Montana Reunion (6 page)

It was her boss.
Again.
She sent the call to voicemail then flicked off her phone. She knew she
couldn’t avoid work completely while she was away, but she needed 24 hours.
At least.
After so many years of working without a vacation,
it was time for a break.

“Knock knock.”

Maddison
looked up. Her mom was standing in the doorway watching her.

“Hey.”

“Your boss
again?”

She nodded.
“Yep.
I almost wish we could go back to the days of no cell phone coverage here. I
tried to fob her off by saying we had no internet, but I’m starting to think
she doesn’t believe me.”

“Come and have breakfast with me.
Dad’s taking a walk, Charlotte’s out working, so it’s just the two of us.”

Madison rolled her yoga mat up
neatly and followed her mom out into the hall. She’d take any excuse to avoid a
work-out.

“Mom, can I ask you something?”

She received a smile in response.
“Anything.”

“When you had Blake, was it easy
for you to get pregnant?”

Her mother gave her a worried look
before pushing her gently towards the table. She retrieved two plates from the
counter and
Maddison
poured their coffee into mugs
while she waited.

“I was barely twenty-five when I
had your brother, and I was pregnant the first month we started trying,” her
mom said, passing her the syrup to pour over her waffles. “Then I was lucky
enough to have you all close together. Thankfully I never had to struggle with
getting pregnant.”

Maddison
nodded, shutting her eyes as she bit into her first blissful mouthful. Damn
she’d missed her mom’s cooking.

“Where’s all this coming from,
sweetheart?”

“I was reading some information
about fertility, and from now on it’s a downhill spiral for me. Every year
after 30 your chance of getting pregnant drops, and I want a baby so bad, mom.”
She had tears in her eyes, unable to push them away. “I had the nursery planned
for our apartment, and I honestly thought it was going to happen for me. That
I’d be a mom before my next birthday, you know?”

Her mom reached for her hand,
squeezing it so tight it made her look up.
Forced her to
stare into her mom’s eyes.

“Being a mom is the toughest and
most rewarding thing in the world. But bringing a child up with that man would
have been wrong, and you know it. After what he did to you…” her mom shook her
head. “I think we can all be grateful that he’s gone from our lives. You
wouldn’t want to be feeling the way you do about him right now and dealing with
raising a child.”

“But I can still be a mom,” she whispered,
playing her fork across her breakfast. “I’ve looked into doing it on my own,
and it’s something I want, mom. I want to be a mother, and I don’t want dad to
miss out on his chance to have a grandchild. He deserves it.”

It looked like her mom had lost her
appetite as much as she had. “You’ll be a great mom one day,
Maddison
. Just don’t rush into anything too soon. At least
promise me that.”

She nodded, even if her agreement
was verging on a lie. She might not be rushing into motherhood, but if Jack
actually
wanted her to marry him? Then
she was guessing it would be a quick wedding, which would mean making it clear
to everyone that it
wasn’t
because
she was knocked up.

The back door was flung back with a
bang that echoed through the kitchen, followed by her sister calling out.

“Guess who I found lurking around
outside?” Charlotte called.

Maddison
swallowed another mouthful of waffle before pushing her plate away. She looked
up, saw her sister,
then
went dead still.

Speak
of the devil, there he was.
Jack walked into the kitchen, hat under his
arm, eyes locked immediately on hers.

“Morning ladies,” he
said,
voice smooth and sweet as honey.

The man she’d vowed to marry the
night before suddenly looked a whole lot more real standing in her mother’s
kitchen.
Not to mention a whole lot more
gorgeous.

“Hey Jack,” she said, trying so
hard to sound anything other than flustered.

“What a nice surprise.” Her mom
stood and embraced him, kissing his cheek before she let him go. “I was just
telling
Maddison
last night how much we’ve been
missing you. It’s time you started coming over more often.”

Maddison
cleared her throat, hardly able to look Jack in the eye.
But he was looking at her
.
Like he was struggling
as much as she was.

“I was hoping to speak to
Maddison
,” he said, giving her mom his most charming smile.
“But I wouldn’t turn down a waffle if there’s one to spare?”

Her sister gave him a kick and he
groaned like she’d really hurt him, before winking at
Maddison
.
Her mom glared at Charlotte, pushing past her to give Jack a plate, her censure
obvious.

“Syrup?”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, still
grinning wickedly in
Maddison’s
direction.

She had no idea why Jack didn’t
have a wife, because from what she was seeing right now he was still quite the
charmer with the ladies.

They all stood around, Charlotte
slumping down into a chair to eat a late breakfast,
Maddison
fidgeting on the spot, her mom in the kitchen, and Jack leaning his big frame
against the counter. She tried not to stare, but it was impossible. His long
jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him, tanned forearms exposed where his
shirt was rolled up… she decided to look out the window instead, tuning out the
conversation he was having with her mom.

“I’m not sure if
Maddison
told you, but I’m in a bit of a predicament.”

She switched her focus back to the
people in the room again. “I wasn’t sure if it was something I could share.”
Or something she wanted to share yet, not
after one conversation shared over a bottle of wine.
She hadn’t had the
time to process everything yet and needed more time to figure out the best way
of sharing what they’d discussed.

“Basically, I either need to lawyer
up or find a wife so I can inherit the ranch. Otherwise it will be passed to
some distant cousin who’d probably turn it into a dude ranch given half a
chance.”

Jack was looking a lot more relaxed
about sharing his problem than he had been the night before, but she could see
the tightness in his jaw, how hard it must be for him to tell them like it
meant nothing.
When it meant
everything
to him.

“
He didn’t
? Your father actually put a clause in his will saying
that?” Charlotte was sitting still, for once with nothing to say, but the look
on her mom’s face as she spoke said it all.

“That and more,” Jack confirmed,
finishing his waffle and taking his plate to the sink.

“So we need to find you a wife,”
Charlotte announced.
“Shouldn’t be too hard, unless you’re
overly fussy.
But I guess that depends on how fast we have to find one.”

Maddison
was trying to catch Jack’s eye, but he was looking at her sister instead.

Please
don’t tell them, please don’t say anything…

“I think I’ve already found one,”
he said, grinning again. “Mad—“

“Jack can I have a word with you?
Privately?” she interrupted, walking across the room and taking him by the
elbow.

She didn’t care that her mom and
sister were staring at her like she was crazy, what she cared about was making
sure Jack didn’t go announcing something that they hadn’t even talked through
properly. Something that was going to change both their lives, that needed to
be thought through and discussed.

She marched him to the back door,
pulled on her boots and waited for him to do the same.

“I know you were pretty into me
last night, but there’s no need to be so rough,” Jack joked, slowly reaching
for his boots, like he was enjoying every minute of making her uncomfortable.

“Stop it!” she hissed. “Seriously,
Jack, you can’t just go blurting things like that out. Not in front of my
family.”

He let her drag him out the door.
Heat hit them straight away, so she led him toward the barn where they could
get out of the sun and away from prying eyes.

“I thought you would have told them
already,” he said.

“And I thought we had more to
discuss before we let anyone in on what was happening.”

He sighed then shrugged. “You’re
right.”

That
she hadn’t been expecting. To have Jack actually agree with her on something
when he’d always used to be so stubborn.

Maddison
walked into the cool of the barn and turned over a feed bucket to sit on. Jack
did the same.

“If you want a romantic proposal,
Maddie
, I think we could do better than this.”

Jack was grinning again and her
temper flared. “This isn’t a joke to me, Jack. If we’re going to do this, I
want it to seem real to everyone else, I told you that. I want my dad to
actually think we’re marrying because we want to, not for some bogus legal
clause or to help him out.”

“So what, exactly, are you
proposing?” he asked.

Maddison
took a deep breath, wishing she’d had more time to think it through. She’d lain
awake
most of the night trying to figure it out, but
she’d only gone around in circles.
 

“A simple marriage of convenience,”
she started, watching Jack’s face as she spoke. He was smiling but not giving
anything away. “And no matter what happened last night, we can’t, well, I don’t
know.”
She
didn’t know
,
that was the problem.

“So you don’t want to be friends
with benefits?” He raised an eyebrow, eyes glinting.

Maddison
refused to be embarrassed. This was
Jack
she was talking to, not some stranger, and the truth was that they’d gotten hot
and heavy the night before, even if they had only made it to first base.

I
don’t want to fall in love with you.
That’s what she wanted to say, but she
knew she didn’t dare.

“It’s been really nice being back
here, Jack. I love hanging out at home, being with my family,
seeing you
.”

“But?” he asked, hands on his knees
as he leaned forward, eyes on hers.

“But I’m not ready to give up my
career, not yet.
At least not until I’m a mom.”

His face hardened, smile tight as
he shook his head, slowly back and forth. “
Maddison
,
I thought we’d had this discussion.”

Damn it. She hadn’t planned on
bringing up the whole baby thing so soon, but it had kind of slipped out.

“Sorry, I thought that maybe you’d
just overacted about that last night.”
Maddison
cringed inside. He’d been pretty firm about that particular topic, which meant
the chance of him changing his mind was almost
nil
.
Especially so soon.
Changing Jack’s mind could take a while,
she knew that.

“What part of
I don’t ever want to be a dad
didn’t I make clear?” His voice was
deep, his fury barely contained.

“Jack, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
said anything.” It wasn’t like him to overreact.

“But you want a baby, right?” he
asked.

She took a deep, shaky breath.
“Yeah, I want to be a mom, and I know my time could be running out. But if you
need longer to get your head around the idea, time to figure it out, then I
guess we can renegotiate later.”

His laugh wasn’t one she’d ever
heard him utter before. “You say it like one day I’ll wake up and just change
my mind. That I’ll just decide I’ve been wrong all these years and want a
child.”

Now she’d started, she wasn’t going
to back down without at least being honest. “Jack, as your friend, I’m telling
you that you’ll make a great dad.” She laughed. “I can’t actually imagine
another guy who’d make a better dad, and I’m saying that straight from my
heart. Whether it’s with me or not, it has to happen one day.”

“
Maddison
,
I’m all in if you want to get married. I’ll sign a pre-
nup
,
I’ll treat you like a woman deserves to be treated, and I’ll do everything in
my power to help your dad out when he needs it.
To be a son
to him.
But I need to make myself clear.” He paused, reaching for her
hand and giving it a squeeze. “I will never, ever change my mind about becoming
a parent, and I need you to understand that.”

“Never?”
Her pulse was beating fast.
What if Jack
was her last chance at having a baby?
Because if she married
him, then she wouldn’t exactly be able to go off and find a donor, have a baby
on her own.

He stood and started to pace, hands
clenched into tight fists at his sides, and she wished she’d never said
anything. That she’d just kept quiet.

“Do you
remember the day my mom died?”

Jack stared into
Maddison’s
eyes, wishing he wasn’t the reason that they’d
flooded with tears. But he had to be honest with her, couldn’t let her agree to
marrying
him, to going ahead with what they’d
discussed, without being completely honest with her. He owed her the truth, and
he needed to be clear.

“You know I remember it, Jack,” she
replied.

He started to pace again, not able
to sit still. The sun was fierce outside, just like the day he’d been working
with his mom. The day that was still so vivid to him it was like it had
happened yesterday.