The Bachelor's Northbridge Bride. Victoria Pade

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      Chapter Two

      “So now you’re going to be with me for a while, Ry?”

      “I am, Gram,” Ry confirmed for his grandmother. He didn’t point out that it was the third time she’d asked the same question already today and they’d only just finished breakfast. “Marti has gone on her honeymoon and Wyatt went back to Missoula. He’ll be here with us one day this week but otherwise, it’s just you and me, babe,” he joked, making her smile. “Well, you and me and Mary Pat,” he amended then.

      Theresa’s nurse, Mary Pat, suggested she take Theresa to dress for the day. As the two women got up from the table, Theresa said to Ry, “I don’t think you’re going to like it here.”

      That was a new one.

      Ry raised his eyebrows at her. “Why is that, Gram?”

      “It isn’t your kind of place. It’s quiet, things move more slowly. I don’t think it’s going to be enough for you.”

      “You know I can usually stir things up a little,” he said, winking at her because he knew it always tickled her.

      She waved a hand at him as if she were swatting a fly but giggled anyway before Mary Pat ushered her out of the kitchen.

      Ry took a drink of his second cup of coffee.

      His grandmother might not always be in her right mind, but there were still some things she had insight into. And despite his making light of it, he thought the possibility that Northbridge wasn’t for him was one of those things.

      Granted he’d only been here for Wyatt’s wedding three weeks ago and again now for Marti’s, so he hadn’t seen much of Northbridge. And he knew his brother and sister were enamored of the small town. But in spite of the fact that he’d met a lot of nice people, the town itself did seem a little too sleepy for him—too slow and quiet, just like his grandmother had said.

      But whether he liked Northbridge or not, he, Wyatt and Marti had always shared the responsibility of their grandmother. When she’d run away from Mary Pat to come here, he and his brother and sister had agreed that if Northbridge was where Theresa wanted to be, Northbridge was where she should be—even if it meant they had to rotate being here with her.

      Of course with both Wyatt and Marti married to locals now, there was talk of them relocating permanently. If that happened, Ry thought he could hold down the fort in Missoula where Home-Max was headquartered. Then he wouldn’t have to spend much time in Northbridge. But for now, here he was, taking his turn at helping with Theresa.

      And not excited by the prospect of being basically sequestered in the Montana outback—as he thought of the small town.

      It wasn’t that Northbridge was a bad place—from what little he’d seen, it had plenty of charm. But it was a small town and any small town had its limitations. And Ry didn’t like limitations.

      He liked—he thrived on—activity and choices and always having more options for things to do than he had time to do them. Slow and quiet? That was the last thing he wanted.

      In fact, he’d meant it when he’d assured Marti and Wyatt before they’d left this morning that he was glad to take over all they’d passed along for him to do. Because even if they had had to pile it on, he would always rather have too much on his plate than not enough.

      But he definitely had a full plate for this round.

      Along with keeping his grandmother company, there was the new Home-Max they were opening in Northbridge. They’d purchased a series of neighboring storefronts on Main Street that needed some work before they could house the new store, and overseeing the final stages of that was on his to-do list.

      He also needed to inventory stock as it was delivered, and organize the beginning of the actual setup of the store.

      No question about it, he had more than enough to keep him busy with all of that.

      And there was also this Hector Tyson guy he had to look up, the guy who had taken unfair advantage of the young Theresa and who now had a lot to answer for, a lot Ry was determined to make him answer for.

      Plus, along those same lines, there was the mystery from his grandmother’s past that he and his siblings were trying to solve once and for all—he’d promised to get into that, too, to try to figure out what exactly it was that his grandmother claimed had been taken from her, what exactly it was that she’d come to Northbridge to reclaim. If it might be more than the land Tyson had done her out of. If it might actually be a lost child…

      And of course there was his massage tonight….

      From Kate Perry.

      There hadn’t been any shortage of thoughts about her to occupy him since he’d first set eyes on her yesterday. Even though he wished they would stop coming.

      But damn, what a beauty she was! He’d already known that Northbridge had more than its fair share of pretty women from the abundance of them at Wyatt’s wedding. But Kate Perry? He’d hardly been able to believe his eyes when he’d gotten his first glimpse of her. And even though she’d been coming down the aisle between two sections of folding chairs in his grandmother’s old house, his first thought was that she could have been a vision emerging from a mist on an Irish countryside.

      Not that he had any idea if she was even Irish. It was just her coloring that made him think Irish lass—that incredible, lush, thick red hair and that pale alabaster skin. Add to it the delicate lines of her nose and apple-colored cheeks, and the pure elegance of her jaw, and she looked more like she was made of porcelain than skin and bone.

      Then her compact, posture-perfect, curves-in-all-the-right-places self had reached the makeshift altar where the ceremony was to be held. And in casting her eyes back the way she’d come to watch for the remainder of the bridesmaids and the bride, they’d briefly touched on him where he’d stood with Noah and some of the other groomsmen across the aisle.

      But the glance had been just long enough for him to see that her eyes weren’t merely blue, they weren’t merely green; they were a perfect combination of the two—like the mingling of sea and sky. Bright, vibrant, almost electric—they were amazing eyes to complete the picture of a truly, amazingly beautiful woman.

      Just the memory was enough to take his breath away a little.

      One look at her at that moment and everything else—every other person in the room—including his sister walking down the aisle—every sound, every note of the music being played, every scent of perfume and flowers, everything had faded into a blur as the only clear image he’d had, the only thing he’d been aware of, was Kate Perry.

      It was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him.

      Of course he’d shaken it off and poured his concentration back into the wedding. But as he sat there at the breakfast table Monday morning, taking another drink of his coffee, he still couldn’t help thinking about it, thinking about her. And how it was slightly unnerving to have had such a powerful first reaction to her.

      But regardless of how powerful or weird it had been, it was meaningless, he told himself. She might be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on, but she СКАЧАТЬ