His Dirty Hands (The Montgomery Boys Book 2)

by Jessica Mills

  Gia turned to me and smiled a little wider. Her face lit up the lobby and I felt my heart jump a bit in my chest. She looked gorgeous. Her lacy white summer dress showed off a tiny little waist and shapely legs. The swoop of her neck was graceful, her soft, smooth skin exposed by her thick dark hair swept up into a bun on the back of her head. My fingertips tingled to touch the curve of her neck and shoulder. I wanted to feel the pulse in the soft spots at the base of her throat. But I didn’t let it show. I gave her a warm, friendly smile and kept my hands decidedly to myself.

  “Hi, everybody,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Better than I can remember in a long time,” Gia said. “There’s just something about this place that makes me go right to sleep.”

  “I know that feeling. Not that I’ve ever been much of anywhere else, but any time I’ve left, I just can’t get sleep like I do at home. The minute I’m back in Green Valley, I sleep like a baby.”

  Gia laughed and exchanged glances with Darcy.

  “Apparently, you’ve never had a baby,” Darcy said

  I shook my head. “Well, no. You’re right about that. I’ve never had a baby of my own. But I do have seven brothers. A good number of them are older than me, but there are enough younger that I know a thing or two about how noisy they can get.”

  “Seven brothers?” Gia asked, sounding shocked. “There are eight like you?”

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say we’re all alike, but yes, there are eight of us.”

  “Your mother is a magnificent woman,” she commented.

  Even after all these years, that still brought a flicker of sadness through me. I fought to keep the smile on my face.

  “Thank you for saying that,” I said. “She’s been gone a long time now. But my mama was a magnificent woman. She had a knack for quieting down the babies and making sure the rest of us got our sleep so we could work the ranch.”

  “What did she do?” Darcy asked.

  “Brought them out to the barn so the rest of us couldn’t hear them,” I said flatly.

  Both women laughed.

  “You’re kidding,” Gia said.

  “No, I’m not. She had a whole setup out there. She’d bring them out and give them all the cuddles and feeding they needed. Then she’d curl them right up in her arms and sleep. She loved the ranch, the land, the animals. All of it. Never had a problem getting her hands dirty or stretching out on an old quilt in the hay. She used to say God made her a wildflower, not a greenhouse orchid.”

  Gia smiled softly and I felt an urge to reach out and brush my fingers along her cheek. Instead, I crouched down in front of Gabby. For all the comfort and familiarity she showed the day before, she seemed to have gotten some of her shyness back. She let go of Darcy’s hand and stepped behind her mother’s legs. She stood there hiding for a second before peeking around at me.

  “Hi, there,” I said. “Are you liking it here so far?” She nodded and I smiled. “Good. Do you want to go see some of my favorite places around here?” She nodded again and I stood up, looking at the women. “Are you ready, ladies?”

  “Sure,” Darcy said.

  “Then after you.”

  I held my hand out toward the door and stepped back so they could walk in front of me. It was still fairly early in the morning, but the sun was already bright and hot when we got outside. I lowered a pair of sunglasses down over my eyes. Looking up and down the street, I tried to decide where to bring them first.

  “You probably got a good dose of Main Street yesterday,” I said.

  “We didn’t see everything,” Gia said. “But there has to be more to this town than just this street.”

  “Sure, there is. And I am happy to show you as much of it as you want to see. Starting with that bookshop I told you about. How does that sound?”

  Gia glanced down at Gabby and the little girl grinned and nodded.

  “Looks like we’ve got an agreement,” she said.

  “Then let’s go.”

  We took our time walking to the bookshop. It was only a few streets away. We fell into easy conversation as we went. I told them about the different families who lived in the houses we walked past. They smiled as I shared a few stories from when my brothers and I were growing up in Green Valley.

  Gabby looked delighted when we got to the little bookstore. Her face lit up and she hurried over to the children’s section. Her little hand snatched a book off the shelf before she climbed up into the cushioned rocking chair. I looked over at Gia.

  “Looks like she found her favorite place already.” She glanced around. “This place is adorable.”

  “Owned by the same family since I was a little boy.”

  “Long before that,” a voice said from behind us and I turned to see Mrs. Clarence coming around one of the sets of shelves. “I remember helping your daddy get books off the shelves before he could reach.”

  She carried a large stack of books in her pale hands. Blue veins stood out from her skin much more now than when she was younger. Her joints were warped with arthritis from decades of carrying the books around and turning pages as she spent hours reading to the children of Green Valley. But it didn’t stop her. Mrs. Clarence never slowed down. Just like her mother who owned the shop before her.

  I reached out and took the books from her.

  “Thank you, Clayton. You can bring those up to the counter for me. Billy Morris called up here asking for them for his wife. He’s going to come by later and pick them up.”

  “No need for that,” I told her. “I’ll be heading that way a little later. If he can wait for a bit for these, I can swing them right by his house.”

  “Would you? I’m sure that would be a great relief for him. You know he doesn’t like to leave her when he doesn’t have to.”

  “It wouldn’t be a problem at all.” I brought the books over to the counter and set them down where I would remember to pick them up before leaving. Then I turned to Gia and Darcy. “Ladies, this is Mrs. Clarence. And this is Gia and Darcy.”

  “New to Green Valley?” the older woman asked.

  “Just visiting,” Darcy said.

  “I’m working on them,” I said, leaning toward Mrs. Clarence like I was telling her a secret.

  She gave a knowing nod. “Well, welcome for however long you stay. And how about that little one?”

  “That’s Gabrielle,” Gia said. “Gabby. My little girl.”

  “She’s beautiful. I see she’s already got a love for reading.”

  “She hasn’t learned to really read quite yet, but she loves looking at the pictures and telling herself stories.”

  “That’s where it begins,” Mrs. Clarence told her. “Don’t you discourage her. All of us need more stories in our life.”

  Gia smiled at her in a way that held meaning I assumed only mothers really understood. I remembered that smile from my own mother’s face.

  When we were finished at the bookshop, Gabby with a tiny bag and books inside, we continued our tour of the town. I showed them all my favorite spots and struggled to keep myself from staring at Gia every five seconds. It was difficult considering how incredible she looked in her dress, and I couldn’t help but steal a glance or two throughout the day.

  Later that afternoon, we ended up back on Main Street. As we walked by, I gestured toward the bar on the corner.

  “That’s The Junction,” I pointed out. “It’s the place to be on Friday nights. My brother, Jesse, and his girlfriend, Shannon, always make an appearance.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Darcy said, her eyes conspicuously moving over to Gia, who pointedly ignored her.

  “Mama, I’m hot,” Gabby said.

  “I know, baby,” Gia responded, running her hand over her daughter’s dark curls.

  “If you’re hot, I know a way to cool down and it just happens to be another of my favorite places in town,” I said. “The ice-cream parlor.”

  Gabby’s eyes widened.

 
I smiled at Gia. “Can I treat the three of you to some ice cream? It’s homemade right in the parlor. They have all the usual flavors, but if we’re really lucky, they’ll have some peach.”

  That did it. The women agreed and we headed down the street to the ice-cream parlor. As luck would have it, they did have peach. I walked out of the parlor spooning mine up out of a dish while I did my best not to watch Gia eat her cone. We strolled back down the street toward the hotel, and I could feel our time getting shorter.

  I’d already kept them out for a few hours. Even though the chocolate ice cream covering Gabby’s face would probably keep her wired for a bit, she would eventually fade and need some rest. But I didn’t want the time to end.

  We got to the hotel and hesitated on the sidewalk outside.

  “Thank you for this afternoon,” Gia said. “It was a lot of fun.”

  “It really was,” Darcy said. “There’s a lot to this little place.”

  “And we didn’t even get to all of it,” I said. “Can I bring you ladies out for dinner tonight and show you more?”

  Darcy and Gia exchanged glances.

  “You know, I’m actually really tired,” Darcy said. “I was looking forward to a quiet night in. But the two of you should do something. I’ll stay with Gabby.”

  Gia shook her head. “No. That’s really okay.”

  “Oh, go on. When was the last time you did anything out in the world? Gabby and I will start making a dent in that stack of new books and you can relax and have a good time.”

  I didn’t want to push her, but fortunately, Darcy did. It took a few more exchanges until Gia finally relented.

  “All right. That sounds nice.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll be back here to pick you up around seven. Have a good afternoon.”

  I headed out before she could change her mind.

  Chapter 12

  Gia

  It had been so long since I had gone out for anything that didn’t involve Gabby that I barely knew what to do with myself.

  When we got back in from our tour around Green Valley with Clayton, I stretched out on the bed for a little while for a nap with my little girl, but it didn’t last anywhere near as long as I would have expected it to. Far too soon, my eyes popped open and I couldn’t stop dwelling on the dinner looming later in the evening.

  Not wanting to wake Gabby and Darcy up, I stayed quiet for several minutes. Eventually, my nerves got to me and I had to get up.

  Creeping across the room, I went to the small closet and carefully folded the slatted door open. I stood there scrutinizing the small assortment of clothing hanging from the bare wooden bar inside. The options were more than a little lacking. A few pairs of pants, a couple more summer dresses. It wasn’t much.

  “What are you doing?” Darcy asked from behind me.

  I glanced over my shoulder at her and gestured at the closet. “Hoping the clothing fairy visits me and delivers something for me to wear tonight. I never wanted to be the woman who says this, but I have nothing to wear.”

  “Well, you didn’t exactly pack for the occasion,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I just mean you didn’t bring most of your fancy stuff with you. Space is kind of at a premium in the car and you had to make some hard choices. Gabby took precedence over dresses and high heels.”

  I laughed and glanced back at her. “Yeah, babies are like that.”

  “It’s not like you were expecting to be going on a date anytime soon,” Darcy pointed out, earning a glare from me.

  “It’s not a date,” I warned. “I’m not dating Clayton.”

  “I didn’t say you were dating him. There was no plural involved. But you are going on a date.”

  “We’re having dinner. That’s it. He’s a really nice guy who wants to show me around town and asked us to have dinner. Us. Not just me. Us. Definitely a plural involved there.”

  “Right. Because he was definitely thinking about me and Gabby when he was staring at you with those puppy dog eyes. He barely even knew I existed. He was just including me in the invitation because he was being polite. And he included Gabby because she doesn’t know how to use a hot plate yet.”

  Darcy laughed and shook her head. “You have gotten yourself so far away from caring about relationships you don’t even notice when a guy is practically drooling all over you. All right, let’s break this situation down. He’s a man. A gorgeous man, but that’s not necessarily applicable in this situation. You’re a woman he just met. He is going to bring you to dinner. While your daughter stays home. If that was happening to absolutely anyone else in any other context, what would you call it?”

  “A date,” I admitted.

  “Exactly,” she said, throwing her hand up in the air like she had just made an impassioned closing argument in a court case.

  “But context is really key, isn’t it?” I asked.

  She glared at me, then shook her head. “I’m not dealing with any of your nonsense anymore. Pick something to wear on your date.”

  I sighed again and looked back at the clothes. “Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t want to wear another of my sundresses. Doesn’t it get kind of cool in the evening in Montana?”

  “You ask me that as if I have some sort of experience with Montana,” Darcy said. “And I’m just going to point out that you stressing out about what you’re going to wear when you go out with him? Also the hallmark of a date.”

  I wanted to argue with her more, but the truth was, I was feeling more and more like it was a date by the minute. Maybe I hadn’t ever really denied it at all and that was why I’d resisted agreeing in the first place.

  Clayton asked us all out to dinner, but he didn’t seem too broken up about it when Darcy said she was tired and wanted to stay in for the evening. If he really was determined to bring all of us out and show us around more, he would have offered to bring us all some other night. Instead, he looked at me with expectation, maybe even hope, in his expression. He didn’t try to stop her as Darcy pressured me into agreeing.

  Not that it took all that much pressure. I wanted to resist him. I wanted to just say no and go inside the hotel and figure out where we were going to go next. But at that point, my only plan for how to decide where to go next was to tape a map up on the wall and throw pens at it until one of them embedded in a town that sounded good.

  I was pretty sure Connie wouldn’t appreciate that. And even if she didn’t mind a little bit of ink blending in with the wallpaper, it wasn’t like I would have any idea what any of the towns were like.

  The truth was, I had barely been anywhere in life. In the years I was on the run from Matteo after Gabby was born, I went through a couple of towns before settling in with Darcy. But they were all familiar to me. Places I’d already been. That was as far as I had been able to think when I realized I had to get away from him. Joining Darcy in Sacramento felt like a huge leap for me. It was somewhere I’d never visited, but when Darcy told me she was moving there and I could come stay with her, it seemed like the best idea in the world.

  That was Darcy. My best friend was always chasing something. Whether it was her newest dream or the next big adventure, there was always something she felt like was just beyond her fingertips and she had to find it.

  That meant I had gotten used to being away from her for stretches of time. She usually found her way back or I’d go to visit her. The couple of years between Matteo first coming after me and Gabby and I moving in with Darcy was the longest we were consistently apart. From the beginning, I told her that was a good thing. Not that I ever really expected my family to look for me, but if Matteo got desperate enough to find me, he would go through her. He would track her down and find out what she knew about where I was or where I had been. If he couldn’t find her or prove we had been near each other, that wouldn’t work out for him.

  Finally settling into the apartment with Darcy—as much as I could settle with the feeling of Matteo b
reathing down my neck at every moment—was the closest I had been to feeling like I was home since before I got pregnant.

  The truth was, I lost my home and my family when I decided to keep Gabby. My family wanted nothing to do with her. It broke my heart in more ways than I ever could have imagined when I realized that. Of course, finding out I was pregnant wasn’t something I was immediately thrilled about. Barely twenty years old and not married, I wasn’t in a place in life when I had even begun to think about being a mother.

  Especially not with my relationship history with Matteo. He was just about everything a parent dreads when they think about their daughter dating. Smoldering and sexy, he was exciting and intriguing. He was also manipulative, controlling, and abusive.

  I didn’t realize just how bad it could be until I was already far under his spell and he started chipping away at who I was and the life I could have had. My parents wanted me to get rid of him. They wanted a good, traditional boy for me. A boy they could be proud of me marrying and who they would know would take good care of me.

  Far more accurate was that they wanted me to marry somebody they wouldn’t have to be ashamed of.

  What people thought of them was extremely important, and my choice of husband would reflect on them, especially my father. When they found out that not only did I not break up with Matteo but that I was carrying his child, they were horrified. But there was a solution. There was always a solution. I would carry the baby but out of the public eye so no one would know. When the baby was born, they would see to it a good family was ready for a quick, clean adoption. Then I could cut Matteo out of my life for good and go back to the life I was supposed to have. It was just that simple.

  At least, it was for them. I let them convince me it was the right choice for a while. When she started kicking and the doctor told me I was having a girl, that was over. I knew there was no way I could hand her over to somebody else.

  Then the day came when I finally held her in my arms, and I felt a love unlike anything I ever knew possible. Nothing else mattered to me then. It was only Gabby. For six months, I tried to convince my family to accept her, to accept me. But they wouldn’t and then Matteo found out about Gabby and I knew I had to run.