Last Year's Bride (Montana Born Brides)

by Anne McAllister

  Cole felt as if his head was coming off. His father had listened—and agreed—to something mighty Jane Weiss had said?

  He’d always known she was a force. Troy wouldn’t have encouraged her to come to Marietta to put the town on the map if she hadn’t been. But she must sure as hell be persuasive if Sam was doing what she wanted.

  Cole let out a pent-up breath, then realized he’d been sidetracked by the Jane and Sam subplot. “What guys are staying here?” he demanded. “What girls?”

  “The contestants,” Sadie said. “There are four couples. They get challenges and they have to be able to meet them. The guys will do some stuff. You know, mend a fence, deliver a calf—”

  Cole was agog. He shook his head to clear it. “Whose calf?”

  “Well, how would I know?” Sadie said, giving him a blank look. “Whichever cow goes into labor when they’re here, I assume.”

  Cole shut his eyes. His mind spun.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Sadie said. “You don’t have to do anything much. Well, maybe show them the ropes. Teach them a bit. I think it’ll be fun!”

  Cole thought it would be a disaster. And Nell had something to do with it? He knew she’d come to look for a place for her show. He had never in a million years imagined their ranch was on the list. Christ, most of the ranches in the valley had more to recommend them than the Rafter M Arrow. He said so now.

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Sadie munched a cookie happily. “But the boss, Grant, said that he liked ours because it was authentic. Genuine. It wasn’t a Hollywood star’s hideaway.”

  No, it wasn’t that. Cole was still appalled, but he appreciated Nell’s boss’s attitude. And he breathed a little easier because Nell apparently had had nothing to do with it.

  “So they’re coming,” Sadie said. “The week after next. The contestants here—so they can ‘live the life’—” she bracketed the phrase in finger quotes “— and the crew will be at the Graff in town. Gran and I will be here, but we figured you and Dad could decamp to the cabin.”

  The cabin was the original homestead that Cole’s great-grandparents had built up in the foothills when they’d settled here over a hundred years ago. It was where Cole’s dad had grown up, where Gran had lived until the year after Grandpa Mac had died. Then she’d come down to the house Sam had built to live with them. In theory, if not in deed, the cabin was Cole’s place now. When she’d moved out, Gran had told him when he married he could bring his bride there.

  He had, though unwittingly. The last weekend of the summer they had dated, right before she’d gone back to California to school, he had taken Nell there. He’d made love to her there for the first time. They’d awakened together the first time.

  In Reno he’d dreamed of taking her back there and making a home with her.

  But he hadn’t. Couldn’t. And he rarely went there himself now. The memories and the might-have-beens were still too strong.

  He didn’t want to go there now—particularly with his dad in tow. But if the TV show’s coming was a done deal, he was sure he’d rather be there than in the middle of the mess. And maybe new memories—of his dad grumping around and complaining—would replace the old, and he wouldn’t think of Nell every time he rode past.

  So he grunted now and took a bite of a cookie.

  Sadie grabbed another also. “You can take Sal and the pups, too.”

  Cole stared at her. “You’re joking.”

  Sal, their Border Collie cattle dog had had a litter of eight the day before yesterday. He was supposed to take a litter of puppies up to the cabin?

  “Well, we won’t want them underfoot here,” Sadie said practically.

  “They won’t need the noise and the commotion, dear,” his grandmother pointed out.

  Cole didn’t need the noise and commotion, either, but they didn’t care a whit about that.

  “And,” Sadie said happily through the cookie in her mouth, “it will be great to have Nell here, too.”

  Cole choked. He coughed. He sputtered cookie crumbs.

  Gran reached over and smacked him on the back. “Drink some coffee.”

  Cole gulped it, scalding his throat in the process. His eyes began watering. He squinted at Sadie. “What about Nell?”

  Sadie bobbed her head eagerly. “She’s the director.”

  Hell’s bells. What on earth was she thinking coming here, moving in on him? He thought they’d settled things. They’d seen each other at the Graff a month ago. They’d had their one last night together. It had been love—he admitted that—but it had also been good-bye. They were done.

  Nell knew that.

  Except apparently, she didn’t.

  “I’m sure they’ll have their own ideas,” Sadie went on happily, “but we should probably be thinking about possible challenges.”

  Challenges? Cole could think of one. Jesus. Nell was coming here? Nell was staying here? Cole chugged the rest of his coffee, finishing the scald job on his throat. Then he shoved back from the table, stood up and carried his mug to the sink.

  “Cole?” his sister said. “What do you think?”

  Cole thought he needed to run as far and as fast as he could.

  She probably should have told Cole they were coming.

  But Nell hadn’t been sure it was actually going to happen until the last couple of days. At first she’d thought it wasn’t even a possibility. There were three other ranches that were certainly much more upscale than Cole’s family’s place, including one owned by one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, and she’d been convinced Grant would choose one of them.

  But he hadn’t. “Not what we’re about,” he’d said firmly. “Where’s the challenge in a place like that?”

  “Paying for it,” Nell had replied drily.

  Grant had grinned. “For you and me, maybe. Not for him.”

  To her surprise, he had loved the McCullough ranch at first sight even though that had been when he’d got out of the 4WD truck they’d rented, to open the gate so she could drive through. He’d slipped on a patch of ice, landed on the rear end of his Calvin Klein jeans, and still had come back to the truck grinning.

  “Pure theater,” he’d said, briskly wiping off the seat of his pants. “Should’ve had a camera.”

  After Cole’s sister and grandmother had shown them around the place, pointing out the bunkhouse, the barn and calving shed, the cattle beyond up on the hillside, one of which Sadie kept eying because Cole thought she might be going to go into labor, he’d been even more enthusiastic.

  “It’s basic,” he’d said on the way back to town. “Nitty-gritty. Down-to-earth. Perfect.” He’d rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. Then he’d paused and looked over at her. “They do have indoor plumbing, don’t they?”

  They did. Nell had assured him of that. But she still wasn’t positive that he wouldn’t change his mind. Grant Merrick was nothing if not mercurial. And he was always open to a ‘better idea’ if one came along. It was what made him an Emmy-winning producer: he had great instincts coupled with the determination not to let weeks of planning get in the way if circumstances changed.

  So she didn’t email Cole and tell him she was coming. He never read his email anyway, she rationalized. She didn’t ring his cell phone because he almost never picked up. Reception wasn’t great out in the boondocks. He’d told her that often enough. And if she had left a message, she was sure he wouldn’t return it. At least she didn’t think he would return one from her. Not if she said, “Call me,” anyway.

  And if she had just said, “Wanted to let you know we’re using your ranch for our TV show. See you in a couple of weeks,” Cole might well have called back, but what he would have said under those circumstances, Nell was sure was nothing she wanted to hear.

  So she let the sleeping dog lie.

  Lucky him. A little sleep would be a wonderful thing. She was so stressed in the days leading up to her departure, she slept hardly at all.

  Now, looking
out the plane window as she landed in Bozeman on an overcast late March day, she felt her stomach knot with an apprehension that owed far less to the work ahead of her than to the man she was going to be coming face to face with later today.

  She was sure he knew by now that she was on her way.

  She was also fairly sure he wouldn’t be happy. She’d run their night at the Graff over in her mind about a thousand times, right down to when she’d awakened in the morning to find herself alone with a note that said, “Sign the papers.”

  She could still remember the punch to the stomach it had been. He loved her. She was sure of it. He wouldn’t have spent the night with her, wouldn’t have made sweet love with her if he hadn’t cared.

  He cared, all right. And in his perverse responsible masculine mind, she was sure he had decided that she would be better off not married to him. It was there in everything he’d said, in his actions, too. He’d been deliberately distancing himself from her over the past months. She hadn’t understood why when they’d been apart.

  But now she knew. He loved her—and he wanted her to have what he thought she wanted. He might even have thought that if he distanced himself enough, she’d come to the conclusion that they didn’t belong together and she would divorce him.

  Since she hadn’t, he had done the typical Cole McCullough honorable thing and made the decision to get a divorce for her.

  Bloody stupid man!

  She wasn’t going to let him get away with it. Maybe it would have been different if she’d discovered he really was indifferent. But that night of lovemaking had been anything but indifferent. It had been passionate, emotional—magical.

  And he might have thought it was saying good-bye. But Nell knew better. She knew that it meant their marriage was worth fighting for.

  So here she was, her stomach in knots as the plane bounced down onto the runway, hoping against hope that she could make Cole see sense.

  She hadn’t heard anything from him since she’d left Marietta over a month ago. When she deliberately didn’t sign the papers, she thought she might. But he had been typically silent. She’d fretted, she’d stewed. But she’d also known she would see him again when they arrived to shoot the episode. She could wait until then, she told herself.

  “Patience,” her mother always said. “Don’t rush things.”

  Nell found that hard advice to take, but she knew rushing Cole was a bad idea. So she waited. She had only talked to Sadie once since Grant had made the decision to use McCulloughs’ ranch.

  Deb, the production supervisor, had handled all the details. It was her job, after all, and as much as Nell wanted to call Sadie and learn what Cole had said when he found out they were coming, if she wasn’t brave enough to call him directly, she couldn’t call his sister and ask.

  Besides, Sadie had no idea what existed between them. As far as Cole’s sister was concerned, Nell was just the woman Cole went out with for a while. She’d been friendly and glad to see Nell in February, but there was no subtext in their conversation to indicate that Cole had even hinted he’d, oh, just happened to marry Nell ten months or so ago.

  So Nell hadn’t rung. Not until last Friday when her casual query to Deb about what the rest of the McCulloughs thought of their ranch being selected met with no real answer at all for about the tenth time, Nell hadn’t been able to help herself. She needed a clue. Maybe she was hyping herself into a frenzy over nothing. Maybe Cole was actually pleased.

  Uh-huh.

  So she had called Sadie on the pretext of wanting to make sure that everything was on schedule, to let her know they’d be there Monday afternoon, to see if there were any last minute snafus that she could resolve before they arrived.

  “Everything’s great,” Sadie said. “Dad painted the bunkhouse inside. The mattresses are here. Gran and I have sorted things out to give the ladies space in the house. Cole and Dad are moving to the cabin.”

  The cabin. Memories of the log cabin where she and Cole had made love the first time flickered through Nell’s head. Firelight. An old iron bed. A faded patchwork crazy quilt. Hard muscles. Rough whiskers. Soft lips. Slick skin. “Ah ... great,” she managed, trying to clear her mind as she asked, “Speaking of, um, Cole, what does he think of us coming.”

  “Don’t ask,” Sadie replied cheerfully.

  Hence, the knot in Nell’s stomach.

  Cole had forgotten what a lousy cook his old man was. The smell of burned chili greeted him the minute he opened the door to the cabin was a quick reminder.

  Sam, sock-footed, was scraping the bottom of the cast iron pan on the stove. He looked up, his mouth twisting ruefully as he shrugged. “Got distracted. Sorry. Don’t matter. We can always go eat down at the house.”

  “No! I mean, no.” Cole moderated his tone. “It’s fine.”

  Better than going down to the house. Nell would be there. Cole was sure of it. He knew that she and her crew were arriving this afternoon. He’d hauled his gear up to the cabin this morning after he’d fed the cattle so his sister would have time to wash the sheets on his bed and turn it into a guest room for one of the women Sadie kept calling ‘the talent.’

  Didn’t matter to him as long as he could steer clear. But even though he intended to stay away, he couldn’t seem to stop riding near the ridge this afternoon. From there he could see the road that came up toward the house from the highway. He needn’t have bothered. He heard them before he saw them, anyway.

  A huge generator truck grinding its way up the hill caught his attention first. He didn’t know what the hell the sound was—like an invasion of tanks—until the truck crested the hill. Cole had to rein in his horse who didn’t seem to like the new arrival any better than he did.

  Behind it had come a truck and a couple of sport utility four-wheel-drive vehicles. Nell was in one of them. Cole had felt a prickling along his shoulders and the back of his neck as the procession crawled past down below. Only when the road curved away, heading toward the ranch house so that he could see them no longer did he turn away. But the sound lingered.

  So did the knowledge that Nell was less than a mile away.

  “We’ve got potato salad your gran made, and some green beans. I didn’t burn the beans,” Sam said now. “They’re probably eatin’ better down at the house,” he offered after a moment as he ladled the burned chili into two bowls and set them on the table.

  Cole yanked off his boots, washed up, then snagged a beer from the refrigerator. “This’ll do.” He kicked out one of the chairs at the table and sat down.

  Sam shifted from one foot to the other, regarding the meal with less enthusiasm, but eventually he shrugged and sat down too. “Guess so.”

  The only sound was the clink of silverware on dishes, the pop and snap of the blaze in the fireplace across the room, and the click of Sam’s old dog, Ted’s, toenails on the floor when he moved closer to the fire. Neither Cole nor his dad said a word.

  Sadie had once looked around the dinner table and asked, “If the two of you didn’t have me and Gran, would you ever talk?”

  The answer was, probably not.

  Not to each other anyway.

  When he was a boy, Cole had talked to his father. He could remember tagging after Sam, asking a million questions, eager to learn, to do whatever his dad did. And Sam had, back in those days, been more patient, easier to relate to than he’d become after Sadie’s mother, Lucy, had left. Maybe, Cole reflected, because Sam hadn’t wanted to answer the questions Cole and his brother had asked, like “When’s Lucy coming back?” and “Why did Lucy leave?” and “Did we do somethin’ to make her go? Did you?”

  Now he could appreciate his father’s reticence. But he still couldn’t talk to Sam. Questions always sounded like accusations. And since Sam had had heart issues, no one wanted to rile him.

  Silence had become the best policy. Besides, over the years Cole had built his own share of walls. There wasn’t any good way around them or over them. So he helped himself to more potato
salad and polished off his beer.

  “You see that big generator truck?” Sam asked after he’d cleaned his plate. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet under the table.

  “I saw it.” He started to ask why the hell Sam had agreed to it, but it would sound like an accusation, so he took another bite and chewed.

  “Amazing the size of that thing,” Sam marveled. “They’re already makin’ a mess down there.”

  Cole’s brows lifted slightly. Sam had gone down to the house? He had figured his father would be giving it as wide a berth as he was—for different reasons.

  “Reckon they make a mess everywhere they go.” Cole cut a piece of his grandmother’s sourdough bread and mopped up the rest of his chili. He ate it, then lifted his gaze to meet Sam’s. “They better be payin’ well.”

  Sam’s jaw tightened, as if Cole’s comment was an accusation which Cole supposed it was. “Well enough. Sadie did her homework. And Jane had plenty of statistics showing how the money spent in the area would help the whole community, not just us.”

  Cole’s brows went up another notch. He’d never heard Sam use the word statistics in his entire life. Sam knew pretty much all there was to know about cattle on the hoof. He could even talk lineages and breeding with people who knew about that sort of thing. And lately he’d been helping Tom McKay figure out how to build his herd. But, statistics?

  Cole scratched his head. “You don’t say.”

  “Got a head on her shoulders, that Jane,” his father said. He carried his dishes to the sink and rinsed them, then set them on the counter. “I’m gonna go down to the house and see how they’re getting on,” he said, drying his hands on his jeans. “Coming?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Sam pulled on his boots, then shrugged into his jacket. “You gonna just sit here and stare at the fire?”

  Cole looked up sharply. “What difference does it make?”

  His father shook his head. “None. Just figured you might come see that pretty little girl you went out with a couple of years ago. Jill? Lil?”