“Oh—” That Angelina Cunningham. Jen should have placed the name. Angelina had bought the old hunting lodge and absolutely transformed it, turning it from an old man’s hangout to a trendy tourist hub. Jen’s sister, Lisa, had sent her some articles. This lodge had been covered in several travel magazines, and it had turned into a real hot spot.
Jen sat down. Any escape after being hugged and chatted up was going to be incredibly rude. Besides, a chance to pick Angelina Cunningham’s brain about renovating an old building would be priceless. Perhaps Aunt Gayle had been looking out for her after all.
The string quartet was warming up across the room, and people were mingling, talking and laughing, finding their seats. Just then the McTavishes joined them. Definitely a couple. They were smiling and his arm was draped around her shoulder. His tie even matched her midnight blue dress.
“This is Melanie,” Renata said, nudging Jen’s arm. “And her husband, Logan. They’re pretty newly married themselves. Mel, this is Jen.”
“Jen?” Melanie raised her eyebrows. “Oh, Jen! Great to meet you.”
Melanie put her hand out and they shook before the two took their seats.
Jen was getting the distinct impression that everyone had heard a whole lot about her. Was it her divorce that had garnered all this attention, or what?
“Good. You’re all here.” Gayle glided up to the table with a sparkling smile. “You’ve all met my niece, then?”
Gayle had chosen a floor-length lace gown with three-quarter-length sleeves and a bateau neckline. Her silver hair was swept into an updo, and she oozed old Hollywood glamour. She’d told Jen how she’d been nervous about this dress choice, convinced that a second wedding for a woman over sixty should stay “understated,” but Jen had convinced her otherwise. Looking at her aunt now, she was glad she’d managed it.
“We have met,” Renata replied with an equally brilliant smile of her own. “She’s delightful.”
“These are my particular friends,” Gayle said, leaning down next to Jen. “They’ve been here for me through some tough times, and I really think you’re going to like them.”
“The dinner club, right?” Jen said uncertainly, and she leaned closer and lowered her voice. “What about Lisa and my cousins? I kind of expected to be seated with family—”
“Just meet these women first,” Gayle whispered. “Then go pull a chair up with the family. This wasn’t meant to be an insult, I promise. It’s just that they were all going to be here, and so were you, and I really wanted you to meet them properly—”
Someone called Gayle’s name and she straightened and smiled as a flash went off. Gayle gave Jen’s arm a squeeze and moved off to another table, leaving Jen with the women, who were looking at her with smiles and undisguised curiosity. Another woman slid into the remaining chair—an elegant, curvy woman with sleek blond hair and an ageless face. She wore crimson lipstick on plump lips and rivaled Belle for model status. Next to them, Jen was feeling just a little bit frumpy in her own knee-length red dress. She pasted on a smile. She’d make the best of this, and then escape to the family table.
“Is this Jen Taylor?” The blonde woman held out her hand. “I’m Angelina Cunningham.”
“Pleasure.” Jen shook her hand. “I’m happy to meet you. I understand you redid the lodge.”
“Well, me and a small army,” Angelina said, brushing off the compliment. “And you’ve purchased that old mansion that went up for sale. I had half a mind to buy it myself.”
“Glad to have beaten you to it,” Jen said with a chuckle.
“But getting to the point,” Angelina said. “We understand that you’ve recently gone through a nasty divorce.”
Jen swallowed and felt the blood drain from her face. “Right.” That was the point? Her divorce? She was doing her best to press forward into her new life. Since when was a woman’s marital status her defining quality?
“I’m just going to get us some drinks,” Logan said, rising to his feet and slipping away. Melanie didn’t even bat an eye. She leaned forward.
“I know how this sounds,” Melanie said. “I’m sorry. It’s a bit of an attack, isn’t it?”
“A bit,” Jen agreed.
“The thing is, we all know each other because we’ve all been through it. We’ve all had painful divorces and we get together for a dinner club with other women who understand. It’s hard being the divorced one in your group of friends. There’s always some level of judgment, so when we get together, we skip all that.”
“Get together for dinner,” Jen clarified.
“Right here,” Angelina said, spreading her hands. “We deserve a nice dinner out with good wine and good conversation. It helps.”
“Oh...” Jen smiled hesitantly, glancing around the table. “So you’re all divorced, then?”
“I’m remarried,” Melanie said. “But yes.”
“And my aunt figured I could use this dinner group, did she?” Jen asked.
“Girl, we all need this dinner group,” Belle replied. “For me, I was married to my agent. I was modeling at the time, and when I put on a little healthy weight, he replaced me with a younger woman.”
Jen grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is,” Belle replied.
“My husband was cheating on me for some time when he finally confessed,” Renata said. “He asked if he could move his mistress into the family home with our three children and we’d just...stay married.”
Jen swallowed. “Ouch.”
“So yeah...divorced,” Renata said, some bitterness in her tone.
“I don’t blame you,” Jen said.
“My first husband had been a serial cheater for years,” Melanie added. “I had no idea. When I figured it out, I left him, and everything I’d worked for, behind. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I’m still sorting out my relationship with my ex-stepkids.”
“And I’m the one who was divorced with no cheating involved,” Angelina added. “It was nearly a decade ago. We had a whirlwind romance, got married and only after the vows did I find out the kind of money he came from. The family didn’t approve, and we didn’t last the year.”
“I’m sorry...” Jen murmured.
“We did hear a little bit from your aunt,” Angelina said. “She said you married your prof at college?”
Whatever. She might as well tell the story. The rest of them had told the worst, hadn’t they?
“He was my political science professor,” Jen said after a beat of silence. “We were married for fourteen years and we have a twelve-year-old son together.”
“What went wrong?” Belle asked softly.
Jen felt tears mist her eyes and she blinked them back. It must be the season and the fact that her son, Drew, was in Denver for the holidays. She was both childless and husbandless this Christmas.
“I don’t know. We just started fighting more and more. He had all these academic friends, and I only have my master’s degree in art history, so I was trailing behind all those PhDs. He wanted me to be something I couldn’t be, and...there comes a point when being his cute, young student runs its course, you know? I’m neither cute nor young anymore, and I’m not about to pretend otherwise.”
“You’re beautiful,” Renata replied. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m also thirty-eight,” Jen replied.
The women all nodded at that. They got it, it seemed. Jen was a grown woman, and she wasn’t going to be wide-eyed and in awe of her brilliant husband in the same way she used to be. Besides, Samuel wasn’t exactly as brilliant as he liked people to think.
“Come to dinner,” Angelina said quietly. “We dress up, we look fantastic and we enjoy each other’s company.”
It did sound nice. “Thanks. I think I’d like that.”
Angelina smiled, then leaned forward, elbows on
the table and a diamond bracelet glittering in the low light. “Now...what’s the plan for that old mansion?”
Jen could feel herself relaxing now. “I want to turn it into an art gallery. I grew up here, you know, and I’ve loved that house ever since I was a little kid staring at it from the sidewalk. I’m putting everything I got from my divorce into this—but I really think it’ll be amazing. With tourists year-round, and local people who might enjoy some art in their lives...it’s what I wish we had when I was growing up.”
“It sounds amazing,” Mel said.
Jen smiled. “I hope so. The house is gorgeous. It has really good bones. The kitchen has servants’ stairs going up from the back, so I can put a wall up blocking off the kitchen so that the rest of the ground floor can be used for the gallery. The first floor is just mammoth. I was thinking the second floor could be used for another showroom and some offices, and the third floor could be our living space. There’s already two bedrooms up there, and a sitting room. And a bathroom, but I’m not sure it’s functional right now. Anyway, my son and I don’t need a lot of space to start. Presumably, once the gallery started supporting itself, I could buy another place to live in and expand the gallery. That might take a little while, though.”
Jen stopped when she realized she’d been prattling on, the only one talking. Heat hit her cheeks. She tended to talk too much when she was uncomfortable, and she no longer had a surly husband to give her flat stares when she was doing it.
Logan reappeared just then with a platter of filled punch glasses, and he passed the glasses around with an easy smile.
“Sounds like you need a contractor,” Angelina said once she’d taken her glass, smiling her thanks at Logan.
“I do,” she agreed. “Do you have anyone you could recommend for a job this big?”
“Absolutely. He’s at the wedding tonight, actually.” Angelina straightened and looked out into the crowded room. “Hold on. I’ll be back.”
The quartet started up just as Angelina left the table, a strings edition of a popular love song.
“Is Angelina talking about Nick Bryant?” Logan asked his wife.
“I think so,” Melanie replied. “He’s the one who worked on the lodge, so...”
“He’s a nice guy,” Logan said with a nod. “And he’s good.”
So this contractor came recommended by Angelina Cunningham and approved by a relative stranger’s husband. Well, Jen didn’t have a lot of time to be picky right now. She had to get this house into a livable condition so that when Drew came back after being spoiled by his father for the holidays, she could provide him with a proper home. It was the least she could do.
Copyright © 2020 by Patricia Johns
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ISBN-13: 9781488068270
Montana Dreams
Copyright © 2020 by Anna J. Stewart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Montana Dreams Page 24