Meg's Best Man: A Montana Weekend Novella by Cynthia Bruner Page A

and simple.
    She thought of Mouse hiding behind the tree. That’s just what she would be doing if she wore that.
    The alternative was the dress, this same one that called her when she was out shopping for a nice performance fleece jacket, luring her in with its flawless fit, fetching drape, and vintage styling. And heels. Vintage patent leather shoes with an interior made like tennis shoes. What brilliant person thought that up? They were so comfy she had purchased the red ones, the only color in her size. She imagined herself hiking up the steep, rocky road. They would be scratched. She’d probably get sweaty, get bitten by horse flies, and then break an ankle.
    Meg needed another cup of coffee. By the end of it she decided that taking a shower didn’t necessarily commit her to wearing the dress, it just bought her a little more time to decide. So she took a very quick shower and put on some shorts and a T-shirt.
    Now what about her hair? Brie had taken her power station, and now she had a travel hair dryer with a DC plug and nowhere to plug it in… except the Jeep.
    That was how she came to be sitting in the driver’s seat with her Jeep running, stereo on, singing into her knees with her head upside down and out the open door. And when she flipped her hair back and looked up, she saw Gage standing about ten feet away with something large and blue on his shoulder.
    He was grinning at her, and just the look of it made her blush from her hair to her toes. She was about to admonish him about something, like sneaking up on her or spying on her, when she realized he was carrying a five-gallon plastic bottle of water. Her jaw dropped. “That’s heavy,” she stated.
    “True,” he said, his voice strained. “May I please dump it in your water tank so I don’t have to carry it anymore?”
    Meg finally jumped into action. She hurried as fast as her flip-flops would go to the inlet, which was right next to the door of the camper. Then she got out of the way. He set the bottle down on the ground and stretched for a second. “It’s not bottled water. I just used an empty one and filled it from the well, if that’s okay. I figured you might be getting a little low.”
    “That’s perfect,” she said. “Did you carry that all the way down from the cabin?”
    “Nah,” he grinned. “I hitched a ride to the end of the road; someone had to go down to their car in the valley.” He picked up the awkward and heavy bottle and poured it into the tank. “It’s not much,” he said as the last drops went down.
    “Five gallons goes a long way for me,” she smiled. “Thank you so much.” Ah, amber-brown eyes, lashes longer and darker than a boy’s ought to be, and hopelessly messed-up dark hair. What a combination. He smiled right back at her for half a second, and then he cleared his throat, stepped back, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
    “I’d better go. When are you coming up? There’s extras for lunch if you want something.”
    “No thanks. I was going to stay out of the way a little longer.”
    He nodded, picked up the bottle, and said, “You’re not in the way. For Leah, I mean. Well, you’re not in my way either, if you want to be up there. Not that I’m telling you that you have to, of course. But you knew that. Okay, I’m leaving now.” He turned and headed briskly back down the logging road.
    That was strange. When Meg was done watching him go, she went back to finish her hair. She had the little converter for her phone charger in the Jeep, she realized, and she could plug in the little travel set of hot rollers if she wanted to. That wouldn’t be committing to anything. She could still wear curly, tousled hair with jeans.
    In the back of her mind she was thinking: He had brought her water. And he had even walked part of the way. When those thoughts threatened to bring on another happy dance, she remembered something: that wild mustang was on his way back up to the fox.
    It was getting hot,