Montana Darling(13)

“Uh-huh. Easy.”

“Dark chocolate. My favorite.”

For some reason, he groaned and muttered, “Really?”

“I’m pretty sure the tiny bit of crunch was sea salt.”

“Correct.” His tone was that of a teacher who expected her to fail.

Mia Zabrinski didn’t fail. She’d passed every test she’d ever taken…except for one—a mammogram.

She swished her tongue around, testing for the missing flavor. “Chili. Habanero, to be exact.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His wicked grin told her she’d gotten it wrong. “Close. Well, technically, I’d have given it to you if you’d left it at pepper. But Sage calls these Kick Starters. She’s been beta testing them for a week and finally settled on chipotle.”

The instant he said the word she tasted the lingering hint of smoke that had been masked by the rich warmth of the chocolate.

“Damn. You’re right.”

Their gazes met and held.

His eyes intrigued her, challenged her to go deeper and find out more about him. A foolish waste of time. The guy lived in a stupid tent. Winter was coming. He wouldn’t be sticking around for long. He was leaving. Not soon enough for her to get her basement in, but soon.

A fact, which, a voice in her head reasoned, made him perfect for a rebound fling.

Once the word “fling” lodged in her brain she couldn’t unthink it. She’d been with two men in her life. First her high school boyfriend who moved away their senior year and lasted about three letters and half a dozen phone calls before he broke up with her, and then she’d made the mistake of falling head over heels for her twin brother’s college roommate and best friend, Edward. Her college lover. Her husband. The narcissistic dilettante who abandoned her when she needed him most.

Mia didn’t like it when people—especially strangers—invaded her space. Ryker’s face was closer than she normally tolerated, but she didn’t pull back. She couldn’t. His gaze seemed to look past the superficial aspects of her hair, her face, her features, to see into the depths of her soul to the damaged, brittle woman terrified to re-engage with life.

The last thing she needed was a man. A man who wanted something from her.

He wants my land, the lawyer in her thought.

He wants my body, the woman in her thought.

No. He only thinks he does.

“I have—had—.” She never knew how to put it. “Um…breast cancer.”

“That must have sucked.”

“It wasn’t the high point of my life. But I’m on the road to recovery. All my tests have come back clear. I caught it early and wiped it out at the source.”

She shifted her shoulders unconsciously feeling the dull reminder of the implants.

“You’ll feel more like yourself if you don’t have to lug around prosthetics,” Mom had coaxed.

“I don’t plan to wear falsies, Mom. I’ll be flat chested for the rest of my life. Lots of women are.”

“You won’t be happy with that, Mia,” Doctor Sharsmith had insisted. “Your clothes won’t fit right. Your femininity will take a serious hit. I’ve had patients who chose that route, but within six months they changed their minds. Breasts are a part of your body image, Mia. Let me give you back your natural curves.”

So, she’d agreed to more surgeries. More risks. More fear that she might not wake up from the anesthesia, and her poor children would be left in the care of their irresponsible and morally challenged father.

Now, she was outwardly normal—or some vague semblance of normal. She was skinny. Weak. Vulnerable to germs. Terrified of carcinogens, sugar, processed foods, and artificial dyes. She hated looking at herself in the mirror, and the question had crossed her mind lately whether or not any man would ever desire her?

If she wasn’t totally mistaken, this man found her attractive. Or thought he did.

Maybe this is a distraction to game me into giving up my land.

Like that would happen.

Members of the Big Sky Mavericks never gave up.

Period.

Suddenly feeling more like her old self than she had in months, she leaned in and kissed him. Three…four…seconds of heart-stopping strangeness. His lips solidly touching hers. No tongue or heavy breathing, just a tingling caused no doubt by the “mones,” as her future sister-in-law called the little buggers.

Bailey. Cake tasting.

She jerked back. “Cake.”

“No, thanks. But I wouldn’t mind another kiss.”

She jumped to her feet. “I left my mother at the tasting. I have to go.”

“Okay.” He got up, too. “That works. I’d like to meet your mother.”

“What? Nooo.” Even to Mia’s ears the word came out close to the frequency of an osprey going in for a kill. “You can’t. Good grief, no. You are the enemy. Well, not exactly, but I’m not prepared to open this can of worms in front of my parents. They’ve been through enough. I’ll tell them my contractor was delayed and I may have to postpone building. That’s all they need to know for now.”

“First, I’m the enemy, then a can of worms? That’s flattering. Why’d you kiss me?”

She marched away, hoping he’d head in the other direction…toward her…his…the property.

He didn’t, of course. He jogged after her and stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. She tensed and automatically braced defensively as she’d learned in kickboxing. He let go and held out the small bag. “You paid for them.”

She felt stupid and embarrassed and rude. She started to apologize, but a movement near the spot where they first entered the tracks distracted her. People? Witnesses to her bad behavior?

She put a hand up to shade her eyes. “Oh, no. Hell, no. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. Not again.”

She shoved the bag in Ryker’s general direction and marched away, her heart thudding so hard in her chest it felt like it might break a rib.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

He followed, of course. What was it about men that made them so damn obtuse? Couldn’t he tell her already shitty life just hit another road bump?

“Who’s that?” he asked, his voice dropping so the young couple standing together huddled over some sort of contraband didn’t hear their approach.

Both wore ear buds, Mia saw. The boy, a lanky, younger version of the bad influence Emilee picked back in Cheyenne. This one was closer to her age, at least. But neither of them was old enough to buy cigarettes. At least, she hoped the slender trail of smoke that rose between them was from cigarettes not something worse.

Emilee was the first to notice people moving in her direction.

Her epithet was the one her grandmother hated the most.

“My daughter,” Mia said, answering Ryker’s question. “Repeat truant and soon to be grounded for life.”

*

Ryker felt the sea change, like a fast moving arid Sirocco the moment it hit the Mediterranean.

Look out, Italy, here comes the perfect storm, he thought, studying the two high school students. Young. Freshmen, maybe? The girl was an inch or two taller than her mom. Slim with long, thick, medium brown hair tinged with artificial-looking black highlights. Her eye make-up, while not classic Goth, was too heavy-handed to be fashionable. Ryker’s brief stint in the New York fashion industry had taught him more than he ever wished to know about make-up and women’s insecurities.

But, bad make-up or not, she shared Mia’s lovely nose and expressive mouth. He wished like heck he and Mia were still making out on the tracks, because the look of pain and disappointment on Mia’s face wasn’t easy to take. He liked her. He didn’t like seeing her hurt and upset.

“I gotta go,” the boy said, dropping his barely lit cigarette to the ground.

Ryker squashed it with his heel. “Dude. Litter. Not to mention a deplorable lack of balls.” He picked up the thoroughly flattened butt and held it out to the boy.

The kid’s lip curled back in a snarl, but Ryker wasn’t worried. He’d dealt with worse. He pinned the kid with the Bensen stare. The fearful, piss-your-pants inducing glare his brother taught him right after Ryker’s first fight in high school. “The key is making sure you mean it,” Flynn said. “Never use the stare unless you’re prepared to inflict—and receive—pain. If you’re truly committed, the other person will usually back down. Usually.”

Ryker stared. The kid swallowed hard, his gaze slicing sideways to the girl he’d been prepared to toss under her mother’s bus. After a full minute of indecision, he took Ryker’s offering and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Skipping school. What are you doing out here?” She looked at Ryker. “Who are you?”

Ryker gave the girl points for deflection, but Mia snapped her fingers to regain her daughter’s attention. “None of your business. If you were in school where you are both supposed to be, you wouldn’t have met. Let’s go. Grandma’s Jeep is in front of the bakery.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Mia pulled her phone out of the pocket of her skirt. “I believe truancy is still an enforceable violation in this state. But let me ask my old friend, the chief of police, to be sure.”

Ryker’s respect for Mia shot up the scale. Well played, Mom. Would he have known to do that? Hell, no. And as much as he hated to admit it, he still hadn’t embraced the idea of fatherhood completely when the possibility had been stolen from him. If he hadn’t felt ready to be a father to his unborn baby, he sure as hell had no business looking at a relationship with a woman with half-grown kids.