He gave a modest little snort. “I’ll be knee-deep in cow crap before you know it.”
“But it will be your own cow crap.” She moved past the threshold into the hallway, but she was leaning up toward him.
And he leaned down to her, his eyes alight with excitement at what the day would bring. “I like a woman who understands the dreams of a ranching man.”
She waited for him to kiss her.
And then she realized she was doing it and quickly stepped back. “Well, see you at three, then.”
“Three. Right. See you then.”
She whirled and headed off down the hall, feeling the heat flooding her cheeks, hoping she’d turned away in time, before he saw her blush.
* * *
Will stood in the doorway, staring after Jordyn’s excellent backside as she hurried away from him.
He’d almost kissed her.
And from the wide, welcome look in her eyes and the softness of that tempting mouth of hers, he guessed that she would have let him do it. He wished he had, even though the side of him that had always looked out for her wanted to punch his lights out for having such thoughts.
Which made zero sense. He’d kissed her Saturday night, and more than once. He’d likely done more than just kiss her. The horse had left the barn for him and Jordyn, kissingwise.
And besides, they were married. Why shouldn’t they kiss?
Don’t go there, you idiot. Keep yourself in line.
He pulled his head back into the room and shut the door and told himself he wouldn’t think about sharing kisses with his adorable accidental wife. It should be easier to keep his hands and his mouth to himself after today. At the ranch, they would have separate bedrooms.
Not like last night, when he’d lain beside her in the dark and listened to her breathing even out into sleep and tried to block out the softness of her body, the sweet scent of her skin—all of her, right there beside him.
And this morning? He woke up spooning her, sporting wood. Lucky for him, she was still asleep. He’d managed to ease himself away from her, slide out of the bed and make it to the bathroom without her waking up and discovering how very happy he was to have her around. It could have been damned embarrassing.
But then again, he was a man. Morning wood happened. No big deal.
And anyway, today he would take possession of his ranch. He’d have his room, and she’d have hers.
Problem solved.
* * *
“Don’t you dare peek, Miss Jordyn,” said little Sophie Lundergren.
It was half past noon. They’d all just finished their sack lunches. Sophie sat beside Jordyn at the long picnic table under the giant oak in the play yard at Country Kids Day Care.
“I’m not peeking, I promise,” Jordyn vowed, and kept her hands on the tabletop, away from the blindfold Sophie’s older sister, Delilah, had tied around her head moments before.
There were giggles from the kids all around her.
And lots of whispering. Someone brushed by her and set something on the table.
One of the boys said, “Shh. Hurry.”
And one of her bosses, either Sara or Suzie—she couldn’t be sure which—said, “Careful, now. Yes...”
And then, finally, Sara’s oldest daughter, Lindy, said, “Ahem. We’re ready. Remove the blindfold.”
Quick hands untied the bandanna wrapped around Jordyn’s head and whipped it away.
And everyone, kids and Sara and Suzie together, cried, “We love you, Miss Jordyn!”
Jordyn blinked and stared—at the leaning stack of brightly wrapped packages piled on one end of the table, at the obviously homemade cake with “Jordyn and Will” printed in lopsided pink letters on top. “Oh!” she exclaimed, and pressed her hands to her mouth. “Oh, my!”
“It’s a wedding shower!” exclaimed nine-year-old Lily Franklin. “We’re giving you a wedding shower!”
“Yeah!” said Bobby Neworth, who was almost eight. “Because all that lovey-dovey stuff is kind of icky, but cake and presents are good!” The other boys hooted and whistled in noisy agreement.
Jordyn gulped down the huge knot of mixed emotions that had suddenly formed high up in her chest and told herself not to think about the lies, to put her focus on the total sweetness of the moment. “Oh, this is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, all.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Jordyn,” the kids said, again pretty much in unison.
Lily proudly announced, “We baked the cake yesterday. It’s called red velvet. And the frosting is buttercream.”
“I did the frosting letters!” Bobby declared. “And Mrs. Suzie only had to help me a teeny-tiny bit.”
Jordyn nodded in appreciation. “It looks so good.”
“It’s a little bit crooked,” Delilah allowed.
“It’s the best cake I ever had,” declared Jordyn, and everybody beamed.
“And we made all the presents, too!” chimed in six-year-old Theodore Brickman.
“You’re gonna love them,” Sophie decreed.
“Oh, I know that I will.” Across the table, Suzie and Sara stood side by side grinning. Jordyn mouthed a teary-eyed thank you at both of them and tried not to think how much she would miss them when she left for Missoula.
“Our pleasure,” said Sara, pressing a kiss to the plump cheek of the beautiful eight-month-old baby cradled in her arms. The baby, Bekka Wyatt, was Melba Strickland’s great-granddaughter and a new addition as of yesterday to the Country Kids roster.
Delilah turned suddenly wide eyes to Jordyn. “Miss Jordyn, are you Mrs. Jordyn now?”
“She certainly is,” Sara answered for her.
And all the kids chimed in with, “Mrs. Jordyn.”
“Mrs. Jordyn!”
“She’s Mrs. Jordyn now!”
Suzie laughed. “So, Mrs. Jordyn. Time to cut the cake.”
A happy chorus of agreement followed that suggestion. “Yeah!”
“Cake!”
“Cut the cake, Mrs. Jordyn.”
“Cut the cake now!”
So Jordyn made the first slice and then Suzie took over, cutting kid-sized slices and passing them around. Jordyn got to work opening her presents.
The kids had done well. Each gift was an art project, and each one delighted her. She admired a watercolor of a stick-figure bride and groom holding hands on a patch of green beneath a bright yellow sun. Another present consisted of bits of yellow crepe paper and white lace glued to a paper plate, with a red-lipped, blue-eyed face drawn in the center. “That’s you, Miss—er, Mrs. Jordyn—the bride,” Sophie explained. “See?” She caressed the lace with her little hand. “It’s your wedding veil.”
Jordyn put her arm around Sophie and gave her a quick hug. “How beautiful. Thank you, Sophie.”
“You’re welcome,” Sophie shyly replied.
There were construction-paper hearts decorated with rickrack and lace, creations in clay molded to form flowers and butterflies, any number of glittery caterpillars made of egg cartons with pipe-cleaner antennae, plus several bright and cheerful finger paintings of nothing recognizable. Jordyn admired each one and thanked each child, after which she had her cake, which was really quite delicious.
They all pitched in to clean up. The kids got a half hour to work off steam on the playground equipment and then they filed inside for story time. Next, there would be naps for the younger ones and a quiet period for the older children.
Once they went in, Jordyn left Suzie and Sara with the children and went to the office at the front of the house. It was Sara’s house. They’d added on rooms to either side in front to accommodate the growing day care. It was a great old house, comfortable and sprawling. Jordyn enjoyed working there.
She loved dealing with the kids, but s
he also found satisfaction in developing new projects for the day care’s curriculum. She helped keep the accounts, and she wrote a mean grant application. Suzie and Sara both claimed they didn’t know how they’d ever gotten along without her. A few months before, when Jordyn had told them she planned to head for Missoula in the fall, they’d been supportive of her plans for her future, but unhappy at the prospect of losing her. Jordyn hated to leave them. Yes, she wanted a new start. But the twins were a joy to work for—and the kids were the best.
Jordyn opened up the accounting software and then just stared at the screen for a few minutes, torn between getting all choked up with guilty emotion and a big, fat grin. A wedding shower, so beautifully and lovingly planned and executed off-the-cuff yesterday, while she was away for her “honeymoon” day.
Only at Country Kids...
She heard a light tap on the open French doors behind her. “Excuse me?” said a woman’s voice. “Jordyn Leigh?”
Jordyn swiveled her chair to find Claire Strickland Wyatt standing in the entry hall behind her. Claire, who always looked beautiful and pulled together with her long hair just so, was baby Bekka’s mom, and Melba Strickland’s granddaughter. Claire and her family lived in Bozeman, but now and then she and her husband, Levi, would bring the baby to town and stay with her grandparents at the boardinghouse. They’d arrived last Friday, as a matter of fact, for the wedding and the Fourth of July weekend. “Claire! I heard this morning that you were still in town.”
Claire gestured vaguely toward the front door. “Sara told me to just come right in during day-care hours...”
“Perfect. Suzie said you’d signed Bekka up with us. She’s been a little darling, seems to be settling right in—in case you were wondering.”
Claire’s gaze slid away. And then she seemed to catch herself. She met Jordyn’s eyes again with a brittle smile. “Well, I, um, decided that Bekka and I would stay in Rust Creek Falls for a little while. Levi went on back home. It’s work, you know.” Claire let out a sad little chuckle. “He’s always got work he has to get back for.”
By then, Jordyn had no doubt that something was off with Claire. Way off. Undecided whether to mind her own business or ask Melba’s granddaughter if something was bothering her, Jordyn volunteered lamely, “I hear you.”
Claire’s smile seemed stretched to the breaking point. “They needed him at the store.”
“Nice for you, though, to get away for a while.”
“Oh, it is, yes. Just great. To get away...”
Ugh. Maybe Claire had read that gossip column in the Gazette and couldn’t make up her mind if she ought to congratulate Jordyn—or offer her condolences.
And whatever Claire might think about Jordyn getting married out of the blue, something else was going on with Melba’s granddaughter. Jordyn felt awful for her. She looked totally miserable.
“So, did you hear my big news?” Jordyn went for lighthearted, with a touch of humor, and thought she succeeded pretty well. “Jenny and Braden weren’t the only ones who got married on Saturday.”
Claire gulped—and then pasted on another uncomfortable smile. “Yes! I did hear. Congratulations. I...don’t think I’ve met him. I...” She seemed to run out of words.
Jordyn offered, “His name is Will Clifton. I’ve known him forever. He’s from Thunder Canyon, like me. We grew up together.”
“Ah. Well, Will Clifton is a lucky, lucky man. I hope you’ll be very happy together.”
“Oh, we definitely will,” Jordyn assured Claire with a blithe wave of her hand. What was another lie—or ten—anyway? “It was sudden, our marriage, but so what? I don’t care what they say about marrying in haste, sometimes you just know when the right man comes along.”
“Of course you do,” Claire replied with real feeling. Jordyn dared to think they were getting past whatever awkwardness had charged the air a moment before.
And then Claire burst into tears.
For an awful string of endless seconds, Jordyn just sat and gaped at her.
Claire slapped her hands to her mouth. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s—” the words caught on a sob “—come over me...” The tears ran down her cheeks and trickled through her fingers.
Jordyn finally stopped gaping and lurched into action. She grabbed the tissue box from the corner of the desk and jumped from her chair. “Claire. Oh, honey...”
“I’m such a complete, hopeless fool...”
“No. No, you are not. Not in the least,” Jordyn insisted. “Now, come on. Come and sit down.” She passed the other woman the tissue box. Claire took it and clutched it to her chest like a lifeline. Jordyn wrapped an arm around her and guided her over to the love seat opposite the desk. “Sit right here...”
Still sobbing, Claire dropped to the cushions, whipped out a few tissues and dabbed unhappily at her streaming cheeks. “I’ll have my mascara all over the place. And you know what? Right this minute, I don’t even care.”
“Don’t worry about your makeup. You just cry.”
“It’s so embarrassing...”
“No. It’s how you feel, and that is never embarrassing.” Jordyn sat beside her and patted her shoulder.
“Would you mind if we shut the doors?”
“Not in the least.” Jordyn rose again and went over to close and latch the doors. Anyone in the hall could still see them through the glass panes, but the sounds of poor Claire’s distress would be mostly muffled.
“I’m so sorry,” Claire insisted again. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me...”
“Shh, now.” Jordyn went back and sat with her. “It’s okay. It’s only you and me. Whatever it is, you just cry it out.” Jordyn sympathized with Melba’s granddaughter. She’d been there herself on Sunday morning, when she sobbed her heart out over her possibly lost virginity while Will tried to tell her that somehow, the night before, she’d become his wife. “Sometimes it’s just all you can do, you know? Sometimes you need that, to let go and let it out.”
Claire took a fresh tissue and blew her nose. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You shouldn’t have to deal with this...”
“It’s okay. Really. I do understand.”
Claire dabbed at her eyes. “It was when you mentioned getting married in haste. I, well, the tears just came, and I couldn’t stop them.”
“Is this about your marriage?” Jordyn dared to ask. “Are you saying that you think you and Levi got married too soon?”
“No.” Claire swiped at her wet cheeks. “We didn’t rush. We dated for two years before we got married.”
“So then what is it? What’s got you hurting like this?”
“I don’t know, Jordyn.” Another hard sob escaped her and she shook her head, hard. “No. That’s not true. I do know why I’m crying. I know why, exactly.”
Jordyn cleared her throat and guessed, “This is about Levi, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Levi. Jordyn, I knew the day I met him that he was the one. I knew we would live happily ever after.”
The born romantic in Jordyn just had to chime in on that. “Oh, that is beautiful, Claire. I believe in that, I do. In happily-ever-afters. In love at first sight.”
“Sometimes,” Claire said glumly, “happily-ever-after isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I’m so sorry...”
“I thought I knew it all, Jordyn. I thought I had love and forever all figured out. But now, well, I have to face the cold, hard truth. I don’t know. I had it wrong, messed it up. I don’t even know how to talk to him anymore. The issues keep piling up, and I don’t know how to address them.”
Jordyn reassured her, “It happens. And I’m sure all married couples have issues.” Look at her and Will. They had issues. Like the fact that they’d never planned to get married in the first place, for starters.
<
br /> “Yes, yes.” Claire bobbed her head. “I know you’re right. But see, I thought we were better than that, Levi and me. I thought we would get through the tough times, get through the challenges that come with a new baby, get through the loneliness I’ve been feeling with Levi working all the time. I thought we were managing. But then, Saturday night, after the wedding, I had to get back to Grandma’s to relieve the sitter.”
“Of course you did.”
“I had to get back, and Levi wanted to stay. He was having a good time, he said, and he’d be home soon. For once, couldn’t I just let him enjoy himself?”
“That was a little harsh of him.”
“I thought so, too. I was hurt. I just turned around and left him without another word. I went back to the boardinghouse, relieved the sitter. And waited. I waited and waited. He’d said he’d be home soon. But no. He didn’t come staggering in until dawn. And then he tried to tell me he’d hardly had a thing to drink. I mean, what is it Judge Judy says? ‘Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining?’”
Jordyn couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “That Judge Judy, she tells it to them straight.”
“Yes, she does. And so did I. I said I knew he was lying. He said no, he wasn’t. He didn’t even have the integrity to tell me the truth. Well, I wasn’t about to stand there and take it while he lied in my face. I said a few things I shouldn’t have. And it all went downhill from there. We had a big fight. And...” She paused to blow her nose again. “He left me, Jordyn.”
“Oh, no...”
“Yes. He did. He left me—well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
Claire drew back her shoulders and aimed her chin high. “Well, all right. I kicked him out. I yelled at him that I didn’t want to be married anymore. I yelled at him and kicked him out—and he went. He went back to Bozeman.” The waterworks started again. Claire swayed toward Jordyn.
Jordyn gathered her close. “It’s okay. You know that.” She patted Claire’s back. “Just cry...” She stroked Claire’s hair and made sympathetic noises as Claire let it all out.
Finally, her sobs faded to sniffles, and Claire straightened from Jordyn’s arms. “I simply can’t believe he got so drunk. Levi never gets drunk.”
The Maverick's Accidental Bride (Montana Mavericks: What Happened At The Wedding Book 1) (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) Page 7