LITMIR.BIZ

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Montrose Stone, just had the one girl. Me. And I never met a man I could stand for more than a few hours. Peter and Ethel’s son died in Korea and their girls married and moved to Billings, but they’re divorced now, you know.”

      Jared wondered how the hell he could get her to stop before she got down to the fact that he and Will needed to come up with some children of their own. “Aunt Bitty, has Mom shown you the Animal Planet channel yet?”

      “Oh, pooh,” she said, waving her hand at him. “She’s always watching those craft shows. Yesterday we saw how to paint glasses and dishes, but you couldn’t put ’em in the dishwasher, so what good are they?”

      “Not much, I suspect,” Joe supplied, giving Melanie a wink.

      “Where was I?” Bitty frowned.

      “Crafts,” Jenna prompted.

      “Oh, yes, the lack of descendants.” Clearly Bitty was not going to be deterred. “Jenna and George, Jr. had the two boys, of course, which was exactly what the place needed.”

      Jared looked at his mother and silently mouthed help. She shrugged and let Bitty finish her ramblings, which were going to end up—as they always did—with the deplorable lack of family responsibility on his and Will’s parts because they hadn’t sowed their oats all over the county and sprouted future Graystone ranch hands.

      “But the boys,” she said, pausing to sigh dramatically. “The boys have not married and produced the next generation of Stones. Preferably male. And lots of them.” She shot Melanie an apologetic look. “Not that I have anything against girls, my dear, but it takes men to run a place like this. Married men whose women know how to work, too. My mother could ride and rope with the best of them. Jenna, too. Do you ride, Melanie?”

      “I actually preferred cooking to horses,” Jenna interjected, much to Jared’s relief. “Melanie, would you like some more roast beef? Jared, pass that platter over to her. The potatoes, too.”

      He did exactly that, holding the platter while Melanie took another slice of meat.

      “Thank you.” She gave him a small smile. “Please. Call me ‘Mel.’ Everyone does.”

      “They do?” The name didn’t fit. He knew an auctioneer named Mel. He could spit a stream of tobacco twelve feet.

      “Don’t you have a nickname?”

      “No.”

      Jared set the platter down and tried to think of something interesting to say as he handed her the bowl of mashed potatoes. The family was used to Bitty’s comments and questions, but he hated the idea of Melanie being embarrassed. She didn’t look embarrassed, though. She looked as if she wanted to laugh, as if she was enjoying herself. Odd. Aunt Bitty didn’t usually inspire that sort of reaction.

      “Looks like we’re going to get a lot of snow tonight,” was all he could manage to say. Everyone looked at him as if he’d just spoken Greek. “I…we won’t be able to give Melanie—Mel—a tour of the ranch until the weather clears,” he added. There. He gave Uncle Joe a say something look.

      “Well—” the old man stopped buttering his roll and grinned at their guest “—tomorrow we’ll have to plow a path to the barn and introduce you to the horses. Too bad that little baby of yours is too little to enjoy the animals.”

      “Yes, but I’ll look forward to seeing everything,” she said, glancing toward the couch where the child slept hemmed in by pillows. “I’ve never been to Montana before.”

      “We’ll have to give you the grand tour, won’t we, Jared?” Uncle Joe winked.

      “Mrs. Stone, dinner is delicious.”

      “Call me Jenna, remember? What on earth did you eat on the train?”

      “Sandwiches, mostly. Getting to the dining car was difficult with the baby.”

      That was probably an understatement, Jared figured.

      Jenna was obviously fascinated. “So how did you manage?”

      “The man who sat across from us—he was going all the way to Seattle—brought back food and coffee, which helped so much. People were very kind, but it was a much harder trip than I thought it would be.” She wiped her lips with her napkin.

      “Then why,” Bitty asked, her three chins shaking, “did you attempt such a thing?”

      “I don’t like to fly. Will didn’t tell you?”

      “Will didn’t tell us much at all,” Jared said, frowning. “Except that you had a red coat.”

      “I’ve never liked flying, either,” Uncle Joe declared. “Give me my Ford truck any day. Seems like if I can’t drive there I’ve got no business trying to get there in the first place.”

      “Folks gallivant around too much these days,” Bitty added, giving Jared a disapproving look. “If the young people stayed home they’d most likely get married faster and start having sons. My folks were nineteen when they got married and seems like you’d better get busy and—”

      “Who wants coffee? Or tea?” His mother stood and began to clear the dishes from the table, and Melanie leaped up to help her. Fluffy barked for leftovers, distracting Bitty from her latest lecture and saving Jared from having to grit his teeth and remind his aunt that thirty-two was not over the hill.

      And then there was Melanie. Jared picked up his dishes and grabbed Joe’s to take over to the sink, but he couldn’t help noticing that Melanie—Mel—seemed real comfortable in the kitchen. She and Jenna were good-naturedly arguing over Mel’s decision to wash the dishes, but then the baby cried and settled the argument. Melanie—he couldn’t think of her as Mel—rushed over to pick up the child and coo into her ear.

      Jared’s heart sank down to his silver belt buckle. Was Will in love with her? Or worse, was she in love with Will? Why else travel by train—which sounded like the trip from hell—to spend the holidays with him?

      “Jared.” His mother put her hand on his arm and whispered, “What’s the matter?”

      “Nothing.” He faked a yawn. “I guess I’m tired.”

      You couldn’t fool Jenna Stone. She looked toward Melanie, who was bent over the couch putting the baby back in its makeshift nest. “She’s very lovely.”

      “I guess.”

      “The baby isn’t Will’s, so whose is it? And where is he?”

      “You’ll have to wait until Will gets home to get the answers, Mom.”

      “Thank God that happens tomorrow,” she said, keeping her voice low. “But I’m calling him tonight, right after dessert.”

      “Good idea.” And let me know what you find out. If he was lusting after his future sister-in-law, he damned well wanted to know.

      “WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Jenna had been anxious to talk to Joe since dinner, but there’d been dishes to wash, pie to serve and a guest who needed to get settled into bed before she fainted dead away from exhaustion. Bitty and Fluffy were upstairs listening to Dr. Laura on the radio and Jared had hustled off to hide in the barn.

      “I think the boys can take care of themselves,” her uncle declared. He folded up the newspaper and set it aside. “But it’s no good telling you that because you’re going to worry, anyway.”

      She folded her arms across her chest. “You saw the way he looked at her.”

      “Jared?” At her nod he continued, “Yes. She’s a beautiful young woman. And if I was fifty or sixty years younger I might be looking at her like that, too.”

      “But—”

      “He’s a red-blooded man.”

      “And she’s Will’s.”

      “You

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