Big Sky Country: Montana (The Americana Series Book 26) Read online

  The announcement was made to Connie Dickson, the same girl who had come to let Jill know about her telephone call. Jill's blue eyes darted swiftly back to the man, watching as Connie pointed to Kerry sitting on the sofa. Jill would have sworn she knew everyone that. Kerry was even briefly acquainted with, but this man who had asked for her roommate was a total stranger.

  The harsh planes of his face were impassive as he passed the telephone booth where Jill stood. His long strides reminded Jill of the restless pacing of a caged jungle cat, impatient and angry. This man wasn't as calm as his expression indicated. The hard line of his mouth was too grim. The way his gaze narrowed on her unsuspecting roommate gave Jill the uncomfortable feeling that he had just sighted his prey. There wasn't any way she could warn Kerry.

  Jill didn't even pretend to pay attention to the male voice on the telephone. Her hearing was straining to catch what that man was saying to her friend.

  "Kerry Adams?" He towered above her, his low voice clipped and abrupt as his earlier demand had been. Cold arrogance crackled through the tension that held him motionless. There was no flicker of recognition in Kerry's startled upward glance. "I'm Todd's brother."

  Jill's eyes widened in surprise. Outside of both men being dark completed the comparison ended there. Vaguely she had been aware that Todd had an older brother. Kerry had mentioned it at some time, or perhaps Todd had himself.

  "Of course, how…how do you d-do," Kerry stammered uncertainly.

  Her petite frame quickly straightened from the couch to stand in front of the man, momentarily forgetting the notebooks on her lap until they clattered to the floor, loose pages sliding across the linoleum.

  Jill's mouth tightened as she watched Kerry's fumbling attempts to recover them, cheeks flaming in embarrassment and the man making no attempt to help in the recovery. He uttered not one diplomatic word to ease Kerry's discomfort nor did he smile to take away the humiliation of such awkwardness. He simply waited with thinning patience until Kerry had retrieved the papers and had them clutched defensively against her chest.

  "T-Todd has talked about you often, Mr. Riordan." Kerry seemed unable to maintain the man's gaze, her look helplessly falling away.

  Standing, the man dwarfed her petite frame oddly dwarfing it more completely than when Kerry had been sitting on the sofa.

  The tentative comment of friendship was ignored, "Todd called me this morning. He said he'd asked you to marry him."

  The disbelief…no, Jill recognized it was more than disbelief. It was cutting contempt that sliced through his words. Kerry swallowed convulsively.

  "He did." The admission was made in a tiny voice that was humbly apologetic. If possible, the man Riordan's expression became grimmer and more forbidding.

  "When do you graduate, Miss Adams?" he challenged coldly.

  "I…I have one more y-year."

  His voice became harshly soft. Jill held her breath in an effort to hear him. "Todd has three, possibly four more years before he obtains his final law degree. Am I to support you as well as my brother for that period of time?"

  Kerry seemed to shrink visibly away from him. Dominating bully! Jill swore angrily beneath her breath. He was domineering, she corrected her choice of words quickly. That man would use physical strength to impress his will on someone else if need be. Women were the weaker sex, an easy target. Shy, timid Kerry didn't have a chance against his slashing sarcasm.

  "Bob, I have to go," Jill spoke hurriedly into the phone, her temper seething as she uncaringly interrupted him. "Call me tomorrow."

  As she hung up the receiver, her mind buzzed with the courses of action available to rescue her best friend. Any attempt to argue on Kerry's behalf would be wasted. That man would never listen to a woman's logic, however right it might be. No doubt he considered a woman had only two places in life, in the kitchen and the bedroom. Beyond that, she should be seen and not heard.

  Her eyes narrowed for a fleeting moment, a tiny smile of satisfaction edging the corners of her mouth. Very well, Jill thought, he believed women were silly, simpering creatures. She was about to give him a double dose!

  Pushing open the folding door of the telephone booth, Jill stepped out, wrapping her arms around her notebooks and holding them to her chest. She paused, adopted her best "dumb blonde" look and walked forward to engage her opponent.

  "Hi, Kerry. I'm ready now," she called brightly to her roommate.

  She was completely blind to the stricken look from Kerry. She couldn't allow one flicker of concern to cloud her blue eyes at the total lack of color in her friend's face. Her deliberately innocent eyes swept to the man.

  Although braced for his look of displeasure, she was jolted by his piercing gaze. Shards of silver gray splintered over her face before he glanced away, dismissing her as being of little importance. Jill blinked for an instant to retain her poise. The jet blackness of his hair and brows had not prepared her to meet a pair of eyes of metallic gray.

  A frightened, helpless confusion gripped Kerry. Her beseeching brown eyes riveted themselves to Jill's face. Jill tried to instill a warmth of reassurance in her smile that gently prodded for an introduction. It took an instant for the bewildered Kerry to understand.

  "I…I'd like you to meet m-my roommate, m-my friend, Jillian Randall." Her shaking voice wavered traitorously. "Thi…This is Todd's brother." A wave of red engulfed Kerry's face. "I'm so…sorry, but I don't know your first name, Mr. Riordan."

  "Riordan is sufficient."

  A cigarette was between his lips, a darkly tanned hand cupping a match to the end. The clipped indifference was reinforced by the lack of a glance in Jill's direction.

  "Mr. Riordan, this is really a pleasure to meet you." Jill wasn't about to offer a hand in greeting. As rude as he was, he would ignore it, and she didn't intend to let herself to be cut like that. "And please call me Jill. All my friends do." The quicksilver sheen of his eyes passed over her face briefly and impatiently, openly wishing her gone. It only increased Jill's resolve to remain. "I bet I know why you're here, Mr. Riordan." She smiled widely, darting a warm glance at Kerry, whose face was again drained of color. "You must have heard the news about Kerry and Todd. Isn't it wonderful?"

  There was a speaking glance from Riordan that told her to shut up and get lost. Jill's assumed air of denseness naturally didn't understand.

  "Everyone here is so envious of Kerry," she rushed on with false excitement. "When you see Todd and Kerry together, it makes you feel all warm and wonderful inside. They're so very much in love it just shines like a golden light. And Todd is so protective of her. No one dares to say a word against Kerry in front of him. You'll really be proud of him, Mr. Riordan, when you see the way he stands up for her."

  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Jill thought silently. It might be his plan too break up the engagement, but she was confident that Todd would not be as easy to browbeat as Kerry was. His brother's gaze narrowed on Jill's guileless expression.

  "Miss Randall!" Impatiently he snapped the words out, cigarette smoke swirling about his face, darkening his eyes to thunderclouds.

  Jill spared a silent wish that he could be more aware of her blond looks, but he seemed impervious to any attraction to her beauty.

  "Jill," she interrupted quickly before he could finish the statement that was undoubtedly intended to dismiss her. "I think it's really terrific that you came all the way into town to meet your brother's fiancée. The two of you must be very close. How long are you going to stay?"

  He dragged deeply on his cigarette, holding his temper in check with difficulty as he gazed through the smoke veil at Kerry.

  "Until I've completed what I came to do," he answered cryptically.

  Jill wondered to herself namely, break things up between Kerry and Todd? Indignation flashed through her that he should decide without meeting Kerry that he didn't want her as a sister-in-law.

  She released the anger that rose in her throat through a soft laugh, letting the battling sp
arkle in her blue eyes be misinterpreted as happiness.

  "That means you can go out to dinner with us tomorrow night," she declared gaily. His glowering frown made her rush the explanation that was honey sweet with satisfaction. "Kerry, Todd and I are going out to dinner on Saturday to celebrate their engagement. Kerry doesn't have any family except an aunt and uncle. I feel as if she's my sister—we've more or less adopted each other. It's a pretend family celebration. You lost your parents, too, didn't you, Mr. Riordan? So it's just you and Todd. Now all four of us can have dinner tomorrow and toast the newly engaged couple. Or did you bring your wife along, Mr. Riordan?" Deliberately she blinked her long, curling lashes at his impassively hard expression.

  "I don't have a wife, Miss Randall," in a voice that plainly implied that it was truly none of her business.

  Jill tipped her head back, swirling tawny gold hair about her shoulders, purring laughter rising in her throat. "I'll bet you'll be an uncle, then, before you're even a father. And the name is Jill."

  His gaze trailed over her blankly happy expression to her throat. Jill was consumed by the sensation that he would like to shake her until her teeth fell out. Kerry moved uneasily beside her.

  Jill let her blue gaze swing to her roommate. Her knuckles were turning white with the death grip she had on the notebooks, loose pages sticking out in crumpled disarray. Not even Jill's presence and monopolization of the conversation was regaining Kerry's poise. She was on the verge of breaking, tears welling in her spaniel eyes.

  Jill reached out, taking her roommate's left wrist and twisting it to see the watch face. "Look how late it is, Kerry!" she exclaimed, turning an innocently apologetic glance to Todd's brother. "We have our term papers to finish by Monday and mounds of research notes to take. We aren't going to have much time before the library closes." After releasing Kerry's wrist, she dug her fingers into her roommate's shoulder, already turning her away toward the front door. "You'll probably be getting together with Todd. He'll fill you in on what time we're all meeting for dinner tomorrow night. I'm really glad I had the chance to meet you. I know you're just as happy about these two as I am. Good night, Mr. Riordan."

  Her cheery departing wave was returned by a look that was broodingly thoughtful. Jill could feel his wintry gray eyes following their path to the door. She kept up a steady, one-sided chatter until the door was safely closed behind them. Only then did she slacken their pace, drinking in deep gulps of the serene evening air.

  The palms of her hands were wet. How strange, Jill thought, wiping the nervous perspiration on the hips of her light blue denims. She couldn't remember any time when she had been consciously or unconsciously intimidated by a man. This arrogant Riordan man had affected her more than she realized. Her gaze slid to Kerry, still visibly trembling from the encounter.

  "So. That's Todd's older brother," Jill breathed aloud.

  Her statement released Kerry from the nameless fear that had held her speechless. Rounded eyes like dark saucers in a pale face swung around to stare at the blonde.

  "Oh, Jill, he doesn't want me to marry Todd!" Hysteria strained at the edges of her voice. The dream of perfect love had turned into a nightmare. "Before you got there he told me that if I truly loved Todd, I wouldn't hold him to the proposal. He said Todd still had to finish his education and begin his career and that I shouldn't saddle him with the burden of a wife."

  "That's a lot of garbage," Jill responded calmly. Her shoulders lifted beneath the fawn leather jacket to indicate that he didn't know what he was talking about. "There are a lot of women who put their husbands through college, it happens all the time. Todd isn't so extraordinary that you can't do it for him."

  "Todd is a Riordan," Kerry whispered, "and I could tell by the look in Riordan's eyes that he didn't think I was a suitable wife for Todd." She paused for a fleeting second. "Do you know, I've never heard Todd call him by his name. He either refers to him as his brother or simply as Riordan."

  Jill glanced over her shoulder and saw Riordan emerge from the building. "Let's cut across the grass." She tucked a hand quickly under Kerry's elbow and guided her off the sidewalk. "And I certainly wouldn't worry whether Todd's brother thinks you'll make a suitable wife. It's only Todd's opinion that counts. He must think you will or he would never have proposed to you."

  "But I tricked him into that, I made him think I was leaving Montana for the entire summer and we wouldn't see each other until the term started, l shouldn't have done that." Kerry's voice trailed off lamely, heavy with guilt and recrimination.

  "What does it matter when Todd proposed to you-now or next fall? Unless you think he might have waited three or four years until he had his degree safely in his hand and a job lined up? And if that Riordan man really does think you aren't suitable, I doubt if time would change his opinion."

  The wind tossed a burnished gold strand across Jill's face and she quickly smoothed it back. Her suggestion that Kerry fib about her summer plans might not have been exactly fair, but Jill wasn't going to waste time feeling guilty about it nor allow Kerry to either.

  "Do you think Todd knows his brother is in town?" asked Jill in an afterthought.

  As much as she disliked it, Jill thought she had to consider the possibility that Todd was having second thoughts about the marriage proposal and was using his brother as an excuse to break it off.

  "I had the feeling that Riordan came straight to see me without talking to Todd except for this morning," Kerry answered.

  Jill whispered a silent prayer of relief. There might have been some things about Todd that didn't appeal to her personally, but she had always believed his affection for Kerry was honest and straightforward.

  "When we get to the library," Jill breathed in deeply, speaking aloud the battle plan that was forming in her mind, "I think you should call Todd and let him know in a diplomatic way what happened tonight."

  "No." Kerry shook her head, the dark brown bob of straight hair swinging vigorously across her cheeks.

  "No?" Jill's blue eyes widened in stunned surprise as she stopped to stare at her roommate. "Why not, for heaven's sake? He is your fiancé."

  "But I'm not going to make trouble between Todd and his brother. We haven't been engaged for one whole day yet. I don't want to go running to him just because I might have misunderstood Riordan," her roommate argued.

  Jill wondered if it was logic that made Kerry reluctant to go to Todd or an inner fear that Todd might be swayed by his brother's arguments.

  "What about dinner tomorrow night?" Jill challenged softly.

  "Todd…Todd is going to call me in th-the morning. I'll find out what time he thinks the f-four of us should meet." Her wavering voice indicated that her previous argument hadn't changed her apprehensions. She was unsure of Todd's reaction and wanted to postpone the moment when she would find out.

  The desire was strong to insist that Kerry call Todd immediately, but Jill subdued it. Her roommate was already subconsciously regretting her interference that had prompted the proposal. She had better sit back and be ready to pick up the pieces or with luck catch Kerry before she fell.

  "In between now and tomorrow night—" Jill made her voice nonchalant "—why don't you tell me everything you know about Todd's brother?"

  Chapter Two

  THE SUM TOTAL of Kerry's knowledge regarding Todd's brother could be numbered on the fingers of one hand, Jill discovered. He was Todd's elder by about eight years, which made him thirty-two or three. He had inherited the family ranch when their father passed away some five years ago. Kerry had forgotten where it was located except that it was somewhere near Dillon, Montana. Beyond that, Kerry couldn't fill in the blanks.

  The eraser end of the pencil tapped the edge of her notebook with monotonous rhythm. Only half of Jill's mind was concentrating on the paragraph she was reading. The rest was thinking of Riordan.

  Only a fraction of an inch might separate the heights of the two brothers. Again, the similarity stopped there. Todd was supp
lely lean and his brother was muscled with broad shoulders tapering to a slim waist to give an impression of leanness.

  Taken separately, their facial features were much alike. The clean cut of the cheekbones, the sharply defined jawline, the Roman boldness of the nose, the intelligent forehead. The mouths were different. Todd's was curved and mobile, ready to spring into a smile or a laugh. His brother's was hard and grim, nothing gentle about it at all.

  The result was night and day. Warm sunshine spilled over Todd to illuminate a smoothly handsome face. The dark shadows of night threw his brother's features in sharp relief to make him strikingly male but never handsome.

  Jill leaned against the straight back of the chair, giving up the pretense of interest in the book opened before her. Tonight Riordan had been angry about the engagement of his brother, yet he had seemed curiously detached at the same time. How could a man confront his brother's fiancée with the hope of breaking the engagement and remain aloof at the same time? It was a contradiction of emotion.

  A sideways glance at Kerry caught her gazing into space, a hollow look of apprehension in her expression. Jill breathed in deeply and expelled the air in a long sigh. Neither of them had accomplished anything in the two hours they had spent at the library.

  The pages of her notebook were flipped shut with an air of finality. "Let's call it a night, Kerry," she murmured so as not to disturb the others studying at the long table.

  Without a whisper of protest, Kerry gathered her papers trancelike into a stack and followed Jill out of the library.

  A round silver-dollar moon hung above the capital city of Montana, its silvery light touching the crowning peaks of the mountains surrounding the city. A cool night breeze ruffled the careless wings of tawny hair at Jill's temples, the golden color paled by the moonlight. A crisscrossing spider web of streetlights illuminated the sidewalks and the girls walking in tense silence.

  The whisper of tires on pavement went unnoticed until a car rolled to a stop beside them, the passenger door opening to block their progress. Kerry was nearest to the street. It was on her the pair of steel gray eyes focused.