Montana Darling(32)

Ryker had no idea her life had been so rough. He felt sorry for her, but he read the agreement carefully before signing. He was beginning to understand his mother, but that didn’t mean he trusted her. Not yet. Their meeting lasted two hours and ended with a hug—something that surprised them both, he thought. She would overnight the documents to Flynn, who’d already agreed to the deal if Ryker was okay with it.

As he drove away from the ugly white elephant, his hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel. He was rich again. He could pick up the pieces of his life and go in any direction he wanted. Paris. Africa. Whatever new hotspot might provide his next Pulitzer.

Or Montana.

Where he’d left a piece of his heart—and he wasn’t talking about his father’s land. Screw the lot. He knew what was important, now, what mattered most. Not land, possessions or fame. None of that would count for squat if he wound up alone. He wanted a life that included the love of one woman. Mia Zabrinski.

*

Mia checked her phone out of habit. A punitive, masochistic habit that started the morning after she broke up with Ryker.

Her baby brother’s wedding was mostly a blur because she’d let herself start to live again. She’d even fallen in love a little.

A lot.

“No. Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

Emilee stumbled into the kitchen, her hair in messy disarray that immediately sent her mother back twelve years. Mia’s heart expanded so fast she nearly doubled over. Despite what people thought—that her children were unplanned accidents, Mia had always known she’d have children. When she got her first period, she and Meg performed what supposedly was an old gypsy technique for predicting how many children a woman would have. Meg held a needle suspended on a thread above Mia’s womb. It circled three times: twice clockwise and once counter-clockwise, indicating—according to Meg—Mia would have three children.

But her surgery changed that. The only way she’d have another child was…no. She wasn’t going to think about that ridiculously remote possibility.

She crossed her arms, pressing firmly against her chest. Thanks to Ryker, her body wasn’t as ugly as she’d come to believe. But even if her breasts looked pretty, they weren’t functional. They’d never produce milk or colostrum for any other baby she might have. Ryker’s baby. She couldn’t nurse Ryker’s baby. She couldn’t watch that child’s greedy lips pull and tug on her heartstrings, establishing the same kind of bond she had with Emilee and Hunter. And that was the real reason she sent him away. He deserved the whole enchilada. He’d already lost it once, she wasn’t going to be the one to deny him fatherhood again.

Even if not being with him left a huge hole in her heart and dimmed the light in her soul.

Tears flooded her eyes before she could begin to stifle the emotions. Hormone-induced tears held power beyond normal self-control. She started to turn around, but Emilee stepped in front of her, blocking her escape. She put her thin but strong from volleyball arms around her. A second later another pair joined them. Meg, who’d brought the kids home a day early after Hunter came down with the flu.

“I don’t know why we’re crying, but I’m in,” her sister said.

“It’s because of Ryker,” Emilee whispered. “Mom broke up with him and he left town.”

“The cad,” Meg said, rubbing the flat of her hand across Mia’s back, as she had when Mia was a little girl and someone—usually Austen—did something to hurt her feelings.

Mia—the non-crier—let out a shudder. “M…my f…fault,” she managed to choke out.

“Of course, it was. You’re in self-protection mode. He should have been more patient. You’re still grieving, for God’s sake.”

Grieving?

Mia looked her sister in the eyes and recognized the truth, the wisdom, in her words. I lost so much so fast. Husband. Job. Health. Home.

She pulled in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Both Meg and Emilee backed up a step and waited.

“I was grieving.”

Meg nodded. “And, because you’re Mia, you pretended you were okay.” She looked at Emilee. “When our grandpa died, your mother sat just like a toy soldier in church and refused to say a single prayer or sing a hymn. She acted like his death didn’t bother her a bit—even though she and Grandpa were very close.”

Emilee frowned. “What happened?”

Meg thought a moment. “One day…about…six months later, wasn’t it? She saw Grandpa’s ghost.”

Emilee’s mouth gaped.

Mia pictured the incident as if it just happened. “The Big Sky Mavericks were making strategic bombing runs over the railroad tracks. When it was my turn, I tripped and nearly wiped out, but…a hand caught me by the back of my shirt—the way a mama cat picks up a kitten—and dropped me safely on the other side—not a scratch on me. I knew it was Grandpa looking out for me from above.”

“She curled into a ball and bawled her eyes out.”

“Austen was so sure I broke something, he’d carried me all the way home, crying, too.”

“Six months,” Mia repeated, her voice low and filled with emotion. “I met him too soon.”

Emilee looked at Meg. “Grandpa or Ryker?”

“Ryker,” Meg whispered.

Mia wiped her eyes and looked down at her chest. “I’ll never nurse another baby.”

Emilee’s eyes went wide.

Meg shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be a mother.”

Emilee’s jaw dropped. She looked back and forth between her mother and aunt. “Okay. I don’t want to be part of this conversation, anymore. I love you both, but…no. I’m going back to bed. Call me when breakfast is ready.”

Meg looped her arm around Mia’s shoulders as they watched Emilee shuffle down the hall in her Hello, Kitty pajamas and shearling boots. “She’s a great kid. You’ve done an amazing job with both of your children, Meeps.”

“Would you like to adopt them?”

Meg laughed. “Thanks, but they’re a bit older than I had in mind. If I decide to have a baby, I’ll do the IVF thing and start from scratch.”

“Mom hinted you might be ready to start a family. Is that why you’ve been spending more time with your nieces and nephews?”

Meg walked to the cupboard and took out two mugs. “No. I started hanging around your kids more because they’re back in Montana and I decided my work has overtaken my life. A couple of months ago, I saw a cartoon on Facebook—what do they call them? Memes?—that a student did of me. She used a picture from some werewolf movie and wrote that I was going off to live with my people.”

Mia sat up. “That was mean. Let me at her.”

“She did me a favor. I consider it a wake-up call.” She made a face. “You’re my people. You’ve been in pain and I did nothing to help. I thought giving you some space from the kids would let you be a woman, not just a mom.”

Meg poured two cups of coffee and took one to Mia.

“It worked…with Ryker’s help.”

“I like him. He’s deeper than his looks.”

Much deeper. She debated a moment then reached into her purse for the envelope delivered by special messenger a few days ago. “I let him talk me into taking some pictures. These are the only prints and I have the negatives in the safe.”

Meg checked to make sure Emilee hadn’t changed her mind, then spread them out on the granite countertop in a way Mia hadn’t dared do. Her nakedness was neither overt nor titillating. The black and whites held an artsy edge. The color shots were soft and lovely.

Meg picked Mia’s favorite. The shot pictured her sitting demurely on the bed, her back long and sleek, looking over her shoulder, her arm covering her breast, but the round, womanliness of her body was quite lovely and whole. “These are breathtaking, Mia. They should be blown up and put on display in every women’s hospital in the country.”

Tears glistened in Meg’s eyes when she looked up. “You are an inspiration, my sister. You took control of your disease and pushed the boundaries of medicine because you were brave enough to listen to your body and make a difficult decision that was right for you.”

“We won’t know if it was right for a long time.”

Meg shook her head. “You know. I know. I can tell by the color in your cheeks and the spark in your eyes. Nitro is back. She simply has to admit it to herself.”

Meg held up her mug as if to toast.

Mia took a deep breath. Her chest swelled, her breasts rose. She straightened her shoulders, unapologetically as if to say, this is my body and I’m okay with that. Hell, she was better than okay. The woman in these pictures was beautiful. Her body whole…if not perfect.

She clinked her mug against Meg’s.

“I’m going to host Thanksgiving this year. And I’m inviting Ryker Bensen. If anybody has a problem with that…tough.”

“Cool. That’ll probably be my last outing before winter sets in and I’m snowbound in the cabin. When I come out next spring, I hope to be fertile, with my first young adult novel ready to go to my agent.” She sipped her coffee a moment then added, “And I hope to find you and Ryker building a new house together on the land you both love.”