Victoria Pade - Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!

“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 dis like, 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.”