The Reluctant Bride (Montana Born Brides) (15 page)

“
What are you thinking?” she asked, rolling over and propping herself up on his chest.

Her naked breasts brushed against him and her long hair fell over his chest.
It was soft and smelled like flowers. Her entire house smelled like spring and, after the hard freeze that had been going on between them, he longed to enjoy the respite, but he knew things weren’t settled.

“
Nothing.”

She pushed on his chest, scooting up so that their eyes met.
“Liar.”

He turned his head to the side, scanning his gaze around her big loft.
The bed was nestled in the corner with a row of flower lights pinned to the wall above the headboard. There was a nightlight plugged into a socket near the door, under a small table that she’d used to create an entryway.

“
Monty?”

“
Huh?”

“
Why are you lying to me?” she asked.

She was doggedly determined to talk.
What was it about the middle of the night that made everything seem so clear? He didn’t want to tell her what was on his mind because…what? He might spook her? If she decided to run again, there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her.

“
I know you’re not sure about me,” he said at last.

“
Oh, no,” she said, shifting on the bed until she was on top of him. She put her hands on either side of his face and leaned down so that her forehead rested against his. “You I’m sure of. Aside from my parents, there has never been another person in my life that I’ve known I could count on. That’s why the total silence from you freaked me out and made me act like a brat.”

“
You weren’t a brat,” he said. “I wanted you to understand what I felt when I couldn’t find you.”

“
I’m sorry,” she said, brushing her mouth over his. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for leaving you that way. When I did it, I could only think of myself and what was going on with me. It was selfish.”

He put his hands on her hips and kissed her slowly, trying to show her that the past no longer mattered to him.
It was the future he was fixated on. The future was what he worried about and wanted to ensure that they’d be together.

“
If it’s not me that’s got you scared, what is it?” he asked after he broke their kiss.

She sighed and rolled to his side, tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder.
Her hand moved over his chest, tracing the squadron tattoo he had on his left pectoral. He knew she hadn’t gone to sleep, and he wondered if she was going to answer him or just ignore the question.

“
It’s me I can’t count on,” she said, at last. Her fingers stopped moving and she put her hand flat on his chest right over his heart.

“
Why not?” he asked. “You seem pretty solid here in Marietta. You’ve got Sweetpea Flowers and your business is successful, isn’t it?”

“
Yes. But business is easy. That’s profit and loss, balancing expenses and all that stuff. It’s straightforward. But putting my trust in another person…”

He rubbed her back and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
It was like she’d peered into his soul and was talking about him. He had the same worries. The same issues when he thought of putting his trust in Risa. But, at the same time, three weeks apart had been too long. He couldn’t live this close to her and not have her with him. He needed her, and he suspected she needed him too.

“
That’s the biggest risk of all, isn’t it?”

She nodded.
“How can you trust me not to run?”

“
How can I do anything but that? There is something about you, Risa. Something that speaks to the very depths of my soul and I can’t not take a chance on you.”

She straddled him and leaned over him.
Her breasts brushing his chest while her hair fell around their faces and cocooned them together. She kissed him slowly as her body moved over him. He felt surrounded by this woman. By her body and her soul. She took him into her body after she’d joined their hands together, and their eyes met and held as she slowly slid down on him.

She watched him as she rocked her hips forward to take all of him and he let her set the pace.
Let her love wash down over him. But it was only later when they woke and went about their business that he realized they hadn’t spoken of love, and that she’d never really acknowledged the depth of his needing of her.

She fell asleep with Monty
’s arms around her, and woke with a jolt when he bolted upright in bed.

“
Lane. Dammit. There’s too much blood,” Monty said, his voice was low and husky. She could tell he was still half asleep.

In the midst of some sort of nightmare.

She wrapped her arms around him hugging him from behind and whispering words in his ear.

“
It’s okay. Lane’s okay,” she said.

A cold sweat broke out all over his body and he turned to her with those piercing grey-green eyes of his staring straight through her.
For a moment it seemed he didn’t know who she was.

“
Where am I?”

“
You’re in my bed in Marietta, Montana. I’m your fiancée,” she said. God, did he not even remember her?

“
Risa. Sorry, sweetheart. Just a bad dream,” he said, scrubbing his hands over his face and then getting out of their bed and walking into the bathroom.

She heard the water come on.

Climbing out of the bed, she trudged over to the bathroom and found him with water dripping off his face, braced over the sink. She might have bitten off a little more than she could chew.

“
Want to talk?”

He glanced over at her, his expression unreadable, before he reached for a hand towel.
She got it before he could and stepped into the bathroom, holding it up and drying his face for him.

“
You’re not alone any more. You have me.”

He hugged her close, buried his face in the nook of her shoulder.
His breath was warm against her neck and he held her with what felt, to her, like desperation.

“
I do, don’t I?” he asked.

She nodded.
“You know Lane is okay.”

She rubbed his back.
Held him tightly to her and tried to offer him physical comfort.

She took Monty
’s hand and led him back to bed. Once he was lying down she straddled him so she could still look into his eyes. “What was the dream about?”

“
That day,” he said. “Seeing Lane lying in a crater the size of a Buick and struggling past the buzzing in my ears to keep him from bleeding out.”

“
Could you have done something else? Anything else to save him?” she asked.

“
No. I mean maybe I could have been quicker with the IED I was dismantling and been the one to take the hit. Why wasn’t I the one, Risa?” he asked.

She lifted his hand to her face and kissed the center of his palm.
“I guess the Lord wanted you to come back to me.”

“
Maybe he did,” Monty said. “I believe that’s why we fell for each other so quickly. So that we’d have more time to spend together.”

“
Really?” she asked. This was first she’d heard of this theory. Had he asked her to marry her for herself? Or because he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone?

“
Yes. I mean, I’d never been serious about anything, but when I got back, I decided to stop screwing around with my relationships and find the right kind of woman.”

“
Me?” she asked. But in the pit of her stomach she felt a bit unsure. It didn’t seem like he’d fallen for Risa Grant, but instead just sort of fallen for the first woman he met.

“
Yes, you,” he said, pulling her down and tucking her against his side. He kissed the top of her head and laced their fingers together. “You make me whole.”

That was a big ask, she thought.
She cared for Monty. Wanted to be his wife and was starting to get excited about planning their wedding—what girl didn’t love a big party where she was the center of attention—but at the same time…she couldn’t make him whole, could she?

Risa was busier than a one-armed paper-hanger, as her father used to say, with all the brides stopping by to talk flowers.
She could think of her father now without that odd catch in her throat. She still missed him and her mom so much, but having Monty in her life made the grief a little easier to bear.

Which was why she
’d surprised him by booking a trip to San Diego for them to visit his dad for the weekend. She’d called Laney and asked her to come and fill in at the flower shop, something her old friend had been more than happy to do.

“
He might not even recognize me,” Monty warned, as they walked from the reception area at the care home and down the hall to his father’s room.

“
He’s your dad. I want to know him,” she said. “I need to find out how much of Heath Davison is in his son.”

“
He’s not the man he used to be,” Monty said. “But he’s still my hero.”

“
Why?”

Monty led her to a bench nestled in an alcove and sat down.
She sat next to him. “My mom left because she couldn’t deal with everything anymore and part of that was my dad’s drinking. He wasn’t abusive or anything like that. More of a happy, dreamer drunk, but it was still hard on her and one day she couldn’t take it any longer.”

“
I’m sorry, baby,” she said.

He shrugged.
“I have gotten over that. Figured out they weren’t right for each other. But my dad and I were on our own, and one day I came home to find him sitting at the table with six bottles of Jack lined up in front of him. I panicked.

“
Thought maybe he was going to try to drink himself to death. He looked at me. Must have seen my fear and held his hand out to me. ‘Come here, boy,’ he said. I walked over and he hugged me to his side. ‘You deserve a parent who’s there for you,’” Monty looked away. “He told me help him throw out the bottles. I did.”

Monty turned back to her.
“After that day he didn’t drink again. He was the best dad I could have asked for. I mean, he still had his faults, and I saw him struggling over the years not to drink, but he never did.”

That explained where that core of solid steel came from in Monty.
He must have gotten his stubborn determination from his dad.

“
I’m ready to meet Heath.”

Monty stood up and they held hands loosely as they walked down the hall to his father
’s room. The door was open and the nurse whom they’d spoken to at the reception stepped out as they approached. “He’s ready to see you. He’s not at one-hundred percent today.”

“
Thank you,” Monty said.

He dropped Risa
’s hand as he stepped around the doorjamb and into the room. “Hello, Dad.”

“
Son. It’s good to see you.”