I can't believe I'm doing this. Then again, yes she could.
Jillie Abernathy briefly closed her eyes, sucked in a thin breath, and then opened them again as she headed down the center aisle of the small aircraft. With each step, the knot in her stomach tightened and she willed back nausea. Both of which-the knot and the queasy feeling-surprised her.
She was over Mack Montgomery. She was. Truly.
It was a summer romance thing. A fling. One that ended with her vacation, and not nicely, but ended all the same. Quick and clean. She'd not heard from him since.
Of course, that didn't mean that she'd not thought of him. She had.
Not that thinking about him would do her any good. It wouldn't. He'd made it quite clear there was no future for the two of them. And she? Well, hurt and stinging from his rejection, she put the exclamation point on the end of their relationship by pretty much telling him to go to hell.
It was just a summer fling, after all. What was it Kim had called it? Oh yeah, cowboy lust.
Pure and simple.
Mack didn't seem to take too kindly to that particular phrase. Cowboy lust.
A cold blast of Colorado late November air laced with stinging bits of icy snow hit her in the face as she turned toward the open door to deplane. She lowered her head.
"Watch your step," the flight attendant said. "The stairs could be slick."
Jillie nodded, the ice bits cutting into her face. She looked down at the steep steps, swung her carry-on over her shoulder a little more securely, and grasped both handrails as she made her way down the portable stairs, keeping her head low against the wind.
Damn small plane.
Damn winter storm.
Damn that her best friend, Kim, was getting married in the Colorado Rockies. No, don't damn that. She was glad for Kim. But she wasn't looking forward to spending two weeks in the mountains on a ranch. Thad's ranch. The ranch where Mack worked.
Why couldn't Kim get married in Kentucky?
"Because I want you to see where I am going to live, Jillie Abernathy," Kim had said. "Because it's the only way I'll get you out here. Lord knows you won't come any other time on the off-chance you'll run into Mack."
Damned straight, Jillie had thought then. She had no intention of running into Mack Montgomery. Although she had no clue how she was going to pull that off, seeing that Mack was Kim's fiancé, Thad's, best man, and she was the maid of honor....
A thud of panic landed on her tummy about the same time her feet hit the tarmac. She scurried toward the backside of the Durango airport, glad to finally pass through the double-doors of the building and out of the wind. Threading herself through the small crowd, she waited for her luggage, retrieved her bag, and then still wiping wet stuff from her face, moved away from baggage claim toward the front of the building.
When she glanced up, she halted, and her world spun. She watched his hand reach for her bag.
"Hello, Jillie," Mack said. "Let me take that for you."
Katie MacKenzie is a wanderer. With her mother dead, her father in prison, and her siblings scattered hither and yon, she refuses to risk the connectedness of a family again. Family means drama and emotions, good and bad. But when you are on your own, you have only your own drama to deal with.
