Certainly, unusual circumstances had made that come about. Marriage had made Meg stepmother to three-year-old Tia McKendrick. For Jenna, it was divorce and the loss of her younger sister, and then both of their parents, that had brought her back to her small Montana hometown of Northbridge, where she had just adopted her niece. In spite of the sadness and loss that had brought Jenna to that point, she was happy to be home again, to have Abby and to be in close proximity to Meg.
“Have you decided yet whether you’re going to rent an apartment on Main Street or take old Mrs. Wilkes’s guesthouse—if we can’t save this place?” Meg asked.
“It’ll be the guesthouse,” Jenna said. “It’s tiny, but it has two bedrooms and a little bit of yard that Abby can go out into. And Mrs. Wilkes will give it to me dirt cheap in trade for some nursing—I’ll look in on her every day, take her blood pressure, oversee her meds—”
“You’ll work as a full-time nurse at the hospital and then go home to do more nursing?”
“I don’t mind. Low rent will give me the chance to pay off some debt and save for a place of our own. Besides, Mrs. Wilkes loves Abby, and Abby loves her—I think maybe Mrs. Wilkes reminds Abby of Mom. It’ll work out for everybody,” Jenna finished, trying to sound upbeat.
But Meg knew her—and her situation—well enough to know how she really felt. “The fund could still get high enough for you to pay off the taxes or, at least, to put in a bid at the auction,” Meg said, clearly attempting to inject some hope.
“It could,” Jenna said without any more confidence than Meg had shown, smiling at her friend’s weak optimism when they both knew neither of those possibilities was likely. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be packing up.
The Bowen Farm Fund was an account initiated by an old friend of her father’s. People could make donations to save the farm. There were several thousand dollars in it, but it was nowhere near forty thousand, and unless it reached the full amount of the tax debt, that money would be returned to the donors.
“Orrr …” Meg said.
“Nope,” Jenna shot down what she knew her friend was going to say.
Meg said it anyway. “You could sell to the Kincaid Corporation and make enough money, even after paying off the back taxes, to buy a three-bedroom house right now.”
Jenna shook her head. “I have enough to feel guilty about. I won’t add not honoring my father’s last wish to the list.”
Meg didn’t respond to that. Instead, glancing over Jenna’s head in the direction of the living room as if something had caught her eye, she said, “Speak of the devil … Well, not that Ian Kincaid is the devil—he’s actually really great.”
Jenna swiveled on her rump until she had the same view Meg had.
Across the living room, through the nearly floor-to-ceiling picture window that looked out at the front porch, Jenna saw the local Realtor, Marsha Pinkell. And a man.
Oddly enough, it was the first time Jenna had seen Ian Kincaid.
Though he and his twin brother had been born in Northbridge, his connection to the small town was complicated. Ian was the biological brother of Chase Mackey, Meg’s husband’s business partner in Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs.
Over thirty years earlier, a car accident just outside of Northbridge had orphaned Chase, Shannon, twins Ian and Hutch, and a half sister. The half sister had gone to live with her birth father, Chase had ended up in the foster-care system, while Shannon had been adopted by one local couple, and the twin boys had been adopted by another, only to have both couples leave Northbridge almost immediately.
Only the half sister was old enough to remember she had brothers and a sister. Her desire to find a blood relative to raise her own child had prompted a search for the lost siblings and led her to Chase. Then, after Chase had located Shannon, together they’d discovered the whereabouts of Hutch and Ian.
Hutch had yet to appear, but Jenna had heard through Meg that Ian had been coming in and out of town since just after the first of the year to get to know Chase and Shannon.
Which was right about when Jenna’s father had died and she’d had to put the farm up for sale, hoping to sell it before it was auctioned off by the IRS.
Since January, Ian Kincaid had also been to her farm several times with the Realtor to look at the place with an eye toward buying it. But Jenna had not been at home during any of his visits. Nor had her path crossed that of Ian Kincaid’s in town.
Jenna had been swamped working long hours and caring for her father, then dealing with her father’s death and the financial mess left in his wake. She’d also taken custody of Abby and was sorting through the legal issues of adopting her. Jenna had barely had time to come up for air.
Still, it seemed odd that Jenna had yet to encounter the man who had set all of Northbridge to talking—and arguing. The man who was interested in buying her farm. The man she wasn’t interested in selling it to.
The man who now stood on her porch, six feet three inches of athletic masculinity resembling Chase Mackey but taking Chase Mackey’s size and increasing it slightly and improving upon Chase’s noteworthy good looks while he was at it.
“Wow …” Jenna muttered involuntarily at that first glimpse of Ian Kincaid.
Meg laughed. “I know,” she agreed, not requiring any explanation for the exclamation.
He was framed by the picture window but apparently looking at the structure of the house rather than through the plate glass into the interior, so he obviously had no idea he was being watched. And Jenna couldn’t help watching—studying him, actually.
Slacks, a button-down shirt and a sports coat didn’t hide the fact that the man was all broad shoulders, taut torso, narrow hips and long legs.
And above the broad shoulders?
There was no question that he was Chase Mackey’s brother because the similarities were marked, particularly in the sexy dent in the center of his chin. But beyond that, Ian Kincaid’s features took Chase’s and refined them.
The lines of his face were more sharply defined, more angular. His jaw was chiseled. His nose was slightly longish but perfectly shaped. His lips had a hint more fullness to the lower than to the upper. His golden-brown, sun-kissed hair had the same waviness that Chase Mackey’s had, but was cut shorter and neater all over. And his eyes …
Oh, those eyes!
Chase Mackey’s were sky blue.
Ian Kincaid’s were a more ethereal, almost translucent blue—like the sky reflected off a frozen pond.
“Wow …” Jenna heard herself say again as the full impact of those good looks sank in.
Meg laughed. “Uhh … Nurse Bowen? Should I throw cold water on you?”
“No … Right. He’s the enemy,” Jenna said to yank herself out of her reverie.
“Well, no, he isn’t the devil or the enemy—he’s a great guy—”
“Who could take over my dad’s farm and turn it into a football training facility.”
“You said you were coming to grips with that.”
“I’m trying to.” But she didn’t need to be going gaga over the guy.
And yet, there she was, still staring at the man.
“Why don’t we go out and I’ll introduce you?” Meg suggested.
And why was concern for how she looked the first thing that flashed through Jenna’s mind? Why should she care if her long, brown hair was still neatly in its ponytail or if the mascara had stayed on her brownish-green