Forever And A Day (Montana Brides, Book #7) (14 page)

“Not possible,” Molly said. “We had the right moves and the audience loved us.”

“So did someone else.” Emily picked up the drink the bartender left in front of her and took a sip. “Jordan didn’t take his eyes off you for the entire song, Sarah.”

“He was helping me,” Sarah said.

Molly gave up trying to give the bartender her order. She turned to Sarah instead. “How was he helping?”

“I needed to focus on one person and not everyone. When I felt my confidence slipping, I looked at him and he smiled.”

“Well…” Molly looked at Emily. “It sounds like Jordan has hidden depths. You’ve got to give credit to a man who looks after a woman in her time of need.”

“I wasn’t needy.” Goosebumps prickled along Sarah’s skin. Someone was watching her. She turned around and her eyes connected with Jordan. She was tempted to smile at him, only Emily and Molly were looking at her like she’d lost her marbles.

“I think Jordan’s shell-shocked,” Sarah said. “We were so good. People would have paid to see that performance.”

Emily laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far, but we were pretty darn hot. Go team.” She high-fived Sarah and Molly and looked back at the stage. The trio of James Dean lookalikes were crooning their way through a Frank Sinatra number. “I think I’m marrying into a talented family. They’re good as well.”

“Not as good as my fiancée.” Alex wrapped his arms around Emily’s waist. “If I wasn’t already in love with you, I’d have fallen in love with you all over again.”

Molly looked around the bar and frowned. “I’ve lost my camera.”

“It won’t be far away,” Emily said. “Where did you put it before we started rehearsing?”

“I left it on the corner of the bar.” Molly stepped back and looked along the floor and under a table. “I didn’t have time to download the photos I took this afternoon.” Her voice tipped into panic mode. “I was supposed to be working on them tomorrow. I really need to find my camera.”

Sarah walked across to the bartender and asked him if he’d seen the camera. He didn’t have a clue where it had gone.

“Are you ladies looking for this?” Jacob stood beside Jordan, a large digital camera balanced in his hand. “It was sitting on the bar. I thought it would be safer with me.”

Molly held her hand against her chest. “I thought I’d lost it,” she sighed. “Thank you.” She went to take the camera out of Jacob’s hands, but he held it out of her reach.

“I’ll give it back on one condition.”

Molly’s relief turned to suspicion. “What do you want?”

“Nothing that’s illegal or immoral, not yet anyway.”

Molly took a step toward Jacob. Her green eyes flashed a warning that he was either too stubborn or too blind to see. “You want to wrestle for it?”

A streak of color rushed to Jacob’s face. Sarah had only met him a handful of times on his visits out to Alex’s ranch. He wasn’t a blushing sort of guy. He wasn’t a man that believed in excess emotion. But he had excess emotion at the moment. Bucket loads of the stuff. And it was all directed at Molly.

“I was thinking that your camera was worth an hour of your time over coffee. But if wrestling is your thing, I’m all yours.” The smoldering look he sent Molly left no one in any doubt what option he preferred.

“Oh, look,” Emily said. “Everyone’s started dancing. Let’s go.” She tugged Alex’s hand toward the dance floor and sent a pointed look at Jordan.

He grabbed Sarah’s hand and followed Emily. “I take it you’re happy to dance?”

She looked over her shoulder at Jacob and Molly. “What was all that about?”

“Don’t know. Jacob’s been spending more time in Bozeman over the last few months. Might have something to do with Molly.” Jordan moved into a foxtrot as soon as they stepped on the dance floor.

“Did your mom teach you how to foxtrot as well?”

He smiled. “No, that was my dad. He said if I had to eat everything in sight I’d need to learn more than a waltz. He thought knowing how to dance would make me more appealing to the right woman.”

Sarah looked at his face to make sure he wasn’t kidding. He stared straight back at her. “Your dad was a genius.”

Jordan sighed. “Yeah, and he would have liked you, Legs.”

Sarah took that as a compliment. She was even getting used to being called Legs. Especially when Jordan had said she had a pretty smile.

He pulled her close, slipping between the other couples like someone who’d been dancing for years.

“What am I going to do when you get tired of dancing with me?” she asked.

“Not going to happen.”

Sarah thought about all of the possibilities that could change Jordan’s mind. “What if you find a girlfriend? She’s not going to be impressed if you dance with me.”

She felt Jordan’s laugh stir her hair. “I don’t expect she would be. But I’m not planning on finding a girlfriend. I’m happy right here.”

Sarah’s pulse leaped in her throat.

“You’re thinking too much.” Jordan’s hand caressed her back, sending little shock waves skittering along her spine.

She knew that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she wasn’t thinking enough. “It’s just that I…”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? You haven’t heard what I was going to say.” Sarah started paying attention to where Jordan was leading her. He’d side-stepped his way around the people on the dance floor, angled their bodies so they were heading to the right of the DJ. “Where are we going?”

“Here…”

They were standing in a corridor. “I don’t know why…”

He led her into a small room, pulled her against his body and started doing wicked things with his mouth. She forgot what she was going to say. Forgot there were people, lots of people, standing on the other side of the wall.

She grabbed hold of his jacket, held his shoulders. A rush of adrenaline spiked through her body, left her floating somewhere between heaven and hell.

Jordan groaned as her hands wandered, ran across his chest and found a home beneath his shirt. “Legs, I want…”

He was breathless and hot and so damn sexy. She could hardly breathe, hardly stand. She started imagining wonderful things her mouth could be doing when she heard the next karaoke song.

It was her song. Their song. No, not Jordan’s song. James’ song. The low life weasel who’d stolen her heart and her program. It was the song they would have danced to on their wedding night. The song that would have stayed in her memory for the rest of her life.

Sarah ripped her mouth off Jordan, gasped as his lips started devouring her throat. He was licking her, making crazy noises that would have led to other things. Except for the song.

“I can’t…”

“We can.”

“No. I can’t.” Sarah stepped back, tripped on a cord and fell on her bottom.

Then there was nothing. No song. No sound. No karaoke.

Jordan looked down at the power cord. “
Shit
.”

Sarah couldn’t have agreed more. She scrambled to her feet, straightened her dress, wiped her lips. She glanced at Jordan and felt hot and steamy all over again. He was tucking in his shirt, yanking his tie, buttoning his jacket.

Footsteps were moving along the short corridor. Voices echoed on the tiled floor.

Jordan picked up the power cord, followed it to another cord and held the two ends together just as someone walked through the door. But it wasn’t someone. It was three someones.

The DJ, Alex, and Jacob stared at them with expressions that ranged from annoyance to horror.

Jordan held the two cords in the air. “Were you looking for these?” He plugged the cords together and grabbed Sarah’s hand. “It should work fine, now.”

They disappeared out a back door into the parking lot, not stopping until they’d found Jordan’s truck.

Sarah dropped her head into her hands. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

“Do you mean the kiss or getting caught?”

“Both.” Sarah started laughing. Great, big, hiccupy laughs that hurt her ribs and made her cry.

Jordan didn’t say anything. He unlocked the passenger door and held it open.

Sarah clambered inside. She didn’t know what would happen next, but she knew she had some decisions to make.

***

Ten minutes later, Sarah wiped her eyes with the tissues Jordan had given her. He’d sat through her crying fit, not said anything as she’d slowly pulled herself together. Except for the pounding of her heart, the cab was quiet. And dark. Dark enough that she felt braver, more able to answer the questions she knew were coming.

“What happened?” Jordan asked.

She couldn’t look at him, not yet, so she stared outside. The stars were so bright, so clear, that she felt as though she could have reached up and plucked them from the sky. She wrapped her arms around her waist, rubbing at the goose bumps on her arms.

“Here. Use this.”

She heard Jordan move beside her, felt the weight of his jacket when he left it on her lap. She wrapped it around her shoulders and melted against the warmth.

Sarah took a deep breath. “The song the last group were singing. It was the song I chose for my wedding dance. I really haven’t been dwelling on my ex-fiancé, but I heard from my lawyer today. His phone call stirred up memories, things I’d sooner forget.”

Jordan turned in his seat until he was facing her. “What kind of memories?”

Sarah rested her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes. “I thought I loved James. He was so…” She tried to think of a word that described what he’d been like, but everything seemed so stilted, so contrived. “…attentive.”

She thought about the time that had gone into planning their wedding. “He gave me whatever I wanted. When we were planning our wedding, he agreed with everything I suggested. I thought he was being so nice, but looking back I don’t think he cared. He wasn’t planning on sticking around for long.”

“Must have come as a shock. Seeing him as he really was.”

“It wasn’t a shock to everyone else. They’d seen through him months before, but I didn’t listen to them. I think I was in love with being in love. James just happened to be the so-called nice guy that slotted into the gap in my life. Does that make me as bad as him?”

“Depends on what you wanted out of the relationship.”

“I wanted forever,” she whispered. “I wanted a happy life, children, a career. I wanted it all.”

Jordan didn’t say anything.

“Do you think I was being unrealistic?”

“It wasn’t my life, Legs. I can’t tell you whether you were being unrealistic or not. You chose those things because they made sense with the guy you were with. It doesn’t mean they won’t work with someone else, but you’ve got to be prepared for differences.”

Sarah thought about what Jordan had said, wondered why she couldn’t have met him sooner. He lived his life simply, believed in the truth, not sugar-coated lies. “Do you know why I came to Montana?”

“You didn’t just come to Montana. You closed your business, left your friends and family. You ran away from what happened. But it chased you all the way here. Does that tell you something?”

“I didn’t run away,” she growled. “I walked fast.”

“Big difference, Legs.”

“It was at the time,” she muttered. “I wanted to get away from everyone, from what happened. I needed to figure out what was important to me.”

“Has it helped?”

Sarah nodded. “I feel like a different person.” She knew what Jordan was thinking. Knew, that if she asked him, he’d say that maybe she’d found who she’d been all along. “You haven’t asked about what my lawyer said?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“I won the court case,” she said quietly. “My lawyer has filed all of the international rights to the software I designed.” She didn’t mention the money she’d been awarded or the court costs the judge had made James reimburse.

“Congratulations. How do you feel?”

Six months ago she would have been dancing for joy. Now she just felt relieved. “Happy it’s over.”

“What are you going to do next?”

Silence settled inside the cab while Sarah thought about her answer. “I’m thinking about being spontaneous.”

The air inside the cab thickened, weighed down with anticipation. “You are?”

“But I’ve got a problem.” She glanced at Jordan. “I haven’t had much experience at being spontaneous. I might need someone to show me how.”

“You were doing all right at the party.”

“I had some help.”

He leaned across the cab and brushed his hand along her cheek. “Are you sure this is what you want? You can’t change what happens after we’ve been…spontaneous.”

“I don’t want to change it. I want you.” She turned her head and kissed the palm of Jordan’s hand. He jumped back so fast that she thought she’d done something wrong. Until he looked at her, then she knew he was every bit as ready for this as she was.

He took a deep breath and started the truck. “Okay. Let’s do spontaneous. Do you want to come back to the ranch? Pete’s looking after our guests tonight, so we’d have Gracie and Trent’s home to ourselves.”