"Whatever you come for," Flynn said. He grinned at Sara. "You, too, of course."
As if she were no more than one of them. Sara stared at him.
"Sara won't come," Lizzie said around a mouthful of sandwich. "She's too busy."
"Well, of course she is," Flynn said. "She's got lots to do. Med school and all that."
"I don't—"
"But you come," he said to her sisters. "We'll send postcards to Sara wherever she is."
He might have been teasing her, but it didn't sound like teasing. It sounded like he was trying to get rid of her. Sara felt odd. Hurt. Confused.
The back door opened just then, and her mother and grandmother and Sloan and Celie and Jack came in. All the attention shifted to Celie. Her aunt's face was flushed, her hair mussed, her eyes a little glassy. She looked dazed.
Both Daisy and Lizzie pounced on her. They squealed and hugged her and then, of course, they hugged Sloan, too.
"I can't believe you did it!" Daisy exclaimed.
"Me, neither!" Lizzie chimed in, shaking her head.
"Me, neither," Celie agreed, then laughed a little hysterically.
Flynn got up and came around the table to take Celie's hand. "Congratulations! It was a very gutsy thing you did. I'm looking forward to writing it."
Celie beamed. "Are you going to be there? At the premiere?"
Flynn nodded. "I'm planning on it."
"Wonderful." Celie looked as delighted that she was going to see Flynn again as she was to be going out with the man of her dreams. She wasn't even looking at Sloan.
The man of Sara's dreams wiped his hands on a paper towel, carried his plate to the sink and said, "Thank you for the sandwich. Now I really do have to go."
Sara opened her mouth to protest, but Flynn was shaking hands with her mother. "Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. O'Meara. It's been a pleasure." Then he shook hands with Polly, with Sloan. He tugged Daisy's braid and winked at Lizzie and Jack.
Then he turned to Sara.
"I'll walk out with you," she said.
He got his jacket and pulled it on. Sara did the same, then went to the door with him. She hoped he would take her hand. But he didn't. He just held the door open for her.
The wind had come up when they went outside. It might snow before morning. "I don't like the look of this," Flynn murmured.
Sara barely spared it a glance. "I'm not all that busy," she said firmly. "With medical school, I mean. I could probably get to New York sometime."
"Sure." He smiled at her, but it wasn't the smile she'd fallen in love with. It was polite, that was all. "That'd be grand."
"And you could come back here, too."
His smile tipped to one side. "Not a lot for me to write about in Elmer."
"But you could come for a visit."
"Maybe someday."
"Maybe I'll go to med school in New York. Maybe at Columbia."
"It's a fine school."
"So I'll definitely be there."
"I'll look forward to it."
They stared at each other. There was something in his gaze she didn't understand. Something she couldn't read, as if he'd dug the moat and shut the castle gate and wouldn't let her in.
"Flynn?" she said, desperate now.
He reached out and touched her cheek. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
He sighed heavily. "It's not… We're not… You're a sweet kid, Sara," he said helplessly at last.
A sweet kid? Was that what he believed?
But before she could ask, he bent his head and kissed her. It was a brief kiss, a brotherly kiss. Not at all like the kiss he'd given her last night. Not like the ones they'd shared just this afternoon. There was no passion in this one. No future. No promise.
His lips were cool. She thought they trembled just a little, but their touch was so brief she couldn't say for sure.
Then he stepped back and touched his finger to the tip of her nose. "Take care of yourself, a ghra."
Then he was gone.
The blank check burned a hole in Polly's pocket all evening. But no more intensely than the looks Sloan had given her since Celie had won the auction. But she'd had no time to talk to him, no time to explain until finally he'd gone upstairs to pack his bag in Jack's room. Then Polly had gone after him.
He was tossing clothes into the bag when she slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.
He whipped around and straightened up, pasting what Polly had begun to recognize as his public face on. Only when he saw it was her, did his expression change from polished politeness to obvious irritation.
"I'm sorry," she said, thrusting the rumpled, crushed check at him. "I couldn't do it."
"You could have."
"All right then, I wouldn't." Which was closer to the truth. "I still can't believe she did it."
"Neither can I." Sloan looked disgruntled. "Why in hell—?"
Polly hesitated, but realized that, since Celie had been brave enough to step in front of millions and lay her life savings on the line, she wouldn't expect her sister to protect her now.
"She's sort of … fancied herself in love with you. Well, not you exactly, but the person you present in your movies, in the magazines, in her heart."
"I'm not—" he began to protest, but she cut him off.
"You were there when she was trying to find a reason to believe something good about men. She was jilted when she was twenty and she went into a shell after that. She felt completely rejected. Worthless. She didn't date after that. She didn't even look at guys for a long time. She didn't trust them. Except in movies. Except you."
Sloan frowned. "Then she expects me to…" His voice drifted off. He didn't look happy.
"I don't know what she expects," Polly told him honestly. "I think she simply wants to find out."
"I can tell her right now. It isn't her I'm interested in. It's her sister."
"Don't say that."
"It's the truth. I've always been interested in you."
"Because you saw … because that day in the barn…" She still couldn't bring herself to articulate the words.
"Because I saw you naked," Sloan said. His voice was frank, but the tone wasn't harsh. On the contrary it felt almost like a caress.
"You were a child."
"I was a teenager. Fourteen. Impressionable."
"Well, hopefully you've grown up," Polly said, trying to dismiss the whole thing. "That was a long time ago."
"But memorable."
She wished he would stop looking at her like that. She wished she hadn't come after him up to Jack's room. It was too small. Too intimate.
"I wanted to take you to the premiere," he said softly. "I wanted to spend the weekend with you."
"Well, I wasn't up for bid," Polly said sharply. "I better be getting back downstairs. I just wanted to give you the check back. And, of course, to say thanks for doing the auction and saving Maddie's ranch."
"That's all you wanted to say?" His gaze was intent, hungry. He pushed away from the bunk beds.
Polly beat a hasty retreat. "That's all."
If Jace stood in the upstairs bedroom of Artie's place and looked down the hill to the east, he could see a part of the McMaster house.
He'd stood there every night since he'd come to stay at Artie's and had stared at the lights in the upper-floor rooms, wondering which one was Celie's. It had made him feel closer to her to stand with his forehead pressed against the glass, looking and longing.
Now as he stood with his fists jammed into the pockets of his jeans and glared in that direction, mostly he longed to spit!
How the hell could she have done it?
How could she have squandered over twenty thousand dollars on a date with a trumped-up, two-bit actor?
What the hell was she thinking?
He glowered down the hill at the well-lit house. Then he kicked the baseboard, hurt his toes and did a hopping furious lap around the room. "Damn it!" He bent and rubbed his bare toe
s, winced, then went back to the window once again.
He'd been standing here for an hour. Maybe more. Ever since he'd come upstairs after seeing Serena and Kelsey off. They'd been full of chatter about the auction, not at all sorry they hadn't won Sloan. Serena was gaga over whoever it was she'd won, but who that was Jace couldn't remember.
All he could think about was Celie. With Sloan.
The man she'd always wanted. The one he'd goaded her about bidding on. She wasn't supposed to do it! She'd told him she wouldn't! And then she'd gone and blown her life's savings on one lousy weekend.
Maybe it wasn't one lousy weekend. Maybe reality would be like her dreams. Maybe she'd have Gallagher for the rest of her life!
Jace braced his hands against the window frame and let his head fall forward until his forehead touched the cold glass. He felt achingly, yawningly empty.
"Jace?" Tamara's voice came softly from the doorway.
"What?" He didn't turn around.
Quiet footsteps crossed the bare floor as she came up behind him. Slim arms slid around his waist. He stiffened.
Warm breath caressed the back of his neck. "She's not the only fish in the sea." Tamara's voice was a soft purr. He didn't know how she knew, but clearly she did. She pressed her whole body against his.
Jace held himself absolutely rigid as her breasts nestled against his back and her hips cradled his. Her thumbs grazed his ribs, her fingers splayed against his abdomen. Her tongue touched the back of his neck.
A shudder ran through him.
"See? It's not so hard to think about something else," Tamara breathed. "Someone else."
Jace swallowed.
"It's foolish to care. They didn't care. Did they?"
No. Celie sure as hell didn't. At least she didn't care about him.
"So I say we forget together," Tamara whispered. Her fingers slid lower beneath his waistband. They popped the fastener of his jeans, slid down the zipper, freed him, stroked him, caressed him.
And Jace, shuddering, was lost.
It was what she did every Sunday night, Sara told herself as she gripped the steering wheel. She took the car and drove over the pass to Bozeman to study in the lab with Gregg.
"Back in your routine?" her mother had said when Sara had asked for the keys. "It looks like snow, though. You keep an eye out."
"Maybe I'll stay over at Cathy's." One of her classmates, she meant.
"Just as long as it's not at Gregg's." Polly had given her one of those steely-mother looks.
Sara's fingers had closed tightly on the keys. "I won't stay at Gregg's."
"Of course you won't. You know better," Polly replied wryly.
Sara did know better. But that wasn't why she wouldn't be staying at Gregg's. She wasn't going to study with Gregg. She wasn't going to study at all.
She was going after Flynn.
The snow began as she reached the top of the pass going over the interstate to Bozeman. It was falling heavily by the time she reached the motel where she knew he had a room.
She called her mother and said she'd be staying over.
"Smart move," Polly approved heartily.
As she hung up, Sara desperately hoped so.
Thank God she knew which room Flynn was in. She would not have wanted to go to the desk and ask. She didn't want to call him either. She had to see him, face-to-face.
She had stood on the porch after he'd left and wondered if she was going crazy. Had she dreamed all these feelings? Had it meant nothing to him? Was she just going to go back to her day planner and her life before Flynn?
Gregg gave her the answer. "Well, you've had your weekend off," he'd said without preamble when he called. "Now I trust you're ready to get back to work. Our future depends on it, you know."
Sara's future depended on something very different. She needed to talk to Flynn.
She climbed the stairs, found his room, knocked on the door.
Half a minute later the lock rattled and the door opened a crack. Flynn, wearing only boxer shorts and holding a bottle of whiskey in his hand, stared, disbelieving, at her. "Sara?"
She swallowed hard. "Was I dreaming?"
Flynn's knuckles were white where he gripped the bottle. "What?"
"What I felt. What was happening between us. I thought—" She couldn't explain. Words wouldn't do. She stepped forward, leaned up and touched her lips to his.
It was the only way she knew of to make sure.
He groaned, anguished. "We can't! Damn it, Sara. You don't want me. You have plans. You have goals. A life! I have—never mind—" He muttered it all while she kept right on kissing him, pressing against his heated body, making him respond, until finally he wrapped his arms around her. "You're going to be sorry. You're goin' to hate me forever."
"I won't," Sara vowed as he hauled her in and shut the door.
Tomorrow was going to be the first day of the rest of her life.
Polly had never been much for slogans, but this one seemed somehow apropos. Tomorrow things would be back to normal. There were would be no television crews, no reporters, no frantic phone calls, no giggling groupies, no fame, no nonsense.
No Sloan.
She felt an odd, hollow sort of ache at the thought. Determinedly she banished it. She wasn't going to get all misty-eyed about Sloan Gallagher.
He was handsome. He was charming. He was everything that made him the heart throb of millions. But that didn't mean a woman like her should be entertaining thoughts about him.
So what if he made her feel things she'd thought had died with Lew? That just meant she wasn't dead, too. And maybe it meant that down the road she might find someone with whom she could share those feelings.
Another man.
Not Sloan.
He was totally and completely out of her league. She wasn't a dreamer like Celie. She knew better than to focus her hopes on a man like him.
In fact, she wished he'd left this evening. She'd thought he would. But after they came back home from the town hall, people kept dropping by. Some came to wish Celie well, to shake her hand and shake their heads even as they supported her. Many came to see Sloan, to thank him for his help, to tell him they hoped he'd come back and visit. Maddie had kissed him and hugged him and even shed a tear or two.
"You come back now," she'd said, squeezing him tight. "You don't be a stranger."
Sloan had promised he would come. He'd said the same to Gus and Mary and the baby when they'd come. And he'd promised to go see J.D. and Lydia on their place outside Murray.
"You won't have time to make movies anymore," Polly said after they left. "You'll be too busy visiting your friends here."
"I could stand that." Sloan said gravely, his gaze fixed on her.
His gaze had once more made her feel those things she'd put aside after Lew's death. Polly had swallowed and hurried out to the kitchen to wash up the dishes in the sink.
She'd told herself she'd come back out to say goodbye to him. She'd be polite and friendly. He was a friend now, after all.
But a little later Joyce had come in and said, "Sloan's staying if that's okay?"
"Staying? Here?"
"It's late and it's snowing. I invited him."
"Of course," Polly had agreed faintly. So he was back in Jack's room.
"He can stay forever," Jack said cheerfully when she'd gone up to kiss him good-night.
"No, he can't," Polly had said. "Don't start thinking that." She certainly wouldn't let herself think that. Sloan Gallagher, even with his declarations of "interest" and his hungry gazes, was not for the likes of her.
They had nothing in common. If he was "interested," it was because of his memory of her. He might once have been enchanted with the girl she had been. But she wasn't that girl now. No more than he was really the man Celie had been dreaming of for six years.
The seventeen-year-old Polly he remembered didn't exist. This Polly was an adult. A mature woman. With a life here in Elmer.
So even if she li
ked him, even if he made her smile and laugh and feel things she hadn't felt in a very long while, she was still a realist.
She wasn't a woman who had flings.
She was a woman who had children, commitments, responsibilities. Rabbits.
"So be realistic," she muttered to herself now, "and go to sleep."
She rolled onto her side, drew her pillow close and closed her eyes. The doorknob turned. The door opened a crack.
"Bad dream?" she asked. Jack had them sometimes if he got over excited.
"If I say yes can I get in bed with you?"
She rolled over and sat up abruptly as Sloan slipped into the room, then closed the door after him.
"What do you think you're doing?" Polly clutched the quilt to her breasts and glared at the shadowy figure across the room.
"Well, that depends," he said in a soft, lazy tone. "What do you want me to do?"
"Go away! Now!"
But he didn't. He leaned against the closed door and folded his arms across his chest. Even in the dim light Polly could see that he was smiling at her. It was the same smile that made millions of women's hearts kick over. She'd seen it in People magazine just last week. She should damned well be immune to it, knowing that. But it made her own heart beat faster regardless.
"Go!" she insisted. "Go!"
"Ah, Pol'," he murmured, shaking his head. "You don't want me to do that. You want me the same way I want you."
"I don't! And you don't want me. You just remember—" She tried to articulate what she'd just been thinking.
But Sloan cut her off. "I know what I remember," he said. "You. You were beautiful. You are beautiful."
"Oh, right. I'm a thirty-seven-year-old, frumpy postal worker."
"Whom I find beautiful."
"Stop!"
"I'm just telling the truth."
How could you argue with someone who wouldn't listen? Polly clutched her quilt tightly. "What do you want, Sloan? Really? A roll in bed? Because I'm not doing that. I don't have flings. I don't have one-night stands."
"I'm not asking for one."
"You're not the guy leaving in the morning?"
"I told Maddie and Gus I'd be back."
"To visit. I'm not going to be your lover in Montana, the woman whose bed you share whenever you happen to pass through."
The Great Montana Cowboy Auction Page 21
