If Ever I Would Leave You: A Montana Rescue Prequel

by Susan May Warren

  Willow finished her malt with a loud, obnoxious slurp.

  Chapter 2

  Ian wasn’t stupid—he knew he’d filled his life with distractions that might someday get him hurt. Killed.

  But he just couldn’t escape the urge to fly.

  Besides, he’d waited exactly thirteen years, ten months, three weeks, and two days—and well, maybe a couple hours from liftoff for this view.

  Looking down through the Cessna window, Ian could almost believe that life had a plan. An order about it that made perfect sense, that gave meaning to the chaos of the past decade.

  Dirt roads bisected the green and brown pastureland at right angles, the plots stitched together, one patchwork after another, the houses lined up like Monopoly pieces. If he focused only on the broad sweep of the land below, he could believe that this moment was created just for him.

  Life, coming together to make sense.

  His pilot, Chet King, shouted from the cockpit. “I’m going to say it again—best place to stay is inside the plane!”

  Chet knew his aircraft, from light jets to fire-bombers to helicopters. After serving as a chopper pilot during the tail years of the Vietnam conflict, then flying fire-bombers, rescue choppers, and even the occasional crop-dusting sortie, Chet could pilot a plane in a dead sleep.

  Conveniently, he’d practically come with the property when Ian purchased Shaw Ranch. There to help Ian learn the local customs of Mercy Falls, Montana, introduce him to the nearby Glacier National Park, and generally butt his nose into every cranny of Ian’s life, like a crazy—okay, but beloved—uncle.

  Jock Burns’s green eyes caught Ian’s. “Of course he’d say that—the guy flew every fire-bombing run without a chute in his plane. He’s afraid to jump.”

  “Not afraid. Just the only one with any brains,” Chet retorted.

  Jock laughed, a deep rumble that lit his entire face, nothing of fear in his eyes. When Ian suggested to Chet he wanted to skydive, Chet had reluctantly pointed him to the tutelage of the man who had trained and led smokejumping teams out of Ember, Montana, for nearly the past two decades. His own daughter was a legendary smokejumper, a fact Jock couldn’t stop mentioning.

  Ian understood—he felt almost as proud of Esme, and he was just her doting uncle.

  “Ready?” Jock asked. He yanked open the door, and the brisk air swilled in.

  Ian scooted toward the door, his heart thrumming in his chest, his breaths quick. He let his feet dangle out of the doorway, taking it all in.

  The longing to share it with Sierra could wrap around Ian’s chest, squeeze the breath from him. She, more than anyone, would understand the magnitude of this moment.

  Understand the feeling of power and freedom as Jock opened the door, letting the crisp air slip in, rattle through the body of the plane.

  She would probably even understand the rush of satisfaction Ian felt at seeing his ranch from the air, the undulating pastureland torn by craggy ravines and draws, thick with sagebrush and dotted with the black shapes of fat Angus. The sun had just lipped over the edge of the Rocky Mountains to the east, spilling gold into the nooks and crannies of the snow-capped crevices.

  He still couldn’t figure out why she’d turned him down. He wasn’t going to die, for cryin’ out loud.

  Besides, didn’t she know that she made him feel invincible? Especially after yesterday’s rescue. The way she looked at him, her voice as she’d called him by name, had nestled deep, found footing.

  He’d been thinking about it all night.

  What if, after all this time, he could start over, and this time do it right? Love a woman without breaking her heart? After all, he’d surprised himself, the way he’d committed to Esme.

  Ian had woken with the sense of desire so strong, it nearly made him drive out to Sierra’s house and beg her to change her mind. He settled instead on the resolve that after he landed, he’d really take a leap and ask Sierra if she might like to take their relationship to the next level.

  Girlfriend. Wife?

  Oops, there he went, getting ahead of himself.

  But Ian hadn’t expected any of this when he’d left Louisiana, broken, grieving, angry, alone…hating himself. Hadn’t even looked up, really, for years, while he was in North Dakota, stuck in a Siberian darkness while he was developing software, praying his work saved lives.

  He’d only barely noticed the landscape when he moved to Montana three years ago, desperate to break free and begin another legacy, this time on a ranch, resurrecting his father’s dreams. He’d plopped some cattle on it and hired the right men. They’d doubled the herd, doubled it again, and he’d used the cash, plus more from his software, to add to Shaw Holdings.

  Then Sierra had walked into his life, and everything really clicked into place.

  She made him feel not broken. Not the man who’d disappointed the people he loved, but a man who could actually help others. And when she’d convinced him to take Esme, she’d actually healed him. Of course it was the best thing for Esme, but now, over a year later, Esme had become as dear to him as a daughter, with a exemplary future ahead of her. She held all Ian’s dreams for the next generation of Shaws.

  Ian could hardly wait to get her away from that troublemaker Dante and into the kind of life he’d always hoped to provide for her mother, and maybe someday, a family of his own.

  Although, really, they already felt like a family—him, Esme, Sierra.

  He was getting ahead of himself again.

  “Not getting any younger,” Jock said. “Anytime now.”

  Below, to the south, Ian could make out the cowboy town of Mercy Falls, situated under the shadow of Glacier National Park. And to the north, the pristine greens of Whitefish Golf Club, where tonight he would invite Sierra to dinner. A non-professional, not-awkward dinner where he could suggest that he wanted her to be more—other—than his personal assistant.

  The thought could fist his breath in his chest. Skydiving had nothing on the adrenaline rush of holding Sierra in his arms.

  “Not too late,” Chet shouted.

  Ian stared down at the expanse. Like leaping from a cliff, like he’d done in Hawaii. Only higher.

  Much higher.

  Maybe this was crazy.

  And then he saw something kicking up a dust trail. A vehicle motoring toward his landing zone.

  Sierra had changed her mind. The thought caught him up, put a hand over his heart.

  Maybe not, but he desperately hoped it might be her. Her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing her aviator sunglasses, maybe a pair of jeans and a T-shirt on this Saturday morning.

  Off duty and up early, saying yes to his request to watch him fly.

  Maybe dinner wasn’t such a risk after all.

  He took a breath and pushed out from the frame.

  Count.

  Focus.

  He spread out his arms, the air whipping against him, soaring, flying.

  Ian didn’t look back for Jock—he’d see him as soon as they deployed. Instead, he glanced at his altimeter on his wrist, then back to the sight of the world rushing up at him, his log home nestled under a grove of black pine, the dirt road that led to Chet’s house on the edge of his property. The old white barn.

  And below, Sierra, hopefully staring up at the sky.

  He wanted her to see him like this—invincible, the kind of man who could rebuild his life.

  Give her the one she deserved.

  He glanced again at his altimeter, then reached behind him for his ripcord.

  His shoulder let out a scream. Probably from the hard hit yesterday and the flow of the wind today, but it suddenly locked up.

  Refused to move.

  He couldn’t grab the cord.

  Only then did he look up to see Jock falling nearby, gesturing hard for him to deploy.

  Yeah, well he was trying.

  Ian grit his teeth, reached back, but his shoulder turned to fire and he couldn’t finagle his grip around the handle
.

  His altimeter hit the red.

  The ground roared up fast.

  And in that quiet, desperate second, it came to him.

  He was stupid. Because he’d all but begged Sierra to drive out and watch him die.

  The man she loved—yes, Willow was probably right—was going to splat! right before her eyes.

  It took Sierra a second to figure it out—the way his chute wasn’t deploying, the way the other guy in the sky was groping for him.

  Ian was in big trouble.

  And worse, he’d never know how she felt.

  Except, what, exactly, was Sierra supposed to say? Hey, boss, you know that excellent working relationship we’ve managed to cultivate? The best job I’ve ever had, really? Well, I quit—with the wild hope you’ll ask me out.

  Hardly.

  Regardless of Willow’s romanticism, a man like Ian Shaw didn’t date the vagabond daughter of a hippie, a girl with no actual degrees to her name.

  Apparently her heart didn’t listen to her brains because here she was, on hand to watch him perish.

  Her words to him had haunted her through the night until she got up, threw on clothing, and raced out to the pasture behind his house.

  Apparently, she simply couldn’t stay away from him, despite his addiction to scaring her to death.

  But, still, she couldn’t actually watch.

  Sierra put her hands over her ears, closed her eyes, and screamed.

  She didn’t exactly know how long she screamed—enough to run out of breath, then start again. And then, when that ran out, she just ducked her head and started humming.

  Or maybe, she should pray. Because while Ian wasn’t big on church and prayers and hope, she had enough for both of them. At least right now.

  If you let him live, I promise not to ever ask for more. Not to pine for him, to put a healthy distance between me and my feelings for him and—

  “Sierra!”

  She looked up, her heart in her throat and saw the fool man walking—no, running across the pasture, unhooking his chute, grinning.

  It took everything inside her not to leap from the truck and wrap her hands around his neck.

  Or maybe her arms around his incredible shoulders and just hold on, weeping.

  She couldn’t live like this.

  As it was, she was shaking as she hopped off the truck bed, and yeah, she might have been crying, just a little. She wiped her face before he could see it, but nope, he’d caught her.

  He released his helmet chin strap. Frowned. “Are you crying? Sierra—”

  “Your chute didn’t open,” she snapped. Shoot, her voice shook and she didn’t want to sound that rattled. A good assistant never showed her emotions, never let her boss see her unravel. She swallowed, wishing she wasn’t the stellar assistant he expected but the emotional wreck she wanted to be.

  Would be as soon as she got into the truck.

  “My shoulder is buggered from yesterday, and I couldn’t get my hand on the release—had to deploy my reserve.” He reached up to rub his shoulder, gave a wry smile, as if no problem.

  But, even as she stared at him, wordless at his nonchalance, and despite that cocky smile, she could see the tiny beads of sweat along his brow, one freeing to trickle down his handsome, stupid face.

  Jerk.

  She turned and headed to the truck.

  “Sierra!”

  “I have work to do!” Yeah, okay, it was Saturday, but she still needed to confirm his reservations for tonight at the golf club and pick up his gift for Esme at the jewelers.

  If he wasn’t so sweet with Esme, she might kill him on the spot—

  Ian rushed up behind her, crossed in front of her, put a hand on the door of his truck. “Are you—mad at me?”

  He looked almost incredulous, and probably no woman, ever, had the guts to be angry at Ian Shaw. Not with those incredible blue eyes, that dark hair. He hadn’t shaved this morning—a rare look for Ian, but he wore a growth of dark amber and gold whiskers on his chin and resembled a paratrooper in his jumpsuit, open at the neck, showing a black shirt underneath.

  Then, he grinned at her, and it had her entire body threatening to puddle right there.

  Oh, it wasn’t fair.

  “Don’t be mad, Sierra,” he said softly. “I was fine. If I hadn’t deployed the reserve, I had an auto-deployment attached to the pack—”

  “You scared me, okay?”

  She didn’t mean for that to eke out, but yeah, there it was. And now she felt like an idiot.

  So not cool, collected, personal assistant material.

  His smile fell and he fixed his gaze on hers. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just—I’ve always dreamed of skydiving, and I’m really glad you were here for it.”

  Huh. She hadn’t expected that, the softness in his voice, the way he touched her shoulder.

  And now she had an entirely different set of hot emotions rushing through her. “Um...I-I have to confirm your dinner reservations.”

  Lame. But what was she supposed to do, really, when the urge to take one lousy step into his arms could nearly possess her?

  She reached for the handle, but he didn’t move. Just looked at her with an expression she couldn’t read.

  “What?”

  “Um...” He swallowed. Another line of sweat trickled down his face. “I was just…” He took a breath and looked away, behind her.

  “Great landing, Ian!” said a voice, and she turned to find his instructor, a smokejumper from a fire base west of here, sauntering up to them. Jake, or something like that. A good-looking man in his fifties, he walked with the swagger of a man who knew his way in the skies. Wide shoulders, dark hair, a warm grin. “I thought, for a second there, you were going to auger in, but you pulled it off.”

  “No help from you, thank you,” Sierra snapped. “He had to deploy his reserve!” The man's smile disappeared, then he looked at Ian and raised an eyebrow.

  Silence, and really, she should leave before she got fired. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. My wife used to hate to watch me jump.” He smiled at her and anytime, yes, the ground could open up, let her vanish.

  She wasn’t Ian’s wife, had no claim over him.

  Maybe, influenced by his buddy Jake’s words, Ian stepped away from the truck door.

  But as she got in, he still wore that strange, enigmatic look. He held the door open as she reached for it.

  “Make sure the reservations say three,” he said quietly, the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

  Three? Was he inviting a date along on his dinner with Esme? She nodded, trying not to betray the fist that had landed in her gut. Just his assistant. “Do you need a ride back?”

  He nodded and he and Jake climbed in the back.

  She only glanced in the rearview mirror once as she headed back to the ranch, hoping she hadn’t just ranted her way out of a job. Best job ever—more than a job, really.

  Working for Ian made her feel indispensable. Brilliant. Not that Ian needed her, really. The man was a downright genius—hence his billions for a piece of software that kept oil rigs from soiling the oceans and the vast prairie lands. But he led her to believe that without her, his life would somehow fall apart. As if he needed her to remind him of his meetings, his charitable events, and even Esme’s birthday.

  She’d never seen a man more devoted to a daughter that wasn’t really his. And she knew—she’d had a pseudo dad who had loved her. A lot. Almost as much as he’d loved his own daughter.

  Not quite, but almost.

  So, when Sierra saw how Ian doted on Esme, it could make her forgive him of even stupidity like leaping from an airplane pretending he could fly.

  Somehow, by the time they reached the house, his gorgeous, self-designed log home, her anger had died to a low, deep ache.

  Sierra pulled into the gravel drive, parking between the house and the beautiful horse barn.

  Every shiny, stained pine log of Ian’s multi-mill
ion-dollar, five-bedroom estate had been hand-tooled, the limestone on the front porch quarried from southern Montana, the ledge rock for the towering fireplace cut from Thompson Falls to the west.

  Precision work that Ian himself had supervised, his discerning eye choosing everything from the reclaimed barn wood he’d used for the floor and customized into cabinets, the vintage horseshoes he’d fashioned into door handles and pulls, to the hand-cut granite countertops that surrounded the gleaming stainless steel appliances in his chef’s kitchen.

  He’d even decorated the place himself—or mostly himself, with Sierra’s help. She’d found the handwoven Navajo rugs, the over-sized hand-tooled leather, brass-nail-trimmed sofa, and the four matching cigar chairs that all framed the two-story towering fireplace.

  And, as if he needed more tah-dah!, the rugged elegance was back-dropped by a massive two-story window that just happened to overlook the blue-gray grandeur of the mountains. The icing on the proverbial awe-inspiring cake of the best, um, office she’d ever had.

  Why couldn’t she keep her big mouth shut? Stay out of his business? Remember she was just an employee?

  Ian and Jake piled out of the back and headed to his barn where he kept his horses and fancy toys, probably to talk about when, perchance, Ian could risk his life yet again.

  Which, she absolutely, definitely would not be on hand to watch.

  Sierra pulled her satchel over her shoulder, got out, and headed inside, down the long hallway to the office wing. She flicked on the light to her office, an ante room off his beautiful, expansive office suite. Ian’s office, with the desk handcrafted from a giant slab of redwood and built-in matching cabinets, overlooked that same grand view of the mountains.

  Her office wasn’t so shabby either—a mini version of Ian’s. She opened her computer and did a quick check on his dinner reservations at Open Table, upgrading them to three.

  For an irresponsible second, she wondered what it might be like to be the third member of tonight’s dinner.

  More, to really belong in his life.