by Joanne Rock
She wasn’t sure where to turn next, but she knew for sure running hadn’t done her one bit of good. She was done being reactive. Over the years, she’d let her family dictate her choices. Then Gage’s overbearing father. Then her husband. Now, she was taking her life into her own hands.
For good.
* * *
Gage led Elena through his now quiet house half an hour later, not sure what to make of the changes he saw in her.
She wasn’t the same woman he’d dated six years ago. But just because he could no longer see her fiercely competitive side didn’t mean it wasn’t there. No matter how she downplayed her presence in Montana, he couldn’t shake the sense that she was here to right an old wrong. To make him pay for not standing up to his father on her behalf.
And yet, what had she expected when she’d completely hidden her past from him? He’d been blindsided by the revelation that her father was a wanted man. That she’d spent much of her teens on the run from the law with him. That her mother was an alcoholic with a violent streak that had landed both parents in jail more than once. Not that any of that reflected on Elena in the least. But it had hurt that she hadn’t confided any of it, leaving him to find out from his father’s private investigator. Her lack of trust showed how little she thought of him.
Now, she was back. And he didn’t know what to think about it other than her presence was still more intoxicating than any bourbon. Even walking four feet behind him, Elena’s draw was magnetic, pulling him inexorably backward.
“Thanks for showing me the way,” she said as they returned to the living area outside her bedroom, the same spot where they’d spoken earlier in the evening. She retrieved her smartphone that he’d left there.
The velvet flounce hem of her dress swished softly as she moved. He hadn’t realized how his ears had been attuned to that sound all evening until it stopped in the quiet stillness of the room.
Grinding his teeth as he tried not to think of her legs beneath the fabric, Gage reached for the double doors into the bedroom and swung them wide. “Your things from the guest lodge are already here, and there are towels in the bathroom.”
He nodded with satisfaction to see the bouquet of bear grass on the bedside table. The pretty native wildflowers were protected in many areas, but the Mesa Falls ranching practices had brought the flowers back in abundance on the ranch. His staff had done well prepping her room on such short notice.
And he wasn’t going to think too hard about why he wanted to please a woman who’d tricked his security to get through his front door. He hoped he was only giving her a peace offering so she’d be less likely to backstab him with a tabloid hit piece.
“How beautiful,” she murmured, brushing past him and bending over to sniff the white-and-yellow bouquet on her way to the bed. “Thank you, Gage.”
If the warmth in her voice hadn’t undone him, the sight of her beside the king-size bed would have. She was already reaching for the jeweled clip that held half of her hair up, taking the curls down for the night.
He watched, speechless, as the silky mass tumbled free. Curls danced and sprang around her shoulders as she moved. He knew he should say good-night and retreat. Leave her to get ready for bed.
But his mind had already supplied an alternate ending to the evening. One that included him stepping behind her to lower the zipper on her long, strapless gown. Letting the fabric fall away from her curves so he could touch her everywhere. And finding out if sex between them was still every bit as explosive as it had been six years ago. The connection between them had been so strong; the feelings held him hostage, preventing him from finding a long-term relationship after Elena. Everyone else came up short.
“You’re welcome.” He edged the words over a throat gone dry, still willing his feet to move. “If there’s anything else you need...”
Help with a zipper. A neck massage. Multiple orgasms. He could think of so many things.
“I’m all set.” She set her phone and the hair clip on the nightstand beside the flowers. “I appreciate you letting me stay.”
He questioned the wisdom of that decision now, realizing how thoroughly she could distract him. How easy it would be for her to slide past his defenses and learn everything about the Mesa Falls Ranch owners that he needed to keep private.
With an effort, he reminded himself where his loyalties lay.
“It’s no trouble.” He saw it as his duty, actually. He was moving to Montana to keep the past on lockdown. To do that, he’d need to keep an eye on Elena Rollins. “And I’ll ask one of the ranch hands to bring over an extra utility vehicle for you tomorrow so you can start exploring the place.”
“Thank you.” A warm light touched her gaze for a moment—a hint of genuine pleasure.
“I’ll clear my schedule for the afternoon to accompany you.” Somehow, some way, he needed to rein in his attraction to her before then.
He hoped like hell that it was tough tonight only because he was tired. But he suspected that was a whole lot of wishful thinking.
Her smile faded and he could see her defenses falling into place as he tried to shore up his own.
“In that case, I’ll see you then.” She gave a regal nod, all but dismissing him. “Sleep well, Gage.”
Wheeling around to leave, to put as much space between them as possible before he did something he would regret, he already knew he wouldn’t have a moment of sleep that wasn’t filled with red-hot dreams of her.
Four
Shortly before noon the next day, Elena caught herself checking her watch again and cursed.
Curled up in the window seat of the spacious bedroom, she adjusted a gray cashmere throw over her legs and told herself to stop thinking about her upcoming appointment to explore the ranch with Gage. The man had dominated her thoughts this morning when she was supposed to be compiling notes for her lawyer to answer her ex-husband’s latest bogus claim about their supposed “shared debt.” But time and time again, while she was compiling digital copies of her old credit card statements from the months before she and Tomas split, her thoughts veered to the powerful man determined to play host to her this week.
Fluffing a silk pillow behind her back, Elena forced herself to relax. She glanced out the window with its glorious view of the Bitterroot Mountains, still capped with snow even though signs of spring were everywhere else. She had to admit she felt insanely comfortable in Gage’s home—on a surface level at least. It wasn’t surprising, considering the Egyptian cotton sheets, thick Turkish bath towels and fresh flowers on her nightstand. She hadn’t been surrounded by this much luxury since the time she’d visited Gage’s family in New Zealand. And despite some vivid dreams of Gage the night before, she’d had the best night’s sleep she could remember in ages.
Even in the brief, happy first year of her marriage to Tomas when they’d both been doing well in their careers, her focus had been saving money for the bigger home he hoped to purchase for the family he supposedly wanted. So she’d never indulged in the kinds of high-end touches that graced every corner of Gage’s place.
She clicked the Send button, emailing her attorney proof that she hadn’t been the one to run up the debt Tomas now wanted her to share responsibility for. It didn’t matter that they’d been divorced for months now, he still found ways to violate the terms of the arrangement, or to claim she had, all of which cost them both a fortune in legal fees. Between that nonsense and his live-in lover stationing herself in Elena’s former home day and night to make sure Elena never removed so much as a dish towel, her frustration level with the whole process was through the roof.
No sooner had the email sent than her phone lit up with a text from Gage.
The fields are still muddy. I have outerwear for you so you don’t ruin your clothes. I’m at your door.
She lightly swiped her thumb over the words while they sank in. Holding on to her enmity wa
sn’t as easy when he did thoughtful things. It made her remember the past she’d shared with him before things fell apart. Before he’d revealed his judgmental side.
Casting aside the cashmere throw, Elena padded in stocking feet across the dense Persian rug and through the sitting room to the outer double doors. She opened them to find her host dressed in a taupe riding jacket trimmed with dark brown leather at the collar. From his jeans and boots to the wide, camel-colored Stetson on his head, Gage Striker fit the role of an American cowboy with enticing ease.
All the more reason she needed to remember they weren’t friends and she wasn’t here as his pampered guest, no matter how much she enjoyed the beautiful accommodations. She needed to keep some barriers firmly in place.
“Good morning. I come bearing gifts.” He held out a heavy denim jacket with a shearling collar for her. A box with the name of a saddlery shop sat at his feet. “Are you still game for seeing the ranch?” His gaze roamed over her yoga pants and slouchy sweater.
“I’ll be honest. I spent half the morning thinking about how to give you the slip.” She took the coat, not surprised to see the designer label, and the tag that indicated the garment was the perfect size for her. She didn’t waste any time before she reset her defenses. “I’m not sure I should let you buy me off, Gage. Don’t journalists frown on bribes?”
He stiffened a moment before recovering himself, no doubt remembering a bribe of another sort—the one his father had offered for her to leave the Striker family in peace. Regret mingled with old anger.
“Real journalists, yes.” Retrieving the boot box, he stepped inside the sitting room. “Scandalmongers, however, accept them gladly. Especially the ones who didn’t think to pack the right shoes for a Montana spring.”
Still clutching the coat, she followed him to the couch, curious in spite of herself. “Is your staff already spying on me? My shoe collection isn’t really anyone else’s business.”
“No one is spying,” he assured her, removing his hat before dropping onto the leather seat beside her. “But I did make an educated guess that you left most of your boots at home based on the size of your suitcase when I happened to see it last night.” He toed the box closer to her. “Come on and open this. Tell me how I did choosing something for a renowned style influencer. Will the boots work? Or will you hashtag them ‘never in a million years’?”
Her defenses were harder to maintain when he was being charming. Her influencer status had dropped off significantly in the last years she’d been focused on her marriage, but she was trying to be a social media presence again. Picking up the box, she set it on her lap and pulled the top off. The scent of leather wafted up as she peeled aside the sheet of crisp tissue paper to reveal a pair of high-cut black riding boots with a distinctive blue cuff.
“They’re gorgeous,” she breathed reverently, running a hand over the sumptuous leather. “Now I can go riding, too.”
“That was my thinking.” He nodded, seeming satisfied as she unzipped the first boot. “You said you were interested in communing with nature while you’re in Montana. The boots will help.”
She was surprised he’d keyed in on that comment from the night before. She’d forgotten that he was a keen listener and observer.
While she slid her foot into the first boot, Gage was already prepping the second for her. “You’re being suspiciously accommodating today,” she observed as she slipped on the next one and zipped it up. Standing, she reached for the coat he’d given her, only to have him beat her to it. “It makes me wonder about your motives.”
Rising, he held out an arm of the coat for her. Chivalrous. Thoughtful.
Sexy.
“The sooner I show you around the ranch, and give you opportunities to find your story,” he said as he helped her into the other sleeve, “the faster you’ll learn there’s nothing here that will help you in your quest for answers about Alonzo.”
He skillfully shifted her hair to one side before he slid the coat into place. For the space of a moment, his hands rested on her shoulders before sliding away again, the touch awakening an awareness of him she didn’t want to feel today. Even now, after he retrieved his hat and was escorting her toward the door, her body hummed from that brief contact.
“So all this thoughtfulness is self-serving?” she retorted, desperate to rally her absent defenses as she charged ahead of him. But she still felt hurt all the same.
“Elena.” Her name, softly spoken, stopped her. Or maybe it was the unexpected tenderness in his tone when he said it.
Whatever it was, she turned around and locked eyes with him.
“We broke each other’s hearts once, but it was a long time ago.” His dark eyes seemed to see right through her, past any lame attempt to keep him at arm’s length, right down to where she kept all her real feelings. “I don’t think we need to keep operating like we’re mortal enemies because of a long-ago breakup, do you?”
It was a skillful maneuver, putting her in a position where she would only seem childish and petulant if she kept needling him.
“Maybe I can rein it in,” she offered, her gaze sliding away from his. “At least long enough for the tour. Why don’t we talk about your former mentor instead? You can tell me all about Alonzo Salazar, a man who truly took scandalmongering to a whole new height.”
* * *
Gage managed to put off the conversation long enough to get the ranch tour under way. They were in a high-performance utility vehicle that seated two. He’d taken his time snapping the windscreen into place and helping her buckle into the open-air seat, all the while planning his strategy for addressing her question about Alonzo.
Once they were cruising along the dirt path that ran along the Kootenai Creek that fed into the Bitterroot River, Elena gripped the roll bar and pinned him with a frank gaze.
“For a man who offered me full-time access to ask questions, you’re noticeably silent on the subject of Alonzo,” she observed lightly. She reached to tighten the pink scarf she’d wrapped around her hair, trying to stop the dark strands from whipping in the breeze.
The windscreen helped, but it wasn’t the same as riding in a car. They bounced over a rocky hill and he turned sharply to follow the creek bed.
“I said you could ask questions. I didn’t guarantee I’d answer.” He slowed down to point out an osprey that had been startled from its perch. The huge bird emitted a series of high-pitched whistles as it circled. “It’s been my instinct to keep my personal affairs private for as long as I’ve been in the public eye, so I have to make a concerted effort to be more forthcoming with you.”
“You’re weighing how much you can share with me.” She distilled his answer to the basic point even as her eyes followed the osprey until it settled in a nearby ponderosa pine. “Why don’t I help you out by telling you what I already know?”
She turned expectant eyes his way, and he had the impression—not for the first time—that Elena was in a constant state of wariness with him. He understood it, given how they’d broken up. But it meant he had to be far more watchful of her, unsure when her sharp tongue would strike next.
“Fair enough,” he agreed, giving the vehicle more gas to take them up a ridge.
“No one knew Alonzo Salazar—a retired English teacher from the prestigious Dowdon School—was the man behind the tell-all book Hollywood Newlyweds, which he wrote as A. J. Sorenson, until he was publicly unmasked at the publicity event held here last Christmas.” Elena pulled her phone from her jacket and snapped a selfie, no doubt collecting images for the day’s social media feed. “The disclosure was all the more shocking because it was made by Tabitha Barnes, the actress whose real-life affair was exposed in the book. After it came out, her powerful director husband divorced her. He also severed his relationship with the girl he’d believed to be his daughter because as the book revealed, she was fathered by another man.”
&n
bsp; Considering what that girl must have gone through as a teenager—being abandoned and locked out of her childhood home by the man she’d thought was her father—was enough to make anyone think Alonzo was a dirtball. But Gage had known Alonzo well enough to believe the guy had some kind of compelling reason for what he’d done.
“Right. But just to be clear, I didn’t know anything about Alonzo’s secret pen name until that night.” He still didn’t know how Alonzo had managed to keep the secret his whole life, especially when Tabitha Barnes had threatened to sue the publisher. But the truth hadn’t come out until months after his death. “Neither did any of the other ranch owners. Neither did his own sons.”
As they reached the top of the ridge that offered a spectacular view of the river valley below, Gage parked the vehicle at the edge of a clearing and switched off the engine.
Elena unfastened her seat belt and turned more fully toward him. They sat in the open air, birds calling and the creek babbling below them.
“Supposing that’s true—and I’m not convinced it is—why haven’t you or any of the other ranch owners released a statement condemning his actions?” She tilted her head and gave him a questioning look. Her long dark hair spilled over her shoulder with the movement, reminding him how much he’d dreamed about running his fingers through all those silky waves. “You all were Alonzo’s students at the Dowdon School. I know from our past conversations that he was a mentor to you and your friends, so I’m aware that you respect him. But it can’t be good for the ranch to be associated with that kind of scandal. Why protect him?”
His publicity coordinator had posed the same question. But when Gage had met with Weston, Miles and Desmond before the party last night, they’d agreed the less said the better. Yet, he needed a different strategy with Elena. He had to keep her close, to buy himself time to figure out why Alonzo had written a book that had torn apart lives. Devon Salazar hadn’t returned his calls yet today, but maybe Alonzo’s son would share April Stephens’s findings.
