Montana Reunion (3 page)

At least not completely.

“He was a jerk,” Charley said,
pulling her seat closer, “so let’s not even go there. He’s out of our family
and out of all our lives, right?”

Her mom was nodding, like she
didn’t know quite what to say.

“Jerk would be a nice way to
describe him,”
Maddison
said with a sigh, standing
with her cup and walking it over to the sink. “But now that I’m back here the
one thing I
don’t
want to think about
is him, so can we just forget completely about what happened? I’m a successful,
independent woman, and I don’t need him or any other man to make me happy.”

She grimaced, her stomach churning
like she’d just digested something bad. She loved men and she did want to
believe that
one day
she’d meet a man
who would treat her better. Who actually wanted
her.
But right now she was happy to forget about romance
entirely.

Her mom followed her and touched a
hand to her shoulder as
Maddison
stood beside her,
clearing the rest of the dishes away. “Despite the reasons that brought you
back, we’re just pleased you’re here. It’s so nice having two girls back home
again.”

“Dad, I’m heading out to check the
weanlings and do the rest of the rounds. You
coming?”
Charley
announced,
standing and brushing her palms
against her jeans.

Maddison
watched as her sister rose, grabbed a muffin and headed for the door, pulling
on her work boots and retrieving her hat. Her dad did the same, only a lot
slower and blowing her a kiss on his way out.

“You were so lucky to meet a man
like dad,” she told her mom, resting her head on her shoulder as they stood
side by side in the kitchen, looking out the window at the endless view of
grass-covered fields.

“I know,” her mom said. “It seems
to me like they don’t make them like they used to anymore.”

Maddison
kissed her mom’s cheek as she laughed at her. “
Damn right
.”

“So how about I cook a nice big
roast chicken tonight?
Some good old fashioned comfort food?
Make you feel right at home.”

She smiled at her mom. “Can I take
a rain check on that until tomorrow?” She didn’t want to make a big deal out of
her dinner plans with Jack, but she was going to have to tell them not to
expect her at the kitchen table tonight. “When I bumped into Jack this morning
he asked me over for dinner.” She paused, watching her mom’s reaction and
getting nothing but a smile that she couldn’t decipher the meaning of. “I think
he needs a friend right now, and to be honest? So do
I
.”

Her mom nodded, patting her hand.
“We love that boy like he’s our own. I just wish he’d come around more often,
so you tell him that when you see him tonight,
Maddison
.
He shouldn’t be rattling around in that big house on his own all the time.”

“Sometimes I think about him, mom.
About what great friends we used to
be,
how much I
could trust him and just be myself around him.” She sighed, not sure how to
explain what she meant. “I feel like I haven’t had that in a long time, and
seeing
him
has kind of brought it all back.”

“You don’t have to explain
yourself, sweetheart. Go off and have a nice night with him. It’ll do you good
to see an old friend.”

Her mom crossed the room and
started tidying up.
Maddison
planted her hands on the
counter, staring out the window, catching a glimpse of her sister and dad as
they headed out to work.

Her dad seemed in good spirits, but
she’d never have forgiven herself if she hadn’t made time to come back and see
him. And if what the doctor had said was true, his recovery wasn’t going to be
as straightforward as he was pretending. No matter how much he acted like
nothing had changed, it had, and they all knew it.

Maddison
cringed as her phone beeped, its ring sounding shrill and rude in the quiet
warmth of the kitchen.

“Sorry,” she muttered to her mom as
she reached for it.
Pity the signal still
worked here.
Maybe she should have turned it off and pretended it didn’t.

“I thought you were actually taking
a break this time?” her mom asked.

“Yeah, so did
I
.”
Maddison
glared at her phone
before taking a deep breath and clicking the talk button. Unfortunately, her
boss didn’t believe in the word
vacation
,
even though she hadn’t taken time off in over a year.

Jack finished rubbing down his horse
before letting her go, watching as she cantered down the field to the others.
His dad had hated doing work on horseback, had preferred to do everything from
a vehicle, but Jack liked sticking to basics. And now that his father was gone,
he had no intention of doing anything his old man’s way.

He whistled to his dog and walked
toward the house. It was way earlier than he’d usually finish up, but he had
the ranch hands on task and he had a house to tidy. Not to mention he had to
figure out what the hell he was going to cook her for dinner.

No matter how much he told himself
that she was an old friend, he wanted to impress her.
Because nothing had prepared him for the woman she’d turned into
.
Her hair, once short and boyish, was now so long it fell over her shoulders and
down her back.
And her body?
From what he’d seen that
had changed a lot too, and not in a bad way. Curves in all the right places…
stop
.

He started to whistle to distract
himself. Thinking about
Maddison
like that wasn’t
going to help him any. She hadn’t been back in a long time, and she wasn’t
going to be here for long. Tonight was all about catching up with an old
friend, having someone to talk to that he could be himself with. That was all.

Her
hair and her body had nothing to do with it.

“Come on, Rosa.” He paused to let
his old dog catch up. She wasn’t as fast as she used to be. “We’ve got company
tonight, girl. So that means you might need a bath if you want to make it
inside.”

He grinned as his dog slunk off in
the other direction at the word
bath.
Maddison
might have grown up a country girl, but he doubted
even she would tolerate a smelly work dog in the house.

CHAPTER
THREE

JACK opened the door of his oven
and hoped for the best.
Amazing
.
The chicken was crisp and golden. He flicked the timer button and took the dish
out, placing it on the stovetop. Despite taking too long in the shower, he’d
somehow managed to get it
right,
even if the alarm had
been beeping for so long it had actually stopped of its own accord.
 

He poked around at the vegetables
and grinned. It might not be gourmet, but he was pretty sure it would be damn
tasty. Now he just needed to heat up his homemade gravy, keep the food warm and
wait for …

Jack heard a knock at the door.
Maddison
.

He did up the buttons on his shirt
as he walked, looking down at his feet and realizing he didn’t have any shoes
on. Barefoot was going to have to do.

Jack swung open the door.
Shit
.
Maddison
was standing on his porch, bottle of wine in hand and a shy smile on her face.
She was wearing jeans, heels and a tank top, but somehow managed to look like
she should have been going somewhere a whole lot fancier than his house for
dinner.

“Hey,” he said, stepping forward to
press a kiss to her cheek. “You look fantastic.” Maybe he should have kept his
thoughts to himself, but she did look great.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,”
she said as he stepped back so she could come in.
 

“I’m not just a cowboy, you know,”
he joked, closing the door behind them and following her down the hall. “I can
scrub myself up to look presentable when I need to.”

Jack stopped abruptly to avoid
walking straight into her.
Maddison
was standing
still, looking up the staircase,
hand
on the banister.

“Do you remember sliding down
here?” she asked, her smiling face turned his way. “We used to hide upstairs
and make a run for it whenever your mom wasn’t watching.”

Jack nodded. He didn’t often let
his mind go back that far, but she was right.
That part of
his childhood had been great, and almost every spare moment had been spent with
little
Maddison
.
The girl who’d wanted so
desperately to keep up with the boys.

“Pity it had to come to such an
abrupt end, huh?” It was one of the things he’d hated most about his father, to
the point that he’d hardly been able to stomach being in the same room as him.
And it was why his brother had walked out as a teenager, and never come back.
“Dad sure didn’t want us having fun once she was gone.”

Maddison
reached for his hand then, her fingers linking through his. He stared at his
palm covering hers, watched her slender fingers as they squeezed, then
released.
Just like when they were kids,
after his mom had died, and
Maddison
had always
managed to make him feel better.

Jack fought against the desire to
pull away, but he’d been pulling away, pushing people away for so long, that
right now he just wanted to stand still.
To let someone care
about him.

He looked up, and into brown eyes that
had once been so familiar to him, yet so foreign now. Because they held the
same concern and love they always had, but now there was something else, and it
wasn’t just the fact they were bordered by thick black lashes.

“I still think about her, Jack,”
Maddison
told him, her voice low and tears slowly filled
her eyes even though she was clearly trying her best to blink them away. “I
loved her almost as much as you did, and I’ll never forget her.”

Jack took a deep breath, shaking
his head ever so slightly as he watched
Maddison
back. He met her gaze and stared her straight back in the eyes. “How the hell,
after all these years, can you take me right back to when we were kids, huh?”

Her face creased, her smile turning
into a frown as she let go of him and placed her hands on his shoulders
instead. “I’m
sorry,
I just wanted you to know that I
care. I feel like I turned my back on home for too long, but it wasn’t because
I stopped caring.”

Jack couldn’t help himself. He
pulled
Maddison
against him, tucked her body into his
and slung his arms around her. “Don’t apologize. I should be thanking you.”

He chuckled as he let his chin rest
on her head. Even with heels on she was still shorter than him – probably the
only thing that hadn’t changed since he’d seen her last.

“You’re thanking me for bringing up
painful memories?”
Maddison’s
voice was muffled
against him.

“No, I’m thanking you for reminding
me why I give a damn,” he said, slowly releasing her even though all he wanted
was to keep her folded into him and never let her go.

Maddison
looked up at him as she stepped away, eyes wide like she wasn’t sure what was
happening between them.
Like she didn’t know what to expect.

Maybe
he’d overstepped, forgotten the rules of friendship and pushed too far.

“What’s wrong, Jack?” she asked.

He touched a hand to her lower back
and propelled her towards the kitchen. “Let’s not ruin the evening before it’s
even started,” he said, steering her towards a chair and pulling it out for
her. “We need food and wine before we start talking about my problems.”

“Anything I can do to help?” she
asked.

“Not a thing.
If there’s one thing my mom taught me it was good manners, so there’s no chance
I’m letting my guest help out with dinner.”

Maddison
took the glass of wine Jack offered her and held it in the air, eyes trained on
him as she stood on the other side of the table. “Cheers.”

He nodded, but his hands were
occupied. He was carrying a roasted chicken, surrounded by vegetables.

“You wouldn’t believe that my mom
was planning the same dinner for us, before I confessed that I already had
plans.” She laughed. “If I keep eating like this I’ll have an ass the size of
Texas.”

He raised an eyebrow, hand poised
with the knife to carve dinner.
“Texas, huh?”
Jack
stopped what he was doing and stepped back, looking at her more closely.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking out
your ass.
What does it look like I’m doing?” He winked and took another
step closer, putting down the knife and folding his arms across his chest.

“Jack! Stop it.”

“Well, you said Texas, but…”

She grabbed one of the napkins from
the table and threw it at him.
“In your dreams, cowboy.
Now get back to carving that bird.”

Maddison
was blushing and there was nothing she could do about it. Jack was making her
feel… like there was a whole lot more going on here than just friendship. Or
maybe she was reading too much into it.

She looked up again and caught him
staring at her, eyes twinkling like he knew
exactly
what she was thinking.

“Dinner looks amazing,” she told
him, refusing to be embarrassed about the fact that her former best friend had
checked out her butt.
And she’d liked it.

Things had changed between them,
there was no denying it, but she didn’t
want
things to feel different. When he’d held her before, she’d slotted straight
into his arms like she was supposed to be there. It had felt like there was a
charge running between them that had surged her back into life, made her feel
like the old
Maddison
and not the overworked,
heart broken
one.