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“One word. Drama. I’m just not about it.”
He grinned, and I tried to ignore the way that made my stomach feel like the plane had just dipped. I looked around. Had it? No, the stranger would have grabbed my hand again.
“So what’s bringing you to Montana?” I asked.
His smile faded, and he cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, totally none of my business.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he let out a soft sigh. “My mother passed away from cancer a year ago.”
At that moment, the plane started to turn, and he grabbed my hand again and looked out the window.
I placed my free hand over his. He glanced down, noticed he was holding my hand again, and quickly let go. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Lifting my hand, I wiggled my fingers and thumb. “All good.”
He smiled, and I noticed a single dimple in his left cheek. Ugh. That was hot. And he was hot.
The spell was broken when he started to speak again. “Anyway,” he said, his smile fading and a sad expression taking its place. “My mother passed away, and when I was going through her belongings I stumbled upon some letters. My mother used to talk about my father a lot to me. She told me he was in the Marines, but she never would tell me his last name. She would say when the time was right, she’d tell me. When I was younger, I would be curious, but I was a happy kid and didn’t feel like it would change anything in my life one way or another. To know his last name that is. I never pressed her about it,” he said thoughtfully. “Except one time when I was eighteen, I asked her why she never told me. She said his family didn’t know about us and she left it at that. Once I got older, I realized my mother most likely didn’t want to disrupt a family.”
I turned in my seat, already invested in the story. The flight attendant appeared again, and the stranger ordered another drink. I could tell he was well on his way to being tipsy.
“The letters were from your father. Right?”
Nodding, he said, “Yeah. They were. She named me after him, much to my grandfather’s disliking.”
“Oh! So Granddad found out about them?”
He pointed to me and nodded. The flight attendant showed up again with his drink and my Dr. Pepper. She took our orders for food and finally left so we could return to the story.
“Okay, so your grandfather found out. And I take it that he didn’t like your dad?”
“Apparently not. Told her to stop seeing him or he’d cut her off from the family…and the family money.”
My eyes went wide. “Wow. He didn’t like Marines, did he?”
The handsome stranger laughed. “I guess not. Or maybe it was just this one in particular. My grandfather’s very wealthy. One of the wealthiest men in Texas. He was probably more worried that someone was trying to use his daughter for money, or take her to Montana and away from his beloved Texas.”
“Did you learn anything from the letters?”
“Yeah,” he said with a sad smile. “He wrote my mother all the time. He came from what sounded like a wealthy family himself, so I knew he wasn’t with her for the money. He talked about marrying her when he got out of the Marines and bringing her home to his family.”
I put my hand over my heart. “That’s so romantic.”
He looked at me and smiled. Then he said, “Cattle ranchers.”
“I’m sorry?”
“His family, they were cattle ranchers.”
That caused me to perk up. Montana had many cattle ranchers, but only a handful could genuinely count themselves as wealthy. “Did you find out in the letters how they met?”
“From what I can guess, my mother met him while living near a Marine Corps base and attending school. They fell in love, and he vowed to marry her when he got out. The last letter she wrote to him was the one telling him that she was pregnant with me. She mentioned she was so excited because he was getting out of the Marines soon, and he promised he would come get her, marry her, and take her to Montana. It didn’t seem like she was worried at all about telling him she was pregnant.”
“How do you know what her letter said to him?” I asked.
I thought his eyes couldn’t hold any more sadness, but I was wrong. “It was returned unopened. There was a note with her returned letter, telling her that my father had been killed in the line of duty.”
My hand flew to my mouth as I attempted to keep my emotions at bay. “How sad. Your mother was all alone, without the man she loved, and now she had to tell her family she was pregnant. Were your grandparents upset with her?”
