Forever And A Day (Montana Brides, Book #7) (21 page)

After last night, he appreciated the benefits of being alone anywhere with a woman for two weeks. Especially if their family and friends weren’t on the same vacation. Or at the same wedding.

The lake might have been a stunning backdrop to his grand night of seduction, but it also amplified any sound hitting the water. Kermit the Frog had drawn the attention of every child at the wedding. He guessed news traveled fast when you were bored. They’d come in droves, all twelve of them, with parents, to investigate the most interesting thing that had happened all day.

They’d sat around the edge of the gazebo, inching closer to the CD player. One boy revved the volume up so loud that it scared a little girl half to death. She’d run screaming into her father’s arms, only she never made it. She tripped on one of the cotton swags and fell headfirst into the water.

Her dad jumped in after her, pulled her to safety, then started yelling at Jordan for being out there in the first place. That didn’t go down too well with the younger children in their audience and they started crying as well. By the time everyone calmed down and went back to the wedding, Jordan was ready to jump in the lake himself.

The only surprise was that the police hadn’t been called to sort out the disturbance by the lake.

All in all, it had been a wedding to remember.

The front door of Sarah’s house was wide open. He rapped his knuckles against the wood and yelled, “Anyone home?”

A tall guy with blonde hair ambled down the hallway. “Can I help?”

Jordan looked closely at his face. “Are you Ethan? The new guy?”

“Yep. Who’s asking?”

Jordan stuck his hand out and introduced himself. “I’m looking for Sarah.”

Ethan scratched his head, then glanced down at his watch. “She went out with Mac and her parents hours ago. Said something about a tour of the ranch. They should be back soon.”

A horn blasted across the ranch and Jordan walked around the side of the house. “They’re here, thanks,” he called to Ethan, but he’d already disappeared back inside.

Two four wheelers pulled up beside his truck. Mac was the first to swing his leg over the back of one of the bikes. He yanked his helmet off and grinned at Jordan. “Heard you had an interesting night.”

Like most of what Mac said, it wasn’t a question. “You could say that.”

Jordan’s answer amused Mac. He moved out of the way while the driver of his four wheeler jumped off the bike.

“Sarah?” Jordan watched her pull her helmet off. Unlike Mac’s head gear, she was wearing a full face helmet. The smile on her face would have lit half the town with electricity for a year.

He glared at Mac. “You let her drive?”

“She was perfectly safe with me behind her.”

Jordan just bet she was. It was bad enough that Mac lived in the same house as Sarah. He didn’t have to ride around the ranch with her in his arms.

Sarah was looking at the bike beside her. Her smile dipped.

A couple in their early fifties took their helmets off. They must be her parents.

Sarah’s mom stepped forward and held her hand out. “Hello. I’m Angela. Sarah’s mom.”

“Hello, Mrs. Thornton. I’m Jordan, Sarah’s…”

“Friend.” Sarah’s voice cracked like a whip across the yard. She glanced at him, sent him a look that didn’t make sense. “Jordan, this is my mom and dad. Angela and John.”

Mrs. Thornton took pity on him. “Won’t you come inside, Jordan. Mac and Sarah have been showing us around the ranch. It’s quite an impressive sight from the back of a bike.”

He could see where Sarah got her stunning looks from. Although Mrs. Thornton’s hair had been cut to her shoulders, it had the same blonde highlights as Sarah’s. They both had the same narrow face, high cheek bones, and cat shaped eyes. But Sarah’s full lips came straight from her dad.

John Thornton was staring at him with open curiosity. “So you’re a friend of Sarah’s?”

“Don’t go pestering the young man just yet, John,” Mrs. Thornton said. “I’m sure Sarah has some lemonade or another cold drink we could enjoy after our ride.”

Sarah passed Mac her helmet. “You can help me get everything ready if you want to, Jordan.”

“Sure.” He didn’t know what was going on, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.

Sarah washed her hands at the kitchen sink then started taking glasses out of the pantry. “I haven’t told mom and dad. About us.”

“I got the hint when you called me a friend.”

“I don’t want them jumping to conclusions.”

Jordan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What conclusions are you referring to? The one where we’re sleeping together, or the one where you’re planning on coming back to Montana to live?”

Sarah tilted her chin in the air. “What do you want me to say? Oh, by the way, mom and dad, here’s the man I’m having sex with?”

“What’s wrong with calling me your boyfriend?”

“Because I don’t want my parents to know I’ve got a boyfriend,” Sarah hissed.

“What the hell’s wrong with having a boyfriend? And what’s wrong with me?”

“Keep your voice down.”

Jordan closed the kitchen door and glared at Sarah. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Sarah crossed her arms in front of her chest. “A boyfriend means commitment. It means being responsible for someone else. I’m not ready to do that again.”

“What do you call what we’ve been doing together?”

Sarah threw her hands in the air. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I don’t have to call it anything. We had sex. More than once. You don’t need to be my boyfriend for that.”

“Like hell,” Jordan growled. “I thought we meant something to each other. I thought we were a couple. If you’re not ready to admit that, then you’re not the right person for me.”

“I was committed to someone once and he screwed me over for a piece of computer code. I’ve known you for a month. What do you expect me to say? That you’re the man of my dreams? That I can’t imagine my life without you? The only person I know that would be that crazy is my mother.”

“Maybe if you were more like your mom we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Tears glittered in Sarah’s eyes. “You think we’d be walking down the aisle playing one big happy family? It doesn’t work like that. I’m not willing to give up everything I’ve worked hard for, to live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.”

Jordan didn’t know what to say. He felt like he’d walked onto the set of a horror movie. Or one of those reality shows where everyone knows the truth about what’s going on except the idiot in the middle of the deception.

He cleared his throat. His anger had been replaced by a hurt so deep that he didn’t know if he could speak. “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Without looking back, he opened the door and left the house.

Sarah ran down the steps after him. “Jordan, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

He kept walking, started the engine in his truck and drove away.

***

Four days later, Sarah walked into Angel Wings Café.

“What happened?” Tess asked. She pulled Sarah across the room and pointed to a table. “Wait here.”

Sarah sat down and watched Tess walk back to the counter. She disappeared behind a door. A few minutes later, Annie, Tess’ part-time baker came out of their kitchen, tying an apron around her waist.

Tess stood in front of the coffee machine, flicked some switches, then carried two mugs across to their table. “Drink this.” She put one of the mugs of in front of Sarah and sat down. “You look like death warmed over. Is something wrong with your parents?”

Sarah shook her head. “They’re fine. They left on Monday afternoon.”

“What’s happened since then?”

Sarah dropped her head into her hands. “It’s more like what happened while they were here. Jordan and I argued. It was bad.”

“So does that mean you’ve broken up or are you just not talking to each other?”

“There was nothing to break up.” Sarah’s bottom lip started wobbling. She was going to embarrass herself, start crying in the middle of the café.

“I’m missing something…” Tess pushed Sarah’s coffee under her nose. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

“What is it?”

“Grande latte with a shot of caramel. You look as though you could do with the extra sugar.”

Sarah knew sugar wouldn’t solve her problems, but she took a sip anyway.

“Let’s rewind the conversation. What did you mean when you said there was nothing to break up?”

Sarah stared into her cup. “Jordan and I weren’t going out together. He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“What was he?”

Sarah took a deep breath. “I hadn’t figured that out.”

“And I’m guessing you told Jordan he wasn’t your boyfriend and he wasn’t impressed?”

“Something like that,” Sarah muttered.

Tess pulled her chair closer to Sarah. “You mean there’s more?”

Sarah nodded her head. There was so much more. She knew Jordan wouldn’t speak to her again. “I told him I wasn’t willing to give everything up and move to the middle of nowhere.”

“Do you really think that?”

“No…Yes…I don’t know.” Sarah took a tissue out of her bag and blew her nose. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t know what to tell mom and dad. They don’t know about Jordan. Mom thinks I’m moving back to Portland in a few months.”

“Why didn’t you tell them about Jordan?”

“I made a mistake once. I don’t want to make another one.”

“I need cake.” Tess pushed her chair away from the table and headed over to the counter. She came back holding two pieces of lemon meringue pie. “Eat this.”

“I can’t, I…”

Tess pointed her dessert fork in Sarah’s direction. “Eat.”

Sarah picked her fork up and stabbed the pie. “I tried to call him on Sunday night, but he wouldn’t talk to me.”

“He’s a guy. They don’t handle rejection well.”

“But I don’t want to reject him. I just don’t want to be his girlfriend.”

Tess put her fork carefully on the side of her plate. “So you’d be happy for him to date other women, maybe even sleep with them?”

“
No
.” Sarah looked around the café. No one was paying them any attention.

“You can’t have it both ways.” Tess picked up her fork and started eating her pie.

“He’s going to hate me. He must think I’m some kind of tease. We never talked about being girlfriend and boyfriend. He thought that just because we…”

“Just because you slept together you were more than friends? That something special was happening and you both wanted to explore it and see where it led? How shallow could he be?”

Sarah sighed. “I’m an idiot.”

“You’re only an idiot if you want to be more than his friend.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“Okaaay,” Tess said. “Now that we have that little gem sorted out, what are you going to do about it?”

“There’s nothing I can do. I’m flying to Portland tonight. Tomorrow I’m meeting my lawyer and accountant. I told mom and dad I’d stay with them for a couple of extra days before heading back to Bozeman.”

“While you’re away you can think about what you really want. If Jordan’s still on that list, you can decide what to do about him when you get back.”

Sarah pushed her half eaten plate of pie away and stared across the café. “I wish I could turn back the clock, or at least take back what I said. He didn’t deserve any of it.”

“No one likes to be told they aren’t good enough.”

“I didn’t say…” Sarah slouched in her seat. “Maybe I did. How will he ever forgive me?”

“I don’t know if he will, but you need to give it another try. That’s if you decide what you could have is worth the effort.”

Sarah didn’t know what would happen once she got back, but she did know she had to apologize. Jordan didn’t deserve the words she’d thrown at him. And she definitely didn’t mean to make him feel as though he wasn’t good enough for her.

With how she’d been acting, she doubted she was good enough for him.

CHAPTER TEN

Sarah looked down at the contract in her hands. She’d been working with her lawyer and accountant, negotiating a deal with the company that wanted to buy her software program.

Richard Connelly, her lawyer, specialized in IT contracts. He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose and stared at his copy of the contract. “I made the adjustments we discussed on the phone to section four. Datajet came back with another counteroffer late last night. I think you’ll be happy with what they’ve proposed. They also reviewed the position they offered you on their research and development team. The salary isn’t negotiable, but I think you’ll see from these papers,” Richard passed her another set of forms, “that their offer is very generous.”

Sarah flipped to the back page and gulped. It was more money than she thought she’d ever make. “Where’s the job based?”