Big Sky Ever After: a Montana Romance Duet Read online

  The daffodils led to a vaseful of red roses on a small table at his side. No one had ever given her flowers, never mind roses.

  Nathan’s smile was brighter than the lantern. He closed his book, reached out, and missed dropping it on the table by more than a foot. When it hit the floor, they both jumped, then shared a laugh in surprise.

  “I’ve imagined you here so many times since that dinner,” his voice was rough as he clambered to his feet.

  “So have I,” but she couldn’t get herself moving again. Across this threshold would be an incredible night. And then what? The lost chef—spooked by a cow and never ridden a horse—him she knew. The man who galloped across the prairie, laughed with the hands over a beer, and now waited for her with a vaseful of flowers and a smile full of promises—him she didn’t know at all. Who would he be in the morning? Worse, where would he be?

  He rose and moved until he stood just over the bedroom’s threshold from her.

  “What is it, cowgirl?” Nathan tucked her hair behind her ear.

  Not trusting herself to speak, she let the warmth of his touch pull her into the room, into his arms.

  She could feel Nathan’s strength and his confidence as he pulled her against his chest. It was as if their awkwardness with each other since the trip to Great Falls had all been in her imagination. He held her more tightly than ever before, practically crushing her against him.

  His kiss made it impossible to remember the world outside the bedroom door. In here there was only him. And he made it clear that, as far as he was concerned, there was only her.

  Julie took a brief side trip to bury her face in the roses. They really did smell utterly incredible, just like in the novels and movies. She set her one petal close beside the vase.

  Nathan led her to the bed and it was a hundred times more momentous than leaving with him for an out-of-town tryst. She didn’t help him undress, but she couldn’t look aside as he did. He’d become stronger, more solid in the weeks that he’d been here. More real. The last of his clothes hit the chair, except for one sock that landed on his forgotten book on the floor.

  Never had she been so aware of a naked man. His unthinking power, his confident stance, his incredible maleness. How had she ever pictured him as belonging in a clown car? His presence filled the room and chased away shadows.

  When he brushed her robe off her shoulders, it wasn’t with greed, it was with reverence. He didn’t untie it or tug it down to expose her breasts. Instead he nuzzled one bare shoulder, then the other. He eased it off her in such small stages that she couldn’t place the moment when she transitioned from dressed to naked, from hesitant to gasping. Not until the robe lay in a pool about her ankles did he stop uncovering her inch by inch. Then he looked up at her with those dark, hungry eyes from where he knelt before her.

  “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thing?” Julie was amazed that she could still speak.

  “Better than any sunset or the finest meal at Le Bernardin.”

  She had to laugh, though it was hard to find the breath to do so. “I’m guessing that last one means something.”

  Nathan smiled. “Best restaurant in New York. It’s one of only six Michelin three-star restaurants in all of New York. One of the very best in the world. If I could be anyone else, I’d be Eric Ripert—the head chef. But if I was, I wouldn’t be here with you.”

  She wanted to look aside from the intensity of his gaze. Needed to look aside. But couldn’t. Nathan Gallagher of New York City might well be the best thing she’d ever seen as well.

  Without breaking eye contact, she eased backward onto the bed and under the covers. He followed her slowly.

  Each place he touched her, she placed a wall around—to both preserve it and keep it safe against the unknown future. His hand, endlessly tracing the curve of her hip until it was sealed as surely as the prairie by a winter’s hard frost. Where his head lay between her breasts as he listened to her heart until the sound was swallowed by the vast emptiness of the Montana prairie.

  And when he finally took her, when he filled her heart like no one ever had or could again, that too she locked away behind the hard mountains of her soul. She locked it away though it was bigger than the Montana Sky.

  When his ringing phone woke her, the world was still dark beyond the curtains.

  “Murmph,” Nathan said into his phone once he recovered the screaming thing from his discarded clothes.

  Julie checked the time. Too close to sunrise to sneak back home and pretend she hadn’t just spent the night on Henderson Ranch. Not too late to snuggle back under the covers with Nathan for a few minutes.

  “Who?... Estevan, you asshole… What’s wrong with me? It’s the middle the night is what’s wrong with me... What do you mean what time zone am I in? Montana. Whatever zone that is... I know. Crazy, right?”

  The more Nathan woke up, the farther away Julie felt. Estevan was clearly a friend. A friend Nathan had never mentioned. From a past that was suddenly in bed with them.

  She slipped from between the covers and out into the chill morning air. The cold bathrobe brought goosebumps, though none as much as Nathan’s loud exclamations.

  “You did? You actually broke off and started your own restaurant? Who’s your backer? Oh, she’s good. What’s your take on it? Sounds fair… No, French puts you right up against Vite. You need your own voice in there…”

  She closed the downstairs bathroom door, which reduced Nathan’s voice to a distant rumble. A quick shower to wash off the night muffled him briefly. His questions had turned to excitement in just the two minutes she’d been under the water. On her way through the kitchen, she spotted a small bag of bagels. Where in Montana had Nathan found bagels? Oh, it was Nathan. He’d probably made them himself. There was no jam or butter in the fridge. The only thing there was cream cheese, which her mother had only ever used for making cake frostings.

  Nathan’s laugh boomed through the bedroom door and down the stairs, “No, shit? How is this my fault?”

  She was almost out the door—chewing on her first bite of the dry, oddly dense bagel—when she heard the one thing she’d been hurrying to escape.

  “You need me in New York by when?”

  Nathan was still scratching his head when he hung up the phone.

  “Can you believe that bastard went and—” He turned, but Julie wasn’t there beside him to hear what he had to say. Not her, not her bathrobe. But he could smell her, could feel her. It was the best night of his life: making love to her, holding her while she slept upon his shoulder. He’d spent hours imagining them like this, night after night. Waking together morning after morning.

  Even asleep, he could feel her strength where his arms hooked lightly around her. How could someone so strong be so womanly at the same time?

  And now all trace of her was gone as if she’d never been here.

  No—she’d left her roses.

  Maybe she was downstairs eating breakfast. He hadn’t set up the coffee machine, but he should have.

  Dressing quickly, he tossed the Zane Grey western back on the bookshelf, swept up her vase of flowers, and trotted down the stairs.

  No clothes in the bathroom. No sign of her at all, except that on the kitchen counter there were only three of the bagels he’d made for her. Not four.

  He stuck his head out the door; the sun was just putting the first hints of pale blue into sky—only a few stars struggled on. Down below, he could see Doug and Chelsea turning the horses out of the barn and into the pasture. Stan was feeding his dogs.

  And the bright whirr of a screw gun told him that Julie was already hard at work up at the yurts.

  He had cursed Estevan for calling so early and now he cursed himself for not waking up sooner. He’d missed his chance to see Julie Larson wake. To make love to her as the sun rose over the distant horizon.

  Turning back, he cleaned up the cabin quickly. The only thing he couldn’t quite figure out was t
he untouched cream cheese. Why would she eat her bagel dry?

  Out the front door, he turned to head up to the yurts. To at least say good morning or…but he saw the backs of the non-twins and a couple of the other hands already past Aspen on the trail up to the construction site.

  Instead, he tossed Ama’s Cheyenne blanket over one shoulder, picked up his bags of supplies and laundry, and turned for the main house and the kitchen.

  The kitchen.

  Two weeks from take-over to open. No wonder Estevan was panicked. He had plenty of connections to staff up. The money woman was a responsible one and had taste. The front-of-house renovation would be a real pinch, but that was a given on a fast open.

  It was an idea he and Estevan had figured out over a bottle of wine and three a.m. pasta a couple years back.

  “How can we open a place and not bleed capital for three months while we build it out and get everything in place?”

  They’d chased Estevan’s question for half a bottle and straight into leftover chocolate-and-Courvoisier mousse before Nathan had finally seen it.

  “Do a pop up!”

  “Feh!” Estevan had been disgusted. “I don’t want a pop-up restaurant—there one day and gone the next. I’m talking about a permanent, fine-dining, linens-and-wine steward sort of place.”

  Nathan recalled he’d been tired and drunk enough to barely hold onto the idea, but he’d managed. “I am too. You pop-up in your future space one night, and then you don’t tear it down. Make improvements every day, but cook and serve every night. It gets the cash moving.”

  Estevan’s askance look had motivated him.

  “Get the customer involved. Give them little feedback cards with every meal. And not just on the food, but on the décor, the attitude, what wines and liquors to stock. Even if you ignore them, they’ll feel like they helped make it what it is. We’d get customer loyalty out the wazoo. And they’d forgive a lot of the mistakes that usually happen with a new place.”

  Now, after all this time, Estevan was really doing it. Doing it, and told Nathan that he was expected to show up and help. It would be his kitchen as well. The old dream of running their own restaurant was finally coming true.

  Nathan got everything put away at the ranch house and was toasting a bagel by the time Ama came in.

  “I was thinking cheese-and-mushroom open-faced omelets and Potatoes O’Brien,” he told her while he watched the coffee pot fill. The ranch hands had emptied it and not bothered starting a fresh pot. They’d be back from their start-of-day chores for breakfast soon.

  “No bagels?”

  He split another of the ones he’d meant for Julie and slipped it into the toaster for Ama before pulling a whole bag of them out of the bread drawer. She smiled and began washing and cracking eggs. What he wouldn’t give for some lox, capers, and slivered red onions right about now, but the nearest supply of those was two thousand miles away.

  Two thousand miles.

  He began washing and dicing potatoes.

  Estevan was choking on the menu ideas. Nathan could feel it. He was going to serve the same things they’d cooked at Vite. He was a creative chef, but didn’t trust that. Any pressure and his friend scampered for familiar ground.

  This is all your fault. Nathan’s fault because of his dropping off the face of the planet—as Estevan had called Montana—had put a different kind of fear into Estevan. A fear that he would never have the guts to open his own place and would then end up feeling as lost as Nathan had.

  Estevan had begged him to come back and help. “At least through the open. I’ve got a couch. Come on, man. Together we can build the menu the way it should be. You owe me, bro.”

  And he did. Estevan had gotten him through the door at two different restaurants before Vite. Had listened and commiserated each time another relationship had collapsed. Nathan was far closer to Estevan than his brother. Who seemed just fine out here in Montana. He’d never fit anywhere in New York, not the way Nathan had. Ranch life really did fit his little brother.

  The next thought should be that it didn’t fit himself.

  He diced up some onions, tossed them on the griddle…and nothing happened. He’d forgotten to turn it on. Chef’s rule Number One: first thing you do on entering the kitchen is fire up all of the ovens and burners you’re going to need. He lit the griddle and shifted over to rounding up the spices while it heated.

  Ranch life didn’t fit him. He wasn’t a rider…he’d proven that yesterday. It had been exhilarating; with practice it might even be fun. But he could see the natural riders and the trained ones. Julie, Doug, and Chelsea all rode as if born to the saddle. No one else on the ranch, not even the two summer trail guides rode the way they did.

  Everything here was foreign. He’d asked for different, but frankly, he was having trouble keeping up with it. For the first week, well… He’d been such a wreck that it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’d been going through detox—not from drink, just from the standard chef’s high-adrenaline, sleep-deprived lifestyle.

  The only times he slowed down, felt as if he really belonged anywhere, were with Julie. But the morning-afters were proving to be rough.

  You gotta come back and help me, man. I signed everything this morning. You’re my first call. I open in fourteen days.

  Fourteen days. He could do that, then come back to…somewhere he didn’t belong in the first place. He’d only been here…

  “What day is this, Ama?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “No, what date?”

  She didn’t look up from the grill that he’d completely forgotten he’d fired off. The onions had added a bright sizzle and tangy bite to the air. In chagrin, Nathan got the peppers and potatoes on the grill before turning to the omelet pans.

  “April 30th.”

  “It’s…” what? This time he almost lost the whole bowl of eggs to the floor. Hadn’t he left New York in the first week of April? A month. Somehow he’d come for three to four days and been here a month. The way the time had slipped by, he couldn’t account for it. A week until that first dinner up in Aspen. Another several days had led them to Great Falls. Had he really let two weeks of busy go by before last night? Apparently he had.

  He couldn’t keep floating through life on someone else’s charity. He had to find a city and a restaurant where he could earn his way. Where he belonged rather than out on some Montana Front Range spread beneath a sky so big that it still shocked him every time he looked up.

  “Here she is, Ama, just like we promised.” The non-twins came in through the back door making a show of escorting Julie between them. “She resisted.”

  “I already had a bagel,” Julie’s protest didn’t make the non-twins release her.

  “Without any cream cheese,” Nathan teased her.

  Tweedledee looked at him through narrowed eyes, “Why would you put frosting on a New York doughnut?”

  “Heathens,” Patrick said coming in behind them. “I warned you, Nathan. These guys are nothing but heathens.”

  “I have work to do,” Julie cut for the door, but the others grabbed her.

  “If you work on this ranch,” Ama said quietly, “you eat in my kitchen.”

  Nathan figured it would take a braver man than he was to argue with Ama when she used that tone. Maybe she’d gotten it from her SEAL husband.

  “But—” Julie was apparently impervious to even that.

  “Girl! Sit!” Maybe Ama had given that tone to her husband so that he could become a SEAL.

  Julie sat, then wished she could switch sides, but it was too late.

  It was hard watching Nathan as he moved about the kitchen. Something was wrong. He usually looked so smooth, as if he was dancing. This morning something was distracting him badly…and it wasn’t her.

  He’d teased her—which she’d let slide off—but he hadn’t really looked at her. Not even his usual easy smile. He was thinking hard about something that wasn’t her.

  She sat and watche
d her worst fear come to life across the width of the Henderson’s kitchen. His friend’s phone call this morning.

  A chef calling from New York.

  It was like the call of milking time. All of the beef cattle could spend the entire summer wandering aimlessly over the prairie and rarely be seen until roundup time. But the hundred head of dairy cattle trooped to the barn twice a day like clockwork to be fed and milked. You had to go.

  The call had come. Nathan would be gone. Very soon.

  All through the meal she did whatever was needed to appear normal. Growing up with three big brothers and her father, she’d learned young how to keep everything inside.

  After the meal, Nathan caught up with her just outside the door. She didn’t even give him time to speak—didn’t know if she could bear to hear his voice saying those fatal words.

  “If you’re going, Nathan, then go. I heard the call. I know what it means. Have a good time.” She searched for one more thing she could say without revealing the pain, the flaming geyser of agony. Have a good life? Go to hell for breaking my heart? Ask me to go with you? She couldn’t do that last one. She knew that.

  But he could at least ask!

  He didn’t.

  “Thanks,” was all she could manage past the layer of rock she had wrapped around herself last night to keep her heart safe.

  “Hey, Julie,” Emily passed them on her way toward the barn. “Can you give me a hand with something when you have a chance?”

  “Now’s fine,” she needed to run, far away. “Bye, Nathan.”

  Then she turned and walked toward the barn. No one would be able to see what was going on inside her. Not even Emily.

  Chapter 13

  Nathan made the mistake of turning the car right when he hit the main road and going to Helena. He’d figured the state capital would have the best flight connections. Besides, it wouldn’t feel right going to Great Falls without Julie.