Free MONTANA HOMECOMING (Montana Book 2) by Soraya Lane Page B

so
long - but now this was already feeling like home again. Like he'd returned to
the place he was supposed to live.
    "So have you thought about how long you're going to
stay for?" Scott asked her.
    He listened to her sigh, glanced at her as she put her head
back against the rest and turned slightly to face him.
    "I honestly don't know," she said. "I
thought a week, but I might make it two. Depends on how mom is coping, I
guess."
    "You're lucky your work is flexible."
    "Oh my god, please don't talk about work," she
said with a groan. "I have an exhibition coming up, and the gallery owner
is freaking me out with all the pressure he's putting on me, and I
haven't…"
    When she let her sentence trail off without finishing he
glanced at her again, wondering what she'd neglected to say.
    "You haven't what?"
    "I've just frozen. It's never happened to me
before."
    "So how many more paintings do you have to do?"
he asked.
    She groaned. "Can we please just talk about something
else?"
    Scott laughed. "Yeah, we can, but maybe you could use
telling me as a practice run for admitting the truth to the gallery
person."
    "I have the one piece I used as a sample to build the
entire collection upon," she admitted, shaking her head like she couldn't
believe what she was saying. "I promised at least ten new pieces, and all
I have is a whole heap of stuff that I've started and not finished. In other
words, I'm screwed."
    From the sounds of it, she was, but he wasn't going to say
that to her. "One thing I've learned is that where there's a will, there's
a way," Scott said. "Somehow you'll find your inspiration for this,
and you'll get it done."
    "How can you be so sure?"
    Now Amanda had one leg tucked up so she could better face
him, her body angled directly toward him, cheek resting on the seat as she
stared at him.
    "I can be sure because the Mandy I knew twelve-odd
years ago had a dream of being an artist and making it big. You didn't move to
New York and struggle to make it just to give up now that you've found
success."
    She emitted a noise that sounded like a low laugh, but he
couldn't be sure. "How can you remember that? I don't even remember
telling you my career dreams."
    "I took more notice of you than I'd like to
admit," he confessed, taking one hand off the wheel and then deciding that
touching her wasn't his best move right now. "I might have been a
dickhead, but I remember."
    "You know, Blake was pretty grumpy when he realized I
was going out with you tonight."
    "Looking like that? I can see why."
    She turned her body so she was looking out the front window
instead of at him. "He seems to think that you're going to hurt me,"
Amanda said. "But it's like there's something he doesn't want to tell me,
some reason why he's so sure I shouldn't be let within ten feet of you at any
time."
    Scott had wondered how long it was going to take her to ask
him, because Blake was sure making it clear that he wasn't suitable for his
little sister to so much as be friends with.
    "Do you really want to know?" He didn't mind
telling her, but as far as he was concerned, the past was the past.
    "I should be mature enough to say no, but yeah, I do
want to know," she said with a laugh. "Blake's acting like you're a
convicted rapist or something terrible."
    Scott took one hand off the wheel and glanced from the road
to Amanda and back again. "You remember that girl Blake was into back when
he was about seventeen? Her name was Rose and she went to school with us."
    Amanda made a face. "I remember every girl that Blake fell in love with."
    "Yeah, well he was really into Rose, and I was a jerk
and slept with her. She came onto me and I just went with it."
    " Which is why you guys had a falling
out that summer. "
    "Yeah. He wanted to know why I had to sleep with the one girl I
knew he wanted."
    He watched as Amanda shrugged. "Fair
question. You had every other girl from school hanging off you, so it
wasn't like there was a shortage for you to choose from."
    Scott