Read the book: «Saving Cinderella»

Chapter One

Sam was getting sick.

Jill had started to suspect it a couple of hours ago, just before the cheap rental car she’d picked up yesterday evening broke down half a mile this side of Blue Rock. Now, sitting with Sam as a passenger in a different vehicle, she was sure of it.

“You didn’t finish the story, Mommy,” he whined.

Sam never whined. Unless he was getting sick.

Jill felt his forehead—it was hot. “Yes, I did, honey,” she soothed him, putting an arm around his little shoulders and pulling him close. The rear seat of the Cadillac was shiny with age. They hit a bump in the dirt road and Sam’s hip slid hard against hers.

“No, you didn’t,” he argued, his voice rising. “You never said the bit about living happily ever after.”

Well, he had her there. She never had said it, and everyone knew that all good fairy stories should end that way.

She sighed.

The problem was that the tale she’d been spinning to her son over the past quarter of an hour wasn’t a fairy story. It was her makeshift attempt to explain to a four-year-old, fatherless boy why they’d come all the way by train from Pennsylvania to Montana to resolve a situation that she’d never meant to get into at all.

Sam adored trains. He hadn’t asked a single question about the reason for this trip during that part of the journey. But then they’d gotten off the train in Trilby. They’d rented a wreck of a car from the cheapest place in town—”affiliated nationwide” its sign had claimed, but she wasn’t impressed—spent a sleepless night in a noisy, down-market motel just off Interstate 15, and made it, this morning, as far as Blue Rock.

The car had given up completely about two hours ago, in a hissy fit of noise and ominous smoke. No “happily ever after” involved in this instance. Bored, exhausted and getting sick, Sam had finally asked, “What are we doing this for, anyhow?”

Jill sighed again.

Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to make her story so upbeat and reassuring. No wonder Sam wanted the fairy tale ending, when she’d started by talking about the pink colored lights and the silk wedding gown, Cinderella on silver skate blades and a handsome prince in a cowboy’s hat who’d swept her away from that nightmare of a ball….

“Looks like this could be Grayson up ahead, there, on horseback,” said the balding man at the wheel of the noisy Cadillac. For a car mechanic’s vehicle, it didn’t sound as though it was in great shape. “I’ll pull over.”

“I—” Jill began, then stopped.

From the first, she hadn’t particularly taken to Ron Thurrell, the owner-operator of Blue Rock’s one gas station and vehicle repair shop. He was apparently also the local agent for Triple Star Insurance, as well as for two minor car rental companies.

She should have taken to him. He’d gone out of his way with his offer to drive her and Sam the twenty-four remaining miles to Grayson McCall’s isolated ranch. He had also promised to deal with the rental car and have another one ready for her when she needed it. He’d definitely been helpful, but she hadn’t liked him, and she didn’t want to admit to him that Gray had no idea she was coming. Definitely didn’t want to admit to him what she was here for.

“Okay. Thanks,” she said instead.

Mr. Thurrell slowed the vehicle to a halt and Jill saw the rider on horseback in the distance, heading diagonally in this direction across a field of tall grass. She got out of the car, shut the door to keep the insistent September wind off Sam’s flushed little face, and went over to the barbed wire fence that bordered the track.

Leaning on one of the wooden posts, she wondered if there was some special kind of call or gesture people out here used to summon each other across such yawning expanses of land. She wasn’t quite sure yet if the rider—was it really Gray?—had seen her. Tentatively, she waved one hand. Then she lifted off her winter wool hat and waved again with that, more forcefully.

Grayson McCall, if it was him, had seen and understood. Jill could see it by the way he quickened the horse’s stride. As he approached, she began to get a sense of his ease in the saddle. Knowing nothing whatsoever about horses—she’d seen them in the flesh maybe, oh, twice?—she could still recognize what a capable rider he was.

He held his body in a lazy cowboy slouch, which she could tell was totally comfortable and controlled. He seemed like a knight in shining armor, but that was a comparison she should most definitely steer clear of.

Half a minute later, she knew for certain that it was Grayson. She hadn’t seen him since March, almost six months ago, but her memory of him was still surprisingly strong. She hadn’t forgotten his big, hard, capable body, and his straight, soft hair. It was the color of black-strap molasses shot through by a shaft of sunlight, and it had felt silky against her fingers. She hadn’t forgotten his jutting jaw, with its suggestion of ranch-bred stubbornness, nor his straight, strong nose, steady dark eyes and brown, outdoor skin.

She hadn’t forgotten, either, how it had felt when he’d kissed her. Now, that was something that belonged in a fairy tale, for sure!

And now he had recognized her, which must have been more of a challenge. She had let her dark hair grow longer over the past few months. Today it was scraped back in a ponytail which had taken her not more than thirty seconds to fix in place with a bright pink scrunchy some hours ago at the motel.

Last time they’d met, she’d been wearing a perfect mask of makeup and that gorgeous silk wedding gown. Now she wore blue jeans, a snug pink sweater and pink padded jacket, with no makeup at all.

But he recognized her, all right. He tensed up in the saddle and unconsciously slowed the horse’s gait. As he got closer, she could see beneath the battered brown felt cowboy hat to his black eyes. They were courteous and wary at the same time.

Reaching the fence, he reined the horse in and Jill registered the unfamiliar sounds of creaking saddle and clinking bit and stirrups. She saw the way Gray’s thighs, clad in old blue denim, moved easily against the leather beneath him. It was as if he and the horse were one.

The large chestnut brown animal whickered impatiently and shifted its hooves. Maybe it knew this wasn’t the place it and its rider were supposed to end up. It smelled pungently of oats and farmyard.

“Hello, Jill,” Gray said in his gruff voice.

“Hello.” She squeezed out a nervous smile as she looked up at him.

“Uh, it’s good to see you again.” He took off his hat slowly, and set it on the high-pommelled Western saddle in front of him. The wind caught at once at his black hair, combing it back off his high, smooth forehead. “How’ve you been?”

“Well, fine, I guess,” she said, as awkward as he was. “Not bad.”

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”

“I rented a car in Trilby after we got off the train, but it broke down. I should have gone with one of the national companies. Mr. Thurrell offered to drive me from his garage, which was nice of him. He says he knew your father through some business dealings.”

She gestured back at the classic Caddy, knowing she was babbling. Alan was right to have insisted that she come out here and deal with the whole thing in person. She had ghosts to lay to rest—the ghosts of foolish dreams and fantasies, six months old, which Alan had understood better than she had. Alan Jennings was a sensible man, with a cool head on his shoulders.

That was why she planned to say yes, eventually, to his proposal of marriage. As soon as she’d dealt with just one small detail.

“Sorry you’ve had trouble,” Gray said.

He must know why she was here. There was only one possible transaction that could take place between them. But it was time to put it into words. She took a deep breath.

“Gray, I’m sorry to bother you like this, when your letter said you were so busy, and all,” she said apologetically, “but I really need that divorce.”

“Mommy…” came Sam’s plaintive little voice from the car at that moment.

Both adults turned their heads.

“That your little boy in there?” Gray asked. “Sam, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s Sam,” Jill answered.

Gray gave a short nod, then added with a note of reluctance, “He sounds tired.”

“Oh, exhausted!”

“It’s a long trip for a kid.”

“We’re going to take a few days of vacation time on the way home.” Alan was hoping to fly out and join them in Chicago for two nights, if he felt that his fledgling sales business could spare him.

“Okay.” Gray nodded again.

Sensing his reluctance and interpreting it in the most obvious way, she said quickly, “I’m sorry just to show up like this.”

“It’s no problem, Jill. Really. It’s my fault, far more than yours.”

“You see,” she went on, waving his objection aside, “I couldn’t seem to track you down any other way. The phone number you gave me was disconnected. And anyway, I kind of thought I should come in person.”

“We’ve rented out the main house now, and it took us a while to get the phone on down at the old place,” he explained.

She sensed that there was more of a story to it than that, but kept her focus on the issue that concerned them both. “We need to discuss which state we’re going to file in, for a start,” she told him.

“Sure.”

“I’ve researched the options— I spoke to a lawyer back in Philly—and I’m happy to do all the paperwork. If I head back into Blue Rock now with Mr. Thurrell and check in to a motel, is there any way you could come into town later today so we can talk? It shouldn’t take long.”

“Mommy…”

“I’m coming right now, sweetie.” She turned back to the car, without waiting for a reply from the man who was—for the moment—her husband.

Behind her, Gray dismounted. Then he looped the horse’s reins around the top strand of wire, pressed the second strand down with one hand, scissored his leg back and climbed through. He’d been climbing through fences on this piece of land all his life, and it only took him a few seconds. Then he stopped and watched.

Jill had opened the rear door of the car and was leaning inside. This gave Gray a view of her neatly rounded behind that he didn’t want to think too much about right now. He heard her speaking to her son in soothing, tender tones, and remembered how much he’d liked her voice in Las Vegas back in March.

There were a whole lot of things he’d liked about Jill Brown, when he stopped to think about it. One of the things he most definitely hadn’t liked, however, was sitting right there in the Cadillac’s rear seat. No ifs or buts, for a whole lot of reasons, he wasn’t interested in a woman with a kid.

Even if he was married to her.

The way he was reacting to that appealing view of her behind, it would be a good thing if he kept this fact firmly in mind, he decided.

“I’m going to get you snuggled into bed as soon as I can, okay?” she said to her son. “We’ll find you some kids’ TV to watch, and some good food for you to eat.”

“My head hurts.”

“I know, sweetie. I have some Tylenol in our suitcase.”

“Is he sick, or something?” Gray said, hearing the reluctance that thickened his voice.

Jill would probably think he was a callous son of a gun. He liked kids. He just didn’t want one as part of a package deal, that was all. He hadn’t known Jill had a son when he’d married her. Hell, he’d only found out her real name when they spoke their vows! The Las Vegas emcee had just kept calling her Cinderella.

Lord, thinking back, it had been a crazy setup, a crazy night, and the sooner they arranged their divorce, the better! She was right to have come out here, and he shouldn’t have blown off her letter a few weeks ago, the way he had.

“H’llo, Gray.” Ron Thurrell twisted in the car’s front seat to acknowledge him with the muttered greeting, before returning to thumb through a mail-order catalog.

It seemed to be a signal to Gray and Jill that he was minding his own business, but Gray didn’t trust it. He didn’t like Ron, and the feeling was mutual. Ron was the man who had found Gray’s father at the wheel of his car in Blue Rock’s main street last December, in the grip of a severe stroke, and he’d been the one to call the ambulance for help. This had done nothing to strengthen their connection, however.

In fact, Gray was surprised that Ron had offered Jill a ride out here. Out of character, wasn’t it? As for the “business dealings” with Dad, which Jill had hazily mentioned, as far as Gray knew they’d only ever consisted of Thurrell filling the gas tanks of various McCall vehicles.

Jill had turned at Gray’s question, and he saw how tired and stressed she looked. Her dark, pretty hair was untidy, with little strands fluffing around her face. The jewel green of her eyes was intensified by the reddened rims. Her silky skin looked papery with fatigue, and she wore no makeup. Not that she needed it. She was just as pretty without it. But that generous bow of a mouth was too pale. A slash of color might have made her look happier.

She was ill at ease, too, which made sense if her son was sick and the only place she had to nurse him was Blue Rock’s one motel. Gray had had to go sober up a seriously misbehaving ranch hand at that establishment once or twice, and he knew it was no place for a sick kid.

Jill didn’t know it, though.

“I’m hoping it’s just a twenty-four-hour virus,” she said, in answer to what he’d asked. “As long as I can get him somewhere where it’s quiet and warm….”

Nope. She definitely didn’t know the Sagebrush Motel, nor the very rowdy bar attached to it.

“You can’t go back into Blue Rock,” Gray told her bluntly. “If I know C. J. Rundle, she won’t even have the heat on yet.”

“C.J….?”

“Proprietor of the Sagebrush Motel.” He kept his voice low. “She’s Ron’s sister. And to call that place quiet is like calling Montana overpopulated.”

“Isn’t there somewhere else?” Her voice was pitched low, now, also.

“Only motel in Blue Rock,” he answered. “You’d have to go on as far as Bozeman to get somewhere halfway decent.”

“Okay,” she began, nodding. “So if you could tell me the best place in Bozeman.”

The movement of her nod was too vigorous and sharp, and her tone was too upbeat. He could tell she was fighting not to crumble, and he was horrified that she’d thought he was suggesting—

“Hey, I didn’t mean that,” he cut in quickly, his sympathy for her and the little boy surging. “You need to stay with us, is all. My mother and grandfather and me. We have plenty of space. It’s nothing fancy, but your son… Sam…would have a bed with sheets that don’t smell like forty years of cigarettes, and the furnace is lit, and my mom’s probably cooking up a batch of beef and vegetable soup right this minute. Then you and I can settle the divorce thing tonight, while Sam’s asleep, and you can get on your way once he’s well enough to travel again.”

He was making it all sound just a tad simpler than it was, and he hoped Sam would be well enough to travel again soon. The sooner he and Jill were out of each other’s lives for good, the better for his peace of mind. Wincing inwardly, he wondered, What the heck is Mom going to say when she discovers I’m married to this woman!

“I— Lord, Gray, that would be so good!” Jill said, and her creamy voice shook. So did the fine-boned hand that came up to scrape some tickling strands of hair away from the corner of her mouth. “Do you really mean it?”

Gray wasn’t going to waste time on one of those “Yes, I insist,” “No, I couldn’t trouble you” exchanges.

Instead, the only answer he gave was to open the front passenger door and say to Ron, “Thanks for doing this. Can you take her down to the old place? You know that’s where we’re living now?”

Most people in Blue Rock did know. Most of them probably had a good idea about why, also, although he and Mom and Grandpa were keeping as close-mouthed as they could about their dire financial state.

“I’d heard,” Ron answered. “Of course.” Then he shut his mouth abruptly, as if he’d have liked to say a lot more.

“I’ll meet you there in a little bit, Jill,” Gray said. “Just go ahead and introduce yourself to Mom and get yourself settled.”

“If you’re sure that—”

“No arguments.”

“But I’m taking you away from your, uh, your ranch work, aren’t I?” she answered, biting her lower lip. “Your cattle-branding, or whatever.”

He didn’t bother to tell her that they didn’t generally brand cattle in Montana in September. He just said, with that same stiffness and reluctance still thickening his voice, “I was on my way back anyhow, to grab some lunch. I’m going to take a shortcut, down along the river. You’ll get to the house first, but if you tell Mom I sent you, and that I’m coming along below the Angus spur, she’ll make you welcome.”

More welcome than I ever could.

“Weather’s closing over,” he finished, “and you need to get yourself and Sam inside.”

“Okay, thanks Gray.”

She looked like she was holding herself together with a Band-Aid, a cup of coffee and sheer force of will. “Did you hear that, Sammy?” she said to her son. “We’re going to stay in a real ranch house tonight!”

The car door closed, and Ron wheeled the vehicle back on to the rough track, snapping the dry gravel. Gray was left alone by the fence. He climbed back through, untied Highboy’s reins, swung himself into the saddle and nudged the animal forward.

Recognizing that they were homeward bound at last, Highboy responded willingly, which left Gray free to think.

Damn it, he shouldn’t be surprised that the crazy episode in Las Vegas had caught up with him at last! He’d known it would have to do so, sooner or later.

And it would have been sooner, if Jill’s letter last month hadn’t arrived the same day the McCalls’ banker had told Gray once and for all that his loan was capped as it stood and there was no possible way to increase it any further, no more collateral he could use, no options left at all.

He had scribbled that quick note back to her on the counter at the post office. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time to deal with it right now.”

Generous of her to call it a letter. Then he had thought no more about it. His entire mind, in every waking moment, had been consumed with far more urgent concerns.

Their marriage was so bizarre, so unreal, so nonexistent in any true sense. Did it really matter if they held off on the formality of a divorce for a little longer? Evidently it mattered to her, since she’d come all this way, and he felt bad about that, as he’d told her.

He should probably feel bad about their marriage, too. Angry at her for the way her stricken face had called to him that night and had made him act so impulsively. Angry at the cable TV station that had organized the “Cinderella Marriage Marathon” in a shameless attempt to climb onto the “reality TV” bandwagon.

But he didn’t feel angry about that night. For some weird reason, their time together—all eight hours of it—was the only bright memory he had brought home from his ill-fated trip to Las Vegas in March.

Six months later, his body had awakened at once, clamoring with need at the very sight of her. Six months later, he could remember practically every word they’d spoken to each other, every gesture she’d made, every nuance of her laugh.

Six months later, however, and on his home ground, he was more realistic, more alive to his own vulnerability, and he just wanted beautiful, warm-hearted Jill Chaloner Brown out of his life.