock, he was here at the bar while Julia was going over lighting and dress options with Savannah, Levi’s sister and Collin’s fiancée. Julia ran a dress shop and was opening a destination-wedding business in a Victorian home that overlooked Slippery Rock Lake. Tonight, she and Savannah were testing out lighting options for Savannah’s upcoming wedding to Collin. Since the two of them were also trying on wedding gowns, Collin was banned from the area. He didn’t seem to mind.

      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