Allison Leigh - A Montana Homecoming

He looked pained, his gaze fastened on her white knuckles. He took a step toward her. Then another.

She nearly stopped breathing.

He put his hands over hers and slowly unclenched her fingers from the pale-yellow fabric.

Then he just stood there, staring down at the hands he held. Her dress, soft from too many summers and too many washings, parted a little.

He swallowed. She saw it work down his strong, tanned throat. Then he squeezed her hands just a little and released them. And reached for the top of her dress.

Her knees—not particularly steady after what they’d just done, anyway—felt like her mama’s strawberry jam left out on a sunny counter.

His fingers were so long. A little bony, and a lot callused. He might be a preacher’s son, but he’d spent the summer working for old Hal Calhoun right here on his farm.

“Shane.” His name was barely a whisper on her tongue. She loved his name. She loved him. He was tall and good and golden and so incredibly gentle.

“I shouldn’t have touched you,” he said again. And as deliberately as he’d unbuttoned each and every one of those tiny white buttons, he began doing them up again. “I’m sorry, but it was a mistake. It’s my fault. So go ahead and hate me all you want.”

By the time he reached the hem, just below her knees, the tears were crawling openly down her cheeks. The bleeding from her heart, broken wide, wasn’t visible at all.

He rose.

She was glad that he didn’t bother hunting around for her bra or panties. She could see them from the corner of her eye, tossed carelessly aside near her sandals.

“I’ll drive you home.”

She didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to stay there in Calhoun’s barn with Shane. She wanted him to put his arms around her again, to press his lips to hers, to breathe softly against her ear and make her feel as if everything in life was good and fine.

They’d barely had a summer together, but it had been the best summer of her life.

“I’d rather walk,” she said quietly.

“Laurel, I’m not leaving you here—”

“Yes, you are,” she interrupted, feeling a curl of anger nip at the yawning pain inside her. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

He shoved his hands in his front pockets. She could see the shape of them, fisted against the worn-white denim. “I never made it a secret that I was going back to school.” He looked away for a moment, and she saw the muscle in his jaw flexing. “You’re starting college classes soon, too, dammit.”

“Preachers shouldn’t swear,” she murmured.

He snorted and looked back at her, then pointedly looked at the bed of straw, then her underwear. “I have no business becoming a preacher, either.”

Despite her cracking heart, she reached out to him. “Don’t say that, Shane.” He had plans. Wonderful, admirable plans. He wanted to be like his father, to help people however best he could. On someone else, those plans would just be dreams. But Shane would make it happen. He was just that way.

His lips twisted. “Get the rest of your things. You can’t walk home. It’s nearly dark.” He ignored her outstretched hand and walked to the barn door, sliding it open enough to walk out. A moment later she heard the rumble of his old truck engine cranking to life.

Dashing her hands over her cheeks, she snatched up her panties and yanked them on, balled up her bra into her pocket and shoved her feet into her sandals.

She didn’t look at him as she joined him in the cab of his truck. But she had to close her eyes against a fresh rush of tears when he silently reached over and pulled a long piece of straw from her hair.

Then he put the truck into gear and drove her home.

Who was inside the old Runyan house?

The car—dark blue and dimmed by a thick layer of dust—was still parked in the cracked, uneven driveway when Shane drove past. It hadn’t been there when he’d gone to the station in the morning. But it had been there when he’d driven out to his brother’s place that afternoon. And it was still there this evening on his way home for the day.

He could have kept on driving. Instead he pulled in to the rutted driveway and parked behind the small blue sedan.

A light shone from the front picture window of the house. Old Roger Runyan had been dead five days now, but the house he’d lived in for as long as Shane could remember looked more welcoming in that moment than it had in years.

Question was, who was inside the house, turning on lamps as if they belonged there? Roger had no kin except Laurel, and she hadn’t been in Lucius for twelve years.

Twelve years. He sighed and climbed out of his SUV.

There were three steps leading up to the front door. Wooden and nearly rotting through. It would be a merciful day when Shane finally got the deed to this place and tore it down. Just the thought of it was almost enough to put a smile on his face.

He planted his boot on the top of the porch and climbed up, bypassing the steps altogether, and tilted back his hat a few inches to peer through the metal-framed screen door as he rapped his knuckles on it.

He already knew from dealing with Roger’s death that the furnishings inside the house hadn’t changed over the years. Considering the old man had rid himself of his wife, Violet, twelve years ago, Shane had been surprised Roger hadn’t done a thing to eradicate her little touches from his home. But they’d still been there. Fussy little glass lamps with beads hanging from the fading shades, bowls of dusty plastic grapes and apples, vases of unnaturally bright flowers that never needed a drop of water.

Just another thing Shane would never understand about the man.

He figured the person inside the house was the real estate agent. Only, he didn’t recognize the car, and Shane knew all the cars around his town.

All part of the job.

He knocked again. “Hello?”

“Coming.”

The voice was female.

Throaty.

Young.

He straightened and absorbed the shock of it.

He was pretty sure he recognized the voice, and it was definitely not anyone from down at Lucius Realty.

The woman neared the door, her form blurred by rusting metal mesh. The porch light flicked on. The door screeched as it began to swing open. “I’m sorry. I was in the back and didn’t hear…” The woman’s voice trailed off as Shane stepped away from the screen door enough for her to open it.

She looked up at him. Her eyes widened a little. The color in her cheeks rose, then fell.

Recognition, all right. “Hello, Laurel.”

Her lips—damn, but they looked as soft as ever—rounded into a little O. She wore a tidy white blouse tucked into a slender beige skirt. Little gold hoops hung in her ears, visible because her hair was pulled back from her face in a snug knot. She looked about as finished and polished as she’d looked ravaged and pained the last time he’d seen her.

Except for her eyes.

Her eyes looked positively shell-shocked.

And he felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

Then her lashes swept down for a moment, and when she looked up at him again, the shock was gone. Everything was gone. There was nothing but politeness, and for an awful moment Shane thought maybe the stories had it wrong and that Laurel Runyan had never climbed out of the pit of despair she’d been tossed into that long-ago summer when her family had disintegrated before her eyes.

“Hello, Shane. What are you doing here?” The greeting was considerably less welcoming than the light shining from the front window had been.

But at least she remembered him. That was good. He’d rather have her still hate him than be feeling the emotional numbness that had gripped her for months after that summer.