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The Marriage Maker
Christie Ridgway











Stories of family and romance

beneath the Big Sky!

“I need something from you, Cleo.”

“Me?” Her voice sounded breathless. “What could I possibly do for you?”

“You could marry me.”

Marry him. Marry Ethan.

Cleo’s heart lurched, as if it was trying to find a way out of her chest. “Are you kidding?” she said.

“Not kidding.”

Marry Ethan? This whole episode was like something out of a fantasy, a too-familiar fantasy born the first moment she saw Ethan last winter. But the reality of Ethan was right in front of her. She could smell his delicious, sophisticated scent and see new lines of tiredness, or grief, maybe, etched around his serious mouth. His sister had died. He had a baby now.

A husband. A child. Ethan. A fantasy come to life.

“Yes, Ethan. I’ll marry you.”





The Marriage Maker










Christie Ridgway







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHRISTIE RIDGWAY


Native Californian Christie Ridgway started reading and writing romances in middle school. It wasn’t until she was the wife of her college sweetheart and the mother of two small sons that she submitted her work for publication. Many contemporary romances later, she is the happiest when telling her stories despite the splash of kids in the pool, the mass of cups and plates in the kitchen, and the many commitments she makes in the world beyond her desk.

Besides loving the men in her life and her dream-come-true job, she continues her longtime love affair with reading and is never without a stack of books. You can find out more about Christie or contact her at her website, www.christieridgway.com.


To my editor, Lynda Curnyn.

Thanks for everything.




Contents


Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve




Prologue


Never in her life had Cleo Kincaid Monroe schemed to get a kiss.

“But there’s a first time for everything,” she muttered to herself as she moved around the spacious kitchen of the Big Sky Bed & Break fast.

“Did you say something?” The deep voice of Ethan Redford, her evening’s date, came from the direction of the small den off the kitchen.

“Say something? Not me. Uh-uh. Nothing.” And nothing was exactly what had happened between Cleo and Ethan. Not tonight when he’d taken her to dinner at the White horn Country Club, not last week when he’d flown her in a private plane for lunch in Bozeman, not all the times they’d run into each other at the B and B where he was staying and where she lived with her mother and sister.

Cleo scooped coffee into an unbleached filter, vowing to change that nothing to something, to a kiss, because for the three weeks since Ethan had arrived in White horn, Montana, she hadn’t been able to think of anything but kissing him.

Aware that it was after midnight, she dumped another generous scoop of grounds into the filter and clicked on the coffeemaker. Drowsiness wasn’t going to get in the way of this kiss, either, by gosh.

Another woman might have thought Ethan didn’t want to kiss her, but Cleo figured it had more to do with all the interruptions that came with living at the family business. Why, after their Bozeman lunch they’d stood in this very kitchen and she’d actually seen the kiss in his eyes, even felt his warm breath rush across her mouth as he leaned toward her. But then her sister Jasmine and their mother had bustled in, wanting every detail of Cleo’s first-ever private plane ride.

She could have killed them.

But tonight, ah, tonight the B and B was blissfully quiet. Ethan was their only guest right now—early February not being the high tourist season in Montana—and Jasmine went to bed early. Cleo cast a glance down the hall that led to the family’s bedrooms and didn’t see a light under her mother’s door, either. That was good, too. Celeste hadn’t been sleeping well lately and maybe she was finally getting a chance to catch up on her rest.

Cleo loaded a tray with the coffee carafe, mugs, cream, sugar and spoons, then took one bracing breath before stepping into the den.

And there he was.

Her stomach gave that funny little hiccup it always did when she looked at Ethan. There wasn’t much call for elegant dark business suits, white shirts and ties in Montana, but Ethan wore them with the ease most of the men she knew wore down jackets and cowboy boots.

He’d thrown his suit jacket over the rocking chair in the corner, rolled up his sleeves and loosened his tie. Cleo’s tummy hiccuped again. Who’d have thought “corporate rumple” could look so delicious and complement so well that glint of gold stubble on his chin?

She let her gaze wander up to his blue eyes. Guilt pinged her. “You look tired,” she said, and here she was, ready to feed him mega doses of caffeine to satisfy her own sensual curiosity. She knew he’d been working long hours on a merger deal between the local ATI Com company and the Kyoto-based Sokia Industries.

But he smiled—grinned really, that confident Ethan grin—and stood to take the tray out of her hands. “It wears a man out, talking about himself all night.” He set the tray on the small table in front of the love seat he’d been sitting on. “Don’t think I didn’t realize you were plying me with questions.”

With her hands unoccupied, Cleo found herself suddenly nervous. The den was small and the love seat—the only sitting space avail able since Ethan’s jacket occupied the rocking chair—was even smaller. She swallowed as he sat back down, his tall frame taking up more than half of the cushions. “My questions were legitimate,” she said, trying to hide her nervousness with a smile. “I didn’t know a thing about a merger and acquisitions consulting company.”

He grimaced. “And now you probably know more than you ever wanted to…and about the man who owns one.”

Cleo remained standing, her hands clutching each other. Yes, Ethan had told her about his company, United Mergers, Inc., and about the deal he was trying to put together here in White horn. He’d told her about his penthouse condo in Houston and about the constant travel his work required. But did she know much about him? He hadn’t shared one word with her about his personal life. A little shiver of apprehension tickled her spine. Maybe kissing Ethan wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

“Are you cold?” Ethan patted the love seat beside him. “Come and sit down and let me warm you up with some…coffee.”

Was Cleo imagining that little hesitation? What about that little gleam in his eye? “Maybe…” She glanced back toward the kitchen, as if some excuse might conveniently present itself.

“Cleo.” Two of his fingers curled in her direction, more commanding than coaxing. “Come here.”

That shiver sped down her spine again, but there was no saying no to the decisive tone in Ethan’s voice. She didn’t want to, anyway, of course. Not really. Not when she’d been staring into his intense blue eyes all evening. Not when she’d been wondering for days what his crisp, dark gold hair would feel like between her fingers.

She slid onto the cushion beside him, pressing against the upholstered arm. To hide her nervousness, she busied herself arranging the soft gathers of her long, violet-colored, thermal-knit dress. Small buttons ran from the hem to the modest neckline, and Ethan reached out and touched the topmost one, right below the pulse beat at her throat.

“This dress matches your eyes,” he said quietly. “Did I tell you tonight how beautiful you look?”

Goose bumps prickled her skin and she felt her cheeks heat. She kept her gaze on her lap. “I think you mentioned it, right after you noticed the green fingerpaint in my hair.”

He leaned forward and picked up a long wavy tendril of the stuff in question. The green had been quite a startling contrast to its usual russet color. Cleo couldn’t believe she’d missed it when she’d gotten ready for their date. But even then, the idea of kissing Ethan had been distracting her.

He idly toyed with her hair, brushing the end against her cheek with a teasing flick. “Occupational hazard, right?”

“I suppose so.” As the director of Bean sprouts, Whitehorn’s only day care center, fingerpaint was merely one of life’s daily surprises. She grinned. “But I tell you, a couple of occupational-type presents made up for it. Brandon Rye brought me some fat earth worms from his family’s compost bin along with a big ol’ sloppy kiss.”

Ethan’s hand, still tickling her with her hair, froze mid stroke. “A sloppy kiss? And who is this Brandon? Should I be jealous?”

Cleo looked up at Ethan then. Her cheeks burned and her heart pounded, but she didn’t let either sensation stop her. “I don’t know if you should be jealous,” she answered. “Are you?”

He smiled, and grooves appeared in his lean cheeks. “That depends on whether you like sloppy kisses.”

Cleo liked to breathe, but it didn’t appear she’d get air soon, not with how it all seemed to be sucked away by the contrast of Ethan’s playful smile with his intense, darkening gaze. “I…like all kinds of kisses.”

Ethan’s smile died and the heat in his eyes intensified. “Is that right?” He leaned closer.

Cleo watched his face near hers, her heart pounding hard and loud. The kiss. It was coming. And the idea scared her all over again so she put her hand lightly on his chest to slow his obvious intent. “Ethan…” she said.

His gaze was trained on her lips. “Hmm?”

It was the first thought that popped into her head. “Brandon’s three years old.”

That cocky, confident Ethan grin flashed again. “Cleo?”

“Hmm?”

He cupped her face with both his big hands. “I’m not.”

Then he touched her mouth.

His lips were warm and his scent spicy and she breathed him in, her stomach hiccuping again in excitement.

He held her face firmly with his hands, his fingertips against the pulses pounding at her temples. He angled his mouth to taste her deeper, but it was a gentle, thorough taking, his lips persuasive as his tongue slid softly into her mouth.

It was Ethan making a deal, she thought fuzzily as he curled his tongue coaxingly against hers. Smooth and slow, but ruthless, too. He trailed one hand from her face down her throat and held her there, too, the pulse at her throat beating against the vee made by his thumb and index finger. Goose bumps followed his path and Cleo found herself crowding his mouth, trying to press harder.

But he refused to be hurried, instead backing off a little himself and continuing to stroke his tongue softly, slowly—too soft, too slow—into her mouth.

She made a little sound of frustration and then finally remembered she had her own ways of getting what she wanted. Her fingers flattened against his shirtfront and she let him have that slow kiss as she explored the crispness of his shirt until she slid two fingers between the buttons beneath his tie.

She stroked once. Hot skin. She stroked twice. Hot male skin.

Ethan groaned, and then he widened her mouth with his and slid his tongue fully, wildly, inside.

Another rush of heat ran through Cleo, speeding from where their mouths met to run between her aching breasts. She took her free hand and touched the back of his head, pulling him closer with her palm against his thick golden hair.

He grunted and she made him pay for those three weeks of thinking of kissing by taking what she wanted—a slow pass of her tongue against his. She felt him shudder, and then she did, too, because he took her breasts in the curved cups of his palms.

Someone broke the kiss, and they stared at each other. Ethan’s nostrils flared and there was a flush on his cheekbones. Cleo couldn’t catch her breath; it just heaved in and out, pushing her breasts against the palms of Ethan’s hands.

With slow intent, he dropped his gaze, and she watched him watch himself rub his thumbs across her beaded nipples.

Cleo jerked, startled by the sweet sensation, surprised by how, how much she craved Ethan’s touch.

He looked back up and met her eyes. “I’m going to see you,” he said, his voice full of the kind of conviction that probably made CEOs in business meetings roll over and play dead.

Cleo didn’t even have that much will. She only knew she wanted what Ethan wanted, his gaze on her, his hands on her. Please.

Never hurrying, not appearing the least bit nervous, his fingers started on the row of small buttons holding her dress together.

Cleo closed her eyes. There were too many buttons. He was taking too long. And then he peeled the dress off her shoulders.

Ethan groaned one more time. “Cleo. Hell. Cleo.”

Her eyelids lifted and she saw his body was tense. He was looking at her breasts, and so she looked, too. Between the parted violet fabric of her clingy dress showed the lace of her darker violet bra, and rising from that was the swell of her breasts, taut and trembling.

Ethan’s hands tightened on her shoulders. He leaned forward, kissed her mouth hard, ran his tongue along her bottom lip.

Cleo shivered, only aware of how badly she wanted him to touch her. “I usually don’t…” she said, feeling almost bewildered by the power of the wanting. “I’m not—”

Ethan kissed her swiftly again, then rested his forehead against hers. “I know. And I wish—”

The distant sound of glass breaking cut him off.

Cleo jerked and half rose from her seat. Another sound—a woman’s stifled cry—made her rise completely. “My mother.”

Ethan hastily stood, too, and he pulled Cleo’s dress together, trying to button it. He looked around wildly, as if searching for an intruder or some other explanation. “What could it be?”

She pushed his hands away and quickly fastened the most crucial buttons as she ran through the kitchen. “A nightmare,” she called back, now speeding down the hall. “She has terrible nightmares.”

Cleo threw open the door to her mother’s bedroom. Just as she expected, Celeste was awake. With the help of the dim hallway light, Cleo confirmed her mother had had another run-in with the terrible dream. Tears still ran down Celeste’s pretty face.

“Don’t come in!” she ordered.

Cleo grabbed the doorjamb to halt her forward momentum. “What? Why?”

Instead of answering, Celeste struck a match, her hand wavering with nightmare after shocks as she lit the candle that was always at the ready on her bedside table.

The scent of Louisiana—that was how Celeste always described the aroma of her special white candles—filled the air. In the light the flame gave off, the light that Celeste believed burned the dream’s evil from the room, Cleo saw why her mother had ordered her to stay by the door.

Somehow she’d broken the delicate glass vial that always sat on the small bedside table, as well. In the incongruous shape of a skeleton, the vial had been filled with bergamot oil. Inspired by her time on the bayou, Celeste conferred upon the oil a special power, just as she did the candles. She believed rubbing the stuff on her skin would ease the almost-arthritic cramping of her left hand that invariably followed the horrible dream.

Cleo watched her mother take a long, deep breath. “Are you all right, Mama?”

Celeste closed her eyes, opened them, and a faint smile moved the corners of her mouth. “I’m all right for now, Cleo.”

“I’ll get a broom.” Her heart heavy, she whirled around, and headed back toward the kitchen.

To find Ethan lingering by the sink with his back to her, staring out into the snowy February night.

Cleo automatically lifted her fingers toward the remaining undone buttons of her dress.

Ethan turned around, catching her.

She froze.

His gaze flicked in the direction of her breasts, flicked back to her face. He swallowed. “Is everything all right?”

Cleo self-consciously dropped her hands to her sides. “She has a recurring nightmare that is very…unsettling.”

“Ah.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Please tell her I’m sorry.”

“I will.” Cleo backed toward the utility closet where they stored the broom. “And, um, Ethan.” Her cheeks burned. She wondered if he would want to wait for her to settle her mother back to sleep. She wondered if she had the nerve to ask him to wait. “I’m, uh, sorry, too.”

His mouth curved up but there was no smile in his eyes or his voice. “Don’t worry about it.” He took a step in the direction that would take him to the guest stairs and his second-floor bedroom. “Good night, Cleo.”

Good night, Cleo. Her courage didn’t show itself to ask him for something more than that. Biting her bottom lip, she just watched him head out of the kitchen.

“Wait!” Her voice was squeakily anxious.

Ethan halted, then slowly turned around. One dark gold eyebrow rose. “What?”

Cleo swallowed. “Before…before…” She gave up and just gestured toward the den and the love seat that she’d never look at quite the same way again. “Back there, back then, you…” Impatient with herself, she ran a hand through her hair. “You were saying something. What was it?”

Ethan’s expression didn’t give any of his thoughts away. Cleo supposed his kind of work made that an important trait, too. “Tomorrow, Cleo. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

And this time when he turned toward the stairs, Cleo let Ethan go. Tomorrow.

But when tomorrow came, Ethan Redford left the Big Sky B and B, without a word of excuse or explanation to anyone. As a matter of fact he disappeared from Montana altogether, leaving Cleo with only two imprints as a reminder of him—one of his credit card and the other of his kiss.




One


The thirty-year-old nightmare was older than Celeste Kincaid Monroe’s daughter Cleo, but it gripped Celeste ruthlessly all the same, dragging her instantly from sleep to terror.

The bayou again. Moss hanging like sticky, gray spiderwebs in the trees. The scent of wet decay.

Thunder. Once. Twice.

Then, as always, he appeared, a dark figure carrying something even darker. Fear surged like adrenaline through Celeste’s veins. It sang in her blood, an eerie, high-pitched dirge. She dug her bare toes into the mud.

Turn! Run!

But escape was impossible. The tall silhouette of her brother, Jeremiah Kincaid, kept coming toward her, the water swishing around his knees. The burden in his arms didn’t seem to trouble him. He carried it to Celeste as if it were a gift.

“No, Jeremiah,” she whispered. No, he shouldn’t be here in Louisiana. He’d never come to see her once she’d done his bidding and married Ty Monroe.

“Look,” he said, his voice commanding her, always telling her how it was, what she must do. “Look what is yours.”

“No.” She kept her gaze away from the limp body in his arms. It would be her sister Blanche, who had died after childbirth. It could only be Blanche, and Celeste refused to look at her. She couldn’t bear to see her sister’s vibrant fall of hair trailing through the stagnant, murky water. Just the thought made her heart stop, then disappear altogether.

In the cavern of her chest, only pain remained, echoing over and over.

“Look,” Jeremiah insisted.

Fear again, with its high-pitched song. No. But then she obeyed, her gaze angling down, down, toward the dead body of—

No! Celeste jerked up her head…

…and jerked right out of the nightmare’s grasp.

Lying against the soft sheets in her bedroom at Whitehorn’s Big Sky Bed & Break fast, Celeste tried to catch her breath as tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped at them with her hands, then turned her face against the pillow. Still, the dream clutched at her.

“Montana,” she whispered to herself, sitting up and lighting the white candle beside her bed. She’d left Louisiana with her husband after only a year, coming back to White horn and buying this house on the lake that with her sister Yvette she’d turned into the Big Sky Bed & Break fast. This was where her daughters were born and lived. Montana.

Forget the dream. But despite the steady, bright flame of her candle, the emotions the dream always roiled up still lurked in the dark corners of the room. She shivered.

And the past. The past lurked, too, hovering above her bed like a dark cloying canopy.

Celeste threw off the covers. Though her clock said it was only 5:00 a.m., she wasn’t going to find any more sleep. Dressing in jeans, sweater and lambskin boots, Celeste told herself a cup of coffee would burn away any last traces of the bad dream.

She quickly made up the bed, blew out her candle, then stepped into the hall, shutting her bedroom door firmly. Just as decisively, she shoved the memory of the dream to the back of her mind.

She couldn’t help being a victim to her nights, but she refused to let her waking hours be tainted, too. Today she wouldn’t let the one emotion that always stayed with her after the nightmare—that one unnameable emotion—over shadow her every daytime hour.

Celeste took the long route to the kitchen, walking through the public rooms of the B and B as if inspecting the intricate, natural-hued woodwork of the arts-and-crafts-style house could bring her quickly and fully into the present. Through the large living room windows she could see the last of the stars reflected in the glassy surface of Blue Mirror Lake. She stared out at the water, her hands absently stroking the Native-print blanket thrown over the back of one of the room’s rattan couches.

After the years she’d spent along side the bayou in Louisiana, this house, overlooking the water of the small natural lake, had drawn her, and not just because it was a respectable distance from the controlling influence of her brother, Jeremiah Kincaid. She’d always been grateful to her late husband Tyler’s agreeing to return to Montana and to buy this property. He’d recognized that she’d needed something to call her own, especially when he travelled so often. And the house was a true gem. There were a few others scattered among the pines surrounding the lake—vacation places, all of them—and most newer than her three-story house. It had been an ideal location to raise a family, an ideal home for her and Yvette to turn into a ten-bedroom bed-and-break fast, and an ideal way to support them selves while they also raised Summer, the orphaned daughter of their sister Blanche.

Blanche.

Celeste shivered as that dream-born emotion she was trying to bury struggled to surface. She hurried away from it by hurrying out of the room, past two more rattan couches and over stuffed club chairs, through the massive dining room with its long mission-style table and heavily beamed ceiling.

Letting herself think only of coffee, she swore she could almost smell it as she pushed the swinging door that led into the kitchen.

Celeste blinked in the dazzling overhead light. The room was bright, there was coffee already brewed, and she wasn’t going to keep her insomnia a secret because it seemed another Monroe woman shared it.

“Mama!” Celeste’s twenty-seven-year-old daughter Cleo looked up from the mug she’d been frowning at.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Celeste crossed the hardwood floor in the direction of the scarred oval table where Cleo was sitting. “You’re looking at that coffee as if it’s your worst enemy.”

Cleo’s full lips raised in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “It is my coffee, after all, Mama, not Jasmine’s.”

Well, her younger daughter was undoubtedly a master in the kitchen, but Celeste knew Cleo was just avoiding the real question. “C’mon, sweetie, this is your mother you’re talking to. You don’t usually have trouble sleeping.”

Cleo’s eyebrows came together in concern. “No, it’s you that usually can’t get any rest. Another nightmare?”

Celeste gestured with her hand as if to brush the subject away. She didn’t want to discuss it. “I’m asking what’s keeping you awake.”

There was a long pause, then Cleo looked balefully back down at her coffee mug. “Bean sprouts. I’m worried about the day care center.”

Celeste let the admission go for a moment and moved to the counter to pour herself some of Cleo’s less-than-stellar coffee. She was proud of her daughter’s success as the director of the day care center and knew that Cleo also took a lot of pride in what she did. The man she leased the building from had told Cleo last week he was going to sell the property as soon as possible. With her lease agreement up for renewal, Cleo had a legitimate worry that her business might not survive.

“You haven’t found another possible site, honey?” Celeste added a dash of milk to her mug then held the hot ceramic against the knuckles of her left hand. Their deep arthritic ache was as unpleasantly familiar as the dream that brought it about.

“Nothing,” Cleo said, shrugging. “And Gene came by again yesterday. He’s putting up a For Sale sign next week.”

Celeste came forward to lay a hand on top of her daughter’s head. “Maybe he won’t find anyone interested in buying.”

“Mmm.”

Celeste’s eyes narrowed. If she had to guess, she would say that Cleo wasn’t thinking about Beansprouts or For Sale signs or anything to do with business. There was a sad, faraway but dreamy look in her daughter’s beautiful violet eyes. “This is about something else. Something besides Bean sprouts.”

Cleo didn’t look up.

Celeste’s heart squeezed, and she used her aching left hand to tilt up her daughter’s chin. “Oh, Cleo,” she said. “This isn’t about him, is it? He’s been gone three months, sweetie. You wouldn’t still be mooning over a man like Ethan Redford?”

A new voice broke in. “Of course Cleo’s not mooning over Ethan, Mama. Cleo is much too sensible, much too practical to be letting a big shot, here-today-gone-tomorrow man like Ethan Redford even give her heart a tickle.”

Celeste chuckled as her younger daughter Jasmine glided into the room. At twenty-three, with her short-cropped black hair and a slender face, she looked too fresh and wide-awake for five-thirty in the morning. “You’re up early.”

“Mmm.” She took one sniff at the coffee carafe, grimaced in mock disgust, then dumped its contents into the sink. “Cleo would be in a better mood if she could learn to make better coffee.”

Since Jasmine’s coffee was universally acclaimed as fabulous—as well as anything else she created in the kitchen—neither Cleo nor Celeste bothered disagreeing with her. As a matter of fact, Cleo only said, “Sit down, Mama,” and then took both their mugs to the sink. She poured out the contents, then set the cups on the counter to wait for her sister’s heaven-blessed brew.

She gave Jasmine a significant look. “Mama had another nightmare.”

Both young women turned toward her. Celeste froze under her daughters’ worried gazes. “No—” But she stopped, because they were pointedly looking at her hands, and she realized she’d been massaging the painful left one with her right. She sighed.

“Please, girls, let’s talk about something else,” she pleaded. Talking about her nightmare might allow that disturbing, unnameable emotion she was keeping under strict control to rise again. “Please.”

Jasmine surrendered first, sliding her gaze toward her more voluptuous sister. “Okay, Mama.” She grinned, that devilish grin of a younger sibling who knows just how to push the older one’s buttons—and revels in it. “Let’s talk about what’s bugging Cleo.”

“Watch it,” Cleo threatened. “I can still hide your Barbie dolls, brat.” She propped her hands on her hips.

Jasmine’s grin widened. “I’ve hidden them from you. At your insistence, I recycle, Cleo. I compost our kitchen scraps. I’d never wear fur. But you’re not going to make me give up my precious fashion dolls. Uh-uh.”

Before Cleo could retort, the kitchen’s back door opened and Frannie, Celeste’s niece, stepped over the thresh old. In a brown, knee-length business suit that matched the brown of her hair and the brown of her eyes, she looked completely prepared for another day in her job as a loan officer at the White horn Savings and Loan.

At five-nine, Frannie towered over her cousins. In a familiar morning ritual, she automatically took the cup of coffee Cleo poured for her. “What are we talking about?” She lived at her parents’ house, located just behind the B and B.

Jasmine started bustling around the kitchen, getting ready for the break fast she’d serve the guests. “Fashion, I’d guess you’d say.”

Frannie touched the brown tortoiseshell clip that held her hair at the back of her neck. She sighed. “I guess that lets me out, then.”

Jasmine shook her head. “Only because you won’t let me make you over, Frannie. If you’d just give yourself a chance, you’d be stunning.”

Frannie flushed. “Let’s talk about something else.”

That mischievous smile twitched at Jasmine’s lips again. Uh-oh, Celeste thought. Prepare yourself, Cleo.

“We could go back to discussing Cleo’s love life,” Jasmine said, taking eggs out of the refrigerator.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Cleo’s face blushed just as pink as Frannie’s.

Jasmine acted as if she hadn’t heard her. “Mama wondered if maybe Cleo was still smitten with that Ethan Redford who was here three months ago.”

Frannie blinked owlishly. “Who?”

“You remember.” Jasmine took the juicer out of a lower cupboard. “He took Cleo out a couple of times, and I admit the looks he gave her could have melted that old wallpaper off the downstairs hallway, but then he just—poof!—left White horn. What do you think? Is Cleo in need of romantic repair?”

“Of course not.” Frannie blinked again and her voice was absolutely certain. “Cleo is much, much too practical to make any kind of romantic mistake.”

“Sensible, too. You missed sensible, Frannie,” Cleo added. Her face had regained its normal color and her voice was without animation.

Something in the nonemotion of Cleo’s voice niggled at Celeste and her mother radar went on the alert. “Cleo, sweetie—”

“Good morning!” The back door had opened again to admit Frannie’s parents, Celeste’s sister Yvette and her husband, Edward Hannon. The smell of a cool spring morning accompanied them as they headed for the countertop and Jasmine’s coffee.

The girls exchanged plea san tries with the new arrivals, and soon they were all savoring their morning ritual. Jasmine continued preparing break fast for the guests, but the rest of them took their places around the large kitchen table. Edward unfolded the newspaper and smiled at the faces circling him. “And a good morning it is. No better way for a man to start the day than with a glimpse of the harem that has kept him happy all these years.”

Celeste joined the others in the groan that in variably accompanied Edward’s usual comment. Someone wished that David, Frannie’s brother, was around to keep his father in check.

Thinking of her nephew, Celeste could only wish David was nearby, too. An FBI agent in Atlanta, Georgia, he hadn’t made it to Montana for a visit in too long. And she needed her loved ones around her. The nightmares were trying to tell her something about the past, and she felt certain she’d need all those she held dear when the day of reckoning came.

Yvette touched Celeste’s arm. “Are you all right?”

“She had another rough night,” Cleo said.

Celeste felt like a specimen in a bottle with five sets of serious eyes regarding her. That desperate, unnamed emotion swirled up inside her like a tornado, and she had to take a deep breath to find the strength to push it back down. “But I’m looking forward to an interesting day,” she said firmly. “Edward, tell us some good news.”

With one more searching look at her face, Edward smoothed the front page absently, then bent his head. “Well,” he said, smoothing the paper again. “Lyle Brooks finally broke ground for that resort/casino complex he’s been talking up all over town.”

Celeste frowned. That young man was some sort of kin on the Kincaid side and she’d never felt comfortable around him. “But isn’t the casino part of the Laughing Horse Reservation? How is Lyle involved?”

It was banker Frannie who answered. “Because Indian laws allow gambling, the casino will be on the Laughing Horse reservation, Aunt Celeste. But the accompanying resort will be on Kincaid land. Lyle’s put together the financing for both projects.” She didn’t look any more at ease about the young man than Celeste felt. “In ten years the whole thing will move out of Kincaid/Laughing Horse hands and into those of a joint corporation, headed by Lyle.”

Celeste should have been happy that they were off the subject of her nightmares, but suddenly the whole notion of Lyle and the disturbance of Kincaid land chilled her. A shiver racked her body. Yvette’s hand moved across the table to cover Celeste’s left one, the ache in it more pronounced than usual.

“Celeste, what’s the matter?” Yvette asked.

Another shiver rattled over Celeste’s spine. “There’s just something about Lyle I don’t like,” she said to her sister. “Maybe it’s because he reminds me of Jeremiah.”

At the mention of their elder brother’s name, silence fell around the table. When he’d been murdered, the violence had been shocking, but they hadn’t mourned him. He’d been cold and controlling all his life.

Celeste took a long breath, sorry to have brought her brother’s name into their warm circle. She looked from face to face, trying to gauge their moods. Edward and Yvette were concerned about her, she could see, while Frannie looked almost embarrassed. Standing behind Cleo, two worry lines bisected Jasmine’s smooth forehead. And Cleo—her beautiful, motherly Cleo—looked ready to fight tigers on Celeste’s behalf. But even underneath all her bristling protectiveness Celeste sensed in her older daughter another kind of sadness…

Yvette squeezed Celeste’s hand. “We love you,” she said.

Oh. And she loved them all and wanted them so much to be happy. With her right hand she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, intent on moistening her throat to tell them so.

But the coffee sloshed over her hand instead, and she didn’t even notice the slight scald, because suddenly that frightening maelstrom of emotion, that nightmare hangover, rose up within her once again. There was no controlling it.

She looked around at the faces of her family, but the feeling stayed, pulsing inside her.

It was powerful and dark and she finally, finally, knew its terrifying name.

The emotion that always remained with her after the horrible dream was…shame.

Celeste dropped her gaze, unable to meet the eyes of her caring, beloved family. Because just as certain as she was that it was shame trying to claw its way out of her heart, she was quite sure her family would condemn her if they knew that long ago she had…she had…

What?

Oh, God. Despite the acknowledgment of that feeling of shame, despite thirty years of terror-filled nights, Celeste just didn’t know.

She didn’t know what terrifying, shameful thing she had done.




Two


Ethan Redford sat in his newly purchased Range Rover outside White horn, Montana’s Bean sprouts day care center. Out his tinted windows he had a perfect view of the center’s fenced playground. Under the watchful gaze of several women he didn’t recognize, little kids built sandcastles, slid down a wavy slide, made imaginary meals in a gaily painted playhouse. Pleasing though the sight was, Ethan’s fingertips drummed the saddle-colored leather armrest.

He was stalling.

As humbling as the confession might be, he had to admit to himself that the idea of confronting Cleo Monroe after his abrupt, three-month absence was making his palms sweat. Hell! And this from a man who’d faced down his drunken, raging father at nine years old and brokered his first multimillion-dollar merger at thirty.

He rubbed his hands against his deliberately casual khaki slacks. Though the deal he wanted to propose today was the most important of his life, he knew it wasn’t the moment for an Armani suit and his best silk tie. For Cleo, he needed to appear approachable instead of powerful. Friendly, not frightening.

Cleo.

As if thinking her name had summoned her, the woman he’d been fantasizing about for three months stepped from the back door of the stucco building onto the fenced play yard. Instantly she was surrounded, little kids clamoring for her attention, little hands patting her legs, little fingers grabbing her hands.

Kind of like what he wanted to do. Grabbing her sounded good to him, too.

Ethan closed his eyes and groaned, remembering the sweet, silky feel of Cleo’s skin. He saw the voluptuous rise of her breasts over her lacy bra and felt again the tremors shaking her body as he brushed his thumbs over her nipples. He groaned again.

When he’d left Cleo that night, he’d considered himself pretty damn heroic for backing away from the wildfire of their mutual physical attraction. He hadn’t wanted to lead her on. She was the marrying kind, and he wasn’t. She deserved a man prepared for the type of family life she undoubtedly desired, and that hadn’t been him, by any means.

Fate must be laughing its head off about right now.

To the faint echoes of its capricious guffaws, Ethan forced himself out of his car and then reached into the rear seat for what had brought him from Houston back to White horn, back to Cleo. He wrestled a bit with the latch that released the baby carrier from its car seat base, letting loose a soft curse.

Guilt gave him a little jab and he quickly apologized to the blond, wide-eyed baby staring up at him. “Sorry, Jonah.” And sorry to you too, Della. The boy’s mother wouldn’t appreciate the child’s first word being something better suited to a locker room than a nursery. He took a breath, pushing away the pain that came when he thought of Della. The only thing he could do for her now was to take care of Jonah.

That was where Cleo came in.

At the reception desk inside Bean sprouts, Ethan asked to speak with the center’s director—Cleo. The young receptionist gave him a friendly smile and after rising from her chair to peek at Jonah, told Ethan they didn’t take children until they were two years old. She would be happy to place his name on their waiting list.

Ethan bared his teeth in what he hoped would pass for a smile, and mildly asked once again to see the Bean sprouts director. When the still-friendly but outright curious receptionist gave in and showed him into a small office, she asked his name.

Ethan told her he wanted to keep it a surprise.

He sure as hell hoped Cleo liked surprises.

When she walked through the office door, it was obvious she didn’t. As she caught sight of him, her feet stopped before the rest of her body did and she grabbed the doorjamb to keep herself from pitching forward. Expressions chased them selves across her face. Ethan couldn’t separate them all—but the last one he read loud and clear.

It was as cool and distant as her voice. “Ethan Redford,” she said as if he’d never tasted the hot wetness of her mouth. Then her gaze dropped to the infant carrier he held against his chest as if it were a shield. She blinked, shook her head a little, blinked again.

“Who? What?” Her cheeks flushed a deep pink. “Oh,” she said.

Oh? What did she mean by that significant oh? And then it hit him.

Uh-oh.

“The baby’s not mine,” he said quickly. But then he had to correct himself. “Well, he is mine, but—” From the look on her face this wasn’t going well. He sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Cleo took a breath and Ethan pretended he wasn’t aware of the way her breasts pressed against the long-sleeved white T-shirt she wore. “What do you want, Ethan?”

He sighed again. “That’s complicated, too.” The smile he gave her was supposed to be charming, but she looked distinctly unmoved. “Could we talk?”

With a little roll of one of her shoulders, she fully entered the room and shut the office door behind her. Then she walked past him, the familiar, delicate flower scent of her perfume brushing by him nonchalantly. Cleo’s T-shirt was tucked into a long denim skirt that showed off her small waist and rounded hips and he had to look away until she was completely seated behind her desk.

She linked her fingers on the surface of a blotter-size calendar full of notations in neat, rounded handwriting. “What would you like to say, Ethan?”

He’d like to say he wished like hell they’d not been interrupted by her mother’s nightmare that evening. He’d like to say that he’d been thinking of her kisses, of her skin, of the beauty of her wavy, russet hair for the past three months. He’d like to say that even in the midst of grief and worry, the memory of her smile and laughter had been a warm beacon.

Instead he sat in a chair across from her, the infant carrier resting on his knees. “This is my nephew, Jonah,” he said simply. “And the day I left your mother’s bed-and-break fast, I was called away because Jonah’s mother, my sister, had been the victim of a carjacking.”

One of Cleo’s hands rose to cover her mouth.

He went on doggedly. It wasn’t an easy story to tell. “I probably should have left you some word, or called you when I reached Houston, but all I could think about was Della and Jonah. She was in intensive care with head injuries and Jonah was missing.”

“Oh, my Lord,” Cleo whispered. Suddenly she wasn’t in her chair, but kneeling beside Ethan, her attention focused on the baby. One fingertip stroked his nephew’s downy head. Her gaze turned Ethan’s way. In her violet eyes was the sudden awareness that his story didn’t have a happy-ever-after. “But the baby was found.”

Ethan nodded. “In an alley, in Della’s abandoned car.” His hand curled into a fist, as the useless waste of the tragedy cut through him again like an acid burn. “Two days later the carjacker was killed in a police shoot-out. A day after that, my sister died.” His voice was hoarse.

“Oh, Ethan.” Cleo’s warm hand covered his fist and he closed his eyes, her touch soothing and so damn welcome. “You must have loved her very much.”

“She was my little sister.” He opened his eyes and saw Cleo still kneeling between Jonah and him, one hand touching his, one hand on the baby’s hair, linking all three of them together.

Just as he knew she would.

“Tell me about her, Ethan. You never even mentioned to me you had a sister.”

Guilt stabbed him again. When he’d been in Montana three months ago he’d been carefully impersonal with Cleo. To tell the truth, he was carefully impersonal with everyone, but Cleo was the kind of woman who invited you to bare your soul. And because he’d been interested only in baring her body, he’d steered completely clear of anything that would even vaguely hint of any deeper intimacy.

But things were different now. Everything was different. Not him, though. He hadn’t changed. But his needs had. So that meant telling Cleo what she wanted to know.

He cleared his throat. “Della was twenty-nine years old. She worked for me, at my office in Houston.”

Cleo looked at little Jonah and smiled. “Was she blond like you?”

He pictured his sister in his mind. Not as he’d last seen her, her head swathed in bandages, bruises on her face and tubes everywhere, but as she’d been before the carjacking. “She was tiny, shorter than you, and she did have blond hair. After Jonah was born, she cut it short as a boy’s.”

Cleo nodded solemnly. “Easy to take care of.”

“She was easy to take care of.” Ethan broke off, suddenly embarrassed. Yeah, he missed his sister, but he wasn’t about to get all maudlin in front of Cleo.

Maybe she sensed his reluctance, because she turned her attention back to the baby. “How old is he?”

“Seven months,” Ethan replied.

“And where’s Jonah’s father?”

“His biological father abandoned both Della and the baby before Jonah was born. They were engaged, but let’s just say Della found it a little…distressing when Drake gave her a black eye instead of a welcome home kiss one evening.” Ethan and Della knew a lot about black eyes and the kind of men who dispensed them.

“She decided that she and the baby were better off without him and he didn’t put up a fuss.” With Ethan there, backing Della up, the cowardly bastard wouldn’t have dared.

“And now that Della’s…gone?” Cleo asked quietly.

“As far as Drake’s concerned, Della and Jonah were gone from his life a long time ago.” Ethan paused, because now they were getting to the important part. “I’m Jonah’s f—”

Damn. He ran his hand through his hair. It was hard to say the word because he’d never considered himself suited to the job.

Cleo rose and leaned against the back of her desk, smiling a little as she looked down at Ethan. “His f—?” she asked, her almost-teasing voice easing the moment. “His what? Feet? Fiddle? Filly?”

Ethan’s lips twitched and his brows came together. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Montana lady, but this city boy seems to recall that a filly is a female horse, right?”

At her little nod he couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke one finger against the back of her hand. “Well, now, Cleo, you gotta know I’m all man, don’t you?”

Her face pinkened and she snatched her hand away, and for the first time in months, Ethan’s mood lightened. Cleo. God, it was right to come back to her. When his lawyer had made what should have been an outrageous suggestion, he’d instantly thought of her, of her wavy hair, of her warm touch, of the way she looked at him.

And the lawyer’s suggestion was what he had to tell Cleo about now. Jonah had drifted off to sleep and Ethan carefully moved the carrier to the carpet beside him. He casually rested his hands on the arms of his chair, though the situation he found himself in was anything but casual.

“I’m Jonah’s family now,” Ethan said. “Nothing and no one is going to take him away from me. Della named me as his legal guardian.” He paused.

“I think I hear a but,” Cleo said slowly.

He nodded. “After Della…died, I hired a nanny right away. I was able to postpone the deal I had going on here in White horn, but there were a couple of others I couldn’t put off. You know what that means.”

“You were out of town a lot.”

Ethan stared down at the sleeping baby. “Yes. But I was cutting my trips as close to the bone as possible and the nanny was working out fine. Then Drake’s parents entered the picture.”

“The baby’s grandparents.”

Ethan nodded. “They’re rich, they’re socially prominent and they don’t think much of me as Jonah’s…father since I’m away from him so much.”

“But the nanny—”

“Isn’t a mother.” Ethan looked up into Cleo’s unsuspecting but sympathetic violet eyes. “They’re suing for custody of Jonah.”

“Oh.” Cleo kneeled again, putting one hand on Ethan’s shoulder. They were face-to-face, and hers was full of concern and sadness. “I’m so sorry, Ethan.”

He looked at her steadily, and suddenly she dropped her hand and jumped to her feet. “Well, well.” Something was making her very nervous, and he wondered if she’d figured out what he was about to ask.

She swallowed. “So now you’re back in Montana,” she said briskly. “The ATI Com-Sokia deal again?”

Ethan captured her hand and stood. “I’ve been thinking about another kind of merger altogether.”

She swallowed again, but didn’t say a word.

“I need something from you, Cleo.”

“Me?” Her voice sounded breathless and her hand tried to slip from his. “What could I possibly do for you?”

Ethan held her fingers firmly. “You could marry me, Cleo.”



Marry him. Marry Ethan.

Cleo’s heart lurched, as if it were trying to find a way out of her chest. “Are you kidding?” she said, her voice sounding very far away.

Ethan’s blue eyes were scarily solemn. “Not kidding.”

Cleo’s heart pitched again, like a boat ready to capsize. Marry Ethan? This whole episode was like something out of a fantasy, a too familiar fantasy born the first moment she’d seen Ethan last winter. A fantasy that had only grown in detail and proportion every time she’d encountered him after that.

But the reality of Ethan was right in front of her, too close, really. She could smell his delicious, sophisticated scent and see new lines of tiredness, or grief maybe, etched around his serious mouth. His sister had died. He had a baby now.

Little Jonah was real, too. Cleo looked down at the sweet baby, snoozing in his carrier. With his blond hair and the blue eyes she’d glimpsed, he could really be Ethan’s.

A husband. A child. Ethan and Jonah.

“Cleo?” Ethan rubbed his thumb across the backs of her knuckles, and she suppressed a shiver. A fantasy couldn’t come to life this easily. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

She swallowed. “Ethan, I need to know—”

A light knock on the office door interrupted her.

They both started and with the distraction Cleo was able to reclaim her hand. She moved away from Ethan and hoped she appeared calm.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened and Lynn, one of the caregivers on her staff, peeked in. “I’m sorry, Cleo, but Bessie had a fall and needs your expert touch in the bandage department.” Lynn’s gaze slid toward Ethan and her eyes widened. “That is, if you have the time.”

“I always have time for Bessie,” Cleo said, almost glad for the temporary reprieve. She smiled as Lynn escorted the four-year-old into the office.

Bessie had platinum-blond hair in pigtails and her eyelashes were spiked wet with recent tears. A painful-looking scrape slashed across one knee.

Cleo knelt by her side. “What happened, sweetie?” she said softly. Though Ethan had stepped out of the way, she continued to feel his gaze on her.

Bessie frowned fiercely. “Kenny G.,” she said, her gravelly voice always a shocking contrast to her angelic features.

Lynn, who stood behind Bessie, must have seen the puzzlement on Ethan’s face because she suddenly grinned his way and explained Bessie’s statement. “Not the famous musician, mind you, but an infamous three-year-old. We have four Kennys at Bean sprouts.” Her fingers ticked them off. “Kenny E., Kenny K., Kenny T., and—” she paused, “—Kenny G.”

Bessie’s truck driver voice took over. “Kenny G. pushed me down.”

Lynn smiled in Ethan’s direction again. “Kenny G. is currently having a time-out.”

Cleo tamped down a little spurt of irritation at the other woman. There was no need for Lynn to explain things to Ethan, or to even be looking at him with such appreciation. But she focused on Bessie instead, brushing back a stray strand of the little girl’s hair. “You’re okay now, though?”

Bessie nodded and held out a bandage. “But I want you to put this on for me.”

“Sure, hon.” Cleo swung the little girl into her arms and sat her on the edge of her desk. With gentle hands she lifted Bessie’s right leg and propped her sneakered foot against her own thigh. “Did Lynn clean this for you?”

Bessie looked as though she wanted to say “yes,” but Lynn produced a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a soft cloth. “She wanted you to do that, too.”

“No problem, kiddo,” Cleo said. “We’ll get it taken care of pronto.” She hadn’t met a child yet who didn’t detest getting his or her scrapes and cuts cleaned, but she also knew that handling it with confidence and without cringing was best for everyone.

Within moments she ensured the scrape was free of dirt and then she applied the bandage, the whole time chattering with Bessie about what was scheduled for the afternoon’s snack and the new kitten in the little girl’s household. Aware the entire time of Ethan’s focus on her, Cleo was proud that her hands didn’t shake once. She ended the first aid with her usual healing kiss on Bessie’s forehead and then she took the little girl’s light weight in her arms to lift her off the desk.

Bessie looked over Cleo’s shoulder. “Who’s that?” she asked in her improbably rough voice, pointing at Ethan.

“Um…” Cleo froze, and noticed that Lynn’s expression was as curious as Bessie’s. “That’s Mr. Redford. He’s my, uh, friend.” She set the little girl on her feet.

“He’s cute,” Bessie said, and she gave a little wave then skipped out of the room.

Lynn backed out more slowly, her gaze flicking between Cleo and Ethan. “Well, I’ll just, um…” She seemed to have forgotten who and what generated her paycheck. “I’ll just…”

“Go watch the kids?” Cleo prompted.

Lynn sighed. “Yeah.” But then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she sent Cleo a thumbs-up sign before shutting the door behind her.

Cleo hoped her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt when she turned to face Ethan. “I’m, uh, sorry about that.”

An echo of that old, confident Ethan grin flashed over his face. “Why? One female says I’m cute and another appears to have given me her stamp of approval. I’m thinking that’s good for my case.”

Apparently his proposal wasn’t just a daydream, after all. Cleo leaned against her desk, gripping the edges with tight fingers. Marriage to Ethan! But as appealing as the idea was…

She inhaled a long, deep breath. “Why me?”

His eyes widened. “Uh.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he retreated to the far side of the small room, where he leaned his shoulders against the wall. “’Why you’?” he echoed.

Cleo tightened her grip on the edge of her old oak desk. “It’s a hard question?”

“No. Yes.” He groaned and pushed his hands impatiently through his hair.

Cleo had never seen the golden locks so disordered, not even the night she’d touched them herself as they’d kissed. She ignored the little hot rush of her blood at the memory. “Talk to me, Ethan,” she said quietly.

His fingers raked through his hair once again. “My attorney in Houston—the one handling Della’s estate and all the legalities regarding Jonah—he’s very experienced in custody issues.”

Cleo nodded. Ethan was no fool and money was no object. He’d hire the best.

“The Coving tons—Jonah’s grandparents—have a lot of influence in Houston. If it comes to a court battle, they have the time and the money. To ensure I keep Jonah the attorney thought I needed something better than fat bank accounts, a trust fund for Jonah, and a top-ranked nanny. He thought I needed—”

“A wife.” Cleo wasn’t a fool, either.

“A mother for Jonah,” Ethan corrected quickly.

Cleo’s blood was running cooler now, but there was still hope in her heart. “That still doesn’t explain why you came to see me, Ethan. Certainly you know plenty of women in other places. Someone from Houston, for example.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Cleo…”

“I never thought you were a man who didn’t appreciate your share of women, Ethan.”

He shifted again. “Sure, I have ‘appreciated’ women, but it’s not like I have a harem of them all dying to wear my ring.”

Cleo wanted to disagree, certain there were several—if not dozens—of women who wouldn’t say no to Ethan. Women who’d be thrilled to wear his ring.

Such as herself.

Without warning, she remembered again that night on the love seat in the little den. She remembered how needy she’d been for him, how her pulse leaped when he’d touched her with his big hands. How she’d craved to have all of him against all of her.

No man had ever made her so excited and so hungry. And now she could have it all if she agreed to wear his ring. But still…

“You’re in Montana, Ethan. Looking for a wife in my office. Please, just say it. Why me?”

“Because you’re perfect, Cleo.”

Her heart went crazy again, hopping around like a high school cheerleader. She released her grip on the desk, just about to launch herself into his arms.

“Because you’re so…capable.”

Capable? Cleo’s heart tripped, and then fell with a long whoosh. Going cold, hot, cold, she sagged back against the desk, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Instead Ethan smiled at her and continued. “You see, you’re a child care provider. How ideal is that? You have the education and the experience to be an unbeatable mother. My attorney couldn’t be happier.”

“Your attorney is happy?”

Ethan smiled wider and nodded. “’Unbeatable mother material.’ Those were his exact words.”

“What about a wife?” she said quietly, her words tinged with just a bit of sharpness. “What kind of wife material do you suppose I am?”

Ethan looked suddenly wary and he tried to step back, but his heel hit the wall with a soft thump. “Cleo, I—”

“What kind of wife material do you suppose I am, Ethan?” she asked again, her voice steelier this time.

He looked down at his hands for a moment, as if the answer might be written on them. Then he looked back up, his blue eyes guarded. “You’re a practical, capable, sensible woman, Cleo. I think you make fine wife material or I wouldn’t be here.”

Capable. Practical. Sensible.

Maybe it was because she hadn’t slept well the night before—she hadn’t slept well in three months—that the words sounded more like insults instead of flattery.

Ethan needed a mother for Jonah and she had the right credentials. Ethan was willing to take a wife to get that mother, and she fit the bill because she was practical, capable, sensible.

Was that really the best thing anyone could say about her? It certainly echoed the sentiments her mother, sister and cousin had expressed this morning. Everyone was so darn certain that Cleo was sensible and practical.

Or maybe she was really just boring.

She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly mad at the world, but especially mad at Ethan, her family, herself. What kind of woman gave a man the impression she’d be swayed by “practical” and “capable” and “sensible”?

She took a fast breath through her nose. “No,” she said.

He blinked. “No, what?”

Cleo stared at him. What an idiot. “No, I won’t marry you.”

He blinked again. “Cleo—”

“Go find someone else, Ethan.” She cast a look at Jonah and found herself softening when she saw the baby’s sweet round cheeks and silky eyebrows. So she looked back at the rotten, gorgeous, and unpleasantly surprised Ethan.

Practical. Sensible. Ugh. “Goodbye,” she said briskly.

“Goodbye?” he echoed stupidly.

“Goodbye.”

He swallowed. “We can’t talk about this some more?” He came toward her and she backed around her desk. “If not now, sometime later?”

So what that he was so darn good-looking he made her heart flutter? “No. I’m too busy. I have Bean sprouts to run. Children, the staff.” She looked out the window and remembered the most pressing problem. “I have to find a new building. My lease is running out and this one is up for sale.”

Without waiting for him to answer, she sat in her chair and pulled a list of phone numbers from her desk drawer. “If you’ll excuse me, Ethan.” She put her hand on the phone.

He could be as belligerent as she. “What if I won’t?”

She refused to look at him, even for one last time. “Please,” she said.

A long, tense pause and then there was a flurry of movement and firm footsteps. Her office door opened, closed.

The room was without Ethan.

Cleo instantly folded, bending over to rest her flushed cheek on the cool desktop. Hot tears stung her eyes and she was unsure whether she was elated or disappointed that Ethan had given up.




Three


It was past 6:00 p.m. and Cleo was still sitting at her desk. The last Beansprouts’s child had been picked up and the last staffer had gone home. She told herself she was taking advantage of the unfamiliar quiet to catch up on her bottomless stack of paperwork, but the only paper she’d put pencil to was a leaf from one of her “list pads”—stacks of tear-off sheets preprinted with lines.

Cleo had more list pads than most women had shoes. Yellow ones edged with flowers, white ones with a teacher’s apple bulleting each line item; list pads printed on graph paper with thick, no-nonsense lines of military blue.

A sheet of that pad lay in front of her now, and she would have sworn she was just doodling as she stared out her window at the May twilight, but then she looked down. Her “doodles” were words, and what she’d really created was a list of the many practical, sensible things she’d done with her life.

Line one listed “Accounting 303.” That was the class she’d taken the summer between her junior and senior years at college. A group of her friends had invited her to join them traveling through Europe for three months, but she’d needed the accounting class to graduate and it was hard to get into during the regular school year. So she’d taken the wise, practical route and given up Paris for profit-and-loss statements and the Alps for accounts receivable and payable.

Part of that same group of friends had urged her to join them in an Internet startup business after they graduated. That was why she’d written “Refused Internet Startup” on the second line. It hadn’t seemed a safe choice, not when it meant moving to Las Vegas, of all places, and not when it meant they’d all be dirt-poor at the beginning. In the end—two years later—of course, that group of friends spent half the year vacationing in Europe. They’d struck it rich.

Next she’d written “Lives At Home.” Cleo sighed. As much as she loved her family, it did seem as though a twenty-seven-year-old might want to have her own place. But it was so practical to live at home. Sensible.

Lastly were the words “Yearly Lease.” She sighed again. When she’d opened Bean sprouts two years ago she’d been relieved to sign up for a mere twelve-month lease. That way, if the business didn’t fly, she wouldn’t be chained to a monthly payment for too long. She’d done the same the following year, even though by then the day care center had a foot-long waiting list.

Irritated at herself, Cleo tapped her pencil against the desktop. The building’s owner, Gene, would have let her sign for something longer, but she’d wanted to be practical. Sensible. Just look where that had led her—to Gene suddenly wanting to sell and Cleo suddenly facing disaster.

She jumped up from her chair, depressed by the turn of her thoughts. Thanks to that annoying man, Ethan Redford, she was viewing her best traits as her worst faults! No thank you.

Anyway, it was time to go home and consume a crate of brownies or something else decadently chocolate. Maybe on her way back to the Big Sky B and B, she’d think of a suitable bribe to get her sister in the kitchen, and baking.

Cleo drove down the winding country road, appreciating late spring in Montana and watching eagerly for her first soothing glimpse of Blue Mirror Lake. Yes, the B and B was a sensible, practical place for her to live, but it was a choice she didn’t regret. She’d like to travel, sure, but this piece of Montana and the lake would always be home. She was glad her mother had convinced her father to leave Louisiana and open the business all those years ago.

Thinking of Louisiana reminded Cleo of her mother’s nightmares. There. Another reason that living at the bed-and-break fast was a good choice. She wanted to be near Celeste while these terrible dreams continued to plague her.

What the heck were they all about? Cleo pursed her lips and vowed to sit her mother down for a little heart-to-heart this evening. She could picture Celeste already, her eyes shadowed and her manner subdued, as it always was the day after the dream.

Cleo parked her Volvo sedan in its usual spot and let herself inside the back door. The kitchen was immaculate, but Cleo sniffed hopefully, wondering if Jasmine had done any particularly delectable culinary experimenting that day.

A soft, delighted laugh froze her midsniff.

It was followed by another. Her mother’s laugh. And then came a giggle. A baby’s giggle.

Cleo gritted her teeth, a terrible premonition overcoming her. With quick steps she passed through the kitchen and dining room to the living room.

Her mother sat on one of the long couches, cradling an adorable blond, blue-eyed baby. A man, golden-haired and devastating in a dark suit, watched them from a spot by the windows.

Cleo frowned at him. For all her sniffing, it was quite a surprise she hadn’t smelled a rat.

She tapped her toe against the honey-pine floor. “You’re not staying here are you?” she asked, her voice cool, she hoped, and not crabby.

Ethan’s head came up and so did his eyebrows.

Her mother smiled at the baby but addressed Cleo. “Ethan and Jonah have rented the Atchinson house.”

The Atchinson house. Oh, great. Another lakeside property not more than half a mile away. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So if you have your own place, what are you doing here?”

Her mother spoke again. “Ethan came to introduce me to Jonah. And I’m thrilled to meet this very handsome young man.” Celeste nuzzled the baby’s cheek and the little boy giggled again, his hands patting her hair.

Cleo softened a little. Her mother looked happier than she had in a long time, and obviously distracted from the terror of the night before.

Then Ethan spoke for the first time. “And I came to see if I could persuade you to go to dinner with me at the country club.”

Cleo took a step back. Oh, no. That wouldn’t be sensible or practical. Not when he was looking like the Golden God of Business in that Italian suit. Not when the last time they’d had dinner at the country club the evening had ended with her half dressed and nearly begging him for more.

“No,” she said firmly, and then smiled to herself. Some times sensible and practical felt darn good.

“Please, Cleo,” Ethan said quietly. “It might be the last time we ever meet.”

Cleo’s heart jumped. The last time. But then she narrowed her eyes, staring at him suspiciously. He didn’t look like a man who thought they would never meet again.

“Go ahead, sweetie,” her mother added. “I told Ethan I’d watch Jonah, and I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than watching this little angel.”

Cleo softened again. Her mother did look so darn happy holding that baby. To be honest, she itched to hold him herself. Without even thinking about it, she walked forward and sat beside her mother on the couch, then reached out toward Jonah. He immediately grabbed her hand and gave her a grin that made mush of everything inside her.

“Please come with me, Cleo,” Ethan said.

Looking at the motherless baby and sharing the joy her own mother had in just touching him, Cleo discovered her backbone had dissolved completely. She sighed and stroked Jonah’s cheek with her free hand.

“All right,” she said grudgingly. “This last time.” Because, anyway, could she really resist just one last time with Ethan? “I need a few minutes to change.”

He nodded. “Take all the time you need.”

In her room, Cleo whipped through a refreshing shower and then stood in her under wear, staring into her closet. What did a woman wear for a last dinner with the man she’d refused to marry? The man who considered her so practical and sensible?

The answer was obvious, of course. A woman should wear something completely impractical and as far from sensible as possible. Something that would make him sweat and make him drool.

But Cleo being Cleo, she had nothing remotely close to that in her closet.

She went wild, double-checking, flinging hangers aside with abandon until she had to admit the closest thing to “vamp” in her closet was the black witch’s costume she wore at Bean sprouts on Halloween. And even that was something that had been Jasmine’s first.

“Jasmine,” Cleo whispered. Her mother had said her sister was out for the evening, but Cleo dashed through their adjoining bathroom into her room, anyway. Without a moment’s compunction, she went double-fast through her sister’s double-stuffed closet and emerged clutching a long-sleeved black knit dress that was deeply veed in the front and back.

Not allowing herself to give in to doubt, she ran back to her own room and slipped into black stockings, black heels, and the dynamite black dress that had been bought by her less-curvy sister. Sitting at her dressing table, she twisted her wavy hair behind her head and held it back with a jeweled comb. Then she applied her makeup heavier than usual, not daring to look past her chin.

Once she’d blotted her lipstick, a shade named Derring Do, Cleo stood. With a deep breath, she turned around and looked at herself in the full-length mirror.

“Eek,” she said breathlessly. Where the dress had displayed a lot of Jasmine’s fragile clavicle and just a hint of her bust, on Cleo, the dress displayed a lot of bust and nothing, but nothing was hinted at. “Oh, boy,” she whispered.

Could she do it? With fingers that trembled just a little, she pulled a couple of wavy tendrils free from the twist of her hair, letting them drift softly around her face. Could she walk out there and face Ethan in something so…well, sophisticated instead of sensible?

Taking a deep breath—and then swearing to herself to not take another after what she noticed it did to her cleavage—Cleo gave herself one more objective, assessing look in the mirror.

And liked what she saw.

She strutted a couple of steps in her high heels, then made an about-face and walked past the mirror again. Yes, she thought. I’m going through with it.

Because she’d be darned if she was going to send Ethan out of her life with him remembering a boringly sensible, practical, capable Cleo. And if this dress didn’t make him look at her just a teensy bit differently, then her name wasn’t Cleo Kincaid Monroe.

By the time they’d left the B and B, settled into his Range Rover and driven to the White horn Country Club, Cleo was pretty sure that Ethan didn’t know what to think when he looked at her. While her mother had smiled and told Cleo how nice she looked, Ethan appeared to have swallowed his tongue. The miles to the country club had been covered in virtual silence and Cleo got the distinct feeling that Ethan was glad to have something to focus on besides her and the dress she was wearing.




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