Montana Darling (Big Sky Mavericks Book 3) (11 page)

They could talk tomorrow…hopefully. Mom had threatened to ground her from everything, but Emilee was pretty sure that didn’t include extra-curricular activities at school. And Serena James’s textile class was the best. Emilee could lose herself in the colors and texture of the alpaca wool. As part of this school’s service learning requirements, every student committed to doing some kind of outreach. Emilee was learning to make felted booties for premature babies.

She loved the felting process and learning how to crochet had been cool, but holding the finished product in her hands, knowing they were going a tiny new life…that felt weird. But cool.

Roxy jumped to her feet and started barking.

Emilee looked over her shoulder. For a moment, she thought the man at the side door of the garage was the stranger she’d seen with her mother by the railroad tracks, but a second later, she recognized her Uncle Paul.

“Hey, Em. Hi, Roxy,” he said, pausing to pull the exuberant Roxy into a full body hug. Since Emilee didn’t make any effort to get up, he didn’t try to hug her. “Your mom around?”

“Inside making supper. What are you doing here?”

He rolled his eyes. “Wedding stuff. What else?”

“Are the kids with you?”

He shook his head and started toward the back door. “After-school program. I heard there was a fire alarm today. Prank or practice?”

Her shoulders stiffened suspiciously. Had her mother put him up to asking? Did they think she’d pulled the fire alarm just to get out of class? “Dunno.”

He shrugged but stopped before stepping inside. “Bailey’s got wedding cake in the truck if you want to sample a couple choices.” He put one hand to his mouth as if to keep what he was about to say just between them. “The red velvet is best.”

Normally, Emilee loved cake but her stomach was too messed up at the moment. Luckily, Paul didn’t linger to see if she took him up on the offer. Wedding cake meant a wedding. Weddings meant divorce. A divorce meant kids getting screwed. Why anyone would get married was beyond her.

*

Mia’s phone conversation
with her sister was just winding down when Paul walked in.

“Hey. Here’s Paul. You can ask him yourself. I’m on a need-to-know basis, and apparently, I don’t need to know anything.”

She was kidding, of course, but Paul looked concerned. She adored her brother—even if she did have reservations about his current path. But Mom had made it clear that since Bailey was pregnant and Paul was over-the-top happy, any negativity was strictly forbidden. And since Mia had gotten to know Bailey, Mia wasn’t worried about her and Paul so much as the institution of marriage. But Mia intended to keep her happy smile in place and hope for the best. Because she truly did love her baby brother.

She handed him the phone. “Put it on speaker so I can finish fixing the lasagna while we talk.”

“With whom am I speaking?” he asked, his business owner persona magically appearing.

“Dr. Mary Margaret Zabrinski. But you can call me Meg.”

He laughed. “Good. Because I sure as heck won’t call you doctor. What are we talking about?”

“Kids. Vagrants. Chocolate. Take your pick.”

Paul’s look of utter bafflement made Mia laugh. “Meg invited Emilee to visit her in Missoula next weekend, and I have to decide if a bratty kid who ducks out of a fire drill to go smoke with a strange boy deserves to be rewarded with a trip to her favorite aunt’s.”

Paul winced. “Ooh. Dang. Tough call. Everybody ditches school sooner or later, but since she just got here…”

“I know, right?”

“But, but…,” Meg said loud enough to be heard. “Testing one’s boundaries more or less comes with the territory when you move to a new environment. Emilee has to find her place in the pack, and she won’t know who the right friends are unless she picks a couple of losers. You did the same thing.”

“Did not,” Mia snapped.

“As I recall, you and Gail Somebody took Mom’s car to Bozeman without permission to shop for prom dresses. Remember?”

Mia groaned. “Memory like an effing elephant.”

Paul laughed. “Darn, I wish I had time for this conversation, but Bailey’s in the car and we have to pick up the kids from the after-school program. She sent me in here for something old. Mom told Bailey it’s in the safe.” He held up his hand. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot.”

He grabbed the phone and took it off speaker. Once he had it to his ear, he said, “Meg, Bailey and I want you to perform our wedding ceremony. Will you marry us?”

The bowl Mia had been mixing the cheese spread in clattered noisily against the fancy marble countertop her folks had installed a few years back. They’d done a bunch of updates and remodeling with the intention of selling, but the market never quite got back up to the value they wanted. The remodeled kitchen was a thousand times nicer than the one Mia remembered growing up. High-end appliances. Open concept with new windows that provided a lot of natural light as well as a view of the mountains. The manufactured wood flooring was nicer—and more practical—than the hardwood Ed had insisted upon in their Cheyenne McMansion.

“Bailey will email you the application. It’s super simple, and good for one day only. We both really want you to do it, Meg. Will you think about it? Super.”

Mia wasn’t sure what to make of this development. She’d come to grips with Paul marrying his first love—the woman who, as a teen, broke his heart and caused a rift in their family. For years, the majority of the Zabrinski family had held a hard line stand against Bailey Jenkins’s decision to have an abortion at age seventeen. Meg, however, had always supported a woman’s choice—no questions asked. She’d been the one to help Paul release some of his anger and move on fifteen years ago.

Until recently, Austen had held tough on the side of the church and moral grounds. But Mia remembered feeling sad for her brother but being unable to bring herself to support or condemn Bailey for her decision. Abortion wasn’t an option in Mia’s world, but when she’d found herself pregnant in law school—so close to the finish line after so many years of agonizing hard work…she’d been tempted.

Edward, who also was raised a Catholic, had convinced her they could still have it all—college, two careers, and a kid. All they had to do was get married and live happily ever after. As if saying the words provided the only magic required.

“Okay,” Paul said, smiling broadly. “Cool. We’ll talk soon. Do you want Mia…?” He listened a moment. “Will do. ’Bye.”

He pressed the end button and looked at Mia. “She said to call her later after you’ve done your judicial deliberation. She awaits the verdict.”

Mia sighed. Meg knew Mia would give in. Sending Emilee to Meg’s for a long weekend meant a respite from the fourteen-year-old drama queen who blamed Mia for ruining her life.

“Pearls,” she exclaimed, turning down the heat under the pasta sauce. “I remember, now. Mom said she planned to give Bailey Great-Grandma Hilda’s pearls. I know where she keeps them.”

Paul stood flat-footed, as if his shoes were glued to the floor.

“What’s wrong? Bailey’s not into pearls? She’s a bride. I think they’re obligatory.”

“Um…long story. Go ahead and give them to me. I’ll let Bailey decide if she wants to wear them.”

Mia didn’t have the energy to press for details. She motioned for him to follow as they headed down the hallway toward the master. Three bedrooms upstairs and two in the basement. Originally, her parents had intended to put the boys downstairs, but Meg claimed her “cave” before the main floor was even finished. Hunter now occupied Paul’s old room and Emilee was in Mia’s, which, thank God, Mom had redecorated years ago. No Top Gun poster. No over-achiever wall of fame. Her daughter probably would have slit her wrists if she’d been made to sleep in Mia’s childhood room.

“They’re in the wall safe.”

“Are they valuable?”

“Probably a little bit. But, we’re not talking crown jewels.”

“Should they have gone to Meg—firstborn daughter?”

The two siblings looked at each other and broke into giggles. “I can’t see Meg in pearls. Or a white gown,” Mia said. “Hiking boots and clean, camel-colored North Face hiking pants with a white shirt…maybe.”

Mia spun the dial, trying to recall the combination. Chemo brain was an actual condition, she’d been told, but she hadn’t believed it until she went to the bank one day and couldn’t remember the account number she’d had for seven years.

“Do you think Meg will ever get married?”

Mia stood on her tiptoes to look inside the safe. The old black velvet case was easy to spot amidst the stacks of papers and more impressive jewelry boxes. Dad loved to spend money on Mom. “If you’d asked me that a year ago, I’d have said, ‘No.’ Now, I’m not so sure. Ever since Edward left, she’s made a real effort to be part of the kids’ lives. The trip to DC last spring is one Hunter and Emilee will never forget. Watching Meg testify before Congress about the plight of the Yellowstone wolves was pretty cool.”

She handed him the box and held her breath as he pried open the top. His hands were strong and utilitarian compared to Ryker Bensen’s artist hands. Mom told her Louise Jenkins had gone on and on at the cake tasting about this talented young man who was recovering from some sort of traumatic experience before returning to his job as a globe-trotting photographer.

She looked out the window. The ash just beyond the French doors that led to the patio was nearly leafless. Winter would be here soon. Even if their Indian summer lasted long enough for Paul’s wedding—and the post-wedding retreat Meg was planning for the cousins—Mia knew her goal of getting her house started this fall wasn’t going to happen. If Ryker’s claim was legit, the land could be tied up in the courts for years before she could build.

“Do you think the weather will hold till after your wedding?”

“I hope so. My kids are giddy about being able to go to Meg’s cabin with her and the folks.” Once Paul and Bailey named the date of their wedding, Meg had volunteered to take all four nieces and nephews to her cabin so the newlyweds could honeymoon in private. “OC says the first snow will hold off until early November. Something about the thickness of the bark on the aspens…I don’t know. But I sure as heck hope so.”

He leaned in to give her a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the pearls. Gotta dash.”

November.

As she walked back to the kitchen, she replayed the first part of her conversation with her sister. They’d been talking about Ryker Bensen and Meg’s property issues.

“Is he cute?” Meg asked.

Mia pictured him doing yoga. “He’s young. Fit. Healthy. And good looking. What does that have to do with anything?”

“You have a crush on him.”

“A crush? Meg, I’m thirty-six, not fifteen.”

“Single women of a certain age are entitled to one pass…maybe two.”

Mia wondered if Meg was speaking from experience.

“A pass, huh? To have sex?”

“If that’s what you want…what you need. Maybe for you, a little lust will do. You’re under no obligation to take things beyond that first, dizzy thrill, Mia, but if you want to keep your juices flowing, then, dammit, do it.”

“Don’t swear.”

“Yes, Mother.”

They’d both cracked up and the advice giving had ended. Thank goodness. Because Mia had enough problems in her life without adding a crush—especially a juices-flowing, dizzy, lusting, thrill kind of attraction.

She was tossing the salad, getting ready to call the kids to the table when Emilee walked in from the garage. “Wash up and call your brother, please.”

A grunt. Probably the best Mia could hope for.

She watched her daughter, who, despite Mia’s momentary hesitation about becoming a mother, was more precious to her than air, trudge down the hall. The kid was breaking her heart, and Mia didn’t seem capable of doing anything right.

A crush, huh?

There’d been an attraction. Definitely two-sided. His response to her kiss proved that. But it had been so long since she dated—flirted, since she did anything the least bit naughty, she didn’t have the slightest idea how to begin.

Maybe you start by admitting you’re attracted, she thought.

And there was no denying that. She’d been thinking about Ryker Bensen all day. Not only was he gorgeous, he was living the carefree life she could only dream about. He was several years her junior. Despite the hundred or so hits his name brought up on Google, she knew practically nothing about him—except that he claimed to own her land.

Was he completely the wrong choice for a crush? Absolutely. But maybe her sister was right.

Why couldn’t I have a little fun if I keep my head about me?

And when hadn’t Mia Zabrinski kept her head about her? Only once—when she’d fallen in love with Edward. And she’d learned her lesson the hard way. She was never falling in love again.

*