by Melody Anne
“Ahh, that’s why they sounded so familiar. I’d just thought the local talent had improved while I was traveling. What’s such a big band doing here? This doesn’t seem to be a typical place for them to play.”
“Lots of bands stop in. It’s the best-kept secret around these parts,” Camden told him.
A sense of unease, an uncomfortable tightness, began to spread in Jackson’s chest. A place that attracted big talent would also attract reporters. He wanted nothing to do with reporters. That persistent woman—what was her magazine’s name?—was constantly trying to get him to do an interview for a story about eligible bachelors. He knew that was an excuse. She really wanted to dig into his past, his ex-wife and child, and why he’d dropped everything and became a business shark instead of fire chief. It was none of her damn business.
“Don’t worry, son,” Martin said as he stood up and shook Jackson’s hand. “They don’t announce they’re coming, and they aren’t here every night. They just like stopping by and playing at a place where they’re basically left alone.”
Jackson laughed. “Are you a mind reader now, Dad?”
“A father knows what his boy’s thinking.”
“Hey, Jackson, I can’t believe you dragged your sorry ass out for once.”
“Look who’s talking, Spence. You’re hardly ever home anymore, what with your being a big-shot Seattle doctor now,” Jackson fired back at his brother.
“Yeah, but I get homesick every once in a while,” his brother replied.
“All right, quit the bickering,” their brother Camden said with a grin. “Let’s get drunk.”
“That’s the best advice I’ve heard all night,” Jackson said. “Where’s the waitress?”
“Taking care of this crowd,” Martin said.
Jackson looked out at the throng and couldn’t help but smile when he spotted his baby brother, Michael, out on the dance floor doing a poor two-step with a brunette who appeared to have drunk a bit too much.
“She’ll be back in a minute,” Camden said, so Jackson swiped his brother’s untouched beer and took a swig.
“Good thing I didn’t want that one,” Camden growled.
“I’m saving you from getting plastered and embarrassing yourself,” Jackson said, then took another long swallow.
“Always thinking of others,” Camden said.
“Are you boys ready for another round?”
All the noise in the room ceased—at least for Jackson.
He knew that voice. He hadn’t forgotten it in four months, though he’d tried like hell to put her from his mind. Slowly, as if someone had pushed the slow-motion button on an invisible remote, he twisted his head around.
And his eyes connected with the pair of pale blue eyes that had been haunting his dreams for months. Her mouth was turned up in a smile, and she seemed happy, content. She didn’t look as if she’d lost a single night of sleep over him and their night together.
Then their eyes met and her smile vanished. If Jackson had thought this was some trick of hers, that maybe she’d found out about who he was and had followed him back to Montana, her reaction would have proved him wrong. She looked shell-shocked.
Jackson didn’t know how long the two of them faced off, the sizzling connection between them undeniable, but when a passing patron bumped his shoulder hard and the music came back on at the same time, he managed to tune back in to his surroundings.
“Whoa, want to quit ogling poor Alyssa?” Camden said with a deep laugh.
Not funny. Jackson shot him a glare that had Camden’s eyebrows almost hitting the ceiling.
“Do you two know each other?” Martin asked.
His dad was always so damn observant, Jackson thought wryly.
“Um . . . no,” Alyssa said quickly. She turned her eyes away from Jackson and focused on Martin, and a semblance of a smile brightened her countenance again. Her upturned lips could easily convince most men of anything she wanted them to believe, but though she had let her guard down for only a second, Martin hadn’t missed the way she’d looked before the shutters went up.
“Yes,” Jackson said in open contradiction. There was no way in hell he was going to allow her to deny their night together. He hadn’t forgotten it, and he wasn’t going to let her forget about it, either.
“Well, is it yes or no?” Martin grinned as his eyes bounced between the two of them.
“We met on a flight from Paris,” Jackson said before she was able to deny knowing him again.
After taking a moment to compose herself and her feelings, Alyssa ratcheted up her smile. “Oh, yeah, I forgot all about that.” She looked at him sidewise and laughed oh so sweetly. “What was your name again?”
Either she was one hell of an actress or she had forgotten all about him. Jackson considered neither option acceptable. He felt incredibly annoyed, though he didn’t understand why—he should just be grateful she didn’t seem to want anything from him. He hadn’t planned on anything more. He most definitely hadn’t planned on ever seeing this woman again.
So why did his muscles tense and his heart race? Why did he want to haul her to the nearest bed—hell, a freaking table would do—and remind her of exactly who he was? She’d certainly known his name back in New York. She’d screamed it as he played her body like a piano.
Before he could control the animal impulse, Jackson was sliding his chair back and gripping her arm. “We’ll be right back,” he told his family, then tugged Alyssa after him. The two of them were going to talk—right now.
Alyssa tried to dig her feet in. “I can’t leave. I have a full bar.”
“It can wait, sweetheart,” he practically growled.
“No it can’t,” she said, and she struggled against his hold.
“I’m the owner. I said it can wait,” he snapped, then lifted her up, cradled her against his chest, and walked out the front door.
Oh no, oh no, oh no. Panic? A heart attack? Alyssa couldn’t diagnose her condition as Jackson caught her up in his arms. The shock at his aggressiveness had left her temporarily speechless. But once they made it outside and he set her down in front of a large red truck, she found her voice.
“Who in the hell do you think you are? You can’t go around kidnapping people like that!” she yelled as she raised her index finger and stabbed him in the chest as hard as she could.
He ignored her remarks. “When did you get here?” he asked, his breathing heavy as he stood tensely in front of her, blocking any chance she might have at escaping before they finished this conversation.
“You knew I was in the middle of a change in careers, and I never told you where I was from or where I was going!” she shouted. “Why? Because I didn’t want to see you again after that night. So why don’t you pretend like we didn’t just see each other and scurry off to wherever you normally go?”
“A career change? And this is what you’re choosing to do?”
“I don’t appreciate that tone of voice. There’s nothing wrong with serving a hungry crowd,” she snapped.
“Yeah, but something tells me you aren’t the waitress type.”
“I don’t like to be pegged. And I most assuredly don’t want to talk to you about my personal life or my choices. Make yourself scarce. I have a job to do.” She tried to edge around him.
“I don’t think so, Alyssa. I asked a question and I expect you to answer it.” He grabbed her arm and tugged her back to him, then boxed her in against the truck.
“Just like you kept pushing when we were on the plane? You don’t know when to quit.”
“You’re certainly right about that.”
“You can’t force me to speak to you, Jackson!”
“Ah, so you do remember my name,” he said, a satisfied smile appearing on his lips.
“I . . . I . . . Just go away.” This was not good. She was starting to unravel, and that was no way to deal with a man like Jackson.
“Not gonna happen. I want to know what you’re doing here.”
“Do you own this town?”
“No, but I do own the bar you’re working in,” he said—quite smugly, in her opinion.
She was really hoping she’d heard him wrong. There was no way he could be her boss. She’d been working at the Country Saloon for nearly four months, and she hadn’t seen a sign of him.
“No . . .” Alyssa’s anger started to diminish as worry set in.
“Oh, yes, Alyssa. Just took ownership last week. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but now . . .” He paused to crank up a deadly smile. “I’m beginning to grow attached.”
“We had one night together, Jackson. One. That doesn’t mean we’re going to be friends. It doesn’t mean we even have to talk to each other. As a matter of fact, you said you didn’t do commitment. Top all of that off with my being drunk that night and doing something completely out of character, and let’s just say that it was fun, but then be on our way.” She hadn’t been drunk, but she’d rather he thought she had been.
As he stood in front of her, so tall and broad, his smile not faltering in the slightest, she began to chew on her lip. What was she going to do now? This was a nightmare. Sterling was a small town, a town where everyone knew everyone else.
The nearest serious city, Billings, was only thirty or forty minutes away, but that was a lot of commuting, especially when the roads were covered in snow. Granted, people did it all the time, but she was deathly afraid of traveling over ice. Besides, her car wasn’t up to driving in bad conditions.
She could get a place in Billings, but she was trying to save as much as she could before she had to take time off from work. Of all the people in this huge country . . . Yeah, just her luck. The one man she’d had an insane fling with happened to be from the unbelievably small town her parents had decided to move to.
“Are you going to give me the silent treatment now, Alyssa?” No one could have missed the irritation etched on Jackson’s face.
“I wasn’t the one who demanded a conversation. I have nothing to say to you—nothing at all. Why don’t you take a hint and disappear?”
She felt horrible when he flinched. But she must have imagined it, because just as quickly as she thought she’d stabbed him with her words, he grinned at her and winked.
Bastard.
“Fine, Alyssa. You want to pretend we didn’t add to the New Year’s fireworks, be my guest,” he said as he released her from the cage of his arms.
She wasn’t sure whether he was letting her leave or not, but she took a tentative step away, and then another, and then picked up her pace when he didn’t follow.
“We could make those fireworks again—one more time,” he called out after her, and she hated herself a little when her stomach turned cartwheels at the thought.
After rushing back inside, she made a beeline for the tiny bathroom in the private employees’ lounge. She could hardly fit in the thing, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about customers knocking on the door and yelling about how badly they had to go.
She barely made it in time to empty the pathetic contents of her stomach. When she was finished, she washed her face, then slid down a wall and sat on the floor with her head in her hands.
This wasn’t in her plans. None of this. How could her life have changed so drastically in one freaking day? She’d already lost her job, her money, her pride. And then she’d decided to sleep with a complete stranger. He’d worn protection, dammit! How could she have gotten pregnant?
None of that mattered. The reality was that she was carrying Jackson’s baby, and within another month at most she wasn’t going to be able to hide that scandalous fact.
Her fingers moved down over the tiny bump that was just beginning to show on her lower abdomen. No one knew for now, not even her parents. Or did they? She was beginning to think that her mother might actually suspect more than she was letting on.
Alyssa had thought she was being quiet and careful when her morning sickness had made its grand appearance, but lately, her mom seemed to be trying to force-feed her. At least Alyssa hadn’t been called on it, and she was grateful for that. She didn’t know how to explain herself just yet.
Her parents were going to be so disappointed in her. She’d left home thinking she was going to be a star, and instead she’d come back with nothing—okay, that wasn’t true. She’d come home with an unplanned pregnancy.
And now the father, whom she’d never planned to see again, who was supposed to be a stranger passing in the night, was here, right in the middle of butt-freaking nowhere. And he’d made what he thought about marriage and families more than clear during their night together. He said he wouldn’t bring another child into this world. His ex-wife had done a number on him.
When the dizziness passed, she sat back and thought about her dumb luck of finding him at the Whitman table . . . Then she froze and felt the color drain from her. She crawled back to the toilet and heaved again.
Jackson Whitman.
His family and the Winchester family controlled Sterling in its entirety. Yes, it was a small town, but the Whitmans’ bank accounts were anything but small. Their oil plant provided employment for most of the small town and surrounding areas. Hell, her own father worked for them. As she sat there thinking, more unhappy details rushed in, overwhelming her.
Camden and Michael came to the bar often, and they loved to talk. She knew now that Spence was the doctor who rarely made it back home. That made Jackson . . . How could she not have put the pieces together? They’d said their brother bought and sold businesses, that he was reclusive. They’d said he was a good man, but he’d been hurt and they didn’t think he’d ever wed again. Yes, they loved their brother, but they also thought he could be quite cold.
Also, not only was his family ridiculously wealthy, but he had enough of his own money to buy a small country. He owned properties all around the world. Most important, he’d lost his baby, and it had destroyed him. Would he want their child? Would he think it was a replacement for the one he’d lost?
“Alyssa? Are you in there?”
She turned as the knob on the door spun. Crap! She’d forgotten to lock it. The door opened, and one of her coworkers, Samantha, towered over her with concerned eyes.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong? The fire chief is out there. Do you want me to get him?” Samantha kneeled down and felt Alyssa’s forehead.
Alyssa attempted a smile. “I’m fine, Sam. I’m sorry I took so long. I think I just ate something that disagreed with me, but I feel better now.”
Samantha didn’t look convinced. “I can see if Ben can come in and cover the rest of your shift.”
“No. Just give me two more minutes, okay?” Alyssa pleaded. She couldn’t go home. She needed the hours. Like all waiters and waitresses, she couldn’t survive without the tips a packed bar would bring.
“If you’re sure,” Samantha said.
“I promise you I’m fine. Can you take over the Whitman table for me, though? You’ll get all the tips.”
“Are you kidding me? Of course I will, but are you sure you want to give that up?”
“Yes. Please. I’ll take the slower side, since I’m not feeling that well.”
“I saw that the reclusive Jackson Whitman came in tonight. Oh, my gosh, that man is beyond hot. I’ve wanted him for what seems like forever. It’s a good thing that I don’t ever plan on having children, though, because I heard he was brutal in trying to get custody of his daughter during the divorce. I bet if his ex hadn’t died, Jackson would have made her life hell,” Samantha said, loving nothing more than a morsel of juicy gossip.
“What do you mean brutal?” The fear in Alyssa’s stomach made her feel like heaving again.
“He wanted his daughter, and nothing was going to stop him from getting her. When she died, he went slightly crazy. I seriously don’t care, though. He’s hot enough to make crazy work,” Samantha said.
“Why would you be crushing on such a ruthless guy?” Alyssa asked.
&n
bsp; “Have you not looked at the man?” Samantha was eyeing Alyssa like she was insane.
“Looks aren’t everything, Samantha.”
“Oh, please,” Samantha drawled with a wave of her hand. “Looks are about eighty percent of it. Plus, the man is supposed to be a god in the bedroom.”
Yeah, Alyssa could testify to that, not that she would ever in a million years share that information with Samantha. “Well, you better get out there and get some good tips,” she said instead, needing this conversation to be over.
“Okay, I’m not going to fight you.” Samantha beamed at her before rushing out. The Whitmans tipped like royalty. Everyone fought for their table, and the other members of the waitstaff were obviously jealous that the family seemed to prefer Alyssa. It really bit to give up those tips, but the farther she was from Jackson, the better. Maybe her luck would turn and he’d be gone when she came back out.
When she finally dredged up enough energy to rise to her feet and return to the circus in the saloon, she saw that her luck wouldn’t win any prizes. Jackson was standing at the bar, and his eyes collided with hers.
Double damn!
Donning her best fake smile, Alyssa spent the rest of the night working her tables, staying as far from Jackson and the other Whitmans as she possibly could. Camden and Michael threw some questioning looks her way, but she just breezed by, apologizing that she had to switch tables and telling them she was terribly busy.
They weren’t buying it any more than Jackson was.
After hanging out for a few drinks, the band left, and then the crowd began to thin out. Alyssa watched the clock, hoping she could get off her feet by 2 a.m. She’d worked a double shift, her stomach was rumbling, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, shut her eyes, and forget all about this miserable day.
But the saloon’s patrons had other ideas, and at last call several people were still inside. Much to Alyssa’s relief, however, the Whitmans had left. At least she was finished dealing with Jackson for the night.
Or so she thought.
Jackson paced the parking lot, his ears pricking up every time the front doors opened and closed. Everyone and her dog seemed to be coming out of the place, except for Alyssa.