Saving Cinderella
Saving Cinderella
Lilian Darcy
Ten days, Gray thought. Lord, he was still shaking! She’s going to be here for another ten days!
Ten more days of him and Jill rubbing up against each other, the way two people inevitably did when they shared the same space. Ten more days of bumping into her in doorways, of watching the way she ate and the way she laughed and the way she so tenderly kissed and hugged her son.
“This would be a whole lot easier if we weren’t married,” he muttered aloud in his room.
There was something about being married. He kept thinking about what marriage meant. It meant sharing. Sharing their space, as he was doing with Jill. Sharing their stories. They’d begun to do that, too, the very first night they met. Sharing their lives…
And marriage meant one more thing, too. It meant sharing a bed.
Dear Reader,
Although it will be archived by now, I’ve been writing to readers on our www.Harlequin.com community bulletin boards about Silhouette Romance and what makes it so special. Readers like the emotion, the strength of the heroines, the truly heroic nature of the men and a quick, yet satisfying, read. I’m delighted that Silhouette Romance is able to fulfill a few of your fantasies! Be sure to stop by our site. :)
I hope you had a chance to revisit Lion on the Prowl by Kasey Michaels when it was out last month in a special collection with Heather Graham’s Lucia in Love. Be sure not to miss a glimpse into those characters’ lives with this month’s lively spin-off called Bachelor on the Prowl. Elizabeth Harbison gives us A Pregnant Proposal from our continuity HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY. Look out next month for The Makeover Takeover by Sandra Paul.
Other stories this month include the second title in Lilian Darcy’s THE CINDERELLA CONSPIRACY. Be assured that Saving Cinderella has the heartwarming emotion and strong heroes that Lilian Darcy delivers every time! And Carol Grace has spun off a title from Fit for a Sheik. This month, look for Taming the Sheik.
And we’ve got a Christmas treat to get you in the mood for the holidays. Carolyn Greene has Her Mistletoe Man while new-to-the-line author Holly Jacobs asks Do You Hear What I Hear?
I hope that you enjoy these stories, and keep in touch.
Mary-Theresa Hussey,
Senior Editor
Saving Cinderella
Lilian Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Lilian Darcy
Silhouette Romance
The Baby Bond #1390
Her Sister’s Child #1449
Raising Baby Jane #1478
(#litres_trial_promo)Cinderella After Midnight #1542
(#litres_trial_promo)Saving Cinderella #1555
LILIAN DARCY
has written nearly fifty books for Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Mills & Boon Medical Romance (Prescription Romance). Her first book for Silhouette appeared on the Waldenbooks Series Romance Bestsellers list, and she’s hoping readers go on responding strongly to her work. Happily married, with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family. She loves to hear from fans, who can e-mail her at darcy@dynamite.com.au.
Contents
Prologue (#ubb2c19f7-de1f-5f35-b66d-70834a267249)
Chapter One (#uee5461ff-3772-5125-86d8-9c549feda5fd)
Chapter Two (#u08dc8678-6a73-5171-a47a-ba20eb2ae1c7)
Chapter Three (#u280333d6-2e7f-56e8-b84f-26008b27c8fe)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Jill didn’t even know his name. He was staring down at her with black eyes that swam with the brilliant reflection of the colored lights that surrounded them. The heavy silk folds of her wedding dress brushed against his legs, and he let his hand rest on her bare forearm for a moment.
“Is this okay?” he muttered in a low voice, roughened with a Montana-bred burr.
Jill gave a tiny nod. “Mm.”
“You didn’t look happy before.”
“Much better now.”
“Good! I think they’re ready for us. Are you sure about this? We could just leave. Tell them to go jump.”
“I can’t. It’s in the contract. I’m filling in for someone, and she’d lose her job if I didn’t go through with this.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “That makes sense. I couldn’t see why you’d want to.”
“I’m fine,” Jill insisted.
But she wasn’t. Not really. She was missing her little son horribly. She hated being here in Las Vegas, when he was all the way back home in Philadelphia. She’d skated the role of Cinderella in the ice show tonight, as understudy to the regular lead, who was ill. It was the starring role she’d always wanted, but it came with conditions attached.
TV cameras and strangers staring. A “waiver” and a “license” to sign. An emcee leering at her figure, closely molded and on display inside the gorgeous designer wedding gown. He was calling her “our Celebrity Cinderella Bride” and he’d encouraged the men at this so-called ball to bid for her.
Which they had. Red-faced, over-eager. Drunk, some of them, she suspected.
Not this man, though, the one who had won her at last, for over five hundred dollars. There was something much steadier about this one. His dark eyes, his solid stance, the questions he asked about her well-being. And when they faced each other, ready to enact the charade of their wedding vows, his warm hands held hers steadily, too.
Behind him, the lettering on the huge sign blurred in Jill’s vision. “Cinderella Marriage Marathon,” it read. “Win the coach, the palace, the honeymoon…and the bride!”
“Ready, you two?” said a man who was dressed like a royal courtier from days gone by, in a wig of rippling white curls, satin breeches and embroidered waistcoat.
For the first time, the audience fell silent. The other couples were ready and waiting now. The emcee launched into a spiel that Jill barely listened to. She caught only a few phrases, and didn’t take the time to make sense of them.
“…officer of the court present to witness…progress of each marriage on live cable TV…last couple left standing…winner takes all.”
The cameras had moved in closer, stealing her attention, and the lights had gotten even brighter. There was a mirror ball directly above her head, sending tiny white lights chasing across the black-eyed stranger’s face. A burst of romantic music vibrated in the air, then died away.
“Do you, Grayson James McCall, take Jillian Anne Chaloner Brown to be your lawfully wedded wife…?”
Grayson McCall. That was his name. She looked up at him. Their eyes met and held.
And even though she knew it was meaningless, a stunt, a charade, she was suddenly captured by the magic and swept away. She could have wrapped herself in the warm light of those eyes like wrapping herself in a black velvet cloak. How would it feel if a man like this was saying words like this to her, not as part of some reality TV gimmick, but for real?
“I do,” he said.
His voice was low, and his gaze never left her face for a second. It was a moment she’d never forget.
Chapter One
Sam was getting sick.
Jill had started to suspect it a couple of hours ago, just before the cheap rental car she’d picked up yesterday evening broke down half a mile this side of Blue Rock. Now, sitting with Sam as a passenger in a different vehicle, she was sure of it.
“You didn’t finish the story, Mommy,” he whined.
Sam never whined. Unless he was getting sick.
Jill felt his forehead—it was hot. “Yes, I did, honey,” she soothed him, putting an arm around his little shoulders and pulling him close. The rear seat of the Cadillac was shiny with age. They hit a bump in the dirt road and Sam’s hip slid hard against hers.
“No, you didn’t,” he argued, his voice rising. “You never said the bit about living happily ever after.”
Well, he had her there. She never had said it, and everyone knew that all good fairy stories should end that way.
She sighed.
The problem was that the tale she’d been spinning to her son over the past quarter of an hour wasn’t a fairy story. It was her makeshift attempt to explain to a four-year-old, fatherless boy why they’d come all the way by train from Pennsylvania to Montana to resolve a situation that she’d never meant to get into at all.
Sam adored trains. He hadn’t asked a single question about the reason for this trip during that part of the journey. But then they’d gotten off the train in Trilby. They’d rented a wreck of a car from the cheapest place in town—”affiliated nationwide” its sign had claimed, but she wasn’t impressed—spent a sleepless night in a noisy, down-market motel just off Interstate 15, and made it, this morning, as far as Blue Rock.
The car had given up completely about two hours ago, in a hissy fit of noise and ominous smoke. No “happily ever after” involved in this instance. Bored, exhausted and getting sick, Sam had finally asked, “What are we doing this for, anyhow?”
Jill sighed again.
Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to make her story so upbeat and reassuring. No wonder Sam wanted the fairy tale ending, when she’d started by talking about the pink colored lights and the silk wedding gown, Cinderella on silver skate blades and a handsome prince in a cowboy’s hat who’d swept her away from that nightmare of a ball….
“Looks like this could be Grayson up ahead, there, on horseback,” said the balding man at the wheel of the noisy Cadillac. For a car mechanic’s vehicle, it didn’t sound as though it was in great shape. “I’ll pull over.”
“I—” Jill began, then stopped.
From the first, she hadn’t particularly taken to Ron Thurrell, the owner-operator of Blue Rock’s one gas station and vehicle repair shop. He was apparently also the local agent for Triple Star Insurance, as well as for two minor car rental companies.
She should have taken to him. He’d gone out of his way with his offer to drive her and Sam the twenty-four remaining miles to Grayson McCall’s isolated ranch. He had also promised to deal with the rental car and have another one ready for her when she needed it. He’d definitely been helpful, but she hadn’t liked him, and she didn’t want to admit to him that Gray had no idea she was coming. Definitely didn’t want to admit to him what she was here for.
“Okay. Thanks,” she said instead.
Mr. Thurrell slowed the vehicle to a halt and Jill saw the rider on horseback in the distance, heading diagonally in this direction across a field of tall grass. She got out of the car, shut the door to keep the insistent September wind off Sam’s flushed little face, and went over to the barbed wire fence that bordered the track.
Leaning on one of the wooden posts, she wondered if there was some special kind of call or gesture people out here used to summon each other across such yawning expanses of land. She wasn’t quite sure yet if the rider—was it really Gray?—had seen her. Tentatively, she waved one hand. Then she lifted off her winter wool hat and waved again with that, more forcefully.
Grayson McCall, if it was him, had seen and understood. Jill could see it by the way he quickened the horse’s stride. As he approached, she began to get a sense of his ease in the saddle. Knowing nothing whatsoever about horses—she’d seen them in the flesh maybe, oh, twice?—she could still recognize what a capable rider he was.
He held his body in a lazy cowboy slouch, which she could tell was totally comfortable and controlled. He seemed like a knight in shining armor, but that was a comparison she should most definitely steer clear of.
Half a minute later, she knew for certain that it was Grayson. She hadn’t seen him since March, almost six months ago, but her memory of him was still surprisingly strong. She hadn’t forgotten his big, hard, capable body, and his straight, soft hair. It was the color of black-strap molasses shot through by a shaft of sunlight, and it had felt silky against her fingers. She hadn’t forgotten his jutting jaw, with its suggestion of ranch-bred stubbornness, nor his straight, strong nose, steady dark eyes and brown, outdoor skin.
She hadn’t forgotten, either, how it had felt when he’d kissed her. Now, that was something that belonged in a fairy tale, for sure!
And now he had recognized her, which must have been more of a challenge. She had let her dark hair grow longer over the past few months. Today it was scraped back in a ponytail which had taken her not more than thirty seconds to fix in place with a bright pink scrunchy some hours ago at the motel.
Last time they’d met, she’d been wearing a perfect mask of makeup and that gorgeous silk wedding gown. Now she wore blue jeans, a snug pink sweater and pink padded jacket, with no makeup at all.
But he recognized her, all right. He tensed up in the saddle and unconsciously slowed the horse’s gait. As he got closer, she could see beneath the battered brown felt cowboy hat to his black eyes. They were courteous and wary at the same time.
Reaching the fence, he reined the horse in and Jill registered the unfamiliar sounds of creaking saddle and clinking bit and stirrups. She saw the way Gray’s thighs, clad in old blue denim, moved easily against the leather beneath him. It was as if he and the horse were one.
The large chestnut brown animal whickered impatiently and shifted its hooves. Maybe it knew this wasn’t the place it and its rider were supposed to end up. It smelled pungently of oats and farmyard.
“Hello, Jill,” Gray said in his gruff voice.
“Hello.” She squeezed out a nervous smile as she looked up at him.
“Uh, it’s good to see you again.” He took off his hat slowly, and set it on the high-pommelled Western saddle in front of him. The wind caught at once at his black hair, combing it back off his high, smooth forehead. “How’ve you been?”
“Well, fine, I guess,” she said, as awkward as he was. “Not bad.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”
“I rented a car in Trilby after we got off the train, but it broke down. I should have gone with one of the national companies. Mr. Thurrell offered to drive me from his garage, which was nice of him. He says he knew your father through some business dealings.”
She gestured back at the classic Caddy, knowing she was babbling. Alan was right to have insisted that she come out here and deal with the whole thing in person. She had ghosts to lay to rest—the ghosts of foolish dreams and fantasies, six months old, which Alan had understood better than she had. Alan Jennings was a sensible man, with a cool head on his shoulders.
That was why she planned to say yes, eventually, to his proposal of marriage. As soon as she’d dealt with just one small detail.
“Sorry you’ve had trouble,” Gray said.
He must know why she was here. There was only one possible transaction that could take place between them. But it was time to put it into words. She took a deep breath.
“Gray, I’m sorry to bother you like this, when your letter said you were so busy, and all,” she said apologetically, “but I really need that divorce.”
“Mommy…” came Sam’s plaintive little voice from the car at that moment.
Both adults turned their heads.
“That your little boy in there?” Gray asked. “Sam, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s Sam,” Jill answered.
Gray gave a short nod, then added with a note of reluctance, “He sounds tired.”
“Oh, exhausted!”
“It’s a long trip for a kid.”
“We’re going to take a few days of vacation time on the way home.” Alan was hoping to fly out and join them in Chicago for two nights, if he felt that his fledgling sales business could spare him.
“Okay.” Gray nodded again.
Sensing his reluctance and interpreting it in the most obvious way, she said quickly, “I’m sorry just to show up like this.”
“It’s no problem, Jill. Really. It’s my fault, far more than yours.”
“You see,” she went on, waving his objection aside, “I couldn’t seem to track you down any other way. The phone number you gave me was disconnected. And anyway, I kind of thought I should come in person.”
“We’ve rented out the main house now, and it took us a while to get the phone on down at the old place,” he explained.
She sensed that there was more of a story to it than that, but kept her focus on the issue that concerned them both. “We need to discuss which state we’re going to file in, for a start,” she told him.
“Sure.”
“I’ve researched the options— I spoke to a lawyer back in Philly—and I’m happy to do all the paperwork. If I head back into Blue Rock now with Mr. Thurrell and check in to a motel, is there any way you could come into town later today so we can talk? It shouldn’t take long.”
“Mommy…”
“I’m coming right now, sweetie.” She turned back to the car, without waiting for a reply from the man who was—for the moment—her husband.
Behind her, Gray dismounted. Then he looped the horse’s reins around the top strand of wire, pressed the second strand down with one hand, scissored his leg back and climbed through. He’d been climbing through fences on this piece of land all his life, and it only took him a few seconds. Then he stopped and watched.
Jill had opened the rear door of the car and was leaning inside. This gave Gray a view of her neatly rounded behind that he didn’t want to think too much about right now. He heard her speaking to her son in soothing, tender tones, and remembered how much he’d liked her voice in Las Vegas back in March.
There were a whole lot of things he’d liked about Jill Brown, when he stopped to think about it. One of the things he most definitely hadn’t liked, however, was sitting right there in the Cadillac’s rear seat. No ifs or buts, for a whole lot of reasons, he wasn’t interested in a woman with a kid.
Even if he was married to her.
The way he was reacting to that appealing view of her behind, it would be a good thing if he kept this fact firmly in mind, he decided.
“I’m going to get you snuggled into bed as soon as I can, okay?” she said to her son. “We’ll find you some kids’ TV to watch, and some good food for you to eat.”
“My head hurts.”
“I know, sweetie. I have some Tylenol in our suitcase.”
“Is he sick, or something?” Gray said, hearing the reluctance that thickened his voice.
Jill would probably think he was a callous son of a gun. He liked kids. He just didn’t want one as part of a package deal, that was all. He hadn’t known Jill had a son when he’d married her. Hell, he’d only found out her real name when they spoke their vows! The Las Vegas emcee had just kept calling her Cinderella.
Lord, thinking back, it had been a crazy setup, a crazy night, and the sooner they arranged their divorce, the better! She was right to have come out here, and he shouldn’t have blown off her letter a few weeks ago, the way he had.
“H’llo, Gray.” Ron Thurrell twisted in the car’s front seat to acknowledge him with the muttered greeting, before returning to thumb through a mail-order catalog.
It seemed to be a signal to Gray and Jill that he was minding his own business, but Gray didn’t trust it. He didn’t like Ron, and the feeling was mutual. Ron was the man who had found Gray’s father at the wheel of his car in Blue Rock’s main street last December, in the grip of a severe stroke, and he’d been the one to call the ambulance for help. This had done nothing to strengthen their connection, however.
In fact, Gray was surprised that Ron had offered Jill a ride out here. Out of character, wasn’t it? As for the “business dealings” with Dad, which Jill had hazily mentioned, as far as Gray knew they’d only ever consisted of Thurrell filling the gas tanks of various McCall vehicles.
Jill had turned at Gray’s question, and he saw how tired and stressed she looked. Her dark, pretty hair was untidy, with little strands fluffing around her face. The jewel green of her eyes was intensified by the reddened rims. Her silky skin looked papery with fatigue, and she wore no makeup. Not that she needed it. She was just as pretty without it. But that generous bow of a mouth was too pale. A slash of color might have made her look happier.
She was ill at ease, too, which made sense if her son was sick and the only place she had to nurse him was Blue Rock’s one motel. Gray had had to go sober up a seriously misbehaving ranch hand at that establishment once or twice, and he knew it was no place for a sick kid.
Jill didn’t know it, though.
“I’m hoping it’s just a twenty-four-hour virus,” she said, in answer to what he’d asked. “As long as I can get him somewhere where it’s quiet 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 shapes and bunches of Indian corn. Surrounding the house like trusted companions were a half-dozen big old trees, and some wild and ancient rosebushes had recently had their long, supple canes trained and tied along the remains of a post and rail fence.
As Jill reached the porch, its swing creaked in the cold wind. The clouds that had been flying across the sky were beginning to change now. Grayson had been right about the weather closing over. Sam wasn’t dressed for it, and his cheek was burning against hers. The need to get him inside, safe, warm, settled and filled with warm fluids overcame Jill’s sudden attack of nerves, and she rapped on the door loudly, not really believing that anyone was home. The place was so quiet and solitary.
Until, blessedly soon, she heard footsteps. The door opened, and there stood an older female version of Gray, wearing jeans and an untucked shirt made of soft, plaid-patterned flannel. She had the same dark eyes and straight nose as her son, framed by a pretty cloud of gray hair.
Maybe she would have the same smile, too, only Jill hadn’t seen that yet. Face to face with Mrs. McCall, she was overwhelmed by how much there was to explain, and by the need to cut it as short as possible in order to get Sam inside.
“Gray s-sent me,” she stammered. “He’s coming along the… I’m sorry…the Angus spur, I think he said. He’ll be here soon. He said you’d— The thing is, my little boy is sick, and it’s getting colder by the minute, and I really want to…”
She trailed off.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” said Mrs. McCall in a comfortable voice. Her hand, faintly dusted with flour, took Jill’s travel bag and tucked it out of the way against the wall. The same hand left flour traces on Sam’s forehead as she rested her palm there for a moment, then crooned, “You’re as hot as can be, aren’t you, cowboy? Come in, honey.”
She put an arm around Jill’s shoulder as Jill took a better hold on Sam, wrapping both her arms around him. He hadn’t spoken a word since they left Gray back in that big open field.
“Come straight through to the kitchen,” Gray’s mother said. “I have the oven on, and it’s the warmest room in the house. He must be hungry.”
“I don’t know if he is, but I’d like to get some hot liquid into him, and some Tylenol, and then I’m hoping he’ll take a long nap. He hardly slept last night.”
“Poor mite! I have soup on the stove and corn bread just gone into the oven. I’ve been expecting Gray back for lunch.”
“We delayed him, I think.”
“You’ll eat, too?”
“As soon as I’ve settled Sam.”
“You’re staying the night, of course.”
“Gray asked us to,” Jill hedged, then admitted, “I was so grateful.”
On her shoulder, Sam stirred. “Mommy…?”
“Isn’t it good to be inside, Sam?” Jill whispered to him.
She dreaded the possibility that this was a real illness. Strep throat, or influenza. What were doctors like out here? How long would it be before he could travel safely?
Stomach in knots, she followed Gray’s mother down a clean, plain hallway and, moments later, Sam was seated on her lap at a big old kitchen table. There was a cast-iron, wood-fired range that was no longer in use, next to an electric stove that wasn’t a whole lot newer. There was a wooden dresser set with a motley collection of decorative plates, and there were floral calico curtains bunched in the windows.
Mrs. McCall moved about the large yet cozy room with quiet efficiency.
“Where did you leave Gray?” she said.
“Um, I’m not sure. About a mile back, I guess.”
“He should be home any minute, then. He’ll come and check that you’re safe before he sees to the horse. You haven’t told me your name yet, honey.”
The reproof was so mild it was almost a compliment.
“I’m sorry. It’s Jill. Jill Brown.”
Jill Brown McCall? She didn’t say it, being absolutely sure that Gray, like herself until very recently, would have said nothing about their marriage to his family.
“It’s good to meet you, Jill. And you, Sam, darling-heart, although I know you’re feeling too bad to talk.” She slid a wide, half-filled soup plate across to Jill and cautioned, “Still piping hot, so wait a little,” then added, “I’m Louise.”
There was the sound of boots clumping on the back steps, then the rattle and creak of old doors opening, and Gray appeared. He swept his hat off his head with a single, practised movement, and Jill could see that his nose was shiny with cold and his black eyes glistened. The feeling of the outdoor world of the ranch seemed to enter the room with him. Space and air, the smell of animals and grass, a sense of freedom coupled with hard work.
The hard work part, Jill understood. She’d had to work hard herself, for much of her life. She wasn’t afraid of work, and when she’d taken on a task, she was stubborn about seeing it through. But everything else about Grayson McCall was new. And appealing, in an elemental way that unsettled and disturbed her. Disturbed her far more than it had in Las Vegas, when they’d both been playing roles that weren’t their own.
She had to struggle to take her eyes off him, to ignore the way his muscles stretched beneath the fabric of his clothing, and to avoid being aware of exactly where he stood and how he moved in the room. Even the sounds he made. The creak of his boots, the whoosh of the breath he blew into his hands.
He shouldn’t affect her in this way. Not when she hardly knew him. Not when she sensed his reluctance about having her here. And not the way things stood in her life.
“That wind is sharp!” he said. “Mom, this is Jill…and Sam.”
“I know,” Louise said easily. “We’ve just introduced ourselves.”
“Can you make up some beds for them while I put Highboy away?”
“You’re not taking him out again later?”
“Going to look at the engine on the old pickup instead,” he said, and Louise nodded but didn’t say anything.
Jill realized that her arrival must have caused a change in plans, casually communicated between son and mother. But she understood too little about ranch life to know if it mattered. She realized also that she’d be even more of a nuisance if she protested.
No, please, don’t hold off birthing those ten dozen calves, roping those six hundred steers and mending that twenty mile fence on my account!
Gray disappeared back out the kitchen door and his mother went off to set up a bed for Sam. He would be in it within minutes, Jill knew. Seated listlessly on her lap, Sam was only eating the soup because she was spooning it in. It smelled so good, and her own stomach was selfishly clamoring for its share.
Before the bowl was finished, Sam pushed the spoon away and Jill didn’t force the issue.
Louise McCall was back.
“All ready for him,” she said. “I did yours, too, so as not to disturb him later on. Now, what else do you need before you get him settled?”
“Just a glass of water, please,” Jill answered. “I want to give him some Tylenol, and he likes to wash away the taste afterward. Sam, sweetie, can you sit here while I find the Tylenol in our bag?”
He nodded, and sat obediently in the chair Jill had just vacated. From the far end of the hallway, as she rummaged around in their big canvas travel bag for the medicine, she heard Louise talking to him in a casual kind of way.
“I’m going to be here in the house all afternoon, little guy, so if you need anything you let me or your mom know, okay? And I should tell you, we have a cat might come and sleep on your bed, Sam. You like cats? Yeah, they’re interesting creatures, aren’t they? This one’s old. She doesn’t hunt anymore, just likes to find the warmest spot in the house and go to sleep. Will you mind if she does that on your bed?”
Bless her! Jill thought. She must be wondering who in heaven we are and why we’re here, but she hasn’t asked a single question about it. Instead, all she wants to know is whether Sam feels safe with cats….
And apparently Sam did, because the old tabby was already making herself comfortable on Sam’s trundle bed as Jill got him undressed and snuggled into his stretchy pajamas, and Sam didn’t object. Instead, as he slid between the covers, he croaked a tender “Hello, Firefly.”
He curled his body to make room for the animal, whose purr was so loud it almost made the bed vibrate. Within seconds the two of them were lying there with eyes closed, heading for sleep.
Tear-blinded and shaky once more, Jill pulled the faded, handmade quilt a little higher around Sam’s shoulders and gave him a soft kiss. He was safe and cherished now in a way she hadn’t dared to imagine an hour ago.
He’d probably be well again by the day after tomorrow, she decided. It was hope rather than science.
She went to the window, passing a neat pile of cardboard boxes, labeled with a black felt-tip pen. “Dad’s office,” read several. “Grandma’s albums,” said a couple more. A draught of warm air wafted up through the black metal grill of the heating vent in the floor, contrasting with the chilly vista through the window.
The clouds had lowered and thickened further, and had paled to a dull white which shrouded the tops of the mountains. Wind whipped the tethered canes of the roses and combed through the needles of the pines like distant singing.
Gray was coming across the yard. His hat was jammed down to cover his ears and his shoulders were hunched. His strides lengthened as he neared the house, as if he couldn’t wait to get inside, and Jill had the strongest, strangest urge to hurry down to him, take his coat, serve him his soup and ask him about his day, as though she belonged here.
Considering that she was here to ask for a divorce, so she could be free to say yes to Alan, none of what she felt made any sense.
She made a stop at the bathroom on the way downstairs and noted that it resembled the rest of the house—old and shabby but scrupulously clean and brightened with homey touches that could only have been made by a loving hand.
When she reached the kitchen, Gray was at the table, chewing on warm corn bread and spooning in a huge bowl of soup.
“…couldn’t have gotten it done this afternoon, anyhow, because it was a bigger problem than I’d thought,” he was saying. “Wylie can’t have checked it like he said he had.” He hadn’t heard or seen her arrival yet. “I’m going to have to bring you and Grandpa Pete with me, Mom, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get the truck up there with the gear. ’S why I want to fix that oil leak and check the transmission, because otherwise we could get ourselves well and truly stuck.”
Catching sight of Jill in the doorway, Louise McCall asked at once, “How is he, honey?”
Gray stopped eating and looked up at Jill. He gave a little nod of greeting, then watched her face with his dark eyes for a moment, before flicking his gaze downward. He hadn’t waited for her reply to Louise’s question. Didn’t seem to want to know.
“He’s asleep by now,” she said. “Along with…with Firefly.”
Ah, don’t cry, Jill! she thought to herself angrily. Why is this happening?
“It’s stupid,” she went on, wiping tears onto her sleeve. “To cry about it, I mean. But I’m so grateful. Even your cat is making us welcome!”
“Well, why wouldn’t we, Jill?” Louise said courteously. Then her curiosity got the better of her at last and she asked, “Are you in some kind of trouble, honey?”
“Mom, let’s leave this till later, okay?” Gray growled, going back to his meal.
Both women ignored him. Jill fixed her gaze steadily on Gray’s mother and said, “I was. At one time. And Gray helped me out. Which created a problem of its own, that I need help with. I promise I’ll trouble you as little as I can. Sam getting sick was something I hadn’t foreseen. It means we’re going to be with you for a few days, when I’d been hoping I could start for home tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Louise said. “Please don’t.”
Her son didn’t add the same assurance.
A silence fell, slightly awkward, as they finished their soup, which tasted every bit as good as it smelled. Gray wolfed down three bowls of it, along with substantial hunks of corn bread. He spoke just once more, to ask, “Grandpa’s not coming back for lunch?”
“He took sandwiches and coffee,” Louise answered. “Wants to get those cows moved down today.”
“He shouldn’t be doing it on his own.”
Louise snorted. “You tell him that!”
Gray nodded and shrugged. “Guess I already did.” As soon as he was done eating, he announced, “I’m going to get on over to the shed and look at that truck, or I won’t get anywhere with it today.”
“Can I help?” Jill blurted out. “Sam will sleep for hours now. He always does when he’s feverish, so it doesn’t make sense for me to sit around. You told him you’d be here at the house all afternoon, didn’t you, Louise?”
Gray looked at her, as wary as before, and she could see the way he was assessing her words.
“Sure,” he finally answered, much too slowly. “Can always use an extra pair of hands.”
They set out ten minutes later. Jill was bundled up in an old scarlet sweater of Louise’s. Louise had said that the shed was cold, and Jill’s jacket and pink top “too pretty” to get covered in motor oil.
“You know anything about cars?” Gray asked her as they drove in his mom’s late-model white station wagon back the same way Jill had come with Ron Thurrell.
“Not a whole lot,” she admitted, “but I’m willing to learn.”
“Not in one afternoon.”
“No, okay, well, something else, then.”
“You don’t have to.”
“You said you could use an extra pair of hands.”
“I figured you wanted to come along so Mom didn’t have a chance to ask you any more awkward questions.”
“That was part of it,” Jill admitted. “But I said I’d help, and I will.”
The sound he made might have been, “Thanks.”
Or it might have been a snort.
She lifted her chin and didn’t push the point. Feeling the tension along her jaw, she glanced sideways and recognized much the same expression on Gray’s face.
We’re both stubborn, I guess, she thought.
Stubborn and honorable in his case. Stubborn and impulsive, in hers. Was that what had gotten them into trouble in Las Vegas?
Please get well quick, Sam. I’m here to dissolve the magic not make it stronger.
“Where are we headed?” she asked quickly.
“Machine shed,” he answered. “We have a heavy-duty pickup we need to take cross-country to fix some fence. We’ve had cattle showing up where they don’t belong.”
“Like me.”
“Really, Jill, you can quit apologizing.” Impatience colored his tone. “I got us both into this as much as you did.”
“Your mom would like to know what it’s all about.”
“Mom’s pretty good, but she’s only human.”
“I know. It’s not that I would have resented questions, I just didn’t feel ready to answer them yet.”
“Makes sense. Can I ask a couple?”
“Probably a little easier, coming from you,” she agreed.
“You want to get married again, is that right? That’s the only reason I could think of for the urgency.”
“Uh, yeah.” She listened to her own words, and realized that she had begun to adopt his own cautious, almost reluctant way of talking.
“I mean married for real.”
“I know what you meant,” she said. “Yes, married for real. I mean, we’re not in love with each other, Alan and I. But when you have kids, that stuff’s more trouble than it’s worth. He knows that, and so do I.”
“Yeah, I guess it could be that way,” Grayson growled. “This guy has kids, too?”
“Teenage daughters, Anna and Sarah. And they come first. Them, and Sam. For both of us.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it? I keep thinking you should be angry, Gray. Angry that this is happening at all. That I got you into it. In fact, on some level, you are angry.”
“No, I’m not,” he insisted. “Or, not with you. It’s not your fault. Neither of us realized, when it was happening, that it was real….”
Real. Real as in legal. A very different kind of “real” from what she hoped to build with Alan.
The word echoed in Jill’s mind, and she suddenly wondered if she had the slightest idea what “real” actually meant. She thought back…
Las Vegas. The show. “Cinderella on Ice.” A dream come true. A dream made real. Only, from the very beginning, it hadn’t been.
Jill had skated since she could remember, pushed into it at first by her selfish and demanding mother, then loving it for its own sake. She had found a home away from home at the rink, when life with her mother, Rose Chaloner Brown, had been like a minefield that all beloved stepfather David Brown’s care and sense couldn’t make safe, and all of her sisters’ companionship couldn’t distract from.
Rose had kicked her out the door when she was pregnant and alone at just eighteen, along with her stepsister, Catrina, who was almost Jill’s twin in age. Jill’s older sister, Suzanne, had refused to stay under a roof where her sisters weren’t welcome, so she’d left at that time, also.
“Ungrateful,” Rose had called all three of them. She’d used much harsher labels, as well.
After this, the expense of Jill’s competitive amateur career had been way too much for the sisters’ stretched finances. So she had concentrated on teaching as a fallback, while dreaming of the chance to skate in professional shows.
She had had Sam to raise, also. He was still the best thing that had ever happened to her, despite the disaster of her naive infatuation for his father. None of it had been easy, though. Ivy League boyfriend Curtis Harrington hadn’t wanted to know about the coming baby. Jill didn’t know how she would have managed if she hadn’t had Suzanne’s and Catrina’s help, as well as that of Catrina’s eccentric Cousin Pixie, for the past couple of years.
Back in March, just after Sam’s fourth birthday, she’d gotten her big break at last. Andrea, a close friend during their teens at the ice rink in Philadelphia, had been forced to pull out of her role in “Cinderella on Ice” for six weeks, due to an injury. The one-sided contract Andrea had signed stipulated that she’d lose her place in the show permanently unless she could come up with a temporary replacement of her own.
Enter Jill Brown, with stars in her eyes.
She had left Sam in the loving care of her sisters and flown out to Las Vegas to step onto the ice as a Featured Mouse and Cinderella understudy. And she had hated every minute of it. Her dreams were shattered. She felt like a fool for thinking that a showgirl lifestyle, so incompatible with Sam’s needs, could have made her happy.
The show was a cheap takeoff of the far more glamorous Disney version. The performers were badly paid and badly treated, and tensions between the cast members were high. Jill had missed Sam more than she’d have thought possible, every minute of every day. The knowledge that he was happy and well cared for with Cat, Suzanne and Pixie didn’t help.
She was supposed to endure almost six more weeks of this?
Maybe it should have helped when Trixie, the regular Cinderella, came down with a bad dose of flu on Jill’s first Saturday in Las Vegas. To skate as Cinderella should have been a dream come true, but it wasn’t.
Lying in bed in a darkened room, Trixie had overwhelmed Jill with advice and instructions, in a pained, croaky voice. “And don’t forget that publicity thing afterward. The ‘Cinderella Marathon’ thing.”
“What?”
“The ball thing, the contest, with the cable channel.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You just have to stick around the hotel. It’s in the big function room. You’re the so-called ‘Celebrity bride.’ They’ll tell you what to do. You haven’t heard about it? There’s been a lot of publicity about the rules and prizes, and all.”
“No, I haven’t heard about it.” I’ve been too busy crying into my pillow, missing Sam and wishing I’d never come.
“It’s no big deal, but you know management will kill you if you don’t show.”
“I know.”
So she had “shown” for the “Cinderella contest thing” in the big function room just as she was supposed to do, without the slightest idea what it was all about….
“This is it,” Gray said, wheeling the pickup to a halt in front of a big metal shed.
Jill was impressed by the sizeable collection of buildings grouped nearby. She could only guess what they were used for. Milking? Did the McCalls run the kind of cattle that got milked? Somehow, she thought not.
In the distance, she could glimpse the large new house on the hill, the place that the McCalls were renting out in order to stretch their cash flow a little. It was separated from this section of the ranch by three fences and a line of healthy young trees, their leaves ablaze with fall color.
Gray jumped out of the truck, and she watched him for a moment before getting out herself. He was such a capable looking man, as upright and sturdy as a tree trunk, both in body and heart, but she had known from the moment they met that he was hurting. Something in his life wasn’t right, and he had his back to the wall as he fought his circumstances.
She didn’t know the whole story, but she knew some of it, thanks to the way they’d talked that night in Las Vegas six months ago. His father had overstretched their finances with the purchase of a neighboring ranch immediately before his death. As a result, Grayson, his newly widowed mother and his fit but elderly grandfather were in danger of losing the land that had been in the McCall family for over eighty years.
Until seeing the place for herself today, Jill hadn’t been able to grasp what that meant. Now, she was just beginning to understand. This place was substantial, beautiful, and expensive to run—rewarding of success and dramatically unforgiving of failure.
And somehow the thought of Gray failing, of losing the fight to save his family ranch after the blow of his father’s death, suddenly mattered to her. It mattered in a way that made her throat tighten and took her breath away. She didn’t want to think of him failing after such a struggle, through no fault of his own.
This was what the word “real” meant, she understood.
“Real” wasn’t the bewildering whirl of their publicity-stunt Cinderella marriage, under the glare of TV lights. The marriage was legal, as Jill’s lawyer had advised, but it wasn’t real. “Real” wasn’t even the unexpected moment of stillness in the midst of it all. The moment when she and Gray had said their vows, still believing them to be a meaningless charade, and had looked into each other’s eyes and felt…magic.
None of those things were real. But this…This was real. Gray’s struggle to keep his ranch and the life he loved was real. No wonder he just wanted to sign those divorce papers, watch Sam get quickly well and wave them goodbye.
Alan was right, she thought. He knew I couldn’t get the magic of that night with Gray out of my head. He knew I had to come here and feel the reality for myself.
Chapter Three
“You don’t have to work so hard, Jill,” Gray said.
He had been glancing up from beneath the hood of the pickup to watch her every few minutes for the past hour and a half. He hadn’t seen her take a break yet.
When they reached the shed, she had insisted on a “real job.” Hiding his skepticism, he’d taken her at her word. It hadn’t been hard to find one for her. She was chipping off rust-blistered paint and coating a derusting treatment onto the bale retriever. The vehicle was falling apart but it had to last out a whole season of winter feeding. There was no way he could afford to get it replaced as his father had planned to do this year.
Some of those rust patches were getting downright dangerous. They had begun to eat into and weaken the metal, and she was taking it seriously. He was amazed at how hard she was prepared to work. She had chips of yellow paint all over Louise’s old red sweater, and a streak of rust across her cheek. The air smelled of the acrid chemical treatment. The noise she had made as she chipped was like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Jill’s neat hips moved in rhythm as she worked. Her pert derriere stuck out when she bent to reach an awkward spot with her brush. Louise’s sweater hugged her figure soft and close, showing her curves. The sight once again affected Gray in a way that was both delicious and uncomfortable.
From time to time she shook her glossy dark hair back out of her eyes. Once she wiped her hands on a rag and re-wound the piece of pink elastic around her jaunty ponytail to keep it more securely out of the way. The movement lifted the neat swell of her breasts, and lifted the sweater to briefly show an inch of silky skin around her waist.
Gray knew women—ranchers’ wives and daughters included—who would have thrown up their hands at the job long ago, but Jill was taking it all in stride. Or maybe she was just releasing pent-up tension. This situation couldn’t be any easier for her than it was for him. She was stuck here on the ranch with a sick child, when all she wanted was to make an arrangement about the divorce and get on with her life.
He closed the hood of the pickup and went over to her.
Short of investing in parts he couldn’t afford—like a whole new engine, maybe—he’d done all he could to make the truck worthy of a grinding ride into one of the roughest sections of the entire ranch. He had gone out on horseback this morning, hoping for a quick fix with a few coils of wire. Instead he was going to need new posts, new holes and half a dozen heavy tools.
It was just one more task he didn’t need, with all his ranch hands laid off and his grandfather working way harder than an old man should. Not to mention Mom.
“I’m doing fine here,” Jill told him.
She straightened. He could see a tiny yellow paint chip on her jaw line that his fingers itched to brush away. He remembered all too clearly how soft her skin was in that spot.
“I know you are,” he answered instead. “You’ve done a great job. I never thought you’d get that far in a couple of hours. But we should pack up now and head back. It’s getting dark out.”
She blinked. “That late?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Ha ha.”
“While we’re clearing up, shall we grab a coffee and talk a little bit?”
“Sure. About the divorce?”
“And about the marriage. Square our stories. How much do you want to tell Mom?”
He went over to a bench at the side of the shed, where there was a sink and a faucet and a propane camping stove.
“It’s your decision, Gray,” she answered.
“I’m inclined to keep it simple.” He added water to a kettle and instant coffee granules to two cups as he spoke. “Let’s just say you got in trouble with a contract in Las Vegas that I was a witness to, and now there are some legal papers for me to sign so you can get out of the situation. That’s…kind of the truth.”
She laughed. “Sort of kind of, I guess.”
“Okay, I admit it.” He spread his work-roughened hands and gave an upside down smile. “I’m embarrassed to tell my mother that I actually married a woman I hadn’t even met purely because I felt sorry for her!”
“You didn’t know it would be legal.”
“Might have done it anyway, under the circumstances,” he growled.
She raised her eyebrows. Didn’t quite believe him.
“Well, I’m grateful,” she said. “I’ll never forget how it felt to escape from those other guys, Gray, when I realized they weren’t prepared to go over five hundred dollars and you were.”
“How’d you know I wasn’t a creep, too?”
It was something he had been wondering on and off for six months. How they had both known, actually, that it was a good deed on his part. That he was saving Cinderella, not kidnapping her.
She went still at his question, and her jewel green eyes rounded. “I—” She stopped, and laughed her pretty, golden laugh. “Lord, you know, I never even thought about that. I…just knew.”
She looked at him and frowned. Her head tilted slightly to one side as if she was tallying his attributes. He met her gaze steadily, but felt self-conscious. He wasn’t sure what she would think about what she saw.
He was a simple man, big, strong, but with no airs and graces. He wore work clothes six and a half days a week, and he had rough hands like two fresh offcuts of wood. There was no glamour attached to him. He couldn’t be the type she was used to—like the man in Pennsylvania who wanted to marry her, for example.
“I guess because you were just sitting there quietly,” she said finally.
“Yeah, I’d just come in for a beer,” he agreed, remembering…
He had made the journey to Las Vegas in desperation. He wanted to see his older half-brother, Mitch, who was the only person he could think of who might lend him the money he needed to put capital into the expanded. Thurrell Creek, owned by Wylie Stannard for thirty years since he’d won it from Ron Thurrell’s father in a bet, was run down and neglected and in very bad shape.
If he could put some money into Thurrell Creek, if the weather was kind to him, if he didn’t lose too many calves, then he’d have cattle to sell and could hopefully claw himself up out of the hole the ranch was buried in.
Why had Dad suddenly bought Thurrell Creek from old Wylie Stannard last December, when Wylie had blown into town from back east, ready to sell? Had Dad stopped to think about quite how much it would stretch their cash flow? Did he have a strategy for making it work?
Nine months later, Gray still didn’t know.
By a chilling coincidence, which still sent prickles up his spine whenever he thought of it, Frank McCall had died that same day. He and Stannard and the McCalls’ lawyer, Haydon Garrett, had finalized the purchase of the ranch. Afterward, on his way home, Frank had suffered what would prove to be a fatal stroke, at the wheel of his pickup in Blue Rock’s main street. He’d never been able to talk about the purchase of Thurrell Creek, and how he planned to manage.
But if Dad thought we could do it, then we should be able to do it. Gray had thought this way in Las Vegas, and he was still thinking this way now. Is it my fault? Was he that much better a rancher than I am? We had a tough winter. We lost more stock than I’d hoped. We had to replace the generator, and we had that fire in the feed store. But Dad was the one who taught me to allow for contingencies like that. Why did he think we could stretch ourselves so thin?
Gray had not told Mitch any of this when he made his desperate plea for funds. It didn’t change the outcome. Mitch refused to help.
Sitting defensively behind his desk in his big office in downtown Vegas, Mitch had told his half-brother angrily, “Your father told me to stay out of your lives.”
“Yes, because—”
“Now, suddenly, when Frank is gone—” Mitch plowed through Gray’s words “—and you need my money, the money I made in business with my own father, it’s a different story.”
“It’s not like that, Mitch. Dad spoke in anger that day.” Gray didn’t add his opinion that Frank McCall’s anger had been more than justified after the years of hurt Mitch had inflicted on the family, both before and after his departure from the ranch at the age of nineteen. “You know they both wanted to heal the rift. Mom hoped so much that you’d come to Dad’s funeral. She phoned you. She begged—”
“It was too late for that,” Mitch cut in, his mouth tight. “Mom’s always been too sentimental. She may believe that anger shouldn’t last beyond the grave, but that’s not my opinion.”
What could Gray do at this point but accept defeat? He didn’t know which was worse—that he hadn’t found a way to save the ranch, or that Mitch and Louise were still so deeply at odds, with himself, as Frank’s son, locked in the middle. Both facts had his gut tied in knots, and he hadn’t trusted himself to drive after he left Mitch’s office. Had decided to stay overnight, start heading back at first light.
By that time, it was late afternoon, and he’d wandered into the gaming and entertainment section of his hotel, emotions stretched tight as a fiddle string. He’d fed five dollars into a slot machine, purely for the release of hearing the strident noise as he pulled the handle. He had received six hundred dollars worth of winnings from his last pull with an absent sort of surprise. At least it covered the cost of the trip.
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Lilian Darcy
Ten days, Gray thought. Lord, he was still shaking! She’s going to be here for another ten days!
Ten more days of him and Jill rubbing up against each other, the way two people inevitably did when they shared the same space. Ten more days of bumping into her in doorways, of watching the way she ate and the way she laughed and the way she so tenderly kissed and hugged her son.
“This would be a whole lot easier if we weren’t married,” he muttered aloud in his room.
There was something about being married. He kept thinking about what marriage meant. It meant sharing. Sharing their space, as he was doing with Jill. Sharing their stories. They’d begun to do that, too, the very first night they met. Sharing their lives…
And marriage meant one more thing, too. It meant sharing a bed.
Dear Reader,
Although it will be archived by now, I’ve been writing to readers on our www.Harlequin.com community bulletin boards about Silhouette Romance and what makes it so special. Readers like the emotion, the strength of the heroines, the truly heroic nature of the men and a quick, yet satisfying, read. I’m delighted that Silhouette Romance is able to fulfill a few of your fantasies! Be sure to stop by our site. :)
I hope you had a chance to revisit Lion on the Prowl by Kasey Michaels when it was out last month in a special collection with Heather Graham’s Lucia in Love. Be sure not to miss a glimpse into those characters’ lives with this month’s lively spin-off called Bachelor on the Prowl. Elizabeth Harbison gives us A Pregnant Proposal from our continuity HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY. Look out next month for The Makeover Takeover by Sandra Paul.
Other stories this month include the second title in Lilian Darcy’s THE CINDERELLA CONSPIRACY. Be assured that Saving Cinderella has the heartwarming emotion and strong heroes that Lilian Darcy delivers every time! And Carol Grace has spun off a title from Fit for a Sheik. This month, look for Taming the Sheik.
And we’ve got a Christmas treat to get you in the mood for the holidays. Carolyn Greene has Her Mistletoe Man while new-to-the-line author Holly Jacobs asks Do You Hear What I Hear?
I hope that you enjoy these stories, and keep in touch.
Mary-Theresa Hussey,
Senior Editor
Saving Cinderella
Lilian Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Lilian Darcy
Silhouette Romance
The Baby Bond #1390
Her Sister’s Child #1449
Raising Baby Jane #1478
(#litres_trial_promo)Cinderella After Midnight #1542
(#litres_trial_promo)Saving Cinderella #1555
LILIAN DARCY
has written nearly fifty books for Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Mills & Boon Medical Romance (Prescription Romance). Her first book for Silhouette appeared on the Waldenbooks Series Romance Bestsellers list, and she’s hoping readers go on responding strongly to her work. Happily married, with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family. She loves to hear from fans, who can e-mail her at darcy@dynamite.com.au.
Contents
Prologue (#ubb2c19f7-de1f-5f35-b66d-70834a267249)
Chapter One (#uee5461ff-3772-5125-86d8-9c549feda5fd)
Chapter Two (#u08dc8678-6a73-5171-a47a-ba20eb2ae1c7)
Chapter Three (#u280333d6-2e7f-56e8-b84f-26008b27c8fe)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Jill didn’t even know his name. He was staring down at her with black eyes that swam with the brilliant reflection of the colored lights that surrounded them. The heavy silk folds of her wedding dress brushed against his legs, and he let his hand rest on her bare forearm for a moment.
“Is this okay?” he muttered in a low voice, roughened with a Montana-bred burr.
Jill gave a tiny nod. “Mm.”
“You didn’t look happy before.”
“Much better now.”
“Good! I think they’re ready for us. Are you sure about this? We could just leave. Tell them to go jump.”
“I can’t. It’s in the contract. I’m filling in for someone, and she’d lose her job if I didn’t go through with this.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “That makes sense. I couldn’t see why you’d want to.”
“I’m fine,” Jill insisted.
But she wasn’t. Not really. She was missing her little son horribly. She hated being here in Las Vegas, when he was all the way back home in Philadelphia. She’d skated the role of Cinderella in the ice show tonight, as understudy to the regular lead, who was ill. It was the starring role she’d always wanted, but it came with conditions attached.
TV cameras and strangers staring. A “waiver” and a “license” to sign. An emcee leering at her figure, closely molded and on display inside the gorgeous designer wedding gown. He was calling her “our Celebrity Cinderella Bride” and he’d encouraged the men at this so-called ball to bid for her.
Which they had. Red-faced, over-eager. Drunk, some of them, she suspected.
Not this man, though, the one who had won her at last, for over five hundred dollars. There was something much steadier about this one. His dark eyes, his solid stance, the questions he asked about her well-being. And when they faced each other, ready to enact the charade of their wedding vows, his warm hands held hers steadily, too.
Behind him, the lettering on the huge sign blurred in Jill’s vision. “Cinderella Marriage Marathon,” it read. “Win the coach, the palace, the honeymoon…and the bride!”
“Ready, you two?” said a man who was dressed like a royal courtier from days gone by, in a wig of rippling white curls, satin breeches and embroidered waistcoat.
For the first time, the audience fell silent. The other couples were ready and waiting now. The emcee launched into a spiel that Jill barely listened to. She caught only a few phrases, and didn’t take the time to make sense of them.
“…officer of the court present to witness…progress of each marriage on live cable TV…last couple left standing…winner takes all.”
The cameras had moved in closer, stealing her attention, and the lights had gotten even brighter. There was a mirror ball directly above her head, sending tiny white lights chasing across the black-eyed stranger’s face. A burst of romantic music vibrated in the air, then died away.
“Do you, Grayson James McCall, take Jillian Anne Chaloner Brown to be your lawfully wedded wife…?”
Grayson McCall. That was his name. She looked up at him. Their eyes met and held.
And even though she knew it was meaningless, a stunt, a charade, she was suddenly captured by the magic and swept away. She could have wrapped herself in the warm light of those eyes like wrapping herself in a black velvet cloak. How would it feel if a man like this was saying words like this to her, not as part of some reality TV gimmick, but for real?
“I do,” he said.
His voice was low, and his gaze never left her face for a second. It was a moment she’d never forget.
Chapter One
Sam was getting sick.
Jill had started to suspect it a couple of hours ago, just before the cheap rental car she’d picked up yesterday evening broke down half a mile this side of Blue Rock. Now, sitting with Sam as a passenger in a different vehicle, she was sure of it.
“You didn’t finish the story, Mommy,” he whined.
Sam never whined. Unless he was getting sick.
Jill felt his forehead—it was hot. “Yes, I did, honey,” she soothed him, putting an arm around his little shoulders and pulling him close. The rear seat of the Cadillac was shiny with age. They hit a bump in the dirt road and Sam’s hip slid hard against hers.
“No, you didn’t,” he argued, his voice rising. “You never said the bit about living happily ever after.”
Well, he had her there. She never had said it, and everyone knew that all good fairy stories should end that way.
She sighed.
The problem was that the tale she’d been spinning to her son over the past quarter of an hour wasn’t a fairy story. It was her makeshift attempt to explain to a four-year-old, fatherless boy why they’d come all the way by train from Pennsylvania to Montana to resolve a situation that she’d never meant to get into at all.
Sam adored trains. He hadn’t asked a single question about the reason for this trip during that part of the journey. But then they’d gotten off the train in Trilby. They’d rented a wreck of a car from the cheapest place in town—”affiliated nationwide” its sign had claimed, but she wasn’t impressed—spent a sleepless night in a noisy, down-market motel just off Interstate 15, and made it, this morning, as far as Blue Rock.
The car had given up completely about two hours ago, in a hissy fit of noise and ominous smoke. No “happily ever after” involved in this instance. Bored, exhausted and getting sick, Sam had finally asked, “What are we doing this for, anyhow?”
Jill sighed again.
Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to make her story so upbeat and reassuring. No wonder Sam wanted the fairy tale ending, when she’d started by talking about the pink colored lights and the silk wedding gown, Cinderella on silver skate blades and a handsome prince in a cowboy’s hat who’d swept her away from that nightmare of a ball….
“Looks like this could be Grayson up ahead, there, on horseback,” said the balding man at the wheel of the noisy Cadillac. For a car mechanic’s vehicle, it didn’t sound as though it was in great shape. “I’ll pull over.”
“I—” Jill began, then stopped.
From the first, she hadn’t particularly taken to Ron Thurrell, the owner-operator of Blue Rock’s one gas station and vehicle repair shop. He was apparently also the local agent for Triple Star Insurance, as well as for two minor car rental companies.
She should have taken to him. He’d gone out of his way with his offer to drive her and Sam the twenty-four remaining miles to Grayson McCall’s isolated ranch. He had also promised to deal with the rental car and have another one ready for her when she needed it. He’d definitely been helpful, but she hadn’t liked him, and she didn’t want to admit to him that Gray had no idea she was coming. Definitely didn’t want to admit to him what she was here for.
“Okay. Thanks,” she said instead.
Mr. Thurrell slowed the vehicle to a halt and Jill saw the rider on horseback in the distance, heading diagonally in this direction across a field of tall grass. She got out of the car, shut the door to keep the insistent September wind off Sam’s flushed little face, and went over to the barbed wire fence that bordered the track.
Leaning on one of the wooden posts, she wondered if there was some special kind of call or gesture people out here used to summon each other across such yawning expanses of land. She wasn’t quite sure yet if the rider—was it really Gray?—had seen her. Tentatively, she waved one hand. Then she lifted off her winter wool hat and waved again with that, more forcefully.
Grayson McCall, if it was him, had seen and understood. Jill could see it by the way he quickened the horse’s stride. As he approached, she began to get a sense of his ease in the saddle. Knowing nothing whatsoever about horses—she’d seen them in the flesh maybe, oh, twice?—she could still recognize what a capable rider he was.
He held his body in a lazy cowboy slouch, which she could tell was totally comfortable and controlled. He seemed like a knight in shining armor, but that was a comparison she should most definitely steer clear of.
Half a minute later, she knew for certain that it was Grayson. She hadn’t seen him since March, almost six months ago, but her memory of him was still surprisingly strong. She hadn’t forgotten his big, hard, capable body, and his straight, soft hair. It was the color of black-strap molasses shot through by a shaft of sunlight, and it had felt silky against her fingers. She hadn’t forgotten his jutting jaw, with its suggestion of ranch-bred stubbornness, nor his straight, strong nose, steady dark eyes and brown, outdoor skin.
She hadn’t forgotten, either, how it had felt when he’d kissed her. Now, that was something that belonged in a fairy tale, for sure!
And now he had recognized her, which must have been more of a challenge. She had let her dark hair grow longer over the past few months. Today it was scraped back in a ponytail which had taken her not more than thirty seconds to fix in place with a bright pink scrunchy some hours ago at the motel.
Last time they’d met, she’d been wearing a perfect mask of makeup and that gorgeous silk wedding gown. Now she wore blue jeans, a snug pink sweater and pink padded jacket, with no makeup at all.
But he recognized her, all right. He tensed up in the saddle and unconsciously slowed the horse’s gait. As he got closer, she could see beneath the battered brown felt cowboy hat to his black eyes. They were courteous and wary at the same time.
Reaching the fence, he reined the horse in and Jill registered the unfamiliar sounds of creaking saddle and clinking bit and stirrups. She saw the way Gray’s thighs, clad in old blue denim, moved easily against the leather beneath him. It was as if he and the horse were one.
The large chestnut brown animal whickered impatiently and shifted its hooves. Maybe it knew this wasn’t the place it and its rider were supposed to end up. It smelled pungently of oats and farmyard.
“Hello, Jill,” Gray said in his gruff voice.
“Hello.” She squeezed out a nervous smile as she looked up at him.
“Uh, it’s good to see you again.” He took off his hat slowly, and set it on the high-pommelled Western saddle in front of him. The wind caught at once at his black hair, combing it back off his high, smooth forehead. “How’ve you been?”
“Well, fine, I guess,” she said, as awkward as he was. “Not bad.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”
“I rented a car in Trilby after we got off the train, but it broke down. I should have gone with one of the national companies. Mr. Thurrell offered to drive me from his garage, which was nice of him. He says he knew your father through some business dealings.”
She gestured back at the classic Caddy, knowing she was babbling. Alan was right to have insisted that she come out here and deal with the whole thing in person. She had ghosts to lay to rest—the ghosts of foolish dreams and fantasies, six months old, which Alan had understood better than she had. Alan Jennings was a sensible man, with a cool head on his shoulders.
That was why she planned to say yes, eventually, to his proposal of marriage. As soon as she’d dealt with just one small detail.
“Sorry you’ve had trouble,” Gray said.
He must know why she was here. There was only one possible transaction that could take place between them. But it was time to put it into words. She took a deep breath.
“Gray, I’m sorry to bother you like this, when your letter said you were so busy, and all,” she said apologetically, “but I really need that divorce.”
“Mommy…” came Sam’s plaintive little voice from the car at that moment.
Both adults turned their heads.
“That your little boy in there?” Gray asked. “Sam, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s Sam,” Jill answered.
Gray gave a short nod, then added with a note of reluctance, “He sounds tired.”
“Oh, exhausted!”
“It’s a long trip for a kid.”
“We’re going to take a few days of vacation time on the way home.” Alan was hoping to fly out and join them in Chicago for two nights, if he felt that his fledgling sales business could spare him.
“Okay.” Gray nodded again.
Sensing his reluctance and interpreting it in the most obvious way, she said quickly, “I’m sorry just to show up like this.”
“It’s no problem, Jill. Really. It’s my fault, far more than yours.”
“You see,” she went on, waving his objection aside, “I couldn’t seem to track you down any other way. The phone number you gave me was disconnected. And anyway, I kind of thought I should come in person.”
“We’ve rented out the main house now, and it took us a while to get the phone on down at the old place,” he explained.
She sensed that there was more of a story to it than that, but kept her focus on the issue that concerned them both. “We need to discuss which state we’re going to file in, for a start,” she told him.
“Sure.”
“I’ve researched the options— I spoke to a lawyer back in Philly—and I’m happy to do all the paperwork. If I head back into Blue Rock now with Mr. Thurrell and check in to a motel, is there any way you could come into town later today so we can talk? It shouldn’t take long.”
“Mommy…”
“I’m coming right now, sweetie.” She turned back to the car, without waiting for a reply from the man who was—for the moment—her husband.
Behind her, Gray dismounted. Then he looped the horse’s reins around the top strand of wire, pressed the second strand down with one hand, scissored his leg back and climbed through. He’d been climbing through fences on this piece of land all his life, and it only took him a few seconds. Then he stopped and watched.
Jill had opened the rear door of the car and was leaning inside. This gave Gray a view of her neatly rounded behind that he didn’t want to think too much about right now. He heard her speaking to her son in soothing, tender tones, and remembered how much he’d liked her voice in Las Vegas back in March.
There were a whole lot of things he’d liked about Jill Brown, when he stopped to think about it. One of the things he most definitely hadn’t liked, however, was sitting right there in the Cadillac’s rear seat. No ifs or buts, for a whole lot of reasons, he wasn’t interested in a woman with a kid.
Even if he was married to her.
The way he was reacting to that appealing view of her behind, it would be a good thing if he kept this fact firmly in mind, he decided.
“I’m going to get you snuggled into bed as soon as I can, okay?” she said to her son. “We’ll find you some kids’ TV to watch, and some good food for you to eat.”
“My head hurts.”
“I know, sweetie. I have some Tylenol in our suitcase.”
“Is he sick, or something?” Gray said, hearing the reluctance that thickened his voice.
Jill would probably think he was a callous son of a gun. He liked kids. He just didn’t want one as part of a package deal, that was all. He hadn’t known Jill had a son when he’d married her. Hell, he’d only found out her real name when they spoke their vows! The Las Vegas emcee had just kept calling her Cinderella.
Lord, thinking back, it had been a crazy setup, a crazy night, and the sooner they arranged their divorce, the better! She was right to have come out here, and he shouldn’t have blown off her letter a few weeks ago, the way he had.
“H’llo, Gray.” Ron Thurrell twisted in the car’s front seat to acknowledge him with the muttered greeting, before returning to thumb through a mail-order catalog.
It seemed to be a signal to Gray and Jill that he was minding his own business, but Gray didn’t trust it. He didn’t like Ron, and the feeling was mutual. Ron was the man who had found Gray’s father at the wheel of his car in Blue Rock’s main street last December, in the grip of a severe stroke, and he’d been the one to call the ambulance for help. This had done nothing to strengthen their connection, however.
In fact, Gray was surprised that Ron had offered Jill a ride out here. Out of character, wasn’t it? As for the “business dealings” with Dad, which Jill had hazily mentioned, as far as Gray knew they’d only ever consisted of Thurrell filling the gas tanks of various McCall vehicles.
Jill had turned at Gray’s question, and he saw how tired and stressed she looked. Her dark, pretty hair was untidy, with little strands fluffing around her face. The jewel green of her eyes was intensified by the reddened rims. Her silky skin looked papery with fatigue, and she wore no makeup. Not that she needed it. She was just as pretty without it. But that generous bow of a mouth was too pale. A slash of color might have made her look happier.
She was ill at ease, too, which made sense if her son was sick and the only place she had to nurse him was Blue Rock’s one motel. Gray had had to go sober up a seriously misbehaving ranch hand at that establishment once or twice, and he knew it was no place for a sick kid.
Jill didn’t know it, though.
“I’m hoping it’s just a twenty-four-hour virus,” she said, in answer to what he’d asked. “As long as I can get him somewhere where it’s quiet 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 shapes and bunches of Indian corn. Surrounding the house like trusted companions were a half-dozen big old trees, and some wild and ancient rosebushes had recently had their long, supple canes trained and tied along the remains of a post and rail fence.
As Jill reached the porch, its swing creaked in the cold wind. The clouds that had been flying across the sky were beginning to change now. Grayson had been right about the weather closing over. Sam wasn’t dressed for it, and his cheek was burning against hers. The need to get him inside, safe, warm, settled and filled with warm fluids overcame Jill’s sudden attack of nerves, and she rapped on the door loudly, not really believing that anyone was home. The place was so quiet and solitary.
Until, blessedly soon, she heard footsteps. The door opened, and there stood an older female version of Gray, wearing jeans and an untucked shirt made of soft, plaid-patterned flannel. She had the same dark eyes and straight nose as her son, framed by a pretty cloud of gray hair.
Maybe she would have the same smile, too, only Jill hadn’t seen that yet. Face to face with Mrs. McCall, she was overwhelmed by how much there was to explain, and by the need to cut it as short as possible in order to get Sam inside.
“Gray s-sent me,” she stammered. “He’s coming along the… I’m sorry…the Angus spur, I think he said. He’ll be here soon. He said you’d— The thing is, my little boy is sick, and it’s getting colder by the minute, and I really want to…”
She trailed off.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” said Mrs. McCall in a comfortable voice. Her hand, faintly dusted with flour, took Jill’s travel bag and tucked it out of the way against the wall. The same hand left flour traces on Sam’s forehead as she rested her palm there for a moment, then crooned, “You’re as hot as can be, aren’t you, cowboy? Come in, honey.”
She put an arm around Jill’s shoulder as Jill took a better hold on Sam, wrapping both her arms around him. He hadn’t spoken a word since they left Gray back in that big open field.
“Come straight through to the kitchen,” Gray’s mother said. “I have the oven on, and it’s the warmest room in the house. He must be hungry.”
“I don’t know if he is, but I’d like to get some hot liquid into him, and some Tylenol, and then I’m hoping he’ll take a long nap. He hardly slept last night.”
“Poor mite! I have soup on the stove and corn bread just gone into the oven. I’ve been expecting Gray back for lunch.”
“We delayed him, I think.”
“You’ll eat, too?”
“As soon as I’ve settled Sam.”
“You’re staying the night, of course.”
“Gray asked us to,” Jill hedged, then admitted, “I was so grateful.”
On her shoulder, Sam stirred. “Mommy…?”
“Isn’t it good to be inside, Sam?” Jill whispered to him.
She dreaded the possibility that this was a real illness. Strep throat, or influenza. What were doctors like out here? How long would it be before he could travel safely?
Stomach in knots, she followed Gray’s mother down a clean, plain hallway and, moments later, Sam was seated on her lap at a big old kitchen table. There was a cast-iron, wood-fired range that was no longer in use, next to an electric stove that wasn’t a whole lot newer. There was a wooden dresser set with a motley collection of decorative plates, and there were floral calico curtains bunched in the windows.
Mrs. McCall moved about the large yet cozy room with quiet efficiency.
“Where did you leave Gray?” she said.
“Um, I’m not sure. About a mile back, I guess.”
“He should be home any minute, then. He’ll come and check that you’re safe before he sees to the horse. You haven’t told me your name yet, honey.”
The reproof was so mild it was almost a compliment.
“I’m sorry. It’s Jill. Jill Brown.”
Jill Brown McCall? She didn’t say it, being absolutely sure that Gray, like herself until very recently, would have said nothing about their marriage to his family.
“It’s good to meet you, Jill. And you, Sam, darling-heart, although I know you’re feeling too bad to talk.” She slid a wide, half-filled soup plate across to Jill and cautioned, “Still piping hot, so wait a little,” then added, “I’m Louise.”
There was the sound of boots clumping on the back steps, then the rattle and creak of old doors opening, and Gray appeared. He swept his hat off his head with a single, practised movement, and Jill could see that his nose was shiny with cold and his black eyes glistened. The feeling of the outdoor world of the ranch seemed to enter the room with him. Space and air, the smell of animals and grass, a sense of freedom coupled with hard work.
The hard work part, Jill understood. She’d had to work hard herself, for much of her life. She wasn’t afraid of work, and when she’d taken on a task, she was stubborn about seeing it through. But everything else about Grayson McCall was new. And appealing, in an elemental way that unsettled and disturbed her. Disturbed her far more than it had in Las Vegas, when they’d both been playing roles that weren’t their own.
She had to struggle to take her eyes off him, to ignore the way his muscles stretched beneath the fabric of his clothing, and to avoid being aware of exactly where he stood and how he moved in the room. Even the sounds he made. The creak of his boots, the whoosh of the breath he blew into his hands.
He shouldn’t affect her in this way. Not when she hardly knew him. Not when she sensed his reluctance about having her here. And not the way things stood in her life.
“That wind is sharp!” he said. “Mom, this is Jill…and Sam.”
“I know,” Louise said easily. “We’ve just introduced ourselves.”
“Can you make up some beds for them while I put Highboy away?”
“You’re not taking him out again later?”
“Going to look at the engine on the old pickup instead,” he said, and Louise nodded but didn’t say anything.
Jill realized that her arrival must have caused a change in plans, casually communicated between son and mother. But she understood too little about ranch life to know if it mattered. She realized also that she’d be even more of a nuisance if she protested.
No, please, don’t hold off birthing those ten dozen calves, roping those six hundred steers and mending that twenty mile fence on my account!
Gray disappeared back out the kitchen door and his mother went off to set up a bed for Sam. He would be in it within minutes, Jill knew. Seated listlessly on her lap, Sam was only eating the soup because she was spooning it in. It smelled so good, and her own stomach was selfishly clamoring for its share.
Before the bowl was finished, Sam pushed the spoon away and Jill didn’t force the issue.
Louise McCall was back.
“All ready for him,” she said. “I did yours, too, so as not to disturb him later on. Now, what else do you need before you get him settled?”
“Just a glass of water, please,” Jill answered. “I want to give him some Tylenol, and he likes to wash away the taste afterward. Sam, sweetie, can you sit here while I find the Tylenol in our bag?”
He nodded, and sat obediently in the chair Jill had just vacated. From the far end of the hallway, as she rummaged around in their big canvas travel bag for the medicine, she heard Louise talking to him in a casual kind of way.
“I’m going to be here in the house all afternoon, little guy, so if you need anything you let me or your mom know, okay? And I should tell you, we have a cat might come and sleep on your bed, Sam. You like cats? Yeah, they’re interesting creatures, aren’t they? This one’s old. She doesn’t hunt anymore, just likes to find the warmest spot in the house and go to sleep. Will you mind if she does that on your bed?”
Bless her! Jill thought. She must be wondering who in heaven we are and why we’re here, but she hasn’t asked a single question about it. Instead, all she wants to know is whether Sam feels safe with cats….
And apparently Sam did, because the old tabby was already making herself comfortable on Sam’s trundle bed as Jill got him undressed and snuggled into his stretchy pajamas, and Sam didn’t object. Instead, as he slid between the covers, he croaked a tender “Hello, Firefly.”
He curled his body to make room for the animal, whose purr was so loud it almost made the bed vibrate. Within seconds the two of them were lying there with eyes closed, heading for sleep.
Tear-blinded and shaky once more, Jill pulled the faded, handmade quilt a little higher around Sam’s shoulders and gave him a soft kiss. He was safe and cherished now in a way she hadn’t dared to imagine an hour ago.
He’d probably be well again by the day after tomorrow, she decided. It was hope rather than science.
She went to the window, passing a neat pile of cardboard boxes, labeled with a black felt-tip pen. “Dad’s office,” read several. “Grandma’s albums,” said a couple more. A draught of warm air wafted up through the black metal grill of the heating vent in the floor, contrasting with the chilly vista through the window.
The clouds had lowered and thickened further, and had paled to a dull white which shrouded the tops of the mountains. Wind whipped the tethered canes of the roses and combed through the needles of the pines like distant singing.
Gray was coming across the yard. His hat was jammed down to cover his ears and his shoulders were hunched. His strides lengthened as he neared the house, as if he couldn’t wait to get inside, and Jill had the strongest, strangest urge to hurry down to him, take his coat, serve him his soup and ask him about his day, as though she belonged here.
Considering that she was here to ask for a divorce, so she could be free to say yes to Alan, none of what she felt made any sense.
She made a stop at the bathroom on the way downstairs and noted that it resembled the rest of the house—old and shabby but scrupulously clean and brightened with homey touches that could only have been made by a loving hand.
When she reached the kitchen, Gray was at the table, chewing on warm corn bread and spooning in a huge bowl of soup.
“…couldn’t have gotten it done this afternoon, anyhow, because it was a bigger problem than I’d thought,” he was saying. “Wylie can’t have checked it like he said he had.” He hadn’t heard or seen her arrival yet. “I’m going to have to bring you and Grandpa Pete with me, Mom, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get the truck up there with the gear. ’S why I want to fix that oil leak and check the transmission, because otherwise we could get ourselves well and truly stuck.”
Catching sight of Jill in the doorway, Louise McCall asked at once, “How is he, honey?”
Gray stopped eating and looked up at Jill. He gave a little nod of greeting, then watched her face with his dark eyes for a moment, before flicking his gaze downward. He hadn’t waited for her reply to Louise’s question. Didn’t seem to want to know.
“He’s asleep by now,” she said. “Along with…with Firefly.”
Ah, don’t cry, Jill! she thought to herself angrily. Why is this happening?
“It’s stupid,” she went on, wiping tears onto her sleeve. “To cry about it, I mean. But I’m so grateful. Even your cat is making us welcome!”
“Well, why wouldn’t we, Jill?” Louise said courteously. Then her curiosity got the better of her at last and she asked, “Are you in some kind of trouble, honey?”
“Mom, let’s leave this till later, okay?” Gray growled, going back to his meal.
Both women ignored him. Jill fixed her gaze steadily on Gray’s mother and said, “I was. At one time. And Gray helped me out. Which created a problem of its own, that I need help with. I promise I’ll trouble you as little as I can. Sam getting sick was something I hadn’t foreseen. It means we’re going to be with you for a few days, when I’d been hoping I could start for home tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Louise said. “Please don’t.”
Her son didn’t add the same assurance.
A silence fell, slightly awkward, as they finished their soup, which tasted every bit as good as it smelled. Gray wolfed down three bowls of it, along with substantial hunks of corn bread. He spoke just once more, to ask, “Grandpa’s not coming back for lunch?”
“He took sandwiches and coffee,” Louise answered. “Wants to get those cows moved down today.”
“He shouldn’t be doing it on his own.”
Louise snorted. “You tell him that!”
Gray nodded and shrugged. “Guess I already did.” As soon as he was done eating, he announced, “I’m going to get on over to the shed and look at that truck, or I won’t get anywhere with it today.”
“Can I help?” Jill blurted out. “Sam will sleep for hours now. He always does when he’s feverish, so it doesn’t make sense for me to sit around. You told him you’d be here at the house all afternoon, didn’t you, Louise?”
Gray looked at her, as wary as before, and she could see the way he was assessing her words.
“Sure,” he finally answered, much too slowly. “Can always use an extra pair of hands.”
They set out ten minutes later. Jill was bundled up in an old scarlet sweater of Louise’s. Louise had said that the shed was cold, and Jill’s jacket and pink top “too pretty” to get covered in motor oil.
“You know anything about cars?” Gray asked her as they drove in his mom’s late-model white station wagon back the same way Jill had come with Ron Thurrell.
“Not a whole lot,” she admitted, “but I’m willing to learn.”
“Not in one afternoon.”
“No, okay, well, something else, then.”
“You don’t have to.”
“You said you could use an extra pair of hands.”
“I figured you wanted to come along so Mom didn’t have a chance to ask you any more awkward questions.”
“That was part of it,” Jill admitted. “But I said I’d help, and I will.”
The sound he made might have been, “Thanks.”
Or it might have been a snort.
She lifted her chin and didn’t push the point. Feeling the tension along her jaw, she glanced sideways and recognized much the same expression on Gray’s face.
We’re both stubborn, I guess, she thought.
Stubborn and honorable in his case. Stubborn and impulsive, in hers. Was that what had gotten them into trouble in Las Vegas?
Please get well quick, Sam. I’m here to dissolve the magic not make it stronger.
“Where are we headed?” she asked quickly.
“Machine shed,” he answered. “We have a heavy-duty pickup we need to take cross-country to fix some fence. We’ve had cattle showing up where they don’t belong.”
“Like me.”
“Really, Jill, you can quit apologizing.” Impatience colored his tone. “I got us both into this as much as you did.”
“Your mom would like to know what it’s all about.”
“Mom’s pretty good, but she’s only human.”
“I know. It’s not that I would have resented questions, I just didn’t feel ready to answer them yet.”
“Makes sense. Can I ask a couple?”
“Probably a little easier, coming from you,” she agreed.
“You want to get married again, is that right? That’s the only reason I could think of for the urgency.”
“Uh, yeah.” She listened to her own words, and realized that she had begun to adopt his own cautious, almost reluctant way of talking.
“I mean married for real.”
“I know what you meant,” she said. “Yes, married for real. I mean, we’re not in love with each other, Alan and I. But when you have kids, that stuff’s more trouble than it’s worth. He knows that, and so do I.”
“Yeah, I guess it could be that way,” Grayson growled. “This guy has kids, too?”
“Teenage daughters, Anna and Sarah. And they come first. Them, and Sam. For both of us.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it? I keep thinking you should be angry, Gray. Angry that this is happening at all. That I got you into it. In fact, on some level, you are angry.”
“No, I’m not,” he insisted. “Or, not with you. It’s not your fault. Neither of us realized, when it was happening, that it was real….”
Real. Real as in legal. A very different kind of “real” from what she hoped to build with Alan.
The word echoed in Jill’s mind, and she suddenly wondered if she had the slightest idea what “real” actually meant. She thought back…
Las Vegas. The show. “Cinderella on Ice.” A dream come true. A dream made real. Only, from the very beginning, it hadn’t been.
Jill had skated since she could remember, pushed into it at first by her selfish and demanding mother, then loving it for its own sake. She had found a home away from home at the rink, when life with her mother, Rose Chaloner Brown, had been like a minefield that all beloved stepfather David Brown’s care and sense couldn’t make safe, and all of her sisters’ companionship couldn’t distract from.
Rose had kicked her out the door when she was pregnant and alone at just eighteen, along with her stepsister, Catrina, who was almost Jill’s twin in age. Jill’s older sister, Suzanne, had refused to stay under a roof where her sisters weren’t welcome, so she’d left at that time, also.
“Ungrateful,” Rose had called all three of them. She’d used much harsher labels, as well.
After this, the expense of Jill’s competitive amateur career had been way too much for the sisters’ stretched finances. So she had concentrated on teaching as a fallback, while dreaming of the chance to skate in professional shows.
She had had Sam to raise, also. He was still the best thing that had ever happened to her, despite the disaster of her naive infatuation for his father. None of it had been easy, though. Ivy League boyfriend Curtis Harrington hadn’t wanted to know about the coming baby. Jill didn’t know how she would have managed if she hadn’t had Suzanne’s and Catrina’s help, as well as that of Catrina’s eccentric Cousin Pixie, for the past couple of years.
Back in March, just after Sam’s fourth birthday, she’d gotten her big break at last. Andrea, a close friend during their teens at the ice rink in Philadelphia, had been forced to pull out of her role in “Cinderella on Ice” for six weeks, due to an injury. The one-sided contract Andrea had signed stipulated that she’d lose her place in the show permanently unless she could come up with a temporary replacement of her own.
Enter Jill Brown, with stars in her eyes.
She had left Sam in the loving care of her sisters and flown out to Las Vegas to step onto the ice as a Featured Mouse and Cinderella understudy. And she had hated every minute of it. Her dreams were shattered. She felt like a fool for thinking that a showgirl lifestyle, so incompatible with Sam’s needs, could have made her happy.
The show was a cheap takeoff of the far more glamorous Disney version. The performers were badly paid and badly treated, and tensions between the cast members were high. Jill had missed Sam more than she’d have thought possible, every minute of every day. The knowledge that he was happy and well cared for with Cat, Suzanne and Pixie didn’t help.
She was supposed to endure almost six more weeks of this?
Maybe it should have helped when Trixie, the regular Cinderella, came down with a bad dose of flu on Jill’s first Saturday in Las Vegas. To skate as Cinderella should have been a dream come true, but it wasn’t.
Lying in bed in a darkened room, Trixie had overwhelmed Jill with advice and instructions, in a pained, croaky voice. “And don’t forget that publicity thing afterward. The ‘Cinderella Marathon’ thing.”
“What?”
“The ball thing, the contest, with the cable channel.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You just have to stick around the hotel. It’s in the big function room. You’re the so-called ‘Celebrity bride.’ They’ll tell you what to do. You haven’t heard about it? There’s been a lot of publicity about the rules and prizes, and all.”
“No, I haven’t heard about it.” I’ve been too busy crying into my pillow, missing Sam and wishing I’d never come.
“It’s no big deal, but you know management will kill you if you don’t show.”
“I know.”
So she had “shown” for the “Cinderella contest thing” in the big function room just as she was supposed to do, without the slightest idea what it was all about….
“This is it,” Gray said, wheeling the pickup to a halt in front of a big metal shed.
Jill was impressed by the sizeable collection of buildings grouped nearby. She could only guess what they were used for. Milking? Did the McCalls run the kind of cattle that got milked? Somehow, she thought not.
In the distance, she could glimpse the large new house on the hill, the place that the McCalls were renting out in order to stretch their cash flow a little. It was separated from this section of the ranch by three fences and a line of healthy young trees, their leaves ablaze with fall color.
Gray jumped out of the truck, and she watched him for a moment before getting out herself. He was such a capable looking man, as upright and sturdy as a tree trunk, both in body and heart, but she had known from the moment they met that he was hurting. Something in his life wasn’t right, and he had his back to the wall as he fought his circumstances.
She didn’t know the whole story, but she knew some of it, thanks to the way they’d talked that night in Las Vegas six months ago. His father had overstretched their finances with the purchase of a neighboring ranch immediately before his death. As a result, Grayson, his newly widowed mother and his fit but elderly grandfather were in danger of losing the land that had been in the McCall family for over eighty years.
Until seeing the place for herself today, Jill hadn’t been able to grasp what that meant. Now, she was just beginning to understand. This place was substantial, beautiful, and expensive to run—rewarding of success and dramatically unforgiving of failure.
And somehow the thought of Gray failing, of losing the fight to save his family ranch after the blow of his father’s death, suddenly mattered to her. It mattered in a way that made her throat tighten and took her breath away. She didn’t want to think of him failing after such a struggle, through no fault of his own.
This was what the word “real” meant, she understood.
“Real” wasn’t the bewildering whirl of their publicity-stunt Cinderella marriage, under the glare of TV lights. The marriage was legal, as Jill’s lawyer had advised, but it wasn’t real. “Real” wasn’t even the unexpected moment of stillness in the midst of it all. The moment when she and Gray had said their vows, still believing them to be a meaningless charade, and had looked into each other’s eyes and felt…magic.
None of those things were real. But this…This was real. Gray’s struggle to keep his ranch and the life he loved was real. No wonder he just wanted to sign those divorce papers, watch Sam get quickly well and wave them goodbye.
Alan was right, she thought. He knew I couldn’t get the magic of that night with Gray out of my head. He knew I had to come here and feel the reality for myself.
Chapter Three
“You don’t have to work so hard, Jill,” Gray said.
He had been glancing up from beneath the hood of the pickup to watch her every few minutes for the past hour and a half. He hadn’t seen her take a break yet.
When they reached the shed, she had insisted on a “real job.” Hiding his skepticism, he’d taken her at her word. It hadn’t been hard to find one for her. She was chipping off rust-blistered paint and coating a derusting treatment onto the bale retriever. The vehicle was falling apart but it had to last out a whole season of winter feeding. There was no way he could afford to get it replaced as his father had planned to do this year.
Some of those rust patches were getting downright dangerous. They had begun to eat into and weaken the metal, and she was taking it seriously. He was amazed at how hard she was prepared to work. She had chips of yellow paint all over Louise’s old red sweater, and a streak of rust across her cheek. The air smelled of the acrid chemical treatment. The noise she had made as she chipped was like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Jill’s neat hips moved in rhythm as she worked. Her pert derriere stuck out when she bent to reach an awkward spot with her brush. Louise’s sweater hugged her figure soft and close, showing her curves. The sight once again affected Gray in a way that was both delicious and uncomfortable.
From time to time she shook her glossy dark hair back out of her eyes. Once she wiped her hands on a rag and re-wound the piece of pink elastic around her jaunty ponytail to keep it more securely out of the way. The movement lifted the neat swell of her breasts, and lifted the sweater to briefly show an inch of silky skin around her waist.
Gray knew women—ranchers’ wives and daughters included—who would have thrown up their hands at the job long ago, but Jill was taking it all in stride. Or maybe she was just releasing pent-up tension. This situation couldn’t be any easier for her than it was for him. She was stuck here on the ranch with a sick child, when all she wanted was to make an arrangement about the divorce and get on with her life.
He closed the hood of the pickup and went over to her.
Short of investing in parts he couldn’t afford—like a whole new engine, maybe—he’d done all he could to make the truck worthy of a grinding ride into one of the roughest sections of the entire ranch. He had gone out on horseback this morning, hoping for a quick fix with a few coils of wire. Instead he was going to need new posts, new holes and half a dozen heavy tools.
It was just one more task he didn’t need, with all his ranch hands laid off and his grandfather working way harder than an old man should. Not to mention Mom.
“I’m doing fine here,” Jill told him.
She straightened. He could see a tiny yellow paint chip on her jaw line that his fingers itched to brush away. He remembered all too clearly how soft her skin was in that spot.
“I know you are,” he answered instead. “You’ve done a great job. I never thought you’d get that far in a couple of hours. But we should pack up now and head back. It’s getting dark out.”
She blinked. “That late?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Ha ha.”
“While we’re clearing up, shall we grab a coffee and talk a little bit?”
“Sure. About the divorce?”
“And about the marriage. Square our stories. How much do you want to tell Mom?”
He went over to a bench at the side of the shed, where there was a sink and a faucet and a propane camping stove.
“It’s your decision, Gray,” she answered.
“I’m inclined to keep it simple.” He added water to a kettle and instant coffee granules to two cups as he spoke. “Let’s just say you got in trouble with a contract in Las Vegas that I was a witness to, and now there are some legal papers for me to sign so you can get out of the situation. That’s…kind of the truth.”
She laughed. “Sort of kind of, I guess.”
“Okay, I admit it.” He spread his work-roughened hands and gave an upside down smile. “I’m embarrassed to tell my mother that I actually married a woman I hadn’t even met purely because I felt sorry for her!”
“You didn’t know it would be legal.”
“Might have done it anyway, under the circumstances,” he growled.
She raised her eyebrows. Didn’t quite believe him.
“Well, I’m grateful,” she said. “I’ll never forget how it felt to escape from those other guys, Gray, when I realized they weren’t prepared to go over five hundred dollars and you were.”
“How’d you know I wasn’t a creep, too?”
It was something he had been wondering on and off for six months. How they had both known, actually, that it was a good deed on his part. That he was saving Cinderella, not kidnapping her.
She went still at his question, and her jewel green eyes rounded. “I—” She stopped, and laughed her pretty, golden laugh. “Lord, you know, I never even thought about that. I…just knew.”
She looked at him and frowned. Her head tilted slightly to one side as if she was tallying his attributes. He met her gaze steadily, but felt self-conscious. He wasn’t sure what she would think about what she saw.
He was a simple man, big, strong, but with no airs and graces. He wore work clothes six and a half days a week, and he had rough hands like two fresh offcuts of wood. There was no glamour attached to him. He couldn’t be the type she was used to—like the man in Pennsylvania who wanted to marry her, for example.
“I guess because you were just sitting there quietly,” she said finally.
“Yeah, I’d just come in for a beer,” he agreed, remembering…
He had made the journey to Las Vegas in desperation. He wanted to see his older half-brother, Mitch, who was the only person he could think of who might lend him the money he needed to put capital into the expanded. Thurrell Creek, owned by Wylie Stannard for thirty years since he’d won it from Ron Thurrell’s father in a bet, was run down and neglected and in very bad shape.
If he could put some money into Thurrell Creek, if the weather was kind to him, if he didn’t lose too many calves, then he’d have cattle to sell and could hopefully claw himself up out of the hole the ranch was buried in.
Why had Dad suddenly bought Thurrell Creek from old Wylie Stannard last December, when Wylie had blown into town from back east, ready to sell? Had Dad stopped to think about quite how much it would stretch their cash flow? Did he have a strategy for making it work?
Nine months later, Gray still didn’t know.
By a chilling coincidence, which still sent prickles up his spine whenever he thought of it, Frank McCall had died that same day. He and Stannard and the McCalls’ lawyer, Haydon Garrett, had finalized the purchase of the ranch. Afterward, on his way home, Frank had suffered what would prove to be a fatal stroke, at the wheel of his pickup in Blue Rock’s main street. He’d never been able to talk about the purchase of Thurrell Creek, and how he planned to manage.
But if Dad thought we could do it, then we should be able to do it. Gray had thought this way in Las Vegas, and he was still thinking this way now. Is it my fault? Was he that much better a rancher than I am? We had a tough winter. We lost more stock than I’d hoped. We had to replace the generator, and we had that fire in the feed store. But Dad was the one who taught me to allow for contingencies like that. Why did he think we could stretch ourselves so thin?
Gray had not told Mitch any of this when he made his desperate plea for funds. It didn’t change the outcome. Mitch refused to help.
Sitting defensively behind his desk in his big office in downtown Vegas, Mitch had told his half-brother angrily, “Your father told me to stay out of your lives.”
“Yes, because—”
“Now, suddenly, when Frank is gone—” Mitch plowed through Gray’s words “—and you need my money, the money I made in business with my own father, it’s a different story.”
“It’s not like that, Mitch. Dad spoke in anger that day.” Gray didn’t add his opinion that Frank McCall’s anger had been more than justified after the years of hurt Mitch had inflicted on the family, both before and after his departure from the ranch at the age of nineteen. “You know they both wanted to heal the rift. Mom hoped so much that you’d come to Dad’s funeral. She phoned you. She begged—”
“It was too late for that,” Mitch cut in, his mouth tight. “Mom’s always been too sentimental. She may believe that anger shouldn’t last beyond the grave, but that’s not my opinion.”
What could Gray do at this point but accept defeat? He didn’t know which was worse—that he hadn’t found a way to save the ranch, or that Mitch and Louise were still so deeply at odds, with himself, as Frank’s son, locked in the middle. Both facts had his gut tied in knots, and he hadn’t trusted himself to drive after he left Mitch’s office. Had decided to stay overnight, start heading back at first light.
By that time, it was late afternoon, and he’d wandered into the gaming and entertainment section of his hotel, emotions stretched tight as a fiddle string. He’d fed five dollars into a slot machine, purely for the release of hearing the strident noise as he pulled the handle. He had received six hundred dollars worth of winnings from his last pull with an absent sort of surprise. At least it covered the cost of the trip.
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Lilian Darcy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Saving Cinderella, электронная книга автора Lilian Darcy на английском языке, в жанре современная зарубежная литература