Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!

by Victoria Pade

  But she refrained from suggesting that—just yet—and said, “Are you hungry? Would you like a glass of wine?”

  He shook his head, clasped her hand in his and led her into the living room. “I just want to talk,” he said.

  Had he come to tell her that what had happened between them last night was never going to happen again?

  Jenna had been telling herself that all day, but she froze slightly inside at the idea that Ian might be here to say out loud what she’d been thinking. Keeping her cool, she sat down next to him on the couch. Ian took her hand in both of his and stared into her eyes.

  The way someone might if they were delivering bad news…

  Jenna steeled herself and reminded herself that it was for the best.

  “I thought I was coming out here tonight just to see you,” he began, as he gazed down at their intertwined hands. He rubbed the back of hers with one of his thumbs. “But while I waited, I had time to think and there’s more to it than that.” He looked into her face. “More to everything between you and me—or am I in my own fantasy world here?”

  She didn’t know where this was going, and it made her slightly nervous. But there was also another, underlying feeling that prompted her to say, “No, I don’t think you’re in your own fantasy world. We’ve… Things have been… Yes, there’s been something pretty remarkable between us.”

  “Yeah….” he agreed in a way that made her sure he was thinking about the night before. A way that made her smile at the memory, too.

  “The thing is,” he went on then, “since the minute I laid eyes on you, something has been different, and I finally figured out that it’s everything—everything with you is different.”

  Jenna listened as he told her what he’d thought about and concluded as he’d waited for her to get home—that she was It for him, that they were meant to be together.

  And the more he talked, the more stunned she became. The more thrilled and excited and tempted. And the more uneasy…

  Then he said, “I know Abby comes with the package—”

  Abby…

  “—but I did some thinking about that, too. Before you and Abby, when I thought about kids in general, I wanted to put them off. But when I thought about Abby—” He smiled warmly, the way Jenna had seen him smile at the baby. “I’m as crazy about her as I am about you, and I promise you I will never do anything to make her feel the way I felt about being adopted. And if she ever begins to feel second-best because she’s adopted, I’ll move heaven and earth to change her mind so she can take me for granted—”

  “You want to be taken for granted?” Jenna asked, not completely grasping the full implication of his statement but finding some humor in it.

  “Yeah, when it comes to Abby, I do,” he confirmed.

  But again Jenna thought, Abby…

  Yes, there was Abby. Abby who Ian had said he was willing to take on—which Jenna assumed meant to raise as his own child. To parent. To be a father to.

  But Jenna had only just begun to be Abby’s mom. And she and Abby were in the midst of so much turmoil, so much transition with the loss of J.J., then Jenna’s parents, now the farm.

  Before Ian—even since Ian had come on the scene— Jenna had been determined to find some calm for herself and Abby, to put some foundation beneath them so they could get their footing, so they could settle in together as a family, as mother and daughter.

  Now Ian was talking about something entirely different. About him being a part of that. That was very different from what Jenna had planned.

  She wasn’t sure that was what was best for Abby. For her.

  Adding more change, more upheaval, didn’t seem like anything to put in the pro column….

  But Jenna hadn’t formed any words to express this, when Ian said, “Then there’s my father, and that makes a much bigger hornet’s nest…”

  Jenna’s uneasiness tripled, overshadowing the thrilled, excited, tempted feelings she’d had.

  His father…

  Ian went on to talk about the farm, about being unsure how to handle that, how to handle his father, the auction, the training center, but once more Jenna’s mind was wandering. Reeling.

  Ian’s father…

  Warning alarms were shrieking in Jenna’s mind. Would Ian have to choose between his father’s interests and hers? Which would he choose? Jenna saw the similarity to her ex-husband and his deference to his mother. There was the potential for history repeating itself.

  Plus, Morgan Kincaid was also Ian’s boss. Ian’s livelihood depended on doing what his father wanted.

  What if she did get involved with Ian? That didn’t change what had always gone on with his father. It didn’t change what drove Ian any more than being married to Ted had changed what drove Ted.

  So wouldn’t she be in the same position? Wouldn’t what she wanted, what she needed—and consequently, what Abby wanted or needed—come up second on the list of what was important? Second on the list of what had to be done?

  Wouldn’t what she and Abby wanted or needed end up sacrificed to Ian’s goals exactly the way time with her family had once been sacrificed to Ted’s pursuits?

  It seemed to Jenna that the answer to that was yes. That if doing Morgan Kincaid’s bidding meant living in Billings—or anywhere else—she and Abby would be expected to pick up and move. That if doing Morgan Kincaid’s bidding meant anything that conflicted with what she or Abby wanted or needed, they would be expected to suck it up while Ian did that bidding.

  Suddenly Jenna felt guilt—for having neglected her parents, for not having been around enough to have seen the signs of their failing health, the signs that the farm was in jeopardy.

  She couldn’t allow anything like that to ever happen again, with Abby. She couldn’t put either of them in a position where Abby might have to take a backseat to Ian’s mission to please his father.

  And that’s what she saw in any future with him.

  He was still talking about his father, about how furious his father was, about how he intended to wait until Morgan Kincaid arrived in Northbridge the next day to tell him about Jenna.

  All of what Ian was proposing would definitely take her off track—precisely what she’d told herself last night wouldn’t happen.

  And she couldn’t let it happen now.

  Could she?

  For a moment she wavered.

  Ian was there, looking incredible—more handsome than any man had the right to be. Looking into his eyes was like peering at a cloudless sky reflected off a frozen pond.

  He was still holding her hand in both of his, enveloping it with a tender strength, a warmth that seeped through her skin and heated her all the way through, reminding her of what it was like to feel his touch over every inch of her body.

  And the simple truth was that she wanted him. She wanted to be with him. She wanted them to be together. Together like they had been last night. Together like they had been at his sister’s wedding and the rest of the time since they’d met. Together…

  But in the end, she pulled her hand from his. Stretched her spine straighter and moved an inch or so away from him, enough for him to pause in what he’d been saying.

  And that was when she heard herself announce, “Last night was a one-time thing.”

  Before he could say anything, she rushed on.

  “I’m not ready for more than that. Since we haven’t found a buyer for the farm who will honor our wishes, Abby and I need to leave this place where I grew up, where she was born, the only home she’s ever known. I’m a new parent. Abby and I need time to get our bearings, time to really become a family for each other. And you have your own family—your father, your brother, a nephew—you have your work—which is probably going to turn my farm into a training center…” Her voice cracked. “There’s just…too much.”

  “There’s a lot,” he agreed. “But we can work it out.”

  Jenna almost frantically shook her head. “Working it out means someone has to ma
ke sacrifices, and that someone will end up being me. And Abby. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”

  “I won’t ask you to. I like Northbridge. I have family of my own here now. It’s close enough to Billings for me to commute when I need to. With the training facility and the offices for the Monarchs here, I’ll be working more than half the time from this town. You won’t need to sacrifice anything.”

  He seemed so certain of that. But Jenna wasn’t buying it.

  “There might be compromises,” he added then, “but I promise you that I will never make you or Abby play second fiddle—to anything or anyone.”

  Jenna shook her head again, slower now, but more firmly. “No. Abby and I need to stay on our course. And you and I…”

  Why was it so difficult—almost impossible—for her to say that she and Ian couldn’t go on together?

  She swallowed a huge lump in her throat. “You and I had some fun, but we have to get back to the day-to-day. You to yours. Me to mine. We have to go our separate ways….”

  Ian frowned, his handsome face dark and stormy. He looked as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “You know, I was there last night, Jenna,” he said then. “That wasn’t just ‘some fun.’ It was fun—don’t get me wrong. But you and I both know that there was more to it. That there’s more to you and me. Too much to just blow it off and ‘go our separate ways.’”

  “That’s how I want it,” she insisted, pushing stubbornly through even as she was waffling inside, because this wasn’t what she wanted, it was just what she had to do.

  “You want me to get up right now, walk out the door and pretend nothing happened? Pretend that we didn’t tap into something so damn amazing here that it shouldn’t just be left behind? That it shouldn’t ever be left behind?”

  “That’s what I want,” she said in a voice too soft to support the words but with shoulders drawn back to prove she meant it. “Abby and I just need to be Abby and I….”

  And never had she felt the kind of pain she felt at that moment when she was freezing him out.

  But still she convinced him, because with eyebrows arched in dismay and that supple mouth of his set in stony anger, Ian stood.

  “This is really, genuinely, what you want?” he asked skeptically.

  She nodded because she didn’t trust her voice.

  Ian said nothing to that. He merely turned, went into the entry, grabbed his bomber jacket off the peg and walked out.

  But he closed the door quietly after himself, so as not to wake Abby—it was something Jenna took note of. Something she hadn’t expected him to do when she’d just made him mad. A small, caring consideration at the worst of times that only caused her to want him all the more.

  And it was something that, for no reason she could explain, put her over the edge.

  She buried her face in the couch cushion to muffle the sob that accompanied a flood of tears.

  Chapter Eleven

  The farm was off the auction block.

  Jenna only found out late Tuesday evening when the Realtor called. Marsha Pinkell said that she’d seen that the Bowen farm was no longer up for auction and wanted to know if Jenna was going to continue to list the farm for sale.

  “What do you mean the farm isn’t on the auction block anymore?” Jenna asked.

  “I assumed you must have raised the money and paid the taxes,” Marsha Pinkell said. “All I know is that your place was one of the three going up for auction tomorrow and when I was double-checking the time just now, I saw that your farm had been removed from the schedule. The old Wilkerson house and that run-down barn just outside of town will be auctioned tomorrow, but your property won’t be.”

  Jenna still wasn’t sure she’d heard the Realtor right. But since Ian’s midnight visit the night before, she’d been in a sort of haze of misery. She’d lost hours Tuesday, sitting on the floor with Abby, staring vacantly at nothing while the baby played beside her and she wondered if she’d done the right thing by turning down Ian. And if she had done the right thing, then why did it feel so bad…?

  So now it took Jenna some concentrated effort to understand the situation.

  Her farm wasn’t being auctioned. And she hadn’t sold the place.

  That could only mean that the taxes had been paid.

  Marsha broke into her thoughts with a question. “Are you still interested in selling?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you,” was the only answer Jenna could give before she hung up.

  And stared into space again.

  The single thing that would have kept the farm from being auctioned off tomorrow was to pay the taxes her father had fallen behind on. The town fund had never reached the forty thousand dollars it would have taken, so it hadn’t come from there.

  Somehow she just knew Ian had paid them….

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was jumping the gun.

  Because why would Ian pay her taxes? Paying her taxes didn’t give him any rights to the place. It didn’t buy it for the Kincaid Corporation—only purchasing it through the auction or directly from her would have accomplished that.

  And with her taxes paid, she now had complete control again. No one could get their hands on this property unless she sold it to them. Without the tax debt, she didn’t need to sell. And even if she decided to anyway, she could stand her ground on the contingency that the place remain a working farm—which meant that she would never cave in to the Kincaid Corporation’s turning it into a training center.

  Ian knew that. So if he paid the taxes, Ian’s father would be mad. Furious. Probably outraged to lose the property he wanted for his football team…

  So maybe it wasn’t Ian.

  Maybe there was some other charitable soul who had stepped in at the last minute. Someone who wanted to remain anonymous. Some secret Good Samaritan…

  Except that deep down, Jenna still thought that Ian had done this.

  And if he had, she didn’t know what to think of it. How to feel about it. What it meant. What he might want in exchange…

  There was only one way to find out.

  She had to talk to him.

  Or was she just looking for an excuse to see him?

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and blew it out—long and slow—trying to clear her head.

  She did want to see him. Desperately. There was no doubt about it.

  And now she had very good reason to do just that. She needed to find out if he’d paid her taxes. And she didn’t want to just call and ask. If he’d invested forty thousand dollars in her farm, they needed to talk about that face-to-face.

  Cell phone still in her hand from her previous call, Jenna dialed her usual teenage babysitter to come and stay with Abby.

  Then she took a look at herself. After a call to Meg at dawn, her best friend had rushed over to spend the morning consoling her and comforting her. So Meg had seen her in her ragged sweats, make-up-less, her hair flat and stringy. But Jenna didn’t want anyone else to see her like that.

  Especially Ian.

  “Come on, Ab, I have to take a quick shower,” she informed the baby, scooping her up from the floor and making a beeline upstairs.

  With Abby playing safely in her crib, Jenna had a quick shower and a quick shampoo. After drying off, she set Abby on the bedroom floor with more toys and slipped into clean jeans and a lace camisole top that showed from beneath the navy blue, scoop-neck T-shirt she wore over it.

  Because her hair was freshly washed, and she was short on time, she bent over at the waist so her head was upside down and did a fast blow-dry, scrunching the long locks as she did.

  Abby loved the blow dryer, so Jenna had to spend a few minutes aiming it at the fifteen-month-old—who pinched her eyes shut and giggled at the sensation. Then Jenna turned it off, distracting Abby from her protests by diverting her attention to the closet, where Jenna got a pair of ballet-slipper shoes to put on.

  She brushed her hair and let the waves fall freely aro
und her shoulders. A little blush, a little mascara, a faintly colored lip gloss, and she was ready. She carried Abby downstairs just as the babysitter got there.

  Jenna usually had Abby ready for bed when the sitter arrived. But tonight she gave the teenager instructions for putting the infant to sleep. Then she kissed Abby goodbye and rushed out to her car.

  Ian might have paid the taxes…

  What did that mean?

  That was what she kept thinking as she drove to the Mackey and McKendrick compound.

  The lights were on in the main house when she got there. It was no surprise. Before Meg had left her this morning, her friend had tried to persuade Jenna to come to her house with her so Jenna wouldn’t be alone in her misery.

  Jenna had rejected that idea, worried that being that near to Ian would only make things more difficult. Meg had understood but said she’d be home all afternoon and evening if Meg changed her mind.

  But Jenna was too eager, too intent on getting to Ian now to stop at Meg’s first. Instead she drove around the main house and parked near the garage that stood beneath the studio apartment that Ian was using.

  Turning off the car engine and lights, Jenna got out and hurried up the wooden staircase that ran along the side of the garage, her ballet-slipper shoes making no noise.

  Still, she was two steps from the landing at the top before she realized that there were voices coming from inside the apartment.

  Loud voices.

  Loud voices of two men.

  She froze in her tracks, recalling in that instant that Morgan Kincaid had been due in town today or tomorrow for the auction.

  That had to be who Ian was with. And there was no way she was going to walk in on father and son shouting at each other.

  But just as she turned to go back down the steps it was Ian’s voice that sounded loud enough for her to hear and—right or wrong—Jenna froze to listen.

  “Look, it’s done. You can trust me or not—it’s your choice. But I’ve paid the Bowen taxes out of my own pocket so the farm won’t be up for auction. With that done, Jenna Bowen won’t sell the property to us. That takes the Bowen place out of the equation and leaves the McDoogal place—”