At the Roosevelt Arch, Casey obediently turned around to head home—she knew the routine—but Jenny regarded the monument for an extra moment, trying to see it through the eyes of a visitor instead of a lifelong resident. President Teddy Roosevelt himself had laid the cornerstone of the massive stone arch in 1903 as Jenny had been told many times by her parents and grandparents, and even by her great-grandmother, who had lived until Jenny was six years old and remembered attending the ceremony on the actual day with lifelong pride.
What would Sam think of Gardiner after living in a place as sophisticated as Chicago? She cringed, then chastised herself and straightened. Who cares what Sam thinks of Gardiner! If he can’t see what a treasure it is—
Jenny loved Gardiner and all of Montana, for that matter, with her whole heart, but she had no illusions about where she lived and would make no excuses for it. With just shy of one thousand citizens, and a downtown area smaller than Soldier’s Field, Gardiner was a universe away from Chicago. But it was a good, solid place to live with kind people who cared if you lived or died…and didn’t that matter more than the bright lights of a big city?
She walked home at a leisurely pace, making Casey heel, mulling this over. It’s not that she wouldn’t like to see other places. She had visited Billings many times, of course, and she had attended college at the University of Great Falls, where she had spent four memorable years. Billings and Great Falls couldn’t compare to Chicago, which was fine with Jenny. It didn’t matter what Sam or any other visitor thought. Deep in Jenny’s heart she knew: Montana would always be home.
Chapter 3
Jenny had mentioned it was the nicest place. Huh. Sam stood in the doorway of his room and made a face, thinking of the Four Seasons, where the company put him up whenever he was out of town on client business. If this is the nicest, I’d hate to see the worst. The room was small and drab with a polyester patchwork bedspread covering the double bed and very little in the way of amenities or decoration. Still, a bed was a bed, and Sam certainly wasn’t in Gardiner on business, so it was hardly a fair comparison.
What a day. He plopped down on the lumpy mattress, lying back and shuddering as his mind replayed Jenny’s car spinning out over the highway lanes. She could have been seriously injured or worse. Her face when he had first approached her car had scared him to death, staring straight ahead with her hands frozen to the steering wheel. My God, what if—what if—
The flashback came on swiftly. He hadn’t been as fortunate as Jenny. His car had crashed into a guardrail on a major highway in October, and he had suffered a cracked rib and a concussion which required several days of hospitalization for observation. Luckily, aside from being a little banged up and pretty sore at the time, he was good as new now. He only felt a slight, occasional twinge in his chest as the rib healed completely. The accident itself had scared him, though, and had additionally acted as a wake-up call, making him re-think his life and the path he was on.
Unwittingly, Pepper’s face popped into his mind and he grimaced. He and Pepper had broken up soon after the accident, five months shy of their two-year anniversary. He always knew deep down Pepper wasn’t “the one.” More like arm-candy, a total knockout, sex-on-a-stick, even, but fairly vacuous and extremely self-centered. He had loved the looks from other men as they walked into a posh gala or entered a club or bar of her choosing. He could feel all those chumps eyeing Pepper then turning their gazes to him in wonder: What did he have that they didn’t? How come he could get a girl like that?
The truth? Oh, yeah. She was stunning, beyond stunning, walking-out-of-a-magazine perfect. But, she was also an expensive, whiny, demanding girlfriend, with a little added sprinkle of crazy for the up-close viewer. Sam had stayed with her for so long because he liked the powerful way he felt with her on his arm. He had been promoted to vice president while dating Pepper, and although the advancement was outwardly based on merit, Sam suspected that his girlfriend’s local celebrity status hadn’t exactly hurt his business prospects. The firm seemed to like having a young associate dating such a well-known news personality. And heck, the sex was explosive, especially in the beginning, adventurous and a little rough sometimes in a hot, exciting way. But, after two years, even that had gotten mechanical and stale. He probably wouldn’t admit it to most people, but those nights lying next to Pepper had turned out to be the emptiest of his life.
Jenny and Pepper couldn’t be more different. He thought of Jenny sitting in the driver’s seat staring straight ahead, looking so young—more like a scared teenager with her blonde hair falling loosely around her shoulders. No trace of the pinched, snippy woman he’d met at the courthouse. Nothing like his whiny, needy ex-girlfriend, either, who would have pitched a fit and found a way to blame him.