Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!

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“Out of pity?” she repeated, teasing him with the word.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he joked back, as if he were desperate.

Being in a large group and not knowing anyone was something Jenna was far more familiar with than she wished she was. Too many moves to too many cities as Ted attempted to find a medical specialty he could tolerate had required her getting too many new jobs, frequently putting her in that position. And each and every time it had happened she’d hated it so much that she did feel a little sorry for Ian, the fish out of water in this gathering of Northbridge townsfolk.

Or at least that was what she told herself when, rather than abandoning him, she said, “We should at least move, we’re right in the way of everyone getting drinks.”

Which was true enough as several more people gathered there.

“Come on, I’ll show you my favorite showcase,” Ian urged.

Curious about his taste, Jenna agreed. What she hadn’t expected was for him to take her elbow to guide her to the very back of the showroom portion of the remodeled barn. Or to have that hand at her elbow feel warm and strong and much, much better than it had any reason to feel.

In fact it felt so good that she lost track of everything around her and only regained her wits when she found herself in the display right next to the door to the work room.

Almost no one was venturing back that far, and it was a distance from the music as well, so it was fairly quiet. They were now in the business–office showcase that displayed bookcases and filing cabinets positioned around an enormous desk that was the centerpiece.

“You can help me guard this so no one comes back here and scratches it or puts a wet glass on it—I just bought it, so it’s mine.”

He gestured at the desk. The base was antiqued black, and the top was walnut with a subtle carving along the edges to soften the line.

“It’s a beautiful desk,” Jenna said, studying the piece of furniture as he turned to lean against it like a sentry.

“Handmade by Chase,” Ian informed her. “Not only did I like it, but I like the idea of having something he designed, crafted and carved himself.”

“That’s really nice,” Jenna said, meaning it. It moved her that he was trying to forge bonds between himself and his newly discovered family.

Then, without intending it, her gaze went from the desk to him.

He looked amazing in a pair of pin-striped gray wool slacks and a charcoal-colored mock-neck sweater that she had no doubt was cashmere. Too amazing—she was a little afraid of her own jaw dropping.

So she followed his lead, turned around and leaned on the desk much the way he was, making sure to keep a respectable distance between his hips and her own.

With both of them facing the mingling crowd of people beyond the showcase, Ian nodded his chin at them and said, “So do you know everybody?”

“Pretty much—I did grow up here.”

“Along with Chase, Logan and Hadley—they’ve told me stories that have said good and bad about that. How about you? Good? Bad? Both?”

“All good, actually. I loved it here. I loved living on the farm, I loved that everyone knew everyone else—it was all just one great big family to me,” Jenna said, taking a sip of her wine.

“Then why did you leave?” he asked, doing the same.

“I’d always planned to leave for a while, for college— the local college didn’t offer what I needed. But I’d also always planned to come back as soon as I could. This was such a great place to grow up, it was where I wanted to have and raise my own kids.”

“But you were away for how long?”

“Too long—ten years,” she said, unable to keep the disdain for that fact out of her voice.

“Was there something keeping you away that was out of your control?”

Jenna knew her tone had opened the door to that question. But there was a limit to what she was willing to tell this man, so she said, “Things just happen. We make choices—not always good ones—and sometimes the tide carries you farther and farther out to sea. It makes it tough to get back to shore.”

“Shore being Northbridge?”

“And my family….”

“Were you at odds with them?”

“No,” she said firmly. Because the truth was bad enough. She didn’t want him to think something worse had kept her away. “It was just … Because I let other things take precedence, it was hard to get home. So I didn’t make it back as often as I wanted to—barely once a year and sometimes even longer than that would go by before I could get back. If that hadn’t been the case …”

She took another sip of wine, because she needed some bolstering to talk about this.

“What?” Ian urged.

Jenna shrugged. “If I’d been able to visit more often, if I’d been able to move back two or three years ago the way I’d planned, I might have seen the indications of my mother’s heart problems and had them addressed before she ended up having the attack that killed her.”

“She didn’t tell you she was feeling bad?”

“My parents didn’t believe in burdening their kids with their problems—that’s what my father said when I asked why neither he nor Mom had said anything. So no, no one told me Mom had been getting short of breath, tiring easily, that her coloring wasn’t great. No one told me that Dad was having more and more trouble taking care of the farm, so it wasn’t making the kind of profit it needed to. I didn’t know they were slipping behind on the taxes. If I’d been here, if I’d known, maybe I could have done something….”

Jenna wasn’t sure how this conversation had gotten so heavy, but she was battling her own emotions and Ian was watching her intently, a frown pulling his eyebrows together, his expression very somber.

“That’s a whole lot of guilt you’re carrying around,” he said softly. “Is that what’s behind the sticking point to keep the farm a farm? Are you trying to make up for what you didn’t do along the way, by keeping it some kind of monument to your parents?”

Jenna shook her head. “No, that isn’t it at all. My dad loved the farm and being a farmer. He was proud of what he did, of the contribution it made. He believed that the farmer was the backbone of this country, and he liked being a part of that. He wanted it to continue, even if it wasn’t his own family doing it, so his last wish—his last request of me—was that his farm remain a farm. Simple as that. And that’s what I’m trying to help happen. If I don’t sell to you for your training facility, and you don’t buy it at auction, there’s at least the chance that someone else might buy it and maintain it as a working farm, the way my Dad wanted, and that’s really all I’m trying to accomplish.”

“Now I feel guilty!”

“Good!” Jenna said with a laugh that helped make her feel better. “Does that mean you’ll back off?”

He flinched. “It was me who brought your place to the attention of the powers-that-be—for that I’m completely to blame. But in my defense, I had no idea there were these kinds of personal and emotional issues on the other side of it.”

“And now that you do, you’ll back off?” Jenna repeated hopefully.

“Even now that I do, it’s too late. The moneymen, the land people, the contractors—everyone connected with the project—has agreed that your property is ideal on all counts. That takes it out of my hands. I’m sorry.”

He might have been a very convincing liar, but Jenna had the sense that he genuinely meant that apology.

“And even if I went to my father at this point and said let’s let it be,” he continued after a pause, “I’d get shot down. The first thing my old man would say is that there’s no guarantee that if the property goes to auction, it’ll stay a farm. Potentially the Monarchs would just lose the best site for their training center to some housing developer or something.”

Jenna knew that was a possibility, too. But still, she was trying to hang on to what hope she could. For her father’s sake.

“I guess it just isn’t possible for us to come down on the same side of this,” she concluded. “And I think you might be trying to find my weak spot or something—”

“I’m not,” he protested.

But before either of them could say more on the subject, Chase appeared at the entrance of the showcase. “There you are, Ian,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Chase paused to say hello to Jenna, to tell her how nice she looked and tease her that it was nothing like a new mom was supposed to look.

After they’d joked back and forth for a few minutes, Chase’s gaze went to Ian again. “I wanted to introduce you around—there are a lot of people who want to meet you.”