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“Six a.m. I already bought you a round-trip ticket. And I’ve got a room reserved for you at one of the airport hotels. We won’t have to fight traffic in the morning.”
“You were that sure I’d come?”
“No, just desperate.”
A few minutes later they pulled up in front of her building. The facade was weathered brick, its windows dirty and cracked. She led Jake up the worn staircase and down the hall to her studio apartment.
He stepped into the single room and looked around. She saw it through his eyes: the peeling institutional green walls, the stains and cigarette bums on the vinyl flooring. The battered dresser and wardrobe, the narrow bed. The forlorn jade plant on the windowsill where it could soak up what little light came down between the apartment building and its neighbor.
“It’s not much,” she said, filling the silence, “but it’s home.”
He walked the two steps to the window and peered down into the alley.
Taylor grabbed a duffel bag—her only remaining piece of luggage—and went to her dresser. “We need to talk about money.”
“Right,” he said, turning from the window. “My offer from this morning stands. Four times what you make, plus paying off your credit card bills. And of course I’ll cover any expenses.”
She might be bailing him out of a tough position, but his offer was much too generous. “I’ll come for expenses and a stipend, but I can’t accept the money to pay off my debts. They’re my debts, Jake, and I have to take care of them myself. I don’t need to be rescued, just compensated for my time. And it’s not as if I’m going to be working that hard. A couple of dinners with Mr. Hankins and his grandchildren is not a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me.”
“I don’t want charity.”
“Fine. I won’t pay your debts.”
“Good. But there is one other thing we need to agree on. I’m definitely going to lose my job. Sleazy Steve won’t forgive me for skipping off for a week without notice.”
“Sleazy Steve?” Jake asked, sounding mad.
Taylor had gotten so used to her boss’s nickname that she didn’t even think about it anymore. But she realized it might be a little off-putting. “He has a...reputation. But don’t worry, he never tried anything on me. And if he had, he would’ve ended up with a broken wrist. I took a self-defense class when I was living at the YWCA.”
“You shouldn’t be working for someone like that.”
“I couldn’t risk looking for another job. Any interruption in my income would have meant losing this apartment. As for finding a new job, if I can’t find one right away I’m going to have to ask you to pay my rent for a month.”
“That’s fair,” Jake said.
“And I’ll need some clothes. I sold a lot of my things to get back on my feet. My wardrobe doesn’t extend to entertaining dinner guests.”
“We’ll go shopping this evening.”
“Okay. Give me a minute to pack up.” She went into the bathroom for a few things, then stuffed some other necessities into the duffel bag. “All set.”
“Not quite.” Jake reached into the pocket of his shearling coat. He pulled out a small black velvet box.
Her rings. How could she have forgotten about her rings?
A flurry of emotions ran through her, confused her. Regret, excitement, everything in between.
Then Jake flipped back the lid. Her diamond caught the light and flashed. An odd, uncomfortable feeling settled in her stomach.
“An important part of the costume,” Jake said, his tone almost light.
Her tongue seemed frozen. “Yeah,” she managed.
Jake took the engagement ring and matching wedding band out of their cushion. He held them in his palm.
She held out her own hand, palm up. Jake deposited the rings into her hand.
Without touching her.
Yes, her marriage was definitely over, Taylor thought. Well and truly dead. But that would make the next week easier. Oh, there might still be a physical spark between them, some strange force drawing them together, but on an emotional level there was nothing. Big old nothing.
Slowly she closed her fingers around the rings, pretending to herself that hiding them would make this easier. She certainly didn’t have the strength to put them on again, not yet.
Jake watched her for a long, excruciating moment before picking up her bag. “Let’s go get you some clothes.”
Taylor stared through the windshield of Jake’s truck as they rounded the last bend in the drive and the ranch buildings came into view.
She couldn’t believe she was back.
But here she was, back in Montana. Back at the scene of the most turbulent point in her twenty-two years.
The place looked so different, she thought. The tall grass and wildflowers were gone, obscured by a blanket of snow, and smoke curled from every chimney in the compound. The snow made the rugged Montana landscape seem even more vast, more isolated.
Jake’s parting words from the summer before echoed in her head.
You don’t belong here.
Until yesterday those had been their last words for five months. Every time she’d thought of Montana in the interim, those harsh words had been right there with her.
Looking at the immense emptiness around her, it was easy to imagine he’d been right. Maybe she belonged in the city, despite the unpleasantness of her life there now.
But it didn’t matter if she belonged here or not, she reminded herself. Her contract with Jake was for a week. One single, solitary week. Seven days. She’d do her job and then she’d get back on the plane to Boston.
Jake pulled up in front of the ranch house. She stepped carefully down onto the icy driveway and moved to the bed of the truck, unfastening the tarp to retrieve her suitcase. Last summer she would have stood by while Jake carried her suitcase, but now she wanted to stand on her own two feet.
Jake had a different idea, though. He reached to take the suitcase from her, ignoring her protest. As he did so their hands brushed accidentally and Taylor froze.
Their long day together had done nothing to lessen the awareness between them. By tacit agreement they’d avoided physical contact ever since he’d grabbed her wrist at lunch, and by and large they’d succeeded—except for the time she’d fallen asleep on the plane and woken with her head pillowed on his shoulder.
It was too easy, too seductive, to fall back into the patterns of the summer before, when they’d been so openly and joyfully physical with each other.
But she had to keep her distance—despite the signals her body sent her.
She hung back as they walked to the porch, thinking of the first time she’d come to the ranch, as Jake’s bride. Despite the beautiful scenery, at its peak in the middle of the summer, she’d had eyes only for Jake. She’d studied him as he drove, then sat and watched him as he parked the truck and walked around to her door.
He’d opened the passenger door and kissed her thoroughly before picking her up in his arms and carrying her not just over the threshold, but all the way to his bed. And then he’d carried her somewhere else entirely. Neither of them had given a thought to their luggage until several hours after dark.
Ahead of her on the porch, Jake pushed open the door. It swung inward, revealing the same neat front hall she’d stormed out of five months before.
Her footsteps halted of their own accord. Jake stood by the open door. He watched her without moving. The six feet of porch between them felt like an impassable distance.
She longed for the days when everything had been easy, when she could simply go into his arms and everything would be okay. Those days were gone. So far gone she wouldn’t even get a simple “welcome home” before she stepped into the house they’d shared.
She looked into Jake’s eyes, unable to read his expression. It seemed distant, almost disconnected. Then he surprised her by saying, his voice soft, “It didn’t turn out like either of us expected, did it?”
Regret? It wasn’t an emotion she’d expected from him, and as soon as she recognized it, it was gone. Completely gone. His face was a mask again.
But she hadn’t imagined it. “No, it didn’t,” she said.
She stepped toward the doorway, keeping as far away from Jake as possible. It was easier that way.
As she crossed the threshold the warm scents of baking assailed her. Her mouth watered instantly. It had been so long since she’d smelled that rich, buttery smell...
Jake shut the door firmly behind them. “Irma must have made those fancy cookies you like so much.” His voice was cool.
“They’re called madeleines,” she said, shrugging out of her new down parka, “and they’re tea cakes, not cookies.”
Taylor glanced around as she hung her parka on the coat tree. Through an archway she could see the living room, with its polished wood floor and solid leather furniture, arranged exactly as she remembered. The fire crackling in the big stone hearth made it seem particularly cozy and inviting.
On the other side of the entrance hall lay the dining room. She peeked around the corner at it. A sturdy iron candelabra still sat in the center of the massive wooden table, matching the sconces that lined the walls.
The inside of the house seemed very much the same. Familiar, almost. Taylor felt a fleeting, inexplicable sense of homecoming.
She quickly dismissed it. She didn’t even like it here. Her feelings about the place were not positive. Her dreams had been dashed here. Her life had come apart. Obviously it was only the comparison to her apartment that made it seem so wonderful.
Irma appeared in the hallway, wiping her hands on her apron. “Taylor!” She hurried over for a hug and a kiss, then stepped back to survey her. “You’re skin and bones, girl. I’ll have to fatten you up.”
“You do that,” Jake said. “I’ll take Taylor’s suitcase upstairs.” He seemed as eager to get away from her as she was from him.
Taylor followed the middle-aged housekeeper back to the kitchen.
“I know why you’re here,” Irma said, sitting her down at the small round table in the corner. “Jake explained it to Orville and me.” Irma’s husband Orville cooked for the ranch hands. “We don’t like it, but maybe you two can find a way to settle your differences. This place ain’t the same without you.”
Taylor laughed as lightly as she could. She didn’t want to disappoint the other woman by saying that a reconciliation was impossible. “Right. This place is cleaner without me, anyway.”
“So what? It’s emptier, too, and that’s what counts.” Irma set a glass of milk and a plate of shell-shaped madeleines before her, then took a seat.
Taylor savored a madeleine in unspeakable bliss. They’d been her favorite treat ever since she’d been a little girl.
“Jake’s been an ornery son of a buck,” Irma confided. “The man hasn’t smiled more than twice since you left. He’s always grouchy and complaining. No fun to be around. I almost quit three times last fall.”
Jake had been upset? Why? she wondered. Because she’d wounded his pride when she’d left him, or because he’d made such a mistake in marrying her?
The two women talked for a few minutes before Jake appeared in the doorway. Taylor wiped the feather-light madeleine crumbs from her lips and stood.
“I guess I should unpack,” she said.
Jake led her upstairs to the largest guest room, which sat at the opposite end of the house from the master suite. It was nicely decorated, with antique furniture and a handmade quilt on the queen-size bed, but its pleasant temperature meant more to her than its appearance.
Living in a cold apartment had been one of the hardest lessons Taylor had faced in the past five months. Until then she’d always taken her physical comfort for granted. But since November, turning up the heat would have meant not being able to pay the electric bill.
Jake crossed to her suitcase, which sat on a folding luggage rack. He popped open the latches. “Let’s get your stuff put away.” He transferred a couple of the new shirts he’d bought her yesterday to one of the dressers. “See if you can’t keep the room clean while you’re here, okay? Drawers closed, bed made. If Hankins happens to wander upstairs, I don’t want him to guess you’re staying in here. It wouldn’t look good.”
She pulled out a few items and stored them in a drawer. “I thought he was just coming to dinner a couple of times.”
“That’s all we’ve got planned. But the Hankins’s place hasn’t been a working ranch in a long time, and his cabin’s pretty rustic. I expect he and those kids will come visit a lot.”
“Oh.”
“Plus, it can get boring here in wintertime.” Jake shot her a pointed look. “Even more boring than in the summer. Neighborly visits help lessen that.”
After the way Jake had ignored her last summer, working all day in order to avoid her, he shouldn’t be talking about the benefits of neighborly visits, she thought.
He reached into her suitcase to lift out a dress. The action revealed her neatly folded camisoles and tap pants.
Their eyes met.
Even though she’d sold most of her other clothes, she’d kept the lingerie as one of her few remaining luxuries.
Jake obviously remembered the items.
He’d used to talk about the satiny smoothness of them, the way they kept the warmth of her body, how they smelled of her skin.
Heat swamped her.
Jake picked up her favorite pale pink camisole in his work-roughened hands. She remembered how those hands had felt, caressing her through the silk. Hot. Strong. Demanding yet infinitely gentle as he peeled the flimsy top off her body.
He raised an eyebrow. “It’ll be more convincing if I take a few of these and toss them around my room,” he said in that whiskey-soft voice. “One on the floor, another draped over the edge of my bed...”
My bed. Her brain stuck on the words.
Taylor wondered why the phrase mattered, why it bothered her. She didn’t want it to be their bed anymore, didn’t want their marriage to be real again.
She finally knew better than to try to get love from someone who couldn’t give it. Someone who, like her father and his precious business deals, or her mother and her endless quest for beauty and social status, couldn’t pay attention long enough to find out who their daughter really was. Someone who was married to his damned ranch, and had only cared for his wife when it was convenient.
Or when he wanted physical gratification.
Though earthshaking, sex with Jake had always been a poor substitute for the deeper sharing and affection she’d craved, a fact he would never understand.
No, she definitely didn’t want Jake back. She only wanted to complete their business deal. To make a fair wage for her week’s work, and to prove she wasn’t a selfish brat anymore.
Maybe she’d acted badly last summer, but she’d changed. She’d realized her mistakes, one of which had been going after Jake in the first place. Now she was ready to release the past, redeem herself and move on.
Taylor reached for the camisole. “I don’t think so, Jake.” As he watched, she painstakingly refolded it the way she’d learned during her brief stint in a clothing store last fall, before she’d been fired and had looked for work as a waitress. She laid it in a drawer. “You just keep your door closed down the hall. I’ll make sure this room looks vacant. We’ll be fine.”
She quickly unpacked the rest of her things, then tucked the suitcase and luggage rack in the back of the closet. All her belongings had fit into one of the two dressers. The room looked untouched.
