Jones. Which meant that flicker of hope and faith was still alive inside her. Her ex had taken himself out of the equation, but his loss hadn’t taken the red-blooded woman out of her. Score one for Mikayla.
Her hundredth pep talk issued, Mikayla took a sip of her decaf iced mocha. “Well, at least he liked the top half of me. Which includes my brain. So that’s something.” She took another bite of her donut.
“If only he could have seen your feet,” Amy said, “And the sparkly blue pedicure I gave you last week. That would have hooked him.”
“Jensen Jones doesn’t strike me as a man who’d like sparkly blue toenails,” Mikayla said. “Did you know that Jackie Kennedy Onassis once said that fingernails should be the color of ballet slippers and toes a classic red? He seems like one to agree. Too highfalutin for me, anyway. I’m an eat-ribs-with-my-fingers and blue-toenail-polish kind of woman.”
Amy laughed. “We all should be that woman.”
Eva came over with a tray of samples. “Want to try my new red velvet donut holes? Fresh out of the oven.”
Mikayla adored Eva, who not only baked for Daisy’s, worked the counter when they were understaffed and had recently finished business school, but was letting her stay at Sunshine Farm. “Ooh, of course,” Mikayla said, snatching one and popping the heavenly treat into her mouth. This would have to be her last bite or she’d gain a hundred pounds in this final trimester.
Eva sat down. “Mikayla, you were great today, you know that, right? Standing up like that was hilarious. I’ve never seen a man stammer without saying a word quite like that.”
“Poor guy,” Amy said, sipping her iced latte. “Did you see the way he looked at Mik? He was clearly swooning over her.”
“What’s his deal, anyway?” Mikayla asked. “Not that I care.”
Both women smirked at her.
Mikayla smiled. “I definitely would have remembered meeting him at your and Luke’s party, Eva, but there was so many people and I left a bit early. He has how many brothers?”
“Four,” Amy said. “All rich beyond belief. They’re from Tulsa and all work as major bigwigs in the corporation their father started. Hudson and Walker—you know them from town—still work for Jones Holdings. They opened a satellite office here in town. And Autry whisked a widowed mom and her three little girls to Paris for the year, but they’re due back. There’s another brother, Gideon, who was at the party, too, since he was visiting Hudson and Walker that week, but I didn’t meet him. Put the five Jones millionaires in a row at a party and women start swooning. Even if three are taken.”
“No one knows much about Jensen,” Eva said. “Other than he’s rich and I heard he’s a workaholic. He’s in town working a deal, I think.”
“Well, sometimes a gal needs a donut and some eye candy, and I got both, so I’m good for a while,” Mikayla said. “I’m not looking for anything. I have great new friends and a great place to live. I’m set.”
Eva squeezed Mikayla’s hand. “It’s so nice having another woman at Sunshine Farm. I’m so glad you’re living in the house with us.”
Eva Armstrong Stockton was so kind and generous. She and her husband were thinking about officially starting a guesthouse at the ranch. There wasn’t much in terms of places to stay in Rust Creek Falls. There was a boardinghouse and a high-end hotel that was more Jensen Jones’s speed. Mikayla knew that the Stocktons hoped to turn the cabins on their property into little guesthouses, the kind of place that people could come to when they needed somewhere to go, somewhere like home. People like Amy, who’d reconnected with her first love in Rust Creek Falls. And people just like Mikayla.
She was temporarily in flux. The Stocktons had told her she was welcome to stay in their ranch house as long as she liked, even when she had her baby, who was sure to wake everyone up a few times a night. She’d have friends and support and community. She knew she was lucky.
So was it wrong that she couldn’t stop thinking about that tiny spark of something wonderful that had ignited between her and Jensen Jones? She’d have to fill her nights somehow, so fantasizing about him was really quite smart.
* * *
Walker and Hudson were belly-laughing so hard in the lobby of Maverick Manor that Hudson actually had to stand up and catch his breath.
What was so hilarious, apparently, was the idea of their parents coming to Rust Creek Falls for a surprise fortieth anniversary party.
“A planned party wouldn’t get them here,” Walker said, running a hand through his blond hair. “God, I needed that laugh. Thanks, Jensen.”
“They hate this town,” Hudson said, sitting back down in his club chair, an expanse of Montana wilderness visible through the floor-to-ceiling window behind him. He picked up his beer and took a drink. “They showed up for our weddings, then turned around and flew home, grumbling all the way about Jones-stealing women and Rust Creek Falls not even being on the map.”
“Those Jones-stealing women are their daughters-in-law. Jeez,” Jensen said, sipping his scotch. “You’d think Mom especially would like some women in the family after five sons.”
Walker popped a walnut from the dish on the table into his mouth. “I tried—hard. I talked to Dad about how much I like Rust Creek Falls, that we can easily work from the Jones Holding satellite building we built in town, that we’re—wait for it—happy, and he just doesn’t get it. Or want to hear it.”
“Lost cause,” Hudson said, shaking his head. “I’m over it. You have to be. It’s the only way to move on.”
Family couldn’t be a lost cause, though. If you gave up, that was it. You accepted defeat. Jensen knew Hudson had always had a hard time dealing with the Jones patriarch; he was the cowboy in the family, the one who’d always gone his own way.
He knew his father had to be proud of the way the Jones brothers had forged their own identities and paths. And to bring this family together, Jensen would do whatever it took.
“Forty years is a big deal,” Jensen said. “That has to mean something.”
Walker shrugged. “Look, you want to plan some big shindig, I’m in. But I remember you getting disappointed more than a time or two, Jensen. Mom and Dad don’t care about anniversaries and family get-togethers. They never will.”
“I’m in, too,” Hudson said. “And I’m sure Autry will fly in from Paris with his family and that Gideon, who’s traveling on company business, will make an appearance. But it will end up being just us celebrating our parents’ anniversary. I seriously doubt Mom and Dad will show up.”
Jensen grumbled to himself, staring hard at the trees and woodlands out the window. Why was everything he wanted—woman, land, anniversary party—not going his way? Maybe whatever was in the water in Rust Creek Falls had a negative effect just on him. “I’ll figure something out,” Jensen said, taking another sip of his scotch.
Except he couldn’t figure anything out right now. Because from the moment he’d left Daisy’s Donuts this morning, feeling like the biggest jerk who ever lived, his mind had been a scramble. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about Mikayla Brown? Yes, she was lovely to look at and there was some
