Montana Darling (Big Sky Mavericks Book 3) (9 page)

“I appreciate you giving me a few minutes,” he told her. “I think an open dialogue will prove the best way to keep this land thing from blowing up into something really ugly. I’m not the bad guy here and I know you aren’t, either.”

She looked at him. In the right light, he realized her blue eyes had tiny flecks of green and dark gold. His shutter finger itched. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

He pretended to make a note on his palm. “Do not generalize around Mia.” He looked at her and grinned. “I know one thing.”

Sage returned carrying two tall paper cups with lids. “Anything else?”

Impetuously, he leaned across the glass counter and whispered in her ear. She smiled conspiratorially and disappeared, returning a few moments later with a small, white paper sack. “Here you go. Shall I put it on your tab?”

“No,” Mia said, stepping to the register. “I’m buying.”

Most men probably would have been embarrassed. Ryker had never had to think about money in the past. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t worried that his being broke was a permanent thing. So, he acknowledged Mia’s claim with a simple, “Thank you.” Then, he tucked a couple of napkins in the front pocket of his backpack and walked to the door. “I know the perfect place for a picnic.”

‡

A
mbivalence was not
a word Mia associated with her thought process. Decisive. Direct. Authoritative. Those were her modifiers. Bossy, even. Yet, here she was in downtown Marietta, trotting alongside a virtual stranger…with much longer legs than she. The same man who apparently had a legitimate claim on her land.

Mia expected him to lead her to the green space by the Court House, but he detoured at the railroad tracks that headed out of town in the general direction of her property.

“Where are you taking me? Is it safe to be here?”

“I’ve got a thing for railroad tracks. I love the feel of this space.”

She breathed through her mouth to avoid gagging on the smell of damp iron and old oil. “Aren’t the cross beams soaked in some nasty creosote mixture? What if it’s carcinogenic?”

“These are so old I kind of doubt there’s a threat. Here.” He extended his free hand to help her climb when they reached the raised bed of the tracks. The smell lessened as the breeze picked up. The sun on her shoulders felt instantly comforting. Her stomach growled a little. She’d developed a love/hate relationship with food ever since chemotherapy turned her stomach inside out.

Ryker made an all-encompassing gesture. “What I love best about train tracks is looking toward the horizon and imagining all the trains that passed across these rails over the years. The people who came west with a satchel filled with hopes and prayers. Families. Miners. Lost souls looking to disappear.”

Something told her the last defined him, and he wasn’t even aware he’d shared such an intimate clue. Mia was surprised to find herself oddly touched and faintly intrigued by the romance in his voice. She’d grown up around hard-nosed businessmen like her father. Austen was all about the law. Paul lived and breathed hardware.

Her guide stopped abruptly. “This is the spot.”

“What do you mean? This is…nowhere.”

“Exactly. No tables. No chairs. Just Montana’s famous big sky and fresh air.”

He dropped his backpack to the weedy gravel between the rails and shrugged out of his heavy Army Surplus jacket to spread it out for her. “After you.”

She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t think so. I saw that movie where the kids get run over by a freight train.”

His smile connected with his eyes in a way that made Mia want to smile, too. “There hasn’t been a train on these rails for forty-plus years. According to Louise Jenkins, this spur belonged to a mining company that went broke when the copper gave out. Some enterprising soul tried to revive it as a tourist gig, but that never picked up any steam.”

His lopsided grin made her snicker. “Lame pun.”

He touched his heart as if wounded. “Now, I definitely need cocoa.”

He dropped to a graceful squat and positioned his trim, athletic-looking butt—which she’d noticed earlier that morning, despite the baggy yoga pants—atop one rail. Once he was settled, he folded his legs Indian style and reached for the small white sack Sage had given him.

His obvious comfort in his own skin made her envious—something she hated to admit. Her disconnect with her body had started years before her cancer diagnosis and treatment. Fourteen years to be exact. She and Edward, both Catholics, had been employing the so-called Rhythm Method when they got pregnant with Emilee. Mia’s body had been out-of-sync ever since.

She knelt on his jacket since she was wearing a skirt and folded her knees to one side in a ladylike fashion her mother would have condoned. Mom. Cakes. The polite social event she was missing for no excuse whatsoever. “I don’t have long, you know.”

He handed her one of the paper cups. “These should be cooled just enough. I come here once a week with my cocoa.”

She snapped off the lid and lifted the rim to her lips. The lush warm smell made her taste buds gush. Her hand trembled a bit. Cocoa was made with sugar. Sugar fed cancer cells…
Stop
, a voice in her mind ordered. Her mother’s voice.
Just enjoy for once.

She took a sip. “Mmm,” she murmured, the cup’s rim still touching her bottom lip.

She closed her eyes and drank more—a long, satisfying gulp of warm joy.

She heard a clicking sound and looked at Ryker, who had his camera to his eye. “Sorry,” he said, still clicking. “The purity of satisfaction on your face was too perfect to pass up. Sage would pay me big bucks to let her use this image in her advertising.”

His grin was so self-satisfied and unapologetic she wanted to yank the camera out of his hands, but in a way he reminded her of Hunter, who used to be that confident of his gifts, that happy when something he drew or made from a tub of Legos turned out. That was before he escaped into video games to avoid having to deal with his imploding family. She missed that look so much she could cry.

Ryker distracted her, though, with a throaty, masculine chortle. “I almost forgot your test.”

“What kind of test?”

“You’ll see.” He stretched out his arms, fingers linked, like some kind of warm-up. The sunlight created something freakishly like glitter highlights in his mop of curls. The guy was handsome enough to be in a freakin’ TV commercial, she thought. He had the kind of face you couldn’t help liking and trusting. “Hello, Ma’am. Might I interest you in something delicious but so bad for your body you may as well just throw in the towel? Trust me, you’ll love it.”

He set his camera aside and scooted forward. His butt must barely be touching the iron rail, she thought, resisting the urge to look. She hadn’t had sex—or even thought about sex—for so long she’d begun to wonder if her surgeon removed her libido along with all her other body parts. Most days she felt like a neutered cat, but, suddenly, seeing a handsome younger man balancing on the balls of his feet in a full squat while tempting her with some special, sinful treat, turned her into a cougar.

He unrolled the crimped bag, then reached inside with his long, beautiful fingers.

Who notices a man’s fingers, for God’s sake? she thought.

Horny, hormonal women with no social life.

“Close your eyes.”

“Again? I don’t think so. Standing on Main Street with people around was one thing, but you could have an ax in your backpack for all I know.”

His roar of laughter triggered a funny lightening inside her. She hadn’t laughed in too long. At what point had she turned hard and dry and humorless? No wonder her kids hated her.

Tears pricked behind her lids. She set her cup on one of the rails and leaned forward, too. Motioning for him to get on with what he had planned. “Just do it.”

He didn’t respond right away.

Nervous, she licked her lips. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

“Open up.”

She swallowed first, the noise loud in her ears. Could he read her nervousness? She felt a blush creep into her cheeks.

Something small and soft was deposited carefully on her tongue. She closed her mouth and tasted. Flavors exploded so vividly she couldn’t quite register every aspect. The contrast of savory and sweet, smooth and chunky confused her brain’s identification centers. “Am I supposed to tell you what this is?” she said as well as she could manage without her saliva glands tripping her up.

“Yes.”

She kept her eyes closed so she could concentrate. “Caramel.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Uh-huh. Easy.”

“Dark chocolate. My favorite.”

For some reason, he groaned and muttered, “Really?”

“I’m pretty sure the tiny bit of crunch was sea salt.”

“Correct.” His tone was that of a teacher who expected her to fail.

Mia Zabrinski didn’t fail. She’d passed every test she’d ever taken…except for one—a mammogram.

She swished her tongue around, testing for the missing flavor. “Chili. Habanero, to be exact.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His wicked grin told her she’d gotten it wrong. “Close. Well, technically, I’d have given it to you if you’d left it at pepper. But Sage calls these Kick Starters. She’s been beta testing them for a week and finally settled on chipotle.”

The instant he said the word she tasted the lingering hint of smoke that had been masked by the rich warmth of the chocolate.

“Damn. You’re right.”

Their gazes met and held.

His eyes intrigued her, challenged her to go deeper and find out more about him. A foolish waste of time. The guy lived in a stupid tent. Winter was coming. He wouldn’t be sticking around for long. He was leaving. Not soon enough for her to get her basement in, but soon.

A fact, which, a voice in her head reasoned, made him perfect for a rebound fling.

Once the word “fling” lodged in her brain she couldn’t unthink it. She’d been with two men in her life. First her high school boyfriend who moved away their senior year and lasted about three letters and half a dozen phone calls before he broke up with her, and then she’d made the mistake of falling head over heels for her twin brother’s college roommate and best friend, Edward. Her college lover. Her husband. The narcissistic dilettante who abandoned her when she needed him most.

Mia didn’t like it when people—especially strangers—invaded her space. Ryker’s face was closer than she normally tolerated, but she didn’t pull back. She couldn’t. His gaze seemed to look past the superficial aspects of her hair, her face, her features, to see into the depths of her soul to the damaged, brittle woman terrified to re-engage with life.

The last thing she needed was a man. A man who wanted something from her.

He wants my land
, the lawyer in her thought.

He wants my body
, the woman in her thought.

No. He only thinks he does.

“I have—had—.” She never knew how to put it. “Um…breast cancer.”

“That must have sucked.”

“It wasn’t the high point of my life. But I’m on the road to recovery. All my tests have come back clear. I caught it early and wiped it out at the source.”

She shifted her shoulders unconsciously feeling the dull reminder of the implants.

“You’ll feel more like yourself if you don’t have to lug around prosthetics,” Mom had coaxed.

“I don’t plan to wear falsies, Mom. I’ll be flat chested for the rest of my life. Lots of women are.”

“You won’t be happy with that, Mia,” Doctor Sharsmith had insisted. “Your clothes won’t fit right. Your femininity will take a serious hit. I’ve had patients who chose that route, but within six months they changed their minds. Breasts are a part of your body image, Mia. Let me give you back your natural curves.”

So, she’d agreed to more surgeries. More risks. More fear that she might not wake up from the anesthesia, and her poor children would be left in the care of their irresponsible and morally challenged father.

Now, she was outwardly normal—or some vague semblance of normal. She was skinny. Weak. Vulnerable to germs. Terrified of carcinogens, sugar, processed foods, and artificial dyes. She hated looking at herself in the mirror, and the question had crossed her mind lately whether or not any man would ever desire her?

If she wasn’t totally mistaken, this man found her attractive. Or thought he did.

Maybe this is a distraction to game me into giving up my land.

Like that would happen.

Members of the Big Sky Mavericks never gave up.

Period.

Suddenly feeling more like her old self than she had in months, she leaned in and kissed him. Three…four…seconds of heart-stopping strangeness. His lips solidly touching hers. No tongue or heavy breathing, just a tingling caused no doubt by the “mones,” as her future sister-in-law called the little buggers.

Bailey. Cake tasting.

She jerked back. “Cake.”

“No, thanks. But I wouldn’t mind another kiss.”

She jumped to her feet. “I left my mother at the tasting. I have to go.”