Last Year's Bride (Montana Born Brides) (2 page)

Actually, to be honest, he supposed he had.
The question had not been as academic as it should have been. The hope had been there in his voice. He knew that. He had heard it then as well. And Nell had heard it, too. She’d clutched at it the way she’d clutched his arms and kissed him.

“
I love you,” she’d said. “Oh, I do love you. We’ll be so happy.”

In a fairy tale world, no doubt they would have.
But not here. Not in the world Cole lived in day after grinding day, the one that Nell had only seen briefly and mostly from afar.

“
You wouldn’t have been happy here,” he said gruffly now, as if she could hear him from a thousand miles away.

But she would have liked the Graff tonight, lit up like some fairy tale castle.
He opened the truck door and the wind caught it, nearly yanking it out of his hand. Snow stung his face as he banged the door shut and trudged through the icy parking lot toward the hotel.

This was his reality
—the old truck, the stinging snow, the cutting wind—not the fairy tale castle, not the dreams.

“
Remember that,” he told himself.

Since Cole had made the decision last month, he had done his best to not let himself think about her at all.
But tonight, despite the sting of the snow and the bite of the wind, he couldn’t banish her from his mind.

In truth, she
’d been there all day. Knowing where he’d be this evening—and its fairy tale potential— had obviously done a number on his head, opening cracks in his resistance, so that she’d been with him like a burr under his saddle since he’d been out feeding cattle this morning.

There was nothing remotely romantic or appealing about feeding cattle in a harsh Montana winter.
Ordinarily it didn’t bring Nell to mind at all, but somehow this morning he’d imagined her making up a story about it, then telling it to him as he pitched the hay off the back of the wagon.

Later, in the afternoon, when he had spent an hour getting an ornery bull out of a thicket, he knew she would have found story possibilities then, too.
She’d have seen the ice and snow and the bull snot and, instead of seeing nothing but hard work, sore muscles and drudgery, she would have found something poetical about it.

Her eyes would have sparkled and she
’d have lowered her camera, saying, “Could you wrestle him out again? I didn’t get a good angle the first time?”

She would probably even give the damned bull a name!
Because that was what Nell did. She found the human interest—even in ornery bulls and ornerier cowboys. She told stories.

After dragging the bull out and chivvying him back up the draw, Cole had come into the kitchen, blowing on his hands and stamping his feet to try to get the circulation back in them, he had found his grandmother making a cherry pie.
“Last quart,” she’d said, a smear of flour on her nose from when she’d rolled out the dough. “To celebrate your dad’s deal with Tom McKay.” She had beamed. “Thanks to you, Cole.”

“
It wasn’t me,” he had protested.

“
Of course it was you.” His grandmother opened the oven door and set the pie in, then shut it again. “You agreed to go. And Tom’s delighted that his daughter is going to meet you.”

“
Meet,” Cole said firmly. “That’s it. I’m not interested in anything else.”

Emily straightened, then s
miled and shook her head. “If she’s as nice as her father is, you might want to reconsider.”

“
No.” He’d made that mistake once, even if no one else knew it. And he wasn’t sharing the news now that it was over. “You going to save me some of that pie?”

“
I’ll make your father leave you some.”

“
Thanks.” All he could think was that Nell had loved his grandmother’s cherry pie, too. The day he met her, when she had brought him home concussed from the Wilsall Rodeo and had sat there all night watching him to make sure he didn’t die—she had eaten the last of the cherry pie his grandmother had left him before she’d flown out to Boston to meet her first great-granddaughter.

“
This is amazing,” Nell had said. “Do you think your grandmother would teach me to make a cherry pie?”

“
Sure,” Cole had said at the time, smiling dazedly at her. Concussions had a lot to answer for. If he’d been thinking straight none of this ever would have happened.

Now he reached the massive dark double doors with insets of beveled leaded glass that led into the Graff.
They’d been refinished, the dark wood gleaming, the bevels turning the light into rainbows. Troy had done more than give the old girl a facelift, Cole thought, preparing to haul open one of the great heavy doors. But as he did so, they opened automatically with a barely audible swish. Cole stopped, his eyes widening. Then, shaking his head in amazement at what Troy had accomplished, he strode in through a glassed-in airlock designed to keep the Montana winter outside while allowing a view of a lobby within. It would have done the Copper Kings proud.

Marietta
’s mining past had never reached the glory days its founders had hoped for. It had never, not even in its heyday, had the wealth that Butte once had. Marietta’s own entrepreneurs had done their best, but by the time Cole was born, the place had pretty much become a ghost town. It was hard to imagine it decked out in early 20
th
century finery.

But tonight he saw clearly that once upon a time the aspirations had been there
—or Troy had done a heck of a job paying homage to a past that had never been.

He hadn
’t spared any expense, that was certain. The high-ceilinged lobby wore its handsome mahogany furnishings, its thick plush rugs and polished marble floors with the ease of entitlement. In junior high Cole and Dillon and their buddies had skate-boarded across those floors. Now they gleamed. The whole place had the look of old money well spent.

When he
’d heard what Troy had planned for the Graff, Cole had had his doubts. “Kind of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, isn’t it?” he’d said last summer.

Troy had shrugged, then given him a flicker of that sly Sheenan smile.
“Guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

Obviously Troy had seen potential there that Cole had never recognized.
The Graff wore its new looks well. The prisms on the chandelier high above the lobby sparkled, tinkling softly as Cole and other late stragglers stamped their feet to knock off new snow, then headed toward the cloak room.

“
Whoa, look at you!” Sadie’s friend, Nicole, goggled at him when Cole handed her his jacket. Her gaze slid appreciatively over his charcoal suit, dark red shirt and black tie. “You clean up good!” Her low appreciative whistle and wide grin made heads turn. Strangers—city folk from the look of them—men in tuxes and women in long dresses—looked around to study him.

Cole felt his neck heat.
He had an urge to run his fingers inside the suddenly tight collar of his shirt. Em insisted she hadn’t starched his collar, but Cole wasn’t sure he believed it.

“
Want me to take your hat, too?” Nicole offered.

“
Nope. Thanks.” He’d feel naked without his hat.

“
Hat doesn’t make the man, Cole,” she chided.

Maybe not.
But he reckoned the hat was part of what Lacey McKay would want to see. Now he tipped it in Nicole’s direction just the way his grandfather used to do. Then he squared his shoulders and headed toward the sound of the music.

Cole had never minded dancing.
He’d shuffled and waltzed his way around his fair share of post-rodeo dances. His grandmother had taught him and his brother how when they were barely as high as her waist.

“
A gal likes a spin on the dance floor,” she’d told them. “You learn now, you’ll thank your old gran.”

But this didn
’t look like any dance floor Cole had ever trod. The thousands of tiny pink lights scattered across the ceiling looked like some Valentine version of the Milky Way. A fleet of large round tables with starched pink tablecloths sailed along the edges of the dance floor. Each table had a scattering of candles, a hearts-and-flowers centerpiece, and was set with fine white china, silver, wine glasses and goblets, all of which reflected the sparkling lights above. It looked more romantic than his brother’s Beacon Hill wedding reception had. Beautiful people were everywhere—and Cole recognized damn few of them.

“
Was I right or was I right?” Troy Sheenan appeared at his side, waved a hand to encompass the room, then slanted him a quick proud grin.

Cole took a deep breath and shook his head, still not quite able to believe the transformation.
“You were right. It’s amazing.”

“
Must be,” Troy agreed drily, “to get you here.”

“
Doin’ my dad a favor. I’m meeting McKays. You’ve met Tom?”

Troy nodded.
“Good man. Hope he comes back to town. Oh, hell. Jane’s waving. Gotta run. Have a good time.”

Jane Weiss was the mover and shaker behind tonight
’s ball. The head of the Marietta Chamber of Commerce, the reason for the Great Wedding Giveaway 100
th
Anniversary that tonight’s ball was celebrating, Jane had come to town last fall and had pretty much taken Marietta by storm.

She and Troy had even dated for a while.
They were still friends. So it could happen, Cole told himself. Maybe someday he could just be friends with Nell. But the sudden knot in his stomach didn’t encourage that line of thinking. He’d never just wanted to be friends with Eleanor Corbett, not from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. There was something about Nell that had caught his attention at once. With her heavy thick straight honey-colored hair, her flawlessly smooth olive complexion, and her dark slightly slanted eyes, deep brown with gold flecks, she had been radiant that afternoon—and every day thereafter. She was both exotic and undeniably beautiful. Her smile was as warm as it was friendly. And she always seemed to go golden in the sun.

Now Cole resolutely pushed his memories away and looked around for Tom McKay.
The tables were filling up. The room was crowded with people. Tom had purchased a whole table for the event and had even tried to get Sam to come as well, but of course Sam had declined.

It was fine to bully his son into attending, but God forbid he should get duded up himself and put in an appearance.

“It makes him uncomfortable,” Em had offered as an excuse.

Cole knew the feeling.
He didn’t like crowds much himself. But his dad had become more and more anti-social over the years. Rumor had it that Sam hadn’t always been a hermit. When Sadie’s mother had been there, the two of them had occasionally gone out.

Not enough, apparently, because
before Sadie turned two Lucy had left, had gone back to waitressing in Vegas, telling Sam she couldn’t stand the silence. Since then Sam had foregone sociability entirely.

Em said,
“That’s just the way he is,” and since his heart attack, Sam’d had an excuse for staying home. No one wanted to be the one who provoked another heart attack, so no one pushed him to do anything.

“
Ah, Cole! There you are!” Tom McKay came through a crowd, a smile on his face, a hand outstretched. “Glad you could make it.” His smile widened as they shook hands. “Come meet my daughter.” He smiled. “She’ll appreciate the hat.”

Lacey McKay did appreciate the hat.
She was a tall, slender girl, with a riot of red curls that might once have been tamed, but probably not in recent memory. At least Cole couldn’t imagine she’d done her hair that way on purpose. She confirmed his suspicion a moment later, confiding, “I love hats.” She twisted her fingers in her unruly curls and tugged at them. “They cover a multitude of disasters.”

Cole nodded, liking her in spite of his misgivings about the evening.
“They do.”

Two years ago when he
’d been bucked off a bronc at the Wilsall Rodeo and cracked his head on a fence rail, no one had ever known—except Nell—because she’d brought him home. He’d used his hat to cover the gash.

“
You should get stitches,” Nell had advised, crouching down next to him once they’d dragged him out of the arena. She’d been so close he could smell a fragrance of cinnamon and citrus on her.

“
A kiss will make it better,” he’d told her muzzily, still managing to give her his best come-on grin.

“
You think?” Her words had been gentle, but dry.

They had only met that afternoon, and Cole didn
’t ordinarily proposition women the instant he met them. But with Nell it was different, he’d been attracted from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. And he had been trying to figure out how to get a kiss ever since.

In fact it was probably why he
’d bucked off—because he’d caught sight of Nell with her small digital camera trained on him just as he bucked out of the chute.