Saving Cinderella

Gray wasn’t going to waste time on one of those “Yes, I insist,” “No, I couldn’t trouble you” exchanges.

Instead, the only answer he gave was to open the front passenger door and say to Ron, “Thanks for doing this. Can you take her down to the old place? You know that’s where we’re living now?”

Most people in Blue Rock did know. Most of them probably had a good idea about why, also, although he and Mom and Grandpa were keeping as close-mouthed as they could about their dire financial state.

“I’d heard,” Ron answered. “Of course.” Then he shut his mouth abruptly, as if he’d have liked to say a lot more.

“I’ll meet you there in a little bit, Jill,” Gray said. “Just go ahead and introduce yourself to Mom and get yourself settled.”

“If you’re sure that—”

“No arguments.”

“But I’m taking you away from your, uh, your ranch work, aren’t I?” she answered, biting her lower lip. “Your cattle-branding, or whatever.”

He didn’t bother to tell her that they didn’t generally brand cattle in Montana in September. He just said, with that same stiffness and reluctance still thickening his voice, “I was on my way back anyhow, to grab some lunch. I’m going to take a shortcut, down along the river. You’ll get to the house first, but if you tell Mom I sent you, and that I’m coming along below the Angus spur, she’ll make you welcome.”

More welcome than I ever could.

“Weather’s closing over,” he finished, “and you need to get yourself and Sam inside.”

“Okay, thanks Gray.”

She looked like she was holding herself together with a Band-Aid, a cup of coffee and sheer force of will. “Did you hear that, Sammy?” she said to her son. “We’re going to stay in a real ranch house tonight!”

The car door closed, and Ron wheeled the vehicle back on to the rough track, snapping the dry gravel. Gray was left alone by the fence. He climbed back through, untied Highboy’s reins, swung himself into the saddle and nudged the animal forward.

Recognizing that they were homeward bound at last, Highboy responded willingly, which left Gray free to think.

Damn it, he shouldn’t be surprised that the crazy episode in Las Vegas had caught up with him at last! He’d known it would have to do so, sooner or later.

And it would have been sooner, if Jill’s letter last month hadn’t arrived the same day the McCalls’ banker had told Gray once and for all that his loan was capped as it stood and there was no possible way to increase it any further, no more collateral he could use, no options left at all.

He had scribbled that quick note back to her on the counter at the post office. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time to deal with it right now.”

Generous of her to call it a letter. Then he had thought no more about it. His entire mind, in every waking moment, had been consumed with far more urgent concerns.

Their marriage was so bizarre, so unreal, so nonexistent in any true sense. Did it really matter if they held off on the formality of a divorce for a little longer? Evidently it mattered to her, since she’d come all this way, and he felt bad about that, as he’d told her.

He should probably feel bad about their marriage, too. Angry at her for the way her stricken face had called to him that night and had made him act so impulsively. Angry at the cable TV station that had organized the “Cinderella Marriage Marathon” in a shameless attempt to climb onto the “reality TV” bandwagon.

But he didn’t feel angry about that night. For some weird reason, their time together—all eight hours of it—was the only bright memory he had brought home from his ill-fated trip to Las Vegas in March.

Six months later, his body had awakened at once, clamoring with need at the very sight of her. Six months later, he could remember practically every word they’d spoken to each other, every gesture she’d made, every nuance of her laugh.

Six months later, however, and on his home ground, he was more realistic, more alive to his own vulnerability, and he just wanted beautiful, warm-hearted Jill Chaloner Brown out of his life.

Chapter Two

Jill thanked Mr. Thurrell for unloading her bag and went up to the house.

Thurrell cruised slowly off, without waiting until she’d reached the front steps. He seemed far more interested in watching a small group of cattle in a nearby field than in checking to see whether there was someone here to greet her. She felt very alone as she held feverish Sam awkwardly on her hip and hefted their shared travel bag in her other hand.

The setting of this house was magnificent. The Montana landscape awed her, dwarfing her concerns and mocking them at the same time. She’d never seen such incredible scenery. The mountains looked as though they had been painted onto the sky, huge and yet close enough to touch.

Overhead and in the distance to the east, clouds piled up and up into the blue. They were clouds like magic lands, tinted a hundred shades of white and gray. Their shadows chased across the straw-colored carpets of grass that covered the ground. To the west, higher up, they were different but just as beautiful, feathery and fast-moving against the high roofline of the house.

Beyond its gorgeous setting, the age and disrepair of the place showed, though. It hadn’t been painted in so long that the clapboard was bare and weathered to a silvery gray. The wide front porch sagged.

Still, there was something appealing about the house. The porch was swept clean and set with a pretty harvest display of pale grasses, gourds in weird, goblin shapes and bunches of Indian corn. Surrounding the house like trusted companions were a half-dozen big old trees, and some wild and ancient rosebushes had recently had their long, supple canes trained and tied along the remains of a post and rail fence.

As Jill reached the porch, its swing creaked in the cold wind. The clouds that had been flying across the sky were beginning to change now. Grayson had been right about the weather closing over. Sam wasn’t dressed for it, and his cheek was burning against hers. The need to get him inside, safe, warm, settled and filled with warm fluids overcame Jill’s sudden attack of nerves, and she rapped on the door loudly, not really believing that anyone was home. The place was so quiet and solitary.

Until, blessedly soon, she heard footsteps. The door opened, and there stood an older female version of Gray, wearing jeans and an untucked shirt made of soft, plaid-patterned flannel. She had the same dark eyes and straight nose as her son, framed by a pretty cloud of gray hair.

Maybe she would have the same smile, too, only Jill hadn’t seen that yet. Face to face with Mrs. McCall, she was overwhelmed by how much there was to explain, and by the need to cut it as short as possible in order to get Sam inside.

“Gray s-sent me,” she stammered. “He’s coming along the… I’m sorry…the Angus spur, I think he said. He’ll be here soon. He said you’d— The thing is, my little boy is sick, and it’s getting colder by the minute, and I really want to…”

She trailed off.

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” said Mrs. McCall in a comfortable voice. Her hand, faintly dusted with flour, took Jill’s travel bag and tucked it out of the way against the wall. The same hand left flour traces on Sam’s forehead as she rested her palm there for a moment, then crooned, “You’re as hot as can be, aren’t you, cowboy? Come in, honey.”

She put an arm around Jill’s shoulder as Jill took a better hold on Sam, wrapping both her arms around him. He hadn’t spoken a word since they left Gray back in that big open field.

“Come straight through to the kitchen,” Gray’s mother said. “I have the oven on, and it’s the warmest room in the house. He must be hungry.”

“I don’t know if he is, but I’d like to get some hot liquid into him, and some Tylenol, and then I’m hoping he’ll take a long nap. He hardly slept last night.”

“Poor mite! I have soup on the stove and corn bread just gone into the oven. I’ve been expecting Gray back for lunch.”

“We delayed him, I think.”

“You’ll eat, too?”

“As soon as I’ve settled Sam.”

“You’re staying the night, of course.”

“Gray asked us to,” Jill hedged, then admitted, “I was so grateful.”

On her shoulder, Sam stirred. “Mommy…?”

“Isn’t it good to be inside, Sam?” Jill whispered to him.

She dreaded the possibility that this was a real illness. Strep throat, or influenza. What were doctors like out here? How long would it be before he could travel safely?

Stomach in knots, she followed Gray’s mother down a clean, plain hallway and, moments later, Sam was seated on her lap at a big old kitchen table. There was a cast-iron, wood-fired range that was no longer in use, next to an electric stove that wasn’t a whole lot newer. There was a wooden dresser set with a motley collection of decorative plates, and there were floral calico curtains bunched in the windows.

Mrs. McCall moved about the large yet cozy room with quiet efficiency.

“Where did you leave Gray?” she said.

“Um, I’m not sure. About a mile back, I guess.”

“He should be home any minute, then. He’ll come and check that you’re safe before he sees to the horse. You haven’t told me your name yet, honey.”

The reproof was so mild it was almost a compliment.

“I’m sorry. It’s Jill. Jill Brown.”

Jill Brown McCall? She didn’t say it, being absolutely sure that Gray, like herself until very recently, would have said nothing about their marriage to his family.

“It’s good to meet you, Jill. And you, Sam, darling-heart, although I know you’re feeling too bad to talk.” She slid a wide, half-filled soup plate across to Jill and cautioned, “Still piping hot, so wait a little,” then added, “I’m Louise.”

There was the sound of boots clumping on the back steps, then the rattle and creak of old doors opening, and Gray appeared. He swept his hat off his head with a single, practised movement, and Jill could see that his nose was shiny with cold and his black eyes glistened. The feeling of the outdoor world of the ranch seemed to enter the room with him. Space and air, the smell of animals and grass, a sense of freedom coupled with hard work.

The hard work part, Jill understood. She’d had to work hard herself, for much of her life. She wasn’t afraid of work, and when she’d taken on a task, she was stubborn about seeing it through. But everything else about Grayson McCall was new. And appealing, in an elemental way that unsettled and disturbed her. Disturbed her far more than it had in Las Vegas, when they’d both been playing roles that weren’t their own.

She had to struggle to take her eyes off him, to ignore the way his muscles stretched beneath the fabric of his clothing, and to avoid being aware of exactly where he stood and how he moved in the room. Even the sounds he made. The creak of his boots, the whoosh of the breath he blew into his hands.

He shouldn’t affect her in this way. Not when she hardly knew him. Not when she sensed his reluctance about having her here. And not the way things stood in her life.

“That wind is sharp!” he said. “Mom, this is Jill…and Sam.”

“I know,” Louise said easily. “We’ve just introduced ourselves.”

“Can you make up some beds for them while I put Highboy away?”

“You’re not taking him out again later?”

“Going to look at the engine on the old pickup instead,” he said, and Louise nodded but didn’t say anything.

Jill realized that her arrival must have caused a change in plans, casually communicated between son and mother. But she understood too little about ranch life to know if it mattered. She realized also that she’d be even more of a nuisance if she protested.

No, please, don’t hold off birthing those ten dozen calves, roping those six hundred steers and mending that twenty mile fence on my account!

Gray disappeared back out the kitchen door and his mother went off to set up a bed for Sam. He would be in it within minutes, Jill knew. Seated listlessly on her lap, Sam was only eating the soup because she was spooning it in. It smelled so good, and her own stomach was selfishly clamoring for its share.

Before the bowl was finished, Sam pushed the spoon away and Jill didn’t force the issue.

Louise McCall was back.

“All ready for him,” she said. “I did yours, too, so as not to disturb him later on. Now, what else do you need before you get him settled?”

“Just a glass of water, please,” Jill answered. “I want to give him some Tylenol, and he likes to wash away the taste afterward. Sam, sweetie, can you sit here while I find the Tylenol in our bag?”

He nodded, and sat obediently in the chair Jill had just vacated. From the far end of the hallway, as she rummaged around in their big canvas travel bag for the medicine, she heard Louise talking to him in a casual kind of way.

“I’m going to be here in the house all afternoon, little guy, so if you need anything you let me or your mom know, okay? And I should tell you, we have a cat might come and sleep on your bed, Sam. You like cats? Yeah, they’re interesting creatures, aren’t they? This one’s old. She doesn’t hunt anymore, just likes to find the warmest spot in the house and go to sleep. Will you mind if she does that on your bed?”

Bless her! Jill thought. She must be wondering who in heaven we are and why we’re here, but she hasn’t asked a single question about it. Instead, all she wants to know is whether Sam feels safe with cats….

And apparently Sam did, because the old tabby was already making herself comfortable on Sam’s trundle bed as Jill got him undressed and snuggled into his stretchy pajamas, and Sam didn’t object. Instead, as he slid between the covers, he croaked a tender “Hello, Firefly.”

He curled his body to make room for the animal, whose purr was so loud it almost made the bed vibrate. Within seconds the two of them were lying there with eyes closed, heading for sleep.

Tear-blinded and shaky once more, Jill pulled the faded, handmade quilt a little higher around Sam’s shoulders and gave him a soft kiss. He was safe and cherished now in a way she hadn’t dared to imagine an hour ago.

He’d probably be well again by the day after tomorrow, she decided. It was hope rather than science.

She went to the window, passing a neat pile of cardboard boxes, labeled with a black felt-tip pen. “Dad’s office,” read several. “Grandma’s albums,” said a couple more. A draught of warm air wafted up through the black metal grill of the heating vent in the floor, contrasting with the chilly vista through the window.

The clouds had lowered and thickened further, and had paled to a dull white which shrouded the tops of the mountains. Wind whipped the tethered canes of the roses and combed through the needles of the pines like distant singing.

Gray was coming across the yard. His hat was jammed down to cover his ears and his shoulders were hunched. His strides lengthened as he neared the house, as if he couldn’t wait to get inside, and Jill had the strongest, strangest urge to hurry down to him, take his coat, serve him his soup and ask him about his day, as though she belonged here.

Considering that she was here to ask for a divorce, so she could be free to say yes to Alan, none of what she felt made any sense.

She made a stop at the bathroom on the way downstairs and noted that it resembled the rest of the house—old and shabby but scrupulously clean and brightened with homey touches that could only have been made by a loving hand.

When she reached the kitchen, Gray was at the table, chewing on warm corn bread and spooning in a huge bowl of soup.

“…couldn’t have gotten it done this afternoon, anyhow, because it was a bigger problem than I’d thought,” he was saying. “Wylie can’t have checked it like he said he had.” He hadn’t heard or seen her arrival yet. “I’m going to have to bring you and Grandpa Pete with me, Mom, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get the truck up there with the gear. ’S why I want to fix that oil leak and check the transmission, because otherwise we could get ourselves well and truly stuck.”

Catching sight of Jill in the doorway, Louise McCall asked at once, “How is he, honey?”

Gray stopped eating and looked up at Jill. He gave a little nod of greeting, then watched her face with his dark eyes for a moment, before flicking his gaze downward. He hadn’t waited for her reply to Louise’s question. Didn’t seem to want to know.

“He’s asleep by now,” she said. “Along with…with Firefly.”

Ah, don’t cry, Jill! she thought to herself angrily. Why is this happening?

“It’s stupid,” she went on, wiping tears onto her sleeve. “To cry about it, I mean. But I’m so grateful. Even your cat is making us welcome!”

“Well, why wouldn’t we, Jill?” Louise said courteously. Then her curiosity got the better of her at last and she asked, “Are you in some kind of trouble, honey?”

“Mom, let’s leave this till later, okay?” Gray growled, going back to his meal.

Both women ignored him. Jill fixed her gaze steadily on Gray’s mother and said, “I was. At one time. And Gray helped me out. Which created a problem of its own, that I need help with. I promise I’ll trouble you as little as I can. Sam getting sick was something I hadn’t foreseen. It means we’re going to be with you for a few days, when I’d been hoping I could start for home tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Louise said. “Please don’t.”

Her son didn’t add the same assurance.

A silence fell, slightly awkward, as they finished their soup, which tasted every bit as good as it smelled. Gray wolfed down three bowls of it, along with substantial hunks of corn bread. He spoke just once more, to ask, “Grandpa’s not coming back for lunch?”

“He took sandwiches and coffee,” Louise answered. “Wants to get those cows moved down today.”

“He shouldn’t be doing it on his own.”

Louise snorted. “You tell him that!”

Gray nodded and shrugged. “Guess I already did.” As soon as he was done eating, he announced, “I’m going to get on over to the shed and look at that truck, or I won’t get anywhere with it today.”

“Can I help?” Jill blurted out. “Sam will sleep for hours now. He always does when he’s feverish, so it doesn’t make sense for me to sit around. You told him you’d be here at the house all afternoon, didn’t you, Louise?”

Gray looked at her, as wary as before, and she could see the way he was assessing her words.

“Sure,” he finally answered, much too slowly. “Can always use an extra pair of hands.”

They set out ten minutes later. Jill was bundled up in an old scarlet sweater of Louise’s. Louise had said that the shed was cold, and Jill’s jacket and pink top “too pretty” to get covered in motor oil.

“You know anything about cars?” Gray asked her as they drove in his mom’s late-model white station wagon back the same way Jill had come with Ron Thurrell.

“Not a whole lot,” she admitted, “but I’m willing to learn.”

“Not in one afternoon.”

“No, okay, well, something else, then.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You said you could use an extra pair of hands.”

“I figured you wanted to come along so Mom didn’t have a chance to ask you any more awkward questions.”

“That was part of it,” Jill admitted. “But I said I’d help, and I will.”

The sound he made might have been, “Thanks.”

Or it might have been a snort.

She lifted her chin and didn’t push the point. Feeling the tension along her jaw, she glanced sideways and recognized much the same expression on Gray’s face.

We’re both stubborn, I guess, she thought.

Stubborn and honorable in his case. Stubborn and impulsive, in hers. Was that what had gotten them into trouble in Las Vegas?

Please get well quick, Sam. I’m here to dissolve the magic not make it stronger.

“Where are we headed?” she asked quickly.

“Machine shed,” he answered. “We have a heavy-duty pickup we need to take cross-country to fix some fence. We’ve had cattle showing up where they don’t belong.”

“Like me.”

“Really, Jill, you can quit apologizing.” Impatience colored his tone. “I got us both into this as much as you did.”

“Your mom would like to know what it’s all about.”

“Mom’s pretty good, but she’s only human.”

“I know. It’s not that I would have resented questions, I just didn’t feel ready to answer them yet.”

“Makes sense. Can I ask a couple?”

“Probably a little easier, coming from you,” she agreed.

“You want to get married again, is that right? That’s the only reason I could think of for the urgency.”

“Uh, yeah.” She listened to her own words, and realized that she had begun to adopt his own cautious, almost reluctant way of talking.

“I mean married for real.”

“I know what you meant,” she said. “Yes, married for real. I mean, we’re not in love with each other, Alan and I. But when you have kids, that stuff’s more trouble than it’s worth. He knows that, and so do I.”

“Yeah, I guess it could be that way,” Grayson growled. “This guy has kids, too?”

“Teenage daughters, Anna and Sarah. And they come first. Them, and Sam. For both of us.”

“Makes sense.”

“Does it? I keep thinking you should be angry, Gray. Angry that this is happening at all. That I got you into it. In fact, on some level, you are angry.”

“No, I’m not,” he insisted. “Or, not with you. It’s not your fault. Neither of us realized, when it was happening, that it was real….”

Real. Real as in legal. A very different kind of “real” from what she hoped to build with Alan.

The word echoed in Jill’s mind, and she suddenly wondered if she had the slightest idea what “real” actually meant. She thought back…

Las Vegas. The show. “Cinderella on Ice.” A dream come true. A dream made real. Only, from the very beginning, it hadn’t been.

Jill had skated since she could remember, pushed into it at first by her selfish and demanding mother, then loving it for its own sake. She had found a home away from home at the rink, when life with her mother, Rose Chaloner Brown, had been like a minefield that all beloved stepfather David Brown’s care and sense couldn’t make safe, and all of her sisters’ companionship couldn’t distract from.

Rose had kicked her out the door when she was pregnant and alone at just eighteen, along with her stepsister, Catrina, who was almost Jill’s twin in age. Jill’s older sister, Suzanne, had refused to stay under a roof where her sisters weren’t welcome, so she’d left at that time, also.

“Ungrateful,” Rose had called all three of them. She’d used much harsher labels, as well.

After this, the expense of Jill’s competitive amateur career had been way too much for the sisters’ stretched finances. So she had concentrated on teaching as a fallback, while dreaming of the chance to skate in professional shows.

She had had Sam to raise, also. He was still the best thing that had ever happened to her, despite the disaster of her naive infatuation for his father. None of it had been easy, though. Ivy League boyfriend Curtis Harrington hadn’t wanted to know about the coming baby. Jill didn’t know how she would have managed if she hadn’t had Suzanne’s and Catrina’s help, as well as that of Catrina’s eccentric Cousin Pixie, for the past couple of years.

Back in March, just after Sam’s fourth birthday, she’d gotten her big break at last. Andrea, a close friend during their teens at the ice rink in Philadelphia, had been forced to pull out of her role in “Cinderella on Ice” for six weeks, due to an injury. The one-sided contract Andrea had signed stipulated that she’d lose her place in the show permanently unless she could come up with a temporary replacement of her own.

Enter Jill Brown, with stars in her eyes.

She had left Sam in the loving care of her sisters and flown out to Las Vegas to step onto the ice as a Featured Mouse and Cinderella understudy. And she had hated every minute of it. Her dreams were shattered. She felt like a fool for thinking that a showgirl lifestyle, so incompatible with Sam’s needs, could have made her happy.