Sing Me Back Home (4 page)

Jack didn’t look so bad himself. He wore jeans and a black leather jacket over a cream colored button down shirt. His eyes were the same gorgeous green she remembered gazing into as a teenager. She noticed again that he’d filled out and put on some muscle in the intervening years. He must have caught her staring at him, because he gave her that slow, sexy smile she’d always loved.

Damn it.

After they got in his black SUV and buckled in, he said, “I thought we’d go to the Long River Cookhouse. The rainbow trout is fantastic.” He glanced at her. “Unless you’ve become a vegan or something.”

She smiled. “No, and not vegetarian either. I eat fish, fowl and beef.” She thought about that for a minute. “And chocolate, of course.”

“Still think chocolate should be its own necessary food group?”

“I can’t believe you remember that,” she said, laughing.

“I bought you a lot of chocolate. It’s hard to forget that.” He glanced at her. “
You’re
hard to forget,” he added.

He probably says that to all the women, she thought, pleased by the comment anyway. “You managed to forget me, though.”

“Forget? No.” He shook his head. “I moved on. Eventually.” He paused and added, “And so did you.”

“True enough.”

Maya didn’t ask Jack about his wife. If he wanted to bring her up, he would. But she couldn’t help wondering about his wife and his marriage. Like her, she knew Jack had married fairly young. During medical school from what she’d heard. Unlike hers, his marriage had lasted. Maya didn’t regret her marriage since it had given her Carmen, but if she were honest, she knew she and Graham should never have married in the first place. They were much better suited as friends. She shook off that thought. Her ex was the last person she wanted to think about tonight.

“I’ve been to the Cookhouse once or twice with Amy when I came back to visit. Who’s that guy who plays the piano there? Is he still there? He’s got a funny name. Older guy with a white beard and bushy eyebrows.”

“You must mean Fly.”

“That’s it. Is he still there?”

“Sure is. Fly is pretty much a fixture now.”

Silence fell. Surprisingly, it wasn’t terribly awkward. As they drove to the restaurant Maya looked at the countryside, enjoying being driven for a change. The Long River Cookhouse was built beside the Yellowstone River, almost at the V where the Yellowstone and Marietta rivers met. Marietta itself lay at the northern end of Paradise Valley. Several mountain ranges surrounded it, but the two visible as they drove south were the Absaroka Mountains to the east, and the Gallatins to the west. Both ranges rose high and magnificent above the valley, their peaks already snow covered though it was only early September. Winter came early in the mountains.

The wheat fields danced golden in the wind, waiting for harvest. Cattle grazed in other fields, dotting the landscape everywhere. This part of Montana was mainly cattle country. Although Maya knew there were horse ranches in the area, horses were not as prevalent. Some horse ranches had been there for years, but a number of them were newer.

“I didn’t realize until the Spirit Club get together that our daughters are the same age,” she said.

He smiled. “I didn’t know either until one—several, actually—of my patients told me this morning.”

“Several?”

He shot her an amused glance. “Maya Parrish is big news in this town. Not to mention, a fair number of my patients are old enough to remember the two of us were together in high school and they wanted to make sure I knew you had moved back.”

“I’d almost forgotten how small towns work,” she murmured. “Lord, that was years ago. Don’t tell me they’re matchmaking already.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Maya laughed and changed the subject. “Does Gina ride?”

“Yes, she rides at my brothers’ place, but I don’t make it out there very often.”

“That’s too bad. You used to love to ride.”

“Between my practice and being a single parent, I can’t seem to find the time.” He glanced at her. “I’m sure you understand that, since you’re a single parent yourself.”

Maya nodded. “It’s tough sometimes, that’s for sure. But getting back to riding, Carmen has already asked me if she could learn to ride. Is there any place you’d suggest for lessons?”

“Olivia Canaday teaches riding out at Lane’s End. Western and English. She’s great with kids. Give her a call.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that. How are Wyatt and Dylan?” She remembered the younger Gallagher brothers as being as wild as they were good-looking. “Are either of them married?” She couldn’t imagine it, but she still remembered them as Jack’s pain in the ass little brothers and not the grown men they were now.

“No. Dylan came really close, but they broke up a week before the wedding. No one knows why. Wyatt says he’s too busy with the ranch to worry about women.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Of course not,” Jack said, and they both laughed. A few minutes later, they arrived at the restaurant, a charming wood and stone building with a wide wooden porch that started on the side of the building and wrapped around to the back.

The hostess knew Jack and she knew who Maya was too, welcoming her back to Marietta. She chatted briefly as she led them to a quiet table in a corner, next to the bank of plate glass windows that overlooked the Yellowstone River. She left leather covered menus with them and told them someone would be with them shortly.

The Cookhouse wasn’t a fancy place, but it was a pleasant, cheerful place with a fun, family atmosphere. Tonight it looked a bit fancier than usual, with white tablecloths, upholstered chairs, candles flickering and a vase of white roses and bluish-purple delphiniums at each table.

“Did you ask for this table?” Maya said after they’d given the waitress their drink orders.

“Because it’s romantic?” He smiled and shook his head. “Every time I come in with a single woman I’m not related to they seat me here.”

“I’m crushed,” she said. “And here I thought I was special.”

“You are.”

Surprised, she looked up at him. There had been a note of sincerity in his voice that sent a tingle up her spine. She tingled when he touched her, tingled when he spoke. His voice had deepened with the years and was now a beautiful bass and . . . sexy, damn it.

“Now that we’re here, we should take advantage of the seating,” he continued. “We wouldn’t want all that romance to go to waste.”

“How do you propose we do that?” She’d heard of a silver-tongued devil. Jack Gallagher was a golden-tongued one.

He didn’t say anything, just smiled into her eyes and took her hand. His thumb stroked her palm gently. Maya sucked in a breath. He was holding her hand for crying out loud. That shouldn’t make her feel . . . dizzy. Dizzy, tingling. Good Lord, you’d think she’d never been on a date.

When the waitress arrived with their drinks, he let go of her hand. Red wine for Jack, white for her. It occurred to her that while she knew almost nothing of Jack as an adult, he still reminded her vividly of the boy she’d loved. Except he was older, more sophisticated, and even hotter than he’d been before.

They studied the menu, both of them deciding on the trout, one of the Cookhouse’s specialties, and giving the waitress their orders.

“I thought it would be more awkward when we saw each other again.” Maya sipped her wine and added, “We didn’t exactly part friends.” Might as well get it out in the open. If they were going to see each other regularly, either at school functions or in a more personal way, they had to talk about the elephant in the room sometime.

“No, we didn’t,” he said with a wry smile. “You’ve changed since you left Marietta.”

“I would hope so. I’m a good bit older.”

“No, it’s not that. We’re both older. A lot older.”

She laughed. “Gee, thanks. Nothing a woman likes better than to be reminded of her age.”

“You don’t need to worry. You don’t look a day over thirty.”

“Flatterer.”

“Truth.”

She felt absurdly pleased.

He took a sip of wine and went on. “The younger Maya would have avoided the issue of our mutual past as long as possible. That girl avoided possible controversy rather than meeting it head on.”

“Like I did when I didn’t tell you about my job offer in Texas until the night of graduation?”

He smiled, a little ruefully. “Yeah, like that.”

Remembering, she sighed. “At the time it seemed like the only way to break the news. I’d been trying to tell you for weeks, and I just couldn’t do it until I no longer had a choice. I can look back on it now and know that was the wrong choice. I wish I’d gone about things differently.”

“I’m not sure how you broke the news would have made a difference. I didn’t respond well either. All I heard was that you were leaving. I could have listened to you, instead of giving you an ultimatum.”

“True. But I can’t blame you. Well, much,” she added. “After all, we were almost engaged.”

“Almost. But I think it was more in my head than yours. You wouldn’t commit to a real engagement. You said your parents thought you were too young.”

“They did. And obviously, I was too young.”

“Still, I could have been a little more understanding rather than telling you to choose me or the job.” He shook his head with a chuckle. “You told me you chose the job and I could shove it.”

“I don’t remember saying that.” She remembered crying into her pillow, though.

“I do. It was the first time a woman told me to take a leap. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last. I’m a slow learner.”

Maya laughed. “Oh, I doubt that.”

Different courses came and went. They talked sporadically until they both had their entrees in front of them.

Maya almost moaned when she took her first bite of fish. “This trout is delicious.”

Jack agreed and changed the subject. “We saw you in the magazines, you know. The town is very proud of you.”

“Too bad my seven-year-old sister was the only one who believed in me.” Amy had been almost as starry-eyed about Maya’s career as Maya was herself.

“I believed in you, Maya.”

She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth and stared at him. “It sure didn’t seem like it at the time,” she blurted out.

“I’m sure it didn’t. In my defense, I was young and oblivious. Totally focused on college and medical school. Totally concerned with myself and my career. I knew you would succeed in modeling or whatever you chose. In my mind, though, your career was more flexible. So when you told me you’d accepted the job in Texas—” he shrugged. “I was too busy feeling hurt and angry to really consider your feelings.”

“You’ve changed too,” Maya told him. “The younger Jack would never have admitted that.”

“As you so aptly pointed out, I’m older now.” He laid his hand over hers on the table. After a moment of hesitation, she turned her hand over, so that they were palm to palm.

Oh, God, Maya thought, gazing into his eyes. Not only dizzy, but tingling.
My arm is tingling
.
Actually tingling
. Chemistry. Instant chemistry, just like there had been all those years before. Did he feel it too? From the look in his eyes, she thought he did.

“Why don’t we table this discussion?” he said. “We’ve talked enough about the past. Let’s talk about here and now.”

“What about it?” she asked warily.

He released her hand to take a sip of water and lean back. “Tell me about your business. I know it’s called Maya’s Models, but I haven’t heard anything else about it. Believe it or not, the busybodies don’t seem to know much about your work.”

She hadn’t imagined that gleam in his eye. Maybe he didn’t want to come on too strong when they’d only just reconnected. Which was a good thing. Wasn’t it?

“Maya?”

Aware she’d been thinking about other things than business, she answered. “I haven’t been back in town long. I guess that’s why more people don’t know about it. My company is a headhunting firm for models. I have a lot of contacts from my modeling days and afterward, when I went into the management side of the agency.”

“When did you go into management?”

“Shortly after I found out I was pregnant with Carmen. I modeled maternity clothes until I had her and then switched over.” She laughed ruefully. “I discovered I liked eating and had no desire to starve myself back into my pre-pregnancy weight.”

“A wise decision,” he said, looking her over appreciatively.

“I thought so,” she agreed. “Anyway, after several years working in downtown Dallas, I was tired of the commute and tired of missing so much with Carmen. So a few years ago, I started an online agency that brings together models, photographers, modeling studios, and basically anything else to do with modeling.”

“Is it Internet only?”

“No, but it’s getting there. I haven’t quite managed it yet. With video chats of all kinds to not only talk to people but see them as well, it can almost feel like being there.” Once she had her assistant completely trained, she could let her do the necessary traveling, or at least most of it, especially the international traveling.

“How much do you travel?”

“Not often. I traveled a lot when I first started the company, but her father and I shared custody, so I was able to plan my trips during his time with her. He recently remarried and moved to Europe so Carmen and I came here.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“So am I,” she said slowly. But that didn’t mean she was ready to immediately jump into a relationship the moment she returned to Marietta. Not with Jack, not with anyone.

But Jack was sure tempting her.

‡