Montana Passions: Stranded With the Groom / All He Ever Wanted / Prescription: Love. Allison Leigh

if he tried for that—what? Tell her the truth about himself? That basic fact that he’d lied—a whopping lie—in the first place, could ruin it between them.

      So if not the truth, then what?

      To hold forever within himself the central lie of his very existence? Seeing Caleb and his wife and their son all the time, becoming, in a sense, a part of the family?

      No.

      It was impossible.

      He had to remember his mother. Remember Ramona Lovett, who called herself Ramona Caldwell. Remember the life they’d had. Barely holding on too much of the time. He had to remember, all of it.

      Like that night when he was twelve. The night she’d locked herself in the bathroom. Remember breaking down the door to find her limp in the bathtub, her forearms slit, bleeding out on the white tiles of the bathroom floor.

      He’d slipped in her blood as he plowed through the medicine cabinet looking for something to staunch the flow.

      After that, the Child Protective Services people had come sniffing around, so they’d moved. Again.

      And then, always, he would have to live with the night she died.

      She’d come to find him in Bozeman when she learned she wouldn’t make it, come and let him take care of her for those final months. Once or twice, in the last weeks, she’d remarked that it was strange—maybe even meant to be. That he’d ended up here, in Western Montana, when she’d never once so much as brought him here the whole time he was growing up.

      “I thought I raised you to live anywhere but here. And look. Here you are. Must be fate. Oh, yeah. Must be fate. When I’m gone you’ll get your chance to make it all right.”

      He would ask her what she was getting at. What did Montana have to do with anything? And she would turn her head away.

      Until the last. Until the night she died in the hospital, where he’d taken her once she couldn’t get along without round-the-clock care.

      “I know I never told you, who he was…your father. Maybe I should have.” Her skeletal hand, tubes running from the back of it, weakly clutched his fingers. “Caleb. That’s his name. Caleb Douglas. Wife, Adele. They had one son. All they could have. Riley. In Thunder Canyon.”

      “Thunder Canyon. That’s right here. In Montana.”

      She’d swallowed, sucked in another breath that wheezed like she was dragging it in through a flattened straw. Even the oxygen didn’t help her by then. Nothing helped. “Yes. Twenty miles from here. In Montana. Caleb…” she’d whispered, her eyes closing on a final sigh. “Caleb…”

      And with that name on her lips, she was gone.

      “Justin? Are you in there?” Katie laughed, a light, happy sound. A sound from another world, a world of possibilities he couldn’t let himself explore. “You should see your face. A million miles away.”

      He shook himself. “Sorry.”

      “Nothing to apologize for.” She handed him the big wooden salad bowl. “Put this on the table? We’ll just eat right here, in the breakfast nook, if that’s okay?” She handed him the salad tongs.

      “Sounds good.” He carried the bowl and tongs to the table, then helped her set it for two.

      A few minutes later, she took out the potatoes, spooned them into a bowl, and transferred the chicken to a serving platter.

      They sat down to eat. He looked at the food, and wondered if he’d be able to get anything down, though the chicken was crispy-brown and the potatoes perfectly cooked. The salad was crisp and green.

      No. It wasn’t the food.

      It was the wrongness of being here, of holding her, of touching her soft body, kissing her lips, of drinking her wine and letting her cook for him.

      Yeah. It was all wrong, to steal these last perfect moments with her, when in the end he could do nothing but continue on the course he’d set two years ago, on the day of his mother’s death. In the end, his choice wouldn’t change. He would get his payback—for Ramona Lovett Caldwell’s sake, above all.

      And that meant he had no right to sit here with Katie, in her house, at her table, pretending that there was some hope for the two of them.

      There wasn’t.

      There never could be.

      Katie set down her fork with a bite of potato still on the end of it. Justin had been much too quiet for several minutes now—ever since that kiss, as a matter of fact, a kiss that had almost ended with the two of them rushing to the bedroom.

      But he had stopped it.

      And ever since then…

      “Justin, what is it?” She forced a joking laugh. “The food can’t be that bad.”

      He pushed his plate away. “It’s not the food.” He really didn’t look right.

      Alarm skittered through her. His face was set. Kind of…closed against her. Why? “Was it something I said?” She tried to make the question light and playful, but didn’t fully succeed. There was an edge to her voice. She couldn’t help it.

      She had the most powerful feeling that something had gone wrong.

      Something major.

      Something she had a sinking feeling she wasn’t going to be able to make right.

      Which was crazy. What could have gone wrong in the space of a few minutes? Hardly anything had been said.

      “Justin, was it that you kissed me? But no. I don’t see how it could be that.” She raised both hands, palms up. “Did I do something to upset you? I just don’t get it. I don’t underst—”

      He grabbed her hand. “Listen.” He stood, pulling her up with him.

      “Justin, I don’t—”

      “No. Hear me out. It’s nothing you did.” His eyes gleamed at her with a strange, wild kind of light.