He didn't talk to anybody about it. Didn't discuss the yeas or nays. It was his life, his decision. Only when he'd made it, had decided once and for all to quit rodeo, did he ask his sister and brother-in-law if they'd be interesting in letting him buy a share of the ranch.
He'd felt a little funny about asking since he'd never wanted any part of it before. He'd always been a headin'-into-the-sunset sort of guy.
But that was then. And even when he'd been heading toward the sunset, he'd always known where home was.
He'd never forgotten Elmer. He'd been a lot of places, but he'd never been to one he loved as much as he loved it here. If he had to hang up his spurs, he wanted to do it here.
Thank God Jodie and Ray said yes.
Of course it was to their benefit, too. Jace had saved a fair bit of his winnings over the years. Now and then he'd bought some cattle, and Ray had run them with theirs.
But Jace had just been dabbling then.
Now he was serious.
He was buying in, building this corral to do a little training, determined to keep his hand in with horses. He'd always been more interested in them than in cattle. And building the corral was one thing he could do—albeit slowly—while he healed.
He probably should have waited another week, though, to get the lumber. Then he could have handled it himself instead of making Celie O'Meara do it.
She hadn't looked real happy about it.
But then Celie O'Meara had never looked real happy with him. He reckoned it had something to do with that phone call he'd had to make when Matt Williams had chickened out of their wedding.
It had happened years ago. And she shouldn't have been ticked anyhow. The way Jace figured it, she ought to have thanked him!
He hadn't precisely talked Matt out of getting married. He'd just shown him that there were other things in life a guy his age might rather do.
Matt Williams, at twenty-one, had been no more ready to settle down than a prairie dog was to grow wings. He'd been starry-eyed and bushy-tailed—eager to cut a swath through all the women who tucked their phone numbers in his pocket and whispered sweet nothin's in his ear. Matt might have been engaged, but once he'd headed down the road, you'd never have known it.
The girls had come on to him, granted. But he hadn't often said no.
And as the date for the wedding got closer, Jace had seen him getting edgier and antsier.
"You sure about this?" Jace had asked when Matt kept putting off going home.
"Course I am," Matt had always said. But he'd grown more miserable even as he'd gone out and partied longer and harder than anyone.
Finally it was the night before the wedding, and he still hadn't gone. Instead of catching a flight to Bozeman, he'd headed down to one of the casinos, and as Jace watched, he'd switched from drinking beer to drinking the hard stuff.
"You better quit or you ain't gonna be in no shape to go home to your lady love," Jace had told him. "Come on, man. Let's get you sobered up."
But Matt had gone right on drinking. Eventually he'd taken off with two Vegas showgirls and Jace had spent the rest of the night looking for him. He'd found him with barely enough time to get him to the airport the next morning—only to have Matt stop, white-faced, in the middle of the parking lot.
"I ain't goin'. I ain't gettin' married. No how."
What was Jace supposed to do then?
Knock him cold and send him in a suitcase? Reason with him?
Reason, Jace knew damn well, had had nothing to do with what was going on in Matt's head. He'd seen it happen to Gus Holt a couple of years before. Gus, at least, had had the guts to call and tell Mary himself. And he hadn't waited till the very last minute, then balked.
But Matt had. And Jace had had to call Celie and give her the news.
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done—not least because, deep down in a dark, carefully unprobed corner of his heart, he was glad.
That was something Jace had never admitted to anybody—not even to himself.
But even as he'd hated calling Celie and telling her Matt wasn't coming home to marry her, some little tiny selfish part of him had celebrated the fact.
It meant she was free. It meant he had a chance.
Not that he took it. Hell, she would've spat in his eye if he'd tried. And he hadn't been ready to settle down back then anyway. He wouldn't have been good for her—even though he'd hankered after her.
But now, ten years later … now he figured he was ready.
And Celie was still here. Still single.
And still acting like if she'd had horns she'd hook him and leave him for dead.
* * *
Chapter 5
« ^ »
"What do you mean you can't be there?" Suzette, Sloan's agent, demanded.
He held the phone away from his ear as her voice rose to the point of shrillness.
"You have to be there! My God, Sloan, this is Trevor MacCormack we're talking about! The hottest director in the business. That's like telling Steven Spielberg, Thanks, but you're sorry, you just can't make it this afternoon."
"I could make it this afternoon," Sloan said with more patience than he felt. "I just can't make it the first weekend in February."
"Of course you can. You'll be done in Key West next week. Then you've got one last location shot and—"
"Suzette." He cut across her argument. "No."
"But he's flying to New York all the way from Hong Kong. And he's arranged for Becca Reed to be there, too! My God, it's not enough you want to stand up one of the world's top directors, you want to stand up one of the best young actresses to hit Hollywood in years."
Sloan ground his teeth. Ordinarily he appreciated Suzette's enthusiasm. She was a good agent—no, she was a great agent—and she'd done well by him for a long time. But Suzette's only concern was his career. For a long time that had been enough for Sloan, too, but just recently he'd found he was also interested in having a life.
"I didn't say I wouldn't meet them. I said I can't make it that weekend."
"But why? Why can't you make it? Are you getting married? Is your best friend planning on dying? I'm sorry, Sloan, but those are about the only reasons I can even remotely consider legitimate excuses."
"Then consider it illegitimate, but I'm not going to be there."
There was a huff of disbelief and annoyance on the other end of the line. "You've never been a big ego, Sloan. That's one of the things I've always liked about you. So what's the deal? This is your next film we're talking about. You're going to have to work with this man in a matter of weeks! What am I supposed to tell him?"
"Tell him I'm going to an auction."
"What do you mean you're going to an auction? An auction is more important than Trevor MacCormack? What are they auctioning off? The Mona Lisa?"
"Me."
"What!"
"It's for a friend," Sloan muttered, wishing he'd kept his big mouth shut. "Just a favor. No big deal."
"Big enough to put off Trevor MacCormack, obviously." Suzette was all ears now. "You're actually letting someone auction you off? A bachelor auction?" Suzette was laughing. "You? Mr. Privacy-Is-My-Middle-Name?"
"For one date," Sloan said through his teeth. "I'm not giving 'em my home phone number. It's not a big thing."
"The hell it's not. Where is it? When? Tell me." She was avid now. Hungry. A dog who has sniffed out a particularly delectable bone.
Sloan growled under his breath. "It's a fund-raiser for an old friend who's run into hard times."
"Do I know him? Her?"
"No! Leave it. You're not going to turn this into some publicity circus!"
"But if it's to raise money," Suzette said practically, "publicity is exactly what you need!"
Sloan groaned. Damn it.
"A little tasteful publicity never hurt anyone."
"Tasteful publicity? Isn't that like army intelligence?" They had a word for it, he knew, but he hadn't paid enough attention in English class
to remember what it was.
"An oxymoron, you mean?" Suzette countered sweetly. "Like cowboy brain?"
Sloan laughed. "Exactly."
"Come on, Sloan. Give. Where is it?" Suzette never got off the scent. "What are you auctioning yourself off for?"
"You're not gonna leave this alone, are you?"
"No," she said firmly, "I'm not. I'm your agent. This is my job. They want you because you're famous, right? So let's give them a little publicity."
One of them, Sloan thought, didn't want him at all. But he didn't say so. Suzette would never believe there was a woman alive who was resistant to his charms.
"It's a friend in Montana," he said finally. "Just a local thing to raise money to help pay a ranch loan. Like I said, no big deal."
"And what do they get if they win you?"
"A date to the premiere of Crossroads."
"Fantastic! Oh, it's perfect. Here's what we'll do—" The well-oiled Suzette Larrimer publicity machine was off and running.
"Look, Suze—"
"You'll do morning talk shows the week before. You can promote Crossroads and you can mention the auction at the same time. That will stimulate interest. Local boy does good deed. A little newspaper press and—"
"No!"
"Sloan," she said patiently. "They didn't ask you so they can hide you under a bushel basket. They asked you so they can raise money for whatever cause it is."
He knew that. But it wasn't only money. He'd offered a check and Gus had turned it down. Because, he said, the whole community needed to be involved.
Where had the community been when he'd needed them? Sloan wondered.
Then grudgingly he admitted that some of them had actually been there—or they would have been if he'd let them.
But he'd been angry in those days. He'd hated being in Elmer because of the mess his own life had become with his mother's death and his father's drinking. He'd resented everyone there who'd had what he didn't have—parents who were alive and still behaving like parents.
He'd been a jerk—not just to Ward and Maddie, who had understood his pain—but to a lot of people who hadn't.
It didn't matter, he supposed. But somehow he wanted to go back and prove that he was better than they remembered him.
And he wanted to see Polly.
He couldn't quite stop thinking about Polly.
He wanted her to see that he was better than she remembered, too. He wanted to see what she was like these days.
"What cause are we talking about?" Suzette asked.
He didn't want to go into it. He didn't relish talking about those days. He'd never hidden his past, but he hadn't talked about it extensively either. If he did this, he knew it would be fair game.
"Remember when I told you that after my mother died I was in a foster home for a while? Well, my foster mother is in danger of losing her ranch."
To give Suzette credit, she didn't leap on his explanation and tell him it was a marvelous opportunity. One of the things he liked best about her was that, on certain occasions, she could actually behave like a human being.
In fact she said, "That's terrible. How awful for her. I'm so sorry." And then she said, "But as a publicity opportunity for you, I couldn't have planned it better. Of course, we'll have to tell Trevor you can't make it, but he won't mind."
"I thought he was going to have my guts for garters."
"He's not a fool, Sloan," she said impatiently. "He'll see that the publicity will help his film, too. This is a win-win-win situation. You get publicity for your friend's cause. You get publicity for yourself and Crossroads. And Trevor will be able to translate that into more exposure for his own film down the road. He'll love it!"
Personally, Sloan didn't expect Trevor to give a rat's ass. MacCormack had always been more interested in the quality of his films than the hype they got. That was one of the reasons Sloan wanted to work with him.
Sloan had got into acting because the opportunity fell into his lap. The camera loved him and he apparently had some God-given talent. That could have been enough to ensure that he had a reasonably successful career. But over the past six years he learned that he actually cared a great deal about the quality of the films he made. He wanted to work with good directors and good co-stars. He wanted to do a good job.
He supposed he even understood—to some degree—the importance of publicity, though it certainly wasn't his dearest love. He'd been naive enough when he'd started out to believe that if he just did his part in the film, that would be enough, that he could go home at the end of the day and forget about it.
Thirteen films had taught him that wasn't the case. He saw publicity now as a necessary evil. His buddy, Gavin McConnell, who liked that sort of thing no more than he did, gave interviews sparingly, but he did give them. And he'd explained the necessity of it in terms Sloan understood.
"If you don't talk to 'em, you got no control. They're gonna write about you anyhow. You might as well give them something of substance. And if you give 'em meat enough, they'll be so busy chewing on what you tell them, they'll have less time to write the stupid stuff."
That made sense. The auction was meat. Phrased properly, the story of his role in The Great Montana Cowboy Auction would do everything Suzette said it would do. It would promote Crossroads; it would provide publicity for the auction and probably drive up the prices and thus the money raised; it would be good press for him; and it would ultimately please Trevor MacCormack.
It was a win-win-win-win situation.
No, Sloan thought, a grin spreading across his face.
There was one more win Suzette knew nothing about—it would drive Polly McMaster crazy.
Sloan wasn't exactly sure what made driving Polly McMaster crazy appealing. But the fact was, ever since Gus had brought her name up, he'd been remembering her, thinking about her.
For a long time after Lew had pounded him into the dirt, Sloan had been almost afraid to think about Polly at all, lest the older boy appear like some avenging cowboy and do it again.
God knew Lew would have, if he'd known the sorts of thoughts running wild through Sloan's adolescent brain!
Probably Lew had known—being human and male and still a teenager himself. Still he wouldn't have had time to dwell on it. He'd had lots more serious things to think about because Polly got pregnant.
Sloan remembered hearing they'd got married only a couple of months after the day he had seen Polly in the barn. At the time he'd been astonished that a guy as young as Lew would want to tie himself down. But as time passed and the reason became apparent—even to a fourteen-year-old—he'd understood.
The slender golden naked Polly of his fantasies had changed over the next few months. He hadn't had to see her naked again to see that things were different.
She began to wear loose floppy maternity tops. Her easy graceful walk became more like a duck's waddle. And her flat belly began to burgeon as she grew big with child. Sometimes when he saw her in town, Sloan couldn't help it, he just stared—unable to believe how much she'd changed.
Then, the last time he'd seen her, when he'd gone to pick up an order for Ward at old man Gilliam's hardware store, she'd looked like Polly again.
The old Polly was back—the slender, slightly curvy Polly, the Polly of his dreams—with maybe even more curve, more shape and fuller breasts.
He'd felt that primeval hungry masculine response surge through him.
And then the door had banged open and Lew had come in.
"Here you go, kiddo," he'd said. "Here's your mommy." And he'd plopped a screaming baby into Polly's arms.
That Polly was one Sloan hadn't wanted to remember.
But now, perversely, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, thoughts of Polly were back. Hearing her name had awakened something inside him. It had set off a clamoring to see her again, had aroused a curiosity that he wanted assuaged.
He'd have been mildly curious even if she hadn't been widowed. She had been, after all, his f
irst naked woman.
Sloan didn't fool around with married women. Never had. Never would.
But Polly was a widow.
And he was a single man who hadn't turned out too badly in the sex appeal department.
Would she be just the tiniest bit curious about him? It had been a long time since Sloan Gallagher had thought he had anything to prove.
There were occasions when Polly, faced with an IRS tax form asking for her occupation, considered writing juggler. Only the notion that the IRS might not have the same sense of humor as a thirty-seven-year-old woman with four kids, two dogs, a bionic cat and an indeterminate number of rabbits prevented her.
But if she thought she had juggled a fair number of demands and obligations before the auction to save Maddie's ranch, well—like Harry Hyena in the children's book she'd read aloud several thousand times—she was wrong.
The steady stream of curious townspeople and nearby ranch families—correction, make that townswomen and ranchers' daughters—didn't slow as the news spread that Sloan Gallagher had agreed to be part of the auction.
On the contrary, as soon as anyone got word, instead of believing it, they all rushed right over to the post office to hear it from Polly's own lips. Things got busier than ever at the post office, and no one even bothered to use mailing letters or buying stamps as an excuse anymore. They only wanted to talk about Sloan Gallagher. And then they went right out and told two hundred of their nearest and dearest friends.
It was busier than December all week long.
Speculation was rife. Who would bid on him? How high would the price go? Was he really going to fly the winner to Hollywood?
Oh, my heavenly days! Hearts beat faster all over Elmer. It turned into a party, and Polly turned into the reluctant hostess.
"This is a post office," she reminded them.
"Right, right," they all said. "Wonder if he'll let the winner stay at his house."
The party rolled on.
Alice Benn made cookies and brought them over to share. "To get in the spirit," she said when she arrived bearing scrumptious chocolate chip cookies cut in the shape of hearts.
The Great Montana Cowboy Auction Page 6