Crystal Green - Her Montana Millionaire

Jinni leaned back in her chair, considering him with what seemed like a hungry grin. “It seems to me, Max Cantrell, that a lady doesn’t succeed with you unless she’s a bit…hmm, let’s think of a better word…assertive.”

He chuckled. Either Jinni Fairchild was a wishful thinker or she was a mind reader. Either way, she was right. The only time Max interacted with females was if they came to him, even if the scenario involved a near car crash.

He couldn’t bother with women, especially with Michael on the warpath. Especially with the way his ex-wife, Eloise, had played kick the can with his heart.

Jinni was watching him, her eyes sparkling like a wink of blue light in a diamond engagement ring. “Why don’t you tell me about your business?”

Phew. At least she knew when to back off.

But did he necessarily want her to?

“Are you intrigued by software?” he asked, realizing he’d left himself open to more insinuations with the whole “software” topic.

She pursed her lips, as if holding back the temptation to come back with a flirtatious pun. “I’m a collector of information. Tell me all about it.”

Disappointment settled in his gut. He’d been half looking forward to bantering the night away.

“Cantrell Enterprises got its start with software—business and some gaming—and we’re developing more. But I want to take it in another direction. We’re exploring virtual reality.” This time he was the one leaning on the table, spurred on by his subject. “You know, it never took off like it was supposed to when it was first introduced. The first VRs were uncomfortable, cumbersome. The sound resembled two tin cans tied together with string. Viewing quality left much to be desired. And there was a total lack of software. All in all, virtual reality was expensive and inaccessible, with no basics to support its success.”

He checked to see if Jinni had nodded off yet. Usually, people would tune out his intellectual computer-nerd talk after the first three seconds.

But Jinni’s head tilted, her eyes connected with his. “And that led to the downfall of virtual reality’s possibilities?”

“Yeah. That’s where we come in. I’m looking at ways to make VR more available to the average user. In fact,” he could feel a smile dominate his mouth, “my passion is to develop the female market.”

She angled her chin down, peeking at him from beneath her eyelashes. “I’d say, with a little more effort, you’ll corner it.”

He could live with a woman glancing at him like that.

No. Actually, he couldn’t. Michael would tear her apart before she could step both feet into their mansion.

Get the conversation back to comfortable ground, he thought. She’s way out of your league and you don’t want her to venture into yours.

“At any rate,” he continued, watching two ranch hands playing pool at the nearby threadbare table, “Cantrell Enterprises is working on virtual reality for the training arena: medical, industrial, cultural. And, of course, entertainment.”

He thought for certain that she was dying to say something about joysticks, but Jinni kept her silence, simply watching him.

During the ensuing pause, the men at the pool table started to argue, trading barbed words.

Jinni didn’t seem to mind them. “You fascinate me, Max,” she said, her voice low, smooth as the cream in a chocolate truffle.

His belly tightened. Someone found him interesting. And that someone was a woman whose legs stretched from here to China, whose bearing reminded him of Grace Kelly on acid. She was a potent combination of class and sex—and Max had never seen her equal.

No way she should be interested in a guy like him. A brain. A whiz kid who’d never really socialized with other people while growing up. No one had ever understood him. Not intellectually, at least.

Eloise had tried, for about an hour, and that’s how Michael had been conceived. But after she’d decided she needed to “find herself” in Tibet, she’d left him a single father, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong.

The arguing ranch hands were getting feistier, bumping chests like primates. Max protectively reached across the table toward Jinni out of instinct, and started to rise from his chair.

Ignoring the developing fight, Jinni followed suit, slipping her arm through his, fitting herself right against his side.

Damn, he shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t need to be with a woman like Jinni. It wouldn’t work out, so why get into it?

“Let me see you home,” he said, guiding her away from the sound of a shattering beer bottle and toward the main bar, the hat and coatrack. He glanced over his shoulder to see the two ranch hands going at each other, while other cowboys herded into the pool room.

“Home?” Her voice rose over the loud music and shouts. “It’s early!”

She retrieved an item of clothing that resembled a cape. Typical. Dramatic, sophisticated.

And here he was, wearing a tie as a hangman’s noose.

“I thought…” he began.

“Don’t think,” she said as he helped her wrap the cape around herself. “Live.”

Live. He hadn’t really been doing that for years. Had he?

Maybe he could enjoy a lovely woman’s company, just for tonight. It’s not like Michael had to know.

He donned his own coat, then followed her out the door, hardly believing he was doing it.

Ha-ha, yes! Jinni Fairchild hadn’t lost her appeal. That’s right. She had Max Cantrell wrapped around her ring finger, and the night was young.

They hadn’t walked far in the cool air, only to a grass field where Max had laid down his coat, inviting her to sit on it. After they chatted about the spell of unseasonable weather and made calls home on his cell phone— Jinni wanted Val to know she’d be out late—he’d sat next to her, arms resting on his knees as he stared at the sky, stars spangling the clear blue like lost fairy dust.

“It’s good to finally see things clearly,” he said. “We had a raging wildfire before you came to town, and the smoke hindered visibility.”

“What do you know. Usually things heat up after I enter a place.”

She shouldn’t have said that. Dumb, stupid Jinni. Two people had died, as far as she knew. Wanda Cantrell and Morris Templeton.

She quickly added, “Is everyone safe?”

“Dee Dee Reingard’s and Old Man Jackson’s homes burned down. And no one knows where Jackson is. He’s gone missing, just like Guy.”

“What about the two bodies that were found?”

Max glanced at her, the slight wind mussing his hair. “My sister-in-law and her boy toy? The cops suspect my younger brother torched them, I think. But Guy hasn’t been around to deny his involvement with the fire. And then there’re those invisibility rumors started by Linda Fioretti, Guy’s fellow teacher. Everyone in town is buzzing about how they think my fool of a brother’s peeping in their windows or stealing socks from their dryers. But you know that much already, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Jinni wasn’t used to men who’d call her out, keep her honest. As a biographer, she tended to ask a lot of leading questions. Maybe Max would be more of a challenge than she’d first thought. “Does the sheriff think Guy murdered Wanda and Morris out of jealous rage?”

“That’s their story.” His jaw muscles twitched, his long fingers dug into his arms. “They don’t realize that Guy hasn’t a violent bone in his body. Sure, he’s scatterbrained and intense when it comes to anything scientific. We were both like that, even as kids. But Guy—” He clamped shut his mouth.

The Montana night enveloped them: pine needles scented the aimless drift of air, bringing with it the faint twang of country music from Joe’s Bar.