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

called and asked her to meet him for coffee. The spark had still been there.
    Hell, the spark was still here now.
    But it wouldn’t last, and Cole knew it. Nell had talent—he’d seen some of the footage she’d shot now. She’d had job offers right and left upon graduation. How could he ask her not to take one? And what if he had?
    He knew all too well what happened when women came to the ranch who weren ’t prepared for the loneliness, for the demands, and for the limitations. He couldn’t ask it.
    He wouldn ’t.
    But right now —just for this night—she was here. He had her for a few hours.
    She murmured something in her sleep, reached out a hand. Without thinking, Cole touched it and felt her finger wrap around his. She smiled, turned, hugging his hand against her breasts, drawing him close behind her.
    He let himself be drawn. Just for now.
    Before she woke, he kissed her cheek, brushed a light hand over her hair. Wished things were different. Knew they never would be.
    He dressed in the cold and snugged the blankets up around her. She stirred, but didn ’t open her eyes. He thanked God she didn’t wake.
    “ Sign the papers,” he wrote on the note pad by bed. “It’s for the best.”
    Then he let himself out to drive back to his real life — to feed the cattle in the morning snow, to chip the ice in their drinking water, to feed the horses, mend some tack and replace the light over the workbench in the shop.
    To think about Nell and the night they ’d spent—and then to let it go.

Chapter Three

    “They’re what?” Cole stared at his sister and grandmother in disbelief. He’d just come in from delivering a calf in ten degree weather. His teeth were chattering. His fingers were stiff. He had a crick in his back from kneeling and pulling. He was covered with muck and mud and ice and things he didn’t want to think about. He couldn’t get feeling back in his hands. Nothing was working—apparently even his hearing. “They’re not!” he said again, because he couldn’t have heard Sadie correctly.
    But Sadie was grinning like a maniac, like she ’d won the lottery, waving a piece of paper in his face. “Yes, they are!” His sister’s head bobbed eagerly. “It says so right here. The whole Compatibility Game cast and crew will be here in two weeks. Here!” She waved the paper again triumphantly. “On our ranch! A television show!”
    Cole just stared at her, waiting for his ears to thaw. His sister kept waving the paper, his grandmother was giving him a cautious tentative smile. Cole felt a prickle of worry seep into a crack in his frozen brain. He resisted it.
    “ Naw,” he said, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it.
    He shed his gloves, pulled off his boots and stamped his feet, to try to get some circulation back to his toes. He hung his jacket on the hook by the door, then set his hat on top of it, then rubbed his ears.
    “ Isn’t it amazing?” Sadie was saying. “Well, no, it’s not really. I mean, I was sure they’d like our place best.”
    Cole just stared at her. “What are you talking about? Why would anyone like our place best? And a television program?” Nell’s television program! It didn’t bear thinking about. “What the hell is going on?”
    “ Don’t swear, Cole.” His grandmother pressed a steaming mug of coffee into his hands. “Maybe you should sit down.”
    Maybe he should. He set the mug down, washed his hands, then picked it back up again, dropped into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and clutched the mug in both hands, watching his sister dance circles around the kitchen.
    She hadn ’t stopped moving since he’d come in the door. He was accustomed to his sister’s exuberance, but this was even more enthusiasm than he was used to.
    He watched her silently until she settled. It was like waiting for a fly to land so you could swat it. But you couldn’t swat Sadie, literally or otherwise. Her optimism was endless. She