Forever And A Day (Montana Brides, Book #7) (10 page)

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “He’s a slime ball. I got suckered into thinking he cared about me, but all along it was my software that was the main attraction.”

“The guy must be blind.”

Sarah’s head shot up and she watched a slow smile fill Jordan’s face.

“That observation comes from a purely professional viewpoint, of course.”

“Sometimes, Jordan McKenzie, you say the strangest things.”

“Why is it strange to say you’re pretty?”

Sarah felt herself getting hot and bothered. “Being pretty isn’t important to me.”

Jordan took a step toward her. “It’s not?”

Sarah glanced over his shoulder at the door. Common sense was telling her she should leave. Jordan could go back to his paperwork and she could go back to whatever it was she’d been doing. But she didn’t listen to the common sense part of her brain.

“No, being pretty isn’t important.” She squared her shoulders and tried to ignore the heat building between them. It was a superficial chemical reaction, a two-second blip on the attraction scale.

“Care to expand on that theory, Legs?”

“It’s…It’s trivial. It doesn’t matter what someone looks like on the outside. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

Jordan nodded. “You’ve got a point…about what’s on the inside. But if a man thought a certain woman’s body was the biggest turn on of his life, would that make him shallow or curious?”

A spike of heat shot through Sarah’s body. “Curious?” She didn’t mean for her voice to crack. This discussion was purely theoretical. It didn’t mean that Jordan was talking about her. It really didn’t.

“Yeah, you know.” He reached out and twisted a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Like he wanted to know what it felt like to kiss her and hold her in his arms.”

“It would be…” Her voice was breathless, maybe even a little needy. Like she might be thinking the same thing. Jordan angled his head and gently tugged her hair, pulling her close to his mouth.

She gave up thinking, forgot to breathe. She met his lips halfway and sighed as his mouth devoured hers. This wasn’t the shy, awkward first kiss of two people getting to know each other. It was the blazing, raw need of a woman who knew what she wanted and a man who knew how to give it to her.

Jordan pulled her into his hips and she rocked against him, straining against the desire racing through her body. She wound her hands over his shoulders, opened her mouth for more. A groan of pure need rumbled out of his throat, sent darts of pleasure along her spine.

She felt powerful, dangerous, and sexy. Everything that had been missing in her life for so long that it left her dizzy. Jordan’s hands moved over her, cupped her breasts through her cotton t-shirt and made her gasp.

She wanted to crawl over him, make him feel the heat building inside of her, the tightness of her body as it shifted into another zone. Her hands pulled at his shirt, reached for his body, caressed his hot skin.

Jordan pulled back, tore his mouth from hers. “We can’t…”

Sarah frowned. She was still imagining what it would feel like to have his naked body pressed against hers.

“Sarah…”
He took another step backward, banged into the side of his desk and tripped over the edge of the mat. “I’ve got to go…work.” And he ran from the room.

She stared at the door, tried to make sense of what had just happened. Her lips tingled, her body was on fire. For Jordan. Her boss. The man that was turning her world inside out.

She stepped out of the office and headed toward the barn. The whole world could have blown up and she’d still feel like she was walking on a different planet. She’d kissed Jordan, clung to him like a sex-starved jellyfish. He’d think she was a tease, a desperate woman who’d flung herself at him.

It was worse than getting drunk. Worse than seeing her fiancé in bed with someone else. Worse than figuring out her brain was the only thing anyone had ever wanted. Until today.

CHAPTER FIVE

Sarah stared out of the window above Angel Wings Café. Tess’ apartment was just as lovely as her café downstairs. She’d painted the walls a soft shade of peach and added bright blue trim to the windows. Over a couple of weekends, they’d made curtains out of spotty purple fabric, finishing off the whole look with fuchsia-pink cushions on the sofa. The room was a mix of French chic versus up-cycled glamor.

“What’s wrong?” Tess asked.

Sarah turned from the window and watched Tess roll cookie dough balls in her hands. A batch of chewy oatmeal and blueberry cookies were cooking in the oven. The smell of cinnamon wafted past Sarah’s nose, made her stomach twist in knots.

Tess’ apartment smelled of home. The kind of home Sarah could have gotten used to when she was younger.

“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

“Sorry, kiddo. I don’t believe you. You’ve been staring at the traffic on Main Street for the last ten minutes.”

Sarah walked across to the kitchen and leaned against the counter. “It’s not working out.”

Tess placed another ball of dough on the cookie sheet in front of her. “Are you talking about your job on Jordan’s ranch?”

Sarah nodded.

“What’s not working out? Do you need me to help with some of the meals?”

“No, it’s not the cooking. It’s Jordan. He kissed me…” Sarah felt her face flaming redder than Tess’ apron. “I kissed him. It’s a mess.”

Tess grinned. “Jordan kisses everyone. He’s the only person I know who’s ever wanted to work in the kissing booth at our school fair.”

Sarah started feeling better, then a hundred times worse. Now she was embarrassed. She’d latched onto his lips like a sucker fish. A desperate, six-foot tall sucker fish who should have known better.

“But having said that, he’s been keeping his lips to himself lately. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for a while, unless he’s been hiding someone on the ranch.” Tess stared at Sarah.

“There’s no point looking at me like I’m Jordan’s answer to lucky lips. We kissed once.”

“Do you want to kiss him again?”

“Of course not.” Sarah’s face felt even hotter. “It’s not right. He’s a cowboy, for cripes’ sake. He doesn’t know one end of computer code from another and he hates eating eggplant.”

“Here’s a newsflash for you…I don’t know anything about computer code either and we’re still friends. Now the eggplant issue, that’s serious.”

Sarah’s lips twitched. “I made Ratatouille the other night. He pushed it around his plate for half an hour before finally giving up.”

“You fed a man from Montana ratatouille? I hope you added half an elk to his dinner plate?”

“The Buchanans enjoyed the meal. I was trying to broaden Jordan’s taste buds.”

“What did the other ranch hands do?”

“Pushed the ratatouille around and then found some steak to cook on the barbecue.”

Tess laughed. “At least you know they won’t die of hunger if you experiment. But I wouldn’t do the vegetarian thing again. When does Mrs. Davies get back?”

“In two days’ time.”

“You must be looking forward to staying on one ranch? Racing between the two properties is a big job.”

“I’ve enjoyed it,” Sarah muttered. “I’ve offered to redesign Jordan’s website.”

“I’m thinking those words might be sexy to someone who’s into computer code?”

Sarah held her hands on her hot face. “I don’t know if it was a good idea or not. Sally wants me to help her class with their IT project. They’re learning how to design a good website. Jordan’s ranch vacation business seemed like the perfect case study, but I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Because you kissed him?”

Sarah shook her head. “Because I want to kiss him again. It’s all I think about, but it wouldn’t work.”

Tess passed her a buttery dough ball. “Before you eat this tell me what’s so wrong about getting together with Jordan?”

“He lives in Montana. My home is in Portland. I like the city, he likes peace and quiet. He’s got a happy family. My mom and dad are busy saving the world.” Sarah stared down at the cookie sheet. “I sound pathetic.”

“Slightly self-indulgent.” Tess grinned.

Sarah ate the raw dough mixture, then reached for another ball. “These are great.”

“Good comfort food designed to cure heartaches. Why do you have to do anything about Jordan? Why not see how things go before you start organizing your future?”

“I don’t have time to see how things turn out with Jordan. Mom and dad are coming to visit in December. They think I’m wasting my time out here.”

“Are you?”

“No. It’s been a good year. But I need to make some decisions about what I’m going to do. Dad will freak out if he meets Jordan, if he thinks he’s someone special.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Mom and dad might think I’m going to stay in Montana.”

Tess frowned. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“It is if you’re an only child who doesn’t want to let her parents down.”

“Maybe your parents need to change their thinking?”

Sarah sat on a kitchen stool and leaned her elbows on the counter. “I spent seven years at college and twelve months working at IBM. When I started my own company, dad was so proud.” She fiddled with some napkins stacked beside her. “They don’t see Bozeman as a good career development opportunity.”

“But the software thingy you were telling me about the other day, you could develop that anywhere?”

Sarah nodded.

“And that place could be in Bozeman, Berlin, or Bermuda?”

“Yeah. But not Berlin. It’s too far away.”

The timer on the oven beeped. Tess checked the cookies, then set the clock for another five minutes. “So in theory you could work from Bozeman?”

“I can’t see why not.”

“So the big question isn’t
if
you could work from Bozeman, but
do
you want to work from Bozeman?”

Sarah thought about her friends, the life she’d made. It was more real than her life in Portland, more honest and so much more rewarding. When she’d arrived in Montana, she’d been angry and hurt. Working on Alex’s ranch had helped put her life into perspective. It had shown her she was more than the sum of who she thought she was. And then there was Jordan. Being around him, kissing him, had reminded her she was a woman. Someone who could love and be loved.

She smiled at Tess. “I want to live in Bozeman.”

“And you could work from anywhere? Maybe even from a ranch?”

“Dad won’t see it like that.” Sarah knew exactly how her dad would see it. He’d think she was running away from her life, burying herself in the middle of nowhere.

“Sounds like your parents have got a little perception problem.” Tess wiped her hands on a dishcloth and picked up the phone. “I know exactly who can help. Emily started working from her spare bedroom. Now she has an amazing fashion boutique in the center of town and clients from around the world. If she can’t help us, no one can.”

Sarah sighed and helped herself to another ball of cookie dough. Her parents were arriving in December. That gave her less than three months to convince them that this was where she needed to be.

If the plan Tess and Emily came up with didn’t work, she could always buy her mom and dad a few return flights from Portland. That way they could visit her in Bozeman and tell her what she was missing out on.

***

Jordan didn’t generally sit outside and watch the sunset, but tonight he felt restless, too preoccupied to stay inside. It was cold, the kind of night that made you think of splitting wood and roaring fires.

The screen door on the porch squeaked and he looked up at Sarah. “I thought you’d left for the night?”

“Just about to go. I wanted to say goodbye to the Buchanans.”

Jordan looked back at the ranch. The Buchanans were driving into Bozeman early the next morning to catch a flight home. “They enjoyed their stay on the ranch.” He could feel Sarah’s gaze on his face.

“They want to come back next year.”

Jordan nodded. He’d taken their details, arranged to call them in a couple of months’ time. “With the fancy online booking system you’re working on it will be easy to register them.”

“I hope so. I sent you an email this afternoon. Are you happy for me to send it out to other families in the area?”

Since he’d opened his business, he’d started working with other ranchers. Depending on the season or what his guests wanted to do, the families around him had been happy to host additional activities on their ranches. It gave his neighbors extra income and made his guests’ vacation more enjoyable.

They were going to use the Triple L’s website to coordinate some of those activities. Each ranching family would keep their website information up to date. They’d send any changes through to him and he’d upload the data. Sarah hoped it would reduce the number of phone calls going between properties and give potential guests something to consider when making their booking.