Romancing the Montana Bride (Montana Lakeside, #1)

by Munn, Vella

  Please. They’d had a total of two knockdown, drag out arguments after she left during which she’d blamed his workload. He’d countered by demanding to know what else he could have done. Trying to launch a business was taking every moment he had. Besides, she’d been the one to insist he’d always regret it if he didn’t do everything he could to turn his dream into reality. Not once during those painful blowups had either of them said please or I’m sorry.

  “I won’t.” She chewed on her lower lip. “I’m sorry.”

  He stopped watching the bird and gave her his full attention. “So,” he said. “What did you hate about your job?”

  She didn’t remember him ever trying to pull things out of her, and she hadn’t done much better. “It doesn’t matter. It’s behind me.”

  “Is it? Maybe we wouldn’t be where we are if you’d been more open about what was bothering you.”

  On the brink of reminding him he was the one who’d seldom touched emotional subjects, she fought back her anger. She didn’t want their last time together to fall apart. For this amazing setting to witness their failure. “It’s hard to explain and with a year between myself and the experience it doesn’t seem as bad as when I was in the middle of it.”

  “Try.”

  Try. “Part of it was the stupid building. It was so ugly with one-way windows. We could look out but no one could see in. I’d think about how long it would take before someone came to check if we all died. No one had a clue what went on in there. No one cared, me included.”

  “The place intimidated me. I don’t half understand why title companies exist.”

  “You could have asked.”

  His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “I should have.”

  I’m sorry I said what I did. “When I decided to apply there,” she told him so hopefully things wouldn’t get even more awkward, “I thought I’d be helping people buy a home. They’d be stressed but I’d guide them through the maze. You know, the feel-good part. But that’s not how it turned out.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  They were talking. More than just talking, she was keying into his tone of voice and the depth in his eyes, things she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for months. “Mostly, I dealt with regulations, zoning laws, bank mergers, interest rates, and other things that don’t have to be as complicated as they are. I’d look out the one-way glass and fantasize about taking a baseball bat to the windows followed by running screaming down the street.”

  She laughed a little at the end which apparently didn’t meet with the big, grey bird’s approval because it again squawked at her. She tossed several peanuts in its direction. A moment later another bird of the same species landed near the first. They started fighting over the same nut.

  “So instead of vandalizing the building and getting arrested,” Jes said, “you walked away. Didn’t look back.”

  If he was drawing comparisons between how she handled resigning from her job and the way she’d dealt with their beleaguered marriage, she didn’t appreciate it, but he was entitled to his opinion. His experience. The last thing she should do was risk alienating him so much he’d refuse to agree to the terms of the divorce.

  She dug her shoes into the ground. “I’m a lot saner now.”

  “Are you happier being self-employed?”

  “Yes,” she said even though the nights were still hard and seeing Jes brought back memories of when it had been good between them. When she’d believed in happily ever after.

  “I’m glad.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I got a dog.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. You’d like her. I debated bringing her but I’m not sure where I’ll be spending the night.”

  Was he hinting they could spend it together, an exes with benefits arrangement? At least giving the possibility a shot? No, that had never been Jes’s way when it came to sex. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he’d keyed in on when she wanted to make love, which had been always until near the end. All they’d had to do was look at each other.

  Maybe her replacement was waiting for him, caring for the dog.

  “Remember,” he continued while she was still trying to wrap her mind around the possibility that Jes had a significant other, “when we nearly kept the stray that had been dropped off behind the factory.”

  “I remember.” The big, black mutt with a torn ear had unnerved her until the first time it rested its head on her lap and looked up at her. “Does Randy still have him?”

  “Yes. That’s the most loyal dog I’ve ever met.” He leaned forward. “I wonder if having a dog would have given us more to hold onto. Or children.”

  Children. Babies at my breasts. For a moment she couldn’t speak for the raw wanting. “I don’t know.” They’d talked about having children of course—once Silent Wheels was a success. They’d even picked out several names, Jake for a boy in honor of Jes’s dad. “What’s your dog like?”

  He looked up at the treetops then turned his attention back to her. “Today couldn’t be more perfect. Temperature just right, air clean, and smelling like evergreens.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I got her from the humane society about a month after you left. Coming home to an empty house—I’d been told black dogs have a harder time getting adopted so that’s what I went for. Missy was sitting in her cage looking at me as if trying to decide whether I lived up to her standards. I knelt and started talking to her. After a while she came forward.” He blinked several times in rapid succession. “I held out my hand and she rested her head against it. I was gone.”

  Don’t cry. “I would have been, too.”

  Jes treated her to another of his unrelenting stares. As she remembered it, he’d stopped giving her his undivided attention long before they’d broken up but maybe she’d imagined it.

  “Most days Missy comes to work with me,” he continued. “She’s some of just about every decent size breed there is and bays like a hound.”

  “I’d love to have one,” she told him instead of admitting she knew what coming home to an empty house felt like. They were talking. Getting beneath the surface. “But Aunt Christina’s lab is nine and going blind. I watch her quite a bit. I don’t think he’d be able to share me with another dog.”

  “You won’t know unless you try.” His attention strayed to the lake. “Missy means a great deal to me. She gets my moods.”

  If I didn’t, it was because you wouldn’t let me in.

  I think.

  “What?” he asked. “I said something I shouldn’t have?”

  “What makes you think—”

  “You’re rubbing your throat. That’s what you did when you were upset.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Look, I wish you’d tell me what you’re thinking. If nothing else that might help you the next time you’re in a relationship.”

  Next time. He was the one who’d avoided deep conversations, not her. Something was changing today. Why now and here?

  “What do you want me to say?” she asked.

  “How about explaining why you’re rubbing your throat? Shyla, maybe we can be better at communicating now that we’re no longer—involved.”

  No longer in love? Why would that bother her when it was what she’d wanted? “Seeing you isn’t easy.” She couldn’t meet his gaze.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  When he didn’t continue, she tried to resign herself to a return to what she’d believed would happen. Jess had said as much as he felt comfortable doing.

  “I’ve thought a lot about what went wrong between us,” he said.

  Maybe he wasn’t done after all and if not how would she handle it? “Oh.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “No, of course not. So have I,” she admitted. “I mentally replayed some of our conversations, not that there were that many.”

  Tension replaced what she’d taken to be Jes’s contemplative mood. “And you’
re saying that’s my fault.”

  “Maybe.” Darn it, she could do better than that. “Maybe I’m remembering it wrong but it seems to me that you’re the one who avoided serious or intimate subjects.”

  She expected him to insist she was wrong. Instead, rubbing his thighs in a way that took her back to when she had a right and reason to touch him there, he sighed. “Giving everything I had when it comes to my business is one thing, getting into personal conversations is another.”

  “I know. The strong silent male.”

  “That didn’t work out so well, did it?”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  He pushed his hair off his forehead but it fell forward again. “Maybe that’s why I’m not in a hurry to leave here. One of the reasons anyway. Now that we’re together maybe something good can come out of it.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “How about you spell out some of where I fell short?”

  Jes looked so vulnerable, naked in ways she’d never seen and went against her mental image of him. Her husband was strong and self-reliant, masculine down to his core. Confident.

  “Not just you,” she said. “I made enough mistakes for both of us.”

  “Don’t.” He planted his hands on the stump and pushed himself to his feet. The rock-ringed fire pit stood between them, but she could feel him.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Try to take all the blame.”

  When they were first dating they’d had serious conversations. Many had been designed to determine where each other stood when it came to politics, religion, and children. Getting to know each other, or so they thought. They’d learned they were both liberals, believed in a deity, and wanted two or three children, fallen in love and lust, or the other way around.

  Then they’d gotten married and life had become complicated. Real. Their conversations had revolved around car repairs, how her dad was slowing down, his mother’s frustration with her youngest daughter’s rebellion. Jes knew how to deal with a leaky radiator, not so much when it came to her concerns about her dad. In contrast, he’d spent a day with his sister and according to his mother, whatever big brother had said had gone a long way toward straightening the girl out. He hadn’t shared the conversation with his wife. Had she asked?

  “Not all of the blame,” she said. “Just a big chunk of it. I’m not perfect, never pretended to be.”

  Looking tired, he shook his head. “You’re still doing it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Avoiding a serious conversation with your husband.”

  “I’m avoiding?” She was on her feet with no memory of how she’d gotten there. “You’re the poster child for—”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  Chapter Four

  There was enough of a breeze that it pressed Shyla’s top against her body. She’d lamented that she didn’t have large breasts, but Jes thought they were perfect given her slender build. She hadn’t worn padded bras which meant when he’d hugged her, he’d gotten all of her.

  How many nights had she fallen asleep before he could get home let alone hold her?

  The question killed his anger. He was sorry he’d said what he had about her avoiding serious conversations because that was him in spades. This was hard, almost as hard as being with the woman who’d celebrated the anniversary of the night he’d asked her to marry him by meeting him at the door wearing nothing but the simple engagement ring and a come hither smile.

  “My mom misses you,” he said instead of what he was really thinking.

  “I miss her.” She swiped at her right eye. “I sent her and the girls Christmas cards and gifts at their birthdays.”

  “I know.”

  His wife looked so alone, standing in the shadow of sky-hiding trees. Accustomed as he’d been to seeing her in an urban setting, he wished they were on familiar turf. At the same time he didn’t want to leave because in part the smells and sounds and colors here reminded him of hiking with his father.

  The closest paved road was a mile away and there weren’t any street lights or telephone poles. Near as he could tell, the only people remotely around were those in the distant boats. Maybe a mountain climber was watching them through binoculars.

  “Jes, you said maybe we’d still be together if—I’m not sure exactly what you said. Something about neither of us being perfect.” She continued to return his gaze while turning a little as if trying to tap into the wind. “I thought about that while trying to decide what to tell your mother about our breakup. If I said too much I’d be disloyal to you.”

  The conversation was making him uneasy. “What do you mean?”

  “If I was going to air my dirty laundry, I should start by showing it to you, but like you said I did a lousy job of that.”

  Her comment was a little convoluted; either that or he was having trouble following it. Despite the tension, this woman he’d wanted to throttle not long ago was turning him on. Part of it was the setting, the clean greens and browns of the trees all around and sharing it with her. The other—maybe it was as simple as not having slept with a woman since she’d left.

  He walked around the fire pit and stood next to her. “You work alone don’t you?” he asked. “I mean people like the lodge owner hire you but you don’t have any coworkers.”

  “I’ve met a couple of other photographers and teach a photography night class. Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Kind of.” He nearly talked himself out of going any deeper. “I have no right asking but are you lonely?”

  She sucked in a breath. “Sometimes.”

  I’m sorry. “I asked because, well, even though Silent Wheels now has nearly twenty employees, I’m the boss, not their coworker.”

  “Lonely at the top?”

  “Isolating.” He corrected although she was right.

  “I’m sure it is. I would have listened. That’s why I occasionally came to the shop so you’d have someone to confide in, but we were always getting interrupted.”

  “I didn’t like that but decisions couldn’t wait.”

  “Countless fires needing to be put out.”

  “Fortunately there aren’t any today. How is your aunt?” he asked.

  Shyla shifted her weight so her shoulder was inches from him. “Thanks for asking. She’s better than I thought she’d be considering how sick Uncle Carl had been for so long.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  “She was physically worn down. I kept after her until she agreed to go to the doctor.” She folded her arms over her breasts. “She told me that during the two years it took for the cancer to win, she’d emotionally distanced herself from Uncle Carl. She took care of him but refused to die with him.”

  A memory of the last time he’d seen his father threatened to engulf him. One moment Dad had been a vibrant man straddling his motorcycle. A few hours later there’d been nothing left of him.

  “Maybe it’s better that way,” he said around what was stuck in his throat and heart. “She had time to say good-bye.”

  “Unlike you when you lost your dad.”

  He wouldn’t go down a road carved by pain. “It was what it was.” Movement above drew his attention.

  He’d heard both eagles and osprey were at Lake Serene. Maybe that was what the big, graceful creature was. Not giving himself time to judge the wisdom of what he was doing, he placed his arm around his wife’s shoulder and pointed.

  “Oh my.” She breathed. “Incredible.”

  The eagle/osprey flew out of sight but he kept his arm around her. Doing so felt both familiar and new. He had no right or reason to touch her and she had every reason to step away. He didn’t know what to make of the fact that she hadn’t.

  They’d started sleeping together about a month into their relationship. They’d been going to college on partial academic scholarships and both were in their junior year. The night they’d become intimate, she’d told him she was thinking of dropping out because she didn�
��t see where a bachelor’s in math would get her that she couldn’t do without it. He’d admitted he’d been thinking the same thing, only in his case his major had been business. He’d known what he’d wanted to do with his life—funny how uncomplicated and naïve his dream had been back then. He’d been eager to start building solar powered bicycles and trying to sell them, not spend more time in academia.

  They’d wound up at his place where they’d found a note from his roommate saying not to expect him home until the next day. One kiss had led to more and even more followed by fingers on flesh, clothes being yanked off, landing on the bed at the same time, knowing he’d never wanted anything as much as he’d wanted to make love to Shyla.

  She hadn’t left until morning. A month later they’d dropped out and moved in together. Until he signed the lease on the empty building that eventually became his home away from home they’d had sex every night.

  She leaned against him. “What are you thinking?”

  That I’m caught up in the past—you. “About when we said good-bye to academia.” Liar. “Your parents weren’t happy.”

  “No, they weren’t. They nearly disowned me. Fortunately, at least in their eyes, I redeemed myself a little by getting a job that met their approval.” She straightened and leaned away so he had to let go of her.

  “They set high standards.”

  “I was used to that bar, but they made things hard on you.”

  They’d had this conversation before but not since early in their relationship because he’d realized how much it bothered her. “They didn’t approve of you marrying a man who didn’t have a college degree.”

  Judging by how she was looking around, maybe she was debating whether to say something. As he saw it, her parents had never given up trying to direct her life. He had no doubt they’d bombarded her with advice after the separation which had probably factored into her decision to move away from Kalispell. He’d wondered how she’d do on her own but she’d obviously landed on her feet. Was doing what she wanted. Didn’t need him.

  “I told them to back off,” she said. “That they didn’t know anything about starting a business and their advice wouldn’t be helpful.”