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“I’m a mess,” she said, as if that were answer enough to Meg’s suggestion.
“No, you’re not. You look fine.”
But somehow fine was not good enough when she thought of meeting the man who still had her staring.
“Come on,” Meg urged. “Tia and Abby love him—”
“Abby knows him?”
“Well, sure. Even though you haven’t met him, he’s been around the showroom visiting his brother when I’ve babysat Abby.”
Despite the fact that Meg babysat Abby whenever Jenna worked, and Ian Kincaid stayed in the above-the-garage apartment whenever he visited, Jenna hadn’t met him.
“Tia and Abby both have the cutest little crushes on him,” Meg continued. “Tia draws him scribbly pictures and bats her eyes at him and follows him around like a puppy dog if she can. And Abby holds out her arms for him to carry her the minute she sees him. She calls him Un, and out of the blue, she’ll hug him and kiss him—it’s so funny.”
So his looks knocked the socks off little girls as well as big ones, Jenna thought. But what she said was, “Abby likes him?”
“She really does. And he’s good with her, too. And with Tia. I know you don’t like the idea that he wants the farm for something other than farming, but he really isn’t a bad guy. You should meet him.”
It didn’t seem as if she was going to have a choice.
The Realtor glanced through the picture window and waved at Jenna and Meg. She said something to Ian Kincaid that made him look inside, too, and the two of them went to the front door and poked their heads in after an obligatory knock.
“Hi! I’m just showing Mr. Kincaid a few things he had questions about,” Marsha Pinkell called. “Do you mind if we come in?”
The answer to that was yes, but that wasn’t what Jenna said. She could hardly refuse access to the Realtor she’d listed the farm with, so she said, “It’s okay, come in.”
They did just that as Jenna and Meg got up from the floor, so they could come face-to-face with Ian Kincaid.
“Hi, Ian,” Meg greeted the man warmly.
“Hi, Meg,” he answered with equal warmth and familiarity. “Logan said I might bump into you over here—I guess he was right.”
“This is Jenna,” Meg said. “Jenna Bowen. My best friend and Abby’s aunt-slash-new-mom.”
“And the owner of this place now—I know the name,” Ian Kincaid added. “I also know that your father passed away not long ago. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, his eyes going from Meg to Jenna.
“Thank you,” Jenna said perfunctorily, trying not to get too drawn into the not-at-all-cold gaze of those ice-blue eyes. They seemed to hone in on her. Again she wished for less baggy clothes, and that she’d done something different with her hair today.
“Marsha has also told me that—in honor of your dad—you’re trying to hold tight to the contingent that this place continue as a working farm,” he said.
“That’s right,” Jenna confirmed, seeing no reason to beat around the bush. “And I know that that isn’t what you want to do with the place. That your father brought an NFL expansion football team to Montana and he wants to build a training center here.”
“The Montana Monarchs,” Ian Kincaid said the team’s name as if she might not know it. “You’re right on all counts. My father is Morgan Kincaid; he finally has his dream of owning an NFL team, and we need a training facility. We’ll meet the asking price on the property without haggling if you’ll just back off on that farm contingency.”
“I won’t. Not for any price. I realize if the place goes to auction, whoever buys it can do what they want with it. But as long as I still have the option, I’m holding to the contingency.” Even if he was talking to her amiably, respectfully, pleasantly and as if they were on the same level when, in fact, she also knew that he was a bigwig in his former-football-star father’s massive corporation and one of the heirs to a fortune, while she was merely a small-town nurse in debt.
“What if we sweeten the deal by, say, five thousand?” he said then.
“Doesn’t that fall under the heading of haggling?” She goaded him just slightly.
To his credit, he smiled. A brilliant smile that exposed perfect white teeth and drew wonderful lines down the center of each cheek.
“I think haggling technically means I try to get you to lower the price, not that I offer you more money than you’re asking,” he countered.
“But I’m afraid it still falls under the ‘not for any price’ part,” Jenna said, actually enjoying this exchange with him, the way she’d enjoyed debate team in high school.
“How about ten thousand?”
Jenna laughed, having no idea if he was serious. It didn’t matter, but she liked the challenge he seemed to be throwing out.
She shook her head. “Not for any price,” she repeated. “The farm has to be up for sale, but the contingency that it stay a farm isn’t negotiable.”
“I can be a pretty persuasive guy …”
She didn’t doubt that! Not looking into those blue eyes that crinkled just a bit at the corners when he smiled and made her feel as if he didn’t know there were two other people in the hallway with them.
“Persuasive or not, that’s my sticking point,” Jenna insisted.
“Hmm … Maybe I’ll just have to try to figure out how to get you unstuck …”
“Good luck with that,” she said as if she were impervious to anything he might come up with. Even to the hint of flirting in his voice.
He laughed. Not boisterously, but a small, light laugh that almost seemed if they’d shared a private joke. And again, Jenna couldn’t help being a bit drawn in by the man.
But maybe that was how he got what he wanted, she told herself, unwilling to think that sparks might actually be flying between them—which was the way it somehow felt.
His gaze remained on her a moment more before he angled his head in the direction of the closet. “We should let you and Meg get back to what you were doing,” he said then.
“Yeah, I won’t have her help for much longer this afternoon, and I want to get as much work out of her as I can,” Jenna joked.
“It was good to finally meet you, though, Jenna Bowen,” Ian Kincaid said as if he meant it.
“You, too,” Jenna responded.
And while she’d intended that to be only as perfunctory as her gratitude for his condolences had been, it had somehow come out as more than that. As genuine.
Good to meet the man who would very likely be instrumental in dashing her late father’s one wish?
She wasn’t sure how that could be.
And yet the truth was that as he said goodbye to Meg, as Jenna watched him turn and walk out her front door with the Realtor, she was a little sorry to see him go.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Meg whispered from beside her. “He’s nice, isn’t he?”
“Nice to look at,” was all Jenna would admit to as she drank in the sight of the tall, straight-backed, commanding man going outside again.
But whether she admitted it or not, there hadn’t been anything unlikeable about Ian Kincaid.
In fact, a little part of her that she didn’t want to acknowledge had liked him quite a bit …
Chapter Two
Sunday was unseasonably warm for early spring, and Ian decided to take advantage of it and go out to the Bowen property without the Realtor.
The farm wasn’t far from the Mackey and McKendrick compound where he was staying, where he’d stayed on all the occasions he’d come to Northbridge since his long lost brother and sister had contacted him at Christmas. In fact, the Bowen place was almost next door. But he wasn’t going from the compound to the farm.
He was headed out to the Bowen place from Northbridge proper after attending a church pancake breakfast with his brother Chase, Chase’s wife, Hadley, and seventeen-month-old Cody—the nephew who had reunited Ian, Chase and Shannon. The nephew Chase was raising.
Shannon and her soon-to-be husband, Dag McKendrick, had also been there, so the town event had turned into a family breakfast for Ian, which was part of why he liked coming to Northbridge now.
The family component was also part of why he’d chosen the small town as the site for the training center for the Montana Monarchs football team.
He’d known that Northbridge existed, that it was where he and Hutch had been born, where their birth parents had died, where he and Hutch had been adopted. But he and Hutch had been barely two months old when that adoption had occurred and they’d been taken away from Northbridge. Since they’d never returned, Northbridge had been nothing but a name on a map.
Then Ian had received an email from Chase and Shannon telling him that Hutch wasn’t his only sibling. He’d reconnected with the small town in the course of reconnecting with his brother and sister.
Not that it wasn’t the perfect place for the training center, because it was. It was far enough from Billings to reduce distractions, but close enough to make it easy for the players, the staff, the coaches and trainers and the press to get to. It also didn’t make for a bad drive for visits from families left behind in Billings.
And Ian liked the idea that, as Chief Operating Officer for the Monarchs, he would spend plenty of time in Northbridge where Chase, Shannon and Cody lived.
After a rift had healed between Ian and his adoptive father, they were once again close. He was also close to his adoptive sister Lacey. But he and his twin brother Hutch? That was a different story. They hadn’t seen each other or spoken in over five—almost six—years.
Maybe that was why developing closer relationships with his newfound blood relatives was all the more important to him, and it was important to him. Bringing the training center to Northbridge would aid that cause.
He had his father onboard with Northbridge, so that wasn’t a problem. And there were two possible sites within the Northbridge area—the Bowen farm and another, slightly larger location several miles farther out of town.
But of the two, the Bowen place was the most ideal. At seventeen acres it was a better size than its twenty-four acre contender which would leave excess acreage. It also lacked the large hill the McDoogal property had that would have to be leveled to accommodate playing fields. Plus, even if Jenna Bowen took him up on the extra ten thousand dollars he’d sweetened the pot with yesterday, the price on the Bowen place was still far better—it was priced low in hopes of a fast sale.
But Jenna Bowen was holding out, trying to keep the place a working farm, even in the face of an enormous debt in unpaid taxes. It was that enormous debt that had the property scheduled to be auctioned off in ten days if she couldn’t raise the money before then.
What that meant to the Kincaid Corporation was that they could get the property one way or another. If it went to auction, the Kincaid Corporation would likely end up getting it for a song, in fact. But buying the place at auction wasn’t really the image the Kincaid Corporation or the Monarchs wanted to foster. Even if it did save some money.
About half of Northbridge was against bringing the training camp to the small town, against losing farmland to it, and certainly against one of their own family farms being bulldozed by a corporation that, if they bought at auction, would ultimately end up seeming to be on the side of the IRS. That same half wanted to help the Bowens keep the property long enough to sell to someone who would honor their wishes for the land.
So ultimately, Ian had two factions to win over to his side—that half of the town. And Jenna Bowen.
He was up for it, though. He was even looking forward to it.
Convincing half of Northbridge that it was a good idea to bring the training center in would be a challenge, but that was okay. He liked challenges. And when he showed people that he did business with honesty, integrity and straightforwardness, when he pointed out the positives, he felt certain he’d be able to rally even the unenthusiastic portion of Northbridge.
But Jenna Bowen?
She was a different story. She obviously had an emotional involvement that would take more finesse, more personal attention to conquer—if it could be conquered at all. And to that end, he’d decided it was time they met. That had been the purpose of having the Realtor take him out to her farm yesterday, when he’d known that she would be there because he’d overheard Meg tell Logan that she and Jenna would be packing up the household.
That hadn’t been the first time he’d seen her, though.
When he stayed at the compound he used a small studio apartment above the detached garage behind the main house. From that vantage point, he’d had an occasional sighting of Jenna Bowen over the months when Meg had provided babysitting for Abby, and Jenna had come to drop off or pick up the baby.
No, they hadn’t had the opportunity to meet—that just hadn’t worked out until yesterday. But it had given him the chance to do some preliminary study of Meg’s best friend.
Jenna Bowen was a small-town beauty, he thought as he drove out of Northbridge to get to the farm and the picture of her popped into his head.
Actually, she could hold her own with most big-city beauties, too, he’d decided when he’d finally had his first close-up view of her at her house on Saturday.
No, she wasn’t high-fashion-model material, like Chelsea Tanner—the woman his father was itching for him to marry. But Jenna Bowen was definitely no slouch in the looks department.
Hers wasn’t an aloof, cutting-edge sort of beauty, the way Chelsea’s was. Instead there was a warmth, a sweetness to Jenna Bowen’s appearance. A naturalness. Something that had made it difficult for him to ultimately take his eyes off of …
She had skin like peaches and cream—flawless, smooth and so soft-looking he’d had the urge to reach out and run the backs of his fingers along one cheek to see if it could possibly feel the way it appeared.
Her hair was long and wavy, a glistening brown. In his isolated glimpses of her, he’d seen it pulled back, he’d seen it tied up, he’d seen it the way he liked it best—falling full and free around her face to at least four inches below her shoulders, like a shining, vibrant cascade of cocoa.
And her eyes …
Ah, her eyes …
Those distant sightings had kept him in the dark about her eyes but on yesterday’s visit to the farm he’d finally been able to see them for himself. To see her long, thick lashes dusting eyes that were a similar brown to her hair except that they weren’t completely brown.
No, her eyes had some green in them—a glimmering green, like secret, hidden emeralds—making them interesting, intriguing, stunning.
Her nose was thin and not terribly long. She had petal-pink lips, perfect white teeth and high, apple-bright cheeks that gave her some of that country appeal, too.
Her neck was long and a little thin, and she had such perfect posture that it made her fairly short stature—five three or four, maybe—seem like more.
And the body that went with it all?
Compact but still curvaceous enough to have had him wondering how she would look without clothes …
Not that he had any business doing that!
Work, the training facility, Chelsea Tanner and getting Tanner Brewery to sponsor the Monarchs—that was what he was supposed to be focused on now, he reminded himself as he neared the Bowen farm. Chelsea Tanner, whom his father would be thrilled to have him hook up with. Chelsea Tanner, whom his father believed would be a great match for him and for the future connection between the Montana Monarchs and Chelsea Tanner’s father’s brewery dollars.
The trouble was, Chelsea Tanner just didn’t do it for him. They’d met at the huge party his father had thrown when Morgan had been granted the NFL franchise. They’d hit it off. But merely as friends. The fact that it could be a match made in business heaven? That was all his father could see. But for Ian? A beautiful face, long legs and a shared interest in Jazz weren’t enough.
In his mind’s eye, the image of Jenna Bowen was edging out that of the supermodel….
But he was getting the shove from Chelsea’s father, too.
Chelsea’s father wanted Ian to lure Chelsea back from one of her many photo shoots in Europe in the hopes that she might be interested in becoming the spokesmodel for Tanner Brewery in order to add a little class. And to keep his daughter closer to home.
Ian was working on convincing Chelsea to come home and become the face of Tanner Brewery. But beyond that? Sharing their jazz playlists was the only other thing he was interested in. The only thing Chelsea was interested in with him, too.
Ian turned off the main road onto the path that led to the Bowen property’s boundary.
Hardly a road, it was pitted and bumpy. It was difficult to decide which of the tractor-tire ruts he should stick to. It was definitely more rustic than the paved drive, with its white rail fence on either side, that led to the house. But he wanted a view of the place from one of its edges so he could look out over the whole seventeen acres and get a clear picture in his mind about the best layout for the center. So, the dirt road it was.
He didn’t go any farther than he had to, however, before he pulled to a stop.
