Claiming His Nine-Month Consequence. Jennie Lucas

      “No. Poppy didn’t need me to love her. That was one of her best qualities. But her debut film didn’t do as well as she hoped at the festival. She wanted me to fly her to the Himalayas on some mystical experience to seek redemption. I declined. She left. End of story.”

      Ruby turned her truck off the highway.

      “Where are you going?”

      “Star Valley’s expensive. Most of the people who work there can’t afford to live there. I live in Sawtooth.”

      “How far?”

      “About twenty minutes more.” Turning her truck onto a rough mountain road, she glanced at him. “I heard you have a private jet.”

      “I have a few.” His voice wasn’t boastful, just factual.

      Her eyes went wide. “A few jets! What’s that even like?”

      He shrugged. “They get me where I need to go.”

      In Ruby’s one flying experience, traveling to Portland to visit an old high school friend, she’d been stuck in a middle seat in economy, between two oversize men who took her armrests and invaded her space. The flight had arrived an hour late, and her suitcase had arrived twelve hours after that.

      Thinking of what it might be like to have one’s own private fleet, she shook her head, a little awed in spite of herself. “I can’t even imagine.”

      “It’s no big deal.”

      “It must be hell.” Tilting her head, she gave him a cheerful grin. “Your friends must be always hitting you up for rides. Nagging and begging all the time.”

      The corners of his lips curved upward. “Actually, they don’t. Most of them have planes of their own.”

      That brought her up short.

      “Oh,” she said faintly. As she changed gears, her old truck rattled and coughed smoke behind them. “I live just up here.”

      Ares turned to look out the window, and unwillingly, her eyes lingered on his silhouette. The hard line of his jaw, the curve of his lips. He was so handsome, she thought. So masculine. So powerful. So everything she was not.

      Then, following the direction of his gaze, she saw her neighborhood with fresh eyes. The trailer park was small, tidy and well maintained. Ruby’s neighbors were kind and hardworking, but the trailers looked old and plain, with snow piled haphazardly on the road. The flowers that made the street so beautiful in summer were nowhere to be seen in winter. And her neighbors’ cars, like her own, had all seen better days.

      As she parked in front of her own family’s single-wide mobile home, she saw how careworn it had become. But good people lived in this neighborhood. Good people who worked hard. Telling herself she had nothing to be ashamed of, she put her truck into park and turned off the engine. “Would you like to come in?”

      Ares’s darkly handsome, chiseled face held no expression. “To meet your sick mother and the little sister who was planning to trap me into marriage?”

      “Right. You don’t do complicated.” She tried to keep her voice light, even as her cheeks burned. “I’ll be right back.”

      Closing the door solidly behind her, Ruby went into her home. The living room was dark. “Ivy? Mom?”

      “I’m in here,” her mother’s voice called weakly.

      Ruby hurried into her mother’s small bedroom and found Bonnie propped up in bed, a small television blaring from an opposite shelf. Pill bottles were on her nightstand table, along with an untouched plate of food.

      “Mom! You didn’t eat!”

      “I wasn’t...hungry,” her mother said apologetically. Her voice was small, and she paused to take breaths sometimes between words. “Why are you...here?”

      “I got out of work early, so I’m going up on the mountain for Renegade Night.”

      Her mother beamed at her, her kind blue eyes shining.

      Ruby hesitated. “I’m, um, bringing someone. A man I just met.” She bit her lip, but she wasn’t used to hiding things from her mother, so she finished reluctantly, “That Greek guy who bought the thirty-million-dollar house.”

      The smile slid from Bonnie’s wasted face. “No.” She shook her head weakly. “Rich men...cannot love...”

      “Don’t worry,” Ruby said quickly. “It’s not like that. We’re not on a date. He just helped me get the night off, so I’m returning the favor by bringing him on the mountain. I’m sure I’ll never see him again.” Lowering her head, she kissed her mother’s forehead. Drawing back with a frown, she touched Bonnie’s forehead with her hand. “You feel cold.”

      “I’m fine. Ivy said...be home soon.”

      “She called you?”

      “She...was here. Changed to...jeans. Out with friends. Pizza.”

      Ruby hoped that was true, and that Ivy wasn’t trying to get into some other club downtown. But if she’d changed into jeans, that was unlikely. And she knew Ivy wouldn’t be on the mountain. She hated winter sports with a passion. “I could stay with you.”

      “Go,” Bonnie said firmly. “You deserve...fun. You always take care...of us.” She took a rasping breath. “Go.”

      “All right,” Ruby said reluctantly. She squeezed her mother’s hand and smiled. “When I get back tonight, I’ll hopefully have funny stories to share. I love you, Mom.”

      “Love...you...”

      Ruby hurried down the hall to the oversize closet, where she stored all the interesting vintage clothes she’d collected over the years, in dreams of someday starting her own business. Now, let’s see, where had she put it? Digging through boxes, she finally found what she was looking for and grinned. She could hardly wait to see Ares’s face.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SCATTERING SNOW AS he twisted his snowboard to a stop halfway down the mountain, Ares straightened, looking back.

      The night was clear and dark with stars. He could see his breath in the cold air, illuminated by moonlight and the slow trail of fire-lit torches of skiers zigzagging single file down the mountain. He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

      Or maybe he had.

      Ruby came to an abrupt stop next to him on her snowboard, pelting him with a wave of snow. Her face was indescribably beautiful as she laughed merrily, her cheeks pink with cold, her eyes sparkling bright.

      “For a man who claimed to suck at skiing,” she observed, “you’re pretty good.”

      “This is snowboarding. I never claimed to suck at snowboarding.”

      “Flying down the hill like that, I thought you’d break your neck. No doubt causing anguish to starlets and lingerie models everywhere,” she added drily.

      He grinned. “Don’t forget the swimsuit models.”

      Her trash talk reassured him. He knew if she’d been underwhelmed by his snowboarding skills, she would have instead been patronizingly kind. He was relieved, since he’d nearly broken his damn neck trying to stay ahead of her.

      Ares looked back at the torchlit parade. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

      “I’m happy to be here.” Looking at him, she said softly, “Thank you, Ares.”

      Hearing her low, melodic voice speak his name, he felt a strange twist in his heart. Was it her beauty? Was it the winter fantasy around him, the sense that he was a million miles away from his real life?

      It was excitement, he told