Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!

by Victoria Pade

  Then, as if the gesture hadn’t been done right, Abby grabbed both sides of Jenna’s face in her two pudgy little hands and gave her a return kiss that had a whole lot more oomph to it.

  The scene made Ian laugh at the same time Jenna did, just before she twirled around with the infant, making Abby laugh along with her.

  And out of the blue—for absolutely no reason Ian could put his finger on—he felt like he should drive over there and say hello.

  That was a little strange—the sudden yen to be a part of what he was spying on.

  Of course, it was a great day in the country, he did get a kick out of Abby, and Jenna was a naturally beautiful, fresh-faced woman whom he’d enjoyed talking to for that brief time yesterday. So maybe it wasn’t really such a big mystery that he felt like saying hello.

  Well, the mystery might be in the intensity he was feeling to get to them, but still he reasoned that he did need to be establishing a relationship with Jenna Bowen. So why not take advantage of the day, the situation, the coincidence and the convenience of having her right there, no more than a two-minute drive around a U-shaped dirt path?

  He’d be silly not to take advantage of all that and lay some groundwork for a purely friendly relationship with her that could potentially benefit them both, wouldn’t he?

  Sure he would.

  Now he just needed to take his eyes off of her to do that….

  He forced himself to lower the binoculars, to get back in the car, feeling oddly grateful that the engine was still running, and that all he had to do was put it into gear.

  And if he was in such a hurry to get to her that he left huge plumes of dust behind him when he hit the gas?

  It didn’t mean anything.

  And neither did his lack of concern for how bumpy a ride it was on that road or what it was doing to his shocks not to take any care with how he drove.

  He was merely going to extend a simple greeting to the farm owner he would like to convince to do business with him.

  And the fact that the farm owner was the lovely-to-look-at Jenna Bowen meant nothing at all…

  As Montana winters went weather-wise, Jenna’s first one back hadn’t been particularly bad. But since she’d lost both of her parents during that period of time, it had felt very bleak. So that first, early taste of spring on Sunday was a welcome relief.

  She had to be at the hospital for a three-to-eleven shift but—not wanting to waste the warmth and sunshine—she’d decided to take Abby outside for a little while.

  She hadn’t been out the back door for more than a few minutes when the sudden stirring of dust over on the border road drew her attention.

  “Looks like we’re gonna have company,” she told Abby, inching back in the direction of the house.

  During the last ten years, she’d lived in several places where being cautious was advisable, and while she might be back in Northbridge, she still didn’t recognize the expensive black import that was coming her way. Just in case her drop-in visitor wasn’t welcome, she wanted the ability to duck inside in a hurry.

  In fact, she was standing so that she and Abby were in the lee of the screen door, where one step would take them over the threshold to safety, when the car drew near enough for her to see that it was Ian Kincaid behind the wheel.

  Of course…Jenna thought as a completely inexplicable sense of excitement replaced her trepidation.

  He drove around the side of the house before he came to a stop. Jenna heard him turn off the engine and get out, shutting the door after himself.

  Then he appeared around the corner.

  “Hi,” he called, tossing her a smile that she liked more than she had any reason to.

  “Hello,” Jenna said, keeping it somewhat formal, despite her reactions to the man. Or maybe to hide those reactions….

  “It was such a nice day I wanted to come out and look around a little more.” He pointed in the direction he’d come from. “I was on that other road when I saw you. I thought maybe I should drop over and make sure you don’t mind. If you do, I’ll take off.” He finished with a gesture of surrender that raised his hands to the height of his extremely broad shoulders.

  His big, strong-looking hands that Jenna couldn’t help noticing right along with the shoulders. He wore brown tweed slacks and a tan shirt that made him look too dressed up for a lazy, Sunday afternoon in Northbridge, but impressively good nonetheless.

  “Un!” Abby said then, bending far away from Jenna and putting her arms out to Ian as he drew near.

  “Hi, Abby,” he said to the infant with an even warmer smile. Then to Jenna he added, “That’s what she calls me—‘Un.’ Abby and I are old friends.”

  “So Meg said.”

  “Can I take her?” he asked.

  Since Abby wasn’t giving her much choice, and Jenna knew that Meg had come to trust him around both Abby and Tia, Jenna abandoned the doorway and handed over the infant.

  Abby promptly curved one arm around the back of Ian’s muscular neck as if she belonged there and was staking her claim on him.

  “Meg told me you’ve made quite an impression on both Abby and Tia,” Jenna said.

  “I’d like to say all the girls love me, but I’m pretty sure you could refute that, so I won’t,” he joked.

  He did seem like kind of a hard person to dislike, but Jenna kept that to herself. Instead she said, “It’s been a rotten winter for me, and I have spring fever something fierce today so, even though it’s a little early for it, I made fresh lemonade. Would you like a glass?”

  “Sounds great. But why don’t we sit on your porch to drink it so you can still get some of this nice weather? I’ll take Abby around to the front, and you can meet us there.”

  Was he thoughtful or good at orchestrating things or giving orders? Jenna wasn’t sure. But the idea of a glass of lemonade on the front porch—okay, yes, with him—was too appealing for her to balk at, one way or another, so she said, “Okay.”

  As she went inside, put ice in two tall glasses and poured their drinks, Jenna hoped that Ian Kincaid wasn’t there to try to talk her into selling the farm to him. It was such a nice day, she wanted to enjoy it, and that was a subject that would ruin it.

  Maybe, if he did bring it up, a firm no coupled with an “I don’t want to talk about it,” would stop him.

  If not, she might take Abby and her lemonade and just go inside, because she was not going to let him put a damper on today.

  As Jenna carried the glasses down the hallway to the front door she’d opened earlier to let in some fresh air, she could see Abby and Ian Kincaid through the screen. It gave her a clue as to one of the reasons Abby liked him. He was sitting on the porch floor at the top of the stairs. The little girl straddled his ankle while he held both of her hands and bounced her up and down with the rise and fall of that long leg.

  Jenna knew from doing that herself that Abby adored what Jenna called a horsey-ride, and the baby’s giggling delight only confirmed it.

  “Mo!” Abby demanded when Ian paused to glance over his shoulder at the sound of Jenna coming out onto the porch.

  “That’s Abby-speak for more,” Jenna informed him. “And the problem with horsey-ride is that she never wants you to stop.”

  “Yeah, I’ve learned that,” he said. Then, to Abby he called an enthusiastic, “Here comes the big finish!”

  As Jenna crossed the wide wrap-around porch to join them, Ian gave Abby a wild enough ride to make the infant squeal before he slowed by increments and made winding-down noises.

  To Jenna’s surprise, when he finally stopped altogether and hoisted Abby to his lap, the little girl accepted it without further complaint.

  “So that’s the secret?” Jenna observed. “I have to say ‘here comes the big finish,’ give her a grand finale and some sound effects, and she lets it end?”

  “That’s my trick. I don’t know if it’ll work for you,” he said, settling Abby in the crook of one arm so he could take the glass of lemonade tha
t Jenna offered.

  Once he had, she sat beside him, making sure she left all the space that could be left between them in what was allotted by the porch railing.

  She set her own glass of lemonade down and held out her arms to Abby. “Why don’t you come and sit with me now and have some lemonade?”

  “No,” Abby answered, pushing back into the arm that provided a sturdy support for her back. “Oh, she does like you,” Jenna said, showing a hint of the rejection she felt.

  Ian merely grinned and sipped his lemonade. Letting the comment pass, he said, “As Montana winters go, this last one was pretty mild. Why was it rotten for you?”

  He’d paid attention to what she’d said earlier….

  “I came back to Northbridge in October when my mother died suddenly of a heart attack during a blizzard. That trip was when I first realized my dad’s emphysema was much, much worse than I’d been told. I decided to stay to take care of him, but we still lost him the first week of January. Which was about the time I also found out about the tax debt—”

  “Ah, it wasn’t so much the weather as what happened this winter. And that was a lot,” he agreed. “I didn’t know you’d lost your mother right before your father. I lost my mother when I was eleven and that was bad enough. Losing both of your parents within months of each other must have been doubly rough.”

  Made rougher by the guilt she carried, but she didn’t offer that information. “It was.”

  “You said you came back when your mom passed away?” he said then. “Does that mean that you weren’t living in Northbridge?”

  “Not at the time, no. I wanted to be, but that hadn’t worked out yet. It sort of had to in a hurry after I saw that my dad was failing. Plus there was Abby…”

  Abby, whom she didn’t really want to share, so Jenna again held out her hands to the baby.

  Who once more chose to remain with Ian.

  Abby did take the drink of Jenna’s lemonade that Jenna offered, though.

  “Tell me about Miss Abby here,” Ian said then. “Meg introduced you as her aunt-slash-new-mom—what exactly does that mean?”

  “She’s my niece and now my adopted daughter, too,” Jenna answered as if it were simple.

  “So you have a brother or a sister?” he said, sorting through it.

  “I did have a sister. We called her J.J. She was twelve years younger than me, and only sixteen when she got pregnant and had Abby—”

  “Oh,” Ian said, as if that explanation left him with more questions.

  Anticipating them, Jenna said, “My folks talked J.J. into keeping Abby by promising to help raise her—”

  “The dad wasn’t in the picture?”

  “The dad was one of the boys at the school for troubled and delinquent kids just outside of town. Unfortunately, he was still in the picture, but since he had no family at all, it was still really up to Mom and Dad—”

  “And sixteen-year-old J.J.”

  “Right. Until J.J. and Abby’s dad went joyriding when Abby was four months old…” Jenna swallowed back the lump that instantly formed in her throat. “Both J.J. and Abby’s dad were killed when the car hit a pothole and rolled over. Then it was just up to Mom and Dad.”

  “Who weren’t in good health,” Ian added.

  “At the time no one knew my mom had anything going on with her heart—no one knew until the attack that killed her. My dad’s emphysema was slowing him down then, but he was still working the farm, so they didn’t really think their health was an issue. I talked about taking Abby, but my own situation was…difficult, so Mom and Dad just kept the status quo—they’d been doing the lion’s share of taking care of Abby, they said they could just go on taking care of her.”

  “But then in a snap they were both gone….”

  “Right. And then there was just Abby and me. And my situation had changed—” Jenna leaned forward enough to tickle Abby’s rib cage “—and I wanted this little stinker, so I adopted her.”

  “Which makes you her aunt and her mom now.”

  “Right,” Jenna said in a positive tone to let him know how happy she was to find herself Abby’s mother. “Of course, I’ll let her know about J.J. and her dad, but I’ll really just be Mom—which I’m working on getting her to call me.”

  As if to show her willingness to accept Jenna in that role, Abby finally held out her arms for Jenna to take her.

  Ian set his nearly empty glass of lemonade on the porch and freed the way for Jenna to reach for the infant.

  To do that, Jenna had to slip one of her hands between Abby’s side and Ian’s front. There was no avoiding making contact with him.

  What Jenna should have been able to avoid was being as aware as she was of the hard wall of muscles she felt behind his shirt. And liking the way it felt against the back of her hand…

  You’re a nurse, for crying out loud! You make physical contact with people for a living! she silently chastised herself to battle the tingling that that particular contact had set off along the surface of her skin.

  Gratefully, Ian Kincaid didn’t seem to know she was having that response to him as she lifted Abby from his lap to Jenna’s and became very intent on giving her niece more lemonade.

  “I should probably go—I saw what I came to see and I’m figuring from the scrubs that you must have to get to work at some point,” Ian said then—in a voice that seemed slightly lower than it had been and suddenly made Jenna worry that he did know something was happening with her.

  But even if that was true, he, too, found refuge in Abby by fiddling with one of her curls when he said, “Bye, Abby.”

  “Bye,” Abby answered perfunctorily, waving a chubby hand to go along with it, the way she’d been tutored.

  Then, to Jenna, Ian said, “Thanks for the lemonade. This was nice.”

  “Sure,” was all she said as she watched him get to his feet.

  He paused a moment, and she couldn’t tell what was going through his mind before he said, “Tomorrow night is the grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs—will you be there?”

  “I will be,” she said.

  A slow smile spread across his handsome face. “Good…I’m glad….” He answered almost as if he shouldn’t be admitting it.

  Then he headed for his car, and Jenna watched him go.

  And watched him and watched him, drinking in every last drop of the sight of the best derriere she thought she’d ever seen.

  Until he rounded the side of the house, and she couldn’t see him anymore.

  And she was a little sorry about that…

  So apparently, he hadn’t put a damper on her day.

  But as for the rest—the skin-tingling on contact, the ogling of his backside when he’d walked away, the fact that she’d enjoyed spending that brief time with him?

  She didn’t know where any of that had come from.

  But she did know that there was no place in her life for it.

  Not now. Not with him.

  In the last eleven months, she’d gone from one disaster to another. The death of J.J. and of Abby’s dad. Her own divorce. Her mother’s death. Her father’s. The tax debacle and the likelihood that she was going to lose the farm. She’d gone from chaos to more chaos to even more chaos.

  And it had to end. For both her own sake and for Abby’s. They needed to find a little solace, a little calm, a little peace. To settle down, to settle in. Together. Just the two of them.

  Nowhere in any of that was there a place for skin-tingling or ogling or enjoying Ian Kincaid’s company.

  In fact, a man—any man—but certainly Ian Kincaid of all men, was the anti-solace, the anti-calm, the anti-peace, the anti-settling down, the anti-settling in.

  And Jenna wasn’t having any part of that.

  So why was she suddenly looking forward to tomorrow night’s grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs even more than she had been?

  It didn’t matter why.

  She just knew she ne
eded to squash it.

  And that was what she was determined to do.

  Although that little bit of a thrill at the thought that Ian Kincaid would be there was hard to catch and squash when it again took flight at merely the glimpse of him behind the wheel of his car as he drove from the side of her house and waved on his way to the main road.

  But still she was determined.

  Peace and calm and solace, settling in, settling down—that was what she was going to find, to achieve, for herself and for Abby.

  Without the disruption of a guy who made her skin tingle…

  Chapter Three

  “What do you think, Abby? Too much?” Jenna asked her niece as she stood in front of the full-length mirror early Monday evening.

  Of course, Abby didn’t respond. The fifteen-month-old was occupied with the bottom drawer of Jenna’s dresser, exploring and dragging out every scarf, glove and whatnot she found there.

  After feeding Abby dinner, Jenna had taken the baby upstairs with her and set her in the crib with a slew of toys to keep her safely entertained so Jenna could take a quick shower and shampoo her hair.

  Then she’d retrieved Abby and brought the little girl with her to her bedroom, where she’d set Abby on the floor. Being let loose in Jenna’s room always meant one of two things for the infant—either she played in the closet or she opened the bottom dresser drawer. Since Jenna had had problems picking out what to wear tonight, Abby had already demolished the closet and moved on to the drawer.

  But Jenna was intent on looking her best for the grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs.

  The cocktail affair was to be casual, but somehow Jenna didn’t want to go too casual. So while she’d opted for jeans, they were her dressiest jeans—jeans she’d paid a small fortune for because they rode every curve to perfection and managed to transform her rear end into a much better shape than she thought it had on its own.

  To go along with the jeans, she was wearing a black, crocheted-lace blouse over a strapless black, spandex tube top. And for shoes she was trying on her post-divorce-first-night-on-the-town-with-the-girls-to-proveshe-could-still-get-hit-on shoes—peekaboo-toed, black patent leathers with bows and four-inch heels. And she had gotten hit on that night. In those shoes. And that same outfit….