The farm wasn’t far from the Mackey and McKendrick compound where he was staying, where he’d stayed on all the occasions he’d come to Northbridge since his long lost brother and sister had contacted him at Christmas. In fact, the Bowen place was almost next door. But he wasn’t going from the compound to the farm.
He was headed out to the Bowen place from Northbridge proper after attending a church pancake breakfast with his brother Chase, Chase’s wife, Hadley, and seventeen-month-old Cody—the nephew who had reunited Ian, Chase and Shannon. The nephew Chase was raising.
Shannon and her soon-to-be husband, Dag McKendrick, had also been there, so the town event had turned into a family breakfast for Ian, which was part of why he liked coming to Northbridge now.
The family component was also part of why he’d chosen the small town as the site for the training center for the Montana Monarchs football team.
He’d known that Northbridge existed, that it was where he and Hutch had been born, where their birth parents had died, where he and Hutch had been adopted. But he and Hutch had been barely two months old when that adoption had occurred and they’d been taken away from Northbridge. Since they’d never returned, Northbridge had been nothing but a name on a map.
Then Ian had received an email from Chase and Shannon telling him that Hutch wasn’t his only sibling. He’d reconnected with the small town in the course of reconnecting with his brother and sister.
Not that it wasn’t the perfect place for the training center, because it was. It was far enough from Billings to reduce distractions, but close enough to make it easy for the players, the staff, the coaches and trainers and the press to get to. It also didn’t make for a bad drive for visits from families left behind in Billings.
And Ian liked the idea that, as Chief Operating Officer for the Monarchs, he would spend plenty of time in Northbridge where Chase, Shannon and Cody lived.
After a rift had healed between Ian and his adoptive father, they were once again close. He was also close to his adoptive sister Lacey. But he and his twin brother Hutch? That was a different story. They hadn’t seen each other or spoken in over five—almost six—years.
Maybe that was why developing closer relationships with his newfound blood relatives was all the more important to him, and it was important to him. Bringing the training center to Northbridge would aid that cause.
He had his father onboard with Northbridge, so that wasn’t a problem. And there were two possible sites within the Northbridge area—the Bowen farm and another, slightly larger location several miles farther out of town.
But of the two, the Bowen place was the most ideal. At seventeen acres it was a better size than its twenty-four acre contender which would leave excess acreage. It also lacked the large hill the McDoogal property had that would have to be leveled to accommodate playing fields. Plus, even if Jenna Bowen took him up on the extra ten thousand dollars he’d sweetened the pot with yesterday, the price on the Bowen place was still far better—it was priced low in hopes of a fast sale.
But Jenna Bowen was holding out, trying to keep the place a working farm, even in the face of an enormous debt in unpaid taxes. It was that enormous debt that had the property scheduled to be auctioned off in ten days if she couldn’t raise the money before then.
What that meant to the Kincaid Corporation was that they could get the property one way or another. If it went to auction, the Kincaid Corporation would likely end up getting it for a song, in fact. But buying the place at auction wasn’t really the image the Kincaid Corporation or the Monarchs wanted to foster. Even if it did save some money.
About half of Northbridge was against bringing the training camp to the small town, against losing farmland to it, and certainly against one of their own family farms being bulldozed by a corporation that, if they bought at auction, would ultimately end up seeming to be on the side of the IRS. That same half wanted to help the Bowens keep the property long enough to sell to someone who would honor their wishes for the land.
So ultimately, Ian had two factions to win over to his side—that half of the town. And Jenna Bowen.
He was up for it, though. He was even looking forward to it.
Convincing half of Northbridge that it was a good idea to bring the training center in would be a challenge, but that was okay. He liked challenges. And when he showed people that he did business with honesty, integrity and straightforwardness, when he pointed out the positives, he felt certain he’d be able to rally even the unenthusiastic portion of Northbridge.
But Jenna Bowen?
She was a different story. She obviously had an emotional involvement that would take more finesse, more personal attention to conquer—if it could be conquered at all. And to that end, he’d decided it was time they met. That had been the purpose of having the Realtor take him out to her farm yesterday, when he’d known that she would be there because he’d overheard Meg tell Logan that she and Jenna would be packing up the household.
That hadn’t been the first time he’d seen her, though.
When he stayed at the compound he used a small studio apartment above the detached garage behind the main house. From that vantage point, he’d had an occasional sighting of Jenna Bowen over the months when Meg had provided babysitting for Abby, and Jenna had come to drop off or pick up the baby.
No, they hadn’t had the opportunity to meet—that just hadn’t worked out until yesterday. But it had given him the chance to do some preliminary study of Meg’s best friend.
Jenna Bowen was a small-town beauty, he thought as he drove out of Northbridge to get to the farm and the picture of her popped into his head.
Actually, she could hold her own with most big-city beauties, too, he’d decided when he’d finally had his first close-up view of her at her house on Saturday.
No, she wasn’t high-fashion-model material, like Chelsea Tanner—the woman his father was itching for him to marry. But Jenna Bowen was definitely no slouch in the looks department.
Hers wasn’t an aloof, cutting-edge sort of beauty, the way Chelsea’s was. Instead there was a warmth, a sweetness to Jenna Bowen’s appearance. A naturalness. Something that had made it difficult for him to ultimately take his eyes off of …
She had skin like peaches and cream—flawless, smooth and so soft-looking he’d had the urge to reach out and run the backs of his fingers along one cheek to see if it could possibly feel the way it appeared.
Her hair was long and wavy, a glistening brown. In his isolated glimpses of her, he’d seen it pulled back, he’d seen it tied up, he’d seen it the way he liked it best—falling full and free around her face to at least four inches below her shoulders, like a shining, vibrant cascade of cocoa.
And her eyes …
Ah, her eyes …
Those distant sightings had kept him in the dark about her eyes but on yesterday’s visit to the farm he’d finally been able to see them for himself. To see her long, thick lashes dusting eyes that were a similar brown to her hair except that they weren’t completely brown.
No, her eyes had some green in them—a glimmering green, like secret, hidden emeralds—making them interesting, intriguing, stunning.
Her nose was thin and not terribly long. She had petal-pink lips, perfect white teeth and high, apple-bright cheeks that gave her some of that country appeal, too.
Her neck was long and a little thin, and she had such perfect posture that it made her fairly short stature—five three or four, maybe—seem like more.
And the body that went with it all?
Compact but still curvaceous enough to have had him wondering how she would look without clothes …
Not that he had any business doing that!
Work, the training facility, Chelsea Tanner and getting Tanner