and warm….”
Nope. She definitely didn’t know the Sagebrush Motel, nor the very rowdy bar attached to it.
“You can’t go back into Blue Rock,” Gray told her bluntly. “If I know C. J. Rundle, she won’t even have the heat on yet.”
“C.J….?”
“Proprietor of the Sagebrush Motel.” He kept his voice low. “She’s Ron’s sister. And to call that place quiet is like calling Montana overpopulated.”
“Isn’t there somewhere else?” Her voice was pitched low, now, also.
“Only motel in Blue Rock,” he answered. “You’d have to go on as far as Bozeman to get somewhere halfway decent.”
“Okay,” she began, nodding. “So if you could tell me the best place in Bozeman.”
The movement of her nod was too vigorous and sharp, and her tone was too upbeat. He could tell she was fighting not to crumble, and he was horrified that she’d thought he was suggesting—
“Hey, I didn’t mean that,” he cut in quickly, his sympathy for her and the little boy surging. “You need to stay with us, is all. My mother and grandfather and me. We have plenty of space. It’s nothing fancy, but your son… Sam…would have a bed with sheets that don’t smell like forty years of cigarettes, and the furnace is lit, and my mom’s probably cooking up a batch of beef and vegetable soup right this minute. Then you and I can settle the divorce thing tonight, while Sam’s asleep, and you can get on your way once he’s well enough to travel again.”
He was making it all sound just a tad simpler than it was, and he hoped Sam would be well enough to travel again soon. The sooner he and Jill were out of each other’s lives for good, the better for his peace of mind. Wincing inwardly, he wondered, What the heck is Mom going to say when she discovers I’m married to this woman!
“I— Lord, Gray, that would be so good!” Jill said, and her creamy voice shook. So did the fine-boned hand that came up to scrape some tickling strands of hair away from the corner of her mouth. “Do you really mean it?”
Gray wasn’t going to waste time on one of those “Yes, I insist,” “No, I couldn’t trouble you” exchanges.
Instead, the only answer he gave was to open the front passenger door and say to Ron, “Thanks for doing this. Can you take her down to the old place? You know that’s where we’re living now?”
Most people in Blue Rock did know. Most of them probably had a good idea about why, also, although he and Mom and Grandpa were keeping as close-mouthed as they could about their dire financial state.
“I’d heard,” Ron answered. “Of course.” Then he shut his mouth abruptly, as if he’d have liked to say a lot more.
“I’ll meet you there in a little bit, Jill,” Gray said. “Just go ahead and introduce yourself to Mom and get yourself settled.”
“If you’re sure that—”
“No arguments.”
“But I’m taking you away from your, uh, your ranch work, aren’t I?” she answered, biting her lower lip. “Your cattle-branding, or whatever.”
He didn’t bother to tell her that they didn’t generally brand cattle in Montana in September. He just said, with that same stiffness and reluctance still thickening his voice, “I was on my way back anyhow, to grab some lunch. I’m going to take a shortcut, down along the river. You’ll get to the house first, but if you tell Mom I sent you, and that I’m coming along below the Angus spur, she’ll make you welcome.”
More welcome than I ever could.
“Weather’s closing over,” he finished, “and you need to get yourself and Sam inside.”
“Okay, thanks Gray.”
She looked like she was holding herself together with a Band-Aid, a cup of coffee and sheer force of will. “Did you hear that, Sammy?” she said to her son. “We’re going to stay in a real ranch house tonight!”
The car door closed, and Ron wheeled the vehicle back on to the rough track, snapping the dry gravel. Gray was left alone by the fence. He climbed back through, untied Highboy’s reins, swung himself into the saddle and nudged the animal forward.
Recognizing that they were homeward bound at last, Highboy responded willingly, which left Gray free to think.
Damn it, he shouldn’t be surprised that the crazy episode in Las Vegas had caught up with him at last! He’d known it would have to do so, sooner or later.
And it would have been sooner, if Jill’s letter last month hadn’t arrived the same day the McCalls’ banker had told Gray once and for all that his loan was capped as it stood and there was no possible way to increase it any further, no more collateral he could use, no options left at all.
He had scribbled that quick note back to her on the counter at the post office. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time to deal with it right now.”
Generous of her to call it a letter. Then he had thought no more about it. His entire mind, in every waking moment, had been consumed with far more urgent concerns.
Their marriage was so bizarre, so unreal, so nonexistent in any true sense. Did it really matter if they held off on the formality of a divorce for a little longer? Evidently it mattered to her, since she’d come all this way, and he felt bad about that, as he’d told her.
He should probably feel bad about their marriage, too. Angry at her for the way her stricken face had called to him that night and had made him act so impulsively. Angry at the cable TV station that had organized the “Cinderella Marriage Marathon” in a shameless attempt to climb onto the “reality TV” bandwagon.
But he didn’t feel angry about that night. For some weird reason, their time together—all eight hours of it—was the only bright memory he had brought home from his ill-fated trip to Las Vegas in March.
Six months later, his body had awakened at once, clamoring with need at the very sight of her. Six months later, he could remember practically every word they’d spoken to each other, every gesture she’d made, every nuance of her laugh.
Six months later, however, and on his home ground, he was more realistic, more alive to his own vulnerability, and he just wanted beautiful, warm-hearted Jill Chaloner Brown out of his life.
Chapter Two
Jill thanked Mr. Thurrell for unloading her bag and went up to the house.
Thurrell cruised slowly off, without waiting until she’d reached the front steps. He seemed far more interested in watching a small group of cattle in a nearby field than in checking to see whether there was someone here to greet her. She felt very alone as she held feverish Sam awkwardly on her hip and hefted their shared travel bag in her other hand.
The setting of this house was magnificent. The Montana landscape awed her, dwarfing her concerns and mocking them at the same time. She’d never seen such incredible scenery. The mountains looked as though they had been painted onto the sky, huge and yet close enough to touch.
Overhead and in the distance to the east, clouds piled up and up into the blue. They were clouds like magic lands, tinted a hundred shades of white and gray. Their shadows chased across the straw-colored carpets of grass that covered the ground. To the west, higher up, they were different but just as beautiful, feathery and fast-moving against the high roofline of the house.
Beyond its gorgeous setting, the age and disrepair of the place showed, though. It hadn’t been painted in so long that the clapboard was bare and weathered to a silvery gray. The wide front porch sagged.
Still, there was something appealing about the house. The porch was swept clean and set with a pretty harvest display of pale grasses, gourds in weird, goblin