Her Montana Man by Cheryl St.john Page A

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    She placed the pen in its marble holder, folded her hands one atop the other and looked him square in
    the eye. “What is there to say?”
    Now that she’d given him her full attention, he flattened his lips in a line and then pursed them, the
    expression making her suspect he wasn’t so sure he knew how to address this particular situation. The
    cuts he’d dotted with alum still stung, but nothing like the pain that throbbed in his arm and shoulder.
    “Do you want an apology?” she asked.
    “No.” He looked aside briefly and then at her. “ I’m sorry for your discomfort.”
    “It’s no one’s fault,” she assured him. “I didn’t have the vapors, I won’t be having nightmares, and I
    won’t ignore you. I’m quite all right.”
    “You are?”
    “I am.”
    He gave a satisfied nod. “Good.”
    “It’s a good thing you practiced your apology on me, however, since you’ll be presenting it again.”
    He picked up on her reference. “I need to apologize to Francine, too?”
    “I’m thinking of starting a ladies’ society,” she answered. “Women who’ve seen Jonas Black naked.
    There are two of us already. If we ask around, I’m sure we can recruit more.”
    His dark eyes widened momentarily, and then he laughed. “That was a shockin’ thing for a respectable
    lady to say,” he told her, but he was still chuckling.
    She couldn’t resist laughing herself. His surprise at her unexpected arrival was funny, after all. “Well, it
    made you laugh, and you were taking yourself far too seriously. Can we get on with the payroll figures
    now?”
    And that easily, the morning’s incident was relegated to a matter they had laughed about.
    As they worked, Jonas listened to her suggestions and asked her opinion more than once. It was
    impossible not to compare his easy acceptance and respect for her ideas to her father’s bullheaded
    certainty that she wasn’t capable of anything more than following directions.
    When they broke for lunch, he invited her to join him in the dining room. She asked him a question about
    a particular delivery that had been a problem a few days earlier.
    “That’s work, and this is lunch.” His smile was a little strained, and she guessed his arm was bothering
    him.
    Ward appeared at the doorway, Luther Vernon beside him. Ward spotted them at their table and
    pointed. Luther headed for them. He was a big man, and the black suit he wore with a white shirt had to
    have been custom-made for his frame.
    “Someone’s here,” she alerted Jonas as he approached.
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    Looking up, Jonas set down his fork. “Afternoon, Mr. Vernon.”
    Luther held his hat in one hand, a folded piece of paper in the other. “Black.”
    “Got somethin’ for me?”
    He held out the paper. “I have a message for Miss Sutherland.”
    Eliza wiped her fingers on her napkin and took it from him.
    “I’ll wait for your answer.”
    Eliza turned the paper over, recognizing the parchment and the seal as the same her father had always
    used. The sight made her miss him at the same time it jabbed a splinter of fear into her heart. Royce had
    taken over everything in her life that had once been good, and he had twisted it into something despised.
    She slid her fingers beneath the fold, broke the wax and opened the missive.
    I’ll be joining you in the dining hall for supper at seven sharp. See that Tyler is in bed for the night. I
    won’t have his schedule disrupted.
    At Royce’s demand, resentment rose up strong. He’d probably written this from the comfort of her
    father’s chair, even using the man’s pen while posing as someone important. A real man had to earn
    respect, and Royce didn’t have it in him to earn anything more than disgust. He controlled people, rather
    than led them. Fear tempered Eliza’s indignation and she took a calming breath.
    She glanced up at Jonas, who