Chapter Two #2
He felt his father’s loss and presence in each blade of grass, each jagged piece of timber. Not only was his goodbye stuck in a half-written email that his father would never get to read, but he’d be saying goodbye to the place that, for better or worse, had raised him.
Maybe it was the thin mountain air, but he couldn’t pull in a full breath.
He’d expected to come here for a few weeks to close his father’s estate, to use the time away from Hollywood to think through what he wanted to do next, because he wasn’t convinced the path of cowboy roles he was on in Hollywood was the future he wanted, either.
But now an array of beauty and adventure just outside his childhood home called to him with a siren song he hadn’t felt in years.
Fuck.
A disturbance of gravel behind him stopped him from overthinking.
He whirled around, only to be assaulted again with a stunning view, this one entirely corporeal.
It was the woman he’d come close to running over earlier, but anything he’d thought about her in his snap judgment on the road was forgotten as he took her in.
She was pissed, that much was obvious as she lifted her chin to him, resolute in the anger that wafted off her in waves. But she was also drop-dead gorgeous. Her skin was dark, her hair darker.
For some damned reason, he wanted to know what it would look like draped across his chest, a thought that sent a shiver down his spine. The instant wave of lust caught him off guard.
“You,” she growled, her finger pointed accusingly at his chest, bringing his chill to full freeze. The single word was spat out at him, and it slapped him across the face. He didn’t need this, not right now.
Still, he stood his ground, intrigued to say the least.
“What about me?” he replied, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Other answers, nicer answers, came to mind, but none of them made it to his lips.
Worse still was the surge of heat and blood below his waist when she swung her mass of hair around her neck to one side, giving him a glimpse of her bare left shoulder peeking out from her sweater. It was delicate but toned, and an urge to nibble on the area boiled through his anger and fear.
His body was on autopilot at this point, a liability when faced with this alluring stranger.
Fuck. That single word was becoming his new mantra.
“I recognize you. You’re that actor.” Her voice was the same thickly accented one from his GPS, but with a twist. He’d spent quite a bit of time in Great Britain on his last movie set and hadn’t heard anyone who sounded like her.
The whisper of excitement now screamed at his subconscious, but it battled other emotions, far more dangerous ones clawing at his chest.
“I am. Was.”
Why had he said that? He hadn’t quit, just taken a bereavement break.
Some time to figure out his life, which, if he were being honest, had spiraled out of control a few movies back.
Suddenly, his desire for art and meaningful roles had been sidelined for the next big blockbuster, the movie that would cement his fame.
Even if he hadn’t understood his son’s compulsion to leave Montana, his dad had stayed proud until the end. But could Jace say the same about himself?
“What’s that supposed to mean? Was? How obtuse.”
He chuckled, a low grumble that shook his chest, loosened the tightness in it.
This woman was a hurricane force to be reckoned with.
His dad should have hired her to execute his will.
Somehow, Jace was certain she’d do well fighting lawyers and land acquisitions.
He wondered if his dad had ever met her.
Not that it mattered either way, now.
“It means I don’t know what I do anymore. Right now, this is my job.”
He waved to his father’s land, trying to ignore the letter that had come with the will. The words were imprinted on his brain, though, and came up like a bad penny each time Jace faced his decision to leave this life, to leave his father.
Dear Jace, I’ve given up asking you to stick around and help. That wasn’t the life you chose, and believe it or not, I accepted it the minute you left. And I couldn’t be prouder of the life you’ve built yourself.
Jace’s eyes had watered.
Just promise me you’ll look at this land and make sure you’re ready to hand it off.
You don’t have to run the ranch, but this place did more for you than I ever did.
Those trails saw you through breakups I couldn’t talk you through, and the horses were better listeners than your old man by a long shot.
Whatever you decide to do, I’ll be proud of you.
I’ll just wish I’d been around longer to see you do it.
The words were everything he’d ever wanted to hear from his old man, just decades too late.
It wasn’t his father’s fault he’d been raised in a rural ranching town in the middle of the century when men’s feelings weren’t a tradeable commodity.
Or that his wife had died in childbirth, leaving him with a son he had no idea how to raise.
His father had done the best he could, and Jace had made his own choices based on all of it. What was done was done, and saying goodbye to the land was just one more goodbye he’d have to find the strength to do.
Because staying in Banberry, Montana, wasn’t an option. No damn way.
“Oh, I know your job. And I don’t like it one bit.
” She snorted. Her arms fell across the most exquisite pair of breasts he’d seen in Hollywood or elsewhere.
The tops of them peeked out of an off-white sweater that hugged her curves, seemingly painted on along with the jeans she wore.
He tried not to ogle her, but the way she shifted her weight as she stared at him through heavy lashes, her hips jutting her tight, round backside out for him and all the wildlife to see, didn’t make his plight any easier.
It’d been easy to ignore the women in Southern California since they were all caricatures of each other, of an ideal that Jace hadn’t ever subscribed to.
But this woman, this equally aggravated and aggravating woman in front of him, was impossible to shove off. In more ways than one, it seemed.
“You don’t know me. What could you possibly not like about me already?” he said.
“Besides your piss-poor driving?”
“Hey—” he started.
“I knew you were a land-stealing prick before I followed you up here, but let me be the first to unwelcome you to our town. You need to leave. Now.”
Jace’s smile fell, as did the other part of him that was aroused by the stranger’s charm. Her accusation threw everything Jace had been thinking to a halt, as abrupt a transition as his driveway was to the road.
“Say what? This isn’t a theft, whoever you are. This is my—” he started but was met with a hand in his face that shut him right up. He had no idea what she was talking about. He thought she’d been pissed about the near accident, but now she was calling him a property thief? What the—?
She’d closed the distance between them, and this close, her jade-green eyes were flecked with a gold that rivaled the daffodils behind him.
Plus, she smelled of coconut, and that alone almost bowled him over.
The pressure on his jeans increased just below the waist again.
God, did he ever hate his body for betraying him at a time like this.
Great. Real great.
“No. You do not get the chance to defend yourself! Not when you show up with your power and your money and take people’s farms out from under them to build huge monstrosities no one wants here anyway. I came here to tell you to leave, that no one in town appreciates what you’re trying to do here.”
“I’m sorry,” he began, “but—”
She didn’t let him finish that thought either, just turned on her heels and stalked off back down the drive to the main road. Just before she turned, she spun around again, that delicate finger pointed right at his heart.
“And slow the hell down until you get to the highway. You drive like an imbecile.”
With that, she was gone. Jace scratched his head, shook from it the fog that was settling in to replace the void left behind when the mystery woman all but evaporated.
He sighed, walked back to his car, and grabbed his cell. Something the woman said grated at the periphery of his thoughts, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. So he was planning to level his dad’s old farmhouse and barn? They needed it. But that didn’t make them monstrosities.
There was something else. As far as he knew before he got on the plane yesterday, his being here at all was as close to a state secret as he could pull off.
He didn’t use his dad’s last name in Hollywood, so being back shouldn’t ruffle any feathers there.
But if this woman had recognized him, who knew who she’d share his arrival with.
Damn. If he’d only been more careful driving, he wouldn’t be in this mess.
There’d probably be a story on the front page of every damned tabloid in America by the time the sun came up about him, the famous movie star hiding out in rural Montana, driving like a frat kid in his daddy’s Porsche. It would only be half wrong, too.
The other half, saying goodbye to his father and his past, was actually the juicier story, not that anyone here would hear it.
With the touch of a button, he had his agent-slash-publicist on the line.
“How was your trip, Jace?” the light voice on the other end asked. Even from here, Jace could picture Cammie’s never-absent smile, the way she tilted her head to the side every time he spoke. It reminded him of his golden retriever, Max, when he was waiting for a treat.
She was sweet and often seen on the arm of non-client celebrities, thanks to her brilliance and savviness at her job paired with starlet good looks. She wasn’t his type, though. Blame it on his upbringing, but he liked his women more…authentic.