Montana Reunion by Soraya Lane Read Free Book Online Page A

tightness in his jaw, how hard it must be for him to tell them like it
meant nothing. When it meant everything to him.
    “ He didn’t ? Your father actually put a clause in his will saying
that?” Charlotte was sitting still, for once with nothing to say, but the look
on her mom’s face as she spoke said it all.
    “That and more,” Jack confirmed,
finishing his waffle and taking his plate to the sink.
    “So we need to find you a wife,”
Charlotte announced. “Shouldn’t be too hard, unless you’re
overly fussy. But I guess that depends on how fast we have to find one.”
    Maddison was trying to catch Jack’s eye, but he was looking at her sister instead.
    Please
don’t tell them, please don’t say anything…
    “I think I’ve already found one,”
he said, grinning again. “Mad—“
    “Jack can I have a word with you?
Privately?” she interrupted, walking across the room and taking him by the
elbow.
    She didn’t care that her mom and
sister were staring at her like she was crazy, what she cared about was making
sure Jack didn’t go announcing something that they hadn’t even talked through
properly. Something that was going to change both their lives, that needed to
be thought through and discussed.
    She marched him to the back door,
pulled on her boots and waited for him to do the same.
    “I know you were pretty into me
last night, but there’s no need to be so rough,” Jack joked, slowly reaching
for his boots, like he was enjoying every minute of making her uncomfortable.
    “Stop it!” she hissed. “Seriously,
Jack, you can’t just go blurting things like that out. Not in front of my
family.”
    He let her drag him out the door.
Heat hit them straight away, so she led him toward the barn where they could
get out of the sun and away from prying eyes.
    “I thought you would have told them
already,” he said.
    “And I thought we had more to
discuss before we let anyone in on what was happening.”
    He sighed then shrugged. “You’re
right.”
    That she hadn’t been expecting. To have Jack actually agree with her on something
when he’d always used to be so stubborn.
    Maddison walked into the cool of the barn and turned over a feed bucket to sit on. Jack
did the same.
    “If you want a romantic proposal, Maddie , I think we could do better than this.”
    Jack was grinning again and her
temper flared. “This isn’t a joke to me, Jack. If we’re going to do this, I
want it to seem real to everyone else, I told you that. I want my dad to
actually think we’re marrying because we want to, not for some bogus legal
clause or to help him out.”
    “So what, exactly, are you
proposing?” he asked.
    Maddison took a deep breath, wishing she’d had more time to think it through. She’d lain awake most of the night trying to figure it out, but
she’d only gone around in circles.  
    “A simple marriage of convenience,”
she started, watching Jack’s face as she spoke. He was smiling but not giving
anything away. “And no matter what happened last night, we can’t, well, I don’t
know.” She didn’t know ,
that was the problem.
    “So you don’t want to be friends
with benefits?” He raised an eyebrow, eyes glinting.
    Maddison refused to be embarrassed. This was Jack she was talking to, not some stranger, and the truth was that they’d gotten hot
and heavy the night before, even if they had only made it to first base.
    I
don’t want to fall in love with you. That’s what she wanted to say, but she
knew she didn’t dare.
    “It’s been really nice being back
here, Jack. I love hanging out at home, being with my family, seeing you .”
    “But?” he asked, hands on his knees
as he leaned forward, eyes on hers.
    “But I’m not ready to give up my
career, not yet. At least not until I’m a mom.”
    His face hardened, smile tight as
he shook his head, slowly back and forth. “ Maddison ,
I thought we’d had this discussion.”
    Damn it. She hadn’t planned on
bringing up the