The Great Montana Cowboy Auction

by Anne McAllister

  Last night she'd cornered Polly in the kitchen. "Lew wouldn't expect you to stop living either," she'd told her daughter.

  "I know," Polly said.

  It was true, she did know. And she knew, too, that as she had loved Lew, so she loved Sloan. Deeply. Passionately. With all her heart.

  And she knew that, as she'd taught Sara, there were no guarantees. Loving Sloan was a risk. She could take it—if she dared.

  Becca Reed called his trailer "the cell."

  Trev referred to him as "the monk in paradise."

  So he wasn't the life of the party these days. So his furnishings tended toward monastic simplicity and his life toward the celibate ideal.

  So maybe someday he'd get over it—over her.

  He wasn't there yet. He still thought about her constantly. He still wished he hadn't been so damned self-righteous, stalking off, telling her she knew where she could find him.

  But really, what else could he have done?

  Nothing.

  He still talked to the kids now and then. It felt like a divorce, almost, talking to them, keeping in contact because it wasn't their fault that he wasn't the right man for their mother.

  He'd kept it low-key and casual. He asked as indifferently as he could, "How's your mother?"

  But the answers, no matter what they were, never satisfied because he didn't really know. He didn't talk to her. He didn't get to see her.

  Except at night. In his dreams he saw her. Sometimes she was young and golden the way she had been that first time in the barn so many years ago. Sometimes he dreamed of her as she'd been in his bed at the ranch. Sometimes he dreamed they were just laughing together, talking, touching.

  And when he woke up, he ached even more than before.

  He'd fallen asleep in his trailer when they'd finished shooting this afternoon. He was tired and he'd declined Trev's invitation to dinner at Becca's and to join a few of them later for drinks at a local bar. He didn't feel social.

  "Oh, come on," Becca urged him. "You never come."

  "Nope. Thanks."

  "How about if we stop back later and see if you've changed your mind."

  "I won't change my mind."

  But Becca was determined. "You're not only monastic," she grumbled. "You're turning into a hermit, too."

  He thought about going up to the rental house, but it held no pleasure for him now. He'd rented it to share with Polly and the kids. It just echoed when he was there alone. So he often slept in his trailer.

  He was lying on his narrow bed, staring at the ceiling when the first tentative taps on the door came. He lay still, hoping that Becca and her friends would go away.

  They didn't. The tapping continued. Determined. Annoying.

  Finally he hauled himself up, stalked to the door and jerked it open, his expression thunderous. "Go—"

  "—away?" Polly finished for him.

  He stared, blinked. Disbelieved.

  Polly McMaster stared back at him. She stood two steps below him, her gingery hair a messy halo, her wide mouth in a nervous smile, her eyes saying things he only dared dream.

  Was this a dream? He closed his eyes and opened them again, but she didn't go away.

  "Pol'?" His throat ached.

  "I love you," she whispered. "I love you so much." Her voice broke. Her eyes filled. And as he reached for her and hauled her up the steps, into his trailer, into his arms, the storm broke and they shuddered and clung together.

  "Oh, God, Pol'!" His arms wrapped her, held her tightly to him. He could scarcely believe she was here. Here! Polly. His Polly.

  He'd given up. He hadn't called. He hadn't pushed. He hadn't tied her to him. He had let her go. And here she was.

  Sloan rubbed his face against her hair. He kissed her ear. He drew in the soft summery scent that was Polly's alone. They rocked, clinging together, each needing the strength of the other.

  "I'm scared," she whispered. "But I'm more scared of life without you than with you. I never thought I'd love anyone like I love Lew. But I do. I love you, Sloan. I was a fool. I'm so sorry I sent you away!"

  "Don't be sorry!" He kissed her hair, her cheek, her lips. He knew a great sense of relief, as if a weight on his chest had lifted, as if the road to the future had opened up before him and a light shone that made life brighter and more promising than he'd ever dreamed.

  Polly loved him!

  "It's okay," he murmured. "It doesn't matter. Nothin' matters, Pol'. Now that you're here!"

  It was almost paradise.

  It would be, Polly told him, if they had four kids, some dogs, a cat, a bunch of rabbits and a squirrel.

  "A squirrel, huh?" Sloan said, nuzzling her cheek. They were lying in bed together, the sound of the surf in the distance and an ocean breeze blowing lightly through the open window.

  "And a grandchild," Polly said, smiling impishly. "Or two."

  Sloan's brows hiked up. "Two?"

  She laughed, wriggling down into the tumbled bedclothes and drawing him with her. "I don't know. I just said that. I just wanted to get a rise out of you."

  He took her hand and placed it on a strategic portion of his anatomy. "You've always been able to do that."

  "Sloan Gallagher!" She feigned shock.

  He laughed and rolled her beneath him, felt her settle and draw him in. And as he looked down at her, golden and beautiful and loving and his, his breath caught. "Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Grandma?"

  Polly tickled his ribs and he squirmed and they rolled over and she ended up on top. "Once or twice, Gramps."

  Sloan laughed, delighted.

  "You really don't mind?" Polly said, suddenly serious. "I mean, what's it going to do to your image?"

  "Who cares?" He grinned. "Think of the fun the tabloids will have with it." But then because she really did look worried, he shook his head. "I'm glad. I love you," he repeated. "All of you. Mother-in-law. Sister-in-law. Kids. Grandkids. Dogs. Cats. Rabbits. Squirrels. Believe it, Pol'."

  And looking at him, seeing the love in his eyes and believing in it—and in him—Polly nodded. "I do."

  "You just keep practicin' that line, sweetheart," he told her, and then he eased himself into her again and they began to move.

  Polly laughed. Dear God, she loved this man and the joy he had brought into her life—into all their lives. After Lew she hadn't ever thought to love again. Now she couldn't imagine not loving Sloan.

  He had taken her heart by storm. But in the end he, too, had risked by giving her the choice. Thank God she'd found the courage to take it. Polly smiled and touched her lips to his. "You know who really won The Great Montana Cowboy Auction? Me."

  *****