Last Year's Bride (Montana Born Brides) by Anne McAllister Page A

together, but she’d hated to leave him when it was time to go. And then they’d had those few and far between unsatisfactory phone calls because what Cole felt he never said. He played his cards close to his chest.
    But then there was Reno.
    He’d asked her to meet him there. And when he’d met her train, his face had lit up and he’d wrapped her in his arms, holding her so tightly it felt as if he thought there was no tomorrow.
    It had confirmed everything she ’d believed, right down to the words. She’d said them first, “I love you,” not really expecting he’d say them, too.
    But he had. And he ’d looked her in the eye when he’d said them. She’d believed he meant them. It was only later—these past months—that she had begun to worry, to question.
    She didn ’t question now. He was here now, with her—in her—a part of her as she was of him. They loved each other. She knew it. She could feel it.
    It was like a wave overtaking her, sweeping her along on its crest —his body, her body—together. She splintered. He shattered. They were broken—and whole again.
    Two made one.
    She stroked her hands over his sweat-slick back, felt the hammering of his heart against hers, turned her head and kissed his cheek. She smiled. “I love you.”
    And then she slept, settled, comfortable, confident now that whatever had happened, it wasn ’t that he didn’t love her. She knew he did. Everything was right in her world for the first time since Reno.
    So it was a shock to wake up to the ring of the phone. Nell groped for it in the tangled sheets. “H’lo?” She shoved her hair out of her eyes, looked around. It was morning.
    “ Ten minutes at the front desk,” Grant said briskly in her ear. When she didn’t reply, he demanded, “You are okay now, right, Corbett?”
    “ Y-yes.”
    Except she was alone.

    He watched her sleep.
    Cole didn ’t close his eyes for the rest of the night. He just lay beside her in the bed and watched the light and shadow of the snow clouded sky play across her sleeping form. They hadn’t pulled the drapes across the tall narrow windows, and in the glow of the street lights, the low-hanging clouds turned the sky a dusky pink. They turned Nell’s hair a dark burnished gold, made him want to thread his fingers through it.
    But if he did, he might wake her. And if he woke her, he would want to make love to her again. And again.
    So he didn’t. He just looked his fill.
    Or tried to. He would never be filled full enough. Cole knew that now. He knew he loved her. Knew he couldn’t resist her standing in front of him, challenging him, defying him to tell her he didn’t.
    He couldn ’t do that.
    He couldn ’t lie. All he could do was reach for her, admit his feelings in his actions, even if he wouldn’t—this time—say the words. It was because he loved her, damn it, that he had to let her go.
    There was no future for her here. He should have realized that ten months ago in Reno. He should have realized it even before that. He should never had let things get started, let alone go as far as they had. But he hadn’t really been thinking, had he? Not logically. He’d been as bad as his dad, choosing a woman who didn’t belong.
    He should have realized that the first time he met her. She ’d had some sort of digital camera in her hands after all. Just because she had been fascinated by rodeo, by cowboys, by him— and his concussion, for God’s sake— and they’d hit it off, that was no reason to think they should spend a lifetime together.
    Well, to be fair, he hadn ’t. He’d resisted the pull of attraction. Despite the concussion, he’d enjoyed having her fussing over him. But he’d had the sense to say good-bye to her the next day. He should have forgotten her when she drove away.
    But he hadn ’t. And a couple of weeks later, in Bozeman picking up a new trailer hitch, he’d had some spare time and Nell’s phone number burning a hole in his pocket. So he’d