Montana Skies (You, Me and the Kids) (Harlequin Superromance, No 1395) (20 page)

Rissa glanced over her shoulder and saw the girls disappear into the opposite room, bantering the merits of the ballet and ignoring them entirely because they'd remembered a favorite show on television they simply couldn't miss.

Biting her tongue, Rissa forced another smile. “Thank you.”

Marilyn peered into the room. “I'd like to speak with Jonas. Is he here?”

The smile was hard to keep pinned to her face, but she managed, leaning her shoulder against the door when she remembered how quiet Jonas had been when he'd left. She'd thought things would be simpler in Montana, but they'd proven to be more complicated than ever.

“No, actually, he isn't. He couldn't get a cell signal from here so he went for a walk to call work and check in.”

“I see.” Marilyn's frown deepened, her expression cynical. “Or perhaps you were pressuring him in some way?”

Nothing like unsheathing the claws when no one was around to hear her.
She deliberately widened her smile. “I'm a no-pressure kind of gal, Marilyn. Would you like to come in and wait for him? He should return any minute and you can ask him yourself.”

The woman's chin lifted. “I should. I should wait and tell him exactly what I think of what he's doing.”

“And it would be your business in what way?”

“My daughter—”

“Isn't here—as I believe Jonas, Carly
and your daughter
can attest to. Mrs. Wells, I'm not the enemy here,” she said, shaking her head slowly back and forth, her gaze direct. “Nor will I allow you to make me the scapegoat for your arguments. You will
always
be
Carly's grandmother. No one can take that from you, and if you'd really look, you'd see Jonas isn't trying to, either. He's a good man who's trying to be the parent your daughter couldn't be. Why can't you give him credit for it, back off and let
him
do what he needs to do as a man and Carly's father before—”

Rissa snapped her mouth shut, appalled that she'd gone off on such a rampage. But after the tenderness of the night in Jonas's arms, Marilyn's interference and judgmental attitude rubbed her the wrong way. Jonas didn't deserve to be treated that way. By Marilyn Wells…or herself.

“I…apologize,” she said stiffly. “It's not my place—”

“No. No, you're—” Marilyn's eyes filled with tears, and she opened her purse and began searching inside. “You're right.”

Hesitant, Rissa found herself in an awkward position, pained that she'd caused another person to hurt whether it was due or not. She ran to the desk and grabbed a handful of tissues from the dispenser there, gently closing the connecting door between the rooms along the way. Gulping in steadying breaths, she pressed tissues into the woman's trembling hand and led Marilyn to one of the chairs.

“I'm sorry.” Marilyn dabbed her face, but the tears kept coming. “I didn't—you're right. Oh, you're right,” she sobbed. “Lea isn't coming back. She's said it often in her letters. My own child won't give me a return address or a—a phone number! She sends letters like she sends to Caroline, but only when she wants…. When she feels she must tell me how good her life is. But she always assures me that she's moved on and won't ever be back. She not only abandoned them, she
abandoned
me
. I always knew Jonas would meet someone eventually but—I'm so
scared!
”

“Scared of what?” Rissa seated herself on the corner of the bed.

Marilyn shook her head back and forth, her shaking fingers fiddling with the damp tissues. “Everyone talks about mother-in-laws, makes jokes. It's one thing if Jonas would've left and Lea had custody of Caroline, but Jonas—he's not my son. If he marries and he and his new wife shut me out of Caroline's life, I'll—” She looked up at Rissa, her expression that of one mother to another. “I'll have
nothing
left. Nothing at all. I
know
I've made mistakes,
horrible
mistakes! And I've taken my fear and frustration with Lea out on Jonas because he's—he's
here.
But Caroline's all I have left of my daughter and I
can't
lose her, too, so I…I push, say too much to a man who's been what you said. Good and kind and the p-parent Lea couldn't be. Dave tells me, warns me, to stop. He always sides with Jonas and then we fight. He says I put too much pressure on Jonas and that I'm driving them…”

Rissa glanced at the door connecting the rooms, glad the TV blared on the other side. “You're driving them away,” she finished for her. “By behaving this way, you're pushing them further away instead of helping them stay close. You do understand that, don't you?”

Marilyn nodded, sobbed. “Yes. Yes, but I don't mean to! I look at her and I see Lea. Her expressions, her temper, and then— Poor Jonas. He is a good man, I know that. But the words come and— I've given him such a hard time because I'm
so scared
of losing Caroline, too, and I simply can't bear it happening again.”

Rissa patted Marilyn's hand, easily able to under
stand her motives. Another person hadn't taken Skylar away, but whatever had happened before the accident
had
. She identified with Marilyn's fear.

“I'm sorry, R-Rissa. I don't mean to—to act this way. I need to go. I don't want Jonas to see me like this or—”

“Too late,” Jonas murmured from the doorway. He stepped into the room and shut the door before moving to the bed. Rissa scooted over to give him room.

“And Rissa's right. You'll always be Carly's grandmother, and I'll do my best to make sure you're involved in her life, but I won't let you run her life—or mine. We need to get that clear right now, once and for all.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Marilyn said, sniffling. “I'm sorry. Dave's told me to back off many times. Says that a man doesn't like orders and demands handed down like I do to you.”

A wry smile curled his lips. “He's right, and now that you've admitted that, I'm going to ask that you listen to him for your own sake so that we don't have to talk about this again. You need to be prepared, Marilyn. I've held my tongue for far too long and made Carly do the same to not hurt your feelings, but we're done now. Hear me? As of right now, we're through with that. Carly is my daughter and I'll raise her as I see fit.”

Marilyn nodded, wiping more tears and seemingly accepting of his declaration of change. Of a new future.

“But, in return I won't ever forget you're the only grandmother Caro has, you have my word on that.”

Marilyn broke down and sobbed quietly, went through two more tissues and issued a dozen more apologies, then finally pulled herself together enough to get out of the chair to hug Jonas. She surprised them both by urging Rissa to join in.

“Thank you.” She released Jonas only to turn and hug Rissa alone. “Thank you. Thank you so much. My Lea… I wish she could have been stronger, Rissa…like you.”

 

J
ONAS DROPPED
the three of them off at the ranch at nine o'clock the next morning. By nine-thirty, she was back to work cleaning cabin number one, and Skylar and Carly were putting in their first day as full-time babysitters for Mr. Paxton and his many company employees.

“Good news!”

Rissa shielded her gaze from the sun to look at her cousin. “Shouldn't you be fixing lunch?” she asked, gripping her cleaning bucket of supplies. She stepped off the porch of cabin number nine and noted the time. “Wait—I
missed
lunch?”

“Worked right through it,” Maura confirmed. “Someone must have something on her mind.”

Rissa made a face, but didn't respond. “What's the good news?”

“Seth is taking Mr. Paxton and his entire gang on a slow ride into the mountains to camp.”

She stared at her, her mind unable to fathom the logistics of such a thing. “And the good news is?”

“The girls are going along to help with the kids, and
you
will have the weekend free once the cabins are taken care of. Which from the looks of things, won't take you long.”

“Skylar agreed to go
camping?
”

Maura fell into step beside her along the path to cabin ten. “She's packing now. Carly contacted Jonas and gained permission, and this afternoon everyone will be on their way.”

“What about you and the kids? Jake?”

“Jake's taking Lexi, but I'm keeping the boys here. Mr. Paxton wants a big dinner when they all get back on Monday night so I lucked out and don't have to go.” She grinned. “The boys love playing in the dining room when no one's around. Cooking will be easy. But that leaves you and Jonas. How'd last night go?”

Rissa paused there on the path and looked at Maura, her expression unguarded.

“You're in
love
with him,” Maura said, her excitement quickly dulling. “But you're not happy about it. Oh, Rissa, honey, what's wrong?”

“What's wrong?” She laughed uneasily. “Everything! We
agreed
to be friends, to take things slow, and even though I wanted to make love with Jonas while we were at the hotel, I couldn't because—” She ran a hand over her hair, smoothing the tendrils that had escaped her ponytail only to have it fall back into her face again. “Maura, this is temporary, remember? Some women out there wouldn't have hesitated, but no matter how much I care for Jonas, I knew it would only hurt worse when we leave. And we
will
leave because Skylar—” She broke off, unable to go on. “How could everything get so complicated? We came here to simplify things, not make them worse!”

“Okay, Skylar aside, why do I get the impression you're more upset that you're not sure you
want
things to be temporary?”

“Because I'm not sure.”

“That's great!”

“It sucks,” she countered, borrowing one of her daughter's favorite phrases. “Maura, it doesn't mean
he
wants more. Jonas has never said a word about the future, and if I do, I'm changing the rules. Larry hated
that kind of thing, said women constantly inferred things that weren't there. He was no doubt talking about sex and his affairs, but—”

“It sounds like you and Jonas need to sit down and talk about you-the-couple rather than always discussing the girls. Maybe somehow along the way you can let Jonas know you're teetering on the edge of wanting to stay in North Star and he'll say something?”

Maybe. She shook her head, hating that the insecure part of her was leaving such a monumental decision up to what Jonas said. It was her life, her decision.
Her
future on the line. Hers and Skylar's. If she could get a job, find a house. There were too many things to consider.

But Maura was right. She needed to talk to Jonas, be open and honest about her feelings for him. His response would be the deciding factor in whether or not she'd start World War Three with Skylar.

She'd told Skylar she could trust her again. How hard would it be to get her to understand that if Jonas felt the same way about her, then he and Carly would be a good thing, not a bad one?

 

H
ER BUTT WAS KILLING HER
. Skylar shifted in the saddle and grimaced, glad she'd at least ridden a horse before. Now if only she could figure out how she'd wound up on a freakin' camp-out. No one had said anything about that when she'd said she'd babysit all summer.

But she'd felt really guilty when her mom had pressed the fifty-dollar bill into her hand last night. She wasn't blind. Her mom looked tired from working all the hours she worked, and even though she'd quit the diner, she still had to lug that stupid cleaning bucket around all over the ranch. Her mom was a pilot and
Skylar had caught her staring up at the sky so many times it was obvious she missed it. Maybe she could help her search online for jobs? Her mom had had less and less time lately to search through all the listings. Yeah, she'd do that. After all, she definitely owed her.

She'd given the fifty back, but…not the thousand dollars she'd spent when she'd taken her credit card. Helping her mom find a job was the least she could do. But then what? She kind of liked North Star now. Not school, but Carly was cool again, and Marcus, well…she really liked him. Leaving meant leaving them.

“Skylar, keep the kids hemmed in,” Jake ordered from behind her.

Jerked from her thoughts, she picked up the pace and kept Mr. Paxton's secretary's kid from pretending he was a jockey. All in all there were about twelve kids to watch, but that included several older kids around ten or so that were supposed to help look after their brothers and sisters.

Jockey-boy strayed again and she pushed her horse faster, nudging the pony back in with the others on the wide path. She glanced over her shoulder to see how Carly was doing and Brandon flashed her his bleached-white smile. He was hot, sure, but for some reason he didn't compare to Marcus.

The slow-moving group topped the hill and Skylar sighed in relief when she spotted the campsite.
Finally.
If she had to answer one more stupid
knock-knock
joke she'd scream. Half of them didn't even make sense.

“I need a break,” she said when the kids bounced on ahead and Carly rode slowly up beside her. “Wanna take a walk?”

Carly stared at her in horror. “Are you kidding? If I
manage to get off this thing without falling on my face in front of everyone, I'm not moving again until tomorrow.”

Skylar shrugged. “Whatever. I'm going.”

 

R
ISSA SET
M
AURA'S
appetizer on the table and then stood back to look at her handiwork. In an effort to help Rissa have a romantic evening, Maura had cooked a delectable dinner while she took a bath and hurriedly cleaned up the cabin.