Big Sky Ever After: a Montana Romance Duet Read online

  “Their drive is another mile yet, on the left. Can’t miss it,” she tipped her head toward farther down the road. Then, in a move so smooth she might have been doing it since birth, she stepped one foot up into a high stirrup and swung atop the tall horse. He’d briefly dated an American Ballet Theater dancer—sleeping through her performance had not earned him many bonus points—who didn’t have the grace or posture of this cowgirl. Cow-woman. Was that a real phrase? She stepped once more into line with the low sun and he lost her in the glare.

  “Thanks,” he called out. One of his more charming lines.

  “Need help with the tire?”

  “I can change a flat.”

  Her blinding silhouette nodded as if that might be a miracle worth witnessing, then tipped her hat and turned to ride away. He couldn’t argue with that conclusion, but it would be too embarrassing to admit his gross incompetence.

  “Will I see you again?”

  “It depends,” she spoke over her shoulder without fully turning.

  “On what?” Nathan had to call more loudly as she headed away perpendicular to the road.

  “On how long I can avoid you.”

  Unwilling to turn, Julie Larson kept an ear out. It took a bit, but then she heard a soft laugh.

  A minute later, the rattling sound of someone jacking a car—a sound far enough away to be no louder than the ticking of a lone cricket. Anything else was lost beneath the sound of the last of the dry winter grass swishing against Clarence’s hocks, but that laugh intrigued her. She didn’t know why the man made her more prickly than a stinging nettle.

  This had been the last stretch of the fence line. There were a half dozen places where the winter had snapped a post and occasional runs where wood rot had finally taken down a whole stretch of wire, but nothing bad in the entire run. In the morning she’d grab one of the hands and a truck; they’d have the spring pasture put together before the cattle were ready for it. Old Lucy had somehow slipped in early, but she’d been a certified escape artist since her third day afoot.

  Will I see you again?

  “Not a chance, city boy. I’ve already got my big strong man. Don’t I?” she leaned forward to scrub at the side of Clarence’s neck as his ears pricked back to listen to her. What was it with city boys and a woman on a horse? For that matter, what was it with cowboys and a woman on a horse?

  Number One question: You aren’t married? (delivered with an astonished gasp). Twenty-six and single was definitely a crime. Or at least a freak of nature.

  Number Two question: Wa’ll how about me, darlin’? (as if a lame Texas accent worked wonders in the Montana Front Range).

  I was looking for different.

  What had he meant by that? Didn’t matter—he was Mac and Ama’s problem now.

  She leaned in just enough for Clarence to lift up to a quick trot. It was still comfortably above freezing, but there wasn’t a cloud in sight so it would chill down fast once the sun hit the horizon. Even now the long shadows of Old Baldy and Rocky Mountain stretched across the prairie leaving her in a narrow slash of red-gold sunlight across the still-brown prairie.

  Julie resisted Clarence’s urge to gallop. She didn’t want him to get all heated before a cold night in the barn.

  Different. The city boy had that right. A sports car in the land of pickup trucks. A convertible in a place where rocketing winds and plunging temperatures defined seven months of the year. He had tousled dark hair, warm eyes, and an easy smile that seemed to be aimed first of all at himself.

  Different. She looked at the sweep of land around her, the Larson barn, house, and sheds coming into view, and wondered at it. There were so many things to love here, but different wasn’t one of them.

  Clarence asked again with a shift in his stride. She eased off and let him slip into a canter. Even big, handsome boys like him deserved to have some fun. She tugged down on the brim of her hat to make sure she didn’t lose it and decided that she deserved some fun, too. She gave Clarence his head and between one stride and the next he took her to the pure exhilaration of a full gallop over the rolling pastureland.

  Why anyone would want different when they could have this, she didn’t know.

  In New York, turning onto someone’s driveway said that you were close to the house. Out here it apparently meant only that you were in the same time zone.

  At the turnoff, the first one in miles, a big arch of wood weathering to gray crossed above the dirt drive—no smaller than the road he’d been on. The headlights barely caught the carved “Henderson Ranch” in big letters with a horseshoe nailed in at either end.

  It had taken forever to change the tire, thank goodness the manual had pictures or he’d still be out there wondering what a lug nut was. Though a flashlight certainly would have helped. He’d been able to see the manual in the dome light, but he’d finished hanging the wheel in darkness by feel alone. Even with the top up and the heater on high for the last stretch, he wondered if his fingers would ever recover.

  A mile or more up the lane and around a low hill he spotted a porch light and had never so felt like he was coming home. To his left were several big barns and sheds. A few small houses lay beyond them. The main house, the one with the ever-so-welcoming porch light, was a big, two-story, log cabin structure. The foundation was stonework and the roof disappeared steeply into the night. There was a real elegance to the place—no less than a Long Island mansion, but in a style all its own.

  When he’d finished changing the tire, he had stood up—and was utterly alone. The only sound was the chattering of his teeth. He’d swear he could hear the starlight puncturing brilliant holes through the ice-cold air.

  Where was the stunning blonde now? Had she ridden off into the dazzling sunset and gone back to some Montana fairyland in the sky? He could almost believe it. She’d galloped away so fast into the orange sun that it was as if she’d sucked the light out of the sky with her slipstream.

  He’d never had a pet and the women he’d dated never had anything bigger than a cat, but the cowgirl made a horse seem like such a natural companion that it was hard to imagine her with anything less.

  “Not going to find a welcome there,” he told the night.

  She’d ridden away from him without a name or a backward glance.

  Had her driveway been around the next bend, or was her family ranch so big that he’d need to set his watch ahead an hour in order to find her?

  Well, he was here. Finally. Unsure where else to go, he climbed out of the car and stumbled up the ranch house’s broad wooden steps onto the deep porch that ran off either direction into the darkness. The door was a warm red with a semicircular arch of glass above that glowed with a soft light.

  He knocked. Waited. Knocked again harder. If he had to camp in his car on this Arctic night, he was in deep trouble.

  The door creaked open and a tall woman with dark, Native American features and waist-long straight hair—black and shot with steely gray—looked at him eye to eye. She wore jeans and a simple flannel shirt. She was positively majestic, except for her pink bunny slippers.

  She noticed the direction of his attention, “A Christmas gift from my daughter-in-law. She has a curious sense of humor.” The first words spoken between them. She had a warm, steady voice, as if nothing in the world could ever surprise her.

  Then she looked right at him for a long moment as he shivered on the threshold.

  “You are lost,” she said simply and stepped aside, then waved him in.

  “No,” Nathan stepped into the firelit warmth chaffing his hands together. “If this is Henderson Ranch, I think I’m found.”

  If the woman smiled, it wasn’t on the outside.

  “Sorry, best line I’ve got after the crazy evening I’ve had.”

  She turned and walked away without another word, but he had the impression that he should follow.

  He almost lost track of her when he stepped forward. The entryway gave way to a massive great room. Cedar f
inish, gigantic beams, shining hardwood floor, and a towering stone fireplace: it was an absolute showpiece. But it was also much more than that. Red and brown leather couches were gathered in comfortable groupings. Geometric throws of strong colors were draped over the backs of the couches.

  “This is like a cliché out of Montanan Architectural Digest.” His tact-o-meter had never been high but tonight he seemed to be hitting new lows.

  “Yes,” her voice echoed from somewhere back to the left.

  He tracked her through an arch into a large dining room, with a rough wooden table that could seat thirty or more family style, and into a kitchen.

  “It is what most guests expect when they come to vacation on a working ranch. It makes them happy when they find it just as they’d expect. It has been three generations since my family wove Cheyenne rugs. But I researched and studied the techniques and now teach classes for guests because they expect it from someone like me.”

  “I suppose that’s irony at its finest.” A weaving class taught by such a striking and regal Cheyenne woman, he’d sign up for that class in a heartbeat. “Do you at least enjoy it?”

  “Very much, or what would be the purpose?” This must be the Ama of “Mac and Ama’s” that the blond cowgirl had referred to.

  He meant to ask some polite question next, perhaps even introduce himself, but that thought was gone the moment he looked about the kitchen. The chef in him almost drooled with envy.

  It wasn’t a commercial kitchen, not really, but neither was it a residential one. There was a large prep island with a wide array of cast iron and copper pans hanging on iron hooks above. Below were sheet pans, cutting boards, and a dozen other handy containers for large-scale meal preparation. The gas range had a dozen burners, and there was a broad griddle plus three ovens. A pair of big Sub-Zero side-by-side refrigerators dominated one end of the room. And it wasn’t merely the space: it had the best of everything from its borderland between residential and commercial. The pair of the largest residential KitchenAid stand mixers, a big Cuisinart, a Vitamix blender and juicer: everything a chef could need to have unlimited options. The cabinets were bright oak and the counters dark granite. It screamed cozy efficiency.

  At the other end of the room was another dining table, this one for a dozen at most. The family dining room. There was also a single gathering of chairs and couches around another stone fireplace. So, not just the family dining room, this was the part of the house used by the family, whether or not there were guests.

  “Can I stay forever?” He meant it as a joke but the woman, who had yet to introduce herself, simply put on the teakettle and pulled out a drawer with a dozen flavors of tea for him to choose from. He selected chamomile because his nerves definitely didn’t need caffeine at this point.

  As he watched the kettle not boiling, Ama set about other tasks. By the time he had his tea, a steaming bowl of vegetable beef stew and a slab of homemade bread were waiting for him on the big table. He dipped the first slice and tasted the stew. Carrot, sweet parsnip, chunks of potato, and long-cooked beef in a thick gravy that was so good it was dribbling down his chin as he tried to eat it too fast. Thyme and bay, salt and pepper, and a dash of…not hot sauce…Worcestershire Sauce. The beef was tender and rich—definitely grass fed to get that degree of flavor with a moderate Burgundy red wine.

  “Now I’m definitely found!” If this was farm cooking, he was all over it.

  The woman tipped her head as if to say maybe.

  “I’m Nathan Gallagher, Patrick’s brother.”

  She nodded as if that much was obvious, even though he and Patrick looked nothing alike. Sons of different fathers—his own hadn’t stuck much past conception. Patrick’s had arrived before Nathan’s birth and raised them both as his own.

  “Is my little brother around?”

  “He is in Great Falls, then Bozeman, making deliveries and getting a load of supplies. He should be back tomorrow night, maybe the next. Your bedroom is through there,” she pointed to a door off the kitchen. She couldn’t have known he was coming, he barely knew he was coming himself until he arrived here. Yet she’d said your bedroom not as if he was a visitor or guest, but as if he somehow belonged here.

  Though it would only be for a few days, Nathan welcomed the suggestion of stability. The world’s rug had been yanked out from under his feet in the last few days and even a moment’s respite was welcome.

  He really was in heaven. Another taste of the stew. It was simple, rich, but there was one flavor more that he couldn’t quite identify. “What’s—”

  But he was alone in the kitchen as if it had always been that way. He never heard her leave on her bunny slippers and now he wondered if he’d dreamed her, just like the cowgirl and her two-toned horse.

  Chapter 2

  Julie dreamt of clowns.

  Small ones. Tall ones. Wide and narrow. All driving teeny, tiny cars and brandishing teeny, tiny steel bars at one of the gentlest cows on the range.

  And all making her want to smile. Not at their ludicrous gestures and overblown reactions, but because they all smiled at her as if she was something special.

  The only clowns she was used to were the ones at the county rodeos to distract the bulls after the rider was thrown. On this cold April morning, the summer rodeos were still too far off for even dreaming. She hadn’t decided if she’d sign up this year or just go and watch from the stands.

  She rolled out of bed in time to help Ma with the cooking. Dad and her three older brothers came in from the barn as they were finishing up, with Dad handing out orders like usual.

  “Matthew, get that bale stacker greased and going by noon. The cows aren’t going to feed themselves for another month yet. Mark and Luke, check the Poplar Creek pasture. They’re dropping their calves like hotcakes right now; bound to be a couple in trouble out that way. Julie—”

  She always wondered how much it irritated her father that he’d had a girl instead of a boy that he could name John, but he was such a stern man that she’d never dared ask. At least he’d resisted naming her Johanna. That would have made it even more of a slap in the face.

  “—finish riding the spring pasture fence line today.”

  “Already done. I fixed a lot of little things yesterday. I’ll take the F-150 and some posts. I’ll have the whole spring pasture clean and tight by midday.”

  “Good girl.”

  “Then I’m switching over.”

  That just earned her a grunt.

  She had her own business to run, no matter how busy the spring season was on a cattle ranch. Frankly, if she never saw a birthing cow again, it would be too soon. It was freezing April and they were as likely to drop their newborns on a wind-torn snowbank as a soft bed of winter grass in a sheltered hollow. Cows started out dumber than most sheep, but the more trouble they were having, the dumber they became. The twins, Mark and Luke, were likely to find a hard birth in the middle of a stream where the cow could also fight the battle of hypothermia and drowning, as if giving birth weren’t a challenge enough for a woman.

  “Don’t forget we’ve got a party tonight. I expect you all to be clean and presentable,” her father rode over her reminder that J. L. Building was launching its second year tomorrow—its first full year if she could find the contracts.

  Wait. “What party?”

  Her father’s scowl said she should have kept her mouth shut and asked Ma.

  But May Larson saved her only daughter, something she didn’t do much for the boys. “Hendersons. Mark and your friend Emily are moving back to the ranch.”

  “Oh, that’s tonight?” She barely remembered it as news at all. She didn’t know Mac and Ama’s son particularly except that he was ex-military of some sort. Julie had met him a few times, but the guys tended to cluster around the “military man” so she’d had little contact with him.

  She knew Emily a little better and liked her well enough. She was a stern, taciturn blonde—an incredibly striking one. On the rare occ
asions they were together, they drew puzzled looks. Other than her white blond to Emily’s golden, folks who didn’t know them seemed split on asking if they were mother-daughter or sisters. Probably because she was an Easterner, it was impossible to tell what Emily was thinking and Julie had always been a little uncomfortable around her. Julie would never label her as a friend.

  Dad’s scowl said exactly what he thought of Julie not keeping up on such things. And probably a hundred other things wrong with her, like her still being single rather than bringing another man into the family to work the ranch. Oh! Which was exactly why her father wanted her to be excited about tonight’s party. It would be the first gathering after the hard winter snows and hands would be coming from all the ranches around. The place would be packed with eligible bachelors.

  Someone please shoot her now. She’d rather spend the night with Lucy out in a cold camp.

  Then the last piece connected.

  J. L. Building’s one contract for work was at Henderson’s, enough to last her through the first month or more. And that’s where that guy in the tiny clown car had been headed. With the way her luck ran with men, he’d be on the ranch the whole time she was working there, underfoot and in the way.

  The local boys had learned not to mess with her. A hand on her ass was likely to earn a slicing swing with the short end of a hard lariat rope across theirs. That settled most of them quick enough.

  But city boys were like puppy dogs—she never quite had the heart to shoo them away so harshly that they’d actually remember it.

  She suspected that she’d have to make it extra clear this time.

  Nathan hadn’t thought to close the curtains so he woke when the sunrise pounded into his face. He could have slept a dozen more hours. He’d barely slept in his final week in New York—being a chef at a high-end restaurant like Vite, sleep wasn’t a big part of his life. Then the two-day mad dash across the country.

  He tried pulling the covers over his head, but the room was freezing. He peeked out and saw a thermostat on the wall. He hadn’t noticed it last night. With the bowl of warm stew inside him and twenty-two hundred miles behind him, he hadn’t noticed much of anything. The thermostat’s little handle was slid all the way to the left.