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That should have taught her the lesson she just couldn’t seem to learn.
Jack McKibbon didn’t love her.
But she’d driven over the mountains today, once again thinking this time was going to be different.
It was what she always did. Five years into this non-marriage and with every email, every phone call, each rare visit, she kept thinking things were going to change.
That he would miss her. That he would wake up in the desert and want her beside him.
You’re an idiot, she told herself for perhaps the hundredth time since climbing into her truck a few hours ago.
Her sister Lucy’s words rang in her ears. You’ve let a crush take over your life. When are you going to let go of the hope this relationship is going to be anything but an afterthought to him?
Mia’d told herself, over and over again, that if it was an afterthought, he’d end it. And because he hadn’t ended it, hope lived on.
Part of her—a big stupid part, stupid like dumb, stupid like a fool—believed that he’d invited her here because he wanted to share this moment with her. The fruition of all those dreams. Dreams he’d told her about when they were kids in the back of his truck, the desert stretched out around them like the lunar landscape.
Water to the world had been his dream. A water pump and drill that could build wells in the deserts of Asia and Africa. She’d been following his progress on the internet. Going into her office at night to cheer him on from her little corner of the thirsty world.
Too many nights doing that. Too many years holding the memory of him close, despite his absence.
Too many years of patiently caring for the ties that bound them together.
Marriage.
His father.
The Rocky M.
He’d done her a favor five years ago when everyone’s lives fell apart. And she was doing him a favor now. It wasn’t like his father could care for himself.
But she was kidding herself. She knew that. Standing on the other side of the door after being told she was little more than a distraction, the meager hope that was left in her heart had finally fizzled and died.
Jack McKibbon was never going to see her as a woman. A real wife. Someone to love.
She pressed her head harder into the door, the pain distracting her slightly from the sucking pit of embarrassment and disappointment in her stomach.
It was time for a divorce. She’d do this favor for him tonight. Play the loving wife, face down whatever gossip and scandal the night had in store, and then it was time to let him go.
To let the past go.
She had to, because this situation was killing her.
She stood up, the shaking under control. Her emotions in check. No need to get dramatic, she thought. If there was one thing she knew, it was that life always got on with it. And she could stand here, crying over something that was never hers to begin with, or she could pull on her big girl pants and do what needed to be done.
She glanced at her watch. She had a really wrinkled dress, some makeup, jewelry that looked like torture devices and a whole bunch of instructions from her sister on how to look like a woman rather than a ranch hand.
Tonight she’d be his wife.
Tomorrow she’d work on that divorce.
2
Jack shrugged into his suit jacket as he stared down at the aerial shots of the militia compounds surrounding the villages where Jack and Oliver were digging their wells in Darfur.
There was buildup. More than before, despite the cease-fire. Going back next month wasn’t going to be easy.
Like it was ever easy.
Mustering up enthusiasm was impossible.
“Jack?”
“Hmmm?” He was distracted by the desk full of papers. Christ, if Oliver could just do this damn meet and greet by himself, at least one of them could get some work done tonight.
“Jack!”
“Mia!” He spun. “Sorry, I got—” Jack had had some expectations of what Mia would look like, stepping out of that bedroom. And he’d be lying if he said those expectations were high. She was a rancher on a hardscrabble pocket of land two hundred miles from here—and she worked that land hard.
And ranching life didn’t leave a whole lot of time for shopping. Or dress wearing.
So the version of Mia standing in the open door of her bedroom was both expected and a sharp, shocking surprise.
“—distracted,” he finished lamely.
The dress, black and simple, was still wrinkled and didn’t fit. It was too long at the knee and too tight at the bust. Probably her sister Lucy’s. She looked uncomfortable just standing in the high-heeled shoes with the sexy bow on the side; he dreaded to think of her walking in them.
That’s what his head noticed, anyway.
His body was busy noticing other things and nearly roaring in approval. Her skin, God, her skin was burnished gold. And the rustic bronze bangles she wore at her wrists made her look like an Inca princess. Her hair was long and loose, the curls riding her back, and he wanted to touch those curls, feel them clinging to his fingers, twining around his hand.
