Saving Cinderella

Which they had. Red-faced, over-eager. Drunk, some of them, she suspected.

Not this man, though, the one who had won her at last, for over five hundred dollars. There was something much steadier about this one. His dark eyes, his solid stance, the questions he asked about her well-being. And when they faced each other, ready to enact the charade of their wedding vows, his warm hands held hers steadily, too.

Behind him, the lettering on the huge sign blurred in Jill’s vision. “Cinderella Marriage Marathon,” it read. “Win the coach, the palace, the honeymoon…and the bride!”

“Ready, you two?” said a man who was dressed like a royal courtier from days gone by, in a wig of rippling white curls, satin breeches and embroidered waistcoat.

For the first time, the audience fell silent. The other couples were ready and waiting now. The emcee launched into a spiel that Jill barely listened to. She caught only a few phrases, and didn’t take the time to make sense of them.

“…officer of the court present to witness…progress of each marriage on live cable TV…last couple left standing…winner takes all.”

The cameras had moved in closer, stealing her attention, and the lights had gotten even brighter. There was a mirror ball directly above her head, sending tiny white lights chasing across the black-eyed stranger’s face. A burst of romantic music vibrated in the air, then died away.

“Do you, Grayson James McCall, take Jillian Anne Chaloner Brown to be your lawfully wedded wife…?”

Grayson McCall. That was his name. She looked up at him. Their eyes met and held.

And even though she knew it was meaningless, a stunt, a charade, she was suddenly captured by the magic and swept away. She could have wrapped herself in the warm light of those eyes like wrapping herself in a black velvet cloak. How would it feel if a man like this was saying words like this to her, not as part of some reality TV gimmick, but for real?

“I do,” he said.

His voice was low, and his gaze never left her face for a second. It was a moment she’d never forget.

Chapter One

Sam was getting sick.

Jill had started to suspect it a couple of hours ago, just before the cheap rental car she’d picked up yesterday evening broke down half a mile this side of Blue Rock. Now, sitting with Sam as a passenger in a different vehicle, she was sure of it.

“You didn’t finish the story, Mommy,” he whined.

Sam never whined. Unless he was getting sick.

Jill felt his forehead—it was hot. “Yes, I did, honey,” she soothed him, putting an arm around his little shoulders and pulling him close. The rear seat of the Cadillac was shiny with age. They hit a bump in the dirt road and Sam’s hip slid hard against hers.

“No, you didn’t,” he argued, his voice rising. “You never said the bit about living happily ever after.”

Well, he had her there. She never had said it, and everyone knew that all good fairy stories should end that way.

She sighed.

The problem was that the tale she’d been spinning to her son over the past quarter of an hour wasn’t a fairy story. It was her makeshift attempt to explain to a four-year-old, fatherless boy why they’d come all the way by train from Pennsylvania to Montana to resolve a situation that she’d never meant to get into at all.

Sam adored trains. He hadn’t asked a single question about the reason for this trip during that part of the journey. But then they’d gotten off the train in Trilby. They’d rented a wreck of a car from the cheapest place in town—”affiliated nationwide” its sign had claimed, but she wasn’t impressed—spent a sleepless night in a noisy, down-market motel just off Interstate 15, and made it, this morning, as far as Blue Rock.

The car had given up completely about two hours ago, in a hissy fit of noise and ominous smoke. No “happily ever after” involved in this instance. Bored, exhausted and getting sick, Sam had finally asked, “What are we doing this for, anyhow?”

Jill sighed again.

Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to make her story so upbeat and reassuring. No wonder Sam wanted the fairy tale ending, when she’d started by talking about the pink colored lights and the silk wedding gown, Cinderella on silver skate blades and a handsome prince in a cowboy’s hat who’d swept her away from that nightmare of a ball….

“Looks like this could be Grayson up ahead, there, on horseback,” said the balding man at the wheel of the noisy Cadillac. For a car mechanic’s vehicle, it didn’t sound as though it was in great shape. “I’ll pull over.”

“I—” Jill began, then stopped.

From the first, she hadn’t particularly taken to Ron Thurrell, the owner-operator of Blue Rock’s one gas station and vehicle repair shop. He was apparently also the local agent for Triple Star Insurance, as well as for two minor car rental companies.

She should have taken to him. He’d gone out of his way with his offer to drive her and Sam the twenty-four remaining miles to Grayson McCall’s isolated ranch. He had also promised to deal with the rental car and have another one ready for her when she needed it. He’d definitely been helpful, but she hadn’t liked him, and she didn’t want to admit to him that Gray had no idea she was coming. Definitely didn’t want to admit to him what she was here for.

“Okay. Thanks,” she said instead.

Mr. Thurrell slowed the vehicle to a halt and Jill saw the rider on horseback in the distance, heading diagonally in this direction across a field of tall grass. She got out of the car, shut the door to keep the insistent September wind off Sam’s flushed little face, and went over to the barbed wire fence that bordered the track.

Leaning on one of the wooden posts, she wondered if there was some special kind of call or gesture people out here used to summon each other across such yawning expanses of land. She wasn’t quite sure yet if the rider—was it really Gray?—had seen her. Tentatively, she waved one hand. Then she lifted off her winter wool hat and waved again with that, more forcefully.

Grayson McCall, if it was him, had seen and understood. Jill could see it by the way he quickened the horse’s stride. As he approached, she began to get a sense of his ease in the saddle. Knowing nothing whatsoever about horses—she’d seen them in the flesh maybe, oh, twice?—she could still recognize what a capable rider he was.

He held his body in a lazy cowboy slouch, which she could tell was totally comfortable and controlled. He seemed like a knight in shining armor, but that was a comparison she should most definitely steer clear of.

Half a minute later, she knew for certain that it was Grayson. She hadn’t seen him since March, almost six months ago, but her memory of him was still surprisingly strong. She hadn’t forgotten his big, hard, capable body, and his straight, soft hair. It was the color of black-strap molasses shot through by a shaft of sunlight, and it had felt silky against her fingers. She hadn’t forgotten his jutting jaw, with its suggestion of ranch-bred stubbornness, nor his straight, strong nose, steady dark eyes and brown, outdoor skin.

She hadn’t forgotten, either, how it had felt when he’d kissed her. Now, that was something that belonged in a fairy tale, for sure!

And now he had recognized her, which must have been more of a challenge. She had let her dark hair grow longer over the past few months. Today it was scraped back in a ponytail which had taken her not more than thirty seconds to fix in place with a bright pink scrunchy some hours ago at the motel.

Last time they’d met, she’d been wearing a perfect mask of makeup and that gorgeous silk wedding gown. Now she wore blue jeans, a snug pink sweater and pink padded jacket, with no makeup at all.

But he recognized her, all right. He tensed up in the saddle and unconsciously slowed the horse’s gait. As he got closer, she could see beneath the battered brown felt cowboy hat to his black eyes. They were courteous and wary at the same time.

Reaching the fence, he reined the horse in and Jill registered the unfamiliar sounds of creaking saddle and clinking bit and stirrups. She saw the way Gray’s thighs, clad in old blue denim, moved easily against the leather beneath him. It was as if he and the horse were one.

The large chestnut brown animal whickered impatiently and shifted its hooves. Maybe it knew this wasn’t the place it and its rider were supposed to end up. It smelled pungently of oats and farmyard.

“Hello, Jill,” Gray said in his gruff voice.

“Hello.” She squeezed out a nervous smile as she looked up at him.

“Uh, it’s good to see you again.” He took off his hat slowly, and set it on the high-pommelled Western saddle in front of him. The wind caught at once at his black hair, combing it back off his high, smooth forehead. “How’ve you been?”

“Well, fine, I guess,” she said, as awkward as he was. “Not bad.”

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”

“I rented a car in Trilby after we got off the train, but it broke down. I should have gone with one of the national companies. Mr. Thurrell offered to drive me from his garage, which was nice of him. He says he knew your father through some business dealings.”

She gestured back at the classic Caddy, knowing she was babbling. Alan was right to have insisted that she come out here and deal with the whole thing in person. She had ghosts to lay to rest—the ghosts of foolish dreams and fantasies, six months old, which Alan had understood better than she had. Alan Jennings was a sensible man, with a cool head on his shoulders.

That was why she planned to say yes, eventually, to his proposal of marriage. As soon as she’d dealt with just one small detail.