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Authors: Eve Gaddy

Tags: #romance, #Western

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BOOK: Sing Me Back Home
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Maya had especially missed Montana during the Texas summers. The coolness of Montana summer mornings beat the hell out of Dallas traffic jams in the sweltering heat of the summer all to hell and back.

Marietta had grown, of course, but it was still a small town, with that lovely small town flavor. Of course, there was also the “everyone knows everything about you and your business” angle of living in a small town, but that seemed a small price to pay for such a great place to raise her child. Marietta was a beautiful place, situated to the north of Paradise Valley, in between the Absaroka Mountains and the Gallatin Range. Copper Mountain rose to the west of town, lending dignity and majesty to the view with its purple and white peaks, and the green of the Evergreens and spots of yellow where the Aspens had only just started to turn.

There was only one possible fly in the ointment. One tiny little thing she was worried about. Living in the same town as Jack Gallagher again. Dr. Jack Gallagher now. Along with the mountains and her family, she’d left Jack behind when she left Marietta to pursue her modeling career, in Dallas, Texas.

Jack Gallagher. Her
almost
fiancé, whom she’d
almost
jilted at the altar, the night of their high school graduation.

*

Maya had plenty
of time before she needed to worry about seeing Jack again. Right now, she was driving to the high school with her daughter in tow. Some bright soul had decided the Spirit Club should have a party shortly after school started, so that all the students and parents could get to know each other. The same bright soul had also decided to make it a potluck supper. Maya had volunteered to make her famous Death by Chocolate dessert. It was always a crowd pleaser. Not to mention, it was one of few desserts Maya knew how to make.

She asked Carmen to help her carry everything in, since she not only had the glass compote full of the dessert, but also various bags of paper plates, napkins, and plastic cutlery. So much for that promise. Maya hadn’t even turned off the car before Carmen dashed off to see some friends. “Carmen, wait,” Maya called, watching her daughter’s retreating back.
Typical,
she thought. Determined to make only one trip, Maya balanced the heavy dish in one hand and the bags in the other and headed for the gym doors.

Holding the compote carefully, she reached with her other hand for the double wide doors just as they swung open. She jumped back to avoid being smacked by them, losing her precarious grip on everything, including the dessert.

“Da—darn it!” she yelled, just in time to see her beautiful masterpiece slide right out of her hands and land upside down on the door mat in front of the entryway. She stared at it with her mouth open, then looked up, prepared to rip someone’s head off.

“Don’t you look where you’re go—” Maya broke off staring into those gorgeous green eyes she’d never forgotten. “Jack?”

“Maya,” he said, looking as taken aback as she was. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

She bit back the obvious response, wondering why in the world the glass serving dish hadn’t broken, and why she’d thought it a good idea to bring anything glass to a high school party. The dish looked intact, though, but the dessert’s lovely layers were a thing of the past. The stupid thing had taken all afternoon to make, an afternoon she’d spent cooking when she should have been working.

Jack and she knelt down at the same time, bumping foreheads. They both drew back as if burned. “Let me help,” he said. “Maybe we can salvage it.”

“Oh, sure,” she said, dripping sarcasm. “We’ll just turn it over and hope no one notices the nasty dirty crap from the floor on the top.” Why did it have to be Jack? And why now? She’d known she’d run into him after moving back to Marietta, but she’d hoped to have more time before seeing the man whose heart she’d broken all those years ago.

He didn’t look heartbroken now. Sexy, good-looking, smoking hot, maybe, but sure as hell not heartbroken.

He flashed her his trademark smile, another thing she’d never forgotten. “Do you have a piece of cardboard? That will make it easier to turn over without losing all of it.”

Maya fished around in her bags and came up with a large paper plate. Jack took it, deftly sliding it beneath the dish and flipping the whole thing upright. “Here you go. We can scrape the top layer off and it will be good as new.”

Death by Chocolate looked more like death warmed over. What had started as layers were now a jumbled mess, the remaining whipped topping sprinkled with little bits of dirt and debris.

“Just leave it alone,” she snapped, trying to wrestle the dish back from him. “You’ve done enough.”

He had the nerve to grin at her. “It’s a dessert, Maya. Not a priceless work of art. Besides, there’s plenty of food. Here, let me.” Rather than continuing to struggle, she let go of the dish. Taking the serving spoon from her unresisting hand, he carried the dessert over to the trashcan and scraped off the top layer. “There. It’s fine.” He handed it to her.

“That depends on your definition of fine.” She inspected her once beautiful dessert and sighed. “At least the serving dish isn’t broken.” She should have known better than to use a glass compote, but that’s what she always used to serve this dish.

Jack picked up her bags from the floor and opened the gym doors. Resigned, Maya accepted his help and walked through.

“It’s good to see you again, Maya. I’d heard you moved back to Marietta recently,” Jack said walking beside her towards the food tables. “How are you liking it?”

Heartbroken, hah! she thought. He was all grown up and smoothly sure of himself. “It’s not as if I’ve never been back,” she reminded him.

“Living here is different from visiting.”

“True. A lot has changed, especially here at the high school. The old gym was nothing like this one.” Maya looked around, taking in the polished basketball court, the retractable bleachers, the giant scoreboard hanging above it all. “How did they pay for it?”

“Fundraisers and generous donors,” Jack said. “Same goes for the new football stadium. Have you seen it yet?”

“Yes, I went to the first game with my sister Amy. Go Grizzlies,” she added, smiling.

“Everyone is excited about this year’s team. We have high hopes for them.”

“I take it Marietta is still football crazy.”

He laughed. “Did you ever doubt it? Marietta hasn’t changed that much.”

Apparently not. “There are some tables set up against the far wall,” she said, gesturing towards the long tables, decorated in red and white, the school colors. “We can take all this stuff over there.”

“You never said whether or not you liked being back,” Jack prompted.

Maya set down the compote, wincing again at the looks of it. “I like it. It’s Carmen I’m not so sure about.”

“Your daughter?” he asked, as he set out the paper and plastic goods Maya had brought.

Maya nodded. “She’s fifteen. Not a good age to uproot her and move across the country, but when I inherited the house on Bramble Lane from my great-great-aunt, I decided it was a sign.” Especially since it had coincided with her ex marrying and moving to Europe, and no longer having alternate weekends with their daughter. “I wanted a fresh start for both Carmen and me.” Maya glanced around, looking for Carmen without success.

“A fresh start?” he asked.

“It’s a long story. But both Carmen and I needed a change.”

“You must have liked Texas, since you’ve been living there ever since you left Marietta.”

He’d kept up with her. The knowledge perked her up. She didn’t want to analyze why. “I did. I still do. But Carmen started to get involved with the wrong crowd and I wanted her out of there before she got in any deeper.”

“Marietta High is a good choice, then. My daughter Gina is Carmen’s age. She’s in Spirit Club, too, obviously. I’ll ask Gina to be sure and introduce Carmen to some of her friends.”

“That’s very nice, but maybe we should just see how it plays out without our help. They’re pretty contrary at this age. At least, Carmen is. The last thing we want is for them to think we’re pushing them to be friends.”

He laughed. “You’re right about that. Okay, we’ll leave them on their own.”

He seemed about to say something, but a woman Maya didn’t know came up and took over the conversation. Jack introduced the two of them, but the other woman clearly had no interest in Maya, choosing instead to hang on Jack’s every word.

As Maya started to wander away she heard the woman, whose name she’d already forgotten, say, “Can you believe someone brought
that
?” pointing at Maya’s dessert. “I’d be afraid to eat it.”

Jack’s eyes met hers and she could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “I think it looks delicious,” he said firmly, scooping a large portion onto a paper plate.

“Oh, Jack, you should have a piece of my chocolate meringue pie. Now
this
is delicious.” She pointed to the paragon of pies, as yet uncut, its fluffy, whipped topping perfectly browned and just begging to be eaten.

At that exact moment, a foam football came sailing over Jack’s head to land on top of the pie, splattering chocolate filling and meringue all over Ms. Perfect Pie’s white blouse.

Chapter Two


T
o Maya’s surprise,
her dessert’s appearance didn’t seem to bother anyone, except, of course, Ms. Perfect Pie. It certainly didn’t faze the boys, who dug into everything on the tables with abandon. The girls were more discerning in what they ate, but she noticed a number of them, not including Carmen, had gone for her Death by Chocolate. Of course, they ate the chocolate pie that had been flattened by the football as well, so that didn’t say much beyond teenagers would eat anything.

“So, you and the doc, huh?” said a voice at her elbow.

Maya turned to find one of her old friends, Tamara Casey, standing beside her with a knowing smile on her face. The two of them had kept up with each other sporadically through the years and Maya had made a point of seeing her whenever she returned to Marietta for a visit. Tamara was heading the “pick up” committee of one of the Spirit Club’s fundraisers.

“Ha-ha. There is no ‘me and the doc.’”

“Oh, really? You two looked pretty cozy when you came in the gym. Heating up that old flame again?” Tamara waggled her eyebrows.

Maya couldn’t help laughing. “All that happened a long time ago. So, no, there’s no firing up the flame.” Which was, on her part at least, a big fat lie. She glanced over at Jack, who was surrounded by women. “Besides, Jack appears to be on everyone’s ‘most eligible bachelor’ list. Especially that one,” Maya added, nodding at Ms. Perfect Pie.

Tamara pursed her lips. “Too true. Velma is newly divorced. She’s like that with all the single men. As for Jack, though,” she leaned in to whisper, “he never dates anyone more than a few times. And if he’s slept with anyone from Marietta since his wife died, she’s not talking.”

Interesting. And a little surprising. After all, he’d been a widower for a long time now. “I remember Amy mentioning Jack’s wife died suddenly. Some kind of accident, I remember. It’s been several years now, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has. I’m not saying he hasn’t had sex since then, but he’s been awfully discreet if he has.”

“He hasn’t dated anyone seriously since she died?”

“Not that I know of,” Tamara said. “And I would have known. Nothing stays secret long in Marietta.”

“That’s the truth.” Maya glanced over at Jack, still surrounded by women. “Do you know what happened? Amy didn’t know much.”

Tamara nodded. “It was horrible. Brianna was crossing the street and a car ran a stop sign. She lived for a few hours, long enough to say goodbye. Gina was only ten when her mother passed. Jack doesn’t talk about it, and no one brings it up.”

“No, I don’t imagine they do.”

“You’d have liked Brianna,” Tamara said. “Everyone did.”

They went on to talk of other things, but Maya couldn’t help wondering what Brianna Gallagher had been like. Having seen her picture in the local paper a number of years ago, she knew the woman had been beautiful. Jack had met and married her when he was out of state, during medical school. That, and what Tamara had just told her, was the extent of Maya’s knowledge about Jack’s late wife.

BOOK: Sing Me Back Home
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