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Of all the town meetings, in all the world...
The altered line from Casablanca knotted Livvie Franklin’s heart.
Jack. Here. Now.
She drew a breath that stuck square in her throat.
Tall. Still lanky, but with a shoulder breadth that made folks take notice, and from the appreciative glances of the single women in the room—and a couple of older mothers, too—she wasn’t the only one who had noticed.
Green eyes. Brown hair, shaggy, in need of a cut, but she understood the rigors of ranching, and Jack had lost his mother a few years before. Now he and his dad had house chores on top of everything else in their short Big Sky growing season.
She knew she’d run into him sooner or later. In a town the size of Jasper Gulch no one stayed hidden forever.
But she’d dismissed the possibility at a council meeting about the Old-timers’ Baseball Game. Jack had shied away from all things baseball since he blew his arm out over eight years before. He decided then to shrug off ball-playing and his girl—her—as anathema.
So be it.
She’d slip out the back, she decided, but Olivia had forgotten the force of the locals. As soon as the small gathered crowd saw Jack—
The same folks who’d been greeting her since she came into town a few days before—
Heads swerved from Jack to her, their looks expectant.
Jack turned, following the track of their collective attention. He stopped. Stared. His gaze, always so open and trusting for the years they dated, was more somber. Surprise widened his eyes, and the saltwater green brightened.
He moved her way, preventing her escape, forcing a confrontation she didn’t want. As he drew closer, with pretty much the entire group focused on this unplanned reunion of high school sweethearts gone amok, she forced herself to engage in a moment of self-honesty.
She did want to see him. She’d been hoping to see him. And she’d made sure she looked good before she left the house each day this week, just in case.
“Livvie.”
“Jack.”
For the life of her, the one word was all she could manage, looking up—way up—into the eyes she’d known and trusted for so long. Her Jack...
Then. Not now. She hauled in a breath and stuck out her hand. “Good to see you, although I’m surprised. I was pretty sure you’d stayed away from anything to do with baseball since college.”
His expression confirmed her assumption, but his words surprised her. “Adam’s little sister shamed me into it. I’m still wondering how to get even with her, but she’s gone and gotten herself a cowboy fiancé and it would be too bad to burst their little bubble of happiness. Although the ride into town gave me time to ponder some creative options. He’s in pretty good shape, though, so why tempt fate?”
Half hermit, Livvie’s mother had said. Keeps to himself. No one sees too much of him or his father these days.
Change and grief. Livvie knew the reality of that firsthand but quelled her urge to sympathize with a dose of reality.
She’d loved Jack once. He’d broken her heart. Squaring her shoulders, she nodded toward the front. “I think they’re getting things under way.”
Resignation marked his gaze. For her? For the situation? The meeting?
She had no idea, but Livvie Franklin had vowed one thing on her long drive back to Jasper Gulch to help organize a town history for the ongoing Jasper Gulch centennial festivities. The trip back home had been rife with self-appraisal. And the timing? Imperfectly perfect as she nursed the wounds of an unexpected divorce.
Jack McGuire was off-limits. She’d placed him in the high-risk category eight years before and there he’d stay, no matter how handsome he was, or how his eyes gazed straight into hers as though drinking in the vision.
She’d save her romantic notions for Jane Austen and history, a perfect coupling. Modern romance?
She’d finally figured out it was nothing to write home about.
* * *
Broadsided by the petite, blue-eyed blonde that had won his heart over a decade before. He stood before the board, offering what he hoped was a coherent report on the old-timers’ game, but he couldn’t wrap his head around baseball right now. Not with Livvie twenty feet to his left.
Why was she here? Were her parents okay? Was she?
Questions bombarded him from within and without, and he wasn’t sorry when his elderly friend Rusty Zidek chimed in a time or two to clear matters up.
Were they gathering players?
Yes.
Were player shirts ordered for both teams?
They would be this week.
Had they invited Hutch Garrison, the current Jasper Gulch baseball success story, a newly signed outfielder for the Colorado Rockies?
Yes, but he hadn’t been able to confirm his presence yet.
By the end of the back-and-forth, the board seemed satisfied with how things stood. Jack needed to hear from more players, but they had weeks to straighten things out, and a pledge from some guys in Bozeman to fill in if necessary. That bit of news made the council give a collective sigh of relief.
The mayor tipped the central microphone toward himself. “Jack, I’m speaking for the entire board when I say we’re grateful you took this on when Wes got sick.”
Wes Middleton, the previous chair of the Old-timers’ Committee, had unexpectedly needed bypass surgery. Jack met the mayor’s gaze frankly and replied, “I believe ‘railroaded’ by your youngest daughter would be a more apt term, sir. Seems the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree in this case.”
Mayor Shaw’s gaze glinted with humor and something else. Regret? Maybe. But the look disappeared before Jack was sure he read it correctly. “Her mother’s powers of persuasion, actually. You know how it is, Jack.”
He didn’t, not really, because he’d run cold and hard from anything to do with long-term relationships for years. Maybe he wasn’t meant to settle down, settle in. Maybe—
A glimpse of wavy, layered blond hair to his left put his heart in pause mode. He’d blown it once, the only relationship that mattered. He’d tossed her overboard in a groundswell of self-pity and anger. Like Scrooge in the famous Dickens story, he might have ruined his one and only
