THE MAVERICK'S THANKSGIVING BABY Page 9

  She’d claimed to love him but, in the end, she hadn’t loved him enough to really try to make their relationship work. He’d come in from checking fences one day to find her engagement ring on the table with a note.

  Jesse,

  I can’t do this anymore. I really thought we would be together forever, but I can’t stay in this town one more day. If you ever decide you want more than what you’ve got here, you know where to find me.

  Love,

  Shaelyn

  Three weeks was all she’d lasted before deciding that Rust Creek Falls was too small-town for her. And she’d been from Billings. Billings had a population of 165,000 people—a booming metropolis in comparison to Rust Creek Falls, but an insignificant speck on the map in contrast to the more than three million that lived in Los Angeles.

  If Shaelyn had been unhappy in Rust Creek Falls, what made him think that Maggie would feel any differently? Why was he pushing for marriage to another woman who would be completely out of her element in the small Montana town?

  Maggie was a successful attorney comfortable with the fast pace and bright lights of the city. She’d spent a few days in Rust Creek Falls—a few days that were an interlude from her ordinary life. In California she could have any kind of cuisine delivered to her door; food options in Rust Creek Falls were limited to the Ace in the Hole, Wings To Go and Daisy’s Donuts. LA had concerts, comedy clubs, live theater and multiplexes; the only place to see a movie in Rust Creek Falls was the high school gymnasium, and only there on Friday or Saturday nights.

  Of course, people were already talking about how the opening of Maverick Manor—his brother Nate’s new resort—could change the atmosphere in Rust Creek Falls. Not everyone was in favor of those changes, but in Thunder Canyon, the opening of their resort a few years ago had brought about big changes and seriously boosted the local economy. It was hoped that Maverick Manor might do the same thing. There would be new shops and eateries, obviously targeting visitors but also benefitting local residents with the expanded availability of goods and services and the creation of new jobs. But those changes wouldn’t happen overnight, and even when they did, would they be enough for Maggie? Could a big-city attorney ever be happy in a small town?

  Because no matter how many more shops and restaurants moved into the area, Rust Creek Falls was always going to be a small town, and Jesse suspected that asking Maggie to stay would only be setting himself up for another heartache.

  Unless he was careful to ensure that his heart didn’t get involved.

  * * *

  Maggie had hoped to postpone the inevitable meeting between her parents and the father of her baby, but as soon as Gavin and Christa learned Jesse was coming to town, they were eager for the introductions. So after dinner, she drove to her parents’ Hollywood Hills home, where Christa met them at the door.

  After kissing her daughter on the cheek, she offered her hand to their guest. “You must be Jesse.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed.

  And her mother, who rubbed elbows with judges and politicians and movie stars, almost swooned in response to his boyish country charm.

  “Please,” she said, “call me Christa.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

  “We’re eager to get to know you,” she told him.

  “Too eager to wait until tomorrow,” Maggie noted.

  Her mother just smiled. “It’s a lovely night, so we’re having drinks out on the patio, by the pool.”

  Jesse followed Maggie through the wide-open French doors that led to the enormous stone deck that spread out to encircle the hot tub and kidney-shaped swimming pool. Flames crackled in the outdoor fireplace, adding warmth and light to the seating area.

  Her father had been relaxing on one of the dark wicker sofas with a glass of his favorite scotch in his hand, but he set the glass down and rose to his feet when they stepped out onto the patio.

  “Maggie’s brought her young man to meet us,” Christa said to her husband.

  Maggie winced at the her more than the young man, as the possessive pronoun suggested a relationship that didn’t really exist.

  “Jesse Crawford,” he said, offering his hand to her father.

  Gavin accepted, probably squeezing Jesse’s hand with more force than was necessary—or even polite. She was confident that Jesse could handle anything her father dished out—she was more worried that her baby’s father and her own father might find common ground in their belief that an expectant mother should have a husband.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Gavin asked Jesse. “Whiskey? Wine? Beer?”

  “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Jesse said.

  “Maggie?”

  “I’ll just have a glass of water.”

  Her father dispensed the drinks, then resumed his seat beside his wife. He asked Jesse about his education and his employment, his family and friends, and life in Rust Creek Falls. The questioning wasn’t dissimilar to what she’d been put through by Jesse’s parents, although she liked to think hers were a little more subtle.

  Jesse answered the questions with more patience than Maggie had. When her father paused to sip his drink, she finally asked, “Is the interrogation part of the evening finished yet?”

  “I’m just making conversation,” Gavin told her.

  “Really? Because you’ve served me steaks that haven’t been so thoroughly grilled.”

  “Maggie,” Christa chastised.

  But her husband chuckled.

  “She’s always been quick to defend,” he told Jesse. “But if the baby she’s carrying turns out to be a girl, she’ll undoubtedly be asking the same questions someday.”

  “Or I will,” Jesse said.

  Gavin nodded. “Or you will.”

  “Don’t forget you’ve got a seven-fifteen tee time with the governor’s son-in-law in the morning,” Christa said to her husband when he got up to refill his drink.

  “If it doesn’t rain,” he clarified.

  “There’s no rain in the forecast,” his wife assured him.

  “But every time I think there’s no rain in the forecast, we get rained out.”

  “What are you two up to tomorrow?” Christa asked, turning back to her daughter.

  “I’m going to show Jesse some of the local sights,” Maggie responded. “And since we plan to get an early start, we should head out.”

  “I know you don’t have a spare bedroom in your condo, but you’ve got a pullout sofa,” her father said pointedly.

  “Gavin,” his wife chided.

  He ignored her gentle admonishment. “She might be twenty-eight years old and on her way to becoming a mother herself, but she’s still my baby girl,” he said.

  “Maybe I should move to Montana,” Maggie muttered under her breath.

  “If only you really meant that,” Jesse said, not under his breath at all.

  * * *

  There was a lot to see and do in Los Angeles, and Maggie was happy to play tour guide for Jesse. She took him to Venice Beach, where they skated along the bike path, browsed the shops along the boardwalk, admired the public art walls, detoured around a filming crew and had lunch at a vegetarian café—but only after he made her promise she would never tell any of his friends or family in Montana. He seemed to enjoy spending the time with her, just talking and laughing and getting to know one another. And when they finally got back to her condo at the end of the day, she was sorry to realize the weekend was more than half over.

  Less than twenty-four hours after that, she took him back to the airport again. She was glad that he’d come to Los Angeles, that he’d made the effort to see her. Except that she knew it had been an effort, that maintaining a relationship—or trying to establish one—over such a long distance wasn’t easy.


  And despite the time they’d spent together during the days—and their lovemaking in the nights—they hadn’t resolved anything with respect to the baby or their future, and she was afraid they wouldn’t anytime soon.

  “We’re not going to be able to do this every weekend, are we?” he asked when she walked him through the airport to the security checkpoint.

  His question confirmed that his thoughts had been following the same path as her own. “Probably not,” she admitted.

  “When do you think you’ll be able to get back to Rust Creek Falls?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on at work this week—” and she hadn’t told him the half of it “—but I’ll figure something out.”

  “I wish I had more to offer you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My life in Montana is a lot more modest than everything you’ve got here.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Believe me, the shine of Tinseltown wears off after a while.”

  And as much as she’d enjoyed this weekend in the city with Jesse, she couldn’t deny there was a part of her that wished she was going back to Montana with him.

  * * *

  She was still feeling restless and unsettled when she went into work Monday morning. She’d always loved being part of the well-oiled machine that was Alliston & Blake and had thrived in the busy environment. But after her conversation with Brian Nash on Friday, she realized that it really was a machine—and she was just one of hundreds of gears—interchangeable and replaceable.

  By early afternoon, she’d reviewed a restructuring proposal, drafted a motion for an injunction and written her letter of resignation—although she hadn’t yet decided what, if anything, she was going to do with it.

  Needing to stretch her legs, she went into the staff room to get a drink of water.

  On her way, she crossed paths with Perry Edler as he was leaving Brian Nash’s office.

  “Mr. Edler,” she said, offering her hand to the man she’d worked with on numerous occasions in the past.

  He shook it automatically.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t available to meet with you Friday night.”

  His expression was polite but blank, as if he wasn’t entirely sure who she was or why he might have been meeting with her.

  “I trust that Amanda was able to respond to any concerns you might have had about your new venture.” She was well aware that it was Patricia and not Amanda who had attended the meeting, but she wondered if the COO of Edler Industries was aware.

  “Yes,” the older man assured her. “Amanda was most helpful.”

  Which confirmed Maggie’s suspicion that he had never asked for her by name, that the associates at Alliston & Blake were all one and the same to the clients. So long as the work was done, they didn’t care who did it. And that was okay—the head of an international company was obviously more concerned with the answers to his questions than the identity of the person answering them.

  “But maybe you’ll be at the next meeting,” he said solicitously, because the head of an international company understood that it was easier to stay on top when you had people below to keep you there.

  “Maybe I will,” she said, but she didn’t think it was likely.

  She knew that her work mattered, but she was only beginning to realize that she wanted more than that—she wanted to matter. And she would never be anything more than one of those interchangeable gears if she stayed at Alliston & Blake.

  She went back to her office and printed her resignation letter.

  Chapter Eight

  Maggie wasn’t usually an impulsive person, but less than twenty-four hours after her brief conversation with Perry Edler, she was back in Rust Creek Falls to meet with Ben Dalton.

  “We do a little bit of everything here,” the attorney said, in response to her question about his areas of practice. “Although most of it is wills, real estate transactions, the occasional divorce, traffic offenses, minor criminal stuff. What did you do in LA?”

  “Mostly corporate law for the past few years, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions,” she admitted. “I’ve already looked into taking the Montana Bar, and I know it’s only offered twice a year—in Helena in February or Missoula in July. I was hoping to write in February, but I missed the registration deadline.”

  “If you think you can be ready to write in February, I might be able to get your name on the list.”

  “I think I’d do better writing it in February,” she admitted. “Because I’m expecting a baby in April.”

  “Are you planning to get married before then?”

  The unexpected question made her pause, because she couldn’t imagine any interviewer in LA ever daring to ask any such thing.

  “It’s a possibility,” she told him.

  “Because folks around here are pretty conservative,” Ben warned. “And likely to be suspicious enough of a big-city attorney setting up practice in their backyard. But if you were married to a local boy—assuming the baby’s father is a local boy—that would go a long way with the people in this town.”

  And she knew that if he did offer her a position, she’d have to remember that things were done a little bit differently here. With that thought in mind, she nodded. “One of the reasons I wanted to move to Rust Creek Falls was to be closer to the baby’s father, so that we can share the parenting.”

  “A smart decision,” Ben told her. “My wife chose to be a stay-at-home mother, and I’m grateful our six kids had the benefit of having her around full-time, but she’ll be the first to admit that every aspect of parenting is made easier by sharing it with someone.”

  He talked about his wife with an easy affection that spoke of their thirty-seven years and the experience of raising half a dozen kids together. He had a copy of their wedding picture in a gold frame on his desk and told Maggie it was a lucky man who could, after almost four decades, honestly say he loved his wife even more now than the day he married her.

  Rust Creek Falls might have been a small town, but there were still a lot of people that Maggie had yet to meet and a lot of familial connections she hadn’t begun to make. For example, it wasn’t until Ben pulled out his cell phone to show off the latest snapshots of his brand-new grandson that she learned his daughter Paige was married to Sutter Traub, the owner of Traub Stables—Jesse’s boss. They’d recently had a baby boy—Carter Benjamin Traub—and the proud grandpa had more than a hundred photos of the little guy on his cell phone.

  The baby was adorable, and just looking at the pictures made Maggie long for the day when her baby would finally be in her arms. Except when she remembered her first interaction with Jesse’s ten-month-old-niece—then her anticipation was tempered by a healthy dose of apprehension.

  * * *

  “He offered me a job,” Maggie told Lissa, when she got back to her cousin’s house after the interview.

  “Of course he did,” Lissa said smugly. “He’s never going to find a more qualified candidate than you to add to his practice.”

  “I’m not qualified yet,” she reminded her cousin. “I still have to pass the Montana Bar.”

  Lissa waved a hand dismissively. “I’m more interested in the details about your wedding, such as what your matron of honor will be wearing.”

  Maggie shook her head. “The only thing I accepted today was a job, not a marriage proposal.”

  “But you are going to marry Jesse, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “So let me see if I’m following this,” Lissa said. “You felt an instant connection to Jesse and fell into bed together. It was the best sex of your life and you hoped it was the start of a real relationship, then you found out you were having his baby and he proposed, but you don’t know if you should
marry him?”

  Maggie nodded. “That about sums it up.”

  “I need a little help with the ‘why’ part,” her cousin admitted.

  “Why what?”

  “Why you don’t want to marry him.”

  “Because I love him.”

  Lissa took her hands. “Sweetie, you’re not just my cousin but one of my best friends in the world, but I have to admit that right now, I have serious concerns about your sanity.”

  Maggie managed a smile even as her eyes filled with tears. “I want him to love me, too.”

  “You don’t think he does?”

  “I know he doesn’t.” And she told Lissa what Jesse had said about common goals being more important to the success of a marriage than love.

  “Clearly Jesse Crawford is an idiot. But,” Lissa continued, when Maggie opened her mouth to protest, “since he’s the idiot you love, we’re going to have to come up with a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “To make sure he falls in love with you, too.”

  “I don’t think that’s something you can plan,” Maggie said.

  Her cousin smiled. “A smart woman has a plan for everything.”

  * * *

  Gage and Lissa decided to go into Kalispell for dinner. They invited Maggie to go with them, but she declined. She needed some time to think about her future—and she needed to call Jesse. Before she had a chance to do so, there was a knock on the door, and when she opened it, he was there.

  “Jesse—hi.” Her instinctive pleasure at seeing him was mixed with guilt as she realized that she hadn’t told him about her plans to come to Rust Creek Falls this week. “I guess news travels fast in a small town.”

  He nodded. “Of course, I didn’t believe it when Nina told me she overheard Lani Dalton tell Melba Strickland that her father was interviewing ‘that city lawyer.’ But then Will Baker told me that he saw you and Ben having lunch at the Ace in the Hole.”