Not that she was aiming to get hit on tonight, of course. She wasn’t. She just wanted to look good. This was really the first fancy evening social event she’d gone to since being back in Northbridge.
And the fact that Ian Kincaid was going to be there? That he’d made a point of asking if she was going to be there, too?
Okay, maybe that had a teensy, weensy bit to do with the fact that she wanted to look good. But that was all. And it was just a matter of pride. Yes, her father had died owing the government over forty-thousand dollars in unpaid taxes that she couldn’t pay, either; yes, Ian Kincaid and the Kincaid Corporation might be able to get her father’s farm and turn it into a football training center, whether she liked it or not, but she still had her dignity. And that outfit and those shoes.
And maybe tonight she wanted to think that she might be able to make Ian Kincaid eat his heart out just a little…
“As if that could happen,” she told her reflection in the mirror, to bring herself back down to earth.
After all, she reasoned as she applied some blush, some eye shadow, some mascara, she was thirty not twenty—if she were still twenty, she wouldn’t have even needed the blush. She was a nurse, not a doctor—the way she’d set out to be. She was divorced after ten years of marriage to a man whose mother had been and still was more important than Jenna had ever managed to be to him. And while a lot of her male patients flirted shamelessly with her, most of them were elderly.
Second looks from guys her own age? Sure, those she got now and then. But despite the fact that following Ted to Mexico and then to several states in his failed career pursuits had made her fairly well-traveled, she’d never acquired any sort of sophistication. She was still a small-town girl through and through. And it was there on the girl-next-door face that she didn’t have complaints about, but that didn’t make men like Ian Kincaid drool, so there was no reason to think that he was going to.
And even if he did, so what? she asked herself as she bent over to give her hair a thorough brushing before standing straight again to fluff it and let it fall in loose waves around her shoulders.
Besides being desperate to find some serenity in her life, she was fresh out of a marriage that had completely revolved around her former husband and his—well, actually, his mother’s—goals for him. For Ted and his mother, she’d sacrificed everything—including her own dreams and having kids and time she should have spent with her family.
If she hadn’t, her family might not have ended up the way it had.
And while she didn’t know much about Ian, she did know that he worked for his father. To her, that meant that meeting his boss’s requirements wasn’t something he could leave at the office. It meant that his father held two major positions of importance in his life, and that gave his father double the power over him, double the influence over him, double the reason for Ian to factor in his father’s opinions, desires and goals, and try to please him above and before all else. Above and before everyone else.
For Jenna, that raised red warning flares.
In her experience, a family tie that strong ended up taking the number one priority.
And getting lost in the dust of accommodating that wasn’t something she was ever—ever—going to do again. The cost was just too high.
“So we don’t care whether or not Ian Kincaid’s jaw drops tonight,” she muttered to Abby, who was trying to pull a stocking cap over her own curly hair and again paid Jenna no attention.
But still it would be a really nice ego-boost if his jaw did drop, she couldn’t help thinking.
And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of an ego boost after this winter.
It just wouldn’t change anything, Jenna swore.
She had set a new course for herself, for her life. An unwavering course.
Ian Kincaid might be drop-dead gorgeous, a pleasure to sit on the porch and drink lemonade with, sexy enough to have had her fantasizing about him all through the night, on her mind this entire day—or not—but he was also a guy to stay away from, even if she wasn’t intent on sticking to her own new path.
So an ego boost was honestly all she wanted from him. All she would allow.
But if his jaw dropped when she walked in tonight?
She’d be glad for that ego boost.
Then she’d go on about her business and never give him another thought.
The grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs was by invitation only; Jenna had helped Meg address them and knew that over two hundred of them had gone out.
The main house on the compound—the house Meg shared with her husband Logan and Tia—was being used as the babysitting center. Manned by four teenage girls, that was where Meg’s three-year-old stepdaughter and several other children and infants were being left.
Abby was not altogether good with strangers and clung to Jenna when the babysitters tried to take her, but after a moment of watching Tia—whom Abby treated like a big sister—Abby motioned to be let down. She crawled over to where the three-year-old was playing. Since Tia welcomed Abby and let her play with the train set, too, Jenna felt free to leave her and went through the house and out the back door.
Directly behind Meg’s home was a large two-car garage. Over that was the studio apartment where Jenna knew Ian was staying. There weren’t any lights on there, so she assumed he was already at the party.
A shiver of excitement ran through her at that thought, the thought that she was on her way to seeing him again.
Then she got furious at herself.
She was also on her way to seeing potentially two hundred other people, she reminded herself. Why was it only Ian Kincaid she was thinking about and getting excited over?
Take it down a notch, she warned herself.
But still she walked a little faster to get to the party.
It was being held next door to the garage, in what had once been the property’s barn. The top half had been converted into a loft where Chase Mackey lived with his soon-to-be-wife, Hadley, and Ian and Chase’s nephew, Cody.
The lower half of the barn was devoted to Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs. The rear portion was work space, while the front half had been turned into showcases that displayed the furniture to best effect. Those showcases had taken from December until now to finally complete.
As Jenna neared the big barn doors that were open for the event, she could see light spilling out and hear the sounds of the guitarist and singer Meg had hired, as well as laughter and many, many voices.
As hosts and hostesses, Meg, Logan, Chase and Hadley were positioned at the entrance to greet new arrivals. The mayor and his wife were taking up their attention as Jenna got there, so she motioned to Meg to let her know she was just going to go in, and then she moved around them, headed for the sea of people.
She spotted several of the Perrys and the Pratts she’d grown up with, and she took a moment to chat with them. She said hello to the Graysons, who were new to town but whom Meg had introduced her to. Logan and Hadley’s half siblings were there—although Jenna didn’t see Dag and his new wife Shannon, Ian’s sister. All of the other business owners in town were there, along with the entire town council and even a few people who looked familiar, but whom Jenna couldn’t quite place.
The one person she didn’t see was Ian Kincaid.
Not that it made any difference, she told herself. She knew almost everyone there, she was looking forward to talking to many people she hadn’t yet had the chance to reconnect with, and it didn’t make any difference if she never encountered him tonight.
Except that somehow in her scenario of making her entrance, she’d imagined him alone in the distance when he caught his first sight of her and being bowled over by it.
Silly. It was just so silly….
When it struck her just how silly it was, she shuddered a little at having had such an adolescent pipe dream and vowed to put Ian Kincaid completely from her mind. This was a party she’d been looking for
ward to before she’d even met him, and she was determined to dive into it, to enjoy herself and not to have another thought about the man.
Starting now!
Since Logan, Chase and Hadley—who worked with Logan and Chase as their upholsterer—had been busy decorating the showcases, Meg had taken charge of the party planning, and Jenna had helped her friend wherever she could. Part of that help had involved deciding where to put the bar, the hors d’oeuvres table and the guitarist and singer. So even though she couldn’t see any of those things through the crowd, she knew what direction to go to get to them.
It took time to move through the mass of people, because she did know most everyone, and there were so many more greetings to exchange along the way.
Then she finally made it to her destination, and that was where she found Ian Kincaid.
He was standing alone near the bar, rather than in the middle of the showroom floor, and his jaw didn’t drop when he first caught sight of Jenna. But his striking pale blue eyes did widen, and that supple-looking mouth of his stretched into a slow, appreciative smile that still managed to send the message she’d been hoping for.
“This is not the look of a farmer’s daughter,” he said when Jenna reached the bar and he stepped up to meet her as if he’d been waiting for her.
“What are farmers’ daughters supposed to look like?” Jenna asked, raising her chin in challenge and suppressing a smile of her own.
“Not as good as you look,” he said, tilting his head to take in the full view now that he was nearer.
And while Jenna lectured herself about how it shouldn’t please her to have his reaction be what she’d hoped for, it still thrilled her to no end.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked then.
“It’s an open bar,” Jenna pointed out.
His smile turned into a mischievous half grin that told her he’d known that all along.
“I’ll have a glass of red wine,” she told the bartender, bypassing Ian.
“Make it two,” he added over his shoulder as he leaned an elbow on the bar and focused his attention solely on Jenna.
Despite that, just as the bartender poured their wine and slid the glasses to them, three old friends came up to say hello to Jenna and put in drink orders of their own.
As Jenna chatted with them, Ian stayed where he was. It seemed rude of her not to introduce him, so she did.
“Are you here together?” Neily Pratt—one of the three old friends—asked Jenna.
“No!” Jenna answered much too quickly.
Ian chuckled quietly, as if her discomfort at that question amused him.
“But you were talking when we came up, so we’ll leave you alone,” Neily added when the other three glasses of wine had been delivered.
“Would it be so bad if we were together?” Ian asked when the women had moved off. “Because Shannon isn’t here yet, and everybody else I know is busy. I was hoping you’d have pity on me and keep me company.”
“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.”
Big Sky Bride, Be Mine! Page 4