MONTANA HOMECOMING (Montana Book 2) (6 page)

"So we'll be competing for favorite uncle and aunty
status?" she asked, raising her eyebrow like she was ready to throw down
right there.

"You don't stand a chance," he said. "I've
got it all planned. If it's a boy, there'll be motorcycles, guns and tree huts,
and if it's a girl, favorite uncle here is going to get the best pony…"

Amanda held up her hand, touching her finger to his lips to
stop his claims. "I get the picture," she said, laughing as he
grabbed her hand and held it captive. "But it's not just about what money
can buy. I might have a few tricks up my sleeve, too."

He tugged her closer, hand locked around her wrist.
"I'd like to know more about these tricks of yours."

Amanda's heart raced as she stared at Scott. She'd only
been this close to him twice before, and the last time she'd found herself
touching his lips, she'd ended up straddling him and then pinned against a
wall.

"So?" His voice was deliciously deep.

She gulped. "Maybe they're secret."

Amanda hoped no one was watching them, but she didn't
really care. There was no part of her that wanted to pull away from Scott - he
was like a magnetic force reeling her in and not letting her get away.

"Maybe we could partner up?" he murmured, voice
like it was being dragged over gravel. "Make sure we're both the
favorites."

She
was thinking about partnering up in an entirely different way, but right now
she'd take what she could get.

Amanda stood beside her family and listened as Jack spoke
about her dad to the crowd gathered. She doubted there was a dry eye in the
room, and it had taken all her self-control to hold her own emotions in check.
She’d relied on the welcome distraction that
was Scott
.

She glanced in his direction, instinctively knowing where
he was standing, and his dark gaze locked on hers. It had been the same every
time she'd looked at him - his smoldering eyes sending a blast of heat through
her body. She knew it was wildly inappropriate, given that she'd just buried
her father, and it was also completely out of character for her.
Which was making the whole flirting thing so enjoyable.

"Amanda?"

She turned to face her brother. Jack had finished speaking
and everyone was slowly going back to chatting.

"It was so nice of Jack to speak on behalf of all of
us," she said, fighting the heat in her cheeks as her brother stared at
her.

"Yeah, it was," he replied, but he looked more
pissed off than grateful.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, reaching out to
touch his arm.

She felt Blake stiffen, knew for sure he was angry. This
was more than just dealing with losing their dad.

"I want you to steer clear of Scott," he said,
like he was giving her an order, not a suggestion.

Amanda stood her ground, wishing her sisters were still
standing nearby. She could use them to help talk sense into their hothead
brother.

"Are you talking about what happened earlier today?
After the funeral?" she asked. "Scott helped me through a rough
moment, that's all. I just needed a hug."

Blake's face was almost expressionless, which she knew
meant he was bottling his anger up inside.

"You need a hug, you come to me," he told her.

"Blake, don't be an ass." She wasn't going to
engage, not with him behaving like an overprotective idiot. "I'm not a
little girl anymore, and Scott is just a friend."

Blake laughed. "There was nothing just friendly about
the way you two have been looking at each other, and I know him, Amanda. He's
not the type of guy I want you being with, okay?"

Now she was angry. How dare he try to tell her what she
could and couldn't do? "So he was good enough to be your best friend until
he left here, but it's not okay for
me
to
be friends with him? Is that what you're saying?"

He closed his hand around her wrist, tugging her closer,
his voice a low whisper.
"Scott's bad news where women
are concerned, okay?
If I find out that there's anything going on
between you two, Scott will have me to answer to.” Blake shook his head. “You
know, I remember how heartbroken you were when that dickhead cheated on you.
The one when you first moved to New York.”

"Let go of my hand, Blake." She didn’t have any
intention of recalling those memories – she’d gotten over that relationship
years ago.

Amanda tugged her way out of his vise-like hold and took a
step back.

“I just don’t want to see you hurt again, Amanda. So when I
say don’t go there? I mean it.”

"Everything okay here?"

She turned to see
Maddison
standing behind them.

"Back off, Blake," she said, loud enough so her
sister could hear.

Blake glared at her, clearly not caring that
Maddison
was listening. "I'll knock every one of his
teeth out if he so much as…"

"What?" she hissed.
"If he
does what, Blake?
Because I'm a big girl now and he's a big boy, so your
silly threats from the past aren't going to work anymore."

Blake shook his head and marched away from her, leaving
Amanda confused and angry.

"I could kill him," she moaned to her sister.

"He's just trying to look out for you,"
Maddie
said as she slung her arm around her shoulders.

She gave her sister a hug back, but inside she was fuming.
The funny thing was
,
Blake had as good as pushed her
in Scott's direction. The more he told her to stay away, the more she wanted
something to happen. It might be childish, but there was something about being
back home that was bringing back the rebel in her, and for the first time in
years she finally felt free. She'd never been told she couldn't have something,
and there sure was some truth to that old saying about forbidden fruit…

"What did that nail ever do to you?"

Scott paused and looked down from where he was positioned
on the
the
roof of his new house. He held up his hand
to block out the sun and grinned down at his brother.

"It's kind of therapeutic, you should try it
sometime."

"Yeah, except for the fact that I don't have any
underlying anger I need to get rid of," Jack called back with a laugh.

Scott finished hammering and came down the ladder.
"Would you believe me if I said I didn't have anything on my mind?"

"Nope, not a chance,” Jack said. "But I would
believe you if confessed to being all tied up in knots about a certain blonde.”

Scott laughed. “Not me."

He scuffed his boot in the dirt, looking up at the
half-constructed structure in front of them.

"It's looking good,” Jack said.
“ I
still can’t believe you’ve managed to get this and the accommodation underway
so fast."

"Yeah, you’ll have me out of your place in no time."

Jack nudged him with his shoulder. "You might just
need to find a good woman to share it with, huh?”

Scott shoved him back, laughing hard when his brother gave
him a play punch in the stomach. "Just because you're all loved up doesn't
mean the rest of us have to be."

"Who're you kidding? I have a beautiful woman in bed
beside me every night and you're
gonna
be rattling
around this place alone."

"You've gone soft in the head," he told Jack.
"The woman in my bed part?
Perfect. But I have no
intention of going all domestic and shacking up with
anyone
."

"Even Amanda Jones?"

This time he punched Jack hard in the arm before scowling
back at him. "You just focus on your wife, bro, and I'll stick to
finishing this place. I’ll be way too busy pulling in the guests to even think
about Amanda.”

He was lucky his brother had a good sense of humor - as he
climbed the ladder all he could hear was laughter. But the worst thing was
,
Jack was right. He
did
have Amanda on the brain, and the only thing he could think about was pressing
hard against her again, like he had that night in the barn, and seeing just how
far she'd let things go.
Screw Blake
.
If Amanda wanted some fun between the sheets, hell, or against a wall for that
matter, then he was up for it. What Blake didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and
besides, grown up Mandy could make up her own mind about what she wanted.

He slammed the hammer down onto a nail head and struggled
to wipe the grin off his face. So long as she didn't want anything more than a
good time while she was here, before she went back to her normal life, then he
could be in for one hell of a lot of fun.

He put down his hammer and pulled out his mobile, before
deciding it wasn't exactly a good idea to call the main house. Maybe his best
bet was to finish his work, then wander over and come up with a bogus reason
for visiting. Offer to help out. Then he could look Amanda in the eye and ask
her out, insist on that dinner she'd agreed to the other night.

If
he was lucky, maybe he wouldn't even see Blake. The women of the Jones family
he could deal with - it wasn't them who'd ever been his problem.

Amanda sat in the sun and stretched out her legs, admiring
her newly painted toenails. It seemed like forever since she'd actually taken
some time to pamper herself, and hanging out with her sisters had been
fantastic. They'd always been close, but most of their sister time was spent on
the phone chatting, not in person.

She heard her sister coming back out and she relaxed back
into the chair, eyes shut.

"I hope you have something ice cold for me to
drink," she murmured.

Amanda held out her hand, beyond thirsty from sitting out
in the sun for too long, but instead of the soda she was expecting, something
wet trailed across her bare stomach.

"Charley!" she squealed, almost falling off her
chair.

“I’d say sorry but I wouldn’t mean it.”

Oh-my-god.
Amanda's entire body felt like it was on fire when she
looked up and realized exactly who was blocking the sun. Scott was staring down
at her, amusement written all over his face. His smile was wide as he burst out
laughing, holding out the bottle of Coke.

"Scott!" she managed, rearranging her bikini top
to make sure she wasn't showing anything. "That wasn't…"

"I'm sorry," he said again, interrupting her and
pulling the other chair over so he was facing her. He leaned forward, elbows on
his knees. "I couldn't help myself."

"Pity Blake isn't here. At least I could sic him on
you as punishment."

Having Scott trail an ice-cold anything down her skin
wasn't exactly torture, and the way he was looking at her now… it was having
that delicious effect of wiping her mind of everything else.

"You talk about your brother like he's your security
dog," Blake said with
a
 
laugh
.

"Where you're concerned?" she said, stretching
out one perfectly manicured toe to give Scott a nudge on the knee. "He
practically is."

He grabbed her foot before she could pull away. His grip
was firm, but the way he ran his fingers across her ankle was so soft it made
her want to sigh.

"So are you going to heed your big brother's
warning?"

"About you?" she asked, wishing she wasn't
finding it so hard to breathe with Scott's fingers on her skin.

"Is there anything else he's warned you away from
lately?"

Scott's voice was low, husky, his tone teasing and sexy as
hell. She had no clue where all this sexual tension had come from, what had
ignited between them so quickly when a few days ago she'd almost resented him.
But then a few days ago she hadn't known about her brother warning Scott away
from her - up until that point, she'd just thought he'd been a jerk.

"Just the usual.
Drugs, cigarettes and older men."
She laughed.

"I always did like cougars, personally," Scott
said, stroking her leg now, his fingertips slightly callused, his touch making
her squirm. "But the older I get, the more attractive beautiful young skin
like yours becomes."

Amanda snatched her leg back, heart racing as their
flirting amped up one notch more than she was ready for. Touching her foot was
one thing, but with her mother possibly watching from inside, not to mention
her sisters, she wasn't going to let Scott take any more liberties. Besides,
with the way she was feeling right now, Scott touching any part of her was
probably dangerous.

"So what brings you over here?" Amanda asked,
opening the Coke and taking a long sip to distract
herself
from the man watching her.

She watched Scott shrug. "I was up a ladder and I
thought about you."

 
He'd been thinking
about her? "What exactly was on your mind?"
Maybe he'd tell her that he was thinking about her naked, that they
needed to deal with the tension that was tighter than a knot between them.

"Dinner," he said, reaching for her soda and
taking a sip before passing it back. "You free tonight?"

Amanda folded her arms across her stomach, feeling way too
naked in front of Scott. She liked her body, but he was really dressed right
now and she so wasn’t.

"Just the two of us?" she asked, wanting to know
exactly
why
he was asking her,
whether it was as friends, as a group, or… she gulped.
Something more
.

"Definitely just the two of us,
unless you don't trust me to behave without company?"

She sucked in a big breath.
She wanted him to misbehave.
He was trying to get a reaction out of
her, the way he was staring at her, his gaze unwavering,
his
voice deep and husky. Scott had always been a tease, and she didn't want to
fall for any games.

"I trust you just fine," she said back, unfolding
her arms and refusing to be
embarrassed .
It was her
backyard, and she had every right to be lying in the sun in a bikini. "I'm
guessing your place is out of the question?"

He laughed.
"Yeah, unless we want
your sister and my brother meddling."

"I actually meant your new place, but yeah. You're
right."

Amanda tipped her head back to watch Scott as he rose. He
was wearing what seemed to be his uniform of a snug t-shirt, faded out jeans
that looked like they could rip at any
second,
and
sturdy boots. He couldn't have looked any hotter if he tried.

"How about a trip into town.
What do you say?"

"As in Billings or just into Rancher's Valley?"
she asked.

"I was thinking the little restaurant in the
valley."

"Pick me up around seven?"
He nodded, hands in his pockets. "Seven it is."

"And don't bring your motorcycle, okay? I could be
wearing a dress and I expect a car."

Scott laughed and she struggled to keep her own face
straight.

"Just in case you were wondering, you look great in a
bikini," he said as he walked backwards away from her.

This time Amanda couldn't help the blush that ignited her
cheeks. She dipped her head, couldn't meet his gaze straight away.

"Thanks," she mumbled.

"Hey, it's not
everyday
around these parts that I get to see a half naked girl."

Amanda shook her head, trying so hard not to laugh as he
left. Being around Scott was making her remember how much fun they'd all had
when they were younger. And now they were older, hell, it was even better.
Because now they were capable of making their own
decisions,
and even her brother couldn't stop her if she decided to turn tonight into
something more than just dinner with Scott.

The way he'd been looking at her had made his thoughts
clear, and besides, she was only here for a week, two at the most. What
happened with Scott could be their little secret, and it was a secret she was
starting to get desperate to keep. It had been way too long since she'd been
with a man, and if she was going to have a secret fling with anyone, why not
with him?

"Have fun with your visitor?"

Amanda looked up at Charlotte. Her sister was grinning ear
to ear, and when
Maddison
emerged behind her she knew
she was about to be grilled for information.

"Really nice of you both to warn me," she said,
trying to sound grumpy.

They both just laughed at her.

"His eyes just about popped out of his head when he
saw you in your bikini out here,"
Maddison
teased.

Both her sisters sat down beside her.
Maddison
pulled her
kaftan
off and lay back, and Charlotte
picked at a bowl of chips she'd brought out with her.

"Seriously, you could have at least called out,"
Amanda grumbled. "You were watching from inside the whole time, weren't
you?"

"When he trailed an ice cold drink down your chest or
when he oh-so-gently caressed your feet?" Charlotte asked, sending both
her and
Maddison
into fits of laughter.

"Funny, really funny," Amanda replied, wishing
she could be
more angry
with them.

"Honey, we're just teasing,"
Maddison
told her, resting a hand on her arm. "Whatever's happening with Scott is
none of our business. You just ignore us."

Amanda sighed. "It's actually kind of nice having you
two around to tease me. I've missed this."

"Ever wonder why you and I were so desperate to leave
in the first place?"
Maddison
asked her.

"Right now that's all I'm asking myself."
She was lying. She was also asking herself
whether she could go through with doing something wicked with Scott.

"I have to say, it's been pretty good being back.
Hanging out with mom and Charlotte, spending time with dad."

Amanda suddenly forgot all about Scott or anything else. A
lump formed in her throat.

"Honey, I'm sorry. I didn't
meant
that to sound like…"

She shook her head and placed a gentle hand on her sister's
well rounded stomach. "It's fine. I can't even imagine how excited he must
have been about this little one on the way."

They all sat in silence, looking at one another but not saying
anything. They didn't need to - they were sisters and there were things that
were best left unsaid rather than dredging up painful memories of what could
have been - and they were all thinking the same thing. That he'd never meet his
granddad.

"So what's it like actually taking a day off?"
Amanda asked Charley, changing the subject.