Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!. Victoria Pade

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СКАЧАТЬ not, she might take Abby and her lemonade and just go inside, because she was not going to let him put a damper on today.

      As Jenna carried the glasses down the hallway to the front door she’d opened earlier to let in some fresh air, she could see Abby and Ian Kincaid through the screen. It gave her a clue as to one of the reasons Abby liked him. He was sitting on the porch floor at the top of the stairs. The little girl straddled his ankle while he held both of her hands and bounced her up and down with the rise and fall of that long leg.

      Jenna knew from doing that herself that Abby adored what Jenna called a horsey-ride, and the baby’s giggling delight only confirmed it.

      “Mo!” Abby demanded when Ian paused to glance over his shoulder at the sound of Jenna coming out onto the porch.

      “That’s Abby-speak for more,” Jenna informed him. “And the problem with horsey-ride is that she never wants you to stop.”

      “Yeah, I’ve learned that,” he said. Then, to Abby he called an enthusiastic, “Here comes the big finish!”

      As Jenna crossed the wide wrap-around porch to join them, Ian gave Abby a wild enough ride to make the infant squeal before he slowed by increments and made winding-down noises.

      To Jenna’s surprise, when he finally stopped altogether and hoisted Abby to his lap, the little girl accepted it without further complaint.

      “So that’s the secret?” Jenna observed. “I have to say ‘here comes the big finish,’ give her a grand finale and some sound effects, and she lets it end?”

      “That’s my trick. I don’t know if it’ll work for you,” he said, settling Abby in the crook of one arm so he could take the glass of lemonade that Jenna offered.

      Once he had, she sat beside him, making sure she left all the space that could be left between them in what was allotted by the porch railing.

      She set her own glass of lemonade down and held out her arms to Abby. “Why don’t you come and sit with me now and have some lemonade?”

      “No,” Abby answered, pushing back into the arm that provided a sturdy support for her back.

      “Oh, she does like you,” Jenna said, showing a hint of the rejection she felt.

      Ian merely grinned and sipped his lemonade. Letting the comment pass, he said, “As Montana winters go, this last one was pretty mild. Why was it rotten for you?”

      He’d paid attention to what she’d said earlier….

      “I came back to Northbridge in October when my mother died suddenly of a heart attack during a blizzard. That trip was when I first realized my dad’s emphysema was much, much worse than I’d been told. I decided to stay to take care of him, but we still lost him the first week of January. Which was about the time I also found out about the tax debt—”

      “Ah, it wasn’t so much the weather as what happened this winter. And that was a lot,” he agreed. “I didn’t know you’d lost your mother right before your father. I lost my mother when I was eleven and that was bad enough. Losing both of your parents within months of each other must have been doubly rough.”

      Made rougher by the guilt she carried, but she didn’t offer that information. “It was.”

      “You said you came back when your mom passed away?” he said then. “Does that mean that you weren’t living in Northbridge?”

      “Not at the time, no. I wanted to be, but that hadn’t worked out yet. It sort of had to in a hurry after I saw that my dad was failing. Plus there was Abby …”

      Abby, whom she didn’t really want to share, so Jenna again held out her hands to the baby.

      Who once more chose to remain with Ian.

      Abby did take the drink of Jenna’s lemonade that Jenna offered, though.

      “Tell me about Miss Abby here,” Ian said then. “Meg introduced you as her aunt-slash-new-mom—what exactly does that mean?”

      “She’s my niece and now my adopted daughter, too,” Jenna answered as if it were simple.

      “So you have a brother or a sister?” he said, sorting through it.

      “I did have a sister. We called her J.J. She was twelve years younger than me, and only sixteen when she got pregnant and had Abby—”

      “Oh,” Ian said, as if that explanation left him with more questions.

      Anticipating them, Jenna said, “My folks talked J.J. into keeping Abby by promising to help raise her—”

      “The dad wasn’t in the picture?”

      “The dad was one of the boys at the school for troubled and delinquent kids just outside of town. Unfortunately, he was still in the picture, but since he had no family at all, it was still really up to Mom and Dad—”

      “And sixteen-year-old J.J.”

      “Right. Until J.J. and Abby’s dad went joyriding when Abby was four months old …” Jenna swallowed back the lump that instantly formed in her throat. “Both J.J. and Abby’s dad were killed when the car hit a pothole and rolled over. Then it was just up to Mom and Dad.”

      “Who weren’t in good health,” Ian added.

      “At the time no one knew my mom had anything going on with her heart—no one knew until the attack that killed her. My dad’s emphysema was slowing him down then, but he was still working the farm, so they didn’t really think their health was an issue. I talked about taking Abby, but my own situation was … difficult, so Mom and Dad just kept the status quo—they’d been doing the lion’s share of taking care of Abby, they said they could just go on taking care of her.”

      “But then in a snap they were both gone….”

      “Right. And then there was just Abby and me. And my situation had changed—” Jenna leaned forward enough to tickle Abby’s rib cage “—and I wanted this little stinker, so I adopted her.”

      “Which makes you her aunt and her mom now.”

      “Right,” Jenna said in a positive tone to let him know how happy she was to find herself Abby’s mother. “Of course, I’ll let her know about J.J. and her dad, but I’ll really just be Mom—which I’m working on getting her to call me.”

      As if to show her willingness to accept Jenna in that role, Abby finally held out her arms for Jenna to take her.

      Ian set his nearly empty glass of lemonade on the porch and freed the way for Jenna to reach for the infant.

      To do that, Jenna had to slip one of her hands between Abby’s side and Ian’s front. There was no avoiding making contact with him.

      What Jenna should have been able to avoid was being as aware as she was of the hard wall of muscles she felt behind his shirt. And liking the way it felt against the back of her hand …

      You’re a nurse, for crying out loud! You make physical contact with people for a living! СКАЧАТЬ