The Marine Makes Amends Read online

  And there it was, a fresh reminder of what Micah had most recently wreaked on her life, on her family.

  She bent over and lifted the picture, careful not to disturb the broken glass, and realized that this day had gotten the best of her, that there just wasn’t any more she could take.

  “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll just go to bed.”

  “Aw, Lexie...please...”

  “Good night,” she answered unwaveringly before she took the picture and left him standing on the landing.

  He was still there when she reached the guest room.

  She could feel his eyes on her, but she didn’t let that stop her as she went into the room and nudged the door closed behind her.

  Things were the way they were.

  And nothing could change them.

  Or the way she felt about Micah because of it.

  * * *

  THE CAMDENS OF MONTANA: Four military brothers falling in love in Big Sky Country!

  Dear Reader,

  Yes, there are more Camdens out there! We’re in the small town of Merritt, Montana, to meet the Denver Camdens’ country cousins. First up is Micah.

  Micah is fresh out of the Marines and working hard to open a craft brewery. Everything is riding on it, when his childhood best friend, Lexie Parker, returns to Merritt.

  Lexie is newly divorced and needs a fresh start. Micah is not in that plan. They parted ways when Micah’s secret crush on her led him to do something that had consequences for Lexie that she’s never forgiven. It doesn’t matter to her that her grandmother thinks the world of Micah or that Gertie insists that the Marines have made Micah a better man.

  The trouble is, that better man is so very sorry for what he did years ago, and now he has sooo much more appeal than he did before.

  But can she forgive him? Find out...

  As always, happy reading!

  Best,

  Victoria Pade

  The Marine Makes Amends

  Victoria Pade

  Victoria Pade is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.

  For information about her latest and upcoming releases, visit Victoria Pade on Facebook—she would love to hear from you.

  Books by Victoria Pade

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Camdens of Colorado

  A Camden’s Baby Secret

  Abby, Get Your Groom

  A Sweetheart for the Single Dad

  Her Baby and Her Beau

  To Catch a Camden

  A Camden Family Wedding

  It’s a Boy

  A Baby in the Bargain

  Corner-Office Courtship

  Montana Mavericks: Rust Creek Cowboys

  The Maverick’s Christmas Baby

  Montana Mavericks: Striking It Rich

  A Family for the Holidays

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Excerpt from Snowbound with the Sheriff by Laurel Greer

  Chapter One

  “Home again, home again...” Lexie Parker muttered to herself in relief as she headed for a restroom in the Billings, Montana, airport.

  She wasn’t quite home yet. Home was the small town of Merritt where she’d grown up. But this was the closest she’d been in over a decade.

  “A little pit stop, get my luggage, rent a car and I’ll be there, Gram,” she said as if her grandmother could hear her.

  It was the last Saturday in May and Lexie had been traveling since 3:00 a.m. If she’d waited for a direct flight, the trip from Anchorage, Alaska, would have taken approximately four and a half hours. Instead, she’d had to zigzag, enduring through two layovers, over the course of ten hours. But there was just no way she’d been willing to wait.

  Her grandmother had had an accident yesterday that had badly broken the eighty-year-old’s leg. Lexie had received a frantic call from their cousin Mary just as Gertie was being sent into surgery.

  The surgery had gone well—so well that after spending the night in the hospital, Gertie had been released this morning. But still Lexie wanted to get to her grandmother. Ditching her original plan to move home from Anchorage ten days from now, Lexie had apologized to her boss for not finishing out her two-week notice, thrown everything she owned into two suitcases and rearranged her travel plans.

  But the rush and the lengthy trip—not to mention the mess her life had been in for the last several months—showed on her face as she peered into the bathroom mirror.

  “You look lousy,” she told her reflection.

  And not the way she wanted to look when she saw her very observant grandmother.

  She decided it would be worth taking the time to spruce herself up before getting her bags and her rental car. Rushing to baggage claim wouldn’t make her suitcases appear any faster.

  Hair first, she decided, taking a hairbrush from the floppy oversize purse she carried. She pulled her sloppy topknot free and flipped over to brush her hair from the bottom up.

  It took a while to get the tangles out but she finally managed it, regathering the long thick strands into another topknot and tuck before replacing the hairpins.

  Better, she judged when she glanced in the mirror again.

  Being upside down had also helped put some color into her cheeks, though that was likely temporary. Since confronting Jason with her resolve to finally move back to Merritt—and the bombshell he’d dropped in response—Lexie had had friends and coworkers telling her she was pale. Normally, she didn’t care, but it was something else she didn’t want her grandmother to see.

  So she fished around in her purse for some emergency makeup, digging out blotting papers, a well-used blush compact, a tube of mascara and an almost-used-up eyeliner pencil.

  One of the blotting sheets went to work first, followed by just a hint of the blush on the apples of high cheekbones that were a bit more pronounced since stress had stolen her appetite.

  Next she used the eyeliner, making a single thin line on the top of both lids, following that up with mascara to help bring out her silver-gray eyes and make her look less weary.

  As she smoothed her ring fingertips over her dark eyebrows, her eyes were drawn to the lack of her wedding ring.

  She’d taken the band off not long after filing for divorce five months ago and had stopped feeling naked without it—and yet right now, she felt so aware of the absence of it again. But she reminded herself that this was the beginning of her fresh start and that that was a good thing.

  A fresh start, she repeated silently to remind herself of her goal.

  Exhaling slowly, she shoved away thoughts of her past as she took a tinted lip gloss from her purse and applied it to lips that were just full enough and just rosy enough not to need more than gloss.

  Better, was her decree when she moved her head from side to side to judge her handiwork.

  From there she switched her focus to her clothes.

  Her jeans were fine but the yellow turtleneck was making her too warm. Late May in Merritt meant warmer temperature
s than she’d find in Anchorage, and she hadn’t planned ahead.

  But she didn’t have a change of shirts in her purse so the best she could do now was smooth out the shirt’s wrinkles and push the sleeves above her elbows.

  “That’s as good as it’s going to get,” she told her reflection, slinging the strap of her purse over her shoulder to leave the restroom.

  She wasn’t far from baggage claim and went directly there, seeing that even with her restroom delay, no luggage had come onto the carousel yet.

  She took a spot among the other passengers.

  Any minute, folks, I want to get where I’m going...

  “Lexie?”

  The sound of her name startled her and she shot a glance to her left.

  She locked eyes with the owner of the deep male voice, who then said, “Yep, that’s you. I thought so. Gertie was right—you haven’t changed...”

  It took Lexie a moment to register that she recognized the man. And then came the sinking feeling when she noticed that he didn’t have the air of a traveler about him—no luggage or carry-ons or reading materials.

  Instead, he gave the impression that he might be there to pick someone up. The fact that his attention was on her and that he’d mentioned her grandmother’s name made her instantly afraid that that someone might be her.

  The man was Micah Camden and since the first week of their senior year in high school, she’d regretted ever having known him.

  Old anger and resentment zoomed through her but she worked to keep it out of her voice when she said, “Odd to see you here...”

  “I’ve been with Gertie and Mary since yesterday,” he responded. “Mary said you were going to rent a car to drive to Merritt and Gertie didn’t like that idea, so I came down to get you.”

  “She must be on a lot of drugs.” To send you, of all people, Lexie thought.

  The sound of the baggage carousel starting up drew his attention away from her. But Lexie continued to glare at him, frozen in disbelief that her grandmother would send Micah Camden.

  A moment later, he turned his still-striking cobalt blue eyes back to her and said, “You don’t have to take me up on the ride, if you don’t want to. You can still rent a car and I can just follow you to town so Gertie knows I’m at least watching out for you.”

  That was an idea. Then she wouldn’t have to be in an enclosed space with him for the hour it would take to get to Merritt. She wouldn’t have to talk to him.

  It was tempting.

  But frugality was one of the things she’d learned well over the years and renting a car was not cheap. It even seemed a little frivolous, since once she got to town, she could drive her grandmother’s car or truck until she could afford something of her own—but it had been the quickest way to get there.

  Until now, when Micah Camden was giving her another option.

  An option that irked her even though it was to her benefit.

  She tried not to show too much of her irritation. “Renting a car if I don’t have to would be a waste of money,” she admitted reluctantly.

  He nodded but didn’t say anything else as she caught sight of the smaller of her suitcases.

  Without saying anything else to him, she stepped over to scoop the duffel-like bag off and stayed where she was just to get some distance from Micah Camden as this situation sank in.

  Until fifteen years ago, she’d considered him one of her three best friends. The Four Musketeers—that’s what everyone had called them growing up. Lexie, Jason Lundy, Jill Gunner and him.

  But fifteen years ago, Micah Camden had proven he was no friend at all. Not to her. Not to Jason. For the remaining two years Lexie had been in Merritt, she’d had nothing to do with him, and since leaving she’d put any thought of him out of her mind altogether.

  And now here he was.

  He’d said she looked the same and so did he. Only better, if that were possible, she thought begrudgingly as she secretly studied him.

  The Camden brothers—all four of them—were known for a few things. Their good looks topped the list.

  When it came to Micah, that meant coarse brown-almost-black hair that he now wore crisply short over his very square forehead.

  His undeniably handsome face was angular, with a straight, perfect nose poised between high cheekbones and a razor-sharp jawline that currently had a hint of five o’clock shadow that Lexie refused to admit was rugged and sexy.

  His intensely masculine face was softened only by those blue eyes.

  Those eyes...

  Beneath a shelf of faintly unruly eyebrows, they were a little deep-set—just enough to somehow emphasize the color that was so remarkable and so distinctive to his family that there were actually articles written about The Camden Blue Eyes, focusing on his cousins, the higher-profiled Camdens in Denver who owned Camden Superstores.

  Those eyes that were so blue, so bright, it was difficult not to stare at them. They hardly seemed real.

  But real they were and Lexie forced herself to stop staring at them, moving on instead to his mouth in hopes of finding some fault there.

  Nope, she couldn’t find a flaw there, either. His lips were male-model impeccable, giving no evidence of the lies that could spew from them.

  No, time hadn’t diminished how drop-dead gorgeous he was. If anything, the added maturity had honed and added to his appeal.

  And the body that went with the face and hair?

  The last time she’d seen him it had been barely more than a boy’s body. But over the years, he’d gained some height—at least three inches over the six feet he’d been. And now, barely contained by a military blue crewneck T-shirt, he had shoulders a mile wide, pecs that filled the knit impressively and wowza-biceps that stretched the short sleeves to their limits.

  Below that were jeans that traced narrow hips and clung to sturdy tree-trunk thighs that made it seem as if nothing could make him fall.

  Unlike the actual tree he’d crashed into her grandmother’s house...

  Lexie averted her eyes and concentrated on the bags coming out along the carousel.

  Her main bag was approaching, and because she’d needed it to carry the lion’s share of what she owned from one move to the other, it was trunk-sized. When she tried to grab it, Micah reached in front of her, saying, “Let me do that.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say no but too many times her recovery of that suitcase had been less than graceful, so she just let him. But as soon as he had it off the carousel she took over, pulling up the bar handle and tipping it onto its wheels.

  “Sooo, the verdict is that you’re going to let me take you to Merritt?” Micah asked.

  His voice was lower than she remembered it. And there was something strong and confident in his tone, too, as if her agreement was a foregone conclusion.

  And, damn him, it was.

  “I guess so,” she answered with resignation.

  He nodded agreeably—not victoriously—which was a good thing because Lexie might have accepted the ride but she wasn’t conceding anything.

  Fifteen years ago, he’d shown her his true colors.

  And that was when she’d learned that he was an A-one jerk who couldn’t be trusted.

  * * *

  After they loaded up Micah’s big white pickup truck and finally got on the highway, Lexie tried to put her dislike of Micah Camden aside enough to get some answers about her grandmother and what had happened to cause Gertrude Parker’s injury.

  “Is Gram doing well enough not to be in the hospital or did she just refuse to stay?” she asked.

  “She’s doing great. By this morning when she asked if she could go home, the doctors didn’t see any reason not to release her. She might have a lot of years under her belt, but you know how she is—she’s a firecracker, she has spunk.”

  “I just don’t
want that to override anyone’s better judgment about her health. She’s eighty years old.”

  “I don’t think she was fooling anybody. The surgeon and the orthopedist came over from Northbridge.”

  Lexie let out a sigh of relief. Northbridge was a fairly small town, but it had a bigger hospital than Merritt, making it able to sustain a few specialists. If Gram’s doctor had called them in, then that meant they were taking the situation seriously.

  “By this morning, they signed off on her leaving the hospital. Plus, her local doctor came in to talk to them and agreed. So Mary and I checked her out. And you know Merritt, it isn’t like a big city—house calls aren’t unusual. Joan—Gertie’s regular doc—said she’d stop in every day for a while to check on her.”

  Lexie’s worries weren’t completely allayed—they wouldn’t be until she saw for herself that her grandmother was all right—but she relaxed enough to ask the other question on her mind.

  “What exactly happened?”

  “You know I’m renting Gertie’s barn as my brewery?”

  Lexie knew, all right—and she considered it a deal with the devil.

  “Yes, she told me she decided to rent you the barn the way she leases the fields to the neighbors now that she can’t work the farm anymore.”

  “Right. Well, I’m using the space for a small craft brewery. Gertie is actually my adviser and my taste tester—not that that has anything to do with this. There wasn’t any tasting going on when she got hurt,” he added in a hurry.

  Lexie knew Gertie well enough to know she only ever drank in moderation. And besides, after a lifetime of hobby brewing, she could handle what she did drink.

  “Anyway,” Micah continued, “I was having a new forklift delivered and it got away from the guy who was unloading it. It hit that tree that stands between Gertie’s place and the little house—”

  “My house—the house my dad built next door for him and Mom and me? The house where I’m going to live? It was involved in this, too?” Lexie demanded, alarmed.

  “Yeah...well...” Micah said, clearly uncomfortable, “the forklift hit the tree and it went down. It took out the side wall of Gertie’s house, and uh...a pretty good chunk of the little house...”