Heartbreak Ranch by Kylie Brant Page A

seems so important to you, I’ll come along. A night in Helena might be amusing, if only to see you forced to wear a suit.” She turned her back on him and strolled toward the door. Before she exited the room, she looked back and drawled, “Who knows, this might turn out to be fun, after all. If we put our minds to it, we just might give the Montana cattle ranchers something to remember for years to come.”
    Her parting shot succeeding in splintering the satisfaction that had formed at her acceptance. With a sense of unease, he thought about the upcoming twenty-four hours and wondered just what he’d managed to get himself into.

Chapter 4
    O rdinarily, there was nothing Julianne liked better than a party. Surrounding herself with music, food, dancing and plenty of people was, in an odd way, both relaxing and exhilarating. She was comfortable in a crowd of strangers because she enjoyed people. She liked talking to them, hearing about their lives, and in some instances, making up pasts about them for her own amusement. She wasn’t above making up a past for herself just for the sheer entertainment of it. She doubted Jed would approve.
    She pursed her lips slightly and outlined them with a lipstick pencil. Not that pleasing Jed was going to be high on her list of priorities tonight. It still rankled that she’d allowed him to buffalo her into attending this evening, but he’d had plenty of years to learn which buttons to push, and he knew she’d never let him call her a coward. Realizing how blatantly she’d been manipulated hadn’t changed her response.
    He’d been right, damn him, though she’d rather waltznaked through Yankee Stadium than admit it aloud. Her first reaction when he’d invited her to come with him had been pure, unadulterated panic. The feeling had been totally out of character, not to mention irrational. The people who mattered most to her, like Annie and Gabe, were very forgiving when it came to her mistakes. Jed had never let her get away with much, of course. When it came to support, however, he could always be counted on, whether his help was asked for or not.
    Her hand trembled, and she paused in the middle of applying her lipstick. And his help most definitely had not been asked for in Florida. Through the media circus and the endless interrogations, the only shred of pride she’d been left with had come from the knowledge that she was fighting her own battles. When she’d been cleared of suspicion, she’d congratulated herself for standing alone. Others might sneer at the amount of strength that had taken, but it had been a personal victory of sorts for her.
    Now she had to share that victory with Jed. She’d never know how much his involvement had helped to clear her, and not knowing robbed the situation of most of the satisfaction she’d gained from it. She finished applying her lipstick and blotted her lips on a tissue. If he’d been down in the middle of that mess, an idea that still had the power to make her shudder, then she’d been lucky that the scene in his office hadn’t gotten uglier. Jed didn’t have much use for weaknesses; not in anyone. Like a true knight of old, he had very firm notions about right and wrong. She wondered if he’d ever seen the world in shades of gray and uncomfortably decided that he hadn’t.
    Despite her still-simmering annoyance over the way he’d finessed her agreement to accompany him, the trip to Helena had passed surprisingly quickly. Jed had flown them in his four-seater Cessna, and she’d been fascinatedwatching him handle the small plane. She’d kept him busy the entire way, asking him questions about the dials and knobs before him, and by the end of the trip, a resolve had formed in her mind.
    She was going to learn to fly. She could already imagine the thrill of being in control of the small aircraft, of making the decisions about altitude, speed