by Jami Alden
“So, she would donate the wine then?”
Cora jerked back. “I would never ask her to just give it to us.”
Natalia didn’t quite manage to suppress an eye roll. Bless Cora and her too generous heart. And damn all the Devons who had taken advantage of it over the years. “So, we pay how much for a case?”
Cora sheepishly quoted a price that was nearly twice that of the most expensive wine they had been considering.
“Jesus Christ, does it come in a solid gold bottle?” She asked Cora the name of the winery and pulled up the website on her laptop. Her frown deepened as she clicked around the website. “Cora, this is their first year releasing a Pinot Noir. There aren’t any ratings or reviews.”
“Well their other wines are well rated,” Cora pointed out. “I’m sure the Pinot will be delicious.”
Natalia shook her head. “The highest they’ve ever received is an eighty-five in Wine Spectator, and you know Pinot is a particularly tricky wine. I can’t let you - not to mention neither will your mother let you - serve an unknown wine to your guests. Especially at that price.”
Cora’s shoulders slumped but she didn’t argue. “I hope she won’t be so mad that she skips the wedding.”
“I think you should worry less about a friend who only calls you when she needs a favor, and more about what wines you’re going to serve with your prime rib and your salmon.”
Ultimately, they decided to go with the red that Cora liked, a California Cabernet. Since her mother was a white wine drinker, they agreed to order her favorite Chardonnay.
“Yay, another decision made,” Natalia said as she typed the information into her tracking document and reached for her phone to call the liquor store. “You know, when you pitched this to me you made it seem like you were doing me a favor.” She shot Cora a sideways look. “But I’m starting to think the offer wasn’t entirely altruistic.”
“I’m a nightmare, I know,” Cora said unapologetically.
“You and your mother both are. I’ll be lucky if I make it to the wedding day with my sanity in tact.”
But as crazy making as planning Cora’s wedding was, she was grateful for the distraction. Not only did it keep her from churning on what her career prospects would - or wouldn’t - be when she returned to New York, it kept her mind off a certain tall, dark, and too good looking for her peace of mind, cowboy.
Mostly, anyway.
In the four days since she’d arrived, she’d done her best to avoid Ian. It wasn’t too difficult, given that he was busy doing everything necessary to run a cattle ranch. She wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed, but Ian spent a lot of time in the office built off of the barn and on the back of a horse.
She was forced to tolerate his presence at dinner, as he and Wyatt couldn’t get enough of Marianne’s cooking. Sitting across the table from him was its own special brand of torture. It was all she could do to keep her composure and treat him with nothing more than cool politeness. Damned if she would ever let him see that underneath was all of that eleven year old hurt and embarrassment that she thought she’d gotten over a long time ago. But it turned out just being in the same room with him had it all bubbling back to the surface.
“What’s up with you and Ian?” Cora asked the first night after dinner, having noticed that Natalia responded to Ian’s attempts at conversation with clipped monosyllabic replies.
“Nothing. He just rubs me the wrong way, I guess.”
“That’s weird. When you and Emily came to visit that time, you and Ian seemed to get along great.”
Her stomach soured at the memory of just how well they had gotten along. Until they didn’t. “People grow up and change, I guess.”
Cora gave her a puzzled look but thankfully didn’t press the matter. After twelve years of keeping a secret, she wasn’t about to tell Cora the story of how Ian Blackwell had not only given her her first kiss, he’d managed to get her so hot and bothered she was practically begging for him to take her virginity, only to flatly reject her.
After that first night, she strove to be a little friendlier, if only to make things less awkward for Cora. Part of her knew it was silly to hold a grudge after all of these years. They had both just been teenagers after all, which by definition meant they were not their best selves. And since her arrival, Ian had been nothing but friendly towards her.
Yet for whatever reason that long ago rejection still stung a lot more than it should have, and it was all she could do not to snipe and pout like a sullen teenager when she was around him.
Less than ten days until show time, she reassured herself. Ten days and you can go back to New York, and you’ll never have to be tormented by his existence again.
The next morning, Natalia was awakened by the sound of birds chirping from their perch in the cottonwood outside of her window. She rolled over and checked her phone, groaning when she saw it was barely past six. How was it that she had no problem sleeping through the sounds of the city - trucks rumbling down her block, dumpsters clanging in the alley behind her building, people shouting at all hours of the night - but she awoke at the first chirp of those damn birds?
She closed her eyes, but her brain immediately started churning on the million and one details she still needed to figure out for the wedding. Dammit, Cora hadn’t even decided where she wanted to set up the tent for the reception. And Nathan hadn’t gotten back to her yet about the peonies.
With a sigh, she conceded that more sleep wasn’t in the cards for her. She shoved back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. As long as she was up this early, she figured she might as well get some exercise.
She padded down the stairs and let herself out. Though it was late spring, the air was cool and she shivered a little in her running shorts and short sleeved t-shirt. She warmed up quickly though as she took off down the ranch driveway towards the main road. As she ran, she couldn’t help marveling at her surroundings. At home, she considered herself lucky to be able to run around Central Park.
But the park had nothing on the rugged mountains and the bright blue sky of Montana. She found it as awe inspiring now as she had the first time Cora had invited her here. She’d lived in Connecticut, with its trees and flat terrain, all of her life. Her family didn’t have a lot of money to travel, and even if they did it would never occur to them to visit Montana. She’d never been anywhere like it.
At first it had kind of freaked her out, all of the space and the wide open sky. She was so used to being surrounded by buildings and trees, it gave her an odd sense of vertigo, almost like she was falling upwards. At night it was so quiet, like the world was holding its breath.
But it hadn’t taken her long to appreciate the peace and quiet. Now, with the mess she’d left at home, she was once again grateful for the quiet and the space.
The peaceful Zen she achieved from her run in nature lasted until shortly after ten that morning. She and Cora were once again seated at the kitchen table, hunkered over her laptop as they tried to decide which place settings and cutlery to use for the reception.
“I really wish they had the Wedgewood pattern that I like,” Cora said, biting her lip uncertainly. “It really would be the perfect choice.” Natalia understood her frustration. Cora’s job involved decorating and staging the properties Don McLaughlin developed and sold all over Manhattan. Like Natalia, it was her job to obsess over every last detail of the decor.
But it wasn’t Cora’s futile wish that a party rental company in Bozeman would have two hundred place settings of English bone china to rent that had tension tugging at Natalia’s back and shoulders.
It was the fact that minutes before, the door that opened off the kitchen swung open, revealing a set of broad shoulders and long muscled legs clad in worn denim. “Morning, ladies.”
Ian shot them a quick smile as he doffed his hat. Just the brief flash of his white teeth and the crinkling of his blue eyes was enough to make her stomach do a double back flip.
; “Hope I’m not bothering you.” He strode over to the refrigerator, his booted feet clomping against the hardwood floor. “But I ran out of milk in the office fridge.”
He took out the carton and splashed some in the mug she just now noticed he was carrying.
On the one hand, Natalia thought it was cool how well the Blackwells and the McLaughlins got along. Despite their wealth, Cora’s parents were kind, down to earth people who didn’t consider themselves above anyone. As such, they treated Ian, Wyatt and their parents like extended family, and the Blackwells were welcome in the big house any time.
However, it was unnerving. No matter how hard she tried to avoid him, Ian could pop up any time unannounced.
“I thought real men drank their coffee black as tar,” Natalia jibed before she thought better of it.
He cocked a heavy brow at her. “I’m as real as it gets.” He said with a wink and a look that said she of all people she should damn well know it.
Natalia tore her gaze from his and focused once again on the array of plates displayed on her computer screen.
“No worries. Help yourself,” Cora said airily. “We’re just trying to pick out table settings.” She beckoned him over. “Come take a look. We could use a masculine perspective.”
“If you want a man’s opinion, shouldn’t you be asking Trey?” Ian sauntered over and stood behind their chairs.
“Oh, Trey is useless with this sort of thing,” Cora waved her hand.
“I don’t know that I’ll do any better.”
Natalia was hyperaware of his big, callused hand curled around the back of her chair. As he leaned in to get a closer look at the screen, the scent of him enveloped her. It was the smell of hard work and clean soap, and it had a curl of heat unfolding in her belly as she remembered how it had felt to bury her nose in the crook of his neck and just breath him in.
“I’m leaning towards just going with plain white, but Mom likes the ones with the blue edging,” Cora said as she gestured to the screen.
Natalia could feel the warmth of Ian’s body through the fabric of his pearl snap shirt as he leaned closer to see the photos. She wondered how it would feel to lean back against him, to be embraced in all of that warmth.
“I don’t see much of a difference.” He moved so his head was between hers and Cora’s.
“Typical dude,” Natalia said. She caught his sidelong look out of the corner of her eye.
“Wait a minute, are you telling me you’re going to buy a bunch of plates at ten dollars a pop and you’re only going to use them one time?”
“No, that’s the rental price,” Natalia.
“So, let me get this straight, you’ve got how many guests coming?”
“Two hundred sixteen,” Natalia said.
“So, you’re going to spend over two thousand dollars on plates that you don’t get to keep?”
“Don’t forget the utensils,” Natalia said. “That’s another two thousand if we go with the silverware like your mother wants.”
“Jesus that sounds like a waste of money,” he said as he straightened. “I mean, I guess money’s not really an issue for you, but I don’t see why you don’t just get some paper plates and plastic forks from Costco and call it good.”
Natalia turned in her chair and craned her head to look up at him. She couldn’t tell if he was serious or if he was messing with her. “Are you kidding? We can’t serve Senator Danforth and his wife on paper plates.”
“I don’t remember you being so fancy.” The bite in his tone and the way his firm upper lip curled with just the faintest hint of a sneer told her he didn’t mean it as a compliment.
Natalia was hit with a sudden rush of memories. Oh, look at miss fancy pants, her brother’s voice echoed in her head. Now that she’s in her fancy school with all her rich friends, a paper napkin isn’t good enough, huh? It wasn’t just her brother who made the digs, her parents got in their shots as well. Once she started spending a lot of time with Cora, Olivia, and Emily, any comment she made about anything at home or in the restaurant that had any hint of negativity was attributed to the influence of Natalia’s fancy new friends.
The friends she’d grown up with weren’t much better. The moment they found out that she was going to Greenwich Day School, it was like an invisible wall went up between them. The one time she’d introduced Cora to some of her old friends, they were completely awful to her. No matter how hard she tried to prove that she was the same Natalia from the neighborhood, everyone treated her as though by not only going to the Greenwich Day, but actually making friends with some of the wealthy students, Natalia had somehow gone over to the dark side.
It got even worse when Natalia was hired by Elite Events and she toned town her personal style to better fit in with her wealthy clients. When she started taming her naturally wavy hair with regular blowouts and trading in her jeans and leggings for business casual wear, her sister-in-law told her she looked like she just stepped off the cover of WASP Weekly.
Through it all, Natalia kept her chin up and gave back as good as she got; her friends’ rejection and digs from her family stung, nonetheless. Even when she pointed out to her parents that they were the ones that made her go to Greenwich Day and now they were criticizing its influence on her, they didn’t get their own hypocrisy.
So, when Ian threw out the “F” word as an insult, her jaw clenched tight against the urge to rip him a new one. “It has nothing to do with me period. The wedding guests expect the very best from their experience, and that does not include eating off paper plates from Costco like a bunch of jokers at a weekend barbecue.”
It was only when Cora reached out to put hand on her arm that she realized the volume of her voice was approaching a yell.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” There was a wary look in his dark blue gaze, like he wasn’t sure exactly what he had unleashed.
“Thanks for your input, Ian,” Cora said as though the tension in the room wasn’t practically a physical presence. “I think we’ll just go with the plain white plates.”
After Natalia lit into him about the plastic utensils and paper plates, Ian tried his best to steer clear of her. It was a joke for Christ’s sake. She might see him as an ignorant cowboy but even he knew that people like the McLaughlins didn’t use disposable dinnerware at their parties.
Even so, she managed to drive him progressively more nuts over the next few days. Truth be told, her mere presence on the ranch was enough to do that. From the day she arrived he’d taken one look at her and desperately wanted to finish what he started all those years ago. The urge had grown more fierce with each passing day, and no amount of cold showers or jerking off could take the edge off.
He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman this desperately. He had no explanation for it, but for whatever reason, whenever he was around Natalia, his body sparked to life in a way that it never did around anyone else.
Too bad she clearly still thought he was an asshole. Even before she got all pissy with him over dinner plates, he’d seen right through her polite facade. Though she didn’t outright rebuff his attempts to be friendly and engage her in conversation, there was no missing the way her full mouth tightened or the subtle narrowing of her eyes.
She was still carrying a grudge, and while he would have loved it if, after almost twelve years, she could let bygones be bygones and start fresh, he couldn’t say he blamed her. He had been a complete dick that night, even if his intentions had been honorable.
Part of him wanted to hash it out with her and explain his behavior, but she was always so damn busy, running around the ranch and in town, checking things off her to do list, there was no way she was going to give him the time of day. Better just let it go for now, accept that some things weren’t meant to be, and let her plan her damn wedding.
Problem was, he thought as he kicked his horse into a trot as he neared the barn, all of the wedding planning was proving to be a serious nuisance. He and Wyatt had known that th
ere would be some disruption, of course, as soon as Cora had declared her intention to get married at the ranch.
But he hadn’t expected a sexy Italian spitfire to demand that they move the cattle that were grazing in the pasture behind the big house as she’d done just the day before. And not only that, clean up all of the cow manure.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he and Wyatt had replied in unison.
“It’s the best place to set up the tent for the reception,” Natalia had explained.
“I thought it was going to go on the front lawn, which I’d like to point out is already neatly trimmed and cow shit free,” Ian said.
Natalia’s brow furrowed and she gave them a look like they were the crazy ones. “Are you serious? If we do it on the front lawn, the big house blocks most of the view of the mountains. And we need that dramatic backdrop, not just for the guests to enjoy but for all of the pictures.”
When they started to protest again, she held up a small hand to silence them. “I get it guys, it’s a pain in the ass and inconvenient, but I promised Cora the perfect wedding. Having the tent on the front lawn doesn’t give her that.”
For the past week he’d gotten an earful about “perfection” and fancy place settings and flowers being flown in from California, and it all rubbed him the wrong way. The Natalia he remembered didn’t care about all this fancy shit. The Natalia he remembered had a mane of wild hair spilling down her back and kicked around the ranch in torn jeans and cut off shorts. She laughed when she bit into a cheeseburger (served on a paper plate, no less!) and a giant blob of ketchup landed on the front of her shirt.
This Natalia had perfectly straight hair pulled back in a ponytail so tight it dared a single strand to escape and her clothes that seemed designed to conceal the delicious curves of her body. She would probably faint in horror if even a crumb dared to fall in her lap. The fact that he still wanted her in this new uptight incarnation made him even angrier.
“The hell-”
“Well I suppose we could move the cows to the south pasture for a few days,” Wyatt said as he scratched absently at his chin.
