by Megan Crane
Jasper Flint only shook his head at her again, an unholy amusement moving over his lean, intriguing face, as if she was deeply entertaining.
No one had ever looked at her like that in her life, and Chelsea felt her breath leave her body as something blisteringly hot moved over her, through her. Confusing her and intriguing her at once.
“I can’t say that I care too much about the history of this town, or of your family,” he said, in an amiable tone at complete odds with his words. “Mind you, I can barely stand the sight of my own family, so you shouldn’t feel too insulted.” There was some current there, lurking beneath the seemingly light words, almost a shadow behind his curiously bright gaze, but Chelsea couldn’t name it. “And I’m not particularly interested in museums. I like beer, so I’m building a microbrewery. You can come by when it’s open and have one.” His lips twitched. “On me.”
“A microbrewery?” Chelsea knew she sounded aghast, as if the very idea of beer made her want to swoon, like the prudish schoolmarm he’d already accused her of being—but that was only because she could anticipate her mother’s reaction to this news. It might blow off the top of Copper Mountain. “But the depot is a landmark! A piece of Marietta’s history!”
“Which I’m guessing your hoity-toity First Family couldn’t afford to buy, much less repair, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
He still had all that Texas in his voice, but somehow, that drawl went cool. And it tore her up, though she didn’t know why.
“When did you buy it?” she asked.
“About two months ago.” His hazel gaze narrowed, as if he was turning that question over in his head. “Does that matter?”
“Not to you, I’d imagine.”
But it meant a great deal to her. It meant she’d been lied to, repeatedly, again—but she couldn’t do anything about that now. Here.
“I don’t have much use for monuments, Triple C,” Jasper said quietly. “I don’t like history lessons and I don’t care for preaching.” His eyes remained curiously intent on hers. “I think this is the prettiest spot in Montana, which is why I’m here. And as I said, I like beer. I don’t see this conversation getting any more productive than that, do you?”
Chelsea fought to keep her panic under control. To say nothing of her temper.
“What can I do to convince you of the error of your ways?” she asked, desperately. “You only just moved here. Maybe if I take you on a tour, if I show you why this is all so important, you’ll change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s my mind, Triple C. I’m pretty well-acquainted with it.”
“An inflexible mind is a sign of weakness. Weakness and fear.”
“Do you think reverse psychology is going to work?” But he was smiling. “You have an interesting approach to the sales pitch. And I won’t lie, I think it’s cute.”
“There has to be something I can do,” she blurted out, too panicked to register the fact he’d called her cute. “To at least make you listen.”
She watched his marvelous eyes light up then, with a fire that sang in her in ways that made her feel weak, like she’d forgotten to eat for a week. His head tilted to one side as he regarded her, and Chelsea had never felt anything like it before. That slow perusal, that terrible intensity in his hazel gaze, that small crook to his lips that hit her like a punch in the belly. She felt stripped naked right there on the street, where anyone could see and, judging from the number of cars that had gone by throughout this conversation, quite a few people had seen and were no doubt even now reporting back to her mother that she was consorting with the enemy.
“Come back here dressed like a woman your actual age,” he suggested. “You look like you’re trying to pretend you’re at least sixty-five. My guess? You’re thirty. Maybe.”
She frowned down at herself, then at him.
“I’m a schoolteacher. This is a perfectly appropriate outfit.”
“Let me guess. History?”
She didn’t know why his amusement pricked at her. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Is it dress like an octogenarian day? I suspect you’ll win first prize.”
“You don’t have to play games with me,” she said, furious, and something else unfamiliar that she was afraid to look at too closely. “Or does it amuse you to insult complete strangers within five minutes of meeting them?”
“Only the pretty ones,” he said, looking wholly unrepentant. “Come back in a pair of jeans that show off that ass and I promise I’ll listen to you. If that’s what you want.”
He nodded in some parody of good manners, then, as if he hadn’t said something heinous, the kind of thing that absolutely nobody said to someone like her. Ever.
And Chelsea stood there, stunned, and watched Jasper Flint saunter away like the glorious male animal he was, confident and lazy and totally unbothered by what had happened between them. What he’d said.
Into the depot building which should never have been his.
Which she was going to have to find a way to reclaim, despite him.
2.
“You lied to me,” Chelsea said in as measured a tone as she could manage.
Which possibly wasn’t very measured at all, she could admit to herself.
“Lied is a pretty strong word, Chels,” Tod Styles replied, all bluster and those bright red spots in his cute, boyish cheeks, which, she knew perfectly well, meant he was lying through his teeth.
She’d discovered that the hard way, when she’d accused him of cheating on her during their ill-advised eighteen months of dating and he’d vociferously denied it, every time.
Including that last time, when she’d walked in to find him in the act. His cheeks had been red that night, too. Like twin flags of dishonesty painted right there on his face.
“Please don’t call me that,” Chelsea said, trying to stay cool. Calm. Trying to remind herself that Tod was actually a perfectly nice man, except if you happened to date him.
Nothing at all like the woman who had screamed bloody murder when she’d seen him thrashing around on top of Leona Markham on his back deck on July 4th. As if he’d stabbed her in the heart when the truth was, she’d never loved him as much as she thought she should have. Calm down, Chels, was what he’d said them in the same tone he’d just used now. Still naked, like her reaction to what he was doing was the problem.
She tried to force herself back into the present, where he was thankfully clothed.
“You sold the depot right out from under me. Secretly. You knew what I was trying to do and you sold it anyway, then let me carry on making preparations for the rodeo fundraiser. Were you ever going to tell me, Tod? Or were you planning to let me go ahead and make a fool of myself?”
She couldn’t possibly be the only one with déjà vu, could she?
Tod leaned back in his chair, which creaked loudly, reminding Chelsea that they weren’t alone in the realty office he ran with his mother, the fearsome Elinor, who had told Chelsea in the first week of her relationship that her son was regrettably just like his father: all boy, no man. Chelsea wished she’d listened. Elinor wasn’t in the office today, but Chelsea didn’t have to turn around to know that their secretary, Alisa, would be all pricked ears and flying thumbs, texting every word of this interaction to half of Marietta before it was done. In Alisa’s ear and out like a megaphone, she knew, but at least there was no malice in it. That was how it went.
Sometimes she wished she’d taken her siblings’ lead and moved far, far away, to a place where no one knew her, or her family, or every last scandalous detail of her terrible relationship with Tod, including that she’d foolishly believed it would lead to marriage.
It was that last part that she found the most humiliating now.
“Can I be blunt?” Tod asked, and she could see that he was trying to be kind, which only made the humiliation rage higher.
I’m just not the monogamous type, h
e’d told her on the front lawn of his house that last, embarrassing night, still buttoning up his khakis, his cheeks no longer quite so bright and his light brown hair messy. Not yet, anyway. That’s for the kind of girl I want to marry, Chels.
Remembering their unfortunate dating history wasn’t helping anything, Chelsea thought then. She stood in front of Tod’s desk, her arms crossed in front of her, ignoring the fact her feet felt swollen from a day spent standing in front of classrooms in her ridiculous shoes. Ignoring how much she’d like to use one of those wickedly high heels to slap that look from his face—if, of course, she was the sort who believed in violence. Which she was not.
“I’ve never known how to stop you,” she replied. If Tod registered the dryness in her tone, he didn’t react to it.
“Flint paid in cash. The full asking price. And let’s face it, you were never going to raise the money for the down payment.” He shrugged. “It was business, Chelsea. Pure and simple.”
“It’s very convenient that your business happened to undermine me, isn’t it?” she asked, not sure if she was angry or sad, and wishing she could rewind everything and never take him up on that initial invitation to dinner. “Or was that just a bonus?”
“I’m sorry if I led you on, Chelsea,” Tod said now, making her feel homicidal and deeply humiliated all at once, which was pretty much how she’d been feeling about the whole thing since that night in July. “I should have made it clear from the start that I wasn’t that interested. I feel bad that your feelings got so involved.”
That was the worst part, she knew, staring at him. Her feelings hadn’t been involved, not that anyone would believe her if she said so. She’d thought Tod was her chance. The answer to her prayers. Her way to stay in Marietta, the place she loved so much, without having to stay forever in that drafty old house on the hill with Mama. Her way to have the things she’d always wanted—her own house, her own man, her own family—without having to turn her back on her responsibilities and in so doing, turn into someone she didn’t want to become. Tod was a local boy, his family going back generations in the area, with the kind of deep roots that matched hers.
And besides, her mother had always spoken, if not highly of the Styles family, then at least without the scorn she reserved for some others. It had seemed like such a perfect solution. And she’d always liked Tod well enough. He’d been a few years above her in school, friendly and nice. Liked by almost everybody. A part of the community.
She should have dated her neighbor’s Labrador retriever instead. Sparky had all of the same qualities she’d liked in Tod, plus an actual sense of loyalty.
“Thank you, Tod,” she said stiffly, when she was sure she could speak without betraying any of her conflicting emotions, or indulging her heretofore unknown lust for violence. “I certainly enjoy as many reminders of our relationship as possible.”
“A word of advice, Chels,” he said, shaking his head sadly, which was one more patronizing gesture closer to her losing her temper, which seemed a lot closer to snapping today than usual. Someone should probably warn him that he was flirting with disaster, she thought, since he seemed so unaware of it himself. “This obsession with the depot isn’t a good idea. You need to let it go before you turn yourself into your mother.”
The fact that Tod, of all people, was voicing the worst of her fears, felt like an indignity too far today. She felt it pulse behind her temples like a headache.
“I don’t think you know my mother well enough to make that determination,” she said frostily. “And I know you don’t know me well enough. Or at all.”
“You’re not doing yourself any favors.” He let his gaze travel from her admittedly raggedy chignon down her neatly buttoned navy and white blouse with the ruffles along the placket to her perfectly serviceable work pants. When Jasper had done the same thing this morning, there’d been heat in it, and amusement. Her whole body had felt like a lantern only he could switch on. Tod’s gaze made her feel itchy and annoyed. “You’re on a fast track to ending up rattling around that old house for the rest of your life, muttering about the Crawford family’s long gone glory days. Just like her.”
“I teach history, Tod,” she bit out. “I don’t have to live it, thank you.”
He sighed, like she was the one trying his patience.
“I’m sorry about the depot, I really am. But it was never going to happen. And if your mother cared about the town as much as she cared about the Crawford family legacy, she’d understand that what Flint is going to do benefits way more people than some museum ever would. It’s going to be gathering place. Families, local bands. A place for the whole community. People want that. They’re tired of paying homage to the First Families.”
“Spoken like someone who isn’t one of the First Families,” she replied lightly, loud enough for Alisa to hear and transmit to one and all, something she knew at once she’d regret later, when she was less furious and not so easily goaded. “I always forget how jealous you are.”
But after she stormed out of the office with as much dignity as she had left, his words stayed with her as if he’d chased her out into the street himself.
It destroyed any childish satisfaction she might have gotten from getting that last word.
Chelsea stopped for a moment and stood there, letting the fall afternoon seep into her. The sun was still bright and warm, though there was a kick beneath it that whispered summer was already over for another year, and these huge, bright days were nothing but pretty distractions. She remembered running along these sidewalks as a girl, down to the park by the river and then back again. Grey’s Saloon hunkered over the corner opposite her, complete with swinging doors on the front and that balustraded balcony running along the second story, where the prostitutes had displayed their wares back when Marietta was little more than an outpost and Grey’s—the oldest building in town—was as much a bordello as a saloon.
Mama didn’t like the fact that Greys—purveyors of sin going back generations—were actually more original Mariettan than the Crawfords. They make their presence known, don’t they? she always said when forced to acknowledge the existence of the saloon, or even the outdoor adventure outfit one of the other Grey brothers ran from an office above the town’s bookstore.
Crawfords aren’t flashy, Mama had told them over and over again growing up, despite the fact they lived in one of the area’s historic old homes, rich in rambling, Victorian splendor up in the hills above the town. Crawfords are genteel.
It had taken Chelsea a long time to understand that what her mother meant was that the Crawfords had once had a great deal more money than anyone else had, and had fancied themselves many social classes above families like the Greys, hence their relocation out of the town proper. And that what they had left now was their heritage. And far too much pride.
Every now and again the weight of that heritage—and what it meant to her mother, and thus to Chelsea because she loved her mother and wanted to make her happy—made Chelsea feel flattened down to the ground beneath it.
But Main Street was like a postcard in the golden light today, a perfect jewel of a western town, and much as she sometimes dreamed of running off and shirking her responsibilities, she knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was as much a part of this town as Grey’s, her roots almost as deep into the rich Montana soil beneath her feet, and she was a woman who liked to feel connected that way.
She studied the saloon for a moment, considering. She wasn’t much for drinking in the afternoon, and she’d never cared much for surly Jason Grey, the current proprietor, no matter how much she’d liked his daughter, Joey, who’d been in her same class back in high school. But Grey’s looked particularly inviting today. She frowned at it for a moment, then turned her attention to the mountains, instead. Beautiful Copper Mountain loomed there, brooding and impassive, the way it had her whole life. Watching. Waiting.
For what, she still didn’t know.
And the truth was, she was a thirty-
year-old woman and she was afraid to go home and face her mother. What did that say about her?
But she knew what it said. Sometimes she thought it was written on her: Lifelong coward. Afraid. Hiding all her life.
Chelsea heard the motor first. It was different from the usual motorcycles that ripped through the town, most of them headed to or from Grey’s, or further east along the highway toward places like Sturgis. This one sounded… sleeker. It purred like a lion, deep-throated and smooth, and she knew. She knew who it was even before it pulled up beside her, silver and gleaming in the afternoon light, then backed up to the curb at an arrogant angle.
There was absolutely no reason her heart should twist in her chest, then clatter so hard against her ribs.
She’d done a little research on Jasper Flint over her lunch period at school today. Meaning she’d typed his name into Google and saw exactly why he’d been so surprised she hadn’t recognized him, or at least his name. And why he’d think it perfectly normal to be propositioned no matter what time of day it was.
Jasper Flint wasn’t simply rich. He was quite literally filthy rich. He and his brother Jonah had taken their family’s small well stimulation company and built it into a major competitor in the oil market, providing hydraulic fracturing services to the oil and gas industry just as the shale boom was blowing up in Texas—before selling it just over a year ago for a rumored four billion.
No wonder he’d bought the depot outright. That was pocket change to a man like him.
She frowned at him as he climbed off his bike, which she didn’t have to know a single thing about motorcycles to know was astonishingly rare and expensive. He didn’t bother with a helmet, which meant she was treated to an uninterrupted view of Jasper Flint in all his considerable glory. Packed into a pair of jeans and grey t-shirt, with a dark blue hooded sweatshirt on top, he should have looked disreputable and even rumpled.