Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!

by Victoria Pade

  So go home, Jen, she silently commanded.

  But his mouth opened wider over hers. He held her head and leaned into that kiss. His tongue grew wilder and more abandoned. And that hand at her back wasn’t at her back any longer—it was on the side of her rib cage, its heel riding the outermost swell of her breast….

  And she wanted—she needed—to know what it would be like to have his hand curve around her. She couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t deny herself.

  Another deep breath gave Ian the invitation he needed. He answered it by giving her what she wanted so desperately at that moment—his hand slowly moved to cup her breast.

  Yes, there was a camisole and lace top between his fingers and her naked flesh but it still felt so good that Jenna couldn’t keep from expanding within his grasp, from pressing her nipple all the more into his palm.

  His fingers closed around her, cocooning her, massaging, rubbing, pressing into her with the perfect pressure, the perfect firmness, the perfect mixture of playfulness, pleasure and reverence.

  The perfect everything except for the clothes that acted as a barricade to keep her from actually feeling the texture, the heat, the intimacy of his bare skin encasing hers.

  Still kissing her, tongues still playing and parrying, he eased her off the bar stool to stand in the lee of his legs. Then, as if he knew what she wanted most, his hand finally found its way to the lacy edge of her shirt and slipped underneath.

  Big and warm, slightly callused—that hand coursed up her naked side and rediscovered her breast, grasping it the way she’d longed for him to, skin to skin. Her nipple found its true, unabashed nesting place in his bare palm as his fingers pressed into her flesh.

  Jenna’s arms went around him, and she tugged his shirttails from his waistband, driven to feel what she’d only imagined was beneath his clothes. To feel the broad shoulders only hinted at by well-cut clothing. To find out for herself if his back, his chest, were as hard and honed and muscular as they seemed to be.

  Satin over steel—he was sleek and smooth and solid as rock.

  And he felt so good.

  Almost as good as it felt to have him doing what he was doing to her breast, teasing, tugging her nipple, flattening his palm to the very crest and driving her just a little insane.

  Then he pulled her in closer still. Close enough for her to feel his own body’s response.

  And she wanted to know more of that, too. More of him.

  They could take it another step. She could take it another step, and she had no doubt where Ian would go from there. Maybe whisk her off to that bed that was just across the room. Or lift her up onto the counter and…

  And what?

  She knew what.

  And she wanted it to happen.

  But something inside of her hesitated. For a mere instant.

  Yet it was enough for reason to creep in. For something to remind her that she needed to get her life on track. That she needed to get settled. To focus. To get accustomed to being a mother to Abby. To make a home for them both.

  That she needed not to live in the moment, especially not now that she’d taken on the responsibility of a child. Especially not just when she was starting off on a new path for herself.

  Especially when none of what she wanted at that instant, none of what her entire body was crying out for, seemed to be in line with those new responsibilities or that new path.

  The quiet sigh that escaped her then wasn’t only in response to the incredible things Ian was doing to first one breast and then the other. It was because she knew she had to stop him before this went on any longer. Before she couldn’t stop him, couldn’t refuse herself what she wanted more and more with every passing second.

  And no, it didn’t help that when she went to push herself even slightly away from him, her hand was still under his shirt and she was pressing against an amazing pectoral.

  But she pushed anyway.

  And then forced herself to take her hand out from under his shirt.

  There was one, final, deep caress of her breast.

  One final duet with her tongue.

  One final, simple, open kiss.

  And then Ian stopped.

  Jenna opened her eyes just in time to watch him tip his head far back, to watch his jaw tighten, his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow, to watch Ian working to gain some control.

  Then he slowly brought his handsome face level with hers again, took a breath, exhaled it and said, “We were supposed to avoid having such a good time together tonight, weren’t we?”

  His raspy, passion-ragged voice was so sexy she nearly wilted, and it didn’t help her resolve one bit.

  “We were,” was the best she could manage as she fought for control of her own.

  “I’m not sure what happens to me when I’m with you,” he confided. “I talk more than I ever have—with anybody. I kind of slip out of time and space and forget…well…everything else.”

  She understood. The same thing happened to her. At least until some common sense injected itself.

  “We do seem to have a knack for getting carried away,” she agreed.

  “Yes, we do,” he said with a smile that made her think he wasn’t altogether sorry for that.

  Then he took his arms from around her, held them out as if in surrender and gave her the opening she knew she should take to put some distance between them.

  She couldn’t quite make herself take it immediately, but after arguing with herself a moment more, she turned and moved toward the apartment door, grabbing her coat from the sofa along the way.

  Ian took the long wool dress coat from her before she realized what he was doing and held it for her to slip on.

  “I hate that you’re driving home alone. I could take you, then pick you up in the morning and bring you back,” he offered as she pivoted around to face him while she buttoned her coat.

  “It’s a five-minute drive that I make a dozen times a week,” she said with a smile, imagining him taking her home right now and knowing that once they got there, there wouldn’t be much of a chance of him leaving again.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then, I guess,” he said, taking both of her upper arms in his big, strong hands, and rubbing them up and down.

  “Bright and early,” Jenna confirmed. “And tomorrow night for the wedding.”

  Something about that made him smile again—a broad, pleased grin, as if the thought of the wedding the following evening made her leaving now easier to accept.

  But he merely nodded, his eyes on her, studying her once more.

  Then he pulled her closer, leaning forward himself and giving her a kiss so sweet, so deep, that it roused everything in her all over again before he cut it short and let go of her.

  This time Jenna didn’t hesitate to take the opening, because she knew that if she didn’t she wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

  So after repeating that she’d see him the next day, she went out into the cold March night, descended the steps that ran alongside the garage wall and made a beeline for her car parked beside the compound’s main house.

  Not until she was safely behind the wheel did she glance up those same stairs to see if she’d been right in thinking that Ian had followed her out and was still watching her.

  He had. And he was still standing there, bathed in the glow of porch lights, tall and handsome and making her ache to go back up there to him.

  But Jenna stomped on that inclination and gave herself a laundry list of reasons why she needed to start her engine and drive away.

  Which she ultimately did.

  And yet, willpower or no willpower, it wasn’t that laundry list of reasons that went home with her, that went to bed with her, that kept her awake much, much longer than she should have been.

  It was thoughts of Ian that did that.

  It was reliving his every kiss. His every touch. Wanting to be with him so much she could hardly bear it.

  And worrying at the same time how she was going to s
pend five minutes with him the next night and not finish what they’d started…

  Chapter Nine

  The wedding of Ian’s newfound sister Shannon Duffy to Dag McKendrick was held Sunday evening at the small chapel that served all denominations of Northbridge’s religious needs.

  Shannon’s colors were black and bright yellow—like the sunflowers that stood out among the wildflowers that decorated both the church and the bouquets.

  Shannon’s gown was a simple, form-fitting white satin held up by spaghetti straps. It fell to the tops of her sequined shoes and sported a long train in back that draped from the top of the dress to give a cape effect.

  She wore her hair in a burst of curls caught at her crown. Her elbow-length veil was attached by a circle of pearls around the updo, and there was no question that she made a beautiful bride.

  Her matron of honor was her best friend Dani Bond, who had come from Beverly Hills with her husband. Hadley, Meg and Jenna were her bridesmaids. Chase gave her away, then joined Logan—the best man—Ian and another of Logan and Dag’s brothers as groomsmen.

  The ceremony was short, sweet and touching, and Jenna tried not to cry at the beauty of it and at the sadness of recalling taking those same vows and having them now broken.

  But she worked at keeping the sadness at bay—in no small part by repeatedly glancing across the altar at Ian, whose very presence, for no reason she understood, seemed to bolster her, calm her and lighten her sad feelings. And despite those sad feelings, she hoped Shannon and Dag would have better luck than she had had.

  After the ceremony, the reception was held in the church basement where there was a buffet full of food, music for dancing and a four-tiered cake adorned in remarkably realistic-looking fondant replicas of the real wildflowers.

  It was at the reception where Abby seemed to adopt Ian as her own personal date. While she had made her fondness for him clear before, tonight she refused to be let out of his arms.

  Jenna was embarrassed that the infant threw a fit every time she or anyone else tried to take Abby. She also screamed and cried and put Ian in a stranglehold the minute he attempted to set her down.

  “I hope you have this kind of effect on grown women,” Hadley, Chase’s wife of only a few months, teased him when she and Chase joined Ian and Jenna at their table.

  “If he did,” Chase goaded with a grin, “they’d be lined up outside the door.”

  “I should be so lucky,” Ian joked.

  But he ended up carrying Abby through the buffet line while Jenna filled his plate and hers, hers with enough food for her and Abby.

  While they ate, he held Abby on his lap, and Jenna fed her.

  And when it came to dancing, the infant wouldn’t relinquish Ian to Jenna then, either. The best the tiny child allowed was for the three of them to dance together with Abby perched on one of Ian’s hips—her arm wrapped possessively around his neck—while his free arm went around Jenna. Jenna was left to place one hand on his chest and her other arm around man and child.

  “Apparently I am still just the spare tire,” Jenna observed as the three of them danced that way for the third time. “You and I were supposed to keep each other from that fate, but now it seems I’m hanging on to the tails of you and Abby. I think she has a full-blown crush on you.”

  “It’s the tux,” Ian said, as if he were giving away a secret.

  Jenna laughed, but thought he might be right. He did look amazing in the black tuxedo with the crisp white shirt and dark tie. And the minute Abby had set eyes on him looking so dashing and handsome, the baby had latched on to him.

  “Maybe she figures she’s all dressed up in her frilly dress and patent-leather shoes, so she needs an escort,” Jenna suggested.

  “Never mind that you look pretty good yourself,” Ian complimented her, with admiration in his tone.

  Jenna was wearing the same style of dress that the rest of the female members of the wedding party were wearing—simple knee-length shifts that were as curve hugging as Shannon’s wedding dress was, only fashioned of black lace over bright yellow strapless sheaths, sleeveless, with boat necks.

  “Well, she is letting me share you,” Jenna commented as they mostly swayed to the music. “I suppose I should be grateful for that.”

  And in truth, the entire evening had been kind of nice. Nice that the three of them had enjoyed it together. Nice that Abby liked Ian so much. Nice that Ian was so receptive to the fifteen-month-old’s adoration when another sort of person might have been annoyed by it.

  “But it looks like someone is wearing out,” Jenna whispered when Abby put her weary little head on Ian’s shoulder.

  It was after nine o’clock by then, long past Abby’s bedtime.

  Ian glanced down at the infant and then kissed her forehead in a way that made it seem as if it wasn’t something he’d thought about ahead of time.

  But after that, his focus was all on Jenna. “Something struck me as we were standing at the altar during the ceremony,” he said, making Jenna wonder if he’d caught her sneaking a peek at him once too often.

  If he had, that wasn’t what he was referring to, though, because he said, “You and Shannon can’t have known each other for long. Chase didn’t locate her until last fall, and Christmas was when she came to Northbridge for the first time….”

  “We did just meet after the first of the year. But we had a lot in common—loss, actually—and we became friends while commiserating with each other. We sort of formed an instant kinship.”

  Ian nodded his understanding and then returned to his earlier compliment with a somewhat more breathy tone, “Well, you do make a beautiful bridesmaid….” he said, pulling her in as close as possible with Abby between them.

  That was nice, too, and Jenna didn’t shrink away from him. Actually, she used placing a kiss of her own on Abby’s chubby cheek as an excuse to then tuck her head under Ian’s chin.

  But all too soon, that song ended, a fast one began and Jenna had to step out of his arms.

  Abby was half asleep on Ian’s shoulder, and with a nod at her, he said, “Want to swipe a couple of pieces of cake to take home? We can get Abby to bed and then have them.”

  Several guests had already left, they wouldn’t be the first to depart. And taking Abby home to bed would finally give Ian a break from her.

  Or at least, that was what Jenna told herself rather than acknowledge that the idea of going back to the farm, of having Ian to herself, had more appeal than it should have had.

  “You don’t mind leaving early?” she asked him.

  “Nah. I can get out of this coat and tie to really enjoy the cake,” he said with a smile that insinuated something more.

  That was as much convincing as Jenna needed to set the wheels of saying good-night into motion.

  Abby was sound asleep by the time she, Jenna and Ian reached the farm. Ian carried in the car seat—baby and all—and brought it upstairs for Jenna.

  While Jenna took the sleeping Abby out of her party dress, changed her diaper, got her into her pajamas and tucked into her crib, Ian went back downstairs. When Jenna got there, he was waiting for her with their two pieces of wedding cake on the coffee table, his tux jacket and tie gone and the collar button of his shirt opened. And he was in the center of the sofa, angled in anticipation of Jenna joining him there.

  While she’d been upstairs, Jenna had cast off her shoes and the panty hose that had been strangling her. Now she sat sideways on the sofa to face Ian and tucked her bare feet under her rump.

  “Ah, cake,” she said with a glutton’s glee as she reached for the two paper plates on the coffee table and handed one to Ian.

  “It’s good, too,” he assured her. He took a bite of the confection of raspberry-chocolate ganache layered between chocolate cake, all nestled within white butter-cream frosting.

  “Mmm,” Jenna agreed, closing her eyes for a moment to truly get the full enjoyment out of her own bite.

  Ian was grinning at her
when she opened her eyes again. “You really like cake,” he said with a laugh.

  Jenna laughed, too. “You were right—it is good,” she said to conceal just how much of a sweet tooth she had.

  “So,” he said while they ate, “you said you and Shannon became friends commiserating over the losses you’d both suffered. You both lost family members, but I know for Shannon there was also the long-term relationship she had with Wes Rumson—potentially the next Governor of Montana. Did your marriage end last year, too?” he asked, referring to Jenna’s earlier explanation about what had led her and his new sister to become close friends so quickly.

  “It was,” she answered. “I was divorced last summer.”

  “After how many years?”

  “If we had made it to December, it would have been ten years.”

  “You got married right out of high school?”

  “The Christmas after. During my first year of college, Ted’s last, just before Ted graduated with his bachelor’s degree. Ted, that’s his name. Ted Gunderson. We were high-school sweethearts—I tutored him in chemistry.”

  “A senior needed to be tutored by a freshman?”

  Jenna shrugged and went on. “I was a freshman, but I was in advanced classes. His mother was determined that her son be a doctor, and everyone around here knew that was the track I’d put myself on, so she wanted us to study together. During the course of that, we started to like each other. He asked me to the winter dance, and we were together from then on.”

  “His mother was determined that he be a doctor? Does that mean that he wasn’t determined?”

  Another shrug, this one more wishy-washy. “Let’s just say that he was—is—determined to please his mother. Early on, I thought that becoming a doctor was a dream we shared—Ted and I. But on his side, the dream was all his mother’s.”

  “Did he become a doctor?”

  “He’s still trying….”

  “Shouldn’t he be one by now? I mean, you would be, wouldn’t you? And he had a head start on you.”

  “I would have finished residency last year, so yes, I would be practicing now. And yes, he could have been. Except that he’s been in and out of five different residency programs and still hasn’t decided what branch of medicine he can stand to actually do.”