Stranded in Montana

by Mia Madison

  I was flipping between sadness and anger while I waited. My rage wasn’t directed at her, but I couldn’t deny that it was caused by her. I had long since accepted that I’d be alone for the rest of my life, but I’d never been sad about it until she turned up in my yard. Would I ever even come close to the normalcy I had before she arrived? I didn’t think so and it pissed me off.

  Still, if I had a chance to do it all again, I’d take it in a heartbeat and change nothing. Much as it hurt, I couldn’t imagine turning back the clock and leaving her at that motel. Never getting to know her or touch her. That would have been far worse.

  Ivy came out with her other bags, staring at the ground as she said, “I got everything. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  She locked the door and closed it, breezing past me and refusing to meet my eye. When we got to the truck and I took her bags to load them up, I realized why. I only caught a glimpse of her face before she turned away, but it was long enough for me to see the red-rimmed eyes she was trying so hard to hide. Drawing attention to her tears would be the opposite of not dragging it out, so I clenched my jaw tight and got in the truck.

  The drive was long and painfully quiet. It was what we both needed, but it still sucked. Once we arrived, Ivy jumped out and made a beeline for the office. I waited, wanting to be sure that they finished working on her van before I abandoned her. She returned to the truck after a few minutes, giving me a curt nod when she saw me watching through the windshield.

  This was it then. Mike pulled the van out and parked it beside the truck while I got out to get her bags. The two of them shook hands and Ivy thanked him with a smile, but I knew her well enough to know it was fake.

  Once the van was loaded, I stood at the driver’s side door and opened it for her, feeling just as uncomfortable as I expected. She lingered there, her wide eyes running up and down my body before honing in on my face like she was trying to memorize me. It struck me then that this was just as hard for her as it was for me, maybe even more so. After all, I was her first.

  She wasn’t mine, but she might as well have been. The way I felt about her… that was a first for me. My first love.

  The words ‘too little, too late’ echoed in my mind as she reached out to shake my hand. It was tense—the kind of handshake you had with a doctor, not someone you had feelings for.

  It stung.

  “Well, I…” she trailed off, shaking her head as her eyes started to tear up. “Damn it, I’m sorry. I just—I want to thank you again. For everything you did for me. I’ll never forget it.”

  I’ll never forget you.

  “No problem. And thank you.”

  She didn’t ask what for, she just nodded and looked down to her shoes.

  “Well, I should probably—”

  “Right. Of course.”

  Fucking hell. I wanted to kiss her or at least hug her, but I could tell she was a split second away from breaking down and I wasn’t doing much better. I watched her get in the van and buckle her seatbelt before closing the door for her. I stared at her face for a brief moment before I turned away.

  At the last second, I know that couldn’t be it. I had to say something to her. I tapped on the window and waited for the glass to roll down.

  “You’re welcome to come back,” I said as I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. “If you find yourself in this neck of the woods again, my door is always open to you. Always.”

  Ivy nodded and gave me a shaky smile. I knew it was time to take my leave before I did something royally fucking stupid like asking her to marry me. The urge to either drop to my knees and beg her to stay or throw her over my shoulder and drag her bag kicking and screaming was already pretty strong.

  “Take care of yourself, kitten.”

  With that, I turned my back on her and marched to my truck. No waves, no second glances. I turned over the engine and sped off, hell-bent on getting home and finding something to destroy.

  Thirteen

  Ivy

  Sitting in the parking lot with my head resting against the steering wheel, I realized I’d come full circle. A week ago, I’d been sitting on the side of the road doing the exact same thing, cursing the fact that I likely wouldn’t make it to Helena in time for my reservation.

  Now, I was cursing the fact that I didn’t want to make it there.

  I spent several days unsure of what I really wanted to do and I’d be lying if I said I was willing to stay in one place for the rest of my life and give up on the career I worked so hard to build. I mean, how many people would kill to be in my shoes? Making money from traveling, not having a boss to answer to. It was an impossible dream and I was living it.

  And yet… I couldn’t bring myself to start the van. I couldn’t go back to living the dream because at some point during the last seven days, my dream life had changed.

  Without Jacob, it would always be hollow. I remembered how I felt when I woke up from the nightmare I had of the life I didn’t choose. It felt almost prophetic. If I drove away now and left him behind, I knew in my bones that I would end up living that nightmare at some point in the future. A life of constantly regretting what could have been.

  I couldn’t do it. I refused to live like that. I wanted it all—the job, the dream, Jacob.

  And I was going to fight to have it. I had to at least try.

  With newfound determination, I steeled myself for possible rejection and started the van, turning away from the road to Helena and back to the place that would always feel like home.

  I took the drive down Jacob’s bumpy driveway slow, afraid to scrape the bottom of my van after I just had it fixed. I wasn’t in a big hurry anyway considering I spent over half an hour sitting in the parking lot trying to decide what to do. There was no sense in rushing now.

  When I got down the driveway, I turned the van off and practically ran for the front door. I raised my fist and knocked hard so I knew he’d be able to hear me if he’d already gone upstairs.

  I bounced on my feet impatiently as I waited for him to answer. When a full minute passed with no response, I knocked again.

  Nothing.

  Frowning, I opened the door and poked my head in. I listened for a moment but didn’t hear water running or the sound of his footsteps. Just dead silence. It was kind of worrisome.

  “Jacob?”

  I didn’t get a response, so I slowly walked into the house to look for him. He was nowhere to be found inside, so my next stop was the screen door that led out back.

  It didn’t take long to spot him. He was at the furthest shed from the house, perched on the large stump he chopped wood on. He was facing toward the forest, hunched over and staring down at something in his hands. Quiet as a mouse, I opened the door and walked into the yard, wondering whether I should call out to alert him to my presence or not. He obviously didn’t hear my van coming up the driveway. He would have come around to investigate if he had.

  I decided to stay quiet. His body language showed a vulnerability that he usually reserved for the bedroom and I didn’t want to give him time to put his walls back up before I had a chance to say what I needed to say.

  Also, I was kind of curious about what he was looking at. If he knew I was walking up behind him, he might have tried to hide whatever it was.

  I could see the exact moment he heard my footsteps. His spine straightened and his head whipped back, eyes widening when he saw me. He cleared his throat and stood to face me, the expression on his face one of pure disbelief.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I wanted to answer his question, but I looked down at his hand and frowned.

  “Is that my toothbrush?”

  Jacob’s brows furrowed as he looked down at the item. Color appeared on his cheeks and it made me smile as he hesitantly nodded.

  “Yeah. I meant to get it after I got your shampoo and shit, but I forgot about it when you woke up.” He stepped forward to close the distance between us
and I craned my neck back to look at him as he repeated, “What are you doing here?”

  In my head on the drive over, most of the scenarios I played out involved me playing coy and ultimately ending up with the two of us happy and naked. But the look on his face—shock, disbelief, hope. I didn’t want to play games with him.

  “I want to be with you,” I said, laughing a little when his eyes got comically wide. “But I don’t want to give up my career, so I propose a compromise.”

  “A compromise,” he echoed dryly, eyebrows raised. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

  “Well, why don’t we split our time? We can travel a few months a year and spend the rest here at home.”

  Jacob frowned and tilted his head to the side. I could tell he was considering my suggestion and it thrilled me. I had a feeling that the prospect of traveling for six months a year was a little too much for him, but I would be willing to go down to three of four months if it meant being with Jacob. The rest of the time, I would just post beautiful shots of my new home. Montana didn’t lack for photo opportunities.

  “You’d want that?” he finally asked with a rough voice. “You’d want me to come with you?”

  “Of course! Think about how much fun we’d have. We could trade shifts driving through the night and feed each other Twizzlers and bicker over a map at a rest stop and go on hikes and make love in the van and—”

  Jacob put a finger to my lips while his curled at the corners. He started to laugh lightly as he shook his head and I couldn’t stop myself from joining him.

  “That’s quite a picture you painted for me.”

  “Doesn’t it sound fun?”

  He seemed pained to admit it, but he said, “It does. I’m just worried you’ll get sick of me.”

  There wasn’t much I could say to assure him I wouldn’t, so I did the only thing I could think of.

  “And I’m worried you’ll get sick of me.”

  “Never happen.”

  “Exactly.”

  We stared each other down for a long moment. He understood what I was getting at and I watched with glee as the hope in his eyes changed to pure excitement. He grinned before bending to lift me off the ground for a hug. I clung to his shoulders, laughing as he spun us around.

  In that moment, there was no doubt in my mind that we’d be together forever. This place—and more importantly, Jacob himself—felt like home and I wanted nothing more than to stay with him in his little house, making a family together and taking several vacations every year.

  Basically, I wanted to do everything with him. Share everything. Jacob seemed totally on-board with the idea and I couldn’t have been happier.

  Well, maybe I could have been a little happier.

  “Jacob?”

  “Yeah, kitten?”

  “Did you just drop my toothbrush in the dirt?”

  A long pause followed by a muttered ‘fuck’ made me howl with laughter. Between being on the road and being home, we had a lot of good times coming our way.

  Fourteen

  Jacob

  Six weeks later…

  “Get the lead out, girl. We’re burning daylight.”

  Ivy squeaked when I smacked her on the ass, turning back to give me a flirtatious smile before running off toward the bathroom of the rest stop. She stopped halfway and ran back, grabbing her purse from the passenger side and blowing me a kiss before darting off again. I walked around to stretch my legs before we ended up on another long leg of driving.

  As it turned out, the traveling lifestyle suited me. Or maybe it was just traveling with Ivy. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to do it by myself and the fact that Ivy had done so and made a career out of it deeply impressed me. I respected the hell out of the girl, though I think she did feel a lot safer with me as a companion. It was pretty much my mission in life to keep her safe now.

  Well, safe and satisfied. I was doing a damn good job in both respects.

  There hadn’t been much satisfaction at the last stop of our trip. After hanging out at the house for a few weeks, Ivy decided that we should take a short trip as a test run to see how I liked it. I would have done whatever she wanted, but I was man enough to admit that my balls shriveled up a little when she said she wanted to drive to Missouri so I could meet her parents.

  I knew it had to happen at some point and I couldn’t say no to her, especially when she pouted. She figured that out quite early in our relationship and milked it for all she could. I loved it because it always went down the same way. She’d pout, I’d give in to her whims, she’d kiss me as thanks, and ultimately end up on her back with my dick buried in her. A perfect arrangement all around.

  It wasn’t just about the sex though. My feelings for Ivy ran deep, and while I liked to believe she already knew that, neither of us had taken it to the next level yet. I’d been feeling the itch of the L-word on my tongue for weeks, but was struggling with the timing. The one time I was a breath away from saying it was the night she pitched the trip to meet her parents.

  Talk about a buzzkill.

  I stopped focusing on timing for a little while, instead trying to figure out how to not make a horrible first impression on her folks. Thankfully, the meeting didn’t go nearly as bad as I expected. Both of them were scared shitless of me when we first arrived. After a few days passed and they got more comfortable with me, they finally brought up the elephant in the room. Our age difference.

  It was understandable. Sixteen years was quite a gap and I couldn’t blame them for being concerned. However, Ivy just nodded politely and thanked her parents for giving me a chance before assuring them that I was the one she wanted to be with. There was no argument, no tantrums. Her parents accepted her answer without a fuss. They only wanted her to be happy and safe. Just like I did.

  Fuck, it made my heart clench to think about the calm way she looked at me as she told her mother that I was the one. It was the closest thing I’d ever gotten to a declaration of love and it killed me not to be able to say it back immediately. But that was too private a thing for me to announce in front of her folks. I needed to tell her first.

  My plan was to take her home and do something special for her there. I never excelled in romance, but I was sure I could throw something decent together. I planned to make her a romantic dinner and maybe follow it up with a long massage using those oils she liked and I’d slide myself against her until she was begging to be fucked and—

  Okay, maybe I’d hold off on the massage until after I told her how I felt. That’d probably go better.

  As I was mentally making changes to my plans, I realized I’d been standing around the vending machines for at least ten minutes and there were a few kids waiting near the door looking nervous. I brushed past them and went back to the van, emptying the trash while I waited for Ivy. When another ten minutes passed, I started to get a little antsy.

  Thankfully, she came rushing out before I had a chance to get truly worried. Her face was flush and I wondered if it was due to embarrassment. I almost started to reassure her that she didn’t need to be shy or embarrassed about having to use the restroom, but something stopped me short. Maybe it was the fact that she went right to her seat without stopping to say anything, or maybe it was because she refused to look at me when I got in the van. She just stared down at her folded hands. Her frosty behavior continued an hour into the ride and it was driving me up the wall.

  I wasn’t the kind to push if she didn’t want to talk, but I had my limits. Something was clearly bothering her and I couldn’t fix it unless I knew what the problem was. I spotted a sign ahead for a park and I flicked the turn signal on. Ivy heard the clicking and looked up with a frown.

  “Why are we stopping here?”

  I didn’t answer right away and she didn’t press for one. She knew me well enough to know I’d speak when I was ready. I pulled into the most secluded spot I could find and put the van in park, killing the engine and unbuckling my seatbelt before turning to her.

  �
�Talk to me.”

  Ivy’s lips parted and I started preparing myself for an argument. She was usually pretty open with me, but there had been times I had to pry something out with a little force. This felt like it’d be one of those times.

  Her thoughts must have gone down the same road as mine because she narrowed her eyes at me. A moment later, her expression dropped and she let out a heavy sigh of defeat.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Holy shit, that was the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth. Not that I really had any good guesses on what the issue was in the first place, but it definitely wasn’t that. Fucking hell.

  “What?”

  “I’m pregnant, Jacob. That’s what I needed at the drugstore this morning while you were pumping gas next door. That’s why I took so long in the bathroom.”

  Well, fuck me. She told me she wanted to grab drinks and snacks for the road and insisted on getting them at the drugstore instead of the gas station. She said they’d be cheaper there and vehemently refused my offer to go with her when I was finished. I thought it was a little suspicious at the time, but I wrote it off because I was so damn tired.

  Now I was struggling to wrap my brain around what she was telling me. I didn’t know why it was so much of a shock. It’s not like I ever wore a fucking condom with her. Yet here I was, too stunned to form words.

  I glanced at Ivy and found her staring at me with wide, watery eyes. Her expression made me feel like shit. I needed to do something to comfort her. She was even more freaked out than I was.

  “Get in the back.”

  “Isn’t that what caused the problem in the first place?” she asked with a shaky smile.

  “You got jokes at a time like this? I’m impressed.” Her smile got a little wider, which was what I was hoping for. “Get in the back, kitten.”