“I can be a pretty persuasive guy …”

“Persuasive or not, the farm has to stay a farm or I’m not selling. That’s my sticking point,” Jenna insisted.

“Hmm … Maybe I’ll just have to try to figure out how to get you unstuck …”

“Good luck with that,” she said, impervious to the hint of flirting in his voice.

He laughed. “It was good to finally meet you, though, Jenna Bowen.”

“You, too,” Jenna responded.

Good to meet the man who would very likely be instrumental in dashing her late father’s one wish?

She wasn’t sure how that could be.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Meg whispered from beside her as he left. “He’s nice, isn’t he?”

“Nice to look at,” was all Jenna would admit, while a part of her acknowledged that she had liked him quite a bit …

Dear Reader,

Loss and chaos have shaken Jenna Bowen in the past eleven months. Desperate to find some calm for herself and her fifteen-month-old adopted daughter, she’s returned to her hometown of Northbridge, Montana, where she’s sure the last of the chaos will pass and she and Abby can settle into being a family of two.

Ian Kincaid is a dynamic man, raised—along with his estranged twin brother—by a legendary football powerhouse. Ian has spent his life earning his place as the legend’s adopted son.

Jenna’s unfortunate circumstances and Ian doing his father’s bidding bring them together. On opposite sides of things, something still manages to click between them and before he knows what’s hit him, Ian wants Jenna’s family of two to be a family of three. Jenna isn’t so sure about that idea. On the other hand, there’s just something about the man …

Come see how it turns out.

Happy reading!

Victoria Pade

About the Author

VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.

Big Sky Bride,
Be Mine!
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

“Oh, look—this is where Mom hid J.J.’s princess costume!” Jenna Bowen exclaimed when she discovered the pint-size, ruffly, flouncy dress in the back of the hall closet she was clearing out.

“I remember that Halloween,” Meg Perry-McKendrick said.

They were both on the floor. Jenna was on her knees scooting in and out of the closet, while her best friend since childhood held a garbage bag and a cardboard box in front of her, awaiting Jenna’s decision about whether what she dragged out went to charity or into the trash.

Jenna sat back on her heels to hold up the costume she’d just discovered.

“We were sixteen that year,” Meg continued. “I remember because we’d both had our driver’s licenses for just a few weeks and neither of our parents would let us drive that night for fear we might hit a trick-or-treater. We thought that was crazy. So, since we were sixteen, that would have made J.J. what? Four?”

“Four, right,” Jenna confirmed, quickly calculating the age her much younger sister would have been at the time. “And instead of driving around, we ended up taking J.J. out. Rather than saying trick or treat at every door she regally stood there—”

“Just waiting to be given her due,” Meg concluded as they both laughed at the shared memory.

“She was so cute,” Jenna said affectionately. “But Mom couldn’t get her out of this thing even after Halloween. She’d only change into her princess pajamas to go to bed at night. Mom would wash the costume while J.J. was asleep, hoping she’d get tired of wearing it the next day. But by Christmas, Mom couldn’t take it anymore, and one morning when J.J. went looking for it, Mom said the washing machine had eaten it. I always figured she just threw it away, but apparently, she hid it in here.”

“She was probably afraid J.J. would refuse to wear anything at all if she couldn’t have the costume, so she’d better keep it, just in case. That’s what I’d do if it were Tia.”

Tia was the daughter of Meg’s new husband.

“J.J. did spend that whole day in the house, in her pajamas,” Jenna said. “Mom and Dad were worried she was going to start wearing those night and day, because one way or another, she insisted that she was a princess.”

“J.J. always was strong willed and determined,” Meg recalled.

Because she’d been around Jenna’s house so much growing up, Meg knew the goings-on in the Bowen family as well as Jenna did. Jenna was packing up her family home, and since Meg had some free Saturday afternoon time, she’d come by to help.

With that bit of reminiscence over, Meg said, “Shall we save the costume for Abby? Think she’ll take her turn at wanting to be a princess, too?”

“I have to streamline, remember?” Jenna answered. “That means, get rid of everything that isn’t necessary, because I won’t have room for more than Abby and I need. And after so many washings, the costume is pretty worn out. I don’t think it can even go in the charity box. Let’s just put it in the trash.”

Meg took the costume from Jenna and complied by jamming the worn garment into the black plastic bag. Jenna crawled partially into the closet once again and grabbed up an entire pile of old sweaters from the floor.

“These are Mom’s—they should all go to charity,” Jenna said as she shifted from her knees to sit cross-legged so she could help Meg fold the very large, very bulky sweaters that her sturdily built mother had worn. Sweaters that Jenna—at five feet four inches, a hundred and ten pounds—would be lost in.

“Abby looks just like J.J. did as a baby, doesn’t she?” Meg said then.

“Just like her,” Jenna agreed, thinking about her late sister.

The initials stood for Joanna Janeane. An early-menopausal surprise for Jenna’s parents, her sister had been named to appease both grandmothers after neither of them had been satisfied with the combination of their names that had produced Jenna’s. Abby was the late J.J.’s fifteen-month-old daughter.

And at that moment the baby was napping in Jenna’s room on the upper level of the old farmhouse that had now sheltered four generations of Bowens. Her grandfather had built the house and passed it down to her father, along with the small farm that had sustained the family until recent years.

Having both been twelve when J.J. was born, Jenna and Meg had done more than their fair share of babysitting for Jenna’s much younger sibling, so it was easy to recall what she’d looked like and to see the resemblance now in her daughter.

“J.J. was a beautiful baby,” Jenna added, fighting the grief that still rose at the memory of her sister.

“She was,” Meg said in a commiserating tone.

“But so far, Abby doesn’t seem quite as headstrong, and I’m grateful for that.”

“Mmm,” Meg agreed. “Although she might pick up a little of it from Tia because Tia has enough to share,” Meg said with a laugh.

“Still, it’ll be nice, raising little girls together,” Jenna said. “I never thought we’d get to.”

Certainly, unusual circumstances had made that come about. Marriage had made Meg stepmother to three-year-old Tia McKendrick. For Jenna, it was divorce and the loss of her younger sister, and then both of their parents, that had brought her back to her small Montana hometown of Northbridge, where she had just adopted her niece. In spite of the sadness and loss that had brought Jenna to that point, she was happy to be home again, to have Abby and to be in close proximity to Meg.

“Have you decided yet whether you’re going to rent an apartment on Main Street or take old Mrs. Wilkes’s guesthouse—if we can’t save this place?” Meg asked.

“It’ll be the guesthouse,” Jenna said. “It’s tiny, but it has two bedrooms and a little bit of yard that Abby can go out into. And Mrs. Wilkes will give it to me dirt cheap in trade for some nursing—I’ll look in on her every day, take her blood pressure, oversee her meds—”

“You’ll work as a full-time nurse at the hospital and then go home to do more nursing?”

“I don’t mind. Low rent will give me the chance to pay off some debt and save for a place of our own. Besides, Mrs. Wilkes loves Abby, and Abby loves her—I think maybe Mrs. Wilkes reminds Abby of Mom. It’ll work out for everybody,” Jenna finished, trying to sound upbeat.

But Meg knew her—and her situation—well enough to know how she really felt. “The fund could still get high enough for you to pay off the taxes or, at least, to put in a bid at the auction,” Meg said, clearly attempting to inject some hope.

“It could,” Jenna said without any more confidence than Meg had shown, smiling at her friend’s weak optimism when they both knew neither of those possibilities was likely. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be packing up.

The Bowen Farm Fund was an account initiated by an old friend of her father’s. People could make donations to save the farm. There were several thousand dollars in it, but it was nowhere near forty thousand, and unless it reached the full amount of the tax debt, that money would be returned to the donors.

“Orrr …” Meg said.

“Nope,” Jenna shot down what she knew her friend was going to say.

Meg said it anyway. “You could sell to the Kincaid Corporation and make enough money, even after paying off the back taxes, to buy a three-bedroom house right now.”

Jenna shook her head. “I have enough to feel guilty about. I won’t add not honoring my father’s last wish to the list.”

Meg didn’t respond to that. Instead, glancing over Jenna’s head in the direction of the living room as if something had caught her eye, she said, “Speak of the devil … Well, not that Ian Kincaid is the devil—he’s actually really great.”

Jenna swiveled on her rump until she had the same view Meg had.

Across the living room, through the nearly floor-to-ceiling picture window that looked out at the front porch, Jenna saw the local Realtor, Marsha Pinkell. And a man.

Oddly enough, it was the first time Jenna had seen Ian Kincaid.

Though he and his twin brother had been born in Northbridge, his connection to the small town was complicated. Ian was the biological brother of Chase Mackey, Meg’s husband’s business partner in Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs.

Over thirty years earlier, a car accident just outside of Northbridge had orphaned Chase, Shannon, twins Ian and Hutch, and a half sister. The half sister had gone to live with her birth father, Chase had ended up in the foster-care system, while Shannon had been adopted by one local couple, and the twin boys had been adopted by another, only to have both couples leave Northbridge almost immediately.

Only the half sister was old enough to remember she had brothers and a sister. Her desire to find a blood relative to raise her own child had prompted a search for the lost siblings and led her to Chase. Then, after Chase had located Shannon, together they’d discovered the whereabouts of Hutch and Ian.

Hutch had yet to appear, but Jenna had heard through Meg that Ian had been coming in and out of town since just after the first of the year to get to know Chase and Shannon.

Which was right about when Jenna’s father had died and she’d had to put the farm up for sale, hoping to sell it before it was auctioned off by the IRS.

Since January, Ian Kincaid had also been to her farm several times with the Realtor to look at the place with an eye toward buying it. But Jenna had not been at home during any of his visits. Nor had her path crossed that of Ian Kincaid’s in town.

Jenna had been swamped working long hours and caring for her father, then dealing with her father’s death and the financial mess left in his wake. She’d also taken custody of Abby and was sorting through the legal issues of adopting her. Jenna had barely had time to come up for air.

Still, it seemed odd that Jenna had yet to encounter the man who had set all of Northbridge to talking—and arguing. The man who was interested in buying her farm. The man she wasn’t interested in selling it to.

The man who now stood on her porch, six feet three inches of athletic masculinity resembling Chase Mackey but taking Chase Mackey’s size and increasing it slightly and improving upon Chase’s noteworthy good looks while he was at it.

“Wow …” Jenna muttered involuntarily at that first glimpse of Ian Kincaid.

Meg laughed. “I know,” she agreed, not requiring any explanation for the exclamation.

He was framed by the picture window but apparently looking at the structure of the house rather than through the plate glass into the interior, so he obviously had no idea he was being watched. And Jenna couldn’t help watching—studying him, actually.

Slacks, a button-down shirt and a sports coat didn’t hide the fact that the man was all broad shoulders, taut torso, narrow hips and long legs.

And above the broad shoulders?

There was no question that he was Chase Mackey’s brother because the similarities were marked, particularly in the sexy dent in the center of his chin. But beyond that, Ian Kincaid’s features took Chase’s and refined them.

The lines of his face were more sharply defined, more angular. His jaw was chiseled. His nose was slightly longish but perfectly shaped. His lips had a hint more fullness to the lower than to the upper. His golden-brown, sun-kissed hair had the same waviness that Chase Mackey’s had, but was cut shorter and neater all over. And his eyes …

Oh, those eyes!

Chase Mackey’s were sky blue.

Ian Kincaid’s were a more ethereal, almost translucent blue—like the sky reflected off a frozen pond.

“Wow …” Jenna heard herself say again as the full impact of those good looks sank in.

Meg laughed. “Uhh … Nurse Bowen? Should I throw cold water on you?”

“No … Right. He’s the enemy,” Jenna said to yank herself out of her reverie.

“Well, no, he isn’t the devil or the enemy—he’s a great guy—”

“Who could take over my dad’s farm and turn it into a football training facility.”

“You said you were coming to grips with that.”

“I’m trying to.” But she didn’t need to be going gaga over the guy.

And yet, there she was, still staring at the man.

“Why don’t we go out and I’ll introduce you?” Meg suggested.

And why was concern for how she looked the first thing that flashed through Jenna’s mind? Why should she care if her long, brown hair was still neatly in its ponytail or if the mascara had stayed on her brownish-green eyes? Why should she care that she had on baggy jeans and a too-big sweatshirt?

She shouldn’t.

But she did.

“I’m a mess,” she said, as if that were answer enough to Meg’s suggestion.

“No, you’re not. You look fine.”

But somehow fine was not good enough when she thought of meeting the man who still had her staring.

“Come on,” Meg urged. “Tia and Abby love him—”

“Abby knows him?”

“Well, sure. Even though you haven’t met him, he’s been around the showroom visiting his brother when I’ve babysat Abby.”

Despite the fact that Meg babysat Abby whenever Jenna worked, and Ian Kincaid stayed in the above-the-garage apartment whenever he visited, Jenna hadn’t met him.

“Tia and Abby both have the cutest little crushes on him,” Meg continued. “Tia draws him scribbly pictures and bats her eyes at him and follows him around like a puppy dog if she can. And Abby holds out her arms for him to carry her the minute she sees him. She calls him Un, and out of the blue, she’ll hug him and kiss him—it’s so funny.”

So his looks knocked the socks off little girls as well as big ones, Jenna thought. But what she said was, “Abby likes him?”

“She really does. And he’s good with her, too. And with Tia. I know you don’t like the idea that he wants the farm for something other than farming, but he really isn’t a bad guy. You should meet him.”

It didn’t seem as if she was going to have a choice.

The Realtor glanced through the picture window and waved at Jenna and Meg. She said something to Ian Kincaid that made him look inside, too, and the two of them went to the front door and poked their heads in after an obligatory knock.

“Hi! I’m just showing Mr. Kincaid a few things he had questions about,” Marsha Pinkell called. “Do you mind if we come in?”

The answer to that was yes, but that wasn’t what Jenna said. She could hardly refuse access to the Realtor she’d listed the farm with, so she said, “It’s okay, come in.”

They did just that as Jenna and Meg got up from the floor, so they could come face-to-face with Ian Kincaid.

“Hi, Ian,” Meg greeted the man warmly.

“Hi, Meg,” he answered with equal warmth and familiarity. “Logan said I might bump into you over here—I guess he was right.”

“This is Jenna,” Meg said. “Jenna Bowen. My best friend and Abby’s aunt-slash-new-mom.”

“And the owner of this place now—I know the name,” Ian Kincaid added. “I also know that your father passed away not long ago. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, his eyes going from Meg to Jenna.

“Thank you,” Jenna said perfunctorily, trying not to get too drawn into the not-at-all-cold gaze of those ice-blue eyes. They seemed to hone in on her. Again she wished for less baggy clothes, and that she’d done something different with her hair today.

“Marsha has also told me that—in honor of your dad—you’re trying to hold tight to the contingent that this place continue as a working farm,” he said.

“That’s right,” Jenna confirmed, seeing no reason to beat around the bush. “And I know that that isn’t what you want to do with the place. That your father brought an NFL expansion football team to Montana and he wants to build a training center here.”

“The Montana Monarchs,” Ian Kincaid said the team’s name as if she might not know it. “You’re right on all counts. My father is Morgan Kincaid; he finally has his dream of owning an NFL team, and we need a training facility. We’ll meet the asking price on the property without haggling if you’ll just back off on that farm contingency.”

“I won’t. Not for any price. I realize if the place goes to auction, whoever buys it can do what they want with it. But as long as I still have the option, I’m holding to the contingency.” Even if he was talking to her amiably, respectfully, pleasantly and as if they were on the same level when, in fact, she also knew that he was a bigwig in his former-football-star father’s massive corporation and one of the heirs to a fortune, while she was merely a small-town nurse in debt.

“What if we sweeten the deal by, say, five thousand?” he said then.

“Doesn’t that fall under the heading of haggling?” She goaded him just slightly.

To his credit, he smiled. A brilliant smile that exposed perfect white teeth and drew wonderful lines down the center of each cheek.

“I think haggling technically means I try to get you to lower the price, not that I offer you more money than you’re asking,” he countered.

“But I’m afraid it still falls under the ‘not for any price’ part,” Jenna said, actually enjoying this exchange with him, the way she’d enjoyed debate team in high school.

“How about ten thousand?”

Jenna laughed, having no idea if he was serious. It didn’t matter, but she liked the challenge he seemed to be throwing out.

She shook her head. “Not for any price,” she repeated. “The farm has to be up for sale, but the contingency that it stay a farm isn’t negotiable.”

“I can be a pretty persuasive guy …”

She didn’t doubt that! Not looking into those blue eyes that crinkled just a bit at the corners when he smiled and made her feel as if he didn’t know there were two other people in the hallway with them.

“Persuasive or not, that’s my sticking point,” Jenna insisted.

“Hmm … Maybe I’ll just have to try to figure out how to get you unstuck …”

“Good luck with that,” she said as if she were impervious to anything he might come up with. Even to the hint of flirting in his voice.

He laughed. Not boisterously, but a small, light laugh that almost seemed if they’d shared a private joke. And again, Jenna couldn’t help being a bit drawn in by the man.

But maybe that was how he got what he wanted, she told herself, unwilling to think that sparks might actually be flying between them—which was the way it somehow felt.

His gaze remained on her a moment more before he angled his head in the direction of the closet. “We should let you and Meg get back to what you were doing,” he said then.

“Yeah, I won’t have her help for much longer this afternoon, and I want to get as much work out of her as I can,” Jenna joked.

“It was good to finally meet you, though, Jenna Bowen,” Ian Kincaid said as if he meant it.

“You, too,” Jenna responded.

And while she’d intended that to be only as perfunctory as her gratitude for his condolences had been, it had somehow come out as more than that. As genuine.

Good to meet the man who would very likely be instrumental in dashing her late father’s one wish?

She wasn’t sure how that could be.

And yet the truth was that as he said goodbye to Meg, as Jenna watched him turn and walk out her front door with the Realtor, she was a little sorry to see him go.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Meg whispered from beside her. “He’s nice, isn’t he?”

“Nice to look at,” was all Jenna would admit to as she drank in the sight of the tall, straight-backed, commanding man going outside again.

But whether she admitted it or not, there hadn’t been anything unlikeable about Ian Kincaid.

In fact, a little part of her that she didn’t want to acknowledge had liked him quite a bit …

Chapter Two

Sunday was unseasonably warm for early spring, and Ian decided to take advantage of it and go out to the Bowen property without the Realtor.

The farm wasn’t far from the Mackey and McKendrick compound where he was staying, where he’d stayed on all the occasions he’d come to Northbridge since his long lost brother and sister had contacted him at Christmas. In fact, the Bowen place was almost next door. But he wasn’t going from the compound to the farm.

He was headed out to the Bowen place from Northbridge proper after attending a church pancake breakfast with his brother Chase, Chase’s wife, Hadley, and seventeen-month-old Cody—the nephew who had reunited Ian, Chase and Shannon. The nephew Chase was raising.

Shannon and her soon-to-be husband, Dag McKendrick, had also been there, so the town event had turned into a family breakfast for Ian, which was part of why he liked coming to Northbridge now.

The family component was also part of why he’d chosen the small town as the site for the training center for the Montana Monarchs football team.

He’d known that Northbridge existed, that it was where he and Hutch had been born, where their birth parents had died, where he and Hutch had been adopted. But he and Hutch had been barely two months old when that adoption had occurred and they’d been taken away from Northbridge. Since they’d never returned, Northbridge had been nothing but a name on a map.

Then Ian had received an email from Chase and Shannon telling him that Hutch wasn’t his only sibling. He’d reconnected with the small town in the course of reconnecting with his brother and sister.

Not that it wasn’t the perfect place for the training center, because it was. It was far enough from Billings to reduce distractions, but close enough to make it easy for the players, the staff, the coaches and trainers and the press to get to. It also didn’t make for a bad drive for visits from families left behind in Billings.

And Ian liked the idea that, as Chief Operating Officer for the Monarchs, he would spend plenty of time in Northbridge where Chase, Shannon and Cody lived.

After a rift had healed between Ian and his adoptive father, they were once again close. He was also close to his adoptive sister Lacey. But he and his twin brother Hutch? That was a different story. They hadn’t seen each other or spoken in over five—almost six—years.

Maybe that was why developing closer relationships with his newfound blood relatives was all the more important to him, and it was important to him. Bringing the training center to Northbridge would aid that cause.

He had his father onboard with Northbridge, so that wasn’t a problem. And there were two possible sites within the Northbridge area—the Bowen farm and another, slightly larger location several miles farther out of town.

But of the two, the Bowen place was the most ideal. At seventeen acres it was a better size than its twenty-four acre contender which would leave excess acreage. It also lacked the large hill the McDoogal property had that would have to be leveled to accommodate playing fields. Plus, even if Jenna Bowen took him up on the extra ten thousand dollars he’d sweetened the pot with yesterday, the price on the Bowen place was still far better—it was priced low in hopes of a fast sale.

But Jenna Bowen was holding out, trying to keep the place a working farm, even in the face of an enormous debt in unpaid taxes. It was that enormous debt that had the property scheduled to be auctioned off in ten days if she couldn’t raise the money before then.

What that meant to the Kincaid Corporation was that they could get the property one way or another. If it went to auction, the Kincaid Corporation would likely end up getting it for a song, in fact. But buying the place at auction wasn’t really the image the Kincaid Corporation or the Monarchs wanted to foster. Even if it did save some money.

About half of Northbridge was against bringing the training camp to the small town, against losing farmland to it, and certainly against one of their own family farms being bulldozed by a corporation that, if they bought at auction, would ultimately end up seeming to be on the side of the IRS. That same half wanted to help the Bowens keep the property long enough to sell to someone who would honor their wishes for the land.

So ultimately, Ian had two factions to win over to his side—that half of the town. And Jenna Bowen.

He was up for it, though. He was even looking forward to it.

Convincing half of Northbridge that it was a good idea to bring the training center in would be a challenge, but that was okay. He liked challenges. And when he showed people that he did business with honesty, integrity and straightforwardness, when he pointed out the positives, he felt certain he’d be able to rally even the unenthusiastic portion of Northbridge.

But Jenna Bowen?

She was a different story. She obviously had an emotional involvement that would take more finesse, more personal attention to conquer—if it could be conquered at all. And to that end, he’d decided it was time they met. That had been the purpose of having the Realtor take him out to her farm yesterday, when he’d known that she would be there because he’d overheard Meg tell Logan that she and Jenna would be packing up the household.

That hadn’t been the first time he’d seen her, though.

When he stayed at the compound he used a small studio apartment above the detached garage behind the main house. From that vantage point, he’d had an occasional sighting of Jenna Bowen over the months when Meg had provided babysitting for Abby, and Jenna had come to drop off or pick up the baby.

No, they hadn’t had the opportunity to meet—that just hadn’t worked out until yesterday. But it had given him the chance to do some preliminary study of Meg’s best friend.

Jenna Bowen was a small-town beauty, he thought as he drove out of Northbridge to get to the farm and the picture of her popped into his head.

Actually, she could hold her own with most big-city beauties, too, he’d decided when he’d finally had his first close-up view of her at her house on Saturday.

No, she wasn’t high-fashion-model material, like Chelsea Tanner—the woman his father was itching for him to marry. But Jenna Bowen was definitely no slouch in the looks department.

Hers wasn’t an aloof, cutting-edge sort of beauty, the way Chelsea’s was. Instead there was a warmth, a sweetness to Jenna Bowen’s appearance. A naturalness. Something that had made it difficult for him to ultimately take his eyes off of …

She had skin like peaches and cream—flawless, smooth and so soft-looking he’d had the urge to reach out and run the backs of his fingers along one cheek to see if it could possibly feel the way it appeared.

Her hair was long and wavy, a glistening brown. In his isolated glimpses of her, he’d seen it pulled back, he’d seen it tied up, he’d seen it the way he liked it best—falling full and free around her face to at least four inches below her shoulders, like a shining, vibrant cascade of cocoa.

And her eyes …

Ah, her eyes …

Those distant sightings had kept him in the dark about her eyes but on yesterday’s visit to the farm he’d finally been able to see them for himself. To see her long, thick lashes dusting eyes that were a similar brown to her hair except that they weren’t completely brown.

No, her eyes had some green in them—a glimmering green, like secret, hidden emeralds—making them interesting, intriguing, stunning.

Her nose was thin and not terribly long. She had petal-pink lips, perfect white teeth and high, apple-bright cheeks that gave her some of that country appeal, too.

Her neck was long and a little thin, and she had such perfect posture that it made her fairly short stature—five three or four, maybe—seem like more.

And the body that went with it all?

Compact but still curvaceous enough to have had him wondering how she would look without clothes …

Not that he had any business doing that!

Work, the training facility, Chelsea Tanner and getting Tanner Brewery to sponsor the Monarchs—that was what he was supposed to be focused on now, he reminded himself as he neared the Bowen farm. Chelsea Tanner, whom his father would be thrilled to have him hook up with. Chelsea Tanner, whom his father believed would be a great match for him and for the future connection between the Montana Monarchs and Chelsea Tanner’s father’s brewery dollars.

The trouble was, Chelsea Tanner just didn’t do it for him. They’d met at the huge party his father had thrown when Morgan had been granted the NFL franchise. They’d hit it off. But merely as friends. The fact that it could be a match made in business heaven? That was all his father could see. But for Ian? A beautiful face, long legs and a shared interest in Jazz weren’t enough.

In his mind’s eye, the image of Jenna Bowen was edging out that of the supermodel….

But he was getting the shove from Chelsea’s father, too.

Chelsea’s father wanted Ian to lure Chelsea back from one of her many photo shoots in Europe in the hopes that she might be interested in becoming the spokesmodel for Tanner Brewery in order to add a little class. And to keep his daughter closer to home.

Ian was working on convincing Chelsea to come home and become the face of Tanner Brewery. But beyond that? Sharing their jazz playlists was the only other thing he was interested in. The only thing Chelsea was interested in with him, too.

Ian turned off the main road onto the path that led to the Bowen property’s boundary.

Hardly a road, it was pitted and bumpy. It was difficult to decide which of the tractor-tire ruts he should stick to. It was definitely more rustic than the paved drive, with its white rail fence on either side, that led to the house. But he wanted a view of the place from one of its edges so he could look out over the whole seventeen acres and get a clear picture in his mind about the best layout for the center. So, the dirt road it was.

He didn’t go any farther than he had to, however, before he pulled to a stop.

Then, with the engine still running, he put the car into park, grabbed the binoculars he’d brought with him for this purpose and got out.

No doubt about it—this was the perfect location for the training facility, he thought, as he looked out over the property through the binoculars. Flat farmland, wide, open space except for the small barn and the house that would be leveled in favor of the administrative building that would be the entrance to the center.

But when Jenna emerged from the back door carrying baby Abby, it was the existing house that held his interest.

Ian had the impression that Jenna was taking advantage of the weather, too. She didn’t seem to have any real reason to be outside, and she was clearly dressed for work, since she was wearing dark purple scrubs. But still, she carried Abby into the yard and pointed to a bird sitting on a post of the paddock fence as she said something to the infant.

Abby was a sweet baby. And as cute as they came, with her honey-blond, curly cap of hair, her chubby cheeks and her big, brown eyes.

And Jenna was her aunt-slash-new-mom….

Ian recalled how Meg had introduced her friend, and it didn’t make sense to him. He had just assumed that Abby was Jenna’s daughter, plain and simple. But that didn’t seem to be the case. As he watched the two now, he didn’t see anything that would indicate that Jenna wasn’t Abby’s mother, however.

Abby was yet another reason he needed not to go off on flights of fancy over Jenna Bowen. He liked Abby, but he was at least ten years from wanting kids in his own life. And when that happened, they had to be his biological kids.

That was his sticking point.

Just as he was thinking that—and still watching Jenna and Abby through the binoculars—he saw Jenna lightly kiss Abby’s cheek.

Then, as if the gesture hadn’t been done right, Abby grabbed both sides of Jenna’s face in her two pudgy little hands and gave her a return kiss that had a whole lot more oomph to it.

The scene made Ian laugh at the same time Jenna did, just before she twirled around with the infant, making Abby laugh along with her.

And out of the blue—for absolutely no reason Ian could put his finger on—he felt like he should drive over there and say hello.

That was a little strange—the sudden yen to be a part of what he was spying on.

Of course, it was a great day in the country, he did get a kick out of Abby, and Jenna was a naturally beautiful, fresh-faced woman whom he’d enjoyed talking to for that brief time yesterday. So maybe it wasn’t really such a big mystery that he felt like saying hello.

Well, the mystery might be in the intensity he was feeling to get to them, but still he reasoned that he did need to be establishing a relationship with Jenna Bowen. So why not take advantage of the day, the situation, the coincidence and the convenience of having her right there, no more than a two-minute drive around a U-shaped dirt path?

He’d be silly not to take advantage of all that and lay some groundwork for a purely friendly relationship with her that could potentially benefit them both, wouldn’t he?

Sure he would.

Now he just needed to take his eyes off of her to do that….

He forced himself to lower the binoculars, to get back in the car, feeling oddly grateful that the engine was still running, and that all he had to do was put it into gear.

And if he was in such a hurry to get to her that he left huge plumes of dust behind him when he hit the gas?

It didn’t mean anything.

And neither did his lack of concern for how bumpy a ride it was on that road or what it was doing to his shocks not to take any care with how he drove.

He was merely going to extend a simple greeting to the farm owner he would like to convince to do business with him.

And the fact that the farm owner was the lovely-to-look-at Jenna Bowen meant nothing at all …

As Montana winters went weather-wise, Jenna’s first one back hadn’t been particularly bad. But since she’d lost both of her parents during that period of time, it had felt very bleak. So that first, early taste of spring on Sunday was a welcome relief.

She had to be at the hospital for a three-to-eleven shift but—not wanting to waste the warmth and sunshine—she’d decided to take Abby outside for a little while.

She hadn’t been out the back door for more than a few minutes when the sudden stirring of dust over on the border road drew her attention.

“Looks like we’re gonna have company,” she told Abby, inching back in the direction of the house.

During the last ten years, she’d lived in several places where being cautious was advisable, and while she might be back in Northbridge, she still didn’t recognize the expensive black import that was coming her way. Just in case her drop-in visitor wasn’t welcome, she wanted the ability to duck inside in a hurry.

In fact, she was standing so that she and Abby were in the lee of the screen door, where one step would take them over the threshold to safety, when the car drew near enough for her to see that it was Ian Kincaid behind the wheel.

Of course … Jenna thought as a completely inexplicable sense of excitement replaced her trepidation.

He drove around the side of the house before he came to a stop. Jenna heard him turn off the engine and get out, shutting the door after himself.

Then he appeared around the corner.

“Hi,” he called, tossing her a smile that she liked more than she had any reason to.

“Hello,” Jenna said, keeping it somewhat formal, despite her reactions to the man. Or maybe to hide those reactions….

“It was such a nice day I wanted to come out and look around a little more.” He pointed in the direction he’d come from. “I was on that other road when I saw you. I thought maybe I should drop over and make sure you don’t mind. If you do, I’ll take off.” He finished with a gesture of surrender that raised his hands to the height of his extremely broad shoulders.

His big, strong-looking hands that Jenna couldn’t help noticing right along with the shoulders. He wore brown tweed slacks and a tan shirt that made him look too dressed up for a lazy, Sunday afternoon in Northbridge, but impressively good nonetheless.

“Un!” Abby said then, bending far away from Jenna and putting her arms out to Ian as he drew near.

“Hi, Abby,” he said to the infant with an even warmer smile. Then to Jenna he added, “That’s what she calls me—’Un.’ Abby and I are old friends.”

“So Meg said.”

“Can I take her?” he asked.

Since Abby wasn’t giving her much choice, and Jenna knew that Meg had come to trust him around both Abby and Tia, Jenna abandoned the doorway and handed over the infant.

Abby promptly curved one arm around the back of Ian’s muscular neck as if she belonged there and was staking her claim on him.

“Meg told me you’ve made quite an impression on both Abby and Tia,” Jenna said.

“I’d like to say all the girls love me, but I’m pretty sure you could refute that, so I won’t,” he joked.

He did seem like kind of a hard person to dislike, but Jenna kept that to herself. Instead she said, “It’s been a rotten winter for me, and I have spring fever something fierce today so, even though it’s a little early for it, I made fresh lemonade. Would you like a glass?”

“Sounds great. But why don’t we sit on your porch to drink it so you can still get some of this nice weather? I’ll take Abby around to the front, and you can meet us there.”

Was he thoughtful or good at orchestrating things or giving orders? Jenna wasn’t sure. But the idea of a glass of lemonade on the front porch—okay, yes, with him—was too appealing for her to balk at, one way or another, so she said, “Okay.”

As she went inside, put ice in two tall glasses and poured their drinks, Jenna hoped that Ian Kincaid wasn’t there to try to talk her into selling the farm to him. It was such a nice day, she wanted to enjoy it, and that was a subject that would ruin it.

Maybe, if he did bring it up, a firm no coupled with an “I don’t want to talk about it,” would stop him.

If not, she might take Abby and her lemonade and just go inside, because she was not going to let him put a damper on today.

As Jenna carried the glasses down the hallway to the front door she’d opened earlier to let in some fresh air, she could see Abby and Ian Kincaid through the screen. It gave her a clue as to one of the reasons Abby liked him. He was sitting on the porch floor at the top of the stairs. The little girl straddled his ankle while he held both of her hands and bounced her up and down with the rise and fall of that long leg.

Jenna knew from doing that herself that Abby adored what Jenna called a horsey-ride, and the baby’s giggling delight only confirmed it.

“Mo!” Abby demanded when Ian paused to glance over his shoulder at the sound of Jenna coming out onto the porch.

“That’s Abby-speak for more,” Jenna informed him. “And the problem with horsey-ride is that she never wants you to stop.”

“Yeah, I’ve learned that,” he said. Then, to Abby he called an enthusiastic, “Here comes the big finish!”

As Jenna crossed the wide wrap-around porch to join them, Ian gave Abby a wild enough ride to make the infant squeal before he slowed by increments and made winding-down noises.

To Jenna’s surprise, when he finally stopped altogether and hoisted Abby to his lap, the little girl accepted it without further complaint.

“So that’s the secret?” Jenna observed. “I have to say ‘here comes the big finish,’ give her a grand finale and some sound effects, and she lets it end?”

“That’s my trick. I don’t know if it’ll work for you,” he said, settling Abby in the crook of one arm so he could take the glass of lemonade that Jenna offered.

Once he had, she sat beside him, making sure she left all the space that could be left between them in what was allotted by the porch railing.

She set her own glass of lemonade down and held out her arms to Abby. “Why don’t you come and sit with me now and have some lemonade?”

“No,” Abby answered, pushing back into the arm that provided a sturdy support for her back.

“Oh, she does like you,” Jenna said, showing a hint of the rejection she felt.

Ian merely grinned and sipped his lemonade. Letting the comment pass, he said, “As Montana winters go, this last one was pretty mild. Why was it rotten for you?”

He’d paid attention to what she’d said earlier….

“I came back to Northbridge in October when my mother died suddenly of a heart attack during a blizzard. That trip was when I first realized my dad’s emphysema was much, much worse than I’d been told. I decided to stay to take care of him, but we still lost him the first week of January. Which was about the time I also found out about the tax debt—”

“Ah, it wasn’t so much the weather as what happened this winter. And that was a lot,” he agreed. “I didn’t know you’d lost your mother right before your father. I lost my mother when I was eleven and that was bad enough. Losing both of your parents within months of each other must have been doubly rough.”

Made rougher by the guilt she carried, but she didn’t offer that information. “It was.”

“You said you came back when your mom passed away?” he said then. “Does that mean that you weren’t living in Northbridge?”

“Not at the time, no. I wanted to be, but that hadn’t worked out yet. It sort of had to in a hurry after I saw that my dad was failing. Plus there was Abby …”

Abby, whom she didn’t really want to share, so Jenna again held out her hands to the baby.

Who once more chose to remain with Ian.

Abby did take the drink of Jenna’s lemonade that Jenna offered, though.

“Tell me about Miss Abby here,” Ian said then. “Meg introduced you as her aunt-slash-new-mom—what exactly does that mean?”

“She’s my niece and now my adopted daughter, too,” Jenna answered as if it were simple.

“So you have a brother or a sister?” he said, sorting through it.

“I did have a sister. We called her J.J. She was twelve years younger than me, and only sixteen when she got pregnant and had Abby—”

“Oh,” Ian said, as if that explanation left him with more questions.

Anticipating them, Jenna said, “My folks talked J.J. into keeping Abby by promising to help raise her—”

“The dad wasn’t in the picture?”

“The dad was one of the boys at the school for troubled and delinquent kids just outside of town. Unfortunately, he was still in the picture, but since he had no family at all, it was still really up to Mom and Dad—”

“And sixteen-year-old J.J.”

“Right. Until J.J. and Abby’s dad went joyriding when Abby was four months old …” Jenna swallowed back the lump that instantly formed in her throat. “Both J.J. and Abby’s dad were killed when the car hit a pothole and rolled over. Then it was just up to Mom and Dad.”

“Who weren’t in good health,” Ian added.

“At the time no one knew my mom had anything going on with her heart—no one knew until the attack that killed her. My dad’s emphysema was slowing him down then, but he was still working the farm, so they didn’t really think their health was an issue. I talked about taking Abby, but my own situation was … difficult, so Mom and Dad just kept the status quo—they’d been doing the lion’s share of taking care of Abby, they said they could just go on taking care of her.”

“But then in a snap they were both gone….”

“Right. And then there was just Abby and me. And my situation had changed—” Jenna leaned forward enough to tickle Abby’s rib cage “—and I wanted this little stinker, so I adopted her.”

“Which makes you her aunt and her mom now.”

“Right,” Jenna said in a positive tone to let him know how happy she was to find herself Abby’s mother. “Of course, I’ll let her know about J.J. and her dad, but I’ll really just be Mom—which I’m working on getting her to call me.”

As if to show her willingness to accept Jenna in that role, Abby finally held out her arms for Jenna to take her.

Ian set his nearly empty glass of lemonade on the porch and freed the way for Jenna to reach for the infant.

To do that, Jenna had to slip one of her hands between Abby’s side and Ian’s front. There was no avoiding making contact with him.

What Jenna should have been able to avoid was being as aware as she was of the hard wall of muscles she felt behind his shirt. And liking the way it felt against the back of her hand …

You’re a nurse, for crying out loud! You make physical contact with people for a living! she silently chastised herself to battle the tingling that that particular contact had set off along the surface of her skin.

Gratefully, Ian Kincaid didn’t seem to know she was having that response to him as she lifted Abby from his lap to Jenna’s and became very intent on giving her niece more lemonade.

“I should probably go—I saw what I came to see and I’m figuring from the scrubs that you must have to get to work at some point,” Ian said then—in a voice that seemed slightly lower than it had been and suddenly made Jenna worry that he did know something was happening with her.

But even if that was true, he, too, found refuge in Abby by fiddling with one of her curls when he said, “Bye, Abby.”

“Bye,” Abby answered perfunctorily, waving a chubby hand to go along with it, the way she’d been tutored.

Then, to Jenna, Ian said, “Thanks for the lemonade. This was nice.”

“Sure,” was all she said as she watched him get to his feet.

He paused a moment, and she couldn’t tell what was going through his mind before he said, “Tomorrow night is the grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs—will you be there?”

“I will be,” she said.

A slow smile spread across his handsome face. “Good … I’m glad….” He answered almost as if he shouldn’t be admitting it.

Then he headed for his car, and Jenna watched him go.

And watched him and watched him, drinking in every last drop of the sight of the best derriere she thought she’d ever seen.

Until he rounded the side of the house, and she couldn’t see him anymore.

And she was a little sorry about that …

So apparently, he hadn’t put a damper on her day.

But as for the rest—the skin-tingling on contact, the ogling of his backside when he’d walked away, the fact that she’d enjoyed spending that brief time with him?

She didn’t know where any of that had come from.

But she did know that there was no place in her life for it.

Not now. Not with him.

In the last eleven months, she’d gone from one disaster to another. The death of J.J. and of Abby’s dad. Her own divorce. Her mother’s death. Her father’s. The tax debacle and the likelihood that she was going to lose the farm. She’d gone from chaos to more chaos to even more chaos.

And it had to end. For both her own sake and for Abby’s. They needed to find a little solace, a little calm, a little peace. To settle down, to settle in. Together. Just the two of them.

Nowhere in any of that was there a place for skin-tingling or ogling or enjoying Ian Kincaid’s company.

In fact, a man—any man—but certainly Ian Kincaid of all men, was the anti-solace, the anti-calm, the anti-peace, the anti-settling down, the anti-settling in.

And Jenna wasn’t having any part of that.

So why was she suddenly looking forward to tomorrow night’s grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs even more than she had been?

It didn’t matter why.

She just knew she needed to squash it.

And that was what she was determined to do.

Although that little bit of a thrill at the thought that Ian Kincaid would be there was hard to catch and squash when it again took flight at merely the glimpse of him behind the wheel of his car as he drove from the side of her house and waved on his way to the main road.

But still she was determined.

Peace and calm and solace, settling in, settling down—that was what she was going to find, to achieve, for herself and for Abby.

Without the disruption of a guy who made her skin tingle …

Chapter Three

“What do you think, Abby? Too much?” Jenna asked her niece as she stood in front of the full-length mirror early Monday evening.

Of course, Abby didn’t respond. The fifteen-month-old was occupied with the bottom drawer of Jenna’s dresser, exploring and dragging out every scarf, glove and whatnot she found there.

After feeding Abby dinner, Jenna had taken the baby upstairs with her and set her in the crib with a slew of toys to keep her safely entertained so Jenna could take a quick shower and shampoo her hair.

Then she’d retrieved Abby and brought the little girl with her to her bedroom, where she’d set Abby on the floor. Being let loose in Jenna’s room always meant one of two things for the infant—either she played in the closet or she opened the bottom dresser drawer. Since Jenna had had problems picking out what to wear tonight, Abby had already demolished the closet and moved on to the drawer.

But Jenna was intent on looking her best for the grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs.

The cocktail affair was to be casual, but somehow Jenna didn’t want to go too casual. So while she’d opted for jeans, they were her dressiest jeans—jeans she’d paid a small fortune for because they rode every curve to perfection and managed to transform her rear end into a much better shape than she thought it had on its own.

To go along with the jeans, she was wearing a black, crocheted-lace blouse over a strapless black, spandex tube top. And for shoes she was trying on her post-divorce-first-night-on-the-town-with-the-girls-to-prove-she-could-still-get-hit-on shoes—peekaboo-toed, black patent leathers with bows and four-inch heels.

And she had gotten hit on that night. In those shoes. And that same outfits….

Not that she was aiming to get hit on tonight, of course. She wasn’t. She just wanted to look good. This was really the first fancy evening social event she’d gone to since being back in Northbridge.

And the fact that Ian Kincaid was going to be there? That he’d made a point of asking if she was going to be there, too?

Okay, maybe that had a teensy, weensy bit to do with the fact that she wanted to look good. But that was all. And it was just a matter of pride. Yes, her father had died owing the government over forty-thousand dollars in unpaid taxes that she couldn’t pay, either; yes, Ian Kincaid and the Kincaid Corporation might be able to get her father’s farm and turn it into a football training center, whether she liked it or not, but she still had her dignity. And that outfit and those shoes.

And maybe tonight she wanted to think that she might be able to make Ian Kincaid eat his heart out just a little …

“As if that could happen,” she told her reflection in the mirror, to bring herself back down to earth.

After all, she reasoned as she applied some blush, some eye shadow, some mascara, she was thirty not twenty—if she were still twenty, she wouldn’t have even needed the blush. She was a nurse, not a doctor—the way she’d set out to be. She was divorced after ten years of marriage to a man whose mother had been and still was more important than Jenna had ever managed to be to him. And while a lot of her male patients flirted shamelessly with her, most of them were elderly.

Second looks from guys her own age? Sure, those she got now and then. But despite the fact that following Ted to Mexico and then to several states in his failed career pursuits had made her fairly well-traveled, she’d never acquired any sort of sophistication. She was still a small-town girl through and through. And it was there on the girl-next-door face that she didn’t have complaints about, but that didn’t make men like Ian Kincaid drool, so there was no reason to think that he was going to.

And even if he did, so what? she asked herself as she bent over to give her hair a thorough brushing before standing straight again to fluff it and let it fall in loose waves around her shoulders.

Besides being desperate to find some serenity in her life, she was fresh out of a marriage that had completely revolved around her former husband and his—well, actually, his mother’s—goals for him. For Ted and his mother, she’d sacrificed everything—including her own dreams and having kids and time she should have spent with her family.

If she hadn’t, her family might not have ended up the way it had.

And while she didn’t know much about Ian, she did know that he worked for his father. To her, that meant that meeting his boss’s requirements wasn’t something he could leave at the office. It meant that his father held two major positions of importance in his life, and that gave his father double the power over him, double the influence over him, double the reason for Ian to factor in his father’s opinions, desires and goals, and try to please him above and before all else. Above and before everyone else.

For Jenna, that raised red warning flares.

In her experience, a family tie that strong ended up taking the number one priority.

And getting lost in the dust of accommodating that wasn’t something she was ever—ever—going to do again. The cost was just too high.

“So we don’t care whether or not Ian Kincaid’s jaw drops tonight,” she muttered to Abby, who was trying to pull a stocking cap over her own curly hair and again paid Jenna no attention.

But still it would be a really nice ego-boost if his jaw did drop, she couldn’t help thinking.

And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of an ego boost after this winter.

It just wouldn’t change anything, Jenna swore.

She had set a new course for herself, for her life. An unwavering course.

Ian Kincaid might be drop-dead gorgeous, a pleasure to sit on the porch and drink lemonade with, sexy enough to have had her fantasizing about him all through the night, on her mind this entire day—or not—but he was also a guy to stay away from, even if she wasn’t intent on sticking to her own new path.

So an ego boost was honestly all she wanted from him. All she would allow.

But if his jaw dropped when she walked in tonight?

She’d be glad for that ego boost.

Then she’d go on about her business and never give him another thought.

The grand opening of Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs was by invitation only; Jenna had helped Meg address them and knew that over two hundred of them had gone out.

The main house on the compound—the house Meg shared with her husband Logan and Tia—was being used as the babysitting center. Manned by four teenage girls, that was where Meg’s three-year-old stepdaughter and several other children and infants were being left.

Abby was not altogether good with strangers and clung to Jenna when the babysitters tried to take her, but after a moment of watching Tia—whom Abby treated like a big sister—Abby motioned to be let down. She crawled over to where the three-year-old was playing. Since Tia welcomed Abby and let her play with the train set, too, Jenna felt free to leave her and went through the house and out the back door.

Directly behind Meg’s home was a large two-car garage. Over that was the studio apartment where Jenna knew Ian was staying. There weren’t any lights on there, so she assumed he was already at the party.

A shiver of excitement ran through her at that thought, the thought that she was on her way to seeing him again.

Then she got furious at herself.

She was also on her way to seeing potentially two hundred other people, she reminded herself. Why was it only Ian Kincaid she was thinking about and getting excited over?

Take it down a notch, she warned herself.

But still she walked a little faster to get to the party.

It was being held next door to the garage, in what had once been the property’s barn. The top half had been converted into a loft where Chase Mackey lived with his soon-to-be-wife, Hadley, and Ian and Chase’s nephew, Cody.

The lower half of the barn was devoted to Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs. The rear portion was work space, while the front half had been turned into showcases that displayed the furniture to best effect. Those showcases had taken from December until now to finally complete.

As Jenna neared the big barn doors that were open for the event, she could see light spilling out and hear the sounds of the guitarist and singer Meg had hired, as well as laughter and many, many voices.

As hosts and hostesses, Meg, Logan, Chase and Hadley were positioned at the entrance to greet new arrivals. The mayor and his wife were taking up their attention as Jenna got there, so she motioned to Meg to let her know she was just going to go in, and then she moved around them, headed for the sea of people.

She spotted several of the Perrys and the Pratts she’d grown up with, and she took a moment to chat with them. She said hello to the Graysons, who were new to town but whom Meg had introduced her to. Logan and Hadley’s half siblings were there—although Jenna didn’t see Dag and his new wife Shannon, Ian’s sister. All of the other business owners in town were there, along with the entire town council and even a few people who looked familiar, but whom Jenna couldn’t quite place.

The one person she didn’t see was Ian Kincaid.

Not that it made any difference, she told herself. She knew almost everyone there, she was looking forward to talking to many people she hadn’t yet had the chance to reconnect with, and it didn’t make any difference if she never encountered him tonight.

Except that somehow in her scenario of making her entrance, she’d imagined him alone in the distance when he caught his first sight of her and being bowled over by it.

Silly. It was just so silly….

When it struck her just how silly it was, she shuddered a little at having had such an adolescent pipe dream and vowed to put Ian Kincaid completely from her mind. This was a party she’d been looking forward to before she’d even met him, and she was determined to dive into it, to enjoy herself and not to have another thought about the man.

Starting now!

Since Logan, Chase and Hadley—who worked with Logan and Chase as their upholsterer—had been busy decorating the showcases, Meg had taken charge of the party planning, and Jenna had helped her friend wherever she could. Part of that help had involved deciding where to put the bar, the hors d’oeuvres table and the guitarist and singer. So even though she couldn’t see any of those things through the crowd, she knew what direction to go to get to them.

It took time to move through the mass of people, because she did know most everyone, and there were so many more greetings to exchange along the way.

Then she finally made it to her destination, and that was where she found Ian Kincaid.

He was standing alone near the bar, rather than in the middle of the showroom floor, and his jaw didn’t drop when he first caught sight of Jenna. But his striking pale blue eyes did widen, and that supple-looking mouth of his stretched into a slow, appreciative smile that still managed to send the message she’d been hoping for.

“This is not the look of a farmer’s daughter,” he said when Jenna reached the bar and he stepped up to meet her as if he’d been waiting for her.

“What are farmers’ daughters supposed to look like?” Jenna asked, raising her chin in challenge and suppressing a smile of her own.

“Not as good as you look,” he said, tilting his head to take in the full view now that he was nearer.

And while Jenna lectured herself about how it shouldn’t please her to have his reaction be what she’d hoped for, it still thrilled her to no end.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked then.

“It’s an open bar,” Jenna pointed out.

His smile turned into a mischievous half grin that told her he’d known that all along.

“I’ll have a glass of red wine,” she told the bartender, bypassing Ian.

“Make it two,” he added over his shoulder as he leaned an elbow on the bar and focused his attention solely on Jenna.

Despite that, just as the bartender poured their wine and slid the glasses to them, three old friends came up to say hello to Jenna and put in drink orders of their own.

As Jenna chatted with them, Ian stayed where he was. It seemed rude of her not to introduce him, so she did.

“Are you here together?” Neily Pratt—one of the three old friends—asked Jenna.

“No!” Jenna answered much too quickly.

Ian chuckled quietly, as if her discomfort at that question amused him.

“But you were talking when we came up, so we’ll leave you alone,” Neily added when the other three glasses of wine had been delivered.

“Would it be so bad if we were together?” Ian asked when the women had moved off. “Because Shannon isn’t here yet, and everybody else I know is busy. I was hoping you’d have pity on me and keep me company.”

“Out of pity?” she repeated, teasing him with the word.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he joked back, as if he were desperate.

Being in a large group and not knowing anyone was something Jenna was far more familiar with than she wished she was. Too many moves to too many cities as Ted attempted to find a medical specialty he could tolerate had required her getting too many new jobs, frequently putting her in that position. And each and every time it had happened she’d hated it so much that she did feel a little sorry for Ian, the fish out of water in this gathering of Northbridge townsfolk.

Or at least that was what she told herself when, rather than abandoning him, she said, “We should at least move, we’re right in the way of everyone getting drinks.”

Which was true enough as several more people gathered there.

“Come on, I’ll show you my favorite showcase,” Ian urged.

Curious about his taste, Jenna agreed. What she hadn’t expected was for him to take her elbow to guide her to the very back of the showroom portion of the remodeled barn. Or to have that hand at her elbow feel warm and strong and much, much better than it had any reason to feel.

In fact it felt so good that she lost track of everything around her and only regained her wits when she found herself in the display right next to the door to the work room.

Almost no one was venturing back that far, and it was a distance from the music as well, so it was fairly quiet. They were now in the business–office showcase that displayed bookcases and filing cabinets positioned around an enormous desk that was the centerpiece.

“You can help me guard this so no one comes back here and scratches it or puts a wet glass on it—I just bought it, so it’s mine.”

He gestured at the desk. The base was antiqued black, and the top was walnut with a subtle carving along the edges to soften the line.

“It’s a beautiful desk,” Jenna said, studying the piece of furniture as he turned to lean against it like a sentry.

“Handmade by Chase,” Ian informed her. “Not only did I like it, but I like the idea of having something he designed, crafted and carved himself.”

“That’s really nice,” Jenna said, meaning it. It moved her that he was trying to forge bonds between himself and his newly discovered family.

Then, without intending it, her gaze went from the desk to him.

He looked amazing in a pair of pin-striped gray wool slacks and a charcoal-colored mock-neck sweater that she had no doubt was cashmere. Too amazing—she was a little afraid of her own jaw dropping.

So she followed his lead, turned around and leaned on the desk much the way he was, making sure to keep a respectable distance between his hips and her own.

With both of them facing the mingling crowd of people beyond the showcase, Ian nodded his chin at them and said, “So do you know everybody?”

“Pretty much—I did grow up here.”

“Along with Chase, Logan and Hadley—they’ve told me stories that have said good and bad about that. How about you? Good? Bad? Both?”

“All good, actually. I loved it here. I loved living on the farm, I loved that everyone knew everyone else—it was all just one great big family to me,” Jenna said, taking a sip of her wine.

“Then why did you leave?” he asked, doing the same.

“I’d always planned to leave for a while, for college— the local college didn’t offer what I needed. But I’d also always planned to come back as soon as I could. This was such a great place to grow up, it was where I wanted to have and raise my own kids.”

“But you were away for how long?”

“Too long—ten years,” she said, unable to keep the disdain for that fact out of her voice.

“Was there something keeping you away that was out of your control?”

Jenna knew her tone had opened the door to that question. But there was a limit to what she was willing to tell this man, so she said, “Things just happen. We make choices—not always good ones—and sometimes the tide carries you farther and farther out to sea. It makes it tough to get back to shore.”

“Shore being Northbridge?”

“And my family….”

“Were you at odds with them?”

“No,” she said firmly. Because the truth was bad enough. She didn’t want him to think something worse had kept her away. “It was just … Because I let other things take precedence, it was hard to get home. So I didn’t make it back as often as I wanted to—barely once a year and sometimes even longer than that would go by before I could get back. If that hadn’t been the case …”

She took another sip of wine, because she needed some bolstering to talk about this.

“What?” Ian urged.

Jenna shrugged. “If I’d been able to visit more often, if I’d been able to move back two or three years ago the way I’d planned, I might have seen the indications of my mother’s heart problems and had them addressed before she ended up having the attack that killed her.”

“She didn’t tell you she was feeling bad?”

“My parents didn’t believe in burdening their kids with their problems—that’s what my father said when I asked why neither he nor Mom had said anything. So no, no one told me Mom had been getting short of breath, tiring easily, that her coloring wasn’t great. No one told me that Dad was having more and more trouble taking care of the farm, so it wasn’t making the kind of profit it needed to. I didn’t know they were slipping behind on the taxes. If I’d been here, if I’d known, maybe I could have done something….”

Jenna wasn’t sure how this conversation had gotten so heavy, but she was battling her own emotions and Ian was watching her intently, a frown pulling his eyebrows together, his expression very somber.

“That’s a whole lot of guilt you’re carrying around,” he said softly. “Is that what’s behind the sticking point to keep the farm a farm? Are you trying to make up for what you didn’t do along the way, by keeping it some kind of monument to your parents?”

Jenna shook her head. “No, that isn’t it at all. My dad loved the farm and being a farmer. He was proud of what he did, of the contribution it made. He believed that the farmer was the backbone of this country, and he liked being a part of that. He wanted it to continue, even if it wasn’t his own family doing it, so his last wish—his last request of me—was that his farm remain a farm. Simple as that. And that’s what I’m trying to help happen. If I don’t sell to you for your training facility, and you don’t buy it at auction, there’s at least the chance that someone else might buy it and maintain it as a working farm, the way my Dad wanted, and that’s really all I’m trying to accomplish.”

“Now I feel guilty!”

“Good!” Jenna said with a laugh that helped make her feel better. “Does that mean you’ll back off?”

He flinched. “It was me who brought your place to the attention of the powers-that-be—for that I’m completely to blame. But in my defense, I had no idea there were these kinds of personal and emotional issues on the other side of it.”

“And now that you do, you’ll back off?” Jenna repeated hopefully.

“Even now that I do, it’s too late. The moneymen, the land people, the contractors—everyone connected with the project—has agreed that your property is ideal on all counts. That takes it out of my hands. I’m sorry.”

He might have been a very convincing liar, but Jenna had the sense that he genuinely meant that apology.

“And even if I went to my father at this point and said let’s let it be,” he continued after a pause, “I’d get shot down. The first thing my old man would say is that there’s no guarantee that if the property goes to auction, it’ll stay a farm. Potentially the Monarchs would just lose the best site for their training center to some housing developer or something.”

Jenna knew that was a possibility, too. But still, she was trying to hang on to what hope she could. For her father’s sake.

“I guess it just isn’t possible for us to come down on the same side of this,” she concluded. “And I think you might be trying to find my weak spot or something—”

“I’m not,” he protested.

But before either of them could say more on the subject, Chase appeared at the entrance of the showcase. “There you are, Ian,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Chase paused to say hello to Jenna, to tell her how nice she looked and tease her that it was nothing like a new mom was supposed to look.

After they’d joked back and forth for a few minutes, Chase’s gaze went to Ian again. “I wanted to introduce you around—there are a lot of people who want to meet you.”

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