Montana Promises (The Wildes of Birch Bay Book 5)

by Kim Law

  “I thought you might be.”

  He pulled her in for a hug and headed back to work, but as soon as he walked away, Nate stood in his place. And he didn’t look happy.

  “Goodness.” She picked a piece of wood out of her hair. “You’re cute when you’re jealous, Wilde. Anyone ever told you that before?”

  He scowled. “Who says I’m jealous?”

  “I did, and I can prove it. What were you just thinking about?”

  When he didn’t immediately answer, she propped her hands on her hips and pierced him with a look.

  Finally, he shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking about much. Just killing my best friend.”

  “Hmmm. Yep. Like I said. Cute.”

  He stepped in closer, and the backs of his fingers swept over the backs of hers. “I suppose some people might call it that. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been jealous before.”

  “Never?” She found that hard to believe. “Have you not had a serious relationship before?”

  “Not really.”

  She stared up at him. “What does not really mean?”

  “It means . . . not really.” His expression went blank then, and he glanced back in the direction of the house. When he looked back at her, he offered another shrug. “I might have thought I was heading in that direction once. But I was too young to know what was going on. Too stupid and selfish to care.”

  “Selfish for wanting a lasting relationship?”

  His eyes remained unreadable. “Among other things.”

  She watched him for a moment, considered pushing for more details. But this wasn’t a man who liked to be pushed. And she wasn’t in any hurry, anyway. She was enjoying their time together, and though anxious to see where it might go, she also knew that pushing would likely only derail things.

  “Can you put something on your calendar for me?” he asked then, and she immediately nodded.

  “Anything you want.”

  His eyes heated at the suggestive tone she’d used, and his hand brushed across hers once again. He wanted to touch her as much as she wanted to be touched.

  “Father’s Day,” he said. “It’s two weeks from yesterday.”

  “I know when it is.”

  “We’re having a get-together for Dad, and I want you to come.”

  She held her breath at the implication. Was he ready to tell his family?

  “It’ll be mostly family,” he explained. “Maybe Doc Hamm and a few other close family friends, and you’ll get an invite anyway. Dad and Gloria think the world of you. But I’d like to bring you as my date.”

  “Nate.” Her voice barely whispered between them. “Do you think you’ll be ready?” And if he was, did that mean a potential future for them was more likely?

  “I know that I want to be.” He slipped two fingers between hers and inched a little closer. “You’ll be there to help me through it, right?”

  “Always,” she promised.

  “Then it’s a date.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Well, Lila . . .” Nate looked down at his notes, ensuring he hadn’t forgotten to cover anything. This was the second interview for Lila, who was currently a manager for a nearby hotel. “I’ll tell you outright, you’re our current front-runner.”

  “Really?” Lila Ferguson’s smile was wide and bright, and she had a competent and friendly demeanor. She touched a hand to her chest. “I’d love that so much, Mr. Wilde.”

  “Nate. Please.”

  They were sitting on the back deck, both with a half-consumed glass of lemonade on the table in front of them, and it was nearing six o’clock. Lila had gotten stuck on a call earlier, making it difficult to head their way on time, and when Nate had replied to her text, letting her know to take her time, that he’d be here whenever she made it, he could tell it had relieved her. The whole situation had given him even more reason to want to hire her to manage the new business. She’d been anxious to get out there today, yes. And she sincerely seemed to want the job. But she hadn’t walked out on an existing responsibility to ensure she got it.

  He liked that kind of loyalty.

  He rose from his chair. “I’ll talk to Jaden and my other brothers and sister, and we’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you.” She rose and held out her hand. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

  After Lila pulled away from the house, Nate caught Gloria peeking out the back door, and he motioned for her to come on out.

  “Did you still like her?” Gloria had met Lila during her first interview.

  “A lot.” Nate picked up the two glasses. Jaden had also been in the first interview, but he’d taken their father into town for a physical therapy appointment that afternoon, and they hadn’t made it back yet. “And she says she could start the week before we’d be opening for guests.”

  “That would work out great.” She wiped off the table where the glasses had sat. “And I liked her, too. She’d be a pleasure to have around.”

  “Good to know.” The last thing he’d want would be someone on the property who didn’t fit in with his family. Granted, they’d be bringing in a trailer as a temporary office for whoever was hired, at least until the barn could be renovated and a permanent one constructed inside, but still, the new manager would likely come into contact with any member of his family on any given day.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to stay home and run it, though?” Gloria cast him a side-eye as she headed back for the door. “I still think that would be the best option. And it would get you back home with us for good.” She offered a smile as he reached for the door.

  “Come on, Gloria. I’m a crab fisherman. I work in construction. I’m not an in-the-office kind of guy.”

  “You’re not a crab fisherman anymore.”

  True. And he also couldn’t say the thought of sticking around to help with the new venture hadn’t crossed his mind since she’d first brought it up. Because like he’d told Megan a couple of weeks ago, running construction wasn’t exactly his life’s calling.

  But he didn’t know that running vacation rentals would be, either.

  However, sticking around . . . He mentally sighed. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about sticking around one way or the other lately. Because what if he stuck and he screwed something up again? What if he hurt Megan in the process?

  What if Megan didn’t even want him to stick around?

  What if he stuck, and by some chance his past came back to bite him? To bite all of them?

  No. Not a topic he was ready to think about. Not yet. They still had almost three weeks before the cabins would be done. He’d see where things went from there. And then there was the barn project scheduled for the fall . . . If he wanted to take that one on himself.

  “Well, I still say you should think about it.” Gloria took the glasses from his hands when they reached the kitchen. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, I can tell. Because those cabins out there aren’t coming together by magic.”

  “Thanks, Gloria.” He took the glasses back, then emptied and put them in the dishwasher himself. “And thank you for bringing out drinks while Lila was here. I’ll give everyone a call later, and we’ll probably make her an offer in the next couple of days.” He hitched a thumb toward the door. “I have to run. Got to catch one of the guys and I need to do it now in case he plans to head into town later.”

  She patted him on the cheek. “You tell those boys I said hi. They’re good boys. And will you be going into town tonight, yourself?”

  She wore an unreadable expression as she asked the question, but he had no doubt what she meant. Because that’s exactly how both she and his father always asked. If he was “going into town.” But he knew they were aware of where he’d been spending so many nights. How could they not? He couldn’t contain a damned smile any time Megan showed up out there. And he’d caught his dad noticing that fact, too.

  He’d also caught his dad giving him an approving nod one day after she’d driven
away.

  He appreciated their privacy on the subject, and he pushed the guilt of sneaking around with her and not telling anyone to the side. He’d tell them eventually. In a week and a half, in fact. And then, he supposed he’d see how it all fell out.

  “Not tonight,” he told her. “I’ll be back after I discuss a few things with Dre.”

  He’d wanted to go back over to Megan’s tonight. Hell, he wanted to be over there every night. But he’d gotten a call earlier from one of his businesses. The construction manager in Round Rock, Texas, might be having some legal issues that would pull him away from the job for a while. They weren’t his issues, per se, but his oldest daughter’s. And it sounded like if things didn’t get settled out of court, a lengthy trial would be ahead. And soon.

  And, of course, they’d just signed one of their biggest contracts to date in Round Rock. So, things couldn’t very well run without a construction manager. And Dre had held that position for Nate, himself, more than once.

  He headed back outside and hurried through the line of trees separating the two properties, texting his friend as he went. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with all the guys tonight, so he opted not to go to the house. Instead, he bypassed the sprawling one-story and asked Dre to meet him out by the cliff on the back of the property. The spot that he’d told Megan would be a perfect place for a house.

  He’d no more gotten there, than Dre showed up behind him. “What’s up?” Dre asked.

  “Need to discuss something with you.”

  “It’s about damned time.”

  Nate looked up from his phone, where he’d been checking to make sure he hadn’t missed any texts from Megan—she did that sometimes, texted just to say hi—and caught the half-perturbed, half-laughing look on Dre’s face.

  “About time?” Nate repeated. “For what?”

  Dre gave him a stop-shitting-me look. “Really? So, you didn’t bring me out here, away from all the guys, just to confess your sins and to tell me that I was right?”

  Nate tried to think what he might be right about.

  And then Dre’s half-laughing look was back, and he suddenly got it. Megan.

  Clearly, Dre had figured it out. Likely, that’s why the man had been hugging on her when she and Brooke had been out there two days ago.

  He’d been meaning to have this conversation, if only to clear the air since Dre had gone out with her—and since he had professed that nothing would ever happen between the two of them—but he’d barely had a minute alone lately to so much as catch a breath. Much less to admit to his best friend that he’d been totally wrong.

  “Oh yeah,” he finally said. “That.”

  Dre snorted and slugged Nate in the arm. “Yeah. That.” He shook his head, his half-laughing look now turning to one of pure happiness. “Congrats, man. She’s a great lady. And she might just be exactly what you need.” He looked down his nose at Nate then, and he repeated the words Nate had previously said to him. “But hurt her, and you’ll answer to me.”

  “You are insane, Nate Wilde! Certifiable.”

  “Just hold still and everything will be fine.”

  “You’re going to get me hurt.”

  Nate let go of her hips to make sure she wasn’t correct, letting the skirt of her dress fall back into place, and he took a step back. He angled his head from one side to the other, checking things out from his position, but from the way he saw it, there was nothing wrong with what he was attempting. Everyone should have sex against a pole—assuming there happened to be a pole in their apartment—and his way of attempting that should work just fine.

  Megan peeked back over her shoulders, her long hair draping over her cheeks. “You ready to let me up now?”

  He shook his head. “Not even close.”

  She laughed, then hung her head between her outstretched arms. They were upstairs in her bedroom, and though he’d been threatening to take her up against the pole for weeks now, he’d never done it. But he’d awoken that morning, and as she’d been getting ready to go to his dad’s house for Father’s Day, he’d suddenly been unable to leave her place without trying it.

  “I could fall through the hole in the floor,” she pointed out.

  “Not if you don’t move your feet and you keep your hands where I put them.”

  Her legs were spread wide at the edge of the fireman’s hole, and her hands gripped the pole at waist height in front of her. Her rear was poked toward him, currently covered by the dress she wore, and she was bent at a ninety-degree angle at the waist.

  “It looks perfect to me,” he told her.

  “It looks like one hard thrust and I’m going down the hole.”

  He slid his hands back up her thighs, and he palmed her bare cheeks under the dress. He’d helped her out of her panties before he’d gotten her positioned, as well as shedding his own clothes. “Then I’m just going to have to thrust nice and slow.”

  More laughter floated out of her, and his dick pulsed at the sound. He loved making her laugh. Hell, he loved most everything about her. It had been a great last four weeks, and the idea of telling his brother—his whole family—that they were dating later today still terrified him. So, he supposed that might be playing into the physical gymnastics he had going on now. But he didn’t stop. He wanted her like this.

  “One last change,” he announced. Then he helped her to stand, but he kept her feet spread apart. “I thought I wanted to do this with your dress on, so you’d be sure to think of me all day.”

  She shot him a look. “You think I won’t be thinking of you all day?”

  “I hope you will.” He planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I know I’ll be thinking of you.”

  “So then, why isn’t the way you had me good enough?”

  He gripped the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head. “Because I need your gorgeous breasts swinging freely as I’m slowly thrusting behind you.”

  Her eyes went molten at his words, and he unsnapped her bra. Then he tossed it down the hole in front of her, so she’d be staring at it the whole time he made love to her.

  “Now bend over, woman.” He nudged his penis against her backside, and he fit his chest to her back. “Because I want to make love to you like this,” he whispered in her ear as one hand slid around her, and he rubbed a finger against her clit. “And I want to hear you screaming my name as you come.”

  Pulling his hand back from her core, he gripped her hip to make sure she didn’t fall, and then with his other hand, pushed her head down until she reached out and held tight to the pole. She might have been acting like she didn’t want this, but she quivered in his hands. And not from fear.

  “Do it, Nate,” she whispered as she pushed her ass back toward him. “Now. I want you inside me.”

  He wanted to be there too.

  Gripping both her hips, he spread his own legs slightly to be better positioned to meet her height, and when the wet tip of him nudged at her again, she whimpered in front of him.

  “Hang on, baby,” he coaxed. A bead of sweat tracked down the middle of his back.

  He had to release her long enough to get himself positioned at her entrance, and when he did that, he felt her clench at the head of his dick. His heart thundered.

  “Hang on,” he gritted out. “Fuck, you’re hot like this.”

  And then he took her hips back in his hands, and he slowly slid home.

  “Oh shit,” she whispered. She didn’t attempt to move, leaving him to do all the work, and as he got a good rhythm going, he decided that the next time they did this, he’d need to put a mirror on the other side of them so they both could watch.

  “Meg?” He thrust again, long and slow, and groaned every time he pulled out and her juices glistened on his dick. “You okay, baby?”

  She nodded, the movement quick, and he felt her push her hips back again.

  “Harder?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  So he increased his rhythm.

  He want
ed to reach around and touch her again, but he was afraid to turn loose of her. So, he had another idea. “You’re strong, right?”

  She peeked back at him. “What?”

  “Strong.” He nodded as if that would make her understand. “You could do this with only one hand on the pole, right?”

  He kept pumping, never letting up.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He nudged his chin toward her outstretched arms. “Take one of your hands,” he panted. “And touch yourself with it.”

  The shock in her eyes said that the idea was both terrifying and hot. He nodded again and clenched his fingers harder into her hips.

  “I’ve got you,” he promised her. “And there’s no way I’ll let you go. But, sweetheart, I’m going to have an orgasm soon, and I want you there with me.”

  She looked back at her outstretched arms, where both hands were clenched tightly around the pole, and he saw the minute she decided to do it. The line of her back stiffened slightly, and she nodded her head. “I’m strong enough for that,” she declared. Then one hand let go of the pole, and he almost lost control of himself at that very second.

  He managed to hang on, though, and as her fingers began to work herself and soft moans slipped from her lips, his erection surged.

  “Hurry, baby.” He kept going, unable to stop if he’d had to.

  “I’m close.”

  He could see the side of her breast jiggling with each thrust, and her head had dropped as if she no longer had the strength to hold it up.

  Her inner muscles clenched, and she angled herself farther back, then a low sound started coming from somewhere inside her.

  “Nate,” she begged, and he kept pumping.

  “Ready?”

  Her head jerked again, and he took that for a nod. “Now,” she said, the word coming out soft. But the next words were spoken louder. “Now, Nate. Now!”

  He thrust hard, his hands pulling her back at the same time he pounded her forward, and within seconds, both of them were roaring so loudly the room seemed too small to hold their shouts. But soon, they each quieted, each breathing harder than a simple round of sex should leave two people, and he gently brought her to her feet.