Forever And A Day (Montana Brides, Book #7) (6 page)

Sarah nearly dropped the phone. Her parents hadn’t been on a long vacation together for years. When they did manage to get away, they hardly ever spent more than four days in the same place. Between her dad’s work and her mom’s social engagements, life was too hectic for long periods away from home.

“You’re coming here? To Montana?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. Your mom and I aren’t getting any younger. We want to spend some time with you. I wasn’t sure whether you’d still be in Montana by Christmas.”

Sarah didn’t know whether her dad was genuinely interested in where she’d be living or hinting that it was time she came home. “I’ll be here, dad.”

“Good. That’s good. I’ll book our flight for December twentieth. That will give us a few days to unwind before Christmas day.”

Her dad? Unwind? Something strange was going on. “Is everything okay? You sound a bit…” She didn’t want to say weird, because her dad was never weird. Opinionated, stubborn, and sometimes unreasonable, but never weird. “…not yourself.”

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. How’s the housekeeping going?”

He never asked how her job was going. It had led to so many arguments that they’d decided it wasn’t worth bringing up. “Are you sure everything is all right?”

“Would you stop asking me that? I’m fine. Hang on a minute, I’ve got another call coming through…”

Sarah listened to the music drifting down the phone. Nothing pop, rock, or country for her dad. Violins wafted through Pachelbel’s Canon in D. She’d always thought it was odd that her dad had chosen music that most people used at weddings for his ‘on hold’ tune.

“Are you there, Sarah?”

“I’m here, dad.”

“I have to go. There’s an emergency at the hospital. I’ll get your mom to send you the details once everything is confirmed.”

“That’d be great.”

“Take care of yourself, honey. Don’t go falling for a cowboy.”

“There’s not much hope of that. I’ve sworn off men for life.”

“Don’t go judging everyone by James’ standards. He was an idiot. Look for someone like me and you won’t go wrong.”

Sarah nearly choked. Her dad had made a joke. At least she hoped it was a joke.

“I take it your silence means you’re thinking about it,” he said dryly. “I’ve got to go.”

“Bye, dad.” He’d hung up. He’d be back on the phone to the hospital, making sure he knew exactly what was happening. He cared about his patients, sometimes more than his family. Sarah and her mom would always be there for him. If he wasn’t there for his patients, they’d die. Those kind of odds tipped the scales in his patient’s favor every time.

She stared at the phone for a few more minutes, thought about what he’d said. She still couldn’t believe her mom and dad planned on coming to Montana for Christmas. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. They could cancel at the last minute, reshuffle her around her dad’s patients. It wasn’t worth getting excited or worried about because it might not happen.

But she couldn’t help feeling a little excited. Maybe even nervous. Her parents hadn’t visited her in Montana, didn’t know how important her time away from Portland had been. This would be her chance to show them how beautiful Bozeman was, how much the friendships she’d made meant to her.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Sarah dropped her phone. It skittered across the wooden floor, stopping in front of Jordan’s feet. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

He picked up her phone and shook it. “I don’t know about your heart, but the phone doesn’t sound broken.”

“It’s not meant to sound broken,” Sarah muttered. She took the phone out of his outstretched hand and unlocked the keypad. She opened a couple of apps and breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s still working.”

“Did the Buchanans get away on time?”

Sarah nodded. “The shuttle picked them up about fifteen minutes ago. I’m about to change their towels and then I’m heading across to Alex’s ranch.”

“Do you need a hand?”

Sarah stared at Jordan. He looked as though he meant it, but then he always looked like that. Nothing was ever too much trouble or took too much time. Before she’d moved to Montana, she would have found those traits endearing. Not anymore.

“No, I’m fine. Have you heard anything more about the wolf attack?”

“Not since Steve called.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and watched her take a clean linen bag out of a drawer. He cleared his throat, looking about as comfortable as a mechanic walking into a librarians’ meeting. “Why did you close your business?”

Sarah slid her phone into her back pocket and started walking toward the stairs. Jordan followed. She didn’t know what to say to him, what difference it would make to anything.

She shrugged her shoulders, tried to make out that it hadn’t been important. “One of my employees took some software I’d designed. He tried to sell it to our clients as if it was his. I found out about it before the sale went through.”

“And you closed the whole business because of that?”

“There were only two of us plus a part-time admin person. I needed to reassess what I was going to do next. I couldn’t concentrate on the business until I’d worked a few things out.” Like lawyers, copyright regulations, and a broken heart.

She’d spent most of the month after James left putting together a folder of emails, production sheets, and programming data. Her lawyer had used the information to prove she was the one who had designed the software and not James.

“Has everything worked out the way you wanted it to?”

“I’ll tell you in a couple of weeks. The judge should have made their ruling about who owns the software by then.”

Jordan disappeared into Abby and Jennifer’s room and came out holding a couple of towels. “What are you going to do once you have an answer?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

He raised his eyebrows at her downright untruthful answer. Sarah knew exactly what she was going to do. She’d already contacted Noelle, the young woman who’d worked in their office. The clients that James had been speaking to were still interested in buying her program. One of them wanted an exclusive deal. It would earn her millions of dollars and James Bennett wouldn’t see a single cent.

Jordan put the wet towels in the laundry bag. “While you’re thinking about what you’re going to do, you should consider staying in Bozeman. It’s as good a place as any to restart a business.”

“I’m not sure where I’m going to live. Mom and dad want me to go back to Portland.”

Jordan gave her a sharp look. “Will you?”

“I don’t know, I like it here. I’ve met some great people and Emily, Sally, and Tess are good friends.”

“You must miss your friends in Portland.” Jordan said it as if having friends was a given. That there’d be people back home she wanted to see.

“I didn’t have much time for friends. I worked long days, most weekends, too. It wasn’t easy keeping in touch with people.” She didn’t bother to add that James had been the center of her world. She hadn’t thought she needed anyone apart from him, but she’d been wrong.

If she’d had a few close friends, she might have realized what he was up to. Who he was meeting when she was bent over her desk, working on her computer.

“If you need anyone to talk to…you know, like brainstorm, I could help. I’m good at seeing possibilities.”

If she didn’t know better, Sarah could have sworn Jordan was blushing. But he didn’t have anything to blush over. Unless he found her depressing life story embarrassing. The only positive thing to come out of the whole mess was that she hadn’t married James. If they had been married, he would have gotten away with more than a prison sentence. He would have taken half of everything she owned.

She picked up the last of the dirty laundry and closed the bag. “Thanks. I’ve got to go, otherwise I won’t have dinner ready for everyone on Alex’s ranch. I’ve left the meat and salads for tonight’s barbecue in the fridge. There’s ice cream in the freezer, and if you look on the bottom shelf of the fridge you’ll see a cheesecake and some rum truffles for dessert.”

“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll make sure everyone is well fed and happy.”

“I know you will.” Sarah put the laundry bag over her shoulder and headed downstairs. “Call me if you need anything.” And before he could reply she left.

***

A week later, Jordan pulled himself out of his truck and headed across to Alex’s ranch house. A couple of years ago Alex had converted one of his barns into his home. During the remodel, Jordan had paid careful attention to what worked and what had been more difficult. He’d learned a lot, but that still hadn’t made the cost of his own conversion any better.

For as long as he could remember, the same group of guys had been getting together each Friday. They alternated between playing poker and looking after the kids that started arriving after some of the guys got married. It was one of those in-between Fridays, the ones where they spent half the night chasing over-excited boys and girls around the house.

Two of those boys were on their bikes, jumping over a ramp Alex had made in his front yard.

“Hi, Jordan. You want to have a go?” Steven Matthews, ten years old and as sharp as a tack, stared at him from beneath a mop of black hair.

“Not tonight, buddy. Where’s your dad?”

“Inside with Uncle Chris. They’re getting the barbecue ready.”

Jordan looked up when Emma appeared in the front door. She was two years old and full of grit and determination. Her blonde curls bobbed around her face, catching on the ketchup smeared across her cheeks. She ran toward the boys, squealing when Ben, her uncle, picked her up and held her under his arm like a football.

“Not tonight, Em. You’ll get flattened.” Ben rearranged her arms and legs, earning himself a red-stained t-shirt in the process.

Emma wiggled a bit more, then gave up when she saw Jordan. A smile lit her grubby face and Jordan grinned back.

“What have you been feeding your niece?”

Ben frowned at Emma’s face. He’d been looking after her since she’d been a few months old. His sister and her husband had died in a car crash, leaving Emma with no family except a twenty-five-year-old uncle who knew nothing about kids.

“She got into the ketchup when my back was turned. You want to take over guard duty?”

“Sure.” Jordan held out his arms and laughed when Emma clapped her hands. “She loves me.”

“She loves everyone,” Ben grumbled. “Especially when she thinks she’s getting her own way.”

“It’s a female thing.”

“What’s a female thing?”

Jordan turned and stared at Sarah. She had a huge chocolate cake in her hands and a frown on her face. But that wasn’t what made him look twice. She’d put on makeup, pretty makeup that made her eyes look twice as big and twice as blue. Eyes that a man could fall into if he was that way inclined.

He cleared his throat and tried to pretend that the beautiful woman in front of him didn’t rattle his nerves. “I thought you were meeting the girls in town?”

Her peach lipstick curved into a smile. “I’m just about to leave. Do you want this cake or should I take it to the ranch hands? I’m sure they’d appreciate the extra time it took to make it.”

“Ignore him,” Ben said. “We’ll take the cake with gratitude.”

Sarah smiled sweetly at Ben and turned her back on Jordan. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”

Jordan didn’t have any trouble appreciating what he saw. Even with Emma squirming in his arms he could still admire the way Sarah’s t-shirt clung to her body and the way her jeans hugged her long legs.

“Where are you going tonight?” He tried to make the question sound casual, as if her answer didn’t matter one way or the other. But he had a vested interest in making sure no one else appreciated Sarah’s long legs and blue eyes.

She grinned and he began to get worried. Really worried. Gracie wouldn’t be with her, so that was one less crazy female to lead Sarah astray. But Jenny, Debbie, Tess, and Emily would be meeting her somewhere in town. That should be enough to give anyone heart palpitations.

“We’re meeting at Charlie’s Bar and Grill. Emily wants to try their buffalo wings before we start looking at entertainment options for her bachelorette party.”

“Entertainment options?” This was worse than he thought. He imagined a line of male strippers parading down a runway, earning extra brownie points for how well they filled out their g-strings.

“Jeez, Jordan.” Ben pulled his arm and pushed him toward Alex’s house. “You’d better come inside before it’s too late.”

He stared at Ben. “What do you mean, ‘too late’?”

“Shut up and follow me.” Ben grinned over his shoulder at Sarah. “Have a good time.”

“I plan to.”

Before Jordan could ask Sarah exactly how she planned on enjoying herself, Ben gave him a shove from behind.

“You’re letting us single guys down,” Ben muttered. “There’s only you, me, and Adam left.”

Jordan watched Sarah sashay across the yard. “What are you talking about?”

“You, you idiot. You’ve got the hots for Sarah. You could at least hold out for a while longer. Alex isn’t even married yet and I can already hear more wedding bells.”